i love in trials of the darksaber that you can track kanan’s journey through him and his mask.
kanan starts off by not wearing his mask on when he talks to rau and asks about the darksaber. he doesn’t know exactly what this weapon means so he doesn’t have all his worries and anxieties surfacing so he doesn’t need his mask to hide under. he’s an open book at the beginning, ready to talk.
the next time we see him he has it on. when they’re having to group discussion about sabine taking this on and what it’ll mean, he’s closed himself off from her because he’s scared. he’s so scared but he doesn’t want to let that show so the mask is on. if he can hide that under his mask than maybe they can all get through this.
he has his mask on throughout first days of training and when sabine blows up. even when he’s talking to hera, the person who knows him completely and he can be open with. he’s shut himself out from this to try and protect sabine but also to protect himself. and the mask doesn’t work, it doesn’t keep him from lashing out at everyone, it doesn’t keep him from handling everything so poorly.
but then kanan takes his mask off. when after talking with hera and she points out, again, that how he’s dealing with this isn’t good for sabine and that sabine is the one that matters here, not his feelings, he accepts it all and accepts that he is making mistakes. and most importantly, he accepts that he is the one of is teaching sabine. he can’t push this onto ezra anymore and just come in to make corrections. he’s accepted that he has to commit to this just as much as sabine has to.
so kanan’s not wearing a mask when they apologize to each other. he’s not wearing a mask start actually train. he’s not wearing a mask when he pushes sabine to where she needs to go. he’s not wearing a mask when he comforts her and promises her that they’ll be there for her.
kanan wearing a mask in this episode is him putting his guard up and sabine can tell, so her guard goes up too. if kanan doesn’t want this and it’s committed, why should she be. this is one of the core problems and kanan had to accept it.
i think this is some of the strongest visual storytelling in rebels. because we do catch on that kanan is going about this wrong pretty quick once they start training but visually we see it immediately that kanan isn’t going to handle this well. i love the details of when they have kanan wearing his mask and when he’s not. it’s not always so intense like this (sometimes it’s just he’s around a lot of new people so he wears his mask or like, they’re on geonosis so like yeah, he’s wearing his mask). it’s a brilliant tool to show us where kanan is in a given situation.
(hey, thanks @zareleonis because your liveblogging sparked all these thoughts being sent to my best friend and then i thought that hey, i’ll share them here too)
Tag: kanan jarrus
THERE IT IS!!!!! i love love LOVE how much hera GETS how sabine is feeling cos, well, all of this hits way too close to home lol.
i love this moment with kanan. he’s hurt that hera is calling him out like this and he kind of lashes out and it’s great. i love when they don’t click cause they always click. and i love that hera like doesn’t really rise to it, she just continues to explain the situation, lay it out for him. she doesn’t let his defensiveness, which is not fair to her and not fair to sabine, stop her from making sure kanan realizes that he’s going about this wrong. he’s being unfair bringing all of his anxieties into this and hera just calls him out and won’t accept any defensiveness. he’s an adult and a teacher and they all need him to act that way.
it’s really great to see these kind of shitty aspects of kanan’s character popping up even here cause it’s so easy to think “OH KANAN IS PERFECT NOW HE’S BETTER HE ISN’T AND-KANAN ANYMORE” which like, no, all those defence mechanisms are still there even though he is better and has healed so much. but they do pop out from time to time and it’s cool seeing that in s3 when kanan is really learning to be himself and accept himself.
and most of all i love that kanan listens to hera here. he takes to heart this (and the “this isn’t about you”) and learns from it. he comes back to the situation with a clearer head and goes about this in the way sabine needs.
damn this episode is brilliant.
WHAT WOULD WE EVER DO WITHOUT KANAN SWOOPING IN FOR THE SAVE??
poor ezra’s thinking “i had guns pointed at me no less than THREE times and now I’M the one who’s completely unarmed”
EZRA HONEY
such a beautiful scene. just your standard happy family camping trip 😊😻
Two tents three people…
So which one of them snores and thus got exiled from huddling for body heat? ;p
I’d say that Kanan got his own tent for being a giant but it’s more likely that the censors insisted Sabine get her own tent.
It actually looks like there were three in a wider shot…but I still have to laugh.
Friends help you bury bodies
Family lets you share body heat.
“Ow! Move over”
“Ouch! No your turn…”
“I can’t!”
“Why?”
“Because Sabine, this tent is tiny …my butt is hanging half out the door and my knee is already assaulting Ezra’s kidney. Now hush up both of you and go to kriffing sleep!”
oh hell, i’m crying again ;____;
OUCH 😭 why does kanan always know what to say even when everything is terrible
THERE IT IS!!!!!!
THIS KILLED ME DEAD
kanan goes right for the jugular. with words that would be cruel in any other context. it’s impossible to hear kanan say this to sabine and not think back to the grand inquisitor taunting him for running as his master died in ‘fire across the galaxy’. 100% no doubt in my mind this comes so easily to kanan because they’re things he told himself for YEARS
hera made kanan realize that a lot of what sabine’s feeling he can’t really understand on a personal level. but feeling like you let down the people you love? stuff that wasn’t your fault weighing on you so badly it feels like YOU’RE the one who turned on them?? kanan knows ALL ABOUT THAT
for sabine, she knows what she believes in and she knows what she thinks is right, so i don’t think she ever truly believe SHE betrayed her family in turning on the empire. but the knowledge that the people you love, whose opinions REALLY matter to you, believe that? that’s just as bad or even worse in it’s own way. so this is massively cathartic for sabine, to confront that head on.
sabine finally being able to confront this out loud for the first time in a good 4 years?? that’s HUGE
space 