skygiants | (no subject)

WELL, WE FINISHED CLONE WARS SEASON 5.

11. A Sunny Day in the Void

This is a great title for an episode that ... is fairly mediocre? If we're going to be in the middle of an arc about droids, let's have it actually be an arc about droids, not about a played-for-laughs-tiny pompous alien general constantly relearning Important Lessons about Droids And Teamwork, which is basically my problem with this whole arc. Anyway in this episode they're stranded in a desert and the tiny general Learns an Important Lesson About Droids And Teamwork.

12. Missing in Action

I'm angry about this episode, because:

a.) AMNESIAC CLONE WHO DOESN'T KNOW HE'S A CLONE, what a great premise and character that is completely wasted because this arc is instead about droids and
b.) as soon as he remembers he's a clone he sacrifices himself for this tiny general and, let me tell you, I was 5000x more invested in this amnesiac clone after twenty minutes than I was in the tiny general after an hour

(DEBI: We never officially saw a body! He'll return at a dramatic future point to save the day.
BECCA: No he won't.
DEBI: No, on the show he won't, but IN OUR HEARTS.)

13. Point of No Return

Tiny general, R2-D2, and Collected Droids save a space conference. Of the Droid Arc episodes, this was my favorite, not because we didn't spend a lot of time relearning the same very important lessons over and over again - we absolutely did, this is a constant with the Droid Arc - but because I do like the concept of a bunch of Republic Droids needing rescue after their ship has been taken, and also because Anakin immediately committing vast amounts of Republic resources to an R2-D2 rescue attempt is peak Anakin.

14. Eminence

Darth Maul and Savage Oppress team up with the Mandalorian terrorists. Setup for the Mandalore arc, not much to say about it except that Maul and Oppress get some cute brother time which we probably should have realized meant Oppress was going to die in the near future.

15. Shades of Reason

Maul and the Mandalorian terrorists conquer Mandalore! Satine looks very Tudor Queen On Her Way to Execution throughout:

DEBI: How did Satine KNOW when she got up this morning that she had to dress appropriately for a coup and imprisonment?
BECCA: I think Satine might have a minor Force premonition power that manifests itself through always picking the right outfit for the occasion.

16. The Lawless

This particular stretch of the Mandalore arc wraps up with Maul straight-up murdering Satine to make Obi-Wan sad, her last words being "I've loved you always, I always will" as she dies in his arms.

a.) It's been a while since I've seen such a classic example of by-the-book manpain in the wild and it's almost ... impressive?
b.) If you KNOW your death is about making someone else sad, because it's been explicitly stated, then WHY WOULD YOUR LAST WORDS BE "I'VE LOVED YOU ALWAYS," YOU KNOW THAT'S JUST GONNA MAKE THEM SADDER

We would honestly rather Satine had actually been politically executed as part of the coup, at least that way her death would be at least partly about her political work and not ONE HUNDRED percent about making Obi-Wan sad!

...meanwhile, a slightly awkward moment for us when we decided early on that the former terrorist who switched sides and helped to break Satine out of prison was her ex-girlfriend, and she then turned out to be her sister.

In other news, Savage Oppress was murdered by Palpatine, in accordance with the prophecy of 'had some cute brother bonding moments earlier in this arc.' Sorry, Savage, you too were doomed by narrative causality.

17. Sabotage

THE START OF THE LAST AHSOKA ARC. Ahsoka and Anakin investigate a terrorist bombing at the temple, with the help of a Detective Robot who appears only in this episode and then never again. (We were a little sad that Detective Robot did not reappear to help solve the case in the conclusion.)

18. The Jedi Who Knew Too Much

lol, I didn't know the episode titles while we were watching, but IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING IF WE WERE GOING FULL NOIR -

Anyway, Ahsoka and Anakin catch the saboteur, but then Ahsoka is framed for her murder, and then the murder of a whole bunch of clones in the escape attempt (;_;), and then goes on the run to prove her innocence!

...I'm still not actually sure this was a great idea despite the fact that we're led to think it is, and Anakin DEFINITELY doesn't think it's a great idea, but it's also one hundred percent what Anakin would do in that situation so he is probably not the correct person to convince Ahsoka that it's not a great idea...

