#Anti “The Jedi Did Nothing Wrong”

[nerdpickle]

Hey, remember that time the Jedi sided with the colonizers and slavers against the indigenous population who fought back? 

Here’s the wookepedia link: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Kaleesh-Yam%27rii_war

[nerdpickle]

Preach

I know I seem to be writing a lot about my issues with certain aspects of how the Jedi were written lately, but I will say that I do like them over all—especially when we look at individual Jedi characters. What has been prompting my flurry of dissection of the less than nice aspects of the Jedi as an organization has been seeing a number of really uncomfortable arguments in their favor. I’m going to elaborate on this, but I’m putting it below a cut and tagging it as “jedi critical” so you can avoid it if it’s not your thing. So here is a list of fandom Jedi takes that I don’t love:

1. The insistence that the Jedi having a repressive view of emotions is nothing more than a fanon myth. Star Wars canon isn’t terribly consistent: it has a number of different writers and George Lucas is famously indecisive about his beliefs regarding canon. As a result, you have a hodgepodge of differing portrayals of Jedi, but the one that people are most familiar with is the one from the sequel and prequel trilogies. While it can be argued that the Jedi are more about controlling how you react to your emotions and avoiding harming people, especially if you look beyond the films and at other canon material, the first six films don’t do a great job of portraying the Jedi in that way. When Yoda himself has multiple lines about how certain emotions (not reactions to them, but emotions by themselves) are of the Dark Side, can you really blame people for coming to this conclusion? The same goes for the idea that they don’t *really* forbid romantic love. When you have a whole subplot involving a prominent Jedi Knight having to hide a romantic relationship or face expulsion from the Order for having a romantic relationship in any capacity, then this argument doesn’t hold a lot of water. A rule stating that “romantic partner = automatic expulsion” does not line up with the idea that Jedi only ban possessive love.

2. Having any sympathy for Anakin Skywalker means you think that he’s never done anything wrong ever. I acknowledge that rabid Anakin stans who bash every other character to prop him up are very much a thing, but I don’t believe that we need to shut down every discussion of Anakin that doesn’t paint him as an ungrateful brat who needed to stop having so many damned emotions. Anakin was intentionally written as a sympathetic antihero and later a sympathetic villain. People picking up on the sadder elements of his life and the times where he maybe didn’t get everything he needed from the Jedi Order are sniffing out intentionally placed story nuggets that are designed to make his betrayal of everyone he loved in ROTS that much harder to watch. Also, acknowledging that the Order may not have been a great fit for Anakin isn’t the same as saying that it was somehow abusive or evil. No organization, real or fictional, can meet the needs of every single person. Anakin was certainly loved and cared about in the Jedi Order, but his personality and trauma arguably made him incompatible with their lifestyle.

3. The weird vitriol at the idea of Gray Jedi. Gray Jedi were very much a thing in the legends continuity and have been a fanon staple for literal decades. A lot of people aren’t fond of this concept, because they feel that it misrepresents how the force works, particularly in current canon. That’s perfectly fine, but acting like this type of Jedi was never, ever a part of canon is silly. Insisting that it’s a cardinal sin to depict a Gray Jedi in fanworks, which exist specifically to be a free-for-all that may not be canon compliant, is just mean. You didn’t have to like every fanwork or concept, but you cannot control what other people create for fun.

4. Outright denial that the clones are enslaved by the Republic. Clones are described as “property” and “equipment”. The Republic BUYS them. They do not have a choice but to go to war and don’t seem to be paid much, if at all. When a group of people are owned, bought, and sold, they are slaves by definition. I understand that the Jedi were dealt a bad hand and weren’t in a great position to do much about the situation, but I and a lot of other people would have loved to see more instances of Jedi advocating for clone citizenship and freedom. People noticing that the Jedi could have done more for the clones are not stating that they think the Jedi were 100% okay with the situation, and it is entirely possible to acknowledge the deep Jedi/clone friendships that we see in canon while acknowledging what the Republic was doing to the clones. Justifications of the clones’ enslavement mentioning that they liked being soldiers (they didn’t know anything different) or were treated well by the Jedi (Pong Krell existed, and they were still owned by the Republic) make me very uneasy. If your defense of your blorbos reads like Neo-Confederate chattel slavery apologia retrofitted to be about pretend space people, then maybe it’s time to do a little bit of self-reflection.

