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Matthew
Hello and welcome to this episode of the Star Wars Generations Podcast. Today we have your host, Matthew, Reverend Matthew, possessor of a master’s degree. We have registered nurse Erin, and we have some guy named Alex, who’s also awesome.
And we have Pulitzer Prize winning Alex. So we are just an awesome all-around group of people, but Alex likes Anakin, so I’ve got to give him shit from time to time. We are here talking about the Onderon arc. If you have watched The Clone Wars, you know exactly what we’re talking about. If you haven’t, did you ever wonder why Saw Gerrera is the way he is? Forest Whitaker’s an awesome actor, but he was one of the first, I think the first major character who appeared first in animated Star Wars and then became a live action character played by someone in Rogue One, of course, and then later in other projects, and now he’s shown up in books and in video games and just all over the place. The perspective the characters have is that we’re doing the Rebel Alliance the good way and Saw is off doing it the wrong way, but we in the audience have often shifted on that. So let’s go back in time. Let’s find out how Saw Gerrera became Saw Gerrera. Let’s talk about what happened on Onderon. Folks, what do we think of this arc? Give overall general ideas, and I’ll read some spoilers about what exactly is happening.
Erin
These were some of my favorite episodes when they first came out. I loved seeing a different planet. I was like, I’m sorry, two bad bitches, Saw and Steela, fine as hell. Two bad bitches as siblings. I love it.
Matthew
There are siblings, so yeah, no,
Erin
they’re not like together, but the gene pool was good. I loved having Lux come back for a little bit and seeing his character fleshed out into more than just an awkward possibility for Ahsoka, seeing him really put in the effort for his countrymen. I liked the direction they took that character rather than just having him disappear into nothingness after the Mandalorian arc. So I really liked these episodes. Now that I’ve seen them so many times, they’re not mind-blowing anymore, but there are some really good emotional beats and some really cool creatures we get to see. So I always enjoyed these episodes. Alex, what about you?
Alex
Yeah, I thought they explored a lot of fun things. We’ve seen Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka, the Jedi, taking on this kind of shadow mentor role to help a rebellion, so it was fun to see what tactics they would use. It was fun to see Saw and Steela really hash things out, and to see how the separatists in the background were pulling the strings, how Dooku was pulling the strings and what he really wanted out of the planet. It was really interesting from a political standpoint for me, but also in the middle of all that there’s just a love triangle, and everyone has a crush on everybody else. And we get a cameo appearance by the greatest character in all of the Clone Wars, Hondo Ohnaka, at the end of the arc. It’s very all over the place, and it really encapsulates a lot of really fun things that make the arc memorable.
Matthew
Yeah, I think I agree with that. I think it raises what is generally my favorite question across all of the media I talk about: what is the right way to fight evil, and to what extent do the ends justify the means, and to what extent do you cut corners, and how do people become the kind of people they become, and what happens when you are fighting the good fight and trying to do it the right way, if there is a right way, and terrible things happen, and how does that change you? Before we get into the episodes themselves, I just want to ask, for me, I saw Rogue One before I really dove into the Clone Wars TV show. So I was introduced to Saw Gerrera, and then I went and saw this as kind of backstory. For you guys, had you seen these episodes already? And if so, when you watched Rogue One, did you immediately clock, oh, that’s the guy from the Onderon arc?
Erin
I’d seen the Clone Wars episodes, and I noticed it with Saw Gerrera, but I was kind of like, what happened to him in the last twenty-five years? Because he used to be a lot more fun and sexy and less scary and torture-y. So I definitely placed it, but it definitely felt like there was a lot missing in the character in between.
Alex
For me, yes and then no. Yes, I saw the Clone Wars episodes first, because they were coming out when I was a kid, but I did not for even a second consider they were the same person. I was like, that’s what?
