#finnmetaweek

[leg-grestrade]

Finn Meta Week Day 1: Finn’s Family - Finn of Taris?

The above picture is of Senator Tynrra Pamlo, who represented the planet Taris in the Galactic Senate pre-Empire and was shown in Rogue One. The actress, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, has said that she was initially just going to be in the background of this scene, but her part was expanded to a minor speaking role.

I think this was deliberate. I do not think Senator Pamlo is Finn’s mother. But I do think that there may be a hint that Finn is from the planet Taris. Taris is described as being a planet in the Outer Rim whose prosperity soon led to overpopulation. Then when the trade routes proved no longer to be profitable, civil disorder and social unrest rose, the environment suffered, and it led to civil war. It’s also mentioned that there was a huge issue with classism, and that the society was very stratified, with the alien underclass being crushed under the heels of the wealthy human nobles at the top of the food chain. Jedi and Sith struggled for dominance there, but Taris ended up being abandoned by both groups, and unrest, rampant crime, poverty, and lawlessness reigned, even though it was able to retain some of its former glory during the Galactic War. 

It would have been easy for an organization like the First Order to swoop onto a shattered planet like Taris and scoop up children who were members of the lower strata. Maybe even the parents felt that the First Order was a better option than having their children stay on a world where there was no real future for them. While I’m not super-thrilled with some of the stereotypical “inner city” signalling of Taris, when I think about how Finn could have been stolen from his family, it makes sense to me that he would come from a world that was either broken by the First Order or was in such disarray itself that the snatching of children was relatively easy.

Finn’s desire to escape to the Outer Rim could be some ingrained memory that he has of his home planet or possibly the Force guiding him there. Taris has a lot to offer, but has been through hell and back. It would be interesting, if Finn really is from Taris, to see him return home and help rebuild.

@finnappreciation

[heroofthreefaces]

My evergreen Finn rant updated for The Last Jedi.

Everything the good guys accomplish in The Force Awakens happens only because Finn decides he wants something and sets out to get it. Finn wants to abandon the First Order, Poe is rescued. Finn wants to get off Jakku, Han and Chewbacca get the Millennium Falcon back and BB-8 makes it back to the Resistance. Finn wants to rescue Rey, the Starkiller is destroyed. The narrative is structured so that all of these things fail to happen unless Finn is present and exercising his agency, even when his objectives differ from others’. This aspect of Finn is actively deconstructed in The Last Jedi. In The Last Jedi nothing Finn sets out to do outside his duel with Phasma is actually accomplished; when Rose thwarts the last one it’s portrayed as a triumph; and right afterwards when Luke confronts Kylo Ren, Finn is reduced to Poe’s foil to show us Poe has learned his lesson. This is character assassination not character development.

In The Force Awakens when Finn was standing in the village with his helmet blood-streaked and his gun idle, Kylo Ren took a sharp look at him. Later Kylo Ren told Snoke that he’d felt an awakening and Snoke had felt it too. All of this was way before Rey did anything new with the Force that she hadn’t already been doing all her life. Rey may have also been having an awakening (cf. that quote which made the rounds from the Star Wars magazine before The Last Jedi came out, about two hero’s journeys, I reblogged it myself) but there’s one character to whom the word is actually applied in dialog and it’s not Rey. And though Finn’s Force use was criminally sidelined in The Last Jedi, it was still evident, in the rock-lifting scene when Rey worked so hard to levitate them but on seeing her Finn brushed them out of his way with his elbows without even realizing.

So, in review:

1. Everything the good guys accomplish in The Force Awakens happens only because Finn decides he wants something and sets out to get it. (In The Last Jedi the opposite happens which is a failure of The Last Jedi and not of Finn.)

2. Finn is the title character of Episode VII just as Luke was the title character of Episode IV and Anakin was the title character of Episode I.

@finnappreciation

[flaim-ita]

Force Sensitive Finn

(Day two of Finn Meta Week.)

(Inspired by this)

Today, I’m going to talk about TLJ.

That’s right. TLJ.

Specifically, this scene

Now, obviously, other people have talked about this scene, but well... anyone can use a lightsaber if they know how not to cut their own head off...

But not everyone can subconsciously move rocks with their mind to get to their love. (I mean, Personally, I want to go with OT4, but PLEASE LET FINNREY BE CANNON!!!)

[imagine-mystrade]

Non-Jedi Force Users - Finn Following Dagoyan Practices?

for @finnappreciation Finn Meta/Theory Week. Day 2: Force-Sensitive Finn 

The Star Wars universe is filled with people who actively use the force but are not Jedi, from sentient trees to groups like the Mandalorian Knights.

