#The Jedi Order as institution

[ncfan-1]

It’s striking to me that of all the non-legacy character Jedi we spend any real amount of time with in The Acolyte, only the Brendok Four lack surnames. Jecki and Yord have surnames; Yord’s apprentice Tasi, who we only see for a few minutes, has a surname; Mog has a surname. But the four Jedi most integral to the plot do not.

Names are an important signifier of identity. Surnames in particular help to give a sense of where you came from, what your roots are. In the case of the Jedi, it gives us a sense of their pre-existing roots, a sense of the idea that they had lives and connections to the outside galaxy that predates their admission to the Order. But the Brendok Four are rootless. You get no sense of who or what they were before they were Jedi; the most we hear is that Torbin’s family was extremely poor, and that he was born on Bonadan. That his family’s poverty is highlighted suggests that his recruitment to the Jedi was not coerced, per se, but that it was a decision that might not have been made had his family not been in such dire straits. And that Torbin’s surname is omitted distances him from his family, from the life he led before he was a Jedi. Just like with the other three, who have no visible connection to their past before the Jedi.

It adds a certain dimension to the Brendok Massacre. The four of them seem to serve the function not just as individual Jedi who make terrible decisions based on their preconceived notions of the witches, but with their lack of roots and lack of any identifying features outside of their affiliation with the Jedi, also seem to serve the function of acting as the hands and feet of the Order.

They, specifically Sol and Torbin, make judgments about the witches based on their preconceived notions of them. Sol draws his lightsaber against Mother Aniseya because he automatically, without any real evidence, assumes that she is doing harm when she transforms herself and Mae. Indara seems to have preconceived notions of her own, given that during the massacre she makes the same decision as Sol but writ large, automatically assuming that it’s the witches completely in the wrong when she moves to expel them from Kelnacca’s mind, not stopping to figure out what was going on and acting with no thought given to the potential consequences. (Kelnacca’s sheer thinness of presence in this episode is frankly a weak spot in the storytelling.)

Where do these preconceived notions come from? The Jedi Order’s official line is that there’s only one way to access the Force, and that if you don’t do it their way, it will just fade. The Order encourages Jedi to see the Force and Force-wielders in binary. Light and Dark. Good and evil. And everyone who doesn’t do it their way is… what, exactly?

The Brendok Four, unmoored from their prior lives, with no markers of identity outside of their affiliation with the Jedi Order, effectively become the Order during the massacre, enacting the Order’s official line that their way of accessing the Force is the only correct way. Enforcing the Order’s official line that there is only one way to access the Force.

—

There’s something else: Osha. Osha is shown as a child to have long desired a different life for herself, and was at least aware of the Jedi’s existence before they first intruded upon her life.

And Osha is offered a different life than the one she currently has by Sol. An opportunity to become a Jedi.

But the Jedi who approaches Osha has no visible ties to his life before the Order. He has no roots outside of the Jedi. No identity outside of his affiliation to the Order. It’s a warning to Osha, though she is so young that she doesn’t even recognize it as a warning, let alone one she should heed. If you become a Jedi, all you have is the Jedi. And if the Jedi decide they don’t want you, then you will have nothing at all.

[intermundia]

one thing i love about star wars is that the jedi are monks with dangerous psychic space magic, and so they're monks on purpose. they're joyfully and intentionally participating in their institution and finding meaning and happiness in life as monks—anakin is the exception that proves the rule!

it makes me happy to see as many people in the world live like this, and are quite happy with rich, full lives in fellowship with their fellow monks, practicing the tenets of their philosophies, studying the world and themselves, handing down their traditions and wisdom, always helping others; this is such a valid and good way to live, not any kind of oppression.

if anakin had been less selfish, if he had internalized and practiced the jedi philosophy of moderation and compassion, he could have had a rich, happy life (if only he lived in an age without the malice and menace of the sith!) and that's the root of his tragedy that he turned away from those bonds and generous purpose toward his own private pleasure.

