#the jedi are religious conservatives

[underwaterspiderbird]

there’s no such thing as “light” or “dark” sides of the force, there never was. its all just different expressions & experiences of the same energy field. “falling to the dark side” is but a religious scare tactic akin to “you’re good and are going to heaven if you believe what we believe but if you don’t you’re gonna burn in hell for all eternity”, no amount of palpatine’s generation of fuckery, the psychos within the sith that could also be found within any group of ppl, or jedi worship will ever convince me otherwise.

suck it bitches

[heart-0f-a-rebel16]

As a person who grew up in an incredibly conservative area and now has religious trauma I have to say this: stop projecting your problems with the Christian church onto the Jedi.

And before you click away or send me a nasty anon: I get it! I used to be one of you! Around the time I started deconstructing the only way I could think of to cope with having to completely reevaluate my life was to project every wrong the church committed against me onto the Jedi. It was therapeutic in a way: this ginormous religious institution harmed me, so in turn I would map that hurt onto a fictional religion.

But here’s the thing: the Jedi aren’t Christian analogous. A minutes worth of research into GL’s intentions, the Prequel trilogy, and a bit of critical thinking will prove I’m right. When you view the Jedi as Christian not only do you take away the core tenets of the Jedi, you run the risk of homogenizing real world religions.

it’s no secret that the Jedi are based off of Buddhists Taoists and other miscellaneous eastern religions, with little to no western flavoring. If you view every belief system within the western idea of religion you can lead yourself down a road that has some very dark conclusions.

In short, to the Jedi antis: I know how you feel, I really do. It took a long time to heal from the hurt evangelical christianity caused me. The Jedi aren’t the enemy you think they are. Take a step back, examine the source material critically, and you’ll see what I mean.

[princessbrunette]

How do you think anakin would react to his s/o wearing a cute little skirt or something like that. I feel like he has this corruption kink and gets all horny at the most innocent things.

for the most part, it’s not even a corruption kink — he just has a chronic case of horny, so when he sees you in your little skirts, the crease below your ass peaking out when you lean over the countertop to grab something — it’s like a moth to a flame, he can’t help himself.

i think it’s because the jedi are so… prudent. they are a religious organisation after all, so whilst there isn’t a specific rule about sleeping around, promiscuity isn’t exactly encouraged. they tend to dress more conservatively, so you can imagine anakins delight in indulging your skimpy outfits, infact — he’ll scrape his few credits together to buy you more. “wear what you want, my love. i can fight.”

but yes, it is certainly hotter if you’re strutting around in your short skirts and dresses completely oblivious to the effects you’re having on him. you’re gliding around your coruscant apartment in a thin, flimsy, short dress you’d picked up from a cheap market — worn most frequently on laundry day. as you clean the apartment, leaning over to dust the coffee table, you’re confronted rather suddenly by the feeling of his warm crotch pushing into your backside, swiftly followed by two strong hands holding your hips right there.

“ani!” you giggle, struggling in your position to look over your shoulder at him, which only makes the bulge pressing into you grow firmer against you. he doesn’t say anything, as if incredibly concentrated — a serious expression and a steady hand running down your back and pressing down until you stumble onto all fours on the coffee table, arched obscenely with your dress riding up your hips.

“just stay like that a while, yes?” he rasps, and who are you to say no?

[autistic-ben-tennyson]

A rant about Jedi Stans from an ex-Jedi fangirl

After some time I've had to reflect on my own behavior as well as my time in the pro Jedi fandom, I decided it's time to call this shit out. Some people take it really personal if someone criticized your favorite characters or their beliefs. Ironically, you all act more like the Sith than the Jedi with how obsessive you can be and insisting any criticism is equal to wanting genocide.

