I mean some people make much of the fact that Poe and Rey said “hi” but… what were they supposed to do, jump right into a duel for Finn’s hand? That’s awkward for a first meeting. I’m pretty sure they’re waiting to get to know each other a bit better before they pick their weapons and choose their seconds.
Tag: meta
Poe was taken out of the story early on in The Force Awakens precisely because as a
seasoned Resistance operative his presence would have solved a lot of
problems that Finn and Rey ran into. First meeting with BB-8? Joyous
occasion, no misunderstanding. Recognizes the Millennium Falcon and
runs toward it while Finn and Rey follow, wondering what the Resistance guy is on. Aerial chase would have been over in
seconds with Poe and Rey co-piloting and Finn on the gun. Would have smoothed things over
with Han. Probably would have found a clever way to foil the space gangs because he’s had plenty of run-ins with criminal types. Would have taken them all to D’Qar right away. No battle of
Takodana. Half the movie’s runtime was the characters scrambling to deal
with the lack of Poe when you think about it.You know, viewed from a certain angle TFA is the plot of ANH but only with Leia removed from the equation. It is Finn, Rey and Han (essentially Luke, Han and Obi-Wan) getting the “map to Luke”(Death Star plans) into the hands of the Resistance (Rebellion), but without Leia to guide them to the base they have to make their own way.
Enormous unpopular opinion, but Leia had more plot relevance in TFA than she had in the entire OT for all that her screen time is cut down from what it could have been. After she gets captured she’s essentially a superfluous character that George does nothing with except keep around. Vader could have killed her and nothing would have changed in the plot really. Run time of the ANH might be a bit longer, but that would have been it.
And George does nothing with her for the next two movies either, there’s nothing Leia does that is about her character and her skill set. Yes it’s been 40 years, I’m still salty.
Talk about hard pill to swallow, but I can’t come up with a convincing
counterargument. I would argue, though, that she had another burst of
plot relevance in the lead-up to the climax when she led the Death Star
straight to the Rebel base to force a final confrontation. Rogue One
validates the hell out of her decision, btw, because the Alliance was
just barely holding together at that point
and would have collapsed under the terror of the Death Star and its own
disagreements if not for the Battle of Yavin.
But agreed, after that… nothing. The plot would have happened pretty much the same way without Leia. It’s only Leia’s sheer force of personality and Carrie’s performance that made her a symbol of women’s empowerment. That, and sheer desperation because the media landscape when it came to strong women was pretty much a desert.
That’s actually why I like Padme as a character while not liking her as a person. There’s a really interesting, subtle story told in the fact that when Anakin says he killed children of the Tuskens, she’s kind of sad for him, but never says anything. Later, when he kills youngling Jedi, she’s (justifiably) horrified. But he didn’t really do anything different. He took out understandable frustration on a group of flawed individuals with sovereign power, and killed innocent children both times. Th
e difference is on Tatooine he killed an indigenous
people Padme doesn’t sympathize with. This matches up with how Naboo
treats Gungans. Notice how they are happy to have them fight in their
war, but in Attack of the Clones, none live in the city. I almost find
it hard to believe it went over some people’s heads that Padme alienated
those individuals from groups different from her own. I mean, they’re
literally aliens. That’s why, even super-empowered feminist warrior
women, white humans in Star Wars are still coded as “white”, when
there seems to be no concept of race along the lines of Earth’s. The
Empire, with its roots in the Republic, is still overwhelmingly white.
The Star Wars universe doesn’t have the history of our world to explain
racism, but it mirrors it through non-human xenophobia by using some of
the same tools in-universe: colonialism and othering.(Moth)
This ask was in reference to this other ask (link) about Padmé, and wow I didn’t even think of this! There was definitely a double standard going on here and this adds another fascinating–and horrifying–dimension to her character. Anakin kills Tuskan children and Padmé not only tells no one but marries his ass. Anakin kills predominantly human and “acceptable” alien children and THAT’S when she tells him she can’t follow? Lady you already knew he was a child murderer, what did you expect? @diversity-instarwars has been blogging about issues with her character and this fits right in with the pattern that her vision of democracy and freedom were only for certain people.
Thank you for tagging me! And I agree with anon a lot, the only difference is that i don’t really care for her as a character or person because she is the epitome and symbol of white liberal privilege.
