The Legend of the Galactic Heroes discusion thread

[GloatingSwine]

As far as I can tell so far the new one is deliberately playing it a bit closer to the books. The old OVA series changed the order some perspectives were shown in to match the chronological order not the order the books showed or reported them in, and expanded some minor characters a bit.

[MithrandirOlorin]

As far as I can tell so far the new one is deliberately playing it a bit closer to the books. The old OVA series changed the order some perspectives were shown in to match the chronological order not the order the books showed or reported them in, and expanded some minor characters a bit.

That is an interesting comparison. Telling a story non chronologically is difficult to do well.

[GloatingSwine]

The story isn't super achronological, but it will eg. tell the same events from two different sides one after the other, sticking to one perspective for a fair chunk of time, then switch to the other side and talk about what was happening at the same time.

Whereas the OVA series frequently cut between the two perspectives to show the events more simultaneously.

[MithrandirOlorin]

Lindsay Elis just did a video on the ideology of the First Order.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAVeyXwy3BE

Right from the title it had me thinking of my own attempt to deconstruct Star Wars vilification of Fascism back in late 2016.
http://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.c ... it-so.html

Lindsay's point much more so then mine was on the ideological vagueness of The Empire/First Order. And considers that maybe that's the point, real world Fascism is often pretty Vague, or at least we like to define it vaguely, some would argue Mussolini did have more a philosophy then Lindsay's source gives him credit for. But that's not an argument I want to have here.

The thing is, I can't help but feel that even with that excuse for the lack of well defined in depth ideology there is still and always has been a key element of Fascism missing from Star Wars. Even in the Prequels which I like to praise as being more thought out then the rest of it.

Legend of The Galactic Heroes is an Anime franchise I've been hearing about for awhile before the Reboot allowed me an easy way to start actually consuming the story. And every glance I got had me going "well that's sure trying to be Anime Star Wars". (Gundam is also called the Star Wars of Japan, but I've come to genuinely think of Gundam as more analogous to Star Trek.) In Digibro's old video about Strong Presentation in Anime he talks about how it used Classical Music, and that was exactly why Lucas hired John Williams.

But now that I'm actually watching a version of it. I feel this very issue is what it's doing better then Star Wars did.

Episode 4 features characters on the Republic side talking about how the first Emperor rose to power. And that might have been more profound to me if it didn't feel so overplayed, it's easy for me to imagine what may have looked like, I saw it in Revenge of The Sith.

But then in Episode 5 we suddenly see Fascist tendencies in the Republic, on the side we would have assumed up to this point were the good guys. The tension caused by our main character refusing to stand was one thing. The really import event later in the episode was this image.

It looks kind of like the KKK doesn't it, but this group is analogous to a lot of things.

One important thing Folding Ideas video on Triumph of The Will emphasizes was that the massive "army" of Nazis in that film were NOT the official sanctioned Army of Germany, at least not yet. Even before Hitler was appointed Chancellor this "army" existed acting like a vigilante Mob in the streets harassing Jews and others. This was pointed out in a recent Albert Einstein biography.

And that's what makes the violent behavior at Trump rallies back during the election so relevant.

This is why the Superhero genre has long been plagued with Fascist implications. The Graphic Novel of Watchmen features an in universe article from the conservative magazine Rorschach reads comparing Superheroes to the Vigilante activities of the KKK with the intent of defending both. Another little known fact about the Klan, they actively tried to enforce Prohibition during the 20s.

Of course what this episode did is bound to make some American Liberals uncomfortable, because it associated Fascists with those wanting War with the foreign totalitarian state, not those who think all the Bloodshed isn't worth it.

[MithrandirOlorin]

The people who are usually the most Anti-War people in America will still look at the 30s and 40s and see anyone opposing War with Nazi Germany as Nazi sympathizers and bigots. But the truth is, the real KKK were the earliest and most hawkish of America's War Mongers in 1939.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mon ... 2c401829a9

One of the pillars of Facism is Nationalism. And that is why no, it's not absurd to depict Fascists as in conflict with each other. Mussolini personally hated Hitler. And many of the same OSS agents who fought Nazi Germany wound up working with European Fascists against the USSR during the Cold War. And that's why I actually would like to see a good story exploring he Fascist implications of the Captain America character and am sick of seeing it written off by "he punched Hitler", but I don't trust any of these in continuity Marvel gimmicks to do it well.