5. Ableism. When you throw takes like “if the Jedi philosophy regarding emotions is so hard for you, then you are a baby or a sociopath” into the tumblrsphere, they are always going to fall and hit people with disabilities that cause emotional regulation issues. The line between stating that people should not use emotions as an excuse to harm others and outright attacking people for having intense emotions in general is one that I have seen crossed, shat on, and lit on fire in defense of the Jedi.

6. Equating criticism of the Jedi to real-wold prejudice. Saying that criticizing the Jedi is the same as being antisemitic or homophobic is uncalled for. Queer and Jewish people exist in the real world, and pretend space wizards do not. Comparisons like this are insulting because they put real-world prejudice and fandom wank over space wizards on the same level. Do better.

[short-wooloo]

Now that the trailer is out, it's probably best that I get this out of the way before acolyte releases

The Jedi are right about the Force and the dark side

The Jedi did not lose their way

The Jedi were not corrupted

The genocide of the Jedi was not their fault

The Jedi are not wrong for being part of the Republic, it is in fact a good thing

The Jedi are not arrogant for thinking the sith are gone

and while we're at it the sith are evil, always, end of discussion

The Jedi do not steal children

If someone wants to leave the Jedi, that's allowed, no one will stop them

The Jedi are right about attachment

Attachment is not love (SW uses the Buddhist definition because Lucas is a Buddhist and the Jedi are based off Buddhist monks, Buddhism defines attachment as being possessive or unwilling to let go of people or things)

The Jedi do not forbid emotions, they forbid being controlled by your emotions, you must control them

The Jedi are not forbidden from loving people, nor are they celibate, they just can't get married (big whup) because their duties must come first

Being peacekeepers doesn't preclude the Jedi from fighting in war, sometimes to keep the peace you have to fight back, especially when its against tyranny, see WWII (or Ukraine today)

Gray jedi are not a thing

The Jedi are not slavers or complicit in slavery

Oh and of course, the Jedi are not elitists for not training non Force sensitives, (Han voice) that's not how the Force works, dave filoni broke the rules so he could shoehorn sabine into a Jedi (to give the benefit of the doubt, I do believe sabine's role as ahsoka's apprentice was meant for an original character but things got condensed by executives, so maybe filoni isn't entirely to blame here)

(Edit)

The Jedi are not cops

The Jedi are not the government/the rulers of the Republic/galaxy

The Jedi do not persecute other Force groups

Padawans are not child soldiers

Feel free to add anything I forgot

Do not, DO NOT!! add anything Jedi critical, I'm done with it and won't hear it, don't have something nice to say? Then go away, I will block on sight, either reblog without comment (either in the reblog or the notes) or don't interact at all

[sonic-fairyspell]

The Jedi did nothing wrong. They didn't ""steal"" kids. They did not deserve to be fucking murdered. They weren't responsible for their genocide. They are not at fault for Anakin's Fall. They did everything they could do to help people. Anakin is responsible for his of his own actions and choices. That includes his choice to Fall and aid Palpatine instead of stop him, his choice to lead the mind controlled Clones into the Temple, his choice to lead the genocide of the Jedi, his choice to be literally the worst person in the galaxy, murder more people, and help lead and enforce the fascist Empire. Those were his choices, his actions. Not the Jedi's. Don't like it? Too bad, that's was the movies and shows literally show.

[vintageseawitch]

"omg i didn't know this book was based off a REYLO fanfic waaaah i don't like that 😭😭"

[the-pineapple-cake]

Why are so many time travel fics anti Jedi?

[antianakin]

I really do feel a lot of sympathy for the people who still have the softer anti-Jedi interpretation of Star Wars. You know the one, where the Jedi were good people individually and definitely didn't deserve to be genocided, but that their culture is repressive and isolating, and if they'd reformed it more then maybe Anakin wouldn't have gone dark, etc etc.

Because I believe that they love the Jedi. I do! You can often tell in some of the things they write about them, in meta or in fic, that they do genuinely LIKE the Jedi. And this interpretation very much does feel like it spawned as a way to fight back against the interpretation that "the Jedi were corrupt and that's the point of the Prequels" that was so popular right after the films were released and remains relatively popular today. It stands in a middle ground between "the Jedi are the heroes of the story who did nothing wrong" and "the Jedi are the true villains of the story who deserved to die" that allows for the Jedi to have been GOOD, just misguided.

