Revenge of the Sith: The Opener

Caveat: I reference The Clone Wars twice in this episode. I don't do this because it's essential viewing, but if you're not really watching the prequels (or if it's been awhile) you may find yourself missing two important pieces of information.

1) Anakin and Padme's marriage does not go well. Anakin and Padme's dialogue throughout this movie is filled with the pain of a troubled relationship. Some may accidentally miss the inference.

2) Yoda had a life-changing experience that he refuses to tell Anakin about. He reveals his encounter with the Force with Obi-Wan at the end of the episode, but Anakin catches on to the fact that Yoda's holding back something and says as much. Since the information is revealed out of order it can be a bit confusing to put together.

Is this a rather frequent instance of a flaw in the prequels or is it Star Wars doing what it has always done and requiring you to do more than watch the movie while perusing your cell phone? A good case could be made for both thoughts. I tend towards the latter. It's not on the movie to spoon-feed you the plot. However, mileage may vary.

This is it. The beginning of the end for the Jedi, the Republic, and what masqueraded as peace. Anakin is a hypocrite, wanting to save troopers when he's got innocent blood on his hands. Obi-Wan, unaware of what his former apprentice has turned into, has finally settled into a more comfortable relationship with Anakin. This isn't something that's readily apparent without watching Attack of the Clones and The Revenge of the Sith back to back, mostly because it's all about the nonverbals. I was struck by how differently Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor moved around each other, which resolves the bad blood between them in AoC quite well. It's subtle, but powerful. There's a confidence in each other, now that they don't have to compete.

I love the fight between Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Dooku, because the whole direction thing just completely opens this fight up. From Obi-Wan saying "Sith are our speciality", Dooku descending in an act of arrogance, and  Anakin all of a sudden opening his anger up like the can of whoop-ass that it is, to Dooku being on his knees and realizing he's been set up, it's just fantastic. No one with the exception of Luke has ever stood down a charging Anakin; Dooku, whose style definitely favors finesse over force when all things are equal (as they finally are at the end of this fight) is least equipped to stand up to Anakin's belligerence.

I don't really have to explain Anakin killing Dooku. That's a story beat a long time coming. All the rage of losing his hand to Dooku and being shown up combined with his horrible trust in Palpatine clash and someone's head rolls on account of it.

We find out that Padme is pregnant. In my opinion this is one of the best scenes of the whole prequel trilogy and is everything that a scene in general should try to be. You just don't get better than this scene, where Padme is scared and Anakin is strong and happy and... I really wanted this scene to last... but even here there's trouble. "Things will be different, I promise", is not what you expect to hear when someone has just come home from a long military tour. Looks like the marriage isn't going well, is it?

Nope, it ain't.

This is the scene that seals the deal for me on my interpretation of Episode II. Anakin and Padme are not happy together. It's not that they can't work things out but both of them are so damaged as people that it would be an uphill battle, without the constant deployments and y'know, the marriage being a secret. The relationship is in serious trouble and, without the baby, I'm not sure they'd really have much of a chance of making it. The Clone Wars TV show fleshes this out more, revealing Anakin to be a jealous and irrational husband. Padme is no better, unwilling to meet him halfway to figure out what's going on as Anakin struggles to be a better man than he normally is. Them having a baby might appear to them to be a last ditch effort for their relationship, but that's proven to almost never work. They're not over quite yet, but soon they will be, one way or another.

Anakin's now starting to have nightmares of Padme dying in childbirth. It's strange that in Episode III they show the image of Padme in pain, when it doesn't show up for Anakin's mother in Episode II. In fact, come to think of it, most mystical experiences in the Force are not shown, but are alluded to. Actually experiencing the Force is usually an ethereal experience, filled with otherness  so incredible that Lucas doesn't show it on the screen, we're just left to realize that's what happened. So I don't think these are true visions. Something's up.

It all comes to a head when the Council accepts Anakin's seat on the council, but do not make him a master. Anakin is right to be insulted, his mastery of the Force is probably greater than most sitting in those chairs, Yoda excepted. But it gets worse with Obi-Wan informing Anakin that he was only put on the Council so he could spy on his friend, Palpatine. Anakin's outrage is real and justified, regardless of how unhealthy the relationship is. After all the snubs that the Council have leveled at him for the last 14 years and they pull this?

Nope. Screw that. The Council's just ended themselves and don't even know it yet.

It's out of sequence, I know, but we're going to end this post on Yoda's conversation with Anakin. I'm including the conversation itself because, as Star Wars has progressed, it's gotten more subtle and some scenes really need more to unpack them properly.

There is a lot going on in this scene. It's telling that Anakin chooses Yoda and not Obi-Wan, who had previously flubbed up with the visions of Anakin's mother. He considers Yoda an authority in the Force and needs to understand what's going on. Anakin went to the one person he actually thinks may be his equal, the one who may be able to help him understand what it is he's feeling. And, at first, Yoda may actually be the one to do it!

YODA and ANAKIN sit in Yoda 's room, deep in thought. 

YODA: Premonitions . . . premonitions . . . Hmmmm . . . these visions you have . . . 

ANAKIN: They are of pain, suffering, death . . . 

YODA: Yourself you speak of, or someone you know? 

ANAKIN: Someone . . . 

