The Dark Side (permanent post)

[annathecrow]

Welcome to the Dark Side. This post’s comment section is dedicated to all the angry, inflammatory, defamatory and otherwise outright negative things you might want to express. Not that saying negative things isn’t allowed in the weekly chat corners, but… you know how you sometimes just Have Thoughts about something, and you don’t feel like you can talk about it because everyone around you seems to love it? Those go here.

 

Some rules:

• No personal attacks.
• If you don’t want people replying to you, mention it in the comment.
• Follow the general comm rules.
• …that’s it, I think.

 

Comments

[annathecrow]

Han, Leia, Luke and parenting:

Good points. I haven't realized when Ben was supposed to have been born - if that's the case, it does make the whole ST situation that much more believable.

Although, I do understand why people don't like the idea of Han/Leia being bad parents, or Luke a bad teacher. It's realistic, yeah, but it's not something they want to watch. I'm like this with characters I really love as well - the only reason why I don't mind it in ST is because I'm not on that level with the OT trio. The role of fiction, wish-fulfilment, etc etc... I sense an interesting thought hiding in here about the need of a reader vs realism vs ideas what makes for a good story, but I don't have the brainspace to formulate it right now. *notes it for later*

Also, thanks for reading material: I've looked up the Four Horsemen and I've saved the positive disintegration to read later - I've read a few paragraphs from the intro and the outlined concepts are very intriguing.

Ben/Rey:

Thank you for the insight into your reasons for liking this ship. I consciously avoid it as much as I can, but the unintended consequence of that is that I have no idea why people ship it, aside from it being canon.

As for how people talk about it online... well. I have been openly and vocally bitter about it myself. It's really hard not to be, when it's something this emotionally charged for me. I do want to try harder to keep it to spaces where it belongs, though - my own blog, where it's only us haters, etc. Maybe having a specific fan in mind might help me reconsider before I spill my vitriol in shared spaces :)

The comm:

I'm glad to hear that the comm works for you! So far it's been going well, and I'll do my best for that to continue. I'm still nervous, we haven't really had any big storms yet - this thread is probably the closest I've seen to a conflict of opinions - but I do hope. (This year I've seen a beloved event go down in flames for completely baffling reasons. Fandom-done-wrong is a scary place.)

[fleurviolette]

Yeah, that’s probably why I’m still highly critical of the disney sequels on how the original characters were written ooc, it didn’t make any sense. Plus, the Disney ST was a copy + paste of the OT but written poorly.
It’s just weird that we didn’t see the trio reunited, which was a huge missed opportunity.

Side note: I have a friend who has delved more into the EU, and noted that some authors have written Luke as a bad mentor, that negates his core character from the original trilogy, which I found shocking. I’m not going to read those stories. Now if only I had that same luxury with TLJ, like if I had found out that Luke was horribly treated in that story, I wouldn’t have watched it.

I sense an interesting thought hiding in here about the need of a reader vs realism vs ideas what makes for a good story

Oh definitely, some like the realism, and some read fiction to escape from the realism, among other things. Also add in there ideas that would make profit, because that would be another great discussion lol

[sathari]

Thank you again so much for your thoughtful replies, and this comm in general!

Han, Luke, Leia, and parenting:

It's kind of awesome the point you made about people's attachment to characters and how it affects what they want to see them do--- this goes right back to the point you made in your first comment here about the whole "Babies ever after" thing. Because it's... actually kind of wish-fulfillment for me personally to see Luke, Han and Leia, who are characters I grew up loving, be bad at parenting and teaching! I'm positively giddy at a story where those aren't "just basic adulthood"/ entry-level humaning skills, and how people who can do certain things really well can't do other things that are, arguably, very different skillsets well. And it does go back to my frustration with the "Babies ever after"/ "rocks fall, everyone breeds" trope and for that matter the times people try to make Life imitate Art about it.

And on the linked/referenced material: Oh, no, I think I just offered up a real-time example of what I mean about Luke's teaching skills in my own behavior, because that positive-disintegration link is probably not the best introductory piece to the concept in existence! :{ (Comprehensive and arguably authoritative, probably; intro to concept, ah, not so much.) This or this might be better as an introduction.

