fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4023 ]

[ SECRET POST #4023 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4023 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 37 secrets from Secret Submission Post #576.
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I would side with Holdo if she had given a reason for why she couldn't tell Poe (or anyone else) the plan. Even leaving mutiny aside, that was just causing people unnecessary fear and anxiety and for what? What reason was there besides drama and creating a situation where Poe learns he can fail? As it is, they both are idiots.

I still think Holdo was way less at fault than Poe. I still side with her.

both of them were wrong IMO. and I also liked both of them a lot.

Okay. I still side with Holdo.

I don't think he's less at fault, but Holdo (and Leia?) created a situation that people were going to react to badly, and they could have avoided it altogether by assuring people that they had a plan and did not intend to get blown up by the First Order (even if they didn't divulge what the plan was, that might have gone a long way towards allaying people's fears). Making people think they were going to die was unnecessary. Poe wasn't alone in the mutiny, so clearly other people were worried about the situation. If he had done nothing, someone else probably would have led a mutiny instead.

Holdo's actions are just really weird. The movie never acknowledges this, either, which is frustrating. Poe screws up and he's wrong for wanting to solve all his problems by blowing things up. Holdo screws up and... nothing. No reason given for why she wouldn't say anything earlier.

I don't know what Holdo's official backstory is, but the impression she made upon me was of someone who rose to her position by being very good at certain aspects of war, but who isn't very good at dealing with people when they're frightened or frustrated.

I still side with Holdo.

The Resistance is a military, though. Superiors in the military don't always explain details to subordinates who have to follow orders. That's just the way it works. And Poe, etc. were the ones assuming they were going to get blown up by the First Order. Why not, instead, assume that your leaders know what they are doing? He can't have always been told everything in every mission, so he has to know that there are probably facts he doesn't know. And not telling superiors about Finn and Rose was not just dangerous, it was stupid.

DA

I liked Holdo a lot. I like Poe a lot. I think both of them behaved in ways that were understandable, if not ideal. But I think the point you're making here is a very salient point that a lot of people seem determine to dismiss in this situation.

I don't like chain of command bullshit. I just don't. I don't even like it in real life. I would flunk out of the military in a hot nanosecond because any time in my life I've heard "because I said so" I've taken it as a good reason to ignore that person. BUT. The bottom line is that for people who are in a military environment - who have a duty and who have agreed to work within a command structure - that command structure has to be respected. Which means doing what you're told by your superiors, regardless of whether or not you understand and believe in the plan.

Knowing what we know about Poe, should Holdo have been less rigid and just told him what was up? Yes. But as a military superior who knew him as a skilled but insubordinate asset, not telling him was also a professionally reasonable call to make.

Why would Poe and the others who tried to mutiny start making the assumption they were going to die without a plan NOW, at this time, when it can't have been the first time they were in danger and just had to trust therir superiors? Presumably none of them tried to pull this before, or they wouldn't still be around. The implication is that something about THIS situation threw up red flags for people who had been around the block before.

...or else the whole thing was just poorly handled in the script. Frankly, I'm pretty disappointed in how both Poe and Holdo were portrayed. I think it could have been done better without changing the actual outcome of the story or the other subplots.

The Resistance isn't a formal military, though - it's much looser, and people like Finn and Rey can apparently just show up and join the fight. It seems to be held together not through patriotism or a formal chain of command so much as personal loyalty to people like Leia.

And even in a formal military, if morale's hit such a rock bottom that people are trying to desert, you need to do something more to reassure them than Holdo was doing.

Plus, in the original films, we saw briefings where fairly low-ranking people were able to speak up and question the plan - "What good are snub fighters going to do against that?", "Two ships against a star destroyer?!" - so it feels very weird to have the Resistance's leaders acting more like a cliche martinet instead of assuaging people's concerns.

Yup. People expressed opinions, but then they followed orders. Poe just decided he knew better than everyone else and decided to throw wave after wave of his own men at the killbots until they until they shut down.

Actually, that's giving him too much credit. Zapp Brannigan's plan worked. The blood on Poe's hands was all for nothing in the end.

That's not what happened in the movie

I mean, it doesn't even resemble what happened in the movie.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2018-01-10 04:23 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2018-01-10 00:18 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2018-01-10 04:26 (UTC) - Expand

assuring people that they had a plan and did not intend to get blown up by the First Order

Wasn't that exactly what she said?

Not very effectively, obviously.

The only somewhat reasonable explanation I've heard is she didn't know if there was a spy on board, since they were being traced or whatever, so she avoided being truthful. But even so.

If they had said this in the movie, that would have improved things. As it is, it feels more like "this is what happens because the plot says so" than a situation that makes sense.

Yeah, that was stupid. It was just not a well written conflict so I refuse to take sides.

I also thought it was really unnecessary and manipulative within that story to make Holdo subtly unlikeable at first in ways that aren't really cleaned up by the end when it's "haha, gotcha, she's the good guy" like her dismissing Finn, a person who had and fully deserved Leia's trust, as "some storm trooper"?

Edited 2018-01-09 02:16 (UTC)

I think this is the crux of the problem and why, at least on an emotional level, it's not as straightforward as "Poe didn't follow orders." That doesn't mean Holdo was in the wrong or Poe is absolved, but... it's messy, unresolved, and unsatisfying. I can't really articulate what I'm getting at, but I agree the movie seems to be manipulating the audience to dislike Holdo.

I also feel the whole thing borders on "Give the Idiot Ball to Character A so that Character B will look better in comparison" and I hate that.

The picking apart of the situation that's been done in this thread really isn't resolving this part of the issue for me.

Yeah, there is a bit of that going on. I found that entire plot line to be poorly written, with a lot of "hey, we're a misfit adventure story" competing with "hey we're a war story."

Basic operational security. Holdo had to work on the assumption that someone in the Resistance may have been leaking information to The Order. In addition, The Resistance was dealing with deserters, and the Order had a mind-reading dark Jedi in their pocket. Refusing to discuss with non-essential personnel either the existence of the base or the plan to evacuate using transports was common sense under those conditions.

All of this. I do wish they'd found a way to say one or more o these things, but they are still all true.

This. Intelligence security and need-to-know are really big deals, and for good reason.

Yes, exactly.

Considering one of the mutineers was a member of her bridge crew trying to carry out her orders (pretty essential I would have thought), it's clear she told absolutely no one which is really undercutting this argument.

Wrong. The mutiny didn't happen until the transports were prepped, serviced, and manned for departure. So clearly, the people who needed to know (the transport crews) had been given their orders. The bridge officers were also given what they needed to know: heading and operating instructions.

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