Is Finn immune to the Force?

lj-writes:

It still bothers me that Kylo Ren never used the Force against Finn. I mean, we’re talking about the guy who’s been shown doing this

and this

and this

also this

and so much more to his enemies and even people who just kind of annoyed him in the moment. The dude has oodles of Force power and is not at all shy about throwing it around. Other Force users are not immune, as shown with Rey who is even more powerful than he is.

So why, in his fight against Finn at the end of TFA, did Ren never even try to use the Force? Finn went running to an unconscious Rey after Ren knocked her out. Finn had even thrown his blaster aside, not that blasters work against Ren as Poe found out at the start of the movie. Why didn’t Ren throw Finn against a tree, too, or lift him into the air and choke him? That’s more like the guy’s usual MO.

Instead Ren not only dueled Finn but even resorted to punching him after disarming him, which had viewers commenting that his animosity against Finn seemed very raw and personal. It is true that Ren seems to have a personal beef against Finn (link), but again, the new Supreme Leader of the First Order has never been hesitant to use Force power against people regardless of how well he knew them or how strongly he felt about them. He revels in making people, from total strangers to hated rivals, helpless with his power. So why not Finn?

My hypothesis is that there’s another layer to Ren’s animosity against Finn beyond the usually-discussed ones of Finn defecting and making the opposite choices he did, and Ren’s hatred being the manifestation of his regrets. That’s a valid point and I have argued it myself (link), but what if there’s something more immediate and visceral going on?

Let’s go back to that moment in the village near the beginning of TFA, when Ren stared for a long moment at Finn before he turned away. He then unfreezes Poe’s blaster beam to strike a pole Finn was standing near, startling him and showering him with sparks.

Keep reading

Another thought came to me in relation to this theory. Didn’t John say that the massacre of Tuanul wasn’t enough for Finn to break his conditioning and bolt? What if this encounter with Ren was enough to do it? If that staring match happened as I theorize Finn would have had the additional kick of raw terror, both for Ren’s rage and what might be awakening in himself. If Finn felt Ren trying to read his surface emotions and also felt the effort fail, he would have known from Ren’s displeasure afterward that he was a goner if he stayed.

Come to think of it, if Finn is Force-immune (or a wound in the Force, as @themandalorianwolf theorizes) that would also explain how his many doubts flew entirely under the radar in an organization led by Force users. His inner turmoil would have been invisible to Force senses, and it wasn’t until Kylo Ren focused specifically on this particular Trooper that the truth came out.

I will grant that I was basing that post more on what I’d read about cults (I also had no idea that that other post existed). But I was under the impression that the First Order went way deeper into thought control procedures than ordinary citizens of totalitarian regimes went through, like hypnotic conditioning.

The exact nature of Stormtrooper conditioning hasn’t been clarified in the movies, but there does seem to be some highly unethical shit going on using psychiatric technology/mindforming. Terex in the Poe Dameron comics was made outright robotic to keep him in line. The “reconditioning” that Finn was threatened with after Tuanul may have looked something like that.

These techniques don’t seem to be the first resort, however, and mostly the FO seems to rely on more mundane propaganda touting itself as the ultimate good. Finn was mostly a model cadet before his defection, which makes it likely that he would have escaped the more invasive procedures before his disobedience in his first battle.

I mean don’t get me wrong, the kind of story you referenced in your prior ask (link) could be a valid storyline for an escaped Stormtrooper. I just don’t think it’s fair to denigrate Finn’s story based on that one specific mold, since different people react in a range of different ways to survive the unbearable.

When I think about great representation of Asian-Americans in media, my mind goes straight to Joan Watson of Elementary. She’s shown as a full and flawed person, one who was uncertain about her career, who experienced trauma, struggled with the urge to please someone she felt beholden to, and has a complex but entirely normal family history and relationships. Her wry line about not speaking Chinese as well as her mom would like her to is the sort of thing I’ve heard over and over from Asian-Americans I know.

I was also deeply moved by the story of her biological father’s struggle with mental illness and homelessness, the sadness she felt about it and the way she turned it to positivity–as she always does–by helping people. Mental illness is taboo in a lot of Asian communities, and Western media portrayals of Asian minority populations tend to either erase the subject entirely or use it to demonize characters. The story of Joan’s birth father was a refreshing break from that.

