#reconstructrambles

The Boravian invasion of Jarhanpur is clearly based on current events, both the Russian invasion of Ukraine – the rhetoric used to justify it, friendship between a country’s dictator and a powerful CEO – and Israel’s genocide of Palestine – the plot and goal behind the invasion, the invading country being a US ally. While several people bring up problems with Superman’s ‘didn’t think this through’ approach to stopping the war, the narrative remains firmly on the side of Jarhanpur all the way to the end. In a time where even non-profits are banning aid to Palestine this is a bold move and a much needed one from a moral and narrative standpoint – an invasion turns out to be a problem no amount of strength can solve.

Speaking of bold moves this movie also goes hard into Immigration, the conflict of those who immigrate both within and without. Superman’s character development is centered around his internal conflict between where he was born and where he was raised. So many people here refer to Superman as alien and foreign – which makes it easier to turn people against him. Finally there’s his experience in captivity – he’s beaten up for no reason other than malevolence, not read his rights and stripped of those rights because he’s ‘an alien’, disappeared quite literally off the face of the earth and tortured both physically and emotionally. Hot Damn if that is not exactly what is happening in this country Right Now! I know DC is as money-grubbing as any other company but they at least use their multi-billion dollar platform to speak out against crap like this!

The scene where Malik is dragged down and forced to play a game of Russian roulette by Lex Luthor is just heart-breaking, but I don’t think its just a ‘poor little lamb’ situation. Malik chooses to help the fallen Superman back to his feet, he chooses not to submit to interrogation and does everything he can to convince Superman of the same. He chooses to be a hero and in the face of his choices Lex Luthor coldly murders him in a game, but Metamorpho chooses to help Superman. Ultimately he subverts the mauve shirt trope and is given a front pager on the Daily Planet as a hero at the end.

Superman’s capture also gives other characters a chance to shine – namely Lois Lane and Mr. Terrific! Much like in Man of Steel Lois Lane plays a larger role in this movie, from being the devil’s advocate against Superman’s rash actions and constant ‘self-interviews’ to being the one who actually writes – well dictates because she’s also flying at the time – the story which busts Lex Luthor. Finally she goes further in this movie as the rescuer instead of the damsel in distress!

Which she definitely couldn’t have done without Mr. Terrific. Of the Justice Gang he might be the most ruthless – being the one to kill the Kaiju earlier by feeding it bombs (ouch) – yet of the three Superheroes he’s the only one moved enough to partner up with Lois Lane to rescue Superman, who’s a political prisoner of the US government. It’s his ride that gets them there, his technology and kick-ass that gets them both through the camp and portal and locates Superman. He’s also the one who shuts down the rift creeping through Metropolis and towards Gotham, casually slapping aside one of Luthor’s scientists with a satisfying ‘I don’t need your help’. And he doesn’t. He's terrific!

The movie also avoids most ‘and the Cops and/or US military saves the day’. Everyone else saves the day: superheroes of course but also the reporters in the Daily Planet, the surprising mole in Luthor’s camp and hell Malik does more against Luthor than cops or military, I’d argue. The only ‘on the side of the heroes’ thing they really do is arrest the bad guy right at the end – after everyone else has done all the hard work and sacrifices of exposing and stopping him.

I also love the characterization. Superman feels and feels freely. He rages, he cries, he’s got heart in a way the character has been missing for the last couple of films. People will die if he doesn’t do this thing and that’s his biggest consideration. While he comes off as hot-headed he’s NEVER malicious, even to his enemies. This Superman feels, after just this movie, the kind of person a world of people would mourn if he were killed.

I also love Lex as the villain – a quintessential villain of our time. He’s the tech bro who cares about popularity and having a spotlight on his massive ego at all time. He’s the billionaire face of every ‘eat the rich’ slogan for the violence he commits against billions, against multiple countries for petty envy. Finally he’s an arms-dealer who is just fine with war and genocide just to be able to murder one man. He uses and abuses Ultraman like a mere video game character to hurt Superman. He's petty, murderous and cares for nothing beyond his own ego. While both he and Superman are shown losing their tempers, he’s the one who throws stuff at his girlfriend in a petty desire to hurt. Superman at most does some property damage to someone who can replace it with his pocket change and then some.

