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themattress · 2 years ago

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Character Perception Evolution

Sometimes, believe it or not, I change my views on fictional characters.

This post will be updated with any example of such characters I can think of.

Ahsoka Tano (Star Wars) - While most people cite her being considered an annoying, pointless, and all-around hated kid sidekick character and evolving into one of the most beloved characters in the franchise, I actually have a different take. I never minded Ahsoka when she debuted in 2008. I thought she was largely inoffensive and was happy to see another lead female character in the series given how little of them we had. And yes, she only got better and better as she grew, and totally deserved her popularity. But something’s been wrong with her ever since her time travel-based survival of her big duel with Darth Vader, accelerating with her depiction by Rosario Dawson (complete with some awkward as Hell interactions with Luke Skywalker) and Dave Filoni’s dumbfounding remark that Ahsoka’s voice being with the voices of other dead Jedi in The Rise of Skywalker doesn’t necessarily mean she’s dead. It feels like she’s become a Creator’s Pet, a character that Filoni refuses to let go of past her natural expiration date. That’s why the primary excitement I have for the upcoming Ahsoka series is for Thrawn, not for her. She just isn’t that interesting anymore.

Amarant Coral (Final Fantasy IX) - I disliked Amarant back when I first played Final Fantasy IX, seeing him as this generic badass loner edgelord character who didn’t have very well-written character development. However, a few years back I replayed the game. And while his character development remains as shoddy as I remember (I feel like the developers just ran out of time and both he and Freya suffered as a result), I found myself greatly enjoying Amarant because I now could see that he’s pretty clearly a knowing parody of a generic badass loner edgelord character! The game knows he’s a jerkish stick-in-the-mud for no good reason and has fun with it, with Amarant’s snarky comments and frustration at having to be dragged all over creation by Zidane and his merry band of idealists making him hilarious.

Cain Madhouse (To The Abandoned Sacred Beasts) - Refer to this post. I first encountered Cain through the anime, where I thought he was a cool villain but not much else than that. He seemed to be there purely for the sake of providing the series with a central antagonist. Then I read the manga, and was honestly taken aback at just how interesting, complex and even sympathetic Cain was as a character. He isn’t even the true villain of the story, a role actually shared by his abusive father and the evil religious nutcase he’s in cahoots with. While he’s certainly far from a blameless martyr, Cain truly is doing what he believes to be for the best, and in his own twisted way still loves the people in his life that he cares for and genuinely wishes to do right by them. And all this nuance despite being named “Cain Madhouse!”

Charmcaster (Ben 10) - Here I’m talking about one version of the character in particular: the one from Ben 10: Omniverse. Back in 2014 when she was fresh, I greatly enjoyed this take on Charmcaster. She was really funny and cute, her magic was badass, her design was wonderful, her voice-acting was entertaining, and in general she was a major step-up from the version we’d gotten in Alien Force and Ultimate Alien. Unfortunately, time has not been kind to her. I don’t hate her, but I can’t fully enjoy her when so many of those AF/UA aspects are still in play with her, which makes her and her trajectory somewhat nonsensical, not to mention tasteless and ultimately kind of pointless. That was OV’s whole problem, I suppose: trying desperately to reconcile the original Ben 10 with the retcon-ridden AF/UA and largely failing. It doesn’t help that the next incarnation of Charmcaster in the rebooted continuity is so much better, as are similar characters in other shows such as Lena from the new DuckTales.

Dawn (Pokémon) - In the Diamond & Pearl anime, I didn’t care for Dawn for a good while, partly because doing a rehash of May immediately after May had left was insulting especially when I loved May so much and partly because there were other issues with her character’s utilization that irked me. However, after her subsequent, much-improved appearances in Best Wishes and Journeys, I looked back at her in her anime series of origin and realized that it really wasn’t Dawn that was ever the problem - it was Ash and Brock! It’s a franchise-wide trend: whenever Dawn is paired up with literally anyone else, she shines. Even the rehashing of May and personal gripes I have don’t matter much because she’s so likable. But when with Ash and Brock as their traveling companion, she by and large becomes the most generic goodie-goodie shojou girl possible. Just detach her from them and she’s a solid character.

Eraqus (Kingdom Hearts) - That great character design and Mark Hamill’s impeccable voice-acting made me think he was sympathetic when I originally played Birth by Sleep. Overtime, that impression faded. Yes, I agree with him that darkness is a problem and vigilance against it is needed; even if he was supposed to be wrong about that, he isn’t. The problem is that he goes about that in the dumbest, most counter-productive way possible. Terra would literally not have a darkness problem if not for Eraqus’ dumbass teaching methods. Worse still, everything that goes wrong in the story could have been avoided if he was just honest with his pupils about everything, including the fact that Xehanort might not be on the up and up given his obsession with potentially causing an apocalypse, an obsession he literally scarred Eraqus over. And maybe he shouldn’t have jumped immediately to murder as the solution to Ventus’ awareness of his own special existence posing a danger to the universe. If that wasn’t enough, we later learn he openly cheats at chess and just expects everyone to take it.

Katsuki Bakugo (My Hero Academia) - I used to hate this character; he was obnoxious and unlikable, yet the narrative and other characters never reacted to him the way they should and bended over backward to accommodate him. However, nowadays I don’t hate him so much as I feel sorry for him, on a meta level. Bakugo could have been a superb character with a great redemption arc, the pieces are all there. But for some reason or other, Horikoshi instead decided to keep him the angry, violent, petty, egotistical asshole he’s always been, and justifies doing so while also playing at redeeming him by treating his super-dickery as comedic. I’m sorry, but that doesn’t work when it didn’t start out as comedic and had terrible effects on people like Izuku. Bakugo’s only been funny when he’s the butt of the joke, not when others still have to suffer from his rage-outs. It’s sad that Bakugo can’t live up to his potential, especially when others in the series like Endeavor (who’s a far worse person) do.

Kevin 11 (Ben 10) - I loved Kevin as a villain in the original Ben 10, hated his sudden change in character complete with a quickie redemption and out of nowhere romance with Gwen in Alien Force but was willing to tolerate him and wait to see where they’d go with him because he was admittedly pretty funny, loathed what ended up happening with him in Ultimate Alien which turned me off him altogether, and in Omniverse...ditto what I said about Charmcaster. But then there’s the continuity reboot version, and because of it I now have to admit that while I’ll always hold a soft spot for him, the original Kevin doesn’t hold up too well either. He’s a pre-pubescent kid named Kevin 11, yet he’s a purely evil psychopath and his villainous appearance is that of a grotesque mutant chimera? Yeeeah, I think the school bully with a troubled home life who has his own evil version of Ben’s Omnitrix and its aliens makes a lot more sense. Him not changing his ways so easily, staying Ben’s rival no matter how much they might team up, and having feelings for Gwen that are comedically one-sided also helps.

Kyo Sohma (Fruits Basket) - Back in the day, Fruits Basket to me was just the 2001 anime series, and I honestly found Kyo pretty annoying. His hair-trigger temper and violent inclinations were a turn-off, as was his dub voice and that whole concluding arc with his true form. Then I read the manga and saw the faithful 2019 adaptation, complete with an incredibly improved performance by Jerry Jewell, and now I absolutely love the guy! No joke, he’s easily one of the best, most interesting and likable male leads in a shojou, as is Yuki.

Lysandre and Diantha (Pokémon) - Just see this post for details.

Mary Jane Watson (Spider-Man) - I’m talking specifically about the version portrayed by Kirsten Dunst in the Sam Raimi trilogy. She came off as a generic superhero girlfriend in the first movie to me, a hodgepodge of several characters from the comics instead of a proper adaptation of Mary Jane. It got worse in the second movie, where she played the annoying obstructive love interest trope. But despite the stupidity of having her be kidnapped in the climax again, I found myself really enjoying her in the third movie. This made me pay closer attention to her in the first movie, and to check out all her deleted material (much of which was included in the novelization) in the second movie. Not only did I find her to be a strong, truly human-feeling character, but she was more faithful to the comics’ Mary Jane in several key areas than many give her credit for, and Kirsten Dunst always gave a great performance.

Prince Demande and the Black Moon Clan (Sailor Moon) - I recall liking these villains fine as a kid, but feeling like they weren’t as good as the Dark Kingdom. While the Dark Kingdom is still my personal favorite group of villains, I now have to concede that the Black Moon Clan in both the manga and anime are superior. They’ve got the more complex set-up, feel darker and more dangerous, and have by far the best of Chaos’ incarnations in the Death Phantom. Meanwhile, I recall feeling some sympathy for Demande when I was young; his situation wasn’t an easy one after all, and he did love his brother very much, not to mention in the anime he gave his life for Usagi. Then I grew up and learned what rape was. Fuck this guy. While I adore him as a villain, he’s a horrible person and no sacrificial death can change that.

Regina Mills (Once Upon a Time) - My stance for a long time has been that Regina was an overall good character in the first three seasons but then totally fell apart from some truly appalling creator favoritism. Having revisited the show recently, I don’t entirely revoke this stance, but it’s more complicated than I thought. When you get down to it, Regina only ever worked properly in Season 1, where she was a humanized yet still proudly evil antagonist. Season 2 not only dropped the ball in terms of consequences for her, but it fast-tracked her down the redemption path in a way that was ham-fisted and not believable. Season 3 handled her on the heroes’ side much better, but it’s nigh impossible to reconcile with the backslide she went through in the second half of Season 2, where she is depicted as this absolute psychopath delusional beyond the point of recovery, but Adam and Eddy genuinely don’t view her that way and weren’t meaning to make her come off that way - in their eyes, her grievances are all legitimate. And that’s really what I have a hard time ever getting around: the notion that the villainous Regina I loved in Season 1 was never the real Regina, just a stand-in until A&E had free reign to finally give us their Regina and re-orient the story to being “how the poor sad Evil Queen got her happy ending” like they originally envisioned.

Roxas (Kingdom Hearts) - So TV Tropes had Roxas for this trope, saying he was divisive due to the KH2 prologue he starred in, but stuff like his FM boss battle, his presence in Coded, and especially 358/2 Days increased his popularity, to the point where KH3 resurrected him to give him a happy ending. I’m....kind of the exact opposite. Honestly, I’ve always liked KH2′s prologue, warts and all, and while at first it was disappointing Roxas wasn’t a huge presence in KH2 given all the hype he was given, as time went on the more I appreciated his story and what was being said with it. It was genuinely complex and thought-provoking. I do not like the black-coated Organization XIII member Roxas that got shoved down our throats afterward, I tend to care about him the least out of 358/2 Days’ cast when playing that game, and I hate how such a nuanced story as what we had in KH2 gets undone, in a nonsensical way, solely for the sake of cheap fanservice (ditto for Xion’s case). Yeah, the FM boss battle is awesome, but for me mainly so because I get to kick that stupid black-coated Roxas’ ass!

