#izzy talks repcomm

me: A’den, who idolized Kal to the point of staying at the rank of Sergeant because “if it’s good enough for Kal it’s good enough for [him],” called Mereel instead of Ordo to talk about whether or not they would tell Kal something important, for no discernible reason except to discuss whether or not they should explicitly leave Kal out of the loop indefinitely. He left it to Mereel to make the final decision.

me also: Mereel literally went behind Kal’s back and took Ordo aside to convince him to do so, while they were in the same kriffing room. Mereel would continue to go behind his back multiple times during negotiations with Ko Sai and over the course of developing the rapid-aging-cure.

me again: Jaing waited the entire duration of Etain going into labor, giving birth, and after, and never once made an effort to contact Kal to let him know that, hey, Etain went into labor yesterday. It did not even occur to him to pick up a comm at any point in the many hours that Etain was in labor.

me, once more: Kom’rk never calls nor checks in with Kal, but it’s very clear he does with the other Nulls from time to time.

still me: a huge portion of Ordo’s anxiety towards his relationship with the other Nulls is made worse by the fact that Ordo knows they withhold things from him, and that they withhold things from him because of his proximity to Kal, which, in context, is because they don’t want Kal knowing things without their consent.

me again: all of the above points to the very clear desire to and practice of leaving Kal entirely out of the equation over multiple things and multiple points, and to lie to him directly by omission, over the course of 3-4 books---and, more importantly, points to them actively not trusting him, despite their love for him.

someone: 

ps: btw, love your meta! that's what made me want to read RepComm, to be honest, and sorry for the english, it's not my first language 

I’m so sorry it took me so long to reply!!! THANK YOU FOR THE ASK. And also, just thank you. Truly, thank you. I wasn’t sure if people still read the meta out there or not, but I’m glad that you enjoyed them!! also your english was beautiful, I understood what you said perfectly

but also LMAO at: 

reading this is such an exercise in patience 

I TRULY FEEL THIS IN MY HEART OF HEARTS

Even after all this time, I still LOVE the Republic Commando books. I do---but rereading them is definitely an exercise in patience, now that I see all the problems and the glaring inconsistencies. But I still see the good parts, even great parts, and I keep coming back to them lmao 

BUT TO CIRCLE BACK--- 

I can't help thinking about Tor and Ijaat meeting the Nulls, before and after they left Kal? Or if Ilippi survived, what would a meeting between the Nulls and her be like?

I also think about these things a lot lmao

I’m often torn on the idea of the Nulls meeting Tor and Ijaat, or the Nulls meeting Ilippi if she had survived her illness. The way Prudii talks about her, in Order 66, makes me feel that they’ve internalized the bitterness and the resentment that Kal very likely felt early, early on in their development when he was young, and broke, and alone on Kamino surrounded by people who hated him. 

Kal has long since softened (on her, on his marriage failing, on his biological children disowning him), since he defends her against Prudii’s statements, but the sad truth is that the Nulls learned that bitterness and that resentment from him, originally---as they were raised and trained by him. It’s truly hard to say how they would have reacted in meeting her, and I feel like all of the Nulls would have held very radically different opinions on the matter. 

But, depending on who was or wasn’t present at that meeting, and any subsequent meetings ... would likely change how they react or respond to her. With Kal present, there’s always an underlying need for them to perform in a way that would further secure his love in them (regardless of whether or not it’s “necessary,” though to a degree it is---because of the way he withholds affection when someone doesn’t do something he agrees with) versus showing their true selves, or expressing their true opinions beyond his hearing.

We saw Prudii’s, and his bitterness and resentment likely reflecting Kal’s when he was a decade younger, but I think Ordo would have been much more polite. A’den would have been curious, no doubt, but nosy. Jaing can’t help but be intimidating, even if maybe he doesn’t want to be, and Mereel can’t help but be excessively charming and warm. Kom’rk is a toss up---his choice to keep his distance from the core is one that can be read as a choice to stay as far away from Kal as possible, and it’s one that might lend Kom’rk to being kinder and far more understanding than the rest of Ilippi. 

