Full Series The Clone Wars: Episode 317: Ghosts of Mortis Discussion Thread

This...

...and this.

The point of the arc wasn't show a overly complex plot, was explain balance and the Anakin role how the Chosen in the whole saga. And for me is pretty succesful in that.The dream/vision/Contact-style explanation was needed to preserve continuity. Mortis arc was a mistical and simbolic storyline that explain the main plot of the saga and the Lucas point of view, for me was really good.

Anakin joining dark side to destroy the Emperor and stop the future pain was an interesting twist. Attemp to changue the future and destiny is another path to dark side too. Interesting.

 

Could hanimal, Arawn_Fenn or someone post a basic outline of what this episode was telling us? I understand it I just can?t seem to illustrate it condensed with the rest of the Saga... I just need a basic outline to refer to.

 

You people need to set back, relax, and ENJOY the show rather than ripping every single episode to pieces. Every single time I come on here it is pages and pages of complaints and ridicule. I can't believe some of the atrocious pointless garbage people rant about. People are missing the point of the show obviously and think to display a superiority complex about it.

It was a fantastic show tonight. I has been a fantastic show from the beginning and is actually even better now. These past few episodes have been better than the Prequels and I have nothing bad to say about any of it. Grade A Star Wars.

 

Really want to plug in My N64 right now.

 

Well I have to say that seeing Qui Gon make an appearance really caught me off guard. I experienced a giddy glee I haven't felt in a long time. This is probbaly the first time I have gone into en episode without every single scene in the whole episode spoiled in preview format.

Though WTF was with that ending? Surely they could have shoehorned an awesome battle between Anakin and Son before the father does the deed? It would have made the ending waaaay more climactic! Oh I don't understand the world anymore.

 

I agree with those points, Garth.

I still don't get why the son wanted the father dead, but ended up crying when the father killed himself. That dagger still served no point in these episodes, since apparently you can kill them with a lightsaber.

 

We aren?t ?ridiculing? it... we are attempting to understand the philosophical stand-point of these episodes. Unless you understand that, in my opinion, the point of these episodes is lost.

For the same reason Vader initially wanted Luke dead and then did a U-turn and decided he didn?t; the fact there is still good in him. The Son wanted the Father dead, but then, when the event occurred, the good in him was released. As for why the lightsaber killed the Son... the Father took away his power by stabbing himself.

 

Time to dust off that opinions differ discussion again?

 

I really wanted to enjoy this and avoided watching spoilers as much as possible.... it was an enjoyable episode but two things struck me.

The whole vision thing was really pointless, since he forgot it and Father solved the whole thing with a touch of his finger....

They really could've saved it, and let Anakin remember it (& started to set up his viewpoint in RotS), by using visions from ROTS to seem like the Jedi were turning on him, without showing that the reason was because Anakin was Sith.

Eg he then becomes angry because Obi-Wan and Padme will turn against him & maybe for a short a time believes it "under the Son's influence" before he realises how "ridiculous" the idea is.

They could've thrown in a possible Ahsoka future just to get us speculating as well.

This would've provided character motivations & developments instead of the "forget" routine that was way too predictable and made half the episode dispensable.

AND, the Son needs the Father to be alive for his own power??? Why would he want to kill him then??? Even if its a throwaway line as part of Father/Anakin's deception, its really pointless since its been established that the Son is quite OK with killing the Father????

 

Don't be so quick to change your stance, Darth P. I still think you were more right than you were giving yourself credit for.

 

Dark side is part of nature, but the human beings use lead to evil and unbalance, for that the dark force users must be defeated.

Sith are causing the unbalance in the Force, and the only path to restore balance is defeat them.

Anakin seen his own future and the galaxy future, he suffer in pain and hated it, the Son use that hate for seduce Anakin: joining him to destroy the Emperor will changue the future and the galaxy destiny. Is a paralelism with the Anakin plan to destroy the Emperor and become ruler his own "peaceful" empire. Anakin believes that doing this are restoring the balance and giving peace to the galaxy.

He also believes that are acting how a "Jedi" destroying the future Sith Emperor and ending the war. In other words: the Jedi obsesion to find and destroy Sith blinds them and are leading the galaxy to the dak side.

 

The visions IMO was mean't to parallel Anakin's visions from ROTS.( He sees the future, wants to change, and so makes a deal with the devil). Someone said it best in an earlier post how this whole arc is basically a reflection/outline of the entire trilogy.

 

I called the 'Contact' ending last week!

Anyway...

No, that's not what he says at all.

1. He says: "Forgive me, daughter. I am an old fool who believed he could control the future."

He didn't say anything about balancing nature in humans...

What he says, directly relates to the fortune cookie: "He who seeks to control fate shall never find peace", which brings us to the next point.

2. This metaphor is really simple:

The point here is that Anakin joins the son because he has seen the future, and he wants to prevent it from happening. This simply mirrors RotS, where he sees the future (Padme dying) and joins Palpatine because he wants to prevent it from happening. He chooses the dark side willingly, and in doing so, his view of the Jedi shifts (just like in RotS). From his vision he's taking that the Jedi will be in his way, just like in RotS, where he rationalizes it by believing the Jedi are the traitors to the republic.

The premise here is that Anakin wants to control the future, but in doing so, realizes his fears. Which is the same mistake the father made; He tried to control the future by asking Anakin to stay on Mortis as a keeper of the balance, but by inviting the chosen one, he caused the collapse of the balance on Mortis and the death of his daughter.

I haven't figured out the whole episode completely though, it will take me some time to understand all the details.