Rumpelstiltskin (Once Upon a Time) - Another character that was listed on TV Tropes, saying that his popularity waned because of him constantly going through the Heel Face Revolving Door, which especially damaged his relationship with Belle. For me, that in of itself wasn’t the problem. He’s the freaking Dark One, practically the show’s main villain! Of course it’s going to be hard for him to ever reform. What soured me on him for a long time was the narrative’s framing of him and other characters’ reactions to him, which were increasingly insufficient for what an utter bastard he truly was. Going back over the show, I’ve somewhat softened on him again since he himself was a mostly well-written, well-acted and consistent character across 5 whole seasons, and I don’t feel like taking mistakes from the narrative and other characters out on him; it’s not like he asked for any of that. It’s just in Seasons 6 and 7 where I feel he was out-of-character on the whole, to two opposite, incompatible extremes.

Seto Kaiba (Yu-Gi-Oh!) - When I first began watching the anime, I thought Kaiba was a cool and sympathetic rival character. As it went on, though, I got sick of him being such a one-man Spotlight Stealing Squad and how hard the makers of the anime were actively trying to make him look cool. It didn’t help when I read the manga and saw this wasn’t the case for him here; he wasn’t even the deuteragonist the way the anime positions him, Joey was. But enjoying him in The Abridged Series made me revisit the actual show, and I actually realized that while those issues I had are technically still there, the 4Kids English dub has always done its best to mitigate them with Eric Stuart’s voicework and lines, which actually keeps him far more in line with his original manga self, who isn’t an overtly sympathetic, honorable and “cool” rival but a crazy, extravagant jerkass. And I love him that way. Screw the rules, he has money!

Shadow the Hedgehog (Sonic the Hedgehog) - Shadow was awesome in Sonic Adventure 2, I was definitely a fan of him there. But then his popularity caused him to be immediately resurrected, to diminishing returns, which made me sour on the character and consider him emblematic of the Sonic franchise’s problems. I wished he had just stayed a one-shot. However, recent things such as the Sonic Boom TV series, the Sonic Prime TV series, the Sonic Forces DLC, The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog and the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog 3 movie have all made me re-evaluate Shadow. Now I think he’s not bad as a series mainstay, just subject to being mis-used...but hey, so is every other character, so it’s not an issue unique to him. Used well, he’s honesty one of the franchise’s best characters.

Slade Wilson (Teen Titans) - I used to truly buy into the notion of him as a badass Anti-Hero / Anti-Villain like many people did, but after reading his original stories up through “The Judas Contract” and especially Christopher Priest’s run on the Deathstroke comic series, I no longer hold that view of him. Slade’s a badass combatant, sure, and as a threatening villain you definitely have to appreciate him. But as a person, he is not a badass. At all. He’s a pitiful, prideful, predatory scumbag. He’s “badass” and “honorable” in the exact same way that Walter White is: it’s all a big smokescreen to compensate for what a small, lowly, wretched excuse for a human being he is. Great character, great villain, absolutely intolerable person.

Supreme Leader Snoke (Star Wars) - When The Force Awakens came out, I didn’t like Snoke at all. He was the cheapest of retreads (an old, decrepit Dark Side user who rules the Empire and corrupts a Skywalker into becoming his evil apprentice), the cheapest of plot contrivances (the remnants of the Empire can only become a powerful threat and the victory from Return of the Jedi undone due to this fucker from out of nowhere), and the cheapest of Mystery Boxes (who is he and where did he come from and why does he do what he does, isn’t it so mysterious, don’t you just wanna speculate and theorize all over the internet?) As annoyed as I was that he died without any answers in The Last Jedi, I also liked him better as just Kylo Ren’s stepping stone. Better effects for him and a hammier performance by Andy Serkis helped. And when The Rise of Skywalker revealed he was literally a puppet of the resurrected Palpatine, everything about him just clicked. Stupid people online rant about insufficient foreshadowing for Palpatine’s return, but rewatch the trilogy with Palpatine in mind and Snoke himself - everything about him - is the biggest piece of foreshadowing there is.

Ulrich Stern (Code Lyoko) - Through Code Lyoko’s first two seasons, Ulrich was hands-down the weakest part of the show for me. I didn’t think he was interesting or likable, and his Will-They-Won’t-They romance with Yumi, who could honestly do much better, was so exhausting. But then we hit Season 3, and the two-part prequel. Everything about Ulrich’s depiction in that just screamed “This guy is an asshole, you’re not supposed to like him”. It reframed everything we’ve seen of him as deliberate; even his lust for Yumi now comes off as just a way for him to feel better about himself since deep down he’s aware of what a shithead he is. Then when we returned to the present day action, Yumi firmly breaks off any potential for dating him. From this point on, Ulrich has to develop on his own terms, and he becomes so much better as a character; I actually found myself liking him, sympathizing with him, and appreciating his willingness to change for the better; a great foil to William whose stubborn unwillingness to do the same costs him and everyone else around him. The season 3 finale reminding me of the reason Ulrich became the way he used to be in his absolute scumbag of a father also helped a lot. He’s not my favorite and still kind of a dick, but I like him now.

Venom (Spider-Man) - Like most kids, I thought Venom was awesome growing up. Once I got older and looked up his history, I found that the majority of it was not very flattering, making me feel more conflicted about the character. Where do I stand on him now, you may ask? It’s simple, really: I love Venom - the symbiote. It’s Eddie Brock who I feel is the problem. Beyond the name and bonding with the Venom symbiote, I don’t think there’s been a consistent thing about this guy across all of his incarnations. The issues with Venom can almost always be traced back to the human part of the equation, because he was thought up on the fly by David Micheline with very little about him solidified beyond being an angry psychopath. I much prefer Venom as the symbiote, the host body be damned, and I’m glad that depiction has been gaining traction in recent years in various comics, TV shows and video games.

Xehanort (Kingdom Hearts) - So I totally subscribe to what’s on TV Tropes about Xehanort the Keyblade Master (was hailed as a great villain in Birth by Sleep, now seen as a horrible villain for everything that followed). But I want to talk about Terra-Xehanort. Because while I love him and both split halves of him, back in the olden days I preferred Ansem over Xemnas. He had the cooler design, a more vivid personality, was tied far closer to the Disney Villains, and of course was the villain in the original Kingdom Hearts (forever my favorite even if KH2 is technically a better game - and even then KH still has the better story). Now it’s reversed. Even disregarding how (with the exception of Dream Drop Distance) Xemnas retained his dignity as a character going forward while Ansem didn’t, there is just a weight and presence to Xemnas that I’ve fallen in love with more and more as time passes. He has the same depth and darkness of character as Ansem but takes it even further. His plans are even smarter and with more direct involvement from him. And of course, there’s him being KH2′s Final Boss, which means he’s irrevocably associated with the peak of the series to me. He’s the only incarnation of Xehanort whom I can safely call both a great character and villain to this day.

#Character Perception Evolution #Opinion #Analysis

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tomicaleto · 2 years ago

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Dave Filoni should shut up because ever since he said that Anakin was the greatest Jedi of all times, everyone in this damn fandom is using the chance to dunk on Anakin. No, I don’t think he was the greatest Jedi but I don’t think (previous to his fall) he was the worst one when we have characters like Pong Krell presented as Jedi.

Anakin’s struggles with the Jedi philosophy are more complex than simply “he was a bad Jedi” which is why his story is compelling and that damn quote is unfair to both Anakin’s fans and haters. It lacks nuance, it spits on people who don’t like Anakin‘s face and it erases what makes Anakin as a character interesting (and so, it spits on Anakin’s fans’ faces too). It makes Anakin’s fans get defensive over the character when the dunking stops feeling like a joke everyone is having fun with and further divides an already divided fandom.

I’m not going to look for examples of Anakin being a good or a bad Jedi to justify either argument because the problem is not that. We know he wasn’t the greatest Jedi (at least not in the way Filoni is saying he was), the problem is outside of the actual text, it’s in the meta aspect of Filoni’s continued nonsense.

#personal #fandom salt #I was gonna put a whole meta of why I disagree with Filoni but also with the fandom dunking on Anakin #but then I realised the actual problem is not the in universe explanation #the problem is Filoni itself #and feel free to come and chat about the in universe reasons I think Anakin was not as bad as a Jedi until his whole fall #but know that I hate that I have to defend the good parts of Anakin because of what this man has said

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walkawaytall · 2 years ago

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Sorry, y'all know I'm not like...well-versed in prequel nonsense due to extreme personal dislike of the trilogy in general and Anakin Skywalker specifically, but are people (and by "people" I mean lauded director, producer, and screenwriter who should understand this concept Dave Filoni) confusing being a "Chosen One" with "Being The Very Best Like No One Ever Was"? Because extremely often, Chosen Ones are just objectively not the best at whatever it is they're supposed to be doing. That's, like, part of being a Chosen One, right? They're unassuming. No one expects them to do the thing.

Like, I know Anakin being the Chosen One is up for debate or whatever, but I can't think of any other reason Filoni would decide to go all-in on Ani. Was this a panic answer? Does he actually think this? Is the cowboy hat restricting bloodflow to his brain?

based reddit (for once)

#anakin skywalker #ahsoka #dave filoni #star wars meta

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chamerionwrites · 7 years ago

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It seems unremarkable but there are three things that make this particular frame from Rebels a cinematic masterpiece:

1. Kallus’ hilariously awkward hello-fellow-kids attempt at a friendly smile, because there are zero possible versions of “became a spy on the inside for the rebels I was previously obsessed with capturing” that do not involve hilarious levels of awkwardness

2. The fact that this...may actually be the first time in three seasons that we’ve seen him smile? At least in a friendly and non-evil way

3. The fact that literally a second later Ezra Force-chucks him through that glass panel “to make the escape look convincing”

#I feel very loved and understood by dave filoni and this id-nurturing show #it's for kids so ofc it's fairly simple but still a more thoughtful redemption arc than the nonsense we often get in adult media #and I care!!! SO MUCH!!!!!!#and yet this show also perfectly understands #the emotional struggle of having FEELS about a character that you simultaneously want to slam-dunk into the trash can #and makes him just enough of a punching bag for the universe that I get to enjoy both the whump and the redemption guilt-free!!!#THE. MOST. tasty and id-satisfying solution to the struggle between 'you are a BAD MAN who deserves BAD THINGS'#and my incurable soft heart for a redemption arc whispering 'save him'#yes. save him. by throwing him through emotional and literal plate glass windows until he sees the error of his terrible life decisions.#thank u @ sw for giving me such nice things #star wars rebels #star wars #agent kallus #problematic fave strikes again #tag posts #my posts #turns out the proper balance between schadenfreude and salvation really is a foolproof road to my heart

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mybrainproblems · 7 years ago