I wonder, actually, if there would have been jokes about the one woman who tried (and failed) to “tame” Kal (as those kinds of jokes tend to go, I guess?) but if there would have been some respect there, too, for the attempt. Had Ilippi lived, had KT been less biased against her female characters, there’s an entire world of potential, just in highlighting Kal’s faults and how everyone can work around them (or how he could / should work on them). 

I mean, okay. I have obviously softened somewhat on my frustrations towards Kal as a character, and I find myself thinking a lot these days about the Kal we should have gotten, the Kal a large chunk of the fandom think we have (but don’t), and the Kal the books believe they gave us. I think about the way the books should have gone if they were faithful to the narrative arcs they started before they were derailed by excessive soap-boxing and a doubling-down to bend to biases that broke the momentum because they just didn’t make sense.

One of the major arcs being character growth---owning up to one’s faults and mistakes, and making a conscious effort to become a better version of yourself through blood, sweat, and (literal) tears.  

And maybe part of that would always be hindered, or outright cut short, because Ilippi never survived to tell her side of her mistreatment and failed marriage---and also because we were never, really, given the opportunity to hear Tor nor Ijaat’s own memories. 

I struggle to think about how Tor and Ijaat would have dealt with the Nulls. I get the feeling there would be a lot of insecurity in all of them---and a feeling of being replaced, and some lingering resentment and anger towards each other (that should be directed at Kal, but for a lot of reasons, just like in real life, would be misdirected instead to other people). 

Miscommunication is a major sore point for Kal in general---he has a huge inability to actually express his love in his actions, or clarify his intentions, which may be good, in order to separate them from his missteps, which are often terrible. Tor and Ijaat, if they’re well-adjusted men now, would find it hard to not see what being raised in that kind of environment had on the Nulls. They have a lot of issues as a result of their genetics, yes, but a lot of their lingering and prolonged mental illnesses can, in some part, also be attributed to the “affectionate abuse” Kal gave them, and I wonder if Kal’s biological sons still carried lingering emotional and mental scars from their childhood---or if they had so little direct interaction with Kal that what few moments they had were uniformly positive---and if their resentment towards him genuinely was, as they said, because he wasn’t there when Ilippi was dying from her illness.

In this scenario, actually, if Ilippi survived... would they still have divorced Kal from their lives and rejected his fatherhood entirely? All of that hinged on him not being present, him being away at Kamino, during her very last days. 

So much of this also undermines the idea of Kal’s control over the Nulls, and the rest of the clan. If Ilippi not only survived, but thrived, away from him? If Tor and Ijaat are living full and fulfilling lives without him in it? If Ruusaan never “needed” to be rescued in the way that she was? They all would have stood as examples of a life beyond making personal choices and decisions that were dictated by him, and would have, at the very least, been a life that could stand in direct comparison and be just as messy and complicated as real life tends to be. 

also WOW i really .... uhhh I really got away from the point here. I am so sorry LMAO I GOT CARRIED AWAY. IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME since I got to ramble about repcomm, and I really fixate on a lot of the missed opportunities these days, because there are SO MANY. But I guess that’s what fic is for, right?

RIGHT???

Absolutely no pressure, BUT if you do decide to write fic about this, or do your own meta or exploration, I am ALWAYS excited to see what people come up with. I haven’t really been on tumblr that much lately, but I see now that The Mandalorian is out there and people are discovering (or rediscovering) Republic Commando, there’s a wealth of new stuff out there I desperately need to catch up on.

ANYWAY LMAO I’M SORRY I RAMBLE SO MUCH I JUST! THESE QUESTIONS ARE SO GOOD. THANK YOU AGAIN FOR THE ASK. 

if Kal died on that bridge, saving Etain.

like ... imagine the sheer fucking chaos of that. the tragedy? the devastation? the guilt and the horror? the Nulls wouldn’t be able to handle it, but would have to? Omega, scattered, after watching their father cut down by Jedi on the bridge? 

the guilt Etain would carry? And how she might feel like no one could forgive her, even if it wasn’t her fault? Ordo falling apart? Mereel throwing himself into the aging cure work? 

the entire narrative is building up to that scene on the bridge, and it falls flat because the person who died isn’t the one that HAS the most impact and the books HAD been building up to his death---it’s referenced multiple times, everyone’s fear and worry he might die, people scolding Mereel for nearly giving Kal a heart attack, everyone walking on egg shells because they don’t want to upset him bc he’s an old man.

imagine if Kal instead went out fighting. imagine if we were given a satisfactory resolution to his arc---he starts off distrusting, even hating Jedi, and he ends with saving the life of an ex-jedi, because he, in his way, has come to accept and love her.

it’s been bothering me for days, what would actually be SATISFYING and fulfilling but still follow the themes of the series. Republic Commando literally builds itself up as the elders making hard sacrifices and doing terrible things to pave the way for the younger generation to live better lives, or at the least survive the horror of their lives. 

