YOU DON’T REALIZE HOW GOOD THIS EPISODE IS UNTIL LIKE YOUR THIRD FULL REWATCH OF THIS SHOW AND TWO STRAIGHT YEARS OF ARGUING ABOUT STAR WARS POLITICS AND ALSO FANDOM POINTING OUT EVERY SINGLE “ECHO AND RHYME” WE CAN POSSIBLY FIND.
The first time I saw this episode, when I was tearing through TCW at speed because it was new and I was hooked and it was so good, this one didn’t really have much of an impact on me. Not my favorite characters, I appreciate that Toydarians got some better portrayals other than Watto, but man the middle of it definitely dragged for me.
Then I rewatched it, after two years of examining politics in Star Wars and having fun with all those parallels and echoes of stories. And this time the episode hit me like a goddamned brick.
It’s an episode about whether or not Toydaria should remain utterly neutral in the war or let themselves become a staging area for humanitarian aid to Ryloth, which has been under siege by the Separatists. Lott Dod of the Trade Federation pops up and is like, yes, but it’s under a Separatist Blockade and, if you help, the Separatists will see it as breaking your neutrality. Which means your entire planet will be at risk, your own economy could tank because you have vital contracts with us and it’ll force us to cease trade with Toydaria. You can’t just have a humanitarian base, you’ll get drawn into the war, you’ll be a military base, that’s how war goes.
Bail Organa counters with that the Twi’leks didn’t ask to be invaded by the Separatists, they didn’t ask to be taken hostage and dying in a war they didn’t ask to join, either. Don’t let them suffer just for the sake of your neutrality!
King Katuunko and his advisers debate for a brief while–all while clones and Jedi and Twi’leks are dying on Ryloth–and eventually says that we cannot get involved in this war. No matter that compassion is one of the most important tenets of our society, for the sake of my people, we must remain neutral.
Stuff happens, King Katuunko eventually realizes that neutrality is maybe not actually a great thing when people are out there dying and you’re not doing anything to help–yes, even if that means you get drawn into the war.
That’s it, that’s the message: When innocents are dying at the hands of invaders, neutrality is not a compassionate, caring choice.
What of course made me sit up and take notice was the deliberate use of the word “compassion” being used as one of their tenets and we all know who that reminds us of: The Jedi have compassion as one of their central tenets as well. The Jedi, who have already been drawn into this war.
And this is exactly why I don’t think the Jedi could have made any other choice, shouldn’t have made any other choice, about joining the war.
Billions of lives are at stake–even Hera Syndulla says in Rebels, how she remembers that clones and Jedi working together saved billions of people, including herself. We literally see the innocent people of Ryloth suffering because the Separatists attacked them. It doesn’t matter that many of the people in the Separatist Senate and worlds who joined did so because they were sick of the Republic ignoring them and their valid concerns. (Doesn’t matter in the sense of whether or not it affects trying to remain neutral in the war, not doesn’t matter in the sense of trying to find peaceful solutions, that’s an important difference.) Because this was always going to happen. Innocent worlds were always going to be invaded and held hostage and murdered and stripped for resources because of who was running the show over there.
Being neutral in such a conflict was narratively shown as the wrong choice, that’s why Katuunko realizes his error. That’s why Bail Organa (a character we know is caring and compassionate) argues in favor of the Republic, why Alderaan joined the war. That’s why Padme, even when she wishes she could remain neutral, argues her way back to saying she must try to change things from within.
This is a sentiment that’s at the heart of the theme of the episode, that Ahsoka echoes it in the classes she teaches to the Mandalorian cadets. And it’s one that’s important to the themes of Star Wars characters’ actions, especially in the prequels–that it’s the very heart of the Republic vs the Separatist war.
Do you remain with the system and try to improve it from within?
Or do you leave it and bombard it from the outside in hopes of burning it down to create something better?
The answer depends on context and the situation and whether or not there’s hope for rooting out the corruption. For example, Padme believes that they’re at that point with the Republic. Bail believes they’re at that point with the Republic. That they still have the belief they can make it better. They still have hope.
This is why Bail joins the Rebellion under the Empire, though. Because the Empire being worse isn’t just a matter of contrast, but it illustrates having passed a moral event horizon, where it’s not possible to salvage it anymore.
The issue of the above and the issue of neutrality overlap a lot in this episode (”Corruption”), but the point of many in the Republic is that neutrality was not an option because it ignored that they could be doing something.
And that’s why I cannot possibly imagine the Jedi not trying to help. I cannot possibly imagine them saying, no, we will abstain from this war, when people were going to suffer and die if they didn’t. That’s even setting aside that George Lucas describes them as literally being drafted into the war, that that was the narrative take-away, how could they possibly have refused?
Even in Kanan: The Last Padawan, Depa says she thinks they made a critical error in accepting titles in the war, but the clones vehemently disagree, because she’s underestimating the importance of clarity of chain of command, so that people know what they’re doing and where they’re going and how to get organized, so they’re not half-fighting each other and half-fighting the Separatists, which would have gotten even more people killed. There’s no clean answer to that problem, because they can both be right–the Jedi accepting titles in the war led them into being seen as the villains of the conflict by those who were tired of the war (Star Wars Propaganda makes the very clear point of how this narrative was painted onto them, rather than what they created for themselves), but the clones are also right that unclear lack of chain of command would have made everything an absolute hot mess.
So, neutrality was a really shitty option and, further, what does it even gain anyone? Satine Kryze fought so incredibly hard to keep Mandalore and the other worlds neutral, because she didn’t want to drag her people into war, and how did that end up for Mandalore? Even setting aside that they were refusing to help fight against the evils being inflicted in the galaxy, even setting aside that whatever points they made, they ignored worlds like Ryloth?
It got them nowhere good:
Their neutrality still didn’t protect them from trade routes being closed to them and their world suffering through a supply crisis.
This is what politics in the GFFA does. You cannot just ignore it and say, “Fuck politics! We’re not going to play that game!” because then you end up like Mandalore–starving and cut off from the connections you need to survive.
That would have happened to the Jedi in a heartbeat. Their granted legal authority to help anyone? Cut off. Their Republic funds for their Temple, their home, their food, their clothing, their ships? Cut off. Add in scary mind powers and people would turn on them incredibly quickly, as well as they have the hauntingly clear illustration of what happens to neutral worlds when people are in a war and scared and not thinking clearly–they lash out, they react, they turn their backs. Mandalore managed to scrape by for awhile, but it was unstable and chaotic and we can see how that unfolded.
It doesn’t make the situation right, not even close. But it’s the situation that you deal with, you work within the system of government you have, you do what you can to try to make it better, you try to help as many people as you can.
And neutrality doesn’t help anyone but yourself–and, even then, ultimately that’s not true, either. We see that illustrated very clearly.
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