This interpretation allows for these fans to find ways to SAVE the Jedi by having them reform themselves to, often, philosophies and practices that the canon Jedi actually already have. They often end up deciding that they CAN have relationships actually, so long as the don't let their relationships be prioritized over their duty or cause them to harm others. They often end up recognizing that balance means letting go of anger and fear rather than pretending it doesn't exist. They often end up realizing that mental health and therapy are good and important things.

These fans are SO CLOSE to getting it! All they need a little nudge to realize that the Jedi ALREADY HAVE ALL OF THAT. It's not a BETTER interpretation to see the Jedi as having caused their own destruction, intentionally or not. It doesn't necessarily make the story better to see it as true. It's not even necessarily more nuanced to view it that way.

As Jean-Luc Picard and Beyonce have taught us, sometimes you can do everything right, make no mistakes, and still lose. That's not failure, that's just life. The Jedi lost. They did everything right, as well as they could have under the circumstances, and lost due to things that were completely out of their control to change.

[third-generation-female-warrior]

Okay, so, fair warning, this is an anti-Reylo, anti-Kylo Ren, long analysis of The Acolyte, so if you choose to read this and get mad at me for bashing Kylo Ren, that's called a you problem.

Basically, seeing people compare the "situationship" between Quimir and Osha with whatever the fuck Reylo was and putting them on equal pedestals gives me the ick and I think I figured out why.

For clarity, I can't fucking stand Reylo for a lot of reasons, but for the sake of my analysis, I'll keep it condensed for why I can't stand Kylo Ren.

He is the warm mayonnaise of characters.

Don't get me wrong, he was generally interesting in The Force Awakens, when he was framed as the monster with a human face, and that's because the narration in TFA treated him like the goddamn villain he was supposed to be.

And then the pants were shat and the spine was broken when the narrative with The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker was doing backflips on a trampoline trying to give him pathos, trying to make him empathetic, while also decimating literally every other character to put him on a pedestal he didn't deserve on his spit-washed "redemption" arc.

To me, it was like they didn't know what to do with him. Those movies might have been okay if they just stuck with making him the villain and continued to treat him as such. But they didn't, even when he was making bad choices and did nothing but make BAD choices up until the actual last fight, and instead, framed all of this BAD CHOICES as "he's complicated~~ <3" and that's where it all fell apart because the narration didn't like, punish him AT ALL for making these bad and barely even framed these as objectively bad choices.

Now, the Acolyte is different.

In the middle of lavishing us with the eye candy that is Manny Jacinto, and Qimir's apparent lack of threat and honesty to Osha, the narrative did something interesting and brilliant that I hope they continue to lean into.

While showing us how non-threatening Qimir can be, we are given a very rude awakening.

When we cut back to Khofar, it is a very long, very uncomfortable lingering shot of Jekki's dead body, as she is positioned towards the audience with open eyes, not quite looking at the camera, but forcing us to look into the eyes of Jekki all the same.

It is a rude awakening, a reminder that Qimir is a deceiver, and, most importantly THE VILLAIN OF THE SHOW!!!!

Under the facade of the hapless sidekick to Mae was the Sith Master waiting to strike her down should she fail.

A reminder that, through his honesty and intentions with not harming Osha, he is a murderer who could remorselessly justify his own slaughter of an actual child.

We look on as it shows Yord in the dirt, and the pile of dead Jedi bodies and we see that what Qimir has done was terrible and devastating he does not care, even if we do.

And THEN, ohohoh!!! AND THEN! We see how his dark deeds were not solely committed on Khofar, but he is continuing to do terrible things on Ahch-To the Unknown Planet.

Oh, we thought, we thought Osha was safe because she could pin him with his own lightsaber, she could kill him, she could leave!

But it becomes very evident in the last 30 seconds that Osha was never safe as she puts on his helmet, surrounds herself in dark, and symbolically succumbs to it as she closes her eyes.

He has been corrupting her this whole time and that's treated AS A BAD THING, and THAT'S where The Acolyte succeeds and The Sequels failed!

Qimir for his apparent defensiveness, is still treated as the villain, his act of corruption and seducing Osha to the dark side is treated as a scary thing, where you shake your head at the t.v. and beg her to not do it even if you know she's going to anyways.

