maul is not like the antithesis of obi-wan but the negation of him. or rather specifically what obi-wan stands for (which is just the jedi order As An Institution). and the only way obi-wan is ever able to process the fatal contradictions that maul poses is to kill him, because you cannot acknowledge those contradictions (ie, the myth of meritocracy & cosmic justice) and FULLY internalise what they mean without giving up on the jedi order As An Institution and obi-wan is incapable of doing that. so he kills maul
I really like this article mainly for the fact that it acknowledges the clones status as slaves under Anakin during Order 66, and places the majority of the blame for the genocide in the temple ON Anakin, as it should be.
I only disagree with the implication that they were only slaves when the chips were activated, because we know that’s not true
Hi! Totally okay, this ask was very obviously sent in good faith even before you said so, which gives me a chance to happily yell about it, so I’m delighted!
Let’s start with what attachment is: InStar Wars and with the Jedi, it’s the concept of how you cannot hold onto someone or something so tightly because you are afraid of losing it and willing to do whatever it takes to keep it, whether that’s getting yourself killed or getting a whole lot of other people killed. If someone has a fate, you can protect them with your lightsaber, you can love them, but you can’t stop their fate (whether death or them leaving/going away from you), and going against this is going against the nature of the world. It’s literally a path to the dark side.
“[Jedi Knights] do not grow attachments, because attachment is a path to the dark side. You can love people, but you can’t want to possess them. They’re not yours. Accept that they have a fate. Even those you love most are going to die. You can’t do anything about that. Protect them with your lightsaber, but if they die they were going to die. there’s nothing you can do. All you can do is accept that fact. “In mythology, if you go to Hades to get them back you’re not doing it for them, you’re doing it for yourself. You’re doing it because you don’t want to give them up. You’re afraid to be without them. The key to the dark side is fear. You must be clean of fear, and fear of loss is the greatest fear. If you’re set up for fear of loss, you will do anything to keep that loss from happening, and you’re going to end up in the dark side. That’s the basic premise of Star Wars and the Jedi, and how it works. “That’s why they’re taken at a young age to be trained. They cannot get themselves killed trying to save their best buddy when it’s a hopeless exercise.” –George Lucas, Star Wars Archives 1999-2005
George Lucas, since the beginning, has consistently tied attachment’s context to possessive, obsessive relationships people have with things and that those feelings of attachment lead them down dark paths if they are not regulated and let go. It’s the entire story of Anakin’s fall, “ [Anakin] turns into Darth Vader because he gets attached to things.“ –George Lucas
This ties into how motivation is key for why a Jedi does something, because that’s how the Force works. If you do something because you’re afraid of losing that person, you’re afraid of living without them, then you’re connecting to the Force through fear, you’re seizing on that fear in your own mind, you’re drawing yourself closer to the dark side. If you do something truly and genuinely because you want others to be happy and free, then that is compassion and it’s the light side. Fundamentally, it’s about the feelings a Force-sensitive person feels when they do something, that’s the entire basis of how the Force works.
The Jedi speak of it in the same terms within the story as well. Anakin says that possession and attachment are forbidden, but compassion is central to their lives (Attack of the Clones). Aayla tells Ahsoka “don’t lose a thousand lives to save one” when talking about attachment to Anakin, because she doesn’t want to leave his side after he’s been injured (”Jedi Crash”). Anakin tells Ahsoka that they all struggle with attachment, when she wonders if she should have killed Barriss to prevent her from hurting the clones and Jedi and potentially millions of other people (”Brain Invaders”), etc. It’s consistently brought up in the themes of “purpose before feelings (because people will be killed otherwise) if you’re in the position the Jedi are in”.
Attachment and romantic feelings aren’t inherently the same thing in Star Wars or for the Jedi, attachment doesn’t have to be about a romantic relationship, it can be about an overzealous parent holding onto their child too long, it can be a Sith Lord’s willingness to murder anyone who gets in the way of their power, they can be willing to blow up an entire world to try to hold the galaxy in their grip. It can be running after your friends because you don’t trust them to be able to do it themselves and you are too worried about them, so you have no patience for being properly ready.
