Why Poe Dameron Is Perfectly In Character In The Last Jedi

First off, there are some criticisms of Poe in this post. I’m letting it be known that I adore Poe, and at no point do these criticism come from a dissatisfaction with the character. I love Poe’s flaws as much as his virtues. My head shaking at some of his shenanigans comes from a place of love. I won’t appreciate anyone coming here and saying, “This is why I hate Poe.” Hate Poe on your own blog.

A note on character analysis:

There are as many interpretations of a character as there are people who analyze them. Every single person is different, with their own differencing personalities, priorities, biases, and experiences. Some people’s view of a character may be so remarkably similar in every respect that they might feel like they are completely in sync (and I’m sure that the Lucasfilm Story Group strives to do this), but it is never actually possible to for two perspectives to match 100%. There will always be differences in the minutiae.

Then there are the perspectives that are so wildly different that a new character’s storyline is viewed as OOC by some and IC by others. I’ve been in these debates before. I’ve been on the side of frustration when I beloved that my fave was being written poorly. I completely understand that sentiment.

Enter Poe Dameron. I think he is completely in character in TLJ, and that he is not different than the man in TFA, or the comics, or Before the Awakening, or much less the Visual Dictionaries, written by a member of the Lucasfilm Story Group, which describe Poe with terms such as “reckless”, “impulsive”, and “brash”. And that’s from the TFA dictionary.

First, some facts:

— In 2012, the Lucasfilm Story Group was founded by Kathleen Kennedy, President of Lucasfilm.

— The Lucasfilm Story Group oversees every aspect of the new SW canon. They have to approve every storyline in the movies, tv shows, comics, novels, tie-in books, etc. If they didn’t sign off on it, it’s not happening.

— Kathleen Kennedy is a producer on all the SW films.

— JJ Abrams is an executive producer on The Last Jedi.

— The producers are the final authority on a film. They’re the director’s boss. On no production is the director doing whatever they want without supervision.

While the genesis of Poe Dameron may be down to JJ (his expanded role certainly is), Poe isn’t exclusively his baby. He, like everything else in Star Wars canon, is the ultimate responsibility of the Story Group. Neither JJ nor Rian Johnson are creating any of their SW ideas in a vacuum. Nor can they sign off on anything without the Story Group’s approval. The Story Group rules all.

I couldn’t help myself. But they do. People keep acting like Rian Johnson killed their baby and ruined SW singlehandedly, despite the fact that Kennedy, who has been intimate involved in SW since the beginning, and the Story Group have to approve everything. They like what Rian did. They even gave him his own trilogy. They liked his directing work and the movie that they all made. All of them.

Character interpretations will always vary. Someone will always not like the direction that a new storyline went in. I’ve been unhappy with the many storylines through the years. That’s just the way it goes with episodic stories. Being upset about it is valid.

But how is Poe suddenly a radically different guy in TLJ? I read the comics. And Before the Awakening. I’m seeing the exact, same guy. And of course I am. The Story Group is masterminding all of it. Their job is to make sure that all the canon lines up. That movie Poe is the same as book Poe.

Poe complaints I’ve seen:

“Since when is he this reckless?”

Since always. The traits people are complaining about were established in The Force Awakens. They’re right there. Seriously. Watch the movie again.

The very first thing we saw him do in TFA is get captured by the First Order because he didn’t run like he should have. Lor San Tekka told him, “You have to leave” when the Evil Empire 2.0 showed up. Yes, Poe did have to leave. Not only was he carrying the map to Luke, but he was a Commander in the Resistance. Their best pilot. Pawadan to General Organa herself (he is!). His mind was filled with juicy, Resistance secrets. He did try to leave on his X-wing before it was shot. But did he then try out his luck on foot?

Nope. He gave the map to BB-8, sent him off, then started firing at the stormtroopers. A commendable and heroic action, sure. Those poor villagers were all going to be killed. That’s who Poe is. That’s why we love him. He protects people even when good strategy dictates that he run away instead of engaging in a hopeless fight that got him captured by a mind reader. The instant that he saw Kylo Ren, he should have run. It might have been too late by then. Kylo might have been able to sense him in the desert. But making your presence known by shooting at him? Again, his heart was in the right place. Kylo had just horribly killed Lor San Tekka. Poe was angry (a point to be fleshed out later). He shot immediately, too. Was there any thought process involved? Or did he just shoot on instinct, wanting to take this evil guy down? Well, here’s what happened. He got captured, Kylo read his mind, and the whole mission was almost shot to pieces.

Why? Because he was reckless. And angry. This was our introduction to the character. Our first impression. There’s nothing sudden or shocking or incongruent about the way he acted in TLJ. It was all established upfront.

Let’s have more examples of Poe’s recklessness:

TFA:

— Is cocky with the homicidal force user who just killed a man in front of him.

