Here is my Star Wars thought of the day:
I am not a fan of the Empire or the First Order. They are a bunch of fascist space racists (or racist space fascists, however you prefer to order it), who willingly committed genocide several times over. I have always been on the side of scrappy rebels, especially scrappy rebels named ‘Leia’ or ‘Rey.’ (Or ‘Chewbacca.’)
However.
(There had to be a ‘however,’ didn’t there?)
There is one, small, tiny scrap of sympathy I have for the Empire/First Order, and that is this: they keep building a very efficient, smoothly-running empire, and then people keep jamming whackaloons with magical powers in the highest ranks of that empire willy-nilly.
Like? Motti, Tarkin, Hux, Phasma. Bad people, let me be clear. But they keep having their orderly little (or big) empire screwed up because someone at the top was unstable and had weird visions and could rearrange the entire battle strategy around those weird visions. To their detriment, becasue the scrappy rebels had better weird visions.
As a sympathizer with the scrappy rebels, I am glad of this. But I can’t help but imagine Phasma repeatedly banging her head against her desk, going, “not agaaaaaain.”
Some regular military tactician, manipulating ships in the miniature 3D hologram of a battlefield; “So, as you can see, it should be quite a simple affair. Our intelligence reports tell us that the enemy has only a single squadron in this system, and most of them hidden in the asteroid belt. If we array our forces like so…”
Tarkin, approvingly; “Yes, you are quite correct, Lieutenant.”
Darth Fuckin Vader, sweeping Dramatically into the room, probably using the Force to get his cloak to billow Just So for Maximum Drama; “You are most incorrect, Lieutenant. The Rebellion has set you a trap. I have Seen it in the Force. You would not know, as you do not know the ways of the Force.”
Tarkin, mentally screaming to himself that he does not get paid enough to deal with motherfucking goddamn fucking space wizards this is the fourteenth fucking goddamn fucking time he has done this just this goddamn fucking month the absolute wanker. *forces a smile* “Are you certain, Lord Vader? Our spies were quite certain…”
Vader, dismissively. “Your spies are of no consequence compared to the power of the Force, Admiral.”
Tarkin, throwing up hands; “Then please enlighten me, Lord Vader, what the point of having me send spies in the first place was???!?”
Vader; “I find your discomfiture amusing, Admiral.”
Tarkin; “I hate you so much.”
Vader; “I am aware, Admiral.”
Tag: Vader
Man, one characterization of Vader that I love but rarely see is: Vader as deeply religious.
Because from an in-universe perspective, that’s so weird! Vader and the viewer know that the Force is not a matter of faith, and that it does in fact give him powers up to and including the ability to accurately see the future, but the galaxy at large doesn’t know that and his fellow Imperials definitely don’t. I think the point of Motti, besides introducing Vader’s ruthlessness toward even his own faction, is to demonstrate that Force use is not just a known factor of the Star Wars universe.
In that context, Vader is inexplicable. Not only does he have uncanny and inscrutable powers, like those the murdered Jedi are rumored to have had, but he is the only figure in the Imperial military who seems to talk about his religion. At least among the military leadership, he’s not secretive about it; if he’s got to leave a conversation to hunt down Obi-wan, he’ll just come right out and say that he has supernatural knowledge which he needs to go address now. He wields a banned, antique Jedi weapon. He has several times invoked the Force while speaking to his officers.
In-universe, the general public doesn’t know why he’s like this! The Empire isn’t a theocracy; besides banning the Jedi religion, Emperor Palpatine doesn’t really seem to make a lot of overtly religious policy choices, and I don’t think the general public knows if he subscribes to any specific faith. Except for people who know what the Sith are, Vader just seems like an extremely devout sole adherent to a religion that is all but dead, its other practitioners hunted for treason. He’s like if the president had a weird murder pet who was a Catholic nun, only Catholicism was banned and all other church officials had been murdered by the government.
also like if catholicism was banned because it was DEFINITELY fake lunatic bullshit that so-called ‘catholics’ made up specifically to seize power from the former government, except the murder nun has just turned your manager’s blood into wine right in front of you and you’re both just standing there watching him die horrifically in the middle of your fucking office
he was on TATOOINE you fucking loser
Obi-Wan can find an invisible planet hidden by a devious Sith Lord, Anakin can’t find his ex-best friend on his own home planet while the guy is still using his own damn name.
I know we give Obi-wan a lot of shit for leaving Luke with his real surname but Anakin really is that stupid
the perfect hiding place: the sandiest fucking planet that anakin would never set foot on again
I’d like to remind everyone again that it’s literally canon that Vader can’t step foot on Tatooine because the desert gets into his creaky old man robot joints and makes his suit break down
aka the sand is coarse, rough, irritating, and gets everywhere
i d o n t l i k e s a n d
okay but what if everyone was like ‘vader, kenobi’s on tattooine. he’s obviously on tattooine. he’s been there for years. he’s just right fucking there, we all know it.’ and vader is just desperately shaking down jedi like they’re magic eight-balls and he wants a better fortune. like ‘no i don’t like that try again’.
kenobi’s just sitting there in his pile of sand like a smug fucking bastard. he doesn’t need to hide jack shit. he went to the tattooine board of tourism and got them to print up flyers that say ‘COME TO TATTOOINE, WE HAVE SAND’ and luke is probably going to be safe until his midlife fucking crisis at this rate.
palpatine finds vader aimlessly checking behind pieces of furniture in some shitty space motel on kamino
‘he’s on tattooine,’ palpatine says.
‘nuh uh,’ vader says, and peers under a couch.
“You can’t prove that!” he says
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