YODA: . . . close to you? 

ANAKIN: Yes. 

YODA: Careful you must be when sensing the future, Anakin. The fear of loss is a path to the dark side. 

ANAKIN: I won't let these visions come true, Master Yoda. 

 Let's take a moment to go through where Yoda is at. I don't like to reference anything other than the movies, but it's important to do so here. While Lucas was careful to show the Jedi mostly through Anakin's point of view that does mean that we sometimes miss the implication of what was meant. What we find out from The Clone Wars is that, by this point, Yoda has met Qui-Gon and gone through the trials to gain immortality. It's a long and complicated procedure, involving meeting mythical beings in the Force and letting go of your inner darkness and doing some stuff that truly defies description, so if you have Netflix I really suggest you go and watch it. Suffice to say Yoda has been through a life-changing series of events and if he was worth his salt he would say this and it would all be over.

YODA: Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them, do not. Miss them, do not. Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is. 

ANAKIN: What must I do, Master Yoda? 

YODA: Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose. 

It's entirely within Yoda's power to end Anakin's anxiety about death by assuring him that he has personally met Qui-Gon post-death and he can show him how to achieve this too, if only he be patient. But instead of relating to Anakin Yoda just basically tells him to shut up and get back in line. The fact that Yoda is not discussing what he discovered with the rest of the Jedi is ridiculous. And the thing is that, at the end of the movie, he does reveal his experiences to Obi-Wan and we realize what Yoda has done. I bring it up here merely so we can be on the same page as to how badly Yoda just dropped the ball.

And people tell me what a wise character Yoda is.

Appendix: I decided that I wanted to leave the post as it was but to add this note at the end. Throughout the entirety of the last scene we cover Yoda is from the left, which means that on some level he is in the right to say what he's saying. As much as it angers me on a personal level that Yoda withheld the information from Anakin the film, if I was to be consistent, says he was right to do what he did. The implication of the film is that Anakin, by refusing to be honest, is not worthy of the knowledge that Yoda holds. I'm generally on Anakin's side throughout the prequels, but here it becomes apparent that Anakin is already gone. Even with everything on the line he can't show his vulnerability to Yoda, who knows a lot more than he lets on.

Attack of the Clones: The Closer

Have I beat this into you yet? This is all wrong. Here, at death's door, Padme finally gets her feelings out. But it's from the right, which means it shouldn't have happened and it just... it all goes to hell from here, honestly. The Republic shows up, giving up its soul. Dooku gets away. There's really not a lot to comment on here, simply because the chickens have come to roost and the plot is done. All the important bits are done. Right?

Oh c'mon, I wrote a third part, obviously there's more.

The most important thing that's focused on at the end of Attack on the Clones is what the effects of it are on Anakin. While, on the one hand, he's willing to go with Obi-Wan to take on Dooku because it's what Padme would have wanted, it only goes that far. He hasn't developed anything with Obi-Wan and it shows when Obi-Wan, pointing out the obvious about facing Dooku, is ignored and the fight is lost because of it.

Oh, right, more than the fight is lost here.

Huh, how about that?

This brings us to the Yoda fight, which is one of the most interesting fights in all of Star Wars lore, mostly because it touches on an overarching theme of all the Star Wars subversion chapters: the question of who is a good mentor and why. Episode 2 focuses on the difference between the worthy (Yoda) and the unworthy (Obi-Wan) mentor. Obi-Wan constantly belittles Anakin while refusing to give as much praise as he could. Instead of acknowledging Anakin's intents and comforting him when he doesn't measure up Obi-Wan bullies and belittles Anakin at every available turn...making Anakin's ignoring of his pleas to take Dooku together make a lot more sense. Why would he listen to Obi-Wan? Why would you, the viewer? Yoda, on the other hand, throughout the movie gently guides Obi-Wan and others. Even when confronting Dooku Yoda doesn't so much condemn his former student as try to communicate that he's not the biggest fish in the pond, as Dooku so firmly believes.

And that message most definitely carries through the end of the story, as Obi-Wan says what every fan who was watching this movie while on their cell phone says: "Without the Clones there would have been no victory". But if you've been paying any attention the crap-fest of wrongess should have you completely depressed right along with Yoda. What began in Phantom Menace was the complete and utter degeneration of the Republic.... and Yoda sees it.

The movie ends the same way it began: with Padme hidden away from public view, doing whatever the heck she likes, with no real appreciation for the consequences of her actions. From the very beginning Padme's flaws as a person have been just as, if not more, indicative of where this story is going than anything we've seen with Anakin and Obi-Wan. It's her lack of a spine that has created this situation and there is no going back. It's the beginning of the end with that kiss, its right to left-ness precluding all hope that somehow, maybe, Anakin, Padme, and Obi-Wan will grow past their issues.

Considering that Obi-Wan is too busy being the hero while Anakin and Padme get it on I doubt that's going to happen.

