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How the narrative framed Mace Windu, back in 2002

So there's this 2002 book written by Marcus Hearn, edited by J.W. Rinzler, titled Attack of the Clones - The Illustrated Companion. It was released a month before Episode II was released.

AKA, before EU material and anti-Jedi fanon could publicly reframe the meanings of the film... and before more recent narratives could reinterpret the character of Mace as a robotic, protocol-worshipping stickler who never bends the rules (when evidence shows he's anything but).

So how does Marcus Hearn - "untainted" by all the above factors, armed only with the Prequel films and their screenplays - frame the character of Mace Windu?

MACE & ANAKIN

Fandom: "Mace hated Anakin from Day #1 and never trusted him. Mace was probably jealous as he always thought he was the Chosen One, not Anakin!"

Attack of the Clones' - The Illustrated Companion:

"Jedi Masters Yoda and Mace Windu lead the High Council in rejecting Qui-Gon's application to train Anakin, 'He is too old,' concludes Mace Windu. 'There is already too much anger in him.'

Hearn explains that the problem with Anakin wasn't that he was just too old, it's that because of that age he had become too filled with fear and anger to a point where taking on the Jedi training would be twice as hard for him as it already was for everyone else.

Hearn doesn't chastise Mace for this initial decision. On the contrary, he adds more context to it by using a line from the screenplay to explain where Mace is coming from.

He also goes further into Mace's view of Anakin throughout the book:

"[Mace] over-estimates Anakin Skywalker, paying little credence to Obi-Wan's protestations that the boy is too confused and disturbed to be dispatched on a solo mission."

"The Jedi Council is aware of Anakin's exceptional skills, and Mace Windu believes Anakin may fulfill the prophecy that says a being will one day bring balance to the Force. But Anakin still has a lot to learn…"

He's basically stating that Mace believes in Anakin, but that doing so is a mistake. Which, to be fair, considering how things turn out for Mace and the Jedi... is kinda true!

Mace's problem with Anakin is almost the opposite of what most of the fandom projects onto him.

It's not that he dislikes Anakin, on the contrary, he holds Anakin in too high of an esteem and is overlooking Anakin's glaring flaws because "hey, Anakin's the Chosen One. He's got this!"

That's not the only flaw Mace has, according to Hearn.

MACE'S (and the Jedi's) ONLY REAL FLAW

Fandom: "Mace and the Jedi had become too emotionally detached, they had lost touch with the common folk by spending too much time in their ivory tower. They focused so much on being selfless that they forgot how to care, they've become a bunch of elitist, righteous sticklers for protocol who care more about upholding laws than actually helping the people those laws are meant to protect!"

Attack of the Clones' - The Illustrated Companion:

"Although he is a senior member of the Jedi Council, little in Mace Windu's experience has prepared him for the looming threats of the dark side of the Force and Count Dooku's Separatists."

"Mace Windu's faith in the Jedi to protect the Republic is admirable, but it also blinds him to the true scale of the growing menace. He is aware that the dark side is growing, but still allows himself to be too easily reassured about the Separatists' ambitions. [...] Mace fatally misjudges Count Dooku, refusing to believe he could be behind any attempt on Senator Amidala's life. 'Dooku was once a ledi, he tells Padmé. 'He couldn't assassinate anyone. It's not in his character.'"

"Mace Windu's strengths are, in many ways, qualities shared by the Jedi Order as a whole - he is an accomplished diplomat and a fine swordsman. Such skills have served the Jedi well in their role as the galaxy's peacekeepers for a thousand generations. But such skills are not enough to save the Jedi from their own complacency, and the tumultuous changes that threaten to wipe them out forever."

Hearn perfectly grasps what the Jedi's only real flaw is, in George Lucas' intended narrative: they were unprepared, complacent, they were blind... and now they're stuck playing catch-up.

But when he's saying that, he's not blaming them for it. Because this flaw doesn't derive from some sense of elitism or superiority... it is an inevitable consequence of their qualities.

They've managed to stay out of politics as neutral diplomats... ... but that makes them vulnerable to the Sith's plot, which primarily takes place within the political arena, where they have no control or experience.

They are painfully aware of the corruption in the Senate... ... but as a result, they're too quick to trust the Separatist's talking points as well-meaning and genuine, instead of seeing the movement for what it really is: greedy big business trying to become the government.

They trust and agree with Dooku, believe in what he publicly stands for (after all this man used to be one of the wisest and kindest members of the Jedi Order, Mace's friend, Yoda's Padawan, etc)... ... but as such, they are blind to his true nature, that of a treacherous Sith who'd stoop to orchestrating assassinations.

