Matthew: Hello and welcome to the Star Wars Generations podcast. It is myself Matthew the ethical panda joined by Eren the supreme mob wife as their tag is listening them for today. And we’re here to talk to you about Eren’s favorite episodes from season three of the number is correct.
Erin: I don’t think so because the Ahsoka ones are at the end of the season. So I think it might be 2223 actually.
Matthew: We’re both wrong 21. So it’s nine and 10 and then 21 and 22. Okay. We are coming to you as we are all all the time from the People’s Republic of Minnesota where the snow is sometimes bad but really right now the ice is worse. Alex is a photojournalist in the zone is out documenting all the things that are happening with our invading army and the efforts of their rebels to push back. But it’s just me and Aaron today.
We’re gonna have a great discussion. So Aaron let me just start by asking why these four episodes are there kind of themes that tie them together for it is to sort of individual episodes and then one two parter. Do you see kind of an overall theme was it just a couple of your favorites you want to make sure we got all of them. What ties them together.
Erin: Yeah it was really just like a few of my favorites also. I think all of them are pretty Ahsoka centered other than the first episode which is about zero. But yeah I really thought that heroes on both sides was important to include not only just because of the dialogue and importance it has like in the overall story of Star Wars but also because it’s an important moment for Ahsoka personally and it’s also the first time we see her in her new garb where she switches to the top with a little diamond cut out instead of her little tube top. Yeah and then the the last two it’s the story arc where Ahsoka is kidnapped and then hunted for sport by a bunch of trans oceans and kind of binds together with some forgotten about younglings that are also just surviving every day. And I loved I don’t know part of it is like I think that is one of the darkest story lines that Star Wars has ever told.
I think so yeah. And I just love the darkness. Yeah and I love that Ahsoka still brings her light to it but there’s no avoiding how just intense those episodes are I guess. Yeah and it also I think has a nice moment between her and Anakin’s relationship where he really blames himself for her being gone.
I’m like oh my god I should have searched harder and she’s like no I mean you did everything you could you trained me and that’s why I’m still alive. Yeah.
Matthew: No I don’t really get that and I think really we see in these episodes you know in seasons one and two it’s really been about Ahsoka being Anakin’s padawan which obviously is that the whole story until we get to season five but you know these I think are some of the first times we really get to see her out on her own and coming into her own. Yeah so it definitely makes sense but before we talk about all those we are going to talk about episode nine the hunt for zero and while there isn’t Ahsoka in this episode there is another strong female character who I believe you have some strong connections to so particularly as the mob wife that you are today tell us about episode nine and maybe your favorite character in it.
Erin: All right so the first episode hunt for zero we see Obi-Wan Kenobi paired up with a unruly Jedi it’s the first time we see Quinlan Voss who is I think he’s more explored in like books and comics rather than actual visual media throughout the Star Wars universe. One of my favorite characters he’s even referenced in the Kenobi show as a survivor of order 66 so I love being able to see him he’s got some cool like facial markings he’s some sort of a like semi-human race where he looks quite human but his facial markings they’re not tattoos they are natural to his like species.
Right um yeah and so Obi-Wan’s pretty disgruntled um by just how little Quinlan cares about rules like he shows up late and Obi-Wan’s like oh my god like we have to go and I think they’re just perfect foils to one another. Yep and so we see them hunting after zero we also see zero is being held captive by Jabba the Hutt and then is released and escapes with Scythe Noodles which is that very long-nosed um singer that we see in Jabba’s Palace I think we even see her in the original series um kind of in the background at some point.
Matthew: Yes she she’s definitely present at Jabba’s Palace she’s um she gets to sing a song in the new extended versions of the original movie of the other kind of the Jedi yeah she’s the one who has her lips kind of at the end of a long stalk.
