[Video]

[prophesiedone]

For a kid who grew up in the desert, this is...something. [Anakin is pretty awed by the islands, okay.] The Force is so strong here. I don't know if it's the waves, the islands or...what. But I like it. It's much better than being dried to a husk in the heat.

[Seriously. Excessive sunlight was old when he was a baby.]

Should we be...fishing? What do we use? [Can everyone stop partying so they can, I don't know, eat? Survive? Does he need to punch a shark in the face with his mechno-arm? That might be a great way for him to lose his remaining arm, actually. Anakin, no.]

Comments

[northerndragon]

I've never heard the word. Some of my countrymen... and my former countrymen... follow the Faith of the Seven, and they have septons and septas and Silent Sisters. They may be a little like your monks... not every priestly order is so strict.

[It's still strange sometimes to remember that the people living in lands south of the Neck are no longer his countrymen, especially here, where it seems so far away and there are so many people from so many other places that even someone from Essos would feel like a near neighbor to him. It's stranger still to remember the reasons for that separation: him, his sister, the deaths of their father and brother, a crown he never sought but now intends to use to do as much good as he can.]

And women too, in the Jedi Order. [This idea seems to please him.] Once you've learned what you need to know, what do you do?

[prophesiedone]

It varies across the galaxy. I hadn't really heard about monks until I came to Hadriel. [Plain robes, a similarity in dress and demeanor, strict codes of ethics and morality. Anakin wouldn't fit the bill with a monastic order either.]

Yes. All the women I've known are very skilled. [But he sees to their deaths nonetheless.] The idea was we were going to bring order and peace to the galaxy. Sometimes we acted as bodyguards; sometimes diplomats. Our duties changed to fit the situation.

[northerndragon]

Was?

[prophesiedone]

The Order has fallen. [Thanks to Palpatine and himself.] They failed too many times.

1/2 (and it was going so well!)

[northerndragon]

[...]

2/2

[northerndragon]

Did the people lose faith in you? Or did you all lose faith in your mission?

(Oh nooo. Here, let him explain.)

[prophesiedone]

What they required of their members was ridiculous. [Chastity! Ha! Who can do that?] They used me in particular. I am powerful; more powerful than those on the Council. But they denied me what I had earned.

They treated my Padawan even worse! [He grits his teeth.] We were betrayed by them; used by them and I got tired of it.

[northerndragon]

Your padawan?

What did they require of you?

[It doesn't sound like the children who were trained up in the ways of the Jedi Order had much of a choice in the matter.]

[prophesiedone]

A student. Adult Jedi usually train one student at a time unless they are staying at the Temple.

[His lips twitch unhappily.] To never fall in love. To never feel intense emotion or be swayed by it.

cw passing mention of rape as a concept (Night's Watch brothers' potential former crimes)

[northerndragon]

"Love is the death of duty."

The maester in the Night's Watch told me that. He might have been a king, but instead he stayed to patch up the wounds of brothers who had been thieves or rapers... or younger sons, or bastards like me, or men who fought on the wrong side in a war. And he tended their library and the ravens.

The brothers of the Watch are also required to put aside women, and to have no other family.

[prophesiedone]

And you're okay with that? You're okay with being alone? [As much as he loves Padmé, Anakin has come to realize that being alone is one of his greatest fears.] I was too old - or so they told me - when they first took me in. I loved my mother, then, and it was hard to leave her behind. I didn't understand them when they told me to care about everyone, but never fall in love.

I was already in love, even then. I met my future wife before I started training and I loved her immediately. After we were married, later, I couldn't understand how our love was wrong. They would have thrown me out of the Order if they had found out.

[northerndragon]

-- I tried to keep to my vows when I was in the Watch. I joined as a man grown, though only just grown. Still a boy, in truth. But I thought it was my place long before I took any vows.

[About himself, he doesn't want to answer. He'd never thought of Ygritte as his wife... but some men had, both in the Watch and among her own people. She's gone now, and she had been lost to him long before her death, because staying with her would have meant betraying every other part of himself. But even then... if he had loved her, why had he left her for duty? Had he not loved her enough?

Her death, and the fact that he's no longer in the Watch, means that the question is pointless, only a circle he could once have driven himself mad with if he'd wanted to.

But the fact that he's not in the Watch anymore -- that the Northerners have made him their king -- means that he supposes he may have to marry someday, on the small chance that he survives this war against the Dead. Then it will be some Northern girl, or someone from some southron kingdom, or the Lannister armies will kill him come spring... or -- but that last possibility is so remote that it doesn't bear thinking about, even though he sees her every day.

Which is all to say that despite what had seemed like a strange snap of temper or frustration a few moments earlier, Jon has some sympathy for Anakin's position.]

I can't pretend I don't have a family. It was hard to leave them behind. My lord father and my brothers were killed, my sister... my sisters suffered. I never knew my mother. More than once, I wanted to ride down the Kingsroad and fight with them -- for them. And more than once, I kept to my vows.

If they had thrown you out of the Order, would it have been so bad? In your place, I might have left, and found another way to serve.

[prophesiedone]

[Would it have been so bad? Anakin has considered that question a thousand and one times. The short answer is yes. Without his too-low position in the Jedi Order, he wouldn't have the power he needed to keep Padmé and himself safe. He would have been barred from her world. He would have just been another commoner and they likely would have found some way to forbid him from using his powers.

On the other hand, knowing all he has discovered in Hadriel, no. He should have married Padmé, left the order and convinced her to run away with him. They could have raised their children on another world, away from the danger.

That would have been better, though his pride screams at him that it's not good enough.]

They would have fought me or, at least, sought to silence me if I had left officially. I have power that could easily be turned against them and some of the Council...

I think they almost expected that of me. [The way Yoda had regarded him for example. It hadn't been a warm welcome - even when he was nine.] I didn't actively move against them until I found a new Master. He was willing to teach me how to overcome death.

[He frowns and shakes his head.] I know you're thinking I would use that power on myself, but that wasn't why I wanted it. I had foreseen my wife dying in childbirth. I wanted to save her. She...

She's the only family I have left. I lost my mother... [Anakin's voice softens in horror.] I wasn't able to save her. But Padmé will be okay. I will do what I must to live out the rest of my life with her.