And then you realize the answer to his riddle to Mae.

You realize this is how you kill a Jedi without a weapon.

And it's all very very wrong.

And, better yet, to finish this off, even though the narration establishes MOTIVE for his anti-Jedi stance, with his scar leading to his supposed backstory of betrayal (that we have to take at face-value for now, even if I think there's more to reveal), the motivation is just narratively justifying him or his actions, and he is STILL THE VILLAIN WHO MUST BE STOPPED!!

[jedi-enthusiast]

Ok, I just realized something kinda hilarious since I’m bouncing between writing TGW and writing my Fallout 4 fic ‘and still, we stand’

I love writing morally grey characters, but I absolutely refuse to write morally grey characters in Star Wars, because like-

Let’s use ASWS as an example:

Arryn- (MC) -has been through a lot of trauma, so she doesn’t trust people at all and- (because of the specific trauma she suffered) -her gut reaction to most situations is violent. She hurts people, she kills people, she lies, she cheats, she always expects the worst of people…all to protect herself from ever being hurt again.

Her emotions are completely understandable, given what she’s been through, but that doesn’t mean her reactions are right.

A big part of her character development is learning that she doesn’t have to follow the “hurt others before they hurt you" way of thinking and that, when they're given the chance, most people will choose to be good. Yeah there's still jackasses and cruel people out there, this is Fallout after all, but no one expects her to be particularly optimistic or even for her to change her way of thinking all that much.

What she learns is that she doesn't need to distance herself from the people she cares about to avoid pain, she can trust people and lean on them when she needs to, and that she doesn't always need to expect the worst from people---because, more often than not, they'll surprise her if they're given the chance.

By the end of the fic, I'll be honest, Arryn doesn't necessarily change all that much---she still doesn't trust easily, she's still pessimistic, she still has a lot of baggage and unhealthy coping mechanisms...but the point is that she's grown. She's trying to be better, whatever that would look like fore her.

...

I cannot do that with Star Wars.

Because with Star Wars so many people have this idea of- "oh, this morally grey/terrible person is correct because fuck emotional control and being a decent person" -for reasons I don't understand.

If I wrote a fic, like I wanted to, about a Sith who was being trained by Dooku---but who eventually flipped sides because she started to care about the clones and, through that, started to have her views called into question---and had the Jedi try to help her to which she, due to her trauma, lashed out at them...

...an unfortunate amount of people would say that she was in the right.

They would say that she shouldn't control her emotions, that her accusations against the Jedi and Republic are valid, that she did nothing wrong during the war and her apprenticeship with Dooku.

And, personally, I don't want to have to write a fic where I'll constantly be having to write a 4k meta in the author's note section about why she is in the wrong and it is bad that she's doing what she's doing.

Which fucking sucks because, personally, I think I could do a really fucking cool story with the whole- "Sith apprentice changing sides during the war and all the drama/emotions/etc. that comes with that" -and I think I could execute it better than a lot of the people actually making content for Star Wars.

(looking at you Felony and Headland)

But, due to the lack of media comprehension and the---frankly stupid as fuck---attempts of the anti-Jedi crowd to make the Jedi out to be the "bad guys" of Star Wars, I refuse to write the fic I want.

So yeah, there's my rant of the day.

Sorry if it didn't make sense.

It's 1 am.

[nerdpickle]

Feel Free to explain yourselves in the comments, just remember, if you can’t take, don’t give

[shadowmaat]

To save a padawan

I'm wildly curious to know what would have happened if Barriss hadn't come forward and confessed and Ahsoka was convicted of treason.

The Jedi angle would be interesting all on its own. I can think of a couple of them, at least, who'd try and find a way to save her. And a couple more who might turn a blind eye to those efforts.

Mostly, though, I want to know what would happen with Anakin and Palpatine. Would Anakin go full Murder Mode to save her? I can see him killing or seriously injuring anyone who got in his way. He'd grab Ahsoka and run, and damn the consequences. Which, y'know, would land solidly on the Jedi.

Palps would play so many opportunities in this. First, the woeful apologies to Anakin about how there's "nothing he can do" and golly gee, if only he had more power maybe he could have prevented this senseless tragedy, etc. And follow it up by pointing out that the Jedi could have stopped this at any time, but didn't. Feed all the fuel onto the inferno that is Anakin.

