I was watching a scene from X-Men ‘97 the other day which reminds me of how the Jedi are treated in-universe and out-of-universe is eerily similar to how Mutants are treated in the Marvel Universe: feared and hated by an ungrateful population of civilians who don’t understand them or their way of life.

There definitely seem to be some similarities, and while I am not by any means an expert on the x-men, I feel like the purpose of this scapegoating is slightly different in the two narratives.

In Star Wars, the Jedi being destroyed and weakened is a comment on how society slowly letting themselves be consumed by greed and fear can overwhelm even the best of intentions until all that's left is darkness and hatred and pain. The Jedi represent the best of what people have to offer the world, but anyone's kindness can be overwhelmed if they aren't mindful enough. The Jedi get scapegoated as a representation of how people are more inclined to lie to themselves than face their own truths and how that can spread to cause pain and suffering beyond yourself.

To my understanding, the X-men represent marginalized groups in society who constantly have to fight for their right just to survive. The X-men get scapegoated because that's how marginalized people are treated in real life. They're not the best society has to offer necessarily, they're just different. They're normal people, with flaws and feelings like anybody else, and they want the freedom to be able to behave like anyone else without being ostracized for something a regular person wouldn't even get noticed for doing.

There's overlap in the theme of fear of the unknown leading to selfishness and hatred and how people will excuse evil deeds done to other people if they can convince themselves it was done "for the greater good." Star Wars I think wants you to look at yourself first, recognize your own fears and biases, while X-men seems to focus more on making a statement about society at large.

@theneutralmime

I assume you mean the Coruscant Guard and not the GAR as a whole. We do see Fox during the Fives arc responding directly to an order from Palpatine, but he's also IN PALPATINE'S OFFICE already because they're playing bodyguard in the moment. The GAR would be subordinate to Palpatine obviously, because he is the Chancellor of the Republic. Everybody is subordinate to Palpatine, that's kind-of how it works, it's just that most of the other clones seem to sort-of report more directly to a Jedi General or a civilian officer of some kind before they report to Palpatine.

So whether the CG reports directly to Palpatine or not is sort-of up to speculation as far as I can tell. It's possible that a reference book might have something more to say about it, but what we're shown in TCW isn't conclusive. There's never any indication that the CG have a Jedi General of any kind, so they presumably have to report to SOMEONE and most people just assume that this is Palpatine. It's just as possible though that there IS someone else they report more directly to normally, like Mas Amedda maybe or someone like Tarkin perhaps. The CG just aren't explored enough to really give any sort-of definitive answer as to who they report to directly. Palpatine is the ultimate authority so his orders would supersede anybody else's no matter who they came from.

As for Fox's personality, I have basically the same answer. He really isn't explored enough as a character to really say he has a "murderous" personality. He's in all of a few minor scenes across the entire show and he's always working and he never even has his helmet off, so figuring out his personality is a little difficult. Most of what people know his personality to be comes out of fanon, not canon. The closest I can think of to something he says that might give a hint as to his personality is when he tells Ahsoka that he understands why she'd kill Letta Turmond but that he still has to arrest her for doing it. It's not murderous by my interpretation, but it does show that he has empathy and is willing to treat Ahsoka with kindness despite what his duty requires him to do. He does help chase her down after she escapes from her cell and a bunch of his men seem to have died at her hand, but there doesn't seem to be anything particularly personal or vindictive about it, it just means he doesn't have the time or motivation to offer her the same empathy he did earlier.

So sure, he seems focused on work and pretty professional, but we also only ever get shown him WHILE WORKING, we never see him in any kind of downtime. And the one line that seems to showcase a little extra personality is actually intentionally empathetic towards someone he should see as a criminal. He doesn't have to extend that empathy to Ahsoka in the moment, but he does, and that seems to go forgotten quite a lot.

If you got to replace a new trio to lead in the clone wars instead of Obi-Wan, Ahsoka and Anakin who would they be?