19. To Catch a Jedi

AHSOKA AND VENTRESS TEAM UP TO CLEAR AHSOKA'S NAME IS THE ONLY THING I'VE EVER WANTED.

20. The Wrong Jedi

While Ahsoka faces charges, it's Anakin's turn to team up with Ventress and discover that Ahsoka's pal Barriss Offee is the real extremist terrorist behind the attacks.

One of the spoilers that I knew going into this Clone Wars watch to begin with was that Ahsoka eventually leaves the Jedi order.

innerbrat did NOT know this.

THE JEDI COUNCIL: Ahsoka, we're so sorry, welcome back to the Jedi order
DEBI, IN THE TONES OF ONE EXPECTING NO SUCH THING: Okay, but what if she just didn't go? What if she just turned on her heel right now?
BECCA: what ... if ..... haha! um

That said ... this arc is one of the few times that I've been sad that Clone Wars is an anthology show rather than a serialized show, because Barriss Offee could have made a lot more sense as a slow build to disillusionment rather than WHAM, here's Ahsoka's padawan friend, SHE'S A TERRORIST NOW. I'm sad we didn't get to see that; I'm sad we didn't get a final confrontation scene between Ahsoka and Barriss to provide closure on why Barriss decided to frame Ahsoka, of all people, for the murder, which has NOTHING to do with extremism; and, uh, I'm sad that the Jedi with Muslim-coded costuming turns out to be an extremist who bombs temples. That's a little unfortunate.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

musesfool

I am still SO ANGRY about Satine being fridged, and it's not like Obi-Wan doesn't already HAVE ENOUGH SADNESS. I mean. If it were in service of a character who didn't know tragedy, I'd still be angry on Satine's behalf, but now I'm angry for both of them. JUST LET OBI-WAN HAVE SOMETHING NICE BEFORE HIS EXILE IN THE DESERT.

Ahem.

I too wish we'd gotten more of Barriss and some closure on the Ahsoka/Barriss relationship. Especially once Ahsoka discovers that Barriss wasn't really wrong about the Jedi, though her methods were terrible.

I feel like this idea that she (like Krell) fell to the Dark Side is too simplistic for what is actually going on there? But they never get any deeper into it.

(I also always wonder if Barriss got scooped up by Palpatine and if she and Vader now have a really angry antagonist relationship that they pretend is about ~Dark Side~ rivalry but is really that Anakin is still livid about what happened with Ahsoka, and Barriss thinks he was a terrible Jedi for being so attached, but since they are no longer supposed to be who they once were, they jsut sort of glower at each other in inexpressible frustration (I can't put my finger on the word I mean here, so that'll have to do)).

From:

skygiants

The thing that frustrates me about Barriss is that we're meant to believe that Barriss has legitimate points about the Jedi, but, like, you can be a violent extremist without ALSO deliberately framing your friend who trusts you for murder? Those are super different things with very different self-justifications, and I need an explanation for the second thing that we never got!

(Also, where was Luminara for this entire arc???)

...but I would a hundred percent read fic about Evil Barriss and Vader just being really judgy at each other through the entirety of the Imperial era.

From:

musesfool

Also, where was Luminara for this entire arc?

That's what I want to know! And also, I'm sad we never got any interaction between Ahsoka and Obi-Wan before she left. Like, I totally get that it had to be her and Anakin because it's the parallels - Ahsoka does what Anakin can't, she walks away and let's go - but Obi-Wan is basically her other guardian and as far as she knows, he didn't do a damn thing to keep her from being thrown to the wolves.

but I would a hundred percent read fic about Evil Barriss and Vader just being really judgy at each other through the entirety of the Imperial era.

Right? I feel like that would be amazing and hilarious. (see also, Vader and Tarkin, whose relationship becomes so much more interesting because of this show and also the recent comics.)

As I said below, I think the frame job was unplanned but once Barriss started down that path, she couldn't make herself turn back, even to save her friend.

From:

skygiants

YES, I also spent quite a lot of this arc being like "WHERE IS OBI-WAN?"