I also love Joan with her adoptive father Henry, their argument over Henry’s book, his attempts to reconnect with her through his craft in admittedly cringey ways. I loved the casual recognition of Joan’s multiracial family, Henry’s white and he’s her dad, no big issue there. As a family they deal with normal if sometimes very fraught family stuff like father-daughter relationships and marital problems and Joan’s mother being eccentric. I also liked the subtle recognition that Joan is very much Henry’s daughter when she wrote her own novel about Sherlock’s cases, though she is more ethical and did not try to publish it without Sherlock’s consent.

Elementary might not be a perfect show but it got a whole lot of things right and Joan’s characterization is one of them. I hope more creators take note of how it was done.

chuchisriyo:

finnrey is anidala reincarnated

rey is anakin:

x unexplained force abilities

x unrelated to any character we know

x comes from a desert planet where she was sold into slavery by her ‘parents’

x amazing mechanic

x stellar pilot

x lightsaber calls to her; this hasn’t happened to a single skywalker yet; it calls to her because it recognises its true owner

x grows strong attachment (finn, bb8, han)

x has big dreams of helping the resistance like anakin dreamt of freeing the slaves

x has a propensity to the dark side

x wins her first lightsaber battle and hones her abilities quite quickly because she has done it before in her previous life

x maz told her in tfa to forgot her past (her traumatic past as anakin) and focus on her future (finn, luke)

x rey immediately thinks of luke because unconsciously is hopeful to finally have a relationship with her son

finn is padmé:

x incredible goodness and kindness

x amazing blaster aim

x finn is a born leader; used to head his team of stormtroopers just like padmé led her planet

x has a way with words, knows exactly what to say to get what he wants; he gets the resistance to save rey through his clever deception; reminiscent of padmé’s diplomatic nature and her job

x will do anything to save his loved ones despite opposition; finn will save rey no matter what han says and padmé will save obi-wan no matter what anakin says

x thinks of others first before himself. when he gets knocked out on jakku by the blast he immediately asks rey is she’s alright just like padmé asks if anakin is alright when she’s, uh, dying

x “same eyes in different people” we know that maz has lived for a long ass time and it’s not unreasonable to assume she has met padmé or at least heard and seen of her

x they’re both beloved by many people. finn is loved by rey, poe, and rose and padmé is shown to be the crush of quite a few people. they have a magnetism which attracts others

finnrey is anidala:

x they met on a desert planet

x finn is 4-5 years older than rey just like padmé was 4-5 years older than anakin

x rey believes finn is with the resistance and anakin believes padmé is a handmaiden at first

x padmé: come away with me; finn: come with me

x (in case finn is not confirmed FS) jedi x rebel couple (yes padmé is a rebel in rots)

x immediate, unexplainable connection

x soulmates

x finn stares at rey when he first sees her. as if … she is familiar

x rey: we will see each other again, I believe that. she believes that because they already did once

x finnrey is established as main pairing in tfa just like anidala

x finn and rey hug in tfa like anakin and padmé do in tpm

x finn’s priority is rey just like padmé’s priority is anakin

x feel free to add

Finn’s Parentage Theories: Legends Edition

Clockwise from upper-middle-right.

Luke Skywalker and Lando Calrissian

Luke and Lando raise a child together, either adopted or through a surrogate. When Kylo destroys the temple, Luke and Lando are devastated when they think their child is killed in the fire. However, all children are brainwashed and recruited by the First Order.

Pros: Uses a fan-favorite ship from Legends, largely thanks to the Marvel Comics. Would give Luke and Lando both a temporary happy ending and a good reason to resign to depression for a while. The timeline would add up and it would give potentially sweet scenes for Finn, Lando, and Luke in Episode IX.

Cons: Would be really depressing. Unlikely for Disney to have an onscreen gay relationship not played for laughs or cheap diversity credit. Would cause some people to view it as Skywalker=naturally good, even though Finn wouldn’t be his biological son.

Nick Rostu

A Force-sensitive warrior from Haruun Kal, Nick Rostu was young at the end of the Clone Wars, but seemed to be about Luke’s age when they met. Regardless, in this universe, Knights of Ren took children while posing as Jedi Knights. Rostu, remembering his friends Mace and Depa, let them, believing their lies that it was for medical purposes. The adults were knocked out, and the Force-sensitive children were stolen to make an elite squad of stormtroopers.

Pros: Allows a Star Wars culture only seen in books to join the screens. Would allow Finn to have a big, loving community to return to as well. Nick’s fighting style is also unique, being a sniper trickster.

Cons: Would come out of nowhere for fans outside of the EU. The timeline wouldn’t add up well. A white director could easily default on stereotypes when designing a culture of jungle-dwellers.

Qu Rahn

Qu Rahn was a young survivor of Order 66, and lived into the early years of the New Republic. With a bit of time displacement, we could change his noble end to be at the hand of Snoke, and his defense of Finn is similar to his defense of Kyle Katarn.