Personally, I think Depa (before Caleb), Mace and Hondo would be a hilarious trio.

It would depend on what story you wanted to tell with it.

The Clone Wars was intended to be a bridge between AOTC and ROTS in terms of character development, so it did genuinely need to be Obi-Wan, Anakin, and then the character who causes the development. Replacing these characters with anybody else removes the ability to explain how Obi-Wan and Anakin developed into the characters they are in ROTS.

But if that's not the story you're trying to tell, then the options open up significantly.

If you wanted to focus on the impact of the war on the Jedi, then personally I'd have focused on either much more niche Jedi or just come up with original Jedi characters to explore. Using original characters who aren't affiliated with the original story opens up a lot of avenues for stories you can tell. Ahsoka's options ended up a little limited because Anakin CAN'T have a Padawan by ROTS. Anakin and Obi-Wan cannot die and everybody knows it. Any Jedi who dies during Order 66 in ROTS has to live to make it to that moment. But if you introduce completely new Jedi characters to follow and who aren't connected to Obi-Wan or Anakin, you can do whatever you want with them. Maybe they live, maybe they fall, maybe they die. It just opens up a lot of avenues that aren't available otherwise.

The other option you could go for is to focus on the CLONES instead of the Jedi. Pick three clone characters and follow how the war impacts them, explore clone culture through them, explore their relationships with each other and with the Jedi and citizens of the Republic. They could be from any battalion and it might be easier to make them attached to an original or at least niche Jedi character rather than making them from the 212th or 501st, but you could make it work with those too. I feel like this would've been REALLY cool to do honestly, and I really wish we'd gotten more focus on the clones themselves in TCW.

You could have made it a more political show I suppose, though that would likely mean making it more adult-oriented than child-oriented, and followed Padme, Bail, and Mon Mothma or something like that. I remain forever saddened that Padme doesn't have that many political-focused stories that don't end up just becoming an action story by the end.

Lastly, you could focus on the civilians somewhere and tell the story of the war from the perspective of the littlest people. This is sort-of what Andor is doing by focusing on characters like Cassian and Luthen, people whose names will never be remembered and telling the story of the Rebellion through them. But this could be focusing on someone like Cham Syndulla maybe and the rebellion on Ryloth, or people like Trace and Rafa and the impact on citizens of Coruscant, or ANYTHING ELSE. Coruscanti citizens give an interesting perspective on the war since they're sort-of sitting in the middle of it and also somewhat isolated from it at the same time.

So yeah, I think there are tons of really cool options for who you could follow in TCW depending on which story you want to tell, and the canon version of it was trying to tell a very specific story that required Anakin and Obi-Wan to still be the main characters.

@theneutralmime

I think canon, Lucas's canon at least, DOES portray him as wrong. I think MOST canon stories DO understand that Anakin is intended to be in the wrong, that Anakin becomes a villain and that's the whole point of his story. Even TCW, for all that they work to make Anakin more charming, plays the damn Imperial March every second they can and focused in a LOT more on his anger and violence than anything else. The only place within "canon" that arguably forgot Anakin was intended to be in the wrong was the Ahsoka show which went the route of "he was always meant to make the selfish choice because the wheel of darkness and light just keeps going no matter what" or something along those lines.

Where I find the refusal to recognize Anakin as in the wrong is actually in FANON more than canon. It's not that canon doesn't represent him as in the wrong and so fans aren't writing fics with that in mind because the source material just didn't portray him correctly. Fans are coming up with their own interpretations because of how they feel about Anakin as a character. They sympathize with Anakin, they're rooting for Anakin, they relate to Anakin, and they maybe do those things less for characters like the Jedi, so they write Anakin as a sad victim and the Jedi as oppressors because this happens to be how they relate to the story. That's not canon's fault, though.

