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#but that’s just an example of a forbidden jedi romance
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ok I see y’all with the Jedi ocs who have forbidden relationships. I see the people shipping Jedi with other characters (*cough cough* anakin x padme, codywan, aayla x bly *cough cough*) (no shade bc I ship too). I see the Jedi!reader x clone trooper fics.
But i raise you
acearo Jedi who has no interest in relationships at all
sure this Jedi still bonds with their master like a parent/child relationship; what Jedi doesn’t?
this Jedi becomes close friends with other Jedi and sees their clone squad as siblings
this Jedi might even make friends outside of the GAR and Jedi order. maybe some civilian friends
but this Jedi just. never had an inkling of attraction for everyone. They just wanna protect the galaxy and have some laughs.
maybe this Jedi is completely oblivious to any romantic or sexual relationships/attraction/tension going on around them. Maybe this Jedi just doesn’t care. Either way, i think this has a lot of comedy potential (and maybe angst potential)
instead of a Jedi with a forbidden relationship, how about this?
Yoda: the Jedi way, attachment is not. In your future, marriage and family you will not find. Always first, the good of the galaxy comes.
aroace Jedi: okie dokie :)
Yoda: … no questions you have?
aroace Jedi: nope that sounds like a plan to me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I would like to meditate in my room alone by myself before dinner.
Yoda: easiest Jedi, this is
just *aroace jedi* :D
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that-sw-writer · 4 years
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Cloak and Dagger I
PART TWO
Notes: this is gonna be a lil mini series I’ve planned out - either two or three parts, not sure yet!
Word count: 3801
Warnings: all aboard the trope train to trope town!!!
Summary: You had loved Ben Solo.  You still loved Kylo Ren.  But having left the First Order behind, you wanted him back.  With Kylo now the Supreme Leader, his inaugural ball seemed liked the perfect opportunity to reach him.
Despite knowing the dangers, you decided to go undercover to get back the man you love.
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"Commander Y/L/N, it's not safe.  I won't allow it."  Leia marched through the Resistance Base, with you on her heels.
"General, you know I'm the only one who can get through to him!"  You protested, but she wasn't letting up.
"And I agree with you, but going alone into the middle of the First Order?  It's too dangerous."  Leia stopped walking and turned to face you, "I want him back just as much as you do, but we need to be smart about this."  With that she continued walking, and in her eyes that was the end of discussion.  But you weren't giving up that easily.
"I understand your concern, but I know the First Order better than anyone.  I can easily use the Force to get in."  You continued to fight your case, still following after her.
"I'm not concerned about you getting in, I'm more concerned about them discovering you whilst you're there."  She sighed.
"They won't!"  You assured her, "Please, General trust me!"
Leia stopped to look at you, she was clearly calculating.  Eventually she came to the realisation that you were going to go either way, and you had a much higher chance of success with her support rather than without it.
"Fine, but we are planning this.  Every detail."  She warned you, and you vigorously nodded in agreement.
The planning was mostly down to you, but was simply supported by Leia and the Resistance.  You had all of the inside knowledge of the First Order.  You had been spared by Ben Solo when Luke Skywalker's Jedi temple fell.  He loved you too much to fathom killing you, and you loved him too much to leave his side.  You therefore both ended up serving the First Order.
You had been connected by the Force since the day you had first met at the temple.  It was only natural that romance would blossom from such a connection, but never to the knowledge of Master Skywalker.  As far as anyone else was concerned, attachments were forbidden and you were both just friends.
After joining the First Order, as time went on your morals were screaming at you to get out.  You didn't agree in the slightest with the atrocities you were being ordered to commit, and unlike Kylo Ren you had never fully embraced the dark side.  In reality, Snoke had only put up with you because he knew that if he killed you he would lose his grip on Kylo.
Eventually you couldn't stand it anymore, it broke your heart to leave Ben, or Kylo, behind but you had to do it for yourself.  You couldn't spend the rest of your life compromising for him.
It hadn't been long until the Resistance had tracked you down, and although you had been hesitant to rejoin the fight at first, in fear of coming face to face with Kylo Ren, you realised that you were possibly one of the only people in the galaxy who could save him from himself.
You had loved Ben Solo, and you still loved Kylo Ren.  You just wanted him back, and you were going to extreme lengths to get to him.
Snoke was dead, and you knew from Rey that it had been down to him.  But now Kylo Ren was the Supreme Leader, and the First Order was holding an inaugural ball in celebration.  You knew that Kylo would be grouchy about having to attend any kind of formal affair, and you equally saw it as the perfect opportunity to reach him.
If you could infiltrate the ball, you could hopefully get a chance to talk to him.  He was Supreme Leader now, and despite Rey insisting that he wasn't turning to the light, you weren't ready to give up on him.  Your connection through the Force meant that you knew Kylo still loved you, he always had, and you were relying heavily on that.
"If you want to back out now, we'll understand."  Leia tried one final time to wear you down, but you firmly shook your head.
"No, this is something I have to do.  I couldn't live with myself if I don't at least try."  You were confident in your words, and in your plan.
You took a final look in the mirror and smoothed down the dress you were wearing.  It hadn't been easy to get your hands on the garment, but Leia was a well-connected woman and still a princess at that, she had contacted an old friend and had a dress made for you.
For an undercover mission, you were ironically in danger of standing out.  But hiding in plain sight was going to have to be the tactic on this occasion.
The dress was an eye-catching red satin, simple in design but equally flattering on your body.  It hit the floor, and had a slit running up your left leg.  Your favourite part was that the dress was actually designed with practicality in mind.  Whilst it perfectly accentuated every curve on your body, the slit up the side not only gave you manoeuvrability in case of combat but it also gave you access to where your Lightsaber hilt was strapped to the thigh of your right leg.
"Y/N."  Leia held you back a moment before you boarded the ship due to take you to the Finalizer, "Please be careful."  She urged you one last time, before looking away briefly, "And bring Ben home."  She then added, meeting your eyes.
"I'll do my best."  You told her, disappearing on board your transport.
"Next stop, the Finalizer!"  Poe grinned at you as he took off.  He had insisted on being the one to pilot for you.
He had gone to great lengths to steal a ship that was registered to another guest.  It was a craft that couldn't be traced back to the Resistance, and really the ship was the least of your worries.  So long as it got you on board, you weren't concerned.  It was what came afterwards that concerned you.
"We're approaching the shields now."  Poe called, and you moved up to the cockpit to lean over his seat and watch out of the viewpoint with him.
You both exhaled a sigh of relief when the ship passed through the shields with ease.
"I guess this is your stop."  Poe flew slowly towards the hanger bay, following the line of ships ahead of him, all dropping off distinguished guests.
"Wish me luck."  You tried to appear as lighthearted as you could, but now that you were here your heart was sinking.
Was this a hopeless endeavour?  No.  Kylo Ren wasn't lost yet, at least not to you.  A tremendous amount of energy was going into shrouding yourself in the Force - if he sensed your presence it would be over before it had begun.
"Good luck Y/N."  He sincerely told you.  Poe never pretended to understand why you wanted to undertake this mission, and he had been vocal against it all the way through, but he accepted that now it was the eleventh hour and there was no stopping you.  "I won't be far, comm me when you're ready for a pickup."
You were too wracked by nerves and focused on concealing yourself in the Force to respond with any words, so you just gave him a nod.
Following the trend, as soon as he landed, he lowered the boarding ramp and you exited the safety of the craft.
"Invitation and credentials please, Ma'am."  A stormtrooper immediately approached, and all down the line of other ships dropping off guests other troopers were performing the same duties.
Leia had initially been worried about you being recognised, but following Kylo's example you had opted for wearing a mask when you had joined the Order.  It was the best you could do to separate yourself from your Jedi identity, but it was only superficial, it hadn't changed you within.  The only people who would recognise your face were Kylo and a select few members of High Command, whom you simply had to avoid.
"You've already verified me."  You quietly said, tapping into the Force for the briefest moment as you waved your hand in front of the trooper's face, hoping that it wouldn't be enough to get Kylo's attention from wherever he was.
"I've already verified you."  He repeated back to you in his trance, "Enjoy your evening Ma'am."
You nodded and paused to watch Poe's ship disappear back into the distance.  Now you were on your own.
Taking a deep breath, you followed the other guests towards the blast doors leading out of the hanger bay and into the function room.  You knew your way around the Finalizer well enough, but you were visibly shocked when you saw the decor in the function room - it looked completely different.
The usually solid steel walls were draped with black and red fabrics, chandeliers hung from the ceiling, a dance floor had been built in the centre of the room, and a bar towards the far end.  Serving droids were buzzing around with trays of drinks and finger-foods.  It was hard to believe that you were aboard the Finalizer and not on planet surface in some royal palace.
Drinks were clearly flowing, in fact you appeared to be the only person without a drink in your hand, but you weren't willing to rectify that.  You didn't want to drink in the fear that any alcohol would ruin your focus and make your presence known to the Supreme Leader.  There were loud murmurs of conversation over the sound of the string band playing a classical waltz.
You needed to start mingling, but also actively avoid anyone who would recognise your face.  Thankfully the perfect opportunity presented itself to you.
"Excuse me, may I have this dance?"  A man approached.  He was slightly older than you, wearing formal robes.  "I noticed you looking at the dance floor."  He clarified.  He was rather handsome, but still not the man you were searching for.
"Oh-"  You turned, studying the man's features to make sure you didn't recognise him.  You then nervously glanced over his shoulder where you could see General Pryde just a mere few meters away.  He was someone who would certainly know your face.  "-Uh, I'd love to!"  You quickly agreed, taking the man's arm and swiftly pulling him to the dance floor.  Hopefully there you could disappear into the crowd.
His arm snaked around your waist, yours resting on his shoulder as you swayed in time with the music.  The movements were giving you a good chance to look around the room - but there was still no sign of Kylo.
"I've never seen you at one of the First Order mixers.  I'd remember a face as beautiful as yours."  The man remarked, a flashy grin on his lips.  His words pulled your attention back to him, and for the first time you were able to study his face.  He had dirty blonde hair and striking blue eyes, conventionally attractive, but equally the polar opposite of the man you loved.
