Ryan. 34. He/him pronouns. I use this blog to support everyone, LGBTQA. Things I've been: Writer. Student. Teacher. Musician. Dancer. Actor. Things I am: Enthusiastic. Ridiculous.
MORE INTERESTING NOTES–Qui-Gon’s presence is felt all throughout this issue, where it’s easy to read this and think that Obi-Wan means he’s different from Qui-Gon in that he goes along with the Council, rather than fights them, to which there is a degree of accuracy in this, especially given the flashback Obi-Wan thinks about when he says that he’s a different kind of teacher from Qui-Gon, but it’s also this very same issue where Obi-Wan kinda talks back to Yoda a little, where he directly tells Anakin the that the Council isn’t perfect. It’s not just about this one thing, but about a bigger approach to things.
And it reminds me a lot of what we saw of Qui-Gon in TPM, where I view his actions as trusting his students to understand what he means and that this approach works with Obi-Wan. While I think Obi-Wan was a little stung about the way Qui-Gon threw him over for Anakin in such an abrupt manner, he also understood that Qui-Gon was in a difficult position, that as much as it might sting to him, it was also a genuine show of trust that he really was ready, that Qui-Gon entrusting Anakin’s training to him was another sign of how Qui-Gon’s faith in him was strong and that Obi-Wan was important to him. There’s a reason the idea of Obi-Wan feeling unwanted by Qui-Gon doesn’t come up in his conversation about Qui-Gon with Anakin in this issue, that they talk about how they each felt unwanted by the other and that would have been a perfect chance for Obi-Wan to say that he felt unwanted by Qui-Gon, too. But the narrative never draws that conclusion or even goes anywhere near it. Because Obi-Wan gets it in a way that Anakin doesn’t.
Instead, looking at these panels, looking at how Obi-Wan is working to find a balance between Anakin’s need to learn the foundations of what being a Jedi is and that he’s got special, unique needs, he realizes that the dynamic he and Qui-Gon shared won’t quite work with Anakin. It makes me think of how Qui-Gon treating Anakin like he treated Obi-Wan when nominating him for the trials? Would have been a disaster, because Anakin has such trouble with looking beyond himself and how special he is, because he didn’t grow up with the same security and comfort that the Jedi did. Obi-Wan works to make allowances for these things with Anakin, in a way Qui-Gon never had to with Obi-Wan, because Obi-Wan grew up in a stable and safe environment! And while Qui-Gon was incredibly warm with young Anakin and maybe he would have learned to adjust his style to Anakin’s needs, I still look at that scene on the flight back to Coruscant, where Qui-Gon leaves a cold kid huddled in a corner, because he doesn’t really seem to get that a child wouldn’t speak up if they had needs. (Setting aside, you know, that the real answer is the plot demanded Anakin and Padme have a moment of bonding there.) Because he’d only dealt with Jedi children up to this point, who grew up in an environment that taught them better.
Ultimately, this comic is inviting us to look at the scenes of Qui-Gon, who praises Obi-Wan and reminds him to be mindful of the living Force and clashes with the Council, and be reminded of all the things that we saw in The Phantom Menace. That the more traditional teaching approach worked for them, but it won’t work for Obi-Wan and Anakin, that instead Obi-Wan is taking a gentler, less traditional approach with Anakin, that the usual milemarkers won’t work for Anakin because his power with the Force far outstrips his emotional maturity, so they have to try to find balance between those things.
It’s just a really fantastic look at how much Obi-Wan was considering and looking at the big picture and really accommodated Anakin’s different needs, how much thought he genuinely gave to this, how much the Jedi really worked to meet Anakin’s needs, that even Yoda’s pointing out that they must commit to Anakin and Obi-Wan agreeing and doing just that. They gave him structure (which Anakin needed so desperately, even more than other kids, because of the lack of it when he was younger) but didn’t force him into rigid, standardized training. Obi-Wan and the Jedi all worked with Anakin to adjust to what he needed and one of the things that I love so very, very much about this issue is the lack of Palpatine in it, that we see a happy, positive ending without that external influence, which speaks to how so much of what happened to make Anakin fall was about him being swayed to that external influence, choosing to follow it instead of the sheer amount of good we see in this issue.