I think that it's very EASY to relate to Anakin, perhaps more than it is to relate to the Jedi sometimes, and people often tend to reject things that they don't understand or relate to. It's easy to get caught up in Anakin's traumas and flaws and go "well his mom died, it's not his fault" or "he just wants to save his wife, it's not his fault" and miss that there's an extra step you're intended to take of "it's ok to be scared, but it's not ok to hurt other people because of it and if you do, then no matter how sympathetic the motivation is, it's still your fault." It's HARD to recognize that. It's HARD to do the work of seeing where you yourself have gone wrong and hurt others, it's hard to peel back the onion of what you're feeling and figure out where it's all coming from and accept responsibility for your own choices. It's hard. That's the point, too. It's always harder to put in that work than it is to simply let your fears consume you and push you into lashing out at others.

Canon sent that message just fine. It's not even that unique of a message, especially these days. Sympathetic villains are EVERYWHERE and those stories send the exact same message about how a relatable motivation doesn't mean you don't have to take responsibility for the pain you cause. It's just often easier to find excuses for the villains when you relate to them and easier to pin the blame on whoever opposes them, especially when those people might be less relatable to you.

To be clear, when I say "Jango is someone who intentionally created several MILLION offspring just so he could sell them off as weapons" I am referring to his characterization in high canon which is the only thing that matters to me or really counts anyway.

The Mando fan instinct to see any random clone act the bare minimum level of friendly towards a child and go "OMG it's the Jango Fett Mando Adoption Genes" is so funny to someone who remembers that Jango Fett is someone who intentionally created several MILLION offspring just so he could sell them off as weapons. He gets ONE CHILD out of that bargain. I'm not sure I'd count that as an instinct towards adopting tons of children, personally. The enslaving of like 99.99% of the children he could claim as his sort-of outweighs the acquisition of the one.

Okay wait but this is actually a fun AU, I dunno why I didn't explore it earlier.

So Anakin has slightly more than .1% of a braincell and decides to ask Ahsoka to join him on Malachor instead of trying to kill her, and she says yes, on one condition: Palpatine dies. They both escape Malachor, no WBW shenanigans necessary, and they go kill Palpatine like good Sith apprentices do. But Anakin just takes his place as Emperor, and when Ahsoka tries to protest, he asks why she is suddenly so unfaithful, so disloyal, doesn't she LOVE him? This is what she asked for and he did it, now she has to become his apprentice like she promised she would. It works, and Ahsoka stays, becoming Darth Malis, right hand of Emperor Vader.

Darth Malis becomes much the same as what Darth Vader had been. She is the Emperor's weapon of mass destruction, the person who gets sent to strike fear in the hearts of the Emperor's enemies and eliminate any and all threats to people who would oppose him. She is meant to be the last face those people will probably ever see and a symbol of the might of the Empire. Ahsoka hates herself for what she is doing, she hates what she's become, but her attachment to Anakin is stronger than that hatred. She can't leave him again even if she wanted to try. She kills, she threatens, she tortures. She learns very quickly not to try to question Anakin on anything or she ends up getting tortured herself instead (Anakin learned this teaching method from the best after all and it was incredibly effective on him so he has no problems replicating it on his own student).

Anakin also decides to delegate pretty much everything he doesn't care about to Ahsoka, which includes everything and anything to do with the Death Star. But Anakin is really shit at this, so he forgets to actually specify to Ahsoka that he wants her to defund/destroy the Death Star, so she just... takes over what little managing Anakin was doing on the project and keeps it going but never reports anything to Anakin about it because he specified that he never wanted to hear about it ever again. Anakin DOES start getting in reports when Jedha and Scarif are destroyed, but he's kind-of shit at this whole Emperor thing and leaves most of the actual work to other people, so it's not until after Alderaan is destroyed that he starts picking up on some whispers going around and looks at his reports and calls up Ahsoka absolutely ENRAGED and demanding to know what the fuck is going on.

