Removing them from the Mandalorian narrative is like removing a block from the bottom corner of a Jenga tower. Sure, the tower will probably hold up, but it’s a questionable choice at best and a destabilizing one over time at worst.
But it isn’t change that I dread. Most critically, we would lose Boba Fett as a diaspora analogue.
Boba was at his most compelling when written as someone who feels disconnected from his cultural heritage, is able to maintain only superficial ties with it, and as a result, struggles to regain that lost connection and feel that he earned the right to count himself a member of his own people.
This is an experience uniquely lived by members of diaspora. It’s an experience lived by many children of immigrants in the United States, like myself.
As we look forward to the release of From a Certain Point of View on October 2, and with it new canonical information about Boba, I wrote a small piece on my fears about confirming in no uncertain terms the Fetts as non-Mandalorians.
okay alright listen If Rey is not Han and Leia’s daughter I’m gonna need answers to the following questions:
What in the world was Claudia Gray talking about when she said that she came up with a “visual element” of Bloodline and it happened to match something that is being planned for future movies, if not the music box that plays Mirrorbright?
What is Jett Lucas trying to say by comparing TFA to Anastasia with focus on her royal status? If it’s something that his father included in his drafts and was changed by Disney, why does he keep mentioning it?
What’s up with Leia’s ring and why is it identical to the one described by Jen Heddle in her fan fiction (Jen is a book editor at Lucasfilm)? Is it just a coincidence? If it’s indeed a nod to Jen, why are there two stones instead of three?
What in fresh hell was Maryann Brandon talking about at around 48:36 here if not “the fact that Rey and Leia know each other was cut from the film because we don’t know who Rey is yet” and why the fuck was this particular answer removed from UCLA’s YouTube channel?
What is the personal turmoil that Han was going through when he lost the Falcon (before the Jedi massacre)? Did it involve his troubled son? WHY? Why was Ben going through so much trouble? Snoke? What did he use to manipulate or disturb Ben? Han didn’t even know about Snoke’s influence until TFA.
Why is Han described as a family man in the Visual Dictionary and his life style post-war as something “unexpected” for the guy he was in the original trilogy, and yet his old ways were supposedly a factor in his son’s downfall? What changed along the way?
Why does the online Star Wars databank repeatedly sugget that Han and Chewie lost the Falcon together, if according to the Visual Dictionary they are only supposed to be reunited after a “profound tragedy” and the most obvious interpretation for that is Ben becoming Kylo Ren (which happened post-Bloodline and therefore after the loss of the Falcon)? Is the online team at LFL that out of the loop?
How did the “profound tragedy” turn Han’s life upside down (”upended what had become normal”) if by the time Ben turned he was already spending significant amounts of time away from Leia, travelling throughout the galaxy?
Why did Leia have a dream in Life Debt of herself dying as she gave birth to children instead of dreaming of Padme in that situation, considering she didn’t picture herself as anyone else during the other parts of the dream (Luke was Luke, Han was Han, Chewie was Chewie)?
I can reasonably understand and accept alternative explanations for pretty much all the other arguments out there in support of this theory, but not these.
Finn is a lot of things–a military genius, a conscientious objector, a crack shot, an iconoclast–but
beyond the realm of military and politics he also has mythological
qualities in embodying certain archetypes, and to me the most prominent
is that of the trickster.
Trickster figures are recognizable
by distinguishing traits such as solving problems by wit and
resourcefulness, actions that upset the social order, humor, crossing
boundaries between realms, and physical transformation. Finn’s story
contains all of these and more, with the effect that he plays the
trickster’s role, a bearer of the unexpected and an agent of change.
A
trickster is first and foremost defined by, well, trickery. Some
tricksters are conspicuously lacking in physical force, such as Jacob in
the Old Testament of the Bible in contrast to his stronger brother
Esau. Some are depicted as smaller, weaker animals compared to their
adversaries, such as Reynard the Fox in Western European fables in
comparison to the wolf Isengrim, or Bre’r Rabbit of the Southern United
States in comparison with Bre’r Fox. Other times martial prowess simply
isn’t a big part of their story, such as Coyote of the Crow and Plains
tribes’ mythologies and Prometheus in Greek mythology. Rather than
physical force the trickster often uses some flaw in their opponent,
such as vanity or cruelty, to get out of a tight situation or win the
prize in a situation where they are at a disadvantage.
