I Just Realised That The Next Time Leia Sees Obi-wan He Gets Killed And I Am Not Well.

The End of the Jedi & Republic vs The End of the Empire Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover | Aftermath: Empire's End by Chuck Wendig

These institutions were both dead from the beginning due to self-inflicted wounds of corruption and ignorance. Destruction will continue in a vicious cycle if its mistakes are not obliterated from its foundations. The end of the Jedi and Republic warns of this. It became the Empire, then the New Republic, which failed as it only reinstated what the previous Republic was without uprooting its flawed systems. The Empire transformed into the First Order, but both were already doomed being led by power-hungry figures who end up trying to kill each other and force the world into an order utterly unnatural. Fascism is unsustainable and will always devolve into consuming itself in pursuit of selfish individualistic power.

There's also an interesting contrast between both of these passages. When speaking about the Jedi and the Republic, the supposed Light-Side, there's this tone of hopelessness and utter despair. Their corruption consumed them and you can't stop it or save it. Anakin will always be the dragon that burns thousands of years of legacy to the ground. But when speaking about the Empire's end, there's an underlying tone of hope even as the story closes on it's successor rebuilding in the shadows. Because even when the galaxy continues to rebuild kingdoms of oppression, hope and resistance will always coexist against it simultaneously. The Empire is doomed, and The First Order too, because it dared to rebuild while those willing to fight for justice still exist.

Was the galaxy saved or doomed the moment Anakin stepped onto the scene. Both? Neither? It’s about how hope and perseverance exist even as institutions continually seek power.

This is Ghorman reaching for any open channel that can hear me. If you can... If you can hear me... If you believe in truth, if you have any faith left in truth, please, please mark this message and pass it forward.

ANDOR 2.08 | Who Are You?

MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU!!!! Created by George Lucas in/sp

Andor Make It Stop | 2.10

Okay, so. Star Wars has all these concepts that weirdo New Left boomer George Lucas tosses in there but because of storyteller limitations it would kill the plot to fully explain them all, so later writers have to come in for the spin-off materials and bat clean-up to fully explain all this crazy crap. And I would like to talk about something that made me actively angry at first, but which I now adore. And that is the Naboo.

So much about Naboo culture is infuriating from a logical standpoint. They have a queen, okay. A constitutionally elected queen? Weird, okay. Don't know why they'd do that but... She's FOURTEEN? Excuse me? Is it a ceremonial thing or, oh no it's not? Legit head of state? Why does she dress like that? Why does she talk like that? I'm so tired.

Here's the explainer. Let me go cook.

There's this joke in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where the last living human goes back in time and finds out humans aren't actually from Earth, but an alien culture that tricked all the middle managers, pedantic weirdos, and other infuriating folk into getting in a space arc which they gave the wrong evacuation coordinates to simply get rid of them. The Naboo are like this but they're all artists and poets and hippies, but like classy ones. They fled their home planet during a war and crash landed on Naboo, then did a colonism to the Gungans because, hey, they were fleeing a war and it was do or die. This spiritual rot in their creation story is later rectified by Padmé. But it's super important to their cultural psychology. They're hippies, but will subjugate if needed. They are "peaceful" but I guarantee you every single one of them has a tiny extremely shiny pistol up their sleeve and they will draw down on you if backed against a wall.

The scene that I think says it all is at the end of Phantom Menace when Padmé is surrounded by Nute Gunray and his droids, they've got her dead to rights, but Sabé her double creates a distraction so the queen can make it to her throne. This one piece of furniture is the Naboo in a nutshell. It's richly carved with artistic details, it has two seats to the side so the queen's handmaidens can read the lips of people in the back of the room and use hand signals to communicate with the queen while she can remain focused mostly on who is speaking to her. It is hundreds of years old. And it has a secret compartment in the armrest that is FULL OF GUNS. Layers of artistic opulence hiding their true intentions.

The Naboo were created to be backwards compatible with Princess Leia. They're compassionate pacifists, but they will shot you if needed.

Why do they elect teenage royalty? It's a little creepy. It's giving "age of consent is emotional maturity". It makes no sense.

The explanation they give outsiders is they want youthful idealism untainted by cynicism. What they don't tell you is that they take kids with stated interest in politics and put them in an advanced highly competitive Leadership Academy which is like Model UN mixed with Battle Royale. Well, they don't kill each other but it's intense. It's like what the clones went though just all diplomacy training and tea ceremonies all the time. Which is crazy but so Naboo.