Saint Edmund

Hesychasm- The Move that Hits

When I was younger I did a combination of American Karate, Kali, and Muay Thai, eventually going on to win a Muay Thai national championship at 12 years old. The smallest fighter in my gym, I was usually called "Killer Bee" for the strength of my hits and a sense of ignoring danger that resulted in me being knocked to the floor more often than not. My sifu loaned me as many books as I liked and I devoured them, particularly a book by international kick-boxing star Benny Urquidez called Training and Fighting Skills. In the book Benny states that the most powerful move in a fighter's arsenal is a spinning back kick. The physics behind it make it, by far, the most potent move a fighter can pull on someone without trying to kill them. Being the snarky young boy I was I asked my sifu what the most powerful move was.

Without missing a beat he replied "Whatever knocks your opponent out and stops the fight."

I was not to be outdone. I tried explaining what I'd read and my sifu laughed. He brought up another instructor and told him to do a spinning back kick. Right in the middle of the move my sifu kicked the guy in the butt and he fell over. It was hardly a kick, too, but merely a shove right as his partner turned and was on one leg. The rest of the class laughed at me and my sifu, who seemed to appreciate whatever disrespectful banter I threw his way, gave me a "I won" grin. I was embarassed. But I learned the lesson.

Whatever gets the job is what should be done, no matter how simple or complicated it is. If it works it works.

As time went on my sifu elucidated further what he meant. Why hit someone with your fist when you can smash a glass bottle into his face, catching him off balance and cutting him? Why block when you can throw your whole body into the incoming blow, throwing your opponent off balance and allowing you to get the opening you needed, and all for the cost of a bruised rib or arm? If the fight ended and you walked away and they didn't then what did it matter? You got your result.

This philosophy has never failed me, but I've sure failed to live it by my fear of appearing strange and my lack of patience to find an actual solution, as opposed to what I can do without thinking. I fear most of us do this and I'm far from alone. Eastern Christian hesychasm teaches a form of this with its prohibition against mental images, an edict of that theology that seems to leave most people puzzled as to its meaning. The mind makes images, it imagines, that's one of its key features! In addition the same Fathers who prohibit images tell us to imagine certain things, like the pains of Hell and the blessesdness of Heaven. Why on earth would they do that?

In fighting terms I think they're telling us to walk into our spiritual warfare without preconceived notions, but to analyze our situations dispassionately and act accordingly with the tools we have at our disposal. Is the Jesus Prayer not working in a particular situation but Psalm 122 is? Love of God, use Psalm 122 right then and there and don't develop an attachment to it. Wait to see if it works again. Build a repertoire of spiritual combative moves that work for you, regardless of how strange they are. Throw out your notions of what you think should work and go with what does.

That being said, get ready for what you think is strange to happen, a lot. The same Philokalia that tells you to ban images from you mind says very clearly in St. Hesychios's writings that, once you shut down the sinful activity, your soul generates good things of its own accord. And then you will notice all sorts of incredible things that God does that no one else can, because He's not talking to them, He's talking to you. You're not being condemned to a mental life of darkness and silence, like Tenar in The Tombs of Atuan. You're merely giving up what you think is important so that way the Bearer of Light can bring you out of your self-imposed entombment back into the light, where everyone is waiting for you and the treasures that God put within your soul. But that means acknowledging that walking into every fight with a demon and/or yourself won't be solving with a spinning back kick but to keep it simple and direct, fighting to win, as opposed to being flashy and feeling good about how you won. How you feel about how you won is far less important than the fact that you won. You're not shadowboxing , but are in a real and constant fight that will last up until the second you draw your last breath. Those last few minutes are, in reality the only moments that matter in your whole life. Everything else is training.

Train smart. Let go of the spinning back kicks.

Attack of the Clones: The Subverter

What in the....

Of all the subversions in the Star Wars saga, none hit harder than this one. The Republic, champion of freedom and liberty and all the warm fuzzies, commissioned a clone army??? The ethical implications of this are monstrous. You want to not have slavery? No problem, just make your slaves so no one will miss them when they die. We're talking a betrayal of the soul of the Republic on such a horrific level that anyone watching, regardless of whether they like the prequels or not, should feel sick to their stomach. It's like finding out that your dad has a tripod-mounted machine with explosive rounds and that he's going to be using them real soon to shoot up a school, times a million.

Oh, and the Jedi Order never felt this massive shift in the Force.

Oh, and it happened ten years ago, with a man named Tyrannus, not the long-dead Sipho Dias.

What else happened ten years ago? Let's see....

Oh, right.

The Phantom Menace was about Palpatine using Darth Maul to conceal his creation of a clone army while using the Trade Federation incident to put him in charge. For anyone who walks away from the Phantom Menace saying "That was a throwaway!" and "That was pointless!"... that was sorta the point. Palpatine manuevered the Republic to look one way while he did something so huge and ridiculous that they probably would have caught it normally. But, as Yoda points out, Palpatine is using all his considerable powers to block the Jedi's sight so they couldn't have seen it. He used the Sith to conceal the Sith. He found the one guy who we associate with the Sith (a monster) and put him up for the whole world to look at and freak out over. The Phantom Menace was a feint. The Jedi took it. And now the Separatists are getting ready to leave the corruption that Palpatine made.

It's a perfect set up: if the Jedi reject the army the Separatists leave and the Republic, along with the Jedi, will fall. Accept the army and... well... that's Episode III, isn't it? There is literally no winning for the Jedi. Game. Set. Match. And, as some have pointed out, this is actually pretty common for people to do: use something big, sensational, and way overblown to distract everyone from the real event going on. Pretty much every last cultural shift in the last few years has been used to cover up other, evil, changes that we never bothered to look at because look at that moral outrage over there!