This is
true of Finn, who made and executed a plan to steal a TIE fighter and rescue a
Resistance pilot from under the First Order’s nose. In doing so he ingeniously
exploited a flaw in the First Order’s organization by claiming it was
Kylo Ren who wanted the prisoner–Ren, who reports directly to Snoke and
is not a part of the strict military hierarchy that Hux so prizes, who
has his own agenda and will act for it rather than his given orders, as
he demonstrated more than once in The Force Awakens.
If
Finn had tried to claim the prisoner transfer order had come from Hux
or Phasma he may well have been required to verify the command, given that
both these figures operate within the standard military system. But
Ren? Who was going to question him and risk his explosive temper, short
of Hux or Snoke himself?
In other words, Finn used the
personal and organizational failings of his oppressors to brilliant
effect in planning and executing his escape, and this planning made it
possible for him and Poe to reach the TIE fighter without a single shot
fired. Once they flew the TIE and hit a (literal) snag shots were fired
indeed, in a sequence I have analyzed at length.
A confrontation was inevitable at some point anyway, but it was due to
Finn’s clever subterfuge that he and Poe were able to get so far without attracting deadly attention. This is itself a
significant achievement that may have saved their lives when they were seriously outnumbered and Poe had endured physical and mental torture.
Finn also
uses a subtle trick on the Resistance but of a different sort, which I
will discuss near the end in the section about the trickster as
communicator.
There was a lot of work put into this and it was so good to have dear Anasi the spider included. This is great meta and I like that it can be incorporated into any existing meta a Finn fan may have, like him leading a stromtrooper uprising or being force sensitive.
Thank you! I was really excited to find out about Anansi and Eshu in my research. I think they’re the first trickster figures I’ve come across that have an explicit focus on language and communication (although it’s inherent in all tricksters given their nature), which is perhaps fitting since West Africa is such a linguistically diverse region. Their stories gave me more insight on the trickster figure and about Finn himself, how stories and language galvanize and move people. The American Gods portrayal of Anansi starting a slave uprising, for instance, is in keeping with his historical role as an inspiration for resistance by enslaved African diasphora populations. If Finn were to give a speech rallying his rebellious troops I would d i e
I think that there were several key moments of Finnrey-focused realization for Rey and Finn throughout the movie, mainly about each other. I want to tackle Rey’s this week and Finn’s the next.
In the first gif, I think this is Rey realizing that people scavenger an care about others without their being an ulterior motive. In her scavenger diary, Rey talks about the every-person-for-themselves aspect of Jakku. It just sort of was what it was. It was a ruthless existence and people weren’t expected to care unless there was something in it for them. I think in the top gif, Rey suddenly confronted with the knowledge not only that people can care about others without any expectations, but that she likes that. It feels organic. It’s not a shock that she extends her hand to Finn immediately afterward. Even if the movie ended here, she would never be the same again after this encounter.
I think that it’s pretty well established that Rey knew she was in love with Finn when she lay down to die with him at Starkiller Base. But I think what the second gif shows is her realization that she wants something deeper with him. She has already been told (in a deleted scene) that he’s going to be okay physically, so when she speaks to him and kisses him after, I see this as the moment she realizes that when they see each other again, she wants to try for a full-on romance.
Reminder that Rey was so bonded to Finn by the time they parted ways in Takodana that his departure triggered a traumatic flashback of her childhood abandonment.
Reminder that she was more than capable of saving herself and surviving as she always had, but Finn did something for her that no one else did–showed her she was worth coming back for, through enemies and mortal danger, no matter what. That her not being alone mattered more than the fate of the galaxy itself, not that he ignored the galaxy either because dude can multitask.
This is still so rare in male-female romance stories, the male character affecting the female character’s story as primarily her emotional support and not her savior, the two helping each other and working together as equals.
And think of the courage it took for her to walk away at the end when she had only ever known partings to be irreversible heartache, when they had just gotten back from the brink of oblivion. She could do it because meeting Finn had changed her, because she now knew there was someone to come back for her and she for him. Standing on the bedrock of that certainty she could be and do anything, and the vast emptiness that had grasped her since childhood loosened its grip a little.
