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When did the Jedi become monks?

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When did the Jedi become monks?

In A New Hope, the first Jedi we meet is a hermit, but Obi-wan is apparently only a hermit because a) he is hiding from the Empire, and b) he is watching Luke. Ben tells Luke that he, "was once a Jedi Knight, the same as your father," and that, "Your father wanted you to have [his lightsaber] when you were old enough."

When ANH was produced, the tenets of Jedi Knighthood were ambiguous, but the Jedi could have children and could make decisions regarding the upbringing of their children, up to and including how they will be raised in the event that both parents die.

In The Empire Strikes Back, we meet another Jedi hermit, but Yoda is a special case. In addition to hiding from the Empire, it is implied that he's in isolation because he has moved beyond the martial aspect of the order into a mystical lifestyle. While he does teach Luke about the mystical side of the Force, he is primarily training Luke to be a weapon against Darth Vader. Yoda is, as far as he himself knows, the last living Jedi Master. There are apparently no other Jedi Masters living in isolation on other worlds. Either the Empire found them all, or there were few Jedi hermits to begin with.

From ESB we may surmise that the hermitlike lifestyle was rare among the Jedi, but we cannot draw any conclusions about whether or not any lived in communal monasteries.

Early versions of Return of the Jedi give us more details about Obi-wan's past; i.e. his brother was Owen Lars and, although they didn't get along, the two trusted each other enough that Lars agreed to raise Luke for Obi-wan.

ROTJ tells us that the Jedi maintained sometimes strained familial connections.

From the Original Trilogy, we get the idea that the Jedi lifestyle is a demanding vocation, but it does not replace the fundamental organizing unit of human society, the nuclear family. Jedi maintain contact with their blood relatives, have children, care for their offspring, and direct how they will be raised. Degrees of cenobitic living may exist, but complete isolation is rare.

Later, I think I will write about how the Prequel Trilogy turned this on its head. How odd that the trilogy which ostensibly portrays a romance, matrimony, and childbirth gave no voice to the echoes of family heard in the OT.
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Originally posted by: Scruffy
When did the Jedi become monks?


Sometime in the late nineties, when Lucas was writing his script for The Phantom Menace.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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believe it or not the monk jedi thing goes back to the rough draft screenplay also known as draft 1.

never forget a lot of the jettisoned ideas from those prototype scripts lucas went back to find a place in the prequels for.

a lot of these quote "ideas" were bad and so they were rejected for a reason.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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I have never cared for the "monk" Jedi aspect. I would prefer the more "knight" look Lucas had considered in early development, even wearing a form of "space armor" ala Flash Gordon-like. What became so embarrassing for the PT is that suddenly every @$#%^ing Jedi is wearing Tatooine garb!! Nothing infuriated me more than that. I blame the stupid EU for that, making every Jedi dress like that. The EU should just be outright ignored!
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EU started the every Jedi wears Obi-Wan robes thing??? When? I remember in Tales of the Jedi the ancient Jedi had their own unique look, some of them may have warn robes, but they were very different style than the Obi-Wan and later every Jedi robes from the films, they were usually more of a hooded cloak with normal clothes on under. Every Jedi had their own unique thing going on. Then in Luke's Jedi academy they all wore coveral sort of school uniforms, not robes. What part of the EU had them all wearing robes? I used to read a bit of EU before the prequels and I remember being surprised and annoyed to see every single Jedi dressing like Obi-Wan, also it makes Obi-Wan even more intelligent being one of the last Jedi in hiding and not wanting to be discovered, and yet stubbornly sticking to his tradition Jedi garmets. Which, convieniently, seem to be kind of popular in Mos Eisely during ANH.

I think the stupid PT ought to be ignored as well as the majority of the EU. While there is a lot of crappy EU, which is inevitable considering the vast amount of it, there is also quite a bit of it which is much more enjoyable and in line with the OT than the PT ever was. Good EU may be hard to come by, but good PT has already been proven to be a myth.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Okay, I'm not as familiar with the PT as with the OT, but here are my observations as I remember them.

It was The Phantom Menace and its associated EU material that marked the big change in the nature of the Jedi order. For the first time, we saw that the Jedi trained not young men, but young children, and it was expected that they would be severed from their parents. This is the first hint of the cloistered nature of the entire Jedi order.* It seems apparent that the parent-child relationship is replaced by the master-apprentice relationship early on.