Except fillmmakers generally don't do this to their viewers. Congrats, we were all snookered. George Lucas used your own ability to recognize B.S. against you. It's absolutely brilliant and a truly risky move, regardless of how big your franchise is. Part of the Subversion chapters of Star Wars is to lean into the ridiculousness of the opening chapter. It's self-mockery and a good laugh is had at its own expense.

But enough about that. Let's get on with the other subversions of the subversions.

Turns out Anakin was right: Jedi don't have nightmares. After being shot down by Padme Anakin decides he's going to Tatooine to look into what's going on with his mother and our expectations are further subverted: she was freed, is married, and had moved on, without her baby boy. On some level there's a sense that she left him. It's ridiculous of course, but we all expect the people we leave behind to be the same as when we left them. Other people are cardboard cut-outs to us, more or less, and we assume that they will be the same old person they were when we were around them. And it's obvious from the cold treatment that Anakin gives his new family that he doesn't give a crap about them, he wants his mother, even if she's more than his mother now. He's so wrapped up in his own selfishness that he lashes out at everything around him. His rage is so powerful that even Yoda notices it, half a galaxy away.

Now, for those of you who are EU fans, please turn that part of your brain off for the next bit, cause if it's on nothing is going to work. Yoda hears Qui-Gon Jinn in the Force, trying to reach out to Anakin. If you're just going by the movies, this is enormous. There's no indication that the Jedi believe in the afterlife at this point, none. Nothing where you retain individuality, at any rate. If you're gone you're gone.  So what the heck is going on here? We'll have to wait until the next episode to find out, but suffice it to say it's tantalizing, what could be happening here.

Uh oh. She's coming from the right.
Oh, and the TOP too! She's descending...

The scene post-murder is painful to unpack, and not because it's generated many a meme. It's painful because Padme completely and utterly flubs it up. She was right to turn Anakin away, the cinematography of this whole movie screams at the wrongness of connecting with him, that it can only lead to trouble. Ignoring her better judgment she reaches out to Anakin in compassion because, no matter how wrong it is, Padme does care for Anakin. Her answer is completely and totally wrong. Of course people feel anger! What happened to Anakin was not anger, it was pure and spiteful rage, revenge of the highest order. What's a proper response to Anakin at this point? Who knows? I'm more scared that Padme's response to such darkness is "Everyone gets angry". Why, have you felt that way in your life Padme? What in the world happened to make you be able to accept this with nary a blink? Oh, wait, right, ten years ago she had to defend her planet from an unlawful invasion in which no other authority figure actually helped her. Right. Well, that's a dark revelation, isn't it? Turns out these two have quite a lot more in common than we thought. It's just not the right stuff.

We end this post by flitting back to Obi-Wan, who is in for his own surprise. Stuck in a revolving room he's a captive audience for a rather awful truth: his "grand-master" is the head of the Trade Federation and... he's telling the the truth? Most people write this off because, having seen the OT first, they know Dooku doesn't make it so they write him off. But the issues raised by this conversation shouldn't be ignored. Yes, Dooku is manipulating Obi-Wan. Yes, he's not telling him the whole truth. But the truth he is telling is enormous, as is his request for Obi-Wan's help in destroying the Sith. For one second, if you're taking the scene at face value, you have to wonder what would have happened if Obi-Wan had said yes.

Too bad Obi-Wan is a tool. Oh wait, we've known that for a movie and a half.

Seriously, the Clone Wars could have ended before they began. Good job hero. You stuck to your principles and were the knight in naive armor. And everyone suffered as a result. What could have been, right?

My Goal in GMing

Last week I'd written a piece about my GMing that was far more akin to a supervillain explaining his evil intentions than an actual defense. And, to a degree, that was on purpose. I felt like explaining how my thought process on GMing worked and to hell with how it sounded. But today I wanted to look at what I try to actually aim for, as opposed to methods. My aim is very simple: to perfect my approach to the fantasy genre.

Let's start by laying out definitions. A genre is the approach someone takes to a story. Usually you see it as tropes and whatnot, but there's an ethos to every genre that means that, no matter how you try to obscure it, the basic thoughts behind it always shine through. A setting, meanwhile, can be thought of as the creator's toolbox. While those tools may have suggested uses inherent in their makeup the genre/approach will ultimately override those seemingly inherent uses.

So what do I think of as fantasy? Well, I think the fantasy genre is an allegory about encountering the apophatic, the thing that is beyond words and concepts. Us Christians call that something a someone, God. Fantasy generally shows this with magic and/or fates, sometimes with God/gods. But, ultimately, fantasy always has an element of running into something far bigger and learning how to live with it. Done right, fantasy creates a yearning within the reader for something far greater than themselves. Something you can't understand has knocked and so you must respond. But most of the time people don't hear or feel the knocking in their souls and so they are purified through the story, being stripped of their defenses right along with the protagonists as they learn that they are part of something so much larger than them.

Super heavy spoilers for the anime Clannad and Clannad:AfterStory follow. Sorry not sorry.

