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Issue 341: Star Wars Celebrations · Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast

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We must be cautious. Welcome to the NED party. Hi, this is
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Nick Anstasu, story editor on Star Wars, The Clone Wars and Star Wars
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bad Batch, and you are listening to Aggressive Negotiation. That's right. You
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made the right turn in hyperspace, and you wound up once again with the
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broadcast transmissions from the outer rim of Aggressive Negotiations, the Star Wars podcast emanating
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out there in the galaxy far far away, other galaxies that haven't yet been
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discovered, and galaxies well traveled by space whales. I'm one of your hosts,
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Jedi Master John Mills, and it is my pleasure to welcome once again
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into the esteemed co host's chair the Jedi Master to my also Jedi Master.
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How you doing, Jedi Master Matthew Rushing. I'm a little I'm sorry,
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I'm a little out of breath. I just jumped off my father and got
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here as fast as I could. I almost missed it, and yeah,
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I just had to get I don't know why, but I felt like this
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intro needed a fatherier reference for some reason. You know, can't bite.
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It's it's a little it's crazy, but I'm just glad that I finally made
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it here to our recording studio. Who goodness, I suppose it's probably good
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that writing a fatherier. You know, it's safe because they can't o bite.
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But anyway, you can of course reach out to the show over on
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the nerd party dot com slash contact, and you can reach out to us
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on X at the Jedi Masters. You can find the network at joy nerd
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Party on X and also as the nerd Party on Facebook and Instagram. And
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we're all too old and too busy to start a TikTok account because man,
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I don't know. We're having too much fun exploring fun unexpected topics like the
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one I'm about to throw at you. Anybody who's a long time listener knows
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that every so often Matt and I like to throw surprise topics. And I'm
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thinking to myself earlier. Here we are in the holiday season, whooped you
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do? As we record this, and I'm thinking to myself, we've gone
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to great lengths to prove that there is a complexity even to the syth or
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the syth accolytes or the inquisitors. Basically, they're not running around killing people
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all the time. We've discussed on the show before, what is you know,
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in a syncretic force aware galaxy like the galaxy far far away? What
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do holidays look like? And what I wound up thinking because I was at
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work and this is just what you do when you wish you were at home.
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In terms of holiday celebrations, let's just take as a given that they
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exist in the Star Wars galaxy life Day jokes generated on command? There did
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Lord Vader and Lord Sidius participate in any holiday celebrations that weren't just Empire Day
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parades? Like were there? Was there the equivalent of an Imperial Christmas party?
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Basically? Yeah, is my great question. I mean, of course,
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John, because there's Sithmus uh and which is the celebration of all previous
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Sith lords. And really what it is is it's a it's a whole holiday
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for the current Sith lords to dunk on all of the other Sith lords,
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who of course are now dead and so and it's where you know, you
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tell bad jokes about how they died, and you know, you drink Mustafarian
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wine which is incredibly spicy h and you also, uh, you know,
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you spin the chance cube. And of course everybody's cheating because they're said,
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right, at least the two of them. Exactly. It's a small party
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though again because you know there's only two a master and an apprentice, and
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it's always super awkward, you know when uh, you know, the inquisitors
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are trying to show up and they're like, we're sith to you know,
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or you know, other other Dark Force users are like can we join?
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You're like, dude, it's Sithmus. No, of course you can't join.
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The thing is keeping going down, sort of like the funny road.
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I'm thinking in terms of like the first holiday celebration, after the death Star
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has been destroyed, the Emperor just gives Vader like a big box of nothing,
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and he's like, well there's nothing in there. It's like, of
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course, I give you a death Star, you wrecked it, you get
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nothing this Christmas. I was going to say, he he, he gives
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him a burned and Dorian and whatever that animal was that Chewie was after,
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and you know it's it's like extra extra crispy, like super exactly, it's
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just a tent like I could I could see the Emperor doing something like giving
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him a gift that's like that is like you're saying, like food and Vader
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being like, I can't eat this, and the Emperor is just be like,
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oh, too bad. I guess I'll take it then, and just
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like eats it in front of him, sort of thinking, oh, this
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is so delicious. You don't have any taste buds anymore, but man,
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you you wish you could. You should really try this. I mean,
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who oh my gosh, the Moncalamari sweet and sour sauce is amazing on this
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right, But like that's got to be like an awkward sort of thing.