Oh, and all the delegates for the royalty election run using pseudonyms for security. Imagine voting for the head of state but you can't run a background check. It's so crazy.

Why does Padmé dress like that? Well, fashion is one of Naboo's major industries so it's like she's wearing the entire Fall line catalog at once. To advertise not only the talent of her people, but to show how much they favor her. BUT that dress has multiple layers of padding and resin armor. And aforementioned spots for those little silver blasters. And it breaks up her silhouette making her harder to shoot. And it's so elaborate you pay more attention to the crazy dress and not if the person wearing it is really the queen or a decoy. Everything about Naboo is like this.

Queen Amidala has that weird accent while Padmé does not. Because all her handmaidens helped create the accent together so they all can imitate it. It's like if you gave girls at a rowdy sleepover the job of federal counterintelligence. That's what they came up with.

The handmaidens wear colorful identical clothes so you can't tell them apart, hoods to partially conceal their identity, and they don't wear the queen's fancy makeup. So one of them can be the queen and spy on people in the audience. Because the Naboo don't trust shit for shit.

Their public face is so silly to hide all the truly weird shit they do behind the scenes.

They use their reputation as artist hippies to conceal multiple layers of subterfuge and disguise their methods of self defense and assuage their paranoia due to wartime trauma and their disturbing colonial past. All of them are completely off their rocker even by Star Wars standards. And I love them so much. They put on a show so everyone thinks they have them figured out but what they have going on is far more weirder and more sinister than meets the eye. You know how catty, neurotic, and competitive art school students stereotypically are? Yeah, planet art student. Love them!

There you go, @charmwasjess

I think one of the best and unintentionally funniest worldbuilding aspects in Star Wars is the reasoning of why did Bail and Breha adopt Leia instead of having their own children. Leia is first established as the princess of Alderaan before she is written to be Luke's sister. So now we need to figure out how she got to Alderaan. She was adopted because she needed to be hidden and separated from her brother. Bail was placed there to be one of the only people who knew so there would be a reason why it was them who got her. They specifically wanted a daughter. Why? Because Alderaan is a matriarchal society, so they needed a princess. Why didn't the Queen and her husband have biological children? Because they can't. Why? Because the Queen can't have kids. Why? Because she got injured as a teenager and got her internal organs replaced and her body can't handle a pregnancy. How did she get injured so badly? She fell off of a mountain. How did that happen? She was climbing it. Why was the future Queen climbing a mountain in the first place? Because she needed to go through three challenges in order to inherit the throne and one of them required her to go through something physically impressive. Why? Because before that they just held a Battle Royale for all the heirs and the one left alive got the throne and they at some point figured out that maybe they shouldn't be doing that, actually. Oh, okay.

[ Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith | Behind the Scenes ]

ok what if, thanks to giving birth to two half-force/eldritch skywalkers, padmé wound up as a force ghost (but only said eldritch skywalkers could see her)

(commission info // tip jar!)

Initially, I thought the whole “Luke looks like Anakin but is more like Padme; Leia looks like Padme but is more like Anakin” thing was kind of cute, but it’s become bit of a pet peeve of mine. It’s not horrible or anything like that, but it’s such an oversimplification of all four characters. And it’s not even that accurate, yet it’s become so common and is treated like indisputable canon. And I just don’t get this interpretation of them.

First of all, I want to start by stating Luke and Leia are who they are because their parents raised them to be that way. However, I know these movies are works of fiction, and when George Lucas was writing the prequels, he did so with Anakin and Padme’s children in mind. So, with that being said …

This fandom tends to treat Anakin and Padme like they’re opposites, which just isn’t true. They have a lot in common. Both are kind, brave, intelligent, stubborn, reckless, strong leaders, determined, loyal, idealistic … They love with their whole hearts, following their emotions and what they believe is right, even when common sense might dictate otherwise. And we can see these traits in BOTH Luke and Leia.

