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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/1su6UA5:
galadhir:
millicentthecat:
@arcadianblue and @galadhir and @kyloream on this thread (which I didn’t get a notification about - just seeing the replies now!)
Fasincating additions! (also @galadhir and @kyloream I have been lurking both your fics on ao3 heavily and they are amazing and I highly recommend them to everyone who is bored with my boring political chatter - good stuff here and here)
So I haven’t read/seen any canonical evidence of the First Order being racists, but if you want to send me something to look into, I’d definitely appreciate it. To address kyloream’s question, I did notice several officers in the First Order control rooms played by people of color, and let’s not forget the legacy of Admiral Rae Sloane.
As far as using brainwashing propoganda, questionable labor practices in their mines, and indoctrinating children, I am completely with you guys…I was only saying that these are all things that the Old and New Republic canonically did also. Here is a link concerning the New Republic propaganda machine.
I believe in Empire Strikes Back, there is explicit mention of forced/indentured labor in mines (including the tibana gas production center at Cloud City, if I remember correctly?!) and it rings as a long-time status quo. This was not something new to Imperial rule, but rather a part of the economic system in-universe. Slavery was around, too, and is still around in the NR in Bloodline. The indoctrinating children thing is definitely happening on both sides, though I wouldn’t call it cultism unless you’re talking about a religion (like the Jedi.) In some ways, indoctrination by political ideology is a lot more dangerous than that of a “cult.” In the real world, I find it dramatically terrifying.
If this is how you’re defining Hux and Kylo as “bad people,” you must recognize that characters like Obi-Wan, Han, Leia, Lando, Mon Mothma, etc etc, are equally guilty of these crimes and also “bad people.”
I definitely agree: the First Order are playing by nasty rules. And the Rebels didn’t make the rules. Neither did the Empire, or Palpatine. This is an anarcho-capitalist dystopia overrun with religious extremism, violence, war-mongering, and slavery going back a thousand years. In the 30 years between the Battle of Jakku and TFA, the fledgling government of the New Republic had a chance to fix some things… But as of Bloodline, the “good guys’” attempt at government is corrupt, stagnant, and crumbling. Half the worlds in the NR Senate are actively nostaglic for the Empire. I mean, “how badly the New Republic government is failing” is a BIG theme of Bloodline.
I’m not saying that the First Order is a fluffy stack of pancakes. They are a savage, genocidally violent military organization engaged in war and that sucks. But I haven’t come across anying in canon yet that convinces me their victory would be any more harmful or oppressive than a Resistance victory. Because the “good guys” suck every bit as much..
Anyway. How do you stop a toxic culture where everybody is playing by nasty rules? Someone has to call a time-out; someone has to end the game. Imo the quickest way to end a game in overtime is cake and pizza. Not suffering. (soft kylux prompt, tangential: Hux and Kylo get too caught up in a game of sabacc and start to fight until Mitaka shows up with cake and pizza. #saveforlater)
The idea that there can be peace “after we beat them” is just not historically realistic. Peace requires the elimination of the us and them binary. This is, as far as I’ve seen, the only ideological political difference between the Resistance and the FO: the FO policy is to absorb to enemy. The Rebel/NR/Resistance policy is to exclude them. It was not effective.
Hee! Thanks for the nod to my fic. I should really do more. I’m better at expressing my thoughts through fic than I am in meta, that’s for sure.
I don’t think I’ve ever said that the FO were racist. Certainly I don’t think I’ve seen any evidence of that, what with Finn being apparently kept an eye on because he’s considered officer material, and - as you say - Admiral Sloane.
I am really just basing my opinion of them on the fact that they are a savage, genocidally violent military organization that kidnaps children to put into its armies, mows down striking miners with stormtroopers rather than talk labour rights, and apparently is still shaped in various ways by the legacy of a man who thought that getting children to murder each other was a great team building exercise.
I fully acknowledge that the Republic was corrupt and apparently tolerated slavery as a normal course of affairs, and the Jedi practice of recruiting infants to raise as magic powered government enforcers is distinctly dodgy. I don’t know that we can rule out the possibility that the FO is also corrupt, mind you. We don’t know enough about them to be able to tell.
