Coming Into A Fandom Late

Coming into a fandom late

You know when you open your mouth and your parent comes out? I feel that happens more and more as I get older. Anyways, you think that ever happened to Vader? Like he's in his big dark castle of tasteless doom and insulting every Imperial officer that visits then boom, all of a sudden a Kenobi-ism pops out (probably with a hint of a Coruscanti accent to boot). Obi-Wan did have an awful lot of one liners, after all.

Oh gosh, I love this. Yes. I hope it happens after Obi-Wan is dead, too, so his ghost can observe this and drag Anakin for it later. “Why do I get the feeling this project is going to be the death of me?” he murmurs to himself during a Death Star Team Meeting, pinching the bridge of the nose on his helmet. The first time he haughtily chides some officer that he “needs to learn his place”, he cringes. 

I also hope it comes out when he has an Evil Ruler of some random planet that’s colluding with the Empire over (he hates when Sheev makes him host these guys GOD WHY CAN’T HE JUST BE LEFT ALONE IN HIS MISERY WITH HIS PICTURES OF CLONE WARS OBI-WAN DAMN IT.) 

He’s sitting there at his edgelord dining table trying to make small talk and be charming because Sheev INSISTED that they make nice with this guy, but like…the only material Anakin has to refer back to is from Obi-Wan negotiating with people, so he sort of ends up hitting on the guy by accident? And since it’s coming from A) Anakin B) as Vader, it’s just incredibly awkward and also terrifying. By the time he sends him off (with one of those dopey salutes that Obi-Wan always did,) he hates himself even more than he did before. 

OMFG.

So I've finally gotten around to reading the RotS novelization - I'm like 120 pages in and Palps has tried to get Anakin to abandon Obi Wan like FOUR TIMES and I AM LAUGHING SO HARD because Anakin is so offended?? And Sheev is trying So Hard but tbh I think if he had asked one. more. time. Anakin would've dropped him straight down that elevator shaft and continued carrying his boyfriend to safety. 😂

Sheev’s attempts to drag Anakin away from Obi-Wan is one of my most favorite things about Star Wars because a) it’s HILARIOUS and b) it says everything about their relationship right there and how important it was.Obi-Wan’s presence in Anakin’s life was such a fundamental stabilizing force that of course Palpatine had to break it apart.  He did absolutely everything he could to drive a wedge between them–sometimes successful, sometimes not. He would make little comments constantly about how, oh, I’m sure Master Kenobi cares for you, but does he really? or would put Obi-Wan in a position where he had to do his duty to go undercover to save the Chancellor and hurt Anakin doing it, or would just tell Anakin to leave his Master behind already because they had to escape this burning ship.And, even after all the shit they’ve been through, when Palpatine looks at him all wide-eyed innocence and says, “Leave him, or we’ll never make it.” Anakin makes this incredible face:

THAT IS THE FACE OF SOMEONE WHO HAS HAD AN ASS FULL OF SUGGESTING THEY LEAVE HIS BOYFRIEND BEHIND AND HE IS NOT GOING TO DO IT, TRY SUGGESTING IT ONE MORE FUCKING TIME, SHEEV, AND ANAKIN WILL LIGHTSABER YOU RIGHT IN THE FACE HE DOESN’T CARE IF YOU’RE THE CHANCELLOR OF THE GALAXY OR NOT.

“Everyone’s gone. Odin’s gone. Frigga’s gone. The Warriors Three are gone. Asgard is basically gone. So Thor and Loki turn to each other and say, ‘You’re all that I have left. And actually, that’s enough.’” — Tom Hiddleston, Life As Loki Interview Special @13:45

Someday I’m going to actually write out this fractured essay in my head about how important “home bases” in fiction are to me (whether that’s a literal home or an office or a secret hideout or even a vehicle in the right circumstances).  

I am very serious when I say that these places are characters to me, just as much as any of the living, breathing human (or nonhuman) characters in the story and once I get attached their loss affects me on an equally visceral level. And, in fact, a creator’s decision to destroy or abandon that “home base” can affect my interest in continuing to emotionally invest in a story just as much as when they cavalierly kill off a character for shock value. 

And someday I will figure out how to put down all my Thoughts on that.

But it is not this day, apparently.