love love love how both obi-wan and anakin’s teaching style is Wildly Exaggerated Hypocrisy:
“anakin don’t be so dramatic,” obi-wan says, as he goes to fight ventress w. a rose between his teeth, “and stop losing yr lightsaber” as if he has not lost his lightsaber, 15 separate cloaks, his whole-ass patience, and his lightsaber again.
“ahsoka you really need to respect the council,” says anakin, while on his phone, dragging the council on his poorly-disguised ventblog that mace windu hate-reads with his wine before bed every night.
absolute hypocrite Bastards, i love them.
poorly-disguised ventblog that mace windu hate-reads with his wine before bed every night.
Prequel culture is so civilized
I always had Mace Windu as brandy man, but I guess I could see him with a glass of red wine.
Brandy is for the days when Anakin forgets to turn off his comlink and the entire council listens to him and Padme connect powerconverts
As the male leads of the sequel and prequel trilogies, respectively, Finn and Anakin Skywalker go through similar story beats. But what’s interesting is how those similarities are also framed as contrasts. It’s at the point where they seem to be Left-Handed Mirrors of each other.
Finn begins his story in the same place that Anakin ends his: turning against a fascist organization and the people who groomed them.
On the other end of that, it’s interesting that Anakin fell to the Dark Side at 23, while at that same age, Finn made the opposite choice to embrace the Light.
Both have slavery in their backgrounds. While Anakin was born into slavery and chose to leave his mother to become a Jedi, Finn was kidnapped from his family before he was old enough to remember them and forced to serve the First Order.
As part of their slave backgrounds, both men lose their true names. Finn was assigned the designation FN-2187 after being kidnapped and doesn’t seem to remember what his birth name is. Anakin was also assigned a new name, Darth Vader, by his master after pledging himself to Sideous. He is able to reclaim his family and identity right before his death. Hopefully, Finn will discover his identity, family, and name as well.
Finn and Anakin both formed attachments easily and strove to help others. During his training, Phasma tried to teach Finn that helping his fellow cadet, Slip, was wrong and that letting him fail would strengthen the First Order as a whole. Her efforts failed and Finn still instinctively rushes to the aid of those around him. Anakin was also criticized for trying to help individuals rather than focusing on the broad picture. In the now Legends Jedi Quest novels, he is specifically told that helping his fellow padawans Darra and Tru was a sign of shortcomings within him. In ROTS, Obi-Wan stops him from trying to help the clones who are struggling in the battle because they need to stick to their mission. With Finn, it is a villain trying to pressure him into becoming like her, while the ones telling Anakin he is wrong to care about others are meant to be heroic.
Both Finn and Anakin also fight powerful dark siders, K/lo and Dooku respectively, and fail in their first battle with them. They are also severely wounded before their ally jumps in to continue the fight. Hopefully, this parallel will continue with Finn defeating K/lo in their next film confrontation. Instead of being another step toward the Dark Side like it was with Anakin, it could be confirmation of his Force sensitivity or at least rededication to his path in the Light.
As part of their slave narratives, Finn and Anakin are also able to kill the people directly above them. The deaths are even similar with Phasma and Palpatine both dying after being cast down on space crafts that are being destroyed. But while Anakin died killing his master, Finn is able to stand triumphant over his dying overseer.
On that same note, both men attempt to sacrifice themselves for those they love. Anakin dies saving his son from Palpatine while Finn nearly dies trying to protect his friends in the Resistance from the First Order.
Continuing off the idea of Rey deciding not to be a Jedi and how that might affect Episode IX.
Rey might be a Force user but she’s no soldier and not really a fighter either. She a survivor. She’ll fight if she has to but generally avoids to.
Finn seems to have committed himself to the cause at the end of TLJ and they need someone like Rey, they need a Force user who will fight to counter Kylo (and possibly the Knights of Ren, but who knows about these douches). On the other hand I don’t think he’d ever want to push Rey, or anyone, into something they don’t want to do. He’s been violated like that for too many years himself.
Still it would be an ongoing point of contention between them and the source of many an argument. Could you just imagine one of them ending in Rey looking Finn in the eye and saying, “well, you have that power too. I’ve sensed it in you. You do it.” And then shoving the ancient Jedi text into his arms and storming off.
Finn standing there with the old books in his arms not knowing what to think. He’s never seen himself as a Jedi, not realized what the things he sensed were and being a little bit scared because boy this is huge, but at the same time this needs doing.
So he does it. He reads the books and meticulously rebuilds the lightsaber, using the broken crystal from the old one.
Rey being supportive because it removes a burden from her she didn’t want and takes away a task she feels she couldn’t do, but at the same time feeling guilty for shoving this on Finn.
I love this, because one of the things I hate about Rey’s story is that she seems to have a role foisted on her that she doesn’t seem particularly into. I dislike that her story consists of her being an errand girl to save the universe, unsupported by her own inner drive. She’s a lot like Anakin that way, actually–extremely talented capable, but doing things because he was told to when all he really wanted was to love and be loved. Anakin would have had a much happier ending if he’d put his foot down and said “no” to the demands on him, not that this would have been easy when he started on his path as a child and almost all his relationships and his very identity revolved around being a Jedi. Rey is not nearly so constrained, and in fact it’s Finn who had similar social and psychological constraints as a Stormtrooper before he had the incredibly courage to leave behind everything he ever knew.
Finn and Rey are Padmé and Anakin, only with a happy ending.
Their story so far has many of the same beats as Anakin’s and Padmé’s had in TPM and AotC.
In the first installment of the story Rey (Anakin) is trapped in a life of servitude on a desert planet. While she might not be a slave exactly, she comes across as a form of indentured servant.
