#echo 501st

[antianakin]

Imagine if Star Wars had actually wanted to do something INTERESTING with Echo.

Echo has gone through SO MUCH by the time Order 66 happens, what if it had actually MEANT SOMETHING?

Because Echo knows, before almost anyone else, what it means to truly lose all of your agency and be turned into a weapon against everyone and everything you love. Echo knows what it is to die and be brought back to life and have to live with knowing he'd been used to hurt his own people, the Jedi, and innocent people in the Republic. Echo knows what it feels like to have to find a way to understand who you are again after that and to keep fighting so it doesn't happen to anyone else ever again.

Imagine Echo being one of the only ones who can reach the clones, who can help them through the trauma of what's happened to them. Because he's not alone anymore, he's not the odd one out, someone no one else can truly understand. They're ALL like him now, they all know exactly what it feels like to be him. And as much as he'd wanted to feel less alone, he wishes it hadn't happened like this. He's glad he can be here to help any of the clones he's able to help escape the Empire, but it would've been better if they'd never needed the help in the first place.

But they do. And he's here, a shining example of what survival in the wake of their worst nightmare looks like. He hadn't always understood what the Jedi had meant when they'd talked about the will of the Force, he'd dismissed a lot of it as just spiritual mumbo jumbo he'd never be able to understand. Most things didn't happen for a REASON after all, they just happened and you dealt with it as best you could. But now, he wonders if he understands it a little better. He wonders if it was the will of the Force that had propelled him towards the shuttle that day on the Citadel, that had caused him to ignore Fives' demand to come back. Because as awful and meaningless as it had felt at the time, it's allowed him to provide guidance to his people in a way no one else can.

He's not the clones' messiah, he's not even their leader, not really. But he is a beacon of hope in the darkness, lighting the way towards the opportunity for a better future.

[antianakin]

Echo getting written out of TBB is SO FUCKING FUNNY because the way it's written feels like when an actor wants to leave a long-running broadcast show and do other projects but they're convinced to keep coming back to do cameos every so often because the fans love the character and it's still good money.

Except it's all the same actor this time. It's still Dee Bradley Baker who is doing like 20 other characters on the same show. He hasn't gone anywhere or reduced his workload at all by having Echo be "written out" of the narrative.

So the only reason Echo gets reduced to "reoccurring guest star" instead of main ensemble character is because the writers just didn't want to write for him anymore.