i can’t stop thinking about a parallel star wars universe where the twins got swapped at birth. jedi-farmgirl leia skywalker! rebel-prince luke organa!
i’m not overly protective of star wars but when people say to watch the prequels first for story purposes I cringe because no no no you gotta watch it 4 5 6 1 2 3 okay
THANK YOU
actually
and I recognise this may be controversial
you gotta watch it 4 5 1 2 3 6
yeah read that again
I am saying you gotta watch the prequels after Empire
here’s why:
you get the backstory on Vader immediately after the ‘I am your father’ reveal
you get to drag out the suspense of Han being frozen in carbonite
you don’t immediately ruin the impact of Vader as a villain by starting out with what an awful whiner Anakin was
you also don’t leave Return on the Jedi on a confusing note of ‘wait who the hell is that other ghost’ if you watch the original trilogy in its entirety before hitting the prequels
you aren’t left feeling shitty by ending your marathon on Revenge of the Sith and instead get to close out with the potentially insipid but undoubtedly joyous celebration at the end of the Battle of Endor
basically if you’re going to include the prequels at all you need to incorporate them as a mid-story flashback
okay that’s all
i watched star wars for the first time in the 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6 order and let me tell you, imho, that is the absolute best way to get the story out of th emovies.
it makes return of the jedi that much more poignant and good and like spook says, doesn’t leave on your final marathon note being revenge of the goddamn sith
mace windu and anakin skywalker: lessons, in trust and other things
In
another world, Obi Wan has to leave for a mission after Naboo. He agrees to go
only after the council promises to let him train Anakin, and only because he
sees that a battlefield—another one, at least—is no place for a young boy to
start his training. He tells Anakin before leaving, and Anakin waits.
In
another world, Mace sees Anakin sitting on the steps that line one of the
larger training rooms. The boy is quiet, intensely focused on the training
droid ten feet away, eyes not even glancing down as his fingers fly over the
programming tablet. The droid is holding a staff, like the one Obi Wan
described to the council when he came home without a master. The sabers are
blue, but the movements make it obvious whose technique Anakin is so determined
to learn and defeat.
Mace
shifts and Anakin looks up, fingers already stuttering to a hesitant standstill
over the pad, mouth already opening on unsure words: to apologize, to explain.
To defend before attacked.
In
another world, Mace sees a young boy spending the few moments he has to himself
selflessly, for a man he’s known for a handful of days at best, and only after
he has completed what is expected of him. Mace sees an initiate who will need
to forge a unique path among the jedi, and he remembers the way he too, in a sense, had made his own way in the Order. In another world, Mace senses this boy’s
tumultuous fear, and remembers how hard, how differently, he’d worked to get
through his own.
He steps
inside, closes the door behind him, and tells Anakin to add another lunge at
end of the program’s third attack. This is how they start: small steps, and
smaller words. It’s enough.
Mace does
not train Anakin, but he helps.
In
another world, when Mace Windu sees inside the heart of a newly freed slave
child who has suffered too much, he breathes in and thinks, shatterpoint. Mace, who has seen the ugly scars left by slavery and
imprisonment in the outer rim, knows Anakin needs more than what the old set ways of
the jedi will give him. His
compassion outweighs his caution, and he teaches Anakin how to work with the
things inside him that the jedi warn against.
In another world, Mace Windu does not give into the council’s
fear.
He
remembers that sometimes hatred, too, is a right, one they cannot thoughtlessly
strip from a boy who grew up with the threat of a chip ready to explode inside
him. He teaches Anakin how to channel the fear and anger and cracked bits of
hate, how to use their own energy to loop them away, and eventually, how to
catch and direct that darkness in a fight.
It’s like
winding up thread, Anakin
says once. You have to wrap it so
it doesn’t tangle when you pull it out again. I used to do that for my mom,
sometimes. Mace blinks. It is not
inaccurate, and Mace tells him so. Anakin smiles, carefully proud. He doesn’t
hold his mother’s memories territorially close to his chest yet, and in another
world, it isn’t Mace who makes him start.
He feels
Anakin’s attachments, sees Yoda’s narrowed eyes, and decides there are enough
masters to tell the boy to let go. He focuses on teaching Anakin what he knows
best. Anakin still trains in Shien So, but in another world, he has more than a working
knowledge of Vaapad, too.
In
another world, Mace’s soft spot for younglings and new padawans is not lost to
the war.