The Jedi have their guard up, knowing that there's another Sith Lord still out there, orchestrating in the shadows... ... but they can't really find him, because the Dark Side has clouded everything, so only darksiders are able to sense the possibilities of the future! Them serving the good side is screwing them over, in this situation.

Flaws such as being too trusting or being unprepared, letting your guard down because you've established a 1000-year-peace, are flaws that kind, noble characters such as the Jedi are bound to have.

They may be flaws, but they aren't faults. And considering the way he describes Mace and the Jedi, it's clear Hearn grasps the nuance.

MACE'S RELUCTANCE TO JOIN THE WAR

Fandom: The Jedi joined the war out of arrogance, they thought they could swashbuckle their way through the problem and win, instead they didn't realize that they lost the very moment they joined.

Attack of the Clones' - The Illustrated Companion:

"Mace Windu believes in the Jedi as keepers of the peace - not as soldiers - but there comes a point when he reluctantly realizes that it is time to take affairs out of the realm of diplomacy."

Mace and the Jedi didn't want to start a war. If you read the script for Attack of the Clones, Mace and Bail keep grasping at straws to not engage with the Separatists up til the very end.

But when you consider that...

the Geonosians are about to execute Obi-Wan without a trial,

and the Separatists leaders have been unmasked as a coalition of unscrupulous corporate assholes who are willing to plunge the galaxy in chaos just to make more money.

... at some point, the Jedi have to come to terms with the fact that Separatist leadership (and Sidious) won't accept diplomacy because they want a conflict. A conflict will make them all richer. And the Republic, well, they're just dying to go to war too.

So the Jedi go save Obi-Wan and capture Dooku, hoping that in doing so, the conflict ends before it begins. They succeed in the former goal... but fail the latter one.

The Clone War has begun.

From there on, the Jedi are drafted to lead the war. Which is why - as Hearn points out - Mace was so reluctant to take action in the first place. The Jedi are ambassadors, they are not built for war... and now they've been forced into one.

Mace is by no means a perfect character... but he's someone doing his best. Just like Obi-Wan, just like Yoda, and all the other Jedi.

Overtime, Windu's character has been dumbed down to either "that one angry black man" or "the dogmatic emotionless dick who hated Anakin"... and I really think that that's not what we were meant to see him as.

The way Marcus Hearn (who also wrote The Cinema of George Lucas) refers to him is a much more charitable interpretation of how others (ahem Filoni ahem) do, nowadays.

so if we’re keeping score of shows in the last few years:

teenage bounty hunter: canceled

trinkets: canceled

dollface: canceled

betty: canceled

batwoman: canceled

legends of tomorrow: canceled

motherland: fort salem: canceled

gentleman jack: canceled

the wilds: canceled

first kill: canceled

supergirl: ended

dickinson: ended

the bold type: ended

killing eve: ended

and we’re just supposed to be cool with almost all lesbian tv media being wiped out?

Imagine loving a guy so much you almost kill yourself to find his baby boy in a tsunami, you claw at the earth when you think you've lost him forever, you crawl under a fire truck to drag his bleeding body to safety with an actual sniper shooting your way, you accept the fact he put you down as his boy's legal guardian in case he dies with barely a protest, you agonise when he quits being your job partner, you take said son to the zoo all the time, you get jealous like a dog pissing on a tree when he has a new friend, you're there when he begs you to fix something you can't fix and you can only hold on to his shoulder to try and shoot the pain, you go to him the second some ugly man dumps you, you throw a hissy fit about him leaving to Texas and sabotage his house showing, and then, you cave. You cave and you give up your housing situation to help him, you move into his house and you let him go. You let him go because you love him that much.

And he looks at you like you set his world on fire and built it back anew, and you hope he looks through the rearview as he drives away, hoping he'll miss you half as much as you'll miss him.

He will. You were struck by the same lightning, you'll forever share a heartbeat.

i'm pulling a full 180 heel-face-turn on my anakin skywalker opinions. i no longer think anakin skywalker's childhood trauma was the gas in the engine that made him a monster. i actually think it's less about that and more about traumatic brain injuries #1-#4,002, and if anyone had ever done a brain scan on darth vader they might have been able to diagnose him with a bad, bad case of Holy Shit disease, wherein his brain tissue is so scarred from TBIs #1-#4,002 it no longer appears like it should function at all. my reasoning for this: that man has been a pilot since the age of nine, and i don't think that small child had a very good helmet for the space death NASCAR he was participating in.