Then there’s Superman’s parents. Jonathan says it best when he says: "Parents aren't for tellin' their kids who they're supposed to be. We are here to give you tools to make fools of yourselves all on your own."

Now THAT is what a parent should be! And in a time where cries of ‘for the children!’ and ‘parental rights!’ are reaching their peak it’s a saying that dearly needs said. A moment of true parental love, of being proud of what your kid made THEMSELVES, not what you made them. Meanwhile Jor-El and Lara end up being an up to eleven variant of parents who direct and/or live through their kids and call it love. It’s wrong of parents to treat their kids as extensions of themselves and I’m glad the Kents are having none of that.

Eve is a surprising breakout! I love that the seemingly airheaded self-absorbed girlfriend pulls one over Lex. Given she knows about the dimensional prison and the fate of Luthor’s other ex-girlfriends and his surveillance its little wonder she subtly gathered dirt on him and its a clever way to do so. While I might not get her fixation on Jimmy he's objectively not a bad choice given her situation. Finally, once Luthor initiates physical violence against her, she’s done – and the movie also shows what reporting an abuser costs too!

Superman 2025 also comes with a lot of allusions, references and outright compilations of other stories, characters and more from older movies and comics, so Super-nerds should be very happy. And they aren't obnoxious about these nods like Star Wars has been. That being said there was room for improvement here:

The twist of Jor-El and Lara’s message actually being ‘we love you now go forth and conquer, subjugate these lesser beings and give us a billion grandbabies off them’ is bonkers. I feel like it upends the film’s general pro-immigrant message by being a summation of the worst cliché anti-immigrant fears. Also anyone with an amateur’s understanding of biology or linguistics, if that, should be able to poke some logic-shaped holes in this. I’d rather the movie have stuck closer to the original comics they were inspired by or at least used ambiguous words. ‘Master’, for example, can be used ominously while still having very different meanings depending on the culture even here on earth.

*tired sigh* Can we stop undermining our own narratives with bigotry.

Speaking of...

The Perfect Victim myth is a tired lie with unfortunate implications – far moreso when applied to an entire country and especially given the irl invasions and genocides going on right now. We don’t need to further ingrain the message that any PoC (or any target of a wrong) fighting back, even against the worst invasion, colonialism and fucking genocide, is ‘just as bad’. The Boravian army and president weren’t stopped by anything less than violence and the level of heroicness isn’t diminished if people from Jarhanpur do so as the Justice Gang. Instead of the Justice Gang being the cavalry to the rescue or something, the movie shows Jarhanpur farmers with hand tools fleeing helplessly before the might of Boravia tanks and focuses on teary-eyed kids hoisting a home-made Superman flag.

Ultraman/Superman’s Clone – Superman’s attitude towards him undermined his otherwise compassionate characterization. He had all the kindness in the world for robots without programmed personalities and random squirrels but why not even a direct word to his own clone? Here is a man, stranger and brother, who was no doubt raised in hell as a child super soldier. Has Ultraman known one kind word, one gesture of compassion in all his short, brutal life? Couldn’t Superman have given...well anything except a ye ole bog standard superhero fight scene. I don’t see any continuation of ‘choices make the man’ theme here or acknowledgment that each could’ve been the other in a different life. Even a short two-sentence exchange of Superman rehashing his father’s words to his clone and Ultraman shouting ‘then I choose to kill you!’ would be more meaningful.

Beyond those issues I’m mostly nit-picking the rest of my complaints.