Which is why Obi-Wan reminds Anakin that romantic feelings within the Jedi Order aren’t forbidden, of course they’re allowed, they’re natural (”The Rise of Clovis”):
That all said, the Jedi do give up marriage as part of their commitment to the Jedi Order and it’s a combination of a) because they’re monks and b) their relationship with the Jedi Order is like a marriage in a lot of ways and you can’t whole-heartedly commit yourself to two paths.
If you marry someone, you should be making them your priority (setting aside political marriages or marriages of convenience, etc.) and Jedi can’t do that because they already have a higher priority. In a way, it’s similar to what attachment is, that you can’t save one life at the cost of a thousand, but it’s also not saying that marriages are inherently attachment, because it’s not like loving someone is the path to the dark side. It’s that specific concept of just what you would sacrifice for those feelings and, between their marriage to their Order and how much more difficult having a spouse or blood relative would be.
(And that they’re avoiding dynasties within the Order, like imagine if the Skywalkers were a separate family within the bigger Order, within a generation or two, they would have ALL the influential seats because the Force is just so incredibly strong in that family, they’d be on the Council, they’d get all the best positions, they’d get all the influence, it’d be so easy to not even realize how you’re favoring your sibling or your son because they share your blood.)
(In current-canon’s Dooku: Jedi Lost there’s another really good example–a Jedi on the Council secretly has a son that she brings to the Jedi Order and doesn’t tell anyone, but because she let her personal feelings cloud her judgement, she winds up being willing to do favors for the Hutt clan to get him out of his gambling debts, including some stuff that makes the Jedi Council vulnerable. Her motivations and secrecy are the problem there.)
(The example you’re thinking of above is Ki-Adi-Mundi from the Legends continuity! Because comics and books and such started coming out immediately after The Phantom Menace, they started doing worldbuilding, including a comic that had him married, since George Lucas considered that world separate from his own (the comics/novels/etc.) and let them have a good amount of free reign to do whatever. Once Attack of the Clones came out and the Jedi don’t marry, they had to scramble for a reason why he would be married, so they retconned the comics to say that he was married because male Cereans were rare and the planet had a low birth rate. This has been fairly explicitly nixed as part of the current Disney-owned Lucasfilm’s canon, Ki-Adi is not married there. But that’s why it was set up the way it was in Legends!)
Within the prequels, as far as I know, I don’t recall any Jedi being in relationships without breaking the rules (but I’m not familiar with all of Legends), but attachment and relationships aren’t quite the same thing. As Obi-Wan says, it’s not like those feelings aren’t allowed, they’re normal. But he does say that Anakin needs to make the choice to stay with the Order (and not let his relationship with Padme go that far) but this is also set during the Rush Clovis arc, where Anakin is falling into very dangerous attachment, and Obi-Wan is not unaware of Anakin’s feelings prior to this, it’s only when he sense “a deep rage” within Anakin just for mentioning Clovis’ name, that Obi-Wan says Anakin has to make a choice here (and of course he thinks the Jedi are better for Anakin).
George Lucas has also said: “Jedi Knights aren’t celibate - the thing that is forbidden is attachments - and possessive relationships.” (BBC News), furthering that the Jedi can have sex, can have romantic feelings, it’s just that they can’t devote their lives to someone in a marriage, because they already have done and a bigger duty.
So, personally, I think that if a Jedi could balance their feelings and still uphold their sacred duty, the Jedi wouldn’t really care. The Jedi aren’t actually hardcore sticklers for the letter of the law (I did a rewatch of TCW and, despite the numerous amount of times Anakin breaks the rules, not ONCE, not ONE TIME did he get in any actual trouble, because he often had good reason for it, the most he gets–when he genuinely endangers people’s lives by not wiping Artoo’s mission memory–is a scolding from Obi-Wan and then nothing), it’s about the spirit of the rule. If you’re following the spirit of it, if you’re genuinely balanced and in the light and doing your duty, they seem to be fine with you.
But, honestly, other than a handful of them, most of the Jedi just don’t even seem interested in romance, they don’t seem like it’s a thing that’s missing from their lives, they don’t seem like they’re pining for something they can’t have. It’s only a small handful that seem interested and even then they seem to want to be a Jedi more.