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So I’m midway through season 3 of SW Rebels and while I really do love TLJ, lbr... Disney should probably have just given all of their budget for SW eps 7-9 to Dave Filoni and everyone who worked on Clone Wars and Rebels and just told them to have at it

#tho i'll fight anyone who says that the canto bight sequence in tlj was pointless #god i'm so fucking salty they're handing ep 9 back over to abrams #i have so many doubts he builds off of what johnson (didn't) leave for him and won't just do what he clearly wanted to from ep 7 #johnson did what abrams should have done in ep 7: cleared out the bullshit #not necessarily killing off the original characters but not IMMEDIATELY setting up mystery bullshit #that he set up mystery bullshit that he clearly had the ''answers'' to but not being the next director is such a dick move #like what in the fucking hell was johnson supposed to do?#he could either follow abrams' paint by numbers or just fire up the double freedom rockets and do his own thing #in no way is tlj a perfect movie but i feel like it's not being properly acknowledged that whoever did ep 8 was fucked #abrams directed ep 7 clearly under the assumption that whoever directed the next one would want him to feed them plot #and not that maybe the director of ep 8 would want to do their own goddamn thing and not some masturbatory nonsense #hello i'm mbp and i have a shit ton of feelings about how jj abrams should get the hell out of my space operas #tl;dr please just let dave filoni and his team keep doing whatever they want #ALSO: M O R E A H S O K A

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licorishh · 4 months ago

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exactly like man dave filoni has done so much good for star wars but heck off with that 15 years nonsense

like tbb indicates there's at least a few years between o66 and wolffe getting his chip removed and hangin' out with the gang so i guess it's possible they could've been in contact during that time before wolffe gets paranoid and is like "please stop with the skype calls" and it's just not mentioned?? but like??? WHY'S IT NOT MENTIONED???? 😭😭😭

ok another thing i will never understand is WHY rex and ahsoka split up. like i hear all the time the excuse is "blah blah blah it's not safe for them to stay together" okay?? it's not safe for them to be out and about doing anything at all anyway???? she's a former jedi and he's a dadgum clone trooper ?? that's like ??? top two most recognizable and dangerous things to be at this time in canon ???? if it had only been one of them escaping the tribunal they would not have made it. they are so blatantly stronger and safer together

and yes i know they Had To or whatever because by the time of rebels it's made clear they haven't seen each other in a long dadgum time, but just---WHY??? that is so ooc after everything that happened, the way their dynamic changed through o66, and the types of people they are by their very natures. i cannot quite even

like why in the fresh crap when ahsoka decides to get back in the fight and everything does she contact bail frickin' organa and not her dadgum self-proclaimed best friend who she knows is out there finding and helping her family??? just????? huh??????? 😭😭😭

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gffa · 6 years ago

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I’m new to your blog so I don’t fully know your take on Clone Wars and whatnot. I’ve seen the whole show and it seems like the Jedi are fairly trusting of Anakin during the war. My question is, what changed between that and ROTS to make the Jedi not like him? Especially Windu? Do we know? Or is that something that just wasn’t touched upon enough in Clone Wars?

Honestly, I would say that they’re still pretty trusting of Anakin even in Revenge of the Sith!Yoda and Obi-Wan are both there and supportive of him–I know a lot of people don’t like Yoda’s advice in ROTS, but given how both George Lucas and Dave Filoni have talked about Yoda’s words are at the core themes of Star Wars, I’m pretty sure we’re meant to take that conversation in a positive light on Yoda’s side and a negative light on Anakin’s. YMMV on how you interpret it, everyone has their own views, which is perfectly cool, but I’m pretty sure the narrative is trying to show them as supportive, especially since Yoda’s taking time to sit down and talk with him, Obi-Wan makes a point to talk with him and reassure him that he’s on Anakin’s side.The problem with Mace (since Anakin doesn’t really interact with many other Jedi beyond these three/the film doesn’t really show us many Jedi beyond them) is that it’s not really just about Anakin. It’s about Palpatine chipping away at what precious little autonomy the Jedi Order has left, by forcing them to appoint Anakin to the Council despite that he hasn’t yet earned it.This isn’t Anakin’s fault, but he does accept the offer, when he could have turned it down. He’s angry when the Jedi try for a middle road, they have to accept Palpatine’s order, but they’re not going to promote him to Master just because Palpatine says so–and Anakin says, “How can you do this? This is outrageous. It’s unfair. How can you be on the Council and not be a master?”

The looks they’re all giving each other as Anakin’s intensity ramps up says everything about why they don’t trust him, that he’s getting upset because he takes this as a personal attack/betrayal rather than seeing that this is a political attack on the Jedi and that they can’t just bend to Palpatine’s whims.Later, Anakin continues to rail against this decision with Obi-Wan, “What kind of nonsense is this? Put me on the council and not make me a master? It’s never been done in the history of the Jedi! It’s insulting!” “Calm down, Anakin. You have been given a great honor. To be on the Council at your age– it’s never happened before. The fact of the matter isyou are too close to the Chancellor. The Council doesn’t like it when he interferes in Jedi affairs.” “I swear to you, I didn’t ask to be put on the Council.” “But it’s what you wanted. Your friendship with Chancellor Palpatine seems to have paid off. “

It’s not Anakin’s fault that Palpatine is using him as a pawn against the Jedi, but he still accepted the appointment and refused to understand why this was an unearned promotion. (We can see, given the entire plot of the movie, that Anakin has not mastered himself. His Force skills are better than anyone else’s, but that’s not really what makes someone a Jedi. A Jedi is about mastery of self, controlling yourself, and Anakin’s not there, not yet.)That’s why Padme also nails the problem with Anakin’s view, when he tells her, “Obi-Wan and the Council don’t trust me.” She responds with, “They trust you with their lives!” and he changes the subject because he seems to not have a good response to this truth.And it’s also why Mace later says, “If what you’ve told me is true, you will have gained my trust.” because it goes right back to what was shown to us in the Council meeting.

It’s about Anakin previously choosing his friendship with Palpatine at the cost of the Jedi Order, it’s about Anakin accepting the position on the Council because it’s what he wanted without having earned it, rather than understanding why this is such a shitty thing to do to the Jedi.When Anakin comes to Mace to tell him, hey, this person that I thought was a friend is actually the Sith Lord we’ve been looking for, then Anakin did the right thing when push came to shove, which is what Mace didn’t trust he would do before, when he accepted Palpatine’s offer to put him on the Council. He chose what was better for everyone, rather than what was better for himself/his friend.The Clone Wars doesn’t really go into it a super lot, they’re not friendly, Anakin definitely thinks that Mace doesn’t give him enough praise (when Mace praises Artoo for the rescue, Anakin says that he never got any praise like that from Master Windu), so it’s not like they were BFFs before this, but the events at the beginning of the movie are really what puts that tension there between them.Otherwise, the Jedi seem pretty positive towards Anakin in TCW, they praise plenty of times, so it seems like most of them support him pretty well and the problem between Anakin and the Council is about a growing sense of complicated circumstances. Anakin tends to assume the worst, he prioritizes personal loyalty over everything, so he doesn’t understand that their actions aren’t personal towards him. (This is a huge, huge factor in the reasons why Anakin feels so betrayed by the Council, especially as he listens to Palpatine telling him that they don’t value him enough, so his pov gets twisted around a lot.)But things aren’t helped by some of the complicated political situations they get into (when Anakin would like to just go lightsaber everything in the face) and the situation with Ahsoka where everything went pear-shaped is something he blames on them (it’s complicated, too), which gives depth to a lot of the tension you’re picking up on with Anakin vs the Jedi Council, but ultimately I think most of what’s directly causing the Mace vs Anakin part is that they were suspicious of someone who would accept a position on their governing body that was appointed by an outside factor that forced it on them.

#anakin skywalker #mace windu #jedi order #jedi council #meta #Anonymous

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starstrucknerdbatkid · 5 years ago

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Hello there Ladies and Gentlemen, i'd like to take a moment to share my thoughts on the current , successful state of star wars. I apologise in advance for any grammatical errors in my little rant, I'm not a native speaker.

So, I guess where I'll begin is with my intro: currently successful?

Solo was the first star wars film to lose money, and quite a lot at that, while the beginning of the end was obvious with TLJ: they destroyed the center of the saga for most people, which was Luke Skywalker, and with RoS they even made Anakin's prophecy redundant.

And say what you want, the numbers don't lie, RoS earned not even half of what TFA did while the cost kept rising up. Not even the actors can defend this nonsense anymore, Adam driver didn't even go on the press tour for it

As far a Rogue one and the Mandalorian goes, they aren't universally beloved, they are just better by comparison then the rest of the Disney movies. The fan base for star wars has been built for 40+ years, it's was pretty strong, and making a sequel to the first movie ever was sure to be a success, right? Well, again, the numbers don't lie, and rogue one didn't earn that much money compared to the production and marketing cost. It was also made before the franchise was really driven down the shitter with TLJ and RoS.

If you want an accurate indicator of the damages TLJ did just look at solo. If the last Star Wars movie had been good, or at least decent, people would have rushed in to see the next. Instead they didn't even make their money back.

And then there's of course the Mandalorian. Aside from not having any real numbers to go by since it's on their own platform there are enough people out there that don't like it, including myself, and the reason about 20% of the people watch it is baby Yoda, which has to be applauded as the best marketing decision they did so far, and on accident no less.

What do I mean by accident?

Then the movies came out they flooded the market with toys for their new movies, all the characters, the infamous C-3PO with the red arm to make extra money...

And that's probably the biggest indicator of where the fandom currently sits: In the time do the ot people rushed in to buy the toys, kids and adults alike, and with the prequels it got even better: more toys, more ships, more clothing, Legos, basically everything you could imagine. The kids loved it, the adults who grew up with it loved it and brought their children into the wonderful world that was star wars. And the most important fact: they never, ever dropped in price because they always sold for what they were put on the shelves for.

Now what do we get: go to any bigger store and look at the star wars section. Over the last 4 years it consistently shrunk in since to the point where the RoS toys where fewer in numbers then the ones for Frozen 2. And there you'll find them, your Rose Tico's down 98% for 5ct, your Kylo Ren for 10ct, your Rey for 12ct. The kids don't want that, and their parents that brought the previous generations in don't do that anymore.

What they want however is baby Yoda, and there weren't any: realizing that they're toys didn't sell and they could save money by not producing them in the first place they stopped all project going forward, including what the fans actually wanted and now having to make then after the fact.

Now you can come up with any reason for that: blame sexism, Trump, racism, whatever, but Star Wars always had strong female characters, princess Leia kicked their ass in the OT even in the darkest of time. Even after her planet got destroyed before her eyes she still comforted Luke over his personal lose, managed to detect the empires plan to track them and organize a missing that ultimately saved everyone's live.