Yes to everything you mention, especially about the sand raiders and gungans, all of which I have talked extensively about. Padme comforts Anakin when he mentions that he kills the Sand Raiders yet does nothing to chastise him. In that moment, she had the power to turn him in, to get justice for an indigenous group that was killed off and she does nothing.
Notice however, that in the clone wars series when Clovis is threatened–a Senator like Padme, Padme actually breaks up with Anakin. That is when she makes a move, because now she is registering he is dangerous. Now that he has killed a colleague and a fellow wealthy politician like herself, it matters.
The sand raiders are not like Padme, or Anakin. They aren’t senators or politicians like her. They are as anon said, indigenous to a land that has painted them out as the aggressors. Many people fail to realize that the reason the tuskens are so angry is because they were a colonized people, and the colonizers (mainly humans) took their water source and continue to do so.
Padme comes from a place where she is directly responsible for upholding an establishment that has taken land away from the indigenous species as well as their resources. Naboo Queens are known for going to war with the native gungans and obviously they prevailed. And the most vocal and loudest queen of Naboo we’ve seen is Padme–who is a white woman. The gungans are basically second class citizens. They were recently allowed rep in the senate by the time of the phantom menace but still, there were no gungan senators. Certainly there were no gungan queens. Padme gave the Gungans enough power for them to stay quiet but that wasn’t liberation. It was just staying silent in the face oppression to have a seemingly comfortable life, because the Republic would come to her aid if it was needed to handle the gungans.
So like, her lack of care for the Tusken Raiders isn’t surprising in the least. She comes from a place where she upholds colonization and imperialism, and to an extension apartheid. She comes from a line of rulers who were elected into office for wiping out native species. So of course she sees indigenous species who harm human colonizers as below her and not worth decent respect.
This is actually a level of the tusken raiders discourse that I never thought of. I almost always looked at it from the perspective of “these people aren’t like Padme–not in her caliber so she either ignores them or uses them for her political agenda” i.e teckla, the clones and shmi and the sand-raiders
Looking at the fact that she is coming from a place of power and a government that upholds the oppression of indigenous aliens–that doesn’t surprise me.
Again thanks for tagging me, and if anon has any questions about my recent or past padme metas on this stuff i wouldn’t mind sharing.
I love this perspective on the character and the politics of SW. Seen from this light, this is yet another way the Empire was just a more extreme continuation of the Republic. Padmé was the genteel and liberal face of human imperialism and Palpatine simply took the gloves off.
Please don’t be one of those people. Poe is not the male lead. Poe existing means damerey would be huge and Finn would be nonexistent. I’m surprised at you claiming Poe should have been in it more when you of all people know how many people prop up Poe so they can claim they’re not racist and ignore or belittle Finn.
Mm? That was not my intention at all, I wasn’t saying Poe had to be the hero but rather pointing out how the plot as it happened required he not be there for large chunks of it. As @jewishcomeradebot pointed out in her addition Poe was pretty much Leia plot-wise, the character who knows his way around the military and intelligence side of things. Much like Leia, Poe’s having more screen time would not have detracted from the other leads.
Poe being in the trio would not have been a bad thing. Finn and Rey were always the co-protagonist and each other’s love interest. The fear that Doomreys will marginalize Finn is a true fear, but that’s the same white washing racism, even though Oscar is Latino, as reylow.
The fear that if Rose and Poe are around Finn and Rey, then Finn or Rey would disappear from the other’s lives is stupid. JJ knows what he wants and what he’s doing, for the most part at least.
Beyond the fact most Poe fans, and even potentially Oscar, if he wasn’t joking, headcanon Poe as gay, I think most fans would be fine.
There’s a difference between having our trio be together vs Doomrey racists erasing Finn
Episode IX will probably have them together more.
Finn and Poe best friends, Finn and Rey are romantically interested in each other, and Rey, Rose, and Poe will all be friends as well if JJ does it right.
One line in @themandalorianwolf‘s meta about Finn and his relationship with his past struck a cord with me, but it’s rather tangential to the topic so I’m hiving off.
The line is this one:
[Finn] had no clue that Poe would want to go back to Jakku and probably assumed Poe would go directly to the Resistance base…
Because yes, this is exactly what Finn would expect to happen when he sat down and planned his escape. That Poe flies directly (or maybe in a circuitous route) back to the Resistance.