Ben/Rey:

Thanks for your willingness to hear me out! And, on the flip side, when I saw the direction the fandom was going with it, I probably should have done more to "be the change I wish to see in fandom" and written more femdom/malesub fic and meta for the pairing in places other people could see it, instead of slinking off in resignation as ~traditional gender roles~ reared their ugly head regardless of what I at least was seeing on the screen. And on the flip side, I could totally get behind platonic bromance Ben/Rey stories--- I mean, I generally write him as being bromantic with Phasma and/or Rose, so "Ben has one or more women BFFs" is absolutely a thing I can see. (And on yet another flip side, it took until TROS for me to see Finn and Rey's relationship as anything but a hot mess in which he treats her as an object to be dragged around and "saved" whether or not she actually needs it and she has to lie to him about her awesomeness. I get why anyone would want to see an interracial couple succeed, but to me that means the writers need to up their game as to how they put that on the screen. In contrast, I love Finn and Rose, because they seem to be pretty able to treat each other pretty well as equals... and, okay, maybe my love for femdom/malesub is showing, because if anyone's doing the "grab and drag and save your partner" thing more, it's definitely Rose. And the two of them and Poe together show the potential for awesome brainstorming dynamics! On which note, I hated Rose's sidelining in TROS with a passion.)

The comm:

Seriously, I'm impressed with what you've made here so far. And, oh, yeah, when fandom goes wrong, it can go very, very wrong.

[fleurviolette]

We definitely have different definitions of wish fulfillment lol

Initially I shipped Finnrey after watching TFA. I liked the fire forged friends potentially turning into a romance based on their friendship later on. One of the biggest mistakes in TLJ was separating the two. And in TROP (lol rise of Palpatine) definitely Finn was sidelined while Rey turned into all the Jedi for some reason. That last movie was an ooc mess, (Poe being retconned to a spice dealer from being the pilot and son of Rebel veterans was pretty racist.) even tho I liked the parts that retconned TLJ regarding Luke.

Yeaaa I didn’t like R*ylo to begin with because I thought their dynamic was abusive and creepy from the start. It definitely did not help that a few obsessive shippers took it too far by harassing the actors and other fans on social media.

[sathari]

Yes, indeed--- I've been wanting even one story about how not everyone is going to be good at parenting, much less enjoy it, and except for one quasi-throwaway line by a minor character in a Richard North Patterson novel about how she loved her prospective children too much to inflict the kind of mother she'd be on them, nada. And then suddenly it is right there up on the screen in the fandom that's been the fandom of my heart for my whole life, practically, and I am just like, "There. There. Just because we like people or characters and just because they are epic at one thing does not make them good at this whole other skillset." (And then a whole chunk of fandom went and treated Ben like an Identified Patient. Sigh.)

Honestly, Finnrey trips a whole lot more of my personal cues for both racism and sexism than anything involving Ben and Rey.

And on the subject of Ben and Rey, do you mind if I ask what you think Anakin's relationship with his surviving family would have been like if he'd lived after ROTJ? Because... for me, I think that really did influence a lot of how I think about Ben and Rey, and the assumptions I went into the ST trilogy with about how relationships in the series work. I mean, I personally don't think that any post-ROTJ Skywalker family dinners where redeemed!Anakin was present would involve blaster shots, torture, and dismemberment (like the one they had at Bespin did) so I approached Ben and Rey with the same attitude--- not least because he's arguably less worse to her than his grandfather was to Luke, Han, and Leia--- and he'd been explicitly set up as wanting to follow his grandfather's legacy, which not only includes the redemption arc but turning your cape for the woman you love, it's just that Ben's turn would be in the other direction. So when I see fans in general assuming that Ben's behavior to Rey wouldn't change with a redemption arc, I... just wonder what they thought a post-ROTJ Anakin's relationship with his family would be like?

[fleurviolette]

Just because we like people or characters and just because they are epic at one thing does not make them good at this whole other skillset.

I agree with that statement. People have skills and flaws, and so will characters. With that said, people will idealize their favorite characters regardless of those flaws, because it’s fiction. Characters mean a lot in different ways to many different people, if that makes sense. Personally, I’d rather see Leia able to balance her work and her family life well. Also, I like to see Luke balance his efforts to rebuild the Jedi without repeating the mistakes of the old order, and being happy with Mara Jade, thus with Ben Skywalker along the way. (Yeah and in that timeline, Ben will become an older brother to his younger siblings lol)

Regarding Finnrey, I initially liked the ship before TLJ derailed my fannish interest in Star Wars. I’ll just say that I disagree with your statement, and leave it at that.

I have not thought of Disney Sequels!Ben at all, or Rey. Definitely not them together. (This convo is probably the most I’ve ever talked about him lol) I mainly recognize “Ben” Kenobi from the original saga, and Ben Skywalker from the classic Expanded Universe.

I imagine Leia has an understandably difficult time accepting or forgiving Anakin for what he did to her as Darth Vader, among other things, but gradually, she at least acknowledges him as her father, which eventually leads to letting go of her anger to forgive him. Leia of course has a compassionate heart like Luke, she’s set up more of a realist with a strong exterior. (Meanwhile, Luke shows his compassion more, he’s more like Padme in that sense.)

Now, it would be very interesting if Padme survived.