"I'm nobody special."  You sheepishly smiled, "I'm here representing Wytha.  We're just a tiny planet in the outer rim, not much to offer other than access to a good trade route I'm afraid."  The way you sold your words had the man you were dancing with totally believing that Wytha was actually a real planet.
Leia had insisted that you devise a simple and believable cover for yourself, and suddenly you were grateful for it.
"Now I'm sure you have more to offer than just a trade route, especially if your beauty is anything to judge your planet by."  He was certainly charming, but sadly for him he was just a means to an end.
As you were spun around by your would-be-suitor, you could see a bustle of officers gathering by the grand entrance.  They were surely getting ready to introduce their new leader.
"Distinguished guests, please be upstanding for your new Supreme Leader, Kylo Ren."  Sure enough a voice rung out, and you broke away from your partner.  Your eyes were fixated on the blast doors, which flew open to reveal Kylo.  You inhaled a sharp breath when you laid eyes on him, he was just as handsome as the day you had first seen him at the Jedi temple, all those years ago.
He looked different to when you had last seen him, however.  Stronger, more sure of himself, and dressed in his black formal robes, adorned with a cape - he certainly looked the part of Supreme Leader.
"All hail our new leader."  You attention was suddenly pulled back to the charming gentleman behind you, who was sneering slightly.  Of course you had assumed Kylo's leadership would not sit well with everyone, but you were certain that he would have them all in line soon - if you didn't get to him first.
Kylo's expression remained blank, but he disappeared into the crowd to exchange pleasantries amongst his guests.  You were relieved that he didn't seem to have sensed you in the Force, perhaps things would go to plan after all.  As he disappeared, you didn't turn back to the man you were dancing with, "-excuse me."  You muttered, pushing through the crowd of dancing couples to get off the dance floor.
"Wait!"  He called, "I didn't even get your name-" but you were gone before he could protest any further.  He sighed in defeat, a man such as him would surely find a more suitable partner with ease.
You moved subtly through the crowd, blending in with groups who were talking and exchanging stories, feigning laughter where necessary.  You could see the back of Kylo's head, and as you got closer your anxiety was rising.  What if he alerted someone to your presence on the spot?  Maker, what if he killed you on the spot?  A lot of your plan was relying on his love for you.
Kylo was engaged in conversation with a number of diplomats.  Well, they were engaged in conversation whilst he silently nodded and accepted their flurry of compliments on his rise to leadership.
As you slowly approached, a number of the people in his schmoozing-circle glanced at you.  You ignored them, with a bulk of your focus going into hiding your presence in the Force for these final few moments, all the energy you had left was going into approaching the man you loved.
The chatter dulled as you got closer, now within reaching distance of Kylo.  All eyes were on you, all except Kylo's.
"Supreme Leader-"  You softly spoke to get his attention.
His body visibly stiffened, and he didn't dare turn around, but he couldn't risk making a scene in front of his guests.  But your voice, he recognised it instantly, and now that you weren't masking your presence in the Force your energy washed over him like a warm blanket in the snow.
As he inhaled and turned to face you, that very breath got caught in his throat.  In all the years he had known you, he had never seen you like this.  The red dress was stunning, it was entirely different to the Jedi robes, dirtied battle robes, or training clothes he had grown so used to seeing you wear.
When your eyes met his, your pupils softened, "-May I have this dance?"  You then finished your sentence.  It was cliche, of course it was.  But you needed an apt excuse to draw him away from his guests and that seemed to be the best course of action.
No words left his lips, but not for lack of trying.  His mouth opened but no sound came out - he was truly stunned, and the people behind him were exchanging glances amongst themselves.  What woman could possibly have their Supreme Leader acting in such a way?
Silently, you reached down to take his hand, and he didn't dispute it.  You led him away from the group and left them to their aimless chatter.
When you reached the dance floor, the string band was playing a slow classical piece, enough for couples to simply stand and sway.  Kylo's body was still stiff, but at this point you assumed it was half because you were making him dance.  In all of your years together, you had never danced with him.
Reluctantly, his large hand moved to rest on your waist, yours on his shoulder and you gently swayed in time with the music.
"What are you doing here?"  He finally spoke, his tone rich with emotion.  You couldn't pinpoint what that emotion was - love, longing, distaste?  It all seemed to merge into one.
"I'm here for you."  You said plainly, "to bring you home."
His face hardened at this, your conversation remaining hushed.  "Then you're wasting your time.  This is my home."
"It's as much your home as the Resistance is mine."  You squeezed his broad shoulder slightly, pausing to take a deep breath before baring your soul to him, "Since leaving, nothing's felt right.  Not because I left the First Order, but because I left you.  You're my home, Kylo, you always were."  Your words trailed off slightly towards the end, but that didn't make them any less true.
The Jedi temple hadn't been your home, Ben Solo had.  Even when he became Kylo Ren he was all that kept you loyal to the dark side.  Without him your life had felt so empty, he was half of your very being.
He remained silent for an uncomfortable amount of time.  Calculating every word before he spoke it, "I can't leave."  Was eventually all he had managed to say, but you knew better than that, you could sense that he had wanted to say so much more.
"If you didn't care about me, I'd either be dead or strapped to an interrogation chair by now."  You pointed out.
Before Kylo could respond, over his shoulder you spotted the man you had previously been dancing with.  He looked as though he was avidly searching for someone amongst the crowds, and you were immediately concerned that it was you.
"Dip me."  You quickly urged Kylo, who furrowed his brow.
"What?"
With no time to explain and your pursuer turning to look right down your eye-line, you dropped yourself backwards, forcing Kylo to catch you by your waist and lean forward to dip slightly with you.
After a moment he pulled you back up towards his chest and you returned to swaying.
"Who are you avoiding?"  He asked, clearly trying to divert the conversation to anything except the current scenario.
"Someone who was inadvertently helping me avoid Pryde earlier."  You brushed off the comment, but it left a silence hanging in the air between you.
You were glancing at those around you, still concerned about being spotted.  Meanwhile Kylo was just looking at you, studying your face, committing every one of your features to memory.
"I miss you."  He broke the silence with his quiet admission, and you turned your attention back to him, now blocking out the world around you.
"Then come with me.  We could leave, right now.  We can leave this war behind and start a new life together."  At this point you were pleading with him, this wasn't your war, it never had been.
"You know I can't do that."  He hoarsely responded.
"Give me one good reason why not."  You challenged him.  You could feel how conflicted he was, and the only thing holding him back was his desire for victory against the Resistance and to rule over the galaxy.
"I-"  Kylo began to respond, and for a moment you truly thought he was going to say that he would give it all up for you, but before the words could leave his mouth a voice approached you from behind.  Kylo's expression immediately dropped, and his hands were quick to slip away from your waist.
"Commander Y/L/N.  I must say it is most surprising to see a Jedi traitor amongst the guests for our inaugural ball."  General Pryde sneered, and you dared not turn around.  Everything had been going perfectly, but you had just let your guard down for too long.
"Never mind about the threatening speech General, Supreme Leader Ren has already explained to me in graphic detail about how he's planning on killing me."  You stepped away from Kylo, your eye contact with him not breaking.  You knew it wasn't fair to paint Kylo in a bad light, and if you did your chances of survival were bound to drop.
As far as Pryde was concerned, Kylo had been on the dance floor threatening you, blending in to not make a scene amongst the other guests.  Although it wasn't the most believable story, it was the best explanation for what the General had seen.  Now it was down to Kylo to reassert himself.
"Get the guards in here."  Kylo reluctantly said, causing Pryde to yell out the order himself.  Clearly he was relishing in your capture.  In the eyes of the First Order, you were a filthy traitor... if only they had known that you had never been loyal to them in the first instance.
General Pryde's summoning of the stormtroopers on guard unsurprisingly caught the attention of every guest in the room.  The background noise dulled down to silence and all eyes were instantly on you.
You didn't reach for your Lightsaber yet, not until you were able to asses the situation.  A group of approximately ten stormtroopers surrounded you, weapons raised.  The guests who had been nearby you had been quickly ushered backwards, leaving just you, Kylo, Pryde and the troopers on the dance floor.
Pryde moved closer to Kylo who was stood frozen on the spot, "Sir, might I suggest that a display of power could prove very beneficial in this scenario."  He whispered to Ren, but you easily overheard.
It was true, if Kylo killed you in front of this crowd it would certainly cement his authority as Supreme Leader.  But you were convinced that he couldn't do it.
"Hands up, traitor."  One stormtrooper jabbed his blaster towards you, and you raised your hands in surrender.
"Kill her, Supreme Leader."  Pryde suggested more strongly this time, and around you indistinct mummers were rising as the tensions in the room reached breaking point.
Kylo stepped towards where you stood with your arms raised, and you didn't flinch as he stared you down.
"I'm sorry."  He quietly said.  There was a lot that he could be sorry for.
Sorry that Pryde had interrupted, sorry that he wasn't in a position to help you, sorry that you weren't able to run away from the war together.
"I'm sorry too."  You replied.  But you knew exactly why you were apologising.
You were sorry that you weren't going to go quietly.
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I know fandom loves to screech about Jedi forbidding romantic relationships, but is it stated in any canon sources? Because I can't help thinking a relationship respectful of Jedi tenets would require a great deal of self-awareness on all parties involved andconstant, fluid communication. And thay? That's like ultimate goals of a healthy relationship.
It’s not outright stated as far as I know - I think the idea is mostly extrapolated from Anakin and Padmé hiding their relationship (or, well, trying to hide it), people (including EU authors) interpreting “attachment” to mean romance, and the AOTC marketing (which went hard on the “forbidden love” angle).
That, and we’re not really directly shown examples of the kind of romantic relationship that would be appropriate for Jedi (i.e., a non-committed one) - even with Obi-Wan and Satine it can look more like they’re just not acting on their feelings at all - so it’s easy for people to assume it’s just not allowed in any form. Obi-Wan does say outright that they’re allowed to have romantic feelings but he didn’t really go into detail about the nature of relationships that are allowed as an extension of that, since an exposition dump of the nuances of Jedi-appropriate relationships would be dry and take up valuable screentime, saying only in response to Anakin’s bald-faced lie declaration that he and Padmé are just friends, that they need to remain friends.
