blueincandescence

OMG THEY FOUND THE DELETED FLIRTY SCENE BETWEEN SPOCK & UHURA

Amazing gif by @aenslem

I have very little WWII knowledge but my little anachronistic headcanon is that Solo started out stealing art from Nazis & Co to preserve it and then it kind of all snowballed out from there. Maybe even has a stash of art somewhere that he keeps hidden specifically so it doesn’t get destroyed or wind up in the wrong hands.

@pawspaintsnthings said on your post:

My personal headcanon is that Napoleon has pro-bono returned plenty of art to it’s rightful hands. And that while he is a thief he does have his own personal moral code about doing no real harm. Otherwise I’d have a hard time liking him and I love him SO

I think what helps support what you both mention is the type of places Solo stole from.

As far we know, Solo didn’t steal from public museums.

So I think the places Solo stole from says something about his choice in targets:

A bank for the “elite” in Florence, Italy

A stately home in Yorkshire, England

A lockbox (presumably in Germany)

Each of these locations requires research to know that there are even specific treasures within them. Which makes me wonder where he got his information. Perhaps as he was living in European high society, and as he attended galas, he met potential marks, saw their art collections, their jewelry, etc., and knew exactly who he was going to steal from. Or perhaps he met poor individuals who lost everything, perhaps they were lowly staff for those galas and they saw their heritage on the wall of some rich individual’s mansion. And these poor individuals really wanted that part of their heritage back but had no way of doing so, but Solo caught word of it. Even the Monuments Men had limitation in what art they could get back, but a thief? A thief doesn’t have to play by the rules. So remembering the other side to his duality, remembering what his signet ring represented, how he came from a lowly janitor, and how he witnessed individuals culture was being taken away from them by wealthy and pompous individuals, that he was going to do something about it. Taking a page from my favorite TV show Leverage, maybe he stole the art back for them. Could he have used the blackmarket to get the art back to the rightful owners without the previous possessors of the art knowing/tracing it back? I don’t know—that would be interesting—but I don’t know enough about the black market to say that’s how it works.

Either way, in the eyes of the law, he was stealing. And he was still moving items and making a profit through the blackmarket, so task forces are going to be put together to stop him. But the idea that he stole from the rich to give back to the poor appeals to me, and makes sense because of his signet ring. Yes, he has a signet ring because it’s what people of class wear, but it possess the face of Janus, which the word janitor is derived. Is it ironic that someone of “class” like Solo, would steal to give back to the lowly, the poor, the disadvantaged, the janitors even, of the world?