A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 33: The Zygerria Arc (Clone Wars 77 - 79)

Episode Date: April 20, 2022

We've made it to the heart of Season 4. Well, in the specific figurative sense meaning "the middle," not the other figurative sense meaning "the thematic core, emblematic of the whole." At least we hope not, since this trio of eps walks right up to a bunch of very interesting ideas and whiffs on basically all of them. This is, seriously, an arc about slavery that barely lets Anakin address his feelings on the practice, and spares literally no time for broader conversation around Clones- or Droids-as-slaves, and finds the time to do Ahsoka (whose people are the ones enslaved in these episodes) dirty too! Ah well. At least we'll always have the uncomfortable sexual tension of the Zygerrian Slave Queen's Bedchambers.    NEXT TIME: Episodes 80 - 82 ("Friend in Need," "Deception," "Friends and Enemies") You can support the show and gain access to a monthly Q&A cast by going to patreon.com/civilized Show Notes Deaths: Some slavers, idk, fuck em Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny) Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson) Produced by Austin Walker Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal) Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)

Let us return once more to a more civilized age, Clone Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zackney, joined by Ali Akampora, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. Do you like Gladiator movies? I hope so. Because this week, the Clone Wars is channeling Sword and Sandals epics and B movies with all that implies. We have racist archetypes, space Egypt, the evils, of slavery, but also sexy foreign queens who love it when a slave defies them. But most of all, what we have here is a pretty straightforward three-parter.

The broad outline is this. In the first episode, kidnapped. A planet full of Chagruden colonists is invaded by the separatists, and much of the population is rounded up by Duku and his droids. The Republic responds to their distress call, but arrives to find much of the settlement empty. The remaining separatist commander, Darts Dinar, a great. agrees to negotiate with the Republic, but it's a trap.

He's from the once and future Zagarian Empire, a once powerful slave-holding society that was brought low by the Jedi and nursed a grudge about that ever since. He has wired the entire city with explosives and will kill all the remaining two Grudence, not pictured here, unless Obi-Wan

surrenders. Instead, Obi-Wan does what Jedi do. He challenges darts to a fight and spends half the episode getting ragdolled around an office while Anna and Asoka go and disarm the explosives. The Jedi seem to have a habit of racing for pinks when it comes to the lives of slaves. Once the job is done, Obi-One stops toying with Dinar and wins the fight, but Dinar tries to flee,

but is apprehended before he can escape, and the Jedi, Hatcha, let's be generous and call it a plan, to go and rescue the hostages. It does turn out, however, this plan just amounts to we will inexplicably show up at their slave auction, wearing their armor that is built for their physiology, which we don't share. And they get about 30 steps into the slave capital before they run to trouble, and somebody asks,

what the hell are they doing there, and why are they wearing that armor? Fortunately, Anakin has a very secret Jedi force power, seducing royalty. It pays off, and he's escorted to the palace immediately because he has so much game that's a little, like, floating destiny, ghost, immediately sees that, like, the queen has to know about this guy and invites him

to the palace. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan and Cody try and find the two Gruta prisoners. They do find Governor Rosti and try the run-like-Hell strategy, but naturally it falls apart with Obi-Wan being taken prisoner and Cody making an escape alone. Meanwhile, Anakin is charming the hell out of Queen Mirage. who wouldn't be charmed when presented with Asoka as a gift that is another part of this plan that she's going to

she is going to be the slave gift that gets him in good with the slave empire unfortunately the entire thing still falls apart when he's made to demonstrate his loyalty by publicly whipping Obi-One instead he comes up with a different plan which is what if I whip all these slaveholders' asses doesn't work

the entire scheme his failure to solo the entire capital city of Nigeria exposes the scheme and he is turned into the personal slave of Queen Mirage while Obi-Wan and Cody are sent to a hellish prison and Asoka is placed in a cage overlooking the city. It's a punishment, though it is a hell of a view. Which etiquette remarks upon when he rescues her.

Yeah, it seems like you were fine, you were thriving. Also, an incredible way to be like, we don't care about your storyline. I'd go sit in a box for a while. Yep. In Escape from Kidavo, Anakin's dilemma of being sort of behind enemy lines is largely resolved by Duku arriving to place his own man on the Zagarian throne and depose Queen Mirage because she is showing a little too much independence and also hatching some truly

terrible schemes. He frees Asoka and escapes with Mirage only for her to die of her wounds after revealing where Obi-Wan and Cody are being tortured. A huge rescue sequence plays out as Plows Bros. arrived to save the day. Asoka saves the Togrudens, Obi-Wan and Cody kill their slave overseer, and they all fly back to Plos flagship

as the slave camp explodes behind them, killing all the Tegroodan overseers and guards. That Tegroodan. Zagiarian, overseers, and guards, they were off behind. At the end, the Tegroodan governor tells Assoca that, you know, maybe joining the Republic is the right move for their people,

which is a strange lesson to draw from all of this, but it's as good a place to ending to leave this story. It's fucking wild. I need you to understand how much I was like, somebody's going to talk about this, somebody's going to talk to, I was talking about literally anything, and the ending was like,

thanks to the Republic for, you know, literally like engaging with the slave owner for like four days. Yeah. Just chilling. that being the last word of this arc just was so insulting. Like, they frame it in this way that's like, oh, can I speak to Asoka alone? And you're like, all right, here we go.

He's going to say, like, okay, just really have to understand that everything about this arc really is caught in the first seven minutes of it, where what you learn is, Assoca's people are being enslaved by the tens of thousand. Where do those other tens of thousands go? I don't know. We don't talk about the fact that... Animation is expensive. Animation is expensive.

They save about 40 at the end of episode three. Don't ask me where the other 49,960 are. They got saved too. Don't worry about it. And then you learn really quickly, like, oh, no, this has nothing to do with Asoka. Like, these are Asoka's people. Asoka is seemingly from here, or at least close enough, to where they talk about them as being her people, not just ethnically, but like...

She certainly refers to them multiple times, and other people refer to them as her people. Multiple times, but like the heart of the first episode is when the Darth Vader theme hits six minutes in. And you're like, oh, this is an Anakin arc. Sorry that we're enslaving a different group of people, but like, it's Anakin time now, baby. And all the Asoka stuff is going to be an afterthought. And yes, we are going to put her in... We are going to put her in a burqa. For half of the episode, she's going to be in a burqa, and we're not going to unpack why we're doing that or what that might mean culturally or why, what we're trying to communicate with that at all.

So, you know, I was also hyped from the Darth Vader theme hit because I was like, oh, we're finally going to talk about Anakin being, like, pissed about the fact that the Jedi don't rescue slaves anymore. This is the shit the Jedi used to do. The, like, big subtext for me in this whole thing is like, okay, there was a. the time at which what the Jedi did was bring low slave empires. They do not do that anymore because there are slave empires that exist now and they're called the hut syndicate and they're called like everything on the outer rim and we just don't involve ourselves there anymore. And so none of that ends up being foregrounded in any way. It's mostly just a three part, like you said, Rob, a sword and sandals adventure serial, you know? But it's built up in such a way that like

the zyghurians the one zygarian leader darts dinar um it's a gundermass name very much so um it talks a lot about this like eight a history feud between the jedi and the zygarians and how the jedi were the ones that basically brought their entire slave empire to the ground and it inoperable for decades longer, hundreds of years. Yeah, I read this as like centuries. Yeah, I read this as like high republic. Yeah, it seems like ancient beef. Ancient beef.

Yes, yes. And yet, there's no, like, I don't even know why it. I'm honestly surprised the Torgudas got saved in the end. Like, I just, I don't know why the Jedi chose to. save these people I dead ass believe that Dave Filoni was like well Plow wouldn't stand for it Plow would show up and fix it and that's why

Plow Coon shows up with the Wolf Pack to fix it But it's also just like There's like because like this is Another classic like clone wars The first two minutes of The episode is explaining something we really need to slow down and talk about Where it's like Yoda is on the phone with a person who's like We don't have any military

if I have to talk to Duku, I'm going to talk to Duku. And then Yoda is like, oh, my God, no, no, no. I'll send a gun. Don't worry. I have guns on someone to you. And then the guy is like, no, that's not going to work. Duku's at the door, which means, like, the situation is so tense that, like, Yoda's focus is only on this people in their plight because Duku is on the way.

You're right. And that's what's happening here. And like, and then we get this, like, you know, the, like, the vision of the military plight of the Republic and it's like our heroes are here and like they have three different kinds of vehicles and like isn't the military great and then the first thing obi won says is like it's good thing that there's no civilians here because they make it harder to wage war and it's like okay clode wars but then all of that gets pushed aside for like Anakin to be mad but like not mad enough to like take any actual action against the like slave queen that he hangs out with for 72 hours or

whatever it is. He's just in deep ops mode, you know, just all the way undercover so that he can have his gladiator moment. The thing that's fucked up about it is the thing that they're signaling up top, and we should slow down and talk our way through these a little bit, is like he couldn't be that. Like, he's so angry all the time in the first seven minutes or, you know, 12 minutes of this first episode that it's like, Obi-Wan has to tell him you don't get to go talk to the big slave

guy here. You don't get to go talk to darts because you will be too passionate about this because of how you used to be a slave, right? There's a little pull-aside moment where Obi-Wan talks to Asoka and is like, the thing you need to understand is like, she, a thing he basically says, like, does Obi-Has, has Anakin talk to you about his childhood at all? And she's like, not really. And he kind of explains briefly that the heat here is about how he used to be a slave. And like, that is such an Obi-Wan way of saying it, because what the heat is, is really about is like, I used to be a slave and then a Jedi came and the Jedi took me away from my mother, did nothing to save her, did nothing to save the other slaves of Tatouine, and now

she is dead, and the slaves of Tatouine are still slaves. And the thing that I thought Jedi were, which was people who's helped people, it turns out that's not the exact case. And now you're telling me, I don't get to be the one to go fight the fucking slaver. Cool. And where'd that energy go for the rest of this arc because it's just gone. I thought it would come back for like post

I think post gladiator moment the fact that Anakin like when he saves her we should we should walk we should hold up we'll get there I have to call it one thing though I love and I mean love

the fact that like what would two gruden architecture look like It's their heads. That's how architecture works. People just love their own forms so much that they're like, I must. Sorry, this to me is aesthetics. This to me is the golden ratio. It's ears with two little points.