By this point, Obi-Wan, Luke, and Han have already made it onto the Death Star and escaped with Leia. Ahsoka is nowhere near as familiar with Obi-Wan or as powerful as Anakin was, so she doesn't really notice Obi-Wan's presence and focuses instead on trying to track down Han and Luke, which leaves Obi-Wan free to get back to the Falcon and reclaim it from the Empire before the rest of them show up. Ahsoka has to explain to Anakin not only is the Death Star project that he'd thought he'd destroyed years ago still going and the damn thing is in fact fully operational, but also they just lost a prisoner because his old pal Obi-Wan showed up and completely handed all of them their asses. Anakin only allows them to continue using the Death Star to take out Yavin 4 because at this point the only thing that can make this situation better is if the rebellion (and ideally Obi-Wan) is completely obliterated before he gives the order to FINALLY get rid of the stupid Death Star.

During the final battle, it's still Luke making the final shot on the Death Star and Ahsoka is out in a TIE fighter that gets hit before she can take out Luke, but she isn't knocked very far away and the Death Star's explosion manages to catch her downed ship, leaving her badly injured and stranded among the rubble. Obi-Wan can tell she's still alive out there and insists on going out to try to collect her and bring her back to the Rebellion to get medical assistance (a decision NOBODY likes, but that no one is willing to entirely refuse him over either since he's, you know, Obi-Wan Kenobi and he's saying it's the will of the Force or whatever).

Ahsoka lives, but she's pretty out of it for a while and very injured (the Rebels aren't willing to really use up a ton of their medical resources on her, no matter how much they respect Obi-Wan), so she's not super capable of fighting back and can't do much to get herself out of whatever locked room or cell they put her in, especially with Obi-Wan intentionally making sure he's in there with her as much as possible to keep an eye on her.

Obi-Wan keeps trying to talk to her, keeps trying to figure out what happened to her (Rex is there and so is Hera and they're able to explain what happened on Malachor and what they've been able to figure out about Vader's new apprentice Darth Malis before now). He wasn't able to save Anakin and he KNOWS he can't reach Anakin because Anakin doesn't want to be saved, but something tells him that Ahsoka DOES. Ahsoka is not lost to him the way Anakin is and it's worth the work it takes to convince her away from the darkness she chose so she could stay with Anakin. And little by little, piece by piece, she starts to come back to herself. She starts to heal and let go of the attachment to Anakin, the guilt she feels over what happened to him, the grief over the loss of the Jedi. She starts remembering who she was even though she still isn't entirely sure who she is or who she's become.

By the time the events of ESB rolls around, Ahsoka is no longer a prisoner, but she's still recovering from everything that's happened to her. Obi-Wan has been giving Luke AND Leia some training in the Force (they went back to grab the lightsaber parts Obi-Wan had on Tatooine so that Leia can also have a lightsaber rather than all three of them attempting to share two lightsabers) and both of them are aware of the truth about their parentage (Obi-Wan told them about being twins, but it was Ahsoka who revealed the truth about Anakin early on in her time with the Rebellion because she knew it would hurt them). So Obi-Wan insists that Luke and Leia go to Dagobah and he asks that they take Ahsoka with them, but Obi-Wan himself leaves with Han in order to provide a distraction for Anakin and the Empire.

Ahsoka obviously knows exactly who Yoda is, but she's also perfectly aware that Yoda is testing Luke and Leia when he shows up in the camp and has zero problems pretending she has no clue who he is. Yoda had been a little worried about the darkness he felt lingering in Ahsoka, but when she plays along with his prank he realizes she must be okay.

