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Published:
2025-04-09
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Fluid Dynamics

Summary:

There is a specific place in Gungan religion for people like Jar Jar. Boss Nass has never been sure if Jar Jar is aware of this.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

The universe is movement. Gungans understand this. The universe is movement, movement is flow is water is life. There were Elders, once, who said that the Jedi understood this too. That they were servants of the flow, that they moved with it, shaped it, were swept along by it. That they could ask it to move, the way the Gungan priest dancers do with the curl of a wrist, the dropping of a hand, the flutter of fingers. That it would carry what they asked, hold what they asked.

The Gungans have no need for Jedi. Those among them who feel the current of the universe have their own ways, their own training, their own rituals.

Boss Nass has not been impressed by the Jedi so far.

The older one is steady, rooted. He expects the current to move around him, and all others to make way.

The younger one; well, Boss Nass often has higher hopes for the younger ones. They are more flexible, they know how to bend. He has a soft spot, well hidden before outsiders, for younglings.

The younger one knows how to move. Boss Nass is not convinced he knows how to listen.

Both of them seem to be under the impression that he is stupid.

It is not the Gungan way to fight a current. It is not the riptide that kills you but the struggle. You move with it, and this will deliver you to calm or you will use its movement as your own.

It is not the Gungan way to fight a mind trick. You flow with it, and let it bring you back around to yourself.

Boss Nass sends them through the planet core.

What? They wanted so desperately to leave. It was the very least he could do.

 

Some people are boulders in the current of the universe. Some people are the pebbles that start avalanches that reshape whole watersheds. The perturbation that causes the whirlpool. Some are great upwellings, some dancing crosscurrents, stirring up the depths and bringing all manner of creatures to the feast.

These people are important.

They are also deeply fucking annoying.

Boss Nass has had enough of Jar Jar Binks. This is not generally a problem. The thing about such people is that their purpose is to cause movement. Towards or away from, for good or ill, this is irrelevant. They are the universe's defence against stagnation, against idleness of thought or purpose. They disrupt complacency, and order, and peace of mind. Most often they do all of this by accident.

Which is a long way of saying that having had enough of Jar Jar Binks is not a problem, because moving such a person (including as far away from you as possible) is a spiritual duty which allows them to put ripples in as many ponds as their great galumphing feet can reach. There is no wrong place for them to be, as long as they're not there for too long.

Boss Nass has never been sure if Jar Jar is aware of this.

He has no particularly strong feelings about Jar Jar being eaten. It is not the responsibility of those around them to keep such people alive. If the universe still has use for them, they will live. If it doesn't, they won't. To insulate them from the push-pull of cause and effect is to divest them of their purpose.

He does feel something like a prickle of concern about the Jedi. Boss Nass is often annoyed with Jar Jar. Many Gungans are. But this is because he is a wandering crosscurrent, and such is their nature. It is not because they view him as unintelligent, primitive, or uncivilized. To be an annoyance to one's own people, who understand your purpose and will not blame you for it is one thing. To be an annoyance to the sort of disdainful outwater magician who would prefer to force the currents of another's mind into a shape they find convenient is a very different thing. And to have such a person have claimed a debt? Well.

It is probably better to be eaten.

 

Unfortunately, Jar Jar is not eaten. The ineffable flow of the universe will have its little jokes.

Even more unfortunately, he comes back. And, as is the way of things, the trouble he brings with him has multiplied.

Boss Nass stares down at the tiny human child before him, kneeling and yet somehow still defiant. He is impressed by this youngling. She does not do it graciously, and she does not do it humbly, but it seems she does know how to bend.

Not so far as to make her own people the canon fodder for a mecaneek army, of course. No amount of begging can change that.

Still, Boss Nass is old enough and canny enough to know that the outwater palace is not the sort of battle ground his people are best suited to. Inside will be human politicking, and guards for the stinking droid leaders, who cannot fight their own battles and cower inside walls about it. Outside they will fight a glorious battle, and then return to their waters, and occasionally they will have speech with the outwater people, and perhaps the tone will be one of wary respect instead of wary disdain.

And he is full sick of mecaneeks.

The humans will be surprised, he thinks, and the bringers of the metal death will also. This is righteous. Many of his people will die. Many of the humans are dying right now. He understands the tiny queen more than he has any wish to. Heavy days, as are often portended by those who swim as Jar Jar swims. It is not a curse or a blessing. It is simply what is.

He makes Jar Jar a general. Captain Tarpals nearly falls on his own blade in despair. It is very very funny.

 

 

Notes:

So mechanically without Jar Jar neither the climax of Phantom Menace or the whole Original Trilogy exist. I think that's kind of neat.

I also think that Jar Jar in Phantom is actually the New Hope era Han Solo of the prequel trilogy. I said what I said.