Let's take my favorite show of all time: Clannad/Afterstory. By most accounts Clannad is a harem anime with fantasy elements. I've always disagreed with this analysis: Clannad is a fantasy genre anime that uses the modern setting. Are there overt displays of supernatural power in such a setting? No, there aren't, so Clannad doesn't use them. Fuko, the first person that Tomoya and Nagisa help, is not a love interest, but just a lost projection of a girl who needs help. Most of the romantic elements reside with Nagisa, right from the start, with Tomoya learning to be human by helping the other people he comes across. If the anime were a harem Tomoya would be trying to figure out which girl he would go out with. Nothing like that ever happens. There's never a moment where Tomoya isn't in love with Nagisa. By the end of the first season by Tomoya and Nagisa have evolved enough as people to finally go out. But even Tomoyo, who was genuinely in love with Tomoya, could see that Tomoya never had anyone in his heart but Nagisa.

While the first season might be construed as a harem Afterstory completely blows that out of the water. Tomoya and Nagisa make a life together and each time Tomoya helps someone light comes out of them. There's some lore about how the lights, if caught, could be used to grant a wish, and that multiple lights can grant larger wishes. So when Ushio, who is the personification of all the lights, dies, Tomoya just happens to be holding her. She releases the lights and he catches them by holding her tiny corpse in his arms. And that's how we get the other world with the robot and the girl and, ultimately, how we reverse the tragedy of Nagisa dying.

Excuse me.

It's been awhile, Clannad. How I've missed you.

What about any  of that is a harem is beyond me. It's ultimately the lights that Tomoya got from helping everyone that resolves the central issue: Nagisa's health (and death). But Tomoya's pride is what makes it impossible for him to save Nagisa the first time. He refuses to let go of the notion that he's a virus to those around him, brought on by the death of his own mother. It's only by becoming a father and then having to stay strong for Ushio as she withers and dies that Tomoya finally becomes the person who is worthy of the orbs of light and can finally make the wish that anyone watching the show who has a soul is making with Tomoya: to bring back his family. The city/God brings Tomoya literally to the point of death so he will finally realize who he truly is in relation to the world and, beautifully, his family is restored.

And that's ultimately what I strive for: to get rid of the stuff that distracts the character so something transcendent can happen in the game. Again, I don't claim to very good at this. I've been GMing since 16 and am only just now starting to understand what it is I wanted to do in the first place, 14 years later. Oh well, better late than never. Maybe I can stop sounding like a horrific super-villain as time goes on. But that's the mercy of God, in His own time, that I count on there. And, until then, so should my players. But probably for different reasons.

Attack of the Clones: The Opener

The middle part of a Star Wars trilogy is the subverter. It takes what's supposedly a simple opener and unpacks it, bringing all its themes out into the open. It's always the most controversial of the trilogy, and is almost always the most hated chapter of Star Wars. The Empire Strikes Back seems to get a free pass because people are able to recognize its brilliance, but The Last Jedi is still too young for all the people who hate it to realize that they're wrong and the Attack of the Clones is the clumsiest of the episodes, by far and away, because the subject matter isn't something most people would like to admit to. Romance is not love. Love isn't necessarily a very pretty thing. In fact, love can be a brutal thing, filled with mistakes and wrong-doings that make it impossible to sort out exactly what is going on. Falling in love is a combination of self-delusion, flaunting of authority, and something unbearably beautiful that somehow gets mixed in, almost by accident. The hope is that the unbearable beauty that we were made for wins out.

So no, nothing like a Nicholas Sparks movie, which is the definition of girl porn.

I don't think anyone is going to like this movie, but it is important. I think Leon the Professional is important to watch, as is 10 Cloverfield Lane, but do I like those movies? Absolutely not. Leon the Professional and 10 Cloverfield Lane practically put me in a nuthouse when I watched them (the Army finished that job years later) because they were uncompromisingly  true. They held a mirror to my soul and I did not like what I saw. And Attack of the Clones' statement is similarly uncomfortable. The boy is a creepy horn-dog who can't think straight cause he's hurting so badly, and the girl, while more mature in appearance, is in just as much pain and is just as liable to do something as stupid as the boy.  So no, not happy material to cover.

It's ten years later, the biggest time jump in Star Wars. The Republic is on the verge of breaking apart and there's talks of an army needing to be drafted for the Republic in case the Separatists, who I'm sure have no reason to want to leave, attack the Republic. So we open up on Padme Amidala, now a senator-

Wait, WHAT????

She's doing what??

Are you noticing a pattern of these before and after shots of our last few presidents? The stress of leading the most powerful nation on Earth ages them. None of these people have ever taken up public office again. They're finished. The stress of the Presidency is horrific, in part because it's a limited time. You're trying to get everything you want done as fast as possible with the worst possible people in the world (politicians!) as your tools and can you see why they generally don't do an elected office ever again? 

But none of them hold a candle to Padme Amidala, who was not only elected monarch of her planet, but did it at fourteen years old. Can you say "groomed for power" with me? An entire planet wound up on this girl's shoulders and then, on top of it all, she had to go to war, betraying her own ideals (and probably that of her planet) to save it. Can you imagine just the sheer strain of having to do that? Oh, and then it's all over you and have to get on with your life and you're only a little older than twenty?

No takers?

