#100daysoffinn

for @finnmurdershux and @swrebelfinn‘s 100 Days of Finn 

Here’s Finn igniting his baton:

Here they are fighting:

And here’s a shot of Phasma walking out of the darkness leading a group of Stormtroopers from the teaser trailer:

In the teaser this part is cut together with a shot of the burning building Luke is kneeling in front of, making it look like this scene and that is connected but on closer inspection it looks all wrong.

Look at the curved bit with the metallic reflection in the upper left corner and the debris on the ground, it looks nothing like Luke’s burning building. But it looks a lot like the hangar in the fight scene.

So Phasma doesn’t arrive alone to take on Finn and what’s more the hangar is already burning when she and her troopers do. Someone has already destroyed it.

What’s more, these Stormtroopers with Phasma cannot be the only ones there.

This Stormtrooper behind Finn is interesting because he’s shooting a TIE fighter. 

So the two possibilities seems to be that: A) He’s one of Phasma’s loyal Stormtroopers and someone has taken over the TIE and are helping Finn bust up the hangar. In which case we must be looking at a major infiltration by the Resistance, but do they even have the personnel to commit to such an action? In TFA they looked very understaffed and not at all equipped for such large scale infiltration. Not to mention that this mission seems to consist of Finn, Rose Tico and the mysterious DJ.

B) He’s a Stomrmtrooper that, like Finn, has turned against the First Order.

Now this is much more in thread with what we already has hints off about Finn’s storyline. And it makes sense of his lines from one of the other TV spots:

“I was raised to fight. For the first time, I had something to fight for.”

Lines that clearly comes late in the movie given how he’s dressed.

What happens when you’re told, “Don’t think about the elephant?” Chances are, you’ll immediately think of an elephant.

I think that’s the problem with the Light Side of the Force as we have known it: So many of the doctrines and practices of the LS, such as the Old Jedi way of not forming attachments, are premised on resisting the temptations of the Dark Side.

If your goal is not to  turn Dark, then what are you going to be thinking about? The Dark Side. This is why puritanism of all stripes is destined to fail, because it’s consumed more with what it’s against (sex! rock ‘n roll! murder!) than what it’s for (eh, love and peace I guess?).

Anakin Skywalker’s story from the prequel trilogy is a prime example of this in the Star Wars saga, walking backwards into the one place you were determined not to go. Intentionally or not, the prequels were an indictment of the Jedi way.

I think similarly, trying not to turn to the Light Side has a polarizing effect on those who turn to the Dark Side of the Force. You can see this with Kylo Ren in the new trilogy, thinking too hard about how not to go Light and then running to bugfucking extremes in the other direction.

The results of such extremism, in turn, are so horrific that the other side becomes understandably all the more preoccupied with, you know, NOT BEING THAT HELL NO and, again, being more anti-Dark than anything else. This doesn’t make the LS morally equivalent to the DS, but it does mean that LS practitioners can fall into the trap of puritanism.

Going to extremes seems to be a major theme of the upcoming movie, The Last Jedi, and Adam Driver who plays Kylo Ren has discussed mass murder committed by “both sides” (maybe this is his character’s perspective, I don’t agree with it) and how he took inspiration from the absolute moral certainty of terrorists in playing his character. Since director Rian Johnson has repeatedly said the movie will showcase moral ambiguity, it’s a safe bet that we’ll see the good guys go to extremes, too, something we have also seen in Rogue One.

We can reliably tell where many of the characters old and new fit into this increasingly polarized galaxy: Leia, Poe, Holdo, Rose, Paige, and others on one side, Snoke, Kylo Ren, Phasma, and Hux on the other.

Other characters, on the other hand, stand in notable contrast to the characters whose allegiances are well known. Luke, the character we thought was the Rebel to end all Rebels and the Jediest of them all, not only stayed away for years but still seems reluctant to join the fight. Rey is definitely Resistance-allied, but is still trying to find her place in all this.  “DJ,” a new character, is a cynical outsider who’s only in it for the creds.

Then there’s Finn, who has been in and rejected the First Order and fought alongside the Resistance, but as of the beginning of TLJ is not a committed fighter. Like Luke, he’s wounded from past experience; like Rey, he’s still figuring himself out after his life was turned upside down; and like DJ, he has cause to be cynical of causes in general, something I have previously discussed.

