have you been half-asleep, and have you heard voices?
grimorie linked me to the Rebel Force Radio podcast in which Dave Filoni, showrunner of Star Wars Rebels, talks about some stuff. I am constitutionally unable to listen to podcasts - I pretty much zone out and fall asleep after about ~10 minutes - but luckily, I think most of what I wanted to know was in the first 10 or 15 minutes so I can now make a post talking about things.
There are two separate items he talked about that I want to blather on about:
1. The possible survival of Rex until the Battle of Endor (i.e., RotJ). Apparently, and I guess my memory of the movie isn't as good as other people's because this didn't ring any bells, there's a white-beardy rebel guy with Han's task force on Endor, and Filoni has said that he has a way of making that guy actually be Rex canonically, which I would LOVE! ♥REX♥ (and then he can get a genetic fix that can let him survive until TFA to meet Finn!) It makes me want ALL the stories of Rex meeting Luke, of Rex dealing with Leia (of Rex not knowing about Leia but finding her eerily familiar in some ways, like the way she makes snap tactical decisions that turn out to be the right ones, the way she's happy to pick up a blaster and lead from the front, the way her troops love her, the stubbornness, the bedrock dedication to freedom and democracy, the sharp wit and even sharper tongue) even more. Of Luke trying to be subtle and failing when he asks about Kenobi and Skywalker and Rex happily telling him all sorts of crazy stuff they got up to (though I still can't figure out if Rex knows who Vader is).
2. Filoni says something - and I was starting to fade at this point, so this is absolutely paraphrasing - about how the introduction of Ahsoka creates another super important relationship for Anakin and one that's as important as his relationships with Obi-Wan and Padme, but then he said something about how it might be the defining relationship of Anakin's life, and I woke up a little and went, "Um, no." I love Ahsoka (and I even ship them a little), and she clearly prefigures Luke in some ways, but come on.
I guess to me, you can't discuss the various relationships and the tolls they exact on Anakin without discussing the one relationship that poisoned all the others - his relationship with Palpatine. (I mean, there are other reasons all the relationships went bad, and most of them are Anakin's terrible decisions, but without Palpatine as the serpent whispering in his ear, maybe he'd have confided in Obi-Wan more. I don't know. I like to think so though.)
I think part of the disconnect is that since we already know Palpatine is evil, he never appears to the audience as a kindly grandfatherly man taking an interest in a little boy who's been taken away from everything he's ever known and thrown into a much different, much more confusing life. He just looks gross and creepy from moment one, and I've spent a lot of time wondering how anybody could let a kid be alone with that guy (I'm not particularly interested in AUs where Anakin is a girl*, but I do wonder if the relationship would have been side-eyed a lot more in that case - a sex scandal is a lot easier to believe than the long con Palpatine was actually perpetrating, and much more common to politicians; which doesn't mean it couldn't happen with Anakin as a boy, just that the perception might be shadier with a little girl, and especially a little girl raised in slavery by a mother who couldn't name a father for her child, a girl who might have more reason to be wary of old men who want to be nice to her). But I guess Anakin himself never picked up on it, never didn't want to go see him, so nobody else thought it was inappropriate (or did think it was but couldn't say anything because politics).
*Otoh, bring me all your Lady!Obi-Wan(/Anakin) AUs. I might be writing one myself, *cough* since I can't find what I really want, which is all the pining. So much stoic pining. Because it's wrong and also forbidden, and obviously this is Obi-Wan doing the stoic pining, because Anakin is not so much for keeping quiet and not acting on feelings.
Oddly enough, I still don't really care one way or the other about them as a slash pair. I mean, it makes a lot of sense, but I just don't need it. Also I am kind of OTP about Obi-Wan/Satine.
And this of course is a parallel for how Snoke apparently seduced Kylo Ren (though I freely admit that I personally find Kylo Ren a lot less sympathetic, but then, with only the movies to go on, I didn't like Anakin either, so ancillary materials can clearly help! Please watch The Clone Wars so I'm not alone in being afflicted with Anakin feels!), though TFA provides him with two other foils - Finn, who was brainwashed/indoctrinated with the First Order's BS from a young age and when put to the test, chose to reject it, and Rey, who had a miserable life that would turn anyone angry and bitter but who came out of it a kind and hopeful person instead.
I don't know where I'm going with this, but Kylo Ren clearly inherited the ability to make incredibly bad decisions from his grandfather and instead of quashing it to listen to the angels of his better nature, he's chosen to give into it entirely. And since I don't know why he did that, I find it really hard to sympathize or even care, especially when Finn and Rey exist.
all of which has no conclusion, but by god, my TFA blu-ray better get delivered today or I will be very upset.
***
Today's poem:
Reading Poetry to Cure Insomnia
Tonight I try to pull sleep
from the crash of a book,
but night swarms thick like bees,
stinging the small white lips
of streetlights. Outside
my window, moonflowers
hang across the broken trellis, night
plants curl with evening
primrose, nocturnal and exposed.
I will be here until morning,
until robins awake handheld
in grass, a hint of daylight emerging
as an early lover entering
this room. I close
the book. The Emily Dickinson
hosta blooms slightly. Its petals
move like a single page,
paper tongues silent to the willow
branches shading it
so it can sleep the rest of the day.
~Kelli Russell Agodon
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This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/831694.html.
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