Mace Windu’s guidance is not that of master over apprentice,
but it is enough. It is enough to loosen the knot of mistrust choking young
Anakin’s every thought in front of the council, and it is enough to slacken Obi
Wan’s mercilessly demanding standards for himself in front of Anakin. Anakin
finds someone to remind him that his master is young and new and imperfect and
will not begrudge Anakin his weaknesses or differences, and Obi Wan finds someone
to remind him that his apprentice is young and new and imperfect and will only
find comfort in Obi Wan’s own uncertainty.
Mace and Anakin. In another world, theirs is a relationship
of distant, reluctant affection. There’s a genuine bond between them, but it’s
quiet, left unsaid. Mace leaves the voicing of such things to Obi Wan. Obi Wan,
no longer solely responsible for teaching Anakin Skywalker, finds it much
easier to voice them.
Small
things change. During the Clone Wars, when Mace thanks Artoo, Anakin still has
something to say. But instead of that’s
more than I ever got, it’s a thank you and a smile? That means
he really likes you. Mace still shakes his head and looks away. But this time there’s
amusement in the tension at the corner of his mouth, and Anakin knows how to
read it. Small things change, and those changes add up.
In another world, Mace Windu trusts Anakin. He talks with
Anakin about seeing further than most, and being unsure what to do, which path
to take. Anakin still dreams of his mother, still returns fissured and aching
from Geonosis and Tatooine. Mace does not understand completely, but he
listens. He respects Anakin’s loss—his sacrifice—and he trusts Anakin’s grief. It is enough.
In another world, Anakin trusts Mace. That trust means Anakin isn’t afraid to
talk to Obi Wan, even when it seems there isn’t enough time, about his past and
his mother and his weaknesses, about Padme and Dooku and all those moments
when something terrible tried to unfurl in his chest. In another world, one day
Anakin trusts Mace with these things too.
In another world, Anakin Skywalker and Mace Windu know that
they will never agree completely, but they do not arrange these differences
into a minefield between them.
Mace sees the more shadowed parts of the Force become still
with anticipation when Anakin and the Chancellor meet. In another world, he
lays out his fears in front of Anakin, discusses them with Anakin as equals.
Mace acknowledges his own attachment to the republic, how his faith is
breaking, how he houses a weaker echo of the same monstrous fear as Anakin.
Anakin, already intimately familiar with the tangled threads of Force visions
and shatterpoints and gifted sight, listens. He listens, and because he is
trusted, he doesn’t need to stay.
In another world, Anakin still grabs Mace’s hand, desperate
for a right answer in this maelstrom of wrong wrong wrong—
Mace still asks where Anakin has been injured, still asks
what’s wrong, still puts an arm around his shoulders and helps him sit. But the
concern runs deeper this time around. Anakin still falls apart in front of
Mace, still shakes with the burden of too many stars and people, still
struggles to articulate his discovery of the sith when all his voice wants to
do is scream and scream and scream.
But this time: when Anakin Skywalker begs for answers, Mace
pauses to give them. It is a handful of moments, it is years of trust, of
respect. It is hours and days and months spent together in the training rooms,
it is instance after instance of their pain and anger and attachment, all
spoken out loud and addressed and smoothed. It is enough.
It is not Obi Wan’s presence, but it is enough to hold the
tide.
In another world, in an office with huge windows and too high
a fall, Mace tells Anakin not to listen, and Anakin doesn’t. Anakin tells Mace
to have faith, and Mace does. It is enough. It is more than enough.
Mace
Windu brings change to the Jedi Council, in another world. He learns from Anakin, in this; tradition will only carry them so far, will only tide them over so long, will not do what open arms can do. Mace learns to let go. He relaxes his too-tight grip on the past, and
the Force breathes easier for it. He argues with old friends, pushes for new
thought, for revision, for softer judgement. The Order, too,
breathes easier. It becomes a different kind of home for its newest
members, who were raised in a war-torn world, whose lives and families are
already too full of sacrifice to ask for more.
In
another world, when a boy with burning dreams and too much in his heart puts
his trust in the jedi, they do what they were always meant to do: they make him
family.
Anakin
Skywalker passes on Mace’s lessons to countless others. And his own lessons,
too. It’s about time someone
started a new form, Mace tells
Obi Wan as they watch Anakin smile and adjust a young padawan’s stance. I was getting bored.
In another world, Mace Windu sees a scared, hurting child
unsure of his place, and he does what the jedi were always meant to do: he
brings him peace.
Kylo Ren had a shitty deadbeat dad who decided to be a smuggler than be there for his kid and a mom who wasn’t a princess or a senator but a general. Kid probably grew up in a war zone. Safe to say his childhood was far from fucking privileged.
