Any World (That I'm Welcome To)

I managed to see the first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Wow, starting with an angry young man and a bunch of guys with guns slaughtering children is a bit much right now, Disney. I know they couldn't predict specific events, but it's not like a lot of real people weren't already all too familiar with such tragedies. If you're going to open with something like that, maybe make it clearer how it's relevant to the actual plot some time during the first two episodes to justify it instead of just plonking it in to let us know that the show is dark, man, dark? I saw one suggestion that we should have gotten some obvious signs that Reva and the Jedi youth Obi-Wan doesn't help were both in that group of kids that escapes, and they should have recognized each other. That would have been a start.

Tiny Leia and her tiny shoes sure are adorable though.

Also, Obi-Wan has a job butchering a...sand whale? Giant sand tuna? What the heck is that thing, and does it actually swim through sand? Why are they apparently only butchering it during day shifts instead of working round the clock to finish the job before the meat spoils in the devastating Tatooine heat? Or is there a night shift too, and they don't Gonk-clock in until a few minutes after the day shift Gonk-clocks out? Do they really expect us to concentrate on the plot when we're wondering these things?

And if there's a sand whale, why aren't they singing sand shanties while they butcher it? We know Ewan McGregor can sing! So far this show appears to be designed to deliver maximum id vortex indulgence: shiploads of Prequel Trilogy actors pressed back into service, a bunch of expanded universe stuff, cute kiddos, scruffy emo Ben, badass evil people in black leather, Darth Vader, a comedy Jawa, Alderaan, painfully ironic comments about what it will be like when Leia rules Alderaan someday, a cyberpunk Crime Planet, a marketable baby droid, you name it. Why not toss in a few Tatooine sand shanties? (For the record, I also thought Law & Order criminally wasted the opportunity to come up with an excuse for a musical episode when they had Jerry Orbach and Jesse L. Martin playing buddy cops together.)

Come on, Disney! It's not like anyone believes you're devoted to making quality Star Wars content anymore, so you wouldn't be losing any dignity or anything. Let's have a Special Musical Edition!

Until that happy day, I will accept your sand shanty lyrics.

1.) Do you like this character?

Yes. I think she's a flawed character - I mean, not particularly minding your crush slaughtering children because he's upset? serious issues there! - but I also find that interesting. I like her dedication to justice and making the galaxy a better place, and I like the tragedy of, for instance, her being in power and in battle too young and never learning how to interact with people normally. (Maybe when you're surrounded by awful things all the time, a little baby Tusken slaughter doesn't look so bad? Or you think that everything comes with tradeoffs that big?) She's also impulsive enough to give Anakin a run for his money, even if she can also restrain herself better when she chooses.

I think one of the best bits of drama in the PT is how Padme first surprises Palpatine by not being quite as young and naive as he expected (evading the Trade Federation, boldly marching into the Senate and insisting they do something), but still young and naive enough not to notice things like, oh, isn't it odd that Palpatine claims he had no idea he would be nominated for Chancellor when he suggested that vote of no confidence? I wish the PT had followed this up a bit more, with the Petition of 2000 being the final break between Padme and her former mentor. (Who was it that wrote that awesome drabble about Padme being jealous of Anakin for taking her place?)

I also think that on a meta level, the character was treated very badly. Dying of "losing the will to live"? How do you even do that? If I suddenly lost the will to live, I'd just feel lousy, not drop dead. If it was a stress-induced heart attack or a hemorrhage or something, the med droid would have noticed. I don't think med droids are qualified to diagnose a lost will to live, anyway. And standing around doing not much for a whole movie? (Even in the cut scenes with the proto-Rebellion, Padme mostly waffles and isn't sure about things.) I can see her growing more cautious and maybe a little scared after realizing how things can backfire (and how vulnerable she is with her humongous secrets)... but this was a bit much. Though I do think her arc over the PT is consistent with someone who's depressed, but trying so hard to cope that even she might not realize it, and finally just breaking. I feel that. (It still doesn't make you just drop dead for no good medical reason.)

Also, why does she assume that the Queen will make her resign once her pregnancy is known? Is single motherhood scandalous for a Senator, or does the Queen think Padme should be home with her baby, or what?

