A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 127: Revenge of the Sith (Novel) Pt. 3

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

We've come to the end of Matt Stover's (p)re-telling of Revenge of the Sith, and it has raised a lot more questions than it answered (which isn't, necessarily, a bad thing). Questions like: "Why does Anakin say things like that?" and "How do I know that's a baby?" and, maybe most importantly, "Padme who?"  NEXT TIME: STAR WARS Support the show by going to Patreon.com/civilized! Show Notes Four Reasons Yoda Failed as a CEO Common Cyborg Hosted by Rob Zacny (robzacny.bsky.social) Featuring Alicia Acampora (ali-online.bsky.social), Austin Walker (austinwalker.bsky.social), and Natalie Watson (nataliewatson.bsky.social) Produced by Austin Walker Music by Jack de Quidt (notquitereal.bsky.social Cover art by Xeecee (xeecee.bsky.social)  

Let us return once more to a more civilized age, a Star Wars podcast. I'm Rob's acting, joined by Alia Kapora, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. We are, as always, supported by you, our listeners, by patreon.com slash civilized. So head over there if you'd like to support the show and get access to all our Q&A episodes and special editions like our tour through the Tartikovsky Clone Wars cartoon, which ended up being so rich with material, dense, with meaning we ended up doing two episodes on it. We got through part one, and we're like, we can't do justice to this in three hours.

So we need to have two episodes about this cartoon, which is surprisingly awesome. But today, we are back on mission, completing Matthew Stover's novelization of Revenge of the Sith. And we are going to learn how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker forever. Says that here on the side of my fucking book, man. Did you see that? Do you have that edition?

Yeah. Oh, that's why I was like, look at the phrasing, right. I just turned it. By the way, though. Yeah. So we had this anniversary edition. We do. Mm-hmm.

And I was like, this is a cool edition. It's got the footnotes, like nice paper, all this stuff. Um, I don't consider myself having particularly greasy or sweaty hands. But all the silver embossing on my cover just, just like, wore off, just from reading it once. yeah like they're like look that's what my cover looks like now that's wild that's wild that's really wild yeah and it's just like it's just wiped off so you ears are fine mine mine is a bit scratch mine is scratch now that you mention it mine is it is it is like right through where it says episode the second ean episode just gone i can just wipe this off of my phone well that's okay because listen

even without the dust jacket it's kind of like a beautiful image of them fighting on Mustafa, you know? That's like a sick cover itself. Oh, that's pretty cool. Now, you might know here that he doesn't have the high ground, which is important he's not going to say he has the high ground. Number one line I'm shocked wasn't in this book. I was like, huh?

He just does it. What? It's wild. Anyway, we'll get there. Sorry to jump ahead. No high ground here. No high ground. I mean, I think he might have it, but he doesn't.

say he has it. Announce it. Right. Yeah. Kind of glad Stover didn't have to accommodate that. Yeah. Like there's some things that Stover, I think, was spared, working from an earlier version of the script. I mean, he made some different choices about late game Anakin and his dialogue than I think the film did.

Yeah. Well, these are good. So that's interesting because I would say, I had a lot of fun with this third part, which covers some well. well-trodden territory, but I will say where it is expanded, in general is in the direction of, look at how big this fucking Patsy is. Look at this absolute clown, this Paltroon, who has wandered into Palpatine's Lair and it's just getting absolutely spun in a circle.

You know what the thing I kept thinking about in the back end of this is the, I would strike Timothy Shalame out in three pitches? tweet, which I'm pretty sure a friend of the show Sullivan wrote, and which I will include in the description. But Palpatine is fucking putting everyone in the blender out there. He is striking everybody out. He's catching everybody looking. He is like breaking ankles. He's doing whatever sports metaphor you want.

Everyone when Saquan did that like jump over someone backwards, Palpatine is doing that sometimes literally, but mostly figuratively, emotionally and psychologically. it's bad out there for everybody. So this is the other thing. So we've got an even bigger patsy of Anakin where he has the confrontation with Palpatine, where Palpatine reveals to him his true nature as a SIF, but we get a lot more material in which he engages the lad in a kind of Socratic debate,

but not really. Mostly just like takes advantage of the kids. in Italy to formulate any kind of response. This would never happen to a Jesuit. If only they had a few of those on staff at the, at the temple. But Anakin gets utterly wrecked by some, by some pretty standard, like false, as Stover classic. No, it's like false binaries.

He falls into every single one of them. And let's like tons of stuff be insepted in his head, basically. And doesn't even notice when Palpatine retracts some key promises he makes over the course of, over the course of their conversations. He goes and tells Mace what he found. And Mace has a horrible realization about Anakin and says, you stay here. We will go deal with this. We get a lot of Obi-Wan fighting on Udupao. We get the dragon horse, his friend.

which apparently made Stover's ex-wife cry. No, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am Boca-pilled. I am Boca's ever one. Man, it's good. She is, R-I-P-Boga. R-I-P-Boga. So he learns, he meets, he has a trusty hound, a trusty steed who lays down her life. We get Stover's interpretation of what goes on with the clones when they, when they turn with Order 66.

And that is being told in parallel with the showdown on Corazon, right? Yeah, I believe that's right. It's kind of weird because it's like it's he's the showdown with Corosan is happening after Grievous is dead, but it's the Cody versus Obi-Wan stuff that's happening while Mace is taking, I don't know, because Mace is already dealt with when Order 60s is dead. six disorder. So, so no, Mace's, Mace is, I mean, I think it's the grievous showdown is happening in parallel with Anakin's conversation. That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Otterly rolled. Yeah. But anyway, so you know, Mace heads out there to, to deal with Palpatine. Anakin freaks out, goes over there. The thing that is very different here is we have a, we have a Palpatine

who enjoys his work a little bit more. And also there's a fun bit here where Palpatine is figuring out how to stage, like, how is he going to basically beat a congressional inquiry about what happened tonight? And he basically stages a little one-man radio drama. So he's going to present to the Star Wars 9-11 commission. And then he merks the entire Jedi Kill Team. I've never seen anyone write a character they love and have to like let die more. than Stover and Mace. Kit Fisto? Oh, no. I mean, Kit Fisto dies smiling, obviously. That one reads like a guy who's excited to kill a character off and put his head on the desk, whereas the Mace on again is like, Mace Window is the most badass Jedi of all time.

I'm saying about this is Rupad. Yeah, I'm giving me three pages on Ripod. And I love him. I'm eating them up, so. It's just like so much, like, he should have been the particular. protagonist. Like, I can only let him be a protagonist for four pages, so I would have do the most that I can. A hundred percent.

Poor maze. We are also circling around the fact that, like, Stover kind of can't escape the conclusion that Anakin sucks. This kid sucks. Like, that is the thing he's kind of up against is, like, is this tragic really after a point? Like, does this feel tragic? Or is this feel like a little shit?

Does it feel like this little shit had big feelings? freaked out and fucks up repeatedly. He shows up, he betrays Mace, and just sort sits there being like, garsh, what have I done? I feel weird. And Palpatine's like, don't worry, you're a siff now. It's awesome. Go kill them kids.

And he does. We see the familiar scenes. We get Cody turning on, turning on Obi-Wan, and as Sover lays it out, the clones, it's not like their sleeper agents who just like awakened their programming in this telling. It's just that it means no more to them to kill their Jedi comrades than it does to banter with them seconds earlier. If the clones are just so on mission, they don't care.

They even work banter into their immediate. When he's like, you couldn't send this order in before. I gave him back to a lightsaber. He's, you know, he's bantering to the end. I think it's a, we'll get into it, but I think it's an interesting synthesis between the two versions of what it is. Is it a chip or is it training?

There's kind of a middle ground that it finds, which I think is fascinating. Anakin goes and talks to Padmei, and again, if we have not thought what a puts he is, this has to be one of the many low moments this dude has, because it's like good news, babe. I took care of everything. I slotted the Jedi and all the younglings.

We can be together. And then he's like, gosh, I thought you'd be happy. I don't think he admits the youngling killing at this point because I think he just says I took care of all the traitors. Because Obi-Wan has to show up and say that to her and it breaks her. Yeah, this is when he's like, hey, don't worry about being a senator anymore. just kind of be in my pocket. Yeah, you're just mine.

Yeah. It's real. Don't talk to any of your friends. Don't go to work. Yeah. I keep coming back to Twin Peaks with them, but it's really Leo telling Shelley that she can only go to the double R and then come straight home and that is it. Do not talk to any of your friends. Do not have any hobbies.

Where are my boots? Like, it's really bad. Abusive boyfriend to Anakin, abusive husband, Anakin is so loud in the. this book. It's also, it's, to me, it's, it's, it's Shelly and Bobby. You're right. Right? Because Bobby's the one who like, is like, I'm going to get evil. You're right. And it's just so stupid at how he does it. He thinks he's like pulling one over on all of the most evil guys in Twin Peaks. Yeah. He's got a plan. He's going to execute. which ultimately leads to his demise. And he comes home and he's like,

you don't understand, Shelly. When I rob Leo, when I rob him, you're not going to have to go work at the double R anymore. You can just stay here. You don't have to. And Shelly's like, I like working at the double R. I like helping Norma. Yeah, Norma with the pies.

It's like, she's all alone over there. She needs me. And it's, you know, it's tough. Yeah. So, Anakin is sort of huffy that his wife isn't grateful enough that he took care of all this. And he's got a little few more things to take care of, if you know what I mean, wink. And he heads off to Mustafa to deal with the remnants of separatist leadership. Yep.

Obi-Wan comes back to Corrassant with... Oh, this is... Because he gets picked up by bail. There's an inserted scene with Bail in all this, which is Bail flees the planet after witnessing a little baby Padawan get fucking... That scene is wild. Confettied by a volley of clone trooper shots, then they're like, kill witnesses.

All the Order 66 shit with both... Cody on Udipau and then here at the the Jedi Temple is like terrifying. I'm really glad we and it's not a lot like it's only a handful of paragraphs all said, but it's some of the best rendered stuff about like the end of the war. I wish we'd gotten a little bit more of it for reasons I'll talk about when we talk about how Anakin is written in contrast. Obi-Wan goes to see Padman. We get that we see this thing through three PO's eyes.

And basically this is where he lays out to Padme, how bad things have gotten by this point. Obi-Wan has seen the closed circuit TV footage of Anakin killing a bunch of kids and then kneeling at the feet of Palpatine. And Padmey's like, I don't believe you know this can't have happened. And she makes a break for it. She's going to go find out. She's going to go find out Anakin on Mustafa. And of course, Obi-Wan knew that.

happen and stows away aboard her ship. So you can join this confrontation. And it's, you know, it's kind of what we remember from the film. He slaughters all the separatist leadership. All quipping. And this is my beef with the way he's written at the end of this book. But we'll get there again. I'm holding my tongue.

And I have to say he's constantly quipping. It's bad. Padmey shows up. He's just finished wiping everyone out. He gets a phone call from, uh, from Palpatine. who's like, hey, you're in danger, be, you know, be on guard.

And in the most incredible, like, again, this dude's such a fucking douchebag, dip shit. His internal monologue at this point, as he sees Padme's ship come in, is like, only in danger from getting kissed to death. It's so funny. Oh. I can't. This dude is like, oh, she came to Mustafa for a little booty call. Yeah, yeah, dude.

For sure, my man. It's bad. He chokes her. I don't know, Master. They call up the little death. Yeah, okay, kids. So she shows up. And yes, he does the thing that we remember.

Once again, we're really stressing the definition of her dying but broken heart. This is like Othello being like, she just kissed me too hard. That's what happened. That's what happened there. She just got way too into that kiss. It's damn shame. Really tragic. I mean, at least later, he does feel outright.

We get in the words that he feels like he killed her. And I'm going to choose to believe him. Hey, Stover is not the one who had the droid. That is in the movie, right? The droids like, we can't explain why she's dying. It's in here too. It's in here too because the droid is like, he's working from a script where it's like, no one can explain why she died. And it's like he choked the shit out of pregnant women. And then just left her on the tarmac to be scraped on the ship by his droids.

Oh my God. Yeah, she was out for a while because they were they were battling. they were battling for I assume at least like I don't know how long does it how long it's hard to say especially in this book it's so hard that whole final fight is but they're like jumping off shit

it's got to be like at least an hour they're all over the place so you know not doesn't bode well for for Padmay to be she needed a doctor she needed a doctor droid she needed a what do they call MDs immediately I mean honestly

C-3PO and our team should have just taken the ship. Like, Obi-Wan will figure out another way back. He's known to do just this. Yep. A few things are bigger, L. than him being out of a notepad me, I've got visions of you dying. And she's like, I'll be fun.

I've got coverage. I'll just go to the neonatal unit. It's going to be fine. Don't worry about it. He dies of childbirth here on Cora's on Cora. He's like, no, I got to do something. God. It's bad.

All you had to do was just sit there. Anyway. Meanwhile, Yoda sneaks into the Senate. Please look forward to, I don't know, 70 minutes from now, an hour from now, 90 minutes. When we talk about one of the maneuvers that Obi-Wan and Yoda had to pull ahead of this moment, before Obi-Wan came to Mustafa, when they sneak back into the Jedi Temple, I've just returned to me. Just if you haven't read this book, please look forward. I've recorded...

It's the hand of the Senate. Is it? If you're thinking about something as Grogu-Ajacent. It's Grogu adjacent. It's going into the Senate. Okay. You're right. You're right.

That's what it is. You're right. I have the audio from the audiobook to play for everybody. Don't worry. Also, he writes Palpatine's POV. He does. In Natalie's voice. That's the only way I can describe it is, like, it turns out Palpatine's monologue is,

just straight up lifted from like two years of Natalie appearances on the show. What? Like, he keeps calling him a little green freak. Okay, that is true. It is true. The only thing he doesn't do is like the only thing missing is a long aside where it's like, but I couldn't, but Palpatine couldn't figure out if this thing was a bug? It really is.

bugger insect is the only thing that's missing. That's because he knows in his heart that he's a bug. Palpatine's very confident, I think. Right, there's no debate. There's no debate to be had. And again, working with what the script says, Yoda's midway through the fight, and he's like, nope, can't win this one.

I just don't have it. And he pieces out. That is one of the strikeout Timothy Chalamey moments for me is when Yoda's like, oh, I'm done. This motherfucker is just better than me. Again, like Yoda's in his LeBron on the Lakers era. You're right.

You're right. Oh, that's sad. And he realized it. He showed up. He posted some scores. Yep. Like, he got points. He kept some sort of streak alive.

Yeah. Pieces out. Winning that fight on Giannosis at the end of attack of the clones is like winning in the bubble. You know? Like, it ain't like that for real out here. Once the crowds are back involved,

you know, once you're out of the arena. Kishik is his midseason. is emirates cup which by the way we skipped Keshik Stover doesn't care Stover doesn't care Stover doesn't care

Stover's written enough fucking battle scenes for one book, thank you He's like please let me be Let me be free of these fucking chases and these fucking battles Please Anakin gets chopped up

He does Obie Wands like I can't kill a defeated opponent. I'll just let him burn. Yeah. And Palpatine shows up and as we see sort of cradles his his little boo,

his little baby. His sweet boy. His sweet baby boy. Yeah. Burning to a crisp. He needed to, he needed to, he was so, he was so worried and sad. Had to rush to his side. And we get the,

the, uh, the playoffs here. Padmay dying aboard the aboard the ship you know them deciding what they're to do with the twins

Anakin waking up and we get the this is you know this how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker

forever which is him coming to terms with all that he is lost and his new sort of

entomement in a weaponized life supports rig and the realization that he owns the choices he's made. The things that have happened to him are things he caused,

but also that even though he knows he's gotten, he's horribly screwed up, he's horribly screwed up, his realization there has nothing to cling to but Palpatine because literally everything else is gone. And even as Darth Vader, this Anakin still clings to comfort wherever he might find it. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, and Yoda's like, hey, sup, Quigon. Oh, yeah, Quigon is Yoda's new master. Quigon is the force also. It's so important, you pointed that out, Natalie. You really picked, you nailed one of the very, that is like very tricky, that thing that Stover does, that feels like lore from on high. Quigone is the force. The force is using Quigon to speak.

Right. is what the book says. But then also it's Quigon, but it's not really, like, is it? Or is it the forest dressed up as Quigon? Hard to say. And maybe understanding the impossibility of that, but also the necessity of it is how you become a Force Ghost. We'll get there. We'll talk through.

But it's like, one of our big questions forever is like, what's up with Force Ghosts? And so here's Quigon. This is our equivalent of the Trinity. I really do think that that's right. How can it be one, but also three? Yeah, I do. For real. Oh, my God, Quigon is Jesus.

Wow. Yeah. Quigon is Jesus. I do really like Quigon. I do really like Yota being like Quigon is my master now. And I'm going to like study with Ghost Quigon on Dagaba. It's a fun, goofy way of being like, and that's why he's so different. 50 years later on down, or not 50 years or whatever, 20 years later on Dagaba.

Quigone made him goofy? Quigion made him goofy. He got to be goofy. He got to be a paddle on again. You know what I mean? He got to put his little goofy hat back on. Just razzing each other. He just...

He does end all of this being like, I was washed. I mean... That's right. I'm the one who fucked this up. I fucked it up. Right. You know?

And he's right. And I'm glad he knows it. You know? I'm glad he knows. Quagin I'm being like, you know, it would be super funny. Is when one of Skywalker's kid shows up, what if you just act like a weird little guy?

He doesn't even teach him shit. You just like, I don't know. You seem too old. Fuck it. I don't care anymore. That'd be so funny, right? God. All right.

So. From the beginning. Into this we go. Where does it? So does it, it opens with the Jedi trap. The discussion of the Jedi trap. Which actually I do like. I'd like it when he does reveal the other part of it.

Because he describes in detail like Jedi and the Clone Wars basically unfucking killable. Just a nightmare to get at them. You know, one of them is worth, you know, 10,000 droids, et cetera. They're very slippery, even when they're overmatched, they can escape. So you need to create traps for them where they put themselves in a disadvantage position against a high-value target. And crucially, everything around them is going to be collateral damage. Like the battle's going to be bad.

You're creating a kill zone. And pretty much everyone, everyone and everything around this battle is going to take the worst of it. So it's also key that whatever you do, you don't give a shit about where this battle is happening. And that is the situation that has been established on Udipal, that literally Obi-Wan has to go down into that, like, hive undercity and go track down Grievous. And that is where Grievous is already waiting with all these battle droids. And that is going to be the trap snapping shot. The thing I really like here is later in the book, when he describes like all the

Jedi getting killed with Order 66. He reveals that what he's described with Udipau, the perfect Jedi trap, is literally the central military dynamic of the Clone Wars. The entire war has been a Jedi trap and the battlefields of the Clone

Wars have been structured exactly the way he describes places where the Republic has nothing of value. Palpatine has nothing of value there. The separatist might, but Palpatine doesn't. Yeah. And so to carry out Order 66, all the Jedi around these battlefields that fundamentally are irrelevant.

And they have all been designed to snapshot in exactly this way and take out the Jedi there. Which I think is a really fun way of laying it out. I think there's a few things that the Stoverpoles here that throughout this. I'm like, oh, that's a really fun way of looking at, especially because it's working without the Clone Wars cartoon, right? but I think a lot of it still does mesh with some of that, where he's sort of looking at how all these pieces fit together and the exact nature of what it is the Jedi have done to themselves. Because it can be, it can sometimes feel a little wishy-washy

where, like, yes, it's cautionary. The Jedi embrace their roles as military leaders, and this was where they begin to lose it. But it helps to concretize it in this way of like, no, literally, the war they are fighting and the way they are fighting it puts them in the situation that's going to be fatal to them. It's not just that they picked up the sword and took to the battlefield. It is that the battlefields themselves were designed for exactly this. Yeah, that's one of the tricky things about being like they lost the second they entered the war.

It's like, okay, but you also gave us all of these great examples of how their choice, the particular choices they made, are what led them down the path to losing the war and being killed and not having enough of them to survive to mount a counteroffensive or an actual rebellion in the moment. So, like, again, that felt like a little bit like trapped by the script, the sort of stuff late. Again, there's particular moments later where he's like, you know, the second we picked up our, I forget which, which it might be Yoda, it might be Obi-Wan, who basically say like as soon as we entered the war, we lost. And it's like, no, well, you could have done other things. There's other ways you could have done some stuff that maybe would have made things go differently, which is part of the joy of the tragedy. It's actually filled with off-ramps that if only this one thing had gone differently,

maybe you wouldn't have ended up so deep in the shit, you know? So, yeah. But the general strategy just put them at such a vulnerable position. Like, as it's laid out here, it's not, it's not like, it's not the council's decision-making or the council's, consul's politicking that is a part of the Jedi trap. It's the, it's spreading the Jedi out so thin and so disparately on, on, you know, far away planets where the planets are inhabited by, um, sometimes the enemy, ideally the

enemy, but a lot of the times a third party who is just like, this is the site of the battle, um, who, yeah, like Rob said earlier. or the collateral, like, whoever, whatever damage is done there, it's going to reflect poorly on the Republic, because those people are going to, like, the people of the planet themselves are going to face, like, huge ramifications for these battles taking place there. And the Republic isn't going to have the resources,

as we saw with Uncle Ono, to, like, support, you know, far away planets, that need, like, rehab efforts post-post these battles. And so it feels like just fundamentally, the way in which the Jedi were deployed just was always, like, kind of doomed from the jump. Like, as long as they were enacting the strategy, they were in the perfect position to be, eliminated by the end of it, like throughout it and then by the end of it as well. And it like whatever's happening on Corrassant, whatever's happening in the council war room

doesn't really matter unless it's, hey, all you Jedi come home right now because we need to mount like a Jedi effort. But as long as everyone is just like a solo Jedi general with a group of clones with him, they're fucked, basically. By the way, one of many off ramps, before they went in front of Palpatine, maybe send the recall, like, if you know the whole war is the champ, maybe that is the like, hey, get on your ships and just come straight home.

