It makes me sad that Owen and Beru’s (quite horrible) deaths are so glossed over in ANH
beru whitesun lars
luke’s entire motivation as a character is his desire for a family that will truly love him. when he’s young, he fixates on the image of his dead father as the ultimate role model who would have supported and nurtured him, who would have basically been everything that uncle owen wasn’t. that’s why it’s so devastating for him when ben dies, bc ben was the first adult to really actively provide him with any kind of help or support. and that’s why he tries so, so hard to redeem anakin; he cannot let go of the idea that if things had turned out differently, anakin would have been the perfect father luke always imagined him to be.
luke also seeks out very close friendships/relationships with his peers: biggs and the tosche station kids, and then han and leia, and then wedge and all of the other resistance pilots. he’s a very openhearted person to begin with, but that’s not the only reason that he clings so tightly to his friendships. he is trying desperately to find a family for himself. but this doesn’t work either: biggs dies, and wedge dies, and dack dies, and han and leia have each other and don’t need him (or so he thinks by the end of rotj). luke’s despair at the end of the original trilogy is profound. he has failed to achieve his primary objective as a character, to find a group of people who will dependably love and support him.
so then he tries something else. he tries to re-build the jedi order. maybe by cultivating that community, by being father he wishes he had had to a new generation of force-sensitive kids, he can find some kind of belonging. but then, of course, his school is destroyed by his own nephew. the skywalker family continues to tear itself apart. luke blames himself: he thinks that by using leia’s son into for his own ends he has destroyed any chance that she had to escape the cycle of revenge and bloodshed. he doesn’t know that leia doesn’t blame him at all, or how desperately she wants her brother at her side. he doesn’t know that han cares about him so much that he spends a decade combing the galaxy for any trace of his old friend. having seen so many people he loves die, luke thinks the kindest thing to do is remove himself from their lives completely.
(btw speaking of the greek tragedy style curse of the house of skywalker, remember how that guy at the beginning of tfa says “you can’t escape the truth that is your family” and kylo agrees with him? ben solo is just as invested as luke in carrying on his family’s legacy, he’s just focusing on a different part of it. he, too, wants a community that will give him something his family can’t. he just goes about finding it in the wrong way.)
anyway this is why luke’s relationship with rey is going to be so important!!!! rey and luke want the same thing: a family. imo episode viii is going to give him the chance to finally, finally, after all these years (canon and real-life) resolve his narrative and find the family he’s been looking for all his life.
What about Beru, though? Even if you figure that Owen wasn’t a good father figure to Luke (and I’m not sure I really buy that, either) I can’t believe that she didn’t love her adopted son, or that Luke didn’t know that she did, or that she wasn’t his family 100% even though they weren’t blood related.
Pretty Dresses
Hey, you know what I love? Fics where ladies who never had conversations in canon get to have conversations! Here is one of that genre.
Title: Pretty Dresses
Fandom: Star Wars
Characters: Padme Amidala, Beru Whitesun
Rating: PG13 (there’s nothing in here worse than in any Star Wars movie)
Summary: Padmé has never really had a conversation with a woman who doesn’t change her clothes even once a day.(or, some missing moments from Attack of the Clones.)