From what I read from it, since we know that friendship is allowed and encouraged among Jedi and since Word of God says that Jedi are not required to be celibate - I assume that casual, low-key, friends-with-benefits and romantic friendships would all be acceptable provided that the Jedi doesn’t put their love interest above others or let the relationship interfere with or distract from their duties. I think this is supported by the fact that the Jedi (or at least Obi-Wan and Yoda) are strongly implied to be aware that Anakin has something going on with Padmé, but they only ever try to address it when it’s directly causing a problem with Anakin’s duties and judgement.
There’s room for the “no romance at all” interpretation, but it’s certainly not the definitive or only viable reading of the material.
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hinerdsitscat · 3 years
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So Let's Talk About Star Wars: Into the Dark
I yelled a bit about The Light of the Jedi so now I guess it’s time to unleash all of my thoughts about the next book in the High Republic series.
I liked Into the Dark more than I liked LotJ, partially because I just really like Claudia Gray’s writing (writer of the most iconic scene in the new canon novels, in which Leia shows up to a party in her most Obviously Sinister outfit after the big public scandal about Vader being her father in Bloodline), but also because Charles Soule had to put a lot of energy into introducing the entire High Republic universe over the course of the first book, whereas CG could just get down to business. I also think the slightly pared-down number of characters and plotlines in ItD helped a lot: I spent a lot of LotJ not knowing which characters I should get invested in, because the first third of the book kept introducing characters and then immediately killing them off.
So let’s talk characters because DAMN they are delightful:
Reath Silas, You Fucking Nerd
No, really, the number of times I yelled “oh my god Reath you FUCKING NERD” out loud while reading this book was well into the double digits.
This precious city boy who just wants to read a book and be left alone, to the extent that they unofficially gave him his own desk in the Archives. Bless.
Also, just the sheer innocence of this child thinking that all the adults around him have everything figured out
But also: “I understand prosthetic arms are more advanced than prosthetic legs. More comfortable too.” and then CUTS OFF SOMEONE’S ARM (I had to edit this post like a week after the fact because I can’t believe I forgot about this scene)
The absolute lack of danger sense on this child, I stg... Meeting the scary genocidal plants? "OH MY GOD YOU'RE SENTIENT PLANTS CAN I ASK A FEW QUESTIONS?" Face to face with a Nihil soldier holding a blaster? "I REALLY WANT TO TALK PHILOSOPHY WITH YOU!" Having Cohmac dump a Massively Worrying Bit Of Heresy in his lap? "OH HELL YES, WE'RE GONNA TALK PHILOSOPHY, BEST DAY EVER!"
Speaking of Cohmac...
Cohmac Vitus, A Parade's Worth of Red Flags
Hoo boy...
This guy is the walking embodiment of Every Problem That Is Going To Bite The Jedi Order In The Ass When Anakin Skywalker Comes Along: trauma, repressed emotions, questions that Jedi dogma can't sufficiently answer, got an unexpected Padawan but can barely take care of himself... like, the only thing he's missing is a forbidden romance (Avar and Elzar seem to have that plotline covered, I think/hope...)
None of that is a criticism, by the way: I'm 100% over here with popcorn screaming "YES, FUCK THIS GUY UP"
Everything's going to hell and people are about to attack one another? FLOAT IN MIDAIR BECAUSE WHO'S GONNA MESS WITH THE GUY WHO CAN FUCKING FLY
Orla Jareni, Heading Off to the Jedi Order's Version of Hampshire College
Her plotline felt very much like something from SWTOR, but that might just be because I started playing the Jedi Consular storyline, like, yesterday?
I really liked her flashback plotline because, like with Cohmac, this was another example of "I really wish the Order had addressed this issue before Anakin came along..." Namely, that she spent the flashback mission trying to ignore her instincts in favor of what she was told, and it naturally led to a catastrophe. I got a lot of shades of "I keep having dreams about my mother dying! Eh, it's probably nothing..." so anyway, I spent a lot of Orla's plotline silently yelling.
Also THANK YOU CLAUDIA GRAY for this amazing new addition to canon: "Orla had recently declared herself a Wayseeker--a Jedi who would operate independently of the dictates of the Jedi Council. Some Jedi, from time to time, found themselves drawn to a period of solitary action, whether that meant meditation on a mountaintop, helping revolutionaries on a tyrant-ruled world, or even, in one legendary instance, becoming a minor singing sensation on Alderaan." I HAVE ABOUT HALF A DOZEN FIC IDEAS NOW, MOSTLY AROUND OBI-WAN BECOMING A TEEN HEARTTHROB POP IDOL.
Dez Rydan, the Cool Kid?
This guy gave me serious Ganner Rhysode vibes and so I was not in any way surprised when he got the absolute shit kicked out of him, because he basically had Doom written all over him. I was, however, surprised that he survived?
The Barash Vow was really interesting, and I was actually relieved that the Jedi Order had something close to rehabilitation, even if it was just "meditate a lot."
Leox Gyasi, aka "Master Yoda on (Medicinal) Spice"
There's a canonically asexual character in the GFFA!!!
Which would make him...
...wait for it...
...
...
...an ACE PILOT
(ducks)
Anyway, Leox is played by Tim Rozon-as-Doc-Holliday-in-Wynonna-Earp and you cannot take that mental casting away from me.
Affie Hollow, You Sweet Summer Child
Yeah, that about sums it up, though I love that she really did think she could change her Bird Mafia Mom.
I also really hope that this isn't the last we'll see of her.
She suffers through Reath's explanation of what Jedi are and then asks what is quickly becoming The Question of the High Republic series: "So do Jedi have sex or not?"
Geode: Stone Groot
I just want to say how ELATED I am that there was NO EXPLANATION for what Geode's deal was other than: he's a Vintian, from Vint rock person. That's it.
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The Quest for the Lost Bride: Anidala (and Reylo) as Orpheus and Eurydice
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One of the theories I’ve found intriguing since belatedly joining the Reylo fandom has been that of Reverse Anidala, or the idea that the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala is being told in reverse, as the joyous romance of Ben Solo and Rey of Jakku. When researching folktale types for my Reylo as Eros and Psyche analysis, I came across the apparent inverse of ATU 425: The Search for the Lost Husband, which is ATU 400: The Quest for the Lost Bride. If Star Wars does indeed draw on mythology from around the world, and the theory of Reverse Anidala is correct, it seems reasonable that Anakin and Padme’s tale would match closely to these Lost Bride tales, the most famous of which is that of Orpheus and Eurydice. On the surface, the mythological motifs in the Prequel Trilogy didn’t seem as distinct as those of the Sequel Trilogy, but a deeper dive demonstrated that George Lucas is, in fact, the inspired genius we all know him to be (awkward dialogue notwithstanding).
Quest for the Lost Bride tales include, just like Search for the Lost Husband stories, variations such as the Animal Bride and Supernatural Bride. There is slightly less standardization in the Bride tales than the Husband ones, even within a single cultural tradition: for instance, some versions of the Orpheus tale end with the eternal separation of the lovers, while others include the eventual happy reunion in the Underworld after Orpheus’ death. However, the most well-known of these stories are tragedies, so I’ll be focusing on those, including both Virgil and Ovid’s versions of Orpheus and Eurydice, several versions of The Swan Maiden, The Crane Wife, the Shinto creation myth of Izanagi and Izanami, and more. As some of these involve faith traditions that are still practiced to this day, I will try to handle them respectfully, but I would appreciate a generous correction if you feel my treatment has been in any way insensitive.
Orpheus was the son of Apollo, the sun god, and Calliope, chief of the muses who presided over epic poetry. He was best known as a uniquely-skilled musician and poet, whose music could charm all living things and even cause rocks and trees to dance. In some versions of the tale, Apollo gives Orpheus a golden lyre and teaches him to play it, and this hero is nearly always associated with magic or witchcraft. While the Greek story presents Orpheus as an artistic soul, both contemporary and later critics scoffed at this as his “unmanliness.” They would often blame the hero’s loss of his wife on the husband’s failures of traditional, aggressive masculinity. Accordingly, later iterations of the Quest for the Lost Bride folktale type have the hero as a warrior, king, or prince.
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There’s a lot of Anakin Skywalker here already, both from a canonical perspective and a fandom perspective. The son of an inspiring woman and The Force itself (which is the deity of the Star Wars universe), Anakin is essentially a demigod, and his extraordinary skill with the Force is clearly a gift from that powerful “father.” His power does sometimes take on an artistic, charming character (and as a calligrapher, his grandson has clearly inherited this artistic spirit), as when he floated the pear to Padme, but the Jedi force him to turn his skills to war instead. Anakin is pressed into a violent role at odds with the selfless soul his mother Shmi describes, and even the fans at times seemed dissatisfied with his softer nature. This is part of the reason that the Clone Wars TV show portrayed him as much more traditionally masculine. We recognize both versions of the character as Anakin Skywalker, but they each reflect a particular audience perspective, just as the different mythical Husbands do.
Eurydice, on the other hand, is hardly described at all in the myth. Unusually, there’s not even a mention of her particular beauty. It seems she is just the object of Orpheus love and no more, leading to a great deal of excellent feminist criticism (which we’ll get into later). However, other versions of the Lost Bride give us more detail: most notable is that the heroine is nearly always a fairy or other ethereal creature, who hails from a mystical world apart from the mortal realm. She might be a fairy princess, a selkie, a mermaid, a swan, a crane, or even a goddess. Frequently, she must be enticed or abducted from this other world and her means of returning to it must be destroyed (usually with the typical burning of the animal skin). In some versions of the tale, she even had another husband before the hero captured her. She comes to love her new husband sincerely and live happily with him for a time, but there is always a sense of her being out of place.
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When Anakin meets Padme as a child, his first words to her are “Are you an angel?” This has always struck me as a fascinating artistic choice by George Lucas, a man who so enjoyed worldbuilding that he frankly got a little carried away with it in much of the Prequel Trilogy. He certainly could have chosen a Star Wars-y sounding name for this alien race of ethereal beings from the moons of Iego, but he chose something with a very specific and recognizable meaning: Angel. He knew that this word would immediately communicate what a convoluted explanation of in-world lore (*cough* midichlorians *cough*) would not: an image of purity, kindness, and beauty. Padme is cast as a supernatural image of perfection, and we understand immediately that the lovesick Anakin has placed her on a pedestal, seeing her forever as Angel rather than as Woman. To marry Anakin, Padme must to some extent turn her back on her principles (remember her insistence that she couldn’t “live a lie?”), and is then torn between her loyalty to her husband and to democracy. In a sense, she has been plucked from the fairy world of Naboo and drawn into a marriage that, though filled with genuine love, places her at odds with her true nature.