Obi-Wan and Han are having a terrible time. Obi-Wan leads them into the asteroid worm's mouth KNOWING it's an asteroid worm mouth because he can either convince it to let them stay for a minute or he keeps it asleep or something. Han is NOT into this idea which is exactly why Obi-Wan didn't TELL HIM what the idea was but Han freaks out when he figures out where they were and is not super chill about just trusting that Obi-Wan can keep them from getting eaten, so they leave. They still get followed by Boba when they go to Bespin and Anakin still shows up there, but instead of Anakin trying to just lay a trap for Luke (who he DOES know is his son because Luke obviously is using the name Skywalker), he's trying to confront Obi-Wan into just GIVING him Luke (he'd be asking for Ahsoka, too, but he actually has no idea that the Rebellion even HAVE Ahsoka, he thinks she died with the Death Star). Obi-Wan beats his ass and tosses him down a power shaft where he miraculously gets his cloak caught on a pipe or something where he just has to hang as Obi-Wan goes to deal with Boba trying to capture Han (thankfully Lando has this one managed generally, Han never even gets frozen in carbonite at all). Obi-Wan has things so well in hand that no one on Dagobah even gets any visions of trouble.

Obi-Wan drops off Han and Lando with the Rebellion and then goes off to meet Luke, Leia, and Ahsoka on Dagobah where he assists Yoda in training for the next six months.

While they're all there, Ahsoka takes a moment to have a quiet conversation with Obi-Wan about her future. She tells him that while she's definitely no longer a Sith, she's not sure she'll ever truly be able to be a Jedi again, either. She strayed so far from that path and is such a different person now that she doesn't think she'll ever really be able to finish the journey she started so long ago. Obi-Wan tells her that he's proud of her, that she doesn't NEED to be a Jedi to be a good person, and that she would be worthy of help and care regardless.

There is no second Death Star, but eventually the Rebellion has to make one final push to try to take down the Empire. And its Emperor. As they get ready for the final confrontation, Obi-Wan feels something Off and finds a nervous Ahsoka to be its source. She's hiding away in the rebel base somewhere and he convinces her to talk to him. Luke and Obi-Wan are preparing to go confront Anakin in the morning, while Leia and Ahsoka prepare to lead a ground offense while Anakin is distracted. But Ahsoka is starting to feel that maybe this is the wrong plan. She tells Obi-Wan that she knows she's never been a child of prophecy, that she's advanced but not ridiculously powerful, she's not even Anakin's flesh and blood. But he MADE her, in so many ways. He bent and twisted her into a shape that pleased him, he took her love and tortured it into a thing that kept him in power and caused others nothing but pain. She is his in a way that Luke and Leia never will be.

And she's starting to realize that she wasn't really meant to be here, that she probably wasn't necessarily SUPPOSED to be in this story, but she is now and that's changed things. She thinks that perhaps, in a different version of this story, it was meant to be Luke, or Leia, maybe even Obi-Wan. And they're all still acting out that story. But maybe, just maybe, it's supposed to be HER this time. She knows in her soul that she needs to face him, that she needs to look at the man she had loved to destruction as she tears him down from his seat of power so he can never hurt anyone again. She's not a Jedi, she's not a child of prophecy, this isn't some grand destiny that she's playing out, it's just one scarred soul facing the source of her greatest pain and acknowledging it for what it is so she can refuse to let it control her or the galaxy ever again. It's not really ABOUT her and she knows it, it's about all of the other people in the galaxy with a story just like hers, the other people who have suffered because of the choices of one man, the people who will bear scars for the rest of their lives as a result. She's one among many, speaking for all of them when she looks darkness in the face and says "no more."

Obi-Wan hears her out before saying that this plan of hers could easily result in not just Anakin's death, but her own as well. He doesn't need a response, though. He can see from the look on her face that she knows and she's prepared to make that sacrifice on behalf of the galaxy. She'd rather die than let him hurt anyone else.

