i really love your blog and how you speak on things, you put it in perfect descriptions and even opened my eyes to things that i haven’t even took into account, that being said i’d like to hear more of your thoughts and opinions on echo’s character in tbb
First, I want to thank you for the compliment on my blog. I am so glad you enjoy the content and I am so glad that my posts have actually affected people. I love that I inspire others to think or consider that which they might not have before.
Now, on to Echo, my dearest Echo. I too cherish him so. He is a lovely human and he deserves good things.
I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again: Echo represents how physically brutal the war has been for the Clones and reveals the psychological toll it had on its survivors.
Besides Wolffe, he is one of the few characters we see with a permanent injury or chronic condition resulting from his service. Echo is the only character we see from TCW and TBB who actually had something akin to a panic attack when under medical and droid examination, likely a result of his body having been altered against his will and experimented on by the Techno Union when he was a POW. We also see these ghosts from the war come up when he is hesitant to help a Separatist Senator. That man and his colleagues are the reason he and his brothers exist, but they're also the reason they're dead. And because TBB has been mostly insulated from the brunt of the war, they don't see the big deal.
Canonically, Echo has always been a smart guy, often praised for his ingenuity and creativity. He was a bit of a know-it-all and teacher's pet when he was a cadet. In TBB, he continues to be one of the smartest of the bunch. Echo is often the one repairing their ship and keeping them on-track and executing Tech's harebrained schemes. But he's also the team's heart, the one who keeps them grounded in reality and reminding them what they should be fighting for.
Echo was ever loyal to the system he served, but more loyal to the ideas they served. We see that he was taken aback by the idea that he was a deserter and traitor, likely having associated those words with unscrupulous or "defective" brothers rather than someone sticking to the principles they believe in and standing against what's wrong. I'd like to see if that realization shook him at all, but he is, unfortunately, not given much screen/personal time in TBB.
Echo fundamentally represents Cut's idea that a Clone can choose their own path. He spent very little time during TBB being someone else's tool or pawn. Once he came back to his brothers, he chose to stick with TBB, parting ways with the other "Regular" forces. When shit hit the fan after the Empire came to power, he chose to strike out on his own with TBB. He had every ability to choose whatever path, unlike the Clones affected by the chip.
Echo represents our association of choice with free will and personhood. In TBB, he gets to find life outside of war and being owned as a machine of war. He gets to forge his own path and as his own person. He gets to embrace the individuality that Clones have always striven for. And with his path no longer defined, we see him make active choices and reflect on the current choices or options he and the Bad Batch have available to them. One of the reasons he has these choices and full control of his faculties sans-Chip is because of the genius and sacrifice of his brother, Fives. Fives would help lead so many of his brothers down the path of self-determination and choices made of their own volition.
I would not be surprised if he (and maybe Omega too) is the one who convinces TBB to leave behind mercenary/bounty work to join Rex or the Republic's former allied forces in the early fight against the Empire.
I just hope he's featured more in Season 2. I also hope they stop making comments on him being "more machine." Just because he has prosthetics does not mean he's less of a man or less of a person. I also hope TBB stops dismissing his thoughts, concerns, and inputs. It really seems like no-one around there listens to him.
Someone who I think will appreciate this because they love Echo: @twistedstitcher27. I hope your day has gotten better since you got off work.
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