I don’t know why
Apr. 28th, 2017 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
athousanderrorsvia http://ift.tt/2oGMwP1:
leupagus:
leupagus:
skyywalkerfen:
SW fandom has its collective panties in a wad now about the “possibility” that Luke Skywalker will die.
::gasp!::
He’s already dead, people. He’s been dead since Darth Abrams forced Han Solo to utter the words “he just walked away.”
It’s called “character assassination.” Look it up if you don’t understand the term.
I love and adore Mark Hamill, and I’m sure he did the best with the shit deal he got. But whatever appears on-screen in Ep8?
Is not Luke Skywalker.
Well, okay. Since you’re so worried about my panties, I’ll debunk this in the five spare minutes I’ve got today.
First off, Han isn’t always a reliable narrator, and he’s talking to some random kids he was about to dump on the nearest planet five minutes ago; there’s no guarantee that what he says Luke did was actually what Luke did. I don’t think Han lied (although God knows he’s good at it), I just think he oversimplified and skipped a looot of information in his conversation with Rey and Finn. I mean, this is the same dude that neglected to add “oh and the kid that slaughtered all of Luke’s students was my son, bee tee dubs.” Like, dude isn’t known for telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Second, Luke does dumb shit like running away from his responsibilities all the fucking time. He abandons the Rebellion to go get training; he then abandons his training to go help his friends; he then abandons the Rebellion again in order to rescue a guy who was frozen but in no immediate danger and risked not only his life (the last Jedi, remember), but the lives of the last royal member of Alderaan and one of the generals of the Rebellion. Luke is Not Good at thinking about the long-term consequences of his actions. I’m not saying he never had a good reason for doing this shit; rather I’m saying that it’s ridiculous to assume that he didn’t exile himself for a similarly “good reason.” Finding the First Jedi Temple might, in fact, turn out to be a hugely important and galaxy-altering mission; in which case him peacing out in order to find it is perfectly, if cringingly, in character.
Third, there’s no time frame on when Luke “up and disappeared;” we have a vague notion that it’s been more than a year but less than ten since Kyle Ben had his hissy-fit and slaughtered a whole bunch of people, but unless you expect every moviegoer to read Bloodline and the comics and everything that isn’t one of the movies, it’s still pretty unclear what exactly happened. It’s entirely possible that at the time Luke moonwalked outta there, the First Order wasn’t considered a huge threat and the galaxy wasn’t on quite the precipice that it is right now. Furthermore, we have no idea why he hasn’t come back; like I said, he may have had a very good reason that we’ll find out, but to assume that he just flounced out is premature to say the least.
Fourth, jedi renouncing the world is a pretty traditional pasttime. Yoda did it, Obi-Wan did it; to claim that Luke’s character has been assassinated because he took a self-imposed exile for a couple of years (with zero indication that it was to be permanent, unlike with Yoda or Obi-Wan) is ridiculous. Luke isn’t a saint, even if he is a savior; to make him out to be some perfect selfless creature with no weakness or capacity for selfishness is itself a form of character assassination. Even if he did just take a lil’ break after, you know, watching people being murdered by his own nephew in front of him, that doesn’t make him not-Luke. That makes him human. I just hope the Star Wars universe has therapists because goddamn.
I get the desire to impart Luke with a purity that the rest of the characters don’t have; he is the Hero after all, and he did a number of great things. But to allow heroes no capacity for failure is doing them a disservice. I keep thinking of Frodo’s last-minute betrayal in “The Return of the King,” and how not even Sam can save him; nothing saves Frodo except the extermination of the evil itself. But Frodo is no less the hero of that story, no less courageous and resourceful and worthy of emulation. His character is not assassinated because he does something wrong; it’s given complexity and realism, showing us the readers that even the best of us can fall.
So when Luke comes back in “The Last Jedi,” it will be him, and his actions will either redeem his exile or give reasons for it, and either way I am looking forward to the movie. If you’re not, that’s cool, but your reasons for hating Abrams are pretty fuckin’ thin.
Was your point that it’s really cool to compare Jewish people to Space Nazis because you disagree with creative decisions they made - decisions that don’t affect you personally at all?
