Okay… I really don’t get why in the new Maul comic they draw Palpatine like he’s already the Emperor. He’s younger than 50 at this time period, as it is set before Phantom Menace, and in the Clone Wars show they don’t age his face to 80/90 when he is in disguise, and also…. he doesn’t age up in Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, or Revenge of the Sith every time he is in disguise, so I am very befuddled by the artistic choice… like… even his eyebrows are gone, you’d think the other senators might notice that…. xD
Let’s get this fan cast trending, guys!! Otherwise people want to make Pennywise the new Sheev, and Bill is 6+ feet tall and looks nothing like Ian McDiarmid!
nice healthy relationship with the home planet there, palps.
The really sad thing about this awful novel is that the author tries to turn Palpatine into a brainless hurr-durr destruction type of Sith. Palpatine was never about “complete destruction.” Anyone who’s taken a longer look than two seconds at his character knows that. He’s not a brute Sith like Nihilus, and in fact in Disney’s new-canon (false canon, tbh) Vader comics, he explicitly points out to Vader that he has no wish to rule over a galaxy of the dead, and he tells Vader to turn down the wanton destruction Vader has been causing.
In the true canon, the EU, he’s displeased over the destruction of Alderaan, he has an actual fondness for his home planet, and he’s a calculating, thinking, cunning evil son of a gun who wants to rule and turn the galaxy to his vision. He wants to become the galaxy’s god. Not destroy it.
Not what this stupidly written and boring novel would have you believe. It’s a betrayal of his character, once again, thanks to Disney’s Lucasfilm.
i don’t want to be mean or anything but why is Finn on the dvd of TROS? I expected the whole gang, or Rey or Palp, maybe just Ben but Finn… why
This is what is wrong with the Reylo movement, people. It’s filled with stuff like this transparently racist attack on the character of Finn and his actor John Boyega. I know, they’re going to complain that Finn was a “nothing character,” so he shouldn’t be on the disk and “that’s all it was,” but no.
That’s not all it is. Had Abrams gotten his way, Finn would have continued being the co-lead with Rey, but Disney/Lucasfilm got scared of China the Reylos and shrunk him on their posters, and it all went downhill from there. We all know the story.
This was a bonus disk. Let that sink in.
Reylos complain that Finn/Boyega is featured on a bonus disk, when their precious white school shooter space-nazi “Ben” is prominently on the cover and the other disk. How DARE Finn be on a TRoS disk?? /s
Reylos complain that Boyega made one sexist joke about Finn and Rey and say it turns Rey into an objectified sex object.
Reylos then write 20,000+ erotic smut fics objectifying Rey and Kylo (and also real life Ridley and Driver in many of those fics) and draw even more explicit smut of Rey/Kylo and Ridley/Driver and crow triumphantly about it. Some of them want Driver to divorce his wife and marry Ridley instead. Some of them literally stalk Driver. Literal would-be homewreckers to keep their lily white fictional ship intact.
I am so done with this. I come to tumblr to check out Sheev art and fics and general Star Wars fun, not to have to put up with Reylo racism in the Palpatine tag. Reylos have it out for Boyega. I hope he continues to hold his own against them.
Boyega deserved better than the fans of the sequel trilogy. I wish history could be backed up and Abrams given full story control of all 3 films. Then we would have seen Finn as a triumphant character and a worthy member of the Star Wars saga. He might have been a Jedi. He might have been a mighty resistance leader. He might have been a complex, powerful character.
Alas. The Reylos had to be appeased instead, so we got him riding space horses on a star destroyer that doesn’t know which way is up in a side plot screaming Rey’s name and going nowhere.
Another problem with all the “If only the Jedi had [done this; allowed that; been nicer/less strict etc etc] then [Anakin wouldn’t have fallen/the Jedi wouldn’t have been genocided]” takes is that they completely disregard the fact that Palpatine’s plans don’t exist in a vacuum. He’s already set things up so that every choice his enemies and pawns could make benefits him, and in the event that one of them makes a choice he didn’t account for (such as Padmé, frequently, but especially in TPM), he’s extremely effective at adjusting to that and taking advantage of the situation.
