It astounds me how often we fail at being able to comprehend two complex concepts at the same time.
I’ve been seeing this post going around in two forms, about how Rogue One (which I have yet to see, so please NO SPOILERS) has an extreme lack of women (including background characters). That’s a really good, important point to discuss. And then there’s a post bashing that same article, pointing to the fact that the film highlights many non-white men and dismissing the article as white feminism.
No.
Both of these may be correct.
The ability of a film to have great representation for men of different races, creeds, abilities and backgrounds does not for a moment contradict the inability of the film to have adequate representation for women of any race, creed, ability or background.
This is why I hate the “trash fire” all-or-nothing mentality. It cannot cope with the notion that something can be good and bad at the same time, in different corners and contexts. For example: something can be great for racial representation and terrible for LGBTQ+ representation. The former does not automatically make the thing great; the latter does not automatically make the thing terrible. (Key word: automatically.)
Not only that, things can have different meanings to different people based on their different experiences. For someone mixed race Asian-white, a main character like Chloe Bennet’s on Agents of SHIELD may be hugely important. For someone black, the show’s troubling history of killing off most of its black characters may be deeply problematic. Neither is wrong.
Personal experiences shape our interpretations of things. Experiences are not universal. The world is not comprised of absolutes. The stunning lack of women in film (at every layer) intersects, of course, with the stunning lack of non-white people in film (at every layer), but neither is more or less important than the other. (Especially since the doubly stunning lack of non-white women in film is something we should talk about more.) It is not “white feminism” to point out that a film with ten character posters had only one devoted to a (white) woman (even if she is the lead), just because the remaining men are non-white. Nor is it misogynistic to appreciate the film’s focus on (male) non-white heroes.
Well, the problem begins (as problems often do) with comics.
See, comics are a sort of ‘soap opera with capes and tights.’ Comics are ‘fanfic but written by mostly straight white guys who are chosen by other straight white guys.’ Comics are a never ending arms race of suffering, and that’s the problem.
So it’s hard to pin down a character. Because it’s not one character.
Every writer wants to make their mark. They want THEIR version of the character to be the one that people point to and say, “THIS. THIS is the quintessential Hawkeye. THIS is the reason I love Hawkeye.”
Because they’re not going to write the character forever. That’s comics. There’s always someone right behind them, nipping at their heels, someone who wants nothing more, in most cases, then to sweep their careful work aside and make THEIR mark on the character.
There’s not much you can do to stop that from happening. You can write a really good book, you can be clever and creative and still not hit the readership the right way. You can write A GOOD BOOK and you’ll still end up in the trash heap of the 25 cent bin, because the promotion team or the movie schedule or the competitor’s event cycle screwed you over.
It’s much easier to make a lot of noise. To be remembered, rather than beloved. To get people tweeting and talking and protesting and fighting, because that means when you tossed off this book, there’ll be another one waiting for you.
Don’t believe me? I mean, someone keeps giving Nick Spencer new books. (shrug)
So there is no one Hawkeye. The Hawkeye of the early West Coast Avengers has little in common with the Hawkeye of Fraction and Aja’s solo book run. The Hawkeye of the most recent Secret Avengers by Ales Kot would be unrecognizable to the Hawkeye of the Ultimates verse. Movieverse Hawkeye is almost a mirror image of Hawkeye of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
When you love a character, the question is, which one? Because even if you take fandom interpretation and fanon out of the equation, there’s a lot of them to choose from. And while canon feeds fanon, fanon bleeds back into canon.
Describing the character you love takes some effort, some cherrypicking.
For me, it’s this:
On the surface, he’s ordinary. And his awareness of his ordinariness is part of what makes him so extraordinary. He’s raised himself to his current position by sheer force of will and a refusal to stop. He’s bullheaded and snarky and has a chip on his shoulder the size of the island of Manhattan. He’s not as stupid as he thinks he is, and he’s not as good as he believes he is, and both of those facts are a little heartbreaking.
He’s a man who destroyed his own hearing, because he knew if he didn’t, he was going to hurt someone he loved. He’s also a man who entered canon trying to rob Tony Stark, which was universally regarded as a very bad idea, since that’s how a lot of people end up dead.
He’s not a god or a genius or a super soldier.
He is a man who looked at the end of the world, and said, fuck you, I’ve got a COUPLE OF STICKS AND A PIECE OF STRING and I’m still going to KICK YOUR ASS. There is something comforting about that, for most people.
We want to believe, after all, that if push came to shove, if things got bad, then we would stand up. With all the risk, and all the fear, and a very good chance that we would not win, we want to believe, that we would still stand.
