Star Wars

My son has been watching the Clone Wars lately, and so I've been paying a lot more attention to the Star Wars universe than I generally do.

Like any fan of Star Wars, I'm partially characterized both by a strong dislike of George Lucas and a frequent urge to gripe and complain about the source material.  I've never yet encountered a fandom that is centered more around an intense dislike of the creator and a frequent dislike of the material other than Star Wars fandom. But that's the nature of the beast and like any Star Wars fan I'm here to complain.

But not about the usual litany of things wrong with the Clone Wars.  Yes, the Mary Sue aspects of Ahsoka are annoying, yes the fact that male Jedi wear monk robes and female Jedi mostly wear stripperwear is obnoxious, yes the constant repetition that good is pretty and evil is ugly is maddeningly stupid.  Not to mention the annoyance of the fact that nothing major can be permitted to happen since all the major characters have to be alive and active due to the fact that the Clone Wars is sandwiched between episodes II and III. Been there, done that.

But, in the spirit of David Brin's discussion of the embrace of the idea of Divine Right of Kings in Star Wars, I've noticed something that bugs me a lot more than bad writing and costumes.

I refer to the droids and the clones and the way they illustrate the essential immorality of the theoretically "good" side in the conflict.  More specifically the complete denial of civil rights to those groups.

In the course of the movies and Clone Wars series droids are repeatedly demonstrated to be sapient, to have emotions, to be self aware, to be capable of original and creative thought.  In short they are people, and they are repeatedly shown to be people.  And they are bought, sold, and disposed of casually and without any consideration at all by every character in the universe regardless of whether we're supposed to see those characters as good or evil.

Even Ahsoka, the character more likely than any other in the series to display sentimentality and concern for others is utterly callous towards the droid population.  Sure, she calls R2 by a cute nickname, but when it looks like he (note the pronoun, everyone refers to droids with gendered pronouns, not "it") has been taken POW her response is to get Anikin a new droid and start calling it by a cute nickname.  Her actual concern for R2 is about on par with the concern we'd express for a toaster, not for a being repeatedly demonstrated to have both emotions and sapience.

In fact it is Anikin, the character we are supposed to be seeing slip ever closer towards evil, who is the only character who displays any concern whatsoever for any droid.  Of course, George Lucas has some really messed up ideas about good and evil, so the fact that Anakin is concerned for a droid is in Lucas' twisted view of things a sign not of goodness but of his increasing turn towards evil.  Because emotional attachments are evil in Lucas' universe.

Even if we were to agree that somehow biological sapience is inherently superior to mechanical sapience (and I see no reason to do that), we have similar problems with morality and the clones.

To begin with the clone army of the Galactic Republic is, when you get right down to it, an army composed of child soldiers.  Despite appearances caused by handwaved "forced growth" the oldest of them are ten years old at the beginning of episode II, and therefore no more than 12 or 14 during the Clone Wars.

They have no actual legal rights, they're subjected to military training and indoctrination from the moment they're born, and any clone who tries to leave the army is branded as a deserter.  Not only child soldiers, but slave soldiers.

And, like the droids, largely viewed by our theoretically good Jedi as disposable cannon fodder.  They're viewed with a bit more compassion than the droids, but the language used when talking about the clones is telling.  To begin with, they are never referred to as soldiers, only as "clones", as in "send a few clones down to check it out", or "we lost five clones, but rescued Jedi Master Whoever".

Two of the named and highly ranked clones are Rex and Cody, when referred to by rank they're identified as "Clone Commander Cody" and "Clone Commander Rex".  Not Commander, but Clone Commander.  The need to continually emphasize that they're clones, and therefore apparently not real people, is illustrated by the language.

That, of course, is ignoring the fact that the clones are, per the movies, genetically tweaked so that they are guaranteed to be obedient to any order from the proper authority.  We see this illustrated in Episode III when Palpatine orders the clones to kill the Jedi, and this order is followed without any hesitation or reluctance.

 As Brin observed, the Star Wars universe is an inherently aristocratic universe.  It is not merely for show that Lucas puts so many titles of nobility into a setting that ostensibly involves a democratic Republic (Queen Amadala, Princess Leia, His Serene Highness Prince Bail Organa, etc).

We are supposed to ignore the little people, the mere droids, and clones, and slaves [1] who populate the background of Star Wars, and focus entirely on the trials and travails of the important people, the kings and queens and Jedi.

The acceptance of the literal enslavement of droids, and the essential enslavement of the clones is so universal that it is never mentioned.  Neither Lucas nor any other person involved in Star Wars or the Clone Wars ever thought it was even necessary to try and justify it.  No Droid Liberation Movement exists, no one protests in Coruscant demanding civil rights for clones,  in a universe filled with conflict and philosophic naval gazing, and a civil war justified by fears that the Sith lead separatists would end freedom, you'd think that there would be at least some minor disagreement and the disdain and contempt held for clones and droids would be somewhat less universal.  But it isn't.

[1] Note, for example, the way Anakin's mother completely vanishes from the narrative in Episode I.  The crisis has (apparently) been resolved, Master Kenobi  now has the full power of the Jedi Temple behind him, and they leave Anikin's mother held in chattel slavery on Tatooine, there to be bought, sold, raped, tortured, or killed at the whim of her owners, for over a decade.  Even if there are compelling reasons why the Republic and/or the Jedi can't end the practice of slavery on Tatooine, rescuing a single slave would be trivial for such an organization.  They don't because she's s background, not important, and because of that we aren't supposed to think any less of the Jedi or her son Anakin for leaving her in slavery.  Important people we are supposed to care about, background characters we are supposed to be as supremely indifferent to as the characters are to clones or droids.