Erin: Yes yeah she’s got a big old snout um and yeah so she’s like just reminisces with uh zero but like oh my god why’d you leave me I’m so worried like perfect mob wife she breaks him out and then you know he goes on this hunt and he’s like well we gotta leave the planet but first I’m gonna go and I’m gonna get all this money because I know where it’s hidden and then we’re gonna leave now that I’ll have funds and so they go we meet Zero’s mom she’s terrifying and um they find the treasure and in a large plot twist that the first time I did not see coming at all Ccythe Noodles kills Zero and says next time you’ll think twice about breaking a girl’s heart takes the money for herself and goes back to Jabba turns out she’s working for him the whole time and Jabba used her to have Zero find this kind of treasure these funds and then bring it back to him
Matthew: yeah because so basically at some point during all this she wanted him to come to her when he was kind of on the run he didn’t she thought he was you know gone that’s the broken heart part and this is such a like classic mob story the way it’s told and I love it because if you’ve ever heard guys and have you ever seen guys and dolls and especially heard Adelaide’s lament and like the way that that character is often played with a very nasally voice and kind of high and all sweetie I’m just trying to be your your loyal like it very much sounds like that and the Cci actress is clearly doing that voice and it just I don’t think this is the most insightful episode I’ve ever seen but it’s so much fun and we do get to see more about how the huts work and like all these hut criminal cartels I think this is the first time we’ve gone to Noel Hutter the the home planet of the huts is one of the first times yeah yeah so
Erin: yeah fun episode um good quote I pulled from it I actually might have yes I have two quotes from that episode my favorite no never mind the second one’s my favorite but the first one is after Quinlan Voss mind you when he comes in he doesn’t land in the gunship he simply flips out of the sky and just lands and Obi-Wan’s like if you could tell time half as well as you can stick a landing we wouldn’t be behind schedule now would we and Quinlan in the most perfect Quinlan response goes well that’s your opinion man and just immediately offsets these two characters um and it’s just fun it’s cool to see their relationship in visual media because we do see it explored more in the dark type pool which is where he is really featured alongside Assajj Ventress but Kenobi also is featured to an extent in that book and Quinlan’s relationship with Kenobi is explored a bit more
Matthew: so this leads me to a question that I want to ask Alex especially as our resident Anakin lover but I I do want to hear your thoughts on as well if Quinlan Voss had been Anakin’s mentor master instead of Obi-Wan would that have
Erin: this is a good question wasn’t he a less Akura’s master I think that’s right yeah I think so I think he was um which is funny because she’s very law abiding right she’s pretty by the book um that’s a great question that I’d have to think about a lot my gut instinct is to say no because although with Anakin Obi-Wan was a little too restrictive you know they didn’t see eye to eye I think if Quinlan taught a paddle on the same way he interacts with Kenobi it would be two hands off for Anakin it would be a little
Matthew: too laissez faire yeah right right now I I think it might be the opposite but I’m curious and I I think let’s all give it some more thought I’ll ambush Alex with the question and it’s a good way to test to see if he listens to these um and I’m sure he doesn’t and we’ll see and certainly listeners let us know what you think of that question okay so we’re gonna move on to Sokka in one second but I know you have one more quote from this episode you wanted to touch on
Erin: yes thank you so um Sai is like telling Zero how much she loves him and everything like oh my god I would never leave you like I’ll always be waiting for you and Zero goes like you really mean that and she goes from the bottom of my fluid sacks and I just I love the random nods to the different like anatomy and different cultures that we get that are just it’s like such a classic phrase you know from the bottom of my heart from the bottom of my fluid sex multiple sacks mind you
Matthew: yeah it’s such a in some ways you’ll see this and it doesn’t make sense where aliens who have different anatomy but still for some reason use kind of like human idioms um that don’t fit for them and other sci-fi and so our space odyssey or whatever and I just love that Star Wars actually pretty good doing that of like yeah maybe it’s an idiom that’s passed on maybe which came on their own culture but yeah they don’t seem to have hearts they have fluid sacks that’s what matters to them for whatever reason so I love it all right now let’s talk about our girl Ahsoka and our next episode is uh called heroes on both sides and if that line rings uh familiar to you it’s because it is a line from the opening crawl of uh Revenge of the Sith and if you listen through our episode on Revenge of the Sith I actually went on a bit of a mini rant that I don’t think it makes any sense there because I don’t think they’ve ever established that there’s heroes on the separatist side
Erin: yeah they’ve never explained there
