Official Finn Episode VIII thread

I hope he has another encounter with another FN-2199 uninterrupted.

 

It is still possible that Finn's sudden reaction was due to him suddenly feeling the a connection to all the living things around him....*cough*. I mean he did react quite suddenly and dramatically after his "friend" touched his face, heavy panting and looking disorientated, but I suppose that simply be put down to Finn having a panic attack or some such.

As to indoctrinating the conscience out of every soldier.....it's not so much indoctrinating the conscience out so much as shaping the conscience through indoctrination. That murder and theft wasn't acceptable before the commandments (or other religious scriptures) is a given simply because those actions had to be curtailed to ensure social cohesion. In fact these religious guidelines were often created to reinforce the more corporal punishments of imprisonment, execution etc. with more supernatural ones such as hell, karma etc. Regardless people didn't murder each other and steal from each other within social groups to prevent strife within the community and thus allow them to maximise the benefits of large social group cooperation.

Since man first formed social groups there have been insiders and outsiders, members of the tribe and those not part of tribe. One group is treated differently from the other. Scratch that, this is not a purely human phenomenon but also a part of the animal kingdom. Man simply creates ideas or an ideology to justify this natural trait. Over history we can see other groups of people deemed non-human: Africans/Asians/Non-Europeans during colonial history, Jews during much of their history, the Ainu by the Japanese, the untouchables in India etc. This is taken to even more extremes in some Southern and Central American tribes (Aztecs and Mayans (I believe) where captives from enemy tribes were used as human sacrifices or tribes in the South Pacific who ate members of other tribes but not each other. Did these people view this as wrong? Did their consciences prick them? Not at all because that was what they deemed right or "natural".

Let me take a more modern example: In modern society murder is indeed a crime and something condemned. However, it is seen as perfectly acceptable for soldiers to kill each other during war, why? why is killing justify in one instance but not the other? One is criminal, the other a paid profession.

What I'm trying to say is that Finn (and other stormtroopers) would have been raised by the FO to deem most of the people opposed to them as enemies or things to eliminate without mercy. This likely goes beyond what FO children would be taught which is probably pretty dark as is, as the stormtroopers are raised to do one thing (as Finn himself says) to kill the enemies of the FO order. Would they be taught that the enemies they were fighting were just like them? No they would have been raised to see these enemies as something different, something not worthy of the empathy they treat each other with.

Finn could naturally feel some measure of empathy towards his fellow troopers, he would train with them and live amongst them. He would recognise them as part of his group. Why would he feel something for random desert people? Desert people he's just met.

Obviously, this is probably a far more thorough and complex insight into the FO stormtroopers than Disney ever intended (this is a children's film after all) but I feel they missed the essence of a stormtrooper Finn storyline. The progression of Finn's arc in TFA should have been:

Loyalty to FO -----------> Abandonment and confused---------->Suspicious of new comrades-------->Loyalty to new friends (Rey)

Instead they opted to recreate the Han story beat:

Doesn't want to fight--------->makes deal to get away----------->comes back to rescue friends

They didn't need to do that but their obsession with recreating the OT forced them to.

For me it's less about how bumbling Finn was and just how normal he sounded, as though he was a modern day star wars fan placed in the film. Instead of a raised from birth soldier. I don't expect the stormtroopers to behave like droids, they are human so of course they'll feel emotions but I don't expect them to act like Finn:

"You got a boyfriend? a cute boyfriend?"

He's just so......normal. I mean he was given a number instead of a name and he's the character in TFA most like the audience......wtf?

Always a plus one for Finn but there's this nagging doubt that Finn's role in the duel was to emphasise the difference between a non-FS vs FS and a FS vs FS. To emphasise the separate plain upon which the FS stand which he is separated from. Hence why everyone is palming him off to Phasma rather than predicting any further development between him and Kylo or indeed any FS character.

I liked the trivia around the number 2187 but I feel the rest of the video is sort of reaching (aside from the Hosnian Prime screams that is).

 

Good point, I mispoke. I should have said that it's probably safe to assume troops are socialised specifically to prioritise obeying orders over their conscience or emotions.

In fairness I've seen Drill Sergeant's encourage recuits to report any unethical behaviour or instructions and emphasise the importance of morality and compassion. I just get the impression new recruits are not socialised as heavily in this regard as they are to obey orders and conform to a unit/silo mentality - perhaps understandably when others lives depend on quick decisions in distracting settings.