She and Finn will meet again no matter what distances and storms separated them. She knows that now as she knows her own beating heart, each thump counting out the moments until they meet again.
And when they do? On that beautiful day she will tell him. She will conquer her awkward tongue, so unused to softness and flowers after a lifetime in the desert, wrestle her words into behaving, and tell him, in a confession that will flow like a poem, exactly how she feels about him and what she wants their relationship to be like. The stars will hold their breaths alongside her as she waits for his answer, watching his beautiful face for a sign, some permission to soar into joy or crash into heartbreak. She works and strives and waits for that moment, the moment she knows will come.
(In reality we know homegirl flew literal light years away out of nervousness and when she does confess she’ll be tongue-tied and awkward and kick herself for days if not a lifetime afterward, but let her have her fantasies first.)
Finn is a lot of things–a military genius, a conscientious objector, a crack shot, an iconoclast–but
beyond the realm of military and politics he also has mythological
qualities in embodying certain archetypes, and to me the most prominent
is that of the trickster.
Trickster figures are recognizable
by distinguishing traits such as solving problems by wit and
resourcefulness, actions that upset the social order, humor, crossing
boundaries between realms, and physical transformation. Finn’s story
contains all of these and more, with the effect that he plays the
trickster’s role, a bearer of the unexpected and an agent of change.
A
trickster is first and foremost defined by, well, trickery. Some
tricksters are conspicuously lacking in physical force, such as Jacob in
the Old Testament of the Bible in contrast to his stronger brother
Esau. Some are depicted as smaller, weaker animals compared to their
adversaries, such as Reynard the Fox in Western European fables in
comparison to the wolf Isengrim, or Bre’r Rabbit of the Southern United
States in comparison with Bre’r Fox. Other times martial prowess simply
isn’t a big part of their story, such as Coyote of the Crow and Plains
tribes’ mythologies and Prometheus in Greek mythology. Rather than
physical force the trickster often uses some flaw in their opponent,
such as vanity or cruelty, to get out of a tight situation or win the
prize in a situation where they are at a disadvantage.
This is
true of Finn, who made and executed a plan to steal a TIE fighter and rescue a
Resistance pilot from under the First Order’s nose. In doing so he ingeniously
exploited a flaw in the First Order’s organization by claiming it was
Kylo Ren who wanted the prisoner–Ren, who reports directly to Snoke and
is not a part of the strict military hierarchy that Hux so prizes, who
has his own agenda and will act for it rather than his given orders, as
he demonstrated more than once in The Force Awakens.
If
Finn had tried to claim the prisoner transfer order had come from Hux
or Phasma he may well have been required to verify the command, given that
both these figures operate within the standard military system. But
Ren? Who was going to question him and risk his explosive temper, short
of Hux or Snoke himself?
In other words, Finn used the
personal and organizational failings of his oppressors to brilliant
effect in planning and executing his escape, and this planning made it
possible for him and Poe to reach the TIE fighter without a single shot
fired. Once they flew the TIE and hit a (literal) snag shots were fired
indeed, in a sequence I have analyzed at length.
A confrontation was inevitable at some point anyway, but it was due to
Finn’s clever subterfuge that he and Poe were able to get so far without attracting deadly attention. This is itself a
significant achievement that may have saved their lives when they were seriously outnumbered and Poe had endured physical and mental torture.
Finn also
uses a subtle trick on the Resistance but of a different sort, which I
will discuss near the end in the section about the trickster as
communicator.
A
characteristic of tricksters related to their trickery is humor.
Trickster stories are replete with wit and fun, like Bre’r Rabbit
laughing behind his hand as he begs Bre’r Fox not to throw him in the
brier patch, or the Yoruba trickster god Eshu breaking his penis while
using it for a bridge. (All I’m saying is, never, ever question Eshu’s
dedication to infrastructure.) They are not adverse to being the butt of
the joke, either, as when Anansi the spider, a beloved trickster figure
of West Africa and the Caribbean, failed to hoard all the wisdom in the
world and ended up dispersing it instead.
