I wanted to add in some senior citizen characters, although they would probably only show up in books and comics. Alternate Sequel Extended Universe?
Left to Right:
In making my latest video, I got awfully sad about how the new canon left Barriss. I’d love there to be some kind of way to bring her closer to her old EU counterpart. Perhaps she was possessed by the Son of Mortis, who corrupted her through the Jedi Temple (a cop-out, but still better than Ventress’s “my childhood sucked” motive or the canonical “Jedi are too violent to not be bombed” motive). In her imprisonment, the Son sought out new targets, but she never plead for her freedom, haunted by her actions. However, decades later, when Luke was helping liberate Coruscant’s underworld, he sensed her anguish. Needing experienced Jedi for his new praexum, and feeling compassion for her suffering, Luke asked Barriss to join him as chief medical officer. Though she’s still mournful for her actions, in her free time she studies ancient Force artifacts, hoping to find out more about the Celestial beings manipulating things beyond the senses.
For Kes Dameron, a peaceful life of nearly 30 years of peace was bliss. He became a skilled farmer, and happily raised his son in honor of his wife. Yavin IV is still relatively unpopulated, but the Mandalorian traders nearby still come visit his farm to get food, and Poe visits every week. Poe cautions his father against letting the Mandalorians know how close he was tied to the Republic, which makes Kes laugh, as he’s been open with them about it for years. I tried to give him a tattered version of Shara’s jacket, and an older, still handsome face that’s found peace in a peaceless galaxy.
The Jedi Younglings arc in The Clone Wars sets up these adorable little twelve year olds and then nothing… nothing in Rebels, or books, or comics, says they survive Order 66, or even that they died. My headcanon was that Hondo knew about the Order and was able to save them. He offered them positions in his gang, but they just wanted a place to be safe. Hondo took them to Florrum, safely out of the gaze of the Empire. When Katooni turned eighteen, Hondo offered her a job again. She accepted on one condition: half of the jobs she took needed to be helping people. Hondo begrudgingly accepted, and she quickly rose to second-in-command, with Hondo giving her his old jacket and hat as gifts. In between then and the new trilogy, Hondo died, and Katooni took over the gang, as well as repurposing Hondo’s old staff.
Wicket settled down after the war, save a few skirmishes in forest environments as favors to Leia, and training New Republic forces in geurilla tactics. He married Kneesaa, who became chief of the Bright Tree Village tribe, and had a child (that showed up in the last drawing). He’s got a wheelchair, which I think, at least to my knowledge, would be new to Star Wars. There’ve been a few floating chairs, but the wheels specifically would require accessibility in the New Republic, which I think could make for interesting stories.
I think you have to understand that these movies were made in a different era in the 80s, the target audience for the trilogy had grown up and weren’t maybe into the next three as were the teens of today’ society. Different people reacted differently, I think everyone watched it because it was Star Wars and it had played a part in so many peoples childhood and it was one of those movies that would be remembered forever!
Hmm another disturbing trend I’ve noticed is certain people (non-muslim
people) telling fans that it is wrong and Islamophobic to see
Barriss
Offee as Muslim
coded because of the temple bombing.
She is Muslim coded, let’s just get that out of the way. And to see her/headcanon her as being Muslim isn’t bad at all.
What is wrong/Islamaphobic however, is the route the writers
decided to take.
They took
Barriss
, who was
a skilled master/jedi, a healer and a lot of other great things (in legends) and
scarped her character and turned her
into a terrorist. They took a character who already had great depth and
background, and decided to turn her into a terrorist despite the fact that they
knew she was muslim coded.
Barriss
being muslim isn’t Islamophobic. What the writers did
to her, was.
But I mean, despite the writers going the Islamophobic root,
we do have to admire that she is still an interesting character in the clone
wars. (and this isn’t to excuse what the writers did, but I am saying that despite
that she is still very interesting and fleshed out)
And from my standpoint, her views of the Jedi order and the
Republic are very accurate and I agree with her. She, unlike many characters
isn’t afraid to call out the people in charge and pretty much accuse their privilege
of blinding them. Especially looking at the Senators; people who do not fight
in the war like the Jedi (who are flawed) and the clones (who are not and who
are innocent players on this field). Her action of opposing an oppressive and
privileged government, in my opinion is empowering. And at the same time
standing her ground in front of everyone ,
despite the fact she knew she was going to be killed, was also empowering.
I just wish that the writers were considerate when they
decided how to make her act out. They could have done various things that
portrayed Barriss opposing the Republic, that did not involve making a muslim
coded woman bomb a temple . Simply going sith would have been acceptable.
So tl:dr—Barriss is a muslim coded woman . it isn’t wrong to
make her muslim in hcs and stuff, and you shouldn’t be attacking people for
seeing her that way.
Who you should be mad at however, is the writers because they
are the ones who chose to go a specific route with
Barriss
, that was very Islamaphobic.
Especially given that her character was already well fleshed out and in depth
in legends.
Her love for the clones goes even beyond in Legends, where she actually falls into a drug addiction because of the pressure from treating all the clones and seeing them suffer everyday. She’s such a great, MUSLIM character, and I’m saddened they put such a watered down version of her in TCW when she was a very different and dimensional person in Legends. Her speech echoed the Barriss in former canon (who was vivacious, audacious, joking, blunt, teasing, loud and not at all the wallflower that TCW makes her out to be) but she could’ve been much better.
I mean, I didn’t know shit about the character when I first saw her (or first noticed her, rather, since she had fleeting moments in the prequels) looking for TCW clips on YouTube and I was like… omg she’s a hijabi and she looks so cool? But she’s a terrorist bomber?? And she set up her friend to take the fall? Ooohhh that is not cool at all there were a million better ways to handle this 😦 worse still, she’s right and why’s she being painted in this unforgiving light 😦
So yes, can confirm 10/10 Barriss is Muslim coded and TCW did her dirty. If I with no background on the character and little knowledge of Islam saw it, I can guarantee a lot of other people did.
L.J.'s Obsessions 