one moment in the obi-wan kenobi series i can't stop thinking about:
when obi-wan visits daiyu, he sees a homeless clone trooper begging on the street.
the role was called nax (and amazingly also portrayed by temuera morrison) and according to his armor he must've belonged to the 501st, anakins battalion.
he asks obi-wan for credits and obi-wan tosses some into nax' helmet. it's such a short scene and yet it just gets me?
palpatine facilitated the creation of the clone army (building on what sifo-dyas started but still) for the singular purpose of getting rid of the jedi. he used them, had chips planted in their brain that forced them to kill the people they followed into battle, the jedi they valued and trusted, and who valued and trusted them.
and when he no longer needed them, he threw them away. in clone wars, we spend so much time with the clones, seeing them as individuals, as humans. but to palpatine and to the empire, they were always tools. always disposable.
and then, under the empire, these people who have fought in countless battles, who have known nothing but war, don't even get a home to return to.
for me, it so perfectly encapsules the empire as a fascist regime. a regime that doesn't even remotley care about the people under it, least of them the people who are no longer of use to it.
it's also such a strong depiction of the tragedy of the clones. bred for war and never intended to have an actual life.
and it's about this specific clone. nax. he is a veteran, he lives on the streets, he is injured. he is unable to provide for himself, so he is forced to beg.
he served under anakin, so there is no way he didn't recognise obi-wan. the look he gives him definitely suggests as much. but still, he doesn't tell anyone. he could've gone to any official, to any soldier of the empire. maybe it would've earned him a reward, anything. but he didn't.
and that itself is so telling of the fact that palpatine is wrong. the clones aren't just tools. they are human, they have emotions, they have deep loyalties. he might have been able to plant a chip in their brain that forced them into blindly following him for order 66, but they are not his slaves. they aren't like droids. and we see this in so many other star wars shows, with clones like rex and the bad batch fighting the empire, or with cut lawquane, who started a family instead of fighting in someone else's war, or with fives who almost figured it all out, who wnated to save himself and his brothers and died for it (don't get me started on him or i'll never end this post), but also destilled in this moment, the tragedy of this trooper and his small act of resistance.
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