While I loved Mr. Terrific’s stand-out character my favorite of the JLA back in the day was Hawkgirl and I was a little worried about how she’d be portrayed in a movie where she’s contrasted with a wholesome hero. I mean, she is a more temperamental, ruthless hero who would be well-contrasted with this Superman. The results didn’t make me rage-quit but did disappoint. I think she got the least amount of spotlight and most of what she did get was focused on her surface traits, not her depth. Disappointment.

Though at least they don’t pair her up with this Green Lantern. That would’ve just been an insult.

If I’d been Superman I would’ve probably been just as bull-headed in stopping the war, but I’d have dragged the Boravia dictator out onto the battlefield he created instead of a random cactus. It rubs his own shit in his face better, has a bigger intimidation factor as he’s surrounded by all the tanks and weapons I’ve turned into so much scrap metal and gives me a stronger bargaining position. Not only does he need me to get him out of here but every second we stay ups his chances of getting shot. It’d still be a political nightmare – given the politics of the day are a-okay with genocide was there a politically correct option for Superman? – but the treatment would be less of a public relations fiasco.

Finally technological incompetence played for laughs is cliché. Sure, there’s rural folks who are that bad and worse – though often for unfunny poverty/lack of resources reasons – but come on I’ve heard this one a million times.

A few years later I found Gawain and The Green Knight by Karliene which took quite a few liberties from the Medieval (12-1300s) variant – Gawain’s Pagen beliefs were emphasized, the story diverged from the fae shenanigans and into a faith test and Gawain is somewhat less medieval courtly knight and more modern faithful hero ironically. Still a nice song.

And now I’ve seen the actual movie.

While I wouldn’t say The Green Knight Movie is an entirely different story, nor a bad one, its a definite departure beyond its roots. From the main characters to the vibes to the ending, the 2021 movie seems more inspired by the original than a simple retelling – still good in its own way but definitely unique and not just a remake.

Sir Gawain isn’t even a Sir for most if not all of the movie. Instead of a hot-headed, experienced knight who still knows he’s more expendable than his king, this re-imagination is a young man who wishes to prove himself a knight with all knightly virtues – especially honor – but has all the flaws of a traditional anti-hero and the position of Heir to the Throne as King Arthur’s nephew. Quite a departure from the original already. His mother – who is actually in this story so yay! – is a witch of some stripe and sister to an older King Arthur, hence the inheritance.

Which might have something to do with Gawain’s need to prove himself, which is what drives the whole movie. The Green Knight here appears to be summoned by none other than his mother – a plot, a test of character, some secret third thing? Dunno, but against the advice of his uncle Gawain strikes a mighty blow and honor demands he meet the Green Knight to receive the same as stated in the Terms and Conditions of this ‘game’. The differences in Gawain already have begun a different story, one in which Gawain even hesitates to go on his quest but ultimately the shame of cowardice drives him to heed his word and he rides out.

Frankly the scenes here loiter a bit. I get they want to make a proper movie length movie and if a movie isn’t at least two hours it seems to lose some serious points with its audience or something, but the pacing could use some improvement. That’s the biggest complaint I can think of right now.

Gawain gets into trouble – targeted by bandits and unlike a traditional knight he ends up beaten by the three of them and is left tied up until...well the movie doesn’t make it too clear but until he either hallucinates he’s a skeleton, or he might’ve even actually died.

The skeleton thing is probably meant to be a hallucination, but Gawain never truly returns to Camelot in the movie after being tied up. All his interactions are with spirits, fae and other distinctly unearthly beings so its entirely possible he died there and became a wandering spirit or stumbled in some kind of fae/mystic/netherworld decades, even centuries later with no one at home knowing his fate – nor he theirs. Ironically the Green Knight is the one most likely to get him out.

But that’s just my alternate interpretation.

This story does tilt closer to the horror genre as Gawain encounters spirits, skeletons and fae who seem more Unseelie than Seelie. The creepiness is magnified by how the fae deal with Gawain – these aren’t folk looking to flirt with each other by passing kisses through whoever agrees to their game. They are the Unseelie Fae who are assaulting him!