it's not easy to practice discipline, but it's so worth it, both for you and everyone whose lives you can touch. it bothers me when i see comments openly and offensively denigrating all organized living; the individualistic amatonormative anti-religion biases of sw fandom are unfortunately on almost continual display. not all religions and religious organizations are abusive and controlling!

i believe from the bottom of my aromantic heart that one don't need romantic love and a nuclear family to be a full human being with a good life. these monks follow their philosophy of moderation and discipline in fellowship with their monastic fellows on purpose and by choice so they can serve the galaxy, and this is such a commendable life full of meaning and love.

the tragedy of their genocide is visible in how that force of generosity and hope for the galaxy was wiped away, for the violent enforcement of a brutal era of exploitation and greed. when luke restores the order and the jedi return, that form of joy in service and endless compassion is returned too. it's a beautiful thing that continually inspires me to live a better and more moderate and generous life.

[mirrorofliterature]

holy shit no thinking that the jedi order PT's interpretation of attachment includes healthy love does not mean we are people to be pitied or have a warped view of love, ffs

it means we can properly interpret the movies

'yeah, the bond between parents and children is inherently unhealthy, that's why it's bad that anakin is scared for the life of his enslaved mother, WHO HE LEFT BEHIND'

these people -

once again.

the PT interpretation of attachment does not align, on screen, with the buddhist interpretation/conceptualisation. it is warped and extreme and apathetic; it is inflexible. it does include love.

kind of a crucial part of the PT.

just a little bit

[fancyhandsbakery]

I don't know why, but people who think Aang should have killed Ozai instead of honoring his people's beliefs and Jedi haters fall into the same category.

[wlwanakin]

star wars fandom is awesome because you can say something like “a militarized religious institution having child soldiers is bad” and you’ll actually have people try to be like “UM ACTUALLY”

[mann-walter]

Order 66 was not simply wiping out a practical political obstacle. It was also, importantly, an ideologically-charged genocide. I don’t think any shortcoming the Jedi had warranted erasing them from the face of the galaxy, not to mention their younger members: the younglings for example, and younger padawans too. I’m sure they tailed their masters to various meetings and conflict settlements, but I don’t think they would have understood what was really happening—like the more complicated political and economic sides to them. I also don’t really think they had the power to shift anything of significance, making next to nothing happening their fault. They were children by our standards, thrust into a bloody war.

I find it distasteful to say “They had it coming”, disturbing even. And to continue that by saying you’re a supporter of the Sith…

…it’s all a bit of an exaggeration though. At the end, it’s all fiction. But I’m still gonna give you a side-eye.

Just saying though: the Sith is evil both in theory and in practice. If there is anything they adhere to or worship in the galaxy it is power and themselves. They are Social Darwinists and megalomaniacs. They believe Force sensitivity grants them a divine right to rule (oppress) others, it doesn’t help that some of their recruits, like Palpatine, have a “Providence had chosen me to”-sense of their own. This is also enshrined in their creed, which BTW was inspired by Hitlerian thinking with all the “there is only struggle”, the idolization of power and strength, the iron will-begotten victory, and the “Providence had chosen me to”-sense. All that stuff.

[mearchy]

I actually think I put my finger on the thing that most bothers me about the perpetual pro vs anti Jedi discourse, which is that everybody argues for their interpretation of the Jedi as though the Jedi were a monolith. As though there were not 10,000+ of them spread across multiple temples, from many different homeworlds, with unique paths and individual connections to the Force. It doesn’t seem right to me to assert absolutes about what the Jedi code Actually Meant and whether it was too dogmatic or applied correctly by the Order or whatever when I think we can see in canon that you would get different answers about its meaning and application from the Jedi themselves, even the ones that inhabited and learned in the same temple. I feel like that’s the point of a lot of what we get shown in the prequels and TCW.

[chamerionwrites]

See I honestly do find the prequels-era Jedi an interesting (and at times painfully recognizable) portrait of institutional violence in that...they aren't cackling villains. They're mostly sympathetic well-intentioned individuals who via a combo of traditionalist inertia, ideological blinders, proximity to power, a dash of plain old arrogance and a liberal seasoning of end-justifies-the-means compromise end up being at best indifferent to and at worst deeply complicit in some pretty heinous injustice. I don't even think this is a completely against-the-grain reading on my part. At the end of the day it's a pretty mild critique, but it's hard to argue that the PT is entirely uncritical of the Jedi imo.