(Your picture was not posted)
leupagus:
leupagus:
skyywalkerfen:
SW fandom has its collective panties in a wad now about the “possibility” that Luke Skywalker will die.
::gasp!::
He’s already dead, people. He’s been dead since Darth Abrams forced Han Solo to utter the words “he just walked away.”
It’s called “character assassination.” Look it up if you don’t understand the term.
I love and adore Mark Hamill, and I’m sure he did the best with the shit deal he got. But whatever appears on-screen in Ep8?
Is not Luke Skywalker.
Well, okay. Since you’re so worried about my panties, I’ll debunk this in the five spare minutes I’ve got today.
First off, Han isn’t always a reliable narrator, and he’s talking to some random kids he was about to dump on the nearest planet five minutes ago; there’s no guarantee that what he says Luke did was actually what Luke did. I don’t think Han lied (although God knows he’s good at it), I just think he oversimplified and skipped a looot of information in his conversation with Rey and Finn. I mean, this is the same dude that neglected to add “oh and the kid that slaughtered all of Luke’s students was my son, bee tee dubs.” Like, dude isn’t known for telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Second, Luke does dumb shit like running away from his responsibilities all the fucking time. He abandons the Rebellion to go get training; he then abandons his training to go help his friends; he then abandons the Rebellion again in order to rescue a guy who was frozen but in no immediate danger and risked not only his life (the last Jedi, remember), but the lives of the last royal member of Alderaan and one of the generals of the Rebellion. Luke is Not Good at thinking about the long-term consequences of his actions. I’m not saying he never had a good reason for doing this shit; rather I’m saying that it’s ridiculous to assume that he didn’t exile himself for a similarly “good reason.” Finding the First Jedi Temple might, in fact, turn out to be a hugely important and galaxy-altering mission; in which case him peacing out in order to find it is perfectly, if cringingly, in character.
Third, there’s no time frame on when Luke “up and disappeared;” we have a vague notion that it’s been more than a year but less than ten since Kyle Ben had his hissy-fit and slaughtered a whole bunch of people, but unless you expect every moviegoer to read Bloodline and the comics and everything that isn’t one of the movies, it’s still pretty unclear what exactly happened. It’s entirely possible that at the time Luke moonwalked outta there, the First Order wasn’t considered a huge threat and the galaxy wasn’t on quite the precipice that it is right now. Furthermore, we have no idea why he hasn’t come back; like I said, he may have had a very good reason that we’ll find out, but to assume that he just flounced out is premature to say the least.
Fourth, jedi renouncing the world is a pretty traditional pasttime. Yoda did it, Obi-Wan did it; to claim that Luke’s character has been assassinated because he took a self-imposed exile for a couple of years (with zero indication that it was to be permanent, unlike with Yoda or Obi-Wan) is ridiculous. Luke isn’t a saint, even if he is a savior; to make him out to be some perfect selfless creature with no weakness or capacity for selfishness is itself a form of character assassination. Even if he did just take a lil’ break after, you know, watching people being murdered by his own nephew in front of him, that doesn’t make him not-Luke. That makes him human. I just hope the Star Wars universe has therapists because goddamn.
I get the desire to impart Luke with a purity that the rest of the characters don’t have; he is the Hero after all, and he did a number of great things. But to allow heroes no capacity for failure is doing them a disservice. I keep thinking of Frodo’s last-minute betrayal in “The Return of the King,” and how not even Sam can save him; nothing saves Frodo except the extermination of the evil itself. But Frodo is no less the hero of that story, no less courageous and resourceful and worthy of emulation. His character is not assassinated because he does something wrong; it’s given complexity and realism, showing us the readers that even the best of us can fall.
So when Luke comes back in “The Last Jedi,” it will be him, and his actions will either redeem his exile or give reasons for it, and either way I am looking forward to the movie. If you’re not, that’s cool, but your reasons for hating Abrams are pretty fuckin’ thin.
Was your point that it’s really cool to compare Jewish people to Space Nazis because you disagree with creative decisions they made - decisions that don’t affect you personally at all?
(Your picture was not posted)
