Star Wars: most tragic thing in the entire goddamn universe, counting Harry Potter

[bedlamsbard]

I have mentioned before that Star Wars breaks my fucking heart, right?

*weeps*

This is probably why I spend so much time trying to make it All Better in my own fucked up Bedlam kind of way, which basically consists of making the galaxy a Very Very Dark Place. Not that that's not, oh, let me think about it, canon. But at least Anakin isn't evil! He has, however, finally come to the place where he realizes he really kind of sucks at being a Jedi -- which is ironic, because by the time he reaches that place, there are no Jedi anymore. The Order has been destroyed. On the bright side, he wasn't the one who did it.

I am, of course, speaking of the Anakin in What Is Lost. I'm kind of hoping to get back to him -- I've been writing some more of him in the sequel which has no title. The untitled sequel has a little more Obi-Wan in it, though, but I'm not sure how that's going to go. If I go for it, it'll deal more with the larger repercussions the lack of Anakin going evil had on the Star Wars 'verse (which is to say: Padme, the twins, Palpatine, Darth Cidal -- his identity! Revealed! The horror!).

And there's the other SW AU I'm dying to write, "The Most Dangerous Man in the Galaxy." Which is a crossover. Sort of. Involving time travel. Er, fine, I'll be explicit: it's what happens when the Obi-Wan and Anakin of early RotS (like, on the Invisible Hand kicking Dooku's butt early) end up on Hoth in ESB. Yes. Because there's so little intersection between the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy, and it kind of breaks my heart that there isn't anymore, because there should be. There seems to be a lack of taking into account the fact that both stories take place in the same universe, that they're tied together -- I mean, to an extent you've obviously got Anakin turns into Vader and is redeemed by Luke, hurrah!, but beyonds that and a little bit of alas, Obi-Wan goes to Tatooine and spends twenty years going slowly insane among the sands, but it seems like there's a whole sub-genre of Star Wars fic that's barely been breached, and it makes me sad.

It's also one in the morning, so I think I'll just...go now.

Comments

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

I think if I were Obi-Wan, I'd go insane in the sands myself.

I think it's hard to consider writing about the aftermath of such a sweeping genocide. At that point, just after the prequels, the Jedi still linger as a reality. By twenty years later, the reality is gone and they're not even really legend anymore. It's much more removed. What people may remember is whatever the empire told them -- I'm sure there was plenty of propaganda, during at least the first half of those twenty years, that Jedi were crazy witch-people who were going to snatch your children, so turn them in if you find them.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I really, seriously completely believe that by the time the originals roll around, Obi-Wan had gone insane to one degree or another. I mean -- yeah, he was called a crazy old wizard by the people around him, but just think about it: everything he knows has been destroyed by the one person he's really loved, who's gone completely and who's become a twisted evil shadow of his former self, he's alone on the planet that his former partner and best friend hated most in the galaxy, he has to sit around and wait for a baby to grow up but he can't really do anything, and he's got his old Master's ghost showing up randomly. I'd go insane.

There is a TV series in the works (live action, by Lucas) that's supposed to cover the nineteen years between RotS and Last Hope, and I'm pretty sure there's at least some EU material in between, even though I think it's been uncanonized by Lucas to make way for his Grand Sweeping Idea. But fanfic-wise -- and I'm not even talking about the space in between -- there's a level where fans stop and go, "Um. Yeah. No." And one of the reasons I consider Star Wars a tragedy, even beyond Obi-Wan and Anakin's personal tragedy, is because so little is remembered from the days of the Republic by the Rebel Alliance. There is a very tiny bit of fic out there -- good fic -- and I can't find it, but it's really interesting to see the intersection, what remains and what doesn't. Like Luke and -- oh God, what's his name, Han's friend from Bespin -- finding Anakin and Obi-Wan action figures, or Leia trying to figure out if Padme Amidala, the woman who accidentally put Palpatine on the throne, was evil or just misguided, or Dooku being remembered as the forerunner of the Rebel Alliance, because he was the only one who could stand up to Palpatine. That sort of thing. And it breaks my heart on a level that I can't quite explain.

I need to find those fics again.

I like your icon.

[jedi-em.livejournal.com]

Continuing my invasion of your LJ (hope you don't mind, as I technically qualify as a stranger here):

I so so so agree with you about the 'intersection [of] what remains and what doesn't' from the old Republic to the Empire. I've also read a couple of compelling fics out there that delve into such (sadly) theoretical scenarios; for someone like me, who grew up on the original trilogy but finds the prequel trilogy more compelling overall, it was initially very jarring to reconcile the events of the OT as being even remotely predicated on the events of the PT (the rise of the Empire and the Rebel Alliance, to name two huge ones). Shit, it's still hard to reconcile, I suppose, given George Lucas' proclivities along the lines of 'Hey, I'll just totally contradict what I had Leia say in ROTJ about her real mother, and while I'm at it, I'll also make Obi-Wan interact significantly with Artoo and Threepio even though he totally acts like he's never seen them before come ANH, and OH YEAH, I'll also...' And those are just a couple of the small disparities. You see where I'm going with this, I hope. :) So many truly compelling aspects of the prequels don't carry over smoothly, if at all, into the OT, yet there remains a tragic (yes, I agree that it's heartbreaking) paucity of fanfic exploring these correlations. I'd definitely like to explore this in my own writing at some point (like, something beyond the tragi-romantic stuff I'm working on now).

Good CHRIST, I'm really wordy and long-winded when I want to be. o_O

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Oh, I totally don't mind. I will happily babble about Star Wars (or anything else that I have knowledge of, for that matter) to anyone who holds still long enough. (Including my AP English teacher. Uh. There goes my grade.)

May I recommend some fic? I don't know if you've read it or not, but the What Remains (http://bwinter.livejournal.com/86723.html) series, by bwinter (that's the first story).

It's not Lucas's inconsistencies that bother me so much, but the things that are just lost, and I can fanwank that into tragedy, tragedy, tragedy, because the Empire destroyed so many records (probably, including all the Jedi ones) and there's really a limited amount that the Rebels are going to know, so most of what happened in the PT is ancient history if that. I mean, no one knows by the time the OT rolls around -- and that's a lot of things. Hell, that Padme is Luke and Leia's mother, for one.

[jedi-em.livejournal.com]

Oooh, thanks for the rec! I will definitely check it out.

And yes, I get what you're saying about what has been lost in the rise of the Empire. As if the GFFA needs any more tragedy, no?

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

The real tragedy is that no one realizes what's been lost. They're not even aware of what's missing. *weeps*