#ANAKIN SKYWALKER IS THE CHIEF OFFENDER

[mmelolabelle]

rewatching ‘ahsoka’ and will someone in this fucking show just hug their apprentice pLEASE

[calltomuster]

ooh you’re taking requests! How about “I know it hurts, I’m sorry.” for ani and obi?

Sure! 😁 Thanks for the prompt, @ahsokryze!

From these caretaker dialogue prompts: 15. “I know it hurts, I’m sorry.”

When Anakin had, in his lowest, most spiteful moments, wished Obi-Wan could have felt a fraction of the pain he went through losing a limb, he didn't mean it literally.

But there Obi-Wan was, floating in a bacta tank, missing two legs above the knee.

He looks like half a person, was Anakin's first thought, and then he wanted to hit himself.

"Sir!" A familiar voice came from the corner of the room, and Anakin turned to see it was Commander Cody who had scrambled to attention.

"At ease, Cody," Anakin said immediately, stepping closer to the clone but returning his eyes to Obi-Wan. "What happened?"

"...It's all in the report, sir, I--"

"I don't want to hear what the report says happened, I want to hear what you say happened."

Cody nodded, swallowing. He took a moment to respond. "It was Ventress, sir. She had the General captured and when we found him he was like this."

"Two limbs down," Anakin said bitterly.

"Yes," Cody replied, turning and facing him more directly. "But also... in a bacta tank. Apparently she kept injuring him and then healing it just enough so he wouldn't die before resuming the torture. When we arrived, he was just starting the cycle."

"What?" Anakin asked, finally tearing his eyes away from his former Master and meeting Cody's. "What do you mean she put him in a bacta tank?"

Cody shrugged hesitantly, just as confused as he was. "I guess she wanted the torture without the death that would have come from the blood loss if she had left him alone after."

"Yeah..." Anakin shook his head, moving on for the moment. "How long does he have left in here?"

"Not much longer," Cody said, checking the time on his comm. "You got here just in time."

Anakin forced himself not to feel bitter about that. He'd heard about what had happened to Obi-Wan and had immediately wanted to rush to his side, but the 501st hadn't been done fighting their battle and even after that they were still a day away by hyperspace. By the time the Resolute reached the Negotiator, Obi-Wan had been in bacta for over thirty-six hours, and Anakin was practically tearing his hair out.

But maybe it was good he hadn't been there for those long hours. It wasn't as if he could have done anything.

Fuzzy, the 212th's Chief Medical Officer, entered the room then, followed by a few of his staff.

"General Skywalker," he said grimly. "I'm glad you were able to make it."

"What can you tell me about Obi-Wan?" Anakin asked instead of returning niceties.

Fuzzy did not seem offended at Anakin's lack of tact. "It was a bilateral above-the-knee amputation, as you can see," he gestured to the tank. "Ventress used a lightsaber, judging by the cauterization that was present when we arrived. The bacta he was in and the bacta we transferred him to did him good. I hesitate to use the word 'thankfully' in regards to Ventress, but because she got him in bacta quickly after, he'll have a much less fraught process with prosthetics."

Anakin grit his teeth. This wasn't making any sense. Why would Ventress act like this?

But before he could voice the question aloud, an alarm went off. Obi-Wan's eyes had flown open in the bacta tank, and he was struggling against the various tubes and wires he was attached to.

"Get him out before he aspirates!" Fuzzy ordered to his fellow medics, instantly springing into action. Anakin darted forward too, ignoring the fact that he was probably getting in the way, and concentrated on sending Obi-Wan calming energy through the Force.

It was a chaotic minute or two, but eventually Obi-Wan was half-conscious on the medical bed, wet from the water they'd sprayed on him to get rid of the bacta coverage his skin.

"Obi-Wan?" Anakin asked, as Obi-Wan opened his eyes all the way and blinked a few times.

"An'kin?" Obi-Wan rasped, confused. "Thought you were on Felucia."

"I was," Anakin said, desperately relieved that Obi-Wan was awake and at least somewhat lucid. "But I heard what happened and wanted to come see you."

"What... happened?" Obi-Wan repeated, eyebrows furrowing. Anakin could tell the moment he remembered, because the heart rate monitor spiked and the Force flooded with fear-pain-confusion.

"Hey, hey, it's alright!" Anakin said, pressing his hand over Obi-Wan's chest to try to prevent him from sitting up, but it was moot. Obi-Wan's eyes had already locked on the bedsheets, and how flat they went halfway down his thighs where the rest of his legs should be.

Obi-Wan went white then, and Anakin was able to push him back down easily.

The room was silent, broken only by Obi-Wan's breath as it went in and out of his nose.

"So," Obi-Wan rasped eventually. "Ventress."

"Yeah," Anakin said. "She..." He shrugged helplessly. "She did that and then put you in a tank."