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Like you cannot have any sort of functional society without like holidays. You need
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bread and circuses to keep everybody plicated, right, So there have to be
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some sort of holiday celebration, and we know that there is some sort of
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you know, the maybe it went away over time though, like maybe the
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time we get to Return of the Jedi, it's gone. But like we've
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established we know the Emperor loves art. We know the Emperor, you know,
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he goes to the opera, he appreciates fine pieces of sculpture, all
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of these sorts of things. It's not necessarily a gift giving situation, but
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there's got to be something where, I mean, there had to be holiday
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celebrations before the Empire. They can't outlaw all of them. Yeah, so
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you have to have some sort of like get together party. We see in
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one of Generoso's flashbacks that there's a party that her father's attending. Was that
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maybe a holiday party? Yeah? On corus On, you know, I
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do think it's interesting because I think, you know, so I've just been
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reading the book The Boys in the Boat, which is about to be a
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movie, which is about the young men from the University of Washington who win
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the nineteen thirty six Olympics and at you know, against all odds, and
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you know, of course it takes place in those Olympics took place in Germany,
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in Nazi Germany, before the major war had started, And so it's
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interesting thinking about that because what happens with the Empire is basically what happens in
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Germany. The state becomes the religion, you know. And so that's where
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I do think there when you were just joking seriously, I think that Empire
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Day is the thing that becomes the national holiday, the celebration of the way
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in which the uh the Empire had saved us, right, And I think
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that there's there's something incredibly powerful about the idea. And you know, we
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started off super silly, but we've talked at length about this idea that you
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know, one of the thematic elements of Padme dying is by her leave being
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this galaxy. It's a representation of all that is good and wholesome and true
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and right and natural, and the galaxy kind of dying for the mechanicization of
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the empire. And so them then stripping away to this idea of you know,
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Vader becomes a boogeyman. Why because nobody else really has the force.
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Religion isn't talked about in that sense, the force is not talked about.
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We everything just becomes what is material and instead and the stripping away of you
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know, the supernatural, the spiritual from all of life. And so it
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does make sense to me that in many ways the Empire would would try to
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stamp out everything it could when it came to religion or religious ceremonies. I
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think, here you go here a great example, and or right the planet
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that they're on, where the eye happens, that is a religious ceremony for
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this culture. But they have slowly been stamping that out and destroying it so
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that these people have nothing to celebrate, right, and so I think that's
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a great example of kind of what we're talking about. That's a really good
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pulls. Yeah, well it would be gradual, You're right, it would
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be gradual, slowly, slowly, slowly. As you break people's spirits,
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they stop celebrating in the same way. Then celebrating becomes a drag. Then
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they're cynical about it. Then they just half of them are like, you
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know what, it was all bogus. Anyway, you just have to break
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their spirit and get them to the point and then you just wait out the
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true believers and either you'll weed them out some way or they'll die off,
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and you just be patient about it. I you know, I hate to
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draw like a real world example, but you look at you know, like
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Tibet, right, Yeah, wall them off. Fine, go ahead and
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believe what you believe, but we're just gonna make sure you can't grow,
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and we'll just wait for you to die out and then we win. Yeah.
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It's a grim thing. Hmm okay, okay, I see, I
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can go along with that. But it's one of those things where I think,
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honestly, it roots itself from the fact that Vader is a miserable being.
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He's driven by hatred. So's the Emperor, so are the inquisitors.
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But every being seems to have to carve something out to celebrate. There has
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to be something that keeps you going in a way. Maybe it's something grim
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or dark or something like that, but it just seems to follow for me
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that maybe at least in the early years, I mean, but I mean,
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the thing is Vader that he's never going to participate in anything like that,
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but the Emperor would at least put up the show of celebrating. He'd
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do it in a very cynical way, and he'd give an address and sort
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of like, oh, honor the traditions and everything, you know. I
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find it interesting that we have established in canon Empire Day. I would think
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there would be Palpatine Day as well. That would have to be a celebration
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of the Emperor, which is very close to Captain per Card Day in Star
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Trek H so with less you know, child sacrifice and stuff. So at
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least Captain per Card Day is you know, Empire Day and Palpatine Day.
