Revisiting the Throne Room

Their future cannot change the triumph of our past.

I love being old. In my repertoire of memory, I have a vast supply of moments so painful, so glorious, so overwhelming desperate, that it becomes easy to write any scene. But every story has a soundtrack; whenever I am writing these scenes, I turn to evocative music to stir the stored emotions.

That golden kiss that turned into a failed marriage? It’s still there, pristine in its passion, alive in Tchaikovsky’s ‘Concerto #1’. The devastation of the discovery of the affair is also there in Phantom Michael Crawford’s anguished howl at ‘All I Ask of You’ Reprise…

it’s all there, waiting to be mined for emotional treasure, to be forged into my own story. So it stands to reason as I write an ovation scene, I turn to the memory of a young Star Wars, and A New Hope. There, in the overwhelmingly naive triumph of Good over Evil, I find the emotion I wanted - that radiant moment, the Coronation of the Hero -

and I also find a bitterness at the demise of the Franchise.

I had been a super fan. I bought the fan novels and played the video games; I drew pictures of C3PO instead of studying and I learned to play the entire London Symphonic Star Wars theme on piano - by ear - at the tender age of 14. I even taught my children to create their own pool-noodle and duct tape lightsabres, because the great lessons must be taught -

the Force is with Us.

But like all good things, those who hate what is right came to wreck it. Recognising my devotion, the depredations of time and greed took advantage of my love, destroying my memories, changing the story after the fact, gaslighting me about whether or not Han shot first…

At last, in revolt at the Disney’s revisionist rewrites of canon, I had flung my lightsabre down in disgust, vowing never to return. I removed my R2D2 teapot down from its place of honor, and put in a dark corner, along with my portraits of another me, the ones taken before my broken heart. But good memories, like the bad, cannot remain buried… they will eventually be resurrected.

I have been writing a scene, darker in nature, but still triumphant; that moment where the party turns to each other in recognition of Heroes in their midst. I needed a moment of such crystalline clarity that it could transcend the darkness clouding their future. I flipped through my usual playlist, seeking the moment that would spark that surge of unrepentant joy -

my mind pulled The Throne Room from the shelf.

A bitter thought blanketed my heart; why listen to the people who lied to me? Why revisit a good memory only to be assailed by the bad ones? I started to swipe it closed -

I hit play instead. The fanfare trumpeted, the lights came up -

and my Father was there, jumping up from his theatre seat to roar in joy by my side. Pumping his fists, he turned to me, and his eyes met mine -

He was alive.

This was the resurrection of everything I had cherished about my young self: the exuberant embrace of Good over Evil, the idea that we could fight it, refuse to surrender ourselves and our hearts to the Dark Side, to live forever in the Light.

I wept, and I knew why. Those who come to destroy our good memories can only triumph if we surrender them to the darkness. My Father is still alive; my kiss is still there, the love is still real, the Force is still with us…

all of it. It’s all true.

Allowing the present to destroy the past is the goal of every villain. Only when the past is no longer remembered can tyrants convince you to embrace their future. I revisited the Throne Room expecting to find a ruin - and instead, I found my truth. They cannot take it from me. I refuse to surrender what was given to me freely, in love, even as those who think they own it come to take it away…

It’s all true.