So all the other stuff, the ragged ends and the bad choices, the stupid plots and the OOC moments, the embarrassing contradictions in canon and the writers who can’t figure him out or don’t want to bother trying, it melts down to one truth at the core of his character, every time.
He is a man that doesn’t feel too different from you or me. And he stands. He makes bad choices, he screws people over, he ruins relationships and cheats on partners and girlfriends, he does stupid, stupid things, because this is a soap opera, and half the writers don’t remember what the last one did and the other half don’t care.
For all the parts of him I don’t like, he’s still my favorite. Because he shouldn’t be there. He has no place there. He’s outgunned and outflanked. Everyone around him is smarter than him, better trained than him, better equipped than him.
So apparently the Star Wars version of space jazz is called “jizz” and there’s a musical instrument called a “jizz-box” and Threepio auditioned to perform on this instrument at a cantina named (I shit you not) “The Wookie’s Codpiece.”
Thank you, Wookieepedia for…enlightening my day with this information.
Ahem. Honestly, Star Wars.
My series of reactions here: 1. This cannot be real 2. Of course this is real
My reaction:
1. I am not in the least bit surprised this is real.
can we please talk about obi wan fighting savage AND maul at the same time and WINNING i’m???
soresu might not be offensive but holy hell that doesn’t seem to stop obi wan. THAT FANCY FOOTWORK ON SAVAGE’S KNEE THO.
Obi-Wan is all about restraint, partly because if he were ever to jump in and fight all out, he’d completely destroy his opponents. He keeps it all bottled up, partly because he doesn’t want to see himself as this destructive warrior–it’s a part of himself he’s not very comfortable with. I don’t think Maul expected any of that–to be completely honest, he might realize consciously that Obi-Wan’s a Jedi Master now, but emotionally he still thinks of Obi-Wan as a Padawan. This is the moment when Obi-Wan establishes himself not as a lucky freak occurrence, but a very real threat.
(I think that might actually be a hybrid between Ataru, Soresu and Jar’Kai. It doesn’t even have to be Jar’Kai, though–according to Wookieepedia, Ataru has a double-blade variant, which Obi-Wan might be expected to be familiar with. It doesn’t look very much like Ventress’ Jar’Kai, so it’s probably Ataru, which was Obi-Wan’s preferred style as a Padawan. This is where Obi-Wan varies from Ventress–she can’t put an awful lot of force behind her strikes, so she relies on speed and acrobatics. Obi-Wan is just as acrobatic and agile as Ventress, but there’s a lot more power behind his strikes, which, again, looks more like Ataru than Jar’Kai to me. Ataru is a bit more specialized than Niman, which is the discipline from which Jar’Kai is derived from. Ataru is also, primarily, a martial art; it relies on acrobatics, a bit like parkuor, and could easily be adapted for hand-to-hand combat, and with the complicated leaps and turns it involves a lot of legwork. Not to limit this to a certain series of disciplines, because Obi-Wan is experienced in more than just Soresu, Ataru, and Jar’Kai/Niman. I’m just remarking on how this looks like mostly Ataru to me.)
Bottom line: Obi-Wan is much better prepared for a conflict like the Clone Wars than Ventress is.
(Footnote: My sister remarked while I was reading this out, looking for errors, that it sounded like Obi-Wan’s doing some kind of strange ballet. Ummmmmm… sorta? It is a bit like ballet, yes. There’s definitely a series of stances you have to master to prepare your muscles to learn the actual style… yes, it’s a lot like ballet.)
OKAY BUT
Do you ever think about Obi-Wan learning Ataru from Qui-Gon though?
Like… Qui-Gon’s a pretty big person, tall and muscular, someone you’d expect to practice Djem So with its focus on strength and power instead of Ataru which is primarily speed and agility. Like someone with a height and size advantage against most opponents would probably benefit from the heavy swings in Form V.
… You know what he probably learned Ataru just to fuck with his opponents. Let’s be honest here. It would be a classic Qui-Gon Jinn move.
Qui-Gon’s specialty in Ataru just pleases me to no end. Because the man is so massive, a form like Ataru is not what you’d expect. But on the other hand, when someone his size actually masters the form, can you imagine the sheer momentum behind his blade? He’s going to be landing power strikes that don’t look like power strikes, which is just going to further confuse his opponent.
Also let’s be real, besides the fact that this would seriously fuck with an adversary’s ability to predict him, I can only imagine that a refined Makashi master like Dooku would find a form as kinetic and flashy as Ataru downright distasteful. Imagine how frustrated he would have been once he realized his padawan was dead set on fighting like a damn circus performer. And imagine how often Qui-Gon just delighted in pushing that button whenever he could.
