So We Need To Talk About “Weapons Factory” Again…

So we need to talk about “Weapons Factory” again…

And no, I’m not going to delve into the whole Anakin/Luminara dynamic after the factory blows up and they’re searching for their Padawans. That is a horse that has been beaten to death that this point and there’s plenty of great meta out there that shows how Anakin and Luminara BOTH love their student.

I’m talking about how good of an idea it was for the Padawans to go undercover into the factory while the ADULTS put themselves in the direct line of droid fire with bare minimum cover. There’s a lot of people that love to rip into Luminara’s character when she unveils her plan she and Barriss had prepared for but again I don’t think these people utilize critical thinking when it comes to characters that aren’t the mains. I personally think Luminara’s plan was full of good intentions. She wanted to keep the girls out of as much danger as possible (she most likely didn’t forget how quick Ahsoka was to put herself up against Ventress in their mission together and wanted to return the favor and keep Ahsoka safe along with Barriss). Look no one is going to disagree on how much that mission sucks for all parties involved, but Luminara seemed to try to make the most out of seemingly impossible situation.

1.) First off, the idea of sneaking the teenage girls into the factory was probably the safest option for the Padawans. Judging by Anakin’s reaction, the fact that there would be catacombs under the factory itself doesn’t seem to be common knowledge, thus the Poggle and the gang wouldn’t be betting on their enemies to know about it either. With that being said, having that kind of advantage immediately lessens the chance of Ahsoka and Barriss getting hurt as their enemies wouldn’t be expecting them and again…they are out of the direct line of fire happening outside. Anakin, Luminara, and the Clones literally have no cover. Do you really think it would have been fair to put the Padawans out there too when their own Masters are struggling? Luminara even said that with a frontal assault their losses would be high. Furthermore, there’s even a point where Anakin and Luminara have the Clones stay back while they go destroy the bridge.

2.) People love to say that Barriss being tasked to memorize the labyrith is like a form of child abuse but I hate to break it to you, it’s not. Anyone who has read Barriss’s EU novels (The Medstar duology written by Steve Perry and Micheal Reeves, which Feloni himself has also read) would know that Barriss’s wicked intelligence and memorization is very in character for her. Before all this terrorist bullshit, Barriss was characterized to be an extremely gifted healer whose intelligence was exceptional. It was also shown in these novels that Luminara would never ask Barriss to do anything she wouldn’t be comfortable with. Honestly y’all I think if Barriss did not have photographic memory, I think Luminara would have memorized that shit herself, because she would rather die than do anything to compromise her student. As I’ve mentioned this is not a far fetched theory as this was their dynamic written well before TCW that Feloni based on these books when it came to these characters.

Unlike Anakin (I love him too so don’t come for me) who didn’t trust in Ahsoka’s ability to run a briefing by herself, Luminara trusts and believes in Barriss. She gave her a task she knew Barriss could do and never doubted her Padawan for a second even when she too was starting to worry like Anakin.

3.) Like with any plan, there will always be risks no matter how meticulous it is. What ended up happening to Ahsoka and Barriss down there was a bad accident. No one can control the off chance that a bug would wake up and alert Poggle of what’s actually going on. No one can control the fact that the girls were outnumbered and that their bombs were taken away as a result of this development. It’s something Star Wars is always preaching about, there are just some things you can’t control, you just have to make the best of it and have the courage to make the better choice. It’s pretty evident in both Anakin and Luminara’s reactions when the factory went down that they were not expecting that and were hurting as a result of it.

In conclusion, there wasn’t a single person in this episode that did not have good intentions and I’m tired of Luminara being painted as this cold, heartless woman because of things she cannot control and due to her ability to have a handle on her emotions.