And for people who can feel the entire galaxy’s light in their minds, who can touch souls with other psychic space wizards or even non-psychic people, they have so much connection and warmth and love in their lives already!
girl help im experiencing shrimp emotions about the Jedi refugee bunker messages
It’s–these are the barest handful of survivors of a galaxy-wide genocide, and none of them will ever see another of their kind again. So they carve their names into the walls, just in case. Maybe one of your friends is still alive and you’ll never see each other again, will not, cannot, but the Force is with you still and maybe someday they’ll see your name and know you got this far. Maybe someday you’ll see theirs.
But then it’s not just the names, it’s–the sigils. The blessings. The Jedi maxims.
A smuggling ring that evacuates what should have been the next generation. These Force-sensitive children who will never, for their own safety, be raised among their own kind. Will not. Cannot.
Separate the lock from the key. Scatter the survivors, never in the same place, so that only one (one of these Jedi who take strength in connections, who were nevermeant to be alone) can be lost at a time. In case there’s an after. In case someday, somewhere, for someone, there’s an after.
The Archives were seared from existence. Surviving Jedi temples and outposts and scattered texts are reduced to rubble every day whenever they’re found and it would be madness to send a child looking anyway. So how do you pass on what little remains? How do you tell these frightened children who should have been Jedi what they had the right to know? How do you give them the culture that could have been theirs?
Scratches on concrete. No way to give them long messages, no time to try. This is the only chance you will ever have to tell them something, to make sure the core of who the Jedi were survive, to try to help them understand. To preserve.
What do you pass on?
Proverbs. Meditation mantras that double as survival advice. The sigil of your Order, all the comfort your kind have left. (The base of what will someday become the rebel starbird, rising from ashes, but they don’t know that yet, half of them will die before they see it.)
What do you pass on? Only what’s most important. Only what cannot ever be lost.
The Force will be with you always. Only when your eyes are closed can you truly see the Way. For light and life.
girl help im experiencing shrimp emotions about the Jedi refugee bunker messages
It’s–these are the barest handful of survivors of a galaxy-wide genocide, and none of them will ever see another of their kind again. So they carve their names into the walls, just in case. Maybe one of your friends is still alive and you’ll never see each other again, will not, cannot, but the Force is with you still and maybe someday they’ll see your name and know you got this far. Maybe someday you’ll see theirs.
But then it’s not just the names, it’s–the sigils. The blessings. The Jedi maxims.
A smuggling ring that evacuates what should have been the next generation. These Force-sensitive children who will never, for their own safety, be raised among their own kind. Will not. Cannot.
Separate the lock from the key. Scatter the survivors, never in the same place, so that only one (one of these Jedi who take strength in connections, who were nevermeant to be alone) can be lost at a time. In case there’s an after. In case someday, somewhere, for someone, there’s an after.
The Archives were seared from existence. Surviving Jedi temples and outposts and scattered texts are reduced to rubble every day whenever they’re found and it would be madness to send a child looking anyway. So how do you pass on what little remains? How do you tell these frightened children who should have been Jedi what they had the right to know? How do you give them the culture that could have been theirs?
Scratches on concrete. No way to give them long messages, no time to try. This is the only chance you will ever have to tell them something, to make sure the core of who the Jedi were survive, to try to help them understand. To preserve.
What do you pass on?
Proverbs. Meditation mantras that double as survival advice. The sigil of your Order, all the comfort your kind have left. (The base of what will someday become the rebel starbird, rising from ashes, but they don’t know that yet, half of them will die before they see it.)
What do you pass on? Only what’s most important. Only what cannot ever be lost.
The Force will be with you always. Only when your eyes are closed can you truly see the Way. For light and life.
One can take what is freely given, and nothing in what Obi-Wan says implies that things were otherwise. In fact, he’s being directly and explicitly paralleled with Leia in that scene, so unless you think the show is also condemning the Organas for taking in Leia (it’s not), then it’s also not condemning the Jedi for taking in Obi-Wan (or any other Jedi). Thinking on what could have been, the people they could have known and called family is wistful, certainly, but it doesn’t mean that they would ever trade their adoptive families for it or that they think their adoptive families were wrong for taking them in.