This just furthers my belief that, yes, Anakin’s choices are always and forever his own, he had the wisdom to know better than the path he chose, we see that even here he’s resisting and resentful of being put with the “little kids” because he views himself as more special–but that they could have made it work. That that’s what gets at the heart of the tragedy of the prequels and the Jedi for me, that it wasn’t a foundational, internal problem, but that the external forces ripped them all apart. Left to just themselves, THIS IS WHAT WE GET: KINDNESS, COMPASSION, WARMTH, AND LIGHT. FROM ALL OF THEM, ANAKIN SKYWALKER INCLUDED.
Because the external influences (like Palpatine and the war) are at a distance here–never fully gone, but they’re not part of the storyline in this issue, instead it’s a more internalized look at how the Jedi and Obi-Wan handled Anakin, how Anakin did/did not adjust to the help the Jedi offered him–and we see him learning and growing. Anakin’s apology is genuine, he admits that he was getting ahead of himself, he thought too highly of himself. Obi-Wan rewards him with such gentle handling, with praise for the good things Anakin has done, rewards him with being emotionally available yet again. We this entire comic end on such a positive note, because those external influences are at a distance.
THAT, AT THEIR CORE, THIS IS WHO OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, AND THE JEDI ARE, THESE WONDERFUL, WARM, CARING, GOOD PEOPLE.
AND IF ANAKIN HAD BEEN LEFT TO THE JEDI ALONE, IF PALPATINE HADN’T PULLED RANK AND MANIPULATED THE SYSTEM SO THAT THEY HAD NO PROOF AND COULDN’T SAY NO, IF ANAKIN HADN’T BEEN TEMPTED BY THAT EASIER PATH, THIS IS WHAT WE WOULD HAVE GOTTEN:
Anakin being happy. Making progress. Admitting his mistakes, accepting the emotional support Obi-Wan offered, being genuine in return, letting go of all those negative, roiling feelings.
ANAKIN SKYWALKER WOULD HAVE BEEN GREAT AND FINE IF LEFT TO JUST THE JEDI, THEY WANTED TO HELP HIM AND HE COULD HAVE ACCEPTED IT AND IT WAS NOT INTERNAL FACTORS THAT FUCKED THEM ALL OVER, BUT THE EXTERNAL ONES, PALPATINE AND THE WAR.
We see it written in these panels, that Anakin becomes so good with the Jedi and my heart breaks all over again for the life he could have had, the happiness and mastery over himself and the joy of self-assuredness he could have had if he’d been able to stay on the path this comic showed us.
y’all if you like fantasy or adventure books i would really recommend Empire of Sand by Tashi Suri–it’s mughal-empire inspired fantasy and last night i plowed through the second half and cried. it’s so beautiful and there’s another one coming!!!
Great, so we just cancel R. Kelly and that gets Drake canceled for being a pedophile and Pewdiepie gets canceled for being a fucking nazi. Sounds like a good day’s work.
Why do the different peoples of Middle Earth fight each other instead of bonding over their one shared value: building dangerous architecture without handrails?
Like. Come on. Architects in Middle Earth are, irregardless of species, impractical bastards with murder in their hearts.
Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi are pretty pale for living on a desert planet with two suns.
That is a good point.
So, let’s look at it logically.
The Tatooine system contains two stars that orbit each other fairly closely, but probably no closer than a 7.4 day rotation period (we have reason to believe a tighter orbital period between the stars means too much instability for habitable planets).
It contains an unknown number of planets. Presumably, from the fact that they aren’t mentioned, Tatooine is the only habitable world in the system.
How do we know this? Because the daybreak scene on Tatooine shows the two suns rising together. This most likely means Tatooine orbits both of them.
