Chat corner 27: Queen

[annathecrow]

Welcome to this week’s chat corner!

Optional prompt

The topic for this week is “Queen’s Shadow, Queen’s Peril and Queen’s Hope”, the three books about Padmé Amidala by E. K. Johnston. (Not to confuse anyone, the last book hasn’t been published yet.)

 

Comments

[annathecrow]

tiered canon

I see what you mean. Hm, that's a thorny one, because some of us simply don't treat canon as a hard-and-fast rule. I guess people will warn about that in tags ("timeline what timeline", "Ignores XY", various jokes about canon), but not consistently...

I sometimes just decide not to use a piece of canon because it doesn't fit the story. Example: According to TCW (S04E11), Shmi and Anakin were sold to slavery after Anakin has been born. I have one fic that follows that, but another that doesn't because I wanted to write about a second-gen slave Shmi.

I don't remember if I've ever used Legends over TCW, but I would if it worked. *shrugs*

Quinlan Vos and his relationship with Obi-Wan

They do interact in Legends! In the Star Wars comics, they meet during the Stark Hyperspace War (issues 36 - 41, although I don't recommend it, that arc is boring as hell). It's just not... IDK, not fanfic-inspiring, at least to me. :D

fanon telephone

Ha, yes, absolutely! I have a few things that I used in fic, and then found out aren't actually canon. Fandom osmosis in action. You just can't double-check everything! Especially in SW - ye gads, is this canon a mess...

[extrapenguin]

tiered canon

My philosophy here is that since this is a take Lucasfilm took, if I default to the "top-level" worldbuilding and characterization takes, I'm less likely to accidentally introduce worldbuilding etc inconsistencies. (And some of the EU stuff had, uh, very bad takes on the Jedi I am 0% interested in.) If I want to intentionally substitute in another piece, then that's something I'll have thought about, basically? So it's a way of figuring out a default that has the least mismatch.

According to TCW (S04E11), Shmi and Anakin were sold to slavery after Anakin has been born.
WHAT. I don't remember that at all! I think a rewatch is in order...

(Though that does make sense considering that Anakin says that they only came to Tatooine when he was 3, all the way back in TPM. And all of everyone seems to have forgotten that too, lol.)

[annathecrow]

Anakin and Shmi trivia

I'm not surprised nobody in fandom uses it, it's extremely "blink and you miss it"! Anakin goes a bit off the rails when he learns that the Separatist General du jour is a Zygerrian, and then:

Ahsoka: "Why is he so upset?"

Obi-Wan: "Anakin has never talked about his past, has he."

Ahsoka: "Only to tell me he won't talk about it."

Obi-Wan: "As a child, Anakin and his mother was sold to slavery by the Hutts."

So, yeah! If you want to play by TCW canon, this is the Word of God.

Although, it's kind of... I still kind of suspect it's an accident born out of misremembering the movie. In TPM, Anakin says they were sold to Gardulla the Hutt, not by a Hutt. Why specify that it was the Hutts?

[extrapenguin]

Yeah, that's ... a bit weirdly phrased. Though given that it's Obi-Wan saying it, I guess you could paper it over by saying Obi-Wan got slightly the wrong idea from 9-year-old Anakin explaining it? I don't think Qui-Gon had the chance to tell him anything, and he doesn't seem to have met Shmi...