Ten-Abu Donba was a Talid native to Ando Prime and High Priest of the Order of Dai Bendu. Leading the order around the time of the Clone Wars, the Order was an ancient Force tradition who were the progenitors to the Jedi Order, and one of the first organizations interested in learning about the Force.
Source:Star Wars: Episode I: Racer: The Official Nintendo Player’s Guide (2000)
First Appearance: Star Wars Episode I: Racer (1999)
K’Kruhk was a Whiphid Jedi Master who was notorious for being extremely difficult to kill, surviving the Clone Wars and the Jedi Purge. Known for his signature hat, K’Kruhk was a gentle, thoughtful being, who handled a lightsaber with stunning expertise. His great strength and constitution lent themselves to his longevity, despite being killed many times.
Source:Dark Times 6: Parallels, Part 1 (Art: Zach Howard; 2007)
First Appearance: Jedi Council: Acts of War 1 (2000)
Zhar Lestin was a Twi’lek Jedi Master who sat on the council during the Mandalorian and Jedi Civil Wars. A soft-spoken and kind being, Lestin was responsible for training many Jedi during this time period, and was well-respected for his effective methods. He was incredibly knowledgeable about the Force and Jedi ways.
Source:Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003)
As someone who grew up in a very communal place with lots of adults who were family or were family in everything but blood, let me tell you sitting on people’s laps and begging to be picked up even if you totally forgot their name is just part of being a young child.
So, my point is, Jedi younglings totally do that. Random master walking in the temple, well they look large enough to pick you up! You’re in the council chamber for some reason? There are 10 people to pick from (masters Yoda and yaddle are too small)!
And Wookie masters! The younglings would love them! Soft and really tall, the perfect person to carry you places.
I have a new hill to die on: Qui-Gon Jinn was totally all indulgent smiles when Obi-Wan said, “The Council will not go along with you, not this time.” about training Anakin and he says in the most hilariously self-assuredvoice, “You still have much to learn, Obi-Wan.” because that man knew exactly how they let him get away with everything but then the Council actually does turn him down and Qui-Gon Jinn, that JEDI MASTER, was AGHAST, he literally put his hands on his hips and was all GASP SHOCK SURPRISE THIS WAS COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED!?!?! HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME!?!?! because he GENUINELY BELIEVED they were going to let him have his way, and like he’s not wrong to think that! he says the Sith are back after a literal thousand years and the Jedi are like “ehhhhh, I dunno” but then agree to look into it and start saying it’s a Sith mystery even before they actually uncover any new clues, Qui-Gon says, “I found Space Jesus in the desert, even though it breaks all the rules, you should test him.” and the Jedi are like, SIGH, sure, fine, bring him over here. Anyway, Qui-Gon Jinn routinely got away with murder because the Jedi Order routinely spoiled him and he 100% expected to continue being spoiled and was Shocked Pikachu Face when they put their foot down for once.
You. You get it. Qui-Gon Jinn’s energy is “asshole cat that the Jedi Council are rolling their eyes at when he scream-meows at 5am about how he wants you to watch him drink water from the bathroom, but they do it anyway, because as annoying as this shit is, they also love him and he’s hilarious”.
HAPPY STAR WARS DAY! Spent my morning watching A New Hope while wearing my Sith Code shirt and getting New ink! Love that my tattoo artist is a HUGE Star Wars fan too
HAPPY STAR WARS DAY! Spent my morning watching A New Hope while wearing my Sith Code shirt and getting New ink! Love that my tattoo artist is a HUGE Star Wars fan too
if the Jedi are raised in the Temple communally from early childhood then there has to be that Master or Knight who used to visit younglings and then, years later upon seeing them, go “OMG do you remember me??? The last time I saw you you were like this-” *lowers hand till their knee* “-high!” like an enthusiastic relative you don’t remember ever meeting but have to awkwardly go along with while they gush about how “cute you used to be, you used to do [thing you now find embarassing], remember that?”
Star Wars: Age of Rebellion - Luke Skywalker #1 | by Greg Pak & Chris Sprouse & Scott Koblish & Stefano Landini
This has been backed up in other places, that Luke has some fame within the Rebellion and the larger galaxy, as well as the whole “I’ve never seen anyone wield a lightsaber” thing (ie, “the Jedi were just a weird cult who didn’t actually have any special powers”) but it’s interesting to see that even other Rebellion members have a sense of wariness around Luke, that the only time they’ve seen someone use a lightsaber was Darth Vader.
This is twenty three years after the Empire formed and the Jedi wiped out–which can be a long time (as my exhaustion over just the last three years has shown me), but really shouldn’t be long enough for people to have whole-sale forgotten something they would almost assuredly have been alive for at least in part.
It’s also an illustration of how the galaxy really just doesn’t quite know what to do with Force-sensitives, that there’s always that sense of unease and wariness, just because it’s something they don’t understand. We saw that, too, even at the height of the Jedi, that there are just so few of them (one per billion/three billion people, one for a single planet’s entire population, possibly less) and they seem to always be half-listening to something that you can’t hear or see yourself.
Even in the Rebellion and possibly the New Republic, being a Jedi never seems to be easy, because the galaxy seems to fear you and the only time they saw someone do the things you did, it was filtered through the lens of what the Empire allowed (aka, ONLY THE EVIL ROBOT GUY WITH THE NIGHTMARE BREATHING, pretty much) and just natural fear of what people can’t experience for themselves.