Which means? The fact that it’s a binary system makes a pretty picture, but it doesn’t make an immediate difference to Tatooine. It might eventually - if the suns go unstable and infall into each other, then, well, time to get in the Millennium Falcon and leave. But during what is presumably a stable period (or the planet wouldn’t have a human population on it - presumably either the Jawas, the Tusken Raiders or both are the indigenes - it’s not actually anything to think about.
Now, in Earth hot deserts (and note that desert means “lack of water” and has nothing to do with temperature. The South Pole is a desert) which Tatooine was loosely based off, the OP would be right. They would be tanned pretty dark, Luke’s hair would probably be bleached almost white, etc. That would be caused by not the heat but the UV component of the light. If you go to a desert you are hit by the sunlight twice - once as it comes down out of the cloudless sky and once as it bounces up off of the dry ground (Antarctica would actually be worse for this, because snow). So, the dryness of the atmosphere and the lack of vegetation cause a lot of UV. Which is why Arabs wear robes and headgear and cover themselves. And also why the ancient Egyptians invented sunscreen. Not sure if they were the first to do so or not, but they had sunscreen. Good sunscreen.
Tatooine, though, is a desert because the planet itself is lower on water. It probably maintains an atmosphere by having a pretty strong magnetosphere (which Mars lacks - but Tatooine is more a Mars type/K type planet than truly Earthlike. It might well be what Mars would be like if it was just a bit heavier and had a bit more of a magnetic field). Incidentally, this implies fairly heavy seismic activity.
There is nothing in this that says Tatooine is hot.
Luke’s farm could easily be in a temperate region of the planet with reasonable, moderate temperatures. Its implied from the way they dress that it’s on the warm side, but nothing we see says that Tatooine is 100 degrees in the shade - and there ain’t no shade. It could be more in the 70-80 range.
So, we have a decent atmosphere, although I suspect thinner than Earth (Maybe the reason Luke suddenly turns into such a good fighter when he leaves Tatooine is he’s spent his entire life at an atmospheric pressure equivalent to being at 5,000 feet…and Rey is from a similar planet). We have very little water.
We also have, most likely, an ozone layer. Ozone is O3 - it’s oxygen with an extra atom. Water, incidentally, is H2O - you need two oxygen atoms to make one water molecule. The ozone layer blocks some of the UV light from the sun.
What turns oxygen into ozone?
Ultraviolet light.
Which means the more UV coming in from your suns, the more ozone. Which also pulls more oxygen atoms into ozone…possibly instead of water. So, hypothesis:
Tatooine has a thinner atmosphere than Earth but a thicker ozone layer. This helps keep the temperature up to levels where Luke is comfortable outside in thin clothing. It also blocks the UV light that would turn him a nice shade of brown. The balance of UV production from the suns and ozone production in the atmosphere is favorable.
So, Luke and Ben can be pale.
And I just wrote a two screen science note in response to a throwaway fandom line…didn’t I.
GUYS CAN WE USE THIS????
It sounds like a thing we might put to use in really cool ways–and it could also explain why Qui-Gon has such a difficult time fighting Maul that first time; if he was working with higher gravity, no wonder his aerials were shit!
dude seeing these Mega high quality images of the surface of mars that we now have has me fucked up. Like. Mars is a place. mars is a real actual place where one could hypothetically stand. It is a physical place in the universe. ITS JUST OUT THERE LOOKING LIKE UH IDK A REGULAR OLD DESERT WITH LOTS OF ROCKS BUT ITS A WHOLE OTHER PLANET?
LIKE THIS JUST LOOKS LIKE IT COULD BE A PERSON’S BACKYARD. LIKE YEA A LITTLE DUSTY MAYBE THERE WAS A SANDSTORM BUT THAT’S COOL I’M JUST GONNA WALK DOWN TO THE STORE P S Y C H YOU’RE ON MARS BICH!
i hate to be rude and intrude on this post but we have decent pictures of the surface Venus too!