Finn is the rebel against the status quo, the way Padmé rebelled at the stagnation and indifference of the Senate and at the end of the day will take matters into their own hands and resort to armed might to set things right, when the large galaxy appears to don’t give a fuck about their issues.
In part two, they’re kept apart. Where what kept Padmé and Anakin apart was social strictures and rules, Finn and Rey are kept apart physically. But in both cases both of them are yearning to be with each other against all the odds.
Their reunification after the battle is as tender and passionate as Anakin’s and Padmé’s after the Battle of Geonosis. They rush to each other and hold on tight, finally in the arms of the person they love.
But unlike Padmé and Anakin, Finn and Rey don’t have to hide. There are no strict Jedi masters spouting a dogma against romance to tell Rey she can’t show the love she feels for Finn. And Finn’s position in the Resistance as a leader and hero is not at odds with him loving and showing love, for Rey.
So though we lack an actual wedding scene I wonder if in Episode IX we’ll be presented with Finn’s and Rey’s romantic relationship as a already given entity, they’re simply presented as a couple from the beginning. Or if the confession of their love will happen very early instead.
Either way, it would make the most sense if the two of them spend most if not all of the movie as a couple and we see them navigate the obstacles of an ongoing war alongside the obstacle they face as a couple, the same way we see it with Anakin and Padmé in RotS. Only in this case Finn and Rey will have the happy ending Anakin’s obsession denied him and Padmé.
YES I’VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOREVER. Finn and Rey are genderflipped Anidala with a happy ending and better lines.
Other similarities, if you go back to TPM:
– Padmé/Finn originally met Anakin/Rey under an identity they assumed for safety reasons
– Both eventual couples became friends under Padmé/Finn’s assumed identity, and Padmé/Finn willingly revealed their true identity much to Anakin/Rey’s shock
– Both couples were good friends first. This stage was much longer for Padmé and Anakin since they were children when they first met and there were 10 years between their meeting in TPM and realizing their feelings in AotC. It’s pretty clear Rey and Finn were attracted to each other almost from the moment they first met, but they still started out as friends first and foremost.
Additional similarities with AotC:
– Rey and Finn meet at almost exactly the same ages Anakin and Padmé
were in AotC, 19/23 to Anakin and Padmé’s 19/24. Incidentally 19 is the traditional age for Skywalkers to begin their adventures as adults including meeting prospective love interests, and 23 is the traditional age for Skywalker men to choose a side
– Padmé/Finn was marked for death due to their principled actions, and Anakin/Rey became involved in the situation by order or circumstance
– Padmé/Finn went to rescue a friend (Obi-Wan/Rey) despite the threat to their lives
– The rescue did not go as envisioned and it turned out the rescuee was more than capable of handling themselves
– Padmé/Finn is slashed across the back by a monster
– There’s a heartfelt declaration by both Padmé/Finn and Anakin/Rey, though the guy made the first move in both cases (”You are in my very soul, tormenting me”/”Rey, come with me”) and the girl initially refused (”It’s impossible”/”Don’t go”) before she reciprocated in the face of almost losing him (”I’ve been dying a little bit each day”/”Thank you, my friend.” I’m not kidding about the better lines here…)
In TLJ, arguably there was a form of social stricture that kept Finn and Rey apart physically–Rose and her demand that Finn give his full allegiance to the Resistance. As I discussed in The Temptations of Finn and Rey (link), this was a callback to Finn’s being coerced to give everything to a “higher cause” his whole life. This in turn ties back to the similarities between the FO’s Stormtrooper program and the Old Republic Jedi, taking children from their families at a young age and transferring their attachment to a larger cause. I like to think Rose grew as a character and realized that she had been wrong about Finn, but RJ’s execution is so muddled it’s hard to tell ¯_(ツ)_/¯
For this reason I think there’s a chance that “will they or won’t they” will still be a thing in Episode IX. Finn and Rey ended TLJ on essentially a misunderstanding and on opposite ends from their last real talk on Takodana. For all they love each other they are still essentially strangers who spent maybe a grand total of one day together in the midst of a galactical crisis. (That’s another parallel to AotC Anidala, incidentally.) The crisis is worse than ever at the end of TLJ, providing plenty of excuse for two uncertain and traumatized people to bury themselves in work and avoid talking about things too close to their hearts.
Before we begin, I think it’s important to unpack what this comparison really means and who is actually being compared. No one is saying that Padmé, a woman of high ideals and deep convictions, who believes in the power of ideas, words, and compromise and who holds democracy as sacred, is very much like the taciturn, cynical henchwoman to a despot, whose entire life has been shaped by the power she is all too aware does not have. And no one is comparing emotionally tortured, perpetually uncertain Zuko to Padmé either. Nor is anybody comparing carefully controlled and seemingly unemotional Mai to Anakin Skywalker (though I will get back to this one later). No, the two characters actually being compared are Anakin and Zuko. As for why comparing Anakin to Zuko is painfully inaccurate, buckle up folks, I have visual aids.
I don’t see how people can make this comparison, Padmé and Anakin were torn apart by Anakin’s fall to the dark side and Padmé was unable to stop him. This was no fault of her own, though I do side-eye her covering up his mass murder–not because any of Anakin’s actions at any point were her fault but because it was something she herself did wrong.
Mai and Zuko on the other hand were ultimately brought together happily because they both did what was right and had the courage to break free of Ozai’s and Azula’s abuse, where Anakin was lured deeper and deeper into Palpatine’s manipulation and ended up abusing Padmé as well.
So I can see them as mirror images/happier reincarnations, but they’re obviously not straight parallels.
L.J.'s Obsessions 