Matthew
Yeah, and I think that’s really fair. I think it’s interesting to me that they went back to him, because he’s not Hondo Ohnaka or someone who was a series-defining villain, antagonist, or character. There’s probably ten other people I can think of who have a much bigger influence on the Clone Wars and are much more memorable, who they could have pulled across. But I think this was the perfect one, because he does fit so well into that role. He’s a lot more beat up, a lot less the sexy suave guy. To be clear, Erin, I’m assuming you’re not saying that him having a mechanical leg in any way makes him less sexy, it’s just all the other stuff about him.
Erin
Okay, it’s just the fact that Saw Gerrera was in his early twenties, and now I’m in my early twenties, and now he’s like fifty, and I’m like, that’s no longer my type. Or not my type yet, I guess would be a better way to say it.
Matthew
Definitely healthy, definitely the right way to go. So here’s what actually happens in these episodes. This is a summary I found, but I think it’s pretty accurate. To liberate their planet from the separatist-backed puppet ruler, King Rash, a group of Onderon rebels led by Saw and Steela Gerrera, along with former Senator Lux Bonteri, seek help. I think he’s actually the son of a senator. Was Lux ever actually a senator?
Erin
I think he did.
Matthew
Well, he took his mother’s seat. Because the Republic cannot openly invade, the Jedi send Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, and Captain Rex to secretly train the insurgents in guerrilla warfare. Captain Rex is not hyperlinked, that’s disappointing. Ahsoka remains on planet as an advisor, guiding the rebels through city strikes and a campaign to win public support. After the Jedi help secure the rescue of the deposed true king, Count Dooku dispatches massive reinforcements. During the final battle, the rebels successfully topple the puppet regime, but at a tragic cost: Steela is killed. Her ultimate sacrifice unifies Onderon’s people, forces the separatists to retreat, and paves the way for the world to rejoin the Republic. So yeah, I think that’s a pretty solid summary that gives us an idea. So let’s talk about the Gerreras. What did we think about the way their characters are portrayed?
Alex
Steela is clearly, she kind of gave off similar vibes to a young Padmé, just super smart, in charge, knows what she’s doing, but maybe a little less sure of whether people should follow her. She has a lot of the right ideas and knows what to do, but in the beginning she’s a little unsure, like, can I really take the lead? Saw’s like, I’m clearly the leader, I am the man here, and I should be leading the group. And everyone’s like, yeah, but Steela is really the better tactician, and people like her more. So I feel like they play off each other in that interesting way. Saw is not an idiot, he has some good ideas, but he’s way more direct: let’s go fight, let’s kick ass. And to his credit, he sticks with that exact same mantra his entire life, and it gets him in trouble many times. But that’s very much a foil to Steela’s much more calm, collected, let’s do some sneak attacks, save lives whenever possible approach, while Saw is like, I’ll put my life down, whatever’s needed. But Saw is also very protective of Steela and does not want her to die. He’s willing to die himself, but does not want Steela to ever die. And obviously, as Matthew just said, he kind of fails at that mission.
Matthew
I think in some ways she’s underconfident and he’s overconfident, and that’s kind of what they’re both dealing with. I think it’s a very intentional play on gender and gender roles in terms of the way that he sees her and the way they see each other. Erin, what’s your take on these two? I feel like, I mean, they’re siblings, so it would never happen, but in a perfect world–
Erin
I think they would be great co-leaders. He’s the action man, he can inspire the people with the rah-rah kind of vibes, but when it comes down to truly understanding and getting people on board who aren’t so easily worked up, you need Steela’s tactics, you need her knowledge and her brain and her linguistics. She was very much clearly the one who should be leading. And you guys mentioned the gender, but also I think the age difference. I’m pretty sure Saw is meant to be older. It’s very much like, oh, I’m the older brother, of course I’m going to lead, you know. This is our planet, they’re orphans, their parents are gone, so it’s like, I take care of it. His protectiveness kind of overshadows Steela’s abilities, and a lot of people start noticing it before he does. We’ll say that.