(okay this has also got me thinking about young Qui-Gon and why he might have gravitated to this form in the first place. Qui-Gon probably had a super awkward adolescence, growing into that kind of size can leave you all arms and legs of varying confusing proportions for a few years. He might have initially practiced Ataru just to force himself to maintain precise control of his body, to know exactly where his hands and feet are, to know exactly where his center of balance is, and to be perpetually refining his reflexes as his body grows. But, once he hits his full adult size, yeah he could switch to a more ‘appropriate’ form, or he could keep doing what he’s doing. Yeah he’s a giant bear man, but he’s a bear man who managed to practice Ataru during his awkward colt phase, like “Yeah I’m kinda big for this, but I’m gonna be the same big forever now? this is easy” because while Ataru might not normally be designed for someone of his body type, he spent years making it work for his body type, and now he’s created something extremely effective that’s also going to have the bonus of always giving him an element of surprise in battle.)
and then imagine him training poor Obi-Wan and having absolutely no sympathy for the difficulty of the form: “But Master I’m jumping just as high as you are, and I actually hit the platform before you did – Yeah but I’m twice your size, so you better be jumping twice as high and hitting the platform in half the time – D8″
Which brings us back to sheer lethality Obi-Wan can whip out when he wants to. The saber heritage he’s coming from is perfect for the battles he later fights. He’s got all the kinetic energy and athleticism from practicing Ataru for over ten years, but it’s going to be a very refined form of Ataru. Dooku is still going to have insisted that Qui-Gon study some Makashi, which is all about refinement, but Qui-Gon’s particular brand of Ataru (because I am keeping this headcanon) also requires complete awareness of your own body and utter precision in your movements.** And precision is what Soresu is all about.
So, ten years later and Obi-Wan has switched styles and become the master (not a master, the master, as Mace Windu very strongly insisted) of Soresu, a form with an impenetrably tight defense that essentially makes its user untouchable while they wait for the perfect moment to counter-strike. And once Obi-wan does see his moment, BAM out comes these perfectly executed Ataru moves with a surprising amount of force behind them. It also starts showing against opponents that he knows he has to press the offensive with, or when he starts losing some of his perfected self-control. You can see that in his fight with Maul and Savage. I mean, for fuck’s sake look at these gifs [x] His style is radically different in that fight than it normally is, he’s jumping, flipping, twisting all over the place. And a momentum-driven power strike is exactly what he delivers to Savage’s knee there at the end. He’s using Soresu principles to successfully fend off two opponents at once, but this duel is otherwise almost pure Ataru, and it’s vicious.
** and it’s this kind of precise body awareness that lets Obi-wan take one look at an embankment, his opponent’s size and strength, and immediately conclude exactly how high any potential jump or flip will take him, and also allows him to dismember a man mid-spin without touching the rest of him
I forget if this is canon or otherwise but didn’t Obi-Wan learn Soresu because of Ataru’s lack of defensive capabilities?
My personal headcanon aligns with yours perfectly in that Obi’s tactical mindset uses Soresu’s breathing space to analyze the fight and attack the opponent"s weak point!
Like I’ve always seen Obi as not particularly physically strong (not to say that he isn’t strong, just that it’s not something that goes beyond the pale for a Jedi Master e.g. Pong Krell) but someone who waits like a viper for the perfect moment to strike. Couple that with Qui-Gon’s unorthodox training methods and combat styles handed down to him through years of experience and you have an extremely versatile Jedi who adapts perfectly to fights!
(Well. Almost perfectly. Shoutout to Dooku’s absolutely SICK Makashi. Honestly that style just… *fans self*)
Yup that’s canon! (or well, “used to be” technically, but all the EU stuff’s still canon to me so idaf lol) Stover *really* dug into saber forms a lot in his novelization of Revenge of the Sith, and one of the things he talks about is Obi-Wan switching to studying Soresu after Qui-Gon’s death. In general tho, Ataru has very strong offensive capabilities, but all that movement and those big sweeping gestures it uses can leave openings. Openings that against most opponents won’t be a problem, but against another Force sensitive saber duelist? Suddenly those openings can become deadly. I imagine that’s also part of why Obi-Wan switched, not just because he’d seen one of the form’s weaknesses exploited, but because if the Sith really are back, the Jedi aren’t only going to be fighting criminals and warlords with blasters anymore; they need to prepare to be fighting other lightsabers, and the defensive nature of Soresu was how Obi-Wan responded to that. And it’s also in Stover’s book that Windu calls him the master of the style and quite stridently argues that Obi-Wan might be the only Jedi in the Order who can defeat Grievous.