-----------------------------

3. No, the sword didn't go 'poof' in 'Altar of Mortis', it was tossed aside by the father, and put into the tomb he buried her in, at the beginning of this episode.

4. The ending does NOT automatically mean it's all a dream. It leaves it ambiguous. I say it really happened, because they arrived by the signal, which had to come from somewhere. The fact that they were gone for only a moment, just means they were on a different plane, in another time-space-continuum.

5. They do have memories of what happened on Mortis, as demonstrated by the fact that Anakin says to Rex: "You wouldn't believe me if I told you". The only memories that were erased were Anakin's and Ahsoka's dark side streaks (including Anakin's vision). However, Obi-Wan does not know the extent of Anakin's vision, but will be able to tell Anakin that he believed the Jedi to be in the way of peace, that he had to do things Obi-Wan wouldn't understand and that Obi-Wan would try to stop him. Just like Anakin and Obi-Wan can tell Ahsoka what happened to her, if they want.

My questions:
So here's a few things I'm wondering about.

a) "This place is strong with the Force, darkness has no hold here". Which place exactly? Daughter's resting place? Or the place where Anakin sees Qui-Gon?

The reason I'm asking is, Qui-Gon tells Anakin that he should neither leave nor kill the Son. Which option leaves that open? That he joins him?

b) Does this mean Qui-Gon knows that Anakin has to join the dark side first to bring balance, or does this mean Qui-Gon was projected by the Son in an attempt to seduce Anakin to join the Son? If we follow this line of thought, we could assume older Ahsoka was also the Son's doing. If you think about it, Ahsoka's vision sowed doubt about her master, which lay the groundwork for her turning in part 2. Shmi was clearly the Son.

But if the darkness had no hold there, then it couldn't have been the Son's projection. Unless Father wasn't talking about that place. But why include that line then? I'm thoroughly confused about that.

- As for the sacrifice ending that seemed to echo both Vader's and Obi-Wan's deaths (both sacrificing

 

It still doesn't make sense to me that Anakin would join the Dark Side to prevent himself joining the Dark Side.

It's idiotic.

In ROTS, he knows very well he is making a deal with the devil but he is doing it to save Padme.

 

Exactly

 

Same things happens here.

He sees Padme getting choked, and he wants to prevent it.

What's not to understand?

I think my other questions are a lot harder to answer.

 

For the first two episodes of the arc, up until the death of the Daughter, the Son greatly resents the Father for not being gracious enough to just croak already (*a-hem* consumed by the Dark Side), and attacks him multiple times. After he has accidentally killed his sister and we hear his dialogue about how much he regrets it (he killed the only one he truly loved), the next time he sees the Father he tells him staying on that planet is not his destiny and doesn't try to attack him again. His grief for his sister eradicated his hatred for his father, and he was just gonna let him live basically to make up for having killed his sister and leave Mortis. Until - holy crap I did not see this coming at all - the Father kills himself.

 

The son's character was flawed. He "represents the dark side," but he certainly cannot make up his mind when he tried to kill his father the first time and shouted "I hate you" in one episode, and then tries to do it again in Ghosts, but ended up tearing when the father killed himself. If the son wanted to kill the daughter in Altar, and even said if you stand in my way I will have to kill you (or whatever weird dialogue that was), it did say he didn't care about her either. I don't seem to get why he wants to kill someone, but will end up having an emotional breakdown afterward.

That whole "good in him" was pretty much forced in there for the obvious reason.

 

No, he did not try to do it again. Daughter's death had probably changed his mind, and now he only wanted to leave the planet to feed his power-hungry vanity.

No, he didn't say that. He only said that it would seem they had to fight if she would get in his way. That is very different. It doesn't mean he needs or wants to kill her.

 

Well yeah, obviously a lot happened over the course of the three episodes so I'm not gonna argue your point there. But the Son never tries to kill the sister, he tries to kill the Father, then we find out why he didn't try to kill her and why he was so upset about it when he did by accident in this episode. Then he doesn't try to kill the Father again after that, my interpretation is that that has something to do with the fact that he's so remorseful about accidentally killing his sister. And since he went from being totally dedicated to killing him to deciding to not fight him (and with substantive reason for doing so), it's reasonable he'd then be upset that he suddenly killed himself (hence "it didn't have to be this way").



I can't be the only one who saw that as a mirror image of Obi-Wan sacrificing himself at the end of Ep.IV...right?

 

No, he did attempt to kill the father twice in Altar. In ghosts, he tried again, but ended up being emotional again. What I don't seem to understand is why he wants to kill his father, but he breaks down emotionally. He did this once after he killed the daughter, and then after the father kills himself. He even says "No, don't die" to the father, but he wanted to kill him. Mind boggling.

As for that quote, I watched that episode early in the morning, thanks for correcting me on that because I wasn't sure. However, you can see his intentions were clear that he didn't care if he hurt her by fighting, but probably didn't want to kill her. But why fight when you don't want the harm the one you love.

 

Like I said in my post above, it seemed to echo both Obi-Wan's and Vader's sacrifices.

I just explained that he didn't.

 

He did.

If not, then that dagger was so ridiculously pointless. It served no purpose and just completely throws you off.

 

Because all you crave is power because you're consumed by the Dark Side.

[image=http://www.galacticbinder.com/images/DarkestMoments/anakin-padme-choke.jpg]

 

No, he did not intend or attempt to kill Father in this episode.

He came to leave: "How quaint... my own personal send-off."

The dagger was in the event Obi-Wan and Father would try to stop him and Anakin. I see what you mean now. Sorry. He seemed to have changed his plans, then, seeing that the situation changed. It's too late for me to think, haha.