it is equal parts infuriating and fascinating how differently people interpret the jedi
you have people who like em, who go “okay this is how jedi act, so the code must allow these things” and then you have people who don’t like em and go “this is what the code says and this is how i interpret it so this must be how the jedi are SUPPOSED to act”
(and then you have the edgelords who want the villains to be right, because it’s fun or because they like villains or just because, and that’s fine, but this ain’t about them)
and on the one hand its very interesting because most of the proposed reforms from people who don’t like the jedi are just. things that pro-jedi fans already think the jedi do (either because there’s no evidence they don’t or because there’s some evidence they do)
(or, alternatively, they take the jedi apprentice series and run with it, which makes me laugh because no, I get it, i hate the way the jedi are in that series too)
although a lot of the jedi critical people do put a lot of focus on parents raising their force sensitive children which, on the one hand, I get it. Luke turned out fine, after all. on the other hand, he lived on a backwater planet in the middle of nowhere with Obi-Wan keeping an eye out to make sure nothing bad happened to him - but still, having a jedi observer isn’t the same as being raised in the temple
on the other hand, this kinda… slaps adopted kids in the face, i think. not on purpose! but basically the parents of the force sensitive kids are giving their babies up for adoption to the jedi order, and that’s… fine, I think? I don’t see a problem with that really as long as the parents know what they’re agreeing to, I think that’s fine. and we see evidence that the jedi are allowed to reconnect with their birth culture and parents too! although it’s not really given a lot of focus.
(now in fairness, some people don’t want to give up their kids, and that’s fine. in canon we see jedi being pretty chill about that - i mean, remember when cad bane tried to steal the force sensitive kids? and the kids went back to their parents until the parents decided whether or not to give them to the order for good? and that one planet where the jedi didn’t go anymore because the government didn’t want to give up their kids? that was cool. but like, again, a lot of this is offhand or implied, so there’s room for interpretation in a bunch of directions.)
…im getting off topic
anyway
i think a lot of it boils down to like. attachment. and what people think that means. because there’s what george lucas says and there’s what the movies say and there’s what the dictionary says, you know? and i think there’s an argument to be made that attachment was probably the wrong word to use (i think it’s an east asian concept but it did not translate very well lol), but i do think - i do! - that the general principle is sound.
because there’s love. and love is good, and the jedi are by and large encouraged to love (it’s more obvious in like… the comics, because gl isn’t actually a good writer), and basically everyone agrees that people should love and be loved in return
so that’s that squared away. but then some people think being attached to someone is loving them, so the jedi forbidding attachment is obviously bad, right? because love is good and necessary. so therefore, because forbidding attachment is a central tenant of the jedi, the whole order needs a revamp, right? well, if that’s how you define attachment - then yeah, the jedi order would be bad.
and if you want to run with that, cool! “the good guys are evil actually” can be interesting
but other people (the pro-jedi people, usually) use the definition that gl gives - which in fairness, i don’t remember seeing anywhere in the movies/tcw. the general idea perseveres, but not explicitly enough to avoid being colored by “the jedi think attachment equals love” if that’s what you believe. so.
but anyway, the george lucas definition of attachment is basically - greed. and i think we can all agree that greed is bad. greed is basically capitalism, after all, and eating the rich is a good idea. so GL-attachment is basically:
- i love this person (good so far)
- i want to keep this person safe (still good)
- i will do anything to keep them safe (okay, fair)
-including murder a bunch of children (anakin, no)
and i know some people love the idea of that (see that one post about a villain burning down the world for a goodbye kiss). but like, here’s the thing. other people don’t! other people are terrified of the idea of someone who clings on so tightly that they’ll do All That just to keep you - because what happens if you don’t want to be around them anymore? more murder? is that your fault now?
and that’s fine, y’know. it’s fiction. we can all calm down, nobody needs to cast any moral judgements on anyone else about the fictional space wizards with the cool laser swords. the jedi critical people can do reform plans and yell at the council and the pro-jedi people can worldbuild pre-existing institutions that fill in the gaps that lucas left and gush about their faves.
i think the other major problem is that. george lucas is just a bad writer. like, there was no need for anakin to be a slave there was just literally no point. maybe he was just poor. maybe he really wanted to be a jedi and his mom was like “yeah this will be a better life for you.”maybe the twc writers wanted to have a cool lasersword fight and a callback to the fight on jabba’s barge and didn’t think about like… the deeper implications
and so there’s a divide between the people who are like “yeah this was dumb and im ignoring it” and the people who are like “this was dumb, what were the characters thinking?” and both are valid and fun. and both can be safely ignored if you don’t like em.
