#darth filoni

[cuddles-with-dragons]

there's a sith out there with a cowboy hat who likes killing clone troopers and his name is DARTH FILONI

[lavender-jedi]

Hehe traumatized clone sniper go brrrrrr

Dave Filoni, 2023

[brujaporfavor]

[nerdside]

Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker in Ahsoka s01e05

[anakinisvaderisanakin]

Never not thinking about them.

[221bshrlocked]

Put this transition on my fucking tombstone.

[jedimasterbailey]

SPOILERS IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED THE THIRD EPISODE OF AHSOKA

PRO JEDI RANT DOWN BELOW

This Loth Cat is a good representation of me not losing my mind on how badly the Jedi Order is being completely defiled by Feloni. Okay…so apparently according to Feloni anybody can just be a Jedi if they try really, really hard and believe in them because the Force resides in everyone when we all know that that’s not fucking true according to Lucas. Yes, the Force resides in all things HOWEVER it is the Force sensitive (I.e. the Jedi and Sith) that are able to wield the Force because they’ve got the blood to do so (midocholorians… I’m sure I’ve butchered the spelling forgive me). So with that being said, does anything in Star Wars even matter anymore? Like honestly.

By this logic…anybody in the OT could have just destroyed the Sith if they tRiEd HaRd EnOuGh. So I guess fuck the importance of Luke Skywalker and all the other survivors of Order 66? And I suppose by this logic none of the prequel Jedi or hell even Anakin doesn’t matter because anybody can just wield a lightsaber and tap into the Force if tHeY jUsT bElIeVeD iN tHeMsElVeS? Why does Rey matter when apparently anyone could have taken down the First Order and destroyed Palpatine when some fucking Mando could have just done the job of being Force sensitive doesn’t matter?

Like believe me guys, I am TRYING so hard not to be a hater but it truly makes me sad to see the one element of Star Wars I love so much (I.e. the Jedi Order and everything they do and stand for) just get picked apart and trashed over and over and over again. I just don’t understand it and I know I can’t be the only one feeling like this.

Also Ahsoka’s character right now is reminding me of Luke’s in TLJ where I feel like I’m seeing and hearing a completely different character and it’s heartbreaking when you’ve looked up and loved these heroes so much. Like for Gods sake can we settle the score in where Ahsoka stands with the Jedi? Is she or is she not? Because right now she’s doing a poor representation of all her mentors who have lost their lives staying true to themselves, Jedi who gave everything to protect and save lives. Now she seems to just go out of her way to scoff at the Order that raised her, similar to Luke dismissing the very thing that gave him hope in the OT.

As these new shows go on, it just makes the fall of the Jedi Order all the more tragic just seeing how their sacrifice and good will meant absolutely nothing. That’s why characters like Cal Kestis and Cere Junda are incredible. They stayed true to their Jedi values no matter what because that’s what the galaxy needs, heroes who care. Not heroes who have personal agendas.

[darth-memes]

[ravenhairedwaywanderer]

Oh she’s either gonna die or be a pain in the ass like maul

[sticks-and-souls]

Anakin & Letting Go

I always found it to be a little skeptical that Anakin could become a force ghost after it took Yoda, Qui Gon, and Obi-Wan learning and training how to do it, and I always thought “really? Anakin? Finding that level of peace and letting go?” But after this episode, seeing the care and lesson that he imparts upon Ahsoka that he learned so painfully, I understand it from him so much better. Vader was so stuck in his complete self-hatred that he allowed nobody who had known him before as Anakin to reach him (most notably Obi-Wan and Ahsoka) because of the overwhelming extent of his shame. It took his son, who had never known him and yet who still stood before him and believed in him, loved him, sacrificed himself for him, to call Anakin back from the depths of Vader. And this Anakin, let everything go to save his son and to allow his son to save him.

And it felt so impactful to get to see this mature post-Vader Anakin reaching out to Ahsoka to teach her this very hard-earned lesson that he took the very hard road to get. Because she has Vader in her. She is everything Anakin taught her, and we saw the behaviors that led Anakin to becoming Vader—the fear of losing his most cherished relationships—reaching out of Anakin very early in the clone wars (and before) and the two of them are both very aware that he imparted those lessons on her. And then we've seen across this season—and overtly in her clone wars flashbacks—that she believes she is inextricable from these traits.

I’ve always loved Anakin as a fictional character, getting to see his earnestness, his flawedness, and his intensity (to borrow Huyang’s very accurate adjective), but this episode brought a level of humanity to him that has moved me so deeply. Life is HARD, loss gets forced on all of us no matter what, and the lessons that we learn through mistakes that we made can be extremely painful because acknowledging and taking responsibility for hurting people is actually really painful for humans (not owning up to our actions is the emotionally easier choice and George Lucas has stated time and again that the Dark Side is about taking the short-term easier choices). But it ultimately means that learning from your mistakes is an actual choice you have to MAKE. And this is the core of Anakin’s lesson. He is teaching Ahsoka that she has to choose which lessons he has taught her that she will live by, but more than that, that she is empowered to be able to choose. Yes, she has everything that he taught her—the good and the bad—but she is not condemned to live out all of the lessons. 

