A/V The EPISODE IX - Rise of Skywalker - Thread - Untagged Spoilers Allowed!

If Leia had been in Padme's place on Mustafar, she would have stormed out of that silver ship and given Anakin such a slapping and verbal lashing that he would be begging Obi-Wan to throw him in the lava by the time he showed up.

Srsly Palpatine was lucky for Palpatine's sake that he sacked the Senate when he did. It was only a matter of time until Leia would fly across that theater and finish what Yoda started.


(I know people hate on this scene but I totally want to scream "take that, broken heart!" every time I see it...)

 

I, for one, am glad we got to see Leia use the Force. Truth to be told, I'm disappointed we'll never get to see more of that. What we've see in the new OT-era material made me think she'd develop a talent for psychometry, but it apparently never happened.

 

We do see Leia use the Force in a subtle unconscious ways in the films, when she's able to sense Luke or when she feels uneasy on the Cloud City for example.

And you could argue that one of the reasons why Leia is such a good politician and leader is the fact that she is strong in the Force. She can more easily feel other people's emotions and intentions, and sway them on her side.

 

That's certainly nice, but... I couldn't help hoping for more. She's the goshdarned "Other Hope," darnit.

 

Perhaps Leia will restore the Jedi offscreen while Rey is doing all the episodic swashbuckling.

 

Yeah, she's such a convincing leadership presence that she slaps her subordinates in the face.

 

Poe.... was kinda an idiot who majorly screwed everyone through insubordination twice, causing the deaths of a bunch of their crew both times... not saying I condone violence or anything but... sometimes you just wanna slap the Leeroy Jenkins on the team...

 

To be fair I thought it was obvious Leia wouldn't do that to just anyone. It's because it's Poe, and he's basically her sorogate son.

 

Actually Poe was the only one who was doing things correctly. Holdo and Leia's incompetence is what ends up getting people killed in the end (to the point that Holdo going bye bye permanently is probably a good thing for the Hero's, as they're spared her ineptitude any further).

 

can you expand on this?

 

I can't speak for @Thrawn082 , but Holdo reminds me of Edward Jellico from Star Trek (if you don't know him: http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Edward_Jellico ). A good commander on paper, but somehow doesn't mesh well with the crew and inspire confidence. In fact, the Riker Jellico dynamic sort of was like Poe and Holdo.

 

Compared to Holdo though, Jellico was a competent commander - but a very different style to Picard and far more of a hawk where the Cardassians were concerned.

(Jellico's final fate in the Destiny books works for me too.)

 

The problem with Poe was that he never once followed orders. He disobeyed Leia at the beginning to turn back, and got all the bombers killed. He's dismissive of Holdo even before he meets her ("Not what I expected"). Holdo is rude to him, sure, but he behaves like he's the one giving orders and he just got all those bombers killed and still doesn't seem to understand why he was demoted. Then he proceeds to badmouth Holdo to the rest of the crew behind her back, and colludes with Finn and Rose on a crazy mission behind Holdo's back that goes nowhere except frees some caged animals. The second he hears about the plan to put everyone onto shuttles, he tells Finn and Rose with DJ overhearing; the plan could have worked, except DJ blabbed and almost every one of their remaining shuttles got destroyed.

When you're in the army, you trust the person in charge. Especially if you just screwed up big time and got demoted. Poe knew Holdo's reputation and still thought he knew better than she did. Just because the person in charge doesn't tell you the plan doesn't give you the right to mutiny.

It's like that Rebels episode between Hera and Sabine, when Hera wouldn't tell Sabine the mission because it was top secret, and Sabine got all pouty. The more people who know the secret plan, the more chances the plan can fall into the wrong hands. Leia and Holdo have been in the game long enough to know there are spies and traitors everywhere.

 

Poe deserves a lot more slaps for being a insuborindate mansplaining little pee baby

 

People are acting like Leia walks around and slaps everyone, not just the guy she has a special maternal relationship with.

 

And he was being a douchenozzel

 

Where do these claims about Poe being Leia's surrogate son or whatever come from? I see that brought up all the time, is that actually ever stated anywhere or is it just something fans made up and ran with?

 

Apart from the fact Carrie, Oscar and the filmmakers have described it as such, and it's pretty clear from TLJ.

 

She's such a good surrogate to him that he is apparently a massive disappointment who she demotes and then backflips and puts in charge in the space of a couple of days.

 

For one, as the audience I don't know who Holdo is (I'm talking just the movie, I know her from the novel) so why should I trust her over Poe? Unrelated but I also don't know how she became a military officer with her background unless I forgot something. Hindsight is cruel because whether the lesson of this plot point is "blindly follow orders" or "trust Holdo or whathaveyou" was highly dependant on the outcome. I think that is a detriment to the story. They left it so open-ended that that happened. I believe the betrayal aspect/tension can still be made significant enough even if the open-ended-ness was toned down. The fun thing is I've found guys with military background be on either side of the issue of whether what Holdo did was right.

And the Battle of Crait always makes me wonder why Leia couldn't have directly ordered Blue Squadron to belay Poe's orders? Would she not be connected to them, only to the CO (Poe)?

 

He's demoted and then in a few 'hours/days' he's the next highest ranking officer left (I assume). I also don't assume by demoting him she gave up on him begin her successor.

 

You're right about Poe being responsible for ruining the shuttle plan, though if Holdo was honest with him from the very beginning, instead of talking to him in a condescending way, and told him the full plan, Poe would went with it (as he did after Leia finally explained it to him), the Resistance would survive (minus all their ships), and Finn and Rose would not need to go on that pointless mission and Rose would never fall in love with Finn (I'm not sure about Finn's feelings towards her).

Then again, in that case, Rey would be screwed, cause without Holdo going kamikaze on Snoke's ship, there would be no explosion to make Kylo Ren go unconscious and no distraction for FO ships not to blast Rey out of the sky the moment she tries to fly away from the Supremacy. So even though the Resistance would survive, Rey would either be dead or captured.

The Force works in mysterious ways

 

Apart from, you know, Leia..