Yuri Warrior

I remember an Expanded Universe comic set immediately after RotJ where Leia tells Luke words to the effect of "Vader literally had me tortured and blew up my homeworld. What, am I supposed to feel kinship with him just because I discovered he's my dad yesterday?"

The important thing that happens in Return of the Jedi is that the Emperor dies and the planet-killing superweapon gets blown up. Vader spent the last two hours of his life doing something good after 25 years of genocide, mass murder and torture, and even then, it was partly out of vengeful hatred. Vader fucking hated Palpatine for a quarter century and never had the spine to do anything about it. It was only after his own son was being tortured to death in front of him that he chose to act - and he'd cut off the kid's hand like two years before that! That's not a fucking redemption arc.

So one, yes, absolutely it is entirely correct to take issue with Darth Vader's apparent forgiveness by the Force, there is no need for Leia to accept him as her father or to feel anything for him besides hate and contempt, redemption takes more than turning back for a couple of hours and then getting out of culpability by dying, all fair.

That said: the original trilogy is Luke Skywalker's story and the story of Luke Skywalker, on a meta level, is about being a young adult in the 60s and 70s who did not experience WWII or the depths of fascism personally, but who grew up with gaping familial wounds - family members who you never knew but who older people refer to or talk around, people they compare you to, figures who other children had in their lives but you didn't. Someone who as a child was given fantasies of heroes fighting daring battles, who was told it was all about nationhood and fighting for your people and the course of civilization, someone who internalized those principles as guiding lights for their own morality and who they want to be... and THEN finding out when you become an adult, and are permitted to know about the horrors, that it is not just honor and glory in your heritage, that you, 70s white boy, may have evil and darkness and the corruption of all your values as a potential to fall into just as your father did, the temptation to hate and cruelty and domination and atrocity. And the absences in your family are maybe not just because of death, of noble sacrifice, but perhaps instead because those people who shared your blood became monsters, severed from their family because of their terrible actions, and still live as awful hateful versions of themselves, enslaved to evil, and that could be you.

And what do you do with that? Will you strike your father down with all of your hatred, when the thing that corrupted him by his hate for its own ends is sitting there grinning and laughing, waiting to do the same to you? Is violence the answer against that creature, infinitely better at taking advantage from violence than you are? Or will you just die - and even just walking away here means death, sooner or later - and let the evil persist?

Or will you, privileged young person with ideals and hopes, with a family member who has done terrible unforgivable things but who still holds affection for you, make use of that affection to tempt them to just turn their back on that evil for a moment, the thing it will never expect from the person it made its slave for longer than you've been alive? Neither you nor he can pay back the crimes of those years, but perhaps you can stop the evil, here and now, from going on.

So you do that. And what is your reward? Is it appropriate for Luke, whose whole story has been about becoming the ideal he grew up admiring and defeating the evil that ideal had the potential to become, both halves of it embodied in the being of his father, to come back to his friends and then have the universe say to him 'your father was unredeemable, and had nothing good enough in him to deserve peace in death'? Or to say there was a darkness lifted from him, and a light restored?

It doesn’t mean people will forgive you - hell no. The things Vader did were unforgivable, and he knew that. But because of that, he believed the only path left was to keep committing atrocities, to wallow in self-hatred and anger for decades and take it out on the galaxy. He says it himself: “It’s too late for me, son”.

But what Luke shows Vader is that we ALWAYS have a choice: To be a better person, and to choose compassion. Anakin doesn’t kill the Emperor out of hatred, or even because he thinks it’ll make up for anything he did: He knows nothing ever will. He chooses to save Luke, and break the cycle of violence because it’s the right, kind thing to do.

Vader/Anakin isn’t fully redeemed by the end of Return of the Jedi: He simply takes his first step back into the light. Obi-Wan and Yoda chose to give him that second chance, but that was their decision to make. The people you hurt are by NO means obligated to forgive you - but you should still strive to be better regardless.

bsky replies: its not uncommon for some tops to put condoms on the strap because its still possible to transmit std's. also it could just be a joke and shes just doing it cuz shes bisexual or something and has them lying around maybe and its funny cuz they dont need them?

In the episode Gem Harvest, Uncle Andy comes face to face with the Gems for the first time ever. He has little to no knowledge of their typical abilities, their hardiness, nothing. It’s all new information to him.

This also extends to Steven. Beyond seeing him summon a shield out of thin air while cooking dinner, he has no idea what kind of powers this kid has. He has no idea he’s able to float when he’s in the right state of mind.

So, when he’s quickly plummeting from the sky, of course Andy literally thinks his new nephew is going to die.

Steven, on the other hand… has become the master of downplaying the reality of any danger he’s a part of. It seems to be something of a coping tactic for him? Perhaps it’s a method to assuage both himself and others of his “safety,” and that he’s “totally okay.” So when Andy pulls off a risky gambit and manages to rescue him from the sky, Steven is- habitually- all smiles and encouragement and cheer. (Can’t show the fear he felt to others, because that would be burdening them!)

Steven: “That was a close one, Uncle Andy! You sure are good at-”

Uncle Andy: “Do you have any idea what could’ve happened to you?!”

Look at that. Those words immediately sober his enthusiasm. The mask falls. A little bit of hard realization sets in. And his uncle- he’s so upset at what could’ve happened that he’s literally crying a little right now.

Uncle Andy: “What good are you to me as family if you’re-”

If you’re dead.

What good is Steven as family if he’s dead?

Y’all, it’s so, so rare that anyone in Steven’s immediate sphere of influence actually bluntly points out the inherent danger of Steven’s life, actually points out the risks he entertains sometimes on a daily basis with the lifestyle he has, living with the Gems. It’s so rare because Steven has very few people who actually exist entirely separate from the small microcosm he’s built for himself in Beach City. Even the townies are super desensitized to the existence of all this Gem related danger by now. In many respects, even his dad is.

So when Uncle Andy cuts through Steven’s jovial downplaying of what just happened, it rattles the kid. He’s genuinely not used to people calling out what could’ve been a near-death experience.