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I worry about that too, anon, almost as much as I worry about the people blaming Anakin for being abused. The whole thing is in bad taste. I don’t know if the people who rationalize it don’t care about kid!Anakin or if they really don’t see anything suspicious about a much older man wanting to spend alone time with a little boy he barely knew.  Either way, it worries me. 

And the worst part of it all is seeing people saying Anakin’s tutors did everything that could’ve been done to avoid it. THIS is not doing EVERYTHING in your power to prevent Palpatine from gaining access to a little boy.

Neither is this:

Or this:

Sate Pestage showed Obi-Wan Kenobi and his young Padawan, Anakin Skywalker, into Palpatine’s temporary office in the Senate Building. Both Jedi were wearing light-colored tunics, brown robes, and tall boots. Facsimiles of each other. “Thank you both for accepting my invitation,” Palpatine said, coming out from behind a broad, burnished desk to welcome them. [...] “As I told you on Naboo, Anakin,” he said finally, “we will continue to follow your career with great interest.” [James Luceno. Darth Plagueis]

or this:

Yoda stared at the floor, both hands grasping his gimer stick. There was no easy answer to that. Yes, he was concerned by Palpatine’s attachment to the boy. No matter how well-meaning, no matter how genuine and heartfelt, the Supreme Chancellor’s care for Obi-Wan’s apprentice was problematic. The root cause of all young Skywalker’s difficulties was his need for emotional connections. His friendship with Palpatine only complicated matters. But the man was Supreme Chancellor. And he meant well. Sometimes politics had to take precedence.[Karen Miller. Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Wild Space]

or this

I would think that Anakin’s friendship with Palpatine could be of use to us in this—he has the kind of access to Palpatine that other Jedi might only dream of. Their friendship is an asset, not a danger.” [Obi-wan Kenobi in Matthew Stover’s Revenge of the Sith]

People try to rationalize Palpatine’s grooming Anakin for years right under the Council’s nose as something being inherently wrong with Anakin and/or as the Council doing everything they could do prevent it. But the truth remains that the Jedi submitted to the Chancellor’s wishes without any resistance because as Yoda himself says: politics takes preferences. Yes, they were fooled by Palpatine’s kind Chancellor persona but that doesn’t negate their responsibility to Anakin as his guardians. I’m not saying the Council knew Anakin would be abused and allowed it to happen. That’s not the case at all. But there’s nothing in canon or EU that suggests they tried to ‘rescue’ Anakin from Palpatine or that they were out of options.

If you're referring to the flashback from chapter 700+4, then yes that was definitely her imagination. However, the one from chapter 700+8 would make a lot more sense if it was a forgotten memory of hers.

Her earlier thoughts about hugging Sasuke were definitely part of her imagination, not only because of her age (because she seemed the same age that she was currently, and we know that Sasuke was with her in the early stages if her youth), but also because it made sense with the context of the scene. Sarada sneaked off ahead because she was so excited to finally be able to see her father, and the mere thought of a joyful reunion with him was enough for her to unlock her Sharingan. That was her imagination:

Thus, when her reunion with Sasuke didn’t go quite as well as she had expected, she imagined that hugging scenario again, and was deeply disappointed that it wasn’t made into a reality:

Now contrast that with the scene in chapter 700+8. The context was that Naruto was trying convince Sarada to look inside of herself, to see if she could “find” or "feel" (depending on the translation) the love between herself and her parents:

And that was when this popped into her head:

The context of the scene has her trying to “find” or "feel" something; to recall feelings and memories that were already there. Why would Sarada make something up if she was trying to find or feel some love from her parents? That makes no sense. She wasn’t formulating any scenarios in her head from her imagination, she was trying to remember instances where her parents demonstrated the true love between themselves and their daughter, and that’s exactly what Sarada did. She remembered, she didn’t imagine.