And I totally agree! Obi-Wan is going to be very strong for his size, but he’s still….his size lol. So he makes up for it in other ways, by making sure nobody can touch him until he suddenly strikes, but also by engaging their mind. Obi-Wan turns fights into mental battles as much as physical battles, which is why he talks so damn much when fighting haha. And in that arena, Obi-Wan is without equal, so he can really tip a fight in his favor by coming at his opponent from multiple angles.
And hnnnng Makashi. I really liked that they pushed the dueling/fencing angle of Dooku’s style in the show
Okay okay, but here me out…
After reading all this I want a canon comic/novel/whatever to focus on Dooku training Qui-Gon. All this stuff from lightsaber combat differences (I particularly liked the comment about Dooku wishing his apprentice wouldn’t be jumping around like a circus performer) to the canon fact that both Dooku and Qui-Gon were seen as idealists who butted heads with the Jedi Council.
I’d like something like that. Maybe even get more info on what a Yoda/Dooku apprenticeship was like.
I’d run across a source somewhere that said Ataru was specifically considered a good counter to Makashi. This does make some amount of sense: Makashi is about holding back the opponent until you can disarm them, exploiting an imperfection in their form. Ataru is about a powerful opening burst, which could, when done right, overwhelm a Form II fighter’s reserve. And if it’s Qui-Gon, with enough power in his strokes to fell a mynock? Good luck, Form II, he’ll tire you out before you have a chance with him.
Qui-Gon essentially took Dooku’s strategy and turned it on its head.
My favourite was putting that tidbit with a few I’d picked up from @deadcatwithaflamethrower‘s ReEntry: the fact that, when Qui-Gon’s relationship with his Master was especially rocky, he went to Grandmaster Yoda. And guess what Yoda’s specialty is? Right ye are, Ataru. Yoda, with his smaller size and greater agility, probably ran Padawans ragged if they asked for a lesson. The idea of Yoda teaching Qui-Gon more or less exactly how to be able to stand up against his Padawan really tickles.
I have only one thing to add to this however, Obi-Wan is 5′10. He’s not small omg. He’s just… unfortunately surrounded by lots of tall ass mammoth people who obviously have a wookiee in their family fucking tree. So by the time he gets to 22, he’s got the height and most of the physical strength he’s gonna have for at least a decade or two, to be downright terrifying with Ataru.
And he technically doesn’t even need to be all that strong with an attack. Momentum and energy from a jump can make any strike pretty devastating – this holds pretty true in most martial arts, hand-to-hand or with a weapon. One of the most devastating fights I’ve seen was between this giant hulk of a lad and a slip of a girl who not only used speed for her attacks, but also her momentum. Spinning kicks use your momentum as well speed to basically send your opponent flying if you connect (personal experience btw: it fucking HURTS to get kicked in the jaw damn it).
Ataru is agile as hell and requires a lot of energy, one hell of a load of stamina and the awareness of your body – literally, if you don’t know your body well enough, trying any sort of athletic activity like jump kicks and stuff, literally fucking the most dangerous thing you can do sometimes (again, personal experience).
Obi-Wan’s skill at collating a variety of saber forms and being trained enough in them all that he can combine them literally on the fly is an amazing trait. It’s not something I think is unique to Obi-Wan – Anakin and Mace I imagine were both quite good at switching forms here and there (especially Anakin because no formal training) – but I do think he was literally one of the only Jedi to take it to the extremes because of his fear of watching someone else die in front of him.
I had an interesting series of thoughts at work today.I started off thinking of a solarpunk zombie apocalypse story – society has collapsed, survivours rebuild from the ashes with solarpunk tech and the like while dealing with zombies, marauders, bandits and other threats. I was enjoying the idea until I realised something:
The post apocalypse genre is inherently ableist.
How often do you see disabled people in post apocalypse fiction anyway? Not very – off the top of my head I can think of Eli from The Book of Eli, Tomonaga Ijiro and Joe Muhammad from World War Z (the book) and Davis, Jodie and Jennifer from Dead State. Everyone else, able-bodied and neurotypical, with nary a chronic illness in sight – anyone who isn’t 100% mentally and physically “normal” is left behind or dragged along with reluctance and openly considered “dead weight,” with no consideration given to that person’s skillset or other qualities they might have that could come in handy. Even people with PTSD – a perfectly understandable thing to have after the apocalypse – are often looked down on as being “weak” or “unable to handle it” and are rarely given any decent help or support from those around them.
