16535--Accessorizing Characters

This is a lot more serious than a mere chat about fashion. I'm not concerned about purses and earrings and scarves being chosen to be just right for your characters, though that sort of thing does carry more gravitas and finality for them than for you.

When you've written and rewritten and settled on just the right item to make the magic flow the way you feel it needs to go, you have to feel confident that you've made the right choices in providing proper expressions of characterization for the characters. There's a tradition to magic rings, for example, that connects them to the soul of the wearer. So, from Gyges in ancient Greece, the rings of power that rocked the realms of Middle Earth or the power rings of the Green Lantern Corps, the choice of jewelry was significant. Middle Earth might not have been so shaken by a Feather Boa of Doom and it certainly would've made the various characters ask themselves some serious questions about their ability to master it. 


"Bow before the...queen!"

Gyges sporting earrings of invisibility wouldn't work to convey the right feel to readers any more than Hal Jordan flying off in a tennis bracelet and Prada shoulder bag to confront cosmic menaces. Granted, for superheroing, it makes about as much sense as the pairing of a ring and lantern (the two being bitter enemies under natural circumstances), but using that ring to create expressions of the hero's will with which to fight evil was an inspired choice. That was an idea that came over time. Originally, Green Lantern's power was just expressed with lots of eerie emerald light...and a smashing purple cape.

Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader needed swords. Jedi and Sith doing battle with rings simply wouldn't feel right either. Even though rings speak to the expression of the characters' essence, they already had a power for that. They needed the contrast of the plasma sword's martial elegance against the use of the Force or else we'd have been watching a lot of stern looks and hand waving.

A character's accessories are important extensions of them whether distinctive clothing or a unique weapon. Warriors should be matched with swift, decisive means of delivering their awesome might (Thor, Conan, Clint Eastwood). Thinkers should have versatile resources through which they can exercise their cleverness (Bond, Batman, Felix the Cat). Passive folk should find themselves with items that are likewise vague and of limited use. Magic slippers come to mind and they are even more passive than magic rings and certainly out of place in a contest of wills and struggles for one's soul. Dorothy Gale did seem awfully light on her feet, though, and maybe Frodo (they're magic, of course they'd fit) could've handled all his walking better with magic shoes instead of that soul-crushing ring. Maybe we could've even gotten in another couple of song and dance numbers.

16364--Wait, the Jedi weren't the good guys?

Those of us who enjoyed George Lucas' little space sagas thrilled at the highs and lows of their conflict and drama, the politics and warfare, and the mystical struggle between the Sith and the Jedi.  We cheered for the Jedi when they won and felt sorrow for them when they fell.  I imagine most people did.  We were supposed to, after all, since they're the heroes of the stories.  They were the heroes, weren't they?

Somewhere along the way, the noble Jedi began to lose their footing on the straight and narrow.  I guess Yoda noticed it when he realized that the Jedi were having difficulty being prescient.  When your psychic levels of awareness are suddenly all cloudy, it only makes sense that you'd want to know why.  Blaming the Sith seemed reasonable.  A sneak attack is so like them.  It made sense to send Qui-Gon Jin and Obi-Wan Kenobi to find Darth Maul for questioning.  When they found him, though, all they did was fight him.  What happened to "Only for defense.  Never for attack."?  I know Yoda drilled that in to those mavericks, but they never asked that snarly guy a single question.  It just didn't seem to be the Jedi way.

When the Separatist Movement began and an organized faction tried to split away from the Galactic Republic, the Jedi kept themselves out of the politics of the situation.  Good for them.  When pressed into fighting, though, they didn't seem to have any issues with putting a slave force of clones out on the front lines.  Maybe they were desensitized by the fact that the soldiers seemed to have less personality than most droids and were clad in robot-face armor, but let's face facts: the clone army was composed entirely of living men who were bred and trained to serve as soldiers.  They were never offered any other options for how they might choose to live and die and no one seemed to care.  Obi-Wan was told quite clearly that the clones were genetically modified to possess diminished will, making them quite pliant to having orders barked at them, and he didn't even pause to question it.  I suppose these legions of duplicates were never expected to have any sort of lives in the great republic beyond military service.  Assuming their survival beyond fighting separatists, being part of a standing army was all anyone ever intended for them.  Weren't the Jedi supposed to be fighting for everyone or maybe the Old Republic only advocated Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness for people who weren't test tube babies.  Come on, human trafficking and slavery? 

People may have raised many debates over the merits of Star Trek versus Star Wars, but the Federation certainly never condoned abuses like that.  The Federation actually takes things in the opposite direction by banning genetic modification and such, but they had that whole history with Khan Noonian Singh and the Eugenics Wars.  You can't really fault them for trying to learn from their history.  I don't even have a guess at how many people Kirk and Spock helped free from those sorts of oppressions.

Contrasted against another champion of the oppressed, a quick "What would Superman do?" should easily produce an answer of "Not send a hundred thousand slave soldiers into a war they know nothing about simply because it's convenient to the side I support."  Barring occasional encounters with red kryptonite, when you lose your way, Superman typically makes a fantastically unerring moral compass.  WWSD?  This particular issue would hold special meaning for him since among the many accounts of life on lost Krypton, one intriguing timeline (John Byrne's post-Crisis reboot) includes a society-changing war that was the culmination of a dispute over the rights of clones created solely to provide spare parts for citizens.  With the clones as an integral part of their life insurance system, the people were provided a buffer against the rigors of time, injury, etc.  Lucas' Galactic Republic used a variation of protecting the people with a buffer of clones by just sending them out to fight rather than letting them sleep and harvesting pieces from them.

We may find ourselves faced with such considerations soon as we advance from couples having second and third children to provide replacement parts for first child in need to growing new organs to bolster our own quality of life.  This leads to the ultimate debate of sparing our children and theirs the horrors of war and new parts by just sending clones to fight and suffer in their stead.  Strict adherance to economic theory says that first child is priceless and every one after is worth less, so what does that say about originals and clone meat?  Are we willing to risk our souls to save our lives?  When the mass production of military clones makes the whole thing cheap and easy, how long will it take for people to stop considering war to be horrible?  Without strict regulation, how long will it take for cheap and easy cloning to make its way into the civilian market, changing the face of labor and human trafficking?  We'll pay a steep price to descend into a mire of devalued life and overpopulation.  Some will say it's a complicated mess.  I say it's as clear as the Bill of Rights and refer to the aforementioned "WWSD?".

Back in a galaxy far, far away, with all that moral ambiguity Mr. Lucas has unleashed, who are we supposed to cheer for?  It's hard to support the protagonists when you're thinking that maybe they deserved what they got.

So for Anakin going to the Dark Side, the fall of the Jedi Order and the collapse of the Republic into a soul-sucking imperial power, the Jedi may have to accept a charge of contributory negligence.  Maybe we can have another set of movies where the clones develop individual personalities, assert Free Will and rise up against their oppressors...all of them.  Ah, sweet Freedom.  Long live the Clone Rights Movement!

It's something to think about.  WWSD?

Did you notice any other ways that the Jedi might have pushed themselves out of balance with the Force?