*
*
Padmé
had slept the night on the one spare bed at the Lars homestead, and
when she had woken up she discovered there was nowhere to wash. Because
there was, of course, no water.She felt stupid for not having
realised that earlier. She had been to the planet before, after all, and
she should have remembered that it was the most unbelievably
uncomfortable place. If you didn’t need to wash, you weren’t going to get to.So
she changed into her most Tatooine-appropriate dress, which also by a
stroke of luck was the very last clean one she had, and went to find her
hosts. She was worried about Anakin and didn’t much feel like being
sociable, but she figured she should at least show her face.Beru
was in the kitchen cooking, and she was wearing the exact same clothes
she had worn yesterday. There was a jug of water on the side, and Padmé
badly wanted some to drink, but she thought she had better wait til it
was offered. Beru looked up at her, and then did a double take. Padmé
realised with some discomfort that this one dress of hers was probably
worth more than the Larses’ entire farm.I’m so, so happy to have found this fic! Let me start off by saying that Beru and Padme are two of my all-time favorite characters in Star Wars (strange choices, I know) and you’re right, there absolutely isn’t enough fic about Beru (or Owen, for that matter) so I love it when people write about her. This was so beautiful and adorable; I loved the awkward interactions between Padme and Beru, how Padme felt uncomfortable because of her wealth and the opulent Naboo lifestyle in comparison to the Larses’ poverty and simple lifestyle, but how Beru wasn’t a bitter person and never once held it against Padme or treated her as strange. I love how Padme tried to help out on the farm and couldn’t do much, but eventually found a small but kind way to be helpful. I loved seeing your interpretations of Naboo culture and Tatooine culture; that was wonderful. I loved the little bits of Owen’s and Beru’s relationship, and especially how you said there wasn’t much touching between them because I actually headcanon that theirs wasn’t a very physical relationship (not that it wasn’t loving, mind you, just not very physical or sexual).
My favorite thing, of course, was Padme leaving behind the dresses for Beru. Just imagine her coming back into the house, worn-out and upset after the funeral, and seeing these beautiful things lying on her bed. I can imagine her at first being all “oh no” because she thinks Padme’s forgotten them, and then she realizes they’ve been left for her and feels both awkward but also grateful. It would be so nice for her to have something beautiful in such an ugly, harsh world as Tatooine.
And another thought popped into my head – what if she still has them when Luke’s around? Would she put two and two together that Padme was his mother? Would she tell him the dresses were hers? Would Luke feel the soft fabric and wonder what his beautiful, generous mother was like? These things give me such feels, dammit.
The one thing I was a bit surprised about was Owen’s and Beru’s nonchalant, even approving, reaction to the Tusken slaughter, because I actually have the opposite headcanon about how they perceived it, but you know, your way really does make sense. Why should they be expected to have pity for people who constantly slaughter their friends and neighbours for no reason whatsoever? Plus, yeah, they’re not bound by the Jedi Code, so there’s no reason why they’d feel any obligation to “love all creatures” or “fear the path to the dark side” or whatever.
OH, and the best thing about it all was the dark irony in the dresses representing a long life, because we know that, unfortunately, that’s not what Beru’s going to have. :C
Anyway, wonderful Fanfiction! I’m so happy I decided to go into the Beru Lars tag and happened to stumble across it!!! :D
OMG how did I not see this earlier!?!?!?! I’m so sorry I missed it until now, I LOVE it when people leave these things for me. <3
I’m glad you liked the Naboo culture bit, because I LOVED thinking all that up.
Oh no, Luke and the dresses. :(((( I also wonder if Beru still had them. Tatooine’s a highly dangerous place so there’s a chance they were stolen, I suppose. But I like to think she got to keep at least one. I’m not sure if she’d have shown it to Luke, though, she might have worried he’d start asking too many questions about his mother. Maybe she lied and said it was Shmi’s.
You know…I thought so long and hard about Beru and Owen’s response to the slaughter, and I thought as awful as it sounds they probably would be approving, for revenge’s sake if for nothing else. They probably never knew the exact details, I bet Anakin never told them, but…I always wondered the Larses filled Padme’s head with stories about the other atrocities Tuskens Raiders had committed whilst she stayed with them, and if that managed to scratch away even slightly at her sense of justice. I suspect it would have done, she’s only human after all….
It has also occurred to me that Beru did at least live longer than Padme herself did and now I’m sad.
Anyway, thanks again, so much, for this great response. :D
No problem! :) I’m glad you wrote the fic; it really put me in a great mood. I was actually telling my sister all about it and how happy I was to read something about Beru and Padme. She even said something like “this is what FanFiction should be like!” (She’s not a big Lars fan like I am, but she knows a good fic when she sees one. Or, hears about one).
So you thought up all the Naboo stuff yourself! I was thinking so, but wasn’t entirely sure whether or not it was trivia from the EU. Good job with it; it felt like something that could definitely be part of Star Wars lore.