Imagine missing the explicit parallels being drawn in that scene that hard.
Look, here’s the thing about adoption:
Sometimes the biological family is simply not equipped to raise their child. There can be any number of reasons why, a question of substance misuse, domestic abuse, one partner not being in the picture, dire financial straights, disability of the child, or the parents just not being willing to raise the child themselves. Whatever the case is, even if it’s for completely selfish reasons, on some level the parents recognize, “I am not the right person for this child. They deserve better than me.” And so they give the child to someone else who iscapable of raising and providing for that child.
And yeah, it’s sad. It’s often tragic. It’s not ideal. Adoptees do sometimes wonder about the “what if’s“. (But sometimes they don’t; my husband is one of them. Aside from wanting to know their medical history so he can know his, it’s not something that ever really bothers him at all.) But the sad mystery does not negate the happiness and love that that child found with their new family.
That’s what adoption and found family is about. Smaller incomplete pieces coming together to form a whole.
Obi-Wan sometimes wonders about his birth family, true. But he was also immeasurablyhappy to be adopted by the Order, and considers them his “true” family, regardless of what blood says. As did pretty much all the Jedi in the Order.
Theyare an adopted family, even if they don’t follow the traditional nuclear model.
I cannot believe this show forced me to listen to Obi-Wan say Quinlan’s name with the context from this episode of how both he and Leia want to go home. They wonder about their biological families, wish that they knew more about them, but when the gut-punch moment comes, it’s their adoptive family they want to go back to. “I want to go home.” “Quinlan.” I am on the FLOOR because these two narrative parallels miss their adoptive families and, while Leia may be able to go back to hers for awhile, she’s going to end up just like Obi-Wan, who would give anything to see his dead family again, I am IN PAIN.
jedi who do three point landings from eight floors up and make the earth shake. jedi who seem like they move silently because they can blur just the edges of your awareness so you never hear them coming. jedi who move as fast and sudden as a predator going in for the kill and they can be on you before you can blink. jedi who can hide underwater for almost an hour breathing the force instead of air. jedi who always catch things before they hit the floor almost like they knew it was going to fall
i just think that if you can draw on the force at the heart of the universe to enhance your physical capabilities, you should get to be a little scary about it
the thing about jedi is that they grow up surrounded by other jedi, so i think younger padawans must forget how this looks to other people all the time, and older jedi probably have to curb it a little in polite society, which gives you potential great moments where they suddenly show what they can reallydo
Every single episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi has had the Inquisitors using the Jedi’s compassion against them, very deliberately. That’s how they find Nari in the saloon on Tatooine, who only reveals himself to protect the owner for a secondtime. That’s how Reva lures Obi-Wan out of hiding. Vader kills villagers as he marches through the town, not because he’s even looking for information, but just purely because he knows Obi-Wan is there and it hurts him, it will draw him out.
Meanwhile, Reva’s speech on Tatooine says, “The Jedi are cowards. They failed you, abandoned you. There is no point in protecting them. They would not do the same for you.”
This is what Star Wars does. It uses lies and propaganda and manipulation, it says one thing about the Jedi, and then shows you how they really are, that Star Wars is and always has been built on unreliable narrators and outright lies expressed by characters that aren’t directly challenged because that’s the point. The galaxy just accepted those lies because it was easier than standing up for the right thing!
The Jedi died to protect innocent people in the war, they and their children died when the clones were mind-controlled into killing them, they were trying to stop a Sith Lord, not seize power for themselves, they were trying to protect the people of Tatooine, they abandoned you because they’re all dead now. They all died protecting someone, we see that in the opening Order 66 montage, where a Jedi Knight fiercely protects the children, we see it in the opening of The Bad Batch, where Depa dies to protect Caleb’s life, we see it in Jedi: Fallen Order where Tapal dies to protect Cal’s life, we see it in The Book of Boba Fett where several Jedi die to protect Grogu’s life.
Star Wars characters will tell the audience one thing, because the characters have their own agenda within the narration, and then it will contrast that with showing us what the Jedi actually say and do, like the level of commitment to unreliable narrators and propaganda in this franchise is actually really, really good, because goddamn that’s a lesson we could all stand to remember when we look around the world today and are on social media where reactions and outrage and misinformation spread far faster than actually checking our sources.