Don't tell anyone where you're going. Everyone like go to ground, let's rally. Would have been a good moment. I imagine, I imagine all of this is happening so quickly though. Interestingly, this is the most impulsive thing the Jedi do. Everything is such a meditated, you know, delayed decision-making process for the Jedi and the council.

It takes them fucking forever to make a decision. And yet, the decision to apprehend Palpatine is the most impulsive, like, poorly planned poorly executed one they do and it's the one that it goes to this fatalism of like as they split up with the complete misallocation of like who does what

Yoda entering the like fuck it we ball mode as they're like they know the stakes of what they're doing and it's just like ah who gives the shit Mace you handle this and Mace is going to be the most straight from the shoulder like

there's a SIF I know what to do I'm to go at his ass. It does kind of like, in part of like the disappointment that I have with Anakin in this, I wish that more could have been done with Palpatine in this because it feels like that's part of the design. Like as we go into these final chapters, the fact that Obi-1 is not there to support Anakin and Yoda is not there to support Mace is like a huge part of where the failure comes from in a lot of these situations. And, like, feeling more like that was part of the puzzle.

Did you see that footnote where Stover is like, you know, you might be reading this and going, why didn't Obi-Wan and Yoda go to confront Halpatine together at the same time? I didn't have a good answer for that when it was in the script. So I wrote this bit about how, I think Obi-Wan says something like, you know, maybe beats Yoda is like, you know, if you, if we attack both Sith at once, it might, there's a chance that could weaken them by distracting them or something like that. Like it like shakes their connection to each other. Maybe there were like two chances to strike it to Sith. And it's like, you can tell he feels boxed in by the fact that you'd, it's not how I would have done it is what

he's thinking. He's like, but I guess I got to find a way to make it make sense. And I think you could stretch that backwards into, yeah, of course, yeah, no, Palpatine's plan, in a way, it's the mirror of that, which is I have to split up, Obi-One and Annik, and I have to split up Mason and Yoda. Without them, those two duos working together, intimately, they become vulnerable, which is also the part of the Jedi trap, right? That is the Jedi trap in a real way is split them off by themselves into places where they can't rely on each other. That's one of the three or four parts of the Jedi trap, right, as being remote. So, step one. Also, I couldn't stop but thinking about Atten, our Jedi killer, from

Kotor 2 during the Jedi trap stuff. You know, his Jedi trap is a little different. The bait. The bait. But the bait is the same. Yeah, the bait is the same. Yeah. So. God.

Also, we can just dispense with the grievous Obi-Wan stuff here before we get into the hard sell on Anakin. Obi-Wan's the best. He's just like the coolest. And I actually think I kind of like this. So, the way to describe it. Grievous is unbeatable.

That effectively he has, like, he's got the download on every single Jedi's fighting style. He's got all the blades. He can process, like, so much per second. Nobody can take him. And we cut to in the height of their fight. Why isn't Mace on this mission? And Mace telling him. I think you, of all of us, have the best chance of beating him.

And Obi-Wan's like, but you're the greatest. swordsman in the Johnny Order. All I use is basic Sarasu. And Mace's response here is kind of, it's like cool character giving the biggest ups to another character where it's like, yeah,

I invented my own fighting style because I have weaknesses that I need to compensate for. You use the most basic passive style and you've never needed anything else because you're just that good. I am called a great swordsman because I invented a lethal style.

But who is greater? The creator of a killing form or the master of the classic form. Banger. Yeah, let's go. Let's go right now. It's great. It's so good. Which is also interesting because it is, this book is filled with lightsaber form talk, right?

Like, it's all over the back end of this book. This whole year, I find this is so interesting. None of this shit, like, I never heard about lightsaber. reform shit basically into the last couple years when I started like because I started dropping out of Star Wars of this era like because Attack the Clones was so bad I checked out I was like tactic clown sucks I didn't want to

see the third move fuck it I'm done But The first taste I got of it was like years later It's like I like you know I like the Dark Forces Games I should play Jedi Academy Oh this is this is kind of cool Like Calcutan fighting this old like Big Lizard guy

But they got these different forms like basically heavy medium and light it's cool. And then Cotor is like lightsaber form, lightsaber form. Here's five more. It's these ones too.

It's these seven that get all over the place in this era. And like I get it in a sense because it's clear there was a lot of, not that there wasn't a lot of thought in the original trilogy about the choreography when we cover the original trilogy shortly we'll be talking about the difference

in lightsaber combat, I'm sure, in those movies compared to the prequels and the clone wars and everything else. But the prequels really did a lot of work with how do we want to characterize all of our principles with the way they wield their lightsabers. Like going all the way back to the episode one with Obi-Wan, Quigon, and Darth Maul. But like them especially, you think about the way Duku is choreographed with his like very, you know, traditional dueling fenceerly.

Exactly. Exactly, exactly. And it's like, you know, that's, that's candy for a writer to start digging into, you know, be like, ooh, that's Makashi. And like, I can, I have no idea where these ideas originally came from. I don't know if there was a writer's meeting that was like, oh, we have to give names to these things and, like, put them in all of the books and all of that. But like, it's, it's really fun. And it works here to really differentiate everybody, especially in this moment, Obi-Wan, whose form is literally the defensive form. It's the first form you learn.

It's, you know, to push forward, I believe it's the form Luke is going to learn on the Millennium Falcon with the remote trainer. It's the form that the younglings learn first. It's how do I not die? And having that be the center of who he is, given that that's who Obi-Wan is, Obi-Wan is the character who at the end of the war does not die. And then in his greatest moment, at the end of New Hope or the middle end of a New Hope, decides to let himself die so that he can be, because that's actually the most important

thing he can do in that moment is like, oh yeah, it's cool to have a name for that, even if it's a little wiki brain to develop it out that way. When it clicks into place, it works. We talked about this also with rebels and the Obi-on mall duel at the end of that. So like, it's fun to see that stuff flow forward from here. So, you know, we cut back to his fight with grievous. There's a moment where I think it's here where things are starting to. look a little grim for old Obi-Wan for a second, and he's like, huh, maybe this is the end for me. I always thought Anakin would be there when I died.

There it is. Speaking of, you got a little footnote. Uh-huh? Uh-huh. That footnote pissed me the fuck off, because when I read that, because the first time I read it, I was reading from the e-book version,

um, because I don't want to be sullied by the footnotes until my second read. And the first time I read it, I was like, God, he, like, I had such an emotional, like, reaction to that line that, that Obi-Wan really, like, I think of them as, as brothers, as partners, as, as soldiers together, like, that he always imagined that they would be together, like, that they would face, like, their final moments together somewhere. And I was like, wow, that's so tragic, like, so sad. Like he really thought like his best friend would be the last person that he saw.

Like and and then, you know, reading the footnote and sober being like, and it was his best friend that was the last person he saw because he was Darth Vader actually. I was like. Hey, it works on levels. He created that beautiful moment for you, but also he's like, he-he-he-he-he-h-h. Aren't I puckish? I don't like when he-he-he-he.

at me. I don't like it at all. So maybe he shouldn't have bought this edition. Except for when he's like, this is Boga. I love her and my ex-wife who was an equestrian. And I loved her too. By the way, there's later a bit where he's like

if you've ever been married to our history major, you know, a little something about the... I'm like, shut up about your wife. Maybe wives. We don't know. We don't know. We know if it could have been... Right. He could have had... You could have had a horse girl.

Yeah. You could have had an ark. Yeah. Jay Z, girls, girls, girls. You know what I mean? Equestrian chick. She knew how to ride. Oh, my God.

Anyway, I just really hated that he called it. An Easter egg. He did call it an Easter egg. It's not an Easter egg. It's just. It's not an Easter egg. It's just what happens. It's just the best.

It's what you get, we need, we need a, A memo, a PS, like, an emergency message sent to everyone in the world about what the fucking Easter egg is. Everyone needs to read it and sign something at the bottom so that we can just be rid of bad Easter egg references. Nerd culture is what did this. It's like every time, here's a bunch of Easter eggs. There's a bunch of Easter eggs in Ready Player 1. Did you recognize the Iron Giant? But this is like a decade before there was that much poison in the well.

Like what? Stover's the one pouring it into the reservoir. He planted the first poisonous seed. But either way, Obi-Wan is so good at this form that grievous, even in maximum, like, ninja. a blender mode, can't chop him up. And then his lightsabers get cut in half. And now he's got less to fight Obi-Wan with. And then he pieces out. He tries to run. There's a whole chase. There's more Boga helping out. There's that great bit about where, and I think this is kind of interesting as we go forward especially. I didn't kind of expect this to pay off. But he talks about

Obi-Wan in his own head is like, this is why I like animals. I like to write animals. instead of spaceships is they can, they are alive and they don't want to die. They don't want to crash. Animals want to live and have their own impulses and are connected to the force in this different way. And at the time, I was like, but maybe you just don't connect to machines the way Anakin does. Maybe for Anakin, the ship doesn't want to crash either. Maybe for Anakin, he can sense that the droid who is helping him pilot the ship gives it a sense of life. and, you know, vitality that's a lot like what Boga has.

And then by the end of the book, we get some real fucked up shit with Anakin and R2 D2 that makes me go like, no, fuck that Anakin guy. Obi-Wan is right, Boga all day, you know, like in R2 all day. I love R2. But Angeon doesn't actually have that by the end of this book. He loses it. So. But I like that stuff.

I like the book finally having Obi-Wan kind of like explain to the reader why he likes animals. And the answer is like, they are also connected. connected to the force and he is uniquely attuned to feel that with them and become fast friends with them moments before they die. He picked the one with the highest loyalty

stat. He really did. He looked at all of the horses and there was the fast horse there was the strong horse and he... It's like an Aesop's fable.

Are you quoting Osama bin Laden now? What? What if Osama bin Laden's most leaden quotes was he was like When people see a strong horse Next to a weak horse People prefer the strong horse And because the 2000s were just a desert

And people are like Oh strategic wisdom from this terrorist mastermind People like the big horse Yeah This was getting articles Like this was, yeah. People like, let me explain to you the crisis of the global war on terror. Little horse?

Big horse. People like the big horse. You want big horse. Yeah. If you got to choose, you're going to pick big horse. Right, guys? So, Sama's insight. Well, I mean, I guess I would do big horse.

You know? But not Obi-Wan. Obi-Won did not pick Big Horace. Obi-Wan picked loyal. Yeah, but like... But Big is not at the top of Bogus stat sheet. It's true. Yeah.

What it is is loyal. And that's why they bonded so hardcore. And that's why Boca was able to anticipate that Obi-Wan would need her again. I'm not going to say anything about the fact that Boca is gendered to be female. No, are you? to be very clear, because it's not that she's gendered to be female passive. It's not that Obi-Wan goes

like, I'm going to use she when I'm talking about Bogga. It's that there's a particular paragraph in which he goes, are you ready, girl? And he's like, hmm, but are you a girl? Are you a girl, Boga? And she goes like, wheyer, or whatever. And he's like,

I'll take that as a yes. And like, okay, man. I don't think you need to explain this little facet of Obi-Wan, psychology away with the scene where he actually checks but can't understand her anyway. Why don't you, yeah. I guess so.

You know what? Oberlin said, what are you so like that? He couldn't, he couldn't force connect with her and just ask her outright? Maybe he did, you know? Maybe he did. Yeah, maybe that's what she was saying.

Maybe that's what she was saying. She her. He didn't mock animal sense like we did. It's right. Beasts. What was it, beast? Beast trick. Yeah.

Okay. Well, you know what a trick. He's not trying to trick. He does do beast trick later. He does do beast trick later with the slimy underground whatever monster. Do you remember that bit? Yes. Where he just decides.

He's like, that's the new tone he's going to take for two pages in the book is like goofball cartoon. Very silly. You need to cheer himself up after his little horse was hit with bazookas. That's right. With a fucking. Yeah. What do we think of this grievous?

Because, you know, this goes to the places it all goes. Chases him down. Chase scene. He talks about he's bad at writing chase scenes. But then it gets to be grievous versus Obi-Wod. And that kind of plays out the same as the movie. They fight. He gets the electrostaff.

You know, he loses a lightsaber. He gets the electrow staff. He busts open the grievous chest piece. He shoots him. Grievous dies. And I'm just like curious what you all expected from the grievous in this book. And like what the feeling was less so about the fight. because it's basically the fight for the movie.

And more so the grievous, who we get here in text, which is different because it's text. And also, he's not coughing every three seconds because that's just not in here for some reason. I was expecting more of grievous's perspective to come out here. I think this section really did just feel like I was watching the movie, but with words and reading. and I kind of had wished that we would have had an opportunity to shift perspective into grievous. Although it just kind of bummed me out that we didn't get that opportunity. Yeah, I don't know if anybody else felt like they were able to get more out of grievous. but to me it just felt like I was

watching I was really just watching the movie. I think there's cool Obi-Wan stuff because of him talking about how he's, you know, riding Boga and the way that they're connected and him kind of talking about how the force is acting through him and that he's not making these decisions that the force is, he's just allowing himself to be a vessel by which the force passes through.

The cartoon existed by this point, right? Like the Jedi is the heart of the force, is the blade of the force? Yeah. Yeah. Real. It's real. It's there.

We do everything at the right time. I'm just going to say, we watch the, we. This show was executive produced by Gandalf, basically. Basically right. Yeah. The manipulation, the fucking white council has like moved stuff together There's the word the right place, the right time. Yeah, he gets some shit off in this.

Like, I'm not, like, I think that part is great. Obi-Wan comes off. Yeah. He admits he hates the chasing. He does. He says he hates the chasing. I don't mind it. He's right.

They suck. Oh. Natalie, you said you didn't hate it. Natalie didn't hate it. I don't mind. I mean, I don't mind it. I guess I'm not, I wasn't, I'm not, I don't have, like, particularly high standards for a chase scene, perhaps.

So, um, maybe. He moves through it really fast is more of the thing. Where I'm saying like he like generally they suck. He moves through this fast. But him saying it reminded me of, um, the ventress book that we read. Remember that long, yeah, remember that long fucking chase scene where she meets up with, um, yeah, I sure do. Yeah.

On the planet where the first time they meet basically. She's chasing the guy and they stop and they chase again. It is a description of a platformer sequence. It's like a frog or platformer that goes on for pages. Like, it is hard to do these things in prose. Like, you can see how, like, and, because chases, fucking awesome in movies. They rock, right?

Well, that's, that's. But nobody wants to read the car chase scene in novel form. There are a number of times I made basically that note, Rob, while reading this book was like, movies are so good because it's so much gets communicated through visuals, not just information about plot and character, but about action and dynamism and like the sense of your emotion can link with the story because of how something is shot and edited. And it's hard.

It's just hard. It's not one of the things that text does as well as film, in my opinion, is like you can write great action seats. It's totally doable. But it's really hard. And it's really hard when there are so many in a single book because you're trying to just map to what a movie is. You know, if this was a book that had one or two big action sequences, I bet they could

fucking hit. But they have to have, it has to have six big action. action sequences. Eight big action sequences. You know, I think this reading we did today has three or four or five alone, you know. I just want to shout out one other thing. There is the bit where Kadobe says, or I guess Duku says, I've been trained in your

Jedi arts by Lord Tarranus himself. And Obi-Wan says, do you mean Count Duku? What a curious coincidence. I trained the man who killed him. Bangor. Obi-Wan gets it off. It's simply a bar. It's simply a bar.

That stuff is great. Otherwise, I kind of feel like it's hard because grievous wasn't given enough room either in the book or in the movie. And it made me really reevaluate the sort of single villain per episode, single side villain, one-off villain per episode structure that the prequels have. And where you've Darth Maul in the first one, you have Duku and the second one, sort of into the third one. But he's dealt with 15 minutes into the movie. And then you have grievous here. and it's like none of them get the shine that they need to feel like real villains. It's, you know.

Grievous is tricky. And we'll talk about the Tartikovsky cartoon. I think that does the most convincing rendering of him, like why he's scary and why he's kind of cool. But like, there's things I like about the Clone Wars, uh, Faloni show. Like, I do, I do love the haunted house episode where, They kill his dog and he goes berserk on them in his layer. And you get a sense of just how bleak and sad like his whole deal is. But they do undercut that a lot by like, oh, his whole deal is running away when things get tricky.

He's a guy who will basically like take the cheap shot. He's all talk. He's, he's a badass until he's not. And time in the end, you're going to see that too, right? Like I think the way grievous dispenses of the Knight Sisters is kind of real like, this dude kind of sucks. Yeah. And the show kind of vacillates on like, is he a badass or is he kind of like a punk who can be used for comic relief almost at times? One of the things that's difficult is this book really underscores the degree to which Darth Vader is meant to be a, or grievous is meant to be an echo or kind of like,

a prefiguration of Vader in parts. The mechanization, he's a Jedi killer. We know from other stuff that a lot of depictions of Vader end up having him spending the years after this war going around and killing Romanian Jedi

and collecting their sabres and doing all that stuff is in a version of Vader at this point. And so all that's there. But like, grievous isn't a... Grievous is not sad the way Vader is sad.

And Vader is not pitiful the way that Grievous is or craven the way he is, even though so much of this book is about Anakin Skywalker, Jedi, or, you know, Jedi coward, right? Like driven by fear. Vader doesn't run away the way Grievous does. And so there's a real limit to what that rhyming can look like because Vader does not take on those attributes. And the attributes that they really hit us with with Vader, that he really hits us with

Vader at the end of this book, the feeling of being, you know, locked in, in, you know, I'm putting that in quotes because there's a lot of stuff around. and disability here that will maybe unpack a little bit later, but like that stuff is not really with Grievous. Grievous is emboldened by his mechanical body. He is strong because of his mechanical body. And we don't really get any of that part of the Vader. In fact, we get a diminishment into the mechanical body.

And so I at first was like, well, this grievous just exists to be a sort of mirror to Vader. But like, it doesn't even really do that by the end of the book. So I kind of left feeling like, ah, damn, like missed opportunity. to make me give a fuck about Grievous, really just a thing to let Obi-Wan style on, you know, a guy to let Obi-on style on kind of job over-the-week style. And like, that's fine. But it takes up a lot of the book. So I was hoping for a little more. Yeah, the reveal of, you know, I thought we would get more from the reveal of, like, breaking, breaking through Grevis's droid exterior into, you know,

his like his organic being interior like I just I imagine that there was going to be more characterization there and it's kind of just it's it's sort of thrown away at best

and I think at worse it's it's like kind of looked at grotesquely and like oh how gross this like alien inside the the sort of finished, refined

droid exterior that Obi-Wan destroys and it ends up in this really gross outcome. And then for Obi-Wan to stand over it and like make his final quip here of so uncivilized. Just

not my fave. Not my fave. Not my fave. to map this one out. It also, here's a weird thing. In Stover's telling, like, also one of the real flaws of this Jedi order is that they're cultural chauvinists.

Big time. Like, totally, yeah. This one is like, uncivilized. And like, okay, Obi-Wan's got his nose up in the air. You can sort of get it. That's the characterization thing, like, the cartoon kind of mimics, too. But Mace, Mace, man. Mase.

speech and Gladiator, Rome is the light. It's a single time, which at least in Gladiator, Marcus Aurelius is like, bro, look around you. Like, if this is the light, what is the dark? Truly. But that never occurs to Mace, where he's just like, no, I just love the Republic so much. It's so good. Mace Windu is like a 1978 cold warrior. Mace Windu is like, we have to get into Afghanistan.

We got to fight the Soviets everywhere they are. It's unbelievable. It's really, it's a fascinating depiction of him. And I, it's very interesting the way in which Mace Windu, I know people are going to be like, oh, here goes Austin again. But like, he's not a human, right? He's Kaurun. We get the word like the Kaurun Jedi master over and over again. He is raced in this book in a way that's very strange.

And the core of the reason he seems to love the Jedi and the Republic is tied to. him coming to it and it's showing him some sort of great vision of civilization. And it's like, it's messy. I don't actually hate it. No. But it is, but it is, it is caught up in this vision of like,

here's a guy who escaped the jungle and found civilization. And now he will die for it or kill for it or whatever it takes in a way that's very, it's a very particular characterization. And I think you're right. It paints the Jedi as being deeply limited in their understanding. standing of what civilization is and like a very particular vision of it. There are people who look out on Tatouine and go, well, that's not civilization. And it's like, yeah, well, who's not getting involved to help the people there?

It's you. Well, and maybe it's also like, I mean, you're trying to explain why do they go down with the ship of the Republic. Yeah, totally. And it's because like, well, this, you know, which is a theme we've talked about. Like, this is an order that lets itself be captured by this deeply flawed state and vice versa. that they're symbiotic but also kind of parasitic, that the Jedi help a kind of messed up like unipolar empire,

but not really, customs union almost, continue to shamble onwards and extend its authority. And likewise, they grant the Jedi sort of a monopoly over like the Force and the training of young force users. And so you can sort, like, there is, if I'm, if I'm being charitable, some of this work is also highlighting, why can't the Jedi abandon ship and go to ground and take to the outer rim, take to the hills, and continue like preparing to fight? And it's because, at least in Mace's vision, if we've lost the Republic, we've lost everything.

Right. Well, that's one of the things that made me, there was a moment while I was reading this towards the end. it was when it was the line about like, we lost the war the second we got involved with it, where I was like, hmm, what's the version of this story where they say the conflict between the separatists and the republic is a political matter that we will not get involved with? And hey, maybe that means we lose Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padmei on Geonosis instead of going to save them with an army of clones. But where they just truly don't get involved and they stay out as conscientious objectors

or as observers to the war and like ensuring that the rules of war are, you know, there's another version of it there. It's impossible to imagine because they're so intertwined with the, with the republic. You know, it's not that hard to imagine in real life, a international religion deciding that they will not get involved with the war on any side of it. It happens all the time, you know. And yet here it feels important. impossible for them not to come to the Republic's defense because they are effectively the

Republic's army. And I think that that is really pulled, that is pulled into an ideological clarity here with the statements, with statements like so uncivilized and with the later Mace Windu diatribe about the Republic being, being civilization, you know. Grievous turns out to be just a bag full of like, basically like bad poultry. It's gross. It's like, he's basically a Thanksgiving turkey, just left in its bag, hooked up to a droid body, and like if you blow it up, that is, that's what comes out. Yeah. It's nasty.