There may also be an innate physiological evolutionary repulsion for murder outside of social norms although it could still fall under "ensuring soicial cohesion" like you state. I would imagine that most people at any age in any culture would find someone kicking a pregnant woman or abusing an animal to be distasteful unless they suffered from a psychological illness or were heavily desensitised/conditioned. I guess it's just difficult if not impossible to ascertain how much of this is due to an innate sense of empathy and how much is our cultural/tribal socialisation. Both inform each other, make evolutionary sense, and - like the specious nature/nurture dichotomy - are almost impossible to isolate and test.

This is key. I think the fact that the cultures you referred to employed vast networks of socialisation that used reward, punishment, coersion, heirarchy and schooled conformity in order to maintain their practices and power imbalances is evidence such feelings and actions are not innate by default.

Most evidence of the violence in the last century doesn't point to the masses gathering and demanding war as much as an orchestration by smaller groups of emphatic and charasmatic demagogues atop influential heirarchies utilising powerful psychological tools to trigger that tribal mentality you mention.

It's probably fair to say that, perhaps like some First Order adherents, most of the colonial practises you mention were undertook by people who thought they were doing the right thing, and it generally took a religious agenda and/or a belief in a heirarchy of race to perpetrate such oppression and genocide. (Or so their diaries imply.)

I'm sure many FO troops subscibe to Hux's ideological crusade.This might inform an possible distinction between the makeup of opposing forces in the GFFA. The Empire in it's different manifestations has relied heavily on clones and child soldiers "programmed from birth" as well as volunteers and conscipts. The Rebel's/Resistance have predominantly utilised defectors and volunteers. It's probably safe to assume they too use drills, orders and heirarchy to realise their goals but perhaps allow more diversity and individual autonomy in their institutions (perhaps a strength and a weakness)?

“Give me a baby and I can make any kind of man.” - John B Watson

Yeah fair point. I think we're on the same page though. Perhaps I suspend my disbelief and internalise Finn's reverse heel turn as an indication of his character moral strength while you notice the logical inconsistency that might contradict what we know about his situation. It makes sense and the example you gave of a more likely scenario for a FO trooper pretty much describes the way I interpret his arc:

Loyalty to FO -----------> Trauma and confusion (PTSD?) ----------> Suspicious of tribal allegiance (heel faced turn/awakening) --------> Loyalty to new friends (Rey)

[edited for spelling/grammar]

 

Interesting clip.

 

i think i'm becoming desensitized (word of the day toilet paper) to these videos.. but yeah that's an interesting one. particularly the 21-87 stuff.

the guy also has a 'Snoke is Mace Windu' video which i can't bring myself watch lol

 

No worries I'll survive the viewing.

 

Of course, modern (or perhaps "Western" would be more accurate) militaries are very keen to promote and emphasis humane soldiering, that focuses on large oversight of actions and criticism of excessive force, drone strikes in particular are a good example of this scrutiny of modern militaries.

For the soldiers themselves there is of course a heavy emphasis on obeying commands while maintaining initiative. A somewhat rigid hierarchy is unavoidable for a effective fighting force, experimentation in both the French Revolution and the Russian Civil War with soldiering via committee or voting quickly proved how ridiculously unworkable a military was without discipline and obedience.

To drag this back slightly to Star Wars, it's hard to associate the FO stormtroopers with our militaries today. Obviously, the men and women who compose our militaries have a basis other than the military upon which they may view the world and shape their morality/conscience. Their parents, their friends, school, university etc. All theses influences would naturally allow, or indeed encourage, one such soldier to question orders that he would find morally repugnant. He knows different, he has been influenced by outside sources. In this regard it is very hard to make real world comparisons to FO stormtroopers.

• Even German children educated under Nazi Germany still had the influence of their parents, many of whom would have remembered life before the Nazi party and held values of their own.
• Spartan children were also raised by their parents during the initial stage of their lives (up until the age of 7 but sources differ) and even then they still would have maintained contact with people outside their military, even Sparta wasn't entirely isolationist.
• Janissaries are a good example of children taken away from their parents to be raised soldiers but even in this case they are taken away later on in life, around 10-14 years old, old enough to have formed an identity and differing morality to the organisation which controls them (in this case the Ottoman Empire).

The main problem is that the FO ST are almost a authoritarian state's dream army in terms of the technology and shear space available in Star Wars. The ST are raised entirely by the FO (Finn doesn't remember if he even had a name likely indicating that he was taken pre-speech years i.e. extremely young) but it is also possible to raise them entirely without outside stimulus, the vast expanses of space and the rigid all encompassing control held by the totalitarian FO make this possible.

Fortunately we have a near-perfect in-universe subject to compare the FO ST to: the clone troopers. Obviously this is intentional on the part of TPTB, and how do the clones develop individual personalities and dissenting opinions to the Republic? Through excessive exposure to the outside world (a war zone no doubt but a world outside their sterile learning environment) and the encouragement of their Jedi Generals: in other words outside stimulus.