The reason no one really likes Fin is because he's so inconsistent in the movies he's a joke: from giving us a genuinely gritty opening in TFA where we, for the first time ever since the deleted scene from RotJ, see a stormtrooper stand up from the crowd, see him suffer through the loss of presumably a friend to making re choice not to kill, freeing a tortured prisoner for war... Straight to him laughing to himself while blowing up his comrades while they are fleeing in terror. TLJ made it even worse, and while he's not even in much of RoS just look at what the actor has to say. Fin has been done dirty, and it's not because of racism that people don't really like him, it's because his character could have been so awesome and instead turned into a bumbling buffoon by incompetent writers, producers, directors...

And that really what's wrong with it Star Wars: Kathleen Kennedy.

The first movie of the trillogy was made by the master of never answering any of the questions brought up by his oh so great mystery boxes, the second by a guy who just wanted to subvert everything, and then by the time of the 3 they suddenly realized they didn't have a story anymore. And after all other quit they brought the guy back who notoriously can't end anything, butchered his script in the production of it, to the point where he refused to call it back script anymore, and then tripped the movie down about 20%.

And that really the difference between Lukas and Kennedy: Lucas loved the universe, he wanted to tell us his story in it while allowing the rest of it to be run by passionate fans and never really interfering all that much with it. And while he did it poorly he at least made it alright. Also he was happy to sell toys

Kennedy just wants to make money with it, anyway she can:

First she de-canonized all of it except for a handful she would use for later, and then she immediately jumped in and started making movies. There literally wasn't a story to tell, each one just made it up as they went, and Kennedy was happy as long as they all adhered to her politics believes and kissed her feet. If you want prove just look at the interview of Ian Mcdiarmid where they asked him about the return of Palpatine, and he answered he only was contacted in December of 2019(aka 1 year into shooting it and 1 year before the release) where they thought about bringing the emperor back. They were so without a plan that they didn't even have a villain anymore, and in a desperate attempt to fix it they did the only thing they had left: brought back the original one somehow(and I'm not kidding, that's literally what the movie says: somehow Palpatine came back to live)

And lastly, the people put in charge of the movies don't care about the IP, they were hired as Kennedy's mouthpieces as for as her political beliefs go and worked as yes men to nod and sign everything of she did, while she let incompetent idiots like JJ. Abrams and Rian Johnson in charge.

And I can't even blame Abrams for the last movie because it wasn't his movie at that point, it was basically make by a banking Lucasfilm desperately scrambling together and throwing in what they can and mindlessly cutting stuff out at the last second.

So what's left of Star Wars? Since the book numbers are as low as the toys that leaves the games: Battlefront 2 turned out alright,after the failure of Battlefront 1 and it's desasterous launch it got way better; Fallen order is alright, and SWTOR is thankfully not part of the Disney/Lukas deal and still going strong with a bunch of new players that want to return to the old universe

But in terms of the big screen, what do we got? No new movies even announced, so much for the cancelled Boba Fett one, so I guess TV it is: Clone wars season 7 is alright I guess, it gets much better in the second half, and the main reason for that, and our only glimmer of hope at the horizon, is Dave Filoni. This man actually lives and breathes star wars, giving us the world we like with characters we actually care about and like as well as bringing his original show to a good end. They announced Mando season 2 and Obi-Wan, and despite everything going on I still care, I still want to see more of the wonderful world of star wars, and hopefully Dave will be able to restart the fire that Kennedy spent years blowing out with all her might.

Overall it's a step in the right direction: ignore the sequels and focus on the established stuff to get the fans back on board, and when Kennedy is gone and her influence has finally faded start making movies again. For most people, Dave is literally the only lifeline star wars has left, and if he can't do it I really don't know who could

#star wars #swtor #fallen order #the last jedi #the rise of skywalker #the force awakens #solo #rogue one #baby yoda #clone wars #the mandalorian

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fireflyfish · 5 years ago

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K, R, and U, cutie!

Hello my Dear! *blows a kiss* Mwuah!

K: Do you have a guilty pleasures in fic (reading or writing)?

Yes, Rexobi. Which is all YOUR fault young woman. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’VE DONE. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WROTE. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR CAPTAIN SHINY! YOU HAVE GIVEN BIRTH TO THIS NONSENSE WITH YOUR CODYWAN AND YOUR HOPE AND YOUR FORCE SENSITIVE CLONES! YOU ARE A VERY BAD GIRL AND NO MORE MAUL CONTENT FOR YOU!

Also... masquerades and balls. I love me some fancy dress balls. OOO! And hot spring episodes and sexy shared dreams and mutual pining and I really feel like I’ve already answered this somewhere but... where was I?

R: Which writers (fanfic or otherwise) do you consider the biggest influence on you and your writing?

You. Neil Gaiman. Dave Filoni. George Lucas. I don’t really read a lot of fiction because I have a hard time focusing on them if they’re not really engrossing right from the get go. I’m real good with non-fiction, particularly historical stuff but if I’m being completely honest I think the last fiction book I read was probably something by Neil Gaiman, whose language, tone and whimsy I love and I really enjoy the world building of George Lucas and the way Dave Filoni executes George’s ideas.

And then of course there’s your work which I think is absolutely amazing. You are so poetic in your work and incredible at creating really evocative imagery and making these really punchy moments. The way you captured the painful rupture in Coda and the shy, wounded coming together was just... UGH. PERFECTION.

AND YOU EDIT YOUR WORK ALL BY YOURSELF AND I DON’T KNOW HOW YOU DO THAT BECAUSE I WANT TO CRY WHEN YOU EDIT MY STUFF AND YOU’RE SO GENTLE AND KIND ABOUT IT. WHY ARE YOU SO AWESOME?

;;________;;

U: Is there a pairing you would like to write, but haven’t tried yet.

Blaayla. I need to help poor, sweet, capable silent badass Bly get with his proud, feisty, elegant and caring badass General Aayla Secura.

Also... Woffle x His Fishing Boat because the man needs his alone time with all these drama llama Jedis running around his brothers being ridiculous over all of them he is looking at you Bly and you too Rex. Wolffe would be looking at Cody but Cody is on shore leave so Wolffe is going to look at Fives and Fives is very scared now.

*blows kisses* I love you my dear! Have a good night, Love!

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smokeybrandreviews · 5 years ago

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The Sacred Texts

Look, I really, really, love Star Wars. I know it seems like i don’t considering all of the hate pieces I’ve written about the current state of the mythos, but I actually really enjoy a great deal about the canon. I’ve been a fan since I was a wee lil’ Smokey, watching A New Hope on the tele all those years ago. I was watching a few clips of Rebels, which ain’t that good, and found myself almost in tears over the Vader/Ahsoka battle and it got me thinking: What are my favorite things in Star Wars? So i wanted to kind of captured those aspects here, for posterity. I wanted to have a place where I could just, you know, remind myself of what exactly made me fall in love with this franchise.

Darth Vader - Vader is what sparked my love for this entire franchise. That stark contrast between his jet black armor and the stark white of the rebel ship stayed with me for years. And that booming, authoritative voice of James Earl Jones? My goodness! Over the years, certain writers have nerfed him, others have embellished him, but Vader has endured. Even now, as Disney tries to completely erase his legacy, Vader is still one of the mst popular characters in the entire franchise. Even if the Mouse House usurps his pwn goddamn tale and gives it to their Mary Sue, Vader still endures. He is my absolute favorite aspect of this entire franchise and a ton of my other favorites are Vader adjacent.

Ahsoka Tano - Ahsoka is my second favorite character in the entire goddamn franchise and i never expected that to happen because I was one of those cats screaming about Anakin getting a Padawan. Color me surprised when she was just like her master but better. Ahsoka is basically the POV character to the absolutely brilliant Clone Wars, another one of my favorite things about the Star War, and she earns that distinction with the most growth, characterization, and pathos. I loved witnessing her journey over those six, now seven, seasons. She’s an amazing character and Disney is bullsh*t for neglecting her in favor of their own OC sh*tstorms.

Chelli Aphra - Doctor Aphra is one of the few Disney Star Wars characters that I actually really enjoy. She was introduced in that first Darth Vader comic run and immediately proved her worth. Obviously, the Vader comics are also on this list but it was Doc Aphra that really sold me on that first run. Her own solo adventure was pretty legit, too. It’s weird that we haven’t seen her in anything outside of the funnies though. I mean, she’s mad compelling, brilliant, resourceful, and funny as sh*t. That said, I heard rumors that Disney might be looking to cash in on certain characters after that L they took with Rise, Aphra being one of those cashgrabs so we’ll see...

Knights of the Old Republic - So, full disclaimer, I’m not super on board with Shadows of the Empire. I didn’t care for the independent tales outside of the Skywalker saga when i was a youth. That said, KOTOR killed for me. That was the first time i realized there were entire stories in this world that had nothing to do with Luke, Annie, Leia, or Han and they could be straight up excellent. That first KOTOR was damn near perfect and the second, while not as good as the first, was still one of the better RPG narratives I’ve experience. Hell, even the spin-off MMO, The Old Republic, is pretty dope and all of it started with that very first tale about Revan and his conflicted ass second life. Malak is whack, tho.

Mara Jade - Before Ahsoka, i was wildly infatuated with Mara Jade. I kind of still am and hate the fact that she was one of Disney’s biggest casualties because, holy sh*t! Ma Jade was stupid boss! The development of her character throughout her various Legends appearances was outstanding. Some of the best character writing in the lore. I was irate when they just erased her from the history. Like, how could you? Mara Jade was one of the most marketable aspect about the entire goddamn franchise and you just dump her? In favor of what? Erasing everything about the Skywalkers? Are you f*cking serious??

The Mandalorian - I actually wrote and entire thing about Mando. Suffice it to say, this is the best thing Disney has created under the Star Wars banner by the widest of margins.

Kylo Ren - Look, Vader wank, man. I really liked Kylo Ren. I thought his passion and petulance was a legit contrast to Vader’s cold pragmatism. I thought his design was dope and the potential he shows in Awakens had me looking forward to what came next. Now, what came next was the assassination of the entire Skywalker saga, but Kylo was dope in it. I cannot say the same about Rise. Still, two out of three ain’t bad. It’s the best numbers anyone in the series has gotten. Seriously, Kylo is the bet thing about the Disney trilogy, outside of the score.

Asajj Ventress - Bro, Ventrus probably has the most complete arc after Ahsoka in the entirety of Clone wars. Even her growth, post show in Legends material, is some of the best in the expanded universe. I adore this character, man! Watching her develop from devout Sith follower, to a disillusioned shell of herself mirroring Ahsoka’s own story, to a redeemed Jedi with substantial power, to her final heroic sacrifice was an absolutely wonderful journey. Her arc reminds me a lot of what the MCU did with Black Widow only, in reverse; We got to see all the sordid sh*t was into and had to read about what came after instead of the other way around. Even so, Asajj became a legit powerhouse in the franchise and i have to than Clone Wars for that.