Matthew
And I think one of the things they do, which also addresses a bit of a plot hole that had been there up till now but is also a great metaphor for everything they’re talking about, is there’s a scene where Ahsoka’s trying to teach them how to take down the droids that have shields, the droidekas, thank you. What they establish is that the shields block things that are coming at a fairly high speed or with a lot of force, so if you hurl a grenade at them the shield blocks it, but if you slow-roll a grenade at them, it’ll go right through and work. Steela is able to master that a lot faster than Saw is, and I thought that was such a perfect metaphor for everything their characters represent: she’s able to say, okay, brute force and just doing it as hard as I can doesn’t work here, I have to be selective, I have to marshal my resources. Saw does eventually get it, but it’s much harder for him.
Alex
She’s also in a dick-measuring contest with Lux the entire time, because they both just want to prove that they’re the better warrior and also prove that they’re better to Steela. It was very strange.
Matthew
It’s this weird four-way dynamic. Tell me if this is the accurate way to describe it, because none of it’s ever specifically said, but I think you can figure it out. You’ve got this weird triangle of Steela, Saw, and Lux, which is most definitely not a love triangle, but is definitely the two men having a kind of, we both want to show her that we are the more badass. At the same time, you have Ahsoka and Steela both sort of competing a bit for the affections of Lux Bonteri. I think pretty quickly Ahsoka realizes that Lux and Steela are a thing, and I think we get one episode of the four where she’s giving some jealous looks and feeling uncomfortable. She pretty quickly figures out those two are a thing, and also, I’m a Jedi, I’m not supposed to get into this. But it is definitely interesting because I think they really come to a head in one episode: you’ve got these four in this weird combination of romantic rivalries, sibling rivalries, and power rivalries, all these things.
Alex
Yeah, and I’ll just note, something I liked was a little detail where Ahsoka was kind of grappling with the fact that she had a crush on Lux but knew she was a Jedi, and could also tell that Steela was into it. Anakin was like, I get it, Ahsoka, that little subtle, I get it, my young Padawan, I feel for you. And Obi-Wan’s just like, bruh, not another one.
Matthew
Erin, specifically for you as a huge Ahsoka lover, what did you think of how she’s portrayed in that dynamic?
Erin
I think it always made sense. I’ve talked about this on the show before. Growing up, I definitely wanted Ahsoka to have some sort of romantic interest, because that’s just what a lot of little girls are taught, that your favorite girl character finds a boy character and they fall in love. It’s just kind of the way it goes. But growing up more and seeing more about Ahsoka, one, it just doesn’t fit into her character, to have that kind of trust and reliance on somebody. And two, I think we see a lot of parallels between what Anakin could have done with his emotions and what we see Ahsoka do, although it’s a different situation, it’s not like they were stranded in a romantic mansion for months. But I like seeing her give herself the ability to notice and feel those feelings to an extent, without ever acting on them.
Matthew
I mean, in some ways I feel like what she does is a pretty close mirror to what Obi-Wan is able to do with Satine, and it further emphasizes that what Anakin is doing is really the standout, because she’s not a rock. She does still have hormones, she does still have a heart, she does still get attracted to people and romantically interested, because you’re not going to train that out of people, it’s just part of who we are. For many people, obviously aro-ace folks can be different, either nonexistent or just very different, I’m speaking in generalities, not for everybody by any means. But the idea that she has some of those feelings, but as you say, is pretty quickly able to realize, no, wait, especially because it’s her, because I think in some ways Ahsoka is also an incredibly competitive person. What I thought was that it wasn’t as much that she wants Lux, it’s that she doesn’t want to lose, doesn’t want to be perceived as, like, Lux is supposed to be her little puppy dog and she says, okay, that’s cute, but no. I don’t mean that to sound manipulative or controlling, but that’s the interesting part. Someone has a crush on you, you’re not interested in them, and now they have a crush on someone else, and probably most of you is like, good, they’re gonna stop bothering me, and a small part of you is like, oh, they’re gonna stop bothering me. And that’s just kind of where I think Ahsoka is.
