Where Did our Favourite Clone Commanders Sit on the Political Compass?

In a recent series of videos, we discussed  the moral philosophies of nine prominent clone officers, analyzing their outlooks on authority,  military hierarchy, loyalty to the chain of command, and more. You all seemed to enjoy those  videos a lot, so here’s our series finale. In the interests of the visual learners in the audience  and for a quick bit of fun, we’re going to be compiling all the moral traits we examined in  our clone heroes and visualizing them. Strap yourselves in, because toda

y we’re gonna find out  where these clones sat on the political compass. Before we get into things, we’d like  to preemptively answer three questions. Yes, we know that the political compass  oversimplifies the nuance of politics and isn’t a good model for political analysis; yes,  we know that we’re being cringe by making this; and no, we do not care. This is all  for fun - don’t take it too seriously. For the uninitiated, the political compass  maps political ideology according to two axes - a

n economic axis, which goes  from left to right, and a social axis, which goes from authoritarian to libertarian.  It’s frequently used to simplify and summarize the political views of prominent individuals  and plot them relative to each other. It’s not good political  science, but it can be good fun. So, without further ado, here’s where  the nine clones we’ve discussed the moral ideologies of would end  up on the political compass: That’s right - their political views  were pretty much indist

inguishable. They were all indoctrinated to  have the same politics, after all. So, we hope you enjoyed this video, and  we hope to see you all again next week. Just kidding. We’re only just getting started here. While the clones might’ve seemed  indistinguishable politically speaking, they all had wildly distinct personal ideologies,  as we discussed in our prior videos. Therefore, we’ve come up with our own slightly modified  compass to serve our purposes today. As you can see, we’re sticking

to the  traditional political compass layout, but we’ve renamed the axes. The economic left  and right have been replaced with a scale of attitudes towards authority, ranging from  openly rebellious to more rigid and legalist. Instead of authoritarianism and libertarianism,  we’ve got a scale of how strictly our commanders treated their subordinates, ranging  from a strict attitude to a relaxed one. Lastly, before we begin, let’s quickly go through  the roster. In order, we’re going to be discus

sing Commander Gree, Commander Cody, Commander Bacara,  Captain Rex, Commander Faie, Commander Neyo, Commander Bly, Commander Wolffe, and Commander  Fox. Without any further ado, let the games begin. Let’s start with Gree. As you may recall,  Commander Gree valued loyalty first and foremost. He himself was fiercely loyal to his superiors,  and he prized the loyalty of others highly, considering betrayal to be unforgivable.  But Gree wasn’t all that extreme in either respect. He was loyal to the

Republic, but held  no illusions that its authority was absolute; similarly, he expected loyalty from  his troops, but he wasn’t too strict in how he managed his command. Thus, we’ve  plotted him fairly close to the center. If that seems a bit too moderate to you, keep in  mind that we do have some real nutcases coming up. Next up, Commander Cody. As far as authority  went, Cody was largely apathetic; he almost always followed his orders, but not with any  particular zeal, and not out of any sor

t of legalistic sentiment. He was known as being  very by-the-book and strict as a commander, but not to the extent that many other  clones were. He’s close to the center on the rebel-legalist axis, but  he was also stricter than Gree. Commander Bacara is next. In our first video on  this series, we described Bacara as a staunch legalist first and foremost; he believed that  legality and morality were indistinguishable, and saw himself as a lawman. He was also  incredibly strict, known for micro

managing his troops on a level not seen in any other clone  unit. Nothing short of perfection was acceptable to Bacara. With that in mind, we think it’s fair  to stick him all the way in the top-right corner. Captain Rex was about as different from Bacara  as a clone could get. He was the poster child for rebellious clones, known for his willingness  to buck the chain of command entirely if he felt it necessary. He was also infamously relaxed in  his command of the 501st Legion, allowing his men

to do their own thing so long as it didn’t  inhibit the operation of the unit. He was one of the most independent regs of his time, so we’re  gonna plot him all the way in the bottom-left. Commander Faie was a lot like Commander Bacara,  except he was much less fatalistic. He was more by-the-book than most droids, and he followed his  orders to the letter, no matter what they were. He was even more legalist than Bacara, in our  opinion, if only slightly, though he was also a bit less strict. Hi

s attitude was considerably  different from Bacara’s; Faie was more of an NPC type, while Bacara was just a hardass. At the  end of the day, though, their philosophies were pretty close, so we’ve plotted Faie pretty  much right beneath Bacara on the compass. Like Commander Cody, Commander Neyo was known  for his apathy when it came to authority. He, too, followed his orders, though without  any particular enthusiasm. Neyo had a rather dark outlook on the world around him, all things  considered,

and he was known to be somewhat fatalistic. He wasn’t all that strict, however,  especially when compared to someone like Cody. We’ve plotted him as being in the center on the  rebel-legalist axis but also a good bit relaxed. Commander Bly was a very mission-oriented clone.  His biggest concern was making sure his record had an unbroken string of successful missions,  and he wasn’t all that interested in much else. He was loyal to his superiors and followed  his orders with a bit more zeal than

normal, but he also took a somewhat  relaxed attitude towards command. Bly was willing to be flexible with  regulations if it meant a successful mission. We’ve plotted him between Neyo and Gree, close  to the center and in the bottom-right quadrant. Commander Wolffe, a fan favorite character,  was another clone that’s frequently touted as a rebellious clone by his fans. He wasn’t  as rebellious as Rex, by any stretch, but he had a significant independent streak.  Like Bly, he was a very mission

-oriented person, but unlike Bly, this didn’t manifest as a legalist  approach to orders and the chain of command; quite the opposite, in fact. Unlike Rex, Wolffe  was willing to tolerate superiors he disagreed with or distrusted, but he wasn’t above going  over their heads or pressuring them to make decisions he thought were better. Wolffe was  also much more strict in his command than Rex, though he was also more relaxed than the average  clone commander. Like Rex, we’ve put him in the bottom-

left, though there’s much more distance  between Wolffe and Rex than you might expect. Lastly, we have Commander Fox. Fox was by-the-book  and had a rather strict approach to command. Like Bacara and Faie, he was a stalwart  legalist, and though he wasn’t as extreme in his legalism as the other two were, he was  still pretty far out there. Under his command, the Coruscant Guard became the  fist of the Republic police state, willing to repress and persecute Separatist  sympathizers and innocent n

onhumans alike. We’ve plotted him as being pretty far to  the right and stricter than the average. Well, that’s all of them. We hope you enjoyed  this series and this grand finale in particular. But what do you think? Would you like to see us  take a crack at plotting Star Wars factions on an actual political compass? Feel free to  post your thoughts in the comments below.