Which would mean what precisely?
That Finn isn’t just trying to escape, but defect? Which puts the first reason he gives Poe “It’s the right thing to do” in a bit of a new light, he’s trying to sell himself as a potential Resistance fighter?
Does Finn expects to be taken as a prisoner of war, being an enemy soldier and all.
Obviously things does not go the way Finn expected them to and he had ample time during his trek through Jakku’s desert to rethink his plan and come up with a new one which was “get as far away from the First Order as possible”.
Sensible one too, but thinking about it I doubt it would be his initial one. Unless he thought he could talk Poe into dropping him off somewhere en route. But he’d also know that he would not be able to count on that, that he in a very likely scenario would end up in the hands of the Resistance and/or the Republic.
What did he think would happen to him then?
I don’t think he was thinking that far, at least at that very urgent moment. He talked about getting out of the system altogether, and not about the destination. That was the first thing on his mind, getting away from the First Order rather than to anywhere. Given his later actions I think it’s probable that he wanted to be dropped off and to keep going all the way to the Outer Rim. He also proved to be eminently persuadable on this point, however.
That’s why it’s interesting to think what might have happened if Finn and Poe had not been separated and Poe had tried to talk him into staying with the Resistance, or at least being thoroughly debriefed before he moved on. Poe would not have pulled a Rose and forced Finn to stay, and like Han he’d have understood and sympathized with Finn’s desire to get away. But Poe is also a Resistance fighter, and a spy. Imagine him telling Finn that he can make a difference:
“Buddy, I feel you. Getting away from those guys was good for my health and longevity and I’m guessing it’ll be good for yours, too. You did me and the Resistance a solid, and I’ll fight anyone who blames you for wanting to go. But before that, could you hear me out? You’re smart guy, Finn, and you’re right: if it’s one person alone against the First Order it’s either run or die. But if you’re with other people there’s a third choice: Fight back, together. You don’t have to be alone anymore.”
I remember reading a meta that said Finn was running largely out of despair, because he thought there was no fighting back against the First Order. If Poe, someone who had been doing exactly that, had talked to him? Who knows.
The thing is, there’s definitely a time gap between Finn coming back with the assault ship from Tuanul and him rescuing Poe. Enough that he can change his armor and get evaluated.
We don’t know how much time this is but it’ll be some and I think even as he faces Phasma in that corridor he knows he has to get out. I’m not saying that he has a huge, carefully mapped out plan for what happens, but honestly he’d have some expectations of what would happen if he puts himself into the hands of the Resistance. Clearly it is a preferable option to what will happen in the First Order which is likely either execution or some version of what we see happen to Terex in the Poe comic.
Oh, I completely agree he had planned for multiple contingencies–which, by necessity, could only be contingencies. I think his first preference would have been to be dropped off, but I don’t think he dared hope that he would be allowed to leave. He had never been allowed that kind of freedom and Poe controlled their escape craft, after all. That would have been the first shock for him, if he had made the request and Poe completely respected his wishes, leaving it up to him whether to stay or go. This was why Rose’s reaction to his leaving was so shitty for his arc, needless to say.
Returning to the branching point of the op and what Finn thought beforehand, though, I imagine he was braced for a lot of things. He has zero experience with a military (or paramilitary in this case) that does not rely on intimidation and indoctrination but on freely given consent, and while he might know the Resistance is different he may also have a hard time imagining it. Was he going to be locked up for the rest of the war? Pressed into service? Forced to give up whatever intel he had, with extra “encouragement” because how could they trust him?
When you think about it, effectively putting himself in Poe’s hands was not only a risk but a giant leap of faith. It also showed how desperate he was to leave.
Poe was taken out of the story early on in The Force Awakens precisely because as a
seasoned Resistance operative his presence would have solved a lot of
problems that Finn and Rey ran into. First meeting with BB-8? Joyous
occasion, no misunderstanding. Recognizes the Millennium Falcon and
runs toward it while Finn and Rey follow, wondering what the Resistance guy is on. Aerial chase would have been over in
seconds with Poe and Rey co-piloting and Finn on the gun. Would have smoothed things over
with Han. Probably would have found a clever way to foil the space gangs because he’s had plenty of run-ins with criminal types. Would have taken them all to D’Qar right away. No battle of
Takodana. Half the movie’s runtime was the characters scrambling to deal
with the lack of Poe when you think about it.
