#ziro

Okay, so I sucked it up and bought the comics and now I have to partially correct some commentary from a previous post—Fox’s pauldron only has the Senate symbol when he’s on guard duty on the streets of Coruscant. When he shows up at the Temple, it’s completely absent. That could be an oversight by the artist or significance could be attributed to it—why would Fox want or need to change his armor before showing up at the Temple?

This might be a little bit of a slog and entirely plucked from the realm of my ass, until now I’ve mostly focused on things that are more concrete, but…well, these are my thoughts on Fox as an individual. As always we have very little concrete information to go on when it comes to canon information about any of the Corries, so this belongs mainly to the realm of speculation through the interpretation of canon. Interpretation is of course just that.

Take two because the other one I was trying to write somehow ended up getting fucking posted before it was finished with no tags and it was ofc a mess so…whatever, we’ll redo this.

Fox’s appearances are bookended by instances where he ultimately asks for direction, but the contexts and the manner in which he actually conducts himself are very different. In his first appearance, in the 2008 movie, he (and a small strike team) shows up at Ziro’s palace, having been summoned. He asks for further directions once there.

Shittiest screenshot in history because Disney+ is a bitch and I had to take a photo of the screen because I couldn’t find one otherwise:

In the comics in which he dies, he (and a ton of the Guard, and CSF) shows up at the Jedi Temple, having been summoned. He asks for directions there—or more specifically:

He asks in a way that is shockingly diplomatic and a little obsequious.

This does not mean Fox himself is an obsequious person by nature—it just indicates he’s likely figured out how to deal with shitty people. Every other interaction seen with this man where he is not obviously in a position of strict hierarchical inferiority indicates he’s very much not an obsequious person; there’s nothing of the servile, cringing affectation that would make him seem like Wormtongue. It just looks like he’s really good at saying the right words to get from point A to point B with as little bullshit as possible, operating on the assumption that someone there wants to tell him what to do.

That’s a skill one learns when stuck around a bunch of micromanaging assholes that have zero respect for anyone else.

The unfortunate reality though is that Fox’s behavior there is the exact opposite of how best to deal with Vader-erstwhile-Skywalker. Fox is measured and wants to make sure he’s doing what he can to please some very nasty people.

Like so:

First of all, Vader, you were there too so leave Fox the hell alone. Because that’s the next line on the next page: “you missed some.”

Fox’s behavior is…fairly unique, all things considered. Most clone commanders are more independent or at least less inclined to be that quick to ask, with less formal dithering—or at least, most of the time clone commanders are dealing with a specific campaign on a planet, for which plans can be and are made ahead of time, plans which they execute. Cody pretty quickly becomes disillusioned with his choices they were not choices 😭 you have a chip and the Empire, and Cody’s behavior on Desix in s2e3 The Solitary Clone in TBB indicates a willingness to take the initiative that Fox is evidently not willing to take. Now granted, this is Cody, but Wolffe also seems likely to be more independent or assertive, and in the long run ends up very wary of the Empire even if he did retire from it. Mayday in TBB seems perfectly comfortable calling his own shots.

So?

It’s probably worth it to note the actual content of those bookended appearances:

Fox: Should we arrest the Hutt, Senator?

Juxtaposed with:

Fox: Sir, may I ask what we’re expecting to happen? I don’t want to overstep my bounds, but we’ve got a sizable force here. A little more information about who we’re facing might enable me to make better tactical decisions.

And then Vader does his usual thing of vague dramatic answers because…Vader. Choke on aspirations indeed. He was literally cutting off Inquisitors’ limbs in an earlier comic specifically to teach them loss.

Now granted, in the first appearance, there is an obvious, direct action for Fox to suggest he might take. Ziro is right there, he’d held Padmé hostage, etc.

But I don’t think that the Fox from his last appearance would’ve asked the first question the same way. He specifically says that he’s not trying to overstep his bounds, which tells me that was something that “came up” at some point which probably just means Fox was trying to do his job and somebody got mad about it. The first is a direct question pertaining to a specific action. The second doesn’t even begin to touch on a specific action. It does however imply he has some insight into the abilities of specific Jedi.

For my money, the first question indicates being unsure about the procedure, about what to do. The last question indicates being unsure of what tactics to apply—of how best to accomplish what they’ve set out to do. He knows what’s expected of him by the time he dies, and he knows how to work within his limitations. In other words Fox is really competent, because you really need to be competent to make shifting sands work.

