On the contrary, “Protect the ones you love, do everything you can to make them feel good, but if in the end you don’t succeed, then, only then, you have to learn to let go”, this is a deep, human and healthy teaching.
It’s funny because this is literally what Lucas thinks:
“They can still love people. But they can’t possess them. They can’t own them. They can’t demand that they do things. They have to be able to accept the fact, one, their mortality, that they are going to die. And not worry about it. That the loved ones they have, everything they love is going to die and they can’t do anything about it. I mean they can protect them as you would ordinary protect, you know, ‘Get out of the way of that car.’ Somebody charges you with a gun, you knock the gun out, but there is an inevitability to life which is death and you have to accept that.”
“[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.”
That is how it is supposed to work. When you are trained up from your earliest memories that that is the way, it is easy to live that life. Anakin came to the order late and did not have that base and the Jedi failed him in his training (let’s be quite clear, it is obvious that while Obi-wan was his primary teacher, all the Jedi were involved). What Lucas told Dave Filoni about the duel in TPM being truly a duel for the fate of Anakin, makes it clear that this was Lucas’s intent. The rest of the comments are about Jedi in general. But you have to look at the fallen Jedi as well as those who remained in the order to see what Lucas did. The Jedi training did not work for everyone and it periodically failed. It definitely failed Anakin, but also Dooku. Qui-gon was not aligned with the rest of the Jedi in some of these things. And his difference of opinion is what Anakin needed and didn’t get from Obi-wan or the Jedi order. So the Jedi are flawed, but their flaws are do not make them evil, just out of balance. Hidebound is the word that seems to describe them best. It means they are too wrapped up in the rules and history and are no longer able to adapt when odd things crop up, such as Dooku or Anakin.
I don’t usually read the novels or comics, so all I have to to go on in what is in the movies and tv series. Dooku’s fall isn’t covered in a significant way. Anakin’s is the one we can see and it is a series of errors. First the error to detect Sidious. He is right there and influencing Anakin the entire time. He spent 13 years laying the groundwork for Anakin’s fall. At the same time, the Jedi weren’t able to deal with Anakin’s fears and teach him how to let go. Now, some people just can’t learn something new like that so we could also blame Anakin for coming into the order with fear and Obi-wan for going ahead and training him (and we hear him blame himself in the OT), but Lucas’s comment about Anakin and Qui-gon make it clear that there was a way Anakin could have been trained and become a stellar Jedi and Qui-gon’s death took away that chance. That means that Anakin was not intended to have these issues, but that the Jedi and their ways (which Qui-gon differed with) are to blame for Anakin’s failure to be taught.
Rian Johnson tied into this in TLJ with what Luke was saying about the Jedi. And in that movie we see what the Jedi should have done - change. Learning from past mistakes is what makes a great teacher. If you haven’t made the mistakes, you can’t teach your students how to avoid them. The Jedi were all about avoidance without having the tools that all their order need to be able to avoid failure. Luke is once again schooled by Yoda that he needs to learn, not only from his own mistakes, but the mistakes the Jedi made, and be there for Rey. That is one reason I love that film. I feel it completes the Jedi tale. And then Rey runs off with the Jedi texts.
And going along with that, I’ve noticed an interesting pattern. In TROS we see Rey and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo openly use a force healing power. As I watch the previous episodes we can see it in ANH and ROTS as well. Ben revives Luke in the Tatooine canyon and Palpatine stabilizes Vader on Mustafar. In this ability you see the ultimate application of attachment and how it should work for a Jedi. Had Anakin known this, he could have saved Padme, though at the cost of his own life. A Jedi can use their power to heal, but at personal cost. Rey heals Kylo Ren (he was not dead yet, the wound was freash). Then Kylo Ren (learning the power the same way Rey learned from him) saves Rey, but she is drained so saving her costs him his own life. A Jedi with attachment risks themselves. They must be free from emotional entanglements. They can be in love, but they have to know how to let go. But in the Prequels, the way the Jedi teach this is to avoid love as it leads to attachment. Anakin was right, they are too love (compasion), they just have to be able to let go when it is time and that could be any moment. Qui-gon could have taught him that lesson, none of the other Jedi could.