I love it. All our buildings, all our buildings will be various. With the coloration, too. A lot of them have the painting or are painted to look like that, the head tail marks that, Asoka has. It's so funny. I mean,

sometimes you see a house that looks like a face. That's a thing that happens sometimes. Yeah, in bikini bottom. Well, we are watching cartoons, Natalie. I suppose that's correct. But yeah, I will say, though,

it is like, it is an arc that it once does too much and also too little with any of its ideas. Because, like, you have Anakin being like, I hate those slavers. But then he's also, but then even there, it's like, oh, like to the Zagarians, like, were you auctioned off by the Zagarians? No, by the huts, completely different situation.

Burr, it's the principle. This just makes me angry. But like, all we need him to say is like, and I wish we would do to the huts what you did to the Zygarians 500 years ago. That would just bring so, just give me a little something. Give me a taste. A little cry. Right. Well, it's the problem with Star Wars about always wanting to have slaves on screen but not be able to talk about what slavery is.

And I guess it's like also a sort of American thing to be like slavery is bad and it's a bad thing to have slaves and it was a bad thing to do to those people. And people who own slaves, some of them had some points, I guess. So it culminates in the Those who hold the slaves become slaves themselves Oh my God Right Okay so Worst opening

Booking line ever ever ever ever ever ever There are there are strains of thought like that And this there's a version of that that I do agree with Which is that like slavery is such a destructive phenomenon that any slave holding society is like hopelessly war warped and reshaped by the institution in ways unintentional. It doesn't mean they don't prosper from it. They do.

But it is a fact that it becomes like an all-consuming obsession with the society and changes, like puts limits on like what a society can be. However, that doesn't mean that slavers are like, the burden of having slaves. You have no idea. No, they still get rich from it. But there is a liberal tradition which does tend to argue that like, you know, slavery and Colonialism gets lumped in here, too. You know, they really weren't efficient.

Yeah, really, it wasn't even, it didn't even make sense to do these things because they were actually counterproductive. Oh, yeah. So even if you engage with it on the merits of like, well, it's holding slaves cheaper and more efficient, the answer is no. It turns out the economy of the North was much more profitable and efficient than the economy of the South. It's like, oh, where'd they get the, uh, the resource?

is that they were refining and turning into finished products from. How much did they pay for those? Why were they able to buy those so cheap? Well, how did that whole economy fucking function? It's slavery. It turns out it was free labor. But Clone Wars is going to allude vaguely to this idea.

But what it literally means is, you know, Duku's going to do to you kind of, not really, but kind of what? But not really what you're doing. It's so funny to say that and then cut between scenes of her vast palace. where she's getting a dressing down from Duku and literal slave mining camps

where people are shoveling dirt into furnaces or whatever I also just think that Clone Wars like most Western media like most media generally that I've seen that tries to talk about slavery has a real trouble is really good at pointing at the direct thing and being like this is bad

but the second you have to talk about abstraction or you have to talk about like how does slavery in one place and benefit an economy somewhere else? It just falls apart because the Republic benefits from slave labor. It benefits from hut slave labor. They do, they relate, they have relationships

with the huts across the outer rim. They trade with them. You know, Zero the Hut wasn't just hanging on Corrassan. Like, that motherfucker is they're doing business deals. They're trading with these groups. You know, when the Pike Syndicate, you know, interacts with people like in, in, in Book of Boba Fett, they're not only,

interacting with other slave economies and other criminal enterprises. They're part of the larger galactic economy. In the same way that, like, yes, does the United States have, is the United States built in the back of a slave economy still? No. Is slave labor contributing to everything that happens in the United States? Yes, it's just happening in places and in ways that are abstract for us and easy to kind of, you know, decline the existence of or, or disavow and say, oh, well, we need to, we need to improve our supply chain. You know, we need, we need better, uh, better, uh, surveillance on, on who we're getting our, our resources from, but we're not going to stop taking resources. We still need, you know, cobalts to make phones.

Well, and this is why, like, the depiction of like, what does slaves get up to? It's this really pointless, like, make work thing of like, we just love, we just love the slavery. So they're just going to shovel slag into a furnace and such. But like, No, slavery is really useful for all kinds of hard manual labor, the most basic inputs to an economy. Like, if you picture what would slavery probably look like in the Republic, it would probably look a lot like what slavery looks like in the world, which is like a lot of ag workers or like people crammed into unsafe factories

who like literally can't leave, making like really basic materials. But instead, it's like this thing. this vision of like the slave empire is mostly like for for laughs they put people in this like horrible camp where it's like into the furnace we're going to psychologically torture these people um and that's that's kind of how they roll um so it's it's a really it's clunky as hell in terms of and that clunkiness contributes to the sense of like where's anakin located in all this because looked at in a certain way And so here's the thing that the show doesn't get to. Compared to what the Zagarians are up to, African had it pretty good. He and Schme were like well-treated slaves. It wasn't that bad.

What is it about like being a slave that like really quite never lets it let's go? Like what is he still seething about, right? And it is that the Republic didn't rescue, but also it is like that denial of autonomy, the like the things that like were chosen for you and not like you were never given the freedom to do something. something else. But instead, it just comes down to, I hate slavery on principle. And it makes me, makes me so mad, like a little, like a little darksided about the entire thing.

He does like a Batman, where are they at one point that made me laugh. So. But, but then, yeah, it comes under complete control when it's time for him to be like, uh, okay, now, now, now we're in a different part of the Sword and Sorcery epic where I'm like, um let's see like i i am uh charlton hess in the ten commandments right where it's like okay now i'm the sexy uh like liberator and through the sheer force of my charisma i kind of seduced the society uh into almost going in my direction uh which is like it's certainly a direction for to go with the story

yeah it's like yeah that's really the thing and it's like it's the show keeps wanting to show it one way but not have it materially one a different way like the thing that I kept thinking about is like is Star Wars allowed to have its cake and eat it too and like if you don't understand that phrase it means that like you can't have the vision of looking at this nice cake without having to lose it to consume it and like I don't want the like I don't want to celebrate the historical moments like Plow Coon is here or like Anakin is like getting his lightsaber from R2D2 and like yes go team but like you have Anakin who is like the most prime character to see a situation his options are a or B and he'll take C but he's still like the person who is grabbing the knife out of the hand of a slave trying to assassinate her master and like you're Anakin fucking Skywalker you were so mad about this 20 minutes ago like why are we talking about this why are we why are we Why aren't we talking about, like, how Asoka is the one who is, like, constantly acting out as a slave, and Anakin has to be the one to be like, well, I'm a slaver and I love this. And, like, these characters are you going to talk? Like, Asoka is never going to be like, I understand that this is fucked up for you. But, like, you really need to understand that this is fucked up for me. Like, none of it. None of it. There's not, there's neither of those are really a thing. We get a little bit of it. It's being fucked up for Asoka in terms of just, like, the expression she makes, the cartoonish, like, arm crosses she does. but we don't get any sort of interiority

on how Anakin feels about having to play the slave master we don't even get him saying like Obi-Wan I know I'd feel way more comfortable if you would do this or whatever he's like gung-ho about it he's like I'm about to get my Casanova on like trust me

I am good with royalty which we know he is historically speaking so I mean so's Obi-Wan I guess so right they both they both be fucking queen

Obi-Wan could have done this Obey one could have done it Also they could have just brought a Jedi army to Zygaria That's really Plow was just like there Anyway I

Yeah I really think Plow like diverted troops Like I truly believe that that was not sent up The chain of command Do you know what I mean I really don't believe that like Chancellor Palpatine signed off on it for sure Because we actually get a little Palpatine drop

We get one of the only non-joker Palpatine drops so far in Clone Wars, where it seems like he has an actual plan. Because he's like, we're going to need millions of slaves to do the thing that I want to do. Which he gets those slaves eventually, you know? So, anyway. I think it's- This first episode, okay, go ahead. Nope.

Oh, no, I'm good on the first episode. I've nothing else to add. I think, well, the thing that I think gets picked up here, but again, another thing that gets dropped a movie too easily is this notion of there's this historical enmity but also like Zagaria is a like revanchist power right it is like they are see they've been seething for generations about like their their lost greatness and the funny thing of course is when you look at it doesn't appear that anything was lost like you've still you still got uh you know palatial uh you know capital city still seem to have slaves

and even if this is just getting off the ground, I think something gets lost in the whole, like, with Dinar fighting Obi-One, you have the sense of, like, wow, the Jedi have, like, a lot of enemies, and some of these enemies are from the Jedi having done, like, righteous stuff in history. And there's people who've been, like, waiting for them to stumble, and Dinar will move heaven and earth

to try and set up this, like, little ploy just to, like, fuck with the Jedi. But even there, like, that kind of gets muted, too. Like, I think once we go to the Zagarian capital, like, we talk about, like, Annikin's anger in that first episode. Actually, the Zagarian anger also disappears. The, like, the two things that are kind of, at least, like, mirrored a little bit in the structure of that first episode, is Anikin's seething about, like, what happened to him personally. Yeah. And what Royal Slaver's played in it.

