Made with love, hyperfixation, and a pinch of mental illness
23 posts
Stream-of-thought - All Things Prequels - Tumblr Blog
Life is so much sweeter when I choose to read fanfics about palpatine dying
Delegation of 2000 save me, delegation of 2000 save me, save me delegation of 2000
Luke Skywalker not only carried on the Jedi legacy from Obi-Wan, but also the responsibility of serving looks.
Watching the generational trauma be passed down through Dooku, Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan, Anakin, Ashoka, and Luke is so heartbreaking. Every dysfunction in one relationship can be traced by to the earlier one.
One of my favorite niches in the Star Wars fandom is Eldritch Abomination Skywalkers
Nobody made Anakin Skywalker fall.
He had a horrible life, yes. He grew up a slave, his mom died, the man who freed him died, the Jedi Council initially rejected him, Palpatine groomed him, Ashoka left the order, Obi-wan faked his death, he participated in a civil war.
All of this is absolutely horrible, traumatizing stuff and he no doubt had depression, raging bpd, and C-PTSD. However, none of that was an excuse commit multiple genocides, kill children, commit countless war crimes, choke out his pregnant wife, enforce galaxy wide tyranny, blow up a planet, and cut his sons hand off.
You don’t kill billions of people because you have untreated and unacknowledged trauma. You do it because you choose to.
He was a grown man. He could have gotten mental help, could’ve left the Jedi, could’ve rejected Palpatine, could have accepted the help of his loved ones (Obi-Wan and Padme). He could’ve have made different choices.
This isn’t an Anakin hate post though. He had good qualities. He was brave and loyal and clever and he loved deeply. But even before he became Darth Vader we saw that he was also cruel and selfish and arrogant. He told Padme that he didn’t believe in democracy. Anakin felt if everybody would just let him run things, then everything would be better. And that really is the center of his character. If Obi-Wan, if Padme, if the Jedi, had just let him run things and stop undermining and regulating him than he could fix everything.
He truly believed that everybody else was the problem not him. Additionally, his loyalty and deep love for others more often than not was unhealthy. He killed all the Tusken Raiders for his mother and killed the Jedi for Padme. His only moral compass was his loved ones and he was angry when they didn’t love him in the same way. Didn’t understand why they would be upset when he did it for them. Didn’t understand why they wouldn’t do the same for him.
At the heart of his character is Darth Vader. Anakin Skywalker didn’t become him, he was always him. That’s why I believe that even if he had a different master, if his mother hadn’t died, if the war hadn’t happened, and even if he didn’t fall in love with Padme that he would’ve fallen anyways. Those event exacerbated his issues, but they didn’t cause his selfishness or cruelty or narcissism.
He was a vivacious young boy, but he was a selfish, selfish boy.
I love that no one knows what color Obi-Wan Kenobi’s hair is. Is it blonde, brown, ginger, somewhere in between?? No one knows, not even Disney.
Reminder: Darth Sidious is canonically the ONLY Sith Lord/apprentice/darksider not obsessed with Obi-Wan Kenobi
Xanatos, Maul, Ventress, Grievous, Darth Vader, Dooku, and Savage Opress were coo coo for Cocoa Puffs about him
His locks were simply too luscious and his one liners too annoying
hot take: I don’t like The Mandolorian series
WHY DID THEY HAVE TO RUIN HIS CHARACTER!??
me whenenever I remember that disney took legacy character luke 'when given an ultimatum between being a proper jedi and loving my friends, I chose my friends.' 'love brought my father back to the light in the final moments of his life' 'was successful not because I followed the code but bc I followed my heart' skywalker and turned him into a disillusioned and hardened old man who even mark hamill did not recognize, who turned his back on everyone he loved and made the same mistakes as the jedi before him. luke skywalker would not leave the galaxy in a time of crisis (genocidal maniac kylo) unless he was trapped/forced to, would not turn his back on rey even for a moment, and would not force a baby (grogu) to choose between being a jedi and having the love of his father (mando)
Count Dooku is a Shithead, but not for the reason you think:
So count Dooku was Qui-Gon Jinn’s master, but they were estranged because of very different personalities and outlooks, but Jinn was still his kid, so he very obviously cared for him
In fact, Qui-Gon’s death was the catalyst for Dooku leaving the order bc he had lots of critiques of the Jedi order (overly political, ineffective, hypocritical, not true to the code), but after Qui-gon died he was like “why bother?”
