10 Things Chewbacca
Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. This is purely a fanwork, from which I am receiving no profit.
Author's note: michiru42 requested this in my head!canon meme. The last item is slightly AU for the EU. I make no apologies.
TEN THINGS CHEWBACCA
1)Chewbacca is still young by Wookiee standards when the Clone Wars reach their climax; just coming out of his adolescence, in fact. He's a good fighter but too impetuous, and despite Yoda's good relations with the Wookiees he can't help being just a little disappointed that the Republic didn't send the dashing Anakin Skywalker - the Hero with No Fear, brave enough to impress even a Wookiee - or the equally famous but sly Negotiator, General Kenobi, to aid in the defense of his home planet. It takes age and wisdom for him to appreciate Yoda's quiet strength, and to understand his equally quiet weaknesses.
He remains sorry that he never met Skywalker and Kenobi.
2)So it's no surprise that, years later, moping around a third-rate cantina in Mos Eisley spaceport with his smuggler best friend, he recognizes Obi-Wan Kenobi despite the aging and the name change. It looks to Chewbacca as though Obi-Wan may have aged a little faster than humans usually do, but he's no expert on the human life cycle and he keeps his suspicions to himself.
They are confirmed when he sees "Ben" Kenobi teaching the cub how to use a lightsaber. And the cub's name, apparently, is Luke Skywalker.
The Jedi weren't allowed to marry, but Chewbacca is no fool. The Hero with No Fear had a son, apparently illicit - he always was known for playing fast and loose with the rules to get the job done - and with Skywalker nowhere in sight, Kenobi is training the boy.
He doesn't mention any of this to Han.
3) But Han is no fool, either, and when he leans back in his chair and tells his senior passenger that in his opinion there is no "all-powerful Force controlling everything" - Chewbacca hears him even if he pretends not to notice, would have heard him on the other side of the ship - Chewbacca is pretty sure Han has figured it out, too.
Which is kind of a shame, really, given Han's feelings about Anakin Skywalker. Not that he'd ever admit to them in company.
4) But Chewbacca is proud of Han - he can't help thinking of Han as sort of a reckless young cub, even though he knows that the pilot-cum-smuggler is an adult by human standards - for not turning around and turning them in. For sticking with them on board the Death Star when he could probably have earned enough money to pay off his debt to Jabba three times over (not to mention smoothing over some rough spots with the Imperials) by walking to the nearest duty station and telling the officer that General Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker's son had coerced - or mind-tricked - him into helping them escape, but here they are right now ...
Han doesn't do it, of course.
5) This is why Chewbacca isn't even a little bit surprised when Han changes course abruptly above Yavin IV and doubles back to help Luke, who no longer has Kenobi, and the other Rebels, who never had any sense.
Of course, he might have been giving Han a hard stare or ten in the meantime.
6) He doesn't win a medal on Yavin IV, which might have bothered a lot of humans - Chewbacca was in the Millenium Falcon when it fired the critical shot, after all - but he knows he's just a co-pilot and that the decision was really Han's, because he let it be. No Wookiee acts bravely for the hope of recognition, anyway. At least the Rebel Alliance remembers this. And the feeling of lightness in his chest, when Han-the-cub and Luke Skywalker turn and face the crowd, is like the feeling of a dawn inside.
This, he thinks, is what it would have felt like to witness Skywalker and Kenobi freeing Kashyyk.
7) He has mixed feelings about the relationship Han maintains for them with the Rebellion over the next couple of years. On the one hand, they are clearly doing good, and that's a step up from smuggling for Jabba. On the other hand, they aren't really part of the Rebellion themselves, they just keeping contracting work (often unpaid), so there is no sense of belonging, and Chewbacca feels like they really ought to be in or out. Then the whole problem becomes moot when Han is captured, and for a few minutes Chewbacca isn't sure where he stands. But then he realizes that Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia and those two annoying droids are about to join him on the ropes, choosing their friendship with Han over their obligations to the Rebellion.
8) He wants to tell Luke, when they've rescued Han, that this is what the Jedi would never have done - putting one person, a friend, before duty to a larger political structure - and this was their greatest flaw. Chewbacca is almost inclined to agree with Han's assessment that Luke is no Jedi Knight ... but he thinks that, in the end, Luke might actually be something better.
9) So they all hang together, Chewbacca and Han and the princess and C-3PO, and then also Luke and R2-D2, who went off to do some Jedi thing but came back, and it's this togetherness, the web of loyalty, that ties them all together and sees them through that mess with the Ewoks. They're still together, even when Luke leaves them on Endor to go fight Vader - or confront him, that's the word Leia used instead - and that's how Chewbacca knows they'll win, because nothing could be stronger than this.
10) After Endor, Chewbacca had expected things to get easier, but he realizes quickly that this was naive. The Empire crumbles in the Emperor's absence, but twenty-odd years of oppression and propaganda don't vanish overnight, and it turns out that a lot of people still look askance at Wookiees. Chewbacca would like to fix this, like so many other things, but he isn't a social activist, and in the end he leave the speeches and the rallies to other beings more suited to them and proves a Wookiee's worth in the way he knows best: by being the best he can be, at everything he does. Usually this involves a less-than-well-thought expedition with one of that crazy crew he and Han have fallen in with over the years, and though he growls a little for form - or to remind them that what they're about to do is really stupid - it's mostly fine with him.