Dinar has inherited this like historical rage directed at the Jedi and it appears like it appears to have dictated their entire like trajectory into Clone Wars that kind of gets dropped too and we meet like Queen Mirage for Cosmopolitan she's like you know trying to yeah we'd love to bring back to Zagarian Empire but we're kind of thing toying around some different approaches there's less of this like I just I want like I don't care if I lose as long as you're wiped out and you would hope that

some of that comes through too you would have a sense of like Zagaria as a once great slave empire now a shell of itself instead it is fully just like you know 50s Hollywood epic vision of like Egypt it's pure Cleopatra

it is so the thing the thing go ahead well you get I guess you get like a glimpse of it in as they're landing on Zyria like the amount of ships that are coming in as well. Like, they note that, like, wow, it's really busy. Like, there's a lot of other non-Zegarian ships coming into, into Zyghuria. Like, clearly this slave auction is, like, a big event that's

attracting a lot of other powerful. Yeah. Including, like, the head of the fucking banking clan. The moonist guy is here. Yes, yes, yes. It's that dude specifically per Star Wars.com, the guy that we saw from that, the a big banking clan episode. I thought it was him. And I think that that underscored, to me, I, I, you know, we've moved past it a little bit here, but the, in that first episode, like you said, Rob, there's the bit where Obi-Wan goes to confront Darts.

And, you know, there's, I think that that sequence does really work for me, partly because Darts has a cool owl. Partly because Darts is the sort of slaver who also just collects exotic animals. And that's like a little bit of fun characterization. He has all these, like, you know, big crates filled with just the wild animals he keeps around him. But the thing that he kind of gets at, like you said, Rob, is the anger in him about having lost this empire. And I think part of what comes through and maybe clarifies that as you get to Zygaria and see the amount of people who are coming is like, you have to imagine that you are from this supposedly once great slave empire. And the Jedi came and fucked up your shit.

But, like, the Republic still runs on slaves. The people who are in the Banky clan are coming to your auctions. You're interfacing with people who are powerful and who have status and who are cheering at your weird, you know, slave gladiator fights. And it's like, y'all, why did y'all knock us off? We were part of the way the Republic works. The Republic was down with us until y'all came through on us. and you don't even do that for everybody.

Like, you arbitrarily came at us in a way that you don't come for other people. And you feel that in the way darts one-on-one's Obi-Wan. We should note, Obi-Wan is trying to buy time. There's bombs spread across. It's like all very placeholder stuff, right? There's bombs placed all across the city. Anakin and Asoka have to ride their little walkers to it, which, by the way, we did not spend enough time in the Umbara arc shouting out how good these little tiny chicken walkers are,

the, like, AT. I think these are AT. they're not STs because the STs are the bigger versions. There's another, I looked this up for last episode and I forgot to write it down for this episode. But I love those little things. ATRTs. Thank you. The ATRTs.

And to buy time for Asoka and Anakin, Obi-Wan challenges Dinar to a, you know, a 1V-1, no weapons brawl and gets his ass just handed to him basically for minutes

straight as this big dude beats the shit out of him. I didn't think, I thought the force would help him some. I also like seeing that. And I think that that rage comes through and I think that there is something about, I really think there is something about the ways in which like, why did you decide, why did you deign to interfere with us when you don't do that with so many other things? Why us, why now? And do you understand that you've brought us so low? It like works for me as, you know, a critical villain, uh, you know, uh, motivation. And then you're both right. Like, you get to Mirage and that anger is basically gone. She still has the ambition, but that ambition would be the

same as if she was a new slaver. Do you know what? You get to Zygaria and it's like, oh, they're an upstart slave empire and not, uh, a fallen slave empire trying to earn back whatever great status they once had in the republic, you know? Um, so, is there anything else before we fully move on to the second episode from the first episode that people want to shout out? I guess that's where we learn about the slave, the lightsaber whips, the laser whips, the electro-wips that they have. Yeah. I would say that just the final kind of roundtable of the Jedi Council and Anakin and Obi-Wan. Yoda makes a comment where he says,

since I do a darker hand in this mystery, slavery, a great tool for the Sith, doesn't fucking mean anything, really. I mean, like, I guess all it means is Count Duku's involved, but it's just like, why are you just dropping Sith? Like, you can't just drop Sith willy-nilly. Like, I think, like, it's annoying that that becomes conflated with, like, oh, Duku's involved. Because, like, of course, Dugu's involved.

He's a separatist. Yeah. Like, there's a difference between separatist shit and Sith's shit. But do you think this is why they interfered with the Zygarians the first time? Like, I don't know the lore on this. I don't know what led them. But do you think that the first time that they finally, like, took down the Zygarian Empire was like, oh, they were working with some Sith shit?

I bet. Because why else would the Jedi get involved? The Jedi only get involved if it's Sith. If it's Sith-related. on it because I do like the notion this arc did make me like the notion of there being an era where the Jedi did more like the Jedi like took seriously the the era I mean this is probably how you get to the High Republic which is that ongoing kind of setting in the in the current book world book and comics and stuff it makes me wonder is there a world in which we get that vision of the Jedi who like are out there doing the shit that needs to get done in order to make people's lives better. but I don't know you don't get enough of it here to know that for sure yeah we'd have to do the research yeah I would say something because this is an audio format and sometimes people don't watch the show thank you it's important to know that as Obi-Wan is getting

purposely beat up to buy time he's getting beat up by like a werewolf cat boy yes the Zagarians are werewolf cat boys yes very important Um, stronger on the furiness than, uh, we're on, we're on werewolf more than we're on cap boy, right? Like we're on humanoid body, but furry, big, you know, hair whiskers, not with literal whiskers, but like a beard, big ears, huge ears. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's not your, your Final Fantasy 14 mikote, okay? Right.

Right, exactly. Much more leaning Hrothgar On that Leaning Harothgar Yes But it's more twinkish But yeah This guy's

This guy's tough Is way too beast For X men though To be twink Yeah he is a little beast He does how he He's a beast He is a beast

He a beast Also we get some We get some Obi-Wand With his hair all Must up and like in front of his face We're watching Clowns too I just want to say Like the like the like frames that they get of like obi one's body moving through that scene that like there's I'm not sure if it's this episode or the next episode where we have like Anakin and Asoka in a cargo hold like fighting with like a tentacled monster.

That's this month. Yeah. There's like there's like very extremely Star Wars creature hijinks happening there that like could not happen if they were not like let's think about the ship and how we're going to shoot inside of the ship some of the stuff that we talked about last time. So yeah. It all looks great. I will say there's no Filoni zone for this episode. Um, but there is a thing again. I think we should do a double feature between the behind the scenes thing on this and the umbara arc 21 minute thing. The thing in this is like seven minutes. And it is Asoka's voice actress, um, going behind the scenes and going to various departments at the Clone Wars studio and like introducing you to animators and talking about various like, you know, what's what are the various jobs? And it's all during the production. of this arc, which is why it gets connected to this. And so, like, they talk through, you know, how do we do the lighting in Clone Wars at this point? And, you know, it's a shot from the second episode where it's the shot where I think

it's the shot where Anakin is like, you know, gifting Asoka to Mirage. And they render it and then they send it to their in-house lighting painter who then paints over the cell to show, or not the cell, because it's not a cell, but the screenshot. to be like, here is how the lighting should get done. And then they go bring it back into their 3D software and fuck with the lighting to get that look, basically. Like, Faloni finds a frame in the unlit animation or the fully lit animation, right? The like completely, there's no special lighting, everything is just fully bright. And then you give it to this painter who's like, oh, let's do some shadows like this that look like this color.

And to do that, to then bring it back into their rendering software and set the lighting up so that it produces that effect. And so you get like, ooh, this whole scene should get cut in half by shadow somehow. And let's figure out how to do that. That's really neat. So we should watch that for a bonus. Anyway, it's episode two. Are we done with? I think that's all I got.

So they go to the big slave auction. It's the biggest thing happening in the galaxy. Everyone is coming. The banking clan. Spaceships from other societies. the republic has not yet intervened the Zgarian Empire seems pretty fucking risen I mean I guess the thing is

maybe they used to own a bunch of planets that's the only thing I can think of it's like were they used to be like hut cartels or separatist sized were they like a galactic power before where they had not just they weren't just a middleman of slaves they weren't just slave

sellers they were like you know as big as the fledgling republic if I only owned the one planet i would be like you know what i got my planet at least right you know like they're not they're not suffering i just don't understand how fucking uh they're landing with just anakin obiwan cody and asoka that's it like you the whole team is here everyone's here you could kill so many birds with one fucking Jedi cruiser like just bring them down

like it doesn't seem like that big of a fight if they had like 10 more guys they would have been through that Coliseum in a heartbeat I just don't just keep them in orbit sweating the head of the banking clan being like so what were you doing at the slave auction

God just like no I didn't even know with me a slave auction I was just there looking after I was checking I was trying to verify by some collateral they put up for some loans. I had no idea. It's like, okay, well, you know, we found some bidding records from you.

