SparkySywer said:
I think it’s interesting that you’ve brought this up in a small handful of different threads in the past month or so, on top of having a longer conversation about this subject on the PT gen discussion thread.
Vladius said:
It’s always relevant because that’s what everyone talks about
The Jedi ain’t even that serious about the no attachments thing if we take the text(s) seriously and really look at how the Jedi treat it. What are the consequences, really, of a Jedi having attachments? It’s having a 100 rules knowing everyone will break at least 1, and everyone will have their 1. Where it breaks for the few, you can massage with extra discipline and targeted tutelage, but the rule keeps the others in line. And ultimately, there’s really nothing the council can do either way. It’s really an aspirational standard, not requisite. Something to seek, lifelong, not attain. That’s a pretty reasonable takeaway from what is intended with the depiction IMO.
In canon and EU lore, prequel era Jedi are breaking the rule all the time to little or no consequence. You become a librarian or farmer Jedi, I guess? They don’t even want people leaving really – though even that is allowed to happen.
And outside the realm of breaking rules, it’s also just true that the Jedi have comradery with one another - bonds and friendships. Amongst themselves, but then even with senators, or people they serve. Yoda and Mace can have a soft spot for even a former Jedi like Dooku as a friend at the start of AOTC, and never flinch in discussions of Obi-Wan and Anakin’s own bond. They’re surely aware of their own. It’s not hypocrisy under the lens presented above.
Servii said:
In my experience, there are two stances you’ll see among prequel stans. Either “Yes, the Jedi are meant to be emotionally repressive, and that’s intentional and part of the point,” or “No, the Jedi aren’t repressive. They’re only against selfish emotions. You just didn’t understand what George was going for.”
I actually fall into neither, but a middle ground, one I think TCW series operates in: The Jedi rules against attachment make sense, the Jedi don’t forbid connection and caring about other or love, as I think attachment and connection/love are different things. Also, the Jedi are flawed individuals who allowed their disconnection from others in pursuit of detachment to blind them to what was happening around them with Anakin. The scene between Anakin and Yoda isn’t showing Yoda as flawed, to me, because Yoda telling Luke to let people go is bad, but because Yoda is so out of touch with connections he doesn’t understand that what he’s telling Anakin won’t get through to him, nor does he understand Anakin’s emotions about this. To use TCW as an example of this, in season 6, Obi-Wan says to Anakin, “It’s not that we’re not allowed to have these feelings. It’s natural.”
To me, the Jedi were flawed, not necessarily because of their no attachment rule, but because of their arrogance, fear, disconnection from the people, their attachment to the Republic and their engagement in war and violence, them compromising in pursuit of stopping something. Their arrogance and compromising and fear is what I think more directly implied in the movies. I think TCW plays on those things, as well as more into the engagement in war and attachment to the Republic angle.
Compromising is what I think Luke ultimately chooses not to do in ROTJ, not compromise and not allow his connections to be used to manipulate him, not making the mistakes of the older Jedi, as exemplified in Mace Windu to me and also not allow his connections and fear to be used to manipulate him.