#pong krell

Been thinking about the tragedy that was the Umbara arc but from the 212th's perspective. Cause like, Obi-Wan was on planet. He was an active General fighting, in the grand scope of things, not that far from the 501st.

The guilt he and Cody must have felt being there, fighting but not noticing. And the 501st and even some of their own men... Waxer among them, paid the price.

And ive been seeng some people say "if obi was on planet why didnt he help the 501st?" and "why wouldnt obi help the clones arrest krell?"

Its because he didn't know. Yeah he's on planet and probably getting updates from the 501st since he's the highest ranking soldier on sight being a High General. But that info is always bare bones. Enemy position, ally position, target time to get to new position. That's probably it. And its relayed from communications officer to com officer. Obi doesn't have the time to be taking that info directly.

He doesnt have the time because Umbara was already hell before Krell arrived. I think fans often forget, the 501st and 212th were already ingaged in bloody guerilla warfare before that bastard showed up to make an already horrible situation 1000x worse. All this to say, Obi-Wan and the 212th were too streched thin with their own battles to look further into why the 501st seemed to be moving slower than usual.

So imagine your Obi-Wan or Commander Cody or anyone else apart of the 212th, and you see the explosion in the sky signaling that this. This is the turn of the war, finally. Hope has returned because now they can turn the tides! And then the next day, you send off a squad a troopers to help the 501st, who apparently were overrun, and the Umbarans have taken to wearing dead troopers armor.

And then that squad goes radio silent. for hours past when they were supposed to check in. and the next time you hear about that squad, its from Rex, probably comming Cody. because who else is he gonna com when so many of his men are dead, and now a Jedi is dead, and they shot their own brothers, we shot our brothers, they- your men, we shot- Waxer he- I'm sorry Cody, I'm so sorry

So here the 212th is. They have turned the tide is this wretched horrible bloody dark tiring battle. they see the light at the end of the tunnel. and then they get the news that a the 501st has been decimated. they have been beat down, threatened, tossed out to die without a thought. betrayed by a Jedi. that same Jedi then decided, because tormenting one battalion wasn't enough, to involved the 212th. deliberately gave false information. lead a squad of orange painted brothers to their own personal hell for the simple offense of the 501st refusing to shoot their own brothers.

absolutely blindsided by the betrayal and loss of their men. the 212th squad only has about 3 soldiers left after the confrontation with Krell. What kind of emotional whiplash that must have caused the whole of the 212th, but Cody and Obi-Wan especially. Hell, fucking Boil.

you know that classic scene that appears in a lot of media, where the heroes have won, and everyone is yelling and cheering and celebrating around them. and then one character gets a phone call, and the noise of joy fades out as a look of horror crosses the face of the person on the call, because they were just told what it truly cost to win. and now they stand there, the only one not celebrating among the crowd.

They send him to the 501st because Cody can keep an eye on him and Rex, as the batch baby, may have some luck getting him to sleep. Fox decides to make this everyone else’s problem by getting into screaming matches with Anakin over his ability to make battle plans, terrorizing logistics officers, abducting shines into his “spy network” (aka cult, also known as being adopted), and ranting to anyone who will stay still long enough about how palpatine is secretly a sith and is controlling both sides of the war.

Fortunately he calms down a bit when they let him out of the ship onto a battlefield. He’s used to being able to run around Coruscant, which is a giant parkour playground, and doesn’t do well cooped up too long. Unfortunately the battlefield is Umbara.

When Krell gets there Fox tells him he’s shit to his face and pulls out his spreadsheet to prove it. (The spreadsheet is a meticulously crafted document ranking every Jedi general and commander based in multiple factors like casualties, treatment of troops, how the chancellor feels about them, ect. Number 1 is Plo Koon and 2 is Mace Windu. Krell is last, Anakin is second to last.) Rex keeps trying to get Fox not to pick fights with commanding officers and reminds him he’s supposed to be on vacation, but Fox doesn’t listen cause he’s too busy radicalizing the ARC troopers.

maybe i'm super late to this party lmao but ever since i read about this fan theory, it's really stuck with me. have y'all heard this one before or...???

so i've always believed that Anakin was intentionally called away from Umbara by Palpatine... but only because Palps was trying to get Rex and/or a good chunk of the 501st killed, to push Anakin closer to the dark side.

but what i never considered, until recently, is that Pong Krell was also intentionally chosen by Palpatine as the one to temporairly take over -- primarily as a "test" for Order 66, but also to test Krell himself.

could a large group of clones take down a single Jedi knight/master? how does Palps test that? how about taking the 501st legion away from Anakin "i care a lot about my men" Skywalker and placing them under the authority of Pong "i could not care less about these creatures" Krell in a major battle? who else, except probably the 104th, would be most likely to fight back against an anti-clone general?

simultaneously, it was a test of Krell himself, who openly admits in the end that he was trying to impress Dooku to become his apprentice -- something Palpatine very likely knew about.

in the end, as always, Palpatine comes out on top. either Krell succeeds, proves himself a worthy darkside apprentice, kills a lot of clones and sets off Anakin, OR Krell fails, as he did, and Palpatine loses nothing... and either way, Palps learns how ineffective or effective a group of clones can be against a skilled Jedi.

The Clone Wars (2008-2020)

S4E10 • The Carnage of Krell