What do we know about Finn? That Jakku was his first combat mission. To put it succinctly, Finn has had no outside stimulus.

You're right it is difficult to say for certain. I usually stray away from being too forceful on this particular topic since I know a lot of people with religious convictions have a strong sense of the inbuilt "goodness" of people and the topic itself treads on personal beliefs. It's hard for us now, raised as we are in stable morally advanced societies, to grasp the gap between our views now and those of our ancestors or indeed those who live in more hostile environments today.

For example the idea of rape has evolved massively from ancient times to today. Carrying off women from neighbouring villages/clans was a frequent custom and in Ancient Rome (where a foundation of modern law was laid) raping actresses wasn't even a crime as they were deemed to be wanton. It's not too long ago that it was thought that a husband couldn't be legally said to rape his wife.

But of course rape is different from murder, but is it? You mentioned that "there may be an innate physiological evolutionary repulsion for murder" but would that make sense on an evolutionary front? Rape makes perfect evolutionary sense in terms of the furthering genetic material through as many partners as possible with the minimum amount of effort in terms of courtship rituals. Murder too makes sense on the evolutionary front in terms of eliminating rivals permanently in the competition for resources/partners.

Indeed force/violence is still the key factor in maintaining social order. Naturally, a large amount of the citizenry obey the law out of a sense of morality (given to them by the education system and their parents) but without violence the state would have no method to compel those who do not voluntarily obey the law. That people in developed peaceful nations can say that murder is innately abhorrent to them is either a sign of how effective we've become at shaping the morality/thoughts of mankind or a lack of self-awareness, or denial, of what people are capable of.

The essence of humans, and most living creatures, can be summed up in one word: survival.

Obviously it is hard to demonstrate but leave a child in the jungle (impossible though it would be for them to survive) and they'll adapt to survive the violent world that surrounds them. In much the same way that we've adapted to living in settled society by enhancing our social team building skills and controlling our more violent tendencies because it is more advantageous to do so.

It's not so much that these feelings are not innate it's that they require direction and explanation for their power to be harnessed. Take nation states for example, a simple social construct (the biological family unit) expanded to engender a feeling of commonality with millions, a sense of joint ancestry and historical accomplishment despite the irrationality of such a belief.

Humans are different from animals in that we possess enough self-awareness so as to require explanations for our actions, actions that in many cases are influenced by our baser animalistic nature. Historically, genocides/pogroms/persecutions of minorities have taken place because they are an out group, often with their own languages and customs, and help emphasise the difference between the fictional family bond of the nation and those who are not part of such a bond. Instead of accepting that this xenophobia (fear of aliens/outsiders) is the source of persecution, other reasons are created: the Jews steal money from the poor, they poison wells, spy for the enemy etc. Africans are an inferior race as evidenced by the size of their cranium or their primitive lifestyle etc.

The FO probably lacks the above reasoning (although they are probably still literally xenophobic) but relies upon ideological motivations, the galaxy must be ruled with an iron fist and the individual must be subservient to the whole. Strong central governance.

As you state here. It's likely that the Resistance/Republic military would closely represent our own modern Western democratic militaries. Strong emphasises on discipline and obedience but with heavy scrutiny on human rights and morality. If the New Republic survives into VIII then we'll see a less ragtag protagonist faction with a more organised military with less flexibility on the "individualism" of it's personnel.

Just had to quote this gif because it was the perfect choice for our discussion.

Certainly, I think I am a pedantic guy and this extends to my enjoyment of films.

What do you think should have been the pivotal moment of Finn's arc in TFA? His decision to defect from the FO or his decision to fight? The former is the main benefit of his stormtrooper background the latter is basically Han's arc from ANH.

Think back to TFA and tell me when did Finn decide to defect from the FO? Right at the start of the film and it's over in a single scene. There's no build up to a climax where he decides to turn against the FO, we know he's of that opinion from the start all he lacks is the courage to do so. If we followed his gradual development from FO fanatic to nemesis then more gravitas would have been lent to his decision to defect.

 

http://makingstarwars.net/2016/10/r...iii-the-first-order-executioner-stormtrooper/

This is some cruel joke. A cruel, cruel joke.

 

I'm sure they will have a expendable spot for him.

 

I honestly kind of like the idea of a non-force sensitive Finn taking a liking to lightsaber combat.

 

Nice cover.

 

I feel like this image is left over from TFA.

 

Yeah considering It's Rey who's in possession of Luke's lightsaber.

 

Finn will discover ( or remember ) that he was raised in an imprerial academy and will go there to know more where he comes from. He will be helped by Poe and BB8. They will meet Phasma there.

He will find out his origins at the end of ep VIII.