If Anakin did go rogue, would he use it to cement his plan of the Jedi being full of traitors? Would he enact Order 66 right then? Or would he play it up as Anakin being a poor little victim of Jedi mindwashing and propaganda? Anakin isn't the problem, oh no. It's the Jedi! Our Beloved Hero has taken drastic steps that only a Jedi would consider! He must be rescued! I will personally see to his rehabilitation!

Meanwhile, the Jedi are fucked. Even if they aren't instantly gunned down by the Coruscant Guard/whatever troopers are there, they still have to deal with the fallout of a political shrapnel bomb exploding in their midst. The public hates them more than ever. The Senate is howling for blood. Tarkin and his ilk want the Jedi declared enemies of the state and/or outright executed.

Obi-Wan is interrogated by the Council to try and figure out where Anakin would go and how to get him to surrender himself. He's sure that if he could just talk to Anakin he could get him to see sense! (lol, he's been trying that since he came to the Temple and it hasn't worked.)

Meanwhile, Ahsoka is probably shell-shocked. I dunno how she'd feel about whatever Anakin did to save her, but I'm sure the bitterness in her heart over the Jedi failing to act to save her would be well-fed by Anakin's anti-Jedi ranting. (She wouldn't know that there HAD been a plan to scoop her away at the last minute, but Anakin went and bulled his way through every inch of the china shop.)

Interesting food for thought. I'm not sure the Jedi would be able to salvage that one (assuming they aren't Purged right then). Among other things it would require Anakin to make a public apology, and that's as good as admitting he was wrong, and he wasn't!

[short-wooloo]

I really hate that "eventually one of you is going to snap" bit, because it's obviously referring to Anakin while completely misunderstanding the point of Anakin

Anakin did not snap because he was forced to control his emotions (I mean you could say he snapped with the tuskens, but that's him snapping because he stopped trying to control himself), he chose the dark side, that's how it works, the dark side is not some thing you do subconsciously and have no control of and is therefore "not reeeeeaaaaally evil" (as headland so obviously believes), it's a choice, it's evil, it's giving up on being in control and indulging in your baser desires

Really Anakin only snapped AFTER he turned to the dark side, when he lost his shit and started strangling Padme, when he had already betrayed the Jedi/Republic, murdered children, and destroyed democracy

The idea that he snapped just seems like more of that "he wasn't really in control of himself therefore he's not culpable for his actions" crap

[astheforcewillsit]

Sharing my thoughts about the dynamic between the clones and Jedi & that while they're all victims of the same war, there is a power imbalance that still exists between the two groups, where the Jedi inevitably have power within those dynamics to make life both better and worse for the clones, and we see examples of both.

There is a duality in their relationship with the troopers.

On one hand we have Shaak-Ti who's very presence in Kamino undid years of torture and abuse that the clones were going through, and created a safe person for many of them to go to when they felt unheard (because Fives and Echo asking a General if they could be switched from their squad, going past the chain of command and right to the top, and seeing absolutely nothing wrong with it implies that Shaak-Ti has created an environment where they are encouraged to ask her things).

Plo Koon and Yoda are famous for encouraging the clones to look to their own individuality, and I doubt we would have had some of the personalities we've gotten if the Jedi hadn't encouraged that.

And I've never once seen Mace Windu attempt or do anything wreckless that would mean the death of his men. His battle strategies rarely involve him running head first into a battle that would get his men killed.

When not with Anakin, Ahsoka clearly is uncomfortable with the dynamic between she and the clones, and refuses to kill them even when they want to kill her.

And on the other hand we have Pong Krell, who the Jedi continued to allow to be in command of clone troopers despite the high mortality rate amongst clones. Whether or not they were aware of his anti-clone sentiment is never answered, but they were privy to the death that surrounded him and still did not discipline him or remove him. By extension, Anakin and Quinlan Vos are the same.

The war is a game to Anakin, and while I'm sure he uses it to cope, his coping gets people needlessly killed. What's worse is that I don't think Pong Krell would have been arrested even for wanting to join Dooku and abusing the clones because the Jedi order allowed Quinlan Vos back in when he did the same thing.

