On and in defense of Commander Fox and the Corries, and why I think they were set up to fail
Summary at the bottom because I like to go on.
Things we know for sure about clones and Fox and the Corries in the strictest canon sense (which ain't a lot):
1. They are stationed on Coruscant.
That is definitional, now remember what Coruscant is.
2. They have no Jedi in charge of the Guard, they report directly to Palpatine.
Although I adore the fanon that Quinlan Vos is their Jedi, it’s not canon.
3. Clones love their brothers dearly.
That is almost without exception, even the clones we see acting against the Republic (hi Slick) at least believe they were acting in their brother’s interests.
4. They seem to accrue extra responsibilities as the war goes on, up to the point of being the ones we see Palpatine with in ROTS.
Even if they don’t, the idea of a law enforcement/military unit answerable only to Palpatine is a shit idea. There’s reasons people worry about accountability in real life, and sneaky little shits who act all nice and innocent at first but eventually show their true colors once they have power in the bag is one of them.
These are all very obvious.
In very short terms, it's very likely Palpatine uses the Coruscant Guard to sow public dissatisfaction.
And all those that hate Fox fall for it by proxy, because I think you're essentially seeing of him (and the Guard, and by extension the clones) what Palpatine wants the public to see and think of clones.
The Coruscant Guard are probably the most consistently accessible and visible of the clones in the galaxy to its biggest cultural and political hub. Most of the time the 501st or 212th or any other seems to drop in, fights a battle, and apparently fucks off afterwards? Obviously, planets like Ryloth have a stronger personal connection--some GAR contingent seem to have been there practically the whole damn war and Howzer was obviously very familiar with the Syndullas, and they with him (and look how personable Howzer is, and how quickly and somehow easily he extricates himself from the rationale clones held about their orders; maybe it makes sense to think of it like how leaving your little hometown where everybody thinks the same affects a person)--but otherwise I feel like the clones, to the rest of the galaxy, are (expensive) theoretical constructs.
The vast majority of the public aren't likely to have any personal experience with a clone, let alone a develop personal rapport with one, unless they happen to go to specific places like 79s where they can be found, and that still doesn't necessarily lend itself to extended relationships since most of the clone patrons would only be on Coruscant temporarily. Some fics portray clones as being refused entrance to establishments (especially later in the war when people were protesting clones themselves) or restricted in where they can go (like grocery stores, etc.). I think that's plausible, even realistic--but it doesn't seem to be a focus of canon aside from showing some protests so I'll let it alone.
What we know of that IS canon is that clones aren't allowed to even think about having families or doing anything with their lives besides being soldiers (even though all of them have thought about it, even just secretly; I'd wager that all of them have secret dreams they don't share); it's against regulations as we see with Cut Lawquane in season one of TCW. So to effect this, clones are probably actively or passively discouraged from forming close friendly relationships with anyone who isn't a clone and who they have no reason to be speaking with—aka most people besides Jedi (and if the fanon can be believed, if decommissioning/euthanization is a concern, they would have the motivation to avoid even the perception of such a relationship). Obviously there are going to be exceptions, but you can scrutinize a stable population a lot better than an itinerant one.
The point is, if your only tangible frame of reference is a rigid hall monitor that doesn't demonstrate much of a personality (even though clones have real, complex personal lives beneath that surface) and is behind a faceless mask--and we see so little of the Guard that what exists of their personalities is, let's be real, nearly all fanon--then you never really have a chance to acquire a sense of their humanity, and a strict enforcement of regulations tends to breed resentment in a population for whom strict adherence to regulations isn’t normalized. There will be cultural differences in play.
This is not the clones' fault, they neither asked to be created nor put into this position, they’re only doing what they’ve been asked to do, but it plays directly into Palpatine's goals.
Sure, the Guard answers to Palpatine in the chain of command, and we see them actively serving him in ROTS, but Palpatine definitely isn't doing shit for fuck for the Guard's administration in a daily sense, so Fox basically runs that whole bitch by himself in every practical sense--a clone, with no rights of his own, considered property, in a situation increasingly hostile to him and his.
Now let's think about the clones we see: as far as we can tell, clones' social lives are largely insular. They mostly see and talk to each other, and that's not necessarily by nefarious design (as discussed above), that's just what happens (military people tend to hang out with other military people, that’s just how it is; you’ll spend most of your day around other military people, most likely stationed in a place you’re not so familiar with that it’s easy to do anything else). Remember: we as viewers get access and insight that people in-universe don't.
The Corries do not have a Jedi. The Jedi see value in their lives beyond their merely being expendable, faceless, and unthinkingly obedient droids wearing flesh, this point was made multiple times--and the Jedi are able to walk the line between orders and the bigger picture, which rubs off on the men they lead. Go watch Nala Se’s (bitch can catch these hands) comments about the Jedi’s influence on the clones when she’s speaking to Dooku.
I can see leaving the Corries without a Jedi being another saccharine, oh-so-magnanimous moment from Palpatine (he has so many of these) in the vein of expressing confidence in the clones' capability and in being very undemanding of the Jedi, in order to “free up” Jedi (whom he so totally trusts) to fight the war…but in effect leaving the Guard without anyone familiar with Coruscant and equipped to play referee with the environment and peoples they're bound to serve, and with no one batting in their corner or showing them any other way to exist and think.