Apparently owen was reluctant to take in luke at first but beru convinced him to take luke in and eventually he started seeing luke as his own

And owen and beru instilled the value of menial and skilled labor from young age into luke and as soon luke could hold a hydrospanner in his pudgy hand he was put to work and child luke did things like fix the moisture vaporators dotting the landscape clean the filters on the garden humidity sensor controls and other essential chores

And with the small amount of money he had luke would use it on his skyhopper and fly on beggars canyon and just like anakin Luke hated tatooine

And Luke would have friendly racing competitions with his friends and aunt beru hated luke hobby because of how dangerous it was

That's what luke did as a child

Now for luke teen years apparently luke as a teenager wanted to turn his pioliting hobby into a career and wanted to follow his friend biggs darklighter into the imperial academy and while luke didn't like the empire or its rule and the academy had a degree of formality that luke hated he thought it was only way off tatooine because luke wanted a life of adventure and to escape from his aunt and uncle stifling attitudes and style of life

First off, we have … Oh, wait. Satine’s the only named character in The Clone Wars who speaks Mando’a, and she even uses the warrior dialect of the Concordians.

And hmm … there’s Mando’a on the police speeders.

(Also note that the police carry and use blasters and flame throwers, so she hasn’t outlawed weapons either. Mandalorians are also not forbidden from carrying weapons within the city, which is why the Death Watch terrorist pictured above was carrying a blaster. The only people forbidden from carrying weapons are outsiders ... and that was only a rule solidified in The Clone Wars Season 3.)

But surely the children are only taught Basic …

Nope! The children of Mandalore are taught both Basic and Mando’a, but you can see that Mando’a is what Korkie is using on his tablet.

It’s clear the children are bilingual. They use Mando’a for their studies, but Ahsoka’s presentation is in Basic. It's likely that they are using Basic to converse with her but speak Mando'a amongst themselves.

In fact, the only place in Sundari where we see Basic is on the dome’s exits (this says “Hangar 1”), with the implication that they are accommodating travelers.

Huh. It’s almost like violence isn’t the only tradition that makes up Mandalorian culture, and Satine loves her Mandalorian heritage even as she believes (as the majority of Mandalorians did who confirmed her right to rule) that the time of peace had come.

Nonnie, there are so many people who think that that’s bad. And they couch it in terms like “cultural genocide” in order to suggest that Satine imposed her own subjective morality onto them. As if things like warmongering, violent death, and terrorism are culturally or morally relative. 

And I just . . . I don’t know. I get that it’s fiction. And I think that it’s fine to explore and enjoy characters who have these problematic mindsets. Bo-Katan is one of my favorite characters, and Pre Vizsla one of my favorite villains because I like that they do have a relatable motive. I like the tension that comes from realizing that Death Watch has reasons for believing they’re completely justified in what they do. It’s very realistic, even as it’s also terribly scary. (Dave Filoni admitted that he designed Pre Vizsla to have a very stereotypical hero look -- which I think speaks to the fact that Pre is absolutely the protagonist in his own story.)

But for many people it goes beyond that. The idea that people are so quick to demonize Satine and her pacifism and support the violent ideology of Death Watch (a group that is canonically referred to and seen as a terrorist organization) leaves a bad taste in my mouth. 

I get that many older EU fans see Death Watch as more representative of the Mandalorian culture that they preferred before Satine’s story was brought into canon. And I absolutely recognize the hurt that those fans must have felt when the Mandalorians were explored in The Clone Wars. Much of the story of Mandalore as presented in the EU was effectively decanonized long before Disney retconned the EU as a whole. So I get that there was (and is) bad blood in fandom when it comes to the actual character of Satine Kryze (and it’s ironic to me that she is as controversial in-universe as she is out-of-universe).

But the things we celebrate in fiction can also offer a window into the things that we find compelling or relevant for the real-world, which is why I am very unsettled by those who would militantly defend Death Watch’s ideology. 