All this to say, I do understand that the Jedi and the clones are both in the war together, but there is a power dynamic that exist that I think is worth exploring. The Jedi are somewhat responsible for the Jedi generals they put in control of clones

There's nothing that this post is supposed to prove, just an interesting look at how the Jedi Order operates on duality, and is not wholly good or bad. But that in the dynamic they have amongst the clones, they have considerably more power.

[tumblingxelian]

How does RWBY's worldbuilding hold up for you?

Ooh fun question, and one I can answer in a short amount of time!

Long story short, yeah it holds up quite well, I don't need to make any significant leaps in logic or desperately headcanon things to compensate the way I might with some other settings.

For instance most super hero settings don't hold up to scrutiny, or present themselves consistently/coherently once they starts whipping out the more ridiculous sci-fi tech and or magic.

This isn't to say its perfect, nothing is, or that there aren't more details I'd like to see explored or various minor nitpicks I could probably pull out if I felt so inclined.

But as it is, I don't, but its not because I just love the series.

See, as much as I love world building, I do think it gets too easily used as a cudgel by bad faith critics.

Let's be real here, even some of the worlds best authors do not have Tolkein's patience to create a whole new language, & I imagine even his stuff raised questions or inconsistencies.

The absence of local languages/accents, them not explaining the praying statues in the V4 trailer don't bug me. Cos their absence is not harming the story.

Meanwhile if there's an inconsistency or question, that too is fine as they are watched enough to avoid any real issues & so I can focus on having a good time.

Hell, let's bring up ATLA, the golden calf for critics who never watched anything else in their lives without asking "Where's the Zuko though?"

Off the cuff & late at night I can name many ATLA world building issues.

The writers one hundred percent do not grasp the philosophical ideas they are trying to espouse, showing a grasp of "Letting go" almost as wrongheaded anti Jedi people.

The origins and nature of bending is inconsistent even just within the first series, being and or coming from education, gifts, blood, spirits, some combination there-of or what have you.

If we jump to Korra the Spirits themselves are weird, initially presented as physical manifestations of a given land, they instead become essentially alien invaders & stuff like the Lion Turtles, Koi, Badger moles & more are just left as ???? Plus again spiritual misunderstanding.

Or heck, one of my biggest gripes ties into the plot as well but would be the introduction of "Bad firebending" and its counterpart "Good Firebending" introduced very late in the game at season 3.

The problem with saying it was meant to be a surprise is we've seen every Bender tap into anger when bending. Toph cracks the ground, Katara broke an iceberg, Aang goes into the Avatar State, ETC.

Anger & fire was only tied to two characters, Zuko during his season 1 lashing out period & Zhao where it was specifically cited as being unique to him and something to exploit.

Worse still, we've seen people happily Firebend, Aang;s issues with Firebending comes from having too much fun, getting careless with it & accidentally burn Katara. & we have seen sad or direction-less Zuko Firebend like a champ before now.

The 'revelation' of "Good Firebending" is the wrong solution to Aang's issue cos it does nothing about fires tendency to burn, & a solution looking for a problem that had to be tailor made for it to fix & did not exist before, Zuko.

The thing is though, while I will happily harp on the last one as part of a greater collection of issues in season 3. The truth is people are not bothered by these things if they watch a show in good faith.

One doesn't even need to like a show to do this, its just part of the deal when watching fictional media that some stuff is not always going to add up perfectly.

What matters is if the writers made it interesting, feel like it fit coherently within the world and kept it consistent enough that it didn't break the story.

Which CRWBY very much do.

They created a wide, vibrant, varied and interesting world, where a multitude of stories could and do take place that can be expanded upon if one wants.

They created and kept consistent its internal logic as best as it can be conveyed to we the audience when the characters also don't know everything.

Above all they used it to tell a interesting and engaging story, where skill & strategy matter so much in combat Where its so easy to believe bandits and criminals can thrive in the wild. Where the introduction of something like the Ever After can actually fit and feel like a revelation rather than break the story!

So yeah, I really enjoy RWBY's world building :)

[marvelstars]

Tolkien LOTR vs George Lucas STAR WARS

Disclaimer: talking with mutuals about Tolkien and Lucas this came up and wanted to share.

I believe both Tolkien and Lucas were anti imperialism(represented by the ring/empire respectively) and anti war but their takes is completely different because they lived different times.

