Lit Barriss Offee

At which point, a medical scan located the worms in Barriss' body and removed them. Barriss then got an "extremely generous" pardon from Chancellor Palpatine and reinstatement by the Jedi Council, dispatching her back into the Clone Wars with padawan Zonder just in time for the webcomic "Reversal of Fortune." So what were we all upset about again?

In such a retcon, Palpatine should have that wonderfully nice and reliable Kaminoan, Nala Se, perform the brain scan that clears Barriss. This will show how trustworthy and honest Nala Se is, and how no attention should be paid to the ravings of the deceased mad clone Fives about Nala Se and Palpatine being part of a conspiracy to brainwash clones via inhibitor chips.

So Captain Rex, kindly be a good clone and cease any ideas of removing your inhibitor chip by yourself, okay?

 

You can have Lux, and then Ahsoka and Barriss can have each other. Problem solved

 

well played

 

Guys the comic Gorefiend posted obviously reveals that Barriss fell because some Furbies died. Why are we still debating this?

 

My explanation for Barriss Offee's sudden change in behaviour was this:

A Cult of Force Users, not affiliated with Palpatine whatsoever, didn't want the Jedi in the Clone Wars and wanted to end it (even if it meant the Republic would lose the war, they didn't care). They captured Barriss and another near-human Jedi, replacing them with imposters who resemble them in skills and talk (and perhaps in the Force so as to fool the Jedi Council as well). The bombing of the Jedi Temple, the massacre of several clones in the Barracks done by a Jedi, assassination attempts on Senators by Jedi and assorted other plans would've had Palpatine remove the Jedi from the war effort - regardless of the consequences (and considering Palpatine wasn't fully prepared to remove the Jedi just yet and the Outer Rim Sieges had yet to get into full swing, his plan may have been in ruin - not that the Cult and their financial backers would've known that).

The Cult failed, of course. Barriss was rescued by Luminara (she was away from Coruscant and didn't return for months) and another Jedi (my OC - who could've been created just for this arc) - though perhaps with Ahsoka and Lux's help as well - and the Cult was exposed (and its financial backers). It would've also revealed a possible new ability in the Force that was rare and only found in select Jedi - the ability to sense when someone has been replaced, since everyone (including the non-Force-sensitive) have a unique signature in the Force only a few could sense (there weren't any in the New Jedi Order yet).

To be honest, after I got over my rant since Barriss Offee is like my most favourite character in Star Wars and stopped considering Clone Wars canon (Darth Maul in particular and Adi Gallia's death as well), I calmed down and thought it through. It gave me the idea that perhaps it was all a setup for a later arc that was never produced.

As much as Filoni's Star Wars annoys me (I just watched Seasons 3 and 4 recently and have thought about how bad it was), it got me thinking about maybe there was more then meets the eye.

 

Aside from the canon-wrecking problems of Barriss' fall (Even Piell, now Barriss, since there were obviously no other characters they could have used for those roles ), or how even in the TV show itself it felt totally out of nowhere, given that Barriss had last been seen three years ago, three seasons ago, so they probably didn't expect their main demographic to remember that far back, and the average quality of the show doesn't really indicate simple continuity was on their priority list, it just felt like such a not-mystery. If they had made up a brand new character, Miss Bomb Bomber or something, said she was an old classmate of Ahsoka's from the Temple, then surprise, she's the culprit.

Geonosian brain worms is probably the easiest retcon, if they care, although if they had had more seasons, I half expect they would have done an episode where it would put the Geonosis arc after the Barriss bomber arc, because, well, why not make the chronological order of even their TV show mind-bogglingly hard to understand. And yes, I know the bomber arc ended with Ahsoka kicked out, but then that would have given them another excuse to explain why Ahsoka was temporarily reinstated before leaving again. The original Christophsis arc had at least two prequels if I remember right, and the original season 1 episode order is very different from what they eventually decided on.

I liked Scout too, since Dark Rendezvous was such a great book and all, but Barriss was probably still higher profile, having actual animation and a real life actress. Well, at least to EU fans higher profile, the casual fan probably wouldn't care, and only serious fans might notice oddities.

Hm, wonder how much more funny TCW would be if re-imagined as instead of a war between Republic Separatists it was instead a giant fight over who would get Ahsoka, involving Barriss, Lux, that blue Senator, Padme (which would lead to Anakin's fall), Aurra Sing, young Boba, and Satine... Nah, that's too much crack to even contemplate, sorry.

 

Personally, I go with her still being addicted to those drugs from the Medstar books.