(To which Debi said, "Compassionate leave, probably," which, okay, yes, fine, I guess Satine DID just die like YESTERDAY, but also I bet the Jedi are extremely stingy about that kind of thing, especially when the person who died is your SECRET ex.)

From:

tigerlily

I really think Barriss and Anakin are meant to be paralleled, as Barris is sort of a foreshadowing of what Anakin will do to Ahsoka, and to the Jedi in general. I'd love to see fic where that's an underlying tension between them.

(I have been prompting the three of them as a threesome because of this in my latest fic exchanges. Maybe one day I'll be confident and tough enough to just write it myself.)

From:

littlestclouds

I haven't gotten to S5 yet though I've been long spoiled on Barriss' arc and... I need this story now.

From:

tigerlily

:DDDDDD

/takes note to remember for later encouragement-boosting purposes

From:

skygiants

Yeah, I agree, but I think they needed more time with Barriss to do it justice -- time, and not to be trying to have their cake and eat it too by having Barriss' involvement be a Dramatic Reveal in the last episode of the arc, which gives no real opportunity to understand her underlying motivations. But that's for sure what fanfic is for!

From:

musesfool

Oh, they are absolutely parallels - Barriss and Anakin here, Ahsoka and Anakin when Ahsoka walks away, Ventress and Anakin when Ventress turns away from the Dark Side... but yeah, I'd love to read the story where Vader and Inquisitor Barriss have to work together and they're just incredibly petty and bitchy to each other the whole time. I imagine Vader ends up killing her, in the end, but refuses to allow himself the satisfaction that it's revenge for Ahsoka, given what he does to her in Rebels.

From:

sovay

I feel like this idea that she (like Krell) fell to the Dark Side is too simplistic for what is actually going on there? But they never get any deeper into it.

Has the show executed believable turns to the Dark Side? I feel like one of the recurring issuse with the Star Wars universe is that while it is crucial to the mythos that people can and do switch sides, it's not necessarily intuitive or coherent why or how it works beyond narrative necessity (see: the whole prequel trilogy).

From:

skygiants

Ironically, I would say that the only really believable turn towards the dark side in the Clone Wars show is ... Anakin himself? Like, unlike the films, the show does do a pretty good job showing how the things that seem like Anakin's strengths are also weaknesses and how a long, corrupt war is eroding his moral judgment and affecting his personal ideology. But that's because it gets like 100 episodes to do it in and everybody else has, like, five.

From:

sovay

But that's because it gets like 100 episodes to do it in and everybody else has, like, five.

Look, I'm glad it worked. If they had to get it right with someone in the series, Anakin was probably it. I'm just sorry no one else got enough attention and time.

From:

musesfool

I think via backstory, they do a pretty good job with Asajj Ventress (see icon), who was a slave who became a jedi padawan and lost her master (or maybe I've got that backwards and she was sold into slavery after her Jedi master died? It's been a while, but there are definite parallels to Anakin), and turned to the dark side from grief? I think is how it plays out in brief flashbacks, but otherwise, no, they don't explain it. Though her people also seem to have a dark side Force tradition of their own that's never explained. Amazingly, she ends up walking away from the dark side, so she's

As

skygiants says below, they do a much better job with Anakin, showing how the war is wearing him down - like, he makes some terrible decisions regardless, but the war makes them seem necessary, and also Palpatine is removing his support systems while telling him that his worst impulses are correct and what needs to be done to win, etc. Which makes sense because he's the central figure of the prequel era stories.

From:

silverblade219

I think the amnesiac clone comes back in an episode of Star Wars Rebels

From:

skygiants

Oh awesome, I'm ALREADY very excited for the faint spoilers of clone stuff I know happens in Rebels (Rex!) and will be more excited yet!

From:

tigerlily

Hello! I'm--not exactly new to DW, more one of those people who drifted away. I actually found your blog a couple of months ago when looking for Ahsoka content here, but dithered about just plopping in until I just didn't. But nothing ventured, nothing gained!