Anakin’s reaction to any adversity in his life is to murder every single man woman and child in his path and then blame entire groups of people for his problems. Wife gonna die in childbirth? Good enough reason to fucking murder a bunch of kids.
Kylo has so far on screen killed one person. Had great hesitation to do it. And frankly is an action I’ve thought about a bunch. I think kids of deadbeat dads have all thought about fucking killing your deadbeat dad.
All of your Kylo facts is actually fiction. Nothing you say here is supported by fact. Kylo Ben fans are tripping.
He also killed more than one person on screen. We saw him specifically murder Lor San Tekka and Han Solo on screen. Both unarmed old men.
We saw him order the slaughter of a village which had already been subdued. Every death that his troops caused in compliance with that order is on his head.
We saw him lead the invasion of two planets: Jakku and Takodana. The First Order is not a legitimate government of either planet. Any deaths that occurred during that invasion are on him too.
While he didn’t give the order to blow up the Hosnian system, (BILLIONS DEAD) he willingly assisted the people who did. Moreover, he willingly continued to protect the weapon when their victims attempted to prevent further use. Moreover, he knew it was being aimed at his MOTHER at the time.
He abducted a civilian woman and repeatedly assaulted her. He tortured her as well. He tortured an enemy combatant. He assaulted and attempted to murder a young man who had been enslaved by the First Order.
He is complicit in the abduction, indoctrination, abuse and enslavement of Finn and every other Stormtrooper. The movie makes it clear that he knows the nature of the program and does not object except to suggest clones would be more efficient.
Even if Kylo’s childhood was as described (which it was not, as proven by the Aftermath trilogy and Bloodlines) that is not a valid excuse for any of his crimes. And while I am not much of an Anakin sympathizer, the fact remains that, at this point in time, he has been established to have an objectively worse backstory, which is a valid basis to compare and contrast even though it does not excuse his crimes.
And in the end, Anakin still had to die for his crimes. He did not get a forgiven by everyone, happily ever after with his kids ending. The love he got from his son was still with the mournful understanding that the darkness inside of him was terrible and still his responsibility, not excused by his backstory. He wasn’t offered free forgiveness, he was challenged to be better because he’d established on a number of occasions he had a line he wouldn’t cross. “You couldn’t bring yourself to destroy me before.” is what Luke told him.
Kylo crossed that line. Kylo was furthermore offered several chances to at least establish a line by maybe taking Lor San Tekka alive (but he killed him), maybe just leaving the subdued and not a threat village (but he had them kill everyone), maybe ignoring the girl in the woods (but he kidnapped her), maybe turning the other way while Hux tried to identify the runaway stormtrooper (instead he identified him), maybe if not taking Han’s offer to go home just turning around and leaving his father alive (but he killed him) and he didn’t. Vader at least didn’t go out of his way to be more of an asshole than he had to to get the job done, Kylo enthusiastically threw himself into murder and mayhem, volunteering to go that extra step.
Anakin’s backstory isn’t what got him a redemption arc. It was the little moments when Vader was not entirely fucking evil. Not killing extra people, for example. It wasn’t his previous pain, it was that little tiny spark of goodness he very occasionally indulged, that Luke sensed when they connected minds, that saved Anakin in the end. Anakin’s horrible backstory is only there to explain why that little spark of goodness could still exist, because he was once a genuinely good person and he went to Hell on that path of good intentions, but he still had something that he valued enough that he could drag himself out of the Pit to save.
Kylo is specifically designed and presented as NOT valuing that same thing that Anakin valued. He wants to kill his uncle, he didn’t lift a finger to save his mother, he killed his own father. Desire for power had led Anakin down the Road to Hell, but we knew from the confrontations with Luke that that desire for power did not override his desire for family. Kylo has several lines that establish he wants to be as dark as possible so that he can attain and surpass Vader’s power level. In the movie, he kills his own father to achieve that goal. In the backstory of the movie, he’s establish to have destroyed his Uncle’s life to achieve that goal. During the movie he’s supporting the destruction of his mother’s life’s work to achieve that goal.
It’s got nothing to do with having a sob story and everything to do with WHY they want power and WHAT they will do to achieve it. Anakin wanted power to protect his family, and even after 23 years of darkness he was not willing to allow his son to die. Kylo is willing to kill his father and purposefully harm his mother and her brother to achieve power, and by all indications he wants it for his own vanity.