Attack of the Clones expanded the lore of the cloistered Jedi. The Knights were now forbidden to have possessions, to desire things, or to have normal romantic relationships. Obi-wan does seem to have a non-Jedi friend in Dex the short-order cook, but he also uses Dex for information. Do the Jedi have normal relationships outside the order? (Edit: And who can forget the Jedi leaving Schmi Skywalker in slavery on Tatooine, to be eventually raped to death by Sandpeople? Evidently I could.)

Revenge of the Sith didn't particularly change anything, but it gave us a look at the effect this upbringing has on a young man. Anakin has found a woman he loves, is soon to be a father, and has developed an incredible and highly-marketable skillset. The only monkey-wrench in his life is the fact that the Jedi order forbids marriage and paternity (at least, it forbids active parenting; it may secretly encourage purely reproductive coupling in the hopes of producing more Jedi initiates). Any normal person in Anakin's situation would shake hands with Obi-wan, resign from the Jedi, and work as a highly-paid contractor or consultant. He could then choose his own hours, make as much money as he needs, and publicly enjoy family life. But Anakin never considers this course of action; his "sad devotion to that ancient religion" has constrained him so much that he cannot envision life outside the order, not even with all his advantages. He is stuck on the Jedi ladder, attempting to gain rank and influence over his colleagues at the expense of developing a satisfying, meaningful personal life. It's not surprising Darth Vader happened. It's surprising he didn't happen all the time.

I think I got on a little tangent there, but here is my conclusion. I have always thought that the Prequels attempted to show the "other side" of the Jedi; that was the only explanation for the generally stupid and/or malicious way in which they behaved. They were the same organization described in the OT, but we were now seeing a different set of their characteristics, through a different lens. Now I'm not so sure. Now, I think the Prequels show a completely different idea of what the Jedi were. The PT and the OT cannot be reconciled, not without throwing out significant portions of the canon or tortuous rationalizations**. I don't think that will bother many here, but it's food for thought, if you have a taste for this kind of thought.

*It reminds me all too much of any number of cults and terrorist organizations that prey on children, twisting their development and teaching them to use violence from a very young age. Surely Lucas was aware of the parallels?

**If you do want to make a tortuous rationalization, I think the metafictional one is best. The Journal of the Whills, or The Adventures of Luke Skywalker, whatever is the source text for the Star Wars saga, was written by different authors in different eras and certain discrepancies may exist. Which facts are "true" is a matter of debate.
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Originally posted by: Dug
I have never cared for the "monk" Jedi aspect. I would prefer the more "knight" look Lucas had considered in early development, even wearing a form of "space armor" ala Flash Gordon-like. What became so embarrassing for the PT is that suddenly every @$#%^ing Jedi is wearing Tatooine garb!! Nothing infuriated me more than that. I blame the stupid EU for that, making every Jedi dress like that. The EU should just be outright ignored!


Tales of the Jedi handled the Jedi much better than the Prequel Trilogy. Read Dark Lords of the Sith, in which Exar Kun falls (or is perhaps pushed). He claims to be a Jedi archaeologist, researching the Sith, but he delves too deeply. He confidently tells himself, "I will never fall to the Dark Side" even as he uses the Dark Side again and again. Eventually, he is so steeped in darkness, hate and anger bring him power so readily, that it is perfectly logical for him to embrace the Dark Side and dedicate himself to the Sith tradition wholeheartedly.

While this is going on, Jedi Knight Ulic Qel-Droma infiltrates a Dark Side cult ruling the Empress Teta system. He thinks he can pretend to turn to the Dark Side, using it only further his deception, and destroy the Darksiders from within. Eventually, he too comes to rely on the Dark Side for quick and easy power. He blames himself for the death of his master in battle, and takes this quick, easy power to prevent the deaths of others--or so he tells himself. Like Exar Kun, he insists up until the very end that he is not under the control of the Dark Side and that his actions are meant to eradicate it from the Galaxy. But when he meets Exar Kun, he sees a kindred soul and becomes his apprentice.

Anakin Skywalker, on the other hand, heard a story and thought maybe his wife would die or maybe not, then immediately rejected the Jedi and pledged himself to the Sith.