Just make that guy like, do the shut the fuck up Friday thing. Like make him, make him a lot of ways doing there. But, yeah, instead, no, we got to go undercover. Only way to do it is go undercover with just a really garbage to your plan, which is like, they just took a planet full of to Gruta. like they got tons to Gruden slaves Which are the only slaves they care about By the way

Mm-hmm Like it doesn't matter who else There's there Yeah there's so I mean there's like two or three Of moments where it's like Those people over there died And it's very sad

And like none of the characters That we care about died But those four people just fell into a hole And you should feel bad about it And like that's an easy storytelling thing But like When everything else doesn't meet the mark of like what they're talking about it's so hollow to be like oh no they fell into a hole

well it's it like again it like continues to persist in the realm of like pure cartoon right of like it is it is very like literally the floor drops out they're trapped ored into a bottomless pit like it's it's horrible but also like so overdone that it's also like wow these guys are terrible uh they're they're just throwing slay down the, down the big, uh, like, like borehole. Um, but the, but the other part is like, they're presenting Asoka. Yes, inexplicably in a burqa. I guess I, I should clarify it is a, it is a, it is a, it is a, it is a, a, it's a different Arabic face veil that predates Islam, but, you know, face veils have been used forever, ever, but particularly associated contemporarily with, you know, Muslim women wearing

them. And it's just true. Like, that's just what she's wearing. There is no, coupled with the accents, coupled with the architecture of this place and the palette, we are deep in Netflix original uses yellows and oranges to communicate that you were in a foreign place territory here. But also, and this is the weird thing, too, of why I was like, the fact that they're also like, but also they're like, they are Talmeic Egypt. And so they're not even down, like, there's no apparent reason why Soko would be wearing that as a disguise, especially since they're quite eager to show off like, look, we brought you another to Gruda. We now you love to Gruda. And they do, in fact. like they're like what a fantastic gift

this one is better than you know the 50,000's lazy poll at the planet no no no no this one's like worth all of them well they say that the Tugruda are the best because they're a pacifist planet that doesn't know how to fight so they're like especially like docile

because they care about art and beauty that's like their main planet vibe it's like that's like that Like the Moncala. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. A risen species.

For people who don't, we did, who I just realized there's a lot of people listening to this who have not listened to the most recent Q&A about the first two episodes of the first two arcs, rather, of Ponent War Season 4. You, if you get five extra bucks sometime in the next year, you've got us to subscribe to the Patreon, Patreon. patreon.com slash civilized to go listen to the Q&A for was that, I guess that would have been the March Q&A, March 2020 Q&A, where we learned some deep lore about the way some Star Wars source books have talked about Moncala, the man and the Moncalamari and Corrin fight. That is like truly disturbing to the degree that I had to like put a content warning on that episode for genocide. It's like unbelievably

bad shit that's like residential school forced assimilation shit. And I don't know that we've ever been so uncomfortable about a fact in Star Wars. So go listen to that. Wild discovery. But there is there is a it stems

from one of the things that you was using the source book to justify some of this is like so everyone knows that like the Mont Kalamari think like this. But They're quarry and rivals down in the mud and the material. Ew, icky. And there seems to be kind of a thing happening here where it's like, yeah, Tugroons,

they're just soft, they're just soft little piece knicks. And we all know, they're like soft little peacenicks are made for slavery. Which is very, it's a hell of a, it's a hell of a thing. Hmm. I just looked it up also, by the way, and apparently the Zagarian Empire was dissolved a thousand years before the Clone Wars. So they hadn't been around for a minute. I would imagine that their culture would have moved on by now, frankly, but Star Wars never

changes. He's in the library all day getting mad about this when he could be eating grapes at the Gladiator Temple, like, just go outside. Enjoy what you have. You still got your slaves, man. Whole planet full of them This is history's history Like a thousand minutes

Star Wars time It's like what Even Hans Solo was like I don't care about this shit That happened 40 years ago Like how do you care Jedi are a myth I'm thinking about that though

Yeah That's a whole different row Because like I mean I'm thinking about like Growing up in the culture of like No we have to kill Jedi No we have to kill them is like why Hatsila was like that, so it's fine.

But let's talk about this episode. We'll get there at some points. I just don't know how you can go from Jedi tried to kill our chancellor, and that's why we have an emperor now, to they never existed. Do you know what I'm saying? The reason he's the emperor is because four Jedi came to arrest him, and they did treason, then we had to kill them all. And then 30 years later,

later, what's a Jedi? Anyway. Maybe he reduced how important that was in the rise of the empire. I do you know. They were killing those guys out. He didn't have to worry about it. Anyway. Underneath the black robes that Asoka has on, she has on a second different slave outfit.

Mm-hmm. It is a bright blue like, like crop top. What's the vibe? It's a skirt and then like a high cut. Also, like, sorry, on the, on the, on the, on, on her fit when she first arrives. Yeah. There's literally no, no, just, like, reasoning or, like, reason why she's wearing that. Like, none of the other slaves are wearing similar outfits.

Like, she's not, you know, undercover or anything in which she's, like, trying to obscure. There aren't wanted posters. It's not like, we got to get this to Grudos, her name's Asoka. It's like very weird. It's just this weird thing of like we're going undercover to Islamic world now, but also Cleopatra world. They're both the same. It's very weird. And then they just sort of discard it and they're like, but you don't be cute, a fun little sorry type thing.

That would also be fun to have her in. It's annoying. have to be like, is this just the slave lair reference? Like, is this the height of why they included this is because they wanted it to rhyme with this thing? But like, who cares about Assoca's experience?

Oh, right. Yeah, like, what's actually happening to her? Is it just like, let's put her in a funny outfit because, you know, that's what we do to win. What is happening, though, is like, it's the sassiest slave experience, which is

that, like, so Anakin couldn't control himself just thought of slavery, couldn't handle it. Asoka sees one guy like raise a hand against like some slaves. Asoka's like I will fuck you up if you do that. Are you ready to die?

And Anakin's like excuse my slave you know having quite haven't quite disciplined to this one and it's like if this is the cover story this is not a slave like you just have someone who's

like threatened to kill us, but it all gets smoothed over. He's like, but isn't she, isn't she even an incredible slave? And it's like, well, since she's been here, she nearly broke guy's arm and threatened to threaten to kill him. But again, like the little like floating orb thing that is surveilling the society, like gets the word of the queen. Like, no, bring this, bring this awesome guy to me. Bring this Chad to the fucking.

Yeah. Well, he uses, like, a very specific name drop that, like, maybe that AI recognizes or whatever. And there's this, like, implied history. And, like, did Anakin, like, Google, like, slave? What's the name you dropped? Is it, is it DeNardt? It's Bruno. No, is Bruno Denturi.

Yeah. Who the fuck? Don't worry about it. Do he, like, go on, like, slave Facebook and be like, oh, this guy's friends with this guy, and I'm just going to use his name. Like. Just checked out the queen's top eight. Exactly It's nothing

It's like nothing I've looked into it There is no Bruno Bruno does not exist How do they justify this? Don't worry about it They don't need to You just roll like that

Okay now we're just in pure Like roll the 20 on a check Yeah 100% I guess And it's real Yeah Not just the first name either You went all the way

a Bruno Dentori. Also, Anakin has a pseudonym here. It's Lars Quell, which is terrible. Hate this for you. Worst fake slaver name. And he also has the worst one-liners in history

where like the queen is like, well, okay, how much for this beautiful slave? And he's like, well, with respect, how can I price the beauty or this, how can I give you a price for this beautiful slave? When I look at the, your magnificence, you know, you outshine her, You make the brightest star seem dull by comparison.

He's just all the way. Uh-huh. What do we think he whispers to her? Oh, he was saying something. Uh-huh. He was saying something. They couldn't put that on a kid's TV. No, he leaned in and said some shit.

They just put whispers on the subtitles. They didn't say nothing. And she's like, oh, my God. I would have been, I was with Anakin. I didn't understand. Asoka's, like, in the first episode, Obi-Wan's like, yo, Asoka, like, watch out for Anakin. Like, he hates slaves, slaving, slavers.

He does not hate slaves. He cares about slaves a lot. So watch out for him, like, keep an eye on him, and Asoka's like, I got you. Then, hello, we're at the point, and she's just acting out, like acting all the way out. So I was with Anakin up into the point where he took the knife away from the slave. Yes.

So there's this. Yeah. There's a bit where a Twylic slave comes over to serve drinks to Anakin and the queen. And then she produces a knife in a quiet moment, a quick lapse in the conversation and goes to stab the queen in the fucking neck. and Anakin catches her arm and prevents her from doing it and I could not help but think just let her do it

just let her fucking do it and then it's go time then it's over or do it yourself then that's what I thought he was gonna do I thought he was gonna take it from her and be like you shouldn't sully yourself

like don't you know don't put murder on your consciousness like let me do it because I kill people all the time and I thought he was gonna stab her and that would have been way more epic but no no instead he he stops her from doing this and then lets her kill kill herself by leaving from the top of the building in which that's i totally turned into the comedian at that

point where it's like you could have you could have and it's like if if if if Anakin skywalker's not going to be the character to do it like why are you writing this why are you putting this on screen what are we talking about why are you doing this arc about why is the scene not someone holding him back in this scene. Right, or why is it like this Breaking Bad and Asoka being like the thing that we're doing is fucked up, let's stop doing this. Like what is happening? And the thing is like, so it's

just two half bags because okay, so what you're trying to get out here is the undercover dynamic. A story of being undercover where like things happen around you that like are contrary to you and you just have to roll with them but they don't sell that. So this, we don't get the like Donnie Brasco

watching the Mafiose just fuck up a and actually convincing them to fuck up a restaurant owner in order to preserve his cover. Instead, it's just kind of a, like, he lets all this happen, but there doesn't appear

to be any, like, there seems to be no consequences for him ever breaking character. He doesn't really need to do anything to get in good with them. So it does like create the sense of, like, what is the scheme here that he needs to remain like incognito to serve? Because he throws it away 30 seconds later.

So this is the thing for me is that like this was a thing he was happy to let go. This is a thing he was happy to let play out in the worst possible way and let the, you know, stop this assassination attempt, let this woman die. But the one thing he couldn't do was whip Obi-Wan four times later this episode to keep cover. Come on. Yeah. And it's such a huge point of like why through.