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So it's, oh my goodness, So let's expand on that. Like we
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know we have Empire Day I'd submit we would have to have like Emperor day
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and I still think that in Star Wars Rebels, the Emperor over time would
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present himself in public as having been restored in some way, because remember when
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he appears to Ezra as the hologram, Yeah, the hologram looks like a
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a more vigorous Palpatine, and we see him say, you know, it's
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left me scarred and deformed. But if you're going to manipulate history, you
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can always say, oh, well, I had a lot of you know,
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restorative work, or my willpower carried me through and we were able to
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get me back to my fighting trim and stuff like that. It's taken a
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lot of really painful surgeries to get me looking like this. But you know,
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hm, I guess I guess that is it, because the thing is
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I guess it's just one of those things where I suppose it's good, but
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I can't imagine living that joyless life where you didn't have holidays, where you
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didn't have something like that, something to look forward to, seat in some
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sort of seasonal fashion, sure, where it was like, okay, at
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this regular time of the year, it's specifically designated to slow down give thanks
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and and and also give of yourself and stuff like that. I guess I
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just can't wrap my head around it. Do I just need to accept that
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people like that exist, especially in Star Wars, that they just they're incapable
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of celebrating anything. Yeah, So, because I do think, you know,
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during the Empire's reign, I think this is what would happen, you
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know, is all of that kind of cultural aspect is stripped away from people.
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There would be any kind of celebration you could have, such as birthdays
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and those kind of things where where you would be holding on to any place
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where you could have some sort of celebration, right, And and in some
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ways, I mean just to get really you know, philosophical about it.
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And this is I think what's so interesting and one of the reasons why the
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rebellion, you know, picks up steam is that people cannot live in a
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world without greater purpose in their lives. You know, in true Nietzschean fashion,
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it is basically impossible to truly live as an atheist in all that that
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actually entails, right, because there's always something that we're going to be reaching
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towards and kind of worshiping and kind of putting at the top of our lives,
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and so you know, these people would need something, people would need
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something all over the galaxy, and you know, for those who then started
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to lose faith in the empire, the thing that they had been kind of
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putting at the top of the totem pole. You know, I think that
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this is the place where, you know, we've talked at length before on
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the show, the way in which I think George Lucas, you know,
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whether I would ever agree with him completely of course or not, he really
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did dig into the same thing that you know, Joseph Campbell did, which
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was this idea that we can't get away that there's like something more out there,
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and so whether it's our mythology, whether it's what we believe, you
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know, for our faith, we can't get away from it. But of
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course then Lucas even kind of embraces that even more by showing in his universe
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that there is something bigger, There is something greater, you know, that
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is binding the galaxy together and making sense of all of this senselessness that's happening.
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And so I do find that to be just an incredibly interesting thing,
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as you know, much kind of fun as we've had with the question.
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I mean, I think it's an incredibly valuable and you know, to truly
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bring it to our society, you know, I think that that's something that
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we're finding as well. David Foster Wallace, the author and professor who died
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unfortunately too young, talked about this idea that nobody is truly an atheist.
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We all worship something right, and is an incredibly interesting quote there about that
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whole idea. And so somebody realizing this idea, I think is to me
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very fascinating. And so I think that really digs at the question that we're
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getting at, Like everybody has to have something bigger in their lives to create
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meaning, a purpose, and we all do it, whether we you know,
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believe in a higher power or something something's giving us meaning, something's giving
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us purpose. So I think the same thing comes down and you know,
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obviously in the Star Wars universe, right, And I think that's maybe we've
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kind of pinpointed an incredible reason as to why people rise up against the empire
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because they realize it's an incredibly empty and hollow existence and they don't want to
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live that anymore. And they realize they don't have to if they you fight
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it so well. I mean, you know, if your empire is the
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only thing you're allowed to worship, that's like worshiping your boss or your job,
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which you know, honestly, there are people who, whether they phrase
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it that way or not, they do they worship their work. Yeah.