Before the Awakening:

— Ignores orders from his superior officer in the New Republic Navy and goes after a ship taken by the First Order, running straight into a FO fleet. By himself.

— Leia’s later assessment of these shenanigans: “That was exceptionally foolish of you,” Leia said. “You barely got out of there with your life.”

“In my defense, General, there’s no way I could have known I’d find a First Order staging area.”

“But you hoped you would. Or something like it.”

“Yes,” he said.

— Poe agrees to undertake a mission so dangerous that Leia emphasizes that it’s volunteer only. Poe accepts the mission immediately.

TFA Visual Dictionary by Pablo Hidalgo, a member of the Story Group:

— “his appetite for risk”

— “reckless Poe”

— “As Poe gets ready to depart… Jakku, he witnesses the approach of First Order invaders and impulsively rushes into action”

— “Poe’s appetite for thrills”

The Story Group has characterized Poe as reckless since the beginning.

Poe comics:

— When escaping pursuit in Vol. 3, he dives into a storm, saying, “I can beat a storm.”

— Captured by stormtroopers, he offers to fight one of them to earn his freedom. “I don’t even need a weapon.”

I would have more from the comics, but I already returned the first two volumes to the library and they’re checked out by someone else.

Next up. Poe’s temper. Also, not new. The TFA scene I deconstructed also applies here. He didn’t shoot at Kylo Ren while he was threatening Lor San Tekka. He did so after, right after Kylo Ren killed him. Poe’s action was immediate. Instinctual. There was no strategy in it. If he’d stopped to actually think about it, he would have realized that it was pointless. Anger often works like that, like a door slamming shut before you even realize that it’s moving. Poe was already angered by the FO attack on the village, and he is an impulsive guy. His brand of anger is also impulsive. He jumps before he thinks, and watching an innocent man he respects be cut down made him snap.

Before the Awakening:

— When Poe argues with Major Desu, his superior officer: “Poe leaned forward, pressing his index finger into the table. Desu raised an eyebrow, looking at the offending digit, then at Poe.”

Later in the same scene, Poe shouts at the major. “They’re at least doing something about it!” Exclamation mark. Poe just shouted at his superior officer. After poking his desk in a very disrespectful way. And he still kept arguing with him for another two pages, refusing to accept his orders. He then proceeded to do exactly what the major told him not to do.

All of this also contradicts the notion that Poe is too brash in TLJ. Back to the TFA Visual Dictionary, it specifically calls him “brash.” His claim in TFA that he “can fly anything.” That’s brash. Confident in his proven abilities, yes. He does have a spectacular history of success. But listen to that tone. There’s a fine line between confidence and smugness. No wonder that Hidalgo says in the TLJ Visual Dictionary that “his ego and recklessness have also grown.”

There’s certainly no question of him having a history of insubordination. That’s why Leia hired him in the first place. From Before the Awakening, about Poe ignoring Major Desu’s orders:

Leia: “I like it. It was rash of you, as I said, it was foolish. But we could use some rash these days, and foolish and passionate are often confused, and passion is something we desperately need.”

And a tad of speculation, but it’s a good guess. I’m sure that Poe’s mission to Jakku was limited to getting the map from Lor San Tekka, nor engage with the FO, risking the valuable information he possessed.

Now, really. How exactly is Poe out of character again?

Another fact, brought up only because of how this debate keeps being framed. In 2014, Lucasfilm declared the Extended Universe uncanonical.

I don’t see any reason why they would, but, if at some point in the future, Lucasfilm decides that they wrote themselves into a corner with the tie-in materials, they can totally do it again. The movies are the only thing they can never, ever get rid of. Those are inviolate. Therefore, while the Story Group is creating a unified canon in which all the pieces fit together without issues, in the case of potential discrepancies (like the TFA novelization having Rey and Poe meet because that happened in an earlier draft of the script), the movies take precedence. And not only because they are untouchable, but because the huge majority of the audience doesn’t read the tie-in materials, automatically making movie continuity the more important thing.

Therefore, if there are discrepancies between a movie and a tie-in material, the movie wins out. Poe and Rey met in the novelization of TFA, which is established canon. But did they meet in the TFA movie? Nope. Due to the order in which these things are made, which is not the order in which they are released to the public, the novel writer was working off an older draft, not the finished film. Poe and Rey met in TLJ, the movie. Therefore, that is now the official canon of when they met. The meeting in the novelization is now an error, and no longer canon. The movies take precedence.

If Poe is somehow acting differently in a tie-in material (I don’t think he is) than he is in the movies, the movie personality takes precedence. Movie storylines also take precedence. They always have, and they always will.

If you don’t like the way that Poe was portrayed in TLJ, that’s your right. Ignore the movie all you want. I ignore canon I disagree with all the time. But claiming that TLJ Poe is OOC? Sorry, not sorry, but I don’t see how he possibly is.