Prequel Living Arrangements

This is something that's bothered me since 2005, but I don't know if I've ever brought it up here before.  A lot of people complain about the force-sensitive Jedi being unable to sniff out a government-wide plot to overthrow them.  However, I can suspend disbelief enough to accept that.  Of course, something else that keeps me from seeing flaws in that is being distracted by how incredibly stupid everybody is not to be able to figure out that Anakin and Padme are married, living together, and having babies!  Seriously, how does nobody figure this out? 

Obi-Wan knows that Anakin is obsessed with Padme.  From the beginning of Attack of the Clones, Anakin does absolutely nothing to hide that he's into her.  "I'd much rather dream about Padme!"  The two men even get into a fight at the end when she falls out of the plane, and Anakin insists on saving her instead of going back to Dooku.  Yoda even picks up on this as it cuts away to a shot of him shaking his head and looking concerned.  Yet, at the end of the movie, nobody seems at all worried that Anakin might be acting "inappropriately" when he "escorts Senator Amidala back to Naboo."  Uhh, gee, I wonder what they're going to do?

Fast-forward three years.  Padme is mysteriously pregnant.  Anakin spends his nights at her apartment.  For some reason, though, it takes Obi-Wan, who was already aware that his former students loved this senator, the majority of the movie to finally put two and two together and ask, "Anakin's the father, isn't he?"  How does nobody figure this out?  Padme's obviously not hiding the fact that she's pregnant.  Does nobody ask who the father is?  Do you think anybody gossips about who knocked up the senator?  If a real senator became mysteriously pregnant, that would be all over the news!  And does nobody know where Anakin lives?  If not, how do the Jedi know where to send his mail?!  Granted, aside from Anakin, the movies never seem to address where the other Jedi live.  So I suppose I'm to assume that they all live at the Jedi Temple like one big slumber party?  Okay, that's fine... except that it would make it even more suspicious that Anakin is never there!

Maybe there's something I'm missing.  Maybe some comic or deleted scene or novel or Clone Wars episode explains that Anakin was "assigned" to "protect" the Senator by "living with her."  That doesn't really make it any more plausible.  I mean, it makes it plausible that they would be living together and nobody would question it.  But if everyone does know that Anakin and Padme live together, which is ridiculous enough considering both Obi-Wan and Yoda know that he loves her, how could they possibly have any doubt what's going on when the senator is suddenly pregnant?!

Which brings me to my last question.  If Yoda and Obi-Wan are aware only that Anakin is in love with Padme, he's still breaking the Jedi code or is at least in danger of doing so.  Why not have a good old-fashioned intervention?  With all the criticizing we do of how rigid the Jedi code is, they really don't seem to do much punishing.  Okay, I admit I have heard somewhere they went easier on Anakin because of The Chosen One... stuff, but Obi-Wan even says, "You will be expelled from the Jedi Order!!!"  This is, not coincidentally, the same point where it cuts away to Yoda telepathically spying on their conversation and shaking his head.  Unless we're to assume Yoda is shaking his head in disgust at Obi-Wan for daring to criticize Mr. Chosen One (sorry, Dr. Chosen One.  He didn't spend six years in Chosen One Academy to be referred to as Mr.), he knows that Anakin is breaking rules or about to break rules and should therefore be expected to do something about it.

Okay, I'm pretty sure I've approached this from every conceivable angle now, and I just can't make it make sense.  When I rationalize any one side of it, the rest of it falls apart.  So, somebody, please help me.  Can anybody explain this in a way it makes sense?  Or is this simply like the Jabba the Hutt Rescue Operation where I can safely say The Prequel Living Arrangements=FAIL?

Don't forget Palp's...He knew Padme was pregnant with Anakin's baby too.

But, you're right, and I did wonder the same thing myself. Nobody knows shit on Coruscant.

Help!  It seems I've fallen into this large hole!  It's almost like plot or logic was supposed to be here, but it disappeared!