Maul - I didn’t like Darth Maul at first. His appearance in Menace left me wanting. Cats were hung up on his double lightsaber and fancy fighting style or whatever but, to me, he was one dimensional and expendable. Apparently to Lucas, too, because the motherf*cker got cut in half. That said, fans loved him an, somehow, he found life after bisection becoming one of the dopest characters in the entire lore. Clone Wars, literally the best thing in the entire Star Wars lore, gave this cat a character and developed him into a real force. Rebels turned him into a goddamn legend. I sit here, today, confessing how wrong I was about Darth Maul and we have Dave Filoni’s excellence in storytelling for that. F*ck was Clone Wars good, man! Also, he has some dope ass concept art.

Clone Wars - F*ck it, it’s going on the goddamn list! Clone Wars is everything a long form Star Wars story should be. It’s rich with world building, fantastic characters, dope as story lines, excellent set pieces, massive stakes, legitimate pathos, palpable emotion; Bro, this thing made me fall in love with the franchise all over again and I was already in a committed, long term relationship with my Galaxy far, far, away.

Look, i still love Star Wars, just don’t care for what Disney is doing with my franchise. There is a lot of great stuff in the preceding forty years and it’s a shame to just ignore all of that because it’s not “canon” anymore. Admittedly, there are a few things that Disney knocked out of the park but most of what they’ve done is the worst. Still, Star Wars will endure. There’s too much love for the franchise to be killed off but corporate nonsense, especially considering the sheer girth of accessible material.

#Star Wars

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smokeybrand · 5 years ago

Text

The Sacred Texts

Look, I really, really, love Star Wars. I know it seems like I don’t considering all of the hate pieces I’ve written about the current state of the mythos, but I actually really enjoy a great deal about the canon. I’ve been a fan since I was a wee lil’ Smokey, watching A New Hope on the tele all those years ago. I was watching a few clips of Rebels, which ain’t that good, and found myself almost in tears over the Vader/Ahsoka battle and it got me thinking: What are my favorite things in Star Wars? So i wanted to kind of captured those aspects here, for posterity. I wanted to have a place where I could just, you know, remind myself of what exactly made me fall in love with this franchise.

Ahsoka Tano - Ahsoka is my second favorite character in the entire goddamn franchise and I never expected that to happen because I was one of those cats screaming about Anakin getting a Padawan. Color me surprised when she was just like her master but better. Ahsoka is basically the POV character to the absolutely brilliant Clone Wars, another one of my favorite things about the Star War, and she earns that distinction with the most growth, characterization, and pathos. I loved witnessing her journey over those six, now seven, seasons. She’s an amazing character and Disney is bullsh*t for neglecting her in favor of their own OC sh*tstorms.

Mara Jade - Before Ahsoka, I was wildly infatuated with Mara Jade. I kind of still am and hate the fact that she was one of Disney’s biggest casualties because, holy sh*t! Ma Jade was stupid boss! The development of her character throughout her various Legends appearances was outstanding. Some of the best character writing in the lore. I was irate when they just erased her from the history. Like, how could you? Mara Jade was one of the most marketable aspect about the entire goddamn franchise and you just dump her? In favor of what? Erasing everything about the Skywalkers? Are you f*cking serious??

The Mandalorian - I actually wrote and entire thing about Mando. Suffice it to say, this is the best thing Disney has created under the Star Wars banner by the widest of margins.

Look, I still love Star Wars, just don’t care for what Disney is doing with my franchise. There is a lot of great stuff in the preceding forty years and it’s a shame to just ignore all of that because it’s not “canon” anymore. Admittedly, there are a few things that Disney knocked out of the park but most of what they’ve done is the worst. Still, Star Wars will endure. There’s too much love for the franchise to be killed off but corporate nonsense, especially considering the sheer girth of accessible material.

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aces-to-apples · 6 years ago

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DVD commentary meme! Whatever part of Family Before Honor you'd like to talk about, please!!

Alrighty, since there isn’t much of it posted and chapter two isn’t very long to start with, I’ll just do that then. Author’s commentary on chapter two of “Family Before Honor” beneath the cut:

Two Months

Domestic: 1) of or relating to the home, the household, household affairs, or the family. 2) no longer wild; tame.

I suppose the first thing to note is the pattern of the chapters and summaries—each chapter, and there’s only going to be three, is titled based on how long it’s been in the fic since Cut’s death and each summary is the theme on which the chapter is built. “Two Months” is more meant to bridge the gap between “Two Hours” and “Two Years” and is based around Rex making the transition from military life to civilian life. Settling into a rhythm with Suu and the kids that works for everyone.

Rebuilding the La’Cuane farm is an undertaking both larger and smaller than Rex had first estimated.

Ah, yes, “La’Cuane”. Because fuck Dave Filoni. Before I watched The Deserter, I was under the impression that Lawquane was most likely pronounced more like “lah-kayn” but, as is my custom, when I learned the “official” version I said “nah, fuck that” and came up with my own. So, “Lawquane” is a mistranslation as so many Basic Twi’lek names are. Because fuck you, Dave.

The first few days are an unending game of hurry-up-and-wait: for Republic forces to finish routing the Seps, for Jesse and the boys to come back to retrieve him when he didn’t answer their comms, for Suu to sniffle and stutter her way through the story they’d cooked up to explain his ‘death.’

I just don’t like “Seppies”, okay? I just don’t. “Covies” I’ll accept from Halo, because Marines, but “Seppies”, “tinnies”, and “shinies”? Mmm, how ‘bout the fuck not?

Then waiting for various scans of the remains to come up positive for Fett’s genetic material, for ‘his’ chip to come up too damaged to ping as more than simply present, for Kenobi—well, it turns out that Kenobi had a softer heart than Rex had ever thought. From what Rex spies, he looks damn near devastated for a few heartbeats after Suu tells him the news.

Departing from @norcumii’s version, “Dead Men Tell No Tales”, I decided that it’s too early in the war for Rex and Obi-Wan to have actually started a romantic relationship and kept it as more of a “what if” kind of thing for them to regret. More pining, that way ;)

Then the children march up to him and Jesse, carrying Rex’s armor in their undersized little arms, and Jek loudly proclaims that they want to keep Rex’s bucket. “He was like a, a superhero,” Jek says earnestly, and next to him Shaeeah nods vigorously. “He was so brave and he saved us from the monsters and we’ll take really good care of it.”

Listen, the La’Cuane kids are just insanely cute, okay? And according to Legends (I think?) they were aware enough that they had several million uncles out there in the universe that Shaeeah wrote a book about it, so they absolutely grew up with stars in their eyes about their extended family.

Suu makes a little scene of chastising them, calling it disrespectful, saying that his brothers should have his helmet, it was only right. Rex is dazed by the layers of manipulation they all go to just for him to keep his face; he’s even more dazed by how well it works.

Kenobi clearly melts at the display but looks to Jesse, Kix, and Hardcase for the final decision. Rex can read the silent conversation between them as clear as day. When Jesse crouches down to gaze intently into the visor of Rex’s helmet, he knows the children have won.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Jesse says decisively, and it’s settled. Quieter, he adds, “I think he’d like that…”

If Rex wasn’t so traumatized right now, he’d be absolutely indignant that Jess just blatantly lied like that. How dare you slander the good name of Captain Rex, good Lieutenant, by implying this small child whom he only knew for a few hours and “died” to protect should keep his face when Kenobi is standing over there trying not to cry. Come say that to his helmet, coward!

Rex doesn’t think about where Cut’s bucket had ended up.

I like throwing out lines that if you think about them for longer than it takes to read them then they might become incredibly depressing. What did happen to his helmet? What happened to his armor?

Jek clutches the helmet to his chest in victory and Shaeeah smiles sweetly and Suu has this fond, exasperated look on her face that Rex assumes comes standard with being eyn buir. The children magnanimously offer the rest of his armor to the men, stacked as neatly as they could manage. Rex stares as Kenobi helps pack it away with the supplies for safekeeping, subtly pocketing his left vambrace as he does.

I’m gonna be honest, at this point canon and fanon have merged so much for me that I don’t even know what’s true and what’s not. Just go with it.

Rex doesn’t think about maybes and what-ifs.

Then Kenobi turns back to Suu and his gaze goes past her to the ruined farmhouse and Rex gets the feeling that Kenobi’s about to do one of those terribly un-Jedi-like things he had never, ever admitted to sometimes doing. He pulls out a credit chip and Rex knows.

He has to turn away from the scene and take careful breaths. Kenobi wasn’t perfect—Cody has spent hours venting to Rex and Wolffe and whoever else managed to meet up at once about his hypocritical, sanctimonious Jedi—but just like Skywalker, just like Tano, just like Windu and Yoda and Secura and every other Jedi, he had his moments of breath-stealing goodness.

Listen, I love some Jedi characters to death, but I have—had, now that Tumblr filters out posts with words like “fuck” and “wank” in the tags when you search for them and pretends they don’t exist—a #fuck the jedi order tag for a reason. The narrative tends to frame both the Jedi Order and most Jedi characters as Righteous and Good, while also having them commit pretty heinous acts and tossing the audience horrific implications/pieces of information at the same time. I’ve said it somewhere before, but The Clone Wars wants to have its “deep, edgy, grimdark exploration of war” and eat its “fun, wacky space adventures” too and while we’ve all noticed the tonal whiplash that the show gives us, it plays hell with the narrative itself. Unspeakably bad shit happens in one arc, and nobody ever mentions it again. The Jedi control a slave army, and that’s Bad, but we’re told that they care about their troops and want to help them Later, which cancels out the Bad and keeps them Good Guys. In universe, it absolutely doesn’t work. We all know the Jedi pull some fuckshit every two weeks, so you bet your ass the clones know it too and routinely get sauced and rant about it to each other where no one can hear them. But they also can be extremely helpful and empathetic between three to five every other Thursday. Sorry, just mentioning #fuck the jedi order sends me off into a rant and I actually deleted a lot of other stuff from this part because Not Important.

Rex should’ve known his last act as a captain, and his first act as a free man, would be finally witnessing one of those moments.

And then Kenobi is gone, his brothers are gone, and the work begins.

- - -

It’s slow-going, and at times back-breaking, and it quickly becomes apparent that the nerve-damage Kix had warned about has set in good and proper. After the children have gone to bed, Rex and Suu go outside to have a rousing argument about what to do—the first of many on the horizon.