Unfortunately the narrative is never interested in really sinking its teeth into that. And even more unfortunately, a chunk of the fandom will clutch its pearls in horrified outrage if anybody else is interested in sinking their teeth into that

[aspiringnexu]

Something I've never really understood is people comparing Star Trek and Star Wars. Not only because the genres are so different (sci-fi vs sci-fantasy) or the fundamental difference that is the absence of Earth entirely in the Star Wars universe (Star Trek is meant to be about a recognisable, if improbable, future, whereas Star Wars is a Space Opera a Long Time Ago and Far Far Away).

But the biggest difference I see is that the two are set in fundamentally different times.

Yes, yes, I know that's obvious. I literally just pointed out the 'Long Time Ago' bit, but bear with me.

Star Trek is set in a time where exploration is still the order of the day. The Alpha quadrant is still being explored, new species are still being discovered. The Beta and Gamma quadrants are the big new frontiers. The Delta Quadrant has one very hazily mapped squiggly line with a few gaps thanks to Voyager but even that small portion was chock full of New Things. The Galaxy is still divided and unknown with new stations and trade routes popping up all over the place.

Meanwhile Star Wars is old. Real old. By the time of the Clone Wars the Republic has gone through different eras. There was a golden age. It has come and gone already. Sure there are still the Unknown Regions but it is fairly fucking rare to come across a brand spanking new space-faring race or rival government. Coruscant as the heart of the Republic has not been outright attacked for a millennium by the time of the CW. The galaxy is such a hot mess of a melting pot that only the truly reserved and isolationist species are rare to see. Humans have been buggering about and propogating so much that now its impossible to tell where they actually all came from because Alderaan? Naboo? Corellia? All major human hubs, but you could say the same about dozens of other planets, and as far as anyone can tell, at least some of the near-human species are almost definitely genetically related to humans so there has clearly been enough time for some natural evolution after the space travel.

I just find it so interesting that people try to compare them when they are at fundamentally different stages of galactic development. Its like comparing the Wild West to the modern day. The galactic governmental structures and attitudes are so amazingly different and that is to the franchises' strengths.

Star Trek is about, at its most basic point, exploration.

Star Wars is about, again at its most basic, adventure.

Sounds similar? They are similar, but whereas in Star Trek the New Things are new, in Star Wars they're new to those characters, or at least new to the audience.

Kirk and Spock are exploring the unexplored.

Luke and Han and Leia are having adventures in an already clearly established society. They forging new paths in an already defined environment.

They're both also, coincidentally, fighting evil Space Fascists but that's just par for the course. I think something about space just Does That. The Void inspires assholes to go 'I can conquer those stars!' only for said stars to pull an uno reverse in the shape of a blond kid with little to no self-preservation skills but a knack for flying spaceships.

Something something space something something sci-fi.

TL:DR Star Wars and Star Trek are different on so many levels but the most interesting one is the fact they're represent galactic civilisation but at different stages. The 'fun, exploration, everything-is-new!' stage, and the 'established society including rampant corruption, unfortunately' stage.

I love 'em both.

[essenceofarda]

I'm attempting to satisfy 10-year-old-me's deepest desire in life:

Lord of the rings, but like, star wars au

no! wait! Don't go! I know, i KNOW, I'm a grown woman I should be well past the years of silly crossovers but I am in mighty NEED of drawing my fave tolkien characters swinging lightsabers about 😔

i need feedback on something tho: Thinking of maybe modifying a VERy important aspect of one of the star wars' universal laws,,, mainly bc this au takes place in what would be pre-order 66 days, aka with an intact Republic, and with so many of the lotr characters being related to each other i'm like 'either NO one is a jedi or I get rid of the requirement for complete emotional detachment'

also bc i really REALLY want Faramir to be a jedi but like, still kinda part of his family?? the way i'm kinda thinking of compromising is he's not officially (like, legally or whatever) part of his family as a Jedi but damn try to tell Boromir that he can't be besties with his little bro anymore lol

Anyway i'm doodling some art for the au lmk if y'all would like to see any art for this au ?