Yeah, now that you bring it up they could have been stolen, or damaged or just worn out. And with how (over)protective Owen and Beru were, they probably would have withheld anything that could have made Luke think about his parents. But I still really like the idea of Luke finding it, maybe by accident, and wondering who it came from. (And I love that you bring up Shmi, because it warms my heart to know that, however little he may have known about his parents, Luke probably did know quite a bit about his grandmother.)
That is a really good point, and I actually like that you went with the more, let’s say, morally ambiguous route and had them basically root for the Tusken slaughter. My thoughts were basically that, while they didn’t care much about the moral issue of the killing of the Tuskens, they would (if they found out about it) have been disapproving of Anakin’s actions solely for the fact that the slaughter of an entire village would likely bring reprisals upon the homesteaders once another Tusken group found out. Revenge-killings and that sort of thing. But your way makes a lot of sense too, and is more grimly realistic than them mourning the loss of the people who killed Shmi.
The Star Wars universe just isn’t kind to these two ladies, is it? :(
I was also wondering (I was going to send you an ask earlier today but I chickened out) if I could draw a fanart for this story, of Beru finding the dresses? I can’t promise it’ll be done soon, as I tend to put fanart off for a long time, but I would really like to, and I’d credit you for the idea of course. :)
Oh my gosh, this is one of the nicest feedbacks I’ve ever gotten! And yes, ABSOLUTELY you may draw fanart!
So you thought up all the Naboo stuff yourself! I was thinking so, but
wasn’t entirely sure whether or not it was trivia from the EU. Good job
with it; it felt like something that could definitely be part of Star
Wars lore.
Aww thanks! I love Padme’s costumes in the movie and I always wondered if there were ever deeper meanings behind them, if Naboo just happened to have a really complex code of clothing that outsiders would probably be clueless about. (I mean, we Earthlings also have fairly complex rules about clothes, even if they vary from culture to culture.) Luckily I don’t think Naboo even has much written about it in the EU, so…..more room for me. :D
And I love that you bring up Shmi, because it warms my heart to know
that, however little he may have known about his parents, Luke probably
did know quite a bit about his grandmother.
I’ve always been glad about that too! Just think, she was the only relative whose grave he ever got to visit……..aaaaaand now I’m sad again, darn.
My thoughts were basically that, while they didn’t care much about the
moral issue of the killing of the Tuskens, they would (if they found out
about it) have been disapproving of Anakin’s actions solely for the
fact that the slaughter of an entire village would likely bring
reprisals upon the homesteaders once another Tusken group found out.
Revenge-killings and that sort of thing.
That is actually a very good point that I didn’t think of! Unless Anakin’s actions were enough to scare all of them away? (I actually have a feeling that EU might cover that…unless it was from a very good fanfic?)
Anyway, thank you so much for all of this! Also, I promise I will have another fic about Beru soon! A EVEN SADDER one, meep.
Pretty Dresses
Hey, you know what I love? Fics where ladies who never had conversations in canon get to have conversations! Here is one of that genre.
Title: Pretty Dresses
Fandom: Star Wars
Characters: Padme Amidala, Beru Whitesun
Rating: PG13 (there’s nothing in here worse than in any Star Wars movie)
Summary: Padmé has never really had a conversation with a woman who doesn’t change her clothes even once a day.(or, some missing moments from Attack of the Clones.)