Obviously the Jedi had agency in their decision-making and are responsible for the choices that they made (which I’d argue were mostly the best ones given the individual situations and information they had available at the time - again, character knowledge is not the same thing as audience knowledge), but that doesn’t change the fact that the entire war was set up so that they would be destroyed no matter what they chose to do. Palpatine would’ve exploited any choice they made, he would’ve seized on any crack that could be found or manufactured in Anakin’s trust in the Order; he would’ve twisted anything and everything against the Jedi, because he wanted them dead. And he held all the cards in this situation. So to say that the choices the Jedi made, or flaws in their culture “led to their own downfall/genocide” is incredibly disingenuous. They certainly weren’t immune to making mistakes, of course, but those flaws and mistakes are absolutely not, in any way the reason they were genocided. They were genocided because Palpatine/the Sith wanted them dead and manipulated things to make sure that happened, and only because of that.
So the only fill-in-the-blank that could possibly work in the statement at the beginning of this post is “had gotten Palpatine killed or incapacitated” or “had somehow been able to keep Anakin away from Palpatine during his childhood” (though that latter one would’ve only saved Anakin, not necessarily the Jedi as a whole). And without knowing in advance that he was Sith, how would they have known that they needed to do either of those things, or had the means to do so?
It’s Sheev’s Fault. Yes, it is. What a lovely Big Bad.
Quieev = Padawan Qui-Gon Jinn and Naboo Ambassador Sheev Palpatine. I love the dynamics between these two: the older rogue Jedi padawan who marches to the beat of his own drum, and the younger abused redheaded Sith Apprentice who always has to cause trouble. The Big Bad of the Saga needs his wholesome Jedi to rein him in. My guilty pleasure rare pairing.
If his ‘son’ is a clone of himself in Disney-Canon, why does he look absolutely nothing like him, not the same hair color (why not go red like Sheev, people??), not the same glorious nose, not the same facial structure, not the same build, not the same anything? Literally nothing about Palps, Jr. is in anyway like Palps the OG.
Oh yeah, the “not-quite-identical” clone excuse in the novel.
I know in reality clones don’t have to look the same.
But considering that in the Star Wars universe we already have examples of cloning (Fett), and they do come out the same in that universe, wtf, Disney?
when you desperately need quality palpatine stories in canon again:
James Luceno got out while the getting was good. He saw the Disney writing on the wall and noped out before he could get the mud splashed on him. Good for him! Sad for us.
Another episode that I enjoyed! Despite the few flaws I found in the episode, I absolutely loved it! And the girl power? Damn ladies get it! With Obi-Wan gaining a lot more strength, will we be getting the showdown that we’ve wanted soon? Check out my reaction!
“chancellor palpatine, sith lords are our speciality.” funniest fucking line in star wars history. obi-wan, who has never killed a sith and knows he has never killed a sith, talking about himself and a guy who is going to become a sith lord within half a week, and speaking directly to the sith lord who is going to make that guy a sith lord, with FULL fucking confidence: “sith lords are our speciality.” he says this to palpatine’s face. to his face. to darth sidious’ face. in the most condescending fucking voice. completely unaware that he is speaking directly to the sith lord, to THE sith lord, who before the week is out is going to directly fuck over his entire life’s work and everything he loves and believes in: “sith lords are our speciality.” could you be any more cringefail. actually palpatine deserved his whole victory for not bursting into laughter then and there
i cannot emphasise enough that there is exactly sixty secondsbetween him saying this and him getting knocked fully unconscious. by a sith lord.
