Loteva: How could I turn down a request from you? Oddly enough I had just been to the theatre myself over the weekend to see Urinetown before you posted that request. Strangely enough I get the feeling that that is a musical that Palpatine would enjoy. I'm weird I know. I highly recommend it though.
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It is another beautiful night on Coruscant. The skies are cloudless, allowing countless stars to twinkle like diamonds resting on black velvet. The planet itself seems to glow with a golden sheen as artificial lighting from a million skyscrapers and a billion speeders light up the night. Many a poet has waxed nostalgically about the glorious brightness of Coruscant, for in the end what better metaphor could there be for the vibrant and shining heart of the Republic than Coruscant at night.
Frankly all of that light hurts my eyes. What others see as beautiful I see as simply gaudy. But it matters not, for tonight more important things are transpiring in locations that are thankfully less bright and jarring. For the first time in countless months I have managed to arrange for myself an evening free of meetings and strategy sessions. But what does a Chancellor do in his precious few off hours? Why, go to the opera of course.
Ah the opera. Let the lower income hooligans have their low brow comedic programs. Let them keep their overly sentimental dramas and their brainless reality programs. Those of us with actual class and taste will subscribe to more sophisticated forms of entertainment thank you very much.
It really is a dying art, the opera. It seems that fewer and fewer people have an appreciation for the classics. What a shame.
As I walk onto the Chancellor's balcony and prepare to take my seat my ears are treated to the low roar of voices throughout the audience, a veritable sea of life pulsing with every emotion and thought across the spectrum. As I make my appearance the voices stop. As one, the audience turns to face the balcony; heads inclined upwards, all eyes on me. As one they break into respectful applause. Ever since the war began it has become something of a mandatory tradition to either applaud or bow before the Chancellor whenever he makes his appearance at such events.
No one really knows who originated the custom, but no one seems to have much of a problem bowing and scraping before their future liege. After all, they are going to be doing a great deal of that in the future.
I give a polite nod and a smile to my adoring public and take my seat. The show is about to begin. The lights dim, the rest of the audience finds their seats and sit down. The curtains sweep apart, the orchestra is engaged and the show begins.
As the opera continues through its first act I cannot help but notice the similarities between The Clone Wars and the structure of an opera.
In both cases you have a grand epic, a story as it were that shall be spoken of in legend for millennia to come.
In both cases there are daring heroes and grand adventures, quests that the heroes must go on.
There are dastardly villains and helpless maidens in distress.
There are wise mentor figures and evil monsters to be slain.
But the difference between this opera and the Clone Wars is both simple and glaring; this opera has a "happy" ending. In this opera that I am watching now, that I have admittedly seen at least a dozen times, the villain is killed at the last second and the glorious hero wins the war, ensuring peace and justice for all in the land, blah blah blah. Need I say more? I never did appreciate comedies as much as I did tragedies. In an operatic comedy there is always a happy ending that neatly wraps up all the details. I found this unrealistic. I always appreciated the intricacies on the duality of truth and lies, and therefore appreciated tragedies more, seeing them as more realistic and reflective on the cold realities of life in this universe.
But the Clone Wars are indeed an opera, they just aren't a comedy. They are the ultimate tragedy.
The stage is the galaxy itself. Its audience is the various peoples who populate the planets of the known cosmos. The music of the orchestra is the explosions and gunshots that ring out across the battlefield. The songs sung by the major characters are replaced with the shrieks of the dying and the gasps of the soldiers choking on the frothy blood that fills their throats as they lay in their own carnage and die by the millions. The heroes of this opera are the Jedi, particularly young Anakin Skywalker. Masters Kenobi and Yoda play the joint role of mentor, while the role of the maiden falls to Senator Amidala. The grand adventures and quests our hero embarks on are the battles to contain the Separatist advance. The evil monster is none other than General Grievous, and the dastardly villain?
Well, most people would say Count Dooku, but Lord Tyranus is at best a supporting character. No, the real villain is none other than yours truly.
I admit that it is slightly unusual to think of oneself in such a context, but if I was to look at myself and my actions within the narrow constructs of the operatic apparatus it would seem that I would fall into the "villain" category.
Not that I really consider myself a villain, not at all. But I don't consider myself a hero either. No, in the end mere labels conjured up by others have little to no overall meaning or value to me. Nevertheless since I insist on this opera analogy I suppose villain will suffice no matter how inadequate it truly is.