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Yeah, it's a good point, and we see how that goes. So
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maybe there is a real world sort of yeah. I mean, you know,
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it's just another way. I guess it did that. Star Wars sort
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of like acts as that warning. You know, that's why it is our
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modern mythos is because it acts. It's that like it's it's different than Star
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Trek because Star Trek is just like you know, it's a weekly series about
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exploring and looking at weird things and all that, whereas Star Wars was always
18:03
about dealing with that mythological question like you're talking about, like that searching for
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that sense of purpose and meaning. When we meet Luke, what's he looking
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for? His reason? All he knows is he's not happy living the life
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that he is. He wants to do something more. And again it's a
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little bit different, but even as a kid, he's like I want to
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be a Jedi. I want to be a hero. I want to be
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the guy who saves everybody. And if you take that away from people the
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ability to believe that they can do better, that they can succeed, or
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that they can celebrate the idea that there is something else, something more,
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and again even taking it away from any sort of religious context, not because
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I want to, but just to sort of like broaden the lens. People
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need to have that time to celebrate, to be happy. You can't be
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angry all that's like it's unsustainable. And maybe that's why the empire burns itself
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out in like basically twenty years is because they do make the mistake of we're
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just going to be angry twenty four to seven, and as a result,
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that's not sustainable. Well, and I think too, and I think this
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is an incredibly interesting the way this conversation is going. But right, the
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thing about the empire, it becomes this thing where you only have yourself to
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believe in in the end, and when you come to the end of yourself
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as we all do, and realize you've been weighed and found wanting, as
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we all will, that leads you either to try and find something else to
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hold on to something bigger than yourself, or it leads you to ruin it
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despair and or you know, ending at all. And I think that's the
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thing, is that the problem with this is is that everything is stripped away
19:57
from everyone in the empire. There's nothing left but the empire. And then
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is the empire slowly, you know, basically becomes a turning worm for people,
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and they realize that this is nothing. There's nothing for them here other
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than slavery and servitude. It makes sense then again why the rebellion would take
20:21
root and freedom and the desire to pursue something greater than ourselves. But that
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isn't the state, because again we all realize again the state isn't God,
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and even to turn it on its head. Then is the rebellion a religious
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crusade? No, but they all say from the beginning, may the Force
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be with you, which you could say, oh, well, that's a
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religious thing. But obviously there have got to be people who don't believe in
20:48
the force who joined the rebellion han solo everybody and separating out his own journey
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toward finally believing everything. There are people who are joining the rebellion because there
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is something more to believe, and so even saying may the Force be with
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you is an acknowledgment that they're fighting for something greater than self that just comes
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to be what it represents. And that's why even may the Force be with
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you become such an important catchphrase for the Rebellion, because even if somebody's like,
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well, I don't believe in the force, but they understand that behind
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that is somebody saying that there's something better than just existing, just getting by
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and just being a cog in the machine. Well, and I mean you
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think about this, I did too. In this again the symmetry of the
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original six films. You know, you start the series if you start with
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episode one with this pastoral planet where these death star like machines are coming to
21:48
destroy it, right and slowly but surely they do destroy all that is good
21:55
and beautiful in the galaxy. And then of course, by the time you
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get to episode six, where are we fighting on a beautiful planet that's green
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and lush and full of life, right, and a death star like machine,
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a death star has come to destroy it. And so it's been flipped
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because now the Rebellion and those that are fighting for all that is so much
22:22
bigger than this mechanized society. They have the ability to win, you know.
22:27
And so it brings to mind in some ways, you know, the
22:33
Tolkien nature right of what you can see in The Lord of the Rings.
22:38
And then of course that I think Lucas even uses somewhat in Star Wars,
22:45
and Tolkien had this whole thing about the beauty of the natural world and the
22:51
mechanized society with you know, Mortar, and that is a big part of
22:56
the story for him, and and so I just think that it's an incredibly
23:03
interesting thought process to think about the way in which, you know, the
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Empire had tried to stamp out everything that wasn't itself by putting itself in the
23:15
position of basically a religion and or a god. In the end creates its
23:22
own destruction because it will be weighed and found wanting and people will be searching
23:27
for something else. But even keying off of that, because we talk about
23:32
like how they're sort of like gradually going things out, it even makes more
23:37
sense now why the attack point of what is now known as Episode four is
23:45
what it is, because that's the moment in time where the Emperor dissolves the
23:48
Senate. That's the final moment where they say, Okay, job's done.