Padme is overstretched by the time this movie starts. Instead of doing the smart thing and enjoying the rest of her life in retirement, maybe going around and kissing babies and making motivational speeches on how you too can have your childhood destroyed if your parents are ambitious enough, she's thrown herself into an even large arena, with even less control than what she had to begin with. Is it hubris? Perhaps. Most people know when they've bitten off way more than they can chew but Padme just keeps going. But it may just be that she doesn't know what else she's going to do.  In one of her moments of rare honesty, Padme declares she should never have come back in a half-strangled shock that yet another person has died for her ambitions to stay relevant. 

The years haven't been that kind to Anakin either. Padme didn't keep in contact, essentially dumping him on Coruscant, leaving Anakin to make up a fake Padme in his horny teenaged mind.  His life as a Jedi is pretty bad too. We get a good taste of the Jedi that Obi-Wan grew up to be: talented, yet insecure on account of that stupidly powerful apprentice he has, who he's bullied and squashed at every opportunity. Brothers shouldn't raise brothers, usually, and Obi-Wan is the stereotypical big brother. And Anakin resents every last second of it. He knows he's better than his master, who refuses to acknowledge that Anakin's talents are far, far, far greater than his. Oh, and that's not the only thing that's got Anakin's under stress. He keeps having nightmares about his mother in pain, the mother that the Jedi never freed or did anything about. There's got to be a lot of guilt about that too, too. But he somehow believes that the Jedi the good guys, still. I'm not sure entirely how, especially with Obi-Wan, who writes off these visions as dreams and promises in the truly tragic line that "Dreams fade in time."

No, they don't, Obi-Wan. Nobody and nothing is ever really gone.

When they're assigned to protect Padme she and Anakin have what's probably the first real conversation in ten years. It doesn't go so well in Anakin's eyes but he's nineteen, what does he know? But when somebody sends two small worms to kill her Anakin breaks in and Obi-Wan, desperate to one-up his padawan, jumps out a window several hundred stories up. Sometimes we bring the worst out of each other, and that's so true with Anakin and Obi-Wan at this stage. Obi-Wan's never been able to define himself as a Jedi, distinct from Qui-Gon, and Anakin has been so consistently bullied he can't help but one up his "mentor".

This leads us to the changeling chase. I'm not sure why people question why a changeling wouldn't be able to walk into Padme's building at the height of the Republic's technological prowess, or snipe Padme when the assassin knows there's security measures blocks and blocks and blocks out, but people sometimes don't make sense to me. A small, quiet droid with a biological agent that will kill anything it touches seems like the best bet... but what do I know? I'm just writing a blog. Thematically speaking a changeling being sent to kill Padme makes absolute sense. Nothing is as it appears and, deep under the skin, there's a monster waiting. Kinda like the Republic. And Anakin. And Palpatine. And Dooku. The chase, of course, ends with the changeling dead. Jango didn't want to end up tied to this, but one changeling against two Jedi is hardly a fair fight and he kills her, confident that Kenobi can't trace his darts back to Kamino.

Oops.

Jedi Librarian's response to the idea there might be something missing from the archives? "If it isn't here, it doesn't exist". That's pretty much the attitude of our conscious mind to our own hidden aches and pains a lot of the time. "If I don't remember it, it doesn't exist." Or "If I didn't catch it at the time it didn't happen". Or how about this one? "If it's weird, it's obviously dumb and I shouldn't pay attention to it". Each statement is what we say when we reject the Shadow. It's not a smart move, but we do it anyway.

We end this blog post by going back to Anakin and Padme, who are now stuck on a beautiful planet... together... alone... WEARING THAT.

I know, the flannel's really distracting. Why, George, WHY?

Yeah yeah yeah, I'm not saying that Padme was asking to be kissed or anything like that, but criminy's sake the situation requires the more modest and conservative stuff , which she's used to wearing. Not to mention, y'know, form hiding. You're alone with someone who's clearly sexually attracted to you, confused as to what your own feelings are, and this is what you pick, something uncharacteristically showy?? No, something's up here. And Anakin knows it. So when he leans in it's from left to right and it's understandable on some level. Her pulling back and him accepting that? Also understandable. It's human to make mistakes.

But this? This is just moronic on both their parts.

Anakin reveals his feelings, but now they're tinged with the right to left wrongness of it all. He's respectful, even poetic, but it's just not the right thing. She'd said no, and here she makes a decision that respects the whole of the society they're in. The Jedi can't look like they're favoring any particular senator and she, knowing very well how badly they can be used by others, makes the sane choice. And Anakin, heartbroken though he is, actually loves her enough to back off.

But the problem is the cat's out of the bag. The secret's out, and emotions are not controllable in the same way thoughts are. Once out they rage at the thought of being put back in and fight it as hard as they can. If they're unable to brute force their way out they sit and bide their time, waiting.

Feelings can wait a very long time. They certainly don't fade the way we expect them to. Nothing is ever really gone.

My little brother's birthday is soon. Happy Birthday buddy! I know there's more than a few times I screwed up like Obi-Wan did, but you're not trying to kill me, so I guess I did something right. Hope you enjoy your day.