One thing I wish Star Wars media would do more is focus less on the Force as a “magic superpower plot device” and more on the Force as “metaphysical power that connects all life.”
Like, it could go a long way towards explaining the radical differences between Jedi and Sith. Like, the more you access the Force, the more you become aware of that deep spiritual connection to all things. Everything is one. Separation is an illusion.
For Jedi, that provides some sort of enlightenment, and bolsters their ideas of pacifism, as using the Force forces them to develop empathy. All things are one, or at least connected, so hurting others doesn’t make sense as you’re ultimately hurting yourself as well. But for Sith, who are, by their very definition, selfish, it creates a self-defeating spiral of pain and excuses. As they hurt more people with the Force they hurt themselves as well, but they excuse it away and the cycle just keeps repeating.
I dunno. I just think you could do more with a all-powerful all-connecting energy than “superpower magic”.
I’m sure the jedi are better equipped with cultural sensitivity than… most of fandom but still I imagine they’d find our institutionalized schools where teachers have hundreds of students who mostly learn by sitting at desks all day getting lectured just as strange as we do their lack of single primary caregiver who is idealy a biological parent
- That Ghibli quote: “Rather, I want to portray a slightly different relationship, one where the two mutually inspire each other to live; if I’m able to, then perhaps I’ll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.”
Young Jedi are probably briefed on force scepticism before they go out into the world but it wouldn’t surprise me if clone education didn’t bother to cover that. They learn about force abilities as a fact of life, get deployed and witness it from the jedi command, and then at some point maybe step into a bar somewhere and meet some civilian who swears up and down that the force is a myth and jedi are frauds. Like meeting a flat-earther when you never knew there was such a thing
I can’t get over the continued thematic follow-through of this idea that Jedi aren’t truly Jedi unless they’re standing up in defense of the innocent and helpless, they have to be active in the galaxy, they haveto spread kindness and compassion wherever they go, it’s an uncontrollable urge, it’s an itch,“They cannot help it.“
And also the idea that it’s FORCE ITSELF that is whispering to them, calling them back, calling them home, telling them to take up their swords again, reach out in faith and find that the Light never left you, it’s still inside you and it needs you because the galaxy is so so dark and bleak and hopeless and there’s so much evil everywhere and the galaxy needs them to stand up and step out of the shadows and into the light so that they can reignite people’s hope.
It’s the pauses of awe and wonder in even the most miserable and selfish of underworld denizens because that’s a Jedi, the Jedi are back, the Jedi are here, everything will be okay now.
It’s F knighting herself, cutting her own padawan braid and proudly declaring she is a Jedi to save a frightened exploited village bride.
It’s Kanan igniting his saber for the first time in years to protect his future padawan and a clutch of Wookie slaves and the rattled composure in the Imperials when they realize, “Holy shit that’s a Jedi.“
It’s Cal and Cere deciding they were done hiding, done running from the Empire, they were going to fight back, and Saw gleefully pointing to them to inspire his band of Rebels.
It’s Obi-Wan unburying his lightsaber even after being so hopeless and broken and full of guilt and self-blame because people still need him, he’s the only one they can trust.
The whole Dark Times as a sloooooowly turning eucatastrophe, tiny lights of hope struggling to hold back the darkness long enough. Holding out. Buying time until the twin suns can rise. Until Luke and Leia and the destruction of the Death Star and the death of the Emperor and the glorious return of light to the galaxy.
Every single episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi has had the Inquisitors using the Jedi’s compassion against them, very deliberately. That’s how they find Nari in the saloon on Tatooine, who only reveals himself to protect the owner for a secondtime. That’s how Reva lures Obi-Wan out of hiding. Vader kills villagers as he marches through the town, not because he’s even looking for information, but just purely because he knows Obi-Wan is there and it hurts him, it will draw him out.
Meanwhile, Reva’s speech on Tatooine says, “The Jedi are cowards. They failed you, abandoned you. There is no point in protecting them. They would not do the same for you.”