…anyway, this was a very long post to say that. jedi fans are valid. jedi critical people are valid. lets all enjoy the fight scenes and make fun of karen traviss.
The thing people in this fandom don’t seem to get is, Yin and Yang aren’t Order and Chaos; Yin and Yang reaching equilibrium is what creates Order, and harmony, and stability, and all that good stuff. The two complementary opposing forces being thrown out of that equilibrium, too much or not enough of either, is what causes Chaos, in the form of things like famines and wars, and that chaos continues to get worse as the forces try desperately to get back into harmony with each other.
For an analogy, let’s look at the elk and wolves of Yellowstone National Park. When the wolves were taken out of the park, what happened was that the elk now didn’t have to worry about predation, so they stopped moving around as much and that led to them overgrazing a lot of areas of the park, which had knock-on effects like reducing the beaver population since they were eating the beavers’ preferred food, and a lot of other animals were reliant on the beavers’ dams and didn’t thrive as much. When the wolves were reintroduced, things started getting better, as the elk went back to moving more often and spreading out their eating. Wolves aren’t good or bad; they’re necessary for the health of the environment.
The Sith and the Dark Side aren’tthat. They’re not the wolves. Wolves are just doing what they need to in order to survive, just like the elk are; Sith do awful shit for kicks or for their own selfish ends. You’ll note the Jedi (at least in the movies) don’t bang on about the “Light Side” the way Sith do about the “Dark Side,” and that’s because the Jedi don’t believe that the Force is split into a Manichean Light/Dark divide of opposed equals, and they’re probably right not to.
Because there is no “equilibrium” to be reached with people whose philosophy is that their own desires are more important than anything else in the galaxy and that any limitation or check on their behavior is something to be destroyed. Daoism is about how nature exists in a harmonious but precarious balance of seemingly opposed but actually complementary forces, but the Sith are only “natural” in the sense that it’s inevitable that some people would choose to abuse the incredible power of being able to see and sense the energy that connects everything in the universe for their own gain and then that some of them would come up with a bullshit pseudo-philosophy to justify it to themselves. The Sith might use the terminology of the “Dark Side” to try to posit themselves as, if not “superior” to the Jedi by seeing a part of it they apparently ignore, then at least their equal-and-opposite, a natural and perhaps even necessary part of the whole, but that’s self-aggrandizing bullshit.
In conclusion, the very concept of “Gray Jedi” is based utterly on a complete misunderstanding of the nature of the Force and the Dark Side.
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.
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.
A creative fandom event dedicated to appreciating the Jedi, taking place during the weekends of June! Each day of the weekends will feature a prompt, around which people can create fanwork (of any kind – fic, art, cosplay, edits, anything you can think of) or meta focusing on the Jedi and the Jedi Order. All eras and continuities are welcome; OCs, established characters, doesn’t matter – it just needs to be about appreciating the Jedi!
Rules:
If you are participating, please tag your work/meta with #jedi june and/or @ this blog so that I will see it and reblog it here. All work must be your own. Feel free to crosspost it off-site.
This is an appreciation event, focusing on what we love and enjoy about the Jedi – not what we don’t. This is not the place to air your grievances with the Code, take potshots at the Council, prop certain Jedi/certain eras of Jedi up at the expense of others, or disparage the Jedi Order or their philosophy and way of life in any way (including the concept of non-attachment). You are free to do that on your own time if that’s your thing, but it has no place within this event.
AUs and crossovers are allowed, with caveats: again, the purpose of this event is to appreciate the Jedi as Jedi, so sticking your favorite Jedi characters in something like a modern AU or making them all Sith or Mandalorian is not really within the spirit of this event. However, AUs such as making a non-Jedi character a Jedi, having a character survive their canon death, giving a character a different teacher or padawan, or killing Palpatine off-screen in an unspecified yet embarrassing and painful manner, would all be perfectly fine. Use your best judgement to determine whether an AU fits the spirit of the event or not.