The entire genre feels like it’s designed with this ableistic outlook in mind and while I acknowledge there is limited realism to it – a lot of people with chronic illnesses or disabilities do need support to work at their best ability, and most post apocalypse settings won’t have anything like this in place which will put many of them at risk – that doesn’t mean we have to drag it all along in our stories with no questioning of why. Just because some may not make it through doesn’t mean every single person who has a condition that isn’t 100% curable is going to vanish with them.
We can do better than stories that tell disabled people that they’ll be better off dead so they don’t drag everyone else down; that tell people with chronic illnesses that they are worthless; that tell people with mental illnesses that they are a drain on resources; that tell the neuroatypical that they are nothing more than liabilities. Even people that stay behind to care for their loved ones who have such a condition are seen as noble but naive and generally condemned by the narrative as unfit to survive unless they leave the person “holding them back.”
Given that (in my opinion) post apocalypse stories are about how we’d like to rebuild society if we had to start over, the fact that disabled and neuroatypical representation is so rare in the stories across this genre says so much about society, and none of it positive. Neuroatypical and non-able bodied people aren’t all magically going to go away just because society has, and their absence in your story just says more about your attitude than about any “harsh realities” of the setting you’ve created.
This is such a great observation, and I definitely think a big part of the appeal of post-apocalyptic fiction for a certain kind of reader and writer is that you get to wipe out huge swaths of human complexity with “They all just die but it’s not eugenics because the zombies did it.”
But I don’t think it has to be that way, and I think a solarpunk approach could be a great way to bring that out. It would be harder to write, sure, because if the nature of a setting is to say “any shortcoming is a justification for letting someone die,” then it’s got to be a much bigger deal to the protagonists to resist that kind of thinking.
But that also makes it a great kind of story to showcase exactly the kind of values it’s often used to condemn: to show a group retrofitting their friend’s wheelchair with a solar powered motor and all-terrain wheels, or using precious power and backpack space to keep a supply of insulin refrigerated, or all learning sign language to accommodate their deaf teammate.
You could show people not failing because they chose compassion over pragmatism — maybe even succeeding because of it. All three of those accommodations have advantages, too: the group member with a powered wheelchair can probably carry more than other group members,* if you’re hauling a fridge you can refrigerate more than just insulin, and sign language is a valuable silent form of communication if you’re in a world filled with hostile zombies.
The important thing is to show groups choosing to stick up for their disabled or neurodivergent** members and not be punished for it. Those group members don’t need to ultimately be the climactic key to success — in fact, that’d probably be a problematic way to take it, because it would end up re-emphasizing the idea that their value comes from their ability to be useful.
But showing them as fully realized contributing characters in the story, whose teammates care about and support them (and vice versa), and showing them all make it out alive, flies in opposition to the ableist nature of apocalyptic fiction.
Of course, fiction where the world as it exists doesn’t have to end for things to start to get better is also important. But I can see a lot of value in post-apocalyptic fiction that isn’t a thinly veiled excuse to start gleefully describing the tragic deaths of everybody not optimally equipped to serve the new libertarian/military grim utopia.
* I’m not actually sure about this point — if anyone reading has personal experience with the physics and practical concerns of using a wheelchair re: carrying capacity, and wants to correct me, please do.
** I know I don’t actually have any examples of neurodivergence in the post. I’m gonna keep thinking about that aspect of this but I don’t have anything atm.
This is all spot-on and speaks to an understanding of the genre I’ve developed, having formerly been part of the problem.
I used to be really into post-apocalyptic fiction, especially zombie-apocalypse settings. I actually had discussions with one of my coworkers about the suitability of our workplace for survival during such an event (conclusion: too many windows, we were probably screwed). From the perspective of where I was in my life at the time, it seemed like a good bit of fun and, hey, if it did happen, at least I’d be ready, right?
Then I became medication-dependent. Now, when I thought about the logistics of survival in a post-apocalyptic situation, I had to consider where the hell I would be getting my anti-androgens and estrogen from. I didn’t think about it before, even though I knew I was trans, because I didn’t realize how fundamentally I needed to be on the right hormones. These meds doesn’t exactly grow on trees, and I’d hardly be the only trans woman who needs the stuff and, well… suddenly it’s not as fun as it used to be.
Moving from one category to the other really soured me on the genre. I still watch it, read it, hell, I even write it, but it doesn’t have the same appeal to me that it used to. I think that’s the problem, really. Cisgender, able-bodied, neurotypical people don’t think about this sort of thing because it doesn’t affect them personally, just like I didn’t think about it when I didn’t think it affected me. To them, survival is a bootstraps thing — if you’re HARD and MAN enough (but not TOO MAN, as Walking Dead’s perfectly shaven ladies helpfully illustrate), you are rewarded with continued life. At least, until the writers decide there’s too many black men on the show and whoops, time for one to get bitten. If you’re not HARD or MAN enough? Well, that’s your own problem!