One line in @themandalorianwolf‘s meta about Finn and his relationship with his past struck a cord with me, but it’s rather tangential to the topic so I’m hiving off.
The line is this one:
[Finn] had no clue that Poe would want to go back to Jakku and probably assumed Poe would go directly to the Resistance base…
Because yes, this is exactly what Finn would expect to happen when he sat down and planned his escape. That Poe flies directly (or maybe in a circuitous route) back to the Resistance.
Which would mean what precisely?
That Finn isn’t just trying to escape, but defect? Which puts the first reason he gives Poe “It’s the right thing to do” in a bit of a new light, he’s trying to sell himself as a potential Resistance fighter?
Does Finn expects to be taken as a prisoner of war, being an enemy soldier and all.
Obviously things does not go the way Finn expected them to and he had ample time during his trek through Jakku’s desert to rethink his plan and come up with a new one which was “get as far away from the First Order as possible”.
Sensible one too, but thinking about it I doubt it would be his initial one. Unless he thought he could talk Poe into dropping him off somewhere en route. But he’d also know that he would not be able to count on that, that he in a very likely scenario would end up in the hands of the Resistance and/or the Republic.
What did he think would happen to him then?
I don’t think he was thinking that far, at least at that very urgent moment. He talked about getting out of the system altogether, and not about the destination. That was the first thing on his mind, getting away from the First Order rather than to anywhere. Given his later actions I think it’s probable that he wanted to be dropped off and to keep going all the way to the Outer Rim. He also proved to be eminently persuadable on this point, however.
That’s why it’s interesting to think what might have happened if Finn and Poe had not been separated and Poe had tried to talk him into staying with the Resistance, or at least being thoroughly debriefed before he moved on. Poe would not have pulled a Rose and forced Finn to stay, and like Han he’d have understood and sympathized with Finn’s desire to get away. But Poe is also a Resistance fighter, and a spy. Imagine him telling Finn that he can make a difference:
“Buddy, I feel you. Getting away from those guys was good for my health and longevity and I’m guessing it’ll be good for yours, too. You did me and the Resistance a solid, and I’ll fight anyone who blames you for wanting to go. But before that, could you hear me out? You’re smart guy, Finn, and you’re right: if it’s one person alone against the First Order it’s either run or die. But if you’re with other people there’s a third choice: Fight back, together. You don’t have to be alone anymore.”
I remember reading a meta that said Finn was running largely out of despair, because he thought there was no fighting back against the First Order. If Poe, someone who had been doing exactly that, had talked to him? Who knows.
“All-out war,” with what?
In one of his memorable last lines in The Last Jedi, Luke Skywalker contradicted Kylo Ren to say “The Rebellion is reborn today” and “The war is just beginning.” John Boyega predicted that Episode IX would be about war as well, saying:
“I think Episode IX you know, regardless of where the story goes, and I haven’t read it by the way, is going to be all-out war …”
This grand vision is somewhat belied by the reality at the end of TLJ, however. The entire remainder of the Resistance fits on the Millennium Falcon, and its calls for help to its Outer Rim allies were evidently ignored. The main First Order fleet may also have taken a blow from Holdo’s suicide attack, but even just the ground forces portion of its remainder is considerable. We also know that it has troops elsewhere with which it is tightening its grip on the galaxy.
So how can there be all-out war between two such asymmetrical forces? One possibility is guerilla warfare, perhaps with the Resistance operating out of mobile headquarters since having a stationary one didn’t work out so well for them. They can harass the First Order, strike at its supply lines, rally support in the populace, conduct sabotage missions. This is how badly outnumbered and outgunned forces have fought for millennia, after all.
Guerilla warfare by itself is not enough, however, to be described as “all-out war.” It’s not enough to topple the First Order, either, and that is the Resistance’s goal especially if Luke, Holdo, Finn etc. are right and they are resurrecting the Rebellion. A rebellion as I understand it doesn’t just seek to weaken and undermine the enemy, it seeks to replace the enemy government. Nibbling around the edges of the First Order’s domination of the galaxy might be fine for Leia’s barely-sanctioned militia, but a full rebellion against the First Order needs to have the means to unseat it and defend territory from it. Leia implies that necessity herself in the Poe Dameron comic:
What are the sources of the troops and materiel the Resistance/Rebellion might have? Here are a few I can think of.