Which is my problem. Like sir, your grandchild is still perfectly alive and desperately in need of your help. His master is dead and he now has a traumatized child to raise while extremely traumatized himself. Qui-gon is dead, BUT YOUR GRANDCHILD IS RIGHT THERE?!?
No, instead of belong obi wan and offering support, he just dips
Maul is an absolute icon and here’s why:
He’s like a cockroach, he just won’t die. Partly due to him being a Zabrack, but also because the man ran on spite. Bisected and fell to your presumed death? Walk it off bc you still have people to kill. He lived into the Rebels series??? Iconic
He fought against the Jedi yeah, but he ended up fighting the empire. Not bc he had a moral code, but just bc he had personal beef with palpatine.
He was extremely obsessed with Kenobi, which is relatable.
All of his speeches about how the republic was dead and it couldn’t be saved, that there was no republic left were absolutely correct.
Sequels Rant
Rey was absolutely not the issue in the sequels, she was the best part.
They should have focused more on the new trio: Rey, Poe, and Finn.
They should have followed through on the hunting about Finn being force sensitive (HE WIELDED A FUCKING LIGHTSABER?!?)
The whole point of the sequels was that anyone can be a hero, doesn’t have to be a crazy force dynasty (ex. Skywalkers), so it was very important to the narrative that Rey be no one, abandoned by scavenger parents. That was necessary, and by making her part of a blood dynasty (a Palestine), they ruined the point that Rey, coming from nowhere and no one, was still the hero.
Having her take the Skywalker name wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t powerful. It would’ve been cool if it was in a “I’ve chosen my own family” way if they had leaned more heavily into Luke and Leia being her family, not just mentors.
Kyle Ren was a poorly written antagonist. Other than having Snoke whispering to him, there was no real reason for him to be a maniac sith. Anakin Skywalker made horrible choices, but his descent into madness was understandable (BUT NIT JUSTIFIABLE!!) and I’m not saying Kyle Ren needed an entire trilogy to expand on why he became a sith, but there was zero effort to explain why. Also, he wasn’t scary enough. He felt like a cheap knock off of Darth Vader, but lacking any of the rage and grief that Vader had. Even in the original trilogy, without knowing the backstory, Vader was scary as fuck. Kyle Ren was just uninteresting, underdeveloped, and not scary. He could’ve been an interesting contrast to Rey (coming from nowhere and becoming the hero) as the villain who came from the Skywalker but still became the villain, but the directors weren’t bold enough in making him evil.
Also it’s so unrealistic for Luke to attack Ben bc he had a bad dream. This is the man who looked at his father, a genocidal maniac who killed his mentor, blew up his sisters planet, and cut off his arm, and said “I can fix him”.
Kylo Ren and Rey’s romance was pure fan service. It had potential, but instead of building emotional tension and connections, the directors relied too heavily on pure physical attraction between the actors. As a supposed force dyad, they should’ve had an intense bond, not a few conversations and eye contact. The kiss at the end undermined the force dyad as well, bc force dyads are meant to be a soul connection, not a physical one. Having their foreheads touch together would have been more touching, but they gave into fans demands.
I did really like the Kylo Ren’s actual name was Ben though. We know him as Obi-Wan Kenobi, but to Leia, the man who rescued her when she was 10 and to Luke, the man who taught him the ways of the force and looked out for him, and to Han, the old man who sacrificed himself so they could get away, wasn’t Obi-Wan. He was Ben.
I don’t even have to say anything about the piss poor palpatine plot line.