In Quest for the Lost Bride tales, this duality of the lady is often expressed by the Animal Bride motif, with the heroine taking one form when she is away from her fairy world, and another when she is in her natural home. This might be taken further by having a false bride, a variation best known from the Black Swan of the Swan Lake ballet. In this example, the bride’s false nature is personified as a completely separate woman, while her true self exists in the form that the hero first falls in love with. Interestingly, this appears to be referenced in the costuming of Queen Amidala and her decoy, Sabe: During the invasion of Naboo in The Phantom Menace, Sabe wears a towering robe of black feathers. Later in the finale, Padme wears a similarly-feathered gown of soft white layers.
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In Attack of the Clones, we see this duality within Padme herself in the two scenes in which she confronts her feelings for Anakin: When she denies her feelings for him and declares that they cannot be together, she wears a jarringly seductive black dress. This is clearly not her true self. Later on Geonosis, when she finally declares her love for him, Padme is clad in pure white. She then wears white again as she binds herself to him in marriage. Still another variant of the two brides theme is the human woman versus the shade (sometimes a rotting corpse), but we’ll get to that later….
Orpheus and Eurydice’s union seems to be doomed from the outset, as Hymen, the Greek god of marriage, fails to bless their marriage. Eurydice is then pursued by an insistent suitor, and in fleeing him, steps on a viper and dies of a poisonous bite to the heel, descending to the Underworld for eternity. In other Lost Bride tales, the enchanted wife returns to the fairy realm or retreats into her animal form, often after a betrayal by her husband. In the Maori tale of Mataora and Niwareka, husband Mataora strikes his spirit wife Niwareka across the face, and she flees back to her homeland because domestic violence is unheard of among her people. And in the Shinto creation myth of Izanagi and Izanami, wife Izanami dies in childbirth, burned to death when giving birth to the fire god Kagutsuchi. In fact, it’s extremely common for the fairy wife to flee or die after giving birth to her husband’s children.
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Again, the parallels to Anakin and Padme’s story should be obvious: Since marriage is forbidden by the Jedi Order, the couple’s nuptials must remain a secret, meaning their union is never blessed by the powers of their world. Though Padme has no suitor, we see Anakin in Revenge of the Sith split into two people: the Jedi who loves his wife, and Darth Vader, who bids her join him in his galactic domination. In that sense, Vader is the dark rival for Padme’s affections. Further, he cements the loss of his wife with the ultimate marital betrayal, attempting to strangle her with the Force. And finally, Padme dies after giving birth to the twins, at the same moment that Vader rises from the flames that consumed Anakin Skywalker. The Lost Bride descends to the Underworld, and now begins the husband’s Quest.
One of my favorite sources for this analysis was In Search of the Swan Maiden: A Narrative on Folklore and Gender, by Barbara Fass Leavy. I strongly recommend checking it out, but this is one of her excellent points that caught my eye:
“.... according to the tale type Index, wives search for their lost spouses, whereas husbands who have lost fairy wives embark on quests - a particular irony given that the searching women characteristically win back their spouses and the questing men characteristically do not.”
I find this fascinating as a commentary on the perspective of both the storyteller and the audience in the Prequel Trilogy versus the Sequel Trilogy: the traditional tales seem to assign greater agency to the men, but greater success to the women. This can be seen in the prequels when Padme seems unusually passive and even dies of a “broken heart,” despite having two children to live for, as many have pointed out. Further, the first six films of the Skywalker saga are told from a masculine perspective, so a Quest for the Lost Bride tale seems like a natural fit. In the sequels, however, the perspective has shifted to the feminine, attempting to assign greater agency to the heroine and leading her toward a successful retrieval of the Lost Husband. This is important, because from this point onward in the myth, I’m going to be applying more and more of the story motifs to the Sequel Trilogy, not just the Prequels.
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Back to the Quest: Orpheus, devastated by his wife’s death, roams the earth playing mournful tunes on his lyre. Eventually, he decides to descend to the Underworld and plead with Hades and Persephone for his wife, referencing their own love story to appeal to their empathy. Just because it’s gorgeous, here’s part of his song:
“Let me again Eurydice receive, 
Let Fate her quick-spun thread of life reweave. 
All our possessions are but loans from you, 
And soon, or late, you must be paid your due; 
Hither we haste to humankind's last seat, 
Your endless empire, and our sure retreat. 
She too, when ripened years she shall attain, 
Must, of avoidless right, be yours again: 
I but the transient use of that require, 
Which soon, too soon, I must resign entire. 
But if the destinies refuse my vow, 
And no remission of her doom allow; 
Know, I'm determined to return no more; 
So both retain, or both to life restore.”
*MELTS* So anyway, his song works and they tell him he can lead Eurydice out of the Underworld, BUT she must walk behind him and he must not look back at her even once, or else she will spend eternity as a shade in Hell. In other tales, the husband might be instructed never to look upon the wife’s animal form (The Crane Wife), or upon her rotting corpse (Izanagi & Izanami), or he may be given another admonishment from his father-in-law as to the acceptable treatment of the daughter. Invariably, the hero swears he will obey, but whether an hour or many years later, he fails. In Orpheus’ case, he is nearly returned to the land of the living when he is unable to resist the temptation to glance back and check that Eurydice has not lost her footing. She vanishes, and Orpheus (described thereafter as having a “frozen breast”) is again wracked by grief, swearing off of [sexual] contact with women and again roaming the world singing songs of sorrow.
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If the “look back” can be seen as a loss of faith, or a fall to the temptation for power, then Anakin certainly demonstrated this in his reach for the power that Sidious offered. Padme begs him to run away with her, to turn back toward the Light, but Anakin “looks back” to the powerful promise of the Dark Side and loses her forever. Similarly, Ben Solo gazes at Rey across the burning throne room, clearly thinking only of being with her…. Until he “looks back” at Snoke’s throne, and is pulled back into the fear and bitterness that have kept him trapped in the dark for so long. Within her own Search for the Lost Husband journey, this is the moment that Rey also sees Ben’s true form, and realizes that she has to leave him. The lovers are separated (for now), until the husband can reject the lure of power and keep faith with his wife.
I’m very much not the expert here (that’s @corseque ), but we know from the Darth Vader comics that he was trying for the rest of his life to bring Padme back from death. We don’t really know how near he was to success, but that story may be relevant to the plot in The Rise of Skywalker. In any case, the myth now starts to get very interesting: Feeling spurned, a group of Maenads (female devotees of Dionysus) attack Orpheus in a forest and literally, gruesomely tear him limb from limb, until the ground is littered with body parts. This is actually a fairly common event in Greek mythology, such that it even has a name: Sparagmos, “to tear apart.” TEAR APART. Anakin, of course, did indeed lose limbs at the time of his “death,” when Obi-Wan cut off his legs and then Sidious raised him as Vader. If Reverse Anidala is true, and Ben Solo begins his story at a moment parallel to when Anakin Skywalker ended his, then of course the son of Leia sobs in the first sequel film: “I am being torn apart.” It’s poetry; it rhymes.
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(GIF source: @mamalaz)
After his death, Orpheus’ head floats down a river on his lyre, continuing to sing his mournful songs to all who will hear. It eventually lands on the island of Lesbos, where it prophecies and eventually becomes as famous as the Oracle of Apollo. As I mentioned in my previous post, the iconic helmet of the tragic fallen hero does make an appearance in the ST, and it even seems that Kylo Ren is seeking wisdom from it. Apollo and the Muses finally take pity on poor Orpheus, and they bury his limbs. In some versions, the story ends here with a nightingale taking up the song of the lost lovers, but in others, Orpheus finally descends to the Underworld and is reunited with Eurydice, and they spend eternity together, hand-in-hand. Perhaps this means that Anakin may finally return to Padme and they may be together in the Force.
Among the other stories of the Lost Bride type are details that also align well with the Skywalker Saga: In the Shinto tale mentioned above, Izanagi fails to retrieve his wife but then begets Amaterasu (the sun goddess) and Tsukuyomi (the moon god). Anakin’s children Luke and Leia are visually associated with the sun and moon throughout the films, and similar imagery is used for Ben and Rey (NOT suggesting they’re siblings, people, just descendants of the Skywalker legacy, geez).
Another feature of these tales is the original meeting of the wedded pair: While in Orpheus and Eurydice their initial meeting is unrecorded, most stories actually include the abduction of the bride, either physically or by default because the husband has hidden or burned her animal skin. While this doesn’t really apply to Anidala, it certainly applies to Reylo, as Kylo of course carries Rey off to Starkiller Base. But it applies in another way, as well: In The Last Jedi, Ben breaks down Rey’s lies that she has told herself about her parents, in a sense burning away the protective skin of denial that she has, rendering it impossible for her to return to her childlike state. This is in a way another abduction, as Rey is forcibly pulled from her enchanted form to her true self.
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(GIF source: @lyanna-stark)
There is also the common motif of recognition, which appears in the Search for the Lost Husband, as well. Often, when the lovers are separated, the lost spouse forgets the questing spouse and does not recognize them when they come to the rescue. Their memory is usually jogged by the spouse performing a unique task that only they can do, or by returning a gift which was once given before. From The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales: “It is interesting to note how these extended narratives tend to duplicate the motifs by repeating them in reverse order - she recovers her suit, and he recovers her; she presents a ring, and he represents it to regain her.”
In Revenge of the Sith, Padme cries to Anakin “I don’t know you any more!” clearly stating that she no longer recognizes her husband. While we have yet to see those characters’ reunion, there is a particular moment of recognition in the ST, related to a powerful object which has been previously offered as a gift: the legacy lightsaber. When Rey calls the saber to her in The Force Awakens, Kylo breathes “It is you” in the novel, clearly recognizing her in some way. There are hints that Rey also recalls him on a subconscious level, though for now we can only speculate how. Still, it’s clear that many more legacy objects are going to appear in TROS, so there will be plenty of opportunity for Rey to get a reminder!