A few trickster
stories are dark and frightening–no, I’m pretty sure the broken penis
doesn’t count–usually when the forces of order and hierarchy catch up
to the trickster and mete out torment as punishment, most notably with
the Norse Loki and the Greek Prometheus. Even then, however, the
trickster has a long and laughter-filled streak before they’re caught.
John
Boyega made it clear in an interview that he explicitly went for humor
when he auditioned for Finn, and the character correspondingly has a
lot of funny moments in The Force Awakens. In fact, some of
Finn’s tensest moments are also his funniest, as when he pleads with
BB-8 to tell him the location of the Resistance base, or when he helps
an injured Chewbacca who is in pain and lashing out violently.
[Image: Chewbacca has gripped Finn by the throat and pulled him close]
The trickster’s humor has a larger basis in his subversion of
social norms, the way he upends the social expectations placed on him.
The trickster’s stories are a surprise because they invert the
prevailing power structure: the weak triumph over the strong with fast
talk and wits, laughing at the high-and-mighty all the while. In this
way the relative weakness, trickery, and humor of the trickster all act
together to turn the tables on the strong and oppressive.
You can see this with Finn throughout The Force Awakens
in the way he defies expectations of his role as a Stormtrooper. I
mean, Stormtroopers don’t care about anyone or anything except the
mission, right?
[Image: Finn bends over a dying Slip]
Stormtroopers follow orders without question.
[Image: Finn lowers his blaster, unable to shoot the prisoners]
They
don’t think and act independently. They don’t go out of their way to
help people. They respect their superiors no matter what. They- well,
you get the idea. Finn takes every idea about Stormtroopers and turns it
on its head. Heck, the guy can even shoot!
This upsetting of the
social order means that tricksters are necessarily agents of change.
They smash the status quo and bring not only laughter and fun but also
insights into life and new ways of being.
As quite a few fans have rightly pointed out, nothing in The Force Awakens
would have happened without Finn. The awakening of his conscience and
his resulting determination to get away from the First Order, both of
them unexpected and indeed unthinkable developments that threw the First
Order brass into confusion, were the catalysts for all the major events
of the movie–Poe’s escape, Rey and BB-8’s departure from Jakku, and
the destruction of Starkiller Base. He was not the only mover and shaker
in these events but he provided the spark, the first push.
Such
changes are a crossing over from one state of being to another, and
indeed it is a common trait of tricksters to cross boundaries, both in
the external world and sometimes in their own selves by changing gender
and shape.
In the former capacity as a boundary crosser the
trickster brings gifts from another world, such as the celestial or
underground regions, to the earthly realm. This is the case with such
figures as the Rainbow Crow, from the myth of the Lenni Lenape tribe of
the Northeast United States, who flew up to the heavens to bring back
the gift of fire; Coyote of the South Plains in the United States who
released the buffalo from Humpback’s enclosure onto the earth; and
Anansi of the Ashante people of Ghana, who bargained with the god Nyame
to bring stories to the world.
In the latter capacity as a
shapechanger the trickster changes their own shape and identity, again
flitting around and between boundaries except this time within
themselves and their relationship to the world. The aforementioned South
Plains Coyote changes first into a bird and then a dog to release the
buffalo. Loki of Norse myth is another famous example who frequently
changed his race, gender, and species in stories.
Finn is both a
boundary crosser and a shapechanger who went from the servitude with the
First Order to freedom, bringing the Order’s secrets and his inside
knowledge to the cause of fighting it. He also changes his identity and
literal shape in the process, going from a Stormtrooper to a purported
Resistance fighter to a traumatized fugitive to an actual Resistance
fighter, though one who fights alongside the Resistance rather than
giving himself fully to them. We even get a beautiful metaphorical scene
of his transformation in a desert, reminiscent of Moses from the Old
Testament after he himself fled from a genocidal, enslaving regime:
[Image: Finn walks through the desert, pieces of discarded Stormtrooper gear marking his path]
The
ability to cross boundaries also means that the trickster is a
communicator. Whether the boundary in question lies between socially
expected behavior and unexpected/prohibited behavior, between states of
being, between worlds, between identities, or between people, the
trickster navigates these boundaries, shows that they are more porous
than at first sight, brings goods from one side to another, and creates
change through exchange across these divisions.