Resistance forces and allies elsewhere
It appears that the Resistance did not put all its eggs in one basket and there are others who were not in Leia’s fleet that ran from the First Order. Black Squadron, for instance, was on a mission to the Outer Rim to gain support from allies. The one mission that we know about from the partial transmission in the comic is a failure and the radio silence in response to the Resistance’s distress call implies they may have not met with resounding success, but there is a chance the Squadron itself survived.
Zay and Shriv from the Battleront II single-player DLC were similarly dispatched to the Outer Rim to contact the Resistance’s allies. They may well come back with allies of their own, though this did not come to pass at the end of TLJ. Have the Outer Rim allies really foresaken the Resistance, or was something else going on?
Lando Calrissian
Lando’s return in Episode IX may mean a significant boost in the Resistance’s forces, too. Lando was a General during the last war, the Administrator of a city, and the owner of Calrissian Enterprises, a huge droid manufacturer. His wealth and resources, coupled with his war experience and the security forces he himself must command, make his return a hopeful development for the Resistance/Rebellion. Since his base of Cloud City on Bespin is located in the Outer Rim, he may well have been one of the allies Leia dispatched people to contact.
A droid army
The droid manufacturing capacity of Calrissian Enterprises could additionally mean the manufacture of combat droids to augment the Resistance against The First Order. We saw droids fighting armored troopers before in the prequel movies and The Clone Wars. Could we be seeing a reprise, only this time we’re meant to root for the droids?
Droids aren’t just cannon fodder but also excellent sources of information, as C3PO’s plot in the Poe Dameron comics showed. C3PO had an extensive droid spy network, something that was on Leia’s to-do list to revive in The Last Jedi novelization. It remains to be seen whether droids will play a greater role in the war.
The New Republic
We know that the
New Republic is in shambles after the destruction of the Hosnia system,
but by the time of Episode IX they will have at least begun to regroup.
If the New Republic’s military were to join forces with the Resistance,
as seems likely, we will see a significant boost in the Resistance’s
numbers. They should also, in my opinion, be called not “Resistance” or “Rebellion” but Republic forces. Such a change also brings potential for cultural clashes and mutual
resentments, something that may have begun to be explored in TLJ
but didn’t really go anywhere.
If Leia plays a leadership role in the New Republic again because they come to their senses in the crisis and realizes they need her, then we’ll see her lead the charge on this end. This seems a likely path for her character to take, since the footage cut from TFA that will be used in Episode IX is likely to pertain to the New Republic’s political situation, like the deleted scene with her aide Korr Sella.
People around the galaxy
Finn’s conviction that people around the galaxy would rise up against the First Order may not have been borne out on Crait, but was validated by the final scene of The Last Jedi when it was shown that people throughout the galaxy are sharing and taking heart in the story of the Resistance and the Jedi. Over time this hope may become a groundswell of support for the Resistance.
Stormtroopers Insurgent Free Troopers
This is my personal fondest hope of all, that Finn inspire other kidnapped and brainwashed Stormtroopers to rise up as he did. He has already gone twice into the heart of the First Order and escaped, showing that this group not invincible–they’re kind of pathetic, in fact.
Speaking of pathetic, the new Supreme Leader of the First Order is this dude:
Kylo Ren, a man who has a lot of raw power but zero self-restraint or dignity, who is skeptical of the entire Stormtrooper program (but not of slavery itself–he brought up clone troopers in TFA), and who very publicly made a fool of himself on Crait in front of his army.
It seems likely that Finn’s exploits, together with disappointment in Kylo Ren and his leadership, will lead at least some Stormtroopers to be disillusioned with the First Order. They could fill out the Resistance’s ranks or at least drop out of the fighting altogether, making the numerical disadvantage less overwhelming.
As one anon has pointed out (link), combined with the droid army idea above, it’s possible that we could see Free Troopers and droids working together in another inversion of the prequel trilogy/The Clone Wars dynamics when they were pitted against each other.