And the beauty of it isn't just the lesson, but that Anakin gets to be the one to teach it to her. The betrayal that she experienced in discovering his fall, the taintedness that she has been portraying that she feels about herself, gets specifically addressed because if he figured it out, then she definitely can too. If he is more than just Vader, then she is too. And THAT is what the "Is that what this is about?" line is actually about. It's so so important that we get to see pre-Vader, Vader, and post-Vader across her vision because the point is that yes, Vader is a part of him, and that brilliant shot of the two of them glaring Sith eyes across the blade at each other did it's job in conveying that Ahsoka is capable of that darkness too, but you are not only the darkness. You get to choose. ("You're more than [death and destruction] because I'm more than that"). And more to the point, you have to choose. Because if you don't specifically choose to fight the dark, then you're ultimately choosing to fall into it. "Fight or die."

So for Anakin to be able to reach out to her one more time, to be able to love her the way he, as Vader, had refused to the last time when they met on Malachor, and to open with “you’re never too old to learn”, because god if he didn’t learn that the hard way too. And to be able to pass on to Ahsoka how to actually let go because he himself had only just finally been able to learn it as well, feels so powerful and poignant.

And that look of pride and wistful sadness that he gives her at the end? That both she and Luke were able to learn so quickly what took him so long? And that maybe, he may have helped save her from the worst traits that he imbued upon her? That’s him having let go of his own shame. He feels grief, he feels guilt—we can see it on his face—but what has happened has happened and he has accepted that, and finally learned that letting go doesn't mean it didn't happen, it means it doesn't have to define your actions going forward.

And finally, it’s also him letting go of ahsoka. By teaching her that she will choose her destiny, he has to accept that he cannot control it either. And he has. “There’s hope for you yet.” 

So yeah, Anakin learned to let go, and getting to see him here, in this headspace of acceptance and peace, practicing and understanding what it means to be a Jedi, was so unexpectedly cathartic and revelatory for me as viewer. 

[lavender-jedi]

YOU COULD HAVE JUST LET ME HAVE ONE MOMENT OF JEDI + CLONE FLUFF WITHOUT BRINGING ORDER 66 INTO IT COULD YOU DAVE?!

[gretchenzellerbarnes]

"anakin would've never turned to the dark side had qui gon lived." utter. bullshit. not only is this particular hot take an insult to obi-wan it completely robs anakin of his agency, because at the end of the day it was anakin's decision to pledge his loyalty to palpatine and to destroy everything that the people he loved held dear. that's what makes anakin skywalker such a compelling character, and as darth vader a tragic and iconic villian... because he did this to himself.

[and-loth-cat]

oh my GOD (PART FOUR!!)

IM LOSING MY MIND

JACEN MY JEDI BABY

REX REX REX REX REX REX REX

ANAKIN

VADER

ANAKIN AGAIN

AHSOKA

BABY AHSOKA

TCW ANAKIN

THE PURRGIL AT THE END

OH MY FOD OH GLDFSKJGLSDFLKGJLDSKFG MLKSDFNGLKDSHFGLKDHFLKH

THE CLONE WARS FANS WON THIS WEEK!!!!

ALSO KANAN NAME DROP FINALLY

still no kallus but THIS ABOUT MAKES UP FOR IT

[anakinisvaderisanakin]

And there are legit people out there who DON'T love this????

[david-talks-sw]

I think something to bear in mind about Tales of the Jedi episodes "Justice", "Choices" and "The Sith Lord" is that they're seen through Dooku's point-of-view.

And Dooku is an unreliable narrator. He *embellishes* events to fit his own rationalization.

In The Clone Wars Season 6, when talking about Sifo-Dyas, who witnesses confirmed Dooku killed/had assassinated, Dooku says "Sifo-Dyas understood, that is why he helped me!"

No, Dooku. He didn't. You murdered him, then stole his credentials.

And most of Dooku: Jedi Lost is basically Asajj making up her own mind of him based on Dooku's *likely altered* recounting of the facts... and these three short stories are pretty much the same thing.

Dooku is essentially bullshitting himself.

"I think the audience needs to understand that [Dooku] was a Jedi and a good person and he starts out trying to do the right thing. And often when we’re trying to do the right thing and we take it to extremes, we don’t realize it. Suddenly you’re on the wrong side of things, and then it gets harder and harder. "Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny" is as simple as saying when you lie, it gets harder to tell the truth. You tell one lie, another lie, another lie…" - Dave Filoni, Nerdist, 2022

My headcanon is that these episodes are the "tale" Dooku told himself to rationalize his dark deeds. They're the lie he repeated, over and over, until he finally believed it.

It's why a complex character like Mace Windu is portrayed as a one-dimensional "teacher's pet/stickler for the rules". That's how Dooku sees him: a drone who parrots the Councils every word.

Conversely, when Dooku says "I've been warning them about the incoming Darkness"...

... dude, you're an accomplice of the incoming Darkness! You were working with the incoming Darkness for years before your old Padawan became a victim of it and you're still helping it now!

Like, I gotta question whether Yaddle even said "you were right" or if that's Dooku's warped perspective acting up.

At some point, he'll stop lying to himself and just unabashedly accept he's a monster... but, clearly, not at this stage in his life, beside the occasional moment of clarity, as seen in "The Sith Lord".

[revanknightwoman]

Star Wars: Tales of the Empire