This communicator
aspect is very explicit in the Yoruba god Eshu (Legba in the Fon tribe),
a god of languages and information, and the Ashante god Anansi, a god
of knowledge and stories. There is a story about Eshu that he walked on
the boundary between the fields of two friends while wearing a hat that
was black on one side and red on another. The friends quarrelled about
what color the man’s hat was, only to to have Eshu intervene to show
them the trick in the hat and tell them off for not putting him first in
their dealings with each other.
I understood this story, besides
being a wonderful example of trickster humor, to be an emphasis on the
importance of communication in relationships. If you don’t try to see
the other person’s point of view and open yourself to the possibility of
transcending your own narrow perspective, you’re inevitably going to
have misunderstandings and fights. Also remember, when the internet has a
collective freakout over the color of a dress or a sneaker, that’s Eshu
totally playing us.
[Image: A statue of Eshu]
Comparing
Finn to a god of language and communication may seem paradoxical, given
that the character is only shown speaking Basic and is not presented as
multilingual, being unable to speak Shyriiwook or Binary in contrast to
Rey who understands these and more. In fact Finn’s lines make a point
to emphasize his lack of knowledge (”You can understand that thing?” “I
don’t speak that.” “What’d he say?”).
What interests me, however,
is just how effectively Finn communicated with Chewie and BB-8 despite
his inability to understand their languages. Think about it: He
successfully saved Chewie’s life, reasoning with him despite the
language barrier (a boundary, to put it another way) and faced with a
much larger and stronger being who was getting violent from pain and
fear. Finn also convinced a Resistance droid to reveal the location of their secret base with the same linguistic difficulty–and this, right after revealing to said droid that he was not actually Resistance.
The
levels of empathy and trustworthiness it took for Finn to work with and
talk to these beings under these extraordinary circumstances are simply
phenomenal. These incidents demonstrate that Finn is an extremely
effective communicator even when he is hindered by language. He crosses
the boundaries of interpersonal mistrust and caution on a level that
goes deeper than words.
In their capacity as communicators
tricksters may also use and manipulate language, especially in
situations where they experience a disadvantage in power. Henry Louis
Gates, Jr. called this act Signifyin’ after the Signifying Monkey, which
he treats as an equivalent to the Yoruba god Eshu. The Signifying
Monkey uses the power of figurative language to outwit Lion, his
oppressor, something Gates compared to dismantling the master’s house
using the master’s tools, repurposing the quote of activist and writer
Audre Lorde that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s
house.”
We watch Finn engage in this careful use of speech when he
talks the Resistance into letting him onto the mission to Starkiller
Base. When Han asks him whether he can disable the shields around the
base, Finn replies:
“I can disable the shields. But I have to be there, on the planet.”
When
Han asks him again later on the base, of course, Finn freely admits he
doesn’t know how to disable the shields; he was just there to get Rey.
Notice,
however, that Finn did not lie outright as he did when he told Poe’s
guards that Ren wanted the prisoner or when he told Rey he was with the
Resistance. Finn’s words can be interpreted as, “I can disable the
shields [by figuring out how when I get there]. But I have to be there,
on the planet [so I can see the situation for myself and make a plan].”
In this sense this statement is not factually incorrect per se, rather
an expression of confidence spoken with the certainty of fact.
Finn knew, however, that saying he definitely can disable the shields in response to Han’s question would be taken as saying yes,
he knew how to disable the shields. He was, if not lying, deliberately
misleading the Resistance here by exploiting a gap between the literal
meaning of his words and the understanding of them in context.
Just
to be 100% clear, I don’t blame Finn for this deception one bit. He did
in fact find a way to disable the shields and it’s not like the
Resistance had any better options, so anyone who wants to hold this
conversation against him can fuck off. He employed this trick not out of
malice but because he was trying to overcome a disadvantage: If he
wasn’t seen as someone who could contribute, he wouldn’t be able to go
on the mission with Han and Chewie, and his strengths in having worked
on the base and his considerable tactical smarts might be dismissed in a
newcomer and stranger. The Resistance may not have been his oppressors
but he had just met them, and it’s not a stretch to say his trust of
authority in general was running low after his experiences with the
First Order.