Another deviation from the original story and the song, The Green Knight and the Fae Lord might be the same person...but they might not. The Fae Lord is all smiles and delight hiding a darker lust for Gawain behind games. Green Knight is more direct and more terrible, but almost seems to guide Gawain into his journey as an honorable knight, for all that this is likely the first and last truly brave deed he will do.

And ultimately this Gawain is braver – if more foolish – than the original, who keeps the belt on to accept the blow.

While Pathfinder is loaded (perhaps overloaded) with class options, it doesn’t quite have a Jedi class. The symbiat has all the Jedi’s mystical powers but no lightsaber and little martial training to back it up. The Guru gets all the fluff of a Jedi and a great lightsaber option, but doesn’t natively have much in the way of Jedi mechanics. Finally the Psychic Warrior’s Mind Knight option meets in the middle as a jack of all trades master of none.

With no one Jedi class and multiclassing these three a bit awkward, lets look at the sources from which George Lucas drew inspiration for his mystical wizard monks.

Much of their spiritual beliefs (and traditional dress) come from Buddhist and Taoist monks specifically. Yet the Jedi’s martial abilities, student-mentor bonds, focus and connection with their (laser) swords are clearly inspired by Samurai. The mystic abilities draw from Ch’i/Ki/Qi, though the master mystic warrior may come from the Arabic Al-Jeddi. Finally their oaths to uphold peace, bring justice and title of Knight bring to mind the likes of historical and fantasy Paladins.

With all that in mind, lets do the one thing Pathfinder hates most: multiclass!

1. Unchained Monk (Enlightened Monk) + ascetic style feat + Vow of Peace

The good old Monk class may draw more from Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan style fantasies but still gives us lots of Jedi abilities from Force Speed to blinding reflexes to the mystical Ki. The unchained variant streamlines this a lot and makes your flurry of blows actually hit, however Monks are unarmed combatants and Jedi rather infamously are not.

This is where the ascetic style feat comes in, allowing the use of weapons in place of fists. The ascetic fluff of the feat is also perfectly in-character for Jedi.

The Vow of Peace is necessary for an accurate Jedi, who use the Force for knowledge and defense, never to attack. This doesn’t mean you can’t fight, just that you do not start fights – you simply finish them. Vow of Truth could be another good one, though be careful with those certain points of view. Lastly Vow of Poverty could be fitting – if you can designate your very expensive lightsaber as your singular 6th item!

Finally the Enlightened Monk archetype adds a couple of psionic powers and, more importantly, lets you use Ki powers as Psionic Power Points for the most mechanically accurate Force Powers!

Alternatives: Potentially Stalker (Bushi) as Path of War’s monk/rogue alternative with the Bushi template turning it more Monk/Samurai instead. Broken Blade discipline can replicate a fair amount of monk abilities. Or Mystic (Aurora Soul, Knight Chandler) lets you, with the right feat, literally cast Psionic abilities via the Light Side and gets you some good monk abilities.

From here we’re going Psionic, but in an unexpected way…

2. Soulknife Trained (High Psionics, Augmented Blade)

There are a ton of ways to get a laser sword in Pathfinder, from magic spells or talents to weapon properties to special weapons themselves, but for this guide I’m looking for the actual lightsaber: a technological weapon powered by a kyber crystal that produces a laser blade.

Soulknife gives us a laser magic sword and – via 3rd party – we can attach Soulknife to another class. Since it’s also a martial class we’re layering it onto monk, so we have a magic laser-like sword. But it’s not technological or produced by a crystal. Yet...

Augmented Blade gives us a psi-crystal which can then be attached to any weapon to produce a laser sword. You can either grab the Energy Blade weapon (about $10,000 or half that to craft) or build one with the Tech sphere (Particle Weapon) + Blade Augmentation blade skill + Hard Wired Sprite (Champion) feat + Singular Focus (Technomancy drawback).

Congrats! Literal Lightsaber!

