Chalet Wars

[white_hart]

I can only apologise for the bonkersness of this post, which is brought to you courtesy of two hours spent consuming rather more jelly babies than was entirely sensible while sitting in a meeting about budget savings, a combination almost guaranteed to result in temporary insanity...

I was thinking about the various elements of the plot of The Force Awakens earlier, and which bits I was really glad I hadn't known about before I saw it because seeing them unspoilered had the same kind of shock value as Obi-Wan's death in the original Star Wars* and "Luke, I am your father**" did first time round. And I reflected that Kylo Ren's parentage wasn't one of them, because I'd been expecting him to be related to someone from the original trilogy, because this is Star Wars and people always end up being related to each other***. "Just like in the Chalet School books", I thought.

And then obiviously I spent my walk to the bus stop thinking about what would happen if the Chalet School was Star Wars. Obviously, Joey Maynard would be Leia, because she has the hairdo; at first I thought that must make Jack Maynard Han, but actually I think he's more of a C3PO and my choice for Han is Hilda Annersley, with Nell Wilson as Chewie****. I suppose that makes Madge and Mademoiselle Obi-Wan and Yoda. And the Robin is, frankly, the Jar-Jar Binks of the Tiernsee.

As for the Dark Side, I can easily see Margot Maynard going off the rails and turning into Kylo Ren. I can't think of an obvious Vader candidate though if the Nazis are the Dark Side I suppose it could be Betty Wynne-Davies.

And obviously, Mary-Lou Trelawny is a Sith Lord. I think this is probably true in canon.

*which I refused to call "A New Hope". Just "Star Wars" is what I grew up calling it and what I'm going to keep calling it.

**though I think my father might have spoilered that one for me before I saw The Empire Strikes Back, but I may only think that because he quoted the line on a regular basis. Guess what my middle brother is called?

***Well, they may not in the prequels; I have never managed to get all the way through any of them.

****Sod Han/Leia, Han/Chewie is my OTP. Also, do we actually have any evidence that Chewie is actually male or does everyone just assume that because of the height and the basso growl?

Comments

[ankaret]

It would turn out that the real reason Jedi aren't supposed to have relationships is because they're all carriers of tuberculosis.

[white_hart]

That definitely works for me!

[nineveh_uk]

Vader is Con Stewart, who turned from the True Way of the Chalet School to apply for jobs in other institutions.

Given the way that Chewie and Harriet Walter appeared to be flirting, I can only hope that Han and Chewie have an open relationship.

[white_hart]

Ah, good point!

Han and Leia were definitely together for a bit, so I think it must be an open or poly relationship, but when they first appeared in TFA, still together after all these years, I had a definite "aha!" moment and realised that it's so very obvious that they are the most important people in each other's lives.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I confess to never having read any Chalet School books.

Chewie is referred to as "he" by Han on at least some occasions, but this is not conclusive proof. It could even be deliberate obfuscation.

[white_hart]

And we have no idea about the role of gender in Wookie society. Even if Chewie is biologically male it could be as irrelevant to hir self-image as eye colour, say, is to us.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

The Star Wars Holiday Special may have some light to shed on this matter.

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

In the Star Wars Holiday Special, a TV show so bad George Lucas has buried it ever since (it is on YouTube, it is worse than you can imagine and vast quantities of drugs must have been involved), Chewie is travelling home to spend a holiday with his wife, son, and father.

Chalet Wars: we have the original quartet here. I see Joey as more of a Han, with Simone as Luke (a bit whiny, can pull together under pressure), Freda as Chewie and Marie as Leia. Mme LePattre (sp?) as Obi-Wan, Miss Wilson as Yoda. Miss Bubb as Grand Moffat Tarkhin, or more likely as the chap who gets force-strangled...

[white_hart]

I'm pretty sure stuff suppressed by the creator absolutely doesn't count as canon. And also, having a wife, son and father isn't conclusive evidence of gender one way or the other, really ;-) (I accept that Chewie was clearly conceived as male by George Lucas, which is hardly surprising given that it was the 1970s and he'd already filled his statutory quota of women by having Leia in, but I don't think that means we necessarily have to read it that way now.)

I'm sure Mademoiselle LePattre (spelling varies between books, I think) must be Yoda, so I'd put Madge down for Obi-Wan. Complete with vanishing from the field of play at an early point in the series, although only to the Sonnalpe rather than death. And I had already thought of Miss Bubb as Grand Moff Tarkin, having rejected her as Vader!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Ah, I now see you had mentioned the SWHS as well.