[astromechs]

people whining about how the acolyte might be "jedi critical" or "anti-jedi" as if the prequel trilogy wasn't about their flaws as an institution

[mirrorofliterature]

on that, I love reading fics where the jedi order changes instead of stagnating, growing instead of becoming complacent, because I am, as a person, someone who is very critical of institutions, both in real life and fictional, but I do want them to get better. I love reading fics where they realise they fucked up and work to fix their mistakes and avert a tragedy simply by being more flexible, more compassionate. I am not anti jedi, rather critical of the Jedi Order as an institution, particularly their questionable handling of Anakin and the Clones and their close relationship with a corrupt Republic.

complacency is dangerous. it leads to tragedies, it leads to disasters, it leads to a young man's unchecked trauma burning the galaxy down.

[clonewarsahsoka]

Like I DO fundamentally believe that in the prequels the jedi failed. And I believe that they were failing long before that. They were a centralized power of specialized warrior monks for a religion nobody else believes in with massive amounts of power. They effectively were above and WERE the law of the Republic for thousands of years. But by the prequels they knew their power and influence was failing and when they were handed a clone army THEY said okay we gotta fight this war 😀. Like theoretically the "jedi" approach wouldve been to immediately attempt peace talks and negotiations but they dove head first into being GENERALS OF A WAR!!!!

And not to mention the way they fail their own people. The way the jedi taught their students was fundamentally BAD. like they're doctrine was just wrong. They tell CHILDREN AND TEENS AND YOUNG ADULTS you cannot feel negative emotions and positive emotions are on thin ice. If you feel these emotions then you can be evil!!!!! And they TELL THEM that if you give into these things it's OVER!! But it's not true, time and time again you see them protecting their own. But their own people don't know that so if they "commit a sin" so to speak they can't even go to confession like they're just trapped. And this is how they fail anakin. If he had even ONE moment of full honesty with any other jedi it all wouldve been avoided. He wouldve been able to address his DEEP guilt and shame and fear but instead he is trapped to bottle it up and the only outlet and acceptance he gets is from fascist frog man. It's amazing they didn't have MORE cases like this. Honestly.

[david-talks-sw]

Reblogging firstly to shine a spotlight on @limnsaber's excellent tags:

#this is what gets me abt what barriss said to the martez sisters in tcw #because to outsiders it’s callous and a dismissing phrase #‘the force will be with you’ as a response to something dire and horrible that has happened #but to the Jedi *they actually mean it* and they mean it as one of their truest kindnesses #that even when things are dire and tragedies never end there’s hope. We may not have an idea of what will come#but we have faith in the Force #and the Force will be with us #it’s not hypocritical#or hypothetical!! it’s the Force!!

But also to point out that in the later seasons of TCW, you see that there's a conflicting approach between storytellers in how the Jedi see and treat the Force.

"Obi-Wan doesn’t believe Ahsoka is guilty of these crimes, but he has a very hard time arguing politically that the Jedi Council shouldn’t do what they do to her. He trusts in the Force, which is what they love to say when they don’t know what they’re doing, and they expel her. He doesn’t like Tarkin’s logic [but he can’t argue] that they can’t try her within the Jedi because the public, which we show in this episode arc, who are losing faith in the Jedi, would cry foul ball." - Dave Filoni, starwars.com, 2013

It's no secret that if it was up to George, Ahsoka would've stayed with the Jedi at the end of the "Wrong Jedi" storyline, possibly dying during Order 66.

Instead, Filoni thought that having her leave the Jedi would be "something different". To further justify her departure, he frames the Jedi's belief in the Force as a platitude, like "the Lord works in mysterious ways".