I know, I know, it’s common wisdom that disagreeing with your partner are normal but knockdown drag-out arguments Are Not and while I absolutely understand that, I come from a family with an absurdly large number of siblings that subscribe to the Taika Waititi School of Siblings and therefore it’s perfectly reasonable to shout yourself hoarse about some nonsense or other and get mad and stomp off and then two hours later throw a pillow at the other person’s head and say “hey dickhead come look at this funny post what’s for dinner later”. And as such that’s how every sibling relationship I ever write will function because I genuinely don’t understand siblings who don’t drag each other at every opportunity and then pop up around a corner like an awful gremlin to scare them at 2:30 in the morning just to fuck with them.

Suu demands they use part of Kenobi’s credits to pay for surgery to remove and replace the dead arm; Rex counters that he can function with only one arm, but none of them can function without a roof over their heads and walls to shield them from the elements. Suu says that they will contact a doctor she knows on the other side of the planet tomorrow and that’s final; Rex blinks, says understood, sir, and stands down.

The next morning, between frying eggs and waking the little ones, Suu apologizes for 'pulling rank’ on him. Rex can tell the words sit strangely in her civilian mouth. He accepts her apology and says nothing about how he hadn’t even noticed his own automatic reaction to her tone the night before, but. That was exactly how he’d reacted, wasn’t it?

When next they argue, about him ‘overdoing it’ and ‘exerting himself too much’, he’s ready for the gut-punching Commanding Officer Voice and shouts back when it’s his turn to talk. It works for them.

Listen, I don’t know about you, but when I hear certain tones of voice I automatically respond in certain ways. Like the vocal version of being full-named.

- - -

“White is death,” Rex explains once the final layer of base paint has settled on the plastoid. He runs his hand firmly down the prosthesis in its finalized form, from the ball of the synthetic shoulder to the tips of each finger. It’s as much to test that the molecules of paint bind properly as it is to get himself used to the difference. “White is the bones of those long gone. White is the snow that covers the fields in winter. It… stifles, and kills, but it’s also. Possibility, I suppose. White armor is shiny and new, but that just means it has yet to prove itself. You never know what you’re gonna get when you scratch beneath the surface.”

I had a lot more of @izzyovercoffee’s Mandalorian color theory stuff that I ended up cutting just because it didn’t really fit, but you should check them out because they’re suuuuuuper interesting. I love cultural worldbuiding shit like that.

Hanging on his every word, Jek and Shaeeah nod breathlessly. They watch as he picks up a foam brush and dips it into a small pot of 501st blue. He sets it to the very top of the arm and brings it down in a smooth, careful, practiced motion.

“Blue is reliability,” he continues. The unbroken line he draws down to the wrist is thinner than it was on his armor, but copying his armor isn’t the point; the point is to create something new out of its loss. “It’s faithfulness, and consistency. It’s the sky—the very air—and you can always in trust that.”

Listen, if you want subtlety, go read deadcat’s stuff. If you want to get bashed over the head with this shit, you’ve come to the right place.

Lastly, he picks up a fine detail brush and dips it into a second pot.

“This one is different,” he says eventually, gauging his little cadets’ avid expressions. “You use red to honor a parent and the word for ‘red’ in Mando’a is ge’tal—literally, ‘almost blood.’ It’s a complicated word, because to Mando’ade, your family isn’t always going to have the same blood as you. It might not be red at all—it might be green, or blue, or something else entirely. But with family, you’re always ready to spill others’ or your own in order to protect them; it’s about honor… and love.”

“Mom,” Shaeeah deduces, her voice quiet as a mouse as they all gaze at the sharp, cutting magenta that coats the brush.

Rex nods.

“Just so.” He twirls the brush around and offers it to them. “Now, what should we do with it?”

Listen, it’s very important to me that we cut that toxic masculinity shit out of Star Wars, stop linking pink to femininity, more important stop linking femininity to weakness, and ultimately I want to see more clones wearing pink. Pink flowers and curlicues mixed in with 501st blue on Rex’s sick robot arm? Sign me the fuck up.

—

Aaaaand that’s the Author’s Commentary on Chapter Two of Family Before Dishonor, hope you enjoyed!

#ask meme #dvd commentary meme #answered asks #by apples #norcumii #family before honor #star wars #the clone wars #captain rex #suu lawquane #sw fic

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short-wooloo · 3 years ago

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There is talk from some about tales being from Dooku's perspective, and thus is warped and unreliable, and it's not meant to be seen as right

While that is an entirely fair view to take, and honestly it's one that I feel makes things work better, I'm not sure that's the intention

For one thing, this idea is more interpretation than hard fact, tales is not very obvious about whether or not we're seeing things from Dooku's biased pov

The problem is that Dooku in tales is used by dave ferengi as a mouthpiece for his shitty takes

Dooku is saying the things that dave believes

That the Jedi are corrupt, arrogant, "lapdogs of the senate, greedy (what? Where do you even-), that everything was there fault, and only filoni's faves Dooku/Qui-Gon/Anakin/Ahsoka "get it"

While viewing Tales as Dooku's biased recollection does make things work better, there's not much to suggest this is how it's meant to be seen, and ferengi's past commentary suggests otherwise, that and the aforementioned incompetence at slandering other characters to make ferengi's faves look better, as was discussed in the original post

Basically it requires me to have faith that filoni is acting differently than what he has been like in the past

Filoni also makes no real effort to refute Dooku, and the fact that Dooku turns evil is not refutation as 1. Filogy is obligated by canon to follow that, and 2. Feloni has other characters who are not evil say the same things as Dooku

In tcw s7 he has Ahsoka spout off that "Jedi don't care about the people, they only care about the senate/chancellor" nonsense

In Rebels he's got Yoda saying that "war bad, Jedi bad for fighting war, it's all our fault" crap

And in tales itself Yaddle is saying that it's their fault Qui-Gon died

Some other good commentary on this subject from other posts:

From david-talks-sw: "Filoni, through 'Tales of the Jedi', frames Dooku's perspective on the Senate's corruption as him and Qui-Gon being the only ones ahead of the curb when every other Jedi is blind to it."

And smhalltheurlsaretaken: "#really wish i trusted filoni enough to believe it was meant to be read that way #especially with how much totj beat us over the head with how bad the council is and how corrupt and yadda yadda #ease up dave (not you david) your bad pandering takes are showing"

you couldn’t even competently slander a character felony

There is one silver lining of Tales idiotic ooc attempt trying to paint Mace as the “bad guy”

It’s really really bad at it

Keep reading

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 11 Review: Devil’s Deal

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This Star Wars: The Bad Batch review contains spoilers.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 11

The Bad Batch take a back seat in their own show, and it turns out that’s a good thing in “Devil’s Deal,” which was directed by Steward Lee and written by Tamara Becher-Wilkinson. The clones’ brief appearance is full of quality character moments, but this story is really all about the Twi’leks. Once a rebel leader against Separatist invaders, guerrilla fighter Cham Syndulla is now mellowing out under the Empire but that doesn’t last very long.

The Bad Batch continues to insist that it’s not only a visual successor to The Clone Wars but also part of the wider Star Wars animated universe, with its own stable of recurring characters. While readers know I’m usually resigned to the self-referential nature of Star Wars rather than overjoyed by it, “Devil’s Deal” does a good job of answering some truly interesting questions and reintroducing a few compelling characters, a puzzle piece making a wider story feel more complete.

The Empire has come to Ryloth. Wary of an all-out martial takeover of a people known for open rebellion, Vice Admiral Rampart chooses the subtle route. He’ll court both the corrupt senator and tired guerrilla leader. That leads us to the major cameos of the episode: Hera Syndulla — one of the lead characters of Rebels — as a young girl, and her mother, Eleni. And Chopper’s there, too!

Stream your Star Wars favorites right here!

The first third of the episode sets the scene. Then, Hera’s uncle Gobi invites her along on a job to buy a stockpile of weapons from the Bad Batch. But Crosshair has been tracking them, and all of the major players end up in an ambush. By the end of the episode, the balance of power on Ryloth has shifted dramatically. (It seems to be canon that Senator Orn Free Taa survived the laser bolt to the head, which looks unlikely on first viewing. We’ll see if the assassination attempt requires any canon reshuffling, especially since a lot of this episode hooks right into the canon novel Lords of the Sith, which features Taa as a supporting character and is set a few years after this episode.)

I can’t hide some bias here: I love Hera in Rebels and in the novels. Her steadfast sincerity and skills put her up there with Luke Skywalker in terms of good-hearted characters I love to root for. In this episode she does, in a way, become the Skywalker character: she’s the child’s perspective in lieu of Omega, fitting in that long-standing and beloved Star Wars tradition of a kid who just wants to fly away from her planet. But she’s certainly not trying to get to an Imperial academy. As much as she seems to love her planet and her parents, she’s still a kid in a contested zone, surrounded by fighters, with plenty of reason to want to both escape and fight for peace. While it’s clear Hera believes in the cause enough to spy for the freedom fighters, the episode is also subtle with how much she knows about what’s going on. Her parents both attempt to protect her from the subtle takeover and use the information Hera gathers in their own plans.

We know Hera will go on to be a leader in the Rebellion and the New Republic, a position that sees her out-living most of her best friends as well as the father of her child. Her gaze into the stars is full of a future of adventures but also sacrifices, and The Bad Batch allows for that to quietly sink in.

Her characterization on its own is fun, too. When she briefly meets Omega, I was skeptical the two would sound like real kids, with all the imaginative leaps and unrestrained curiosity that entails. Of course, these are also both kids who spend most of their time with adults, and Hera articulating how she feels emotion is an integral part of flying is a nice mix of enthusiasm and precision. I’m glad these two characters were given the chance to interact at all. But what really sold me on them was Omega’s takeaway: “She’s kinda strange. I like her.”

Star Wars The Bad Batch: Omega Origin and Identity Explained

By John Saavedra

What Star Wars: The Bad Batch Reveals About the Rise of the Empire

By Megan Crouse

Overall, the episode shines in part by simply giving the Twi’lek’s story enough time to breathe. Everyone gets a bit of perspective at least sketched in, from Cham and his family to clone trooper Howzer. It felt very realistic, the older generation capitulating while the younger ones take the torch. It shows instead of tells how there’s tension between the groups but the Empire is also relatively confident, therefore giving the a Twi’leks long leash, such as when Rampart leaves the Syndullas alone in the refinery. (I’m also biased toward the environmental message that tends to come with the way the Empire is the one putting up smoke-spewing factories in the name of providing jobs.)

Fan favorite droid Chopper is the only one who feels a little out of place, the cuts to his nonsense dialogue too much of a cutesy callback to Rebels (and to the fact that he’s played by series executive producer Dave Filoni.) I’m also not entirely sure why Gobi took Hera along — did he really simply want to give her the chance to take a more active role in a cause they both believe in, or was he putting her in danger for a more selfish reason?