Death Watch quite literally kidnaps innocent girls as slaves, and then randomly burns down their town killing everyone because ‘it’s their culture’. I mean, geez, I wonder why she exiled them.

2) The Mandalorians were not “initially” conceived as white. They were developed into a fully fleshed out fictional culture after fans wanted to know what the deal with Boba Fett was. The exact inspiration for this culture varied but several writers drew heavily from Maori and Mongol culture. The vikings were not the only warrior culture around and not all of them were white.

3) I find this funny because what happened to the actual vikings was cultural genocide. They were equal parts traders, explorers, farmers, raiders and mercenaries but because those last parts were what people decided to focus on they had to be absorbed into the mainstream white culture by “pacifists” who thought they had to “save” the Norse for their own good.

Should I change my handle to “I don’t care about your published fanfiction you’re overly attached to” so people stop bringing up the EU at me? Even then they were literally, when first expanded on, thought of as “a group of evil warriors.” I’ll fully admit if the exact word Viking was not used, but when designed for TCW they wanted them to be Nordic and for it to be clear that the Mandalorians were an ARMY, not some ragtag group hard on their luck. They were also, you may have noticed as everyone pointed it out, very white when seen collectively in TCW.

All cultures are composed of many things because no culture is a monolith. Like, are we supposed to ignore that raiding and slaving was such a massive part of Viking culture because there were people too busy farming to do that? One thing doesn’t cancel out the other, it’s just a reason why issues are best solved by those living in the culture with a vested interest in keeping the best parts alive instead of being decimated and assimilated by a foreign power.

Which brings me to my last point, one I’ve already established earlier in this thread, but again, I know reading something properly is a big ask: SATINE IS NOT A FOREIGN INFLUENCE.

Satine is a Mandalorian, born and raised, someone who has firsthand knowledge and experience of the suffering this culture of violence encouraged. She grew up on a devastated planet because Mandalorians were killing themselves off when they weren’t busy with the, you know, imperialism, and said “No more.” We are given no indication that she erased Mandalorian art or fashion or music, that she denied people the right to defend themselves, that she denied their past. One of the most significant design elements we see is a giant mural commemorating the war with the Jedi, for example.

2. I don’t really care about Legends-lore, but the fact that some writers you like looked at a nuanced fictional culture inspired by various warrior cultures and said “let’s just flatten these guys into a completely white and boring version of space-vikings” is not the gotcha that you think it is. Also, literally every piece of SW-media since then has gone back to portraying Mandalorian warrior culture more as space-mongols and not “white”. You don’t get to ignore that just because you prefer TCW.

3. The point was that forcing assimilation on a culture because you find them distasteful is always bad. And pointing to the distatseful elements and using it as an excuse to call them a “virus” is really fucking awful.

I am not particularly interested in discussing Satine and I never have been, which is why I never mentioned her in my post. The point was that you specifically are way too comfortable using the rhetoric of genocide by referring to cultural practices as a virus and far too quick to dismiss mandalorian warrior culture as “white” and therefore not seeing the parallells between how you guys talk about them and how colonizers talk about indigenous tribes.

If you really want to talk about Satine though, I think it is important to acknowledge how further nuance changes the way people see her.  Like I said, SW-writers have pretty much all returned to using the mongols and other non-white groups as the inspiration for Mandalorian warrior culture and their practices. That is context that changes the way people see Satine’s efforts to turn all of Mandalore into the “very white” psuedo Nords from TCW.

We are never given any indication that Satine banned Mandalorian art, fashion or music because we don’t know much about Mandalorian art, fashion or music period, though we can probably assume much of it is influenced or connected to war. It does seem like she banned the armor though and we know now that the armor is not just a tool of war for the warriors but also an important expression of identity and their religion. It seems to be an ancestral worship thing which is why the Wrens reject the idea of just making new armor. That alone is a major strike against the Mandalorian culture, not just their “imperialism”. The fact that she is a Mandalorian herself is also context and it makes me less inclined to think badly of her but it doesn’t really change that what she was doing would probably have erased a lot of culture from Mandalore, not just the bad stuff.

