Anakin was born into slavery and lived with the constant threat of death from the moment he was old enough to comprehend it. At the age of ten he left behind everyone he knew and loved, knowing that they were still enslaved and in constant danger, and that they could die at the whim of their owners.
He then was raised within a deeply-foreign-to-him culture which did not have context for his pre-existing trauma and as result, entirely without malicious intent, retraumatized him.
The Jedi order knew how to teach initiates raised in the safety and security of their creche. They didn’t know how to teach a child who had never known either.
They couldn’t predict the consequences of expecting a former slave to adhere to the jedi ideal of emotional control without addressing the trauma of slavery. How ‘There is no emotion, there is peace’ would strike differently for someone whose survival had depended on presenting what their owner wanted them to feel, and not what they truly felt. They didn’t know how to teach the difference between repression and control, or didn’t realize Anakin needed to be taught it.
And all this was ongoing while he was being subtly sabotaged and undermined by an adult he thought he could trust.
Anakin is not inherently an unhinged lunatic. Getting to that point took years of trauma and sith manipulation. Anakin’s character as an adult is almost entirely driven by his unaddressed trauma.
Changingany of the above aspects would radically alter Anakin’s coping mechanisms, relationship dynamics, and ability to self-regulate.
The distance between the Jedi and the common people was not something that had happened fast. I even wonder had the Sith been influencing them way before times of a certain Palpatine.
(Padme talking to C-3PO while the Jedi Temple is burning at the background.)
The Temple was in Coruscant, at the heart of the Republic, but by this choice the order clearly was profiled as being part of the Core World and leaving the Outer Rim and its numerous problems all alone. Not sure at what phase they had made such choise, but all of the other temples we always see have been abandoned for a long time or the connection between those places and the Jedi order itself had degenerated for a long time even before the Order 66 or the Clone Wars.
Lothal temple is just a myth to the locals and something that the Jedi had forgot mostly, in such amount that even the Empire had not found mentions of it easily. This is showing that the connection was entirely separated.
So when the center point for the Order was Coruscant, they were not with the rest of the galaxy.
And this alienated them from non Coruscantians by that choice. But they also went further and finally alienated themselves from the Coruscant people as well. They were just a tall building, alone.
The distance is visible in many many ways. Many times characters say things like: I know the Jedi would not do this and this. But how many have actually meet or dealed with a Jedi before?
The complete cluelessness that everyone has in Grogu’s Force usage is also a sign of it how rare and uncommon the Jedi aka Force users had become.
But the most visible is that the life just went on while the Temple was burning and nobody was actively and publicly willing to defend the Order. Or was actually reacting in to the destruction of the Order. Even so much that nobody was trying to extinquish the fire or even move the bodies, as we see when Obi-Wan and Yoda do return to the Temple.
So the Jedi are like their Temple: there but not reachable for the ordinary people.
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!
One thing that always bothers me about the “Jedi were a cult that kidnapped innocent children" argument is that it ignores a veryprominent counterexample: Dathomir.
As far as we can tell, the entire clan of Dathomir is force-sensitive. Even if there are a lot of “normal” citizens there, the few episodes we spend there reveal no fewer than five individuals who are capable of manipulating the Force.
And yet, none of them were taken to be Jedi (three, in fact, are turned into tools of the Sith).
So why would the Jedi not take them?
One might argue that Talzin was too powerful, but I think the answer is less dour than that: it’s because Dathomir had a safe and stable culture. It may have been harsh and rigid and imbalanced as heck, but it was theirs,and anyone who had tremendous power in the Force would be able to use it in safety and security. The Jedi could look at a woman born on Dathomir and say, “She’ll be raised as a witch, taught to control her power, follow their rituals, and will be protected from offworlders by her sisters and mother.” A man would be raised by the warrior clan and be taught to use his superior abilities to fight and hunt–his emotions kept in check, his strength honed into physical prowess, and his life made so that he would never be threatened or become a threat. The existence of Dathomir showed a balance all of its own–the Jedi were not needed there, and thus, they allowed it to thrive as it was.
The one who stepped in to break this was Sidious. He came to Dathomir and took Maul to be his apprentice. Asajj was sold into slavery by her own clan when a force threatened them (nice work, Talzin), and then she later came to corrupt Savage Oppress (but even then, it was because Tyranus was going to come for him, anyway).