As for TotJ costuming ... some wore cloaks and tunics with a superficial similarity to Obi-wan's. Some wore body suits with capes. Some wore bits and pieces of armor, or cultural flare, or military-style load bearing gear. Some wore headdresses. Some wore unadorned shirts and pants. At least two were naked. Pretty much, they wore cultural clothing with some concessions for utility.
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Good thoughts. It's obvious that the PT Jedi cannot be reconciled with the OT Jedi. Just look at how the "old men" were so slow in the OT while Yoda (the oldest man in the room) can bounce off the walls like a freakin', jet-propelled, ping-pong ball.

Originally posted by: Scruffy
And who can forget the Jedi leaving Schmi Skywalker in slavery on Tatooine, to be eventually raped to death by Sandpeople? Evidently I could.


That ALWAYS made no sense to me. I thought the Jedis were noble knights and were allowed to go around the universe doing good things. Instead they're a bunch of do-nothing pricks who forbid a kid to go help free his mom from slavery?! What, you can't help/love the universe as whole by helping individual people? I don't get it.

(At the very least, wouldn't their midichlorian scientists want to study a woman who gave birth to a "VERGENCE" IN THE FORCE?!!)


George Lucas is such a lazy writer.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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I think the reason Lucas put in the 'monks' aspect of the Jedi was one simple reason: Anakin and his attachments. As much as I bash the PT, I actually don't mind this plot point about the Jedi, and I think it did setup a good reason why Anakin could turn in Episode III. Unfortunately Lucas dropped the ball in ROTS with that awful turn scene and why Anakin did because of a dream.

Jedi being monks and taking them as children so they don't have attachments isn't really that bad, because it is suppose to show that they are out of touch in the PT, and by Luke/Leia growing up in normal families and having the ability to fall in love and have children, it contrasts well as to why they turned out normal and saved the galaxy.

You guys have to remember that the PT in some ways has to contrast the OT, and the OT has to look better in that sense. The Jedi Order are suppose to be alittle out of sync with the republic during the PT, thats is their flaw, they never changed, and all of their jedi just became robots, and their star jedi who wasn't trained as a kid ran amuck after he realized he was that talented. If you watch the Saga 1-6, Luke/Leia/Han should come out as the good guys who save the galaxy, and if the Jedi were portrayed as just as good as Luke/Leia/Han, then there would be no arc in the story.

My real beef with Lucas is that whole setup in ROTS and the final turn scene on how eventually Anakin turns, making it because of silly dream and having him not even question Palpatines' motives, and then finally turning within 5 seconds and then go killing kids in the next scene was utterly ridicuolus and undid everything Lucas set up in TPM/AOTC. Damn Shame.
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I agree that the Jedi should have had faults in the PT. The OT made Yoda and Obi-wan look like real dipsticks, and that should have been reflected in the PT. But that could've been done without retconning the Jedi into an insular cult. It would have been enough to say that the Jedi are so busy fighting the Clone Wars that they don't notice this guy is starting to crack under pressure, adopting unorthodox methods, reading forbidden scrolls, and all that.

In a way, it's too bad that Lucas had so little to do with Star Wars from 1983 until 1997. The story of an strictly monastic Jedi cult that drives one of their members to the Sith is a pretty good one, and he could've given the story germ to an EU writer to flesh out. It could have been one of the Tales of the Jedi stories, thousands of years before ANH. It's a good story, it just doesn't work as Anakin's story.
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Yoda doesn't dress all that differently from Obi-Wan in ESB, and Anakin in ROTJ dressed EXACTLY like him, so it does predate the EU and firmly entrenches itself in O-OT Canon.
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Originally posted by: Scruffy
I agree that the Jedi should have had faults in the PT. The OT made Yoda and Obi-wan look like real dipsticks, and that should have been reflected in the PT. But that could've been done without retconning the Jedi into an insular cult. It would have been enough to say that the Jedi are so busy fighting the Clone Wars that they don't notice this guy is starting to crack under pressure, adopting unorthodox methods, reading forbidden scrolls, and all that.

In a way, it's too bad that Lucas had so little to do with Star Wars from 1983 until 1997. The story of an strictly monastic Jedi cult that drives one of their members to the Sith is a pretty good one, and he could've given the story germ to an EU writer to flesh out. It could have been one of the Tales of the Jedi stories, thousands of years before ANH. It's a good story, it just doesn't work as Anakin's story.


See I like the Jedi being a bunch of out of touch monks, cause it makes Lukes character that much better. I never understood why fans thought the Jedi should be this glamor bunch, cause if you watch just 4-6 again, Kenobi & Yoda were wrong the whole trilogy! They are lying to Luke, and everything they tried to steer him to in the end didn't work, cause it is eventually Luke who makes a new option NOT to fight and throw down his lightsaber, and that option was never presented once by Kenobi & Yoda.