However, my feelings towards the Republic are softened by the fact that I presume it doesn’t exist any more, since its government has been destroyed. Who knows what’s going to arise there now? They’ve presumably got a chance to build something new that might even be better. IDK. Wait and see.
Because Hux is my favourite, and I admire his fearlessness and ferocity and connect pretty hard with the little we know about his relationship with his father, all my emotional engagement with the movie is with him. To that extent, I want to see him triumph - I want to see good things happen to him and for everyone to realize how awesome he is. I absolutely would not mind if the movie ended with a First Order victory. After which I would headcanon that he would usher in a new era of relatively benevolent dictatorship in which most of the problems of both systems would be solved.
But then I take a step back and disengage myself from my fannishness and I remind myself that if I withdrew my emotional support from the Republic because of its support for slavery and its taking children in infancy to become child soldiers, I can’t logically give my support to the First Order which does many of the same things and some other things which are equally bad.
They’re presented as two things you’re supposed to choose between, but just because one is bad doesn’t mean the other must be good. They could both be bad. In which case the only thing you can do is say ‘no. I don’t want either.’
So yeah, you may have noticed a kind of seesawing ambivalence in my comments about the First Order, and that’s because ambivalence is how I feel. Because Hux is my darling, I would love to be able to see the First Order as the heroes, but I can’t. I can’t see the heroes as the heroes either, to be fair.
Which leaves me reading the whole thing as a tragic story of how a bunch of people are trying their best to do what seems right to them for their own future and the future of the galaxy, given the influences and upbringings that they’ve all had.
I’m like ‘no, I’ve looked at both of your political systems and they don’t seem good, but you people - Hux who’s so clever and so idealistic and so brave, Ren who’s so broken and confused, Rey so lonely and friendly and capable, Finn who’s so scared and yet so indomitable, Leia who’s tried so hard for so long only to see everything she builds fall apart - you all seem so admirable and so pitiable. I wish you could all have had happier lives.’
galadhir:
millicentthecat:
@arcadianblue and @galadhir and @kyloream on this thread (which I didn’t get a notification about - just seeing the replies now!)
Fasincating additions! (also @galadhir and @kyloream I have been lurking both your fics on ao3 heavily and they are amazing and I highly recommend them to everyone who is bored with my boring political chatter - good stuff here and here)
So I haven’t read/seen any canonical evidence of the First Order being racists, but if you want to send me something to look into, I’d definitely appreciate it. To address kyloream’s question, I did notice several officers in the First Order control rooms played by people of color, and let’s not forget the legacy of Admiral Rae Sloane.
As far as using brainwashing propoganda, questionable labor practices in their mines, and indoctrinating children, I am completely with you guys…I was only saying that these are all things that the Old and New Republic canonically did also. Here is a link concerning the New Republic propaganda machine.
I believe in Empire Strikes Back, there is explicit mention of forced/indentured labor in mines (including the tibana gas production center at Cloud City, if I remember correctly?!) and it rings as a long-time status quo. This was not something new to Imperial rule, but rather a part of the economic system in-universe. Slavery was around, too, and is still around in the NR in Bloodline. The indoctrinating children thing is definitely happening on both sides, though I wouldn’t call it cultism unless you’re talking about a religion (like the Jedi.) In some ways, indoctrination by political ideology is a lot more dangerous than that of a “cult.” In the real world, I find it dramatically terrifying.
If this is how you’re defining Hux and Kylo as “bad people,” you must recognize that characters like Obi-Wan, Han, Leia, Lando, Mon Mothma, etc etc, are equally guilty of these crimes and also “bad people.”
I definitely agree: the First Order are playing by nasty rules. And the Rebels didn’t make the rules. Neither did the Empire, or Palpatine. This is an anarcho-capitalist dystopia overrun with religious extremism, violence, war-mongering, and slavery going back a thousand years. In the 30 years between the Battle of Jakku and TFA, the fledgling government of the New Republic had a chance to fix some things… But as of Bloodline, the “good guys’” attempt at government is corrupt, stagnant, and crumbling. Half the worlds in the NR Senate are actively nostaglic for the Empire. I mean, “how badly the New Republic government is failing” is a BIG theme of Bloodline.