So what does Finn’s role as a trickster hero mean for
the future of his story? For one thing, I believe he will continue to
bring about profound change to a galaxy far, far away in whatever
capacity he is in–whether as a Jedi, a badass Resistance fighter, a
leader in the renewed Republic, or, my favorite possibility, the leader
of a Stormtrooper uprising.
Another thing we can infer about his
character is that he won’t get complacent. The Republic (Old and New),
the Jedi Order, even the Rebel Alliance at points became set in their
ways and a hindrance to progress and justice. Finn as a trickster can
keep subverting expectations and changing course so that any
organization he leads or influences can keep its actual goals in sight
instead of blundering forward out of sheer inertia.
Finn’s ability
as a communicator, the way he resonates with people on an emotional
level, and his commanding grasp over language and story also open
exciting possibilities for his character. Remember how beautifully he
told his truth to Rey? Imagine his story inspiring thousands. Millions.
Imagine him setting people’s spirits across the galaxy on fire with his
inspiring speeches, as Anansi the Spider did in American Gods, urging them to fight, to reach out and grasp justice in their hands.
We
have in Finn a character who constantly renews himself and the world
around him, who upends power structures, and keeps us laughing all the
while. Life with a trickster is never dull, and if used correctly the
character of Finn will keep us guessing, keep us interested, and keep us
inspired. That’s what being a trickster hero is all about.
I’m just? How upset do you have to be that you need to start that for the mere theory that that hand might belong to the Black male lead and not the white villain.
I love how their only piece of “evidence” is that bit from the SW website. Like the movie industry have never lied to audience before? Nope, never happened.
I must have hit a serious nerve there.
Even if that is Kylo that don’t mean he’s reaching out to Rey 🙃🙃🙃
Exactly!
Especially given that the Kylo scene and the Rey scene clearly comes from different short. So the whole thing is so clearly a misdirection, which they damn well know but can’t own up to because they’d have to accept that their ship is based on nothing but thin air.
The major question here is, a misdirection for what?
Finn is my fave candidate so far, since that would really rub some salt on the wounds 🙂 other than that I’m not sure who else he would reach out for, except maybe Luke? But that wouldn’t make much sense at this point
Finn’s my favorite too and Luke is the second option.
But I’ve come across one compelling theory. That it is Kylo who’s holding out his hand, but it’s not Rey he’s holding his hand out to like we’re meant to believe. It’s Finn.
Imagine this.
We have all this fire and burning stuff and it’s the kind of setting we see Finn fight Phasma in. What if Kylo comes and offers Finn a deal, to help him free the other Stormtroopers and get them out if Finn joins him. Maybe even offers to train him as a Force user?
The FO was only ever the means to an end for Kylo, that much is clear in TFA. He’d be quite willing to burn the whole thing down if that achieved his goal quicker. (Whatever that is.)
And if all those other Stormtrooper’s freedom depends on Finn’s choice – like they’re outnumbered and out gunned by the FO – if he thought he might be able to end the FO who abused him and so many others right then and there with Kylo’s help? What would he chose? Would he set aside his own hate for Kylo for a time to defeat the First Order? If Kylo offers him to take down Snoke with his help? To end it and the FO?
I could see Finn be tempted by that.
The whole thing would be a replay of Vader and Luke, but with Kylo and Finn. Heck Kylo’s words in the trailer?
“Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. It’s the only way to become what you were meant to be.”
What if he says them to Finn? Really they make so much more sense in that context than if they’re said to Rey. And the thing is, what we see of Finn in the trailer, it’s clear that he wants to kill his past, and with good reason, but it could land him with a not-so-good “ally”.
On one hand this theory worries me, because I’m uncertain Rian can handle that kind of complexity in a Black character. On the other hand I want it desperately, it could be an awesome character arc for Finn. We’ve never really seen Finn tempted by the Dark Side and part of me wants that, wants him to face the idk what to call it “traditional character tests in Star Wars”?
But I’m scared shitless how Rian would handle it if it’s true
I read the idea earlier today and my brain has been veering back and forth between; awesome, eh idk, and hell no, ever since. I have still to make up my mind about it.