Matthew: but here there definitely is some element of that and um this is a very political episode it’s a very economic focused episode but the basic idea of it is the banking clan and others are pushing through for there to be um more funding for the for the the galactic civil war the clone wars and what they want as part of that is um to end the restrictions on the banks basically to allow the banks more freedom so that they can loan the republic more money and and be more unright to deregulate the banks basically so that they can help fund the war um this is again one of these things where if you think star wars wasn’t political until recently check out the timing of this because if you look for the headlines about the time that this episode was written and then aired it’s right when there’s a lot of push to deregulate the institutions they’re helping to fund our wars in iraq and afghanistan um and it’s a very and at the point at which a lot of people saying like wait a minute how much are companies like halibut making from this how much are companies like you know these others and in this it is those institutions that are helping you know the the the cloners and others like that who are really pushing for that asoka is concerned about this she’s starting to think maybe we can bring peace to the war do we have to have this war go on and she wants to make contact with someone who went who had been one of her mentors in the senate uh senator uh bontieri is that the right
Erin: Mina bontieri and also this is padme i think you may have accidentally said asoka but
Matthew: this oh sorry it is padme yeah very much so and she has some conflict with it with us with anakin about this that’s pretty good and at the same time asoka though is pushing to get more she wants to do more and be more involved and so um eventually they all work it out that padme is going to go try and meet with her uh contact who is now a separate senator uh anakin’s like no no no all the separatists are bad and terrible and evil and padme’s really pushing him on that and so he says why doesn’t asoka kind of go with you and and asoka really gets to be a great point of view character here because asoka is very much in that why are we doing this the separists are all bad the separists are all evil and they go and meet with senator bontieri uh and her son uh lux bontieri who just happens to be right around asoka’s age and just cute as a button uh which is kind of a fun little dynamic they play with but they don’t push it too much yeah and in the course of it we kind of learned that there are those the separatists who a do feel like they have legitimate grievances and we get the sense that they’ve somewhat been played along by dooku but also just the republic wasn’t the greatest they had some legit grievances and but bontieri and some of the others really want peace and her and padme work out this possibility for a peace deal padme comes back with it it looks like it’s going to all work out and that of course palpatine arranges for a terrorist incident makes it look like a separatist did it make it looks like see we can’t possibly have peace with the separatists we have to have more war let’s deregulate the banks and along the way not only does padme get convinced but asoka is forced to kind of challenge her own feelings about are all the separatists bad and evil and why do i think the war is so black and white and why is this boy so cute if he’s supposed to be so evil and and all that kind of stuff so yeah so talk about why you love this episode
Erin: yeah so there’s a lot of aspects i mean some of it is like girl power because like um towards the start of the episode padme is talking with anakin and asoka about politics and like you said anakin’s very like boo separatist and padme’s like okay so you’re clearly not the one who’s gonna help me asoka why don’t you help me and he’s like okay whatever take her and then they use asoka’s like diplomatic immunity to travel to a certain planet so that they can then get to separatist planets so it’s all very secret right um they are doing this under wraps they are not allowed to be doing this like it’s forbidden to have meetings with separatist senators um right nonetheless go to a separatist planet and um yeah so i love seeing asoka and padme together and seeing how she kind of thrives and is so curious um and learns so well under like a more gentle but driven female presence rather than anakin’s aggressive out of control male presence which also he trains her very well in a lot of way i’m not discounting that i’m just saying him as a mentor versus padme as a mentor i think is it’s a good um difference to see in this episode kind of what that’s definitely because it’s really challenging asoka and asoka really is showing up as a teenager who grew up in a cult like she doesn’t know shit when she rolls up to this planet she’s like oh my god there’s not just like battle droids everywhere yeah and lux asks her at one point well have you ever met a separatist that isn’t a battle droid or a war general she’s like well no she’s like have you ever met a Jedi he was like no and he said oh no it was a whole thing because yeah he was like have you ever met a separatist she said no he’s like i’m not that bad right and then have you met a Jedi no i haven’t she’s like well i’m not that bad either and then he like looks her up and down she goes ugh boys are the same everywhere yeah um so that was kind of fun um yeah i like a little humor in to that otherwise like very serious and important conversation between these two young people