I’m not saying that the First Order is a fluffy stack of pancakes. They are a savage, genocidally violent military organization engaged in war and that sucks. But I haven’t come across anying in canon yet that convinces me their victory would be any more harmful or oppressive than a Resistance victory. Because the “good guys” suck every bit as much..
Anyway. How do you stop a toxic culture where everybody is playing by nasty rules? Someone has to call a time-out; someone has to end the game. Imo the quickest way to end a game in overtime is cake and pizza. Not suffering. (soft kylux prompt, tangential: Hux and Kylo get too caught up in a game of sabacc and start to fight until Mitaka shows up with cake and pizza. #saveforlater)
The idea that there can be peace “after we beat them” is just not historically realistic. Peace requires the elimination of the us and them binary. This is, as far as I’ve seen, the only ideological political difference between the Resistance and the FO: the FO policy is to absorb to enemy. The Rebel/NR/Resistance policy is to exclude them. It was not effective.
Hee! Thanks for the nod to my fic. I should really do more. I’m better at expressing my thoughts through fic than I am in meta, that’s for sure.
I don’t think I’ve ever said that the FO were racist. Certainly I don’t think I’ve seen any evidence of that, what with Finn being apparently kept an eye on because he’s considered officer material, and - as you say - Admiral Sloane.
I am really just basing my opinion of them on the fact that they are a savage, genocidally violent military organization that kidnaps children to put into its armies, mows down striking miners with stormtroopers rather than talk labour rights, and apparently is still shaped in various ways by the legacy of a man who thought that getting children to murder each other was a great team building exercise.
I fully acknowledge that the Republic was corrupt and apparently tolerated slavery as a normal course of affairs, and the Jedi practice of recruiting infants to raise as magic powered government enforcers is distinctly dodgy. I don’t know that we can rule out the possibility that the FO is also corrupt, mind you. We don’t know enough about them to be able to tell.
However, my feelings towards the Republic are softened by the fact that I presume it doesn’t exist any more, since its government has been destroyed. Who knows what’s going to arise there now? They’ve presumably got a chance to build something new that might even be better. IDK. Wait and see.
Because Hux is my favourite, and I admire his fearlessness and ferocity and connect pretty hard with the little we know about his relationship with his father, all my emotional engagement with the movie is with him. To that extent, I want to see him triumph - I want to see good things happen to him and for everyone to realize how awesome he is. I absolutely would not mind if the movie ended with a First Order victory. After which I would headcanon that he would usher in a new era of relatively benevolent dictatorship in which most of the problems of both systems would be solved.
But then I take a step back and disengage myself from my fannishness and I remind myself that if I withdrew my emotional support from the Republic because of its support for slavery and its taking children in infancy to become child soldiers, I can’t logically give my support to the First Order which does many of the same things and some other things which are equally bad.
They’re presented as two things you’re supposed to choose between, but just because one is bad doesn’t mean the other must be good. They could both be bad. In which case the only thing you can do is say ‘no. I don’t want either.’
So yeah, you may have noticed a kind of seesawing ambivalence in my comments about the First Order, and that’s because ambivalence is how I feel. Because Hux is my darling, I would love to be able to see the First Order as the heroes, but I can’t. I can’t see the heroes as the heroes either, to be fair.
Which leaves me reading the whole thing as a tragic story of how a bunch of people are trying their best to do what seems right to them for their own future and the future of the galaxy, given the influences and upbringings that they’ve all had.
I’m like ‘no, I’ve looked at both of your political systems and they don’t seem good, but you people - Hux who’s so clever and so idealistic and so brave, Ren who’s so broken and confused, Rey so lonely and friendly and capable, Finn who’s so scared and yet so indomitable, Leia who’s tried so hard for so long only to see everything she builds fall apart - you all seem so admirable and so pitiable. I wish you could all have had happier lives.’