So in the morning, Obi-Wan takes Luke and Leia to reclaim the galaxy while Ahsoka goes to finally face Anakin once and for all. Anakin, thinking that she's been dead all this time, believes for a moment that he's seeing a ghost. This person in front of him certainly doesn't FEEL like the apprentice he'd left behind on the Death Star. But as she walks closer, he feels the truth, and he denounces her as a traitor, a faithless, cowardly liar who had promised she'd never leave him again. Ahsoka refuses to let his pain compromise her a second time. She accepts it, accepts the pain she has caused, and then stands firm. She doesn't immediately attempt to kill him, she speaks to him, reminding him of the person she'd first met, the person who'd laughed with her, the person who'd cared for her. She reminds him of the Jedi, of the things the Order had taught them both, the philosophies Anakin had begun to pass on to her that he'd learned from Obi-Wan, who had learned it from Qui-Gon and Yoda. She says Anakin's pain aloud, the fears he'd revealed only to Darth Malis when he'd believed her bent enough to be broken, bringing them out from the darkness he hid them in, but he still refuses to acknowledge them. She shows him that even she was capable of finding her way onto a better path. And he had turned her into a twisted reflection of himself, so if she can make it back, so can he.

Unlike on Malachor, Ahsoka isn't fighting in anger or consumed by her own emotions, and it is this which allows her, finally, to surpass him. It is this which allows her to defeat him, this fractured mirror of every terrible choice she has ever made. But Ahsoka is not Obi-Wan, who could not kill the boy he trained. And she is not Luke, who in another version of this story, would not kill his father. Ahsoka does what she can to convince him to leave the dark behind, and when he refuses, she brings his story to its definitive end. There will be no redemption for Anakin Skywalker, but he will rejoin the Force, as all things must do eventually, and become part of the balance he had once been intended to create.

The Rebellion defeats the Empire on Endor and the celebration lasts long into the night. Obi-Wan waits for Ahsoka, not entirely certain if she managed to survive her confrontation with Anakin. He'd felt the destruction of the darkness and the return of balance in the Force, and those two things sort-of overwhelmed anything else. Eventually, Obi-Wan has to leave with Luke, Leia, and the rest of the Rebellion. He never sees Ahsoka again, but he knows that wherever she is, whether she rejoined the Force or not, she has found the peace she had so desperately desired.

The most hilarious thing about Twilight of the Apprentice is that Anakin is so terrified that Ahsoka will reject him the way Padme and Obi-Wan do, that she won't side with him, that he completely misses exactly HOW bad of a mental space she is in in that moment and that if he'd asked her to go Sith with him in that moment, she probably would've just to assuage her own guilt and keep him from being lonely or whatever it is she's upset about in Rebels.

Jedi fans who like the Acolyte are like clone fans who like The Bad Batch. We get SO LITTLE positive content for the Jedi or the clones that when something comes up that's focused on them, even when it's negative, it seems like it's better than nothing.

Dave Filoni has an anti-Jedi agenda. Pass it on.

You know, I wanted to make a post about how I'm glad that Galen Marek/Starkiller from the Force Unleashed got de-canonized. Because having a godlike force user whose neither Jedi nor Sith pop up to jump start the Rebellion out of nowhere really cheapens the Original Trilogy and Luke Skywalker's whole journey therein...

Then I realized Ahsoka's basically the same thing at this point.

"no attachments" in SW literally just means "don't be selfish and possessive". that's it. that's all there is. doesn't mean jedi can't have friends and loved ones. they can. just. don't be possessive and selfish about it. don't murder thousands of people in an effort to save one.

Tumblr Top Ships Bracket - Round 1 Side 2

This poll is a celebration of fandom and fandom history; we're aware that there are certain issues with many of the listed pairings and sources, but they are a part of that history. Please do not take this as an endorsement, and refrain from harassment.

I really like the Ahsoka show, but for the life of me, I can't understand why Dave Filoni decided that Sabine needed to use the Force. She was such a cool and complicated character in Rebels and the fact that they shoved some Force-sensitivity in there really bothers me. She doesn't need the Force!! In Rebels, her backstory was made to compliment Ezra's. Where Ezra lost his loving parents, Sabine still had hers, the lack of love haunting her during the series. Ezra had to learn how to fight while Sabine had to learn peace. Ezra was a Jedi and Sabine was a Mandalorian.