Finally, I loved Padme's line about wondering if they were on the wrong side, but it's hard to take it seriously when the Separatists are running around with O HAI WE R TEAM EVIL stamped on their foreheads. Unless she meant that there should be a third side?

2.) What name(s) do you call this character?
Padme.

3.) What image / color do you associate with this character?
Image: Um. Padme as Amidala boldly addressing the Senate in TPM, Padme telling Nute Gunray they'll be negotiating a new treaty in TPM, Padme climbing that pillar in AotC, Padme laughing in the meadow, and Padme crying and dying in RotS all strike me as equally "Padme." I think this having to play different roles for different people is part of her problem...

Color: Flower colors, like the yellows and pinks in the dress she wore when they arrived at Varykino.

4.) What song do you associate with this character?
"Paradise" by Vanessa Carlton. I saw a Padme fanvid to this song once and it stuck with me. "As darkness quickly steals the light/that shined within her eyes/she slowly swallows all her fear/and soothes her mind with lies..."

5.) What blood type do you think this character is?
I think the bumps on her head indicate tendencies toward delusion and insanity, which is why she has suddenly turned against the Republic. Let's put her in the sanatorium. Chancellor Palpatine will pay for it. (What? It makes just as much sense as blood type determining personality. Thanks to 4thofeleven for explaining this history.)

6.) From all of the titles that feature this character, what other character do you think makes a good pairing with this character?
Um. Considering Padme's tendency to accept a lot of silence and lies and genocide to keep a relationship going, I'm not sure she'd do well with anyone just yet. But I think that she and Anakin did start with similar temperaments and ideals and seem to enjoy each other's company, so if they weren't both so damaged, it might have worked out. And if Obi-Wan weren't as committed to the Jedi Order as he is, that might have been a good option too. Him being still occasionally reckless but a bit more stable might help balance things, and they could have more intellectual discussions than Anakin/Padme. (On the other hand, Obi-Wan has similar issues with overlooking warning signs that HEY INCIPIENT DICTATOR OVER HERE, so maybe they'd just reinforce each other's bad traits.)

I dunno, I'm tempted to tell Padme to stick with a small circle of close friends and forget romance for a while. Or to find out more about that cute new Senator Mothma, or give Sabe a call. They understand her life and aren't totally broken as far as we know, which is a good start!

7.) What would you want to say to this character?
- No, everything is not okay. You need help. But there's no shame in that - would you feel ashamed of having a broken leg and needing a doctor?
- If you can't talk about the things that bother you in your relationship because you're afraid that will end it, there's a problem. That problem may be him, or it may be that you're more scared of losing him than of facing the fact that maybe he has issues, or both plus more.
- Having made huge mistakes feels horrible when you realize it, but you are awesome enough that you could probably have done a lot to fix them had you lived longer.
- Prenatal appointments exist for a reason. Take advantage of that doctor-patient confidentiality.
- I don't believe that med droid's diagnosis, don't worry.
...I'll stop now. I have lots to say to Padme.

8.) What do you want to do with this character?
Go through her closet and admire all the shiny things! (I wouldn't want to actually wear any of it, mind.) Then watch movies and discuss them in way more detail than their creators intended. Or watch the BBC Pride & Prejudice.


9.) Please choose five friends with your choice of character.
Just tell me if you want one.

From fialleril

Shmi Skywalker

1.) Do you like this character?
I do. She's compassionate, kind to strangers in need, wants what's best for her son even when it means losing him, sensible and practical, hard-working (getting up before dawn for mushrooms!), and can find serenity in a tough life while still being quick to seize opportunities to improve it.

On a meta level, though, a few things bother me... This trilogy is about Anakin, so it's understandable that we see most characters relating to his story. However, most of them also clearly have their own stories and opinions about non-Anakin topics: Obi-Wan has relationships with other Jedi and doesn't trust politicians, Palpatine wants to take over the galaxy, Padme is a politician and cares deeply about her people and principles (and would like a family, with or without Anakin), Yoda has younglings to train and a war to run, Qui-Gon follows the Living Force and takes in strays... even Jocasta Nu clearly has her own thing going.