MASTERLIST

(posts that just got added are in bold)

(note: I hate to DRASTICALLY shorten this because of tumblr’s 100 inline links limit. I’ll address it soon and probably make a few other, shorter masterposts for the posts I like but had to exclude)

METAS

Anakin and the Council/the Order:

Yoda loves Anakin, actually

The Council and Anakin bantering

Anakin calling Council members by their first names

The Order’s opinion of Anakin as Ahsoka’s Master

Anakin never gets punished by the Council in canon

Obi-Wan:

How Obi-Wan expresses emotions

Obi-Wan and Kids

Why Maul tries to get Obi-Wan to Fall

Obi-Wan(2022) #3: War meets Faith

Obi-Wan (2022) #4: Apocalypse Now, Obi-Wan’s resilience

Obi-Wan’s speech to Grievous – the Clones vs the Droid Army

What Obi-Wan’s reaction to Maul’s death says about him

The ANH Manga’s delightful portrayal of Obi-Wan

Obi-Wan in the Citadel arc (and why he’s not being callous)

Trauma doesn’t make you Fall

Yoda:

The Jedi in Yoda’s vision of a world at peace

How the Council handles Yoda’s s6 visions

Thoughts on “Do or Do Not, There is No Try” (ask)

Yoda’s empathy in the Prequels

A very wholesome frog troll grandpa

Yoda (2022) #1-3: Bree’s hero-worship

Kanan and Yoda in the Rebels Manga

Dooku:

Dooku and Yoda in the Immortality arc

Dooku and Ventress

Tales of the Jedi: Dooku and masochism

Dooku and Christopher Lee’s insight into his villainous characters

Why Dooku’s political idealism is bullshit (and why whatever genuine ideals he still holds are pure delusion)

“Love Encouraged”

Nearly every instance of physical touch between a PT-era Jedi and another sentient being. (New installation of the series: The Kenobi Show)

The Jedi Order:

A tour of Jedi views on blood ties and traditional families in LucasFilm canon

Other faiths within the Order

Hebrew meaning of the surviving Jedi’s names+ ‘Adi’ and ‘Dan’

Would Jedi have their own language? (ask)

Does TCW portray the Jedi positively? (ask)

Are Jedi ever allowed to see their birth families again? (ask)

Was Anakin forbidden from contacting his mom? (ask)

At what age would Jedi be allowed to leave the Order? (ask)

Were Jedi allowed to leave the Order during the war? (ask)

Parents giving their kids to the Jedi is on them, not on the Jedi (ask)

Are ‘lineages’ canon?

Are the Jedi a “minority”? (ask)

Are “frivolous uses of the Force” prohibited? (ask)

What it means to be a Jedi (ask)

Could Jedi get married? (ask)

Why Kanan and Hera’s relationship isn’t against the rules

Are Qui-Gon and Luke Gray Jedi? (ask)

Different adoption scenarios

Flipping the ‘Jedi meeting their bio family’ trope

Appreciation posts:

Paintings

Jedi Temple (tag)

Jedi Music (ask)

Telekinesis

Mace’s attitude towards Boba

Mace Windu and his troops

Shatterpoint and Stover’s writing of Mace

Deleted AotC scene – How Mace and Obi-Wan discuss Anakin

How well the Jedi know the Clones

Protective 212th feels’ thread with @cacodaemonia

“Gramps” and permissive parenting

Into the West/Order 66 (fanvid)

In defense of the Jedi:

The Clone Wars and Shatterpoint thoroughly debunk every single aspect of the Children of the Force comic (or why calling the Jedi chield-thieves is beyond laughable) (ask)

The Siege of Mandalore diatribe

Why the Council couldn’t have prevented Order 66

10000 Jedi isn’t a lot

The Jedi aren’t corrupt – and slavery in the Galaxy isn’t their fault + Slavery in the Galaxy – Padmé and the Jedi

How Prosset Dibs’ opinions of the Council don’t hold up

“Jedi friendly” Council-bashing isn’t a thing

The flaws of the Order(ask) + Do you have criticisms of the Jedi Order? (ask)

The Jedi Code and Compassion (Ki-Adi-Mundi thread)

Mace Windu’s Compassion (ask)

The Plo Koon fandom double standard:

Dealing with Boba

Dealing with Anakin

The question of eugenics in SW (ask)

Are the Padawans child soldiers? (ask)

War crimes against robots aren’t a thing

Digging into canon:

What “Canon” means to me (ask)

‘The Box’ is Naboo

Anakin’s Terrifying Power Level (TCW s07x09)

The Dark Side and Shitty Hair

The ‘Baby Ludi’ Story (and why it doesn’t mean what it seems to mean)

What the CIS is all about (money. obviously money.)