Obi-Wan frowned. "What kind of tank?" he asked, mind no doubt running through images of the armored vehicles they were used to in war.

"No, a bacta tank."

"A bacta tank?" Obi-Wan repeated, sounding like this was the thing that confused him the most. Anakin could relate.

"Yup."

"But why...?" Then Obi-Wan's face cleared. "Dooku."

Now it was Anakin's turn to frown. "What does Dooku have to do with this?"

Obi-Wan grimaced. "He is my grandmaster, technically, and he has demonstrated on occasion an interest in preserving my life, if not my wellbeing. Ventress most likely obeyed some instruction to keep me alive."

Anakin blinked, processing. "That's... str--"

He was cut off by a cry of pain from Obi-Wan, whose face was screwing up as he arched his back as best he could.

"Whoah, what hurts?" Anakin asked, hands hovering uselessly in the air above Obi-Wan's body.

Obi-Wan looked at him miserably. "I... It's my foot. It feels like my foot is on fire."

Anakin's face cleared, though he still felt miserable inside watching Obi-Wan in pain. "I know it hurts, I'm sorry. Phantom limb pain is the worst."

Obi-Wan huffed, high-pitched and breathy. "Now I know."

"Yeah," Anakin said grimly. "I've got a few tricks I could teach you."

"That'd be--" Obi-Wan paused to grimace in pain again, then continued, "much appreciated, thank you."

Anakin nodded, determined. He would be there for Obi-Wan the way Obi-Wan had been there for him after his arm, and give him endless patience and support. His Master deserved nothing less.

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[zerogain]

Rey and the Redemption of the Jedi

I’ve seen The Last Jedi once now, and my month will be incomplete if I miss seeing it at least once more.

After some conversation I believe that I’m seeing a story arc that no one may have intended, but exists nonetheless. That is the redemption of the Light and, perhaps more strikingly, of the Jedi.

Last night I watched The Phantom Menace with my brother and father. Ignoring the frankly terrible acting by everyone except (perhaps) Liam Neeson, the story really begins to illustrate everything wrong with the Jedi Order at the fall of the Galactic Republic. The chief offender is actually the midichlorians.

While most fans are content to dismiss this focus on science in TPM, what they really illustrate is just how far the Order has fallen from faith and belief, not only in the Force, but also in their people and, for lack of better terminology, their souls. They believe they have scientifically explained life itself. After all, as Qui-Gon attempts to indoctrinate Anakin he explains that life would be impossible without them.

I could get into arguments about emergent properties and yet another biased theistic portrayal of atheists, but it doesn’t serve my purpose, except to say that QGJ’s Jedi philosophy is largely atheist in my opinion. The rest of the Order, except maybe Yoda, presents as mechanical members of the faith, not believers.

The Force is their tool.

This compounds in Anakin Skywalker’s fall. While he made his own choices and yes those choices damned him, there was that moment, that shining moment when Yoda could have turned the whole thing around and saved the entire galaxy from 30 years of horror by just being a fucking "human being". When he counsels Skywalker to put aside his emotions, to fear his heart and to shun attachment, he dooms both Anakin and Padme in the name of religious doctrine. The Jedi wouldn’t call this a fear-based decision, by the way, but they are institutionally scared that embracing any emotion leads to the dark side. There is no passion, only peace. Fear, anger, aggression, the dark side are they.

Beyond that, though, Yoda puts the final nail in the coffin of the whole diseased and debased system. Remember this is a system that willingly and even enthusiastically embraced a slave army. Yes, the clones were slaves. They were born into it, they knew no other life, and they had no end but death in service. The Jedi embraced it. The Republic enthused over it. Slaves to make the death and chaos of a civil war clean and noble. Slaves to ease their consciences. Slaves to dispose of by the millions.

The Republic, and by extension the Jedi, deserved destruction.

A New Hope, Empire, and Return of the Jedi show Luke beginning to understand what the Order had wrong. After all it’s his love of an absent father, really the idea of who his father was, that saves him. He rejects Obi-Wan’s belief that Vader and Anakin are two people, and by extension Obi-Wan’s refusal to accept any measure of blame for Anakin’s fall. After all, if Obi-Wan hadn’t walled himself off from emotion with his loss of Satine (the queen of Mandalore in the Clone Wars series) he might’ve been that vital lifeline that Anakin needed. He tried at the end in Revenge of the Sith, but it was too little, too late.

And so we finally come to Luke and Rey and The Last Jedi.

I really can’t praise Rian Johnson or Kathleen Kennedy enough for their decision to have Rey be unconnected to any of the great bloodlines. She’s not Ezra and Sabine’s girl, she’s not Luke’s by blow or a bastard of Han’s, she’s not even related to Palpatine. None of it.