But then I look at this:

"You never know what’s going to happen. That’s the challenge. And that’s the drama, which has gone through history. It’s all about what are they going to turn into." Paul Duncan: "Even if you don’t know how it’s going to turn out, you still carry on mentoring because you have to live with hope." "Hope and faith. I have faith that it’s going to turn out all right. I hope it’ll turn out all right. But either way, it’s the same." - George Lucas, The Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005, 2020

And it's clear the narrative of the films doesn't frame "trusting in the Force" as a bullshit thing. It's a hopeful thing.

So we're talking about a group of space monks whose faith is part of what makes them capable of levitating objects. Saying "we must trust in the Force" is not a generic phrase they just throw out there to justify some bullshit they're not sure about.

It's a fact: the Force exists, they know it, they sense it, otherwise they wouldn't be able to lift that object, they wouldn't have "a bad feeling about this", they wouldn't hear millions of people screaming when a planet lightyears away gets blown up.

And while they know that it exists and how it works, they're not arrogant enough to know its will for sure, but all they can do is hope that it'll turn out okay.

When Mace Windu says that to Ahsoka, seconds prior Plo Koon had apologized in the name of the entire Council.

So if we're trying to rationalize that moment by having it fit with Lucas' narrative, then it becomes clear that Mace is not saying:

"Uuuh, yes! It was totally all part of the plan! We didn't fuck up, this was a test, we just didn't know it!"

He's not covering up the Council's error, even though that's how Ahsoka takes it. He is complimenting Ahsoka, he's saying:

"Congrats for sticking to your guts, we made a mistake but, thankfully, the Force had your back".

Only in a Jedi-ish way.

“Jedi will just say, ‘Oh, this was a test from the Force.’ when anything happens or say ‘May the Force be with you.’ to someone who’s not a Jedi.” I mean, yeah, they do.  Because the Force is a demonstrable, provable thing that tests Jedi all throughout their lives and moves through them and bolsters them.  That’s literally how it works in-universe, the Jedi aren’t just going on faith that the Force exists or that it sends them trials, it’s literally what the Force does to Luke on Dagobah, the Jedi on Ilum, Ahsoka and Kanan and Ezra on Lothal.  The Jedi are not pulling “the Force is testing me” out of their asses, it’s genuinely just what the Force does.

[david-talks-sw]

I'd say where the dissonance really starts, when it comes to the portrayal of the Jedi in more recent Star Wars stories, is the perception of what the Prequels are about.

They're not about the Jedi.

George Lucas said over and over that they're about:

How a democracy turns into a dictatorship, we see this in the background of the films, as the Republic descends into becoming the Empire.

That first theme is then paralleled with a second theme: how a good kid becomes a bad man. We see this in the more character-driven and personal exploration of Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side.

The Prequels’ focus is on Anakin and the Republic, these films are not primarily about the fall of the Jedi. In fact, I’d argue they aren’t about the Jedi at all!

And when you look at the original backstory, you’ll notice that it also primarily focuses on:

The political subplot of the Republic’s downfall and Palpatine becoming the Emperor.

Anakin’s turn and his betrayal of the Jedi. 

So, there too… the Jedi themselves aren’t really that big a part of the Prequels’ original idea. They aren't mentioned much, beyond their trying to save the Senate and getting wiped out.

The Star Wars movies aren't about the Jedi, they're about Anakin and Luke, they're about Obi-Wan and Padmé and Han and Leia, the Rebellion vs the Empire, the fall of the Republic.

They're not about Ben and Yoda and Mace and Ki-Adi and Plo Koon and Shaak Ti and Luminara.

Just like Harry Potter isn't about Dumbledore and McGonagall. Just like the Lord of the Rings isn't about Gandalf.

On a functional level, the Jedi are:

POV characters who witness the events unfold with their hands tied, they're our anchors, whose eyes we see through to see democracy crumble into dictatorship.

Embodiments/vectors of the message George Lucas wanted to get across through these movies, which is the conflict between selfishness & selflessness, greed & compassion (Sith & Jedi).

But that's about it.

However, if you ask today’s fans and Star Wars creatives, most will say the Prequels are about the fall of the Jedi Order.