They were supposed to be friends despite all the differences.

Now, its less of "they trust that the other one has their back and they rely on the other's skill set to cover their own weaknesses" and its more like "they both have have the access to the same skill set but one of them can barely use it so now there's added drama of one feeling inadequate."

She didn't need the Force to be cool. She was cooler without it.

The Mando fan instinct to see any random clone act the bare minimum level of friendly towards a child and go "OMG it's the Jango Fett Mando Adoption Genes" is so funny to someone who remembers that Jango Fett is someone who intentionally created several MILLION offspring just so he could sell them off as weapons. He gets ONE CHILD out of that bargain. I'm not sure I'd count that as an instinct towards adopting tons of children, personally. The enslaving of like 99.99% of the children he could claim as his sort-of outweighs the acquisition of the one.

You know what annoys me? Like every former Jedi that gets shown bashes the Order. Show me a former Jedi who left not because of some BS ‘Jedi are wrong’ reason. Have some who left because they acknowledged that they weren’t fit for it or because they fell in love and understood they couldn’t be fully dedicated to both their spouse and the Order. Show me former Jedi who are still fond of other Jedi and the Order.

Yeah I feel like there's maybe been one or two in comics or something? I feel like I remember seeing panels where someone was discussing their grandmother who had once been a Jedi and left because she wanted to start a family, but there was never any animosity or hard feelings or anything like that.

I feel like the reason we don't see it very often is because, like I've been mentioning in my post about Pong Krell recently, former Jedi often end up being FALLEN Jedi who are always then utilized to showcase the theme of selfishness and greed. The Jedi are a symbol of selflessness and compassion within the narrative, so it can sometimes I think be difficult to write a character who has left that behind and NOT have them sort-of... becoming a symbol of the opposite. It places the characters in this strange limbo where they AREN'T part of that symbol of selflessness and compassion anymore, but they aren't a symbol of the opposite either, so what is the point of this character within the overall narrative? We see the problem this causes with any story involving Ahsoka these days.

There seem to be three places where we see these characters go.

First is the fallen Jedi route, obviously. They've left the Order and since gone down a path of darkness. This is where characters like Anakin, Dooku, Barriss, Pong Krell, and all of the Inquisitors end up. Pretty obvious storyline.

The second is where the character leaves the Jedi for any reason and then ultimately has to find their way BACK to being a Jedi as part of their journey. They probably never were fully fallen or anything, but they do lose some part of themselves when they lose their identity as a Jedi and regaining that identity allows them to grow into a healthier, more compassionate and selfless person. This is where characters like Kanan, Cal Kestis, Cere Junda, and Obi-Wan Kenobi end up.

The third is the Jedi critical route and the only one I know of who is on this particular journey is Ahsoka, but I'm assuming that The Acolyte might end up with at least one of their characters in this category. This is where the characters leave the Jedi Order and they don't explicitly end up FALLEN, but they're not at all on a route BACK to being a Jedi either. Or, if they are, it's explicitly NOT a Jedi like they were before and this is what makes them BETTER than the other Jedi.

The point is that there's usually a JOURNEY that is involved in characters who have left the Order or lost their identity as a Jedi in some way. Characters who have left the Order but bear no animosity towards the Jedi and are still fond of them have less room to grow in terms of their identity. You could presumably do a story of a Jedi that ENDS in them leaving the Order. We kinda sorta got that with the Grogu storyline in TBOBF where he attempts to go back to training with Luke and ultimately decides it's not the path for him anymore. It was arguably done for the wrong reasons and this storyline was rushed because it was put into the wrong show, but the concept behind it is actually quite similar to what you seem to be looking for. And it gave me some more complex feelings about that storyline because you're not wrong that it's not a BAD thing to see a story where a Jedi character leaves the Jedi simply because they've decided it's no longer the right path for them and not due to anything negative. This particular version of it might not be the greatest example of this story ever done, but I didn't hate it, either. I appreciated the novelty of it and the overall way it was handled even if I also had some issues with its placement and the motivation behind it.