Edit: It also doesn’t help that the show is generally unclear on how many other factions are included in the New Mandalorians, or how you guys continually frame every Mandalorian faction aside from TNM as “warmongering genocidal imperialists”. Like, was clan Wren on board with Satine’s policies? Or the Concord Dawn? Because going strictly by what we see Satine do it sounds as if her regime would have suppressed their version of warrior culture just as much as the Deathwatch.

BTW—there is no indication satine ever banned armor. her guard and the police wear armor (and are armed), her former prime minister has a gorgeous set of armor that is way too well-worn to have been forged in the ~6 months between the her death and the siege of mandalore, and her own nephew has combat training. the fact that the new mandos don’t wear armor says nothing. why would a society of artisans, engineers and scholars be wearing a metal suit 24/7? they don’t wear it because they don’t have to. because their society is safe and they don’t have the threat of civil war hanging over their heads constantly. do you honestly believe every single mandalorian was walking around in a suit of beskar before satine? do you think they were farming in their armor? painting in their armor? writing a book in their armor? yknow, doing all the other things cultures do??

there is nuance to mandalorian culture, and it is shown to us in the form of mandalorians realizing that constant warfare is not the solution to any problem. the destruction of mandalore and concord dawn are presented to us as horrific, preventable tragedies. bo-katan and sabine’s arcs involve the realization that diplomacy and peace are noble pursuits, and that there is more to being a mandalorian than a suit of armor.

why would bo-katan tell ahsoka that she wishes she was good at something other than war if we are meant to believe that violence is an inherent and inalienable part of mandalorian culture? why would we see sabine looking forlornly over plains of dust that were once covered in grass if we are meant to look at satine and think to ourselves “wow, she was a terrible person for forcing the mandalorian warriors to stop destroying their own people”? do you not recall the line in voyage of temptation where obi-wan says the civil war satine survived killed most of mandalore’s population?

Source?

the Children of the Watch, are canonically an extremist splinter faction of Death Watch 

Source!?!?

Neither Clan Wren nor the Children of the Watch show any interest in conquering other planets and uphold their warrior ways just fine through bounty hunting and general war-readiness. That is nuance, but not something Satine is responsible for.

And if you had paid any attention you would have noticed that I don’t think we are meant to see Sabine’s efforts as a bad thing, just not universally good either because we just don’t know enough about how far her efforts went or how any faction other than the reactionary terrorist group actually felt about her policies. Understanding that difference requires nuance.

I don’t expect everyone besides the truly orthodox to wear it 24/7 no, but in any kind of sweeping shot of a large population who supposedly “are a people of tradition” I would expect at least some of them to wear it in public as a religious garb since we know that the armor also serves that function in Mandalorian society. The fact that only Satine’s own guard and police are seen wearing it actually supports the idea that she has banned it in public or religious use.

Not sure why you think listing a whole 5 pieces of art (that are never talked about or discussed to give us a feel for if they are representative of anything) in any way invalidates my statement that we don’t know much about Mandalorian art in general. 5 pieces are not a lot.

if you don’t know what you’re talking about, since you also seem to believe mongols weren’t imperialists when they’re best known for conquering half of asia and that vikings were “forced” to stop pillaging by evil pacifists instead of realizing it was more profitable to participate in commerce, then maybe you should shut up. your little cultural-relativist “we shouldn’t call pillaging bad!! 🥺” bullshit just makes you sound like an idiot. in what galaxy do you fucking live in where murder is okay as long as a society deems it acceptable or noble? go outside and touch some grass, dude. oy gevalt

edit: here’s your source for COTW being an offshoot of death watch, from wookiepedia. learn to google

First off, we have … Oh, wait. Satine’s the only named character in The Clone Wars who speaks Mando’a, and she even uses the warrior dialect of the Concordians.