And like it's not even framed as like, sorry. I didn't even cut you off. I'm just heated because it's not even framed like I'm too that's my brother I would never raise him you know what I mean he just can't he's just like all right Obi-Wan I'll be right down there hop down there and it's hijinks time it's hijacks like it's not even an emotional because if you want to tell me the emotional beat that the revelation to Anakin is that like oh my God like I have been able to stay in character this whole time but when it comes to my brother Obi-Wan my mentor my boy I can't even fake it I can't even pretend to hurt him

that would mean something, but we're like, we're not even in that zone. We are in hijinks mode. Anyway, Ali, I'm sorry to cut you off. Oh, yeah. Well, it was just like, it puts, it like takes away all the enjoyment of like being able to celebrate like Jedi success. If we are putting such a limit on the power of Anakin Skywalker in this moment, like for Anakin to to not see a different version out of that scene that doesn't let that person die or, you know, have some sort of allegiance to. the slaves that are in the scene all of the time when his entire point was like I'm upset about this because I'm a slave like it's just like there's no like don't show me his anger

if it's not going to do anything to the story so I do think one thing it came through in that scene that I like in the actual assassination attempt the one thing I will say is to me the entire scene read as Anakin reacted before he could even realize what was happening like that he just sort of quick, like, just reflexively disarms that woman is holding the knife as she's, like, still, like, kind of giving her speech and realizes, like, oh, shit. And then she, the, uh, the, uh, tweet like woman is immediately on the ledge being like, I will never, I will never, uh, you know, submit and, and jumps. But the entire thing unfolds very, very fast, uh, for Anakin. Again, like, if it was thoughtless, now he's confronted with the dilemma. Like, I think even the beat could have worked. It's just the, the, way it is the way it keeps like whipsawing between Anakin in like cool flirtatious mode and then in like cool hero like buddy come buddy action adventure uh mode yeah like the stuff ends up being really strange um and like kind of baffling in terms of like it's this attempt to like give this this this arc weight um

when at every turn the arc doesn't want this weight. I guess that's the thing, right? It keeps me like, as we all know, these are very serious issues, and they mean a lot to Anakin personally. But then it can't help but be like, man, look at these two buddies, huh? Look at them. Get those lightsabers, boys. Like, get to it.

And then, like, in that moment, it doesn't even land because it's patently a stupid idea and it doesn't work. So even You know Even R2 Whipping Whipping lightsabers Out to the Jedi

Like party favors Even that doesn't Land Because it's such a bad plan They get You know They get their asses beat Like 30 seconds later

So we don't even get the cool Like breaking cover And like hulking out Instead they just Ineffectually fight for like five minutes and then, like, Obi-Wan and Cody are sent off to, like, slave labor camp, and Anakin is now going to get some even more intensive flirtation from Queen Mirage. Just want to his note, they did find time to sneak in a return of the Jedi reference

by having Anakin do the little salute to R2 to launch him in the lightsaber, which is exactly what Luke does out on the barge right before. It's shot for shot. That was my whole flow. Bar for bar. And Asoka, Hey, just kill people. That's my, you know, my lesson to Asoka is like, hey, just cut some neck, cut some throats, break some necks, whatever.

But like, you know, she does the whole, like, don't even think about, like, hurting my friends. And it's like, you got a slave collar thing on. I there is a moment in the next episode where Anakin kills three people and she like shakes his head at at her or she shakes his head at him as if like come on now like he does like a quick like triple kill like one two three and she's like and he's like shrug and I got to tell you I'm gonna I watch the next episode because I'm trying to figure out should we watch should we try to sneak that one into this episode what should we do with it and I there's a moment where Asoka kills multiple people at once that is the most brutal thing we've ever seen. seen the Jedi do. And so anytime in this arc now, we're looking back at it where she doesn't is just like threatening. It's like, just go ham. Like, what are you waiting for?

So, anyway, I'm sorry, Rob. Get back to the more flirting immediately after this scene. The horniest, I think, Clone Wars has ever been. Well, she basically hasn't washed and oiled and brought to. to her chambers, like he wakes up from being like electrocuted and submission in the slave revolt and... In her bed. Yeah.

He wakes up in her bed. Yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot. And then he gets up and chokes her and like force chokes her from across the room and pulls her off the top step. Like he slides her off and and she then threatens, I believe she then threatens. Yeah, continue to misbehave and they die. And then she wields that over him, which is also the thing that's going to get wielded over Obi-Wan for the rest of this, which is like, I don't need to hurt you.

I need to hurt people you care about. I need to hurt slaves. I need to hurt your friends. And she then says, you know, there's a lot of back and forth here where she effectively takes a lot of joy in making this hero, this great hero of the Republic, her servant and her personal bodyguard. He says he'll refuse us to serve her. He does this very, you know, romance story, turn around, turns his back on her and this big dramatic sweep. And he's like, I will not serve you. And she's like, your heart's not in your words.

You will stand beside me a testament to my power. And she gives him back his lightsaber to, like, defend her with, which is the most evil power move we've seen in Clone Wars. It's the most, like, who, okay. The relationship has been explained on screen very clearly. Yeah. Who is in charge here? Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

It's like, it gets sort of interesting. Like, and it's, it's, why isn't the arc more about this? Because, like, she's supposed to be a character in class, right? Like, you're supposed to have this tension of like, oh, my God, why is Anakin just hurt her? And the reason he can't is because she's holding information. She knows where these people are. That's why Anakin's here. He's, like, here to save a thousand people.

He doesn't talk about those people with her. There's not like a scene where he's like, damn, this is really hard. I wish I could say it. Like, there's nothing. There's nothing. We don't talk about those people at all. Yeah.

There's not even a, any, just go ahead now. There's no, I think it's what you were going to say. There's no situation in which he like tries to glean information about the other Togrudens or like, you know, anything about the slave operation in general. at all. Like the only thing they talk about is them working together and how like hype she is that he's her slave now. And that's literally it. There's nothing from Anakin's side about like him. And it's not even, I don't even buy the fact that it's like him going that far under cover

that he's like, you know, buying trust or whatever. You don't even get that opposite end of No, he's just trapped. Yeah, he's just trapped. But he does, well, he does have a response, though, to some of this, which is that, well, I can't be your boyfriend because I'm just her slave. And she's like, no, I think you could still be my boyfriend. And he's like, no, I really can't. Like, not. And that is, like, that's his play, is to continue to dangle, like, look, if you're serious about those, I can't continue to be your slave bodyguard thing.

like otherwise this is never going to work as they are riding on the magic carpet lizard across the skyline and she's gripping him from behind and resting her head on his shoulder yeah remember how i was talking about how anikin's ear needed to be whispered into talk to a different flavor like what's happening i don't care about this woman oh it's well it's like we don't even get anything about like there's not even like maybe this is telling Padmay's name he mentioned once

no not to her not to us not to anybody not to himself he doesn't like look at a picture Padmay he doesn't

and he doesn't even talk about like there's not even a moment of him you know in the next episode it seems as if there is some real not fondness

I think he recognizes that Mirage is a fucking monster but there is sympathy for her, and he does genuinely want to convince her that she's going to get betrayed by Duku and that she should, you know, anticipate that. And there is a degree of sadness when her fate, you know, comes to her, I think.

It's complicated. I think they sell that on his face, but we don't ever get him interrogating that to himself. And what we're in the space where that normally would have gone, we instead get that terrible conversation with its Gruda Elder or governor and Asoka. So it's like, I would have so much rather, and it would have done, it would have been worse by Assoca to make the very end of this all about Anakin again, but I still would have rather that to be a little conversation to cap off the Obi-Wan and Asoka conversation at the beginning where Asoka and Obie-Wan talk about the relationship to everything that just fucking happened. You know, that would have been the ideal for me to a way to end this with just like, hey, bud, you really had to deal with that Slaver Queen a lot. How are you feeling? And her and him being like, well, you just had to rescue 50,000.

of your own people from slavery. How are you doing? And like, that's all. That's all. That's it. Anyway, maybe they did that on the way home. Yeah. That was on the cutting room floor, I guess. Can you imagine if Mirage had made it, though, and becomes, like, a princess in exile, like, guest of the Republic? And she's coming back to Corrassant and getting installed there and, like, divided quarters. And suddenly, like, Anakin's, like, so... the first time Padman was like oh

Thursday night we have General Blabadoo coming over and Anakin has to be like oh I can't I told Mirage that I was going to go to the movies with her or whatever it's diplomatic it's a Jedi thing the sparks right

oh I'm on shift to watch her door tonight because you know she's a very dangerous woman we need armed security Yep. We heard there's a chance. Yeah, I have to escort her to a diplomatic talk. Oh, word.

We used to do that, Anakin. That's how we spent a lot of time. Yeah, it's a mess. She should have lived. Need that drama. It makes me annoyed that she just dies like that. Like, it just is the worst to me. That's what I wanted to get angry about earlier.

Well, we should get there. A third episode, we opened in the dirt factory. Oh, wait, one thing I want to point out is when Asoka force pushes the fucking Zygarian off the edge of the, because she's basically, she's being held in this cage dangling over, you know, hundreds and hundreds of feet in the air, skyscraper, and she has a guard, like, standing right above her, and she force pushes him. he's like making fun of her some shit and then she like is in meditation mode or whatever and then she just like with a flick of the wrist like force pushes him off and he's like hanging by the the building edge and then he like pulls himself back up and then shocks the shit out of her and i'm like asoka why did you just kill him yes this is the that moment would have been so much cooler if like just no follow-up just he's fucking hurled into the

abyss and like the scene because the scene opens like with her meditating in silence he breaks that silence to like mouth off and she just flicks him off the edge it is way funnier if she just resumes meditating like peaceably who knows like they don't know maybe the zagarian slavery went up there got sad like like they they don't they don't know what happened they don't they fully know she's a jett i guess she'd get light savers out yeah um or why doesn't she force force carry her box off the thing and rescue her damn self

or force mind him. She just stuck up there. No, she can't do anything. She forgot how to do that. She has a slave collar on now, I guess. Does she even have one of those collars on? She does. Oh yeah, but then she just wakes it off later

with the force. Does she, wait. Yeah, that's how she removes it later. She was like, bop and then it's just broken. Yeah, yeah, it's in the third episode. Because I remember being like, why didn't you do that forever ago? You didn't like lose the force.