I love this arc for Ahsoka but it is definitely true that seeing more of her and Barriss and of Barriss' fall, would have improved it. The show did a great job I think with having Anakin and Ahsoka at its center, but not as great as it could've been had they honed in on that more--and thus given more focus to the arcs and stories that supported it. We have Barriss, Ahsoka's friend, becoming disillusioned with the Jedi, enough to turn to the Dark Side as part of her attempt to prove they already have; it has some similarity to Anakin's later disillusionment and fall, including his betrayal of his Jedi friends and the murder of innocents who trusted him. And they both shake up Ahsoka's world permanently. There's so much they could've done with that, if they'd thought to make the most of it instead of keeping to their format.

(Mostly--I feel the show gets better about its story as it goes on, dropping the any which way episode order in favor of the chronological one halfway through. I think it's significant that this switch happened with Ahsoka's death and resurrection, and Asajj's more figurative one preceding it, as if this is when the show began to know itself and what it needed to do. Now if only it had followed up on that with more Ahsoka & Barriss and Ahsoka & Asajj, instead of writing them off how they did and cutting off the potential.)

This was in an interview iirc (or maybe a featurette?), but Filoni said the plan was to kill Barriss, until he changed it because there was potential in her living and Ahsoka meeting her again. It's a shame this never happened, and I'm not sure if it ever will. Though I hope otherwise.

Re: the Muslim coding: yes; this is one of those things where the sci-fi worldbuilding of the prequel era falls down. They rely on nabbing worldbuilding details from other cultures, particularly with their aliens (though not just them, what with Padmé, Naboo in general, and the whole Jedi "inspired by Zen Buddhism thing") and then let the unfortunate implications roll. I'm not sure the Muslim-coding didn't pave the way, in their minds, to thinking of this plot. :/

Sorry if this tl;dr. Can't wait until the new episodes air next year! More Ahsoka!

From:

skygiants

Hello and welcome! :D No need to apologize for tl;dr, I am always up for more Clone Wars discussion!

Yeah, I think the arc would have been improved immeasurably if we'd gotten even one just one more Barriss set of Barris episodes in between her introductory segment and the Wrong Jedi -- something to actually show us her ideology starting to shift, and why, and give us more basis for her understanding of the corruption of the Jedi ideology. It's an amazing arc for Ahsoka, but it would have so much more heft behind it if Barriss got to be a real and fleshed-out person.

(I would happily watch an entire show about Ahsoka and Barriss and Asajj circling around and collding with each other as they try and figure out next steps after losing their respective orders and paths. Or at least a feature-length film.)

I would not be surprised either if that's where the plot idea for Barriss came from, consciously or unconsciously. :/

From:

ceitfianna

The droid arc is so weird but the amnesiac clone is an amazing character. I love Satine having the power of always the right outfits and oh ow, the Ahsoka arc.

And how do I still not have SW icons, need to fix that.

Edited Date: 2018-12-08 10:17 pm (UTC)

From:

skygiants

I finally got round to making one myself today for this post! NOW I'M READY FOR WHEN S7 AIRS.

From:

aberration

I was so bored during really the entire droid arc, but I remember being particularly INCENSED about the whole amnesiac clone and that this would have him sacrifice himself for something he's NOT A PART OF and DOESN'T REMEMBER. That shouldn't be on him!!! whatever.

And yeah, I think I deliberately put off watching this Mandalore conclusion arc because I knew it was going to be this Obi-wan manpain bs, and it was exactly as much bs as I expected it to be. I'm actually for the idea that killing Maul at the end of Phantom Menace was kind of dumb, and I like how he's shown up to an extent, but ugh I hate this. If honestly a lot because it's just so unoriginal and uninteresting.

And I actually think this final Ahsoka arc was the first full arc of Clone Wars episodes I watched. I do think for Ahsoka's disillusionment with the Jedi it's a great arc, but like all of Clone Wars's attempts toward 'Actually The Jedi Are Being Kind of Bad' it really fails to commit to it. Because Barriss is kind of right??? But obviously murdering people and then framing someone else (which is pretty cowardly) is bad, and it's hard to see how it related to her argument that the Jedi were complicit in the nature of the war. No one's going to get your message that way! That's never addressed, because Barriss is really just a quick way to make the real culprit someone we already know and who's not Ahsoka.

But then when I watched this in context I did simultaneously feel very glad Ahsoka left the Jedi while extremely sad that she left Anakin. As in I had emotional feelings about Anakin. So... good job on that, show.