And then intercut we're hopping between these scenes, but sort of in parallel as Obi-Wan's winning this ultimately meaningless victory. They are losing the war because Anakin have been sent to do something. some thinking. And it goes poorly. Yeah. Anakin gets sent to tell for, oh my God. They get the message from Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan says, I'm going after Grievous right now. And Mace sends Anakin to go tell that to Palpatine. And he's like, hey, guess what? We're about to win the war, like a little dog. Because that's how I imagine Anakin when he's in his goofiest mode. We're going to win the war. We're going to win the war.

And Palpatine's like, yeah, I guess we're about to win the war. And he's like, what's wrong, Lord? Why aren't you happy? Why aren't you excited about winning the war? He's like, well, I actually kind of think, well, the clone wars are kind of just a distraction. Grievous is, he's not even really the enemy anymore. What do you mean? What do you mean?

Well, I actually think the Jedi are going to come kill me right now. No way. Uh-uh. That's never going to happen. You know, it's gotten more than personal. It's become a plot to take over the Republic. And then this just like slowly unfolds page after page in which Palpatine completely like flips it all around in the way that we know he's going to do bit by bit by being like, well, the Jedi don't really serve the Republic. They serve Senate. Do they even really serve the Senate? No, they actually serve senators. They serve certain senators. They serve the whatever The whatever of 2000 They serve traitors Uh huh This is like one of many Like Anakin L's here

The degree to which You do not get to do all this And be like I'm just a big wife guy Dude And then it's like Well your wife was part of this Trees and this petition And his monologues like

Padmay What did you do What have you guys yourself into. It's like, shut the fuck up. You fucking child. God damn it. You piece of shit. You fucking, like, this is an episode. I love

Lucy. Like, like, why Mar is following. It's like, Lucy. Like, eat shit. You know, Padmey's only real mistake, I think, truly was not click training Anakin like a dog, because I think if

she had, he would have come to heal. It turns out Are you not the red thread where the lady is treating her boyfriend? No, I just talking about generally. I mean, I haven't read no Reddit thread. I just know what it's like in the world. That sounds real. I believe it.

She's the only person. There's a love triangle in this book or it's a love quadrangle in this book with Anakin. And it's Padme, Obi-Wan, and Palpatine around him. And both Palpatine and Obi-Wan are his masters, literally. But she never. has that. Oh, she's, she, he sees himself as her master more and more as the book goes forward. And it's just like, if I could go back in time to a long galaxy far, far away a long time ago or whatever, the number one thing, I'd be like, you got to, you got to make it clear, this is your

household. He's coming to your apartment. You were in charge. You were aware. You eat first. You eat first. That's right. Exactly. That would have saved this whole situation. But he has so little respect, I think for her. He does. I fucking hate his ass. God damn. It's so bleak. It's so bleak.

He has no respect for, I mean, to be clear, the book doesn't until the final conversation that Padme has with Bail, Organa. I think that's like the only time that Padmey really gets to

make a maneuver at all, which is fucking it's on page like 500 and whatever this fucking book I'm calling

the bedoover is fucking generous it's the only thing she does it's the only action it's the only action she took like the whole party

is on like round 400 and that was the first action she took and then bailes out here right in the

prince about Padmay he does This is like, this is Chesirey Borgia. Oh my God. Padme Amadal about. She understood. This is, understood politics.

Saviest politician I've ever met. Wowza. She really, she really schooled me. That's the thing that's so fucked up. Is that like, Anakin is like, she couldn't have. She would never. Actually, you're right. She would never do anything.

Not in this book. Not in this book. Nope. Not in this book. She wouldn't have done. I get it. I know her too up in this book and she couldn't do shit. She would never be a traitor.

She didn't read the docu sign. She just, she just, she just, C3P just did it for her. Oh, it's rough. It's rough. It's bad. Like, the plot of Anakin Skywalker is so lost here that, like, Stouffer doesn't even like make the attempt. to feel like he can rationalize Anakin here because the entire, like, the entire scene,

Anakin is receiving it through a dream. It's like, oh, my head hurts. That was such a weird choice. Like, he's not. And I, like, I was waiting for the final chapter of this to, like, feel like a shoe dropping because it felt over and over again every time that we saw Anakin and these other scenes, it was like a missed opportunity because he was willing to. to be so scrutinizing and paranoid and questioning everything was telling him until he sat down

with Palpatine and was like, oh, wow, you're going to invite Sidious to you for a drink. That's so weird, but I'm just going to listen to what you're saying. And that the book is like really trying to axle around how much Obi-Wan and Anakin trust and love each other. And obviously that it goes to a place where it's just like Obi-Wan loved Anakin. and that was just kind of it, and that was part of his failure and not, like, at any point where Anokin is willing to say, like, didn't Obi-Wan warn me about this? Like, why am I not considering this perspective from either of the people that I claim to love and trust the most?

I mean, the answer is he doesn't love and trust them. Yeah. You know, like, or that he doesn't love them. I mean, Palpatine straight up is like, you have to decide whether you love your wife or open. one cano-one cano-be more at one point. And the answer is he doesn't really love either of them. He loves himself. I was reminded constantly in all of these scenes, especially once he becomes Sith and starts calling him master of the like Frankfurt School, Adorno and Horkeheimer really, an explanation for why fascism rises in

Germany. You're part of the explanation. It's a big project. It's like the whole project, right? For people who don't know, they were theorists who kind of blended Marxist critique and psychoanalytic critique in the mid-century. They'd fled Nazi Germany. And for Adorno and Horkheimer, and I know you've probably heard this description elsewhere, but one reason for the rise of Hitler is that, you know, under industrialized modernity, the father, you know, lose in the bourgeois family

kind of loses status because you're just another guy. You're not like the town's shoemaker anymore. The old ways stop, stop feeling important. And it's, It seems like for the fascist subject, modernity needs something different. And so they find a different leader. They kind of kill the father in their own heads and then find themselves a better, truer father figure who can be their master. Right. And I think it maps, you know, again, there's lots of ways to explain why fascism specifically happens in the world. It's a very productive answer.

And I think here it maps really cleanly to Obi-Wan or sorry to Anakin, who is getting rid of his old fathers and finding new ones, finding a new one. Like, that's who Anakin is. Anakin does not want to have to fucking choose anything. He wants a master. And I think that that stuff is almost in conflict with the, like, does he love or trust people? Because the love and trust of just falls away. Yes, it's partly he loves Palpatine.

He loves being padded on the head by Palpatine. He loves being able to tell Palpatine anything. But we don't get any evidence that he couldn't tell Padmey anything ever. We just get the absence of them. You know, I don't know. We're jumping all over a little bit here, but it's the final part of the book, so I feel like we kind of have to. There's a bit at the very end of the book, basically, where Obi-Wan, when they're going back to Corrassant, he, someone, Bail is like, you know it's going to be a trap.

And Anakin, or Obi-Wan goes, well, Anakin, I have a thing about traps. I have a plan. We always have a saying, I mean, I always have a saying about traps. And he's to, like, confront that there's no we anymore. And what it made me realize is Anakin and Obi-Wan have a lot of little things. They have a lot of little in-jokes. They got the lightsaber thing. They got all sorts of little things.

Anakin and Padme do not have any little things. Anakin and Padmae don't have any... That's why they were having a baby. I mean, this is literally, again, and there's a way to read this that is like, oh, my God, you're right. This is why they're having a baby. And that is extremely real. There are absolutely couples, a kid will fix it. But I don't know that it, I don't, it's hard to know where the lot, where that like begins.

And when Padme was just never given anything by this book or by the script or by any of the prequel, you know, creative team to have her own things and especially to have her own real inside relationship with Anakin. They don't have inside jokes. They don't say funny things when they cuddle. You know what I mean? Like they don't have like a little reference at the only thing. Two of them know. That's what it is to be in a relationship with anybody is to have those things. And it's completely, she has her stupid necklace that he gave her when he was a child. They have the droids together, I guess. Yeah, I was just about to say, like, they only have signifiers.

They have, like, they have, like, an altar to the love that they have for each other, but they don't actually have love for each other. Like, the, the closest they get to, like, a funny thing is when Anakin comes to her and is like, why did Obi-Wan leave your house in the morning? That's scandalous. And she's like, well, that's, you didn't see him coming because that's usually when you're sneaking out. And like, that was like, oh, we do have these moments together. But like, yeah, it's just like, there are so many axles around this, like, emotion and, and intrigue and drama and, like, lack of information that these are supposed to cycle around. And, like, the, like, I am Anakin Skywalker and I don't want

Padme to die. It feels like it gets lost so often with how often he's willing to doubt her, willing to abandon her, willing to not consider her emotion or her actual involvement versus like Palpatine was nice to me. I went ahead

Pat actually and it's just I don't know. Yeah, I feel like the book and the prequel trilogy is so Um, it's just writing on Anakin and Padme as like faded to be together and faded to also fall apart. And beyond that, like, larger structure, there's nothing filling in the, the experience of their relationship at all.

the the the from the mundane to like even some like more of the bigger moments and I think that this book suffers from that especially because um we're just like given this fact anika and Padme are meant to be together and they are also meant to to fall apart and and beyond that we aren't given like we just have to accept that in order for the plot to continue, in order to continue reading the book essentially. And it, I think it weakens Anakin's character a lot because I think there's, you can still have Anakin who is so selfish that he, his desire to possess Padmay and to like keep her in his life and to keep control and to have things the way that he wants,

destroys the relationship. Like I think that's a thing of, you know, where you want something so bad, you have so much fear and then you manifest the fear itself. Like, you know, in relationships where you have so much doubt of the other person as a projection of your own security, your own insecurity, that you almost, you manifest that reality in your relationship because like the doubt creates these cracks

and it pushes the person away from you. Like that is the version of the relationship between Anakin and Padmey that I wish we got in this book where through his insecurities, through his fears that he projects outward, that that's what pushes her away. And it's like his final clutch, which in this book and in the movies is a literal physical clutch of her

destroys everything. Like, I just wish we had gotten that filled out. And it's so barely gestured at here. It's like the very broadest of strokes. And it just doesn't do enough to make Anakin sympathetic, I think, in his relationship with Padmay. And then it just, there's such a imbalance between how moved he is by Palpatine.

And there's like nothing else pulling him on the other side. Like he's, he, it feels like he's, he is pulled so strongly in the Palpatine quad. I mean, we've said this in our past couple podcasts. like Allie you described it I think last time as like Pat we're missing Padmay as the other part of this triangle or even you know we get some of the OB one here but it's not as strong we just don't have Anakin actually pulled in any other direction he's pulled so strongly in the Palpatine direction that

the tension is lost and then Anakin is left kind of just being super pathetic and like cowardly and it doesn't feel as much of a fall. Like there is no height to fall from. He's so low to the ground. He's like, he's already crawling. He's already like, like,

craven and cowardly and just, there's no, there's no high place for, to see really the crash and fall of Anakin, which is disappointing. I think, so there's a there's a part of me that really likes that except that the story

is so intent on telling it in these big sweeping tragic mythic terms because I do think one of the one of the key insights here about not just Anakin but like the type of abusive behavior he exhibits his willingness to be a

sort of tip of the spear for, you know, the arrival of a totalitarian fascism is that ultimately, the causes for his fall are fucking embarrassing, right? Like, this is, it's childhood. Yeah, yeah. There is, like, there was an episode of Battlestar Galatka, the more recent one, the remake,

where they write out a major character, Billy, who's sort of, he's, there is sort of your political every man. He's, uh, the initial conception of the show was that we'd be sort of half west wing, half 24 type thing. But he gets killed in a terrorist attack by these people who are furious.

They've always suspected like the Cylon attack. There were people, you know, there are people who failed to protect, uh, you know, their families and so they start like taking hostages. And there's this point where the kid turns to one of the hostage takers, these like, you know, billions, billions dead. Everyone here lost someone, everyone had seen their whole lives destroyed. And the universe owes you an explanation for why your brother's not here. And that's, that's kind of Anakin, right? Is this whole like, oh, like,

you might, you lost your mom? You might lose a spouse. Welcome to human existence. Like, you're not special. You don't get to be exempted from this. Your motivation. for this, your willingness to sell the soul, is that, like, things die? Like, grow the fuck up. Like, get over it. This is not, there's nothing, what he is struggling with are really basic things about, like, learning to exist as a person. And you can, you can frame it as, like, growing up as a slave, losing his mom in the way

he did. You can frame all of that in this way, but really in a lot of ways, like, that's just as much an explanation for the vagaries of existence are, are, are, are, are, are,

are, are, and he is willing to stake everything and betray everyone and commit unspeakable crimes to stave off the possibility. Yeah. She's not sick. She's not dying.

Right. Imagine that world where she is like, in convalescence and Palpatine is like, listen, I could help you, you know, that's not even it. No, this is,

she's having a perfectly normal, healthy pregnancy. And he's like, I don't know, I'm a little nervous. But he's had his worst fears confirmed before. Like he saw his, he saw his mother suffer,

suffering and dying, and then had that confirmed to be true. Like, I think not that I'm, like, I am sympathetic to the fear of losing someone you love as being a very, powerful motivator to try and do anything to avoid that fear or that that reality coming true.

Like I think like clearly this is a person who has like his relationship to death, I think is very hard to square because he's a he's, it's, it's tough because he's, because he also killed. feels like a gajillion people a day. Thousands of people. You don't get to be sad about your mom when 30 seconds later you wiped out a village. Like, like, you can't be sad about your mom, but you can't be like, and they said I shouldn't go and find my mom. And when I did, I was too late to save her. And then I killed 700 people or whatever it was.

It's like, well, maybe that's why you shouldn't have gone. But the thing that I think works here, maybe one of the insights I like here is that his fears are kind of laughable because it's fears that all. All of us, we can relate to them in some ways, but all of us, without having any Sith Lord promising, like, I can make all this go away. All of us have to reckon with that in some way, shape, or form. But the crucial thing for him is that he is constantly seeking control to immunize himself against the possibility of loss. It's not about Padme.

It's not about loving Padmae. It is about not having Padme taken from him, not having the things that he is used to define himself, taken away from him without his. consent. And I think that is the thing that really, this characterization of Anakin really does resonate especially these days is the things that like draw people to this kind of fall in a lot of ways when you strip it down. They're not heroic. They're not like heroic flaws built into it. They're pedestrian and they come down to deep-seated insecurity and an inability to reckon with the powerlessness that all of us experience, the irrelevance of our wishes in the face

of a universe. And most of us just learn to accept that because we're not the protagonist of reality and everyone struggles with it and loss. Well, like, there will be moments where loss and loss like crops up, you know, when you least wanted or expect it. And there it is. Anakin is willing to do literally anything to hold on to everyone in the tightest grip imaginable whether they want him there or not. Yeah. And that culminates with him like literally strangling his wife. Well, you know, Rob, the person who saved him from the position of having zero freedom died and said he was in fact the protagonist of reality. And then everyone else spent 20 years being like he may or may not be the protagonist of reality, but we have to at the very least treat him as different than everybody else, which is not an excuse for who he becomes.

But like, I don't know, there's the scene that we're actually talking around right now is the, the, one in which he and Palpatine in which he falls, right? He learns about Palpatine being Sidious. And in that scene, there is like just about the most, oh, he's a little kid. He's a child still stuff I've ever seen. And there's like other stuff happening here where like Palpatine is using truths to lead him down a dark path, real classic stuff. But you know, this is this is the bit where Palpatine says, and I'll just read for a little bit here. and you tell me when Anakin, the child starts jumping out to you. It's quite simple.

In the end, tell me what you want, says Palpatine. Anakin squinted up at him. I don't understand. Of course you don't. The last of the sunset haloed his ice white hair and threw his face into shadow. You've been trained to never think about that. The Jedi never ask what you want. They simply tell you what you're supposed to want.

They never give you a choice at all. That's why they take their students, their victims, at an age so young that choice is meaningless. By the time a Padawan is old enough to choose, he has been so indoctrinated, so brainwashed, that he is incapable of even considering the question. But you're different, Anakin. You've had a real life outside the Jedi Temple.

You can break through the fog of lies the Jedi have pumped into your brain. I ask you again, what do you want? I still don't understand. I am offering you anything, Palpatine said. Ask, and it is yours. A glass of water. It's yours. A bag full of Kouriska gems?

Yours. Look out the window behind me, Anakin. Pick something and it's yours. Is this some kind of joke? The time for jokes is past, Anakin. I have never been more serious. Within the shadow that clugged Palpatine's face, Anakin could only just see the twin gleams of the Chancellor's eyes.

Pick something. Anything. All right. Shrugging, frowning, still not understanding. Anakin looked out the window, looking for the most ridiculously expensive thing he could spot. How about one of those new Soro sub custom speeders? done. Are you serious? Do you know how much one of those costs? Okay. Yeah, I think this is

there. There it is. And it keeps, what about what if I could get an apartment? What if I get all the apartments? What if I could get? What about Corellia? Could I have Corellia? And like he's, he's doing a bit, but like this is how he thinks. This is he can't pick up the manipulation that Palpatine is laying down, which is, yes, he was taken as a child. And in fact, this is, This is the thing that Palpatine is doing to him in the moment, right? He is in fact recognizing that Anakin does not know how to choose for himself and he's saying, I am going to order you to choose for yourself so that you get the feeling of choosing for yourself. And that's what's going to let him close around him and actually get to control him.

It is because he is a child who doesn't understand who he is inside or doesn't understand how to live with the fear of loss and all that other stuff. like he is that's what you said before uh natalie and he was already all the way low to the ground he's already at the bottom he's already pathetic and it's for me it's like not even like he's already pathetic he never grew up he's always still annie the little boy was clinging on to what he has because he grew up a slave and didn't have anything and never learned how to let go of the little bit that he got to have right and like that is a failing of the jett i for teaching him but i we always come back to this, like there's a point at which it stops being the Jedi's problem and starts being his problem. And the question is for me, whether the book can communicate where that

fault lies in an interesting and compelling way. I think the book makes it feel really like his fault because he falls again and again for like the most obvious game in the book. You know, he falls for such simple tricks constantly. And we shouldn't overlook the fact. It keeps talking about like, they've been this war forever. This war has been their existence. war so bad war so tiring war trauma billions dead everyone's so tired of war palpatine yeah so it's me I'm sidious I'm the guy who's been rude this whole thing

but actually I'm the good guy here and I'm about to be priest at peace in the galaxy Anakin just blows past that oh yeah damn you you know what I'll bet you're right that's that's good kid he draws the lightsaber he does draw the lightsaber but I do think we have to call attention to the thing you pointed out in your summary, Rob, which is the story really changes with Hal Patine and the story of Plagueis the Wise.

It's so fucking funny. Again, this feels like a thing that Stover couldn't change because the movie is the movie and the script is the script. But, you know, everybody knows the story of Plagius the Wise. He could control life and death, and we noted it last time. his disciple kills him and becomes the greatest Sith of all time after he learns how it works it is like three pages into this Sith shit

that he says I lost the recipe I lost the recipe from previous we'll find it we'll get in that test kitchen you and me Anakin and we'll be cooking up the undying Sith spell

brother that's it it's over right there I'm not saying that you have a good life ahead of you but he doesn't know it. He doesn't know it. He doesn't know the thing that you need him to know.

He didn't say like, yes, if you, once you prove yourself to me, I'll show you. Which, this USB holds the key. This USB holds the key to Darth Plague's

Bitcoin Vault. I just don't think there's any coming back from... When you're talking to Shaq D? In could say, anyway, go ahead. No, I just don't think there's any coming back from

and I've got to, the secret to defeating death. And then literally the next day, he's like, so I don't actually have that recipe, but we'll find it together if you do. That would, that would piss me off. I would be like, he, that's the thing is that he's just so, he's so stupid. He's so dumb. Yeah.

This is, here's the, is, is part of it like nobody in the Zebi Temple wanted to like fail the chosen one? at his courses. They had to keep passing him. This is like a scholarship situation where it's like we need him for the big game against the clone army. So I think

you got to see in morals and ethics. Yeah, we have that answer. Obi-Man loved him too much. Like, Obi-1 by his admission was like, oh, I failed you because I didn't hold you to a standard. I love this little meat head too much.

You know? Well, because Obi-Won's a jock and he was forced to be a jock and go on the baseball team and hang out with a bunch of jocks and fight a war and Anakin was a jock like they were just they just got along and it felt good while it was happening many such cases the the fact that obi that that's another thing that two other things i think actually come forward here for me in this book that i really like are one the weight of obiwan needing to be his teacher needing to be like that's not there's a bit in the fight towards the end where the sover says like

like they're, they're finally letting out a lot of long held resentments or something to that effect, right? Or like, all of the bad blood between them finally came to a head. And at first was like, what fucking bad blood? And then I was like, oh, Obi-Wan has a completely different life if Quigon doesn't die and, like, beg him to raise Anakin as the chosen one. And like, there was like a real, you know, I don't know if y'all have had this with family members or seen this in friends and their relationship with their parents. But sometimes you have a kid that you didn't want to have and you go, oh, I guess I don't get to have the life that I had, you know? You know, my grandfather had a football scholarship and didn't get to go to school because

it turned out that he had had a kid. And so he had to, he had to, like, not go to college and raise a family. And that, like, ate him up inside. It made him, like, a really bad father. And I think that there are ways in which, like, that hits Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan has to be this guy's fucking master. And it means he, there's love in there, too. But it does mean he had to live a different life than the way what he thought he was living before they landed on Tatouine.