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Now we're just the empire cognive machine sort of thing. And if anything,
24:00
that's why everything falls apart for them is because that's the moment they go too
24:06
far. They probably could have kept everybody still going for a while if they
24:11
had not disbanded the Senate, because people would have sat down and been like,
24:17
Okay, well, at least I have representation, and I'm allowed to
24:22
celebrate my holiday. Sure there aren't as many as of us here as all
24:26
of that, but it's a declaration. It's hey, guess what now it's
24:30
all just us. And that is you know that lights the fuse that makes
24:37
their quick demise inevitable. Yeah, you know, well, and you know
24:44
again, I think this is also one of the places where I think and
24:48
Or does such a great job of showing the way that the Empire is solely
24:51
stamping these things out. You think of mon Mathma's story, and you know
24:56
the way in which culture is slowly being disintegrated with the rituals for young adults
25:06
on their planet that her daughter is supposed to go through, all of those
25:10
type of things, How the young are becoming more enamored with the ways of
25:14
the empire, or you see her daughter and her friends getting so sucked back
25:19
into the tradition, and I think that's the thing that's just so fascinating.
25:25
And there's really one of the keys I think to the rebellion in the end,
25:29
right, is people are king back into the things that give life more
25:33
meaning and more purpose, which is those cultural traditions, which you know,
25:41
for many of the planets in the galaxy would have been you know, religious
25:45
traditions. You know. You think of even the twele like people right with
25:49
you know, we saw in rebels with you know, the Empire coming in
25:55
and destroying their way of life, you know, Thrawn taking the cal coorey
26:00
you know from from Harris family and trying to steal that, you know,
26:06
and which again is a cultural and religious artifact for them in in many ways,
26:11
so like the Star Wars galaxy, you know, and a lot of
26:15
the things that have been added specifically by those, you know, by George
26:21
Lucas himself or those I think really in tune with what he was doing,
26:25
have continued to add to that story in many ways. What we've been talking
26:32
about, you know, Sithmus is not good enough, and you really need
26:37
Festivus for the rest of us, you know, I gotta tell you.
26:44
I know, you know we had thanks Gungan and we're in the holiday season.
26:51
Whoop do you do? And Dick Doc, don't forget to hang up
26:55
your sockcau is exactly at twelve o'clock, Darthall, we calming down the chimney.
27:02
Calming down the chimney. You can just hear. That's not real.
27:07
That's worse than Robot Santa in Futurama. But that's one of the things that
27:14
we talked about being thankful for and everything. That's one of the things I
27:17
love most about our time, Matt is I'm throwing out this silly, dumb
27:22
idea that I had while I'm at work because I just want to think about
27:26
anything but work while I'm there and the days winding down and we go down
27:30
this road like this is this is this is the core. This is one
27:34
of those episodes where like I'd be like, man, this is us,
27:37
this is who we are on this show. I love it. I'm so
27:42
grateful for the conversation, and I think people would be grateful if they knew
27:48
where to reach you online. So they could continue talking about it with you.
27:52
Absolutely well, I hope they do. All over social media, Matt
27:56
Rushing Zoe too is the best place to find me. Of course, you
27:59
can find me here on the network as well, with a completed show called
28:03
olpost to Drea Kauffman and I talked about every single chapter of the Harry Potter
28:07
series. Uh. And then over on the TFM network, I've got a
28:10
bunch of shows the six oh two Club. John's a frequent guest over there,
28:12
talking about all sorts of things that we love, all of the franchises
28:15
that we love. Check that out. You can also find me doing the
28:19
orb Warp five, Saddle Up, Artificial Tango, and literary tracks. But
28:26
John, maybe people want to talk more about this idea for you, or
28:32
just what their favorite sis Carol is. Where can they find Yeah, my
28:37
favorite sith, Miss Carrol is simply called oh mosta far night and in parentheses
28:45
no burning on the you know, by the way, somebody actually did a
28:59
paddy Did you know that? Your baby boy? So it's out there,
29:06
you can find it. Oh my goodness. We're through the looking glass,
29:11
people, But you can find me on the internet after you look up that
29:15
video. You can find me as Castle Junkie out there. You can find
29:18
me right here on the network, co hosting a show called house Lights where
29:22
we look at other films and other series with other directors. I do that
29:26
with Tristan Radell and Darren Moser. We have a time. We have a
29:30
good time most of the time, but sometimes it's just a time and even
29:33
those times are fun times. So go ahead and check out house Lights.
29:36
But for now, Master Rushing, I have to complete my Secret City is
29:41
shopping list, and so I say, for now, it's time to close
29:44
these negotiations. Well, John, you know, I hear the Life Day
29:48
Carol's calling. So I think it's time for us to go back to the
29:52
temple because negotiations are closed. Join the Revolution, Join the Nerd Party.