I think a lot of fans don’t realize or remember that when Vader’s arc came about, we didn’t KNOW Anakin Skywalker’s backstory at all.
All Luke (and the audience) knew, even at the end, was that Anakin Skywalker was a Jedi and a pilot, who at some point, for some reason, became a monster.
We didn’t have Revenge of the Sith to explain it until twenty years later.
The roots of Darth Vader’s redemption comes entirely from Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
Vader was scary in A New Hope, and he hurt Leia and killed Obi-Wan. But at that point in time, he was basically a faceless machine. Cold, terrible, cruel. But not personal or human.
In Empire, Vader is a terrifying monster who knowingly stalks and brutalizes his son while still furthering the Empire’s atrocities. There’s no question about his evil. But there is the faintest glimmer for hope in the way he’s reaching out for a connection to his son.
Unfortunately, because Vader is a monster, the only connection he can forge with him is monstrous. But he is still trying. He wants Luke to join him. He’s offering him power WITH him. In the warped and terrible way that Vader perceives the universe, that’s the closest he can come to love.
This is the first glimpse of Vader’s humanity that we get. And while it’s terrible and monstrous, it’s all about wanting a connection with his son.
And that’s where the redemption moment becomes possible. That’s what Luke is able to draw on later to save Vader from the Dark. He uses the fact that Vader reached out to him for connection to offer that connection back. But not the power exchange that Vader understands, but forgiveness and love. And when the choice is before him, in clear, uncertain terms. Vader takes that offering.
This doesn’t work for Kylo Ren, because we’ve seen Kylo Ren as a human all along. The unmasking during Rey’s interrogation was deliberate. It showed us that he wasn’t a faceless machine, but a man.
And that’s what destroys the chance of Vader’s redemption arc. Vader’s a machine, whose sole glimpse of humanity is reaching for a familial connection. But Kylo is a human man, with a human face, who is repeatedly offered that human connection all along.
Lor San Tekka tries to appeal to Kylo as a man, in his family’s name, citing his origin in the light, and gets murdered.
The Starkiller is aimed at the Resistance base, where Leia is sitting. Kylo defends it.
And finally, of course, the most explicit: Han Solo begs Kylo to come home. Reaching out to him, unarmed, crying. And Kylo shoves a saber through him.
That’s why Kylo loses in this comparison. It’s not a measure of evil deeds or sob stories. It’s because he rejected what Vader chose to save.
Oh yes, I’m SURE there are cat-equivalents! Now I’m laughing at the visual of some poor padawan chasing after a streak of blue with claws and teeth as it tries to escape by way of jumping off Master Yoda’s shoulder and flinging itself into the rafters.
I bet Mace Windu doesn’t like cats.
which means, of course, the cats follow him everywhere
Every time there’s a Council meeting and he sits down, BAM, cat on his lap and he can’t yell and shoo them away without betraying his cool exterior
The tookas had been at the Temple for as long as anyone could remember. Nobody knew when or why. For as long as there have been Jedi on Coruscant, the tookas have lived beside them. Nobody questioned their presence, not even the Jedi who disliked them or who were allergic to them, not even Mace Windu, whose hate for them was legendary and who was followed around the Temple by a plague of tookas, suggested that they didn’t have a place in the Temple.
To hurt or kick the tookas was frowned upon. An initiate caught doing so would probably never make padawan but even the worst behaved initiates would never have thought to do so.
The Tookas ate the vermin that snuck into the Temple from the twisting lower levels of Coruscant. They stole food from distracted Jedi, or were fed by Tooka loving Jedi- bowls of blue milk left in hallways, scraps off plates, or left-over food left out by the Jedi who staffed the Temple kitchens. They slept curled up in patches of sunlight on Temple windowsills, or in the beds of Jedi, or in piles in the darkened corners of the Temple where few Jedi had cause to tread.
(If you are in deepest parts of the Jedi Temple and you feel the brush of fur against your leg and the flash of golden eyes, there is a tooka beside you. There are many more around you that you cannot see or feel. Ask yourself, should you be there?)
Anakin Skywalker loved the tookas he kept scraps in his pockets for them. The Jedi Temple was cold, so cold, but the tookas with their small furry bodies, were warm as warm can be. They slept in his bed and comforted him when he cried, quiet as quiet can be so as not to wake his master (a Jedi releases his feelings into the Force), for his mother. (Obi Wan also cried in the other bedroom into the fur of a scarred blue tooka with one eye who had followed Obi Wan through his initiate days and who padded along behind him whenever his journeying took him back to Coruscant, but this is another tale.) Even in the last days of the Jedi, when Anakin Skywalker teetered at the edge of the Dark, the tookas swarmed behind him, almost tripping him up, mewing insistently.
