I enjoyed (and very much agree) with your response on the clones being slaves post and I wanted to know your opinion on Plo Koon’s treatment of clones (since he see’s them as not expendable)?

darth-occlus:

Alright, so I said I’d give a more complex answer. Plo is at a weird crux where he clearly cares for the troopers under his command, and the narrative the writers give us is that he very much cares about their wellbeing. I have pretty mixed feelings about him but in the end, I am still fond of him as a character, because I think a lot of it is due to the writers involved.

TCW very much shies away from talking about and addressing the use of a clone army. They get close in Umbara, briefly address it in Hidden Enemy, and then again in Deserter and one last time in the Control Chip arc. That’s on the writers, and when we look closer at the Jedi, the writer’s refusal to address it becomes the Jedi’s refusal to address it, which turns into the Jedi actively looking like they refuse to address the pretty fucking shitty ethics of using a clone army that has no choice but to fight and die for the Jedi and the Republic.

Plo actively tells his troopers he cares for them, and canon sources tell us that the Wolfpack is incredibly loyal to him. But he never actually speaks out against the clone army and the use of the clones and what a shitty position it puts those men in. He’s on the Council: out of all the Jedi, he’s one of 12 who would have the best chance of getting his voice out there. He’s silent when it’s revealed Dooku had a hand in the creation of the clone army. If ever there was a moment to say, the clones deserve their freedom and we should get them out and help them, that was it.

If we go by the Plo Koon the writer’s want us to see him as, that conversation has probably happened. But the writer’s just didn’t consider it important enough to show it. And that turns into this grey areas where depending on your interpretation of Plo, maybe he did have the conversation, but it’s just as likely he didn’t.

If we go by the Plo Koon we see in TCW, then he cares about his men enough to put his life in danger for them, but just not enough to get them the rights and freedom they deserve, and that means he cares about them as living beings who serve a purpose, and not as free men. 

Do I still like Plo? Admittedly, yeah- he’s still one of my favorite Jedi. But I think if the writers wanted Plo to really live up to the narrative they wove around him, then we should have seen him speaking out. Instead, the Plo we get is just as complicit as the rest in the clone army.