Rose Tico in Ep 9

Rose is actually one of the characters I'm looking forward to see the most. Her arc ends in TLJ with some big questions going forward. I suspect there's going to be a time jump. How will that be handled in terms of her relationship with Finn? I'm curious what JJ will do with her character in the next film.

 

I hope they make Rose less annoying. The whole Canto Bight scene with her moral superiority, just to find out the ones she hated also provided weapons for the Rebellion. Ironic. So meybe she will see things clearer. I imagine 9 will be like 6, with the characters developing, and maturing.

 

She lays out a very compelling reason for her opinion and she's right. DJ believes that since these people are simply getting rich giving weapons to both sides then there is no good side. That's cynical and wrong. The First Order are the ones that destroyed Paige and Rose's home. Rose telling Finn this makes her "morally superior?" How? The First Order is evil and anyone giving them weapons is evil. Rose is right.

 

The profiteers aren't the ones commiting the cimes. If she and her rebellion are getting weapons from the same people then she's a hypocrite.

 

The profiteers are knowingly selling weapons to an evil regime. The people in Canto Bight are knowingly betting on abused animals. The people in Canto Bight are knowingly betting on animals cared for by slaves. To suggest Rose is a hypocrite simply because the weapons dealers are playing both sides doesn't make sense.

 

So it's fine to use them as long as they serve your purpose? If they are objectivly evil then you are funding their atrocities by buying their weapons.

 

They're evil because they're illegally selling weapons to the First Order. The New Republic has fallen to an illegally funded and evil First Order. I think you've missed the entire point of that arc. The point isn't that DJ is wise. He's offering a cynical viewpoint of good and evil. He calls it a machine. Sure, it might be a machine for the people getting rich selling weapons. Perhaps that's the lie they tell themselves, but it's evil. Rose and the New Republic have been taken down by traitors.

 

They were selling weapons to the Rebellion, which is treasonous, however somehow that's okay.
Say for example I think WalMart is evil, because the use slave labour, or fund causes I find wrong. Then I turn around and buy all of my groceries, clothes, furniture, and electronics, I would be a hypocrite. That's why you boycott, if you feel that strongly about it. But the Rebel Alliance, would have been doomed without the war profiteers.

 

Ah, you must be confused about the political structure in this trilogy. The First Order starts out as the rebellion in this trilogy. Their military is illegal. The New Republic's fleet is wiped out by Starkiller Base. The New Republic had weapons that were made legally. While at the same time these weapons dealers were illegally selling weapons to the First Order. "The Rebellion" is born in The Last Jedi. Does this clear this up? Rose is right.

The New Republic is a just cause that was taken down by traitors in and outside of government and by war profiteers who secretly and illegally armed them. I'm not sure how else to explain this point.

No use going in circles about this... your claim that Rose has "moral superiority" and is a "hypocrite" simply doesn't add up. If you don't like her that's fine, but you're bringing that stuff into the film.

 

However, in the ship, DJ showed OT X-wing and TIE, not ST. So they were the "good guys" in the civil war. They're just following the same pattern. You can't say it was right for them to commit treason then, and wrong now. The OT rebellion made them rich.

 

i think the point isn't so much who they're selling to, it's that they don't discriminate.
i mean, let's face it: from the pov of perfectly innocent Imperial loyalists, the Rebels are the bad guys.

it's one thing to be a profiteer who makes bank on war by equipping an army. it's a whole different thing to do it by playing both sides.

 

Right but without them, there would be no X-wings the Death Star wouldn't have been destroyed. Yes they provided weapons to the Empire, but they took a great risk to sell to the Rebellion as well. If they were caught they would be sent to the spice mines of kessel, or smashed into who knows what.

 

right, exactly. but they didn't do it to support the cause of the Rebellion, they just did it to turn a profit.
if they had been arrested, they would have been criminals.

i get what you're saying: that the Rebellion survived because it gladly paid for weapons from profiteers too.
i think it's all about context, though. Rose is a non-Imperialist from a world that was deeply harmed by the FO.
so of course she justifies the Rebellion while condemning the FO.

that's, unfortunately, that nature of war. at its most base, it is all hypocrisy.
i'm going to kill you so that you will stop killing me.

and yes there have been righteous wars, but all wars are ultimately fought dirty.
and its for each side to say who the criminals are.

just as a side note, in the Heroes of the Galaxy children's book, Hux is described as hating the Resistance because he believes they are all criminals.
the book actually makes it a point to state that.
the fact of criminality in war seems thematic when you look at the EU generally.

 

Ultimately war profiteers want to either start wars or prolong them. If there was peace, they'd be out of business. The Rebellion used that to their advantage.

 

ultimately i think the message of Star Wars is a pacifist one: quit killing ~ it gets no one anywhere.
to bring this back specifically to Rose, it's the crux of her final words to Finn: "save what you love" vs. "destroy what you hate".
there's obviously a difficult paradox there when it comes to war, but from an idealist standpoint, it's a very simple philosophy (and one which the Jedi maybe should have embraced ~ which is what Luke was also saying to Rey).

 

I'd put it this way: let's say that there's a company that is selling weapons to the resistance of an embattled and oppressed people's country.

Sounds pretty noble of them, right?

Well, what if you found out the same company was also selling to the oppressors of that nation and its government?

That's what war profiteering is: it's easy to forget in Star Wars that the ultimate enemy isn't a nation but war itself, but that's the case. By enabling both factions, a war profiteer ensures everyone loses but themselves. There's nothing hypocritical about that, even if you're one of the sides purchasing weapons.

 

Rose is very naive in 8, perhaps her experience with enlighten her in 9. That was my point earlier. She doesn't know the politics of war. The resistance and the Republic were pacifists Thats why they're always at war. They could have snuffed out the FO in it's infancy, but for some reason they allowed them to take over.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 23, 2018, Original Post Date: Mar 23, 2018 ---

It is somewhat hypocritical to call out a war profiteer if you profit from the profiteering.

 

What? The Republic I'll give ya, but the Resistance was created as a military response to the pacifism of the Republic. They were small (and obviously not equipped to directly vanquish the First Order or "snuff it out") but they were hardly pacifists).

Depends on your definition of "profit". Like I said, the only ones who really profit are the profiteers themselves.

 

Im sure the Resistance gets their weapons from the profiteers. They could shop some place else if they found them to be all that objectionable. Now that they are the fledgling group fighting oppression they have no choice. The FO would be the biggest losers at the moment, and the resistance is gaining something. But i see what you mean. Ultimately they both lose in a cyclical machine.

 

i gotta agree with @cawatrooper on this one. the Resistance are an unsanctioned group perpetrating hostilities against a legitimate authority.
at the start of TFA, the New Republic recognizes and accepts limited authority of the FO.
the FO is allowed to operate up until the point that they fire Starkiller.
the New Republic neither recognizes nor sanctions the Resistance.

i agree with you, however, that Rose is very naive. she's expressing the childlike (though not childish) ideal of a galaxy without war.