Augmented Blade can also be combined with the War Soul archetype, which is one of the ways to get into the Path of War system and its fantastic disciplines - a great mechanic for lightsaber styles. Especially fitting for the Jedi are the supernatural Silver Crane, Radiant Dawn and Sleeping Goddess disciplines. The first is a western European variant of drawing from the Light Side of the Force. The second is literally light-based and the third is a psionic martial art and with the discipline’s fluff? What could be more Jedi than that?

A/N: do avoid Black Seraph, Cursed Razor and Leaden Hyena for Jedi builds as they are all philosophically Dark Side disciplines. Many Black Seraph maneuvers and stances have the evil descriptor, Cursed Razor’s fluff and, well, curses fits well with the Dark Side and Leaden Hyena is all about demoralizing and mentally crushing your foes, making it a poor fit for Jedi.

Alternatives: The Soulknife is a pretty tricky one to replicate. Object familiar + the Soulbound familiar archetype with your object as a technological sword hilt is your best bet for a literal lightsaber.

This gives our build all it’s martial abilities, but Jedi are also known for their mystical powers and here we turn to…

3. Guru (any sphere archetype)

With it’s good-alignment, fantasy Buddhist fluff, monk-like role and drawing power through devotion to a philosophy, the Guru class nails the Jedi mindset and beliefs. Any sphere archetype gets the Guru most of the mechanical benefits of the symbiat archetype. Combine with the Tashalatora Feat to progress your Monk goodies and add in the psionic headband veil that grants psionic power for the Mostest Jedi Magics!

You can also potentially add Veil Dancer archetype to the Guru and gain access to the Path of War system that way if you prefer it to the War Soul. You should still be able to get Sleeping Goddess, Radiant Dawn and/or Silver Crane as to your taste.

Alternatives: The Sage class is similar, though without an archetype to get into the Path of War system. Symbiat and Psychic Warrior are also good alternatives (or even a Psychic Warrior trained Symbiat for the best of both worlds). Oracle (Enlightened Philosopher, Sphere Archetype) + Ascetic mystery also makes an accurate alternative.

4. PrC Paladin (Enlightened Paladin, Holy Guardian)

The Paladin, with it’s code and fluff about being sworn to celestial forces and possibility of Falling and becoming a Blackguard/anti-Paladin has parallel themes to Jedi. As a PrC this can also progress our previous class’ martial and mystical abilities which makes it a perfect part of this multiclass build.

The Holy Guardian archetype from the ffd20 pathfinder 3rd party system is literally a Jedi. You can’t get more Jedi than this archetype which gives/progresses your lightsaber and so allows you to progress some of your Soulknife martial abilities! Feats such as Ascetic Knight let you progress Monk abilities with this and vice versa.

Enlightened Paladin archetype turns the class away from it’s western fluff and to eastern fluff. Ascetic feat transfers the unarmed strike and fist-focus to your blade to further progress and gets rid of some non-Jedi abilities in favor of more Jedi-like ones. Finally it progresses your ki pool...which are also your power points thanks to Enlightened Monk, letting you potentially get full caster progression here!

Alternatives: It’s a stretch but the PrC Bard with the Dervish of Dawn archetype is also quite Monk-like with a goody two-shoes flavor. But that's quite the stretch. There's few substitutes for Paladin.

5. VMC Samurai – or Cavalier if your DM is a stickler.

Jedi are heavily based on Samurai so this VMC makes perfect sense to round out our multiclass. If you can’t make up the literal Jedi Order to join as a Samurai, there are several orders – such as Order of the Blue Rose – which are essentially reskinned Jedi. Feats also allow this VMC to combine well with Paladin.

Alternatives: While you can’t VMC this, there’s a Mystic Fencer archetype that goes well with Fencer or Swashbuckler class and is literally a Jedi (or Sith). Add on the Ronin Swashbuckler archetype and beg your DM to swap out the Ronin Order for a Jedi one!