The Chosen One

like so many Season 3, episode 15, Overlords? Yeah! Okay.

Anakin is summoned to a strange planet to test out his Chosen One abilities.

There's an ancient Jedi distress code that's encoded in some transmission, and this distress code hasn't been used in over 2,000 years.

that's summoning all of our guys to some location in space but it has some fuckery going on because rex is there with his cruiser and anakin ahsoka and obi-wan are in their ship but the two groups can't see each other they appear to be in completely different places but also in the same place and before we can contemplate that too long there's a big scary thingy It's kind of unclear.

Whatever the fucking Dyson Rhombus does keeps them locked within, I suppose, because they can't get off without a ship.

Apparently.

They needed to bring Anakin in to see if he is truly the Chosen One.

So there's a trial where the kids... kidnap ahsoka and obi-wan and you have to save one who will you choose and then anakin of course finds a way to save them both but the reason that we need to know if anakin is the chosen one is because the father is dying and he wants anakin to replace him because he's the only one powerful enough to keep his children in balance

Right? Yeah.

The Chosen One.

The Chosen One.

Which then you can come back to Qui-Gon.

Which only Qui-Gon talks about.

Because they believe that the Sith are extinct.

In what world is that balance?

It's the other irony I find with the Chosen One meant to restore balance to the Force.

I always feel like the Chosen One is sort of a way of the narrative legitimising its hero by being like, they're the hero because they're the hero, and you don't need to know anything else.

Yeah, I think it's almost, especially when we talk about more medieval versions of it, it kind of really plays into this idea of the divine right of kings, and that there's some people who are just born that way.

born for greatness and then when you come to kind of later versions of the chosen one which i'm sure we have some examples we can talk about there's more interesting kind of subverting that idea because we especially in terms of western literature most people don't believe in the divine right of kings anymore and so it's an interesting thing to interrogate that we still cling to this myth of the idea that some people are just born inherently special or with inherent abilities or inherent power or an inherent right to power.

And I think there's a lot of space in writing to kind of play with that idea and what it actually means.

Welcome to Enough Trope, a bookish podcast where we dive into our favorite and not-so-favorite tropes, one book at a time.

She's run away to the big city and she's decided to make something more of her life and leave all of that behind her.

on the night of the opening of the book, Jagby is back in town, and at a party, one more guest appears, which is the local town monster, and the local town monster is very interested about bringing the two of them together.

There's two different roads to go down, and I think the best Chosen One tropes explore both sides of it, which is the kind of joy of being special and the excitement of being kind of plucked out of your humdrum life and taken somewhere incredible and fantastical and having, you know, power, riches, abilities.

Anyway, apart from those two factors.

There's this chosen one thing, bloody chosen one thing.

And so, you know, he's kind of touted as the chosen one and the one to bring balance to the force.

And I kind of think, you know, does that kind of get to his head a little, you know? I understand we're talking about the reality of a character.

He didn't actually have to think through this.

Is this something that also feeds a bit of arrogance and self-righteousness and justification in Anakin when he's inevitably held back by the Jedi? You know, offended by being on the council but not being made a master, being the youngest ever in his position and still not being happy with it.

You know, does that kind of idea of being a saviour, I mean, if he knows anything about Jesus, I'm not sure if he's familiar with Jesus and knows that there's only ever been two dudes immaculately conceived, me and Jesus.

I'm being called the chosen one.

Oh, yeah.

The Chosen One destined to strike down the ultimate external evil.

It's classic.

And the source material takes us back to 1968 for this one, to Ursula K.

Yeah.

the man who might find an inward eye we've seen the trope of the chosen one in other properties it happens all the time how do you feel about said trope and how it's playing out so far in dune

um i i like you said it's very common it's definitely common in a lot of the work that i read it feels like yeah um i do like I do like that it's not just, nope, it's definitely you.

Let's go.