Matthew: yeah and and she i think shows an open-mindedness that you don’t get from a lot of other characters um especially one of the jedi to be honest we’re also on the other side as well where yes she has these very specific views but the minute she’s presented with evidence that her ideas of the separatists are not maybe accurate she doesn’t try to rationalize the way she doesn’t try to say oh this is fake this is being presented to me she’s like oh maybe what i was taught was wrong and i feel like the questioning that she eventually does is a jedi leading to her walking away from the jedi um when she’s kind of framed and put on trial really kind of starts here and and i think you’re right it’s not just that it’s it’s that she’s starting to question the jedi and also she’s starting to question anakin because i think you know she obviously has a really strong respect and and emotional connection with anakin and as much as the jedi can um and really believe that he is a good mentor for her uh and is her master but she started to recognize like maybe anakin is wrong about this
Erin: yeah he can’t be right all the time yeah
Matthew: how did you feel about a kind of like little bits of romance uh a romantic tension or whatever that were made as part of this with her and montero uh luxe monetary
Erin: oh when i was younger i ate that shit up all i wanted was a little romance in my like boom boom pow pow show i was like ooh a little like flirty and it’s not just anakin and padme being wildly incompatible um so i always loved that um as i grew up i wasn’t i wasn’t sure and in later seasons i think the next season season four maybe season five where we see her and luxe again together in a more serious situation that they have to really work together to get themselves out of and he becomes very disillusioned with the separatists right um and so i really liked those episodes as well and i liked how they played into that like slight idea of romance also but it’s it’s very clear like asoka never lets it get more than skin deep yeah like she knows what her boundaries are she knows like she’s not even flirty like he does it a little and she just kind of like rolls her eyes like maybe maybe pops a smirk like yeah um so i never thought that adding that took away from her character at all or like cheap into the interaction between the two of them i thought it was actually quite natural for two teenagers right interacting that way
Matthew: yeah i i really like that especially because that’s i admit when i first saw them like when they first introduced a character who’s clearly there to offer her a different opinion and is very clearly of her age and male and cute i kind of tensed up because that’s a trope we see a lot unfortunately of you know a woman changes her mind because it’s sort of like well if he’s bad why does he look so good you know like and and that i do think like when you’re romantically interested in someone that can be that can make you more open learning about them um even if it’s just like a tiny little bit of a crush not anything major but often it is used as you said to kind of like cheapen the character or to make her appear like oh well she’s just kind of flighty or or it’s just because he looks so good you know or whatever she wants to kiss him and the fact that they avoided all of that that like he does clearly find her attractive and she doesn’t like blush and giggle she just like oh boys are all the same you know yeah i really appreciate how they they just dip their toe in that water enough that the fans who want that can eat it up as you said because it is fun but also they don’t they don’t really ever go far enough with it so that it really makes asoka’s kind of openness to the new ideas that he and his mother and and others are offering her to feel really genuine and not just because you know she’s following her heart or something yeah
Erin: i also one thing i love about these shows is seeing a separatist senate i don’t know if it’s been mentioned before but it certainly wasn’t on my radar until yeah this episode and i was like oh that’s great no way they have their own government right no way they’re a legitimate thing like the separatists have we’ve talked about this in past episodes but they have very legitimate grievances and i understand why they pulled away the way that they did um although palpatine was the one who turned it into a full blown war right but it’s very interesting there’s um this one conversation where Padme says something disparaging about Dugu like, and Meena Bontieri is like, he’s just the leader of our Senate. And Padme is like, I forgot you actually admire the man. It’s just so interesting to see how people think of him. Because I almost, I often forget that although we as an audience know that he is like, he’s sith, he fights the lightsaber, your average citizen wouldn’t know that.
Yeah, no, not at all. And knowing that it’s like, yes, our Jedi, because at this point our Jedi have fought him. They have fought Count Dugu. And yet he’s still the leader of the Senate and his people still believe him to be a peaceful man.
Like they have no idea. So some of that is also like propaganda on the separatist part. But I also think it was interesting to make us look at Dugu in the way of being more than just a sith. And truly the political position he held. And also in second season of Bad Batch, I think it was where we saw what he had done to his home planet. I really liked that as well, just kind of deepening our understanding of Dugu.