Such cooperation would be all the more poignant because, with the recent canon incorporating a droid liberation plotline, the Free Troopers and the droids would share a liberation narrative. And if the new Star Wars canon gives a liberation plot to the droids but ignores the Stormtroopers then man, fuck Star Wars.
In conclusion
Though the ending of TLJ is very bleak in terms of its prospects for the fight against the First Order, the Resistance has a lot of untapped resources. Episode IX could show these allies coming together to destroy the First Order and, eventually, start the hard work of rebuilding.
Sending this again because I think Tumblr ate it: judging by his parents, Kylo Ren would have to be ethnically Jewish, right? I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I kinda think that maybe having Leia’s and Han’s son be a fascist was an inherently bad idea.
Hmm, I guess Tumblr ate my prior private reply because this is such a functional website you guyz. I am not at all qualified to touch the issue of Jewish identity, but I have been told by a Jewish friend that Kylo Ren represents Jewish people’s fears of having their children stolen and turned against them–and that finn and kylo can be read as parallels, with Kylo being the child
raised by his parents who spurns his people, and finn being the child
who returns from captivity. @aimmyarrowshigh laid out the most cogent case I have seen for Kylo as both born Jewish AND choosing to be a Nazi (link), though not all Jewish fans agree on this issue as you can see in the thread. (I mean as far as I can tell, if
there’s any one clear-cut aspect of Jewish identity it’s arguing a
lot…?) In addition, @jewishcomeradebot has written about why Kylo works better as a member of the Skywalker family rather than a random (link), though she did not mention in that post his Jewishness or lack thereof.J.J., who is himself a Jewish creator, created a Nazi analogue villain who is the son of Jewish parents, with all the complexity that implies. It’s not how I would have done it, or indeed how I could have done it, but I understand this aspect of the character as an important and complicated reflection of Jewish identity and anxieties. It doesn’t matter if I understand and agree with it or not, SW might be for general consumption but that debate is not for me.
If other Jewish people want to claim Leia, Han and Padmé as Jewish I for one will not stop them, but there’s nothing in canon to suggest that they’re anything but white goyim. They were never written as anything else.
And frankly given how much Naboo steals from various Asian cultures, default positing that Padmé must be Jewish presents some erasure of its own as it usually goes hand in hand with erasing her Asianess (is that a word?).
Star Wars is a fantasy universe and there’s no one to one transfer, it works as so many Non-Earth Universes do and operates in parallels and analogies. And if you want an analogy for Jewish people in-universe the Jedi work a hell of a lot better than a random family where some of the members happen to be played by Jewish actors but about which there’s very little Jewish.
Sidenote. I can’t help notice that these theories always focuses on Leia (and Han), but Luke would be as Jewish as she is. He has the same mother after all. If you consider Leia Jewish then you’ll damn well have to accept Luke as Jewish too.
Plus neither character were raised “Jewishly”, both of them raised by goyische parents. (This isn’t a mark against the Organas or the Larses, just pointing out that neither of them are Jewish.) Leia might be said to reclaim her heritage in rediscovering and claiming her birth mother, but that has nothing to do with Kylo in that case since he does neither.
Really, this falls apart very quickly if you apply any kind of half way stringent logic to it.
On a closing note. It really rubs me the wrong way when goyim uses “well Kylo would be Jewish” as a reason for why he shouldn’t be the villain. Like, really, really rubs me the wrong way.
Spoilers from the Poe Dameron comic below.
Huh, so droids can in fact pilot ships? TLJ’s plot just got a whole lot stupider and Holdo looks like a fucking monster. I’ll leave out her own final run–maybe that one required human ingenuity and the ability to override hyperspace flight safeguards, idk. But she ordered people to DIE with the doomed Resistance ships when astromechs could have done it? I’m now counting the fact that she herself croaked as the best thing about the movie.
Oh and also
Willfully touching, for your own amusement, a person who can’t consent looks really evil or something.
As does striking them for displeasing you, even when the person on the receiving end is a monster.
It’s like… actions like these usually establish that a character is a bully, not a hero.
But it’s not like LF would ever make a movie that glorifies these same actions when done against nonwhite men or something. They’re not that inconsistent and hypocritical. Right?
L.J.'s Obsessions 