As far as Anakin going with Padme to Naboo, I believe it was explained either in the novelization or the comic.  It was essentially a test for him.  I know that makes no sense.  Yes, let's have him go with her to Naboo as a test to see if he's able to keep his hands to himself.  If he can, he passes.  If he can't, it's just the fate of the galaxy at stake.

Here's another one for you.  Padme continually tells Anakin (after the kiss) that they shouldn't have done that and they can't be together.  She even does that in front of a fireplace while wearing a sexy outfit.  So she says "We can't be together" while wearing an outfit that says "Come and get me big boy!"  How's that for mixed signals?  If you're really trying to turn a guy off, try not wearing the sexy dress next time.

I always thought before Revenge of the Sith was released that Anakin would go to the dark side because he was expelled from the Jedi order for falling in love with Padme, or that he would never be accepted by them and become a jedi master.

That the other jedi reject him our of fear or jealousy over his abilities or because they believe he is dangerous, are affraid he might fall to the dark side.

In the end though things were the way they were in the movie because it was in the script.

The love trangle thing was hinted at by Lucas before he wrote the prequel scripts.  He kept it in as a subplot that palpatine used as a lie to turn anakin against obi wan, and to mistrust padme.  But cut it out.  Though it remains in the novelization.

Earlier on it was supposed to be Like the love triangle between King Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot.  I cannot exactky remember Lucas reference early on.

Other things we did not get to see in the prequels were the good mother, and bad mother Lucas hinted at.  Ben Kenobi was the good father, and vader the bad in the ot.

We got to see something of the Knights as brothers concept.  The thing with Anakin regarding Obi wan as a surrogate father was never used in the films and only appeared in the novelization of episode II.

So in Anakin we have the son Obi Wan never was allowed to have, the Brother, and the best friend.  Is it any wonder Old Ben was like a uncle to Luke or a father figure. 

Obi Wan had great admiration for Padme but only as a friend.  He never felt romantic feelings for her.

The young reader books where obi wan is a student hint at a past love he may have had but had to leave behind because it was against the rules.   Even Qui Gon supposedly felt the same.

So love and feelings to those of the opposite sex must be regular to the jedi, but like monastic types they keep themselves in check and reject the temptations of the flesh.

The Jedi were totally wrong and off base though there was nothing evil about Padme and Anakins relationship or marriage.  Having to keep it secret was their fault.  Anakin's pledge of love and devotion for padme was one of his strengths as a deep feeling emotional human being.  Anakin rejected the jedi view of attachment.  He was way more loyal and would go to hell and back to save his friends and loved ones unlike the jedi.  He was always saving Obi Wan, or trying to minimize the casualties of the troops he commanded.

Too bad most of this stuff ended up in the clone wars animated series, the novels etc, and was not shown in the films. 

Lucas should have shown Anakin's finer humanity in episode II and III instead it felt rushed.

Anakin was always an outsider in the ranks of the jedi and never really was fully embraced by the brotherhood.  Their mistrust and fear led to him being feeling lost and being taken under palpatines wing and corrupted.    Obi Wan only took him on as his apprentice as a final duty to his master qui gon.  Even Yoda sensed Anakin's fear of losing those he loved in episode 1.  Obi Wan said " They all sense he is dangerous why can't you".  He was right by the way, look at how he cut down those younglings like corn stalks with his lighsaber.

I think the Jedi knew, but tacitly agreed amongst themselves to keep quiet. Don't we all have that one friend who makes ... questionable romantic decisions, but we choose to look the other way?

As for the Jedi code, I suppose the Jedi just didn't think some parts of it were really that important. Inter arma silent leges, after all. And it was a stupid rule anyway.

Some how I don't see guys like Yoda and Mace Windu tacitly keeping it to themselves. They make it very clear that such attatchment is a danger, not something to be played around with or taken lightly. The idea that they would know about it and just let it slide it completely and totally out of character for both of them. I still find it funny we feel the need to stretch things to bizzare degrees just in order to make them make sense.