Erin
This is where I relate to her deeply, because to me the most attractive thing is somebody else being attracted to me. I feel like it’s easy, especially when you’re younger, to get caught in the headspace of, oh, well, I’m getting attention from this person, I like the attention, so when they stop giving me the attention, I want to seek it back out without really sitting there and asking, do I actually like this person, or did I just like the attention? No, I just like the attention. And I feel like she has that kind of thought process, but micro-dosed, like, well, chill.
Matthew
I think she’s clearly better able to deal with it. But I do think, and here, Alex, I’m gonna be kind of defensive of Anakin, the fact that Obi-Wan doesn’t step in, it’s pretty clear what’s happening, it would have been so easy for Obi-Wan to take her aside and say, hey, I just want you to know, I can see that you have some feelings for Lux, and I get it. I had feelings for Satine. Here’s how we as Jedi deal with it. Let’s acknowledge it, let’s talk about it in the open. But instead, she talks to Anakin, who’s like, yeah, you can get some on the side, it’s fine. He’s not cutting it off in the way that I think Obi-Wan would have.
Alex
Listen, listen, listen. Anakin is not the right mentor for her in this situation. I’m aware of that.
Matthew
But what I’m saying is that it’s also a reminder that Anakin didn’t get the right kind of mentoring either.
Alex
Yeah, he did not. I think, unfortunately, when you go down to the crux of it, billions and billions of lives were lost to the Empire because Obi-Wan couldn’t give Anakin the talk properly.
Matthew
Basically, when Anakin says, you know, I can’t believe, do you think she remembers me? I’ve been so obsessed with her, he goes, you know what, let me tell you a story, I had a woman named — and, you know what, guess what, end of the movie, it doesn’t happen. All right, so with all that said, let’s now turn to Saw himself. Actually, I want to say one last thing about Ahsoka before we turn to Saw. I also really like that at some point Obi-Wan and Anakin go away and really just leave Ahsoka there to do it herself. This isn’t the first time, and Lux has been involved in some of the other times, but I think it’s a really nice sign at this point that she’s still technically a Padawan, but it’s like if you think of being a Padawan as being in college, she’s not a freshman anymore, she’s a junior or a senior. They’re giving her a lot of her own independent projects now and letting her run this and walking away. I think that’s a really important sign of her growth, and it’s gonna matter a lot when we get to the end of the season. So with that, let’s talk about Saw. Forest Whitaker’s an amazing actor, but obviously he looks very different than this character, and I think that’s okay, I think Forest Whitaker plays him well, but obviously the personality is fairly different. How do you see the line being drawn from this Saw to the Saw of Andor and then to the Saw of Rogue One?
Erin
We even get Saw in, I think, Rebels, and definitely Bad Batch.
Alex
Rebels for sure. He goes on a little excursion with Ezra and Sabine.
Erin
Saw’s character in this episode arc is quite unstable, to say the very least. He’s got a lot of energy, he’s coming from a good place, but it’s not a stable or well-thought-out place. And the person who for his whole life was giving him that stability was Steela. At the end of these episodes, she dies, and now Saw has nothing but instability, all his own feelings, and then the rage and the hurt and the revenge-seeking nature that he grows into as the Clone Wars ends and the rebellion starts. It’s like a pit bull off the leash, just go crazy.
Alex
I also think that Steela was the only person he would listen to, the only one who could hold him back, and without her there, not only is that constant drive released, like Erin said, but also he has no one telling him no, or take a minute, or sit down. He’s fully released into the world, and he fed off of that pain. He blamed the separatists, he blamed the Republic for not helping them more, and it really just became, you know what, screw this, I’m gonna fight injustice my way, all these other institutions have failed me. You end up getting the very paranoid, very much I’m gonna do this my way and be a firebrand and fight even among people with the same ideas as me, and let’s say you get the Rogue One version of Saw Gerrera.