But the one non-Jedi Force User group that intrigues me in relation to Finn is the Dagoyan Order of Bardotta. They were unique in that they were very strong in the Force, but they never really used it to make a physical impact on the world, so no Force lightning, no Force running, no mind tricks. They study the Force for personal enlightenment and to make a “unique personal connection with the Force.” A bunch of their strongest Force users are artists and sculptors. Their study of the Force was a lifetime undertaking, and meditation was their main way of interacting with the Force.

I think that Finn has a type of Force sensitivity that is focused more inward than Rey’s abilities. I think he’d be someone who would use his Force powers intuitively. He’d make a great diplomat, but not by imposing his will but by being able to use the Force for balance and harmony. 

I know that he heard those screams on Hosnian Prime. I know that it was Finn that awakened the Force in TFA. But I think that they will go in a different, almost mystical direction with him, rather than making him a Jedi alongside Rey.

[canonskyrissian]

I’m gonna do a little meta post because I’m not sure I’ll get chapter 16 done today which would feature this

so here goes, @finnappreciation‘s Finn Meta Week Day 1: Parentage

compliant with my fic The Return of Hope

Finn’s mothers are Queen Miriadel of house Oduduwa of Artorias, and Lady Ayana (née Typho) of Naboo.

Queen Miriadel is an old friend of Leia’s, they served in the Imperial Senate at the same time, and Miriadel is just a few years older than Leia, so they became fast friends during the time. Ayana started out as Miriadel’s personal guard and since they worked closely together, friendship turned into love bit by bit.

Artorias as a planet is very introverted, mainly because that way they’ve been able to protect the fact that the royal line has traditionally been somewhat Force sensitive. Generally not enough to become Jedi, but enough to be able to for example form Force bonds and foresee things (latter has usually been an attribute associated with the heir apparents as foresight helps avert conflicts before they even happen). The planet is located less than a parsec from Naboo and the most unique side to it is that they have managed to find harmony between modern city life and the natural wilderness. Much of Artorias is covered in vast jungles and lakes.

Miriadel and Ayana married after the Empire had fallen, and 9 ABY Ayana became pregnant with twins. She gave birth to a girl, Halinor, and a boy, Zanden. But only two months after their birth a tragedy fell, as some remaining Imperials (who later would become the First Order) attacked the royal palace, and Prince Zanden vanished. However, Ayana’s father, Captain Typho, figured that since Zanden had already as a tiny baby showed Jedi-level Force sensitivity, the whole attack was only a ruse to kidnap him.

Three years later Ayana gave birth to another daughter, Tressa, who would turn out to be a tech genius who by the age of 20 would have designed and built most of the Artorian defense systems. Another three years after Tressa the youngest child of the family, Prince Nabu, was born.

Halinor is mildly Force sensitive and able to foresee things. Every now and then she also gets the feeling that her twin brother still exists somewhere in the Galaxy.

Character designs for Halinor, Tressa, and Nabu here

also just so we’re absolutely clear, Miriadel is a trans woman

[flaim-ita]

What is a Legacy?

Everyone talks about how Kylo parallels Anakin... but not as many people talk about how Finn does so. I have a... very long meta about it, but suffice is to say that I found the patterns in Star Wars trios made Anakin//Han//Finn.

You see, Kylo is every bad action of Anakin’s but with far less understandable motivations.

But Finn is everything good about Anakin, but with a better chance to express it.

Kylo is the destruction of Anakin’s legacy...

And Finn is the next chance.

(Please, PLEASE, Disney. Let him succeed.)

[imagine-mystrade]

Mistress and Apprentice: Finn and Phasma

for @finnappreciation Finn Meta/Theory Week. Day 3: Finn and FOIL  

Maybe this one’s a gimme, but I think Phasma and Finn are classic good/evil foils, with a few twists. One, Phasma saw promise in Finn as a Stormtrooper, considered him tops of the crop and officer material. While she never shielded him from discipline per se, just being mildly disapproving when Finn went back for Slip in some of the simulations, she also was never too hard on him, and was very quick to tell Hux that Finn’s breaking out was his first offense (and a pretty big one). Also, when Finn did not fire on unarmed, innocent miners in the mission that would make him and his class full Stormtroopers, Phasma could have had him reconditioned then and there. Instead, she decided to give him one last chance. We all know what happened there.

In contrast, Finn was afraid of Phasma. She had the power to break him, if she wanted, and displeasing her could mean bad consequences. He obeyed her because there was no other choice. You never had the sense that Finn respected either her fighting skills or her conduct as an officer. She was just someone to be obeyed, or you paid the price.

