“Holdo should have let Poe in on the plan!” is my least favorite TLJ criticism
When you watch the scenes, it’s pretty clear he’s in the wrong. It’s funny how quickly people forget chain of command when there’s a woman at the top of it.
First scene: Holdo has just assumed command maybe two minutes ago. Poe starts mansplaining the situation. “We’re dangerously low on fuel.” “Thank you for making me aware.” He keeps on ranting. It’s clear she’s looking at maps and analyzing the situation, but he won’t shut up. “We need a plan!” “Well, Leia just demoted you, so there’s no WE here. Go wait for my orders.”
Scene 2: Poe doesn’t even give her a chance to speak, makes assumptions when he sees she’s fueling the smaller ships, and calls her a traitor. As his commanding officer, she has no choice at that point but to have him removed.
The problem is that the audience is SO not used to seeing women in power that they assume Poe must be her equal. He’s not.
Not to mention that Holdo, who doesn’t know Poe at all except by reputation (which is that he’s reckless and was just demoted by Leia frikking Organa-Solo for disobeying her orders), would have no reason to tell him her top-secret plan to get them out of danger. He was not owed that information, especially since he had just disobeyed their General’s orders because he thought he had a better plan.
I love Poe, but Holdo wasn’t wrong not to tell him and Poe was wrong to be so focused on his flashy ideas of how war should work that he wasn’t willing to look at the big picture and let the people in charge make decisions.
I loved Pablo Hidalgo’s commentary on this from the weeks after TLJ came out.
Star Wars Resistance synopsis translated from German to English:
Resistance fighter Poe Dameron tasks young pilot Kazuda “Kaz” Xiono with spying on the First Order. At the time, little was known about the secretive organization and its strength.
In order to fulfill his mission, Kaz travels to the space station Colossus, which is being used by many ships as a port to refuel and do repairs. However, there are also dangerous races taking place there. After Kaz bragged with his piloting skills at his arrival there, he is soon drawn into one of the races….
I can’t quickly find the issues, but if I remember the context for the first panel correctly, the droid is either refusing to hand over the information on Lor until he is safe or refusing to fight. As part of 3PO’s spy ring, his self-preservation commands are super high, and it was only by loading him with Mister Bone’s personality that he would actually fight. So basically, he respects droids as people, but when it’s on the wire, he can get short tempered and snap, not seeing modifying a droid’s personality as a morally negative act.
Exactly, the scenes happen relatively near each other. So far while reading the Poe Dameron comics it showcases that Poe above all else believes in the cause.
The Resistance is everything to him and Poe is willing to lay down his life for it, but his fatal flaw is that he can’t understand why someone else wouldn’t feel the same.
darth-tantrum 