Pros: Would fit with Finn being based off from Kyle Katarn. Adds a connection to one of the most popular EU stories. Would be a way for Finn to get his own lightsaber.

Cons: Could anger Dark Forces fans. Wouldn’t allow closure for Finn’s arc.

Giddean Danu

As one of the signers of the Delegation of 2000, and a founder of the Rebellion, perhaps the Senator of Kuat was imprisoned in a secret Imperial jail, along with his family. His son and his son’s wife had a child after the death of the Emperor, but the Imperial Remnant led by Rae Sloane kept them in captivity and took all Rebellion children to be First Order grunts.

Pros: Reference to the prequels. Allows a new surge of Resistance allies. Some resemblance between Christopher Kirby and John Boyega. Has ties to the Space-Prince Finn theory.

Cons: Would be a bit of a surprise. It’s unlikely Palpatine would take prisoners from the delegation instead of killing them.

Novoc Vevut

In Legends, Novoc adopted and raised the boy who would go on to marry Boba Fett’s grandfather. This version would be biological father to one of the stolen Mandalorian children that he and the new Mandalore Boba Fett have been seeking. Novoc would also have his adopted son Ghes Orade, who would act like a big brother for Finn.

Pros: Similarity to both Mandalorian Finn theory and LJ-writes-verse Sequel Trilogy. Provide a plot-based excuse to bring in Mandalorians and Boba Fett. Would be suitably epic without contradicting previous material.

Cons: Always have to deal with the “Boba should be dead” crowd. Morrison and Logan are both a bit too young to play old Boba (but makeup would fix that). Would raise the question of “where were these guys in the last two movies?”

Barney

One of Luke’s earliest Jedi apprentices, despite not having any real demonstrable Force powers, Barney is a humble, kind man from Marvel comics. He lived on Belderone, a world where AT-AT’s were built, making it a target for First Order raiders. After his home was raided, he has been working any job to pursue any lead as to where his son might be.

Pros: Barney is both sweet and determined, and would be a likable addition. Would also be poor enough to explain a lack of Galactic presence in previous films. Also provide a cute moment for Rey and Finn when she talks about living in an AT-AT, and Finn’s dad makes an instant connection.

Cons: Is named Barney, which is reminiscent of a certain purple dinosaur. Might not reasonably find Finn on his own power. Likable but potentially devoid of conflict once he reunites with his son.

Akanah Norand Goss Pell

Akanah was an ex of Luke’s, and a member of the Fallanassi, a religious organization that thought of the Force as a river known as the White Current, flowing and rippling. Akanah was absorbed into the entity Abeloth, aka Mother of Mortis, and died. However, what if when Abeloth was defeated, she and her avatars transferred to a different timeline rather than a different time period? Akanah, revived, and driven mad by the process, is unable to keep her newborn son in safety.

Pros: Bridge the old and new timelines. Provide a set-up for a potentially grand tenth movie. Add some mystery to an otherwise straightforward saga.

Cons: Somewhat depressing. Akanah would be a bit too old to have a child (but it is sci-fi). Would derail the main conflict of the sequel trilogy.

Katya M’buele

Katya was a friend of Han’s before the Battle of Yavin. In Legends, she died helping Luke fight demons in Marvel’s comics, but this version could live past the battle and become a Rebel Hero like Kes and Shara. She would be in the Resistance, as a slightly older woman, running smuggling and transport operations, always looking for her son that went missing at a young age.

Pros: Ties to the Resistance strengthened. Could appear as a young woman in a Solo sequel. Would not derail the conflict.

Cons: Underwhelming reveal. Ultimately too serendipitous to happen naturally (but there is the Force.) Not a very popular character.

Those are just some theories to rebut the idea that nobody’s thinking of some potential parentages for Finn! I might do a canon one, if this goes over well. My favorite is Luke/Lando, but I think Novoc would make for the best story. (Moth)

Bao is one of Pixar’s best shorts

porqueuepine:

Let’s talk about it. So before we even saw the short, we knew the story featured an Asian woman whose children had left the nest. And as you watch the short, you pick up that this woman is likely to be a first generation immigrant.
When we meet Bao, we hear baby gurgles and giggles, so the audience knows that we basically just witnessed a birth. And as we see Bao grow more and more, we witness the immense care and affection the woman puts into caring for Bao, establishing that it is her “child”. However, with the care and affection, also comes an extreme protection, in which she attempts to keep it by her side at all times, away from soccer – and most importantly– away from non-Asians. As an Asian-American who was brought over at a young age, this is incredibly familiar behavior. Our first generation parents love us AND their home, and they try to instill that same dedication to our native culture, despite what our individual interests may be. This can cause a rift between the two figures, the Asian parent and the Asian-American child. One wants to keep the other close and safe, away from the unfamiliar, while the other, unaware of the dangers of unfamiliarity, wants to learn and explore. This rift grows as the two continue to pursue their goals.
Eventually, it comes to the climax. Bao comes home with a non-Asian fiancé and it’s leaving home. Unequipped to cope, the woman eats Bao. This scene hit me the hardest. Instantly after eating Bao, the woman regrets it. My interpretation? She realizes that in trying to protect Bao by keeping him home against his will, she destroys it. Kills it, really. But wait!
A new character appears: Bao, but human and grown. We can connect the dots that THIS is the child who left the nest, and what we witnessed was this man’s youth leading up to his departure from home. So we can start piecing things together. Bao from the start, has always represented this guy. And the woman had wondered “how could I have kept him with me?” And through reliving her motherhood with Bao, she realizes she couldn’t. Her child wasn’t going to live life the same way she does, in her ethnic enclave, and she forcing him to do so would have destroyed him. She realizes she has to meet him halfway, thanks to him taking the first step of coming home. So the sharing of the bao making process with her son and his wife is the Asian parent reconciling her son’s Asian-American identity with her own Asian identity.

TL;DR As an Asian-American, seeing the struggles of cultural reproduction vs. cultural assimilation and its relationship with immigrant parenthood on the big screen induced tears, and I’m not ashamed.

themandalorianwolf:

Lucas Films: We need to show that anyone, even a nobody with no family can be a hero in this new trilogy

Finn

Lucas Films: we need to show that anyone can always change and make morally good choices even if the odds are against them

Finn

Lucas Film: We need to introduce some diversity into this new generation of Jedi

Finn

Lucas Films: We need to display the horrors of war and what the abuse can do to someone

Finn

Lucas Films: we need someone overcoming their abuser and becoming better

Finn

Lucas Films: we need need to show that even in the dark, a person can chose to be good for the sake of being good, who cares about his loved ones and will fight for them…we’ve got a heroine, now all we need is a hero of this story.

FInn

Finn is the hero you’re looking for

lj-writes:

Spoilers for Seven Seconds below the cut in reply to @atoffandhisbobby, discussing the ending of Season 1 and characters.

Keep reading

More Seven Seconds spoilers (so pumped by Regina King’s win! Yay!!)

@atoffandhisbobby said:

I guess I just wish that the lawyer had
been less of a mess. It was somewhat jarring to see that in a black
female character. While I’m aware that addiction doesn’t discriminate,
it was just a little disappointing that this was a lawyer with that
level of issues. One thing I did like was the father realizing that
whether he agreed with it or not, hiding the fact that his son had been
coming from meeting his boyfriend and was gay was a big problem. I liked
that growth.

Yeah, understandable. I think I was coming from a different place on this, because substance abuse is very serious in the legal profession and we knew from law school onward that a lot of lawyers are a mess. My bar association (D.C.) runs an addiction support group and I’ve heard of lawyers actually doing coke in court, although hopefully D.A.s are not bad. It was good to see an acknowledgement of that problem, though looking back maybe it shouldn’t have been presented as just KJ’s problem.

I also didn’t understand why the judge
mitigated the sentence. My brother watched with me and said that
basically any jail time for a known cop amounted to a death sentence
which is why the cop (it’s been awhile since I watched so I don’t
remember names) looked so scared when he’s locked away. But it was just
very unsettling to have had the lawyer make that amazing closing
argument and still that was all the time that the cop received.

I thought more than anything we were watching KJ’s superhero origin story, basically, where she found a sense of purpose and something to believe in. She’s clearly done at the D.A.’s office and I look forward to seeing where she goes from here. Badass human rights lawyer? Community organizer? Maybe running against her asshole boss? I need, NEED Season 2.

I think that it’s a fair analysis. I
think I was just put off somewhat by the absolute evil of those cops. It
seemed almost cartoonish at times? Sort of a feeling of ‘Yeah I know
they’re cops but there is no WAY they’re getting away with this’ and yet
they did every time.

Again yeah, understandable. OTOH, you probably know better than I do, cops have planted drugs and weapons on people they murdered, they’ve been paid off by drug dealers and pimps, they’ve committed rape, they’ve just straight up framed innocent Black people. And that’s just the shit we know about because they were caught. Nothing about cops surprises me anymore. If anything the Godfather-like melodrama of loyalty and betrayal between DiAngelo and Jablonski helped humanize them–I don’t call them a “cop gang” for nothing.

