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Post #1425029

Author
RogueLeader
Parent topic
Did G. Lucas ever intend to portray the Jedi as a flawed institution in the prequels? Or was it added later in the EU?
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1425029/action/topic#1425029
Date created
20-Apr-2021, 12:58 PM

VegetableMan said:

One thing that has always bothered me though, ever since I was a kid, is that even if the Jedi were deliberately portrayed as flawed it seems the movies prove them right in some of their ambiguous teachings. For exemple, concerning the « no-attachements » rule, watching AOTC as a kid I remember thinking the Jedi were assholes for banning relationships but then ROTS seemed to validate them because it was like : « see they were right, because a romantic relationship led Anakin to the dark side ». I know it’s not that simple, but as a 12 year-old that’s how I and I’m sure a lot of other kids my age understood it.

I think it has more to do with the Jedi’s approach being a self-fulfilling prophecy, rather than them being objectively right.

This might be a shitty analogy, but I kind of like to compare it to the drastically different teenage pregnancy rates in the United States and the Netherlands.

In the US, especially the American South, sex is sort of a taboo topic for teenagers. In a lot of Southern schools, sex education can basically be summed up to “the safest sex is no sex”. Absistence-focused sex education is the norm, and schools and parental discussions focus on the dangers and risks of sex, and why you should avoid it until you’re married. So, this leaves teenagers rather uneducated about safe sex practices, and unsurprisingly many Southern states have the highest teen pregnancy rates.

The Netherlands, on the other hand, has a rather open and honest system of sex education. From what I understand, schools, medical professionals and parents talk about the joys and responsibilities of intimacy. Dutch teenagers are properly educated on safe sex, and given the resources to help ensure it. In general, the topic of sex is a lot more open and not treated as taboo. Netherlands currently has one of the lowest teen pregnancy rates in the world.

Bringing it back to the Jedi, the drastic actions Anakin takes to save Padmé can partially be blamed on the Jedi’s failure to teach him how to deal with his emotions in a healthy way. The Jedi teach children to basically fear their emotions, avoid attachment, and bury their feelings. The Jedi keep Anakin from having a healthy relationship with his mother, and when Anakin falls in love with Padmé, he is afraid to tell the Jedi, and in their secrecy, he becomes possessive of her. He feels like he can’t tell Obi-Wan or Yoda what’s really going on (or they wouldn’t understand), so he takes drastic measures to save her.

I personally don’t think Obi-Wan or Yoda were really even self-aware of how the Jedi’s conservative philosophy was partially responsible for their downfall. To me, it seems they think it has more to do with the dark side clouding their vision, and their growing arrogance, which is true too. They never really pass that knowledge onto Luke in the films, and in a way they made the same mistake with him. Even though Luke seemingly learned something about how Anakin’s attachment to his son saved him, I think Luke also saw how his fear of Vader turning Leia almost made him fall to the dark side. And in the end, that fear is what causes Luke to make the same mistakes with Ben.

He sort of touches on it in TLJ with Rey, but he never really goes into the detail I think they should’ve. Luke recognized the Jedi teaching was flawed, but that’s never paid off very clearly.

But yeah, I agree that if this is what Lucas was going for, it could’ve been made a little clearer. This is how I see it at least.