The children the Jedi take have also been universally shown to be threatened by outside forces. Ahsoka was almost sold into slavery, the children in season two of The Clone Wars were actually kidnapped by Cad Bane and taken to Sidious, and when the Jedi vanished, children were taken to be Inquisitors or were hunted down and killed. But others–like Ezra, and ultimately, Hedala–simply kept living their lives. They became special, but they were never able to tap into their powers.
My hypothesis is that the holocrons and kyber crystals only point to the children who are in need of rescue–the ones whose powers will be discovered and exploited. If someone is strong in the Force but will never manifest this ability, they are not called (unless, perhaps, they want to). If their culture is powerful enough in its sovereignty, it is also possible that the Jedi will not meddle–Mandalore being one such example. It’s highly unlikely that Tarre Vizsla was the only Mandalorian Jedi, and more probable that he was the only one who chose/neededto go to the temple. Mandalorian culture and tradition is firm enough that anyone who develops Force talents would have nothing to fear from an outsider–no slaver is going to try sneaking into Mandalore to steal a psychic child, and no gangster is going to send his forces up against an army of Mandalorians, pacifists or no.
This is why Jedi tend to come from rural pockets of the galaxy, and why they always feel like they never had a home before the Temple: because where they were before was never safe or secure, and their existence would have only served to endanger their families. The more developed and comfortable the world, the less likely they are to manifest their powers and be targeted for them: consider the contrast between Luke and Leia. Luke lived on a dustball, surrounded by two-meter-long rats and giant dragons while a crime lord slug exploited people for water; the only way he couldsurvive was by developing his quick reflexes and staying hidden. Leia grew up on a peaceful planet, with wealthy parents who taught her all about the galaxy and how to protect herself in the same way that they knew: blasters and diplomacy and bodyguards and technical know-how and vaccinations. The Force was with her, but she never neededit.
The bottom line is this: the Jedi knew enough to respect other cultures and leave them be, but they were always ready to rescue individuals who would be threatened because of their powers. They were not a twisted, messed-up group (they kind of sort of became one, but it was mostly because a pair of Sith Lords managed to take control of everyone they were supposed to be protecting and pitted them against one another), but a place of refuge and hope…a place that, sadly, burned.
I hope Luke and Rey can build something better.
I was having a good time rereading this post until I read the last line
One of the things that most profoundly affected how I saw the Jedi Order was when I stopped seeing them just as some “organization” and started seeing them as a culture and heritage.
They have art, they have history, they have philosophy, they have rituals, they have values, they have symbols, they have sayings, they have traditions, they have fashion, they have evolution of all those things.
Whatever things they do or don’t deserve criticism for, whatever things I would ask them to change or not change, now come with the context and understanding that I’m not asking some extended boarding school or some day job organization to change their rules.
But that I’m asking a living, breathing culture to change and that carries a different weight to it.
man, culture is just people doing shit, and if that shit sucks then it’s gotta change no matter how hard it’s breathing.
I’m actually fairly sympathetic to the idea that cultures have a degree of moral weight or value that goes beyond just people doing shit. Admittedly this is controversial. But even if this is true, it doesn’t really get the Jedi off the hook.
Of course, any sane view must recognize that cultures can be legitimately criticized (as seems to be implicitly granted by OP). But moreover, the Jedi Order is not just a culture, but also an organization with a great deal of powerthat goes far beyond its own borders.
In the Old Republic, the Jedi have close and somewhat secretive ties to the galactic government. This is an immensely privileged role. Surely this mysterious and influential sect’s activities, agendas, and moral values– including dubious or sectarian moral values– are a matter of public interest! Their special influence on the government could also be unfair and undemocratic, insofar as they’re an unelected tiny set of people whose influence hugely outweighs that of many sectors of the general public.
Moreover, insofar as the Jedi are a sort of religion, this also seems to raise worries about undue religious interference in the state. Insofar as some aspects of their religion are provably true (unlike IRL religions), the matter may be further complicated– but perhaps still not entirely unproblematic. In any case, it seems clear that the beliefs/activities/values of the Jedi, even when considered as a culture, are totally fair game for public scrutiny and critique.
(I’ve spoken quite generally. Pardon me for not knowing the lore very well, here. I would bet the specifics of the expanded universe, or Legends or whatever, will probably back me up in my statements, but I could be wrong.)
I’ve pretty extensively covered why being close to the halls of power is not the same thing as actually having that power and the canon actually shows many, many instances where the Jedi do not have the power the audience often thinks they do.