Shmi, though... In The Phantom Menace, does she have any concerns besides Anakin? She never so much as mentions that So-and-So down the street might have Part X they could borrow for the podracer. Between movies, we know she got freed and married Cliegg, so she must have had her own life. But we don't even know whether the 30 neighbors tried to rescue her for her sake or for their old friend Cliegg's, or whether it's hard to run the farm without her (things that might legitimately come up in conversation onscreen). Other things that might legitimately have come up: when she says "[Anakin] deserves better than a slave's life" and "My place is here," is she slanting her message to her audience, or is she really resigned to deserving/belonging in a slave's life? Does she fight slavery in small ways, like fixing machines and selling handicrafts once she's free to help her friends in the Slave Quarter save toward their freedom and then hiring them as farmhands? Did she ever try to contact Anakin?

Shmi seems to exist in a bubble, relating to nothing, until Anakin shows up. And then she dies horribly to further his storyline. So while I think she is great and does a lot with the role, she still kinda is a Woman in the Refrigerator.


2.) What name(s) do you call this character?
Shmi.

3.) What image / color do you associate with character?
Image: Demeter
Color: Rich earthy browns


4.) What song do you associate with this character?
Hm. Maybe "Summer Breeze" by Seals & Croft? I don't know a lot of songs about quiet but strong motherly women. Anakin might think of Sting's "Desert Rose" in a non-romantic sense, maybe?


5.) What blood type do you think this character is?
How would I know? It's not like you can tell by looking! Uh, I'll say O- then, the universal donor.


6.) From all of the titles that feature this character, what other character do you think makes good pairing with this character?
Well, she and Qui-Gon seemed to hit it off - they both have that concern for the small living things. Doesn't have to be romantic, though. Cliegg is down-to-earth and practical. I think she and Breha and Bail might have been friends if they had known each other. She might have liked talking to Yoda - they'd disagree on a few things, like the nature and value of attachments, but I bet he would listen to her. I would also totally love to see how Han would react to her - he never ran into a mother-figure in his trilogy.


7.) What would you want to say to this character?
You deserve a better life too.


8.) What do you want to do with this character?
Bake cookies for great justice! We could have a fundraising/awareness-raising bake sale/craft fair/quick-stop electronics repair service to start a fund to buy slaves' freedom and find them jobs. We would branch out to secretly teaching slaves useful skills they can use to earn money while continuing the low-profit bake sales as a front. (Hey, you've got to travel to sell stuff, right?) We'd organize the slaves into neighborhood associations and such so they can work together to improve their lot - maybe make neighborhood pools to free each other one at a time.

And of course we'd also help them work together to figure out how to disable those dratted exploding implants.


9.) Please choose five friends with your choice of character.
Just let me know if you want to do the meme.

I caught tonight's Clone Wars. Fortunately it was more or less stand-alone, since I've missed... uh, most of the episodes. Comments in no particular order:

- Yay, two aliens are the main characters this episode!

- ...and they both speak non-American-or-British (or Canadian or Australian or otherwise dominant) varieties of English. Iiiinteresting. At first it threw me - "Wait, why so Earth-specific in the accents, thus shaking me out of my immersion in this galaxy far, far away?" Then I went, "Duh, Anakin and Obi-Wan also speak very Earth-specific accents, but they're ones I've been trained to hear as unmarked and universal."

- Which of course led to, "So, the main characters in Star Wars, who are mostly white and/or male, are either American or British, ie of dominant English-speaking groups. They are our Everypeople. (Well, less so if they're British, because everyone knows the USA is the center of the universe. It's where the movies come from.) But if they are aliens or clones - ie other - then they speak the Englishes of non-dominant groups. Uh-huh." (Except Ahsoka, but she is closely tied to the American-accented Anakin and also the Everyteen.)

- This also raises the question of how the Jedi, all educated in the same building on Coruscant, end up with such wildly divergent accents. Especially with Kit Fisto and his FORMER APPRENTICE.

- Right, the plot. Dooku is being all cunning and chess-masterish! I love it! Using three sides against each other in a way that makes him the winner no matter what!

- Grievous designed this fortress with game designers in mind, didn't he? Shadowy corridors, doors to break down or otherwise circumvent, trapdoors leading to pits, monsters in the basement, a control center, princess Viceroy in another castle sry... check!

- Separatist hospitality? Separatist hospitality? Go on, throw in some more allusions to Earth wars that make no sense in context. Break that fourth wall.