Matthew: Yeah, no, definitely. I think it’s very much there. And you’re right, I think this is the first time it gets mentioned. It gets mentioned more in the books, including in Dark Disciple that we mentioned, but it hasn’t really appeared on screen.
It definitely does not appear in the prequels. And I really like the kind of respect that Bontari has for him. And also that like they do show that by the way, don’t forget, like yes, there is the separate Senate, but also there’s this kind of like cabal of business leaders from like the banking clan and the trade guilds and the techno guild and all them and the corporate factions. And they’re kind of like this secret economic cabal that he’s working with that is kind of pulling the strings and has a lot of influence over the separate Senate.
But remember all those like bankers and cloners who are kind of pulling the strings in the Republic Senate. You know, I think they kind of set a parallel there of there are people on both sides who are getting a profit out of this war and are encouraging the war to go on as profiteers. And yeah, it really kind of, I think, sets up this idea of this is a much more complicated conflict than the Jedi believe. And that that’s part of the problem. That’s the trap that Palpatine is laying. Yeah.
Erin: One thing I love about this show, and you’ve made comments on this specifically about the voiceover at the start of episodes, is that what we’re seeing is actually war propaganda. We are not seeing the whole story. We are seeing what they want us to see. And so I think it is very intentional that we as an audience have no idea about this. It makes this episode so much more interesting and important because we have been hearing just one side of the story and just a specific few people. And that’s what we know and believe about this time period. So I love the episodes that we get throughout the show that kind of challenge that black and white perspective that’s introduced at the start of the series.
Matthew: Yeah. And I think those voiceovers are specifically by Yallaryn, right? They are. Yeah. Right. Who is at this point, you know, a Republic military leader. But eventually if you’ve seen Andor season two, like he’s one of the high high place people in the ISB. So like he’s going to be signing up with the Empire. And so when you remember that it’s his military propaganda that does it. Yeah. So this is one of my favorite episodes. I’m really glad you chose it. It would have been a real shame to get past season three without talking about it.
Erin: I couldn’t let it happen. I could not allow it to happen. I was maybe thinking about picking other arcs, but I was like, I have to do some one off so I can include heroes on both sides.
Matthew: Yeah. I’m with you. All right. So shall we talk about the arc, the hunting of the tradotions by the Trandoshans? Deep dark darkness.
Erin: Yes, we shall.
Matthew: Yeah. Yeah. So in this episode, so Trandoshans for those who don’t know are the kind of reptilian lizard like race in Star Wars. If you remember, Empire Strikes Back, there’s that hunter named Bask who shows up in a lot of other things, but he’s the kind of one of the hunter, one of the bounty hunters that Vader calls together when he tells Boba Fett, no disintegrations.
He’s a Trandoshan and they become a very big race in animation and the books. And they’re hunters and they really love to hunt and the thing they love to hunt more than anything else. There are two things, Wookiees and Jedi. And they basically have a habit of kidnapping both of those groups, although they really know they can’t go up against the full-fledged Jedi.
They get their ass kicked. So how do you hunt someone with force powers? You capture Jedi children. So they mostly go after younglings. They snag a padawan in their nets this time and get Ahsoka, much to their chagran is going to turn out because she’s going to lead them all to victory, lead the younglings and the Wookiees to victory eventually. But basically she gets onto this planet.
They’re being hunted. She meets these other younglings, some of whom may have been connected to the Jedi at some point. Others are just like force sensitive younglings who the Jedi never found.
Erin: I think all of them were supposed to be specifically Jedi younglings because there seems one of them said it specifically and it seemed to be like an understood pain of like our masters did not look for us.
Matthew: That’s right. That’s right.
Erin: You’re right. People in charge of us never came. Right.
Matthew: You’re correct. Yeah. Thank you. And so yeah, they mostly give up hope. They’re all kind of on their own. They’re all kind of callous about if each other gets killed. And so Ahsoka comes in to kind of like rally them together and try to get them all work together.
And it doesn’t go very well at first. One of the people who she’s kind of trying to get on board with her and is kind of a little hesitant, once again, killed after starting to help her.