And that's interesting to me. It's not like he's filled with resentment because the thing that he does is he lets go of those feelings. Right. He's a Jedi. The thing he didn't let go of until that moment is the love. The other thing that this book made me feel for the first time ever, and it's actually in the scene that we're technically still talking about, which is the Palpatine. Palpatine Anakin conversion scene is when Palpatine says like, the petition of the group of 2000s thing

wasn't a petition, it was a threat. It made me go for at least a split second. And maybe I walked back from here, but I did have this thought. Maybe it sucks to be Palpatine. He comes across like Nixon in this scene where he's like, everyone is plotting against me, Anakin.

And if he feels that, if he feels the way Anakin feels, this kind of deep fear, if that's like part of the thesis of this, is that like, yes, the set are driven by a needer and desire for power, but part of what fuels them is actually secretly, they would never admit this, but fear, he must be so afraid all the time, afraid that someone's going to find out his secret. It doesn't stop him from doing things like, for instance, hiding a lightsaber in his statue in his office.

He's still doing little Palpatine bullshit things. But there is a sense of like, oh, wow, like we're never really in Palpatine's head for an extended period of time. But it did make me feel like, oh, he has to be looking over his shoulder all the time. It must fucking suck in there. And I thought that I would have loved to see a little more of that, but I was excited to get like, even the thought for the first time that to be this conspiratorial is a lot of work. We always get the other side of it, which is like, oh, he gets to be the joyous guy now that he can pull the lightsaber out. We've talked about that with Revenge of the Sith's lightsaber scene. And we talked about that with the Clone Wars mall, Savage fight with Palpatine on Mandelor.

but like here the other half of that coin, the like, oh my God, the weight of spending decades trying to kill all the Jedi is actually probably pretty heavy. No, you don't got to hand it to them. No sympathy, but I wouldn't want to be doing it. It seems hard. I think there's a, I think that that comes through in another moment for me, which is right after the Yoda fight when he pushes Yoda off of, you know,

the sanitorial orb that they're floating around in or whatever. Yes, yes. He, Stover writes in the footnote that he writes Palpatine to like return to his, he returns to his human self for a moment. Like there's a moment of vulnerability. And that's when he's like commanding the clones to like go find Yoda immediately.

Like go make sure that I want to see the body. want to make sure he's dead. And that, that is, I think, in line with your read, Austin, of, like, this paranoia, this, like, this also fear that, you know, I want to be certain. He has, like, him being in his kind of, like, old, like, a bit fragile now that, like, he's kind of depleted his, for the moment, his force power, his dark side power through this, like, indecive. intensive battle with Yoda. And it's also interesting because it's like, maybe Yoda wasn't that far from losing.

Or from winning, you mean? Or from winning, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the idea that like as soon as Yoda like concedes essentially and like runs away, that that is when Palpatine kind of reveals himself to be in this fragile state is like, damn like what if you just like kept digging should have kept digging like a couple more rounds

yeah kept digging the the diamonds were on the other side you're right there this is why he needed a corner man you know this is the problem is like you get in there rock that's what I'm saying bail should have gone in with them and just been like you got this you got this you a little bastard yeah yeah remember you want to dodge roll forward pass them when they're attacking Not backwards. If you're going to, he has a longer extension on that attack than you remember. Your whole advantage is he speed. That's right.

Is there any more about this scene? I know we're going to jump all over the place. No, so Anakin just gets a fucking roll. I feel like there's stuff that I meant to bring up that I'm missing here because just page after page of him just being a dipshit and being rocked by this guy. He draws the saber. He doesn't kill him. He should kill him and that would all be over.

He'd be a hero. So he goes and goes straight to Mace. What a moment. So already we're like this close to the coup because it's they've received word now. Grievous is dead. The war is over. It should be over. It's time to, it's time to tell Palpatine, like he needs to step down and like rescind his emergency powers.

And they're going to go do that. They're going to go like bring the ultimatum basically that, hey, like you said you were only going to be running the show as long as you as long as the crisis existed the crisis is over but before they can go do that Anakin walks in and he finds out they're about to go on this on this errand and he's like you had no idea you have no idea it's so bad and mace is like what is a kid and boom freeze frame mace and i do like this moment he realizes at that point that Anakin is the shatter point, that all things and all this story

hinge on this kid who scares the shit out of him. And this is what he sees is you know, I think it's definitely handled here. Why did they end up fumbling the ball so badly with Anakin? Because actually in this version,

this rendition of Mace is actually a little more sensitive than most other versions of Mace, which is like, this guy has, cracked. Like this is, you can't, you can't bring him on a mission. He's, he's a danger to himself to others, but like, he's incredibly delicate right now. And like, Mace's objective just in the scene is like, get out of here before this kid like explodes. He describes it,

like handling a bomb that might go off. And so Anakin tells them now, he reveals to them the story of like Palpatine Sidious. He's the Sith Lord. And we get what this means to Mace, which is the realization that his life's work, the cause he's dedicated himself to, the republic. It is civilization. Everything they have done in defense of that civilization, as he puts it, it fell years ago. It's been over for a decade. And we've helped do it. We've helped, you know, put the Sith, put the galaxy in a chokehold like this.

We were the instrument by that. It was just a great moment of like realization or the futility of his life's work and for all his power. Actually, he's been a blade in the hands of the SIF more than his beloved Republic. But that also sends him firing off like a missile after Palpatine. It's interesting. It's such a different scene than the one in the movie. I don't know if you'll have gone back to look at it at all. But like, you know, in the movie, and I think this is.

this like not great filmmaking. Anakin comes back and they're like walking across the deck of a hanger and Mace is like, yeah, we're on our way to go make sure that Palpatine, you know, stands down and gives his emergency powers back because Grievous is dead. And Anakin is like, I just learned something really bad that he's the dark lord, you know, and he's like, he's more serious than that. But here in this book, Anakin is like dazed. Aniken is destroyed. Yeah. It's worth saying a very funny bit that happens in the Palpatine like, Sith conversion of Anakin's scene. I guess that part hasn't happened yet, but the reveal scene, the like I am city a scene,

there's a beat where it moves from a private chamber to his public office. And it's like, without us seeing it, Palpatine was realized he was actually in danger in the extremely private office that he had where he was being confronted. And then Anakin just loses time as this happens. And they end up in his public office, which means that he's not public isn't like open to the public, but public isn't like the primary one that's in like the Senate housing, like there were the Senate like governmental buildings. And then from there when, you know, Anakin is like completely losing track of time.

He's lost information. And then from there to the Jedi hangar, he becomes like, he's described as being like shriveled and weak in, you know, Mason's like. looking at him, he's like, oh, my God, we got to get you to do an infirmary, basically. Like, you are not, you look bad. And that's not how it's shot at all in the movie. He just looks like Hayden Christensen in his classic Jedi robes in the movie. And so I think that that's an interesting different differentiation for sure.

It's interesting the, I wonder if it's different in the script, because he really emphasizes how badly Anakin is doing in this scene. But he kind of knows how he sells it when Anakin goes and talks to Yoda. Yeah. And in the movie, he looks like shit. When he goes and talks to Yoda, this is, remember that great LinkedIn post of like, signs Yoda was not a good people manager or something like that. Management lessons from Yoda. It's like you miss your, you don't notice that your star employee comes in looking like this.

And it's a picture of Hayden Christensen coming to Yoda. and he looks like what is described here in the scene of Mace, where it's like eyes fucking bloodshot, like runny, like pallid, all these things. And here's just kind of flipped that in this telling, one of his pivotal scenes is really going to talk to Yoda. And Starver kind of dispenses with that. And just has Yoda be disappointing and not miss the fact that like, hey dude, this guy's like clinging to sanity with his last fingernails. I also do like the way Palpatine using

to be his most deceptive and really tripules of what's going He uses the big light He turns on his overhead lighting And goes to maximum Maximum lighting Cranks the hues all the way up So it's like it's just big bright

And no dark shadows gathering here Which is just a funny detail It's a point Stove returns to a few times He's very particular about What exactly accent lights and room room illumination he's got going

in the in the senatorial office there at any moment yeah they go to get them they go to get them they're going to go get them this is way meaner

than it is in the movie mean or how dirt to who everyone but like this is a more sadistic this is fucking jigsaw type stuff that they've wandered into

way like I think this works better in the movie they walk in, it's trees and then. And awful CG happens. He spins like a top through the air and like cuts down Kit Fisto

right away. I think what happens here is gnarlier. Oh yeah. Which is they walk in and he starts play acting small bean Chancellor Palpatine. What are you doing here?

I am innocent. And we see the opening of the scene. Yes. As the Senate will perceive it, listening to the, talking about Nixon, listening to the Nixon tapes of Palpatine pretending like the Jedi have just come in here to assassinate him and he gets all this on tape. And Mace, not really thinking along these terms, never says we're talking about, he does at least say you're a Sith Lord and all that, but he's like, no, I'm not. And that's, And by the way, even if I were, that's not a crime. He literally says, debate me.

He's like, oh, do we kill people who don't agree with us now? I have religious freedom to be as if I do. That's like basically what he says. So he gets on tape what sounds like him, like under threat of Jedi assassination. And then on the tape and the transcripts, inaudible sounds begin happening. and we don't know what they are. It's kind of a weird transcript at that point. And then we cut back to where these scenes overlap.

We hear now we're in the narrative voice. Some of these lines that appear in the transcript are repeated. But now we can see Palpatine's expression, him sort of smirking at the Jedi. And then one of the things even where the transcript runs out is he calls the lightsaber in for where it's concealed. He doesn't light it at his desk. It seems like he calls it in from where it's concealed.

concealed and decapitates one of the Jedi just out of the blue. They're all standing there confronting Palpatine and then boom. One of their heads is falling to the ground. And then a second later, Kit Fisto's head. Like, he's the last one to go. There's also four Jedi, I think, can go on this mission. There's four in this, I want to say. Four here.

Another one, like, gets the lightsaber blade shut through his head. There are four in the movie. I only say this because I have the movie running in, in, in, The side of the real key. It's Kit. It is the one. It's Sisy, the one with the horns. And it's the Zabrack.

I had also, they just get washed so quick in the movie that it's not even a thing. But it's worse here because they don't even get a chance to like draw their blades. Like it is a bear in the layer of the monster. And before the fight even really begins, he has decapitated one and split the head of another. Like it's almost antiseptic. The way it's described is they're just gone. Yeah. And then.

Palpatine jams his blade through the desk, killing the recording. That's enough of that. Yep. And the fight begins. Way gnarlyer than the... Honestly, I think Stover's cooking here. This is fun. This is fun.

It's good. It's so much works for the Jedi. It's scarier. It's more sadistic. And I think maybe that's some of the thing, too, is like, there's a cruelty to the way Palpatine dispenses with these Jedi that I think we've responded to. with the Clone Wars cartoon in the past where like when you get these moments of

him finally getting to peel the mask off and just give into the brutality and menace and cruelty that he's been concealing that he gets to there's sort of a like

that first cigarette after you finally stop pretending you've quit right? It might have been years but you finally just get the snick of that light of the first drag, that is Palpatine as he just gives into the bloodlust and stops pretending.

Yeah. There's, it's, it's worth saying that there's something in the writing that feels like it picks up on Palpatine's cruelty a little bit. Like, it's not in his, it's not literally from his perspective, but the bit of Kit Fisto at this point is a bit decapitated. And the book says, on Palpatine's desk lay the head of Kit Fisto, face up, scalp tentacles, unbound in a squid tangle across the ebonite. His littlest eyes stared blindly at the ceiling. Anakin remembered him in the arena at Geonosis, effortlessly carving his way through wave after

wave of combat droids on his lips a gently humorous smile as though the horrific battle were only some friendly jest. His sever head wore that same smile. Maybe he thought death was funny too. And it's like, oh, like the book hates these motherfuckers. You know, like the voice of the narrator here has some of the edge that Palpatine and then later Anakin have about these people. And let me tell you, the thing it loves the most is when a red lightsaber turns on. There's so many, so over has so many ways about talking how the blood-colored lightsaber, the scarlet flame, the crimson, you know, beam, the first it's a dull red like blood, and then it fills with, you know, like, it loves to describe the flickering on of an

evil light saver. And so, like, there is a joyousness for all of this, not only in Palpatine's actions, but in the way the book talks about it. It feels like an exhale in a real way. It feels like the story has been holding its breath. And finally, it gets to show off someone be evil in a kick-ass way instead of a pathetic one, you know? Kick-ass in the being successful way, not kick-ass is in, is good and competent, even.

necessarily, just like I get to look like I am cool right now. And Mace looks cool too. The stuff about Vapod being like able to grab the dark energy and spin it back around on him and all that stuff and the panambrough of the dark side. The cost Palpatine his concentration is that little, that little moment where he's like, uh-oh, I might not have this. Yeah. And like that's where that's where Mace gets him.

Um, but then he's relying on, on Anakin to do the thing. I also love just Anakin arriving too late to see Kit, but like seeing the flash of the Sith Lightning, the red light saber blade, the purple, the green, the green is stuffed out. And like it's all just like the glow from these office windows in the middle of this driving rainstorm. I like that image as he approaches.

Yeah, it's still so hard to get into, there's, it's such a hard needle to threaten. that Anakin knows he's the Sith Lord, knows he's been being manipulated, wants to save Padmay. And so his whole thing that he reiterates in the book, at least, is like, well, I need Palpatine because I need him to save Padmay. Oh, we forgot the part where he was like, no master Mays promised to arrest him. Yeah. And to be clear, the beginning of that scene is Mace is like, we're on our way to make sure that he steps down.

And if he doesn't, we're going to have to arrest him. So part of the thing that happens in this book is there's so much more dialogue in the book than in the movie, which means there's more opportunity for Mace to be like, well, we're going to arrest him because that's what we're supposed to do. We love the Republic. We're going to arrest him. It's really only at the very end of this where he's like, dude, I have to kill this guy. He's the Sith Lord. He just killed three of our Jedi. And the evidence piling up against it, against Palpatine here is like so through the roof that it makes.

Anakin seem even dimmer that he doesn't understand Mace's position here. And again, part of this is just like, I don't believe his love for Padme. And if I did, maybe I would feel more of the like his fear of death of Padme's death is a, is a understandable motivator. Or, or, you know, the other half of this is if he hadn't been so bad to Padme, this whole book so controlling, so self-centered, that I could feel it as tragic. but instead he's just this kind of like a plastic bag in the wind and Palpatine is the strongest force, the strongest breath in the room. So like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. There's stuff here I really like in this scene.

Mostly it's Mace and Palpatine dueling. And then Anakin shows up and it's like, ah. A thing you've said that I return to a lot is when he liked the vampire slaveholding cat lady. And your conclusion is like the throughline clone wars where he says about Anakin is that. his love is power. His love is power. His is the thing he serves and,

uh, adheres to power in all its forms. And that does make him this like sort of, uh, you know, uh, you know, flag in the wind where it's like, who's up, who's down?

That is ultimately, it's kind of like partly who's the last person to talk to Anakin, but also primarily it's like, who seems the strongest at any, as Osama midlodin said, weak horse strong horse. If Mace kills him here, Anakin goes,

Mace, you're so cool. You know, I always knew you were a badass. He even defeated. Yeah. Uh-huh. Sorry,

Natalie stepped on you a second ago. Well, I was just going to say, did everyone love it when Palpatine winked at the camera and put his finger to his lips in a,

in a shush, in a shush. I did. I did. Because he's not doing. He's doing it to the camera. He's doing it to mace. Like that's the part that... But it was for us too.

I kind of dig it though because the whole like, you're so fucked. Like this is even this. No, they're so fucked. He's already killed two guys. Yeah. Three. No, he's killed the... He's killed a Sacey Tin.

He's killed Agin-Kollar. Fisto's not down here. Pisto gets his place. Oh, Fistow up at that point. Okay, okay, okay. But he's still showing control the situation. He can sort of smirk and be like, he-he. He's still.

He's still, he's still crying wolf. He's still saying, security, someone, help me murder treason. And then he smiles at, uh, at Mason, Kit Fisto and, like, and silences them. Curse thought. And what? Is he doing Edward Norton in Fight Club? When he pretends to beat the shit out of himself? I hate it.

The timing is right. 2005 that movie's blown up by now right I don't like imagining Palpatine doing Edward Norton I love this part

um man the way the way that the that I just have to say it the way that Sacey Tinn dies and also Agent

Nicola dies is just so fucking brutal it cannot be overstated it is like it is so there's such disdain

like what you were saying earlier I think it was Austin there's such disdain for the Jedi in the way that the narrator is telling us about how these events

proceed it's just it's so objectifying and like depersonhood defying dehumanizing I suppose deb being a fine

yeah de being a fine it's just so brutal it's so bad it's wild it's fun to read but it's just gnarly it just tells me that so

this is a novelization but now we need an anime of the novelization because this whole scene, we should get like the kishing sound effect and like slashing and then a head slowly tumbles to the ground and the geyser of blood and a largely static frame. This is what I deserve. This book is gorier than the movie by always.

Like not just the kid fisted head on the desk, but like going back to the, the grievous body stuff, which is gross in the movie, but it's not as gross as it is in the book. You know, being text, you get a little more leeway. You know, you're not actually showing anyone gore. But he describes a bunch of gore. And he describes violence in ways that are weighty and heavy. We talked already about the Padawan, like a 10-year-old Padawan.

He describes him as being shot to rags at one point. And it's like, oh, man, like, really? And yeah, he's like, yeah, really, that's how it is. And I'm like, all right, I guess you're right. That is how it is. I just didn't. Lucas didn't zoom in like that, you know? It's interesting.

I would love a version. I would love and still be frustrated by a version of this that got the full animated treatment. But I think it would be, this stuff especially would be great. The fight goes basically the same way. It's funny, they blow up the window. Like, he knocks out the window and they fight on the ledge in a way that I never really conceptualize that part of the fight in the movie is being like out on the ledge. It's just kind of near the broken window Ledge is the problem.

So again, I think this is a he's working with script. A hundred percent. But like the set doesn't have a ledge. That's right. The window, sorry, the way the, this installation doesn't have an exterior ledge on it. That's right. That is basically what's happening here.

He's just against the window frame. Mace is going to lose here because Anakin is upset. Yeah, go ahead. Mace is going to lose because he, says that fuck-ass line and says you're under you're under arrest after he's already killed everyone in the room

like come on Mase what are you doing here he's like for all your power you're no Jedi all you are my lord is under arrest no just are you though Kit Fissau's head is on the table right now

Every other head is on the floor in the corner of the room Natalie thinks that officer had a reasonable fear of his life And should have just murked Palpatine Actually though in that case He should have He's Palpatine He's Palpatine Contest is everything

You know Context is everything I would indeed agree He had a reasonable cost of fear for his life, having just seen all his bros cut down. Badly. And yeah, I don't know. It's the same stuff.

You know, Anakin jumps up. He doesn't, he isn't going to help. He says, hey, this is your chance. Anakin, like, this is your chance to be the chosen one, basically. And he says to Mace, I need him alive to save Padme, which is such a brutal thing for Mace to hear in this moment. You know, what? What the fuck are you talking about?

Who's Padme? Who's Padme? Like, that's the vibe, right? I thought her first name was Senator. Do you mean Padme? Is that how you say? You say it like Padme or Padme? How do you say, I always wonder.

Honestly, that's why I just call her Senator. And I just play it's saying. Exactly. I say Amadala. That part stuck for me somehow. Yeah. You know? Well, so quick thing.

So the narrator sort of have that point of view shot, though, of Kit's head. I think that is Anakin's POV. It is Anikin. And I think that really dovetails nicely with, again, the Anakin as like inveterate worshipper of power. Yes. He gets this moment of remembering being like an awe of Kit Fisto, seeing him in full, like full song, you know, fighting, cutting through the droids, that like smirk. And now he sees him cut down. And he has this sort of like shitty response, right?

Like maybe this is funny too. and the way the poison has already sort of set in, right? He has this memory of like Kit Fisto as a heroic accomplished Jedi and now he's kind of smirking over his corpse and, you know, has banished, is sort of transmuted that memory of admiration into sort of a dark, cruel irony. It's worth saying on his way over to fight,

to join up with this situation he does he does like get mad at traffic in a way that's really fucked up too where I was like oh he's he's already gone he's so carbrained he didn't understand why people just didn't get out of his way

he didn't understand how the trillion beings who jammed Galactic City could go about their trivial businesses if the universe hadn't changed how could they think they counted for anything compared with him how could they think they still mattered That's literally the vibe.

Their blind lives meant nothing now, none of them. All right, dude. All right. It's, you're gone. Take a walk. Why are you even pretending at this point? You know? He's toast.

I do want to emphasize it is different than the movie here, which is he does, he outright says to Mace Windu, I need him to save Padmei. Whereas in the film, he just says, like, I need him. Like, that's why you can't do it. And then he cuts off Obie or he cuts off Mace's. arm and Mace gets flung out the window. Here it says that he fell forever, but then it cuts immediately to Anakin, like, picking up his hand, Mace's hand in the rain and being, what have I done?

Dude, you pick a lane. You got to pick, you got to pick a lane. And I wish you'd pick the other one because you're about to become the most cringe you've ever been. Because from this point on, after he does the, he becomes Darth Vader. he starts in with the one-liners. When he's killing Jedi in the thing, he's doing one-liners. When he's killing the members of the Confederate powers on Mustafa, he's doing one-liners.

None of the one, okay, like two of the one-liners hit, but like ten of them don't. Why does becoming a Darth just like you earn the pun? I don't know. It is. Just the head-ass badge. Like, you just become, you just become just... It's so annoying.

It, like, deflates the moment for me every single time. They're, like, it's fine. It just... I think maybe it's sober trying to deflate the severity of the moment because what is happening is so grim

and so, like, dark and terrible. It's supposed to... to be. That's the thing. It just feels bad. It should feel bad. It should feel horrible. I don't want like the, the quip guy here.