- Dead Meat (Former) Apprentice quotes Vader while showing he's growing all hard and angry inside. I got it already, guys. Put those anvils down gently and no one gets hurt.

- Say, other than the holograms at the beginning, there are no women in this episode. Is/will there be an episode with Ahsoka and Luminara (was it her? just barely caught the beginning) doing whatever they're doing too?

I figured this was an appropriate week to finally post this. (Especially after just reading that Neil Gaiman hasn't noticed his friend Harlan Ellison being sexist. Oh, Neil. Sometimes you are so cool, and other times...)

Many, many thanks to fialleril for helping me sort through all the thematic messiness in this fic! Any remaining messiness (and EU errors) is purely my fault.


Title: Motherhood Is Deadly
Fandom: Star Wars (Disclaimer)
Characters: Shmi, Padmé, Breha, Beru, Teneniel Djo, Mara
Categories: Gen, PG
Word Count: 2556
Summary: One by one, the mothers of Star Wars find themselves in the afterlife - and there's something disturbing about how they all end up there...

( At last the pain stopped, and Shmi was at peace... )

*****
This is the complete story, but there's also a bonus epilogue that I'll post later. ETA: Here you go.

*looks at posted version of story* Gee, do I have enough tags on this?

The post-Christmas blues have hit. Several days of junk food plus little activity is just not good for me. Tomorrow might be nice for a long walk...

But for now, I'll have to rely on other methods, namely writing and editing something... well, maybe not exuberantly happy exactly, but at least not depressing. So - Shmi and young Owen, before Shmi's manumission.


Title: Shmi's Sons
Fandom: Star Wars (Disclaimer)
Categories: Gen, PG
Word Count: 480
Summary: Owen isn't Anakin, but he's still a special boy.

( Owen isn't Anakin. Shmi sees the differences every time he and Cliegg come to Watto's shop. )

Before plunging into the fannish fun, a note on something closer to home: Southern California is burning down. This is all taking place hundreds of miles from my home, and it feels like it's some distant story on another planet - but a really, really depressing story.





I was surfing through the links at this Star Wars blogathon to see what was outside my usual circles. Now, the first thing I noticed was actually this: I was going down the list, looking at the contributors' names, and went, "Chris, Nathaniel, Scott, Bob, Jeff, Adam, Dan, Peter... you know, there's something different about this list... Oh!" I'd actually forgotten that women actually don't comprise the vast majority of Star Wars fans. (Now there's material for a snarky satire article: "OMG there are mens on teh internets!!!1! What could they want with a tool mainly used for communication, which everyone knows is a girl thing? Experts say they're there for arguments about who is the best lightsaber master ever.")

Anyway, while reading through an entry on RotS and the prequels generally, I came across this quote: "One of the major themes is not to judge a person’s worth by their appearance: R2, Ewoks, Chewie [say, shouldn't the Falcon be on this list?]; they can all look after themselves. So it’s a little shameful that Jar Jar is ultimately a fool figure."

Wait, that's not the quote I meant (though it's a good one). No, the one that really caught my attention spoke more generally about the prequels dropping the ball on really making a cohesive story that doesn't wander off in all directions:

It's this overall mess that is more frustrating than individual elements or moments. That is: Jar Jar Binks himself, Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters voice and all, is less galling than the total dropping of Gungans from the story by the time we reach Sith. If this trilogy were less of a mess, we wouldn’t hear Mace say the word Kashyyyk, and the big invasion would be about the nascent Empire slaughtering Gungans. That is what is set up in Episode I, and that should’ve been delivered in tragic spades in III.

Now, it's Star Wars tradition to randomly introduce new planets, aliens, and villains at any moment, even when there are already perfectly good ones who could do the job, but that doesn't mean Lucas had to do it in RotS too. We already get the montage of Jedi dying on a bunch of new worlds, and we already have new locations Utapau, Mustafar, and Polis Massa as well, so we don't really need yet another new planet. All those new planets keep the galaxy from feeling too small, but replacing one of them with a planet from a previous movie would keep RotS from feeling quite so rushed and scattered. Actually, the originals do this already: hi again, Tatooine! And hello, mysterious Jabba; good to finally meet you after two movies of ominous hints! See? Works great.

