I see a lot of banter back and forth across the internet about "who were the good guys in Star Wars", and some make decent cases for the less obvious choice of "the Empire, naturally". But I think this is the first article I've read that I agree with wholeheartedly:
http://thefederalist.com/2015/11/10/star-wars-has-no-good-guys/
The Jedi do seem to be remarkably ill-suited to heroism. It's surprising that the Sith have never managed to rebel against the obvious flaws in the Jedi religion ("Don't love anyone") without somehow going all the way to murder and will-to-power nonsense.
ReplyDeleteThere are no good guys. The Jedi exist to make Sith, for example. Forgot whatever code those two orders used, but it was like two sides of the same flame.
ReplyDeleteIt's surprising that the Sith have never managed to rebel against the obvious flaws in the Jedi religion ("Don't love anyone") without somehow going all the way to murder and will-to-power nonsense.
ReplyDeleteLogically they should have, and in certain game mediums like Stars Wars the Old Republic the topic is handled with a little bit more interesting setups. But Lucas isn't the writer that can explore human values and emotions. Witness his Dark Hero Jedi in SW movie 1-3, love of padme, as one example of how someone who does not control or understand human emotions, somehow got to write 3 lectures about it on the big screen.
"The Jedi do seem to be remarkably ill-suited to heroism. It's surprising that the Sith have never managed to rebel against the obvious flaws in the Jedi religion ("Don't love anyone") without somehow going all the way to murder and will-to-power nonsense."
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to me how many people are surprised when I point out that the whole "Jedi are not allowed to love" thing simply never existed prior to Attack of the Clones. Ever. Not mentioned even once. Most people think that it was always there, because that's one of the foibles of human memory, but it was not.
And frankly, it is simply another stupid idea George Lucas shoehorned into the plot in order to explain the Fall of Anakin Skywalker. Did you need to have Anakin keep his relationship with Padme a secret in order to explain his fall? Absolutely not. In fact, prior to Attack of the Clones, I had always assumed his fall would come because of a belief that Obi Wan and she were having an affair. You know, the whole Othello thing.
In fact, I posit that the very idea of it is foolish. After all, we know that the Force "runs" in families, and is if not genetic it is at least inheritable. That being the case, the Jedi order ought to at least encourage Force users to have relationships if not demand an outright breeding program.
As for the Sith, well... what we get from the films is basically five figures ever mentioned (Darth Sideous, Darth Maul, Darth Tyrannus aka Count Dooku, Darth Plageous, and Darth Vader). And the title "Dark Lord of the Sith". And that's it. Oh. And the Jedi saying the Sith were defeated centuries ago and that they're just legends. Not a lot to go on.
Now, there's all kinds of stuff in the "Expanded Universe" (now called Star Wars Legends by Disney). But the majority of that stuff is contradictory fan fictions that make a jumbled mess. Under the Lucas days of Star Wars, I could have written a licensed Star Wars fiction stating that the Sith all had an insatiable lust for banana cream pies (sorry... dinku fruit cream pies*), and it would have been just as "canon" as anything else. So I'd stay away from that nonsense.
* on the topic of dinku fruit, it's a yellow tubular shaped fruit that has a thick fibrous peel that grows on the planet Dathomir. Now, did I make that up, or is it part of the Expanded Universe? Here's a hint, you cannot know the answer to that unless you go look it up. Which is a perfect example of why this EU stuff is a bunch of crap.
Star Wars Republic Commandos is perhaps a better introduction to that setting for pro military cultures and populations, than many other alternatives.
ReplyDeleteThe Japanese martial art dynasties and historical dramas, would most definitely have made better work of Yoda and Obi Wan's life and motivations. That kind of setting is something that is still alive in the Japanese sub cultures and some family dynasties. For a Western writer to do that, they must reproduce a chain of human events and lives, which they have never seen nor lived. Extremely difficult.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jedi_Code
ReplyDeleteThe key thing I usually come to is... don't read anything written by Lucas directly.
It doesn't produce a better canon, that's not the point. But it is far more internally consistent.
It is interesting to me how many people are surprised when I point out that the whole "Jedi are not allowed to love" thing simply never existed prior to Attack of the Clones. Ever. Not mentioned even once.
ReplyDeleteOK, but it's implicit in the source material. The Jedi are a band of warrior-monks in a fictionalized version of the Chan / Zen tradition of Buddhism. It's just that chi really works in the Star Wars world, and we call it 'the Force,' and the swords are made out of plasma or something.
So when they say 'no having love relationships,' it seems like a natural outgrowth of the world because that's exactly how the monastic orders worked. It's not a strange addition, but rather an ascetic principle that their historical antecedents really obeyed.
Implicit when? Did Obi Wan ever bother to mention it to Luke? Did Yoda? If it was so important, you'd think they'd have at least made a pass at it. And as for the "warrior/monk" bit, their robes were vaguely samurai-esque but that was a warrior class in Zen Buddhism that had no prescription against romantic entanglements. Ascetic monk? Not that Obi Wan or Yoda ever indicated. Perhaps some manner of hermitism given that both were in exile in distant wildernesses, but no indication of asceticism.
ReplyDeleteNor, for that matter are all monastic orders ascetic. Admittedly, most are, but again, I feel it's irrelevant. The few descriptions of the Jedi Order we are given in the original Trilogy are vague at best.
"For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights [note: not monks] were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic."
"A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph! Adventure. Heh! Excitement. Heh! A Jedi craves not these things."
There's a bit more on the Force, but on the Jedi themselves? Not much to go on.
Implicit when? Did Obi Wan ever bother to mention it to Luke? Did Yoda?
ReplyDeleteIf they had, it would be explicit, not implicit. :)
The whole idea of training a "knight" through mindfulness meditation is right there from the beginning, though. It's Luke with the face shield down, becoming aware of the movement of life force through the universe. It's the old chi myths about great martial arts that become possible through meditation. That's what I mean by implicit: it's never stated, but this is the source material that's being drawn on in painting these Jedi.
The Expanded Universe (which Disney tossed out) has Coruscant Jedi as celibate et al, but those from other worlds do marry, although they usually don't make a big deal about it, especially in the Late Republic. Corran Horn's father was a Jedi from Corelia.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I used to be a HUGE Star Wars novel reader. Then Lucas and the whole Yuzhon Vong thing torpedoed it.
LittleRed1
That's what I mean by implicit: it's never stated, but this is the source material that's being drawn on in painting these Jedi.
ReplyDeleteCopied by wannabes like Lucas, certainly. But that doesn't mean their quest for knowledge and secret power, ever got them anywhere close to the truth.
Maybe Hollywood actors like Tom Cruise in various samurai esque settings, could fake it, if the director and writers had a clue. But in the case of SW, Lucas, the head tyrant in charge of things, doesn't even have a clue.
Thus the need to sideline him and look around at the rest of the community.