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In Barbara Leavy’s book, she mentions that the central thesis of these folktale types seems to be that the relationship between spouses is the basis for peace and stability in the world:
“These examples of emotional failure are significant because they suggest that even were it true that romantic love is an invention of modern Western literature, its elements not to be read into narratives where they do not apply, the importance of emotional bonds in the marital relationship has probably always been recognized. The breakdown in the attachment of husband and wife is a significant feature of some of the world’s most widely-told stories. So long as the family supplies society with a basic structural unit, the affective tensions within the family will be crucial aspects of daily life and the narratives that grow out of it.”
As applied to the Skywalker Saga, I take this to mean that the wars of in “Star Wars” are tied to the breakdown of the marriage of our central characters: Anakin and Padme, and later (to a lesser extent) Han and Leia. It follows then that this central conflict can only be resolved by the healing of the bond between husband and wife. When we say that the Skywalker Saga is the story of generational trauma, this is what we mean, and it is a tragically relatable tale for much of the audience. We see the sorrow of our broken families writ large in a violent conflict across an entire galaxy far, far away, and we yearn for hope and healing.
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Leavy further illuminates an aspect of these stories - Psyche’s Search and Orpheus’ Quest - that I find particularly fascinating in light of the frequently gendered discourse around Star Wars:
“If it is true that the Orpheus tale is as favored by men as the Cupid and Psyche tale is favored by women, then male storytellers appear to be expressing through these narratives their difficulties in achieving self-definition consistent with stereotypical ideals of manhood. The typical success experienced by Psyche and the equally typical failure encountered by Orpheus can be profitably analyzed in the context of a recent study of the difference between the ways in which men and women respond to their own fantasies:
‘women would see deprivation followed by enhancement, whereas men would see enhancement followed by deprivation.’ In contrast to women, ‘men showed a preference for extreme endings, which revealed itself most clearly in the tendency of men to see any decline or fall as abrupt, total and final. The possibility of a resurgence or second chance, which is implicit in the female pattern, does not seem very real for men. Perhaps an important difference is that the woman is socialized to lose (or give up) control without panic, and that she picks up as a positive concomitant to her submission confidence of recovery in the face of failure or suffering.’”
If I may generalize, the Star Wars fans who seem to want or expect a tragic ending for Ben Solo predominantly identify as men, whereas those who want or expect his redemption and happy ending predominantly identify as women. It seems that the Star Wars fandom does bear out Leavy’s claim that men relate to the tragic Quest for the Lost Bride, which contains harsh punishment for the failures of its hero, while women prefer the Search for the Lost Husband, which rewards its heroine’s persistence with a passionate love. Again, this is a generalization, as obviously individuals of all genders and none can enjoy a wide range of stories.
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Many critical analyses of Orpheus and Eurydice point out that there is a distinct power imbalance between the pair, and that therefore a happy ending can only occur if the husband successfully subjugates his wife. Much of the hero’s actions seem to be an attempt to control his wife or control her fate, and this is nearly always characterized as a character flaw on his part. In fact, the descent into the Underworld is sometimes interpreted not as an expression of death-defying love, but of an unwillingness to accept the finality of death, or a failure to accept that the fairy wife has chosen to flee of her own volition. On the rare occasions when the husband successfully retrieves the lost bride from the mystical realm, it is usually not because he approached her with humility and remorse for his lack of faith, but because he vanquished her demon lover. On the other hand, some stories actually switch perspectives from husband to wife after the bride is lost, and the tale suddenly becomes the Search for the Lost Husband, with all its typical features. When the lovers are equals and the wife pursues the husband, then their reunion is successful and lasting. This seems to be happening both on a large scale within the full nine films of the saga, and on a smaller scale within the Sequel Trilogy itself, as Anakin and Ben follow Orpheus’ path while Rey alone follows Psyche’s, which is an excellent sign for Ben’s redemption and happy union with his bride in The Rise of Skywalker.
So there you have it…. Yet another big-ass meta that hopefully demonstrates the genius mythology of the Star Wars saga, and not just the fact that I’ve spent way too much time researching this. Thanks for reading and as always, feedback is welcome!
Previous posts in this series:
The Search for the Lost Husband: Reylo as Eros and Psyche
More Search for the Lost Husband: The Burning of the Beast’s Skin in Star Wars
This post is dedicated to @ahsokaeden65, who gave me a gentle kick in the butt to finish it! <3
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profoundlyxbonded · 4 years
Text
12 signs a storyteller is building romantic and sexual chemistry
Dean/Cas FOR SURE hits 9/12 of these and arguably 11. DESTIEL IS REAL.
LOONG POST AND THE FANDOM EXAMPLES AREN’T SPN , BUT IT’S WORTH THE TIME.
THE BOLDED SPN EXAMPLES ARE MINE.
When it comes to possible romances in popular work, fans and storytellers do a lot of finger-pointing. People have varied tastes and can view the same interaction differently, causing fights over whether the romantic or sexual chemistry in a story was intentional. These feuds are particularly likely in cases where storytellers may be taunting queer audiences.
However, the question of whether chemistry was inserted by the storyteller isn’t as subjective as you might think. Storytellers use the same tactics over and over again when developing a romance. Let’s go over twelve of the most common. You can use them to analyze your favorite stories or to build chemistry yourself. To make things simpler, I use the term “peer” to indicate people who are similar in age and aren’t closely related. In other words, they qualify for a non-platonic relationship.
Let’s start with signals that could be platonic if used in isolation and count down to ones that are almost never platonic.
12. Banter & Teasing
Multiple episodes during seasons 4 and 5. Bickering and acting as if married after that.
When the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy came out, fans felt the chemistry between a pair of people that Peter Jackson probably didn’t expect: Legolas and Gimli. However, Jackson should have seen it coming. These contrasting characters start as natural adversaries, and once they’re on the same team, that transforms into competitive banter. This makes for fun and endearing scenes between them.
Even though banter can be platonic, there’s a very blurry line between banter and flirtation. That means interactions between peers that are familiar and yet have that teasing edge are particularly effective at building sexual and romantic chemistry.
If banter is all there is between the characters, the storyteller may not be creating that chemistry on purpose. However, in popular stories where everyone knows that fans want those characters to hook up, storytellers who include teasing are at least willing to encourage it. For instance, Merlin and Arthur on BBC’s Merlin are also known for their banter, and since it’s obvious that the show’s writers were cultivating chemistry, it’s very likely that banter was part of their strategy.
11. Staring & Close Eye Contact
Multiple episodes ARE YOU F- ING KIDDING ME??
In the Star Trek: Next Generation episode The Big Goodbye, Dr. Crusher dresses up in a 1940s outfit to join Picard’s Dixon Hill game on the holodeck. When Picard sees her there, he first stops, stares, and then has a close face-to-face conversation. The scene even has cheesy romantic music.
While that example is over the top, storytellers can do this with a lot more subtlety if they want to. Visual storytellers typically have a character conversation in almost every scene, and it’s easy to nudge characters closer together or have them stare a little longer. However, some shows like Star Trek are also in the habit of making their actors talk really close together all the time. That makes the line between what is romantic and what is platonic really blurry.
Building chemistry via staring isn’t limited to visual works. In narrated works, description is used to focus the camera and show what the viewpoint character is paying attention to. The choice to describe the eyes of a peer, assuming they aren’t supernatural looking, creates romantic chemistry. Using a disproportionate amount of description on a peer, especially if that description makes them sound attractive, will also be interpreted as non-platonic. While narration can also describe how close characters are together, it won’t have the same subtlety as it would in a visual story.
10. Domestic Activities
(”Co-parenting”Jack/ being two of his three four dads.)
In season seven of The 100, viewers discover that Octavia spent ten years stranded with her former enemy, Diyoza. They took shelter in an abandoned home, and since Diyoza was already pregnant, they ended up raising her child together. For many years, Octavia tries to leave and go back to her brother, but Diyoza tells her that she shouldn’t abandon her family. Diyoza finally sabotages Octavia’s efforts to leave, but Octavia quickly forgives her. That sure sounds like a love story.
While characters don’t have to be romantic to be roommates, making peers into roommates is likely to get fans invested in a hookup. This is partly because living together is associated with romantic partnerships, but it also means that the characters are around each other a lot. The more they are together, the more opportunities they have to build chemistry.
Aside from that, simply seeing characters handle (or refuse to handle) domestic tasks like cooking, doing dishes, or house cleaning builds romantic chemistry between them. This goes double if the characters raise a kid together.
9. Bonds of Magic or Destiny
Multiple episodes ARE YOU F- ING KIDDING ME??
In BBC’s Merlin, a wise dragon tells the titular Merlin that it’s his destiny to protect Arthur so that Arthur can bring about a new golden age. The dragon refers to them as two sides of a coin, and it emphasizes more than once that their fates are intertwined. Because he wants to stay close to Arthur, Merlin spends the entire show hiding his magic and working as a lowly manservant.
Our culture has countless stories about characters thrust into roles that make them essential to both the world and each other. These characters might be magically linked together, perhaps even hearing each other’s thoughts. The bond might be one of prophecy, with the characters needing each other to save the world. Or their society might make a big deal out of the two interdependent roles the characters play. For instance, in Gideon the Ninth, lots of time is spent describing how important a necromancer and their cavalier are to each other. Often, characters with these special bonds will gain abilities that can only be used when they’re together.
Storytellers have used this trope so many times in their romances that it carries a strong romantic connotation. While the trope can also be used for platonic relationships, a storyteller doing that may need to explicitly state that the relationship is platonic.
8. Voicing How Much They Care
Multiple episodes ARE YOU F- ING KIDDING ME??
In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the students Albus and Scorpius form a close relationship that is forbidden by Harry himself. This relationship is of central importance to the play, and it includes a conversation where Albus tells Scorpius “you make me stronger” and Scorpius responds “I didn’t much like my life without you in it either.” This sounds like a conversation from a romance novel with the direct “I love you” lines conveniently clipped out.
Friends and siblings in popular stories don’t spend much time talking about how they are friends and siblings. Most platonic relationships in stories are also not as emotionally intense, and they come across as less needy and codependent than romantic ones.