The Monk aspect gives a good message to the viewer that in the end, all these PT characters grew up around Jedi, Politicians, War, etc, and none of them really grew up in a normal family. Padme was a queen at 14, is that normal? The Jedi are taken from their families, and become soldiers to the republic, and forsake a normal life, is that normal? Luke & Leia grew up as normal people who got involved with politicians and jedi AFTER they became adults, and it show how normal they are, and how they think alot more rationale then the PT characters did.

This is the one thing Lucas actually did right, was make the PT characters a bunch of screwups in that sense, so the OT characters can pick up the pieces and fix this mess. I still won't forgive Lucas for the turn scene, I have to look away whenever I watch it, it is truly awful.

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Originally posted by: Scruffy
When did the Jedi become monks?

In A New Hope, the first Jedi we meet is a hermit, but Obi-wan is apparently only a hermit because a) he is hiding from the Empire, and b) he is watching Luke. Ben tells Luke that he, "was once a Jedi Knight, the same as your father," and that, "Your father wanted you to have [his lightsaber] when you were old enough."

When ANH was produced, the tenets of Jedi Knighthood were ambiguous, but the Jedi could have children and could make decisions regarding the upbringing of their children, up to and including how they will be raised in the event that both parents die.

They could? According to what? As far as I've ever known, nothing outside of their abilities was ever even alluded to.

Originally posted by: Scruffy
Revenge of the Sith didn't particularly change anything, but it gave us a look at the effect this upbringing has on a young man.


I disagree completely. ROTS gave us a look at what happens when you treat someone as a saviour, but put no rules in place on them or give them things to do that you clearly should not be doing. Sending Anakin off to protect Padme shouldn't have been done since it was obvious he was falling in love. That and what just seemed like a sheer lack of punishment for breaking the rules were the big problem.

The Jedi survived for 1000 generations with these rules (Obi-Wan's words), there's no reason to believe that Anakin's turn was due to anything other than being "the chosen one", so no one seemed to want to give him some discipline.
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Originally posted by: lordjedi
Originally posted by: Scruffy
When ANH was produced, the tenets of Jedi Knighthood were ambiguous, but the Jedi could have children and could make decisions regarding the upbringing of their children, up to and including how they will be raised in the event that both parents die.

They could? According to what? As far as I've ever known, nothing outside of their abilities was ever even alluded to.

Anakin Skywalker had a son and, according to Obi-wan, wanted his son to have his lightsaber when he was old enough. That means that Jedi can have children and direct the upbringing of those children, even after their death through informal or formal last wishes. You can retcon it by saying Obi-wan was lying the whole time, but until the PT there was no need to retcon it. Even if Obi-wan was lying, he was telling a lie that he thought was palatable. If the Jedi were notoriously celibate, as they are in the PT, he would not have told Luke that his father was a Jedi. That lie would invite dangerous questions. He would've told a more serendipitous lie. The obvious interpretation of the scene was that Anakin expected to have children, wanted one to be a Jedi, and that Obi-wan found nothing odd about this.

Originally posted by: Scruffy
Revenge of the Sith didn't particularly change anything, but it gave us a look at the effect this upbringing has on a young man.

I disagree completely. ROTS gave us a look at what happens when you treat someone as a saviour, but put no rules in place on them or give them things to do that you clearly should not be doing. Sending Anakin off to protect Padme shouldn't have been done since it was obvious he was falling in love. That and what just seemed like a sheer lack of punishment for breaking the rules were the big problem.

No, there were plenty of rules in place. Anakin bitched about the rules from time to time, and his elders and peers restated the rules for audience members who didn't catch on right away. There was no punishment because the violations weren't known to those in authority. They remained unknown because Anakin worked very hard to keep his relationship with Padme a secret; he did that because he was afraid of the punishment for violating the rules. That's how punishments work: They either deter behavior or they make offenders offend much more carefully.