For example off the top of my head: - they are drafted into the war (per George Lucas’ words) - or how Mace tries desperately to save the Zillo Beast and is soundly ignored - Obi-Wan tries suggesting diplomacy to Chi Cho and is soundly ignored - Yoda tries to just ask for information from the Chancellor about a matter relevant to the Jedi, ie hey so what does the Republic know about Sifo-Dyas?, and is told basically “We’re not telling you jack shit.” and his response is basically, “Well, that went as well as always.” showing that this is hardly the first time - Shaak Ti practically broke her neck trying to get Fives to the Jedi Temple and only made progress when the Republic/Kaminoans agreed because they were planning to kill him in transit anyway - Mace tried to argue for leniancy for Boba to not be put in jail and was soundly ignored - Dooku as a Jedi tried to get aid for Serenno from the Senate and was told, “No and you’re overstepping your bounds, so stop trying to influence us, Jedi!” (which is a potential indication of “and keep your weirdo mind powers out of it!”) - and so on.
The Jedi were drafted into militaryleadership positions and they were granted diplomatic/negotiation abilities (before the Senate made negotiating with the Separatists illegal), but they had very little political power of their own and actively sought to not take it because they didn’t want to rule. And, hell, even when the Republic had had time to scrape up a set of Admirals to replace the Jedi–like that’s why TCW’s creators said they brought Tarkin in, to show this–they were forcibly pushed out of those roles without any real say in it for themselves.
Further, they seem to have almost no cultural power–there are no Jedi-centric holidays, there are no people baking Jedi-themed cookies for celebration, Jedi-themed sayings are not used by the public until after they’re gone, and most people have never even met a Jedi. That was shown clearly in The Phantom Menace aboard the Trade Federation ship–”Have you ever met a Jedi before?” “Well, n-no….”
The Jedi have no say in public policy-making, they are entirely absent from that aspect of government even behind the scenes of public record, they don’t have much influence over the Senate (but they are beholden to the Senate, so the Senate has influence over them), their role is to be negotiators and diplomatic problem solvers, they have a certain amount of power over average citizens when they’re sent on a mission but they are also extremely beholden to oversight from the actual government. And pretty much any time they butted heads with that actual government, the government always seemed to win just by saying, “Nah, we’re not gonna do what you suggested.”
This isn’t to say that the Jedi aren’t able to be critiqued, because literally every single character and group inStar Wars can be critiqued. I could make good cases for why Naboo needs criticizing, but context is still important, as is what the actual scope of their abilities and influence is within the canon!
The Jedi may have more influence than the average citizen just by dint of being close to the halls of power, but that doesn’t mean that they have significant amounts of that power for themselves or that they were listened to when they did try to suggest different paths. Further, we don’t know how much is or isn’t a matter of public record, how much the Jedi’s internal workings were granted privacy because they were a culture/religion unto themselves and how much was there for any random citizen to look into.
We do know, however, that one of the major themes of the prequels and TCW is that the government was constantly chipping away that the Jedi’s autonomy and the Jedi were rather powerless to stop it–that’s precisely why they had an argument about how the holocron with the childrens’ names being stolen should be an internal matter or a government matter. Obi-Wan and Mace wanted it to be internal, Anakin argued the Chancellor should be brought in, and they seemed to realize they had to bow to that pressure.
Or the most blatant example: Palpatine could appoint Anakin to their Council against very much again their wishes and they couldn’t stop that interference, because the Senate had power over them and the reverse was very much not true.
While the Jedi’s ties to the Republic aren’t spelled out to us in the audience, I don’t think they seem at all secretive in-universe. For example we see senator Chuchi refer to the Jedi being under her and the local governments jurisdiction when dealing with the Talz situation. It’s openly regulated by laws.
Honestly, most of the expanded universe material of the current continuity have the populace’s ignorance of the Jedi be from a lack of interest rather than the Jedi being secretive about anything. In Mace Windu: Jedi of the Republic they have an outreach temple to offer spiritual support on a planet suffering from a plague that has no cure. The Queens Shadow book establishes that parts of their temple is open to the public. In Dooku: Jedi Lost the Jedi do a lightsaber demonstration in a showcase on Serenno to introduce their culture and there’s mentions of how there’s holo-documentaries about them.
But the people of the core worlds just weren’t that interested in them
“In contrast, institutions like the Jedi Order did little to cultivate their image or build their mindshare of the Republic’s populace, relying instead on historic precedent. This proved a difficult proposition, as the galaxy strongly favored looking to the future rather than the past.
