Stories posted

[selenak]

So, here I am, having to write another lecture and two Multiverse stories, and a long overdue story for smashc, and what happens? kangeiko does, demanding fanfic. So, written for alias500, no spoiler beyond the season 3 episode Hourglass:

"Symmetry"

I also posted the beta'd and hopefully improved version of my Padme and Palpatine fic, now titled:

Sole Occidente

(This was me taking andrastewhite's advice: when at loss about what to call a story, choose a Latin name. The words mean "At Sunset".)

cavendish, your package has arrived - thank you very much. I'm looking forward to finding out what I'll make of Enterprise this time around.

And now, back to Darth Real Life! Though I'm also contemplating some meta about why being a fan of Londo Mollari is excellent training for being able to love characters and yet disagree with their views entirely...

Comments

[kangeiko]

kangeiko does, demanding fanfic.

Ah, you know you love it really. *smooch*

[selenak.livejournal.com]

In the dangerous way that Sloane loves Rambaldi...

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

andrastewhite's advice: when at loss about what to call a story, choose a Latin name.

It's a common trick. *g* I remember eretria telling me to do that when I wrote Ars Procudendi.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Ah, the usefulness of a humanistische Erziehung...

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

Quite so, eh?

& ;-)

[artaxastra.livejournal.com]

Speaking of packages, did you ever get a chance to read The Roads of Heaven or Kushiel's Dart? Wondering what you thought of them....

[thalia-seawood.livejournal.com]

Hi!

I finally found the time to review the story beyond writing "I liked it a lot." :-)

First of all, I enjoyed the details you added about Naboo' customs. I had never really thought about why their Queens had to be so young, but your explanation made perfect sense:
No living being should be allowed to have access to complete power for too long; that was one of the oldest sayings on Naboo, and the reasons why the monarchs of Naboo were always changing, and always young, too young to have lost the fire of idealism, too young to have their own families and interests to care for.

This is something I'd thought about as well, but the way you phrased it made me understand it more deeply. The Queen stays, she's is just incarnated by different people.
They saw the Queen, the incarnation of the people, who did not have a face save the public one she painted on her skin, and whose ceremonial robes were not given to any individual but to the office. The Queen was not supposed to change.

This is a great insight:
Still, whatever he was now, she refused to believe Palpatine had not started out with good intentions.
After all most people believe in the good intentions of other people. Padmé who is so idealistic herself and truly concerned with the well being of others would be even more susceptible to this belief. Of course, as a politician she also knows that people have hidden agendas, but she has known Palpatine for so long and his facade has always been so perfect, that she simply doesn't want to believe anything bad about him.

Anakin learning the Naboo language to be closer to Padmé is lovely as is the twist that Padmé is not sure if he learned it from the Jedi or from Palpatine. I suspect it was Palpatine who taught it to him. Palpatine teaching him Naboo would be a perfect pretext for Anakin visiting him often. I think Obi-Wan would have been pleased that Anakin had such a powerful benefactor. To him it might even feel as if he didn't have to carry the burden of training Anakin all by himself.

Palpatine calling Padmé "my dear":
I love how you show his first move, i.e. he tries to gain the upper hand by making her feel young and naive, by putting on his fatherly act. While this works with Anakin it's not such a great move to make with Padmé. ("I have a father.")

Sometimes she thought she first fell in love with Anakin because he never saw the Queen in her, only ever Padme,
That's one of the reasons why I like TPM so much. Anakin doesn't fall in love with the Queen, he is immediately in love with Padmé despite the simple dress she's wearing. He likes her exactly the way she is.

Maybe I should start by taking your husband from you
Great line! The way Palpatine says it could also be interpreted as a little joke, but the truth behind his statement is quite obvious and cutting.

What I also liked is that Padmé manages to surprise Palpatine twice. (She also manages to do that in TPM.) But as in TPM this is ultimately immaterial; Palpatine manages to gain the upper hand very quickly.

Regarding the Tusken raiders I'm not entirely sure Anakin would be prosecuted. After all, Tatooine seems to be outside the laws of the Republic. Also the Tatooine settlers seem to regard the Tusken as not even human, they seem to view them as dangerous animals. If people on Tatooine learned about what Anakin did, some would no doubt see him as a hero for eliminating a threat. Not that I believe that Anakin would agree with any praise; he knows that what he did was wrong even though he tries to reason around it by calling the Tuskens "animals".

Palpatine's threat of telling Anakin's child about his father's violent deeds felt very real to me. He would definitely do that later on. I can even see him mentioning it ever so kindly.

Padmé's pregnancy: Do you think Palpatine suspected between ROTS and ANH that Padmé's pregnant state during the funeral was faked?

[selenak.livejournal.com]

This is something I'd thought about as well, but the way you phrased it made me understand it more deeply. The Queen stays, she's is just incarnated by different people.

Yes. The Naboo makee me think of both the Japanese and the Egyptians otherwise, but this particular idea actually came from the Greeks - Pythia, embodied by different priestesses over and over again.

