#jester-mereel

I LOVE IT. ME FIRST!!

They're sweet! I think they balance each other out nicely. Even if not from a romantic approach, I think they need each other & are good for each other. Katniss loved Peeta before she understood she did but literally everyone else around her knew it. Native hunter girl & her little Appalachian baker boy, I love them

soooo sorry for how long this took me king but it's only because you asked me this and then i immediately forgot every single trope to ever exist :/

found families. groundbreaking, i know.

this one is pretty broad but i go craaaaazy for when lovers, friends, family members, etc. are forced apart, whether by being on opposing sides of a conflict, their duties taking them far away from each other, they undergo character development and drift apart due to irreconcilable differences..... i YEARN for that shit. and maybe they're able to reunite, but perhaps not. 🥰

fucked up dream sequences!!!!! i keep coming up with ways to incorporate these into my own writing (or story ideas that revolve around them) because they're just so fun and can be really versatile. the metaphors!! the psychological horror elements!!! the unreality!!!! slurping it up with a spoon.

non-linear narratives!!! this..... is more of a narrative device than a trope but i fucking love when stories happen out of order. i love stories where the timeline is so fucked up that nothing makes sense until it suddenly clicks. i love gratuitous flashbacks that seem pointless in the moment until you suddenly understand why the writer needed to show you that moment in time in the first place. i love an unreliable narrator who relays the story out of order because that's just how memory works sometimes. i feel like "non-linear narrative" encompasses a lot of tropes and storytelling devices that i enjoy so. whatever.

haunt is the perfect word yes ok so I'll break down some basic similarities and differences to anakin first.

similarities:

had a master who saw themselves as a father figure/protective familial figure to the person even though they knew this was against their code

said master then indulges them and is blind to their flaws (true master shifu attitudes right? right)

is brought away from their birth family at an age where they still remember them/has familial roots that they are encouraged to ignore but don't.

believe in their own power and that they should exercise it.

to different extents and for different reasons they blame their master for their parent's death

differences

most obviously xanatos' family connections stem from privilege and wealth and anakin was a slave. they both seek out their family for very very different reasons.

so I think xanatos would be an interesting character to compare with anakin even if he wasn't in the same lineage as him because it could've actually delved into jedi and their families a bit more and examined where jedi see the root of their power being. also whether they feel like they are owed something because of their power or whether they owe something themselves.

their relationship with their masters and the flaws of having master padawan pairs and a rule of non attachment could shine a light on that contradiction.

he just makes an effective foil simply you could see on the surface they both fall to the dark side for their family but deeper than that they are very different. so it's a fun exploration!

where it gets interesting is the fact he's in the same lineage as anakin. this creates the idea that this lineage is doomed to repeat its own mistakes and is trapped in a cycle as they are so similar.

on a more character based level you can see the way xanatos might have impacted obi-wan. xanatos is the perfect, and perhaps too easy, an example on why jedi shouldn't contact their families.

the fact, in canon, this is one of the only examples obi-wan sees of jedi and their birth families might suggest why's he like that later on. do I think he's right? no! do I think xanatos changed his perspective of attachment and parenthood? yes.

xanatos also haunts obi-wan because of his impact on qui-gon! and he haunts anakin by his impact on obi-wan's childhood.

side note that I also think qui-gon was thinking of xanatos when he first met anakin. but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

!!!!!!! I have . So many opinions! It got long I'm cutting this :)