As we get more deep and meaningful platonic relationships in popular stories, these conversations may be less associated with romance in the future. Even so, having peers spend time discussing their relationship or what they mean to each other definitely builds romantic chemistry. And since we can’t credit most popular storytellers with caring about meaningful platonic relationships, conversations like this one between Albus and Scorpius are a strong sign that the storyteller is creating romantic chemistry on purpose.
Storytellers who are covertly building romantic chemistry are particularly fond of using the word “love” in ambiguous ways. They know interested audiences will interpret this as “in love,” while others will interpret it as platonic love.
7. Activities Associated With Dating
Multiple episodes - meals together
The Good Omens miniseries added original scenes for the fan-favorite demon and angel pair, Crowley and Aziraphale. The series shows them meet for the first time, go through ups and downs together, and as a secondary concern, deal with the events of the actual plot. They’re shown drinking wine at a fancy restaurant together more than once. When things look bad, Crowley practically begs Aziraphale to run away with him. After Aziraphale’s shop burns down, Crowley invites Aziraphale to come home with him. Aziraphale often appears scandalized by Crowley’s advances, which only makes those scenes more suggestive.
While two friends could have a candlelit dinner together, storytellers don’t depict characters having candlelit dinners for the purpose of developing a platonic relationship. That’s why in a story, just having two peers eat at a restaurant by themselves implies a romance in progress. Other dating-associated activities might include watching the sunset together or dressing up to attend a fancy event together.
This category also includes any outing referred to with the word “date” – even if it is a “friend date.” Your friend date in real life might not be romantic, but storytellers choose that word for a reason.
6. Absent Clothing ?
(09x06)  There’s Cas’ discarded vest and unbuttoned shirt during the scene in the car outside Nora’s.
In The Last Jedi, director Rian Johnson decided to develop a romance between Rey and Kylo by giving them a magical bond in the form of long-distance telepathy. But Johnson must have decided the obviously romantic implication of this connection was too subtle, so Kylo also happens to be shirtless in one of these scenes.
Fictional clothing doesn’t just evaporate in storyland. If a character is bathing, is in their underwear, is missing their shirt, or even just has buttons undone, the storyteller has chosen to create sexual tension. This isn’t always to develop sexual chemistry specifically between two characters. In visual media, it might be to give the audience some eye candy. But if one peer’s shirt goes missing when the other appears, that’s a big sign.
Perhaps the most common method of doing this is putting characters in the same room when one of them is changing. Injuries are another common excuse for clothing removal and close contact. A remarkable number of characters have trouble applying their own bandages; somehow, they always need first aid from an attractive peer.
5. Flirtation & Flattery
Multiple episodes - (5x22) Dean outright flirting with Cas before saying yes to Archangelic possession and just Dean’s body language in other episodes.
X-Files was notorious for taunting viewers with a possible romance between its two leads, something that started right with the pilot. One of the many tactics used to build up a possible romance was for Mulder to inappropriately hit on Scully while they were working. In one scene where they are undercover as a married couple who just moved into the neighborhood, he tells a neighbor that he and Scully spooned like kittens all night. Generally, Mulder’s advances are disguised as jokes, and when he’s too serious to be joking, Scully treats his comments as if they were jokes.
It’s obvious that when one character hits on another, they have sexual or romantic interest. The only question is whether that interest is being used to develop romantic or sexual chemistry. Many stories have a scene where a minor male character hits on a female protagonist only for her to turn him down, and it’s supposed to be funny. Since most women do not find this funny, these scenes aren’t as common as they once were. Occasionally, a male antagonist will make threatening advances. That’s even worse.
However, it’s different when a relatable protagonist is initiating the flirtation. Even if the subject of their affections isn’t interested, being turned down will create sympathy. The scene may still be written as though it’s funny, but then it’s humble or self-deprecating humor. Failed flirtation establishes that the protagonist is looking for romance, creating the expectation that they will hook up with someone. If they’ve tried to flirt with a recurring character, it’s almost certainly a romantic setup.
4. Emphasis on Hugs and Physical Contact
Multiple episodes  ARE YOU F- ING KIDDING ME??
Many fans of the show Teen Wolf wanted Stiles and Derek to hook up. Stiles is the fan-favorite character, Derek is really hot, and the two have some great banter scenes. Unfortunately, the writers of the show wouldn’t create a romance between them, but at the end of the show’s long run, they decided to give these fans something to remember. How did they do that? With the bridal carry. Even though the scene was written to be humorous, this specific hold has incredibly romantic connotations.
While the bridal carry is pretty blatant, storytellers will use all kinds of physical contact between peers to create romantic and sexual chemistry. One of the most common is hugging. Yes, friends hug, but visual stories don’t include extended shots of friends hugging. Narrated works don’t spend a whole paragraph describing the way friends hug. If a hug between peers is rendered in artistic loving detail instead of as a casual and brief aside, that was intentional chemistry-building.
Other blatant signs of non-platonic physical contact include showing whether their hands are close enough to touch, making one character fall on top of another (classic), hair tucking, and, for storytellers with no shame whatsoever, mouth-to-mouth such as CPR or “water transfer.”
3. Blushing
In Netflix’s She-Ra, the characters Bow and Glimmer start off as best friends and hook up in the final season. In depicting this transition, She-Ra gives us a beautiful reversal, in which this straight romance is much more subtle than the central queer hookup. Because they were already friends, some viewers might miss that Bow and Glimmer end the show as a couple. However, close observation of one scene in particular leaves no room for doubt. In it, Glimmer praises Bow’s music, and they both blush.
Blushing is a little odd because it doesn’t appear in live action for practical reasons. But in animated, illustrated, or narrated works, storytellers use blushing to communicate that a character is experiencing non-platonic feelings. While it occasionally indicates general embarrassment, context almost always makes it clear which is which. If the character blushes after dropping all their books in the middle of class, it’s embarrassment. If they blush after speaking to or staring at a peer, it’s romance.
Since blushing is involuntary, it’s particularly useful when characters aren’t willing to show their feelings. This means it often gets used as early buildup to a romance or to create chemistry between characters who will never admit their feelings at all.
2. Jealousy ?
OPEN TO INTERPRETATION BUT - (4X10) Cas’ reaction to Dean and Anna.
In Gideon the Ninth, Harrow is a necromancer and Gideon is her cavalier. However, at the beginning they’re almost enemies. When they’re summoned to an abandoned castle to train for a great honor, Harrow goes off on her own. This leaves Gideon to socialize with the other nobles present – in particular, the lovely and kind Dulcinea. As Gideon and Harrow begin to make up, Harrow increasingly voices her displeasure with this association, finally forbidding Gideon to see Dulcinea. While Harrow insists it’s because Dulcinea is dangerous, Gideon accuses Harrow of being jealous.
In stories, jealousy is an obvious sign of romantic feelings. That’s simply because while the vast majority of romances in popular stories are monogamous, friendships are never exclusive. Someone who wants to be a friend doesn’t have much reason to get jealous. Factor in conscious choices by storytellers, and platonic jealousy is rare indeed.
Characters rarely admit to being jealous, so storytellers who want to clarify usually have another character say it. Even if it looks like that character could be wrong, the storyteller wouldn’t have used the word “jealous” unless they wanted their audience to think about it. The romantic chemistry that comes with this is intentional.
Unlike other items on this list, I don’t recommend using this one yourself for romantic buildup. Like other negative emotions, occasional jealousy is natural. However, it’s not a sign of a healthy relationship, and it’s associated with domestic abuse. When storytellers use it in romances, they are encouraging everyone to think of jealousy as romantic. That can have deadly consequences.
1. Onlookers Assume They’re Dating
Multiple episodes - Meg, Balthazar, and others making joking (or very serious) comments about their relationship.
In the BBC Sherlock episode A Study in Pink, Watson and Sherlock have dinner together at an Italian restaurant. For those who’ve been paying attention so far, that’s a dating-associated activity. The waiter is an old associate of Sherlock, and he casually refers to Watson as Sherlock’s “date.”
I cannot count the number of times I have seen this used as early buildup in straight romances. The likely couple goes out together – often to a restaurant but not always – and some stranger assumes they’re a couple. Embarrassed, they hurriedly correct the stranger. Several episodes later, they’re admitting their feelings for one another. In BBC Sherlock, this trick from the old romantic playbook was clearly not enough for the show writers. Following this is a conversation where Sherlock concludes that Watson is interested in dating him. He says he’s flattered, but he’s “married to his work.”
The denial of the characters doesn’t cancel out the intentional romantic chemistry. If the storyteller didn’t want the audience to think about the pair hooking up, they wouldn’t do this song-and-dance in the first place. In fact, if the denial is enthusiastic, it just indicates these comments about being a couple are hitting close to home.
For all the other signs I’ve listed here, I can at least conceive of a situation in which a plot would call for something similar between people intended as platonic. These little snippets of dialogue have no such cover. They are irrelevant to the plot at hand, inserted entirely for the character moment they create. They are the furthest thing from organic, especially with a same-gender pairing. The storytellers can claim they’re jokes (homophobic ones), but they have many jokes at their disposal that do not build romantic chemistry. They chose a joke that would.
When these romantic or sexual signals are used on same-gender pairings, it may fly under the radar for audiences with a heteronormative gaze. However, these signals don’t end up in the story by accident. That goes double if this is a big-budget story in a visual medium, where the story has been written, animated, or filmed, and finally edited under supervision. Remember: it’s a storyteller’s job to shape the response that audiences have to their story. They may not be perfect, but they still know what they’re doing.
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oopsalljacob · 6 years
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star wars had the potential to be one of the greatest stories ever told, in one of the richest universes ever created, if it hadn't been told so damn badly
i feel like most stories that achieve the success star wars has are valued for not only the story but the way it’s told. the ancient ones are epic poems, probably passed down orally. shakespeare stole all his plots and made them great by how he told them
even modern examples—Harry Potter, LoTR, Game of the Thrones—while people have qualms with Tolkein’s verbosity or Rowling’s writing style, they’re still well told, overall
and yet star wars, with some notable exceptions, feels so often so poorly told, without pathos, without care
Anakin’s fall to the dark side is a tragedy. Like a greek, shakespearean, classic tragedy. The fall of a good man, hamartia, all that. Or at least it could’ve been. Instead it just seems inevitable that this angry, unstable teenager would become an angry, unstable man.