Author's note: michiru42 requested this in my head!canon meme. The last item is slightly AU for the EU. I make no apologies.
TEN THINGS CHEWBACCA
1)Chewbacca is still young by Wookiee standards when the Clone Wars reach their climax; just coming out of his adolescence, in fact. He's a good fighter but too impetuous, and despite Yoda's good relations with the Wookiees he can't help being just a little disappointed that the Republic didn't send the dashing Anakin Skywalker - the Hero with No Fear, brave enough to impress even a Wookiee - or the equally famous but sly Negotiator, General Kenobi, to aid in the defense of his home planet. It takes age and wisdom for him to appreciate Yoda's quiet strength, and to understand his equally quiet weaknesses.
He remains sorry that he never met Skywalker and Kenobi.
2)So it's no surprise that, years later, moping around a third-rate cantina in Mos Eisley spaceport with his smuggler best friend, he recognizes Obi-Wan Kenobi despite the aging and the name change. It looks to Chewbacca as though Obi-Wan may have aged a little faster than humans usually do, but he's no expert on the human life cycle and he keeps his suspicions to himself.
They are confirmed when he sees "Ben" Kenobi teaching the cub how to use a lightsaber. And the cub's name, apparently, is Luke Skywalker.
The Jedi weren't allowed to marry, but Chewbacca is no fool. The Hero with No Fear had a son, apparently illicit - he always was known for playing fast and loose with the rules to get the job done - and with Skywalker nowhere in sight, Kenobi is training the boy.
He doesn't mention any of this to Han.
3) But Han is no fool, either, and when he leans back in his chair and tells his senior passenger that in his opinion there is no "all-powerful Force controlling everything" - Chewbacca hears him even if he pretends not to notice, would have heard him on the other side of the ship - Chewbacca is pretty sure Han has figured it out, too.
Which is kind of a shame, really, given Han's feelings about Anakin Skywalker. Not that he'd ever admit to them in company.
4) But Chewbacca is proud of Han - he can't help thinking of Han as sort of a reckless young cub, even though he knows that the pilot-cum-smuggler is an adult by human standards - for not turning around and turning them in. For sticking with them on board the Death Star when he could probably have earned enough money to pay off his debt to Jabba three times over (not to mention smoothing over some rough spots with the Imperials) by walking to the nearest duty station and telling the officer that General Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker's son had coerced - or mind-tricked - him into helping them escape, but here they are right now ...
Han doesn't do it, of course.
5) This is why Chewbacca isn't even a little bit surprised when Han changes course abruptly above Yavin IV and doubles back to help Luke, who no longer has Kenobi, and the other Rebels, who never had any sense.
Of course, he might have been giving Han a hard stare or ten in the meantime.
6) He doesn't win a medal on Yavin IV, which might have bothered a lot of humans - Chewbacca was in the Millenium Falcon when it fired the critical shot, after all - but he knows he's just a co-pilot and that the decision was really Han's, because he let it be. No Wookiee acts bravely for the hope of recognition, anyway. At least the Rebel Alliance remembers this. And the feeling of lightness in his chest, when Han-the-cub and Luke Skywalker turn and face the crowd, is like the feeling of a dawn inside.
This, he thinks, is what it would have felt like to witness Skywalker and Kenobi freeing Kashyyk.
7) He has mixed feelings about the relationship Han maintains for them with the Rebellion over the next couple of years. On the one hand, they are clearly doing good, and that's a step up from smuggling for Jabba. On the other hand, they aren't really part of the Rebellion themselves, they just keeping contracting work (often unpaid), so there is no sense of belonging, and Chewbacca feels like they really ought to be in or out. Then the whole problem becomes moot when Han is captured, and for a few minutes Chewbacca isn't sure where he stands. But then he realizes that Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia and those two annoying droids are about to join him on the ropes, choosing their friendship with Han over their obligations to the Rebellion.
8) He wants to tell Luke, when they've rescued Han, that this is what the Jedi would never have done - putting one person, a friend, before duty to a larger political structure - and this was their greatest flaw. Chewbacca is almost inclined to agree with Han's assessment that Luke is no Jedi Knight ... but he thinks that, in the end, Luke might actually be something better.
9) So they all hang together, Chewbacca and Han and the princess and C-3PO, and then also Luke and R2-D2, who went off to do some Jedi thing but came back, and it's this togetherness, the web of loyalty, that ties them all together and sees them through that mess with the Ewoks. They're still together, even when Luke leaves them on Endor to go fight Vader - or confront him, that's the word Leia used instead - and that's how Chewbacca knows they'll win, because nothing could be stronger than this.
10) After Endor, Chewbacca had expected things to get easier, but he realizes quickly that this was naive. The Empire crumbles in the Emperor's absence, but twenty-odd years of oppression and propaganda don't vanish overnight, and it turns out that a lot of people still look askance at Wookiees. Chewbacca would like to fix this, like so many other things, but he isn't a social activist, and in the end he leave the speeches and the rallies to other beings more suited to them and proves a Wookiee's worth in the way he knows best: by being the best he can be, at everything he does. Usually this involves a less-than-well-thought expedition with one of that crazy crew he and Han have fallen in with over the years, and though he growls a little for form - or to remind them that what they're about to do is really stupid - it's mostly fine with him.