Channelknight Fadran

I know I keep bringing this up but

because they handle the sheer concept of dramatic irony with such finesse and skill that it is impossible to ever stop thinking about.

I saw a comment on a post somewhere about how the Order 66 scenes with Ahsoka would've been more tense if we didn't know she and Rex survived, but in my own opinion I think it is quite the opposite: we know what the end result is going to be, which means the entire thing is absolutely seeping the purest essence of Inevitability.

Of course, the entire arc is beyond masterful in every regard, but one scene in particular I think is overlooked on a conceptual level is when Sideous actually gives the order in the first place. We know that Ahsoka comes out alive, we know that Rex's inhibitor chip is removed - hell, I even knew about the bit where he's visibly trying to fight against it. So all the tension is completely moved from "what" is going to happen, and instead is placed entirely on "how."

And I was expecting none of it.

For weeks I had awaited the fateful day that I arrive at Clone Wars' Order 66, but little did I know that they were going to make the most heart-wrenching decisions that possibly could've been made in this situation. All of the buildup with Maul had been leading up to the inevitable, and I was at the edge of my frikin seat because of how anxious I was. Any second now the Order would go into effect, the clones would be reverted to factory settings, and -

...hang on a second...

The clones are actively formulating plans to carry out these orders.

That, my friends, is by far the biggest gut punch that's ever been written into... possibly anything ever. Obviously, the clones were made out to be little more than mindless murder machines in Revenge of the Sith - an issue that was remedied posthaste in the Clone Wars all the way back since episode one. But for some reason I was expecting some sort of switch to go off in their brains to blindly follow the order and just hunt down their target until they were killed.

You know the trope. The "I know you're in there" fight. It's in absolutely everything nowadays, and we all know how it goes. Some protagonist gets mind-controlled or possessed or otherwise pitted against their allies, and their friends have to defend themselves whilst calling to their friend's pure heart or whatever it is. I went into this completely expecting that to be the case with Rex, while the other clones fired blindly at Ahsoka to kill her dead like little more than less comedic battle droids.

Instead they kept the clones' personalities. Instead the only thing they changed was what side they were on. The troopers that have served and protected and befriended these jedi for years haven't just been turned against them, but actively seek out this goal. They make plans and prepare themselves for contingencies - they communicate with one another about the mission. I'm not getting this across as well as I'd like, but basically let me sum it up with the fact that it is infinitely more terrifying for the clones to be killing machines with hearts than monsters without a heart at all.

anyway I need to sleep bye