She’s new. She’s the breath of fresh air, the realignment of millennia of corruption and entrenched elitism.

She’s the New Jedi Order.

So what’s so different?

First, attachment and emotion are shown without doubt to be sources of strength and power. Rey lives in a place where love exists. She loves Finn. Screw the romance crap, it’s a pure platonic love that is refreshing and heartwarming. If they get romantic that’s cool, and my heart will break a little for the Poe/Finn shippers, but hey maybe they can have an open polyamorous relationship. It’s a new era after all. But beyond Finn, she loves. She is enormously aggrieved by the death of Han Solo. She is saddened by the loss of life around her. She is connected to the universe, not removed from it.

She feels. 

Look at that hug at the end if TLJ. That’s joy and relief, and the utter rejection of the Old Order’s message about the fear of humanity, the fear of being a whole, functioning being.

Let’s talk about the hole on the island. The symbolism of the cave to the underworld, especially in terms of Cambpell’s heroic journey, can’t be missed. Rey literally descends into the underworld and dies there, just as the hero in the monomyth is supposed to do. She falls into the realm of death and receives the answers to her endless quest to belong. When she comes out the other side, she is a new being. Her old self is no more.

The dark side is just as much a part of the Force as the light, and that fear that she is alone, bereft of any connection, is exactly what she is. Alone. Free. Rey is able to make her own connections without a terrible past haunting her. She doesn’t have the Skywalker legacy to contend with, even the whole space Jesus divine conception of Anakin isn’t part of her legacy. (I did love how Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith as much as said that Shmi Skywalker, Anakin’s mother, was a test tube for his mentor, Darth Plageus.)

Yes, she dives into the darkness and she confronts her fear. And here Luke illustrates perfectly the lessons of his mentors. He is unquestionably afraid of her and most especially her willingness to dive headlong into the dark side. “You didn’t even flinch!”

Rey’s revelation overwhelms her at first. She is overwhelmed by the enormity of her lesson and turns away from it. Instead, with her growing connection to Ben/Kylo, she turns to him.

Kylo Ren is part of her journey. Here he becomes her new mentor, in many ways he is the training for her that Luke fails to provide. But what is Kylo Ren’s message to her? “Kill the past,” he says. Forget the old. Embrace the new.

Right there I see something I don’t think a lot of others do. The internet, since the mere mention that a girl of all things would be the new Jedi, has been obsessed with labeling Rey as a Mary Sue. She’s no more a Mary than Luke Skywalker is a Gary. But right here, just like in the brilliant writing in Empire Strikes Back, Rey fails.

She reaches out to the monster. She thinks maybe her lesson is to pull a Luke, to rescue Kylo. After all she should follow Luke, the Jedi Master, shouldn’t she? So if he saved Darth Vader (something she praises Luke for in their interaction), it stands to reason that she must stand up and do her part, repeat the cycle, and save Ben Solo.

And she fails.

It’s a painful blow, especially after they have their side-by-side battle and destroy the Praetorian Guard, saving each others lives more than once. But the depth of the devastation is shown by the breaking of Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber. In itself this is a nice bit of symbolism. The old way is shattered. Everything centered around Anakin and the fall of the Jedi Order, but now it is all broken. By the end of the movie Rey is reconciled to that failure, or at least hardened to it. This is shown by the breaking of Kylo and Rey’s connection when she closes the Falcon’s ramp. Instead Rey has embraced a new future and a new order.

Even Luke sees it. He didnt have the time with her that Yoda had with him, but even without that intensive training he can see that she has something right going on. Either he knows she took the books or doesn’t, but he approves of her taking the mantle. Leia and Rey both sense that he is at peace with moving on, passing on the responsibility and the burden of the future to one who has a chance.

This dark side flirtation is perhaps one of the most important things Rey does. She faces a fear that crippled the entire Order before her. She touches her fear, owns it, recognizes it. She doesn’t hide from it and wall herself off. The old Jedi were blind because they believed that fear itself was the dark side. Yoda says as much in The Phantom Menace. And in that they not only encouraged fear and isolation, they embraced it.

Rey is their redemption. She is they way forward out of the sins of the past and into a future of hope and light. And she will not be the Last Jedi.

P.S. I can’t put this to bed without taking an aside to praise Yoda. The Last Jedi redeems the character in my eyes. I was so aggrieved by his heartless crushing of Anakin, and his willful acceptance of the slave army, even though these decisions appeared to pain him, he made them anyway. It has caused me to relabel him as “the fascist green sock puppet”. In Revenge of the Sith, I think Yoda began to see just how badly he’d failed, but I think he still put aside a portion of his blame. He was following the tenets of the Order, as wrong as he may have thought them. It seems that death has given him a measure of knowledge, and the Yoda that counsels Luke about failure is the best version of the character yet.