New fic pet peeve

[ladyaeryn]

I was just reading a Vader/Padmé AU fic on the Pit - sort of, I guess, the SW equivalent of Twilight for some people: easily digestible romantic flangst, decently executed enough in some areas to continue reading, but deep down you know it's pretty mediocre overall. Anyway, the one thing that did make me nearly hit the back button

Comments

[ariadnequinn]

I agree 100%...a completely POINTLESS change. Aside from legal issues, age is just a number

[ladyaeryn]

Aside from legal issues, age is just a number.

Yup. And the legal side of it doesn't even come into play with A/P, because he's 19-20 when they start with the kissin'. (Now, public perception of it - were the relationship ever revealed - would be another thing.) And over the course of AotC, we see that when it comes to matters of the heart, she really isn't all that much more mature than he is anyway. Romantically experienced women don't wear dominatrix gowns and then try to tell the guy it's time to turn down the heat. ;)

It's too bad about cases like the first guy you mentioned - but on the other hand, if his maturity is such that he lets a four-year difference be a roadblock, you're better off without him.

Anakin starts out like a puppy, but matures into a man on equal footing with Padme. So who the hell cares how old either of them are...? Why even mention it in a fic...?

Exactly.

[ariadnequinn]

And over the course of AotC, we see that when it comes to matters of the heart, she really isn't all that much more mature than he is anyway. Romantically experienced women don't wear dominatrix gowns and then try to tell the guy it's time to turn down the heat. ;)

LOL...yes...there's that. And the pastel gown that covers everything...but looks like it's about to fall off. Both gowns are stunning...but they certainly are sending a message that Padme is seemingly oblivious of.

It's too bad about cases like the first guy you mentioned - but on the other hand, if his maturity is such that he lets a four-year difference be a roadblock, you're better off without him.

Agreed...if that's his attitude, then I guess he WAS "too young" for me after all. I was just shocked by his reaction - in this day and age, that is your complaint? Get a life! If it was good enough for Darth Vader, it's certainly good enough for you. ;-)

[may_child]

Hehe...Padmé certainly wears quite a few "come-hither" outfits around Anakin in AOTC, which is part of the reason why the claims that he is "stalking" her bug the living hell out of me.

The bigger part of the reason, of course, is that it is offensive, as well as false. Anakin does perhaps hover a bit too closely to Padmé once or twice, though people seem to forget that he was assigned to guard her. And he stares at her intensely a couple times, and touches her (bare) back before their first kiss. But he never comes close to "stalking" her. Also, once she tells him they can't be together, he backs off completely and keeps his hands and eyes to himself...until she tells him she loves him prior to the battle of Geonosis.

[selenak]

What you said. The fact that there are people who can't see a relationship as "romantic" if the woman is older is such an irritating comment on the power of image still prevalent - characters portrayed by 30 years older actors romancing characters played by 20 something actresses are swoonworthy, but to have a woman five years older than a man must be beyond the pale. Bah.

Anyway, with this particular pairing there are so many other screwed up factors involved, in any AU where Padme survives and Anakin is completely Vader, that to create an additional artificial imbalance by making her much younger is stupefying.

[ladyaeryn]

The fact that there are people who can't see a relationship as "romantic" if the woman is older is such an irritating comment on the power of image still prevalent

Yes. I don't think a lot of these authors consciously set out to include sexist tendencies, but the fact that it's such an unconscious, seemingly instinctive part of our groupthink is probably even more maddening than if it were conscious.

there are so many other screwed up factors involved, in any AU where Padme survives and Anakin is completely Vader, that to create an additional artificial imbalance by making her much younger is stupefying

Absolutely. There are plenty of potentially fascinating twisted issues to explore without introducing this "artificial imbalance" as you call it - in fact, IMO, adding it neutralizes a lot of those potential issues, because the conflict that would be there if V/P were more equal parties is gone

[matril]

My main thought is - Anakin older? That's not canon! ;) Other than that, the implication of putting Padmé in a lower position is pretty insulting, I agree. My mom is older than my dad, so I guess it's hard for me to wrap my brain around the idea of "the guy has to be older." It just seems silly.

[ladyaeryn]

Yup, this was definitely an AU. ;)

I don't think a lot of these authors do this consciously, but nonetheless, the seemingly instinctive value system that makes things like this unconscious kind of rankles me.

[may_child]

It could also be their way of "righting" what they consider GL's "bad choice" to make Anakin 9 years old instead of 16 or 17, like he "should have been." I'm sure you've seen any number of hate-filled rants about TPM which complain about Anakin being a little kid in TPM, which usually expand into stupefying hate directed at Jake Lloyd, and a list of so-called reasons why his age in TPM is "wrong," and "goes against canon/what the OT established

[ladyaeryn]

It could also be their way of "righting" what they consider GL's "bad choice" to make Anakin 9 years old instead of 16 or 17, like he "should have been."

That is a possibility - though since TPM as we know it didn't happen in this fic's AU, I'm not sure. Then again, since in this case he's already Vader when they meet, and several years older, this way he's always had the "dominant" position in the relationship. Whereas in canon, she was "dominant" until the latter part of AotC when they became true equals.

It doesn't occur to them that Anakin looked so old because of the injuries sustained when he nearly burned to death, and also, 20-some years of the Dark Side warping him physically.

Yup. Look what it did to Palpy in just a few seconds!

[lazypadawan]

It drives me nuts when fan fic writers do that for no other reason than to correct something they see is "wrong." It's a sign of a person who's not terribly mature or well-read, so what's clichéd is what's "normal."

[ladyaeryn]

Yeah, I definitely think it's a more rampant trend among "new"/relatively inexperienced fic writers.

[may_child]

You can say that again. People complain about "there are no indicators that Anakin in TPM will become Vader." In other words, because Lucas didn't take the clichéd route and have him lie or steal or, I don't know, tear the wings off flies, it's "wrong." And Anakin's turn in ROTS "comes suddenly," plus there's "no reason for him to turn dark." In other words, because Lucas didn't give Anakin a clichéd reason like, say, revenge (i.e. because he thought the Jedi had killed Padmé), it's "wrong

[ladyaeryn]

The "too sudden" turn isn't something I agree with, either. As you say, the seeds have been there since TPM: hell, Yoda lays it out word for word in the Anakin-meeting-the-Council scene. Anakin does make a couple of huge drastic decisions in RotS, but to me that just seals how he feels things are just falling apart so rapidly apart that he can't think straight.

In all fairness, I don't think "revenge" is any more or less clichéd than "oh no I can't lose my wife." They're both motivations that have been used countless times in many fall-from-grace tales. But I do prefer this version, yes, because it puts more culpability on Anakin instead of whitewashing and making him a complete victim of tragic circumstance.

Instead, it's his own lust for power, which he covers with his desire to save his wife...

After his turn, yes. But according to GL in the RotS commentary, Padmé was Anakin's original motivation for seeking power - having the power to save her just made him realize he could have the power for other things too. Like Willow