You don't think I'm handsome. You don't think I'm handsome. Jesus. He didn't. The war is over. Lord said he has promised. He promised we'd be left in peace. His transmission was garbled.

The blade came up. He promised you would be left in pieces. Boo. That would suck. Tomato tomato tomato tomato. Somebody had to come in and punch up this book for some reason. And like it's a book. Like we can just like.

Whackety shmackety do. Truly. It's also a book that is like so like willing to be dramatic. Like we're constantly having these changes. We're we're being like, you know, dramatic and like all of this stuff. And then in these moments where you're like supposed to be sitting with the anguish, you're supposed to be sitting with the fear of the hatred of like the way that this person has changed, it's like, oh, I'm playing Halo now or something.

Like, I can't even like, it's like, did you think Mario was a 3D game? There is really. It just. There really does feel the note that I actually took on this segment really was like, it feels like Stover is, it feels like he's the kid who's laughing in class during sex ed or watching the sex scene and like needing to make a joke to try to like deflate the awkwardness of the reality of the situation with a little one-liner. I have to do like a little Duke Nuke him one-liner so that the severity of the situation doesn't like pull too taut. And it's like,

no, dude, like you described a child being shot to rags two pages ago. It doesn't feel like like Darth Vader to me. That's actually what it is. I guess the argument is supposed to be like, look, Anakin used to be a quipper, and now he's a quipper, even though he's doing dark things. But then after when he becomes Darth Vader, he's like a quiet, you know, monolith of a person. But the quips don't work here. He feels like Chucky from the fucking, uh, children, what's the name of the horror series? Why am I blanking on this? Child's play. Child's play. Like, he's doing that level of shit in the back half of this or the back, you know, fifth of this book or whatever. You know, he, again, some of the one-liners are fine.

I'm not saying that you're not allowed to have one-liners. I just think that there are, okay. I think that there are a lot of things where I was like, this does not, this is not a great Vader line. He does. He does. I think that one is good, though. The resemblance is deceptive, I think is good with like, you're Annie and Skywalker.

I like that. Yeah, okay. That's fair. I can read that in a non-war. one-liner way. Do you know what I mean? But then it loses the weight it has when it's like, you don't think I'm handsome?

You don't think I'm handsome? It's so brutal. It would kind of rule if he made a little Zoolander face at that point. I guess that's the problem, though. This is like Eric Zoolander kills, like, this is like Eric Zoolander pops up at the end of downfall. It's kind of what's going on there. It's like, now it's time to serve blue steel.

I can't on. You fought a war to destroy the Jedi. Congratulations on your success. Please, I'll give you anything you want. The blade flashed twice. Tamber's arms fell to the floor, followed by his head. Thank you. Shut the fuck up.

Go away. Stop it. It's such a tough thing because it's like, I don't want to say I don't like this book because I had a good time with it, and I think that it does a lot of things really smartly. But I feel like it's just like such. a failing when it's like you don't care about Anakin Skywalker anymore. Like he's on the screen and you are not interested because the action isn't compelling.

The characterization isn't interesting or dramatic. His feelings and his fear don't feel believable or worth investing in anymore. Like, you know, I've been trying to think about this because we're also going to talk about this a little bit with the Clone Wars cartoon. and shout out to the Patreon. And it's not like Anakin is a pure figure that has not been goofy

and just like who is characterized for a lot. And even in my memory, like Anakin is as much like who he is in Revenge of the Sith as he is like on a Pepsi cup, right? Like, you know, there's not a sanctity to Anakin Skywalker here.

But it's just like hard to stay invested in the story if you're losing this part of it. Yeah. You know, the thing that I would contrast it to is the scene, and I know I've jumped ahead from here, but it's where the one-liners really come into, like, strong play is when he goes to Mustafair to confront and kill the head of the separatists. But, you know, in the movie, that scene is him showing up, closing the doors with the force and revealing his lightsaber, and it's, like, scary or it's meant to be scary. Who knows what the, in the unity of effect of sitting down to watching the movie where you're at with the wrens of stuff. I like Renzo the Sith more or less.

And so that scene to me totally works. And then you get him going through the room and killing everybody. And everyone's like, stop. And he's like cutting them down. And he has the hood all the way up. So he's like hiding his face. And then he like walks out the room and that's the, the iconic turn and face the camera. And you see his red and yellow eye moment.

And maybe he didn't have the script. Or maybe the script was different. And it was full of one-liners and quips. And in the edit, they're like, oh, shit. We can't do this. It rhymes with this is pod racing. I mean, right, exactly. That's what it feels like to some degree.

And I think that the version of this in the movie of him just being, the thing that it rhymes with, or the thing that rhymes with it in the movie is the Rogue One Vader thing of him coming into the room and just tearing through everybody, which I know it has been a number of years now. We've all had time to develop our feelings about that sequence in different ways. But here, it really feels like Darth Vader when he's cutting through everybody. And it feels like Anakin. Sorry, are there people anti that sequence?

Oh, that scene has lost all of its cash rob. You've, you got, yeah, the fandom has turned on that scene. Not the fandom. I think there's probably a big part of the fandom that still loves it. But I think that there is a critical consensus of people who I think had bitten their tongues when that movie first came out. And have since been like, we didn't need all that. And I would say that I'm one step removed from them, which is I kind of like that scene. But I don't think I needed the other Vader stuff in Rogue One throughout that the him.

Because actually there's some quippy stuff with him in Rogue One with that imperial officer in his castle that I don't like actually. But it's fine. I think that that's just like I don't need Vader to talk back like that in the same way. I need him to be domineering. But I guess the argument could be made that he doesn't become that until after the events of Revenge of Assets. He's always kind of snarky, though. Apology accepted Captain Nita. like yeah yeah yeah he's a bit of a dick but i think that's a hit's different than this stuff that's all

he's not even 40 so it's like it's it really is like by the time he's he's doing that stuff this guy like aniken stopped developing at like age 17 and as vader it's like i you know what i just thought of a sick burn too about i killed that guy a second ago but i'm still going to say it Yeah Turning to the The bridge crew On the executor See what I did there

That's what it's like There is like a little bit of They do that now They have jet packs now They fly now That's what it is They fly now That's here

Uh Anyway He kills all them I just want to do Before I just want to revisit That scene with Padmay real quick We should We gotta go back

Because there's a whole scene with them That's the important That's the important scene here for sure. He basically shows up to Threatener. That's the thing, like, basically as we continue to like, to Allie's point, like, I don't even care about this kid. Like, fuck this guy.

He shows up and he's still in his, a thawing mess you made of things, Padmay. With your little change.org petition that you put your name on. It made, it made Chancellor Palpatine so mad. but I was able to smooth it over. And now you just need to be loyal and that'll keep you safe. Basically threatening Padman on behalf of Palpatine, which is just like, again,

it's so tough to... Let's put another way. In most stories, when the villain threatens the hero's romantic partner, what time is it? What happens next? usually if the hero is worth a salt

that's the like oh you did not just fuck with my family this transgresses no no no no no Anakin hears this and he's like I'll get her back and I'll get her back on side I'll put her in her place

and it goes over there to do that and he shows up basically and Padman's like highlights the degree to which she does feel like he just showed up and is threatening her for doing her job as a senator. Yeah, I mean, this is, this is, he's like, you want to distance yourself from your friends in the Senate. And she explicitly says like, hey, that sounds like a threat.

And his response to that is, this is a dangerous time. We're all judged by the company we keep. And it's like, I keep company that is opposed to Palpatine. That's the company I keep. What you just said is a threat to me. which also sounds like a threat to all of democracy. And Anakin hits her with like, oh, well, that's all behind us now. Oh, it's, it's, it's, it's not good.

It's again, we just get more page count. We get more word count and it means that it feels like he's even, he's even more far gone here than he is in the movie where the silence and the limits of what can be done. or what is able to be shown at the runtime actually leaves a lot left to the imagination. And so you get to like, I don't know, go back and listen to us talking about this on Revenge of the Sith. I feel like we had a long epic debate about whether Anakin failed the Jedi or the Jedi failed Anakin. And obviously, we all admit that it's kind of a little of A and a little of B, but like the

mix of it is up for debate. It's really hard, I think, in this book to come down further on Anakin's side because you're just in his brain. and he's being an asshole for so long. And the particularities of how it's rendered, yes, he's driven by fear, but that fear is rooted in ownership, that fear is rooted in like she's mine in a way that I think really undercuts the fear because it's not genuine, it's not fear for her life. It's fear for him losing something he wants. And that is, in the movie, you can say he's driven by a fear, whether or not you believe it or not. I can imagine a person watching this movie and be like, well, he was so afraid that she was going to die just like his mom.

Whereas here, it's like he was so afraid of him losing something he liked having throughout all of this, you know? Yeah, there's a passage at the end of this confrontation that Padme starts crying and, oh my God. It's her boom. So should we just read this? You should read this. You have it. I'll read this. Yeah, I have it right here.

Please read it. Okay. I had to reread this like four times to make sure I understood what was being said. I just want to say that up front. Yep. So basically the what comes right before this is Anakin tells her that he needs to go to Mustafa to end the war. And, you know, Padme is horrified.

Padme is like, you know, you know. you like are you going to go deal with the the trade federation and the separatists the way that the Jedi are being dealt with right now um and he's like i'm going to end the war have faith and this begins she shook her head helplessly and a pair of tears spilled from her eyes he touched them with his mechanical hand the fingertips of his black glove glistened in the dawn Two liquid gems, indescribably precious, because they were his. He had earned them, as he had earned her, as he had earned the child she bore. He had paid for them with innocent blood.

I love you, he said. This won't take long. Wait for me. Fresh tears streamed onto her ivory cheeks, and she threw herself into his arms. Always, Anakin, forever. Come back to me. love my life come back to me he smiled down on her you say that like i'm already gone i didn't need that wink you ever want to fuck the b a cat what the fuck man it's wild it's bad he he's so he's too

he's too bad he sucks he's like he's like all the way just just just like abuse abuser um there's a footnote here for the line he had paid for them with innocent blood where stover writes this line is supposed to demonstrate that anakin absolutely understands the enormity of his crimes but he's still human enough to think innocence or guilt even matters once he's truly vader innocence is no longer relevant um wait are we reading the same passage that you wrote Matthew Stover because the him saying Anakin absolutely understands the enormity of his crimes the the the him paying for them with innocent blood like the idea that oh god it's so this this is so bad he not only is this like

just all the way possessive I own I own her her tears are mine Her tears are wild It's so wild It's like her pain is mine She's crying she's not like

These aren't tears of joy And he's holding his liberal tears mug up right under her chin Trying to catch them all It's so Yeah As a writer You sometimes swing big

And I'm going to try to make this image work or this metaphor work. The job of an editor is sometimes to send you a little message and say, you got to try again, you got to try again. You got to go back to the well. You got to go back to the drawing board. This thing about like he's earned her tears, it doesn't work the way you think it works. I don't know what you're going for necessarily, but like can we try a different image? Can he have earned something that isn't her tears? I just think it works so much better.

like this is so shocking and evil and possessive of her and like proud that he is in his life or she's in his life and and he can control her that this feels so much better to read and to react to and to feel disgusted by than any of the quips and shit we were just talking about. Sure, that's fair. Like if I was an editor, I would be like, can you actually just do more of that? Well, that's like, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's really it. It's just, yeah.

But Stover's own read on this is so, is not what you just said, Allie. It's like, it's that he, that, that the innocent, that the enormity of his crimes was worth it to him to earn the, the, the control and security of Padmay being in his life. no matter what her internal feelings or emotions are of this entire event of him, of everything that's going on, it doesn't matter because what Anakin has earned is Padma's staying in his life in the way that he wants her to stay in his life. and that to have paid for that with innocent blood was worth it. And that did not land here at all. I think your version of it, Allie, does land that it's so monstrous, that he is already Vader, that this is like already so evil and so dark and that he is lost.

Like he's, I mean, he was lost. He's been lost. We know that's the thing that's hard to understand, right? is like how lost is he at any given point in this book? Right. Is he, because there are times from the very beginning where we were talking about this. This is like all of the infidelity anxiety from the very first,

or not the very first, the second section, the beginning of the second section where he's worried that she and Obi-Wan have a thing or that she's, you know, doing some political stuff behind his back. So like that has been there. But then there are times when it feels like,

on the other hand, there are times when it feels like he is a little puppy dog who has been misled by everybody. And I understand, like, that's the difficulty of this book, is you have to thread that needle. And maybe it's most successful stuff is the abusive boyfriend and the controlling partner stuff that that comes through throughout. But again, I think the thing that you hit just here, Natalie, is like, is he still considering any of these people innocent? Because, like, a chapter ago, he was saying that everyone else's life in the galaxy and on Corrassant is pathetic next to his and that he's above all of them. And that was before he kneeled and took the name,

Darth Vader. That was before he slaughtered the younglings in the Jedi temple, which are the innocence, presumably he's talking about, right? Like, that's the only, those are the only people I think of that at this point he has killed in order to, in his mind, keeps Padme safe that he would think of as innocent. But there are times when he doesn't even, you know, he's even calling them treasonous throughout the section of the book. So it isn't consistent as to like what is happening in his mind.

And it isn't saying through this part, he's so lost in the sauce. He's so confused. He can't even be consistent. It is this sort of like, my read on it is that Stover is trying to show someone who is fallen because of his love for Padmey that's made him obsessive over her. And that's confused him in some ways. There are sections in the book where he's like, the only thing that matters is her. She matters more than everybody else. but then you get to a section like this, and it is just about the control.

It is just about the power over her. And those two things just don't quite click in. And I wish he had just picked, I do wish he had just picked domineering boyfriend or husband who wants to control everything because that's the most compelling one. But he has to make it a tragedy too. And so he has to keep trying to get us back on side with Anakin and keep us keep rooting that maybe it'll turn out different. And I think that that's tough and it doesn't always work.

So something, and this is not a, you have to consider them by the standards of the time, but like I do think discussions of, like, discussions of domestic violence and what abuse looks like advanced a lot between this movie coming out and now, right? Like, I, like, that is not to say you didn't have good portrayals and understandings of, like, abusive relationship dynamics, but I do think back in this era, there was a little bit, less of an ability to recognize that, like, abuse starts so far before physical violence starts. And so I do wonder, like, Stover, to some extent, and Lucas didn't fully, like, grasp the degree to which the portrayal of Anakin there on the screen is like, no, this isn't a guy who's falling.

This is a guy who's already an abusive, controlling creep. He has fallen. Like this is not a, it's already over because the relationship is poisoned. The relationship itself is coded dark side as hell. And the story has to be, no, no, no, he's still good. He could still catch him. He hasn't fallen yet. And it's like every scene with Padme is, oh, like, this is not good. This is like he's already, he's already pretty evil.

And I think that that's something that, the book constantly struggles with here is that just from the way they're introduced there's these elements

of his sort of obsessive controlling love for her and also her kind of ridiculous like I just want to I am nothing except had

I'm nothing compared to the honor of being of Anakin's wife. It's a from beginning to end it's weird and fucked up and it's like

fundamentally I guess I'm closer to where Ralee was laying things out there where it's like yeah this is a this dude sucks and you're really selling him like all the ways and degrees

and the facets to which he sucks but it is undercut by a footnote being like now he's not all the way gone at this point. And it's like his shoes are like squelching children's blood out from them. Yeah. Which I was kind of frustrated that we didn't get that directly in this book. The movie doesn't go there.

The movie shows him going in. And then what we see later is Obi-Wan and Yoda seeing the hollow footage until we learn that he's done this. Right. So it keeps to that structure. We get the clones killing the one kid. and like being able to extrapolate from that. But like it does feel like the book didn't want to show us him killing children directly in his own mind or feel what that feels like. And part of me is like, well, yeah, because if he just did that and then he comes home to Padmei,

the reader can't read it the way that I guess he intended it to be read, which is about he still had some feeling about that these were innocents he just killed. But it's weird that that's not on the page, you know? that like we don't see him go we see him go in we still see him kill a Jedi master at the front door we kind of blew past this is after he's knelt and be taking the name Vader which is very weird by the way that stuff he's no that's just palpatine saying happy father's day him like like remembering the moment that he floated the the fruit the fruit the fruit what we talked about for years is is floating down the cloak to him that he just had in the closet.

He was like, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna keep this until, until, uh, Anakin fully falls. I have it hung up. I just got it steam like a week ago because I knew this fool was like, just like moments away from just going all the way, my apprentice vibes. So I'm just going to keep that ready to go, ready to be here. Yeah. Anyway. This is when he becomes Darth Vader.

I am Darth Vader. All that shit happens here in his own mind. Vader are two syllables that mean me. He says at one point, which, okay. And I actually do think that there's a moment here where I'm like, I wish all the quips, I wish we'd cut the quips out of Vader and put them all into Palpatine. Because Palpatine has this great bit at the beginning of that scene where he's like, and he's like looking at his own face because now he's become frogified.

And he's like, ah. And so the mask becomes the man. I shall miss the face of Palpatine, I think. But for our purpose, the face of Sidious will serve. Yes, it will serve. He can be in little he-he-he-hoo evil jester mode just fine. And I also really love that line because it suggests that like Palpatine and maybe even Sidious is like an identity that the inner Darth Sidious puts on and wears when it's

convenient. Like not just now, but maybe for decades. Like I really left that sentence feeling like it's even Sidious. Just like the Billy Joel song. just like the Billy Joel song. I think that's even... Go ahead. I think it really comes through in Stover's description of when he refers to Palpatine as the shadow.

And like, he talks about this like this dark void that is at the center of this being that outside is Sidious and then outside of that is Palpatine. And like it is kind of in like the way that it. helped me imagine this trifecta is that, yeah, there is like, there is like a, a concentrated being of pure evil inside that it is like so far gone from the human that he was before, or like even this like the kind of Sith leader persona that he, you know, as Duku's master, or whatever, as leader of, you know, puppeteer of the separatists, all of that. Like, at its core, at its center, center, center, it is, it is the most concentrated ball of, like, evil, dark side energy that exists in the galaxy right now.

And that, yeah, and that, and that Palpatine insidious are kind of masks that he, that he, that cloak over the shadow itself. I like that a lot. I liked thinking, because I think Sidious is beyond, there's another footnote that, where in Stover talks about, in the script, there's a line where Palpatine says, you know, it's in the initial reveal to Anakin

that Palpatine is Darth Sidious. and, you know, Anakin is, like, threatening him. And Palpatine says, like, fight you. I love you, Anakin. And George Lucas had scratched that out, scratched out, I love you. Because I think Stover's recollection is that Lucas said that there's no world in which, like, there's no way Palpatine could even conceive. of love being a motive, like as a reason to do something or, like, love was just so far gone

from his emotional repertoire that there's no reason he would even use it as a tool of manipulation, like, even to lie about loving someone is, like, so foreign to him. So I really like that idea of, like, this evil, evil being of, like, evil and chaos at the center of at all. Yeah. The, the, um, the, um, the scene kind of right after the, the tears, um, uh, is, is, is I think when 66, order 66 is finally like starts to shake out into the rest of the, the galaxy, right? Um, and I think that that stuff is all really, really good in, uh, like, in, in contrast to when I was saying, I wish we'd gone inside. inside the temple with Obi-Wan or with Anakin.

I think all of the stuff with Commander Cody is so cold-blooded and is so like, you know, one of our big questions forever has been, were the clones literally programmed or were they trained directly in a way that they were ready to do this? And the language that's used here is that they were like, they knew it before. Cody responded as he had been trained since before he. even awakened in his crush school, it will be done, my lord. And so he is, in fact, trained before he is conscious. So that suggests a sort of programming style thing.

But the way it's carried out and the way that he's not casual but conversational about it does suggest a sort of like willing or conscious is the better word, you know, adherence to this. He isn't just a robot who's like, yes, I will kill all Jedi. This is not the Manchurian candidate activation phrase. That's right. This is more like, you know, like pilots in some ways where you like, you know, in high pressure situations just go super flat and like affectless and, you know, and it's a virtue in those scenarios, right?

Like that, you know, you might be fighting for your life up there with a crisis in the cockpit and everyone needs to be flat and on task, on mission. But this is that sort of applied to, now murder your friend. And that it doesn't, like, he's so task-oriented, all the clones are, that literally the guy you were shooting the shit with a minute ago and has been by your side for years of this war, the mission comes through, now frag him. And it's like, okay, we're fragging him now.

And like, you don't even feel anything about it. Doesn't even, there's no emotional. That's, that's the thing I like is that Stover's like. The reason the Jedi don't see it coming is because, like, they're used to sensing malign intent. There is none. Yeah. You know, I think some interesting things is like,

he says it is time execute order 66. And I think that's in the original script too as it's written. But it is time really sells like, oh, yeah, this isn't, they're flipping onto a, a circuit that they didn't know was in there. They're like, oh, yeah, it's time for Order 66. The thing that we've known about our whole lives. And like, whether it would ever come up or not, it's time.

It's time to do that now. And then the thing that, like, the lines we get from them are, would there have been too much to ask for the order to come through before I gave him back the bloody lightsaber? We get, um, uh, at the Jedi temple, we get bail seeing the kid get shot. And then the commander there being like, no witnesses kill him, which is also like, okay, like they're for real about this. And then we get Cody after his guys shoot the dragon mount, seeing that the dragon seemed to have taken the brunt of the explosion.

And he's like, I want to see the body. Like, go get me Obi-Wan's body. I don't believe it otherwise. I want to see the body. And actually that stuff is so convincing about how terrifying the clone army is. And in a weird way, like it makes the story. Troopers that follow scarier because I could read all of this in stormtrooper voice and it's like, oh, yeah, that's scary in a way that we've talked about like in in our first and or season coverage, be like, oh, there's like regular soldiers and there's stormtroopers. And this is like stormtrooper type shit.

