running list of qui-gon cliches.

[quigonejinn]

1. Qui-Gon was a rebellious/misfit Padawan.
   
2. Qui-Gon was big as a kid.
   
3. Qui-Gon is fond of animals and nature.
   
4. Qui-Gon takes in wounded animals/strays.
   
5. Qui-Gon has refined tastes.
   
6. Qui-Gon has very particular, aesthetic preferences.
   
7. Qui-Gon likes tea.

Comments

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

1. Qui-Gon was a rebellious/misfit Padawan.

You going to write a story where he's perfect as Obi-Wan and just gets weird as he gets older and more experienced?

2. Qui-Gon was big as a kid.

He's 6'3" as an adult. It's pretty likely that he was big as a child, though I suppose he could have been small and chunky and then went ZOOOOOOM! when he hit puberty.

3. Qui-Gon is fond of animals and nature.

Living Force Jedi, according to the EU. He might just find it soothing, but not actually like to take care of animals or even plants.

4. Qui-Gon takes in wounded animals/strays.

He's fond enough of 'pathetic lifeforms' that Obi-Wan complains about it, in the tones of one who has put up with quite enough of them. I suppose they could be 'pathetic sentient beings', but he's doing habitually doing something that exasperates Obi-Wan.

[babel.livejournal.com]

Just because they could make sense doesn't make them less cliché, and being cliché doesn't make them wrong. There are other points of view for each subject that aren't generally explored.

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Actually, I like the idea of Qui-Gon being short as a kid, and then going ZOOOOM! at puberty -- and not quite settling into it for a few years, because every time it seems he's gotten over the clumsiness, he grows another 5 cm.

[babel.livejournal.com]

I kind of like the idea of not being super protective of pathetic lifeforms until he learned some lesson, myself. My father, who just spent most of the morning leading a bunch of ants out of the kitchen back toward their home, hunted things until he shot a rabbit and it didn't die. So. You know. With the pathetic sounds and having to put it out of its misery.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

I wasn't actually planning, per se, to write fic about them -- it's just stuff that's starting to come up again and again and again as I work my way through fic, and I just wanted a place to stash them and think about them critically. Most of them make serious sense, so it'd be wretched hard to contravene them.

Though. The rebellious/misfit Padawan thing. I really do like the idea of Qui-Gon drifting further and further from Jedi orthodoxy as he grows older -- after all, the Council FUCKS UP SO MUCH during the prequels. It probably doesn't happen on such a galactic scale before the Clone Wars and so forth, but it's a little weird to think both that the council didn't fuck up and that Qui-Gon didn't notice any fuckups.

Plus, a lot of times people use the rebellious/misfit from the beginning thing to shortshrift Dooku's influence. I mean, I swear, even when he was less crazy, Dooku must have been a huuuuuuuuge impact on whoever he trained. Sending an eleven, twelve, or thirteen year old kid in with a guy with that kind of charisma? I'm curious to see different versions of Qui-Gon's kidhood.

Re: the bigness thing. Yeah, it's probable that he was huge throughout his life, particulalry if we're going with input from Neeson' life or whatever, but it's also possible that he didn't. Some of the biggest athletes that I know a lot about had growth spurts in their early twenties or very, very late teens.

It goes into this whole developing idea of mine, I guess, of Qui-Gon's weirdness developing.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

ladskjf;lgdf FIC FIC FIC IDEA HOLY GOD

[babel.livejournal.com]

*wins at life!*

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Not to, uh. Make light of your father's traua or anything. T_T

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Plus, a lot of times people use the rebellious/misfit from the beginning thing to shortshrift Dooku's influence. I mean, I swear, even when he was less crazy, Dooku must have been a huuuuuuuuge impact on whoever he trained. Sending an eleven, twelve, or thirteen year old kid in with a guy with that kind of charisma? I'm curious to see different versions of Qui-Gon's kidhood.

Huh... I'd have thought that Dooku's influence would have reinforced Qui-Gon's weirdness/misfitedness. Especially if Dooku and he were as close as the way AotC implies.

[babel.livejournal.com]

If it were still a big deal that bothered him, I wouldn't have used it as an example. :P

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

It totally would. And I seriously doubt that Dooku would have taken someone who was totally incompatible with him. Can you imagine him with Mace Windu as an apprentice? Even the most extreme version of what I'm postulating has Qui-Gon with latent rebellious/Council-questioning tendencies.

The question of how close Dooku was with Qui-Gon is also open for poking, though. I mean, there are sources that have explicitly said that Dooku left the Order because of Qui-Gon's death, etc, but that aside, in AotC, if we take Dooku as being serious in his desire to sway Obi-Wan, then he has incentive to overplay closeness with Qui-Gon. The more he can mess with Obi-Wan's

And, like, if Qui-Gon and Dooku are that close, then why the hell haven't Obi-Wan and Dooku's paths "crossed before"? Qui-Gon and Dooku were undoubtedly busy, a few thousand Jedi in a huuuuge universe, but did Qui-Gon never meet Dooku in the window where Dooku was a Jedi and Obi-Wan was a Padawan? Did Qui-Gon just not take Obi-Wan with him? Or are we meant to take "crossed" in the most literal sense?

I mean, I'm not postulating the absolute truth of any of these. They'd just be interesting alleys to turn.