And hmm … there’s Mando’a on the police speeders.

(Also note that the police carry and use blasters and flame throwers, so she hasn’t outlawed weapons either. Mandalorians are also not forbidden from carrying weapons within the city, which is why the Death Watch terrorist pictured above was carrying a blaster. The only people forbidden from carrying weapons are outsiders ... and that was only a rule solidified in The Clone Wars Season 3.)

But surely the children are only taught Basic …

Nope! The children of Mandalore are taught both Basic and Mando’a, but you can see that Mando’a is what Korkie is using on his tablet.

It’s clear the children are bilingual. They use Mando’a for their studies, but Ahsoka’s presentation is in Basic. It's likely that they are using Basic to converse with her but speak Mando'a amongst themselves.

In fact, the only place in Sundari where we see Basic is on the dome’s exits (this says “Hangar 1”), with the implication that they are accommodating travelers.

Huh. It’s almost like violence isn’t the only tradition that makes up Mandalorian culture, and Satine loves her Mandalorian heritage even as she believes (as the majority of Mandalorians did who confirmed her right to rule) that the time of peace had come.

the fact that mando fans make satine out to be an enemy of her culture--write her as someone leading what is essentially a cultural genocide--is very... meta, to me. satine represents an opportunity for nuance in a fictional culture that is primarily known for the cool armor and the badass fight scenes, but the fans like the armor and the fighting. and satine does not. so satine as a character/what she represents in-universe has become an enemy of what makes mandos interesting to the fans. and she is an enemy they can punish by stripping her culture from her, by taking away her history and her art and her context and making her out as a wannabe republic senator with fascist leanings.

You cant forget instinct. Thats why theyre called instincts. Theyre INSTINCTUAL.

I feel like some people misinterpret gokus head injury as a child. He forgot he was a saiyan. He forgot his parents. But it didnt get rid of his natural "saiyan instincts."

Saiyans were ruthless because thats the path they ended up on. Take universe 6 saiyans. Theyre not planet brokers, but saviors.

Saiyans ARENT inherently evil. Goku didnt have issues as a baby because he was a saiyan... he was violent because he was on a new planet with nothing familiar. No parents. No brother. No home. Just a strange old man and things he didnt understand.

So he threw tantrums. Like any child would. And they seemed worse because he wasnt human.

You can lose instincts over time. But Goku didnt lose his saiyan abilities or instincts at all. Theyre still there. He lost his memories. It was his saiyan instincts that kept him alive when he was alone in the woods for all those years.

The saiyans believe theyre superior through years and years of fighting and brokering planets. If their original planet, sadala, hadnt blown up then maybe they would have ended up like the universe 6 saiyans, fighting to save rather than destroy.

But it did blow up. So they had to fight for another. And then king cold made everything THAT MUCH WORSE by basically enslaving the saiyans to work for him. And then later, frieza.

If saiyans were "evil" then vegeta would have no capacity for good at all. And Goku losing his memories wouldnt have mattered. But they arent. Not inherently anyway.

On one hand, for him to say that about Anakin means that he recognizes what happened to him, and that he was in that exact position. Used as a tool, and as collateral.  At the same time, he still calls Sidious Master, indicating how he sees his position. He might have been cast aside once Sidious found a shiny new victim toy, but Maul is not free. He is still chained to his tormentor. 

Since y'all love bringing up what George Lucas said about what attachment actually means, riddle me this: why would he write an entire forbidden romance subplot contingent on the Jedi forbidding things like romantic relationships if the Jedi didn't, in fact, forbid romantic relationships? There's two options here: either George Lucas is an even worse writer than we thought, or he's doing the interview version of retconning shit on Twitter. Since people ignored JKR even before she became prolific bigot, I think it's safe to assume most people think Word of God means jack shit if they're actively retconning core aspects of their work. So Lucas's word is utterly worthless in this argument regardless of his intentions.