I FREAKING LOVE THAT IDEA on its own merits, that is, quite aside from Rian’s ability to handle it.
I just hope, if this is the case, Finn realizes that Kyle is still not only a mass murderer but a user who would use him and the troopers and then throw them away like he’s used and betrayed everyone he has ever associated with; Luke, his own parents, and now the First Order. I mean Kale’s line in the trailer is pretty much him admitting to this.
And then Finn remembers that Kal is also a failure and a flop who’s not even of use as a temporary ally of convenience and lops that fucking hand off 🙂
I just read the Phasma novel, which is a fascinating study of how utterly ruthless and selfish she is, how completely dedicated to her own survival at the expense of others, and how there is no one and nothing she would not betray to further herself. It’s about peeling back the layers of a seemingly perfect First Order warrior to show her morally empty core, and with it the rottenness of the First Order itself.
The novel shows with unsettling clarity that, under all the pretty words about the ideals of justice and order, the First Order is a place where actual idealistic soldiers are used and then thrown away (see: Finn, Cardinal) while backstabbers, abusers, and murderers like the two Huxes and Phasma are actively shielded and rise to the top.
I’m especially excited because of what this means about Finn. It means the scene in The Force Awakens where Phasma lowers the shields under duress isn’t a plot hole or luck. Rather it means Finn is a fucking brilliant reader of people who knew that Phasma was only for Phasma and would choose her life over the First Order and the lives of her fellow soldiers in a heartbeat.
This truth about Phasma, by the way, took the characters in the Phasma novel a visit to a post-apocalyptic hellhole, hours of torture, a cat-and-mouse game between captor and prisoner, 400 pages of storytelling, plus lives and careers destroyed to uncover. Yet somehow Finn figured the same thing out on his own despite only knowing Phasma as a godlike exemplar of First Order ideals.
It also shows, as I’ve pointed out above, how intertwined Phasma’s nature is with the First Order itself. It only makes sense, since people tend to thrive in organizations that reflect their values–or lack thereof. Once Finn woke up to the great lie of the First Order it would have been much easier to see through the lesser lies about its leaders.
Finn’s ability to smash the idols that were built in his mind saved the Resistance and preserved hope for the galaxy. He can’t be fooled with smoke and mirrors anymore, even the mirror of Phasma’s armor. There is a certain pain in shedding a comfortable cocoon of lies, but he has gained in exchange an honest reckoning with the truths of the world and it was the salvation of billions that could have perished from Starkiller Base.
Another thing the Phasma book tells us is that she is going to be a HELL of an enemy to face in combat. I’m so looking forward to the duel in TLJ!
Is it just me, but is Poe’s line from the trailer–”We have (we are?) the spark that will light the fire that will burn the First Order down”–kind of cheap and overblown for just about any situation except a Stormtrooper uprising? I’ve seen gifsets going around imposing these words on Finn, Poe, and Rey, and to me it’s a bad fit for the latter two.
Poe is of the Resistance, which is a fire that’s been going for years now fighting the First Order. It’s not a spark that needs to be kindled and brought to life. Rey is going to be a Jedi, which, I’ll grant, is down to barely an ember after being almost completely destroyed. The Jedi in whatever form are going to be a formidable enemy if resurrected, and Supreme Sneezer Smokes has a good reason to wet his humongous pants just thinking about the possibility. But calling it the spark that will “burn the First Order down” seems… out of proportion? Doesn’t quite fit? Like the Resistance, the Jedi will be a formidable enemy. But the image of burning doesn’t quite fit; the Jedi will hopefully bring justice, yes, but the sense of righteous anger, of searing rage from personal injustice, isn’t something I associate with the Jedi. The same goes for the Resistance, really. Both organizations are fearsome enemies that will certainly help bring the First Order down. But the image of a fragile spark growing to a fire to burn a mighty edifice down doesn’t exactly fit on multiple levels, not without some presumption.
A possible Stormtrooper uprising, on the other hand? That one fits the line in every singlle sense. An uprising will be a fragile thing in the beginning, a spark in the minds of beings like Finn who could no longer bear and commit the injustices the First Order forced on them. As these flickers of conscience come together they become one in unity and stronger together, forming the fires of rebellion. It will burn with the righteousness of its cause, a conflagration of spirits pushed beyond limits but still fighting. Fire, though destructive, is a natural force. It is a consequence of known conditions, much like a large mass of people rising up against their oppressors. You can’t keep pushing people forever without expecting pushback, that’s just how it is.