This is what Star Wars does. It uses lies and propaganda and manipulation, it says one thing about the Jedi, and then shows you how they really are, that Star Wars is and always has been built on unreliable narrators and outright lies expressed by characters that aren’t directly challenged because that’s the point. The galaxy just accepted those lies because it was easier than standing up for the right thing!
The Jedi died to protect innocent people in the war, they and their children died when the clones were mind-controlled into killing them, they were trying to stop a Sith Lord, not seize power for themselves, they were trying to protect the people of Tatooine, they abandoned you because they’re all dead now. They all died protecting someone, we see that in the opening Order 66 montage, where a Jedi Knight fiercely protects the children, we see it in the opening of The Bad Batch, where Depa dies to protect Caleb’s life, we see it in Jedi: Fallen Order where Tapal dies to protect Cal’s life, we see it in The Book of Boba Fett where several Jedi die to protect Grogu’s life.
Star Wars characters will tell the audience one thing, because the characters have their own agenda within the narration, and then it will contrast that with showing us what the Jedi actually say and do, like the level of commitment to unreliable narrators and propaganda in this franchise is actually really, really good, because goddamn that’s a lesson we could all stand to remember when we look around the world today and are on social media where reactions and outrage and misinformation spread far faster than actually checking our sources.
every star wars fan has to have an extremely niche star wars thing they’re obsessively into for no good reason that they could write a thesis paper about. that’s just part of the deal when you’re a star wars fan
Okay I said this in a reply elsewhere, but I’m going to give it its own post also
So yes, there are absolutely some Holocaust parallels what with ordinary people hiding Jedi in hidden rooms and a freedom trail out of empire controlled space (also slavery underground railroad parallels) but can we not just make this into a Jedi as victims thing, and remember that the episode also showed how much the Jedi were *still* holding onto their faith, decorating the room with symbols of their faith, and writing proverbs on the walls?
That they still tried to find hope that they would get through this and again be able to practice freely? Please don’t just say that the parallels of Jedi to Jews is that of being victims. There’s more to it than that.
Anyway back to my fic about all the Jedi who left their marks on the Wall now and have a whole lot of feelings about how they were not just doing it for themselves, but for all the other Jedi who might see it, and the ones who would never get the chance to.
girl help im experiencing shrimp emotions about the Jedi refugee bunker messages
It’s–these are the barest handful of survivors of a galaxy-wide genocide, and none of them will ever see another of their kind again. So they carve their names into the walls, just in case. Maybe one of your friends is still alive and you’ll never see each other again, will not, cannot, but the Force is with you still and maybe someday they’ll see your name and know you got this far. Maybe someday you’ll see theirs.
But then it’s not just the names, it’s–the sigils. The blessings. The Jedi maxims.
A smuggling ring that evacuates what should have been the next generation. These Force-sensitive children who will never, for their own safety, be raised among their own kind. Will not. Cannot.
Separate the lock from the key. Scatter the survivors, never in the same place, so that only one (one of these Jedi who take strength in connections, who were nevermeant to be alone) can be lost at a time. In case there’s an after. In case someday, somewhere, for someone, there’s an after.
The Archives were seared from existence. Surviving Jedi temples and outposts and scattered texts are reduced to rubble every day whenever they’re found and it would be madness to send a child looking anyway. So how do you pass on what little remains? How do you tell these frightened children who should have been Jedi what they had the right to know? How do you give them the culture that could have been theirs?
Scratches on concrete. No way to give them long messages, no time to try. This is the only chance you will ever have to tell them something, to make sure the core of who the Jedi were survive, to try to help them understand. To preserve.
What do you pass on?
Proverbs. Meditation mantras that double as survival advice. The sigil of your Order, all the comfort your kind have left. (The base of what will someday become the rebel starbird, rising from ashes, but they don’t know that yet, half of them will die before they see it.)
What do you pass on? Only what’s most important. Only what cannot ever be lost.
The Force will be with you always. Only when your eyes are closed can you truly see the Way. For light and life.
They (the Jedi) trained more than anything else to understand the transitional nature of life, that things are constantly changing and you can’t hold on to anything. You can love things but you can’t be attached to them, you must be willing to let the flow of life and the flow of the Force move through your life, move through you. So that you can be compassionate and loving and caring, but not be possessive and grabbing and holding on to things and trying to keep things the way they are. Letting go is the central theme of the film.