But I differ from the above scenario on one point: instead of cutting the Wookiees and slaughtering the Gungans, I say cut the Gungans and slaughter the Wookiees.( Read more... )

I watched Return of the Jedi a few days ago, and as I stared at Anakin's funeral pyre, I reflected how both the first and last movies (nearly) end with that image. In The Phantom Menace, it's Qui-Gon's funeral. A Sith killed him, and in a way his death is the end of an era: the Jedi have lost their maverick master of the Living Force, and after that, the Sith take over and the inflexible Order falls. With Anakin, it's reversed: he destroyed the Sith, and all the old Jedi and Sith hangups die with him, leaving the unconventional Luke (who won by using the good side of emotions instead of "burying them deep down") to start over.

I also thought of Obi-Wan's memorable statement to Anakin at Qui-Gon's funeral: "You will be a Jedi. I promise." Anakin spends the rest of the movies trying to become a Jedi, but he's always torn between being a Jedi and being something else (son, husband, father, Sith). At the second funeral, he still has other roles - especially that of father - but they are no longer in conflict. He finally has become a Jedi.





In other news, I've been sorting through my memories. Yikes, I have hundreds! I'm trying to weed out the broken links and things I saved only so I wouldn't forget to read them.

So, I've been feeling nauseated all week and thought I was getting sick, but I finally figured out that it's just allergies or something and it's the post-nasal drainage that's the problem. I took an antihistamine and have been completely spaced out all day. Seriously, I took it at about eight AM and only within about the last hour or two have I been able to keep my train of thought long enough to read or write a sentence. And I slept for about four hours this afternoon instead of reading for school. But at least I don't feel sick... although that might be preferable.

So instead of posting the TPM thingy I had hoped to have finished a few days ago, it's the last two unposted song filks (one's really short) I have on my hard drive. (I figure I need to keep in the habit of posting or I'll just get lazy.) This is terrible, because now I realize how important keeping a backlog of meta and filks and various things on my hard drive is to my... I want to say something like "style" or "method of operating" but neither sounds right. Damn drugs. Anyway, I work better when I have several things gestating in a form I can see and tweak than when I'm completely winging it.

Enough drug-induced rambling. ( Filk! )

I watched the 1965 David Lean film Dr. Zhivago recently. There's a lot to say about that movie, but for now, I'll stick to the fannish point of interest: Varykino.

Wait, that sounds familiar, I thought when I first heard it. Didn't Padme and Anakin go to Varykino?

Sure enough, they did.

In both movies, a couple flees from a war (or soon-to-be war) to an isolated, seemingly idyllic estate called Varykino. Coincidence? I don't think so. Especially not given the Alec Guinness connection.

Some background, because Dr. Zhivago is a long movie and probably not everyone has seen it. In Dr. Zhivago, the couple is Yuri Zhivago and his wife Tonya. (They also bring their young son and Tonya's father.) They don't actually get to live in the main house at Varykino - it's boarded up by order of the new Soviet government. They live in the guest cottage. But later, Yuri does live in the main house at Varykino - with Lara, the woman he has loved for years. It's one of those tragic, doomed affairs. They met after Yuri was married - to a really nice woman whom he does care about - and they're stuck in this revolution they don't want any part of which is tearing their lives to pieces. Eventually, they're separated, Yuri dies a few years later, and Lara disappears into a labor camp - though not before leaving behind her and Yuri's daughter (and another daughter with a different father, but I don't know what happened to her). Alec Guiness, who plays Yuri's brother, tracks down this daughter and tells her the whole story. She keeps insisting that Yuri and Lara are not her parents, though I think she warmed up to the idea at the end.

In Star Wars, the couple is Anakin and Padme. They're also caught up in a war (though they're more involved in it than Yuri and Lara), they're fleeing from danger, they have a tragic, doomed affair. Anakin "dies," from a certain point of view, and Padme really dies. But not before leaving behind a son and a daughter, whom Alec Guinness (/Ewan playing Alec playing Obi-Wan) - the guy who thought of Anakin as a brother - watches over and eventually meets. (Well, at least he meets Luke.) Luke and Leia weren't all that thrilled to find out who their father was, either, though for very different reasons, and eventually they (mostly Luke) made a sort of peace with it.

Whoever came up with that name for the Naberrie home in the Lake Country must have had so much fun planting that little connection for us to find.