*
*
Padmé
had slept the night on the one spare bed at the Lars homestead, and
when she had woken up she discovered there was nowhere to wash. Because
there was, of course, no water.She felt stupid for not having
realised that earlier. She had been to the planet before, after all, and
she should have remembered that it was the most unbelievably
uncomfortable place. If you didn’t need to wash, you weren’t going to get to.So
she changed into her most Tatooine-appropriate dress, which also by a
stroke of luck was the very last clean one she had, and went to find her
hosts. She was worried about Anakin and didn’t much feel like being
sociable, but she figured she should at least show her face.Beru
was in the kitchen cooking, and she was wearing the exact same clothes
she had worn yesterday. There was a jug of water on the side, and Padmé
badly wanted some to drink, but she thought she had better wait til it
was offered. Beru looked up at her, and then did a double take. Padmé
realised with some discomfort that this one dress of hers was probably
worth more than the Larses’ entire farm.I’m so, so happy to have found this fic! Let me start off by saying that Beru and Padme are two of my all-time favorite characters in Star Wars (strange choices, I know) and you’re right, there absolutely isn’t enough fic about Beru (or Owen, for that matter) so I love it when people write about her. This was so beautiful and adorable; I loved the awkward interactions between Padme and Beru, how Padme felt uncomfortable because of her wealth and the opulent Naboo lifestyle in comparison to the Larses’ poverty and simple lifestyle, but how Beru wasn’t a bitter person and never once held it against Padme or treated her as strange. I love how Padme tried to help out on the farm and couldn’t do much, but eventually found a small but kind way to be helpful. I loved seeing your interpretations of Naboo culture and Tatooine culture; that was wonderful. I loved the little bits of Owen’s and Beru’s relationship, and especially how you said there wasn’t much touching between them because I actually headcanon that theirs wasn’t a very physical relationship (not that it wasn’t loving, mind you, just not very physical or sexual).
My favorite thing, of course, was Padme leaving behind the dresses for Beru. Just imagine her coming back into the house, worn-out and upset after the funeral, and seeing these beautiful things lying on her bed. I can imagine her at first being all “oh no” because she thinks Padme’s forgotten them, and then she realizes they’ve been left for her and feels both awkward but also grateful. It would be so nice for her to have something beautiful in such an ugly, harsh world as Tatooine.
And another thought popped into my head – what if she still has them when Luke’s around? Would she put two and two together that Padme was his mother? Would she tell him the dresses were hers? Would Luke feel the soft fabric and wonder what his beautiful, generous mother was like? These things give me such feels, dammit.
The one thing I was a bit surprised about was Owen’s and Beru’s nonchalant, even approving, reaction to the Tusken slaughter, because I actually have the opposite headcanon about how they perceived it, but you know, your way really does make sense. Why should they be expected to have pity for people who constantly slaughter their friends and neighbours for no reason whatsoever? Plus, yeah, they’re not bound by the Jedi Code, so there’s no reason why they’d feel any obligation to “love all creatures” or “fear the path to the dark side” or whatever.
OH, and the best thing about it all was the dark irony in the dresses representing a long life, because we know that, unfortunately, that’s not what Beru’s going to have. :C
Anyway, wonderful Fanfiction! I’m so happy I decided to go into the Beru Lars tag and happened to stumble across it!!! :D
OMG how did I not see this earlier!?!?!?! I’m so sorry I missed it until now, I LOVE it when people leave these things for me. <3
I’m glad you liked the Naboo culture bit, because I LOVED thinking all that up.
Oh no, Luke and the dresses. :(((( I also wonder if Beru still had them. Tatooine’s a highly dangerous place so there’s a chance they were stolen, I suppose. But I like to think she got to keep at least one. I’m not sure if she’d have shown it to Luke, though, she might have worried he’d start asking too many questions about his mother. Maybe she lied and said it was Shmi’s.
You know…I thought so long and hard about Beru and Owen’s response to the slaughter, and I thought as awful as it sounds they probably would be approving, for revenge’s sake if for nothing else. They probably never knew the exact details, I bet Anakin never told them, but…I always wondered the Larses filled Padme’s head with stories about the other atrocities Tuskens Raiders had committed whilst she stayed with them, and if that managed to scratch away even slightly at her sense of justice. I suspect it would have done, she’s only human after all….
It has also occurred to me that Beru did at least live longer than Padme herself did and now I’m sad.
Anyway, thanks again, so much, for this great response. :D
Pretty Dresses
Hey, you know what I love? Fics where ladies who never had conversations in canon get to have conversations! Here is one of that genre.
Title: Pretty Dresses
Fandom: Star Wars
Characters: Padme Amidala, Beru Whitesun
Rating: PG13 (there’s nothing in here worse than in any Star Wars movie)
Summary: Padmé has never really had a conversation with a woman who doesn’t change her clothes even once a day.
(or, some missing moments from Attack of the Clones.)
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(more…)