Ships are allowed as long as they’re not between a child and adult, and following the above rules.
Following the weekend prompts is encouraged, but not required. Any sort of pro-Jedi content is encouraged all year month long, and if tagged (and following the rules), will be reblogged. It also does not have to be uploaded on the exact day - if it’s more convenient for you to post (for example) Monday and Friday of these weeks instead of Saturday and Sunday, your posts will still be reblogged here, although it may take until the weekend to get to them.
Prompts:
Saturday, June 4th: Commitment/Service
Sunday, June 5th: Non-attachment/Compassion
Saturday, June 11th: Mischief/Humor
Sunday, June 12th: Knowledge/Defense
Saturday, June 18th: Training/Tested
Sunday, June 19th: Community/Jedi Temple
Saturday, June 25th: Symbols/Faith
Sunday, June 26th: May the Force be with You
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask! I hope you will have fun participating!
Headcanon: sometimes Jedi talk directly to the Force and they’re just …talking. Out loud. Sometimes in a skyward direction. Sometimes elsewhere. Just clearly not at anyone else around. And not like polite or prayerfully or anything. Like “where is it? where - oh, there it is, thank you!”, “are you karking serious?”, “So what do you think?”, “is this a good idea? My master said it was, but I wanted to check with you”, “You couldn’t have told me this earlier?”, “Suuure we’ll go into the creepy cave just because you said it’s fine, not like we have massively different understandings of what fine means”, “Hey, could you pass me that? …Thanks”, “Meddle I will not, if meddle you do not”, etc.
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.
Jedi weren’t emotionless beings. Jedi weren’t cold and unfeeling. The whole point of being a Jedi is keeping your emotions in check and not being ruled by it!! Anakin was allowing his emotions to overtake him in an unhealthy way instead of managing through it.
Anakins feelings towards Padme was kind of possessive and he wasn’t able to let go, this kind of love is different than the selfless kind as seen in this quote “Love doesn’t lead to the dark side. Passion can lead to rage and fear, and can be controlled… but passion is not the same thing as love. Controlling your passions while being in love… that’s what they should teach you to beware. But love itself will save you… not condemn you.”
Jedi weren’t emotionless beings. Jedi weren’t cold and unfeeling. The whole point of being a Jedi is keeping your emotions in check and not being ruled by it!! Anakin was allowing his emotions to overtake him in an unhealthy way instead of managing through it.
Out of all the bad takes I’ve seen, the “clones having chips made no sense and shouldn’t have been added to the story,” is among the worst
Basically, the argument I hear for this one is that the clones should’ve just executed the Jedi because they were following orders.
Why would the show make such a big deal of showing the clones getting to be more independent and learning to not mindlessly follow orders, and then decide to…do the opposite of that? What, they just revert?
The Jedi were their best friends, leaders they looked up to and respected. Why would the Clone Wars show us their relationship, only for the clones to just shoot them down because “sorry, orders”??
Without the chips, the clones would just seem like remorseless assholes who gunned down their best friends for their bosses.
And it’s not like they even knew who Sidious was. Them just accepting the order from some guy they’ve never seen before, on a channel that could very well be hacked makes no sense. It makes way more sense for the clones to have a chip that gets activated when they hear it, it explains the way they didn’t hesitate, and it explains the robotic response.
If some creepy guy gave me a call and said “hey shoot your best friends in the back, ok?” I think I would at least stop and think about it.
“The time has come, execute order 66”
First off, who is this wrinkly old guy and why has he said “the time has come” with an order? This is priority gar codes only. You are not known clone or jedi, or gar officer. I do not know what you are ordering, but you have no authority.
Also now that I think about it… Looks like a sith. Seppies have new sith that infiltrated our comm lines to try and command us something.
^my thought process if I got this weird message
Having chips makes more sense than the clones not doing the above, or learning the SITH LORD wants them to kill their jedi. Or that said sith lord orchestrated the war thus being responsible for jedi and clone deaths.