From:

skygiants

IT MADE ME SO ANGRY. They should have just let him stay working at the diner! It wasn't a great job but it was better than this!

(Debi spent about half that episode thinking that the terrible diner owner was deliberately trying to protect the amnesiac clone from going back to the war, which was not an impression I ever got, but would have been a more interesting story.)

Yeah, I kind of like New Maul to an extent as a character? and an interesting Dark Side villain who's a bit different from the standard mold, but I did not think this use of him was, uh, good.

Anyway when we hit the end of Ahsoka's arc I turned to Debi and was like "we could have had a proper Barriss setup instead of the entire droid arc and nobody would have missed it." They really do seem to keep stepping towards the "Here's The Problems With The Jedi" and then dancing away, don't they? It was the same with Krell -- 'actually he was evil all along,' rather than committing to 'here's a systemic problem.' But I also had Some Feelings about Ahsoka leaving, and about Anakin's sadness and frustration throughout that whole arc, so like, I got there. I Also Have Feelings About Anakin Now, ARE YOU HAPPY, CLONE WARS.

(Also I still don't get, if you're going to frame ANYONE, framing your actual friend who's still just a padawan and probably one of the least complicit! What was the motivation there?)

From:

musesfool

I Also Have Feelings About Anakin Now, ARE YOU HAPPY, CLONE WARS.

It happened to me, so now I want everyone down in the trash fire with me. *g*

Also I still don't get, if you're going to frame ANYONE, framing your actual friend who's still just a padawan and probably one of the least complicit! What was the motivation there?

I think that it wasn't the plan but when given the opportunity, Barriss took the quick/easy route - i.e., that's the Dark Side? So she didn't originally intend to frame Ahsoka - Ahsoka hadn't even been on Coruscant and had actually been brought back to investigate with Anakin so it made no sense to accuse her! - but once the opportunity presented itself (maybe Barriss was already on her way to murder the witness when Ahsoka arrived?) she took it, and because she'd succumbed, she was never going to confess to clear Ahsoka's name, because the Dark Side is inherently selfish? Idk.

From:

skygiants

I was pretty sure it was at least somewhat planned, because the witness says that the person she was working with (Barriss) told her to call Ahsoka to visit her if she was in trouble -- I read that as Barriss working to set up Ahsoka as soon as she knew Ahsoka would be around to be accused, because I can't think of any other reason Barriss would tell the witness to call Ahsoka to help if she was already planning on killing her. So between the elaborate setup, and the whole helping-her-break-out-and-look-extremely-guilty-in-the-process thing, Barriss had to go to quite a lot of effort to make her look Extra Guilty and that's the part I really don't understand.

From:

musesfool

because the witness says that the person she was working with (Barriss) told her to call Ahsoka to visit her if she was in trouble -- I read that as Barriss working to set up Ahsoka as soon as she knew Ahsoka would be around to be accused, because I can't think of any other reason Barriss would tell the witness to call Ahsoka to help if she was already planning on killing her.

It's been a while since I've watched these episodes - I forgot about that and was so sure I'd figured out what was going on with Barriss there. Sigh.

From:

skygiants

Your version makes more sense than what actually happened!

From:

jothra

I warned you that you'd catch having feelings about Anakin! And that you'd be mad about it!

From:

skygiants

YOU DID AND YOU WERE CORRECT ON ALL COUNTS. >:(

From:

schneefink

Yes it would have been great if Barriss' motivations had been explored more, and why she went to that extreme. But it felt in line with other things they did - they are often thiiis close to examining that they there are underlying systemic problems and sometimes even point them out but always back away from talking about what it means. (At least that was my impression from the episodes I watched.)

I did not even watch that episode with Satine and am happy ignoring it.

Edited (Really had to use my Ahsoka icon here.) Date: 2018-12-09 12:33 pm (UTC)

From:

skygiants

Yeah, I'm not quite sure whether it was editorial fiat keeping them teetering on that edge without ever making the jump, or the anthology format, or what -- it is frustrating, as much as I enjoy the show, because it gets so close to actually digging into the underlying issues and NEVER MAKES IT THERE.