In a universe of absolutes Finn stands out with the other uncommitted characters for his refusal, at first, to choose a side. Turning against the First Order does not mean he automatically chose the Resistance, though he has worked with them.

Interestingly, for someone who rejected absolute evil he seems to have very little to prove. He’s not obsessed with trying not to be evil, or with trying to be good by fighting evil. He suffers the undeserved shame of the abused, but he’s not consumed by it. He doesn’t beat himself up over killing Stormtroopers to defend himself or wonder if that makes him as bad as them, a lack of self-flagellation that some fans have criticized him for. He doesn’t agonize over whether he might be a bad person for lying to the Resistance so he could go back for Rey.

Finn is, in other words, the opposite of a puritan. He refuses to do evil, and that’s enough. He’s not consumed by the thought of it. He tries to be good to the people he meets and distrusts causes and grand theories.

Finn is most definitely not Dark Side, but he’s also not the Light Side as we’ve come to understand it, an anti-Dark puritanism. His allegiance, I believe, is to the Balance as near as I understand it, a goodness that is defined by what it supports, not what it opposes, a space that has room for human ambiguity and fallibility without fear of turning to irrevocable evil.

It’s significant to me that right after his arguably most morally questionable and admirably badass decision was revealed--that he had lied to the Resistance to come get Rey--Finn immediately brings up the Force to a livid Han.

@swrebelfinn

Rey’s head was pounding as she starred at the page in her textbook while Finn kept making noise pressing all the buttons on his video game in front of the tv. Rey tried to keep reading until she finally had enough.

“Ugh! This is impossible.” she complained.

“I know! The Warriors are seriously over powered this year.” Finn said from the couch gripping his controller tighter.

“Finn..”

“I mean all they do is shoot 3s!” Finn continued. “And it’s an automatic basket every time. How am I supposed to win?”

Rey threw her pen down and walked over to the couch and snatched the controller out of Finn’s hands. She pressed a serious of buttons and won the game. “There. Happy?” she asked frustrated.

Finn sat stunned starring at the tv. “You made them miss. Was that some kind of cheat code?”

“Yeah, it’s called defense” Rey said, tossing him the controller.

Finn shook his head. “No way. You had to have done something.” he said spinning the controller around analyzing it.

Rey flopped down at the table exhausted from studying. “Baby, help me.”

Finn sighed. “Rey, this isn’t that bad.” he said walking over to her.

“Pfft. Says you.” Rey said. “The only thing you have to worry about is whether you’ll graduate Summa or Magna Cum Laude. Meanwhile us normal kids are just out here trying to pass.”

Finn smiled and put his hand on her shoulder. “You’re a lot smarter than you think. You always over stress and end up doing well.”

“Well I feel a lot less stress if you help me.”

“Alright let’s take a look.”

____________________________________

Rey closed the text book with delight. “You’re way better at teaching than the professor.”

“Feel better?” Finn asked.

“Much.”

“So” Finn said leaning in. “You up for a study break?”

“On one condition.” Rey leaned in.

“What’s that?” he asked.

HC that Finn has a thing with animals. 

As a cadet in the stormtrooper program, he would excel in the Terran survival missions. When asked how he did it he said he simply followed the small prey animals around to see where they gathered food and to see what was actually safe for consumption. Attempts at copying his method, however, was often met with failure as the small animals would run and hide at the mere sight of a stormtrooper before anyone could follow them anywhere.

Once there was an outbreak of Moraband serpents on Starkiller. Per Orders from the supreme leader, they were not to be harmed in any way. Of course that didn’t stop the serpents from leaving a trail of blood and dead bodies. They were finally subdued when a small group of FN-21XX designated stormtroopers managed to stop and contain the serpents without harming them. The group of troopers were then known as the ‘sanitation’ crew for their uncanny ability to clean up after the dangerous and often deadly animals the Supreme Leader would bring in.

The day after FN-2187′s betrayal, the crew had their first ever trouble containing a simple Nexu outbreak.

Remember that Rathtar that attacked them? It sensed the thread of anxiety from Finn and came to the conclusion that one of it’s own needed to be rescued.