There are pockets of people who actually get to know Force-sensitives (or at least those on the light side, those who turn to the good instead of the evil) who speak warmly of them, but canon is absolutely LITTERED with people who’ve never met a Jedi before and are immediately unnerved or outright dismissive, until they actually spend time with them and realize they’re there to help.
EvenLuke Skywalker, having blown up the Death Star and having foughtfor the Rebellion for four years at this point still gets the side-eye from some people. That’s what it’s like for Force-sensitives in this galaxy far, far away.
Crimson Reign actually has a good explanation for why the Jedi were forgotten:
The criminalization of knowledge
It’s not just that being a Jedi was a crime in the empire, they made helping a Jedi a crime, knowing about the Jedi was a crime! And it went further! Knowing about or being able to use the Force was a crime under the empire!
Thus people with knowledge of the Jedi or the ability to use the Force were encouraged to keep it to themselves for fear of punishment ,and to not pass on knowledge and stories to the next generation, and thus when they died, so did their knowledge, and what was commonly known became lost
Yes! This is something Star Wars has been weaving into stories for awhile! Most Wanted has this passage:
Not only does the Empire engage in full on propaganda about the Jedi and the Force, just having anything related to the Jedi and the Force was made illegal and you would “disappear” if the Empire caught you. Anyone who pointed people to others who had Force-related or Jedi-related items “disappeared”.
The Mighty Chewbacca and the Forest of Fear also has a really good passage about just how thorough the Empire’s propaganda was:
“Then all the vidscrolls stopped working. The Empire sold us new devices that let them control what we could see and read.”
Same for what happened on Lothal:
(Ezra’s Duel with Danger - For memory, this was from a Rebels episode directly as well.)
For two decades, the Empire engaged in a full on propaganda war (Lost Stars also had them teaching their cadets that the Jedi were a criminal gang, that it was an answer on an Imperial test they were taking) and made it outright illegal to have any Force or Jedi stuff, to teach others about the Force or the Jedi, that you were never seen again if you did, so it really makes sense that the galaxy forgot about the Jedi, even if they were alive when the Republic was still around.
You had some caches hidden around (Jocasta stashed one for the next generation to find, Grakkus the Hutt was a collector of Jedi stuff), but the vast majority of anything to do with the Force was stolen or destroyed by the Empire–pretty sure that’s what happened to any planets that had Force traditions as well, like look at what happened to the Lasat people. Look at what happened on Jedha.
So, when you combine the criminalization of knowledge about the Jedi with the terror people feel about speaking out and disappearing for it, with the outright lies the Empire tells, with that Force-sensitives are a little off-putting and incredibly rare (even before the Jedi were genocided nearly out of existence, meeting one was very, very rare), people’s reactions aren’t surprising.
Adding in the examples mentioned above from Crimson Reign of how this wasn’t just something the Empire stumbled into, but it was very calculated and deliberate:
“Some will be willing to die for their beliefs, in an effort to bring back the light, to expose the truth. So you kill them first. The ones left are, by process of elimination, not willing to die for their beliefs, they’re apathetic, just trying to get by. Afraid. It’s not that the Jedi are forgotten. It’s that the very idea of them is a death sentence. Those who remember stay silent. In time, they will die and the Order will truly be lost.”
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.
Here my first entry for the Character Design Challenge: Mrs. Mara Jade (future Skywalker) from the expanded universe. I do my best I hope you like it!! Cheers <3 #CDchallenge#JEDIandSITH
I don’t know why holding the Jedi accountable for being compliant in slavery is such a controversial thing. Again, I think the show has showed us that this is an accurate portrayal.
And while I see the clone’s positivity towards the Jedi being cited as an indication that they don’t think they’re being enslaved and have positive relations with the Jedi. Considering 1) it’s a small group of clones who act this way and 2) deserters exist, we know that’s not the case.
I clones were brainwashed and essentially taught to believe the Jedi were 100% good, and we begin to see cracks in this belief as the show progresses. Even Rex and Fives question this, and there are very many points in which we know there is an extent to Anakin and Rex’s relationship, as well as Anakin’s relationship with his men in general.
And consider that as abuse victims themselves, it’s not uncommon for the clones to justify everything bad that’s happening to them. These have been men abused from childhood and treated as property, their justification of their treatment and their tendency to excuse all that’s going on can absolutely be consequence of their abuse.
If we can understand that Anakin and Palpatine had an abusive relationship despite Palpatine treating Anakin with dignity and respect, then we can see how this applies to the clones and the Jedi.
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
“There is a point at which pacifism, while seeming good, can serve the dark side…when pacifism becomes evil. If beings are capable of protecting others but refuse to take action to preserve their own sense of peace, they are being selfish. They place themselves and their sense of peace over the peace of others, and so they defend a philosophy instead of lives. In this way, they fail everyone.”
(Jedi Knight Ylenic It'kla to fellow Knight Aayla Secura)
“Pacifism for the sake of pacifism is the height of arrogant selfishness when that belief prevents you from acting to save others from harm.”
(Tycho Celchu)
I love these quotes so much, they show why the Jedi couldn’t just “stay neutral” during the war, why they couldn’t just let the Separatists do whatever they wanted, why they couldn’t just stand by and let everyone die to uphold their own philosophical ideals. They chose to fight to protect, rather than become passive in the face of tyranny.
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
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.
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.
