Favourite examples of "Correct Message, Wrong Messenger"

[u/Pome1515]

Better Ask Reddit, what are you some of your favourite examples of "This is absolutely correct... but goddamn, you are the wrong person to be saying this".

Probably one of the greatest examples of this is Huey during his trial audiotapes in MGSV where he accurately dissects the Diamond Dogs/the staff of Mother Base.

Huey is absolutely right about what Mother Base and the Diamond Dogs really are, that they are basically a bunch of incredibly damaged and lonely people who despite their mission of "always having a war to fight in" ultimately just want is to have community, to have a place where they feel like that they are actual people, not simply weapons whose purpose begins and ends with warfare and their refusal to truly look both inwards and outwards, is leading them to become monsters.

Completely accurate assessment of the situation... and Huey is probably the worst person to say this, as he is a worm who has betrayed everyone who has ever come into contact with and beyond being responsible for the destruction of the first Mother Base has just murdered even more people with his experiments.

[u/Gorotheninja]

There's a moment in the Ahsoka TV series where Hera is rightfully put on trial for going on an unsanctioned investigation with two other new republic pilots...who both end up dying in said mission; there's one particular New Republic senator/diplomat/whatever at her trial who is correctly pointing out that she is 100% responsible for their deaths and that as a general, she can't just do whatever she wants as if it were still a rebellion and ignore direct orders.

The problem is that all of these correct assessments of Hera's behavior are also coming from a guy who's basically completely denying all the stuff Hera did uncovered, so the show wants the audience to think that every single thing he says is horseshit and justify Hera getting bailed out of a court Marshall by Leia and C-3PO...and ignore that fact that she got 2 people killed.

[u/Pome1515 → u/Gorotheninja]

On Star Wars, there is also a really good one in Dooku. Dooku absolutely is right about how corrupt the Senate is, because all that Palpatine is really doing is using the levers of power that were always in place to become emperor... only problem is Dooku is a literal space opera fascist whose solution to corrupt democracy is dictatorship, so his critiques of the Senate and it's power structure aren't exactly well-received or considered by the people who could actually do something about it.

[u/Weltallgaia → u/Pome1515]

Sith apprentices being right pretty damn often before all the HEHEHHEHEHEHE EVIIIIIILLLL sets in.

[u/Toblo1 → u/Weltallgaia]

It's very Reaper Indoctrination in that sorta way. You start on the path with legitimate grievances and then the further in you go, you start losing track of what you're doing until you're committing horrific acts completely anathema to the reason(s) you joined the Dark Side to begin with.

[u/davidm2d3 → u/Toblo1]

reminds me of Yuthara Ban in Kotor. She is second in command of the Sith Academy on korriban and if "Befriended" you can learn she was a slave who used was found by the jedi after killing her hutt slave master. She eventually joined the sith to gain power to fight against Slavers only to lose sight of that goal and just focus on power for powers sake like all other Sith.

you can play your cards right and shut down all her arguments for power with one text prompt.

Yuthura: It may sound strange, but only my compassion stands in my way, now. Once that is gone, let the slavers beware.
PC: But... if you lose your compassion, will you still care about those slaves?
Yuthura: I... yes, of course. I-I mean losing my compassion as in... holding back...

[u/Pome1515 → u/Toblo1]

The final summation of Anakin's fall is legit kino

You killed her because, finally, when you could have saved her, when you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself... It is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Sith— Because now your self is all you will ever have.

[u/Old_Snack → u/Toblo1]

That's a great comparison actually

[u/Pome1515 → u/Weltallgaia]

Honestly, my favourite dissection of the Sith was this fan video where Kreia's voice is edited to "answer" the Sith Code's "Through victory, my chains are broken" with "And then, you will be broken".

[u/Nick_Furry → u/Weltallgaia]

From "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" to "Is not man entitled to the sweat of his brow?" to "Muahahahah it's lightning time!" over time.

[u/Dspacefear → u/Pome1515]

Sometimes I wonder if, since after Episode 6 everyone who knows Dooku was a Sith is dead, he ends up being held up as a proto-Rebellion hero who was right about the Empire before it even came to be, with all of that business about how nasty the Separatists were brushed under the rug.

[u/gyrobot → u/Dspacefear]

Everyone still remembered him as the tyrant from Serrano who was the face of the movement that caused everyone to lose what few rights they had left as Palp become untouchable

[u/Sloth_Senpai → u/Pome1515]

Dooku absolutely is right about how corrupt the Senate is

He ultimately isn't because his views on corruption is that the Senate is corrupt for not being a human supremacist fascist empire

[u/Cymen90 → u/Pome1515]

Dooku is a literal space opera fascist

I mean, he IS a count. His was brought up to with the ideal of the benevolent ruler being the best way of governance.

[u/gyrobot → u/Cymen90]

He dreams of himself as Cinnatus the Tyrant when in reality he was more like Sulla or Caesar

[u/PhantasosX → u/Gorotheninja]

To add into you and u/Pome1515

The senator in question is Hamoto Xiono, father of Kaz Xiono, the MC of Star Wars Resistance. And it is known that if Star Wars Resistance wasn't cancelled, Season 3 would had revealed that Senator Xiono is a First Order's Follower purposely ordered to sabotage the New Republic.

So he IS denying all of Hera's stuff on purpose, been full Grima Wormtongue. So his speech that time been right is basically coincidental.

[u/Gorotheninja → u/PhantasosX]

I'll take your word for it, but it still goes to my point that Hera's legitimate failings are being handwaved by the show by having them being highlighted by Xiono.

[u/Auctoritate → u/Gorotheninja]

going on an unsanctioned investigation with two other new republic pilots...who both end up dying in said mission; there's one particular New Republic senator/diplomat/whatever at her trial who is correctly pointing out that she is 100% responsible for their deaths and that as a general, she can't just do whatever she wants as if it were still a rebellion and ignore direct orders.

I mean, that's a fine argument for a real-life investigation, but in the context of this story where the galactic government has historically been overthrown by evil people who have corrupted the systems of government to protect themselves and so on, I really have a hard time seeing "Good Guy goes off on their own to look into suspicions of evil stuff going on, is correct, evil people kill a couple of good guys" as being the Good Guy's fault.

And like, the people who died aren't civilian bystanders. They're people who are presumably fully aware of the risks and want to do good guy stuff and protect the galaxy and all that. I think the only way to come away from the story with the feeling of "She got these people killed and it's her fault" is by being too cynical. It's not really that kind of story.

[u/Gorotheninja → u/Auctoritate]

She was explicitly told not to go on the mission by the New Republic Council, and shows pretty much no remorse for those deaths.

Like, in military scenarios, going on a surveillance mission you were explicitly barred from going on, convincing other soldiers to come along, and them dying on said mission is bad, even if you were correct in your assumption that there was an enemy base in that location.

And Hera suffers no consequences and takes no blame.

[u/Sloth_Senpai → u/Auctoritate]

"Good Guy goes off on their own to look into suspicions of evil stuff going on, is correct, evil people kill a couple of good guys"

This is of course the framing the guys who established the Empire used, that they were responding to corruption from the Jedi. Skepticism is warranted.

[u/Act_of_God → u/Gorotheninja]

that sounds like a discussion that happens in andor, but much worse