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princesssarcastia · 7 months

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watching the clone wars and thinking about The Logistical Problem of Barriss Offee's appearance in both Attack of the Clones and in The Clone Wars. and the ways you can solve or reconcile it as such.

She's at the first battle of Geonosis, presumably with her master, Luminara, and she's not the only padawan there with their master. presumably they only brought older, experienced padawans with them—ones nearly ready to be knighted. but when we next see her, in the TV show, she's still a padawan. they knighted anakin "full of emotions and attachments and pretty clearly not ready" skywalker before they knighted her. there's a few watsonian ways that could shake out.

absurd option: barriss experiences some kind of age regression between the very start of the war, and the middle of it where we see her again. sith artifact, separatist weapon, weird force squall erupting right beneath her, whatever. no one ever talks about it because, well, it's sort of rude to bring up. plus, barriss at any age would probably rather die than admit she's disquieted by the loss of several years of her life and self. but it would explain why she isn't knighted when they're knighting pretty much everyone.

it would also be another reason added to the pile explaining why she sort of had a breakdown before the war ends. one day you go to sleep, and the next you wake up somewhere you don't reecognize, surrounded by soldiers and war, and your master is telling you, "the last thing you remember was three years ago. get up, we have work to do." that'd knock anyone off balance

prodigy option: which padawans would you bring to a giant battle on an enemy planet? the older ones, sure, but more importantly: the ones who know how to fight. the ones who are good at it, who have a knack for it. the idea that barriss offee is too young to be knighted before the war is over, but too good with a blade to leave behind when they need their best? scintillating. tell me more.

tell me about the apprentice to a master diplomat with a level head, a sweet young girl with impeccable manners—and an uncanny and incongruous talent for defeating her opponents in spars and cutting down her enemies in the field. who even at, what, 15? moves so efficiently and purposefully through a conflict she dances. who the temple battlemaster praises as one of the incomparables of her generation.

talk to me about how the order decides to make use of her warrior's body without realizing she, as a middling-aged teen, doesn't have a warrior's mind. making use of it too young and too much and too long for her to bear, until she eventually snaps. radicalizes. decides to fight the violence that's killing her the only way she's learned how: with more violence.

interference from on high option: i'm frankly using anakin as a yardstick here, but maybe he shouldn't be. there's also the chance that she's not even that much younger than anakin, but the council is much less willing to interfere with any other padawan, in any other master-padawan relationship. And most other teenagers aren't supposed to be knighted.

So Anakin and Barriss are peers, but Luminara hasn't had the council breathing down her neck and interfering the way Obi-Wan clearly has. Anakin gets knighted, and it strikes Barriss as odd. Though she would never presume to say it, he clearly lacks necessary control over his emotions, and a certain wisdom and self-mastery Barriss thought was necessary to become a Jedi Knight. But the council has knighted him, so clearly he must be a jedi knight, and have the necessary qualities as such.

And though Barriss would never presume to ask Luminara, Luminara can see her almost-side-eye, her calculation, and wants to stop it before it turns into comparison. "Knighting a padawan before they are ready is often the result when those outside an apprenticeship make such decisions as should be left to those within it."

red flags option: or perhaps, after surviving the battle of geonosis, and being somewhat more outwardly stable than skywalker; being the picture perfect image of a dutiful jedi; the council pushes for Barriss to be knighted at the start of the war, or soon after—and Luminara says no. Luminara says she's not ready.

And when they push back, Luminara goes so far as to warn them that she won't be overruled on or convinced to let go of her misgivings about, her own padawan (the was you have convinced and overruled some jedi i could mention, is what she doesn't say, but she's very much side-eyeing everyone else for that.). Barriss isn't ready, even if her peers are. Luminara can sense it.

Perhaps, if the galaxy was not at war, Barriss would be ready. But the war, the violence...it unsettles her. Disquiets her mind, in a way a jedi knight should not be disquieted, in Luminara's opinion. She waits, she supports, she guides Barriss with a firm hand, but that unsettled undercurrent never goes away.

In fact, Barriss, over the course of the war, becomes somehow less ready to be knighted than she was at the start of it. There's a brittleness to her that Luminara can sense, for all that it never reaches the surface. It goes on long enough that Luminara becomes resigned to the idea she and her apprentice will remain stuck in this holding pattern until the war is ended.

Perhaps Barris will finally be knighted once this war is over, Luminara mulls over, as she leaves Barris behind on Coruscant so she re-center herself for the battles to come. Surely it can't be long now. Surely, I can see the galaxy to peace for the sake of my padawan.

Luminara knew she wasn't ready to become a Jedi Knight. but she never expected....never saw....

How could she not have seen?

#time is an illusion it doesn't matter that this is a decade-and-a-half old problem #barriss offee #luminara unduli #jedi order #meta #star wars #attack of the clones #the clone wars #see retconning backs us into so many interesting corners!#the odd shapes of these cannon constraints breed fascinating creativity!#(this post brought to you by me rewatching the clone wars right now)

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