Where they are foils, in my view, is their view of the First Order and the way in which they became involved. Phasma literally leaped at the chance to join, seeing it as her chance to get off a desolate, brutal world. Still, it was her choice, and she bought entirely into the First Order doctrine, even killing Brendol Hux, her benefactor, because his son was able to convince her that Brendol was holding back the true potential of the FO. The idea of leaving is one that would fill her with horror. Whereas Finn, as we all know, was kidnapped and forced to serve. Something insider of him never bought into the FO as Phasma did, and when the opportunity came to run, he took it.  

In TFA, Finn turns the tables on her, stating that he was in charge, and forcing her to lower the shields, an act of treason that Phasma knew would lead to her immediate execution if she were ever found out. And in TLJ, in their last faceoff, when she contemptuously declares that Finn was always “scum,” it’s anger but also resignation. See, I think Phasma hoped to mold Finn her image, making him her assassin and enforcer the way she had been Hux’s. Someone as ambitious as Phasma wouldn’t be content to serve under a man like Hux for very long, and it’s possible that Phasma was setting the wheels in motion for her own cadre of Stormtroopers loyal to her who would rise up when the time came. Finn likely would have been at the head of all that. But she misread and misjudged him. She assumed that someone with all of Finn’s gifts and potential would jump at the chance to rise in the Order, just like she did. That was her mistake. Finn was nothing like her. He was never anything like her, and never will be.

[leg-grestrade]

Finn Meta Week Day 3: Finn’s FOIL - Poe Dameron

I think that I prefer to think about a foil not as someone who is in natural opposition, like a Harry v. Draco, but people who are similar with a noted or a few noted differences. One of my favorite literary foils is Elinor Dashwood and her sister Marianne. Elinor is steady, stable, sort of long-suffering. Marianne is sunny, lighthearted, is fine with taking chances. They are not enemies - they love each other very much - but despite being born to the same parents and having the same upbringing, they are very different women.

So with that in mind, this is why I think Finn’s foil is Poe Dameron.

Poe grew up with a legacy and a name that meant something in the Resistance. His mother was a noted Rebellion pilot and his father an officer of the Rebellion. He loses his mother at a young age, and there’s some indication Kes was a slightly overprotective, but ultimately wonderful father who encouraged his son to follow his dreams. Poe follows in his mother’s footsteps as a pilot for the New Starfleet and then defects because he’s heard about Leia Organa all of his life, and if Leia Organa says that the First Order is going to be big trouble for the New Republic and if the Senate won’t stop them, someone has to, then that’s that. He makes a name for himself as the best pilot in the fleet, rises in the ranks, is more or less Leia’s right-hand man, and will almost certainly take the reins of the Resistance in Episode IX.

And then there’s Finn. He has no legacy. We don’t know who his parents are, but they very likely weren’t famous freedom fighters. No one has said “Oh, you’re ______’s son!” He grew up stripped of basic humanity, given a designation, and not a name. No one encouraged him to do anything except improve his kill rate in the sims and to leave his lagging compatriots behind if they couldn’t hack it. He’s told that he has what it takes to be an officer, and that there is a path to leadership for him within the FO. He has a growing disquiet that crystallizes the first time he’s asked to kill innocent creatures, and he decides he will not do it. The Force awakens within him when he sees the closest person to a friend die, and understands how senseless it all is. He decides that he is going to be free or die trying. And eventually, he comes to the Resistance and now is a full-fledged member.

Poe grew up in a loving home, and had a cushy job, but abandoned it because his ideals would not let him look the other way when he knows that something is wrong and his government is doing nothing about it. He understands the stakes and understands the risks, he follows established protocol (until that clusterf-- that is TLJ), he considers himself a cog in the Resistance, and someone who knows very well that he may be called upon to give his life, and certainly order people into battle who may not return.

Finn grew up under a neo-fascist regime, has no idea who his family is, but was marked for advancement and a relatively high quality of life (compared to that of Stormtroopers), but deserts because he realizes it’s wrong and evil. He had considered himself just a cog in the FO machine, but now he wants to be just a person. His own person. Just Finn. And that is why it was not wrong for him to want to wait it out in the Outer Rim. He had never been given a choice before. In anything. He wants to be with Rey. He wants to just be. 

This is why I feel Rian Johnson was full of shit when he said that he scotched the Canto Bight treatment that had Poe and Finn going there together because the dialogue would be interchangeable. They are incredibly different men with different upbringings and different ways of seeing the world. That is their point of divergence. This scene illustrated it somewhat well. Finn is giving up his choice, which is to save Rey from potential death. Poe sees the mission, and that in a mission, people have to make choices and they may not be the choices they want to make. 

I hope JJ’s return means that Poe and Finn’s interactions will increase. I think there has been too little of them together in scenes that highlight not just their similarities but points of difference.

@finnappreciation