Asoka needs to not be a Jedi anymore. She needs to enjoy being a teenage girl. She used to go on Instagram and see one of those memes that's like, love yourself. It's okay to trust your friends. It's okay to murder people. It's like four different gund of characters or whatever. Like Asoka, learn this lesson. It's okay to kill people.

I assure you. Yeah, you've been doing it forever. Like this has been, you were at war and also you're dealing with a slave empire. It is okay. These people are trying to kill you. Like, that is, they're going to either kill you or keep you in a life of servitude forever. You could kill your way out of this one

and stop them from doing this to other people. I'm giving you the moral go ahead. And your boss is an ex-slave who hates slavers. You're not even going to get to eat for this. And I'm going to talk forever about how etiquette and Dissook and don't talk to each other. But like, why isn't her anger that she shows? Like, why doesn't she have the opportunity to be like,

I'm going to do the thing that Anakin isn't willing to do. Anakin is having such a trauma response to what's happening here that he's like, I have to do right by this because I'm a Jedi and I'm, you know, slaves are, I'm upset by this, but I'm going to be a hot person, I guess. I don't know. Asoka should be the character who is able to be like, no, this is fucked up. And they had like three scenes of her being the person who's like,

no, this is fucked up. I'm going to act out. And then nothing. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Do right by your characters. Like let them be character.

and talk to one another about shit. I'm begging you. So who is the delivers the long speech about how they're going to bring Obi-1? The queen. Yeah. Okay. Do who comes over? In his sick spaceship, his sick solar sail spaceship that, like, it folds in.

It's so good. It's the best. Also, they have, like, a line. They have a line of spaceships waiting to land for their slave auction in orbit around this planet. They are doing fine. Mm-hmm. Anyway.

That's why I don't understand how it's come this far. Like, they've, this has been in, right. The planning has been. This ain't a pop-up. This isn't like you, you got it up. Someone hit you on your phone and was like, yo, Slave auction on Slai-Rail. Yeah, sample sale downtown right now.

Go to West Forth and then I'll tell you how to get there. Yeah. You got a knock on this back door. Right. No, this is like, they've got the red carpet out. Like, they have everything, this has been in the works for a while. Yes. Anyway, Allie, do you want to tell us about the speech?

Sure. So a little set up here is that like while she's out on this romantic date talking about to Anakin about how she could tell he's a slave and it's great that he's a slave and I love this. Her guard, I guess. she, Anacid is there to be her bodyguard, but she also has other bodyguards who defend her against Anikin. It's a situation. They're like, Duku is coming through. And she seems really put off by this. And she's like, why is Dukin here if I didn't invite him? He's Duku. He's coming through. Dooku comes over is like, I hear that you have Jedi here. What's the situation

with that? And she has this like long speech about like, you know, the fact that I can break Anakin and Obi-Wan is a, is a testament to my past. And if I can break them, I can kill all, I can do this to all of the Jedi. Imagine what would happen if you had a Jedi of slaves in your legion. And Duke, who is just immediately, he says this, pretty much word for Ford. He says, I don't want to enslave the Jedi. I want to exterminate them. So I am here to kill Anakin and Obi-Wod and you're not going to do shit about that.

You have a great plan, but I don't give a shit. Which, you know, shout out to Duke. Yeah, Duke is committed to the mission. It's very funny. for all of that to follow her, like, very long, like the way that I will break him is by showing him that

any time he, his instinct as a Jedi is to help others and any time he helps someone I will punish everyone around him and, like, he will learn, he will break his spirit like, just going into this, like, long-winded... She's, like, rubbing the edge of a martini glass as she does it

and, like, making that sound. She's all the way in her villain. Yeah. villain monologue like so deep in it and he's like getting a montage of slaves eating rotten bread while this happens it's wild it's a lot oh yeah and uh duku straight up is like uh i'm happy for you sorry about all that i'm not gonna i'm not gonna read all that but i'm here to kill them so i don't really give a shit whatever you just said congratulations or my condolences i guess also is this the speech where she says

Zigeria She does say Zyria And that threw me the fuck off I was like wait She was so She was so in her own bag That she was like I forgot how my country is said

It's the only happens The best of them It does Yeah I'm glad she didn't I'm glad she left out The other part of her plan Which is and by the way I'm going to start dating Anna

She'll Walker But that's the other way I'm going to get the Jedi on my side Is one of them is going to be my boyfriend And Duku's like, I was a Jedi, I don't think this plan's going to work. Before he goes to me, I just want to kill them. He's also like, so listen, I was a Jedi, like, I don't think this is good. And she's like, no, no, trust me.

I can tell that you believe this plan, but you shouldn't believe this plan. Also, I do love, she hasn't picked up on the, like, I'm going to tell Duku all my awesome plans for bringing back to Zagarian Empire. And it's like, you think, you're joining the separatists and you think they're like, oh, yeah, you know, you have the mission, the real goal of the separatist rebellion to help the Zagarian Empire reform and become a predominant power of the galaxy. Like, it's not, so this is the queen at her worst, right, where it's just totally like her, her, like, her, like, mood board for, Or, like, what the future of Zagaria would look like is not actually a plan. And she's just like, no, it's going to be great. Like, we're going to bring back the Zagarian Empire, you know,

and I'm going to enslave the Jedi through some really basic conditioning. And Duku's like, yeah, we're going to exterminate the Jedi. And also, you're not independent. Like, you're a subject people. You will take my orders, actually. Like, I don't know why this is a discussion. Because I've actually, your prime minister has been working for me for, like, months now. Like, you're just a figurehead.

And she's like, Kel Supri. Like, I can't. How could you do this? Also, she is, like you said, she is very cartoonish in her ambition here. She's also very cartoonish in her action, like visually. She starts getting animated in this really over-animated way where she's swinging her arms around and pointing her finger really boldly in a way that's like, this is not how any of this has been. She's been a very restrained in comparison villain, and not with Duku in the

room. With Duku in the room, she just transforms into being like a villain of the weak vibe, and it's a downgrade, frankly. Yeah, it's disappointing. You know, when the evil mastermind is coming, though, you do kind of want to match their energy. I guess so. But it also like breaks the like it further breaks the like engine of this story for like the conflict for her to be like I have all these great ambitions and I want to take them to the Jedi and then like her her mans is like we don't trust you anymore because you have affection for your slaves and that's not what I want out of a story about slave owners like I guess it's cool to see the flirt but like that's the breaking point of the society that she's like no

Nice to that's true Sexual attraction Exist between Slaves and Masters Sure not They will reason They will reason That like if I'm attracted

to this person I recognize their common humanity Right Yeah of course And therefore It's It's not great

And it's only been here For like 48 hours So was it within Like is this something that Love at first sight Love it first force joke Yeah I mean honestly

But then also Duku force chokes her And she didn't seem to like that very much So I don't know Only when Anakin does it A small animation thing that I like When Anakin shows up I said Anakin shows up

In the throne room Right after she's been forced choked by Duku And she's like Skywalker And Duku's like You know I see the queen's giving you a long leash Take one more step and I'll kill her I'll end her life.

And Anakin is like, all right, why do you think I fucking care about that? Which is a lie. He does care. And Duke is like, indeed, it does like a sick pose and goes into his lightsaber form. And Anakin picks up the whip that's nearby. And Duke who gets a little scow on his face as if like, you know, you're not even going to fucking dole me with a lightsaber. You're going to do me with one of their bullshit weapons. I thought you had class.

And I love that scow that Duke who gets because he's just done his big, like beginning of a fighting game you know round pose and it's like super honorable and in his like noble dualist stance it's great and you know I think that I think this fight is good I think it's short

but Duku ends up electrocuting him and that's good too I like that dude had a dude way to go The course game lightning looks great it looks really good I think in general this whole this whole arc looks fantastic yeah unfortunately

there's other stuff happening Visual splendor versus and that's the thing it's like, Anakin breaks in to to, like, defend the life of this slave owner. Like, go grab her phone and figure out where these guys are.

She's just trying to, like, what? Have our two slice into some shit. Like, there's other ways to get the info probably. Yeah. Also, I... Go ahead, Rob. I just love Duku. The guards burst in, and Duku's like,

uh, this Jedi just killed the queen. The obviously alive queen in the corner, I just killed her. Guards. cease him. We're all trying to figure out who did this. Says Count Duku.

I'm just like, the fact that this moment in which she gives Anakin the location of where this is where she is like, there's no escape for any of us. Yeah, I'm like,

dude, shut the fuck up. You have a palace. We're literally a queen. And Anakin's like, just say something. Like, he doesn't say anything. He's just like, and the name of the planet is, like, please just give me that so I can go. That's not true. He does say, he does call her, Your Highness, when he opens his conversation.

He's like, Your Highness. And it's like, you've got to not do that. Just say your laws. You are treading. Yeah, like you, I think her name would be worse. Yeah. He should have just said, where are they? This is where he should be in Batman mode.