As for Crosshair, he’s just a subtle attack dog, but I’m more okay with that when the Bad Batch are off screen. His brainwashing makes him frightening, and although it means he’s one of the few characters who doesn’t make a conscious choice, sometimes it’s okay to just let a villain be ominous for a while.

Seeing the Syndullas was just a fannish joy, I can’t lie. I also appreciate that, while Eleni does canonically die fighting the Empire, it isn’t shown here. Instead, she gets a small but definable part, tactful and observant. Cham pretty much coasts on his characterization from The Clone Wars, but also gets some good moments. “Their lives, much like yours, have been surrounded by war far too long,” Cham tells Hera, and it’s pretty obvious it’s Cham himself who’s tired.

The lighting, textures, and music in this episode all stand out, too. Each note perfectly sets the scene. In particular, I was impressed by the lighting on Ryloth’s canyons and the detailed, natural-looking scar on Howzer’s face. For all that he’s also wearing styled armor and has a memorable face, Howzer looks less like a stock character than any of the Batch.

Maybe I can’t put my Hera bias aside, but that’s okay. “Devil’s Deal” benefits a lot from the canon around it, but it also skillfully sketches in the state of the war while providing entertaining action and truly moving character moments.

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rebelsofshield · 8 years ago

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From Spark to Flame: Predicting the End of Star Wars Rebels

In just a day the fourth and final season of Star Wars Rebels will be upon us. What began as a spark of rebellion has grown into an odyssey following the journeys of a diverse ensemble of heroes and villains spanning years, battles, generations, and a galaxy. It’s hard to believe that in less than a year’s time this series will conclude and close the book on a unique chapter of the franchise’s history and likely pave the way for the next iteration of this universe on the small screen. What should we expect in the series’ final season? In many ways, this final installment is a mystery, but because I love speculating and critiquing I’m diving in any ways. The following is my long, and I stress long, breakdown of my thoughts, opinions, and predictions going in. Who lives? Who dies? Who shacks up? Who cameos? How gratuitous will the wolves be? All here. Well kinda.

(There are potential spoilers below. Nothing not readily available to the public, but if you want to go in entirely clean, maybe stay out.)

Part I: What We Know

Something that Rebels shares with its parent series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, is that it in many ways functions as a prequel to a large chunk of the franchise. While there are certainly climactic events and character arcs that are unique to the series, Rebels takes place in a period of the Star Wars timeline that is bookended by existing media. This has become even more apparent with the release of Rogue One in 2016. As a result, going into season four there are a few concrete facts that can help shape our expectations of how Rebels’ final season may play out.

Hera and Chopper Live

We know that the Ghost crew’s pilot, captain, and resident maternal figure, Hera Syndulla and her cantankerous droid, Chopper, are the only two members of The Ghost crew that are confirmed to survive the events of the series. Hera receives a literal shoutout line in Rogue One and Chopper has a now famous cameo in the background of the Yavin Base. This is not to say that the other members of The Ghost crew may perish, more on that later, but as of The Battle of Scarif, only two members are known for sure to be active members of the rebel alliance. We also can safely assume that at the very least Ezra Bridger and Kanan Jarrus are no longer active Force-users in the Alliance. The dialogue between Mon Mothma and Bail Organa regarding Obi-Wan strongly indicates that there are no Jedi present in the rebellion at the time of the film. Now, there are many ways that Dave Filoni and crew could cheat this, but I would bet against having Ezra and Kanan swinging lightsabers by Hera’s side by the time this season ends.

The Battle of Lothal will most likely be a loss for the Alliance

Rogue One also reaffirms a statement in the opening crawl of the original 1977 Star Wars by stressing that the Battle of Scarif and the theft of the Death Star plans is the first major military victory for the Rebel Alliance in their war against the Galactic Empire. By this logic, it is unlikely that by the time the series closes its narrative Lothal remains under the sway of the Empire. Now, it seems unlikely that the series will end in a complete downer with our heroes failing in their mission, it is possible that Lothal proves a more symbolic victory, but more on that later.

Thrawn’s TIE Defender Plan is a Failure

One of the plot threads we see shown in the final trailer for the fourth season is the internal conflict between the development of Grand Admriral Thrawn’s TIE Defender fighters and Director Orson Krennic’s Death Star. Tarkin begins to suspect that Thrawn’s pet project may not be in the Empire’s best interest moving forward given its expensive cost and lack of proven success. What is presented to us is a scenario where the TIE Defender likely has a short lived life-span with a premature death. While Star Wars has retroactively inserted vehicles, technology, and lore into the Original Trilogy period since the Prequel Trilogy, it seems confirmed here that Tharwn’s attempt to update the Imperial fighter squadron machine is fruitless.

Part II: What We’ve Been Told/Shown

In the months following the end of Star Wars Rebels season three, we have gained quite a few kernels of information from both the cast and crew of the series. Before I jump into full on speculation, I wanted to take a moment to show and extrapolate on other information we’ve gained for the series.

The season will be shorter and more serialized

One of the major complaints leveled at the second and third season of Star Wars Rebels is the focus on anthologized storytelling at times lead to episodes that seemingly did not tie back into the overarching plot or felt like diversions. Season four, intentionally or not, will somewhat address this issue. It runs shorter than the second and third season, clocking in at 16 22 minute segments, several of which form two part 44 minute episodes. Also, according to Dave, the first several episodes wrap up disparate plot threads before converging on one long story that feed into a narrative that covers the thrust of the last chunk of the season. Conventional wisdom seems to hint that we will spend much of this season on Lothal as the liberation of the planet becomes a priority for the rebellion and our cast.

Mandalore is in Civil War

Ever since Ursa Wren slayed Imperial Viceroy Gar Saxon to protect her daughter, Mandalore has broken apart with the various houses and clans vying for control of the planet with the Empire backing the remnants of Saxon’s house. This conflict takes center stage in the season premiere “Heroes of Mandalore,” which was partially screened at Celebration Orlando and then in its entirety at FanExpo. (I saw the first half myself and it’s pretty great. No spoilers, but it left me with a pretty huge cliffhanger that I’ve been anticipating the conclusion to since April.)

Rebels seems to be pulling out all the stops in putting this conflict to screen. Not only do we get a wide variety of Mandalorian characters and factions, numerous characters from this series’ past as well as The Clone Wars are due for an appearance. After teasing her return to Star Wars animation last year, Katee Sackhoff of Battlestar Galactica fame is due for a reprise of her character Bo-Katan and appears to be wielding the legendary Darksaber (perhaps Sabine hands it over to the rightful ruler of the planet?). In addition to the return of Sabine’s mother and brother, the Rebels Season Three Blu-Ray also reveals that Sabine’s father will be making his debut in the premiere. Having seen part of the episode I can confirm that he plays into Sabine’s character in a fun fashion, it’s very apparent about how his and Ursa’s personalities mixed to create their daughter. Shots of Mandalorian soldiers being turned to dust also seem to hint that the terrible weapon developed by Sabine will be deployed by the Empire.

That being said it seems unlikely that the Mandalorian conflict will spill over into the greater galactic conflict with the Empire. While Sabine and some of her close allies may take part in the battle on Lothal (Sabine can be glimpsed in the final shots of the second trailer with the rest of the Ghost Crew), the lack of Mandalorian presence in Rogue One seems to make this an unlikely possibility.

The Clones Are Back

After sitting out season three, Dave Filoni and Pablo Hidalgo confirmed that clones Wolffe and Gregor would be seen on screen once again before the end of the series at Celebration Orlando earlier this year. Similarly, Dave cryptically dropped concept of Captain Rex wearing camouflage armor seemingly hinting at the popular fan theory that an older extra in Return of the Jedi may be the famous clone veteran.

Saw Gerrera and the Partisans

We also have been informed that Forest Whitaker will be reprising his role as Saw Gerrera in the early portions of the season. In addition to confirmation that his alien partner, Edrio Two Tubes (or maybe it’s Benthic. I honestly didn’t even know there were two of them. Did you know that?), will be joining him. The final trailer and Filoni have both hinted that this season widens the gap between Gerrera and the rest of the Alliance and may explain why he is no longer a part of the larger rebellion by the time Rogue One rolls around. He also seems set to butt heads with some key characters in the ensemble. Ezra in particular seems drawn in by Saw’s no nonsense results oriented strategy. Ezra has often been marked equally by both his compassion and his desire to see the Empire and Sith defeated. It seems likely that he will be used as a vantage point for the viewer allowing them to see both the allure and danger of a more dangerous and fanatical battle against The Empire.

Space Married

One of the most widely popular and to many the most consistently playfully frustrating aspects of the Rebels ensemble has been the frequently hinted at but never explicitly shown relationship between Hera Syndulla and Kanan Jarrus. According to clips shown at Fan Expo and the first and second trailer for this season, fans may finally get their wish and see the symbolic mother and father of The Ghost crew commit to some form of romantic relationship. Whether this has a happy ending is a whole other thing, but for a few happy moments we are more than likely to see this couple finally, maybe, kiss…or something. At least an emotional forehead touch.

Rukh

Thrawn’s Noghri bodyguard from Timothy Zahn’s classic trilogy of novels is set to make his first canon appearance this season voiced by the legendary Warwick Davis. While his role appears to have been reshuffled to be more of a special agent/assassin in Thrawn’s employ rather than the almost enslaved bodyguard in his Legends appearance, it is unclear just how much Rukh borrows from his original role. Most importantly, is he the one to place once again place the killing blow on The Empire’s blue skinned Admiral? I’m inclined to think not.

Space Wolves

Dave Filoni loves wolves. Like, he really really likes wolves. What would the final season be without a whole lot of giant magical space wolves? The Loth-Wolves so far have remained a mystery, but their importance and almost mystical presence have been stressed throughout season four’s marketing campaign. While we can rest easy knowing that Ahsoka isn’t pulling a Sirius Black and transforming into a wolf like some fan’s speculated, Filoni has stressed that the large white predators are a Bendu-like creature that border the light and the dark. What connection do they really have to the planet of Lothal and the series as a whole? Who knows, but it will be nice to finally get a sense of how they fit into the planet’s culture.

Ahsoka Lives !(?!)

Oh yeah, Ahsoka is back. How? Why? Where? Who knows, but Dave Filoni has confirmed that we will see Ashley Eckstein’s fan favorite former-Jedi at least one more time before the series ends.

Part III: Rampant Speculation

So what does this all mean? Where are we going? Who is that? Where am I? Before I start jumping into the general end game for the series, let’s get a few more pieces of speculation out of the way. Let’s talk characters. Let’s talk deaths. Let’s talk why Nick keeps using repetition to spice up this segment of his article.