Tolkien story of the lost kings who died for nothing seeking power represents pretty well the story of the first World War in which the imperial powers of Europe became excited over their new hability to put ot test weapons and made a local conflict into an all out war between countries exploiting the nationalism of the people to push them towards war, the tirednes and dissapointment over fighting a war for men who only wanted power is excelently interpreted in the Lord of the Rings in which the only solution is to destroy the ring and try to live peacefully with each other and support honest work and protect lives the best way you can, with wise kings and wise elves who care about people and it´s well being. That´s what I see Tolkien going for, he also tackles the idea that no matter how noble or peaceful like Fredo or Bilbo we could be, power still can corrupts us if we expend enough time around it. Power can corrupt everybody and the best we can do is try to not make it the most important thing in our lifes like Aragorn did when he became King.

Lucas wasn´t a soldier like Tolkien so he is much more idealist than him, he grew up and became excited over the protests for the war of Vietnam in the US and the consequences of WWII with the creation of the atomic bomb. So Star Wars battle in the OT isn´t just about greedy people trying to get power by any mean neccesary, the first trilogy is about a fair war fought agaisnt the imperial power who offered peace in exchange of freedom, which is another face imperialism can take and the death star(atomic bomb) is the one weapon they believe can “end all resistance” "end all wars" but they are wrong because just like in a New Hope, the Death Star only makes other people more nervous about it´s use and most will seek how to oppose it with similar means or with different kinds of resistence.

Star Wars presents the problematic dilema of war not being good on itself but becoming neccesary when your opponent will not engage in dialogue by any other means, so just like in LOTR the kingdoms have to join to form a military, the rebel alliance is there to fight the Empire.

The Jedi Order in the OT represents the old order, estatus quo that the Empire defeated to put their own Order, they are not evil by any means but by presenting a “ends justifices the means” philosophy by lying to Luke and forgetting about Anakin´s humanity and existence in exchange of dehumanizing him and seeing him only as a machine like Obi-Wan did, this doesn´t bring them the victory, mostly their plan gets revealed and rejected by Luke, the main hero of the OT, the fandom may have a very different take on the Jedi but Lucas definitely didn´t write the Jedi as flawless beings but as a tragic order that after the zenit of their power fell along with Anakin, literally and espiritually too. Otherwise Lucas would not talk about Anakin being a victim of the system who lost his mind trying to do the right thing, he wasn´t just part of the Republic but also part of the Jedi Order.

Luke, while dealing with his own feelings of anger, need for revenge for his murdered family and wish for freedom along with his friends, also learns humility by losing his first fight with Vader but also empathy, he has feel the darkness inside himself, he was told his father wasn´t always like that and he has felt Vader´s twisted love for him so he humanizes his enemy instead of dehumanizing him and seeks to save him from the darkside, because this has become the only way to defeat Vader and the Emperor while they are together and also because Luke wants Vader to be his father just as much as Vader wants Luke to be his Son.

So in the end family is the thing that saves the universe in Star Wars just like friendship, care, empathy and appreciation of the simple and beautiful things saved the people of LOTR. The Jedi imo in the PT and OT were not evil, they had their own wisdom and brought good things to the story like honor and duty but they were wrong to try to force Luke agaisn´t his father, they were wrong for keeping Anakin away from his family and they were wrong to forget love in exchange of duty.

This is also why I believe Luke doesn´t just brings back Anakin from the darkside, he did the same with the Jedi Order, he became the kind of Jedi Anakin always dreamed to be, with enough freedom to act with kindness, love and caring as well as honor and duty, a more balanced Jedi Order.

So it´s a complete shame disney missed the memo and makes more merchandise of the Jedi because they are more marketable forgetting the deep message of the story. Luke in the Mandalorian and ST isn´t ROTJ Luke, but a badly done PT Jedi style of Luke and that´s a complete tragedy imo because it misses the main message of the story, that you don´t have to reject love and family to support ideals and do your duty. They make you whole not less the person you are.