Fox is an interesting clone commander anyway, not least because he doesn't have a Jedi to bounce off of. In a sense, whether or not Fox had his chip activated, we’re probably seeing how a clone commander was originally going to behave on their own initiative: see problem, address problem, think no more deeply than that. The Kaminoans did not want creative thinking in the clones. The clones were trained to fight the enemy they’re pointed at with singleminded intent, it stands to reason that that straightforward directness would transfer to other instances which might have been more kindly served by a different mindset. Their mindset isn’t even like a real life military where you’re still obligated to think about the nature of what you’re ordered to do—just following orders hasn’t been a valid defense since 1945.
TBH I've got a lot to say about fandom, the fetishization of actual violence through the lionization of fictional violence (although I don't think that fictional violence breeds actual violence; rather, I think people who were already interested in it go looking for things they think reflect their beliefs), and why we even have war crimes as a concept (and the absolute ignorance perpetrated by an increasingly illiterate populace), but...
You cannot claim to have sympathy for clones without acknowledging their humanity and that includes for the ones who didn’t have the chance to grow beyond the limitations built around them. It was awful that Fox killed Fives, but it’s a tragedy like so much else in this franchise, not proof that Fox is awful. Part of the horror of what we see everyone go through in clone wars is how many times Palpatine’s plans almost derail but it never happens.
If your complaint is that Fox didn’t think any more deeply than what was right in front of him in the moment, remember that that’s exactly what’s been expected of Fox and all other clones: obey orders, and it’s not their role to determine what those orders are. Abstractions are for those who are not expendable, made to die. Orders are orders, and good soldiers do what again? He quite literally all but says “my opinion doesn’t matter” when he tells Ahsoka that he doesn’t blame her for (apparently) killing Letta, but she’s under arrest anyway.
Fox is put in a position of having to wield authority in a very different way than any other clone commander, has no direct support from or evident collaboration with the one group of people who generally see clones as living beings worthy of compassion, and deals with the public while having been trained to lead a war campaign. His is a war of attrition, not dropping in on a planet and fighting a battle, and he’s responsible specifically to Palpatine, who is literally the big bad. Fanon tends to think that Palpatine either activated his chip early or tortured him; honestly either one tracks, it's Palpatine after all--and in two major instances, we don't see what Palpatine says, to Fives or to Fox--but the fucker is a masterful manipulator so anything and everything is still on the table.
But in the midst of all this, because clones aren’t unthinking or unfeeling, and the dissonance is tragic but not absent:
Clones do give a shit about their brothers. Fox is no exception; he's audibly upset when he asserts that Ahsoka killed three troopers. And the immediate order to shoot to kill is pragmatic--he only issues it after he believes she was willing to kill clones to escape. That’s a fair order; if she’s willing to kill clones as he believes she did, then his men should at least be able to defend themselves as well as they can. See issue, address issue.
I mean. Shit, he doesn’t stick around after he shot Fives; we see his face once and that is not a triumphant posture. If he wanted to gloat or be an asshole about it he had the chance. Rex probably would've gone for the throat, but he had the chance.
The way he dies also suggests this. He could have thrown somebody else under the bus--called the men who fired on Vader defective, shifted blame somewhere else, somehow. He did not. There was one thing Fox ever had control over in his life, and that was how much he let anyone else take the fall. Hell, his answer wasn't even that bad, but Anakin (who is on my permanent shit list for not putting two and two together from the Sifo-Dyas reveal and what Fives told him earlier) probably did have it out for him, because Vader is an asshole. He's a Sith, it comes with the territory.
Clones are trained from decanting to do as they're told regardless of their personal feelings, and Fox in nearly so many words states that he acts regardless of his personal feelings. He is not likely to be in a position where he's shown a different way to behave, or interact with anyone that does anything but reinforce that expectation.
(Side note, I feel like Palpatine would have a great time tormenting Fox by sending him off to do shit he personally disagrees with but is technically correct according to the letter of the law..................)
Fox essentially is on his own in an environment unlike what most clone commanders deal with that he probably wasn't trained to understand much of (cultural understanding is important); it's rather likely the Guard hews very close to their training because of that. They'll stick to what's familiar and what's expected of them as they understand it. That is a very normal human response.
Leaving the Corries without a Jedi means that, as well as lacking anyone who sees them as individuals worth more the money it cost to make them and who treats them as such, they lack a go-between and likely familiarity with the population they're policing but are subordinate to, legally speaking, as clones are seen as government property, not people. This is going to breed resentment; somebody is going to bitch that no clone has the right to do bla bla bla.
The vast majority of the galaxy is going to take cues from Coruscant whether they like admitting it or not. If Coruscant has a bad impression of clones, then the vast majority of the galaxy—for whom the clones are (expensive) theoretical constructs—will have a bad impression of clones. Clones may not be in a position to pursue close relationships with someone not in their near orbit, and may be likely to actually avoid them because of regulations.
The vast majority of the galaxy would likely see them as unthinking, rigid hall monitors (whereas non-clone troopers, stormtroopers, think for ourselves and we wouldn’t act that way..........).
Which all gives Palpatine an excuse to give in soooo magnanimously to the public's demands to stop using clones as troops.