Kallus and the Rebellion

While Alexsandr Kallus (yes, that’s officially his first name now) has been a rebel operative for about a full season now, this season marks the first time that the former Imperial operative is an active participant in the Alliance. Sporting a snazzy new outfit and set to make a change in the galaxy, Kallus is sure to be one of the more intriguing aspects of this season going into its start. I highly doubt that Kallus’s assimilation into the rebellion will make for a clean transition. In particular, Kallus seems primed to be a key source of antagonism with Saw Gerrera. As we learned in “The Honorable Ones,” Saw’s partisans were responsible for the deaths of Kallus’s men on Onderon. Similarly, Saw’s own fanaticism makes it seem likely that he won’t be keen on having a former Imperial Intelligence officer enter the Alliance. The two seem primed for a confrontation and Dave Filoni and the creative team would be smart to capitalize off this. The idea of having David Oyelowo and Forest Whitaker face off is too great an opportunity to pass up.

Thrawn will survive

Grand Admiral Thrawn’s survival is one of the most hotly debated aspects of the series. The iconic Legends turned canon Chiss admiral has been a fan favorite on and off screen. While he more or less came out on top at the conclusion of season three, Thrawn’s fate is a bit more ambiguous this season. Like many iconic Rebels characters, he does not play a role in the original trilogy and for a character of his stature and in-universe importance, it seems unlikely that he is still an active participant in the Imperial war machine at the time the series concludes. We may have actually been given our first clue to the fate of Thrawn at New York Comic Con last weekend. Timothy Zahn, the original creator of the blue skinned villain, announced that he would be writing a sequel to his canon novel, Thrawn, tentatively titled Alliances, which would feature the character teaming up with Darth Vader himself. While this inherently may not seem like a dead giveaway that Thrawn makes it out of the series alive, the original Thrawn novel concluded just before the character’s introduction in the season three premiere episode “Steps into Shadow.” While it is possible that the sequel novel may function as a pseudo-prequel or even a mid-quel, this seems to indicate that Thrawn’s narrative continues past what is seen on screen. Similarly, the final novel in Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy appears to hint that Thrawn spent much of his later career stationed in the Unknown Regions, although the language is vague and inconclusive.

Expect Lots of Cameos

With the Ghost Crew now firmly a part of the larger rebellion, it seems inevitable that we will be seeing at the very least cameo appearances from numerous famous characters. Bail Organa, Jan Dodonna, and Mon Mothma all seem like givens for speaking roles, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see various others as well. With the continued attempts to establish creative synergy between Rebels and Rogue One, I think it is highly likely that characters such as Admiral Raddus will appear, especially given that Stephen Stanton is already a regularly employed member of the Rebels voice cast. I also wouldn’t be surprised if we got a few more notable cameos such as Cassian Andor or K-2SO. Having two Fulcrum agents such as Cassian and Kallus interact seems like another relationship that would be key to exploit. I also would be very surprised if we finished the series out without seeing Leia or Darth Vader again. Both characters made a splash in their first appearances in the series’ second season and it seems like both characters still have something to contribute to the narrative, Leia in particular.

Only one Ghost Crew member will die

While Hera and Chopper are proved to make it out of the series, Rebels will not pull a Rogue One and end with the death of the majority of its cast. We may not know what fates may befall Ezra, Sabine, Kanan, and Zeb but a massacre seems off the table. For a simple and almost logistical reason, Rebels is a series that is at its heart tonally optimistic and targeted at a mature but younger audience. It isn’t afraid to kill characters, good or evil, this is true, but Rebels is a series that is most concerned with exploring family and the importance of standing up for a larger cause in difficult times. I do not see Dave Filoni, Lucasfilm, and especially Disney XD, sanctioning an ending for the series that reinforces such a bleak understanding of sacrifice and familial bonds. It may be a good ending, but it’s hardly the best and certainly not the route that Rebels will take. That being said, it seems just as unlikely if the entirety of the Rebels cast is to survive. Heroic sacrifice and the cost of war are a theme of Star Wars and Dave Filoni at times has been all too aware of this. I am willing to go on the record and say only one member of the Ghost Crew will perish and there are two likely candidates.

Sabine seems least likely out of the four non-confirmed survivors of the series to perish. Her fate at this point is almost more connected to the Mandalorian struggle than to the rebellion itself. While it may be a poignant end for her story to have her sacrifice her life to bring liberty to her people and reunite her family, it feels out of place and, again, overly bleak for the series to take this route for her character. Besides, with the media blitz that Sabine has received since her involvement in the Forces of Destiny toyline and animated shorts, I doubt we’ve seen the last of our graffiti inspired Mandalorian warrior.

Ezra is this series’ biggest question mark. Rebels is at the end of the day about him and his journey from street rat to Jedi apprentice to freedom fighter. Does the story end in his death? I’m inclined to think not. Why? Well, again, on a practical level, I cannot recall a single television series aimed at a preteen to teen age demographic that ended with the death of its child protagonist, even if, yes, Ezra is pushing the age boundaries for that term at this point. Rebels has to keep in mind both its adult and child viewers and killing off the hero in the hero’s journey may not be the move that best placates both audiences. That being said, in terms of canon, Ezra does create a problem. He is simply too prominent and powerful a figure to be left around in the universe by the time we reach the events of Rogue One and A New Hope. Well, where is Ezra then? I’m getting to that, I promise.

That leaves our two likely death candidates being Garazeb Orrelios and Kanan Jarrus. Zeb is the character I’ve spoken the least about in this write up and frankly there is a reason for this. While he began the series as one of the show’s more compelling and entertaining characters, season three proved just how stagnant a character the Ghost Crew’s Lasat had become. In two strong episodes in Rebels’ second season, Zeb’s character arcs had effectively resolved themselves. Zeb had not only found out that he was not the last surviving member of the Lasats, in fact there is a whole planet of them, but had also reconciled with his longtime nemesis, Agent Kallus. With Kallus now a willing member of the rebellion, this relationship also seems to have reached its natural conclusion. While there is certainly opportunity to develop this dynamic further, it almost feels as if Zeb’s purpose is to function as an extension of Kallus’s character rather than his own. Unfortunately, this makes Zeb the most dispensable and cleanest death for the Rebels team to pull off. Zeb has been with the viewer long enough for his passing to have an emotional impact both in and out of the series, while at the same time avoiding any long term damage to the series dynamics if he were to be taken off the table. Perhaps he sacrifices himself to save the Ghost Crew or Kallus? Or maybe him and Kallus go out together in a blaze of glory? It could go either way.

And then there’s Kanan. This is the hard one, because Freddie Prinze Jr.’s blind Jedi Knight and resident Ghost father figure has been not only one of the strongest characters in Rebels’ ensemble but also one of its most beloved. There is a genuine affection for Kanan. I’m sure a very large portion of the fanbase would love to see him and Hera happily settle down together and raise some Twi-Lek/Human hybrid babies (I mean we know that can happen thanks to The Clone Wars), but, man, things just don’t look good for him. Like Ezra, Kanan’s continued participation in the Alliance creates a massive problem for the larger lore of Star Wars. A practicing Jedi Knight being a participant in the Alliance would surely be noticed and would have come up in conversation, especially considering the addition of Luke Skywalker to their ranks following the Battle of Yavin. Kanan has to be removed from the playing field somehow. While it is possible he could join Ezra on my big series end theory, it is just as likely if not plausible that he becomes one with the Force. This would undoubtedly be the most emotional route the crew could take and it is a very likely possibility.

Part IV: The Ending

So how does Rebels end? How does this saga conclude in a manner that resolves its various plot points but also moves us towards an emotionally satisfying conclusion that capitalizes off the series’ themes? In all honesty, I’m taking a stab in the dark, but it’s one that I am confident in.

Lothal is the key. Not only is it central to the conflict at the series’ conclusion and is it the home at which Rebels began, but there is something about the planet that is special. Hinted at way back in “The Siege of Lothal” by Minister Tua, there is a secret reason for The Empire’s interest in Lothal as a planet. While this has become lost in the dozens of climactic events that have occurred in the seasons since, the secret for the Empire’s presence on the grassy planet has never been answered.

We know for a fact that this cannot be related to the strip mining of Lothal’s resources as Tua confirms that this isn’t the case. Similarly, Thrawn’s use of the planet as a staging ground for the development of the TIE Defender didn’t come to fruition until after he had been relocated to the planet at the start of the third season. Whatever secret lies buried beneath Lothal has been there for quite sometime and has barely if ever been touched upon.

So what is it? We do know that Lothal is a planet filled with hidden Force secrets. From the lost Jedi Temple seen in the first season to the Lothwolfs, Lothal has a rich secret Force culture. We know from the novels and comics that Emperor Palpatine has been stockpiling Force and Sith artifacts to use in outlook stations to observe some strange threat in the Unknown Regions, which is maybe probably Snoke or something . My theory is that there is some secret Force artifact, temple, or object/place of similar significance that The Empire is actively in search of located on Lothal. Dave Filoni has stressed repeatedly that this season will be delving into a great deal of stranger imagery that is not unlike some work they’ve done in The Clone Wars in the past. While he keeps it vague, it is not hard to call to mind images of the Mortis Trilogy or Yoda’s strange walkabout to learn the secrets of the afterlife.

I believe that while much of the Battle for Lothal will remain a military campaign, Ezra and likely Kanan’s story will take a swerve into the search and discovery of what this Force secret may be, and the Lothwolves are likely the first step to finding this. While we do not know enough regarding this secret to truly learn much about it as of yet, my guess is that this artifact sends Ezra to or leads him into the unknown regions and he is forced to abandon the rest of rebellion to follow his quest. Ezra leaves the rebellion war effort to focus on a task that is possibly even more important and even dangerous.

While I believe that this will occur towards the end of the series, my thinking is that perhaps the Force grants Ezra a brief glimpse into the future. He is able to see key events in the rebellion and will learn that the future, while always in motion, will lead to freedom. I suspect that this is where Rebels will show the fates of most of our cast in how they tie into the original trilogy, such as showing Captain Rex fighting on the moon of Endor. It will be vague and likely not mean much out of context to Ezra, but fans will be able to discern where and what is occurring.

With Ezra out of the picture, we end the series with him a new environment and seemingly unknown. We know for a fact that only a scant few voice actors and production supervisors have worked on the final scene of the series and that it has been top secret. I believe we end the series with a conversation between Ahsoka and Ezra. Dave has hinted for a while that we will see Ahsoka Tano again, but the nature of her reappearance has always been vague. We do know that Ahsoka disappeared into the depths of Malachor following her duel with Darth Vader. The promotional TOPS cards (shown above) released in 2016 seem to hint at this as well, even showing Lothwolves. It seems her fate lead her onto the same path that Ezra now finds himself. It ends with both eras of Star Wars animation joining forces to find a common future.

Well, that’s how I see it anyways. I may be completely wrong, but I feel confident that the end will be something at least slightly similar to this.

We will know soon enough. What are your opinions? Where and how do you think Star Wars Rebels will conclude? I would love to hear your thoughts and critiques and predictions.

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