With eyes toward expansion into the uncharted reaches of the Outer Rim, the traditions of the Core became passé. Opportunity beckoned from beyond the borders of the Mid Rim worlds. The congested planets of the interior were saturated with messages of promise lying outward, a reversal from long-held notions that Coruscant represented the icon of advancement. Republic wordsmiths and artists collaborated to create a sense of civic duty, of manifest destiny, and of deep obligation to spread the Republic banner from Rim to Rim.
For the well-settled and wealthy elite of the galaxy’s most crowded centers, such notions were quaint but uninspiring. It was the citizens of the Inner Rim, those who had been crowded out of opportunity in the Core, who answered the call for new life in the frontier of the Outer Rim. The Core Worlders became more enamored with the fleeting distractions of fame and fashion, transitory fascinations with sophistication that left little room for messages of faith or tradition that the Jedi exemplified. The lack of representation in the galactic mindshare undoubtedly fixed their future, as dark forces were on the rise that would poison the public sentiment toward the Jedi in the decades to come.”
Star Wars Propaganda
They are considered something old and boring rather than new and interesting. WHICH YES, I AGREE WITH YOU THAT THIS IS CRAZY!!?! HOW AN ONE NOT BE INTERESTED IN THE DRAMATIC BASTARDS WITH LIGHTSABERS??? LOOK AT THEM:
*clears throat*
I mean, I love them a normal amount
In some cases The Jedi have even less power than the average Republic citizen because everything one of them does represents the whole Order, while no one would dream to blame a whole planet for choices or actions of one individual.
For example, anyone could have chosen to come and fight for the Naboo against the Trade Federation, but Jedi don’t have that choice:
“I’ve been thinking,” Qui-Gon announced suddenly, keeping his voice low, his eyes directed toward the others. “We are treading on dangerous ground. If the Queen intends to fight a war, we cannot become involved. Not even in her efforts to persuade the Gungans to join with the Naboo against the Federation, if that is what she intends by coming here. The Jedi have no authority to take sides.”
Remember, this is after Trade Federation tried to murder the two of them. Even then they’re still powerless to get involved.
And this is exactly what Darth Sidious exploits.
“The Jedi cannot become involved,” Darth Sidious soothed, hands spreading in a placating motion. “They can only protect the Queen. Even Qui-Gon Jinn cannot break that covenant. This will work to our advantage.”
- The Phantom Menace novelization
I mean that’s it, that’s the whole prequels - Palpatine/Darth Sidious exploiting the fact that Jedi won’t bring down the democracy and go against the decisions of the people, while manipulating the said people to give him more and more power.
I honestly see the Jedi as an opressed group when compared to the rest of the galaxy, and they’re most certainly a minority. Everything from the propaganda and in-universe prejudice that exists against the Jedi, to the way the Senate highly regulates them, to the targeted drafting into the military, to how, in fandom and in universe, they are responsabilized for matters which the Republic is responsible for, to how they ultimately become a target for a genocide while the galaxy stood by and did nothing…
i think the jedi critique that pisses me off the most is the notion that the jedi were evil and uncaring for not upending slavery…
using qui-gon’s situation with anakin and his mom (and the entirety of the slave ring run by the hutts) shouldn’t be a criticism of the jedi, it’s about the republic. even at this time before the heart of the clone wars, the jedi are under the complete mercy of the republic. every action taken by a jedi must be a reflection of the will of the republic, which is not of fault of their own but of the corruption already buried from the presence and sway of the sith.
attempting to enact an upheaval of slavery in the outer rim from under the hutts would be against the political agenda of the senate and the chancellor and therefore is something the jedi have no power to do. even before palpatine is elected, the jedi are at the mercy of the republic.
the critique should not be on how the jedi’s actions are forced into a mold by the corruption of the senate, the fault lies in the way the jedi are extorted and used by the galaxys highest political power, which then continues on until the jedi’s devised genocide by that very same corrupt power.
yeah, the jedi not being able to enforce peace and freedom is fucked up, it betrays who they are to their core, and it’s all purposeful and enacted through the grip they’re caught in under the republic.
Watching (no matter how brief) the Jedi get slaughtered again, watching the masters/knights protecting the kids with their lives; knowing Ani is skipping his way over to kill them all was incredibly hard. Especially since I just know there are idiots out there who still keep on insisting the Jedi had this coming.