Erin: She was the leader of the younglings for however long they’ve been there.
Matthew: Right. Exactly. The ones who weren’t just kind of off on their own or whatever. And then some wookies come in, including Chewbacca, which makes me roll my eyes a little bit, but fair enough.
Erin: If it’s a wookie, it has to be Chewbacca, right?
Matthew: There’s only three wookies in the whole galaxy. Hence my eye rolling. But with their help, they’re able to kind of turn the tables on the transdotions and escape. Yeah. Yeah.
Erin: A quote I love from this episode. I didn’t write it down verbatim, but it’s basically like, guys like, okay, so the younglings are organized, determined, and now they have a wookie. Yeah. Great. He’s like, God damn it. Yeah.
Matthew: Yeah. It’s kind of a nice reminder that in this universe, like a Jedi, a youngling, but who still has a lot of control over the force and just your average wookie are about on the same level in terms of danger as like hunting and hunters and stuff like that. Yeah. I want to actually do this way. So tell me, why did you pick these episodes?
Erin: I picked them because I love that we see Ahsoka kind of grow on her own and she goes through these like periods of doubt and then trying to rally these other people to her side. But also there is a point in time where after their leader has been killed, the other people are two guys, they come up with a plan and they’re like, we’re doing this. And Ahsoka’s like, I don’t think this is the best plan. And they’re like, well, we’re doing it regardless. And she’s like, shit, okay, I guess I’ll come because I’m not going to let you go get yourself killed alone.
Like, yeah, let’s work it out a little harder and let’s go. So it was cool to see her not only like come into her own as a leader, but also like, she’s been a commander ever since she became a padawan. So she knows how to be a leader, even if not a full fledged or well rounded one, she knows how to do that. And so to see her be something that she’s not the designated leader, but she’s also not as designated like subordinate. She’s not designated padawan.
It’s truly like peers that you are trying to work together. And I don’t think we see that often for Jedi because typically it’s master and a padawan. You don’t send five Jedi to one place, you know, that we don’t see that because the Jedi are spread thin in this period of time. And so I loved.
Matthew: Yeah, it’s a real nice way to show her, yeah, kind of at that equal place because normally it’s like she gives orders to the clones and Anakin and Obi Wan and everyone else gives orders to her. And like we saw this a little bit when she did some work, when she and Baras offy were together, but seeing her have to be in that place where she can’t just give orders, but she has to kind of find a way to work with them as a team. It is some great growth from her. Yeah.
Erin: And it’s interesting because she as a padawan has the highest rank has the most official training with the Jedi compared to all these younglings. However, they have the most experience and understanding of the situation they are in. And it seems like at first she’s very resistant to that. Like, I mean, in this episode we see straight up murders. We see slaughter. Like they drop off these new recruits and they’re like, well, time to see who’s really worth it.
And they just open fire with a machine gun and they shoot down like three of these people immediately on the beach because they just weren’t smart enough to hunt. You know, it’s really dark guys. Yeah.
Matthew: There’s a lot of kids being hunted and like this is like hunger games, but it’s like it’s only 12 year olds and young.
Erin: Yeah. And we see where Ahsoka wants to save some of these other people and the younglings are like, no, don’t. If you go to save her, you’re both going to die. Right. Like you need to mind your fucking business.
And this is how we survive. So it’s interesting to see that aspect of her conflicting as well because like as a Jedi, you are trained like, you know, you are a peacekeeper, you are here to help people, you are here to help everyone. Right.
And this is, I think, one of the first situations where she’s faced with like, oh, not only can I not help everyone, if I help others, I will bring direct harm to myself. Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew: To myself and to the others who are kind of counting on me. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, I think there’s some great stuff here for her. In some ways, I feel like it’s kind of similar to heroes on both sides because there that was somewhat about her kind of like blind, blind obedience and never questioning of the Republic. This is a little bit where she started to question the Jedi a little bit because, you know, when they’re critical of the Jedi, she’s very defensive and very like, no, of course not.
And I think has to kind of take their concern seriously and listen. And I don’t think she has as much of sort of like a turn on her feelings towards the Jedi as she does towards the Republic. Not that she’s the anti-Republic, but she’s, she’s a lot, she’s, she now sees through the kind of Republic propaganda about the Separatists.