When Darth Vader marched on the Temple, he and his clone troopers walked down hallways surrounded by unblinking yellow eyes. Some unwary troopers who walked too far from their battalions into the Temple’s shadowed corners disappeared. Their bodies were later found by the emperor’s cleanup crews chewed by a hundreds of tiny mouths, scratched by thousands of tiny claws. (Members of the cleanup crews disappeared too but nobody talks of that.)
Emperor Sidious tried to make the Temple his palace, a final insult to the Jedi. The tookas gave him no rest. They attacked him, his staff, his soldiers. They clawed his draperies, knocked over his artefacts, left puddles of piss and excrement in every corner. He fled a month later for good.
Darth Vader never returned after the Temple massacre. In the council room, he looked up from the bodies of the younglings into a thousand unblinking golden eyes and knew that there would be no place for him here ever again. He strode (fled) from those halls that had once been his home and never came back.
Decades later when the Jedi had risen and fallen and the empire too had risen and fallen and risen and fallen yet again, a young woman and a young man, one fair, the other dark, both lighting their way with bright blue sabers, levered open the heavy rusted doors, and let the sun shine into the Temple once more. They were met by thousands of shining yellow eyes and the low buzz of hundreds upon hundreds of purring throats.
Jedi, something whispers, welcome back. We have been waiting.
I love this, angst and all! On a happier note, why do I get the feeling they made it into to GAR ships as well? They adored the clones no doubt, and the same way that all Padawans tended to be called commander, and all Jedi kinghts and above general, all temple tookas were referred to as lieutenant. And yes, you know they tried claim orders from a superior when they were caught slacking off with a tooka in their lap!😁
Also, the Wolfpack with a teeny tiny tooka sitting on Plo’s shoulder. The 212th with a fussy ginger tom who can instantly tell if the general’s tea is too cold. Torrent company with multiple furry friends who skitter through the air ducts and catch rides in R2’s chassis, but one can always be found curled up in the med bay waiting to assist.
“Lieutenant Socks says I need to stay put and administer head scritches sir.”
“Waxer, get to the bridge now.”
Commander Cody is tired. Fortunately, with Waxer gone, the Lieutenant needs somebody else to give head pats. I like your idea!!! I feel like years afterwards the imperial but formerly GAR ships and their clone crews have a veritable infestation of tookas.
Only after the clones get phased out by the emperor, do the tookas leave the ships, following their clones into retirement on a hundreds of different planets, warming their laps and keeping them company in their (premature) old age. Commander Cody keeps “Lieutenant” Socks until his death. It’s his way of holding onto a piece of his old life and his general.
Nope! I refuse to let this get sadder! (and yes Alba I see the irony 😉)
Because these are Temple Tookas, and they are attuned to the force in ways we will never fully understand. Just like the clones, they are meant to be with their Jedi. So I give you two scenarios;
– Tatooine’s native animals aren’t exactly the smallest or cutest of beings, so the first time Luke encounters one in the corridors of Home One he thinks it is just his curiousity that makes him pick up the purring Tooka and hold it close to his chest. It makes the loss just that little bit easier to take. Soon however it becomes obvious that he has been adopted, and not just by the first one (who he names “Sparks” in honour of a rather amusing incident with R2 in the hanger bay) but by an ever growing tribe of Tookas who refuse to let him wallow. Leia giggles as she plays keep away with an adorable tabby kitten (ATAVII) while Wedge complains about the black one (Bomber) that likes to sleep in the Rogue’s flight helmets ( Luke pretends he doesn’t see him slipping the little menace treats between missions).The real shock however are the grizzled veterans who follow the Tookas, identical faces all looking at him with a sense of dumbfounded awe followed by determination. The Tookas found the Vod’e a baby Jedi, they will be damned before they let this one be harmed on their watch. Which is how Luke Skywalker gets an honour guard of overprotective clones who know all the tricks for keeping their Jedi safe from their own idiocy. They are however vastly relieved when Lieutenant Fluffybutt sashays in on ancient paws followed by former captain Rex – when it comes to chaos Skywalkers are after all in a league of their own.