But back to the main topic. This is what is missing from attempts to make The Empire or First Order like Fascists in Star Wars. The Storm troopers of Star Wars whether they're manufactured Clones or brainwashed child soldiers are not what they were named after, the actual Storm troopers and Brownshirts were volunteers from among ordinary citizens, not unlike the KKK.

As I've said before, in Audio Commentaries George Lucas talks more about Napoleon III then Hitler or Mussolini. That makes a huge difference. Hitler and Trump never had real popular support, Hitler actually lost his election, and Trump failed to win the popular vote, and even the person with more votes then him couldn't get over 50%, and the Election itself had a very low turn out. Napoleon III didn't need goons acting like terrorists because he really was Popular, he got 75% of the Vote in an Election with 75% turn out among those eligible to vote, America hasn't seen a turn out like that in ages. I highly recommend Mike Duncan's Revolutions Podcast's episode on Napoleon III's 1848 Election.
https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot. ... ists.html

[MithrandirOlorin]

https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot. ... -wars.html

I know I just said on Tumblr that I don't want to talk about my dissatisfaction with Disney's Star Wars anymore. Well I'm not doing that here directly at all here, this is just me talking about what could have made a good way to follow up ROTJ.

The scenario that would have interested me for a post ROTJ Galaxy is something similar to what we have in LOTGH. The Empire and the Rebels now on somewhat equal footing. But with the situation complicated by the New Republic having it's own Fascist tendencies and good people being allowed to exist on the Empire's side.

This post can also be a viewed as a bit of a follow up to Legend of The Galactic Fascists. At first Episode 8 (who's Dub just dropped so that's how far I am currently), had me thinking that this Empire is more like WWI Germany that Nazi Germany (with the use of Kaiser a clue that was the case all along) a system where a good chunk of Feudalism still exists.

But then they reminded me of the "inferior Genes act". Of course it's implied that's not the law at all anymore. Perhaps Rudolf was a sort of Hitler but under successive Emperors a Nazish reign morphed into something more Feudal.

Going back to the Fascist tendencies shown on the Republic's side. I can't help but wonder if maybe the Empire is more Nazi and the Fascists in the Republic are more Mussolini style Fascists.

Again, it would have been refreshing to see a Star Wars saga where the objective was for the two sides to find peace, and not simply a continuous cycle of needing to wipe out mustache twirling villains.

The more I think about it, the more purely Superficial the Fascism of the Empire in Star Wars always was. The things it had in common with Fascism or Nazism it also shares with other Totalitarian regimes like North Korea, of the USSR, or the old British Empire, or Napoleon's and of course Ancient Rome.

The Empire had no Nationalism, it may look like the ruling class is all one species, but a Nationalist Empire wouldn't neglect to include the name of the Fatherland in how they refer to themselves. It really always was just Totalitarian for Totalitarinaism's sake.

[MithrandirOlorin]

Episode 9 was quite interesting.

[MithrandirOlorin]

Episode 11 was another pretty nuanced episode.

[MithrandirOlorin]

Well, I have now Finished the Simuldub.

Anyone have anything to say about it?

[CharlesPhipps]

STAR WARS critique of fascism is notably a critique of Richard Nixon, Augustus Caesar, and Hitler all in one. It's meant to be applicable, like THE LORD OF THE RINGS, to discussions of fascism and democracy but not meant to be a one-to-one-stand in. It's not retelling WW2 in Space but it has a lot of World War themes.

In short, what you think of as a failure was actually its success to tell a universal story about the evils of authoritarianism.

I'm not a big fan of the Galactic Heroes overarching plot because it falls into the trap a lot of the idea of Fascist but Efficient which the idea of the dictatorship with its rampant militarism is going to be more effective than the democracy. I've written some sci-fi books with deconstructing the idea so I may be a bit biased on that.

Still, I like the somewhat more obvious take on the Empire's flaws.