Padmé who is so idealistic herself and truly concerned with the well being of others would be even more susceptible to this belief. Of course, as a politician she also knows that people have hidden agendas, but she has known Palpatine for so long and his facade has always been so perfect, that she simply doesn't want to believe anything bad about him.

That's my interpretation. I also think that if he had been another politician whom she only met later in her life, as adult and senator, she might have been distrustful sooner, but he was from her own world and probably, the Queens before her aside, the most prominent politician there, the one young people in the legislative programs like herself would try to emulate. It's hard to see the feets of clay of a childhood idol.

Anakin learning the Naboo language to be closer to Padmé is lovely as is the twist that Padmé is not sure if he learned it from the Jedi or from Palpatine. I suspect it was Palpatine who taught it to him. Palpatine teaching him Naboo would be a perfect pretext for Anakin visiting him often.

Indeed, and a shared language creates intimacy.

I think Obi-Wan would have been pleased that Anakin had such a powerful benefactor. To him it might even feel as if he didn't have to carry the burden of training Anakin all by himself.

That was my background idea for this detail, yes. As I said to butterfly, I don't think Obi-Wan distrusted Palpatine from the start, only later on, after the man had been Chancellor for a while.

Maybe I should start by taking your husband from you
Great line! The way Palpatine says it could also be interpreted as a little joke, but the truth behind his statement is quite obvious and cutting.

Yes. And before you ask, besides that obvious and cutting truth he also means it subtexty.*g*

Regarding the Tusken raiders I'm not entirely sure Anakin would be prosecuted.

Of course, we have no idea of Republic laws in this regard. But to draw a parallel: it is possible to sue individuals for massacres committed in other countries post-WWII here. Think of Pinochet, a citizen of Chile, arrested in Britain due to the warrant of a Spanish judge. At that time Pinochet could not have been prosecuted in Chile due to the amnesty he had issued for himself (which has now been revoked). If the Republic has similar laws, Anakin in theory could be prosecuted for a crime he committed on a planet not belonging to the Republic. But as we don't get a clue about these laws from the music, this is entirely my speculaton.

Palpatine's threat of telling Anakin's child about his father's violent deeds felt very real to me. He would definitely do that later on. I can even see him mentioning it ever so kindly.

If he had gotten his hands on Luke or Leia and for some reason had not killed them, I think that would have been more than likely.

Padmé's pregnancy: Do you think Palpatine suspected between ROTS and ANH that Padmé's pregnant state during the funeral was faked?

No. And indeed the pregnant state during the funeral was mainly for his benefit, as this would have been before Anakin was ready to walk about as Vader, meaning Obi-Wan and Yoda probably still thought he had died on Mustafar. Anyway, if Palpatine had suspected the child hadn't died with Padmé, I think he would have searched, and he didn't. Plus both the original version of ESB and the slightly changed dialogue from the DVD make it clear that the existence of Luke (as opposed to anonymous lucky pilot No.1 from the Death Star business) is news to Palpatine.

[thalia-seawood.livejournal.com]

Yes. And before you ask, besides that obvious and cutting truth he also means it subtexty.*g*
:-) I don't have to tell you how much I enjoy subtext. And Palpatine-Anakin makes for extremely interesting subtext.
Have you read "Luminous" by pen_and_umbra by the way?

Of course, we have no idea of Republic laws in this regard. But to draw a parallel: it is possible to sue individuals for massacres committed in other countries post-WWII here. Think of Pinochet, a citizen of Chile, arrested in Britain due to the warrant of a Spanish judge. At that time Pinochet could not have been prosecuted in Chile due to the amnesty he had issued for himself (which has now been revoked). If the Republic has similar laws, Anakin in theory could be prosecuted for a crime he committed on a planet not belonging to the Republic. But as we don't get a clue about these laws from the music, this is entirely my speculaton.

Well, even if he would not be prosecuted, it would be extremely bad if the Jedi learned of Anakin's behaviour.
Part of Anakin's problem is that he doesn't trust Obi-Wan. He sees him so much as a "company man" that he thinks if he tells him about the Tuskens or about his marriage to Padme Obi-Wan would never talk to him again. And of course, Anakin does not want to disappoint Obi-Wan.
I believe that Obi-Wan would forgive him, because he has come to love Anakin, but he would definitely be hurt by what Anakin had done.
(Something else I've noticed: Anakin occasionally seems to follow the rule "if I don't talk about something, I can pretend it didn't happen". He does that with the Tusken slaughter and with the murder of the younglings.)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Yes, I read "Luminous", though for my money the best take on this so far has been "Between the Stars" (http://www.livejournal.com/users/scela_letifer/61769.html)

Something else I've noticed: Anakin occasionally seems to follow the rule "if I don't talk about something, I can pretend it didn't happen". He does that with the Tusken slaughter and with the murder of the younglings.

Quite. Talking would be acknowledgment and facing responsibility for it, and he can't (not for a long while), so he doesn't.