[garden-bug]

Luke's inner conflict surrounding attachment and the Jedi code from my Dinluke fic

“Love and compassion are the Jedi way.” “But not family.” Luke is again stabbed by that brief, painful conversation. Sometimes moments of it will play out in his head and it’s as if he’s there again, except in his mind he stays and doesn’t leave, and he has an answer for Din when he says that the Jedi way is incompatible with the Mandalorian values of family.  “Luke. It's normal to be afraid for the people you care about, but that doesn't make it okay to push human connection away. Yes, it might be hard to figure this out as a Jedi, but what you're doing right now is avoiding your fear, which isn't going to make you any less afraid or the reality that bad things do happen any less painful.” Leia has always been wiser than him. “I believe the Jedi lost their way. Instead of dealing with how we felt in a healthy way, we were encouraged to push our fear and anger away, and many of us, Anakin included, bottled it up. He was… scared of something, and nobody helped him, or reassured him, because it was about your mother and he’d broken the Jedi code to be with her.” Ahsoka became completely disenchanted with the Jedi. And Luke doesn’t blame her — not after what she went through. It’s no wonder she struggles to associate herself with the name. In her view, the Jedi failed his father, she failed his father — even though there was nothing anyone could have done to prevent him from turning to the dark side.  He… he would never have made the choice his father did. If it came down to it, if it was Din in his mother’s place — “I can’t choose you, I can never choose you. Can you really tell me you understand that?” Din brought a hand up to his helmet. “I don’t know.”  What did Din mean then? He didn’t know if he could understand putting someone above everyone and everything, including what you believe in?  “Had she said the word, I would have left the Jedi Order to be by her side.” And even Ben. Why would he have had to leave the Order?  The point is — It all comes back to — Leia.  “…what you're doing right now is avoiding your fear, which isn't going to make you any less afraid or the reality that bad things do happen any less painful.” He wants to make Din understand, maybe by pushing him down and kissing him, because why the Force shouldn’t he love someone like that? Yes, it’s terrifying, but he’d sure rather love Din and have that than end up like Ben (sorry, Ben) who for some reason had the idea that loving someone equalled selfishness and destroyed your ability to put anything or anyone above the person you love and therefore was the antithesis of the Jedi code. “Attachments lead to pain, pain leads to suffering. The path to the dark side, it is.” But Yoda didn’t mention that pain is caused by fear of loss. Fear of loss is a result of one’s inability to accept that loss is part of life. Attachment does not mean love. Attachment means… a desire for control over things in life that cannot be controlled. Being tied to them. And as much as Luke loves Din he would never want to be tied to him in that way. As a Jedi, Luke must love with acceptance that everything he loves he may one day lose. Otherwise, he risks following in the footsteps of his father. Can he do it?

Further:

Context for the story: Luke is trying to rebuild the Jedi Order, falls in love with Din (who decides to embrace being the Mand'alor after being inspired by Luke), has a terrifying vision that his attachment to Din will lead to pain, and pretty much runs away to Leia on Coruscant where he tries to figure the whole thing out.

Ahsoka has gone anti-Jedi because she had a traumatic experience and still blames herself and everyone for what happened to Anakin. This is a character flaw she may or may not overcome in this story.

When Din says "but not family" implying that he believes family goes against the Jedi code, he is in the wrong and later feels immensely guilty because 1) it's mean (he was upset) and 2) his idea of family is mightily messed up, having been raised by a cult. The extremity of the guilt he feels is, though, irrational, because he has a lot of issues and he was having a panic attack in the scene where he reflects on what he said which messes up your judgement (source: personal experience).

I will revise this section because I don't think it represents Obi-Wan's feelings for Satine (I'll need to think about this more):

he’d sure rather love Din and have that than end up like Ben (sorry, Ben) who for some reason had the idea that loving someone equalled selfishness and destroyed your ability to put anything or anyone above the person you love and therefore was the antithesis of the Jedi code.

Luke fully recognises here that Anakin's own choices led him to becoming Vader. (Something Ahsoka still struggles to accept.) If this is not something you agree with please DNI with this post or with me, because I will not change my opinion.

Save for that, I would absolutely appreciate any comments or insight (I may not take them into account, but I'd be interested to hear them anyway because I want to offer as rich an insight as I can into this issue and discussion is super great for that). Also I think I might have clarity issues in this passage so if anything is unclear feel free to let me know (kindly - I am human).

Also important: I am NOT writing a Luke who 'gives up' being a Jedi because omg Din Djarin! They are both incredibly interesting characters in their own right with their own beliefs that are integral to who they are and I intend to do them as much justice as I can.

If you read the story (which I will link below) please be aware that it is a first draft and therefore I don't feel that it perfectly expresses all of the messages I want to get across. Still, huge thanks if you give it a try!