star wars rebels – A Middleground

Maybe it’s just my “too good to be true” radar pinging, but I really hope this Tar Vizla guy turns out to be a legend that evolved out of control, or a loser with a knack for building lightsabers but no combat ability or something. There’s gotta be a twist. Every myth has a footnote or twelve attached to it, and there’s no way that little tall tale went down without some sort of catch, whether it was him getting assassinated by his own people, dying an undignified death, or being an actual monster, or what have you. At the very least existing in the middle of the Mandalorian/Jedi conflict opens up a lot of room for moral ambiguity and failure, and the fact that his sword ended up with the Order but his family stole it back is… telling.

The more and more serious and monastic Kanan gets the more hilarious it is to remember that this is a man who spent most of his late teen years as a dissolute rogue. Hera picked him up in a bar! For most of season one he was more space pirate than staid Jedi. He winked, he swaggered. He carried on the proud tradition of ridiculous flirting that began with such heroes as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Sure, he might be a bit more reserved now, three kids and a major injury does that to a guy, but the man has a scoundrel past. He once hit on a Star Destroyer captain.

Imagine some poor new Phoenix Squadron techie, highly intimidated by Commander Syndulla’s ultra serious, mysterious, bearded partner, (The gossip vine says he might be a Jedi, though Ami just says he found a lightsaber somewhere and ran with it.) turning a corner at the wrong time and hearing Kanan the terrifying telling the scary Mandalorian girl with a straight face that, “Table dancing is a perfectly respectable job, Sabine. The money is good and the hours aren’t bad if it’s a quiet club.”

It doesn’t stop there. He’s the first person Commander Sato and Commander Syndulla turn to when they need to sober up an informant they just pulled out of a bar fight. He has firm opinions about the various varieties of engine room moonshine. He speaks Huttese.

He knows seventy different names for common street drugs.

According to Dell- who’s been in the squadron longer than anyone- he and Commander Syndulla left the channel open once and everyone had to hear them calling each other pet names in the middle of pitched battle.

Forget the lightsaber, all anyone is really interested in his self professed ability to make a Coruscanti cocktail that won’t give you a killer hangover the next day.

Cham Syndulla, with not a trace of irony whatsoever: Hera is so stubborn and impulsive and dedicated to making big symbolic gestures without any thought given to real strategy. I love her, but it’s exhausting.
Hera Syndulla, twenty miles away, staring straight at the camera: I just don’t know they can’t be my kids AND my loyal subordinates. No one understands how hard it is to balance work and family, especially when everyone insists on following you into danger all the time, putting their lives on the line for the sake of sentiment.

Star Wars Rebels knows how to do a girlfight.

tbh, the best thing about theorizing that Kallus/Maul/Palaptine’s cousin Steve getting a redemption arc and living on the Ghost is that they are all out of rooms.

Kanan needs his Jedi space, and it’s Hera’s ship you can’t really kick her out of her room. The boys’ room is filled up and Sabine would be the worst roommate. I love the girl but nobody likes choking on paint fumes. I’m a painter and I don’t like choking on paint fumes.

Therefore I’m forced to assume that it all those redemption fics/headcanons the Sympathetic Bad Guy of the week is actually living in that little half closet off the rec room.

Former Imperial Agents And Sith Lords Go In The Shame Cupboard Until They Have Atoned For Their Sins

SWR Crew Member: Well, Maul is pretty much a wreck. Childhood of hell, twenty years in a dumpster, watched his brother die, spent another twenty years in a slightly bigger, antique dumpster. Not much we could do to mess with his mind any further, he is a certified Disaster.
Dave Filoni: …..
SWR Crew Member: No- no, please Dave! Think of the canon!
Dave Filoni:…. Give him a traumatizing Force vision.
SWR Crew Member: Please, think about this! Think about Sam Witwer!
Dave Filoni: You heard me, ensign. MAKE IT MORE MESSED UP

shoutout to the redshirt rebel pilots in today’s episode. pretending they didn’t see the jedi/sith drama going down right in behind them. they’re not fucking with that force stuff. smart men.

Dammmn. For a grandpa, Darth Maul cleaned up. He’s definitely going to win the “Fashionable Fifties” Award. Suck, it Obi Wan. Polo shirt of evil w. dad bod beats desert disarray of mourning any day.

this is why you always leave the oldest child in charge when mom and dad aren’t home

Tarkin: So, like, do you have a plan???
Grand Admiral Thrawn: *goes off on a very Extra rant about how the rebels will be the architects of their own destruction, doesn’t actually describe any plan in detail*
Tarkin: Yeah, okay. I’m going trust you with the fate of this empire.