If we could get post-apocalyptic media to a less relentlessly heteromasculist and individualist place, I think that would improve things immeasurably. Right now it basically exists to soothe the fears of men that they are not, in fact, HARD or MAN enough, and if the world would just give them the chance they could prove it. I don’t think this is the cause of the ablism in the genre, but it sure feeds into it.
All this to say that an inclusive community-oriented solarpunk post-apocalyptic setting sounds amazing and I would read the hell out of it.
Self-reblogging to add that there’s an anthology about this very subject!
“Defying Doomsday is an anthology of apocalypse fiction featuring
disabled and chronically ill protagonists, proving it’s not always the
“fittest” who survive – it’s the most tenacious, stubborn, enduring and
innovative characters who have the best chance of adapting when
everything is lost.
In stories of fear, hope and survival, this anthology gives new
perspectives on the end of the world, from authors Corinne Duyvis, Janet
Edwards, Seanan McGuire, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Stephanie Gunn, Elinor
Caiman Sands, Rivqa Rafael, Bogi Takács, John Chu, Maree Kimberley,
Octavia Cade, Lauren E Mitchell, Thoraiya Dyer, Samantha Rich, and K L
Evangelista.”
It’s going to be out on the 30th of May (two days from now) and you can get it from Twelfth Planet Press or Amazon.
idea: the joker, compelled even against his own interests to do whatever he thinks would be funniest. the joker may be a sadist with a really shitty sense of humor but even he knows a high-quality punchline when he sees one. his obsession with batman is rooted in batman’s unfailing ability to trick the joker into a better gag that gets him captured. the joker gets chased into a room with plenty of really great hiding places and escape routes, but also a slender pole in the middle of the room. he has to hide behind the fucking pole. he’s gotta. how can he not go for the hiding behind a pole gag. there’s three doors but there’s also a joker-shaped hole in the wall that will make it look like he broke through the wall. it’s a four-story drop into a bakery dumpster full of pies. the joker is obsessed with batman because deep in his heart he knows that batman is actually funnier than he is but instead he spends his time standing on rooftops in the rain being a stoic piece of shit. the joker is salieri, and batman is a mozart that decided to go into carpentry.
ok but at what point did Qui-Gon realize he’d said “The Queen doesn’t need to know” to the actual Queen.
at what point in the battle planning did Padme very deadpan say to him, “the council doesn’t need to know?” or something like that
at what point did Qui-Gon realize that under no circumstances should Obi-Wan and Padme be allowed to become friends because they will sass him to death
at what point did the young Queen realize she and Qui-Gon were saltmates
In the novelization, he knew the whole time. He knew he was looking Queen Amidala directly in the eye while telling her the queen doesn’t need to know. Qui-Gon Jinn hasn’t given a single fuck in fifty years.
I know the idea about Obi-Wan being called Sith Killer (or Sith Slayer, perhaps?) has been done before but what about this:
After Naboo, Obi-Wan becomes known as the Sith Killer in the Order. It makes him uncomfortable but he can’t get people to stop calling him that; even before he had killed Maul, he had already defeated two Darksiders (Xanatos and Bruck) so after this, his status as that really cool, badass Jedi to emulate just skyrockets, especially among the newly Knighted and all the Padawans and Initiates. It’s also pretty clear from the fire in his eyes that he is deadset on finding the other Sith. Other young Knights are eager to help – it starts with his friends Bant, Garen, and Reeft: Whenever they’re on a mission, they also look for clues about Dark Side activity; sometimes they’ll follow up on those leads after their official Council-assigned mission ends and then hand that information to Obi-Wan, who’s compiling them. More and more Knights and even young Masters start doing that. Soon, Obi-Wan unofficially is the head of the Sith Hunting Task Force.
Anyway, so Anakin becomes known as the Padawan of the Sith Killer, not the Chosen One (how many Jedi even knew that Qui-Gon thought he was the Chosen One? He only told the Council about it, after all, not made a general Temple-wide announcement). The Jedi are a little flummoxed at first about Obi-Wan taking on a non-Temple raised Padawan but then they’re like, okay, well, this is the Sith Killer. If he wants to do things differently, who are we to tell him no? It’s not like any of us have encountered, fought, or defeated a Sith. And maybe that’s even the better way to do things??? Bringing on people who have life experience outside the Order so they can bring new ideas in?