- George Lucas, Star Wars Archives 1999-2005 (2020)
Hmm unpopular opinion maybe but just not agreeing with the Council 100% of the time doesn’t make you a maverick. Jedi aren’t a dictatorship and they aren’t actually expected to blindly follow their leaders without question; in fact, they are taught from childhood that they should always think for themselves and not go with whatever someone else says. That was, like, half the point of the Ilum arc.
This is a rather telling bit of dialogue, honestly. One would think that the Jedi and the Senate both serve the Republic, as equals, but even this young senator feels sure enough of their power hierarchy to try and order Obi-Wan to do something he does not want to do. After the rise of the Empire, even oppositional senators have more safety than any Jedi. Palpatine may have a special hatred of the Jedi, but I don’t think he’s the type to allow any enemies to run unchecked. It takes him all the way to ANH to build a weapon powerful enough to allow him to destroy a whole planet, and thus eliminate the powerbase of any senators that defy him. Both the Senate and the Jedi are small in number, but their respective social and political power is clearly stratified. This is to say, the Jedi only have that which is afforded to them by the Republic. They are not the political powerhouse that people sometimes make them out to be, and that is one of the reasons it was so easy for Palpatine to turn the whole galaxy against them.
Summary: After years of war, the near destruction of everything he believed in, and the fall of his padawan, Obi-Wan struggles to move on. Thankfully, he has his family, his culture, and the mental discipline they taught him to help.
Satine’s hand brushes against Obi-Wan’s cheek. Her fingertips linger on his cheekbone, just for a moment. Her lips part, ready to ask the question, ready to bind him to her- but then her eyes rest on the tightly wound braid. With the ghost of a touch she reads the promise there, and she knows.
When they meet again an eternity later, separated by a war and by the years and by a strand of hair that has long since been cut off, she sees the ever committed Jedi in his steady eyes.
.
Adi’s aunt frowns over the holo, her expression hard to read. Adi keeps her eyes firm and her attitude respectful, striving to embody the confidance and humility of a Jedi Knight. She’s only a Padawan, but even then it seems to hit the mark.
“You’re very serious about this life, aren’t you?” her aunt says.
There is a long pause. And at last, her aunt commits.
“Stass will go to the Temple.”
.
“But why not?” the boy asks, his eyes supplicant, his mouth hungry. He radiates incomprehension and desperate longing.
Aayla shakes her head, feeling a bit sad, mostly for him.
“I’m a Jedi,” she explains again, “my life is not my own. It belongs to the people we defend and protect.”
“But who would that even hurt, us being together, just for a bit?”
She gives him a single kiss, nothing more than a quick peck so he’ll at least have that to carry with him: being the boy who kissed a Jedi girl - and she shakes her head again.
“You wouldn’t want someone who’d break her commitments.”
.
Rig feels she might just pass out from exhaustion, sweat trickling down into her eyes. She keeps going, moving from patient to patient until her head is buzzing and she can’t tell one moment from the next and the Force is the only thing sustaining her.
A hand settles on her shoulder, a voice speaks of the only transport off world of the month leaving soon.
“I promised I’d stay,” she says. So she does. Jedi keep their promises.
.
“I can master this,” Tiplar insists, copying Tiplee’s stance once again.
Their masters watch from the sidelines.
Tiplee studies her twin sister’s face. This isn’t about Tiplar’s pride and it’s not coming from fear of inadequacy either. There is only pure determination in the Force.
They will both be Jedi Knights. They are meant for this path, and Tiplar will fight to walk in it and be worthy. Nodding, Tiplee resumes the kata.
Or: every occurrence of deliberate and casual, friendly or comforting physical contact between a Jedi and another sentient being in the PT/TCW. (Criteria)
I keep thinking about how Fortress Inquisitorius isn’t shielded and the show made a point of bringing it up and I keep thinking about that line of entombed Jedi and Force-sensitives, I keep thinking about Jedi Master Tera Sinube and his body being held there.
I’m sure it’s a great tool for intimidating anyone they walk down that long hallway, showing them that there’s no mercy here, this is what will happen to you if you don’t bend to our demands and join the Empire, even the children will be tortured and broken if they resist.