Imperial Commando feels confused, and pointless, and winding and aimless, and in large part that all could be fixed ... by having that tragedy switched and framed differently. 

You know, a large part of my problem with Bardan Jusik is my anger at how as "Gotab" he completely supplants both Darman and Etain as Kad's parent (Kad even calls him buir in LotF which is incredibly ironic given how long Etain had to put up with shit from Kal under the veneer of 'I get to do this because Darman is the dad and that trumps your role in your son's life) and Etain as Kad's teacher of the Force. But honestly this is making me realize (remember? Idk?) that 

the other reason is probably because in books 1-3 we NEVER see him struggle; he just makes radical decisions that are automatically shown to be "right" by the narrative and heaped with disproportionate praise. He does have one brief scene of conflict in O66, but how different would the character have been if we ever actually had to watch him process the aftermath of his decisions as a human... Or even struggle to reach his decisions

aside from the ... really obvious internalized misogyny that’s going on in KT’s thought process when writing all of this, I feel like Bardan’s entire character is so aggressively internal in the way he works through things, processes things, experiences things, that unless he’s given the actual POV opportunity that some other characters (Kal) are given, we don’t actually... get to relate, or even care, about him in the same way.

it’s also kind of weird in that, in a large sense, Bardan is always the odd one out. with other characters, like Mereel or Ordo, other characters comment on how those two have affected them in some way, or might reference something they might have said or done in the same situation. 

but I never got that impression when it came to Bardan. he was just there, almost as set dressing, and the characters never referenced him in the same way---and in the beginning I felt like that could have been intentional, really highlighting how Bardan’s alienated and isolated from “both sides” (as it were), and trying too hard to fit into one community versus another.

as the series progresses though, it’s like you said---the narrative just tells us he’s “right”, and Bardan somehow magically possesses author or audience knowledge about things that, even with the force, he just genuinely should not know---as if KT forgot that Bardan can’t know everything, while she goes out of her way to absolutely make sure we know Etain can’t know everything.

there’s such a vast discrepancy between Etain and Bardan’s treatment, and it hurts more than helps Bardan’s characterization. Instead of being a multifaceted character, faced with struggles and issues that the narrative expects us to simply impose on him with no foundation to see it, he comes off as this malicious tool KT uses to replace all the important people in Kad’s life and justifies it by making him “right” and others “wrong.” 

I can't believe Fi is so low on the "Hawaiian shirt" scale

lmaoo LISTEN

IN MY DEFENSE

if he was on a scale where the nulls and deltas weren’t included, he’d be at the top. it’s scaled against some very extreme vode, ok

he’s incredibly Hawaiian shirt compared to other Omegas and the rest of the clan but he’s a lot less next to Mereel and Scorch. trust me, i’m very scientific

more seriously though, as a character he reads as a lot less Hawaiian shirt than he wants / wishes to be. often throughout the series that air he carefully cultivates around himself is pointed out by different people to be more of a defense mechanism rather than how he really feels about his state and situation in the galaxy, and that he’s often providing his humor and positivity in large part in an effort to keep both himself and his squad in positive spirits---but in low moments that veneer cracks and what shines through is really a deeply wounded, deeply unhappy person exercising the “fake it til you make feel it!” sort of coping mechanism that works less and less as the war drags on

that’s mostly why I have him so low on the Hawiian shirt axis---because even though it’s what he wishes/wants to present to the galaxy, it isn’t what he is / how he really feels. post shaken-not-stirred incident, he actually starts to level out and be more true to that complicated personality within him, and this scale is mostly framed in that part of the series’ timeline.