In “Most Citizens of the Star Wars Galaxy are Probably Totally Illiterate,” Ryan Britt points out that we very rarely see Star Wars characters reading. Instead, information is generally conveyed via hologram recordings, suggesting that technology has become a perfect intermediary between consumers and producers of information.
The Jedi library? Mostly flashy flashy lights. Death Star control panels? Reliant on pictograms, which aren’t the same thing as written language. Britt realizes, then, how easily the Empire took over the Galaxy:
Padme points out that liberty dies “with thunderous applause,” but really their liberty is dying because most of them can’t read and are powerless and disenfranchised. In fact most of the surviving characters at the end of the prequels are the bad guys, and they can probably read. The Jedi seem to be the most educated people in the prequels, but that changes when they all get killed. This would be like a real life Empire going and burning down all the colleges and schools and killing all the teachers. The academy, the keepers of literacy would be gone. And once that happens, it’s easy for a tyrannical empire to take over, to control the information. Maybe Padme should have said “this is how literacy dies…”
Read the whole thing. H/t Michael Koplow and Noah Millman, insufferable nerds. Earlier Star Wars speculation on Wonkistan here.
(Above: the Aurek-Besh alphabet, which has appeared in Star Wars entities, tragically unread, since Return of the Jedi.)
Obviously, if Luke had read any Dickens he would have realized from the very start that Leia was probably his sister, which would have spared him all those awkward incestuous feelings early on.
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(Source: omniglot.com)
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