Every time Anakin does things that they don’t expect, or show more emotion and passion than they’re taught to allow, they’re just like….well, he is the Sith Killer’s Padawan. Obviously the Sith Killer is teaching him differently. Maybe this is how Obi-Wan was able to kill a Sith himself???
(Some enterprising Padawan managed to get their hands on the footage of the fight from Naboo and they all watched it. Obi-Wan was obviously feeling a lot of anger and fear during his fight, and then he calmed himself at the end and managed to defeat his opponent. So Emotions, then peace becomes the new motto for this generation of apprentices.)
Everyone starts trying to befriend Anakin. All the other Padawans start trying to be more like him. He’s passionately speaking out about slavery? Well, they will too then. Obviously, slavery is an evil that will lead people to Fall. It should be stopped. He talks openly about his attachment to his mother? Well, attachment must be okay then. (And they remember from that video that Obi-Wan was obviously very attached to Qui-Gon so there’s another point in favor of attachments.)
Some overly enthusiastic Padawan also hacks into the Temple records and finds out about Obi-Wan’s fights with Bruck as an Initiate. And everyone’s like, even then, he must have somehow known that Bruck was going to Fall. So people all try to avoid getting into fights with Anakin cuz like, if they do, does that mean that they’re going to Fall? Anakin’s the Sith Killer’s Padawan, after all. There must be something special about him. What if he too can tell when someone’s gonna Fall and that’s why he’s fighting with them?
So that’s how Obi-Wan and Anakin inadvertently change the Order. The Council starts noticing that something’s changing but they can’t manage to stop it or reverse it. The younger Knights, Padawans, and Initiates have stopped thinking of them as the all-knowing wise senior members of the Order and started seeing them as the old guard clinging to outdated traditions – none of them have ever fought a Sith or seen one in person, after all. Few of them even go on missions anymore. They just sit in their tower handing out assignments and reprimanding Jedi for not following their Code.
I’ve been thinking about this some more and I feel like the logical next step for a group of Padawans intent on ending slavery and emulate the Sith Killer is to of course sneak off to Tatooine and free the slaves. After all, Obi-Wan didn’t talk about defeating the Sith; he just did it. He hadn’t just talked about helping out the Young on Melida/Daan, he did help them. The Sith Killer takes action to right wrongs and fight evil, he doesn’t just preach about the wrongs.
It takes awhile for the small group of them to all have leave at the same time so it’s not until Anakin’s around 13 that they’re able to sneak off of Coruscant and to Tatooine. They have something of a plan – Anakin’s been thinking of ways to free the slaves for as long as he can remember; having the unplanned but welcome addition of several Force users should make it even easier.
Anyway, they manage to start a slave revolution (how I haven’t yet figured out) and after, the Council is livid. They reprimand the Padawans severely but the Padawans find that it’s hard to regret what they had done when there’s thousands of freed slaves thanking them for helping them and tearfully reuniting with family and being so happy and relieved that they don’t have to live in fear of their lives.
When the Council finally asks them why they had done it, the Padawans are just like “It’s what Master Kenobi would have done.”
Mace’s eye twitches.
The Council reprimanding the Padawans for starting the slave revolution might do more harm than good, in the long run. The Padawans say that it’s what Obi-Wan would have done, but they also know that it was the right thing to do. The Jedi Order is famed for breaking the Zygerrian’s slave empire and once having no tolerance for slavery, but now the Jedi Council is bleating about politics and the problems caused by the breaking of the Hutts’ stranglehold over Tatooine?
“So…” one Padawan, a Twi’lek girl of about fifteen, says slowly with a steely sharp gaze, “you’re saying that it’s better to leave thousands of people in bondage to preserve political and economic stability than to free those people and end the barbaric practice enslaving sentient beings?”
There is dead silence in the Council chambers.
This is when Obi-Wan decides that if he’s going to be a role model to these Padawans, despite his personal feelings on the matter, he may as well try to make sure they learn a few things. (And possibly avert a mutiny among the Jedi, but that’s honestly a lesser consideration right now.) “The question is not whether slavery is conscionable,” he tells the Padawan regarding the Council with a mulish eye. “The question is whether freeing the slaves this way has destabilized the region so much that they are in further danger. Do they have sufficient resources, in the form of food, water, housing, and transportation? What about medical supplies, or access to medical training? Do they have the means to protect themselves from retaliation by their former captors? Is there a legal framework in place to prevent their further exploitation?
If they choose to emigrate, do they have the documentation to do so?”
He has their attention now. Some of this isn’t new, it’ll have been discussed in their courses, but some of it only time in the field can teach.