Yeah, this is the point where he should be breaking character Like if he has scorn for this person If he's hated this person This entire interaction Like she's dead on the floor Like fucking talk your talk And this is where like I would be fine I would I don't think he has scorn for her

I think that Anakin Skywalker adores power I genuinely think he's attracted to people who wield power And I would love for the show To have spent any amount of time of him trying to work through his discomfort between like why does he want to call her your highness and yet also knows he hates slavers and it's because like she's hot and because she has a great deal of power and he's compelled by power because power changes things and like I don't know we can have that conversation I think it's you know it's fun to write that essay in your head about

about who is it that compels Anakin to do things that he shouldn't do but I would like the show to spend a blip of time you know on it they have the whole interaction while they're riding on the fucking bird dragon in the episode before where she's basically like with you beside me like the

galaxy is ours like this is our you know classic Darth Vader shit classic Darth Vader shit and he says we are nothing you have all the power and like it's not even like a no it's like

it's like more so like hey there's a power dynamic here that like I don't really want to be a part of like no he's as long as I'm your yeah yeah he's like as long as I'm your slave it ain't gonna work but if we've got some other type of you know more horizontal management structure here it'll be horizontal I know we're being ridiculous I know what we're saying is why doesn't this children show devote more time to the psychosexual politics of Anakin Skywalk But why doesn't it? We're doing five seasons of this.

This is the point of like guagua. Well, seven. Seven is going up with the show. Right. Look, this is a show for teenagers. Probably not. It is, probably. No, they're teenagers now.

They had a horny shit in this show. They've had Assangeventriss kissing people before she merged them. They have had force chokes galore holding lightsabors. It's a horn. Corny asho, and I will not pretend it's not. Man, there is, um, to that point, though, like, you, you'd also

sort of recast the, like, even here, like, the growing, like, lack of emphasis on Padmae to an extent is that power wanes from her. She becomes less and less interesting to him, except as a, uh, someone else now, he now needs to protect. Right, right.

Um, you know, and that becomes, uh, sort of the, the sole motivation. And even his initial respect for or interest in Luke is not you're my son. I want to protect you. It's with your power, we could take over the gala. We could overthrow the emperor and overthrow the galaxy. I think that this is like key to who he is in some ways.

I'm remembering another line that stood out in that conversation where like, she's like, I can tell you're slave because you're selfless and I could see it in your eyes. It's like so gross. But his response is like, I don't see commitment as slave. labor or like whatever and it's like that's not what your force ghost was saying a couple weeks ago so like if there's a time to talk about this let's talk about this arc and it does not happen no yeah that's too bad um wrap it up what's what's left the assault on zadavo i guess is what's yeah um and so they go let's see do they have the fleet from the start of the fleet show up

Midway through. The fleet shows up. Midway through. They land. They get their, the slave ship that they stole and gets blown up. Right. They bust in.

This is where Asoka, like, looks awkwardly at Anakin for, for killing three peep, three slavers, and he's like, come on. And he's like shrug. And then the kind of situation becomes clear that,

like, Obi-Wan is afraid of losing the slaves as, if they can get killed, which has been keeping him out of, we even mentioned Obi-Wan's name, basically at all. this entire arc because he doesn't do anything. He goes to this slave

camp and there he feels like he can't do anything because if he does they hurt other people not just him. And there's a throwaway line in this episode. I say it's a throwaway because it never develops where they talk where after he tries to intervene he gets someone hurt worse and someone is like

Jedi, you know, like keep away from me, the Jedi only make things worse. Yeah. And that doesn't ever really go anywhere. I wrote that down. It's like, okay. He's like, this is going to be something. Same. Nope.

And so he's just not been in it. But then, yeah, at the point in which they get inside the building is when Plow's fleet shows up and the wolf pack arrives. And we meet Wart Hogg, who has to be someone's OC, the pilot of one of these head hunter ships, who is just like, Plow is just kind of like, not clowning on him, but like try to give him some tips as he tries to do this fight against this kind of floating slave. factory or whatever and there's like an air fight and they got to knock out the anti-air guns that's like a classic military sci-fi or military story thing right we have air superiority but we can't use it because they have anti-aircraft so let's try to figure out how to take out the anti-aircraft Asoka you go try to find the slaves yeah Anakin knocked on the door to the anti-aircraft gun right kicks their asses shoots all the other guns yeah with the AA gun uh and that allows the

fleet to come in for the rescue. Rob, is that a real thing? Have people, can A.A.A. Guns, does that happen? Has that happened historically? Because I know, like, obviously, taking out A.A. guns has. That's, like, a classic thing that happens in war. Once there's aircraft involved, you've got to, like, satchel charge your way out of

this shit. But is taking over an A.A. gun and then pointing it at another A.A. gun and blow it up? That's a real thing. That can be a thing. But, like, it depends on, like, does the AA gun go that low? Not all of them do. Right.

This is what I'm curious about specifically. Can it aim straight the way they do here to shoot? Yeah. It really depends. These actually, that doesn't seem likely just because of the way the turret is arranged. It seems like they would not actually be able to depress to zero. Yeah.

And yet they can. And so he's able to blow them all up because they're ray shielded, but not from each other. So I guess their heavier guns go straight throw. Whereas the headhunters, like, wouldn't be able to, who knows. Who knows exactly? It works out real nicely. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan and Cody finally get their revenge on, like, we haven't talked about him, but like there's this overseer running this camp who's just been a real asshole.

And he, they get the better of him, but then spitefully he starts the, like, kill all the slaves program. and then Obi-Wan has been as mercy you guys like I know Jedi won't kill an arm man and Obi-Wan just sort of looks over at Cody and Cody picks a Trident off the ride's very

it's very anchor man to be quite honest but it is also very it is also very sword and sandals right the classic gladiator with the Trident vibe and he grabs it and just fucking hurls it through through his chest Well, I do also like the moment, too, of like, okay, look, at some point we got to talk about the fact that, like, again, to quote one of my favorite lines from the pilot episode of Boardwalk Empire, you can't be half a gangster. Like, the Jedi can't be half a warrior, right?

Like, at some point, you got to talk about the fact that the rules are being honored far more in the breach than in the observance. Like, Obi-Wan is, like, technically this guy's right. on the other hand he does have to die and like Cody's already way ahead of him. It's like he's not leaving this room and so they just kill him and that's fine because

Cody gets the one liner here. It's like it's it's poignant and I another like let's talk about this for more than three seconds because like the guy being like well Jeddah you can't kill

me I'm unarmed and like Obi-Wan smirking and then Cody off-screen and the camera turns to him being like well I'm not a Jedi and like okay but like let's talk about clothes being used as tools because we you know

another element of this that gets like Cody ends up in a slave camp for alongside Obi-Wan yeah huh doesn't occur to anyone to be like well okay yes slavery is is horrible Obi-Wan you're right but on the other hand Is it, like, does this situation parallel anything we did?

We just came off on Barra. It's different because the Jedi make their own slaves instead of stealing them from other people, instead of stealing them from a colony somewhere on space. If you make your own slaves, they're not really slaves. Don't worry about it. It's fine. It's fine for us to have slaves. Slaves for me, but not for thee.

No one raises it. Not even the queen. Like, why does the queen not say You can't say the Republic is against slaves You have a slave army And Anakin shrugging it off me Well, that's different because of reasons Or like, you brought a droid with you

Why is Cody even here? Like, why is Cody even in this arc? I don't know. Contractual obligation He had a certain number of episodes This season. Secretly, they are determined that the end of this D. Bradley Baker

will have no voice left whatsoever And so they can't give them a week It's like, oh, man, like, umbarra was a lot to ask of me. Sorry, sorry, Dee. Like, you got, you got to be Cody now. Suit up. But, like, truly, the fact that no one in Zygaria thinks to say, you're fine with droids, you're fine with clones.

Why are you not fine with us with Togruder? Why is it that Stogruder are so special for you? And, again, we know that there would be a dismissal of that. You know, Cody would be the one who was written to say it's different with clones. We have duty. We serve an ideal. Exactly. Exactly, 100%.

And we as listeners or viewers would be like, oh, my God, false consciousness is a motherfucker. But we don't even get that, right? No one gets to raise that. And as always for me, it's the same thing with the droid thing, which is like, you can't look too closely at it or else the whole world falls apart. And you end up in this kind of realization that everyone is truly a monster and the world of like the light side and the dark side just doesn't make sense anymore because all of your hero's own slaves.

So, yeah, it's, it's, but it's nevertheless frustrating that you don't have, you have the grand opportunity for your villains to say some real shit and, and, you know, poke the glorious republic in the eye and they, they, they don't do it. Especially after Umbara. I think this is the thing is like, I could see like a year ago, I could believe Cody is going to be a, it's much more easy to let Cody go as a character who wouldn't like, draw an analogy. And maybe the key here is that it's Cody and not Rex.

because like Rex last week or like certainly fives had to go through the entire arc of like I think this Jedi hates us I think this guy's trying to get us killed he doesn't even think we're people I thought we were people

I know we're people and like Cody's just there being like nope here at your side at your side general we'll work it out um

speaking of working things out Asoka misses an opportunity to force fleeing a bunch of Tagruder to safety, which would have been my plan. The floor is opening up beneath them, and she has to hop across the little chasm. But I just have been like, like, bags of laundry. Just like, you know, you get in that groove and you just start like really like loading stuff onto a truck. I'd be like, like, I'd be liberating Tigruda just by fleeing them to safety across the chasm. Something just struck me, which is they do stop this facility. which is like you know connected to like a caldera like a volcano or something right

but like the end of this episode is not and then we knocked out the zygarian empire or the zygarian slave like that planet still functions right as far as we know that auction is still going on they just got a new leader now probably yeah yeah i mean like what about all the other fucking slaves like there weren't just to gruda slaves there there's like mad other people and then they just blew up so you gotta kind of assume that like it's true it's just it's like that it's like

it's peak just Jedi bullshit because I guess they took down the education camp sort of they yeah I guess

is the one place I don't know I really the separatists are really gonna be feeling the loss of that strategic slag

refining uh facility yeah um but then they just they just go They just, they just, they take like the, you know, I don't even think there's like 30, whatever.