The ones that greatly increase force power at the cost of sanity.

 

The other problem with the Barris situation - I'm not sure if the script wanted me to think she was a Well Intentioned Extremist or Misguided Idealist carrying out the bombing because she thought the Jedi had lost their way, or just another snarling dark sider.

Her speech once she was captured and a few other things during the episode (like the protest showing ordinary citizens saying the same things) make us think it's the former - which is honestly the most interesting way of looking at it. But then you cross that with the lengths to which she went to conceal her involvement and frame other people (even kill one), and she looks more like a cold-blooded criminal than someone driven by guilt or idealism. Kind of confirmed by the confrontation with Anakin when he notices her red lightsabers - and instead of saying something about how he should know, the Jedi are just like the Sith now, or "damn you for making it come to this," or something else like that, she just smiles and goes "I think they suit me!" It feels good to be bad, Skyguy! It felt like if Star Wars had puppies, she'd have stomped on one right after that quote just to drive the point home. So you end up with a character who'd be interesting if she were all conflicted and guilt ridden and driven to extremes by war like she seems to be, but instead, only ever acts like a straight-up villain.

I had the same problem with General Krell, another character who would've been so much more interesting if he were exactly what he appeared to be - a simply terrible general who doesn't respect his troops and doesn't know how to fight a war. (Insert commentary on how the Jedi really aren't suited to be running a war, or how clones are looked down upon as unpersons by Republic society, or simply an homage to every soldier throughout history who had to die because he was led by a moron). But, no. He's a saboteur who's betraying his troops because he's fallen to the dark side because he thinks they're the stronger.

It's episodes like that that make me go "I know you're trying to do complexity and shades of gray and I applaud your intentions, but you're really not very good at it."

 

"Snarling dark siders" could pretend to be Misguided Idealists when caught.

 

I definitely don't buy that she's just "lol dark side" because of that one line. Again, I'm going to get into Barriss' head in that duel in a later part of my rant.

 

Part two of my "rant" is now up.

 

Again, Imposters anyone?

I couldn't stand Krell.

 

Sounds like Anakin in the prequel movies. One minute he's a nice little jedi (for the most part), then suddenly he's a crazy sith guy.

No, I'm mad, gosh darn it... as he stomps his foot on the ground and pushes a Jedi Master out the window...

 

I would go with PTSD. Bariss Offee certainly isn't the first person during a war to suddenly loose her marbles and kill lots of people in cold blood. The fact, that she is gone crazy doesn't mean she isn't capable of planning and has to run around with her mouth frothing. And the time of Order 66 she has somewhat recovered and the Jedi - desperate for every officer - have put her back on the field (with an exlosive necklace or implant as insurance should she go bonkers again).

This is garbage, since it would mean, that the Jedi-Council is okay with murdering their own members and soldiers to test a Padawan.

I was more surprised to see Tarkin so eager to have Ashoka sentenced, since she was the one to save his life in the Citadel-arc. Guess he was still miffed, that she didn't part with her half of the hyperspace-coordinates. Would have also been nice, if Obi-Wan or Yoda attempted to talk/console Anakin after Ashoka leaves and he brushes them off "I don't want to talk about it" (with an "ever" implied to explain, why she is never mentioned before or after).

 

Would it be to much to ask for an "Erase-button"?

 

Maybe Tarkin dislikes all Jedi - and is taking advantage of the opportunity to "show his true colours without getting punished for it."

In Rogue Planet Tarkin is portrayed as a human supremacist - it could be that he hates and resents Ahsoka for saving him, since she's an alien - and has been wanting to see her harmed for a while - and now he has his chance.

 

I don't really see Tarkin as much of a racist. I think she just annoyed the hell out of him and he's very happy to use her to discredit the Jedi, since he wants them out of the way and Anakin is the only one he likes.

And then he's just as happy to use Barriss for the same purpose. A Jedi traitor is a Jedi traitor, after all.

 

Hmm not even that really, since he had nothing to do during all of it. :/

 

Ho ho ho, happy to meet you too, fellow doubleposter. My first half-serious attempts at this retcon included the entire bombing being fake (half-serious since that's a lot of resources to test one promising padawan); Combining it with Barriss taking the blame to go undercover and someone entire else being truly responsible is something that would actually make it work, even if it might be in bad taste by the Jedi Council (but then again, being removed from the mundane world as they are, they aren't really the most considerate people and tend to fall on the pragmatic side for some of the bigger issues.

 

Imposter arc possibly anyone?!!

 

Or that it happened regardless, and the Council are quick to take advantage of the situation.