In conclusion, the directors weren’t bold enough and they didn’t have a clear image of what they wanted to say with the trilogy, so despite a lot of potential, the movies fell flat. The first one was great though!
Before Qui-Gon Jinn died, he used Ataru and had passed down his mastery to his Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Ataru which relies on acrobatics, offense, quick movements, and unpredictability. Ataru which lacks defense, which Qui-Gon Jinn does using.
After Naboo, Obi-Wan Kenobi switches from the lightsaber form Ataru to Soresu.
Soresu is the Endurance form. It is an unpopular form amongst younglings because it is pure defense. They don’t understand how they can win using it. They’re right. You can’t win using Soresu, that’s not why it was made.
It is the form of survival, not winning. It is meant for the user to endure suffering, endless suffering and still stand. A Soresu master will never be struck down for lack of defense.
Obi-Wan Kenobi refuses to leave his Padawan masterless.
Satine on her way to commit cultural genocide
Melida/Daan: The Legend of Ben
Ben is among the oldest of all the young at 13.
At 13 he soothes the fevers of the littlest who have never had enough strength or food or love, he holds up buildings that should collapse and kill them all (yet he does not do so with his strength for he is scrawny like them, weak like them. He doesn’t even touch the wood) finds water sources that are impossible to see, shoots steady even when his hands shake (as if guided by something, as if he is not entirely himself but something other, something more).
He calls it the force, they call it Ben.
At 13 he becomes a legend.
Legends aren’t born, but made in the desperate tunnels full of dying children. They say he appeared one day from the sky, that when his elders left, he refused to. That he was not born on the bloody battlefields of hate, but that he stayed because he saw them, felt with them, heard their song. He stayed when the Jedi left.
The children see how he balanced Cersai and Nield (love and hate, peace and war, water and fire). They see how the three click into place, Melida and Daan and Other. They wonder if maybe there was always an empty spot between them, waiting to be filled. Wonder if that is how this war started. Wonder if between every Melida and every Daan there is a space for something Other.
No one remembers how the war started, only that it did. Maybe there used to be a third faction, maybe something other (something more, something Ben) and when it died or left there was nothing left to bridge the Melida and the Daan.
Ben is sure as the earth, light as the air (only because they cannot hear him cry at night). He is a contradiction. He says strange things and does the impossible. Sometimes he glows with something else (something more).
He is remembered as the one who stayed (no one will say where he went). He is remembered as the Other between all Melida and all Daan.
There is an empty seat in every house. An empty seat in the Trivumate, waiting to be filled. Outside historians call it the Absent Third Phenomena— they are not sure why it is (they do not want to dig deeper, dig into the bloody history, tear their secrets and traditions and culture from the rotting bodies of child soldiers. they do not want to know). In Melida/Daan there is a word that is untranslatable that describes it, A’Benui. It is sacred. It is told to every child too young to remember the sewers, told by every Young that was touched by Ben (his something other).
(The Melida-Daan don’t know this, but somewhere else in the galaxy Obi-Wan Kenobi leads his second army of child soldiers and wonders if he was meant for anything else. Wonders if they see the cracks and uncertainty and self loathing; the first ones hadn’t. He wonders if they would be ashamed of him now, fighting, bleeding, warring, killing even now. Wonders if he will ever know peace or if he will always be a false legend made from blood and tears and a need to believe.)
13 yr old obi wan on his way to engage guerrilla warfare against his fellow child soldiers parents who are trying to kill them all:
*Luke traveling back in time and meeting the Jedi Council*
Luke, describing being trained by Yoda: I miss that crazy old gremlin
The council: *going into shock at the description of their grandmaster*
We need an animated series about Luke and Leia in the aftermath of the Return of the Jedi where they learn how to be siblings
Obi-Wan Kenobi is the pinnacle of catholic guilt
There’s a difference between the best Star Wars movie and your favorite
example:
The best is objectively (do not argue) The Empire Strikes Back
My favorite is the dumpster fire of the Phantom menace