This is a rather telling bit of dialogue, honestly. One would think that the Jedi and the Senate both serve the Republic, as equals, but even this young senator feels sure enough of their power hierarchy to try and order Obi-Wan to do something he does not want to do. After the rise of the Empire, even oppositional senators have more safety than any Jedi. Palpatine may have a special hatred of the Jedi, but I don’t think he’s the type to allow any enemies to run unchecked. It takes him all the way to ANH to build a weapon powerful enough to allow him to destroy a whole planet, and thus eliminate the powerbase of any senators that defy him. Both the Senate and the Jedi are small in number, but their respective social and political power is clearly stratified. This is to say, the Jedi only have that which is afforded to them by the Republic. They are not the political powerhouse that people sometimes make them out to be, and that is one of the reasons it was so easy for Palpatine to turn the whole galaxy against them.
There is an aspect of the Deception Arc in the Clone Wars that is overlooked far too often, especially in posts which exonerate ObI Wan for his actions (most of them, let’s be honest).
What Kenobi did was more that just LIE to Anakin.
He inflicted on him (and Ahsoka) the exact same pain and grief and trauma that the death of Qui Gon Ginn in Episode One bought to him.
For all the fans howl and scream and rage about how much Obi Wan suffered, and make endless GIFs about his “infininite suffering” because his lost his Master and “father figure” - he inflicted exactly that on Anakin and Ahsoka Tano.
Like if you look closely, you can see tears welling up in Ahsoka’s eyes as she cradles Obi Wan’s “corpse”. You can hear the despair and anguish in Anakin’s voice as he calls his name and desperately tries to revive him. Actually, it may have been worse for them, because they were both younger than he was when Qui Gon died. Ahsoka was barely 16 and Anakin maybe- 22? Whereas he was 25.
The fact that WE as the audience instictively know Obi Wan isn’t dead doesn’t exonerate him of this. The characters don’t know. Ahsoka and Anakin both think they have lost their best friend/Master, and the mentor figure who they looked up to. Anakin believes he has lost his BROTHER, the man who practically raised him.
This is exactly the same pain, the same suffering, the same level of torment and trauma that Obi Wan suffered when he lost Qui Gon. He meant as much to both of them as Qui Gon did to him.
So every single time you say that Anakin “had no right” to feel the way he did about Obi Wan’s actions in the Deception Arc, it is exactly the same as saying that Obi Wan “had no right” to feel the way he did over the death of Qui Gonn.
Every time you condemn him for being “selfish” because he was upset and hurt, I reserve the right to deny and minimize Obi Wan’s suffering.
The simple fact that Obi Wan was willing to inflict this on Anakin and Ahsoka, “for the mission” was beyond callous. He KNEW how it felt to lose a beloved Master/Mentor figure in to violence. He knew how it felt to hold him helplessly as he died, to weep over him.
He KNEW how much pain it would cause, but not only did he not show a modicom of sympathy , he judged Anakin for the way they felt. He USED him and Ashoka in the worst way possible.
Your constant attempts to exonerate Obi Wan of all wrongdoing during these Episodes by denying the pain that he inflicted on those who he supposedly loved, and gaslighting them represents everything that is wrong with this fandom.
Just another example of TCW08 writing characters ooc. I forgot about this when I did my post about how the PT was ooc in TCW08, but this is exactly how Obi-Wan was badly written in that show. He would have never done such a thing.
Obi Wan could definitely be an asshole as a master. He had some very problematic training tactics. He was harshly critical, manipulative, dismissive, and sometimes downright emotionally/verbally abusive . He used Padme as bait to lure Anakin into a trap to kill him without her consent, which was messed up. He really should have just put Anakin out of his misery with a clean death penalty on Mustafar, rather than letting him burn alive when he got the high ground, but he didn’t because he was a coward and I think subconsciously wanted Anakin to suffer for his crimes. When they first met, he was a petty and snobby brat towards a slave boy who was 16 years younger than him in TPM.
