crosspost: Jyn, Cassian, and luxury

[anghraine]

This post inspired a gorgeous gifset, so I'm still very fond of it.

An anon on Tumblr asked in March of 2017:

I feel like anti-Jyn people fail to consider that Cassian is being a bit unfair with the 'luxury of caring' line (which happens, he's angry at that moment) and take it at face value like they do with Jyn's 'it's not a problem if you don't look up' line

I agree, with some qualifications.

The thing is, I do actually side with Cassian far more than Jyn in the fight. If anything, I’ve been perpetually annoyed that every time I point out that Jyn’s feelings are entirely valid, I get “right, they’re equally right and wrong!!” That’s not what I’m saying and not what I think. IMO Cassian’s ethic and rhetoric are much stronger and more admirable, in the abstract, at that point.

But the one place where I am pretty much “uhhhh” at him is that line.

Now, I do think it’s an important and powerful line with regard to his own motivations. He’s not apathetic or callous; he’s in this because he cares about fighting injustice and tyranny. And it’s not a considered decision to care, but something he just can’t help because of his fundamental nature, driving him to a life he hates. He’s traumatized and trapped by his compulsion to fight for a better galaxy, so the mere capacity for indifference looks a hell of a lot like a luxury to him.

But it’s not at all the case for Jyn. She was yanked from a secure life to one of hiding with her parents (and she was clearly trained for the day disaster struck). Her mother was murdered and her father abducted before her eyes. She was rescued for a “trained as a guerrilla soldier from age eight” value of “rescue”; there’s no indication that Jyn’s own wishes played any role whatsoever in any of this. Certainly they didn’t when she was left to survive with a blaster and a knife, without explanation. And then she was on her own.

It’s not like Jyn was playing nice with the Empire, either. She was perfectly ready and inclined to fuck things up wherever she happened to be, to go by her criminal record. (And that’s just for things she actually got caught for!) She just wasn’t willing to dedicate herself to it, to make it a cause and a purpose for her life. Because she had nobody to look after her interests except herself.

You can say that there are higher moral imperatives than survival. But under no circumstance is it a luxury. Basic survival is never a luxury.

And I think we need to distinguish between “it would be morally better to do thing” and “it is a moral obligation to do thing.” Personally, I find heroism much more powerful as something beyond basic decency, as actions in the service of a higher morality. Unless it’s their job, people aren’t obliged to run into burning buildings, to take bullets for others, to personally confront soldiers as noncombatants, etc etc. That’s extraordinary, not obligatory.

Interestingly, Jyn uses the exact same word in her initial dismissal of him and the other Rebels:

I’ve never had the luxury of political opinions.

It’s the only other time the word is used in the movie, so the two instances decidedly echo each other.

In this case, we can also see where it comes from in the context of Jyn’s perspective. When you’re trying not to starve or get killed, most people don’t really have the time or energy to spare for fighting imperialism. It’s normal and healthy to require fulfillment of your basic needs before you can consider anything else. So we can see where she’s coming from.

But it’s nonsensical in the broader sense. Opposing fascism is in no way a luxury. The very idea is mind-boggling.

The members of the Rebellion could have tried to survive under the Empire rather than risk everything in an apparently quixotic military resistance. Cassian could have. They didn’t, though. They chose the extraordinary and dedicated themselves to something vastly more important than their own lives.

Again, not obligatory. But right.

It doesn’t mean Jyn (or Han, or the Lars family, or or or) are bad people just because they don’t unhesitatingly choose heroism. They’re doing what’s normal; that’s why heroism is heroic.

In any case, I do think the two luxury lines parallel each other, and Cassian’s is neither more or less accurate than Jyn’s. It’s true for him, but it’s inadequate and unfair to impose on her.

Jyn isn’t haunted by selfless dirty work; Cassian isn’t haunted by where his next meal is coming from. They both have to grow beyond that kneejerk dismissal of difference and extend sympathy as well as empathy, which I think is what the paired lines are about.

The “some of us can’t opt out of oppression!!!” interpretation ignores all that, though.

Comments

[rosaxx50]

And I think we need to distinguish between “it would be morally better to do thing” and “it is a moral obligation to do thing.”
+1000

(Three cheers for the black/white characters can only be oppressed/privileged view fandom sometimes takes. Sighs.)

[anghraine]

Right?