Star Wars: Clone Wars - The flashing neon orange elephant in the room

[smurasaki]

Clones are freaking slaves!!! How do you write multiple seasons of a show and somehow never quite notice this!? How!?

I just don't even... *splutters*

There are several episodes that deal with the clone troopers, some of which touch on how their lives are not their own, and some that seem to treat them as any other soldiers (both of which manage to

Comments

[cmcmck]

After all, Sparta and the Ottoman Empire survived for centuries using Hoplites in the former case and Janissaries in the latter- who were just what you describe.

And then there are the present day child soldiers and sex slaves of central Africa.

And mercenaries are ever with us. My other half is an expert on European mediaeval mercenaries, so there's plenty to study.

Why be angry with fantasy when we've plenty to be angry about right here in the real world?

[smurasaki]

What were you hoping to accomplish/convey with this?

[cmcmck]

That right here in the real world, not just in fantasy, people treat other people like things and it makes me rather angry.

There are people who seem to think people like me are just things, after all. I can't possibly know my own mind as there are so many who know it better for me. :o(

[smurasaki]

I'm sorry. The real world sucks mightily. And if I were a better person, I'm sure I'd spend more time trying to fix the real world. However one accomplishes that.

But I'm not good enough, I don't have the energy, the money, or the mental health to do that. Sometimes I need an escape and fiction is about the only way I know to escape the hell that is reality.

Also, the stories we tell ourselves as a culture do have an influence. My own frickin' government has used fiction to justify torturing people. So it bothers me when fiction presents terrible things as if it doesn't realize they're terrible.

[nenena]

This always bothered me about the TV series. At least in the prequel movie the clone army was very, very clearly framed as something deeply evil - direct evidence that the Republic was morphing into the evil Empire. But the TV series seems to go to impressive lengths to never directly address the issue.

[smurasaki]

And in ignoring the elephant in the room, it gives off some really bizarre moral messages.