Even Obi-Wan seems to know be 100%, he just suspects. When he goes to Padme to warn her about Anakin he asks her if the baby is Anakin's. Had he know they were married, or even together, that question would not have made any sense. He suspected it, but didn't know for sure.

C3PX said:

Some how I don't see guys like Yoda and Mace Windu tacitly keeping it to themselves. They make it very clear that such attatchment is a danger, not something to be played around with or taken lightly. The idea that they would know about it and just let it slide it completely and totally out of character for both of them.

I think it fits with what we know of Yoda. Yoda manages his students by counsel and advice, but he does not take action against his students when he thinks they are doing something wrong. He and Obi-wan "knew" that if Luke went to Cloud City, he'd fail; but he did nothing to actually stop Luke, no matter how disastrous the failure would have been. Likewise, Yoda counseled Anakin that attachment led to the Dark Side (somehow); to openly accuse Anakin of having an illicit marriage would have led to the guy's expulsion from the Jedi Order, and thus constitute de facto intervention. I can't say for sure that Yoda knew, but I'm pretty sure that if he knew, he wouldn't go squealing to the Jedi Council.

As for Mace Windu, I was unaware he had a character.

Even Obi-Wan seems to know be 100%, he just suspects. When he goes to Padme to warn her about Anakin he asks her if the baby is Anakin's. Had he know they were married, or even together, that question would not have made any sense. He suspected it, but didn't know for sure.

The question makes perfect sense. People don't just ask questions to elicit information, they also do it to provide information in a circumlocutious manner, or to influence behavior. I think we're so used to Lucasian dialog--characters marching onstage and announcing their feelings or intentions--that we don't notice subtlety when it is achieved.

And maybe you're so used to well-written dialogue that you assume Lucas has the same intentions too? ^_~

I will definitely agree that those scenarios are possible, and, in other scenarios, probable.  While the absence of proof is not proof of absence, I find it a bit of a stretch in this case to assume that George had any of these good ideas in mind.  Because they do create drama and tension and let the viewers see the lack of enforcement they actually had with their code, I would think it would have been pointed out a little more clearly... or at all. 

As for Mace Windu... well, you made me laugh, that's for sure.  But he does have enough of a character that I'm able to tell that he's not quite sure about Anakin.  He doesn't trust him.  He thinks he's defiant.  He doesn't seem entirely convinced that Anakin is "The Chosen One."  It seems to me that if he knew Anakin was flaunting the Jedi Code that badly, he wouldn't just sit idly by and let him get away with it.  Like you said, friends might let poor decisions slide, but you can't say that Mace and Anakin were friends.  Ever since Jake Lloyd gave him that scowly look in Phantom Menace, it was clear that they had bad blood!  =P

It's not out of the realm of reality for those close to a heroic figure to cover up his/her faults to keep him/her from getting in trouble.  But when someone is flaunting the rules so openly (he lives with her, and she's pregnant!) so that anyone who could put two brain cells together could figure it out, they would have to take action, otherwise it would undermine their rules and other Jedi would start screwing around.  I'm not saying I agree with their code, but they do have a code, and the fact that those rules play such a pivotal part of the plot ("How can we be together with this stringent and damning code that says we can't?") suggests to me that the Jedi would take it very seriously if they actually knew.  Which they should because it's obvious... but they don't because they're stupid.  Ugh.  Like I said, this doesn't make any sense.

Writing this post, I'm beginning to wonder if this part of the plot got messed up in the same way the other big plot movement in this movie got muddied.  You know what I'm talking about:  the turn.  Where it was written one way and then changed in pick-up shots, so that you have half the movie assuming Anakin turned under one set of circumstances and the other half under the delusion that he changed for an entirely different set of circumstances.  That's the only way I can rationalize this.  That George wasn't sure himself how the living arrangements and knowledge of the Jedi was supposed to pan out, so he wrote it two different ways and simply forgot to rectify it when he cut the movie together.

Gaffer: Jedi Living Arrangements = FAIL.  Simple as that mate.

