Slash in Star Wars

[owl]

I just don't see the point. In both of the trilogies we have a trio of main characters, two men and a woman. In both, one of the men is in a canonical relationship with the woman. And yet we have Obi/Ani and Han/Luke slash. It's not just a question of 'This character is canonically straight' (and the rejoinder to that is 'Ever heard of bisexuals?'), but, 'this character is canonically in a relationship with someone else'. It's irrelevant whether Anakin or Han like men as well as women, because they've each chosen a particular woman. I'd be equally annoyed if someone put them in a relationship with a Mary Sue female.
And Obi-Wan/Anakin annoys me the most, I think. Both of them see their relationship as familial, and, frankly, I can't see Obi-Wan having sex with anyone, let alone his Padawan. Making it merely about sex (ugh) would flatten out the interesting relationship as it actually is: Anakin trying to treat Obi-Wan as his father-figure while Obi sees him as a brother; fernwithy brought this to my attention the other day. Their differing expectations are part of the problem with them. Anakin needs someone to fill the dad-shaped space, and guess who's all ready to step up? Yup, Palpatine.

Comments

[snarkel.livejournal.com]

People writing SW slash has never bothered me, since I don't read it. That's the nature of shipping, sometimes - look at Harry/Hermoine. I don't see where people get that at all. Some people see 'subtext', some don't. And I can sorta see where you could get that in both trilogies, even if it's not a theory I subscribe to myself.

But remember, you get the 'just for the sex' crowd in het ships, too. Slashers are far, far from the only ones doing it, and I have no doubt that there are serious slash writers who honestly see subtext and write fully-realized relationships, just as you have het shippers who write nothing but PWPs.

Count me in as another member of the Obi-Wan's A Virgin club, though.

[owl]

Well, I wasn't comparing slash to het really, I was comparing it to het+gen (because you can have a gen fic with the A/P or H/Leia relationships as a given, but if you have a slash ship it's such a 'Bwah?' in SW that you have to spend lots of fic time explaining it.)

[snarkel.livejournal.com]

Isn't explaining the why of ships half the fun, anyway? If you're not focusing on the sex, anyway.

My point is, though, that het and slash are both dealing with the same exact things; only the details are different. It's all shipping in the end, and you're going to have similiar issues with Leia leaving Han for Lando as you do with Han leaving Leia for Luke.

What bothers me is that people get all up in arms over Luke/Han, but would probably shrug off the Leia/Lando just because it's het. But they're both WTFth pairings. I mean, I can see Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan a hell of a lot more easily than Obi-Wan/Sabè, but what's going to get more hate mail? Which is automatically considered NC-17 in some sections of the fandom, even if neither fic contains explicit sex? It's just so silly.

I've gone off topic with this, I'm sure, but it bothers me that fandom gets allk divided up over over something as trivial as het and slash.