I wanted the knights of Ren to be resurrected force zombies but instead we got the crayola squad…

hanukkahfinn:

I mean we all have our own wishes and desires for the story, but here I have to disagree with you. The implicit confirmation on TLJ that the Knight of Ren are a group of former Jedi students that chose the Dark Side alongside Kylo is one of the few things I like about that movie.

Not just because it confirmed a popular theory about them but because it answers the question, “why did it have to be Leia’s and Han’s son?”. Not to mention it counters the claim that Kylo is the most important character in the ST, rather he’s the most unimportant character in the story.

Why?

Because it didn’t have to be Leia’s and Han’s son. Kylo Ren could literally be anyone and it would change nothing about the story. Kylo is a generic bad guy from a good family, with a good childhood, who chose to promote fascism and genocide because of a massive case of self entitlement.

I mean, let’s remove Ben Solo from the equation for a moment. Let’s say that Ben Solo was never born. What would change? Nothing, that’s what.

The First Order would still exist. Starkiller Base would still be build. The Republic would still not take the First Order serious as a threat until it was too late. Hosnia would still be destroyed. Snoke would still exist and find an apprentice and right here is where the fact that the Knights of Ren are other Jedi students shows that the existence of Ben Solo as Kylo Ren makes no fucking difference becomes the most important.

Why?

Who turned those other students? Hardly Darth Negging. Kylo Ren might be a lot of things, but master manipulator isn’t one of them. Clearly Snoke had a hand in that too.

So in a universe where Ben Solo doesn’t exist? It is simply one of these other students that becomes the main target for Snoke’s attention and nothing changes. Luke’s school still gets destroyed and I can see how Luke may still end up on depression island as a result.

Remove Ben Solo from the equation and you have so minor changes. The overall story runs as it always have, just with another original name for the person who goes by Kylo Ren.

Kylo Ren isn’t superfluous, there is a point to him. That people like him can and do come from all over and a lot, too many, comes from good background, good families with loving parents and it is their own sense of self entitlement that makes them choose as they do.

But the existence of the Knights of Ren and the confirmation that they’re old fellow students of Kylo’s shows that Kylo is the most unimportant one, because he could literally be anyone.

Also it’s a good bet that any one of the other KoR would have been smarter and more competent, so if anything Kylo being where he is may be the least worst of possible worlds.

ds9vgrconfessions:

dgcatanisiri:

ds9vgrconfessions:

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[I don’t understand why some people act so scandalized by Dukat/Kira. How is it any worse than popular ships like Spuffy or Reylo? Shipping the hero with the villain is nothing new.]

If someone is against Kira/Dukat, odds are they’re also against Spuffy and Reylo. Because those relationship dynamics are horrifically toxic and abusive and the majority of the people who are shipping them are doing so non-critically, with no acknowledgement of the fact that they are abusive and toxic, and also against the characters actual characterization – generally, the male characters are written as conflicted and pained and hurt, in need of love and forgiveness to achieve their redemption, and the female characters are reduced to a prop to advance his arc, giving her none of the characterization that she has in canon.

Kira/Dukat is among the worst of the worst, because of that horrible dynamic – at any given point in the show’s run, within the previous decade, Kira lived at a time where if Dukat demanded it, he could fuck her and she could only say no if she was willing to be executed. Kira lived through a time where literally, she had no option of consent had any Cardassian approached her and demanded that she sleep with them.

Dukat wanting to fuck Kira is, to a Bajoran, equivalent to Hitler, somehow surviving WWII, telling a survivor of Auschwitz that he would fuck her. And I’m not citing Godwin’s Law here, Dukat was literally compared to Hitler by the show’s producers. To the Bajoran people, Gul Dukat is their answer Hitler. The fact that people look at the dynamic between them and say ‘yeah, they totally should be together’ is horrifying, because those people are literally saying that an abuse victim and her abuser should be paired up, generally on the idea that “she’ll make him a better man.”

It is not the victim’s duty to ever be personally responsible for their abuser’s redemption. Ever. And I say this not just to the Kira/Dukat shippers, but the shippers of the above mentioned ships and the ones like it throughout media. These are toxic and abusive relationships when they are about the actual characters in canon. And if you’re making up characterizations wholesale to justify your ship, maybe you shouldn’t even be shipping this one, because it means you don’t actually want these particular characters together, just characters who look like them, but are not based on the actual canon characters.