A More Civilized Q&A - March 2022

Thanks for this ep. The stealing & adopting out of the Quarren children is also reminiscent of what is still being done with Indigenous children in Australia (and the “sixties scoop” in Canada). And the anti-Semitism…So many layers of fucked up.

Divya M Persaud

JFC. The whole mon cala and Quarren EU story arcs stuff…. I guess this is what happens when a globally renowned franchise is opened up to the world as a openly expandable universe and you forget that conservative fascists who have wet dreams of colonialism can be writers too.

Austin had me pouring one out whilst driving home from work when he referenced "One Song Only."

Yeah, I wasn’t really disagreeing with you, just trying to bring some orher perspectives into it. To your original point, there is a different definition of liberalism in Europe and the US. In the US it’s more associated with the welfare state and redestribution of wealth, where in Europe it’s pretty much the opposite.

Yes, that is what I meant by saying that the themes shifted. Monarchy, democracy, left, right, all these things have different connotations and meanings depending on where you are in the world and what part of history you’re looking at. Which brings me back to my original point: I think it’s useful to understand the American lens better when consuming a piece of American media. That’s all.

Cornix

Elected monarchs are not elected by the general public, though, which is the point ("the people has decided", Sio Bibble says). Leia is a princess by name in the original films, but nothing about her character is really like a princess in a real way, she is more like a politician and a military leader, and I think the princess title is more of a genre signifier than trying to address the pros or cons of hereditary monarchies.

I don’t disagree that there are multiple influences and a shifting focus on themes, and I haven’t really seen anyone deny that, either. There’s tons of discussion about how even the seemingly clearest metaphors and allegories get mixed up in entirely avoidable ways. I will say it would be difficult to expand on a story that immediately invokes the language of power structures and then not explore those structures in some way. When you have a Princess character from the start, you can either stay in the realm of fairy tales while telling a story about a war, or you need to get more explicitly political. (And while I agree that the choice to make Padme elected was a panic decision, elective monarchies are absolutely a thing.)

Cornix

That’s not really what I’m saying either, just that the inspirations that went into Star Wars over the years have become a weird jumbled mess, and it’s not always giving to press everything through the same lens. For instance, the Hero’s Journey, myths and fairy tales are part of those inspirations, and that’s where the idea of “princesses” and “knights” come from, those are the kind of characters you meet in fairy tales. Which makes it awkward when George shifted to make the focus more political and you get things like an “elected queen” (that’s not a thing, George). I feel like the point he is trying to make is that the Republic is slowly turning into America, not that it’s what it was originally. But one of the problems with both the prequels and the Clone Wars is that we never see what things were supposed to be like when it was apparently going great, and the Republic was at peace for “a thousand generations”. Things seem to already have gone bad at the start of Ep. 1.

I was the one who sent in that question about the throne- I have an equal amount of disdain for that chair that you guys do and you captured the exact kind of things I don't like about it. It feels like a tailormade iconic moment but with no build up or satisfying fallout from it either. I have more of a ironic love for it than anything else, but it's such a deeply stupid moment I feel like if you aren't totally bought into it that's kind of how you have to feel about it. Sorry to word it like the Joker, but I really enjoyed the discussion. It made me laugh a lot and I think it ended up still really well articulated too on your end.

Nyx of the Night

I simply find that it adds to my experience to understand the cultural and political context in which a piece of media was created. And in a story that heavily features imperialism I don’t think that it’s helpful or even possible to disregard the American perspective, not for the viewer nor the creator.

Cornix

Lucas never knew that he was going to tell the prequel stories when he made the originals. And he said that specifically the Endor battle was inspired by the Viet Cong, not the rest of it. By the time of the prequels, he clearly had some things to say about the then current state of American politics, which got more pronounced during the Bush administration and the Iraq war, but it’s sort of scattered in among the rest of it, and it’s a mistake to think that the Republic 1:1 equals America.

The whole reeducation thing feels like the author wanted a way to end the conflict without violence, to cement the Mon Cala as good guys. Instead he created the most twisted resolution possible

Pazuzu

It feels like the Republic is being treated as the U.S. because it is. An American wrote a story about Empire. The Vietnam allegory was explicitly stated about the OT.

Scotty Jones

I feel like both the podcast and the show are treating the Republic as "America" and is reading a lot of that stuff into it. Partly that's on Lucas, since he clearly dragged things in that direction in the prequels, presumably because he felt he had things to say about the state of American politics at the time. In the original trilogy, the old Republic was only a backdrop for the current conflict, and it always felt more like the Roman republic with some Arthurian legend thrown in. The politics of it was never really a thing, and didn't seem important.

Y'all got wooed by an example player character build for an RPG.

The whole Boba Fett chair discussion really makes me question if I still like Star Wars, especially the live action stuff.

logan

About the mind control stuff: I think they decided at some point when making this show that they can't do 7 seasons making us root for the clones and then have them do a heel turn without some sort of influence. I ended up really enjoying how they handled the clones. On the other hand, I *really* don't like this idea that Anikan is being controlled by Palps and that's why he goes bad. Anikan goes bad because he's a bad dude who is easily manipulated using good old fashion manipulation, no magic bs involved.

logan

Holy hell, the Quarren stuff is DARK

Sean

One of the things I love about this podcast, counter intuitively, is that it makes me really question if I even want to consume more Star Wars media. And that's a sincere compliment

KassaNova

Re: the Padme discussion: As a non-American it’s always a bit jarring to hear liberalism described as “the left” when it’s firmly in the right-wing block in my own country. So to me, the politics of CW and the prequels have seemed like a reflection of moderate, right wing politics, which seems inaccurate at least in how it would be viewed in the U.S.. It’s really cleared up a few things for me to hear the discussions in the podcast about how it reflected American politics at the time!

Cornix