I tend to think of the way Fox carries himself in two phases: pre-Tarkin, and post-Tarkin. Pre-Tarkin Fox does not lack for confidence, and his posture and behavior convey this and can definitely be interpreted as being a cocky little shit, but post-Tarkin Fox is the one who walks kind of like an Imperial officer with his hands behind his back and is relatively less…talkative? He seems more reserved. Fox is calm but firm when he handles Karanakin, and only snaps angrily when he thinks Ahsoka has killed clones. He's never unconfident but it's pretty obvious that poor man has dealt with some shit that's not shown on screen and which is absolutely never shown to our main characters. Tarkin would be a hard boss for anyone to deal with and I could see Fox doing what he could to keep Tarkin happy.

This still of course brings the chips into question because that's a perennial question in fandom: have the Corries already had their chips activated? I mean, it's possible, but we have no way of knowing. Assuming they have: I know it's popular to portray the Corries as having large gaps in their memories...but what if they don't? We see the chips being activated, the clones don't forget what they'd done under its influence so unless there's something else going on the Corries have more reason to be isolated from other clones. If you can order a clone to keep secrets from their brothers, what then?

Imagine coming back from a patrol and for no discernible reason, your brother has completely done a 180, somebody is dead and on the news, and no matter what you do, all they'll say is good soldiers follow orders, except maybe in the long run, which is going to further alarm and alienate even clones in the Guard until it happens to them...and they still don't really grasp it for anyone else because the chip isn't affecting their opinion of those orders.

And imagine clones that eventually becomes very aware that something is really, really wrong, even figure out how it's happening to them, but by then they've been alienated from everyone who might help—and they don't trust them anyway by now let alone have any idea what to do about it so they just keep going until it's just collectively gone to shit in Order 66 never mind that by the time of Order 66 Palpatine would've been acquitted if the Jedi had tried to take him to trial, he had the banks and the courts and public opinion on his side, which is imho an underrepresented thing in fics where they kill him off...just my personal opinion

It also might not be insignificant that the only clones that we see who have left the Guard, Jek for instance who was on Kashyyyk and I think there's one more in the EU?, serving under Commander Gree and who died with him during Order 66, were clones we saw only very early and who worked closely with Jedi when they appeared. Obviously Thire was retained but who knows what the story is there.

Anyway I'm getting away from my own point here.

As far as personality...Fox is almost entirely a non-entity which is one of the reasons I love how varied the interpretations of him are. We can see what happens to him, but have no real concept of how he feels or reacts to anything. The closest we actually do have in canon is that short story from 2008, which is apparently Legends now but fuck it, it's the closest thing we have.

The story is kinda hilarious, honestly. It's from the first person and he still concludes with "no one escapes from Commander Fox." The writing is stilted and it's a little cringe but it works, it was for kids, it's not the worst, and Fox can be a little cringefail if he wants, he's earned it

It is pretty interesting, with highlights being:

Fox does feel some sense of personal proprietary way towards Coruscant. He refers to Coruscant as "his town" and utilizes the word fool to describe bounty hunters which is just delightful I headcanon that this is his internal monologue and the cringefail dialogue is in fact taken as cringefail in-universe, only everyone just kind of learns to take him seriously because the guy is an uncanny shot

The Separatists are constantly trying to get Senators kidnapped via bounty hunters, and in this case it's Senator Shayla Paige-Tarkin, who yes, is related to that Tarkin but that's not mentioned

The Coruscant Guard 100% has spies on the planet that tell them things like when bounty hunters roll in trying to kidnap Senators, even very early on, since this was published in 2008 and the show started airing in 2008

Fox is a bit disappointed they want the bounty hunter alive, because "would have been happy to take him down." Honestly this isn't unlike the Fox we see not blaming Ahsoka for supposedly killing Letta

Fox knows Coruscant very well. He refers to knowing "his city" better than anyone, although given Coruscant's size and depth I wonder if he's really more meaning the Federal District

The overall tone is pretty...fervent lol. A tad overweening

Now tbh the Kool Aid drinking Fox isn't exactly my favorite interpretation, but this story was written in the context of the early part of the war, is no longer canon but probably does reflect intended internal sentiments when it was produced and as we've established before there seems to be a kind of gradiated shift in tone and behavior, especially if you take his very drawn out and comparatively circumspect behavior in his last appearance as a contrast to his initial appearances.

So...there's still a lot of room to maneuver, and by the time of his last appearance in TCW in s6e4, Orders, just before Fives' death, his body language at least seems to convey a sense of some sort of conflict. For a lot of reasons I've discussed elsewhere it wouldn't shock me if Fox became disillusioned with the Jedi, at the very least.

I do like to think he does develop a hatred of politicians though although that might just be me projecting lol

As you can tell im very original in everything I do😔