I'm going to start by saying I was in the pro jedi fandom for a few months. Truth be told, I was using it as an outlet for some of my anger issues with my hate towards Anakin, seeing him as similar to a lot of people I've had to deal with. Some of it was wanting more followers and fear of being disliked by the majority. I would pick fights with Anakin fans and was a bit of an asshole and I apologize for that. I still don't like him but no longer HATE him. Seeing how fandoms treat abuse victims who aren't perfect angels like Shinji Ikari or Lapis Lazuli has caused me to loosen up a bit. Many Jedi stans would probably hate those characters for not being “perfect” victims. In retrospect, this wasn't a good community for me. It was very puritanical and I often felt like I was wrong for enjoying media that went against the beliefs Jedi Stans put on a pedestal. Three of my favorite ships (Madohomu, Reishin and Hodaka x Hina) involve "burning the world for one person" and I felt like I couldn't talk about them without being a hypocrite. That and me agreeing less and less with Luca's beliefs pushed me to leave.

It's fine to enjoy a fictional character and defend them if you feel that they're being unfairly criticized. I've done it myself and have written essays defending my faves. The problem is that Jedi stans don't know when to stop. So many are quick to compare the Jedi to minority religions or marginalized groups as a shield against criticism, not recognizing how insulting that can be. Jewish, asian and aroace people are the ones normally used due to the Jedi beliefs being based off Eastern religions as well as Judaism as well as some aroace people identifying with the Jedi.

One thing I noticed about Jedi stans is their similarities to Jumblr which is full of religious chauvinism reworded to sound progressive. Many of them talk about how the Jedi shouldn't have to change their traditions with the times or to accommodate a few individuals like Anakin or Ahsoka. This can be similar to how a lot of people are quick to defend minority religions from outside criticism based on how they were treated by Christian colonists or missionaries. The problem is that this can veer right into ableist or queerphobic territory. You know who else believe that their religion shouldn't have to change with the times to accommodate people? Conservative Christians who hate being told to be affirming of LGBTQ people. Also, schools and parents/guardians do have a responsibility to accommodate kids with disabilities, mental health issues or trauma, even if it may be inconvenient or force you to bend the rules. Claiming they need to just suck it up is honestly disgusting.

This was all a big reason for why I left this garbage pit of a fandom. While there are some who hate the Jedi because they stan the empire or think people need 50s nuclear families to live fulfilling lives, not everyone does that. Believe it or not, some people have faced abuse and bigotry under Judaism and Buddhism. People can also criticize how Lucas presented their beliefs as some Buddhists think he didn't do a good job. Libsoftiktok is a vile transphobe, an Orthodox Jew and her beliefs are said to be fairly common in her community. Many people of color identify with the clones and dislike how even the nicer Jedi treated them. When Obi Wan told Anakin, "It's okay to have romantic feelings, but you must let them pass," that hits different for queer people who have been told similar things from "polite" homophobes. Some queer people do choose celibacy like Side B christians which is fine as long as they don't treat it as a moral failure to want a relationship. There are many neurodivergent people who don't like the Jedi beliefs as they hit close to home. Lucas may have not intended to come off as ableist but the Jedi did with their beliefs about negative emotions. To some people, platitudes like "just let go" aren't helpful and treating it as bad for not living up to those principles is gross.

I deleted the post, but a while back I made a post asking a popular pro jedi blogger their views on adoption since they claimed Anakin not viewing the Jedi as his "found family" was a moral failure. I found their response to be tone deaf and insulting. I responded in a decent way of course, but felt a bit judged and unhappy for wanting to know my birth mother. Adoptees are another set of people this fandom is insensitive and gross to. The Kenobi series I find insulting for that reason too, having Leia be a foil for Anakin and Obi Wan romanticize his recruitment as a child.

Jedi fans are also shitty to those with religious trauma and who faced abuse. Accusing anyone who criticizes the Jedi of projecting their issues with Christianity while simultaneously talking like conservatives as shown above. Tumblr in general has a weird habit of treating religion as if it’s either conservative evangelicalism, liberal reform Judaism and some vague pagan or eastern spirituality with little nuance. Some Jedi stans really come from a place of privilege. Claiming "they can just leave" is insulting to real religious abuse survivors who were raised with harmful beliefs like creationism or homophobia. I'm no antitheist but treating non christian religion as inherently progressive dismisses a lot of people's experiences.

