Just Art And Things I Love

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.

I will never not reblog this whenever I see it. 💚💙

A lot of fic is predicated on the assumption of the Dark Side being a potential break-glass-in-case-of-emergency Hail Mary power-up. It’s in like a zillion of them; the hero is losing the fight, he unzips Dark Side and wins, then gets unfairly persecuted for just trying to survive. But–like Force exhaustion–I don’t think there’s much evidence of that, either.

TPM:

AotC:

RotS:

ANH

ESB:

RotJ:

It does say “realizes he is using the dark side” right there! But it also says that Luke has grown much stronger since Bespin. I can agree that Luke drew on the dark, but I don’t think his moment of superiority came solely from the dark side. I don’t think this was a Super Saiyan level of magic power jump.

And Vader was not on his A-game, either; even Like can feel how conflicted he is, and Darth Vader absolutely does not want anyone to know he feels like that.

I also think it’s worth pointing out that being able to pound Vader like that didn’t actually save the day for Luke. If he had killed Vader right there and attempted to finish off Palpatine still in full loyalty to the Rebellion, he would have gotten fucked--as he does immediately after this scene, when Palpatine accepts his refusal and effortlessly fries him. It was not a case of “Luke could have won if he’d just taken a lil bit of dark side, as a treat”.

tl;dr I don’t the dark side is a powerlevel button. Sith are not powerful because they can throw chairs around harder than the Jedi ever could, they’re powerful because they’re willing to do that unethically. They all talk it up as hot shit because the entire arc of every Sith is someone who starts buying their own bullshit.

e: actually, that’s a better way of phrasing it–the dark side is exactly like cocaine in that you FEEL like it’s given you all sorts of power but its effect is nothing more mystical what than you’d have gotten from an adrenaline rush.

We also have, in ESB, Luke asking whether the Dark Side is stronger and Yoda emphatically answering that it’s not. I suppose a viewer doesn’t have to take Yoda at his word but there’s really nothing to suggest he’s wrong about this when he’s not just there to teach Luke, but also the audience about the Force.

I think a lot of the misconception stems from the popular trope (outside of Star Wars) of characters getting mad and that’s what lets them win. But Star Wars is, in some sense, an active rejection of that trope.

If anything, doesn’t Star Wars support the idea of the light side being more powerful?

TPM: Obi-Wan uses anger and then is about to get killed (would have if Maul didn’t waste time gloating). He calms down, uses (and trusts) the Force to get himself out of the pit, grab the lightsaber, and defeat his enemy.

AOTC: Dooku gets defeated by Yoda. He has try to crush Obi-Wan and Anakin, while they’re defenseless, to distract Yoda so he can get away. Because Yoda is skilled with a lightsaber and is able to use the Force to not be hurt by lightning (which was awesome).

ROTS: Obi-Wan manages to win the battle against Anakin, and Palpatine fails to kill Yoda

ANH: “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful then you can possibly imagine” and Obi-Wan becomes a ghost. Also, Luke uses the Force (probably as calmly as he could in that situation) and manages to blow up the Death Star.

ESB: Not really an example here, Luke was defeated because he wasn’t ready.

ROTJ: Yes, Luke beat Vader while he was angry (and it does seem he tasted the dark side), but he would’ve been killed had he done anything to Palpatine. Bringing Vader back to the light ends up being what defeats Palpatine and saves the galaxy.

The dark side seems able to grant someone some power at extremely high cost, with the person’s mental health going to shit and the people they care about getting hurt. Anakin trusts the dark side to save his wife, then he commits genocide and his wife dies, largely because of him. He isn’t even any more powerful either.

The light side has people work really hard to learn abilities. Yoda literally had to fight his own dark side in order to learn how to manifest himself after death. But the abilities actually work, they do get more powerful, and it doesn’t come at crazy high costs like being responsible for genocide.

note on my advice in the next paragraph: you don’t have to take it if you don’t want to. I’m not here to police how other people’s fics go. The advice is just something I think would help fics feel more Star Wars and more enjoyable for me to read.

My advice for any Star Wars fic writers who want to give their characters a power-up, have them get tested by the Force and then give them the power-up. This could also give an extra chance for character development or introspection. And you don’t have to worry about your character being shunned! And if you just want something lighthearted or humorous (but still want the power-up), make the test lighthearted and/or silly. Who says the Force can’t have a sense of humor?

The dark side is alluring because it’s easy to give in to frustration and anger, because the dark side is quicker and easier, but it comes with the cost of your mental health going to shit and you generally don’t get what you actually wanted/you drive everyone away because you’re being an absolute asshole. The light side is a lot harder, it takes a lifetime of discipline to choose the light every day, to do the hard work to build yourself up, to face and let go all the toxic crap inside you, to really earn your skills. The dark side is powerful, but it’s not more powerful.  It’s an easier shortcut that will always, by narrative structure, come around to bite you in the ass again.