This is a take shared by a big chunk of the fandom, including various filmmakers, authors, and executives involved with Star Wars, so much so that the time period the Prequel films cover has now been redubbed by Lucasfilm as the “Fall of the Jedi era”.

Which leaves us with a question... why? Why the dissonance?

My guess? It's because the Jedi are cool. They're awesome.

And deep down, they wanted the Prequels to be about the Jedi. About the Jedi Knights at their height, errant warriors like the Knights of the Round Table.

And they didn't get that. They got a bunch of diplomats serving a political institution. And that didn't make sense, right? That's not what they expected so it's bad. And it's Star Wars. It's Lucas. It can't be bad, right? So like... what were they missing?

Oh... wait... what if... that's the point? That the Jedi were supposed to be Knight Errants and being guided by the Force instead of like - ew - space ambassadors for the Republic. Yeah now it all makes sense.

The Jedi in the Prequels aren't what we wanted them to be and that's their failure! Like, it's not just that I didn't like them because they weren't likeable to me, it's that I'm not supposed to like them because the narrative totally says so--

-- it doesn't.

The Jedi preach and practice the same Buddhist values as George Lucas, mirroring what he says in interviews almost verbatim.

The relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin/Qui-Gon mirrors the dynamic between Lucas and Coppola.

The designs of the Jedi and their temple had to be toned down because they looked too bureaucratic and systemic.

This is Lucas we're talking about. "On the nose" is his middle name. He named the drug-peddling sleazebag "Elan Sleazebaggano." He ditched an elaborate introduction of General Grievous in exchange for just "the doors slide open, in walks Grievous and he's ugly."

If he had really been hell bent on framing the Jedi as elitist squares who lost their way and were mired in bureaucracy, he would've made them and the Jedi Temple look like the authorities in THX-1138.

They weren't likeable to some fans because, well, they weren't developed or shown as much as someone like Anakin. Because it's not about them. It's not their story. It's Anakin's. It's Luke's. It's their respective friends'. Or maybe it's an adversity to "perfect goody two-shoes" characters (which the Jedi are not). But hey, it's a movie for kids. Some 2-dimensionality is forgivable.

Bottom line, had more time been spent on the Jedi, had Lucas made the Prequels into a limited show and give them a whole subplot, had he decided to do away with the 30s serial dialog and let someone else write the dialog, maybe the reception might've been different.

But that's what we got. And guess what it's fine.

It's more than fine, it's fucking awesome.

I proudly and confidently say that I love the Prequels, with and without The Clone Wars.

I love my space monks, I love that they're diplomat wizards, I love that there's such a variety of them, I love that Mace is a no-bullshit guy who genuinely cares about his fellow Jedi and how screwed the Republic is, and Yoda is wise and kind but also a gremlin weirdo who'll embarass you in front of a classroom full of kids, and Ki-Adi has a penis for a head, is constantly calm and yet goes down like a champ even though they take him by surprise. I love that Shaak Ti can kung fu an army full of Magna Guards and still have the energy to charge at Grievous. I love that Obi-Wan is a sass machine who is also hilariously oblivious to the fact that he's just as terrible as Anakin.

They're awesome even if they're not perfect. They're awesome because they're not perfect.

But the movies are not really their story.

They're Anakin's. They're Luke's. They're the Republic's and the Rebellion's. And the fight against a space Nazi emperor/empire.

[rochenn]

The Jedi Order mainly being an institution about teaching makes me sad that we never see more "Jedi classes" outside of the popular ones like martial arts, healthcare and Force wackery.

Alongside basic language and science education etc there have to be at least some trade and college courses on offer, right? The Jedi need a bunch of their own people with law degrees. Proper pedagogy studies for future crèchemasters. Cooks. Managers. All types of engineers. Electricians. Accountants. Researchers. How many Jedi hold a doctorate or professorate? Because I think a large number of them do. Their databanks are filled with millennia of dissertations. You can still find Yoda's articles from 500 years ago and cite them in your history research paper.

The Order just having its own micro-economy going on and every member getting their own regular job education next to all the lightsaber swinging adventures... pls