Matthew
No, I think that’s very true. And one of the things these episodes introduce as an idea that I think is essential when thinking about any kind of rebellion or revolution, something that hasn’t really been talked about too much, is that it’s not just your job to fight the Empire or the Republic or the separatists or whatever it is, it’s your job to inspire everyone else to do that. We’ve had Anakin and Ahsoka talking about that some, but we’ve never really seen it being passed down to others. To me, I think the real tragedy here is that there’s a moment where Saw is like, you know what, Steela is right, I’m wrong, we need to be fighting more for the hearts and minds, we need to be going slow and rolling the grenade instead of throwing it full force. And then she dies. I’m gonna make a weird analogy, but I think it fits here. In gambling, and in Magic: The Gathering and stuff like that, we often talk about the danger of results-oriented thinking. It’s the idea that let’s say there’s a chance you’re gonna take and you have a ninety percent chance to succeed, that does mean if you do it ten times, you’re probably going to fail at least once. But if you do it once and fail, hopefully you’re able to say, okay, that sucked, but still, most of the time that’s the right idea. What Saw does, understandably, because he doesn’t have ten sisters he can do this with, is he looks at that one time and goes, okay, so clearly, this was a hundred percent a failure, it was always gonna be a failure, so all those ideas I’m just gonna reject. I think that’s why, in the Mask of Fear novel and a lot of the shows you guys mentioned, all the way up to Rogue One, he’s not battling for the hearts and minds anymore. He’s just trying to hurt the Empire, he’s just trying to hurt the separatists, and he doesn’t care whether what he’s doing is bringing people to the cause.
Alex
Sad, poor Saw. I mean, I feel for him generally. He just wants his home back. When we saw him in one of the two episodes we see him in in Rebels, he still carries a little holo picture of Steela that he drops and Ezra picks up, and Kanan was like, war, we have scars, some we can’t see. It’s just this deep — he’s been fighting. You think about it, he dies fighting the Empire. He’s been fighting this fight since he was a teenager and just never stops. It’s sad, and it fairly, in my opinion, can drive someone crazy.
Matthew
And I think in that way, it’s subtle, and it’s not saying there was an easy choice to be made, but it’s one more indictment of the damage this war is doing, and the Jedi being blamed for it, because you step back and think, the Jedi are like, oh yeah, you two teenagers are the natural leaders of this rebellion. Shouldn’t they be going, no, you’re teenagers, you shouldn’t be in this fight, you should definitely not be leaders, this is way too traumatic for you? But they can’t, it’s a war, they’ve got to do what they’ve got to do. And then when his sister dies, clearly they don’t stick around and say, Saw, we’re so sorry, we need to get you some therapy and help you work through your feelings of loss and sadness and come to a healthier place. No, they’re just like, sucks, man, sorry, but we won, we gotta go to the next battle. Of course they have to, that’s all Palpatine’s plan, but it’s just one more nail in the coffin, this is why Palpatine’s plan worked, because it’s turning more people against the Jedi.
Alex
Oh, sad. I know. It’s a sad arc.
Matthew
We win, but it’s not such a pure victory.
Alex
It’s also, I mean, at the end, Ahsoka convinces the Jedi again to kind of break their code and intervene anyway, and it’s the Jedi’s intervention that both allows them to retake Onderon but also causes the death of Steela, because the very expensive black market rocket launchers they bought from Hondo, which I thought was an incredible tie-in, are what end up — Saw is the one who fires the rocket that blows up a droid ship, which then comes careening down and destroys the ground she’s standing on, and that’s how she ends up dying. So he’s kind of responsible for her death indirectly. Of course it’s an accident, but he was so blinded by his rage and just kept firing and firing and firing, that’s what happens.
Matthew
I watched this episode about a month ago, and I didn’t rewatch it before recording because it was still pretty fresh in my memory, but one detail I forget: does Ahsoka try to force-grab her as she falls but fail? Or am I–
Alex
She has her in the air, about to grab her, and the droid ship that had been knocked down reactivates for a second and shoots her in the back. Lux didn’t cover her well enough, and then he goes and shoots the droid, but at that point she’d already dropped Steela.
