Darth Vader’s real successor in the sequel trilogy is Phasma, not Kek lol Redpill. She’s the one who has Vader’s intimidation factor, his mystery, his ruthlessness, and just all around coolness.
Spoilers for the Phasma novel
Considering that Hoax and Plasma, the most prominent members of the FO leadership, both betrayed and killed their parents, Kyle Ron doing the same was probably just the price for staying in the treehouse. Like, “Can you believe Ren still has both parents? And he hasn’t killed even one of them? Kriff, what a loser.”
Phasma mocking Finn during their battle and trying to distract him. She keeps calling him by that accursed number and Finn is just getting angrier and angrier, his blows becoming more heavy as he lands hit after hit on his “mentor.”
“You have become slow, FN-2187,” she sneers as she blocked another strike. “Look how far you have fallen, traitor.”
And Finn just loses it and knocks her weapon from out of her hands. “You don’t know a thing about me! You never did!” he snarls and lands a blow so shocking that he knocks her out. The anger he feels is justified and righteous. Finn’s anger is the anger of a gentle man who has been denied everything and pushed too far.
Just Finn being pissed as hell at his abusers and ready to take names.
I only finished the first 10% of the phasma novel but there’s this one thing surprises me and i have to say it right now : this book neither idolizes the first order nor excuses the first order’s actions from their point of view to say ~the good people also did bad things and bad people aren’t always bad~. as a person who hesitated to read this book because of first order/empire glorification bullshit, i’m pretty shook?
there is a character who works for the first order, who believes what he’s doing is right, but then the book also explains why that character is wrong because the lead character is from the resistance. there is a clear divide between good and evil… so far. it’s good.
I thought the book did an excellent job of deconstructing the First Order and revealing its rotten core, actually. I think the utter ruthlessness and selfishness of Phasma’s character is simply a mirror of the First Order, because… (spoilers below the cut, in case you haven’t finished the book and plan to)
SPOILERSBELOW
the real conflict isn’t that Phasma is an abuser, serial backstabber, and murderer. There are and always have been people like that, and the only question is whether their communities catch them out and stop them or let them into the higher reaches of power. The First Order utterly fails in this regard because Phasma’s selfish and murderous actions are known, condoned, and shielded by the leadership of the First Order.
The true rot, then, the real reason Phasma is dangerous, is in the First Order. The problem is that people like Phasma and also the two Huxes are not checked but encouraged in their immoral behavior, continuing to rise in the ranks over people like Cardinal who honestly believe in the supposed ideals of the FO.
This shows that the ideals of the First Order are a lie, much as Phasma’s constructed identity as a dedicated and flawless soldier is a lie. Much like Brendol Hux lied when he said he wanted equality and justice, and then promptly committed mass murder on the people he speechified about helping.
The First Order is nothing but an exploitative fiefdom of unscrupulous backstabbers who have no principles or morals whatsoever, held up by gaslighting its more sincere followers into believing it to be the ultimate good. And that is why, I fervently hope, it’s going to burn to the ground when its own supersoldiers rise up against it. Now that would be poetic justice.
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!
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.
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