I want to see the body is a thing, someone who's like, oh, yeah, they're here to kill you. They're here to kill people. They aren't here to just like be a projection of imperial force. They are meant to like kick down the door and kill people inside. and it comes across like that here now that it's been turned, you know, away from battle droids and onto live targets. We also skipped another thing,

not skipped, but like the droids are in this book. And I think the thing that ends up being, I guess maybe another way of framing this, it's never sad how Padman and Anakin's relationship is deteriorating because it's always bad. It's so bad.

that it's never like, oh, Mom, I'm heartbroken for them. They were so in love and look at how bad it's been. The two relationships that we know are actually good in Anakin's heart are the one with Obi-Wan and the one with R2D2. And the one with R2D2, there's a moment. It's when Anakin is showing up to talk to Padme and count her tears, which we just talked about, where C3Pio is like, R2, what's like, what's going on here? Like, is everything okay?

And R2D2 goes like, nobody tells. me anything. And C3Pio was like, I keep hearing about rebellion. I keep hearing about the Jedi, like trying to overthrow things. And R2D2 says, I don't know. Anakin doesn't talk to me anymore. That broke my heart. And can you believe that Sover was like, I thought it would be funny to have the droids not really understanding what's going on here. You are reading a different book than me. right now. Because I had tears in my eyes. I had tears in my eyes when I read,

Anakin doesn't talk to me anymore. That broke my heart. And again, like, that's what it was, the thing I'm trying to call attention to there, and then in a bigger way with Obi-Wan, is that if this is supposed to be partly a story about, and I think Stover thinks it is, of the decline of the Padmei relationship,

and not the fact that, that that was already a point. If I want to read this as it was a poison relationship to begin with, which is what I think I believe in my heart actually after reading this book. But because of the footnotes, I don't think that's what Stover thought. The relationship with Obi-Wan is the one that starts seemingly good. It's the one that's filled with the inside jokes. It's the one that Obi-Wan is constantly in Anakin's head and he's going, oh, what would

master Obi-Wan say he could get me out of this? And then like, bit by bit, in all of these scenes we've been talking about, there are moments. where he's like, if only Obi-Wan were here, when he goes back to tell Mace, what he actually says is, I need to talk to Obi-Wan. Like, he's so badly needs Obi-Wan there for his stability.

And then, you know, again, there's stuff like, do you love your wife or Obi-Wan more? And then there is like, I think even the R2 thing isn't a weird way meant to be about a mirroring of Obi-Wan, because as it's happening is when Boga, the dragon

you know, Mount, dies and Obi-Wan is like, I'm so sad about Bogod dying. And then we cut to R2 being like, Anakin doesn't talk to me anymore. And even there, it's almost like a proxy for the relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin starting to fall apart. And that's like all of the decline, the emotional,

like, if you mapped the relationships of this, the one with Obi-Wan would be like a peak and then a deep, deep, deep, deep valley, whereas the old with Padmaid would be a flat line. and that's just like a different, the emotional stakes are just different than what I thought they would be in the book. I thought that this would be the book

that let me invest in the Padmei relationship for the first time and not just doubled down in the relationship I was already really invested in, which is the Obi-Wan one. And that's not a failing of the book that's a, I didn't know what I was getting myself into, you know?

But boy, I think the Obi-W-W-W-W-W-N stuff mostly really hits, you know? Padme and Anakin. it's just kind of unsolic. Well, no, that's not sure. The Clone Wars cartoon basically invents a different relationship for us. That's what they, like, all this takes place

over a longer period of time than you think, and they hang out, they have ups and downs, and they needle each other, but in like a flirtatious way, and like, there's a couple stuff happening. And sometimes he is controlling and, and domineering, but that's an arc here, there. It's not the only description of the relationship.

In ways that, like, yep, the bad turn doesn't come out of nowhere, but also for the most part, it seems pretty stable and you wouldn't guess. It's not a relationship where at every turn, you're like, Padma, you need to leave him. You need to get out of here. Whereas this, like her job is to,

part of it is, I think there's a bit of a curse of like, Lucas from the beginning, casting it to be Natalie Portman. Yeah. is just a obviously the the faded love interest is going to be

like a port a painting of a saint and Anakin's object of love is like a like one of those paintings that you know they shot the initial thing in Italy this is she says bodicelli angel right and her role there is to look angelic

and be worshipped and then controlled and clung to that at any it goes straight from bodicelli angel to my last duchess and at no point does it pass through a phase of a relationship that you could imagine being in any way loving or nourishing yeah um any other big things on those topics my only real other notes of this whole section of the book are like wow we sure get a lot of um authoritarianism is rising in America stuff. We get its morning in the Republic.

Oh, when he quotes Reagan. Okay. Stover, I do let you. Yeah, I hate him too. Yeah, dude, absolutely. That was really good. And doesn't he have some other, he has some other slogan during that scene, right? The, like, safety, security, something, something.

I like both of those things. They're sort of like, all right, now sheev has to spin it stuff is all pretty good. Um, we, we do get bail showing up late to the Senate meeting because he was busy fucking around with Yoda and, and Obi-Wan or whatever. And Padmay is like, yeah, dude, it's all happening. Oh, this is, we know. Austin, you almost, you're right. Good catch you bring us back to this because you almost skipped over her masterstroke. Bail, it's the only way.

It's the only hope you have of remaining in a position to do anyone any good. Vote for Palpatine. Vote for the empire. Make Mon Mothma vote for him too. Be good little senators. Mind your manners and keep your heads down and keep doing all those things we can't talk about. All those things I can't know. Promise me, Bail.

Good little senators coming from Padme is so like, who is talking here? But whatever. I'll take whatever. It's just a different version of the case. It really, like, I have to get myself over this too, Natalie. I think you and I are both in the position where, like, a match. a good version of Padme, which is also part of the thing that's so tough about the interesting bad version of Anakin here is that the trade-off of bad husband Anakin, which is genuinely

scary in a way that is compelling, is that the interior we get of Padmae is so dark. She's not like, how do I balance? she's just so bring me back my good Anakin in a way that is difficult to sit with for me and it's that's the I can give up the version of Anakin I had in my mind it's harder for me to trade a version of Padmey I didn't love in the Clone Wars but that I thought was fascinating for this version where I don't have too much

there's not too much here that I'm like interested in there's not enough to say about yeah it's like there's not enough to sink like sink your teeth into there's not enough to chew on it's it's it's it's yeah it there it's it's giving nothing girl go on and give us nothing it really is just it's yeah I think I think you you hit the nail on the head that I just I I I'm longing for and having a hard time letting go of a version of Padmae that is more interesting that it's just not here out here. Can I play some audio?

Yes. Sure. As a reminder, at this point, Obi-Wan has killed Grievous. He's been picked up by Bail, who has also in this moment, picked up Yoda,

and they have come back to the the de Corrassant and they need to sneak into the Jedi temple. You may remember this. I want to pull this audio up. I'm going to screen share it. Okay.

Now, I want everyone at home who's not read the book to think, what is the plan? How do they get past the sort of the scouts, the scouts who have been placed to prevent any such, you know, any Jedi from coming in without stopping them and dealing with them. All right.

The lead in here is there's a group called Decoy Squad 5 that is set up down in Correscence depths that are meant to stop people from getting into where the operation of Order 66 is happening. All right. The men of Decoy Squad 5 would have been alert on any post. They were bred to be. Here, though, they were in a combat zone, where their lives and their missions depended on their perceptions, and on how fast their blasters could come out from inside those Jedi-style robes.

So when a ragged, drooling hunchback lurched out of the gloom nearby, a bundle cradled in his arms, Decoy Squad 5 took it for granted that he was a threat. Blasters appeared with miraculous speed. Halt! Identify yourself. No, no, no, your graces, oh no, I'm being here to help you see. I'm on your side. The hunchback slurped drool back into his slack lips as he lurched toward them.

Look and I got here, I mean, look it. It's a Jedi babby, ain't it? The sergeant of the squad squinted at the bundle in the hunchback's arms. A Jedi baby. Oh, sure. Sure, your grace. Jedi Baby, Shara's Elides. Come from out your temple, didn't it? Look it.

The hunchback was now close enough that the sergeant could see what he carried in his filthy bundle. It was a baby. Sort of. It was the ugliest baby the sergeant had ever seen, alien or not. Whizzoned and shriveled,

like a worn-out purse of moldy leather, with great Popeyes and the toothless idiots grin. The sergeant frowned skeptically. Anyone could grab some deformed kid and claim it's anything they want. How do you know it's a Jedi? The baby said, My lightsaber, the first clue would be. A burning blade of green slanted across the sergeant's face so close

he could smell the ozone. And the hunchback wasn't a hunchback anymore. He now held the lightsaber the color of a summer sky, and he said in a clipped, educated, Corosanti accent, please don't try to resist. No one has to get hurt. The men of Decoy Squad 5 disagreed.

Six seconds later, all eight of them were dead. Yoda looked up at Obi-Wan. To hide the bodies, no point there is. Obi-Wan nodded agreement. These are clones. An abandoned post is as much a giveaway as a pile of corpses. Let's get to that beacon. I think it's important that we get, there's no point to hide the bodies from Yoda.

A hundred percent. I was really hoping you weren't going to cut it off before that. I'm so mad that this is the one audio insert that we have for this episode. I mean, I could go get more, but I think this is the most important one. Yeah, right, right. It's the one that most, I think, captures the experience of actually reading this book and being like, huh? It's so funny. It's so funny.

Into Muppet Christmas Carol. Yeah, dude. Absolutely. Yeah. He would love Dickens. I think I could feel that in him. I think he thinks that Dickens has like a innate or like a good sense of the innate morality of man. You know?

Totally. I feel that in him. God. I'm going to remember this forever. Here's the thing, though, too. Because what a treat to read this now. Because there's a moment you know what's going on. And I'm like, is that croaker?

Is this a baby? Is this supposed to be croaker? It's still for like, what if there was a little babby? What if there was a babby? Because now we, now, you know, now there's Grogu. Now there's Grogu. And he's in the, he's in the wagon with the Clyde, with the Taunton Clydesdales at the Super Bowl. What the fuck was that ad?

Oh, my God. I don't know, dude. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway. I want the scene of, just like, DLC for the book. extra scene.

Doesn't have to happen here but like in the back. Dickens would have offered DLC. Right. Yeah. Naturally. That was

Obi-Wan and Yoda discussing this plan and I need to know who suggested that Yoda pose as a baby

a babie. And a babie and who who who decided that Obi-Wan would be this guy? I don't know.

I don't know. I just need to know. This accent. The fuck is it? I took some theater classes as electives. I've always wanted to do some drama. Now imagine this man be... Sorry, I turned to Christopher Walker.

Imagine this man. Christopher Walken could be a pretty good Jedi. 100% of it. Oh, yeah. Better than the Han Solo. He almost was. Oh my God, I forgot that he had to audition for that. That's so funny.

Well, they get in there. Yoder fights the dude. Obi-Wan takes off and goes to Mustafa. Are you any big notes here? Okay. So, again, we just can't get over. So, Anakin has gone fully into, he's totally Sith-pilled now. He's having Sith thoughts.

He's been with the Sith for literally like eight hours. So far, he's killed a bunch of children and separate as bureaucrats. And he's feeling himself. He's like, I'm the best thing walking. Palpatine, he doesn't got shit on me. I'm going to take him down. He's like second they get to the Plague's recipe, as soon as he's. he and I reconstruct it?

Boom. Over for Palpatine. I'm just, and then, and then, I'll run this galaxy. And Padmey's going to really love this plan too. Because she doesn't even like my new bestie. I guess my old bestie, but my bestie, Palpatine. And so, so on the one hand, he's like standing there with all the separatists dead. Yeah.

And he's like, all right, next step. Straight forward from here. This is how I win. And then he sees the shit. ship coming in, and Palpatine's like, you're in danger, and that's when Anakin gives us the deathless line, in danger getting kissed to death. Which again, if I'm doing charitable, it's also that Stover consistently portrays Anakin as an overgrown middle schooler.

Totally. Totally. And that even the way he, he's totally out to lunch on how Pan I've been in. feeling about this thing the entire situation the entire time. But also his imagining is, and she's going to come out and give me lots of little smooches. Oh no. Here's my hot girlfriend. Oh, no, smooch attack. That is, that is where his head goes. The alternate version is, man, this is embarrassing. Stover, you can, this, this is this is this is an infant. He's a child. This man, this man is posting where babby? Where babby from? Yeah. Well, you know who

also is posting that is C3PO who did not understand that Padmay was pregnant, apparently, which I... That... Aren't you a protocol drawer? Don't you... He ain't an empty. I guess not. I guess, yeah, I guess he doesn't understand it.

Aren't you, like, managing her doctor's appointments or something? Like, Shirley... Shirley, you know that she's hitting the OBGYN every two weeks at this point. He's not asking, you know, he's not trying to break, you know, doctor or client confidentiality. He's given her privacy. He's good like that. You know, that's why he was such a good gift. Right. Well, we do know that he can't keep his mouth shut. So maybe this is for good reason that he doesn't officially know.

Yeah. And yeah, so Padmei arrives. I guess Padmay and Obi-Wan have met and talked briefly. There's a moment where she feels an inappropriate amount of joy at seeing Obi-Wan, the book says, in passing. And then, like, we don't really get more on that because she gets so mad at him for when he's like, yeah, Anna can killed a bunch of... children. She's like, no, that couldn't, not my Annie, not my Anakin. And then she leaves, but he like sneaks onto the ship importantly. She has not betrayed. This is, this is kind of interesting to me. It's important for the book that she has not chosen to bring Obi-Wan with her, because it means that her love for Anakin is pure. And in fact, she did not betray him to Obi-Wan. And I say it's important in the sense that, like, the way the plot goes is,

she tells Obi-Wan, I'm not telling you where he's going. She gets on her ship. He sneaks aboard. And then Anakin is talking to Padmae, lays out the plan that you just laid out, Rob, that like, we could rule the galaxy together. And then, and then Obi-Wan shows up in the hangar. We all remember the shot with the wide shoulders. We know the shot from the movie. And Annik is like, oh my God, you're in league with Obi-Wan. And she's like, no, I'm not. And that triggers him to choke her. That's like the sequence of events.

And the reason I say it's important is like, it feels like part of the thing that this story is supposed to hinge on is like, oh, my God. But she didn't betray him to Obi-Wan. He's choking her for no reason. He would be choking her for no reason, even if she did tell Obi-Wan, all right, get on board. We got to go to Mustafa and stop Aniken. He's better than this. We have to save, we have to stop him. or we have to save him one or the other.

But that's not the direction it goes. And so there's something very, like to unpick it a little bit, the story feels like it's more tragic that she never gave up hope for Anakin. And that is why I keep coming back to like, girl, you've got to get out of there. You're so lost in a sauceless man. You're not even lost in the sauce.

He doesn't deserve that from you. But yeah, so that's what happens. He chokes her. He tosses her to the ground. and then they have a little they got a little talk and then the fight kicks off here and then Yoda does the same thing

back on Corrassant with Palpatine they talk a little shit you know he's like I'm sorry you're a pre he doesn't say what he says is pity or new disciple I do so lately an apprentice

so soon without a master all right okay let's see let's see if that's true I get like two pages in this fight and he's like I got nothing I'll be real with you.

I seriously overestimated. It kind of does feel like the steam is being let out of the engine here in the final, like, chapter or two. I feel compelled to read this passage of Yoda, of, yeah, preparing himself. A gesture opened the grating of the vent shaft where he had waited in meditation. revealing the vast conic well that was the grand convocation chamber of the galactic senate. It was sometimes called the Senate Arena. Today, this nickname would be particularly apt.

Yoda stretched blood back into his green flesh. This was his time. 900 years of study and training of teaching and of meditation all now focused and refined and resolved into this single moment. The sole purpose of his vast span of existence had been to prepare him to enter the heart of night and bring his light against the darkness. He adjusted the angle of his blade against his belt.

He draped his robe across his shoulders. With reverence, with gratitude, without fear, and without anger, Yoda went to war. I feel like there are Yoda fans out there that were like, that's my goat, that's my goat. Maybe silver is one of them.

This just had me like, you are, like, you're already done. You're already lost. You're already, you, I, like, yeah, I don't know. It's, it's. Yoda's Drake. And what I mean by that is brutal. the before what happened with Kendrick happened that the way pusha summed him up on that one track where he's like go ahead and get mad i'm really curious what that would look like something that's like that was basically like just almost an academic interest in you talk this big game but like what show me show me show me that fire and obviously we learned he doesn't have that fire and obviously he doesn't have that fire

right he just he doesn't he isn't built that way and he learned he also doesn't have hate he doesn't he thinks maybe he has like he thought maybe he did but then he encountered real hate and he got nuked and here's yoda try to do that that'll be one thing right of like and with just complete dispassion no anger no feeling whatsoever it's time for war and immediately gets clubbed like a baby seal. Basically, it's just completely rinsed. And that to me is, he's been

building up for this. He's like, I've been preparing to fight the Sith. For a thousand years, Yoda's been building up to this moment. And he brings fucking nothing. It came when the avatar of light resolved into the lineage of the Jedi, when the lineage

of the Jedi refined into one single Jedi. It came when Yoda found himself alone against the dark. In that lightning-speared tornado of feet and fists and blades and bashing machines, his vision finally pierced the darkness that had clouded the force. Finally, he saw the truth, the truth that he, the avatar of light, supreme master of the Jedi order, the fiercest, most implacable, most devastatingly powerful foe of the darkness had ever known, just didn't have it. He'd never had it.

He'd lost before he started. He had lost before he was born. The Sith had changed. The Sith had grown, had adapted, had invested a thousand years intensive study into every aspect of not only the force, but Jedi lore itself. In preparation for exactly this day, the Sith had remained themselves. They had become new. While the Jedi, the Jedi had spent that same millennium training to re-fight the last war, the noisith could not be destroyed with a lightsaber.

They could not be burned away by any torch of the force. The brighter his light, the darker their shadow. How could one when a war against the dark, when war itself had become the dark's own weapon? He knew at that instant that this insight held the hope of the galaxy. But if he fell here, that hope would die with him. Hmm, Yoda thought, a problem this is. washed cooked

Yoda is the Democrats Yoda Yoda is the Democratic Party in the United States Not ready for the challenges of today No We need to develop new Yes

Yes New techniques please I I thought it was in here But there's a bit where Yoda is like I've been trying to train my students to be my master's And I needed that's not what I needed to do

Which is that's interesting The It's also like It's like it's like It's like it's about 800 years This guy sniffing his own farts basically It's kind of comes across to Where it's like

Hmm Need to fight this guy But what if What if the war is the source of the darkness And we can Yeah that's great Yoda That's fine But you're in the ring now

Okay Like we're not talking about the metaphorical war You need to beat this guy's ass Yeah this is where you need the corner man Stover saying he just didn't have it was like just the most brutal takedown of Yoda. Like the, you know, it's interesting the way in which this book oscillates between a very grandiose. Ali touched on this before, like a very dramatic, tragedyan way of writing. and then to something like very colloquial and casual.

And for this moment where the avatar of light is facing the all-encompassing being of dark, and you say that, yeah, he just doesn't have it at all, actually. He just didn't even have it even one time to start with at all. Wow. What a choice. He thinks Yoda sucks. What a choice. I genuinely, I think this is, I think Stover broadly thinks Yoda.

First of all, he talks in every footnote. This guy's the best. Says that about Obi-Wan, pops in, like, to be clear, Mace Windew, also the best. There's no Yoda's the best footnote. That's a good point. And this scene, like, this scene after all this buildup, him getting like one round in and being like, I don't know, I'm just not feeling it. This isn't my day. And then the Palpatine POV is this little green fucker.

This little sack of shit. I think Stover has a very similar read that a lot of us have on Yoda. This particular thing is interesting because he says the thing that he's trying to get out here is like, oh, I can't beat the, we can't beat the Sith with war. That's their weapon. And it's supposed to be presaging the energy, what is doing is referencing the end of return of the Jedi. It's referencing Luke putting his lightsaber down and learning that he can beat the Sith by like bringing him back in, bringing Vader back in, saying there's some good in you, turning them against each other, et cetera. And the thing is, that is not the lesson that Yoda teaches Luke in the Empire Strikes back or Return of the Jedi. So like maybe he forgot this moment in the next 25 years or whatever.

But that's not, it doesn't actually link up, right? Because, yeah, maybe again, Yoda just doesn't have it like that. And he's going to forget that this is key. But I don't know. He does not like, he does not like Yoda. And we know this because Mace's version of this, he describes Mesa's having a love, just like Anakin does. He loves the Republic.

This is his great fault. He fails because he doesn't look into Anakin's own Shatterpoint. He only sees Aniken as the Shatterpoint of history and the Shatterpoint of Palpatine. Like he's not, not saying that he shows Mace's being like, perfect. But there is a huge distinction,

I think, between the way Yoda is depicted as failing here and the way Mace was depicted earlier. And it's just like, oh yeah. Because like specifically there's the bit of like, Mace is like, all right, time to see if a pod,

the style I came up with is powerful enough to defeat the Sith Lord. And it was powerful enough to hold him back and to win. He just loses in the end because he says, I'm going to kill him. instead of telling an aniken intercedes, right? But if Anakin doesn't intercede, it seems like Mace wins there.

And so even Mace gets the dub, whereas Yoda gets completely washed and it has to scramble away through the vents like the GIF that we all love. Seeing that rendered in text was very fun. But yeah, I just don't think he has it. It's a bummer. It's a bummer, Yoda. You didn't have it. And when it all counted. Yeah.

