I have such mixed feelings about the Clone Wars "Heroes on Both Sides" episode because I appreciate what it's TRYING to do with the idea of showing that the Separatist side has legitimate grievances and the Senators in it are/were good people who've just been duped into being on the side of a war that's literally enslaving people, but I also think it handles it incredibly badly.
Take Mina Bonteri, for example. We're SUPPOSED to like her and think she's this honorable woman who mentored Padme and is still Padme's friend, but she also thinks Dooku's somehow a good honorable person and will literally not hear a single word against him even though this person she's mentored could tell her that Dooku is the one who nearly executed her on Geonosis. Padme can literally speak to how those events in the Geonosis arena ACTUALLY WENT, but she can't because Mina refuses to hear anything bad about Dooku because she's apparently got a political boner for him or something I dunno.
And then her whole story of woe that's meant to show us how the Republic also sometimes commits atrocities boils down to "my husband worked at a lab and clones attacked and now he's dead" and I feel like my reaction is supposed to be "wow that's horrific that the clones attacked an innocent person" but knowing what I know about the Separatists and how they worked my reaction is actually "well what the fuck were they doing at that lab huh Mina? Did you even know your husband or was he a bitch who was coming up with some sort-of bio weapon to use against Republic civilians?" Because I don't believe for a SECOND that the clones would've just attacked a random lab for no obvious reason. That lab was up to some shit and they never tell us what it is because they want us to feel bad for Mina's loss, but I... don't. Because I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility for Mr. Bonteri to have been caught up in shady shit that Mina had no idea about.
And of course then there's her son and the whole interaction he has with Ahsoka. Again, I understand the point of them saying that Ahsoka has only ever met "military commanders" on the Separatist side and not any of the actual Separatist civilians/senators, but the comparison being made is with Lux's experience with the JEDI, who are ALSO military commanders in this war. Ahsoka is judging the Separatists by the people they've PUT IN CHARGE of their side of the war and who are the ones actively causing atrocities. Ahsoka is judging the people who are her PEERS on the Separatist side. And while there is obviously merit to getting to know Separatists civilians, I don't think it counts the same as Lux saying he's never met a Jedi before and is now choosing to judge an entire culture when he's never met a single person from that culture until now.
The Onderon arc and the Gerreras do a WAY better job of getting this concept across, that there are literal REBELS on some of the Separatist planets who didn't choose to be Separatist and don't necessarily care for the Separatist government. Ahsoka (via Anakin) seeing every Separatist as an evil person simply due to being Separatist would have been incredibly paired with having to help out some Separatist rebels fight for their world because they KNOW what's going on, they're LIVING it, they just can't really do much about it due to lack of resources.
I love the idea of making sure the Separatist side is given a little nuance, that there IS an explanation as to why the Separatists seceded and became what they did and all, I just think it got handled SO SO BADLY and it makes me so sad/mad every time I think about that episode.