Especially if you’ve abducted, enslaved, molded, and tried to brainwash and break these people for the express purpose of becoming the most skilled soldiers in the history of the galaxy.
Something about the imagery and Poe’s delivery bring to mind that sense of justified anger, of offended justice that’s more personal than the act of fighting evil. For me it calls forth a house on fire from within, destroyed by the very force it sought to tame and use.
The human spirit, like fire, has its own laws that cannot be broken. It runs wild, can break free. It can devour the arrogant, and it will.
ok time to put the sw tin foil hats on gays!! after the trailer i truly believe finn starts a stormtrooper uprising in the fo based on 3 shots so here we go
so in the trailer we have 3 main shots of finn and phasma fighting! they look rad as fuck but after closer examination™ i noticed the stormtroopers in the background, but they weren’t rushing to join phasma’s side, even tho they can clearly see them fighting
what’s also puzzling is why they aren’t at least one of them aiming their guns at finn?
from that gif it’s obvious they’re fighting on a fo base/ship, with the at-st and tie fighters being destroyed from explosions all around them. but what are the troopers shooting at? there isn’t any resistance fighters visible in that shot so?? are they just stupid and shooting at the fire???
even w this gif there’s a trooper on an at-st walking away from their battle…
this makes me believe finn and rose infiltrate the fo and somehow reverse the reconditioning on a squadron of troopers.
earlier this year sw stated that there will be the first slicer (hacker) in this movie, which makes me believe rose is the hacker. if rose could hack the system the fo uses to recondition troopers, it would make sense why she would have such a new and prominent role in this movie.
at this point i’m grasping straws but i think if they were to reverse the conditioning on a squadron it would be the squadron finn was apart of.
it would be a powerful scene – a group of troopers being able to think and decided for themselves, and finn letting them have a choice of staying or fighting, like finn has in tfa (bc finn would never force them to fight).
so basically what i’m saying is that finn leaves a rogue squadron to fight their abuser, and while finn faces phasma rose and the other troopers place explosives and ward off other troopers to come help phasma. thank you for coming to my ted talk
Okay, but I need to add something re: reconditioning.
Now the comic doesn’t actually use the word reconditioning for this process, but it makes a lot of sense if it is.
And it literally turns the people who undergoes it into human droids – think Lobot like – that are programmable. Programs that we in a later Poe comic see can be over written and maybe even reverse or the implant used for the control removed.
Remember, Rose is a mechanic and – and here’s an interesting thing – she and Finn goes hunting for “DJ” who’s a slicer. Now he would be able to reverse those programs if anyone are. Or its a joint effort between the two, idk.
And yeah, some of the Stormtroopers who have undergone reconditioning might be like Terrex, but there’ll be quite a few “Finns” in there too. Liberating them, giving them a choice to fight back, that would be an epic arc and scene indeed.
I love this! While the Stormtroopers might not all be reconditioned, the ones who were are likely to be the ones who had the most independent ideas (whether moral or amoral, as exemplified by Finn and Terex) but were too valuable, that is skilled, to lose. And they would have some Grade A beef against the First Order if they didn’t before. They would make an excellent and motivated core fighting force for the uprising that the others could rally around.
I cannot wait to see Finn get angry. Finn who was raised to do one thing and got nothing to fight for, who was driven by fear and is now facing the person he was once obligated to obey to and call “captain”. I can’t wait for John to give a performance way above the standards of blockbusters movies and remind us once again why he’s a star and the most promising actor of his generation. I can’t wait for him to destroy, to burn the first order from the inside, wearing their uniform and using their weapon and turning it against them, getting his well-deserved revenge and taking a step further in his quest for his own identity. I can’t wait for him to defy the organisation that took him away from his family and stole everything from him, tried to turn him into something that wasn’t human and had no sense of self. I can’t wait for him to be the triumphant hero he’s going to be, the spark that will light the fire that will burn the first order down.
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