So it's not like it CAN'T be done, but I think it just feels less compelling to most people because of what the Jedi tend to symbolize within Star Wars. It'd be interesting to see more people attempt to tackle this story for other characters, but I'm also cognizant that there's a LOT of bad Jedi content out there right now and they keep killing off the Jedi or having characters be Jedi critical and all of that, so having more stories of Jedi who LEAVE the Order isn't perhaps what we need more of. I want more stories of Jedi who are happy to be Jedi first, THEN we can look at stories about Jedi who leave the Order amicably.

You know those posts that are like "it's so hard to be a Jedi fan who also loves Luke/Anakin/Ahsoka/etc"? Here's mine.

It's so hard to be a Jedi fan who also loves the clones sometimes. And I do love the clones, I genuinely think the only good thing to have come out of TCW was the way it changed the characterization of the clones for good.

But damn so many clone fans just really hate the Jedi and can't STAND when we Jedi fans dare to just talk about the Jedi instead of the clones in any given situation.

What are your favorite and most hated tropes?

In general?

I don't know that I've thought about it that much, honestly. I personally believe that tropes are (mostly) neutral and any trope can be either really incredible or really awful depending on the context of the story and how well executed it is.

The only ones I hate are the blatantly offensive ones, all of the sexist, racist, antisemitic, homophobic, and transphobic tropes that we all tend to know about.

In Star Wars specifically, I obviously hate the trope of blaming the Jedi for everything unironically. I don't mind looking at how the Jedi were turned into scapegoats by Palpatine and the galaxy and how regular people might often end up blaming the Jedi for things because they genuinely just don't know any better (a galaxy is a big place and misinformation is obviously quite rampant). But I don't care for the trope that's starting to show up WAY too often where the narrative SUPPORTS that the Jedi are to blame for the things that happened to them and to the galaxy. I particularly hate all of the Jedi survivors scapegoating themselves (and again here, it's one thing when it's an Inquisitor who's been broken and tortured into thinking this way or a Fallen Jedi like Bode and Malicos who are explicitly already evil says something like this, but it's another thing for Cal to agree with them or for Yoda to blame the Jedi for the war).

I'm also starting to get really tired of the clones and Jedi just getting killed off for pathos over and over again when it isn't actually necessary and actually probably makes the story worse sometimes. I dunno if that counts as a trope or not, but whatever, I'm putting it here.

Other than that, I feel like I'm generally fairly neutral on tropes. Any trope can be done really well or really serve a particular story, there's no trope (outside of the ones that are based on prejudice and bigotry) that is inherently bad all the time or inherently great all the time. A trope I might really love in one story might feel really corny in another, and vice versa. It's almost never the trope's fault that it doesn't work. "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn this way" and all that.

The real punch to the gut is how the narrative uses to that to reduce her from hero to sounding board for the men around her. Rey spends the entirety of The Last Jedi as a surrogate mother to men: first Luke, then Ben. She is there to be an emotional sherpa, a plot device with a lightsaber and good listening skills[…] You could wipe Rey from Episode IX with little fallout to the narrative. Another Force user could step in to take her place; either another lost Jedi such as Mace Windu or Ahsoka Tano or another “nobody” with Force powers. Had Luke died during the original trilogy, the story would’ve hit a wall from which it could not recover. The same with Anakin in the prequel trilogy. So who is the main character of The Last Jedi? Whose removal would cause the wheels to come off and the narrative to grind to a halt? Kylo. Fucking. Ren. When Ben says Rey has no place in this story; he’s kind of right. The Last Jedi made Rey superfluous in her own hero’s journey. She deserved better than that.

Donna Dickens, ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Fails Rey On Every Level (via handmaidensofnaboo)