#i need to reread the yoda comic series

[jewishcissiekj]

I HATE YODA

[arianaderalte]

Hello, I love your work "How a Romance Novel Saved the Galaxy" and I was wondering how you know so much about mandalore? Like through Star wars movies, etc.

Glad you're enjoying it:)

It's a bit of a combo of sources. I've of course seen the films, but I got my background years ago reading all the mainstays of legends SWs canon like Zahn's Heir to the Empire trilogy (Shadows of the Empire by Steve Perry still remains one of the best SWs books imo), and the Jedi Apprentice series which I use as the basis of Qui-gon's characterization along with the Bandomeer plot.

Like many fic authors, I use wookiepedia a lot, and I really appreciate that it separates out legends and disney canon since I pull from both. Since I started writing about Mandalorians, I tracked down the Jango Fett comic, Open Seasons, which has a lot of what we know about Mandalorians during the pre-prequel era, though of course, parts of it have been retconned or changed (which can be a good thing - I personally think the first meeting between Dooku and Jango which happened in the video game (SW: Bounty Hunter) makes more sense than the comic). I also reread the first few Jedi Apprentice novels and discovered they really did portray Qui-gon as awfully as I remembered lol

My brother, who has played most SWs video games (whereas I have only played podracer), hunted down all the Mandalorian cut scenes for me in KOTOR and associated media, and is my fact checker for the plot of the romance novel in my fic.

Once I realized I needed to write the New Mandalorians, I went to Clone Wars and watched every ep that features them (which was a slog since those are not the best eps), and I have watched bits and pieces of other arcs when I needed to. I'm still watching my way through Rebels atm, but I did skip ahead to see some of the Mandalorian stuff. And of course I've seen The Mandalorian.

I also read whichever comic issue it was featuring Mace Windu as a padawan and parts of the Shatterpoint novel (though I don't really like how Mace is written in it). I also read most of Dooku Jedi Lost which is not very well written, but was necessary for research.

So I've been pulling from pretty much everywhere. I try to see if there is something in canon that fits what I need before I make up a whole planet or people whenever possible, and I stick to what I saw in canon for Mandalorians unless we just don't know or canon is contradictory (then I pick the most logical version or explanation I can or if there is none, I pick the one that works for my story (case in point, we have no canonical age for Fay, just that she is several centuries old, so I picked making her over 1000 so she could tease Yoda lol)).

[gffa]

HOLY SHIT, THIS ISSUE WAS A LOT.   AND IT WAS PRETTY INCREDIBLE. I had to reread this issue about five times to really get my head around what was going on with Vader in this issue and why he did the things he did--when Padme is destroyed in front of him all over again, why does he walk back out of this place, why does he destroy the monument, why does he say that he learned the truth of what he needed to?  Why doesn’t he stop by one of those burning circles and try to change the past? Ultimately, it comes down to what this entire comic has been about:  Anakin Skywalker’s denial that he is still Anakin Skywalker and that he chose to become Darth Vader, rather than that it was thrust upon him.  This is a comic about him ruthlessly killing off every other option he could have had, every other path he could have taken, and saying, “No.  This is all there is.”  That quote is the heart of this comic. This entire issue shows Vader walking through his past, seeing moments from his childhood, seeing moments with Padme, seeing moments with Ahsoka, seeing the future and the past both, as well as seeing things that cannot possibly be accurate, like Yoda is still alive so he can’t be there in the Force, Obi-Wan never dueled Palpatine, etc.  This is coming on the heels of a series dedicated to several arcs where the Force is relentlessly knocking on Anakin Skywalker’s door.  It shoves a vision into his head via the kyber crystal, that he could go try to kill Palpatine, could beg for death and or forgiveness from Obi-Wan.  “No, this is all there is.” he says.  He hunts down Jedi and this is the Force using that to try to show him that all these other choices were available.  He refuses to acknowledge that they were possible. There’s a thing Soule said floating around somewhere, that this comic is set at a time when he’s still clearly Anakin Skywalker, it’s about showing the connections between Anakin and Vader, before he kills that part of himself. We know that it’s not entirely true, because Luke’s able to reach Anakin during ROTJ, that Vader returns to being the good person that Anakin Skywalker once was, so that spark is still in there. But this comic is all about Vader trying to kill that part of himself.  But he can’t.  He just can’t quite do it, not all the way, no matter how many people he murders to shut up that part of himself and the Force itself knocking on his door. Then he has a chance to bring Padme back.  He cannot deny that part of himself, the part that is Anakin Skywalker, not when he thinks there’s a chance to bring her back--he walks through the entire field of burning circles as the featureless shape that we see him as in the rest of the comic.  That’s Vader, that’s how he sees himself.  Then he reaches out to Padme, as Anakin Skywalker, with his face and his hair and his features and his clothes again.  She turns to him and says she doesn’t know him.  Anakin Skywalker is dead. Then she falls off the side of the parapet, the red lightning that we saw Vader using earlier--Palpatine’s lightning was blue, Vader’s was red--strike her into ash, her hands around her throat as if she was being choked all over again, the poison yellow Sith eyes glowing as her hands reach up to choke her.  The yellow eyes that Anakin now has as well, that he didn’t when he reached out to her. Vader, featureless and dark once more, moans out a string of “no”s on the parapet, until he forces himself to get back up and walk out of there, destroying the monument under Castle Vader and telling Palpatine, yes, he found what he needed. He has finally fully convinced himself that Anakin Skywalker is dead and nothing can bring him back.  This ties in to how he sees other people--and why seeing that fight with Ahsoka from Twilight of the Apprentice hit so hard--because:

“I personally have never felt that anything changes Vader until Luke,” Filoni said. “The Vader that we encounter in Rebels was always meant to be the one devoid of emotions, except for anger, hate and suffering. That he was so trapped inside himself because of the terrible things that happened. Anakin never thinks of himself as betraying his friends. He sees it as his friends betrayed him and the Republic. He has to live on that side of the fence because the truth is just too damming.