Matthew
And it’s again horribly unfair, but to Saw it’s, I can’t rely on anyone else to keep my sister safe, and yet she died, I’m the only one who can keep my people safe.
Alex
Even though she’s the one that killed her. Indirectly. It’s funny.
Erin
When these episodes first came out, I knew we were getting closer to Revenge of the Sith, I knew Ahsoka’s not in that movie, I thought she was gonna die. I thought this was gonna happen when I first watched it. I was very worried Steela was gonna end up saved and Ahsoka was gonna end up dying, because they needed to tie off the character in some way, and this seemed like a really dramatic way to do it. I just remember my heart pounding out of my chest as she’s holding Steela, and then you see the droid sit up behind her, or however that exact scene went, and I was just —
Matthew
I remember thinking about that a lot through season seven, when it came out, because I hadn’t watched Rebels, and just having that sense of, well, she can’t live, right? What’s gonna happen here? So I think we’re gonna talk about that a lot in the next couple of seasons. All right, we wanted to keep this a kind of short episode. I have one or two announcements about the program in general to make, but do either of you have any last comments you want to make about these episodes? Erin, do you have a list of quotes to talk about?
Erin
No, not the list. No, I’m good.
Alex
The only thing I wanted to quickly mention was I really did like the super tactical droid that was running the show on Dooku’s behalf and making all the calls, and the very scared, squeamish, quote-unquote king who was in control of Onderon. It just shows that throughout the galaxy, Dooku would take power-hungry people and put them in place as puppets, but then would just execute them as soon as things went sideways, because as soon as it became a drawn-out war, Dooku was like, I have no interest in this, and immediately killed him, just moved on, because he’s just another pawn in the great game. I think that speaks deeply to Dooku and the Emperor’s overall plan, to just use these people and these countries and genocides as pawns. And it was cool to see the rebels have to earn back the trust of the people, when the riot was happening and they went forward to save the old king, and there are just so many really smart, cool ways the Jedi worked in the background that Saw messed up almost every time. It’s just really interesting to see both sides working there.
Matthew
Yeah, it’s interesting, because I think this season gets a particularly bad rap. I think there was a time when they thought this was gonna be the last season, and then season six is a bunch of kind of random episodes, and season seven comes back with a vengeance, and I think this season and season six really get a bad rap, but there are a lot of really good episodes in them, and I think this is honestly one of the best arcs in the whole series. All right, well, a quick announcement I just want to make. We love making this show for you, and we’re also all very busy people, and one thing we’ve realized is that, understandably, there are definitely folks who love this kind of look back at older property stuff, but we get a lot more audience when we’re doing the newer things. So what we’re gonna do is shift to an every-other-week release schedule. Instead of putting out one every week, we’re gonna put out one every other week, just to calm things down a bit while we’re doing these look-backs at older property, and then when new stuff is coming out, we’ll shift into more of a week-by-week schedule. If it’s a movie, we’ll probably do two or three primer episodes and one or two analysis episodes afterward.
If it’s a show, then, kind of like what we just did with Maul, we’ll do one or two prep episodes, then episode-by-episode coverage, and then one or two wrap-ups. So it’s gonna go a little back and forth. I hope you’re really enjoying it. If you’re angry about that, let us know.
Let your friends know. We really just need to get our listener numbers up to be able to justify it, so please, if you’re loving it, just let us know, even just write in and say, hey, we appreciate the content. Give us a review, send us an email, all that information is in the show notes. You can also find all of it on TheEthicalPanda.com, or of course you can just leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. So on behalf of myself, Erin, and Alex, thank you all so much for listening. Knicks in five.
Alex
Stay classy, Onderon, and the City of New York.
Erin
People of Onderon, the time has come to take back our freedom.