And then Mustafar fight. And then Moosephar fight Which doesn't have the dynamism that the film does The details Yeah I just don't think it's The fight is It's so much better

I like it much better in the In the movie I do like this bit where I do like the I think the beat by beat action is not my favorite it. But the sort of the narrative vizing of the action

I do like, it opens with saying, you know, blade to blade they were identical. After thousands of hours in lightsaber sparring, they knew each other better than brothers, more intimately than lovers. They were complimentary halves of a single warrior. In every exchange, Obi-Wan gave ground,

it was his way. And he knew that to strike Anakin down would burn his own heart to Ash. Like, there's a lot of... That stuff's great. Like, those moments throughout this fight are really good. I mean, there is a scary moment where Obi-Wan uses the trick that he used on Grievous. And it's actually, maybe they got this from the Tarnikovsky, where it's Mace Windu forcing the screws and coils and everything out of...

out of the droids, but he does that to Anakin's mechanical hand, where it's described as reversing the polarity of the electrodrivers or whatever. So it forces Anikins to drop his lightsaber and Obi-Wan picks it up. And Obi-1 has the lightsabers kind of in a cross in front of him against Anakin. And he says a line from the movie, which is the flaw of power. is arrogance and Anakin, you know, tries to clap back at him and is like, you hesitate the flaw of compassion. And Obi-Wan responds to him and says, it's not compassion, Obam said sadly.

It's reverence for life, even yours. It's respect for the man you wore. Oh, sorry, it's respect for the man you were. It's regret for the man you should have been. And then Anakin, like, flies at him and uses. all of his bodily and also force powers to like nearly crush Obi-Wan's arms. He like grabs Obi-Wan's wrists and Obi-Wan describes like feeling his bone, the bones of his forearms bending.

The green stick fractures starting to take. That's great. Yeah, it's really good. And then it's, but yeah, the beat by-by-be. beat of like later where it's like Anakin instinctively shifted his force grip and like that stuff doesn't

work as well for me Obi-Wan again gave ground it just feels like he were really just trying to track their location like where they're moving in this environment that they're in and this is kind of

the way by which we're doing it but it's not that part was not as entertaining. It's just hard, right? Like, I don't, I don't. It is hard. I, I don't envy it. I would not, like, writing action and writing, like, a fight sequence, like, seems really tough.

There is a quality to what's happening in the film that is not about the actions that are being taken, but are about the color of Mustafa and the red and the orange on their skin. And that being contrasted with the sterile senate. where Yoda and Palpatine are fighting. Going back and forth between these two fights, all of the choreography obviously hits better in motion, but it's seeing the faces of actors who are communicating what they feel about the moment with their micro-expressions and with their postures

and all of the stuff that makes acting an incredibly difficult craft. And all of that stuff combines to where, like, even if it's the, I think it's totally admirable description of a fight scene. It's just like movies have so much going on. And this scene was conceptualized to be seen, not read about originally. It comes from a script that knew we could make it this huge set piece in the final act of the film. And that's going to like completely overshadow the particulars of the second to second stuff with the emotional content of what's here. and it's it's just you know it's a hard it's a hard task like you said i don't envy it at all

because the same tools just aren't there you can't just like in a movie they are covered in this red from the lava in the background the whole time and you can't just like put your text in red font and be like remember it's fiery it's fiery and red back there he could have started doing some italics like breaking or whatever or like it's even that like the like the The interesting thing about this fight, and even what the book has been setting up, is like, the emotion here, the love that Obi-Wan has for Anakin. And, like, the, you know, there's no talk of how the heat feels on their faces. There's no talk of what it feels like to swing the blade at Anakin Skywalker. There's no talk of, like, trying to examine his face and trying to find humanity or an answer or it understands.

of why this is happening. It is just like we are going to do the numbers. I'm going to read the book and feel like I'm watching the movie. But I don't even feel like I'm watching the movie because the movie was good at the other stuff that we all just talked about. And like, you know, the book doesn't want to set itself apart from the, here's just some action happening. When it, like, that has been the value of having the text this entire time is just such a

missed opportunity to flesh that stuff out. I also, so there's times I find the footnotes are a bit defensive, just like, oh, this is just like hard. I hate doing these scenes. These scenes are really hard to render in text. I see some of that. But also some of this is like, yeah, I feel like you, you can sell these types of spectacles of violence better in the printed page.

Like we're talking about the mythopoetic, right? It's not like, really, it doesn't have fucking action. It's not like the Aeneid doesn't have just absolutely bonker shit happening like in the opening pages. It's just that Stover struggles to relate what he saw in these shooting scripts to whatever his prose style is. And I think part of it is he just gets too hung up on the mechanical particulars of what's happening in the scene. and he doesn't comfortably inhabit the impressionism required to sell some of this violence on the page

rather than on the screen. He hadn't seen it, right? So, like, there is, the part, the reason that I'm so sympathetic to it is, like, he doesn't know what the emotional feeling of this scene is going to be at fucking all. And if he gets it wrong, it'll be bounced back with us.

100%, right? That is the, like, he already talks about, like, Lucas is a pretty sympathetic figure over saying this, but you probably do learn in this line of work to stop taking some swings because you're just going to have to redo it. Because it'll be like, this isn't what I wanted to, this isn't how I imagine that or no, no, no. Like, imagine he couldn't say Palpatine, but I love you. And Lucas is like, Sith wouldn't say love. This is a really stupid line.

A Sith would absolutely use the concept of love to manipulate someone. A hundred percent. Even if they don't believe it in themselves. Like, why's you... George, why don't you think this guy can lie? Like, of course he can. And I, you know, again, like, the thing that I'm really getting at here is, like, you're totally right. You could narrativeize and write you could write a version of this scene that captures the heat, that captures the facial expressions, 100%.

The thing that's tough is that he has not seen what the movie is. He doesn't see how important that stuff is. I have no idea what the shooting script was. But, like, that is what makes that scene. I'm reading the book where all of those things are, like, highlighted earlier. That's the thing that's weird is we don't get. This is what it means to be. We're not in Obi-Wan's head, rather, while this is happening.

Yeah. We get, like, three lines about what he's feeling. We get the thing that is the, like, oh, I have to give up my love for Anakin, right? Which we talked about briefly earlier. But we get stuff that's like, it was Anakin against Obi-Wan personally, just the two of them and the damage they had done to each other. And like, that's not in any of them. That's outside looking in narrator voice. But it's not the deeply emotive voice that he's able to use when he goes into someone's head and tries to like get through what they're feeling at that time.

And that's just totally absent here. And I do think that it's, I am like, again, it's missing. It's the thing that makes this feel so flat at the end, which is a bummer because the core of their relationship has been the core of the book. since they were flying ships in chapter one, and it's just not really here at all. I mean, it's why I actually really miss I have the high ground, Anakin,

because it's him giving him one more chance. And I was like, I wasn't looking forward to that particular line or anything, but when we got there, the moment that it all happens is kind of like nothing. Like, it just kind of, um,

I'll read it because I think that it's, it's worth seeing this. or like hearing it. He turned, at this point, as a reminder, he thinks Anakin has fallen off the edge of a lava, like a lava waterfall, a lava fall. But in fact, he hasn't done that. And Anakin jumps onto the top of a little lava droids head

and he rides it upstream. You might remember this from the movie. The little droid was vastly swifter than Obi-Wan's Logie old cargo platform. And Anakin was easily able to swing around Obi-Wan and cut him off from the shore. Obi-Wan shifted weight one way, then another, but Anakin's droid was nimble as a sand panther. There was no way around, and this close to the lava, the heat was intense enough to crisp

Obi-Wan's hair. This is the end for you, Master, he said. I wish it were otherwise. Yes, Anakin, so do I. Obi-Wan said as he sprinted into a leaping dive, making a spear of his blade. Anakin leaned aside and deflected the thrust almost contemptuously. He missed a cut at Obi-Wan's legs as the Jedi Master flew past him. Obi-Wan turned his dive into a forward roll that left him barely teetering on the room of a low cliff

just above the soft black sand of the riverbank. Anakin snarled a curse as he realized he'd been suckered and leapt off his droid at Obi-Wan's back, half a second too slow. Obi-Wan's whirl to parry didn't meet Anakin's blade. It met his knee, then his other knee. And while Anakin was still in the air, burned off lower legs only starting to topple down the cliff, Obi-Wan's recovery to guard brought his blade through Anakin's left arm above the elbow. He stepped back as Anakin fell.

Anakin dropped his lightsaber, clawing at the edge of the cliff with his mechanical hand, but his grip was too powerful for the lava bank and it crumbled. And he slid down onto the black sand. His severed legs and his severed arm rolled into the lava below him and burned to ash in sudden bursts of scarlet flame. The same color, Obi-Wan observed distantly, as a Sith blade. It happens so quickly without the last bit of, like,

what are they thinking in this moment is Obi-Wan saying, you know, I wish it was otherwise too, Anakin. There's not like, again, the thing that the movie gives you with the eye of the high ground is this last inhale of, okay, this could still go differently. Anakin could see that he's lost here and put his blade away and say you've beaten me master how do we begin to repair who knows right or like you have to kill me i've gone too far whatever it is that feels like there's one last off ramp because they both inhaled whereas here it's just like blah blah blah blah blah his legs get cut off and then they land and then he hit a combo and then he hit a combo

and then you know hey one more for good measure it's because he used his too powerful mechanical hand that he was unable to crawl up the the cliff because his hand you know broke the the sand up too much for him to get the thing. And that's kind of it. He then leaves, right? This is where we get the sort of like, I loved you, but I couldn't save you. He does say, you were the chosen one. That stuff is here.

You were a brother to me. And it would be a mercy to kill him, but he wasn't feeling merciful. And then the Sidious's ship arrived. So he knows he has to get out of here. He's going to leave it all up to the force. But we don't, in those key moments in the fight, we're never in Obi-Wi-1. man's head in the way that we have been throughout the rest of the book. Yeah.

I mean, the only other point is another, like, a couple pages before this. Obi-W. It's described Obi-1 is deflecting force, blast, and countering strikes from this creature of rage that had been his best friend, suddenly comprehended an unexpectedly profound truth. The man he faced was everything Obi-Wan had devoted his life to just. destroying, murder, traitor, fallen Jedi, Lord of the Sith. And here and now, despite it all, Obi-Wan loved him. Yoda had said it flat out, allow such attachments to pass out of one's life, a Jedi must, but Obi-Wan had never let himself understand. He had argued for Anakin,

made excuses, covered for him again and again and again, all the while this attachment he denied even feeling had blinded him to the dark path his best friend walked. Obi-Wan knew there was, in the end, one answer for attachment, he let it go. And then it goes, basically leads up to the big fight stuff. The big fight. Yeah, the big fight. It's, I just wish it was more consistent through, because I think these like these little moments I really like and I just wish we spent more time in them.

And I think like if we hadn't had to spend as much time with, Obi-One took a running leap that became a graceful dive headlong off the crane deck. Yeah. Yeah. And you just had, they clashed. And here's what's going on inside. And here's what's going on inside their heads while they're clapped. You know what I mean? And the problem is, is that this is a Star Wars book.

and people want to hear about, people want to read the lightsabers. Right. There's a really wide audience that's coming here for, potentially coming here for that stuff. Right. Exactly.

They want the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, two lightsaber forms being, you know, described and depicted and,

in how they interact with each other and how they clash and what, you know, I think there's a lot, like that, that's, an audience that's being served here or is attempting

to be served here while we're the audience that's like, well, give me the good yawi of them. Yeah, I am. Yeah. Well, I think even the bit that you just read is interesting because it's one, it's a moment of him saying I'm not going to feel emotional about this anymore, which means

we're not going to get the good yowie anymore because he's decided the way to win is to like turn that part of his brain off. More importantly, it's all there's a sort of distant, rational perspective on it all. Oh, right, I've never been able to not love Anakin. And that's why I've always let him slide on things. Okay, I got to let it go. And it's not, I'm going to let it go right now that I've realized it. It's not, it's not like melodramatic. Right. This is not him. Yeah.

It's not tempestuous. It's not like, I'm struggling. I have to let go of it. Now is the time. And fucking, I read this book. I actually get it. He sucks. It is time to let it go. But that's completely like yeah aniken or sorry yeah obiwan you should let go of your love for for aniken and it should be cold and dispassionate it's time to do that i he's not wrong here the the version of this aniken is like so fucked that like yeah of course but but i don't it's not as it is not as compelling as the stuff early on in the book between the two of them because that stuff was so driven by their the the emotional relationship between the two of them it still had lots of their fighter jet or their, you know, Starship did weird flips and funny flips and he's leading missiles, places,

all that stuff is still happening. But, like, not to the degree that this feels like the emotional core can only be a blink for a second before we get back to a double jump he can do. I just sort of feel, by the way, that there's that, there's that line about them, like, doing a super jump with the force. And for some reason, it made me start, it made me pick up a new head cannon, which, is that the reason Luke and co can't do double jumps isn't that they're bad at the force or under-trained.

But there's like, there's something about this story that makes me feel like, what if the force diminished in the world after Avenge of the Sith? Almost like, I don't know if you've read the farthest shore, the LaGuin, like the third earthy book, where it's like, oh, magic is dying in this world. It's kind of like, oh, yeah, like, what if like the death of the Jedi actually wounds the force such that they can't do super speed the way that they could in Phantom Medics. I don't think it's true because we all played

the Fall in Order games at least a little bit and that motherfucker can do a double jump and has force speed, you know, like he's fine. But in my mind, as we go into the original trilogy, I'm going to be like yeah, like the force was wounded by all of this. That's cool. We also need to. I like that a lot.

Possibly that little guy might have been the strongest of the Jedi to survive. I hadn't considered. He didn't train Kylo Ren. You're right. you're right like Luke Skywalker lost in his feelings

forcing a little baby to choose between like lightsaber and dad's chain mail yeah that's just not yeah there's other ways to

to be Jedi but I do think yeah the air leaks out of this thing fast and some of it is also that I think it's in a lot of again a lot of the prequel trilogy stuff, not exploring the stuff to

as much as, like, the episode of the Clone Wars that didn't get produced, that we saw the like intermediate animations for, the scene talking about, uh, Asoka. Yeah. By the fire. Like, that's, that is the energy between them that we desperately want is that sense of grief

before the losses even happened. Looming grief, uh, building alienation, inability to bridge these, these gaps between them. Yeah. And what we get is, and then he rolled

and the mighty roar, like it's stuff like that. And we lose some of that, but it's also not there in the film as much as you would like. Like, we do get a slightly better beat, I think, of Yoda calling out Obi-Wan being like,

you already know what happened. Oh, that stuff. Like, who were we kidding? Oh, yeah. Just immediately like there's zero doubt. Like we did this by our inattention, by our inability to recognize what we sort of,

you know, clutch to our chests these, these last many years. You're talking about the moment in the temple where they find the body of the dead, the troll, who seems to be the nickname of one of the Jedi, like, trainers.

And he's like, oh, this guy's been killed with a lightsaber. And Obi-on's like, I got to find out who did this. And you're just like, do you? Do you need to find it out? because I think you might know. But then why did you leave him on the planet, Master Yoda?

Like, I can't, but again, this thing doesn't really hold together. Because if your first thought, when you go back to the Jedi Temple, everyone's fucking dead. Oh, must have been Anakin. Oh, that's Anakin. Okay, but sometimes that happens in life. You know what I mean? You bring a friend who's like not part of the friend group to a big party and you're like, but that's a problem is the scale of 40 details.

I know. I know. If your deadbeat friend goes bad and lifts people's credit cards, it's like, it's like that motherfucker bought a lot of pizza that he didn't deserve and maybe, maybe an iPhone. But it's like, okay, this is not me. I invited Jeffrey Dahmer. Right. He ain't them all. Right.

It's different. You're right. You're right. It is different. It is different. Also, for 900 years, you've been training to not invite the wrong person to the party and then you did it. Yeah And he was wearing a special shirt

That said on it like I'm very special and dangerous And have a big destiny Oh my God All right So His limbs burst in a flame Just like a just said

Lightzaber Padmay Dragged to the ship By the droids By the droids They are two reaches I was a little Stender claw

And it's like You're gonna help me with this 3 p. But she dies of a broken heart all that Yeah Let's get to

Anakin though waking up Please You want to read this Rob Oh no I like the scene The passage Do you want to read the passage?

I want you to read the passage You have a good voice For this one I think This is it This is a big one This is the one that's on the side Of the book we all have This is the book

All right So we cut to the scene in the surgical wing of the hospital where Palpatine has unleashed all his, all his, you know, medical genius and scientific genius to save Anakin, turn him into the Darth Vader, we all know, and love. To some eyes, it might have been a piece together hybrid of droid and human, in case in a life support shell of gleaming black, managed by a thoracic processor that winked pale color against the shadow's cloak. To some eyes, his jointed limbs might have looked ungainly, clumsy, even monstrous. The featureless curves of black that served it for eyes might have appeared inhuman, and the underthrust grill work of its vocabulator might have suggested the jaws of a Sorian predator built of polished

blast armor, but to the shadow, it was glorious. A magnificent jewel box created both to protect and to exhibit the greatest treasure of the Sith, terrifying, mesmerizing. Perfect. The table slowly rotated a vertical, and the shadow leaned close. Lord Vader, can you hear me? This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker, forever. The first dawn of light in your universe brings pain. The light burns you.

It will always burn you. Part of you always lie upon black glass sand beside a lake of fire while flames chew upon your flesh. You can hear yourself breathing. It comes hard and harsh, and it scrapes nerves already raw, but you cannot stop it. You can never stop it. You cannot even slow it down.

You don't even have lungs anymore. Mechanisms hardwired into your chest breathe for you. They will pump oxygen into your bloodstream forever. Lord Vader, Lord Vader, can you hear me? And you can't. Not in the way you once did. Sensors in the shell that prisons your head trickle meaning directly into your brain. You open your scorched pale eyes, optical sensors integrate light and shadow

into a hideous simulacrum of the world around you. Or perhaps the simulacrum is perfect, and it is the world that is hideous. Padme, are you here? Are you all right, you try to say, but another voice speaks for you. out from the vocabulary that serves you for burned away lips and tongue and throat. Padme, are you here? Are you all right? I'm very sorry, Lord Vader. I'm afraid she died.

It seems, in your anger, you killed her. This burns hotter than the lava had. No, it's not possible. You loved her. You always love her. You could never will her death. Never. But you remember. You remember all of it. You remember the dragon that you brought Vader forth from your heart to slay. You remember the cold venom in Vader's blood.

You remember the furnace of Vader's fury and the black hatred seizing her throat to silence her lying mouth. And there is one blazing moment in which you finally understand that there was no dragon, that there was no Vader, that there was only you, only Attica and Skywalker, that it was all you, is you, only you. You did it. You killed her. You killed her because finally, when you could have saved her, and you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself.

Is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Sith, because now yourself is all you will ever have. And you rage and scream and reach through the force to crush the shadow who has destroyed you, but you are so far less now than what you were. You are more than half machine. You are like a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf. You can only remember where the power was, but the power you can touch is only a memory.

And so with all your world destroying fury, it is only droids around you that implode and equipment and the table on which you were strapped shatters. In the end, you cannot touch the shadow. In the end, you did not even want to. In the end, the shadow is all you have left. because the shadow understands you. The shadow forgives you.

The shadow gathers you onto itself. And within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame. This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker forever. Yeah, it seems hard. It seems tough, man. Seems brutal. This stuff works for me, basically. You know, I really do think this is the like, he has some,

has a bit recurring in the sort of like in-between sections, the like the dark is generous stuff. There's a footnote on the third one where he's like, comedians have this idea of the rule of three that you do three setups and then the punchline. And he uses it to describe that stuff, but it's like, it's way more true for this. Now, obviously that's not rule of three, but like it feels so much like this is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker forever is the payoff for this whole style of writing, this voice that he uses throughout the book. And mostly because one of the things that happens for all the rest of them is we get a couple of, this is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker in a spaceship.

This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker in a lightsaber fight. Anon, this is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker forever. He's like this forever. I mean, obviously we know until something can maybe save him down the line. But this is the weight of it is, oh my God, I'm going to be like this forever. I'm going to be separated from the ones I love. I'm going to be separated from the self I once knew and the self I once adored, but also that's all I'll have is the self now.

And so I think that that stuff really does work for me. And I will say even the, you know, I think it's tricky territory when you get into the painter blind, the composer gone deaf. That occurred to me, but I also, you see where I'm going. Go ahead. Yeah, it's like, it is not that you can't still, that someone who has like become hard of hearing can no longer like write music. Obviously, famously, they can. Right.

But they are drawing from things they no longer have easy access to, right? Like creativity, inspiration may still exist. Capacity still exists. But you can no longer access easily this wild spring that used to draw from. And so I think it occurred, like on the one hand, it's like, are we going to stumble across a lot of the familiar landmines that Star Wars struggles with when it comes to disability? And I don't think this passage does necessarily. To me, it feels more like Anakin is still an incredibly powerful force user. But he's no longer connected to the force and to his body, all these things that came easily.

he's at a remove from them. He still access them. He still has a great deal of power. But it now requires a great deal of excruciating effort where it was once completely natural. Yeah. I think a lot about there's this piece for Granta called Common Cyborg by Jillian Weiss, which is written as a sort of, I wouldn't say a corrective,

but it's written by one with like prosthetic, kind of in response to Donna Harrowy, cyborg manifesto, but also to what was then a sort of increasing in volume, sort of, whoa, we're all becoming cyborgs sort of pop cultural, pop scientific moment. And, you know, she sets up this kind of like dichotomy or this kind of useful kind of strategic division between people who are like, you know, I'm so frustrated by. The way my, you know, my RFID, you know, thing is busted right now. You know, I have to update its firmware versus the person who is like, the leg I bought

for, you know, $3,000 is breaking down and I can't get it serviced. And tries to like really be like, I get it. I get why in an effort to try to destigmatize what disabled people go through with their prosthetics and with the things that they have to use to treat their chronic conditions that like we don't want to dehumanize people. But also it is really hard to deal with this stuff. And it, I understand what you're going for, but there is a reality to my lived experience of needing to keep my fucking egg, my leg upgraded or my leg fixed, my leg maintained. I have to go on message boards. We have to talk to each other about these things in very grounded ways.