We'll say that this is a stand-in for all 50,000 to Gruda that are missing. But they just, they go fucking home, I guess. It just, it's so, they're talking about building a whole ass empire. The fucking prime minister is still out there. He's probably still sitting in the room with Duku. like waiting to see he's in charge now he has to be right he has to be in charge now so the thing is like it's because the show doesn't like really pin down specifics of like what is the state of play in the war you can easily imagine that like yeah plow can rescue a campful of slaves they

can do that what they can't do is go fully invade and conquer the zagarian like capital especially now that they've like completely joined up with duke and are now probably like near the separatist core, at least in terms of like bases of support. But as far as like, you know, this cartoon show I'm watching, why couldn't they? Like, Plow just showed up and saved all those people. Like, why couldn't Yoda ever and be like,

we got to nip this Zagarian situation in the bud, and get there before the slave auction takes place? And they build their power that way. And so it's like, well, we got the Tigrude. time to go home the whole thing is built up around the fact that anakin was a slave is hyper sensitive to to slave matters to seeing slavery in action it's like the whole thing it's not we get the slight mentions of uh you know the tegruda being asoka's people they're her people or whatever but it's not really great grounded in that either so it's it's like neither important the only important thing was getting the tegruda saved but for why not sure not sure they were why they were even sent in the first place to help them versus the fucking any other like what about all of the twilight that are there

Like, what about any other planet that's been ravaged for, you know, the Zyghurian Empire? Like, nothing matters. This entire arc isn't grounded in either Anakin's, like, anti-slavery principles or Asoka's identity as a Torgreuta. Nope. So, I guess that's it. Like, I just don't understand. And Cody doesn't matter either. Like, there's no, like, clone analogy.

There's just, like, it's just very, it feels very just unweighted. It really takes away. I'll toss one last thing into the lack of Osaka stuff there, too. I was expecting at some point a whole, like, they make such a big deal about, you know, the Tagruta hate the violence. They just love being peaceful and, like, chill and just the sweethearts of the galaxy. I kept expecting there to be like, okay, so maybe Asoka, feels something weird about like the fact that so much of her job involves kicking ass for

the Jedi order and maybe that would be the content of the conversation toward the end of like hey listen like I know like your way that the path you're traveling maybe at times it felt like it is not our way but either I'm here to tell you like I understand the value what you're doing or like you know something about that conflict no there's not that either there's none of this like hey it's our first chance to see like Asoka now has a cultural context that is in some ways intention with her identity as a Jedi

and instead what we get is like you know maybe it is time to join the Republic and I think that would be wise governor I don't I really don't and it's like yeah the like intention of purpose

it's like literally you blink and you miss it because what's happening is Duke who is laying claim to something Yoda is saying, no, no, no, no, no, I want that. Don't do that, please. And then Yoda's whole mission and, like, everybody's whole intention is being, like, stop Duku from having those people. There's a chess piece on the board, and we want that.

Don't worry about the rest of the board. Who cares about that? What's going on? Nobody cares. At least give us a bullshit. They got resources. Like, at least... Yeah.

That's the thing that they typically would do is, like, oh, well, you know, the Togruda, they have great water or they have great... The Strategic Poetry Reserve is running dry. To Rob's point, like, oh, they love art and beauty, but the best building they can come up with

is them, like, what art? Oh, God. Yeah, it's frustrating to feel like, you've one chance to cap off an arc, and what you're deciding to spend that time on says a lot

about what your larger storytelling priorities are. And so, like, at any point during this arc, did we think the most interesting stakes were Will the Togruta join the Republic? Not to me, right? I wasn't fully where they weren't in it. Me either. I said at the beginning of that first, that first episode is them saying, hey, hey, they do say it's a 20-second conversation, no one cares.

No one cares. And it's like, I let them have. their neutrality. Like, what's the point of saving them if it's really just a bargaining chip? Like, the vision of Jedi who would like stop slavers and help people, like, you would want the beat of Asoka or anyone saying, like, you know, maybe you should do the thing that you want to do instead of having a lion in this war, right? Like, you would exist in neutral, untouched by the, the horror of the Republic versus the separatists. And now, the like win is you know i'll go in with the republic we're not going to talk about how you treat

the slavers who had me in a slave facility but yeah i'll be i'll pay my dues i'll pay my and also like what the fuck are you going to do like what is joining what is joining the republic mean at this point that you are going to show up to senate meetings is it that oh they're not going to get a senator you kidding it's just being taxed right like There can't be more to it than that. And I guess you'll get, you'll theoretically, it's that when, right, exactly, exactly. If Duhu comes back through, they will actually send a whole fucking ship on time. They're on the like priority, priority lane list.

Right. There will already be some sort of space station a few blocks away, you know, with, with some clothes ready to come in. So they can stop the theft or the, the, the, the kidnapping. you know, as it happens, instead of coming through too late or whatever. But Dupu doesn't give a shit about the Togrudens. No. I guess. He wants slaves because Palpatine wants slaves because he wants to build a Death Star and wants to build an imperial infrastructure and all that down the line.

No, joids are expensive. People are cheap. This is the classic. Are joints expensive? Yeah, machines are expensive. In our world, in our world, there are lots of jobs that you do with a person because it's cheaper to do with a person because you could pay people peanuts and they don't break down as easily because that's the terror or also they're just cheaper to reproduce because

this is how terrible economies were we don't get this from star wars ever though like we've had a lot of conversations about like the clones are too expensive and we really got to think about what we're doing with this but we've never had the palpatine like well i'm looking at the books and i can't send you another spaceship sort of thing and like four stories have that the thing that we get from star wars is more that droids are not as capable as people or as flexible as people or they're goofy little guys and they're sometimes you want i'm making some good droids i'm Those tactical droids are really... But those tactical droids aren't going to...

I guess that's the question. It's like, is the thing really that you don't have a dirt-diggin droid good enough or a mining droid? Like, we don't see that. We don't see pure... I guess we do. We do in Solo. Solo is literally a mining droid situation, and that's where the droid rebellion happens. There's a droid rebellion in Solo?

Well, we'll get to that. Look, some things are going to happen in Solo that are going to raise some real questions. What? Yeah, yeah. With unsatisfying answers. Sobel will also answer those questions. They're all really bad. What?

I'm so excited. We have to watch Solo. We really do. Wait, have you not seen, you have seen Solo, you just don't remember it now? I've never seen Solo. So you don't know why he's named that. Okay, that's interesting. God, damn.

Is that his name? We forgot about that, too. Don't worry about it. We. Everything has an explanation. I'm so mad about other things of Solo that I forgot. Oh, good. I hope you also get to

unbox that moment for us. We just stream us watching solo when when it comes. We should. Anything else about Segarian slave arc? I think we're good. I'm good. I was trying

to think of something. I was about to say something that I think that we already hit, but like it's a failure of this arc to like have the slave seeds be so cartoonish right like the they're not training these people to do something for the war effort it's just like we want to have make them have a bad time because we're evil people who have a bad time box yeah it wants to show you all of the like the um the images of torture and

you know capital be bad capital w wrong things while not interrogating it at all. It's like it wants to show you the image of, you know, Anakin with the whip in his hand behind Obi-Wan, but not interrogate that. Like, that is like a classic moment in similar stories. It's been deployed before. And to like, it feels so cheap to use.

Or even Obi-Wan in the trenches, like trying to help people and then being punished. for it like that's that's deployed and then not at all interrogated for what it means to his like he never actually does start to interrogate am i like am i hurting people by helping them or like what or you know whatever bullshit you know lies that they want to put in his head it's just it's very frustrating to have so many serious images deployed in an arc with very little follow up

or just investigation of any of them but you know it'll add to the gravitas of the whole arc like it'll create like a heavier more serious arc but like very cheaply in my

opinion I don't know yeah well what's next Rob so well next for Patreon backers, it's going to be us discussing this and the

Embara arc. So if you'd like to hear that or just want to support the show, you can do so at patreon.com slash civilized. Next month for sure, we're going to do Jedi Lost, right? That's... I'd be better. I'm ready for it. I need it. Or wait, wait, no, didn't Allie say that we should wait

until we're done the season because there's some venture stuff? Yes. I think our next big bonus thing should be watching these Filoni zone behind the scenes things. That's not big one. You know, it's a little fun bonus deal. But, you know, the Patreon has always been the monthly Q&A. And then also sometimes we get to do some bonus stuff. My schedule has been hell lately. I think everybody else, Rob and Natalie all were traveling into New York for some Waypoint stuff recently. So our schedules have gotten all over the place. But we are going to

get to Jedi lost once we're done this season. I think it's another little bonus thing. We'll do that. Those felony zones that I've been collecting that are that are too long for this because They're not actual phlony zones. They're like long featureettes, you know. But check that out. Patreon.com. So civilized. And then next, we're not to figure out how we handle this next arc because like we

have one singleton and then another four-parter. Which we are going to split up. We're going to do the first single episode and then the first half of the two-parter that follows. So that's going to be episode 80, friend in need, 81, deception and 82 friends and enemies and then we do the following ones afterwards right yeah not this week but next week yeah all right so until next time uh please rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice and remember when you're dealing with a event like a slave empire

making a comeback just lead with the fully armed invasion rather than trying to like get in good with them and show you're like kind of cool and hot just that'd be my advice just like Like, start with clothes, bros. I don't know. Thank you. Thank you. Oh!