This war and the machinations behind it are truly a grand tragedy, worthy of a greater audience if it wasn't for the fact that its full revelation to the public would undo my plans. Oh well, I suppose it will have to suffice that only I can truly enjoy and appreciate it for what it truly is.
Anakin, much like any hero in a tragedy has a fatal flaw, a flaw that shall prove to be his ultimate downfall. Kenobi would say that it was arrogance. The Jedi Council would say that it was his defiance. His wife would say that it is his impulsiveness. And these are truly faults that the boy possesses. But there is one fault above all; a fault that I shall exploit to its fullest that shall turn our young hero into the very thing he now claims to loath the most.
Anakin Skywalker cares too much. Every other fault he possesses stems from this simple truth. He is arrogant because he believes that he can, that he must save everyone that he cares for. His recklessness and defiance are also brought about from this fault.
He cares. He loves. His compassion is his greatest weakness. He commits and dedicates himself to people and to causes and latches on with all of his might. Once he is attached to someone or something it is nearly impossible to get him to let go. And that is precisely what I am counting on. He cares too much, and the loss of those he cares for, or even just the threat of losing those he cares for will be enough to push him over the brink and straight into the abyss.
I saw this for myself after he lost his mother. I remember that day well. I was in a meeting with some advisers when it happened. I could sense it all radiating from him; the abject sorrow, the hopelessness, and the rage. Oh yes the rage. Followed quickly by the smell of desperation and abject terror as one by one the Tusken Raiders, men, women, and children were all cut down and slaughtered like the animals that they are.
Ever since then the fear of loss has grown and grown. It has transformed him bit by bit, turning the once glorious hero of this epic War amongst the Stars into the increasingly deranged, ruthless and vile creature that he shall become.
We are entering into the third and final act of the epic tragedy that is the Clone Wars. The threat of loss shall drive Anakin into my camp, and when the grand hero shall lose the one he loves most he will go mad with grief, thereby embracing his inner demon and renouncing the final remnants of what he once was. He shall turn on those he had called brother, and the curtain shall fall with the villain triumphant and the heroes dead.
For in the end you either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain. The Jedi shall die heroes in their own mind, while Skywalker shall live to become the villain. As I said before such titles have little meaning in real life and are often far more subjective, but in the end it works for the analogy being used.
The fall of Skywalker is pivotal, the central conceit of the show, the support beam upon which the entire structure of this tragedy is built. But there is so much more at stake than the fate of one man.
This tragedy is about the culmination of a vendetta nearly seven thousand years old. Ever since the days when the predecessors of the Sith were cast away from the Jedi and exiled into the wilderness of space we have sought our vengeance. And now we will have our revenge, and vengeance is a dish best served as cold as the vacuum of space itself.
One of the most delectable things to me about operas in general and tragedies in particular is irony. And if there is one constant in the galaxy wide tragedy of the Clone Wars it is irony. The Jedi believe themselves to be fighting against the darkness and defending the light, but this cannot be further from the truth. The Jedi unknowingly serve the very darkness they hate, defending an ideal that has already died and a Republic that has already fallen while inadvertently furthering the goals of the Sith. In the end they shall die, not at the hands of their hated enemies but rather at the hands of those they called friends and allies. They shall fall at Skywalker's blade or be gunned down by their clone comrades, never fully knowing or understanding why, just that they have been deceived.
Yes, irony truly is the best part of any good tragedy.
The opera comes to an end as it inevitably must. The curtains fall, and the story comes to a close. For those on the stage the characters shall live happily ever after.
We ourselves are drawing towards the end. Soon the curtain shall fall on the Jedi and the Republic. Skywalker will fall and fulfill his destiny. The plot shall be resolved. But that is really not the end now that I give it further thought, not by a long shot. I always wondered what happened after happily ever after, or miserably ever after in the case of tragedies. In the case of the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker and the Clone Wars we are sure to find out.
After all, every ending is nothing more than just another beginning. The end of the war shall bring about a new beginning, a new story just waiting to be told. This shall be a story that I myself will mold and write, a story that shall have no heroes and no end, only me.
The tragedy of Anakin Skywalker is coming to a climax and an end.
The story of Palpatine however is just beginning.
I look forward to seeing how it plays out.