While recovering from his coma, Finn would often go for walks along the edge of the resistance base. He once made the mistake of feeding some of the animals that came out of the forest and now the sight of friendly ash rabbit running around the base has become a regular occurrence. Leia would be mad, but they did help with the morale of shell shocked fighter pilots. 

After the big battle against the FO, after peace has finally been achieved, Finn is often seen with his own therapy cat. A fluffy companion who would calm him down when he has a nightmare, or bring him back to the present if he has that far away look in his eyes. 

now, first off, force sensitive finn is Good Content™ because he’s the first time in the movies that these iconic troopers are given a face, and having him be force sensitive is another facet which shows his connection to the universe at large & the humanity that no amount of horrific treatment could steal from him because he is fundamentally an individual who is bigger than himself because of all he represents

(i’m thinking, too, about it being established that finn excelled as a trooper, that he had talents, that you can’t hide these things. how much the death of a fellow trooper shakes him. that the rebels trust him because he reflects the humanity in everyone -- the force is just a further metaphor for that)

mr finn skywalker tho? takes it another step further because we have watched all these movies about keeping up with the skywalkers (catch it on E! 8/9c) and each features a young person lifted from obscurity and changing everything. each skywalker inherits the trauma & history of the one before them and it accumulates, it's like poetry, it rhymes, etc. now rey can fit this archetype too and i’m not here to argue about that, i want to focus on how, well --

anakin knew his name, he knew his story, but we see him constantly searching for fatherhood, the missing half of the template that made him? the force, qui-gon, obi-wan, palpatine; he even seeks it in being a father to his own child. he needs a reason for why, some guidance, because he is bigger than his skin and he doesn’t understand it. what made me what i am. a name is not enough for him, which is why it gets torn from him and anakin skywaker dies on mustafar.

luke knew his name, but he didn’t know his story, and he feels something is missing. he’s restless, unfulfilled. like anakin, but it’s even worse. then the truth hits. his aunt and uncle die, ben dies, yoda dies -- luke has no surrogates and has to confront what he has inherited, and redeeming vader is how he shows who he will be, who he is. his story is about believing in the humanity & sense of identity a name provides. 

then comes along finn! finn, who was stolen from his family. finn, who had his name torn from him. finn, who was essentially a slave. finn, who has been fed propaganda stories his whole life to deny him his humanity but chose to seek the truth instead. finn, who should just be another face in the trooper crowd, but broke free because he has a calling. when he does so, he’s given a name, and with it, community, trust, and purpose. he mirrors kylo who knows everything about himself and is thus obsessed with the past & repeating the mistakes of it. rey is also obsessed with her family, and this is what really underlines the value of finn in this narrative role for me because he .... isn’t? like, he knows this is a facet of himself and i’m sure he’d like to know more, but it doesn’t define him. 

finn hasn’t inherited anything.

this would make finn the first skywalker who isn’t defined by their name in some way growing up, and this would be something really new and exciting! because you take this character who was supposed to be a nobody but, well, nobody is a nobody (i know, sorry) and he had no expectations but still ends up inheriting the galaxy & the name that has practically defined it for generations now. he pretty much has anakin’s story, but luke’s compassion -- he takes what came before, but he makes something new.

also like can we just touch on this cuz:

anakin commanded the clones, then later the stormtroopers ...

luke made his mark by killing a ton of troopers, basically ...

... and how interesting it would be for their grandson & son to be a trooper himself?

it shows the continuing consequences of anakin’s generation, and how luke wasn’t wrong to fight but, you know, there’s a person under every helmet, not just the one you happen to know is related to you -- and talk about some further vader/finn parallels there, luke’s father and son both losing who they are under a helmet (and finn being forced into one while kylo chose his) and luke learning about finn could so nicely echo him learning about vader except this time it’s a realization of hope that could help ease the space ireland depression spiral he lives in.

and finn? finn gets answers, but they aren’t easy, which is so compelling. and he brings a unique perspective to a legacy that demands so much -- he reminds us that the skywalker name has never just been about the power, it’s been about finding out who you are and learning what a name really means. how perfect a narrative for someone who starts off his journey not even having a name at all? how important for finn to know he was once loved, and that love can save us? how necessary to show the power of choice, and how much impact finn’s will have?