“There are other questions to consider,” he says, ignoring the eyes of the Council as everyone in the room stares at him. “For example, how likely is it that former slaves will strike against their captors, furthering the bloodshed? Is the conflict resolved, or is it waiting for the merest excuse to break out again?”
The Padawans consider this, glancing among each other. “Then,” one says, a humanoid boy going through his growth spurt, all legs and arms, “the problem is that we didn’t plan thoroughly enough.” He nods, then turns it into a little bow, one that’s quickly copied by the others. “Thank you, Master Kenobi, for the lesson. We will not make that mistake again.”
Anakin, tucked among the other Padawans, is smiling at his master.
Obi-Wan smiles back and then addresses the group again. “Again? Yes, that’s very well and good. But I don’t believe you’re quite done with this time.” At everyone’s questioning glances – the Padawans curious, the Council’s dismayed – he arches his brow. “Well, you’ve freed the people of Tatooine. That’s only half the battle. Now, you must help them build infrastructure. So. Who will go back to Tatooine to help with this task? Anakin and I will go, of course. Who else?”
Every Padawan in the group raises their hand eagerly.
And so for the next year, they get hands-on experience working with the freed slaves on Tatooine helping them set up their government. (Anakin spends his free time with his mother. Obi-Wan spends his hunting down leads on the Sith in the Outer Rim.)
Yoda starts hearing Qui-Gon’s force ghost just like in the Clone Wars, but this time it’s just hysterical laughter and “I can’t believe you thought my padawan would be traditional BHAHAAHAHA!!!”
Anakin pushes and manages to get Shmi made the new senator for Tattoine. With her on Coruscant most of the time, they see each other frequently. She and Padme become best friends, and Palpatine never manages to win Anakin over because he already has friends and family to confide in.
The war does start, but Dooku refuses to take part. He’s still not willing to rejoin the Jedi Order, but he doesn’t feel the need to destroy them. They seem to be going in the right direction, and it’s a fitting memorial to his padawan that Obi-Wan is leading all the younglings down the path of Grey Jedi. Without Dooku and Ventress to keep people in line the Separatists fall apart fairly fast, especially since there are a lot of hardcore badasses from Tattooine MORE than happy to join up with the Republic forces.
Obi-Wan’s padawan followers all fall in love with the Clones, and make sure they’re all able to leave the military if they want to and they all have dual citizenship on Tattooine and Naboo. Several turn out to be highly force-sensitive, and they get adopted into the Order. The Council tries to object, but Obi-Wan points out that, due to the accelerated growth on Kamino, the Clones technically fall within the age limit.
Jango Fett, seeing that his clones are being treated well and carrying on a (highly modified) form of his people’s culture, finally forgives the Jedi and disappears into the Outer Rim rather than engaging in any more wars.
Between Dooku’s warming toward the Order and Jango Fett’s forgiveness, it suddently becomes A LOT easier for Obi-Wan and co. to track down the Sith Lord. Palpatine dies in a mysterious “accident” two weeks later.
At some point, Maul also has to get taken care of again. And hopefully permanently this time. And perhaps Dooku will still train Ventress, but not in the Dark. I can’t remember what issues Jango had with the Order, though, that he needed to forgive them?
Anyway, also adding these tags from @jahaliel, whose reblog I have been meaning to reblog for the longest time:
Yes, definitely some of the Council and older Masters help out. It starts with the ones whose Padawans want to follow Obi-Wan and Anakin to Tatooine after freeing the slaves because of course, their Masters would accompany them and they probably end up setting up a temporary remote Temple there since there’s so many of them there and they need a place to stay and gather and meditate and continue with classes and training.
And I don’t know that it’s necessarily the “doing good” piece that’s important for public opinion so much as it is being more visible, so that the public understands them more and doesn’t think of them as scary mysterious enforcers of the Republic law who have superpowers and can’t be killed and can make you do whatever they want you to do.
– where Puck isn’t just trolling everyone, but is legitimately the most powerful and dangerous person in the story?
They do everything for their ‘master’. They’re the one to ‘put a girdle ‘round the earth in forty minutes’. They’re the one who switches Bottom’s head out for a donkey’s. They’re the one who waylays the lovers and gets them all together so the love square can be resolved. They’re the only one doing magic, getting things done. And yes, it’s all under Oberon’s direction but,
imagine if, when Oberon snaps “Helena of Athens, look now, find!”
Puck turns and stares at him, maybe gets right in his face with that unblinking look, and says quite quietly “I go, I go, look how I go; swift as an arrow from the tartar’s bow.”
And, having reminded Oberon exactly who has the power here, they step back, dismiss him and walk calmly off, leaving Oberon very shaken.
Steel Phoenix Studios 