gffa: OHHHHH BOY DOES THIS THROW A MONKEY WRENCH INTO EVERYTHING.  AND THE WORST PART IS THAT W

gffa:OHHHHH BOY DOES THIS THROW A MONKEY WRENCH INTO EVERYTHING.  AND THE WORST PART IS THAT WE REALLY DON’T EVEN GET THAT MUCH INFO ON IT??So, in summary:  Heater and Racetrack are both clones who deserted (what does that mean specifically? WHO KNOWS) and the other clones are furious at them and don’t trust them, saying they abandoned their brothers, their family.  Wolffe offers the deserter clones a redemption mission, after which they’ll be free (what does that mean specifically? WHO KNOWS), and Heater is like HELL YEAH I’M ALL IN.  They do the mission, things are tense, but they come through in the end, Wolffe says, okay, you’re free, we can drop you off wherever you want, and Heater says that he wants to go home, ie, back to the GAR.  In the beginning of the comic, there’s tension running through the 501st and it’s Heater who is telling the story of what happened, himself characterizing it as a betrayal to his brothers.SO, LIKE.W   H   A   T.This is an Adventures comic, which means it’s fairly simple and straightforward (as well as supplementary material and reasonably low on the canon tiered scale, which apparently still exists in LF), so we don’t get a lot of details, but apparently there is a method of the clones being able to leave the GAR, if they really want to?  But that most clones really do not want to?Heater himself says that he never had a choice, he never signed up for this, but by the end, once he is given that choice, he wants to stay with his brothers, he sees his own actions as a betrayal, whatever that initial “desertment” was.Initially, when Wolffe proposes it, it sounds like, “Do this redemption mission and you’ll be forgiven for the desertion, then you can rejoin the army, slate wiped clean.” which isn’t actually being free, but he also says, “or you can stay here”, then later says, “You four are free.  We’ll take you wherever you’d like to go.” and that does sound like they’re genuinely free.Then you have the question–who is running this program?  The comic just says “Command” sent them on the mission, which seems to indicate Wolffe, so we don’t know if this was a program introduced by the Senate or if this was Clone Command introducing it, but it must have gotten approval if Heater, Racetrack, and the others actually were able to leave the GAR.So, are we to take it that there actually is a path out of the GAR, even if it’s a dangerous one, should any clone want it?  Is it only offered to those who “desert”, but then come back?  How many clones would have taken this? Because everything–from the movies to TCW to the comics, etc.–largely characterizes the clones as deeply prioritizing loyalty to their family (with the obvious exceptions), that they want to fight.  Even in s7 of TCW, Rex’s mixed feelings are about how they were created for the war and the war is a bad thing, but they are kind of grateful to it in a strange way because it’s why they exist, rather than being angry about being a soldier, that the tone of the conversation isn’t at all that being a soldier is an inherently bad thing.The clones themselves largely seem to want to fight to defend the Republic, especially because they’re seeing first hand some of the truly shitty things the Separatists do and they want to protect people, they want to protect their brothers, that they see the path out of this war as one where they stick together as much as they can.  There are exceptions to this and we don’t really know what the chips do to their thoughts–though, the intention of the narration by and large seems to say YES THE CLONES ARE INDIVIDUALS WITH THEIR OWN THOUGHTS, like even by the time of Rebels, when Rex and Gregor and Wolffe are given a choice, they choose to fight, that’s really what it came down to for them.  They were fucked over by the Republic and the chips, but when they were given a choice, the chips long since out of their heads, they chose to help the Jedi and the Rebellion, that’s what Gregor’s last words were about.And it’s hard to parse all this because narrative intention vs tone of execution is going to play havoc with the discourse, as well as we don’t really have a strong sense of precisely how a lot of this worked, as well as this is a supplementary piece of material and probably wasn’t intended to be taken super seriously (ha ha but what is Star Wars fandom if not giving too much time and energy to stories meant for childrens’ stories? ) and yet.APPARENTLY THERE WAS A PATH OUT OF THE GAR FOR THE CLONES??  I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THIS. -- source link

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