There are a few characters that I had heard about long before seeing The Clone Wars, and Satine is one of them. She is essentially the second lead in all three of these episodes, and I’ve got lots of thoughts.
1. Satine + Obi-Wan sitting in a speeder. K-I-S-S…
About 2 years ago, I was big time on the ‘Rey is Obi-Wan’s granddaughter’ train, and a few people that I spoke to said that it couldn’t be true, because Obi-Wan always loved Satine, and Rey clearly is a human, so can’t be Satine’s granddaughter. While they (apparently) were right, it did make me curious to see who this Satine is, and what hers and Obi-Wan’s relationship was like.
These episodes handled this relationship in a really nice way, where Obi-Wan didn’t seem like a hypocrite or liar for having feelings for Satine, nor did he let his tongue roll out of his mouth and start howling when he saw her. He handled it not unlike how an actual mature person would have handled it. Who’d have thunk it?
2. Jon Favreau! Greg Proops!
The voice acting got a little more high profile this week, with both Jon Favreau (the actor, not the Pod Save America host) and Greg Proops voicing Mandalorans. Favreau doesn’t have the most identifiable voice in the world, but it stood out as not being something different, and so I instantly had to look it up. There was a certain edge or gruffness to it that stood out as ‘not a trained voice actor.’
That’s not to say he didn’t do a fine job, it was just noticeable. I’m glad the show doesn’t do more stunt casting, but I’d be fine with more instances like this.
3. Man, Anakin hates droids
I wonder if this is supposed to be foreshadowing his turn to the Dark Side, but Anakin really talks to strange droids like they are pieces of shit. He encounters a droid in “Voyage of Temptation” that he dresses down for no real reason whatsoever. I’ve heard people say to watch, on a date, how your partner treats the waitstaff, and how that’s a good indicator of how they’ll treat you. Well, if droids are the waitstaff of Star Wars, then it’s no wonder Anakin went dark.
4. Obi-Wan would’ve left the Jedi Order?!?
And herein lies the difference between Anakin and Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan says that if they ever decided to pursue their relationship, he would cease being a Jedi. He has the maturity to realize that he couldn’t be both a Jedi and a husband. Anakin has such hubris that he never even considers that. He’s the Chosen One! He can do everything!
While it is easy to judge Anakin here, I wonder if Obi-Wan had shared this story when he saw Padme and Anakin getting close, if it could’ve changed everything. “You know Anakin, when I was young, Master Qui-Gon and I were on Mandalore…” Just let him know that what he’s feeling isn’t bad, and that he still has a choice. The more I watch The Clone Wars, the more my admiration for Obi-Wan grows, but I also see more of the holes in Anakin’s training.
5. Pacifism in the Jedi Order
These episodes, specifically “Duchess of Mandalore,” really hammers home Satine’s pacifism and, specifically, how at odds that is with what the Jedi have become. I’ve often thought that the prequels/The Clone Wars put a larger emphasis on violence than the descriptions that Obi-Wan and Yoda give in the original trilogy. Satine sort of reinforces that idea, asking Obi-Wan when the Jedi stopped being peacekeepers.
Someone told me that this series was once described as a tale of how the Jedi got it all wrong, and while I’ve never seen that quote exactly, I think instances like this are good examples of that. Of course, it is impossible to know how different things would be, but it seems like Obi-Wan, a Padawan at a time of relative peace, and Anakin, a Padawan during a time of relative war, have very different attitudes on what it means to be a Jedi.
