One Of The Most Heartbreaking Things About Trilla, Really, Is Thatif You Watch Her, As The Game Progresses,

One of the most heartbreaking things about Trilla, really, is that–if you watch her, as the game progresses, it becomes so crushingly obvious that Trilla Suduri was never a warrior.

Like, this isn’t me going “oh poor little baby,” this isn’t a desire to woobify, I really genuinely do not think Trilla handled the war well at all. I don’t think she was a fighter. I don’t think she was even a passable soldier. And I think that fucking broke her before the Inquisitorius even got the chance.

It’s hard to articulate because all the evidence for it is like…it’s a thousand tiny moments and all of them sound very thin in isolation, but the thing is they’re consistent.

Like, okay, an example:

(source)

Compare that to Trilla’s fine control and carefully deliberate stances in a duel. Compare that to literally every other experienced Force-user we’ve ever seen deflecting blaster bolts.

That’s fucking sloppy.

Those are massive, messy, energy-inefficient, time-wasting movements that leave her wide open.

Trilla was a padawan during the Clone Wars. As best we can figure, she would have been about 17; just around Ahsoka’s age, a little bit younger but not by much. An older teenage padawan who served in the Clone Wars should be better at deflecting blaster bolts than this.

It’s not an animation error or something, we see characters animated with precise and controlled motions in this game. Trilla is just really bad at the one thing that should be subconscious muscle memory.

(And how stressful must that have been to her master? Cere, who’s extremely gentle and selfless but still a fighter, a survivor, a field commander, with this sweet girl she half-raised who seemingly cannot learn a basic survival skill but is expected to lead battalions?)

(Even aside from that and allowing for the handicap of that fucking helmet, Trilla’s reactions in combat outside the tightly-controlled arena-like environments she arranges to face Cal in…well, you see it up in that gif, a bit. She looks over her shoulder, she stops in unwise places, she doesn’t actually have good battlefield instincts. I think Cere reflexively ripping Cal out of the way to open fire–stop staring and take cover, damn it, padawan–was a very practiced move for them, during the Clone Wars.)

Anyway: The fact that Trilla is absolute dogshit at blaster deflection despite the timeline…says something, about her. About what she would have been like as a padawan. Her suitability in a martial setting and her inability to adapt to it.

Don’t get me wrong, she’s a great duelist, certainly–but saber-on-saber dueling was like…academic, in the pre-war prequel era. The Sith were gone, nobody but Jedi used lightsabers, so the odds of you ever actually needing to know how to handle yourself in a saber fight were basically nil. Who are you going to actually fight? It would have been a sport, a form of meditation, an art form, but it wasn’t…real. No competition fencer is training with the intent of someday having to fight for their lives.

Combine those things and what I hear is: A nerd. Fairly sheltered before the war, probably easily overwhelmed, not terribly confident (except, probably, in the duelling ring, because that’s a hobby, it’s a meditation, it’s a martial art that deepens her connection to the Force and gives her a physical outlet and it’s not real.)

And then, solidifying that, we have our flashbacks from Cal accidentally overdosing on the psychometry–Trilla’s own memories of Cere’s abandonment, the raw panic in her voice, the hyperventilating, the way her voice shakes, the way she sobs in open fear before the torture has a chance to start.

Of course she was barely more than a child; of course none of this is a criticism. She was alone and afraid in the middle of the fucking apocalypse, and the fact that she wasn’t defiant and confident in those circumstances is not evidence of anything, really.

Except that, well, we have seen what typical reactions to stress and fear from other wartime padawans look like. There’s fear, there’s pleading, there’s “wait, master, don’t go”. And then there’s the wild incoherent terror of “DON’T LEAVE US,” the way her voice is high and unstable as she tries and fails to reassure her younglings, the fact that the softest and most tender we’ve ever heard Cere’s voice is when she’s explaining her plan to her padawan–whom she is clearly used to having to calm down in overwhelming situations. We see Trilla instinctively grip Cere’s arm and then let go, which also hints at a reflexive pattern–something she’s done before.

(The fact that Cere’s last words to her are not “protect them” or “get them to safety”. Cere’s last words to her are “stay with the younglings, Trilla”. I don’t think she meant anything by that. I’m not sure Trilla shares my confidence.)

Trilla’s responses in a highly traumatic situation are completely normal reactions…for a civilian child who’s in way over her head. Not a military commander in a war zone.

Trilla was never a warrior.

But the Inquisitorius didn’t need Trilla Suduri, did they.

the fact that these dynamics are completely canon:

obi-wan and luke when they first met: obi-wan recues luke from tuskens when he trespassed their territory. luke and obi-wan have a polite conversation about the jedi. obi-wan gives anakin's lightsaber to luke as a gift.

obi-wan and leia when they first met: leia punches obi-wan in the stomach ON SIGHT. obi-wan rescues leia while she says "I dont trust you" to his face. leia wants to make obi-wan prove he's a jedi by provoking him with her sassy comments. obi-wan is forced to buy leia gloves after just one warning look from the kid.

Anakin: I can’t tell Obi-Wan about our baby(ies), Padme! He’d obviously reject them and us!

Obi-Wan: [continuing to buy shit for Anakin’s kids even when his entire life has fallen apart and he no longer showers or sleeps in an actual bed]

“are u okay?” no i’m gonna throw up at the idea of new animated snips and skyguy content

I cannot believe this show forced me to listen to Obi-Wan say Quinlan’s name with the context from this episode of how both he and Leia want to go home.  They wonder about their biological families, wish that they knew more about them, but when the gut-punch moment comes, it’s their adoptive family they want to go back to. “I want to go home.” “Quinlan.”  I am on the FLOOR because these two narrative parallels miss their adoptive families and, while Leia may be able to go back to hers for awhile, she’s going to end up just like Obi-Wan, who would give anything to see his dead family again, I am IN PAIN.

nothing is funnier to me than owen lars clowning on obi wan. obi wan was a war general. he was in charge of millions of men. he's a jedi master. he was on the jedi council. he was known as one of the greatest jedi alive. he was the sithkiller. and yet. this random moisture farmer who only wants to work his farm and protect his family is like no. your vibes are randic. fuck off. and obi wan does.