And it probably wasn't obvious that he was falling in love with Padme. The Jedi didn't seem to know very much about love. We already know Obi-wan could read Anakin about as well as I read Linear B. (That is, not at all.) The Jedi council was composed mostly of nonhumans, of whom probably very few could pick up on subtle human behavioral cues. Even when Obi-wan did figure out there was an Annie Jr. on the way, he couldn't chalk it up to something so uncouth as love. When he confronts Padme before stowing away on her starship, he doesn't say, "You're in love, aren't you?" He says, "Anakin's the father, isn't he?" He doesn't consider the relationship that exists between these people, only the biological consequence of their coupling. Someone who believes fervently that desire is Wrong and unwittingly reduces a years-long relationship to "He knocked ya up" probably doesn't have the necessary empathy to pick up when a person is falling in love.

The Jedi survived for 1000 generations with these rules (Obi-Wan's words), there's no reason to believe that Anakin's turn was due to anything other than being "the chosen one", so no one seemed to want to give him some discipline.

I'm not sure I follow. Who would have disciplined Anakin, and for what? His affair was unknown to his superiors, except to Obi-wan near the end. His overreaction on Tatooine was unknown to his superiors; it's not Padme's job to discipline him. (Not without negotiationg the scene and agreeing on a safe word, anyway.) He really doesn't live an undisciplined life; he's apparently monogamous, has no vices, advanced rapidly through a difficult career, and maintained a secret second life. He did most of that while fighting as some kind of special operative and/or officer in a war. You don't do that if you can't stick to certain rules. Sure, he freaked out a little when his mother was raped to death or when he didn't get a promotion, but those are isolated events and not patterns of behavior. The pattern is one of a very disciplined man.

And could you supply a quote in context for that surviving a thousand generations under the late-Republic era rules? I don't own the PT, and I'd like to read that scene. Thanks. (Even if the Jedi did survive for ~25ka under the late-Republic system of rules, we don't know that they prospered continuously the whole time. There could have been many, many failed Jedi like Darth Vader that simply aren't mentioned because without the backing of the Supreme Chancellor they were quietly killed.)
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Originally posted by: CO

See I like the Jedi being a bunch of out of touch monks, cause it makes Lukes character that much better. I never understood why fans thought the Jedi should be this glamor bunch, cause if you watch just 4-6 again, Kenobi & Yoda were wrong the whole trilogy! They are lying to Luke, and everything they tried to steer him to in the end didn't work, cause it is eventually Luke who makes a new option NOT to fight and throw down his lightsaber, and that option was never presented once by Kenobi & Yoda.

Like I said, I agree that the Jedi were dipsticks and Luke's repudiation of them is what makes RotJ good. But the monastic model of dipstick just doesn't work for me. No one in the OT indicates that Jedi didn't have kids; not when Obi-wan first tells the story, not when Yoda is training Luke, not when Vader reveals who's the daddy, not when Yoda confirms it, not when Obi-wan tells the corrected version of the story, not when Luke and Leia briefly discuss their parents on Endor, not when Palpatine gloats about turning Luke's father, and not when Vader is dying and saying his last words to Luke. This story point could have been introduced at almost any point throughout the three movies, and it was not. There's nothing about it in the contemporary novelizations, or in what I've heard of the radio dramas. As far as I can tell, it just wasn't part of the conceptualization of the Jedi until some time after 1983, and it's incongruous with the Star Wars material made before 1999.

The Monk aspect gives a good message to the viewer that in the end, all these PT characters grew up around Jedi, Politicians, War, etc, and none of them really grew up in a normal family. Padme was a queen at 14, is that normal? The Jedi are taken from their families, and become soldiers to the republic, and forsake a normal life, is that normal? Luke & Leia grew up as normal people who got involved with politicians and jedi AFTER they became adults, and it show how normal they are, and how they think alot more rationale then the PT characters did.


Leia was a senator by the age of what, 19? That's not really normal, even if the Imperial Senate was a sinecure. I don't know how normal being a queen at 14 is, but it's not unheard of for children to ascend the throne while a regent rules until they reach the age of majority. This might be done in an elective monarchy solely because the majority of electors prefer a regent to a strong monarch, especially if the constitution term limits monarchs. But I must confess I don't remember whether or not Amidala had any real executive power; besides one viewing of The Phantom Edit, I haven't seen The Phantom Menace since opening day. I just remember thinking the constitution of Naboo would either have been really cool or really stupid. (They let the Gungans live there, so probably stupid.)
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I tend to agree with Scruffy here. While it was neat to show the Jedi as having flaws in the PT, the way George Lucas did that was so one-dimensional, boring, and sloppy that I can't enjoy it anyways. Why destroy practically every neat thing the OT implied about the Jedi for that?

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005