The main difference I see between Anakin and Padme is that the latter is the more rebellious one. I know TCW likes to portray Anakin as the type of Jedi who doesn’t care about the rules, but just going by the movies it really isn’t the case. Anakin is pretty subservient to those in authority, which makes sense considering he was a slave for nine years. He apologizes to Padme for disobeying orders by going to Tatooine to search for his mother. He apologizes to Obi-Wan for seemingly disappointing him for not being an ideal student. Even when he shows some defiance by arguing with the council for not being granted the rank of master, Anakin quickly submisses after a few words from Mace and a look from Obi-Wan. His marriage to Padme being an exception, Anakin just isn’t the rebellious type. Padme is though. Throughout the PT, we see her doing what she wants, and to hell what others think. The Republic isn’t going to help Naboo? Fine. She’ll save it herself. Obi-Wan’s in trouble? Well, Anakin can come with her or not because she’s going to Geonosis either way. And of course there’s her questioning the war and whether she’s on the right side and the Delegation of 2000, which should have never been cut from RotS because it added so much to Padme’s storyline. Anakin was part of the Empire’s birth, while Padme was part of the Alliance’s beginning, and I love that the Rebellion is included in Padme’s legacy. And this rebellious, defiant spirit was passed onto Luke and Leia. Luke is going to help his friends, even if Yoda and Obi-Wan thinks it’s a bad idea. And Leia is just Leia. She doesn’t care that she’s a prisoner and sentenced for execution. Tarkin and Vader are beneath her, and she’ll happily remind them of that fact.

Also, it’s kind of annoying how people associate Luke’s kindness with Padme and just forget about Anakin, who was a genuinely good person. He helps Padme, Qui-Gon, and the others when they’re stranded on Tatooine, putting his own life at risk, and not once did he stop to consider how he would benefit from the whole thing. Anakin just knew they were in trouble and he wanted to help them. And then people overlook Leia’s kindness. The girl had to watch her whole planet blow up, yet she still has enough empathy to comfort Luke after Obi-Wan’s death. But some people describe her as having anger issues like Anakin, and I’m always like WHAT anger issues?? Leia has never expressed anger in a situation where ANYONE wouldn’t be angry. And I don’t agree with the idea that Leia would be more drawn to the dark side than Luke. I see her as being similar to Padme in that they are both very strong in their convictions. They both know who they are, what they stand for, and they won’t let fear, anger, or temptation cloud that. Even when the Death Star’s laser was aimed toward Alderaan, Leia STILL had the clarity of mind to lie about the Rebellion’s location. When Leia says that she wishes she could leave with Luke in RotJ, he knows she wouldn’t even if she could, and he reminds her of that. Because Leia has always been strong, just like Padme, and neither will turn their backs on what they believe is good and right.

As for Luke, he is compared several times to Anakin in the OT, and the prequels include multiple scenes where Anakin parallels his son: his love of flying, wanting to leave Tatooine and explore the galaxy, blowing up the Trade Federation’s control ship, losing a limb and having it replaced by a cybernetic, his battle with Dooku in RotS … Lucas clearly wanted to show how Anakin and Luke’s storylines mirror each other, but Luke’s choices ultimately lead to him taking a different path than his father’s. And it’s not because Luke is a pure, innocent cinnamon roll (which he isn’t) just like Padme (which she also isn’t; let women have flaws jfc). Anakin lived the first nine years of his life as a slave, was separated from his mother only to be reunited with her a decade later when she dies in his arms, and has been groomed by Palpatine since he was a child. And due to the flaws within the Jedi Order, Anakin wasn’t able to cope with his fear and trauma in a healthy manner. Luke, on the other hand, lived a relatively normal life for nineteen years with friends, hobbies, and a loving family. And this normal life helps him cope with his own loss and trauma in a way that Anakin couldn’t. And Luke IS drawn to the dark side, and he does struggle with it because he is angry and impatient, and he hates the Emperor and Luke wishes he could just kill him because then the galaxy would be a better place. But Luke actively chooses not to give into the dark side, which is why him tossing away his lightsaber, refusing to kill Vader, and declaring himself a Jedi “like his father before him” is so important. But I still see people trying to argue how Luke’s story actually mirrors Padme’s?? Yeah, maybe in a few ways, but his similarities to Anakin play a larger part in Luke’s journey.

And I’m not saying that Leia doesn’t resemble Anakin in some ways or that Luke isn’t similar to Padme because I know that’s not true. I just don’t think how they reflect their parents is as clearcut as some make it out to be. And it’s become slightly annoying how some fans keep repeating this like a knee-jerk reaction.

STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) dir. Irvin Kershner