the real slim reejie

and listen, I totally get the idea behind it. they’re both young formerly promising men who spiralled downwards into violence and authoritarianism and, as a result, betrayed their best friends and the women they care for. on a basic level, they have some similarities. but again, it’s like… the most BASIC and SURFACE LEVEL comparison to make!

snow is not a fallen angel or tragic doomed hero. the entire point of the book + film was that he was always prone to thinking manipulatively, to being selfish, to being violent, to liking the system too much, to letting not just anger but genuine hatred inform his decisions. HE IS THE VILLAIN. and vader is a villain too— the most iconic villain of all time— but anakin is a whole other story, and coriolanus doesn’t hold a candle to anakin when you compare some deeper elements of their motivations.

first off, you only need to look at how they treat their ladies to understand what I’m saying. everyone loves the heartbreak of anakin and padme just as they love the heartbreak of lucy and snow, but that love for their tragic story seems to blind people to the absolute insanity that is snow’s thoughts about lucy. he lies to her, thinks she’s trying to kill him, her song doesn’t satisfy or please him, and in the books he even goes so far as to say she isn’t even that good looking??? anakin, on the other hand, delivers a minute-long monologue about how deeply in love he is with padme, how a single kiss from her haunts him, how he is willing to utterly devote himself to her and fulfil her every demand because there’s nothing else he can do. he expresses his love in a very immature way at times, but it is real and genuine. tbosas makes you question at times whether coriolanus really loves lucy, or whether just this idea of “taming” her seems appealing.

even their downward spirals are vastly different in nature. coriolanus snow becomes more paranoid in an attempt to maintain his image, in order to keep lucy under his spell. his ambitions are nuanced, not black and white by any means, but they are selfish. anakin’s spiral, though there’s no denying the horrific acts he commits, begins from a place of fear and love. he is so genuinely scared of losing his wife and his unborn children that he becomes susceptible to an outside force manipulating him towards the dark side. anakin also fulfils that element of the shakesperian tragic hero in that there’s this idea of potential that we see so present in him. he’s introduced as the one who would bring balance to the force, someone powerful beyond comprehension, a saviour of sorts. snow was never shown to have that level of promise. he was just a man who existed in a system and it is about him grappling with that system until eventually that disgusting fascist mindset takes over.

and lastly, of course, you can’t ever mention these two in tandem without remembering the fact that anakin did the right thing in the end! and coriolanus did not! luke fought to bring anakin back when vader had taken over for so many years, and in the end it paid off. anakin does the truly selfless thing in sacrificing himself to save luke. he lets love inform his decisions, as he once did before, only the fear is gone and so that love orients him towards good instead of darkness. anakin is a fallen angel, but he’s also a man who loved too much and didn’t know what to do with it. snow, comparatively, admits he isn’t above killing children and then laughs in the face of the masses he’s worked to oppress for over half a century right before his death.

anakin skywalker’s story is of the destruction and reconstruction of his good heart, of light, of balance, of love. it is cyclical, and it is tragic. coriolanus snow’s story is not. it is a story not of something sinister growing in an otherwise good heart, but a story of something sinister unravelling and revealing itself.

James: Well, one would be nice

Regulus:

If I have already posted I am reposting