This is crazy rambly and im too tired to edit this into something more comprehensible but hopefully something i have to say makes sense and is interesting 😭
I just feel like way to much blame is dumped on Fox for Fives death. And im not excusing him for killing him, i think Fox was 100% in control of his actions and i don’t think he was threatened or anything into doing it
However-everyone always likes to talk about how palpatine is responsible for everything that ever goes wrong in Star Wars and how he was manipulating everyone, but for some reason that doesn't seem to apply to Fox even though hes fox's direct superior?
And like there is literally no scenario where fives wouldn't have died. From a purely literary standpoint the entire story would have fallen apart if he was allowed to live and tell people about the chips, like every star wars movie would have to be scrapped to make that work.
And in universe there is simply no way palpatine would have let him live. Like fox is less than a cog in a machine he is the most easily replaceable slave and if it wasn't him pulling the trigger it would have been someone else.
And everyone loves to argue that he could have just stunned fives but what after that? Fives gets arrested and then executed for attempted murder of the chancellor? Clones arnt even legally classified as sentient so dudes not getting a trial? And that's assuming palps doesn't just have him taken out by an assassin while in custody just to ensure he doesn't talk.
Or maybe somehow anakin, in trying to help fives, gets him sent to kamino to "fix" him and he gets decommissioned there? Or maybe fives never gets caught in the first place, he makes it to the 501 and tells them all about the chips but its too late, palpatine cuts his losses and either wipes out their battalion or activates order 66 early.
Like come on are we seriously blaming the slave for being a slave? There is no way Palpatine's orders weren't shoot to kill. Uhhhhgggggg give my guy a break, also??? Why are we acting like Fox betrayed fives by killing him? He literally has never met they guy and also also we are shown in the umbra arc that clones executing other clones for treason is not out of the ordinary and that they are expected to do so???? Oh my gooood
Idk im going to bed, might delete this when i wake up