However, yeah, faking his death to get a reaction out of Anakin to “test him” just seems blatantly and deliberately cruel to the point of feeling like flanderdization of his flaws.
It might actually constitute torture. Mock execution is legally considered a form of torture, and being forced to watch another person being executed or apparently taken to execution actually falls within that remit.
Forcing Anakin to watch his best friend being shot to illicit an emotional response sounds a lot like being forced to watch a mock execution to me. Its a form of pyschological torture, and is illegal in most countries today.
“It was for the common good” doesn’t cut it. I’d like to see the Kenobi stans argue for the use of torture in a Court of Law in those terms. Still, Americans don’t have the best record when it comes to that type of thing.
I’ll admit that I haven’t seen much of The Clone Wars, but the vibe I’m getting from Obi-Wan at the end of the arc when he’s talking to Anakin here about what he did and why he did it is that he’s genuinely feeling guilty about having betrayed his closest friend’s trust, but this wasn’t really something that he felt he “had” to do under pressure from the Council. This was a plan that Obi-Wan independently came up with himself and presented to the Council because of his own selfish ambition to fit in with them and prove himself worthy of a seat on the Council.
This is how he responds when Anakin calls him out, after all.
It is absolutely true that Anakin, Obi-Wan, and the other Jedi recruits are all victims with compromised agency in this broken system under the abusive and corrupt Council, so, while they’re not wholly innocent, they’re also not able to be held fully accountable either. However, in this particular instance, the Council had issues trusting Anakin, but they never put pressure upon Obi-Wan to come up with this plot to betray his trust. This was Obi-Wan’s own selfish ambition to get on the Council by impressing them outweighing his desire to be a good friend to Anakin. Even Yoda and Mace-Windu were skeptical about this plot Obi-Wan came up with.
While it would still be a very shitty thing to do to Anakin either way that he would have still had every right to be angry with Obi-Wan for doing to him, what really makes it nearly unforgivable to Anakin is the fact that Obi-Wan personally made this decision. He’d have still been upset if Obi-Wan was “just following orders,” but he’d have understood it because he, Obi-Wan, and the other Jedi have been constantly groomed under the moral guideline of “right vs wrong” as being completely submissive to the orders of authority figures you work for/trust in “for the greater good” of the cause you serve, no matter the sacrifice. Obi-Wan independently made the decision to be a backstabbing, deceitful, and manipulative bastard to this young man who considered him to be a father figure and a best friend after being raised by him for ten years. Anakin genuinely grew to love Obi-Wan enough to consider him close enough to family,and Obi-Wan repaid him by stabbing him right through the heart in his own selfish ambition.
That’s exactly why that whole line of “I did what I ‘had’ to do” is genuinely an excuse Obi-Wan’s using to mitigate his own guilt in this scenario. I’m not saying he wasn’t a victim of this broken Jedi Order in some ways, too, but in this case, Obi-Wan was the primary one responsible for hurting Anakin because his desire to impress the Council to get in their circle was greater than his desire to be a good friend.
Add to this that Anakin was under an extreme pressure which in the end made him snap. He didn’t just „turn to the Dark Side” on a whim.
Apart from the Jedi training which he started when he was much older than the other padawans, he had a master who didn’t trust him and constantly reined him in; who had no compassion when he felt his mother was dying; the Jedi council openly disliked him and yet sent him on dangerous missions over and over; he became a general responsible for many clone soldiers and lived through one dangerous adventure to the other through years of war; he had to keep his feelings and later his marriage to Padmé a secret; he was saddled with a padawan when he was just 21 or 22 years old; and then he went through the pain of having to believe that the man who raised him and to whom he looked up as to an older brother had died. He still didn’t turn dark. If he did turn to Palpatine in his despair, in the end, one ought not to forget the almost unendurable pressure he had lived under for so long. Obi-Wan added considerably to this pressure, never imagining that one day or another, it might become too much for Anakin to bear.
