Why is it the Clone Wars?
Why is it not, the Separatist Wars, the Civil Wars, the Droid Wars, since, in order, the so called “bad guys” are the Separatists, it is a galactic civil war, and droids are the bulk of the combatants on the Separatist side. Naming it only the Clone Wars, when the clones are the soldiers of one side and not the actual instigators of the conflict, make me think that it was a spotlight on them and on the rest of the forces that were associated directly with them— aka the Jedi.
Names have powers. They shape how one thinks about things.They imply and can direct one’s thinking— without outright saying what is going on. There’s this term, “weasel word.” Wikipedia has a good start on what it is and how it’s used, but I really like this sentence in particular: “Weasel words can be used in advertising and in political statements, where encouraging the audience to develop a misleading impression of what was said can lead to advantages, at least in the short term.”
Every time Clone Wars is used, one hears clone. Well, must mean that they have something to do with it right? Of what’s the other side, nothing. Of what’s the core of the war, nothing.
Before the war was even used to completion, the impression words gave was turned against the troops.
It must have been pretty easy, after that, to phase them out of the army. After all, no-one would want clones there, when they have been the reason the last war had been named.
Brilliant point. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the Jedi’s hand in the creation of the clone army was emphasized in the aftermath: the Jedi orchestrated their own downfall in their attempt at power, and thus the continued importance of a loyal, standing army to keep the Grand Order of Things.
And I mean, Dooku was a Jedi, right? Obviously he left the Order on the Jedi’s orders so he could create the separatist movement.
Don’t you love how the Empire’s propaganda essentially says that the Jedi tried to do exactly what Palpatine did do?
I have a theory that one of the reasons it’s called the Clone Wars, rather than calling it a civil war (I do wonder if on the Separatist side it was called a war for independence; I’m pretty sure that the Republic never acknowledged the CIS as an independent state), is to de-emphasize the fact that it was a civil war. Nearly all the Republic combatants that we see in the show and in RotS are clones and Jedi; those that aren’t are naval captains and admirals like Tarkin and Yularen (and a few others), and rear echelon officers like Colonel Gascon. This isn’t a war that’s being fought by the citizens of the Republic, by and large. It’s not personalized — it’s not personal. Inhabitants of worlds like Naboo, Alderaan, Coruscant, etc., can’t claim to be fighting and dying for the Republic. Someone else is doing all that. And that “someone else” isn’t someone’s husband, someone’s daughter, someone’s brother or sister, it’s the Jedi — who hold themselves apart from the rest of the Republic — and the clones, who are literally manufactured for that purpose.
So what does Palpatine do in the aftermath of the Clone Wars? No more clones. No more Jedi. Stormtroopers, pilots, and other military personnel are recruited from the peoples of the Empire. Suddenly it is personal. You might not be able to see the face of the stormtrooper beneath the helmet, but it’s someone doing their patriotic duty for the Empre. It’s someone who has a stake in the Empire fighting for the Empire, because they’re defending their families, their homeworlds, their loved ones. The clones and the Jedi don’t have any of that, as far as the average citizen knows. But a stormtrooper, a TIE pilot, an imperial officer…they’ve got a family. They’ve got a mother, a father, maybe a husband or wife, maybe siblings, children, cousins, friends. They’ve got a homeworld. You know what they’re fighting for: something that somebody, somewhere, might want to take away. You can trust them, because they’re just like you.
Or at least, I bet that’s what the propaganda says.
You can trust them, because they’re just like you, which also reinforce the “clones aren’t people” and that the war seems like a “play war"— the ones on the battlefields are clones and droids created for that.
I’d love to have a look at the propaganda of the galaxy at the time.