No, I'm Not a Sadistic GM

How most of my players react when they read the subject of the post

A lot of my players tell me what an evil GM I can be. Stories abound of how I like to take away hope and how ruthless I am and how dark my campaigns are. Which, I mean, can be true. OK, yeah, it's true. The two best campaigns I've ever run are horrendously dark. "Why We Kept Her" (a 4e game) was a long epic about a group of people taking in a half-devil child and learning to love her. "Revenge of the Countess of Fire" (a Burning Wheel game) was a short story about slavery and oppression and how giving into anger will only make the problem worse.  And yeah, they're both incredibly dark stories. "Why We Kept Her" was so dark that players quit the game because I had crossed far too many lines in far too short a space of time for comfort. My original ending scenario for "Revenge of the Countess of Fire" was rejected by some of my players, who flat out told me that they couldn't handle something of that level of awful. And I certainly won't claim to always know why I was doing what I was doing. It made sense and so I did. It just so happened that what made sense to me was pitch-black horror. But, as time has gone on, a method to my madness has started to appear to me. I can't promise that I do it terribly well but ,for anyone who cares about a statement of purpose, this is my mission as a GM: to ask the player Who is your character when everything you think he's about is stripped away? I don't care much what your answer is as much as the fact that you answered at all. The process is far more important than what comes out of that process.

By way of example, in a Burning Wheel game I ran one of my players had constructed an entire family for his character. He was a human raised by Great Wolves. They were his pack, his home. They were in a world that was poisoned by undead stars that had touched down and wilted everything around them. Well, a lot of stars had hit the earth and the world was roamed by millions of undead. The players were in custody of the one live star that had touched down, who had the ability to reverse the effects of the others. She had also transformed "Mowgli's" favorite wolf brother into her protector. The players guarded the both of them. Understandably the undead in charge had issue with this. The story was a game of cat-and-mouse, with the undead trying to catch the star and the players trying to keep her free until they could figure out how she could reverse the undeath of their world. This included a love triangle between the players and the "female" star and touched on a lot of themes of love and family when you threw in the great wolf pack. And, for eight sessions, it was perfect.

No, I didn't kill the guy's family. I did a lot worse.

The players had found a hideout under a tree, gifted to them by a kindly elf. One day they came home and found the tree the hideout was under on fire. Running downstairs they found their elven compatriot was twisted into something horrific, something they couldn't understand. Most of the wolves lay dead at the "elf"'s feet, except for Mowgli's mother. After a tense fight the corrupted elf lay dead at their feet. Mowgli went looking for his mother and found her, in the next room, long dead. His least favorite brother was still alive and cursed him to his face, telling him that Chosen brother had been taken as part of the fight. Mowgli got his hearbroken (and asshole) brother to team up with him one last time to find their brother. And find him they did. He'd been horrifically corrupted, a source of evil. This was the point that I wanted Mowgli at. Who was he when his family was mostly dead, he was stuck with the family he didn't like, and the his favorite brother was an agent of evil?Mowgli practically went to the edge of the world to save his brother. He never gave up on him.The game ended right before they actually saved the world, mostly because of time constraints, but the question that I intuitively felt the game to be about was answered. Mowgli was a hero. It was an honest answer and one of the best I'd gotten in years.

But getting at an honest answer out of people is not easy. People will tell you what they think you want to hear, as opposed to what's actually true and that's not satisfying for anyone. Unfortunately the only way to actually know what a character is to tell them they're full of crap and to push them to tell the truth. Of course they have to construct what they think is an answer first, and that may take some time to extract that "pretend" answer from them. But once I'm satisfied with their "statement", which can take months, I start to strip away the things that they say they are. Define yourself as a lonely badass? As time goes on more and more will be piled on you until your character and the setting break from the stress of not relying on anyone. Obsessed with your kingdom? It will stab you in the back right when you're not looking, and it will hurt. Love your little girl? Something's going to happen to her, it's going to be your fault, and she'll know it was you. The question that I ask to all of these situations is the same each and every time: now what? In a moment of nakedness what do you, the player, want to do? All the things you put your hope in in the game are gone, who are you without them?

Once that answer is extracted you repeat the process as many times your players allow you to. You play out the consequences of this new-found belief and let them get soft and secure in it, which makes the decision eventually ring false. You then break that answer, subverting it and breaking whatever emotional bones you have to to get a new answer.


I don't pretend to be very good at this. Some games I manage to get it right, and others I don't. Sometimes it comes out as a beautiful masterpiece, other times as a half-strangled yelled, and other times it... sorta works. But sadistic? Nah, not really. I don't revel in the pain I've caused players because the pain just isn't the point. I want an answer, a real one, one that will stick with everyone at the table for years to come. And that means pain, unfortunately.

But wait, isn't it just a game?

Ha! You wish!

The Phantom Menace: The Closer

Padme, sick of the in-fighting in the Senate, figures out what any mystic or psychologist could have told her in the first place: look within. In this case, that means looking back to her home planet of Naboo. Thanks to her time with Anakin and the Senate the naive pacifist has balanced out. She yearns for peace but understand that now is not the time. But first she has to get Boss Nass on her side.

And so the beginning of the end of Episode I is exactly what the beginning was: a negotiation. Only this time Padme is ready to put herself on the line. Her honest pleas for help somehow convince the otherwise unhelpful Boss Nass and he chips in everything he's got.