“So he wants to destroy Ahsoka because she represents his past. She represents knowledge of who he was and he wants to wipe that out. His son represents a potential future because his son wouldn’t know who he was. So he could build a new galaxy together with his son. His apprentice is his past and he needs to destroy her.” --Dave Filoni This is the moment that Vader truly believes Anakin Skywalker is dead.  He walks past everything of Anakin’s, because it’s no longer his, because’s convinced himself that it’s not possible.  Vader is all there is.  There’s no point to changing the past, because the truth is that Anakin Skywalker is gone and he’s never coming back.  He tried, he tried to save Padme, but she was destroyed by his touch, his lightning and his Force-choking her and the dark side.  The dark side always wins and it destroyed Anakin, leaving only Vader.  Vader is all there is.  And nothing can change that, not even seeing Obi-Wan or Ahsoka again, until Luke.  Because Luke doesn’t know him as Anakin, not really.  Luke isn’t his past, that’s why he can change things.  Everything else, everything that made up who Anakin Skywalker once was, must be denied, rejected, and destroyed, because Vader is all there is now.  That’s what this comic has been all about, from beginning to end--Vader cutting down every last possibility and acknowledgement that he chose this, rather than that he was shaped into this, that there’s nothing else left for him.  It’s fitting that it’s a comic where the dark side is full of lies (as Darth Momin’s end so fittingly highlighted) and denial and isolation and pain, ends with Anakin Skywalker still in denial about how he got to where he is and what he did along the way, that this is his choice.

[void-tiger]

Starwars EU: unrated

...I never felt any burning need to read those books and comics Oh My as a kid while my dad, brother, and cousin pawed through thrift stores and tries to piece together timelines and which ones they Actually Had and quite frankly? I STILL don’t. Disney “retconning” it all was quite frankly a brilliant move for the sake of making new content that’s actually followable for old&new fans and especially for content creators. Enjoy it as Spinoff Alternate Universe since...that’s basically how it always functioned best, anyway.

..I will say I very much enjoyed the Jedi Apprentice series as a kid. (Jedi, camp (and whump and angst, especially for Qui-Gon), and a FoundFam dynamic between Qui-Gon and Obi-wan? GOOD STUFF. I seriously need to reread it once those books are unpacked. And Jenna Zan Arbor is everything I wanted out of Haggar tbh.) Oh, and I’ve got a (discontinued) series about the Clones I need to check out. And some of the StandAlone books about various characters sound interesting.

But...I really really wouldn’t consider any of the books, comics, videogames, etc to be canonical (and really just shouldn’t be. I think we can all agree that TheForceUnleashed is Fun but Uncanonical and a CompleteMess.)

The Clone Wars (series) (7/10)

Good, has rewatch value, fleshed out the Clone War, and humanized the Clones and various Jedi...buuuut...has pacing issues, and ends on a depressing Inevitable note when trying to tie things back together to the Midquels. Can’t believe I’m saying this but I actually preferred the Jedi being blindsided in RotS for Tying It Back To ANH. Obiwan’s and Yoda’s and Padme’s grief felt real vs cheated. And the episode with the Force Gods? Just...what was the point.

Rebels (series) (6/10)

It’s...Okay. I like the FoundFam concept, it’s campy, and has some really good moments. Plus seeing various Midquels Characters showing up for Nostalgia is always fun. But...I didn’t really care for it after s2 and don’t really feel any burning need to finish it. I’d rather read s1-then-AU fanon camp, honestly. (And from what I read about how it ended and Tied It Back? Doesn’t seem like I’m missing anything.)

RougeOne: Hopepunk Tragedy (8/10)

...but it’s always too soon for a rewatch. That movie BROKE me, but it remembered its themes, and gave backstory for “many bonthans died to obtain the DeathStar plans.”

Solo: Grimdark Camp (-5/10)

...just...TF is this. It forgot its themes, destroyed Han’s character, treated Lando SO dirty, and went out of its way to beat the Bechdel Test into a pulp, drag it behind a truck, tie it to train tracks, blow up the remains, then shoot whatever’s left into the sun, then feed the solar system into a blackhole. I’ve never wanted to walk out of a theater before but that movie somehow managed it, and I swear did so intentionally. Who was the target audience again? ‘Cause even the portion of the fandom who whines about diversity or the “EU” getting regulated to Spinoff/Uncanonical couldn’t have liked it since Han was so OOC

The Mandilorian: unrated

...I still do not have Disney Plus. (And if it were just a case of The Mouse’s Monopoly vs The Crew, then maybe I’d look for someplace to watch online.) But so far everything seems worth the hype (and I am a sucker for FoundFam and GOOD acting-despite-costume and prop/puppet&anamatronic usage. It’s an artform.)