-Cody has no clue know why he doesn’t change the coordinates Lieutenant Socks managed to accidentally enter into the navcomp. But honestly, there’s nowhere he really belongs anymore and he’s just so tired… Tired of running, tired of grieving, tired of trying to drink away his memories,just tired of everything. So he makes the jump, and finds himself orbiting a certain desert backwater with two suns. He looks at Socks and asks him why he felt the need to take them to a planet where he’ll spend half the time combing sand out of his fur? Socks just purrs. Cody figures that counts as orders from a superior and so heads down to the surface. He’s not sure where to go, until he checks to see where Socks has disappeared to and finds the Tooka twining himself around the ankles of a local boy who offers to show him around. Luke is a sweet kid, and Cody pushes down a weird feeling of familiarity as he follows him around town. Cody offers him a ride home and Luke agrees, but does he mind if they make a detour to see Old Ben? The Tuskens have been active recently and he want to make sure the hermit is ok. Cody of course agrees (somewhat bemused) and off they go with Socks tucked around Luke’s neck purring up a storm. And then? There is a man in the desert with beard and hair bleached white by the sun. His voice is rougher, he moves like a man much older, but it is still unmistakably, unbelievably, Cody’s General. There are tears. There are apologies. There are hugs. But most of all, there is belonging. Because at long last Cody is back where he is meant to be, at his Jedi’s side.
Good luck with your essay writing! I’m sure you’ll nail it! 😊
Oh my God, I am not exaggerating when I say that I squeaked happily at your scenarios. Especially the one where Lieutenant Socks leads Cody to Ben. They can be grumpy Sand!husbands together.
Cody chases off intruders with his trusty GAR issued blaster, Ben (irritatingly) invites them in for tea, even those of the feral Tatooinian wildlife variety. Luke comes for visits at least once a week and absorbs their war stories, wide-eyed. Owen grumbles but has to concede that “that Cody at least has some sense, maybe if we’re lucky some of will make its way into your hard head, boy.” Beru and Ben meet in Mos Eisely for monthly supply runs and exchange gossip over drinks at the local cantina. Nobody bothers them, it is common knowledge that Beru is a quick draw and wicked shot and that Ben is a bad man with whom to pick a bar fight.
Cody manages to convince Owen that the universe in a dangerous place and that Luke is safer trained so Luke starts Jedi training at the age of seven. When a certain pair of droids show up eighteen years later, Luke is ready to face the galaxy. Cody is a pretty old man by that time, but Ben has also been prematurely aged by his experiences and they are both at peace with their lives and their physical state. Lieutenant Socks is very, very old but lives in contented and pampered splendour on his favourite cushion in their hut. Idk, if they survive ANH but I know Owen and Beru do (because reasons, that’s why) and that they have a happy life together.
Oooooh.
And there’s a colony of tookas now living on Endor centered on the clearing where Anakin’s funeral byre was because he did come back to the light in the end.
The only thing Kylo is coded as is a villain. Privileged white boy who uses force against others to get what he thinks he’s owned. You want a character that was actually abused and shows signs of being mentally ill? Finn. You want a q-coded character? Poe. Stop projecting into the fascist white dude because you don’t want to relate to two characters of color.
I almost have to appreciate Jedi Trainee Hair because it’s so stupid. Like, why? FOR SO MANY REASONS, WHY?!
You know who has something stupid to say about this ridiculous haircut? Star Wars does, that’s who (who would have guessed?)!
Yes, my favorite, the non-canon The Jedi Path expands a bit on this silliness:
I love that non-humans make out WAY better in this game than humans do since they can kind of do whatever they want. No fair! They don’t even have to live with the shame of that awful ponytail!
Interestingly, AND IMPORTANTLY, this book makes no mention of said Terrible Ponytail being mandatory. It’s ALL about the braid. This is making me think of the discussion I had with people a while back about how maybe the Haircut was like, something that happened to Obi-Wan by accident and then Anakin just wanted to be cool like Obi-Wan so he asked for it, too? I think Kanan had it too (edit: I’m wrong and it’s even funnier this way), so maybe by then it had become Trendy, because Kenobi and Skywalker totally had this awesome ponytail when THEY were Padawans, so I want it too!
LOL forever that this part of the book is written by a Jedi Recruiter, who is apparently under the impression that well-kept Jedi Trainee Hair is helping to boost the overall public opinion of the Jedi. Oh, honey. No.
(And yes, there are written comments in the margin on this page, too, that got cut off. Qui-Gon comments that he finds this all rather restricting of the council. Obi-Wan comments that that’s no damn surprise. Hahaha.)
The Jedi Path is possibly my favorite Legends book.
Steel Phoenix Studios 