Another blatantly obvious bit of proof that attachment=love is the fact that Jedi can't have relationships with their birth family. Full stop. There is no ambiguity to whether or not this is true, there is no George Lucas interviews for you to hide behind; this is irrevocably canon. And there is quite literally no legitimate excuse for the Jedi to do this. All excuses for this, canonical and fandom, circle directly back to "attachment is forbidden", and it is so painfully funny to watch the few people willing to defend this. Most don't even try though, and just ignore this issue entirely, because it is a glaringly obvious contradiction to their glorified headcanon on attachments that they so desperately want to uphold.

You know, I remember back when people on TikTok were freaking out about people not having media literacy. And I remember thinking during that entire time "You guys thought people ever had media literacy?" This portion of the Star Wars fandom in particular is walking proof that media literacy never died, it was already dead the second humanity invented storytelling.

Some disclaimers because some people in this fandom are particularly fond of using straw men and ad hominem, as well as just trolling:

-I don't think the Sith are good guys. You should watch me play KOTOR 1 and count the amount of times I call the Sith assholes, dumbasses, or scum. I very much hate them.

-I don't think that Order 66 was justified. This really shouldn't have to be said, but some people on this platform have rendered this necessary.

-People can headcanon that attachment and love are different things. My problem is when people start treating it as canon and try to force other people too as well.

-Criticizing the Jedi does not mean I am criticizing Buddhism. Even if it did, I will criticize any religion I damn well please because the "It's My Religion" card immediately loses validity the second you physically or psychologically harm other people, especially children. However, the Jedi philosophy on attachment and the Buddhist philosophy on attachment are different, so this argument doesn't hold any water to begin with.

-You are free to like the Jedi. I encourage you to do so. I am not, and never will tell you that you can't.

-I really shouldn't have to make these disclaimers to begin with, but since this is the internet and people don't read the words on the page anymore, I unfortunately have to spell shit out with crayon.

Because Sidious did do this to someone else. He did it to Anakin and it looks like starting around the same age, too. Granted, Maul doesn’t have enough information to know Vader = Anakin = someone else Palpatine groomed since childhood.

This scene illustrates exactly why Spinner couldn't save Shigaraki.

Because objectively, in this scene Shigaraki is explaining how he was kidnapped by the ultimate villain as a child and how he has no memories of himself before that kidnapping. Shigaraki perceives that event as salvation because he was groomed to believe that interpretation. Viewing himself as a moldable empty character before All for One's guidance is also exactly what All for One wanted.

The problem is that Spinner's interpretation of this speech is not, "I need to help Shigaraki out of this abusive situation", but "he's just like me!". Spinner just spent significant panel time explaining how he is an empty person searching for meaning through Stain and then the League. And then Shigaraki describes himself as an empty person. So Spinner's approach to Shigaraki is the same as his approach to himself - trying to make meaning of the suffering through grand acts (of violence) rather than considering an escape from the suffering.

This is a continuation of BNHA's criticism of earlier shounen manga where the hero saves people by overlapping his story onto his opponent's life in order to save them. BNHA is centered around the idea of individuality. Everyone is unique, and each person's story should be treated as their own. Those who save others should center the person being saved in their heroism rather than centering themselves.

The fact that Spinner saw Shigaraki as a hero that would liberate him and the others first rather than a victim of society that needed help is down to how he often feels the need to put people up on a pedestal when they inspire him due to what little he sees in himself.

It’s interesting since while Shigaraki did want to be saved on some level, he also did see himself as a person to be feared, a person with a mission. Truth be told, idek if the concept of “saving” Shigaraki ever came to Spinner’s mind before AFO took over since the person Shigaraki made himself appear to be wasn’t someone struggling to escape an abusive situation, since at the time, none of them really saw anything out of the ordinary with AFO. That likely has to do with the fact that abuse and stuff like it were very normal to them.