Anghraine

Oh, I love a good herd of cerulean ungulates! :) :) :)

Oooh, I like the way you're framing Luke and Leia! And you're right that Han is in many ways the odd one out in the early phase of the 3-way interaction. But, yeah, I'm more interested in the ways that each of them has things in common with both parents (and each other), y'know?

Yoda I could accept as having more to do with lightsabers, simply because he trains Jedi; his duels in the PT were just silly, but him with a 'saber per se didn't bug me in itself. The Emperor, on the other hand--- no, just no. He does his fighting with words and ideas, dammit!

Yeah, Padme being the one who was chill about the rulebreaking would have been interesting! (It's my headcanon that the way the marriage proposal came about was that the two of them were ranting about the squick of the cloned slave soldiers on the way back from Geonosis while Anakin convalesced, and by the time they got to Naboo they had sort of worked themselves up to a place where they were both like, "These people have lost their standing to pass moral judgements on us, let's do this thing," where it's more than half a private rebellion against the moral decay around them.) And I'm glad you like ambivalent-mother!Padme and squeefully-paternal!Anakin! :D :D :D (And, yeah, feeling the need to turn the, "Women are always asquee about being pregnant and men, especially young ones, are always ambivalent about fatherhood," because, really, it's Anakin who thrives on connections, here.) And I like your cracktheory! Mine is that someone who's not strong in the Force carrying a child with a high midichlorian count is automatically a high-risk pregnancy because the midichlorians affect the endocrine system--- then you add all the stressors in Padme's life and her body just couldn't pull it off any longer. So, basically the same thing but with crack!science instead of crack!spirituality. :)

And, yeah, the Tuskens seem to be a separate thing; I mean, the woman to whom he is telling this led a castle onslaught at fourteen and he was there, so he can't have thought of all women as non-combatants; it must have been something specific to whatever Anakin knew, or thought he did, about Tusken culture?

This is me agreeing with you so so hard about the Anakin/Padme galaxy-ruling division of labor!!!!!! You put it perfectly!

In light of the PT, anyway, I think that's the offer he was making to Padmé -- to serve her in the same capacity he did the Emperor (though with more sexytiemz and less homicidal rages) and then to Luke (with more hyper-protectiveness). He phrased it rather badly, of course.

I am laughing so hard at the last sentence. Because, really, that's Anakin, always with his foot lodged firmly in his mouth. (Maybe he got more quasi-eloquent by the time of the OT because he just didn't care enough to be made awkward in his speech patterns? LOL and ow.) But, oh, yes, he wants Padme to run the galaxy while he serves as her complaint department, lol. And if he had told her that... well, actually, regardless of how he put it, I have trouble with the fact that Padme was not willing to take the man she loved up on his offer to overthrow a tyrant with him. And then, you know, reestablish the democracy (while Anakin probably sulks a little or possibly a lot until she distracts him with sexytiems or possibly childrearing; in that scenario, Anakin is totally the primary parent while Padme is off running the galactic government, IMO.)

Yes, totally a sentients'-rights lawyer! And I am so in agreement about the schism and Anakin confronting Yoda and... squee! And also squee about the drabble!

OMG!!!! Leia remembering Anakin is epic!!!! Epic!!!! I love it so hard!

Bail was an aristocrat and a politician, and Anakin was an ex-slave, secret Jedi, and soldier (and constitutionally opposed to being deferential to anybody, even the prince he ostensibly served)

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Yes, yes, that is Anakin.

and seemed rather hard and abrasive to him . And I always imagine Anakin as a storyteller, and I suspect he didn't take, ah, that much care to customize his stories to his audience (which only made him more kickass to little Leia, of course, who always looked forward to his visits for just that reason).

I love this so hard. And I have this idea that Leia also kind of wrapped him around her finger, too?

LEAVING HIM TO BURN ALIVE OMG (will never get over this, seriously). But even before that, he seemed a rather -- bad teacher anyway?

PREACH IT. HARDSTYLE. He's... I get it's his first time as a teacher and he's just out of his own apprenticeship and probably had all kinds of issues about Anakin because of Qui-gon, but. Dude, get over yourself, the boy needs you. And you are absolutely right about Obi-wan's whole "public humiliation as teaching tool" schtick (which, horribly enough, Padme also does to him--- that poor boy can't catch a break!)

Honestly, I don't think Anakin would have been vulnerable to Palpatine's encouragement if he'd, I don't know, been able to get it somewhere else. (Qui-Gon, for all his flaws, would probably have been a much better role model -- someone who could show him that it's possible to be a Jedi without being an orthodox Jedi -- even that you can do some really morally ambiguous things without heading straight into Sith Lord territory.)

Quoted for so very much truth! You are exactly right! (Well, and I love Qui-gon almost uncritically. He's so much what I would want the Jedi Order to be!)

Yeah, exactly, it's line-walking--- it's not staying as far from the edge as possible, it's learning how to balance it, and how to have a balanced reaction; to have that attachment in a healthy way. Which of course the Jedi Order was completely not teaching as of the PT. And Anakin's turn to the Dark might well have been averted if they'd had that space where personalize and reciprocal love, and not just detached compassion, was allowed--- for one thing, he could've just asked for help for Padme! And gotten it, instead of the let-go-of-everything bile.

And yes on the dogma and structure cart coming before the divine-energy horse! It's my headcanon that it's natural for Force- sensitive kids to have their first experiences of using the Force be joyful and exciting, (e.g. Anakin in the podrace). And I think the Jedi initially (and by initially I mean "founding of the Order") conceived of their no-emotion, no-attachment approach simply to get themselves to derive all their joy from their experience of the Force, so that they would use it more and develop their powers more strongly. Over time, the no-emotion cart got put before the "use the Force" horse, and the Jedi even started seeing that joy as suspect (hinted at when Anakin indicates that Obi-wan wouldn't approve of his using the Force to play around in AotC; the Jedi obviously don't categorize that sort of thing as a useful practice of Jedi powers, which would be sensible, so I'm extrapolating that it has to do with the joyfulness angle.) I think this combination--- the restriction of emotion for its own sake and the limiting the use of Force--- is what clouded the Jedi's use of the Force: they weren't practiced enough, and their lack of emotionality further etiolated their ability to connect with the Force. It's possible to use the Force dispassionately, but it's weaker because you have to use mental discipline to compensate for the lack of that intensity.

Also, I meant to say this upthread, but I really liked the connection you made with both Anakin and the future always being in motion, and how it's interesting that he (and later his son) have precognitive powers--- a special relationship of sorts with the future.