In most tragedies you know the outcome already, and it’s so much more painful as you hope it won’t happen. We know Anakin is going to become Vader, but we should believe maybe we won’t be, this time. Maybe there’s hope.
But we don’t really see hope for Anakin. We don’t get much of a chance to sympathize with him, he seems so obviously angry and misguided from the outset (I’m talking episode II here, he’s a perfectly bland kid in Phantom Menace).
And so the entire prequel trilogy just seems like a shooty shooty politics mess, with a forced romance and then op Ani’s evil now.
It speaks to how compelling the original trilogy was, and how rich the universe is, that it has remained as successful as it has
Imagine if Anakin had been our POV, with whom we saw the complex and corrupt world of the Senate, the stagnated and blind Jedi Order, unable to help so many of the people it was supposed to protect.
We got angry *with* him at the destruction wrought by not only the Separatists, but also by the injustice that the Jedi ignore (i.e., the slave trade in the Hutt empire, the sand people, etc.). It’s a justified anger, a righteous anger.
I’m not saying his anger at the sand people wasn’t justified—they enslaved and killed his mother—but we never got to feel that anger with him. Compare to when Luke sees his aunt and uncle killed.
We could’ve seen Anakin striving to find ways to do right and do good, hindered by a detached Jedi Order and a bloated senate, struggling to understand how denying his feelings—of love to Padme and anger at injustice—could be useful
Feeling helpless and frustrated not because he felt he couldn’t save Padme from fucking childbirth but rather from the CONSTANT STREAM OF ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS SHE ENDURED during the Clone Wars
Also, with the extended Canon, we see so many examples of Jedi disillusioned with the Order, able to see its flaws, rebellious Jedi, etc. It starts to make Anakin look really bland. Why is he special? As a character.
I know he’s the Chosen one, but…what makes him the one to turn so deeply to the dark side? And what makes him sympathetic? Why do we understand him, why is HE the fulcrum of these stories?
I don’t feel there is a satisfactory answer ever given in all of star wars canon, and it fails itself so deeply in not doing so.
I have a lot of feelings about star wars but this is the biggest thing I mourn in the series. It has all the trappings of a beautiful story told in such a captivating universe, and it gives us the most ham-fisted, clumsy, stupid version.
Star Wars has never been big on grey areas, and plenty of excellent comic books and superheros deal with anti-heros, good guys who do questionable things, bad guys who have good and understandable reasons, etc. This is not that. It doesn’t have to be.
What Anakin becomes is clearly evil. What he does is clearly evil. There’s a dark and light side of the force, for fuck’s sake. But his fall should still be painful for us to watch. Just like Othello’s is, just like Macbeth’s is. I mean no one does it like Shakespeare, but
Instead we get a slightly tamer version of Kylo Ren. An angry man child who is brash and arrogant. Made worse by the jedi council not trusting him—for good reason!!! It’s obvious to everyone watching he’s not doing so hot, temperament-wise!
Don’t even get me started on Padme, savvy, idealistic politician, who would see the warning signs 17 parsecs away. Forbidden love, unearned mistrust, these would’ve also been enriched by input by minorities who undergo that shit all the time but that’s another topic
The point is, Anakin is poorly thought out, poorly written, and poorly placed.
i have a lot of feelings but i need to go to bed. goodnight, take me to the timeline where star wars is as good as it deserves to be
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panharmonium · 7 years
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hi! :)
short answer: nah, i don’t
long answer: i actually don't think there's any point in the movies or TCW where it's stated that the Jedi Order has banned "romantic relationships and marriage and all that."
more (too much, my apologies) under the cut:
does that mean i think the Order was out there encouraging its members to fall in love all over the place?  nah.  and yeah, i agree that "the jedi don't encourage romantic relationships/marriage" is the more reasonable inference to make.  but i also think it's important to note that we've never actually gotten any piece of canon containing enough info about the Jedi way of life to really say we know anything at all about the Order's proscriptions/history/philosophy.
our perception of what the Jedi Order does/does not allow is built on assumptions. the ubiquity of these assumptions makes it very easy to forget that when it comes to the movies and TCW, we have almost zero information about what the Jedi Order actually encompasses, never mind their stance on romance/marriage.  for example, when we watched TPM, there was no mention at all about marriage/romance/etc being "banned," which led to a fascinating (and, retrospectively, bizarre-feeling) phenomenon where official-ish (EU) material created between TPM and AotC included plot points like Ki Adi Mundi or Thracia Cho Leem being married and/or having kids.  
then Attack of the Clones came out, and everybody started reevaluating their assumptions (by making new ones, ironically enough) - because in AotC, what we actually hear about Jedi philosophy re: relationships is really only three exchanges:
Anakin: I'd much rather dream about Padme.  Just being around her again is... intoxicating.
Obi-Wan: Be mindful of your thoughts, Anakin.  They betray you. You've made a commitment to the Jedi order, a commitment not easily broken.
which...doesn't really tell us anything about the Order's stance on romance at all. obi-wan, in this moment, can tell that anakin is so completely caught up in thinking about/desiring/grasping for padme that it's disrupting his focus, displacing what is supposed to be a commitment to service, thoughts of the bigger picture.  anakin is, for the moment, overwhelmed with personal desire, rather than the appropriate Jedi impulse towards selfless devotion to others. this is not explicitly a “relationships will break your commitment to the Jedi Order” conversation; it's a “capitulating to personal, individual desires is not in line with the philosophy we choose to serve.”
Padme: Must be difficult, having sworn your life to the Jedi...not being able to visit the places you like or do the things you like.
Anakin: Or be with the people that I love.
Padme: Are you allowed to love?  I thought that was forbidden for a Jedi.
Anakin: Attachment is forbidden.  Possession is forbidden. Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is central to a Jedi's life.  So, you might say that we are encouraged to love.
i've written about this one before, but again, this conversation, as well as yoda's admonition to anakin about loss in RotS, are as explicit as Jedi philosophy ever gets, in canon.  that's it.  those two conversations are as deep as it ever goes. everything else is just conjecture.
this scene makes the important distinction, though - love is not the same thing as attachment or possession.  pretty much everybody likes to take jedi philosophy in the direction of 'romantic love/marriage etc is forbidden,' but canonically, at least, it's just as possible that the philosophy is actually ‘these types of relationships are not technically forbidden, but it is very difficult to engage in them without succumbing to the desire to possess another, to attach ourselves to something that is not actually ours to cling to, to greedily cling to the things we love and so relegate our service of the Force's will to a secondary priority, and so therefore such relationships are not encouraged/common/etc.'
it's more complicated than a romance ban, essentially, is what i'm saying.  you have to get down to the heart of what a Jedi strives for, which has nothing to do with surface things like "i have a kid/i'm going to get married/i have a significant other" and everything to do with where your inner self is oriented in relation to these relationships/your priorities/your place in the Force/your chosen path of service to the Light.
Anakin: Put the ship down!
Obi-Wan: Anakin!  Don't let your personal feelings get in the way! Follow that speeder!
Anakin: Lower the ship!
Obi-Wan: I can't take Dooku alone!  I need you! If we catch him, we can end this war right now!  We have a job to do!
Anakin: I don't care! Put the ship down!
Obi-Wan: You will be expelled from the Jedi order!
Anakin: I can't leave her!
Obi-Wan: Come to your senses!  What do you think Padme would do were she in your position?
Anakin: ...she would do her duty.
again, this has nothing to do with a ban on romantic relationships; it's about anakin placing personal desires above the whole good.  the jedi order wouldn't expel anakin because he’s experienced romantic feelings for someone, but they certainly would question his suitability to walk this path if he casts aside his responsibilities to the greater good in order to fill his own personal wants.
and that's it for Attack of the Clones.  
in RotS, we get even less.
Anakin: I won't let this [dream] become real.
Padme: This baby will change our lives.  I doubt the queen will continue to allow me to serve in the senate.  If the Council discovers you're the father, you'll be expelled -
well, maybe!  for lying about this stuff for years?  definitely a possibility.  this is padme talking, though, and for all that i appreciate her, it's worth noting that she doesn't actually have much inside access to understanding the inner workings of the Jedi Order on more than a basic level.  and this isn't a basic issue.  it's also worth noting that anakin has never once tried to discuss his problem with obi-wan or get help, despite obi-wan giving him openings to do so (see TCW for that), so even anakin can't accurately say that the consequences would be so dire.  he doesn't truly know.
i like this excerpt from Rogue Planet (partway into the linked post) as an example of Jedi disciplinary proceedings (i'm aware that as this isn't part of the films, it's not Canon, but i'm not arguing that it's the truth; just that it's as likely a scenario as any other, given what little we actually know about the Jedi in practice).  The focus is not punitive, but exploratory, and restorative - what is the root of the transgression?  what is out of balance?  what inner understandings must be adjusted, and what, situationally, can be changed, to make things better?
a process like that, embarked upon in good faith, would be less likely to result in "expulsion" and more likely to result in the mutual realization or acknowledgement that the jedi path isn't where anakin skywalker belongs. fulfillment, for him, lies elsewhere, and that's okay - there are many ways to serve and do good.  the jedi order isn't the only option for someone who wants to be a hero.
Yoda: The fear of loss is a path to the dark side.
Anakin: I won't let these visions come true, Master Yoda.
Yoda: Death is a natural part of life.  Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force.  Mourn them, do not.  Miss them, do not. Attachment leads to jealousy.  The shadow of greed that is.
Yoda: What must I do, Master Yoda?
Anakin: Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.
again, nothing about marriage/romance/etc.  the stumbling block is attachment - which doesn't mean love.  it means inappropriate clinging to other beings, who belong to the Force and are not ours to possess; to possible futures, which are not ours to control; to relationships, which enrich our lives but should not steer us into selfish waters.
and..........that's it.  that's all we get about the Jedi Order and romance in the movies.  TCW gives us two other conversations, which i can certainly include, but generally i consider the movies as Canon, and TCW as lying somewhere outside that (yes, i'm aware that this is not the official position.  i grew up on comic books and my interest in slapping canon/not-canon labels on stuff according to any criteria but my own personal preferences is null.  blame batman.)
but anyway, TCW:
Anakin: You didn't stay to help her?