Living Force, Cosmic Force, Unifying Force (canon vs legends vs fanon) (ask)

Attachment vs love (ask) + Are attachment and possession the same thing? (ask)

What the Jedi and the Clones actually were to each other (ask)

Clone culture - Fanon vs Legends vs Canon

Hondo’s introduction and why he’s far from an idiot)

Zeb and Kanan as genocide survivors

Why would Sidious tell Vader to ‘search his feelings’?(ask)​

The Great Darksaber Retcon (tag)

The Satine posts:

Satine’s attitude towards other Mandos

Why there’s no evidence for Satine suppressing Mandalorian heritage

Satine’s compromises and accommodations (ask)

Shmi’s agency:

Did she even want to leave Tatooine?

Cliegg and Shmi’s marriage

Mortis still makes sense regarding what “Balance” means

If any of the stuff I write interests you, check out @gffa, @jedi-order-apologist, @david-talks-sw, @ilummoss, @laciefuyu, @blackkatmagic and the many other great people we all reblog from. 

Burn Butcher Burn is the song for everyone who had a strangely close same-sex friendship before the age of 21 which ended in a huge falling out that went kind of like a breakup except it's annoying that you don't get to call it a breakup because you were in an almost-relationship and even though they're technically just an ex-friend they feel more like an ex than some of your actual exes

Wanted to share because it made me laugh

nooooo oh my god this is so funny hahahaha :] them

Edit: Yes, the original Sokka sexism arc is great and important. But we don't live in a world where the live action show runners decided to include it in the same form. So:

Unpopular opinion time: Sokka unlearning sexism isn't actually a large part of his character arc--it literally only takes the opening episodes. And removing it COULD be a sign that the live action is taking seriously the complaints I've seen from native fans about the original show runners deciding to make the Water Tribes that sort of sexist to begin with. Sokka's actual character arc is about gaining confidence and leadership skills, and they have the opportunity to focus on that MORE if they change the Kyoshi episode to focus on Suki as a fellow teenager forced into a leadership/protective role in her community and rocking it rather than using her as an object lesson on sexism for a male character to learn from. Whether they will ACTUALLY do that is on them, but it took me less than ten minutes to think up, so I sure hope someone in the writers' room actually cares about using the live action to expand on new angles of the characters. Big ask, I know.

Now the real question is: did they also remove Uncle Iroh's unwanted physical advances on a literally paralyzed Jun, and all of Zuko's snipes about girls? Because THOSE are the actually "iffy" sexism parts in AtLA, not Sokka's five minute arc.

Something that’s literally insane to me is the amount of hypocrisy that anti-Jedi people have in regards to the Jedi adopting Anakin.

(or “kidnapping” him, as they’d phrase it—as if Shmi wasn’t literally saying “take Anakin with you to become a Jedi” every other line in TPM, but whatever-)

———

The Jedi: *adopt Anakin*

Anti-Jedi people/Stanakins: they kidnapped him, abused him, brainwashed him into suppressing his emotions, trapped him so that he couldn’t leave, and told him love was evil!!!

The Jedi: *say they probably shouldn’t adopt Anakin since their lifestyle wouldn’t be a good fit for him*

Anti-Jedi people/Stanakins: How dare they not immediately accept him into the Order!!! How dare they actually have criteria for someone joining like any other religion!!! How dare they have valid reasons for thinking that being a Jedi wouldn’t be a good fit for Anakin!!!

———

And it’s usually the same people saying both arguments, depending on which one better fits their argument.

Like…pick a side, for the love of god.

Should the Jedi have not taken him in or should they have taken him in? You can’t have both.

And if you think they were wrong to adopt Anakin, why aren’t y’all getting pissed at Shmi? She’s the one that kept pressuring Qui-Gon to take Anakin and train him to become a Jedi!

And you can’t say- “well, she just wanted to get Anakin out of slavery, she can’t be blamed” -because Shmi could’ve asked Qui-Gon to do anything with Anakin! Take him to an adoption agency, make sure he finds a good home, get him away from Tatooine and make sure he’s safe, etc.

But she told him to take Anakin to the Order and train him to become a Jedi.

And, even if Shmi didn’t know of any other options for Anakin, did y’all want Qui-Gon to fucking lie to her? Say he’ll train Anakin and then just give him to an adoption agency while flipping Shmi the bird?

Or would you have rather Qui-Gon left him in slavery with Shmi? Because remember, Qui-Gon tried to free Shmi but Watto refused to sell her, he would only sell Anakin.

Trick question! Y’all would bash the Jedi no matter what they did!

Like, what was the other option that y’all apparently have in mind? Since you keep shit talking Qui-Gon/the Jedi for literally every decision they could’ve possibly made.

It just…the hypocrisy amazes me.