For those of you who are wondering why Qui-Gon didn't just mind trick Boss Nass into helping them (cough cough anyone who's watched Red Letter Media's stuff), let's look at not only the effectiveness of Mind Trick in general but who Qui-Gon is as a character. First off, Mind Trick isn't necessarily a good long-term idea. It doesn't protect you from the backlash of other people who were not mind-tricked, for instance, as poor Bib Fortuna will find out in Episode VI. Padme needs a long term ally should this whole war thing work. Diplomatically speaking, a mind trick is kinda against everyone's self interests. Second off, a mind trick doesn't seem to do anything more than what the victim wants on an unconscious level. Stormtroopers don't want to be looking for stupid droids, people selling deathsticks really may want to go home and rethink their lives, and money is money is money. Part of what makes Watto such a miserable character is he genuinely doesn't care about helping people, he literally only wants money. You can't make someone give you something that they don't want to. If anyone has any knowledge of canon to the contrary please let me know, but from watching the films it isn't obvious that these "tricks" wouldn't have worked without more time to begin with. The Force merely sped the process up.

And, once again, we return to who Qui-Gon is as a person: the interpreter of patterns. Padme has changed and she's doing something that Qui-Gon openly says he doesn't understand. It's really the ultimate test of Qui-Gon's ENFP-ness: what do you do with a totally unknown puzzle? Sit back until the pieces reveal themselves. Which is what Qui-Gon does, urging Obi-Wan to follow suit. Much as these two disagree Obi-Wan is loyal.

The narrative then splits into four pieces: the battle above on the fake "planet", the battles in the castle, and the battle on the field. Everything's shot well, it's not like I need to tell you that the fighting is enjoyable. But then something happens that's.... odd. Just as everything is lost...

This dude is captured by Padme.

Anakin accidentally blows up The Trade Federation ship.

The droids fall

What, you thought these were all unrelated?

Remember that line from before?



Looks like that paid off. Everyone, acting together, was enabled by the Force to win. Or did you think the line in The Return of the Jedi "May the Force be with us" was just a throw-away? But this is not something that us Westerners decode normally. Star Wars is far from the only myth to put in a single line in the middle of a conversation that is indirectly referenced throughout the rest of the work. As an example, understanding the Bible is entirely predicated on realizing that it's not a bunch of a random books put together in an interesting order but realizing that each and every word is situated on purpose and is a cohesive whole that formulates inside your heart, not on the page. Mythology is the blue-print. You are the building.

Before we leave this moment of happiness and return to the narrative, I feel that Qui-Gon's death needs to be addressed, because this is the first moment we really start to understand that Star Wars communicates backwards as well as forwards. Events later in the story inform us of what's going on in past scenes. Qui-Gon sits down to meditate.

These three moments are, without a doubt, the most profound in their respective episodes. Each one features an act of focus in the face of imminent death and an ascenscion that's truly beyond words. The deaths of these three people change the people who depend on them, good and bad.

And in all three they become immortal.

No, I don't think Qui-Gon's just sitting down to meditate. This is the dude who said to keep yourself in the moment, remember? And his act of concentration is incredibly similar to Obi-Wan's, with one exception: Qui-Gon doesn't sacrifice himself. He's killed. We'll get back to why that's important later, but suffice it to say, Qui-Gon tried to do what Obi-Wan did later, and Han's last act of love further torments his son with his ever present memory. In a way Han achieves immortality in a way the others never will.

The movie ends with a negotiation. Yoda, stuck in his ways, refuses to let change happen with grace, which I suppose makes sense considering he's 900 years old. But the worst part is that the guy who should not be training Anakin is doing so. Obi-Wan has the emotional maturity of all his 25 years. He's bought the BS of the fallen Jedi Order, which makes him ill-equipped to deal with Anakin. And, looking at Anakin later, you realize that Anakin knows it too. Big deal that Anakin (in his mind) single-handedly destroyed a Droid Federation ship! Qui-Gon, the man who had faith in him and unlocked his power, is dead. He's stuck with the jerk who openly said right in front of him that he's dangerous, his mother's still on Tatooine, and Padme not only lied to him (Shmi is the ONLY person besides Luke and Qui-Gon who don't) but she's gone too!

Not really elated, no.

But the worst part is that the Jedi completely failed to see the real problem in front of them: Palpatine. The Sith Lord has become the head of the Republic. We, as the audience, know that the supposed good guys lost. Actually, if we were honest with ourselves we'd say that there was no good for evil to oppose. It all ends with a false proclamation of peace, with all the seeds of a horrific tragedy laid right in front of us.

But Episode 1's completely worthless to the story! Totally OK to skip!

Addendum: I realized that I forgot to address why Obi-Wan didn't "Force Rush" towards Qui-Gon to help him out with Darth Maul. The Force takes a physical toll on whoever uses it, no matter if they're using Dark and Light approaches. Only those with a lot of experience in the Force could generally string together Force Powers, and even then it took an effort. Obi-Wan is not even a Jedi yet. And right before he'd used a Force Jump. It's notable that never, at any point, does Obi-Wan ask why he doesn't use the power. He never seems to regret not putting on another burst of speed because it was simply beyond him to do so.

At least, that's the understanding of it I have. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.