And I'm not saying that this is like that Sover is drawing on reading first-hand accounts of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like I said earlier, there's a bit of like the way people talk about disabled people being locked into their bodies in various ways here. But I do think that for a character who is so constantly defined in himself by his physical prowess by particular types of motion and movement, I'm not surprised that Anakin's response to this. this would be, I don't have my body anymore. Now, I think where it gets slippery is that, like, all of the grievous stuff is already here, where the grievous stuff is, like, look at this mechanical monstrosity. And the only person who looks at Vader here and goes, like, ah, but it's beautiful, actually, is actually Sidious, who is, like, my perfect, my perfect cyborg weapon, you know?

And that, you know, in a way, like, that is actually part of Gillian Weiss's argument is, like, the cyborg is a useful science fictional construct that people like to wield. And Sidious is wielding him here. You know, the power dynamic here is that like whatever threat Vader was going to be, he's now the guy who was to go sit in the black box. Oh, all those thoughts of mutiny are gone. They're gone, man. Like he's, because now all he has, the only like what passes for human affection for him.

All of it is from this master. There's a couple other, this comes up at various paths. I think it's right after Mace dies, where Anakin notes his flesh and blood hand is trembling. And at that moment, he expresses a preference of, if I remember me who passes correctly, he expresses almost like a preference. He sort of puts his trembling hand aside and comforts himself and concentrates on his mechanical hand, which can't betray that weakness. And something I do like about this is I think Stover isn't falling into. to the, he's more machine than man. He is, like, I think what Stover sees is that Anakin,

before this final transformation, starts showing, like, has this almost preference for these mechanical parts because they can't fail him. They can't express his interior space for him. His frailties don't get expressed through a piece of machinery. And he's ashamed of those frailties. he's scared of them, and he embraces, just like he's embraced the force as like an avenue of power that will keep him safe, he embraces this mechanical part that can't fail him and can't

be vulnerable in the ways that he has been, the kind of despises in himself. And it reminded me of that we'll talk about this in the Tartikovsky bit, where Anakin receives this vision on a cave wall of like a hero with like there's a darkness bat like haunting the land and and killing people and it's this like slightly mechanical but also arcane looking construct that is shredding through everyone and a hero with with with one flesh and blood hand but also a hand made of the same material rises up and defeats this evil and then he sees his arm grow and start slaughtering the people around him almost out of his control. And I think Tartakovsky's drawing the same thing,

which is that both the machinery and Anakin's relationship with the force become kind of expressions of his ultimate fate, that he leans into these things to allow him to carry out heroic acts and to commit violence. But in the end, is consumed by them and embraces them to the point where he can't, he can't protect others from the danger he now poses. And I think Stover works this in as like into this story a little bit as well,

where it isn't that the machinery is making Anakin less human. It is that it mirrors some choices Anakin's, Anakin has made and some refusals to deal with his own frailties. and his final fate is complete alienation from the self, complete destruction of everything he got into this to preserve love, affection, fellowship, a family. He loses all of that. And in a way, he has received what Palpatine promised, which is a defeat of death. Yeah, yeah. Yours.

Yeah. When you most badly wish for it. Yeah. Yeah, there is a, where is that bit where, where, I don't remember if it's him or if it's, it is, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's Anakin is like, I wish I could go back and do this, I could, I, no, it's actually not him. I'm thinking of Obi-Wan when he finally learns about Anakin, when he's like, I wish we, I wish I could just died on, on Nabu. Um, they're, they're, there, for both of them, they both have these moments where they're like, oh, actually, maybe death would have been better for me. than to confront the horror of my ongoing life. And of course, again, the way Obi-Won ends up dealing with that is by letting go of the emotion and the attachment. And-

If you love something, don't as another great AMCA Austin line. I don't even remember. See, I just be on these podcasts talking shit. I don't even know what I say. I think that there is a, that's the thing that I think is kind of interesting about this. Then the book ends, right? Like, we get that. We get the image of, you know, Leah's going to go live with bail.

Luke is going to live on tattooing. We get that line about Obi-Wan. It's like, I'm going to go there and be a weird uncle, which shout us to our weird uncle count. Our weird uncle count goes up by one, which surprised me. In the movie script, does Bail say, do you think that Luke and Leia can destroy Palpatine? I don't think so. Because that really stood out to me.

Like I Ever since we last watched Revenge of the Sith for this podcast I get so sad about Padma's death I teared up reading it in this book In Yoda saying that she has to still appear pregnant Because it is something so far beyond being objectified It's like becoming a tool for this like other side of corruption.

I guess we're not supposed to think, well, we're supposed to think the Jedi is corrupt. But like, you know, there's, like, there's, like, there's no end to the, like, there's no end to the,

like, I don't think you're supposed to think this is corrupt. I think that you're right, Ali. Maybe I'm wrong, but. But it's, it's just like such a disgusting way

to treat this person and the whole of who she is. And then just like, oh, we have to lie about this. And she has to be a tool of that. And that, like, even in this conversation, they are talking about infants

in terms of like, how are we going to wield them against this guy? Like, wild. It's just, like, it's just, like, it's... Around the conference table on a Tantive 4, Bail or Ghana, Obi-Wan, Kenobi, and Yoda met to decide the fate of the galaxy. To Nabu send her body, Yoda stretched his head high, as though tasting a current in the force.

So again, the force is telling Yoda this. Pregnant, she must still appear. Hidden, safe, the children must be kept. Foundation of the new Jedi order they will be. What the fuck are you talking about? I get that we've decided now that like the force runs through blood in the EU at this point. And I mean, not even the EU, right? Because Luke is of course, Luke and Lear, Vader's children.

So it's just, it's always been there that the force has some sort of, you know, blood, familial lineage inheritance thing happening, I guess. But why the fuck are you like, they're going to build the new Jedi order? They're not even, they're, they're 30 seconds old. Padme just died. And your first thought is we're going to, they're going to build the new Jedi order. The name of the chapter, by the way, is New Jedi Order, which is, of course, a wink at the New Jedi Order ongoing, at that point, ongoing series, right, by the mid-2000s, right? So like, but like, what do we? Yeah.

Why does Yoda have to go there, right? Like, the, they really do immediately think. of them as these are our weapons that can win us the war long term. Neither of them are like, we should go start to build a resistance and train people? No. No training. And they're also

not even talking about training the babies that there's going to be the new foundation of the new Jedi order. When Obi-Wan is like, okay, like let's do this. I'll train this one. We'll figure it all out. Um,

Yoda's like, no. And Obi-Wan's like, but how are they going to learn how to become Jedi? And he's like, when the time is right for skills to be taught to us, the living force will bring them. Until then, wait, we will and watch and learn. Motherfucker, you have literally been doing that shit for 900 years. You just got washed like seven pages ago. And then you had the whole realization. You talked to Quigon, aka the Force,

and you admitted that the whole time that you've been preparing for the last war, and it's not the current war, and that the Sith have a new strategy, and you're doing old strategies and blah, blah, blah. And then he's like, you know what we got to do? We got to wait. We got to just sit and wait and watch and see what happens. I am sick of you.

I am sick of you. enough. Natalie is about to become Krea. Natalie is about to drain the life. These fucking Jedi. Stay away from her. Stay away from her. Let these kids live normal lives.

First of all, let them live normal lives. Not to keep going back to Kotor, but this is where Jolie Bindo needs to be in this conversation. He needs to be here and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Listen, let those two kids go live their lives. in the long span of history it's going to come back on Palpatine it doesn't listen

either get up up for your asses and actually do something or step back because we know history keeps turning and it's going to blow up in his face it's the one good thought that crosses Anakin's head like before he chokes Padme

but he realizes Palpatine's about to be the hated guy in history like the Palpatine's victory it's like whipping the covers off this whole Sith project and the galaxy's gonna get a load of it and like they're gonna hate this guy

which is partially what happens now his plan for taking advantage of that is is dumb assery but there is a degree of in the like to an extent it was like man you could have just

if he just could get to gaslit the Jedi who knows how long he could have kept this trainer rolling but the other part of this that it's just continually unsatisfying is that everything has to be turned into like it was prophecy or like the Jedi had this plan and so you kind of have to retcon some things as oh they meant for it to happen this this way this entire time and it's like really Leah getting busted the traffic stop with the Death Star plans was like this was the master's stroke like her firing the plan what you're describing here is

they get the droids right the droids go with her they're going to become bail is like these two droids are going to be my daughter's gift or whatever and so yeah and 3PO god bless him he's literally he's a protagal droid literally can't understand the concept of shut the fuck up Friday so

bail's like you know what wipe that one's memory Damn. R2 is just like Weep, weep, boop, he knows he knows no one's going to worry about

what he's got to say. Yeah. But 3POs like, oh damn, that's Master Antichens and Padmay's kids. Bail's got to do something

about that. But the plant, like turning it all into and here they start laying the groundwork for their inevitable victory. None of it squares really with how contingent

and chancing the first film feels. And it certainly doesn't square with the frankly burned out inhospitable Yoda that Luke encounters who really just is so disillusioned he doesn't even want to train this kid. Like he's looking for excuses to run away from this.

And you'd say, well, actually, it's just him posturing and no, I think, fundamentally, I think the guy Yoda meets on that planet is kind of who's supposed to be there in that original trilogy. It's just in the intervening years, Yoda's turned into the guy who, don't worry. Yeah, he let the Republic

fall to the Sith and fucked everything up. But it's about the intervening 20 years on conference calls with all the good Jedi. Yeah. And laying the groundwork for this big win. Just Quigon, really. Because Quigon's the only one who knows how to do this.

Canaan Jaris. Canaan's a big wolf, I think. You'll find. He didn't talk to the wolf. He only talked to the, yeah. I guess what, does he learn this? He talked to Ezra? He does.

Yota does talk to Ezra, huh? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So he's out there, me. And, of course, he's there in the lightsaber workshop. Galaxy's ad. She's talking to the sager aboard the Halcyon. Like, Yoda becomes a little mascot who pops up to tell people, like, don't worry,

I've got a plan to light the spark. Wait. Why? No, Yoda's in the, he's in the holocron, right? That's what it is. He's in the holocron? It does it say, in the park? No, he, he speaks to us. He comes, he's dead. He like speaks through the force. It speaks through the force. It's like, it's speakers in the wall. Well, they're like speakers in the ceiling. It's supposed to be like, none of us saw this shit. None of us were invited. No, no, no, I mean, does he show up? No, we were all at the Jedi at the lightsaber building. In the lightsaber thing, for sure.

What the fuck's he doing? Isn't he gone? Didn't he become one with the forest find? No, I guess not. He's just like hanging out, I guess. He came back for a minute. He died on Daegobon. Yoda's like, no.

And then he's there in Endor as it goes. He's completed his correspondence course with Quaghan. Right, right, right. So he's become. By the time of the new trilogy. And he's now talking to park goers at the lightsaber workshop. That's why Quigon trained him. So he could do that one day.

It's like being a greeter Yeah Well this casino You know it's a great job for retirees You get to talk to people It's like good socializing To the Cosmo I welcome you A good time

And good luck you will have Stover does literally say something In one of the footnotes that's like And this is why Luke turns out to be a little more like Quigon than he does like Yoda is because Yoda has been trained by Quigon in the intervening years. And so that kind of reshapes Luke to look a little more as like ideologically like Quigon than like the Jedi of the air of the fall of the Republic. Who can forget that scene in the Phantom Menace where Quigone takes young, young Anakin aside is like, oh, do you want your mommy? Do you miss your mommy?

Or do you want to be a fucking Jedi champ? Such quag-gone vibes. Yeah, well. This is a real okay, gumby. Like, if you say so bad, like, okay, man. Yeah. Yeah. Well.

Then there's the final, final, final thing. You all turn the page past the thank yous, right? Past the, like, thank you to George Lucas. And you got the final, dark is generous. Not on mine. In my edition. Wait, what?

There's one... Your print edition. Well, no, my e-pub edition, which is the one I actually read, is it, is it immediately across from it in that edition? In the e-pub, we straight up get, we get the, like, then he rides his EOPI off into the jundled waist towards the setting suns. And then the next page is, the author respectfully dedicates his adaptation to George Lucas.

and then we get Matthew Stover as a New York Times bestselling author and then we get also by Matt Stover and then we get The Dark is generous and this patient and it always wins The font? The font in this book? Vendetta.

Oh, is that the name of the font? This book was set in Vendetta. That's very funny. That's high-faced designed by John Downer is an homage to advertising stuff. But love it. Yeah. Wait.

You know what the most fucked up part about the EPUB version is that if you're reading it on, no, if you're reading it on Apple books, when you press, at least on Mac, reading this on my MacBook, once you press next page after the George Lucas tribute, it just goes to, hey, go ahead and read the next, it opens a new window that is, go read a new home. Here's like go here's an ad Ad alert, ad alert

And then you have to go back to the book And keep to keep going so I just missed this until I opened my physical book Because I thought the book was over Fucking everything is a sales pitch or an engagement pitch Before it can just end it hasn't even translated to books now Because every book now does this is you hit the end of like the main text And then immediately you flip the page and it's like well back to the shop Do you want to read more by this author?

Do you want to read the next book in the series? Like there's like 40 pages left here. There's like excerpts. There's like something about the High Republic. And Apple Books is like, no, just go back and buy the next thing for six. I'm just going to read this. This is the end of the book, the real true end of the book. Because remember there's been all the, every section has had this thing about how sick the dark is.

And wherever there's light, when there's the most light, there's the most shadow. And it's the darkest shadow. So finally it ends on this, which Matt Stover says is the thing that's most. quoted that he's ever written, the second most being the, this is Anakin Skywalker forever. So here's the number one. The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins. But in the heart of its strength lies weakness. One lone candle is enough to hold it back.

Love is more than a candle. Love can ignite the stars. Tabooite. That is the energy I get from it, unfortunately. The vibe of that 100% The problem is all the darkness stuff And this quote Like we talked about the

We did talk about That it just seems to be channeling the Terry Pratchett quote Oh no I don't think we did say that Tell me what which I have not read Pratchett I am like I am like Pratchett There's a famous Terry Pratchett Quote that you see pop up Now and again

Attributed variously So I'm not 100% sure Which book it is from But generally it doesn't It seems to be a real Terry Pratchel quote. The one I'm pulling here is from good reads from a book, Reaper Man. Light thinks it travels faster than anything, but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first and is waiting for it.

And in a lot of ways, a lot of the stuff about the darkness has felt like a kind of a response to this, particularly this final passage, but a single candle banishes the darkness. death be not proud and all that Terry Pratchett I think has a few more bars than Matt's toe Which is unfair but I do think there's That quote sort of like lingers in the background of his darkness framing

Now where he came up with dead Star Dragon I don't know man Yeah To make that a device you return to again and again I don't know Oh it's tough It's not the stuff. It's kind of like there's like six different modes the book has, and we get them all to various and lesser degrees.

And the ones that do hit, I think, like the kind of big weird formal swings like the, like the dragon or like this stuff. The one that does hit is the, this is what it means to be. That perspective hits basically every time it shows up. I do wish we'd gotten the mason. We'd do what. It feels like he walks up to right up to the line with some of what it makes. when do Shatterpoint stuff is and like decides not to do it. But I would have taken three more of those and maybe three less dead cold dragon fear

things maybe and would have been happier. But this doesn't really love coming like the stars doesn't. It's funny because it's like I do think that that's the truth of Return of the Jedi. But I don't know that it in a weird way, saying it this way feels like it diminishes everything that comes after it. I don't know that we needed it. I don't know. Yeah.

I don't know. It's giving Facebook ad for Wayfair Pillow quote. Wow. Fuck. God damn. You know, but listen. But is that because it was already washed or because he put this energy into the world and now that's trickled down into Wayfair Pillow ads?

You know what I mean? I don't know. That's a good question. Yeah, I don't know I think I just kind of I didn't take the other ones of these darkness as patient

to seriously I think it was like fine for like tone setting Yeah I think it was like I think it was fun for him to write and I definitely got that vibe Go off yeah

Sometimes that's why you write a thing That's you know sometimes you get it off And your editor goes like Okay Yeah And like, okay, like, I like, I like indulgence. Like, at the end of the day, like, I don't mind a, a creative or an artist. Like, I'll always take the indulgent thing rather than the thing that, like, plays it safe or that is, like, more sterile or risk adverse or whatever. I'll take the indulgent thing every time. So I don't, I don't mind that. I don't mind that stuff at all. I think here, landing here, landing here, here at the end. Like we already,

we just had, then he writes his EOP off into the jundling waist toward the setting suns. I, I'm with the vibes. Like, I'm with that the, like, the future is ahead of us.

Tattoine is ahead of us. A new hope is ahead of us. Um, you know, hope is, hope is in our future and that is there. Um, I didn't need another one. of these is kind of my

take. Yeah. Also, didn't we already get three of them so this makes four? It's the punch line. Because there were three sections. He's saying the rule of three is you do three set-ups and then the punchline. That's what his... Not according to Shigero Miyamoto. It's three.

You get three things. Well, he doesn't work stand-up. It's not three plus one. But, okay. I think you're right. I've never heard. I have, again, I don't come up through comedy. It's not, that's not my...

Is it three plus... I'm gonna ask like all the comedians in my life and be like, hey, rule of three. Is it three plus one or is it three? Like, let me know which one. I really, in my mind, the way it works, even in comedy. No, sorry, it's always, it's two set up. And then the punch line, right?

Yeah. Right? Yeah. That's, yeah. Yep. Sorry. I just, it's like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da. da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da right like that's it it's the third hit that's rhythm that's rhythm it's not da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da da da da da da da da da da da da da da that's nothing a priest a rabbi and some third thing and then some fourth thing that's not how you build the joke yeah or is it this is it is the rhythm

da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Maybe that's, maybe it's da-da-da-da. Well, yeah, if you're Norm McDonald, sure. But that's not like, hey, don't try to do what he did. In comedy, the Rule of Three is also called a comic triple. This is from Wikipedia, and is one of the many comedic devices regularly used by humorous writers and comedians. the third element of the triple is often used to create an effective surprise with the audience, and is frequently the punchline of the joke itself.

For instance, jokes might feature three stereotyped individuals, such as an Englishman and Irishman and the Scotsman, or a blonde brunette and a redhead, or a surprise or punchline of the joke comes from the third character. The comedic rule of three is often paired with quick timing, ensuring that viewers have less time to catch on to the pattern before the punchline hits. As a whole, the comedic rule of threes relies on setting up a pattern of two items and then subverting the viewer's expectations

by breaking the pattern with a third item. One example comes from the Dick Van Dyke Show. Can I get you anything? A cup of coffee, donut, to pay. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. It's the third. I think I know what episode. Yeah, I believe it.

Shout us to Dick Van Dyke Show. Yeah. I feel validated. You are so valid. I'm so valid. Dick Van Dyke never. would have treated Mary Tyler more the way Anakin treats.

He would never. No matter how much trouble she caused for him at work. He was always there. My God. Damn, Dick Van Dyke's still alive. Yeah, dude. He's a hundred and three. That's wild.

He did a fucking dance number in that Mary Poppins from like 10 years ago. And it was a real dance number. That's wild. That's wild. And he's like, wow. it's it's ridiculous he rolls cool uh all right so that that's a wrap on revenge of the Sith at least until we get an anime out of

this oh I would love that that be so sick but for now we have to return to the cinema yeah we're going to the freaking movies y'all now Austin

yeah what's up what's we now turn our gaze to the original trilogy that's right I think but perhaps the the true original Star Wars

is not a tale the Sith like you to see it is not I think we're going to watch so sorry we had decided on this more or less like a month and a half ago or like December and I thought we'd set it into a microphone but we may have only said it into a Patreon microphone.

We're going to watch the original trilogy coming off of Revenge of the Sith. We're going to go right into where it all began. And I think what we're going to do is watch the 4K-77, 4K-80, and 4K-83 versions of these movies, which are available out there. You can watch whatever one you want. You know, that's up to y'all.

But I'm going to watch this one. I mean, if you want to, you can watch the stuff with all the spout. but that just means that, like, things will happen. Yeah. That you'll be like, what about that part where Java was there? Not in our version. Java who? Grito mentions a Java.

We might even play dumb about it being called a new hope. It's, oh, you mean Star Wars? It's called Star Wars. Hey, have you heard of it? Motherfucking Star Wars. So, yeah. I'm really, really excited, y'all. I'm really, really excited.

Me too. I'm so excited. I even want to talk about these movies with y'all for years. it turns out. We're going to get to meet all of our friends and see how they're all doing. All our friends from rebels like Leia. God.

And then we're like, we won't even be that hard up for content ideas when eventually we come back to the original trilogy in the form of the radio dramas. Oh my God. Wow. I don't even consider it. I hear they're great.

I've heard, like, I've never heard them, but I've always heard like they're fantastic. I've heard bits of it. I've heard bits of the New Hope one because it's, that's, that's, I've heard the bits. where Tarkin gets extended out a little bit more.

And Tarkin's sort of like his own plans. They have Cushing doing those lines? I think that that's Cushing. I'm pretty sure that they have Cushing doing it. Yeah, because it's a British, it's a British radio drama specifically. So. That's not what we're doing next. We're doing next to Star Wars.

No. Maybe you've heard of it, etc. Yeah. All right. Well, that does it for the Revenge of the Sith novelization. We'll catch you at the movies at Star Wars. This episode was produced by none other than Austin Walker and he has left himself a mighty workbook for this evening. And that work is supported by our listeners at patreon.com slash civilized.

We'll catch you at the movies. Until next time, please rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. And try to forget how bad Anakin came across here because it makes the whole thing feel way less tragic. and just kind of embarrassing for all concerned.