#bb thoughts

I started out really liking Senya. I loved the idea that a Knight would have interests, and like to sing, and have her own opinions and such. I loved that she's an older woman, when we so rarely get older women in stories like this. It's usually super young hot romancable women which is fine? But I wish there was a bit more variety, so I loved that we kinda got two sides of the Zakuul equation. Koth, representing the people, and Senya, representing the Knights. AND they don't like each other. Excellent

It was really disappointing, in a way, to find out that it's actually just that she's a mom. She's older and she's gentler and she sings and she's also a mother, and those are all traits that people automatically give mothers. So now it doesn't feel like a subversion of anything at all, just playing into a different trope than expected... and that disappointed me.

Plus, it didn't make much sense at ALL to me how Senya could have possibly been involved with the literal Sith Emperor. What little we know about the early years of Arcann, Thexan, and Vaylin's life, I really find it difficult to understand how Senya fits into that.

I'm sure she could, and I'm sure it's possible to make sense of that, but honestly the backstories and arcs and things just make more sense to me if you don't involve a random Knight who also is their mother who also apparently loves Valkorian?? except we never see them together EVER

I especially find it hard to believe that the Sith Emperor, this being of ultimate evil and Dark Side power, also had a somewhat functional and occasionally loving relationship with a random woman. Why????

So. For me, personally, I liked Arcann and Vaylins' stories better when Senya wasn't involved at all, so I prefer to just stick with that rather than doing a huge amount of mental gymnastics trying to make Senya make sense with the larger story.

More importantly: from what I understand, Senya's whole thing was that more than anything, she just wants her children to be alright. So she'll say other things, she'll do what she needs to, but it's all with the end goal of saving her kids. For example, she promises she'll do what it takes when she gets to Arcann, but then. well. she straight up disobeys direct orders to save Arcann and escape with him. She fights Vaylin, and could have killed her, but doesn't.

And that's... all well and good. But I felt like it had a detrimental effect on Arcann's arc for a couple reasons.

First of all, Senya taking over and having the whole confrontation with Vaylin and Arcann... it was really good! But it also felt out of place. It felt like Senya was taking the spotlight away from the Outlander, and kind of taking the choice of it all into her own hands.

I thought it was really cool that Senya couldn't bring herself to kill Vaylin, but also... this isn't her story! That would have been amazing in a movie, but in a story where I want the main focus to be on my characters and how they are reacting/interacting with the characters and world, having decisions made by an NPC doesn't feel the best. It feels like agency over the narrative is being taken away.

I had all sorts of ideas for my own characters to interact with Arcann and Vaylin! And so when Senya had all the big emotional character moments, and the Outlander wasn't even there... it felt like they were kinda getting left out. Like this isn't their story. And YES I know that it kind of isn't. But that's why I am here, is to play a story that my character can engage in. And if my character can't engage, that's a problem.

More importantly (and I think this is actually the thing that irked me more than everything else above): Senya rescuing Arcann and taking him to a healing center and doing a ritual that makes him magically "good" again is really not something I like. The vibes are troublingly similar, in my mind, to a parent taking their grown child to conversion therapy, or a parent otherwise deciding for their grown child that they know best and taking away that child's ability to choose for themselves.

And... I dunno. I know a lot of parents who grieve over their child's decisions, and many parents who are right! Where the child does something and it really is bad for them, and the parents are right that it's bad for them! But that doesn't change the fact that it is wrong for the parents to step in and force their grown, adult child to do the right thing. I think to have someone step in and force you to do what they want, and tell you that your opinions and instincts are wrong... that makes you lose something very important.

So. It makes sense to me that Senya would want to depose Arcann, because he's hurting millions of people. But for her to save his life, when he seemed like he honestly was ready to die? For her to subject him without his consent to a ritual that fundementally changed his view/personality?? It feels, to me, like even if her methods were effective, it takes away something very important from Arcann's story, especially when he was so insistent that he wanted to choose his own destiny.

Arcann tried for years to escape his father's shadow, to establish his own path. For his mother to then do the same exact thing, and force him into this thing that she believes is good for him? How is that any different? Isn't that just the same exact thing? I think the message that it's okay to force someone to follow your vision of their life as long as you're on the "good side" is a really really problematic message. Even letting Arcann choose to go out fighting, and refuse to stand down... at least then, he died by his own choice.