But what if it’s more than that?
I keep looking at that terrible, awful hallway, thinking about Obi-Wan having to stare at the face of an old friend, one who had been around for hundreds of years in the Jedi Order, he probably had at least one class taught by Master Sinube.
How terrifying and grisly the whole thing is.
And how it reminded me of something else.
Of one of the most horrific things the Empire ever did:
They used Luminara Unduli’s body as bait for any Jedi who might sense her and try to rescue her. The Grand Inquisitor himself lures Kanan and Ezra in, when they’re looking for her to be Ezra’s teacher, and it’s not until they’re face to face with her corpse that they understand that her Force presence is being used to trick them, to make them think there’s another Jedi in the galaxy that they can help and be helped by.
Obi-Wan doesn’t sense them until he’s face to face with them because his Force abilities are weakened from a decade of disuse, but how many other Jedi are out there, sensing something of Master Sinube or a Jedi youngling that they want to help?
How many other Jedi would mount a rescue mission on Fortress Inquisitorius because they thought a Jedi was in need of them and they could use the help of another Jedi in the galaxy? It’s so tempting, there’s not even any shields, the Inquisitors think they don’t need them, we can do this, we can help a Jedi!
But it’s all lies, it’s the Empire using the dead bodies of Jedi to trick more of them into coming right to them, that torture chamber right down at the end of that very hall. And by the time you’re close enough to realize what’s truly off about their presence, it’s too late. There’s an entire Fortress surrounding you.
And if it were in the context of being mindful and processing the feeling, that would be awesome. Sadly, it’s more “Those feelings are bad and you need to stop feeling that.”
Could you please tell me in which scene is that context obvious? I seem to have missed it no matter how many times I saw TPM.
When I was a teen enjoying the EU (before the prequels), I had always assumed the concept of “bringing balance to the force” wasn’t about destroying one side or the other, but about allowing force users to wield power without becoming corrupted (sith way) and without becoming emotionless zombies (Jedi way).
To me, both sides were clearly fucked and needed Luke to walk the middle line. He allows himself attachments to friends (even peacing out of Jedi training to save his friends) and feels emotions and wears black.
I’m a bit confused by your statement - as far as I’m aware, the “bringing balance to the Force” concept wasn’t established until the prequels, so I’m not sure how you would’ve taken away anything about balance from the EU before that point? Films supercede the EU in terms of intentions and lore, regardless, and I don’t see this interpretation being reflected by the films. Because the Jedi are notemotionless-we see them demonstrating emotion plenty of times in the films! They only ever advocate against letting it interfere with your duties or rule your actions, and they advise people to “be mindful of your feelings” (direct quote from Mace Windu, in TPM), mindful generally referring to awareness and understanding, which is the exact opposite of suppressing or ignoring.
I think it’s a bit disingenuous to frame the Jedi and Sith as opposite extremes. The Sith are going around slaughtering innocents and committing genocide. The Jedi expect their people to exercise self-control and be selfless. Even if you think they somehow go too far with that (which I disagree with, but to each their own), that’s not really comparable, and the best path is not in the middle of those two, it’s much, much closer to the Jedi side of things than it ever would be to the Sith.
I also disagree that Luke walks that middle line. The only thing he challenges his mentors on in ROTJ is the idea that Vader, specifically, cannot be saved. In everything else he’s in keeping with and honoring their teachings, not rejecting them. And the moment when he runs off in ESB is not framed as Luke being in the right. His attachment to them is not a good thing within the narrative of Star Wars, and it’s in fact exploited multiple times - in ROTJ, he reacts poorly when Leia is threatened, and he’s only just able to pull himself back from the brink when he severs Vader’s mechanical hand and recognizes where the path he’s on leads. He overcomes his attachment in that moment, and that’s what’s narratively condoned, not indulging or embracing them (because attachment is not the same thing as caring for or having a bond with someone; it’s specifically the inability to let go).
And as I already said, the prequel Jedi demonstrate that they feel emotion just as Luke does. They just strive not to let it affect their judgement. Nor does there seem to be any prohibition against wearing black among the prequel Jedi. Luminara wears black, for instance, and there’s no indication that that’s frowned upon.