Erin: Yeah. She’s starting to understand it deeper.
Matthew: She doesn’t have quite that with a Jedi, but I think she is starting to see like, oh yeah, actually the Jedi are perfect. And sometimes even if like, it’s not that their masters like made bad decisions the way they think it’s their masters got killed or something. She understands why people can still have this depth of feeling against the Jedi.
Erin: Yeah, it is interesting. I think of it as like, she has been a Jedi since she was like two years old when they came and found her, if not younger.
And so that’s been her whole life. But if we look before the Clone Wars, the Jedi and the Republic were loosely affiliated. You know, like they were around, they helped out the Republic if really needed, but the Jedi were kind of their own entity until this war broke out and Palpatine, you know, manipulated it such that they could be turned into generals and start to become their own foils.
Right. So I think of it as you’re kind of deconstructing these lies and this propaganda, like you said, and it’s much easier for her to start to deconstruct and see behind the curtain of the Republic. Because that’s been a regular aspect of her life for the last three to four years versus the Jedi, which has been her whole life that she can remember. I think that’s a lot harder.
And that’s why it’s two more seasons before we see her partways with the Jedi, because I think this is just one of the first steps of realizing how not everything the Jedi says is correct all the time. Yeah.
Matthew: Yeah. I think you’re very right. And I’d say I rolled my eyes a bit when I saw that you picked these episodes. These are not my favorite episodes. And I’m really glad that you’re actually that we’re getting to talk about this because I think you’re right from us in terms of Sokka’s character development.
I think these are really good episodes. And I kind of like knowing that’s part of what you like. I kind of was watching it more through those eyes and seeing that a lot more because I do think and I disagree that’s really fine.
To me, a lot of parts of these episodes are a lot more simplistic than I feel like a lot of Star Wars tends to be. The traditions to me are like comic levels of just evil badness, but also ridiculousness. Among other things, they fall into a trope that I really hate, which is we’re going to hunt these people and because we are noble hunters.
But if they fight back and hurt any of us, we’re going to then become like, you know, homicidally angry and filled with rage when it’s like, if you have a hunter culture, you should expect they’re going to fight back and that’s part of it. But as it turns out, in the first episode, the son of one of the main hunters who’s kind of like getting his feet wet for the first time on his first big hunt. He seems to
Erin: be the leader.
Matthew: Yeah, the son of the leader really gets killed. And I think it’s not that Sokka directly kills him, but she’s kind of like they’re fighting and he falls off a cliff and gets impaled on a very strategically placed branch in its own way. So that kind of thing where you can’t even say a so could directly kill them very much in like, you know, Disney villains in the 50s and 60s, he kind of killed himself.
But of course, our leaders just now like, no, I’m so bad, I have to kill them all, etc, etc. And it just felt very two dimensional in terms of them. There’s also just a lot of fight scenes in these episodes because there’s so much hunting. And I think for those who love that, I think that is fantastic. And I’m glad it’s there.
It’s just not my favorite. So these are not my favorite episodes, but I do think I now have a much better appreciation of them for thinking about it specifically in terms of like how much of these episodes about the Sokka’s growth. Yeah.
Erin: Yeah, I appreciate that. And I do absolutely see what you’re saying. The episodes are pretty simple outside of, like you said, the fighting and you know, some of the nuance with a Sokka’s character and her questioning of, you know, what’s good, what’s bad, where do I fit in with this group of people? I’m not a commander.
I’m not a subordinate. I think all those aspects can be easily overlooked if you’re not looking for them and it will come off as a very like 2D kind of a storyline. I’ve never thought about it in the aspect of like hunter culture and you would kind of expect them to fight back. That’s a really good point that you made. I think that it makes it a little more silly that he’d be like, ah, my son. I never quite thought of it in that way. So I agree that it seems a little odd. But I personally, even though the transdotions were pretty two dimensional, I saw them as like a subset. This is not the way that I think all transdotions operate. I think all of them are hunters and they’re made to be like a predatory species.