Obi-Wan: That would have been...problematic.  My duty as a Jedi demanded I be elsewhere.
Anakin: Demanded?  But it's obvious you had feelings for her.  Surely that would affect your decision.
Obi-Wan: Oh, it did.  But I live by the Jedi code.
Anakin: Of course.  As Master Yoda says, "A Jedi must not form attachments."
not much more to add here that i haven't said above.  this is, again, not about surface level things like romance and marriage - it's about the deeper underpinnings of behavior, an examination of internal motives, a voluntary commitment to a way of life that prioritizes service to others over personal pursuits.
Obi-Wan: Master Yoda feels that your judgments concerning Rush Clovis are clouded.
Anakin: I believe he can't be trusted.
Obi-Wan: Yes, but there is more, isn't there? I sense a deep anger in you by my simply saying his name.
Anakin: He almost got Senator Amidala killed, and I would have been responsible.
Obi-Wan: The Senator has risked her life many times.  She's quite capable of taking care of herself.
Anakin: They had a relationship once.  I simply feel she is vulnerable to her emotions.
Obi-Wan: She is, or you?
Anakin: What are you implying?
Obi-Wan: Anakin, I understand to a degree what is going on.  You've met Satine.  You know I once harbored feelings for her.  It's not that we're not allowed to have these feelings.  It's natural.
Anakin: Senator Amidala and I are simply friends.
Obi-Wan: And friends you must remain.  As a Jedi, it is essential you make the right choice, Anakin, for the Order.
again - obi-wan flat out says "it's not that we're not allowed to have these feelings; it's natural."  the real problem isn't anakin's romantic feelings, it's his "clouded judgement," it's anakin being ruled by his emotions, overruled by them; it's him beating clovis to within an inch of his life and trashing padme's apartment; it's anakin, ruled by attachment/jealousy/greed, saying stuff to padme like, "as your husband, i demand that you tell the chancellor you are stepping down [from your job, from the duties of a career to which you've devoted your whole life]." that's the problem.
obi-wan says that “as a jedi” it’s essential that anakin make the right choice. but anakin doesn’t have to be a jedi, if he finds that his true path is taking him elsewhere.  that point has been addressed with him (in the expanded universe, at least) several times, at least twice directly by obi-wan (and again, yes, it’s not in the films, so i’m not going to argue that it’s Truth, but if we’re going to make assumptions about what the Jedi allow/don’t allow based on no explicit canon evidence, i feel comfortable making a few inferences using expanded universe material *shrugs*.)
so, in response to the question "do i think it’s wrong for the order to ban marriage etc" - the answer is first that a) i don't think we have concrete, irrefutable canon evidence that they do, and b) if they did (which, yes, despite the entire above essay, i do feel it's a reasonable inference that the jedi at least discourage these kinds of attachments) i don’t think it’s wrong at all.  the jedi order is a culture, with its own history, values, and sacred philosophy.  “jedi” isn’t just a synonym for "superhero."  there are lots of ways to do good in the world and help people, but jedi culture is more that just that - it's a way of life, a way of thinking, living, and dying which extends far beyond the identity "guardian of peace and justice in the Republic."  
and this means that jedi culture is not for everybody.
plenty of real life organizations/cultures/religions require certain things of their members.  belongers, or believers, give of themselves willingly, voluntarily choosing to pursue a certain way of life or to sacrifice certain things, because those choices are in accordance with their values.  the jedi are the same, and just as entitled to their own internal structures.  the fact that one of the things a jedi might choose to eschew is engagement in romantic attachments isn't really that odd - and it isn't really a problem, given that anyone can leave the Order at will.  like i said before, there are multiple instances in the expanded universe of obi-wan or someone else reminding us of this, sometimes directly to anakin's face - the jedi are not jailors, and they aren't wandering around the universe trying to make everyone conform to their way of life, telling people who don't belong to their Order that romantic relationships are dangerous and the jedi way is the only way to be a good person/do good deeds.  the jedi are aware that their choices are their own, that they are just one of a billion different galactic belief systems, that not all good-doers in the world were meant to walk their particular path.
anakin skywalker is one of those good-doers.  he isn't truly jedi, because being jedi doesn't mean being able to use the Force and swing a sword around; it means living your life according to a certain set of values and philosophical/cultural mandates.  anakin, who ultimately does not believe and cannot accept many of those 'pillars of faith,' is a hero, certainly, but he is not a jedi.  and there's nothing wrong with that - or at least there wouldn't have been, if anakin had been able to accept this and use his new self-understanding to make slightly better decisions.  
if he'd been able to do that - if he'd accepted that where he really wanted to be was with a lover, with a child, still doing good but in his own way - then it would have been wrong, if the Order had tried to force him to stay.  but instead, anakin never asked to leave.  he couldn’t let go of the things he feared to lose, even when those things were bad for him, even when they made him unhappy.
if only he'd been able to push through that dilemma, and ask for guidance, so many things would have been different.
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thephantomcasebook · 6 years
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I kind of agree with you.. when i watched the force awakens I just enjoyed it.. its not a movie i would watch multiple times, and with the last jedi i was like meh.. of course i loved all of the reylo scenes but just that. I think that aside of reylo i expected more of the movie.
Yeah, I feel that the main problem is that they were concerned with being unpredictable than trying to tell a good story. 
As a writer I feel that Last Jedi was a good first draft that they decided to shoot, rather than have a good editor come in and clean up. For instance, Luke should never have died via force projection. If they wanted to do Force projection, than that should’ve been Snoke. I’ve always considered him like Sauron in the Tolkien Universe. Which is that he was a maleficent spirit of a Force being which could take physical form, but was reality a spirit being. 
I can give you a perfect example of how a scene could’ve been changed and still get what Johnson wanted out of it. 
Snoke wants Ben to kill Rey. Everything plays out as the way it does in “The Last Jedi” but when Ben turns that Lightsaber on Snoke and ignites it, it goes through Snoke’s projection. Ben and Rey are shocked that Snoke isn’t there. And it all turns out to be a trap, because, Snoke sensed that Ben was in Love with Rey and that he was going to betray him. So he lured Ben and Rey to the Supremacy to kill both of them. 
Then everything goes the way it does, they fight the guards together. Then they have to escape or they link up with Finn, Rose, and BB-8. Then we get Ben Solo, Rey, and Chewbecca on the Falcon during the battle. Then, it ends with Luke actually being there to hold off the First Order, making Ben and Rey the Last Jedi as he dies on board the Falcon after burning through all of his life force with some real Force Master shit. We also get an apology from Both Ben and Luke. 
Thus the movie ends with Ben and Rey, The Balance, alone to face this Malevolent Dark Lord of Evil. 
Now if you want to turn Ben into being tempted by the power of Emperor of the Galaxy, you work with JJ Abrams in Episode IX. You sit down with him and pitch it out to him. Thus you can have a Frodo Baggins or Boromir  moment at the end of the Trilogy where Ben is momentarily taken by the Darkness and makes a bad choice, but in the end redeems himself upon his death or better yet, we see an actual character fight off the dark. 
Instead of rushing everything into one movie, he could’ve sat down with Lucasfilm and tried to hammer out a road map of where this shit is gonna go. Which is the biggest weakness right now of Non-Lucas Star Wars. They have no fucking clue where they’re going or what they’re doing. They just want money and fast. It’s the type of corporate bullshit that Star Wars was made to push against. Now, because, some fucking assholes didn’t like the Prequels, Lucas got pissed off and sold it to the very people that he was thumbing his nose at in 1977. It’s just a fucking shame.   
So, yeah, this is what happens when you don’t have a Story-Editor or a plan ahead of time. Reylo is great and all, but if you can’t do anything else right but Reylo, than you’re in trouble. Listen, I love “Beren and Luthien”, obviously, the whole forbidden Romance in the backdrop of a huge war against a Evil Dark Overlord is my shit ... but if that’s not the only thing in your movie but it’s the only thing people like about it than it’s bad. 
I’m sorry, but “The Last Jedi” is okay, it’s not bad, but it’s not great. Reylo is about the only thing that saves it from a “Meh” or a dreaded “Eh” 
Just how I feel.     
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harpers-tartarus · 7 years
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Hi, in reference to the Sabe almost had a kid post, I just wanted to mention that I'd seen an article somewhere about the Jedi Order's stance on sex as stated by George Lucas. It was along the lines of "Attachment is bad, that's the thing we care about. If your species finds intercourse to be pleasurable and/or stress relieving feel free. Just so long as you don't care." Which makes sense, the force is strong in bloodlines, and this would increase the chances of recruiting potential jedi.
[part 2] Found the quote. Lucas says it’s romance, rather than hanky panky, which is banned by the Jedi code. He says, “Jedi Knights aren’t celibate - the thing that is forbidden is attachments - and possessive relationships.”
I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t really imagine a lot of Jedi having sex. The idea about not caring for your partner is kind of ‘meh’ to me, mostly because I couldn’t imagine having sex with someone and not caring about them, but we all know that one night stands are a thing. Besides, Sabe was raised by Yoda, who could very well be the reason the Order has remained stagnant and unchanging with the times, and if anyone didn’t approve of sex in the Order, it would be him.
Besides, I’m pretty sure that no one on the High Council would be pleased about two Jedi having sex, and Sabe’s definitely slept with a Jedi before, maybe not one currently aligned with the Order, but still a Jedi.
And if Sabe was to have a kid in an instance like that, while on a mission of some kind, I’d suspect that the kid would have a midi-chlorian count high enough that the Jedi would be suspicious. And I’m pretty sure the only Jedi allowed to have children at this point was Ki-Adi-Mundi due to his species low birth rates.
Another problem the Jedi seemed to have was differentiating ‘attachments’ and ‘possessions’, which is like saying love and lust are the same.
Using Sabe and Obi-Wan as an example: Sabe and Obi-Wan have immense respect for one another, Sabe never interfered with Obi-Wan and his love for Satine, Siri, or Cerasi, because it was his life and she had no right to that. Even though Obi-Wan has admitted his love for her and even tried to manipulate Sabe into coming back, he accepted her choice and backed off. They love each other, but they don’t own each other.
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