JohnBoy's post makes me wonder something else.  Many things, actually.  If they are supposed to live at the Jedi Temple but aren't monitored (even a check-in/check-out system), when are they required to be at the temple?  Do they have to be there at all?  Is every indivdual Jedi summoned when each individual Jedi has something particular to do?  How often does the council meet?  Who cleans the temple?  Do Jedi have single rooms or do they bunk with other Jedi?  Are they required to check in every so often?  And if so, with whom?  How will they know if someone just never comes back?  That's not out of the realm of possibility:  after all, Dooku and Sifo-Dias managed to elude their grasp.

Obviously, I'm looking to PT-era EU readers to come to my aid here.  ^_^

Johnboy3434 said:

7.) Sifo-Dyas is a prime example of how the Jedi don't constantly monitor each other. I assume it's because there's supposed to be a sense of trust. The Council can trust a Jedi to answer when he is called upon, and a Jedi can trust the Council not to spy on his activities. Dooku's fall to the Dark Side wasn't known until AotC. His official reasoning for leaving the order was that he became disillusioned after the death of Qui-Gon. Many Jedi have left the order for philosophical reasons that aren't Dark Side-related, and the Order makes no attempt to stop them. One in particular was even shown to come visit the Temple and catch up with old friends on occasion.

But that is all just meaningless EU stuff, isn't it? That stuff gets over written all the time. At one point Boba Fett was a Rorschach-esque self-righteous young man named Jaster Mareel. Now, I bet if you even so much as mentioned Jaster Mareel over at a place like TF.n or SW.com you'd get lynched.

Those stories are just made up by various sci-fi writers who get paid for it, if one day George or the creative forces behind the TV show decide to do something that contradicts those books, then suddenly they become irrelevant.

As for Sifo-Dyas being an example, do we even hear anything about him for him to be an example? I though Sifo-Dyas died before ording the clone army, which means he is not really the one who did it, right? Is there anything about him mentioned in the movie beyond, "Jedi master Syfo-Dyas..." "Sifo-who?" "Sifo- Dy-- Ah, screw it! He isn't even important to the plot."

It was originally Palpatine who created the clone army under the alias of sido dyas= Sidious.

Lucas thought it was too easy to figure out so he had it changed to sifo dyas later on and they created this backstory in the final film and the EU over a non existant jedi who ordered the clones and was killed by Dooku. 

But in one of the scripts for Attack of the Clones it was master Sido Dyas. 

I caught a rerun of the recent Jar Jar episode of Clone Wars, and there's actually a serious moment in between the slapstick.

Jar Jar finds what is no doubt one of Anakin's jedi robes in the closet aboard Padme's ship, (after he manages to wreck it!) and wonders out loud what it would be doing there and who the owner is. (He wears it for a disguise, and is mistaken for a Jedi for the rest of the episode.) Threepio obviously knows the answer, but weakly dodges the question.

I actually caught the tail-end of that episode last night, and that's been my first ever exposure to The Clone Wars.  Other than the "droidekas" so poorly missing Jar-Jar (for a second, I really thought he might bite it... and the image I pictured made me laugh), it wasn't so bad.  But I only saw about three minutes, so I don't know...

But as for what you said, SilverWook, it seems we're supposed to believe that the Jedi Council has the same intelligence as Jar-Jar Binks.

Yoda:  Senator Amidala.  Pants of Young Skywalker you have in your bed.  Understand the connotations, I do not!

Oh, and I was going to say underwear at first, but my own signature reminded me that that's just not possible in Star Wars.

Of course, I failed to mention the circumstances that led Yoda to be in bed with Padme...

Now get to writing, lemon fan fic writers!  You know you can't resist it now that I've put it out there!

Gaffer Tape said:

Of course, I failed to mention the circumstances that led Yoda to be in bed with Padme...

 

Whoa! I have no idea how this conversation got to this point, but... wow... maybe Obi-Wan wouldn't have to have been the third point of a PT love triangle. Maybe YIYF's name is not really a joke after all...

"Sired twins I have. Lucky they will be to have ears like mine. Hmmm. Good breeding at its finest this is."