Yes. But that doesn’t mean that I think that all transdotions are out there kidnapping and abducting defenseless people. And even to the point where if they lose, if the transdotions lose one of their guns, they can remotely turn it off, leaving the other people defenseless. Right. That’s not a hunter. That’s a fucking coward. Yeah.
Like you are literally, you’re doing nothing or you’re not in danger in these situations. Oh, but I loved some of the little things that we learned about just like their culture or their species. Like they have wicked sense of smell, you know, like you have to try to use the force to suppress your natural sense so they can’t find you.
Yeah. They have crazy good hearing. And I loved all the little noises and the clips and the chortling. I just, I really love when not only does a story or Star Wars make an alien species that kind of looks like something. But it actually has features of that animal. Yeah.
As far as like the hissing and like that. Like I just really loved that. Even though they’re not very deep characters emotionally. I liked the deeper understanding we got of the species of transdotions. Because one of my favorite things about Star Wars is the alien species.
I love learning about them. What’s different. What’s not.
It’s just something I love. I used to memorize them. How did we not know I was autistic?
I don’t know. But yeah, I used to memorize alien species because I just found it so interesting. So that’s another aspect of why I like it. But yeah, they’re not the deepest episodes out there.
They’re not like, gotta do it. Again, I was like, I can’t pick a bigger arc because I already picked two episodes. I’m going to pick a little one where I like the story.
It’s crazy dark. So I feel like that’s always interesting to talk about. And I felt like there was some good growth of the soak. So I’m glad you watched it through a new perspective and kind of came to understand where I’m coming from.
Matthew: No, for sure. I certainly think like I confess I never really saw it as that dark. And I think a lot of that maybe I didn’t watch it when I was a kid.
Yeah, it was good. And that’s probably a big deal. And I think it’s in part because to me the transdotions felt so like cartoony. Yeah.
But you’re right. They do do a lot with, you know, and the transdotions have been a race that’s now been really well developed and they’re not just all hunters and bad guys. There are transdotions Jedi who appear in some of the books. There are other transdotions characters who are much more like morally complex and things like that.
But you’re right. Also, I think the character design is, you know, it’s not just, oh, hey, here are these people who look like lizards. It’s that I think there’s a real consciousness of in the way like, you know, on this planet apes were the ones that developed and into, you know, primates and then eventually to humans. And the idea that on some different planet, different conditions could be such that reptilian life was what evolved and evolved and evolved and evolved and evolved to eventually become humanoid. As far as I understand is perfectly evolutionarily possible.
And you’re right. It does in the same way that we have like some simian or, you know, ape like tendencies that that part of our evolution that yeah, a race that evolves from reptiles that still is reptilian in some way would absolutely have some of that like history. And that’s interesting and clicking and sense of smell and stuff like that. So yeah, it really, I mean, it is just such a wide incredibly diverse world that it is.
Erin: So, cool. Well, this has been great. Any last comments or quotes you wanted to give us from these episodes. Let me double check.
Erin: This was actually another one from us for zero, but I just size such a troll.
Erin: She’s such a troll. She literally is like, she I’m pretty sure she had already.
Erin: Oh, no, no, no, she goes to zero. She’s holding her gun. She goes, next time you’ll think twice about breaking someone’s heart.
Erin: Oh, wait, there won’t be a next time.
Erin: I just love her character. She’s so sassy. She’s so cunt. Like she’s just an icon.
Matthew: Yeah, no, she’s the best. It’s just it’s a great episode and I and she does show up again, I believe. So we’ll get more of her, I think. I know she appears in books.
So she does. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, Aaron, thank you so much to our listeners.
Thank you so much as always. Let us know what you think. We’d love to hear your feedback. We’re going to start gearing up to be a little bit more organized in terms of when episodes are coming out and or really when we’re recording episodes to give you all a chance to be part of live recordings. I’d hope to hit the new year with that, but getting hit by really bad pneumonia and everyone in my family getting sick and my city getting invaded.
Like, it’s been a it’s been a pretty rough time, but we’re we’re moving along. We’ll have more of that. So please keep checking in. Please keep telling your friends about this. Leave us reviews, leave us comments, leave us thoughts on behalf of myself and Aaron and Alex. Thank you so much for listening. Fuck Ice. Yeah.