Let's be real, the writing in this franchise was always a bit sloppy. Lucas's issue was wanting to simultaneously create both a black-and-white morality tale for kids based on the fairy tales and serials he grew up and a deep socio-political commentary about the Vietnam and Iraq wars which required some morally grey themes. Thus, along with his terrible dialogue that made the characters seem unlikable, is why the fandom is so divided over whether he intended people to agree with the prequel Jedi.

To wrap this up, I found the pro jedi fandom to be a terrible experience. It was a mix of faux progressivism mixed with fear of judgement for disagreeing. I ended up editing a post I made, and eventually deleted, comparing Yoda with Garnet from SU because I included a tiny bit of criticism and didn't want to get backlash. As long as it’s not gross or bigoted criticism of your favorite characters isn't the end of the world. People don't have to like George Lucas or his beliefs and put them on a pedestal. I feel like the fandom's worship of George comes in response to OT purists who claimed he "raped their childhoods" but there's fair criticism to be made. Just like how not everyone who criticizes Disney SW or any Disney media in general is an "anti woke" grifter. To the pro jedi fans reading this, here's a suggestion. Just block and ignore people, write an essay if you feel it's important, but don't act like an entitled bully if a blog or even a SW writer disagrees with the Jedi, interprets the story differently or criticizes your favorite characters.

[jedi-enthusiast]

Coming off of this post

I literally cannot talk about Star Wars or my SW fics in the writing server I moderate because, for some reason, there are tons of those SW dudebros that are like “uh, the Jedi are evil actually and the Sith were right-” (all of which just so happen to be nationalist conservatives, but that’s another post) -and they refuse to listen to any actual reason.

Like, I genuinely think they’re all stupid and have no media literacy because this is how my conversations usually go with them:

—————

Them: The Jedi had to be genocided to restore balance to the Force, so Anakin restored balance at the end of RotS. He did as the prophecy said, it’s not his fault the Jedi assumed “bringing balance” meant killing the Sith

Me: Then why is the Force imbalanced in the OT? And why is it specifically said that it’s restored only after all of the Sith are dead and there are still living Jedi—therefore proving that the Jedi were correct in the Prequels? And why has George Lucas specifically said that the Sith are imbalance?

Them: (summarized) Lucas is wrong

—————

Them: The Jedi are evil because they fought in a war

Me: So they should've just let the Sith conquer and enslave the rest of the galaxy?

Them: but they fought in a war!

—————

Them: The Jedi are evil because they served the Republic and the Republic made them *something or other*

Me: Ok, where would they have gone otherwise? where would they get the funding to live? how would they protect their place of worship/religious artifacts/etc. if they were either supposed to leave it there unprotected or carry it around until they found a place to stay? how would they help the galaxy at large when they had no resources?

Them: They should've just figured it out

—————

Me: Genocide is bad, no matter the circumstances

Them: nuh-uh

—————

Like I literally cannot stand it anymore!

I want to go back to the days before all these dudebros joined the server and I literally had a 4 hour long discussion with one of my friends on how Palpatine was a moron who got screwed in the OT because he put all of his eggs in one basket and was also cheap as hell!

(and no, I'm not even joking, it was 4 hours long and we were getting really into it--it was a lot of fun)

But I can't have those discussions because SW dudebros have ruined it for me and I can no longer stand even hearing about SW in the server

In conclusion: the Jedi are great and anyone who thinks they're "the bad guys" or "deserved to get genocided" or whatever can get fucked.

[phoenixyfriend]

The older I get, the more I understand how much of my take on certain topics (now including Star Wars, particularly the genocide of the Jedi and the many civil wars of the Mandalorians) stems directly from Balkan Cultural Trauma.

Like. There is not a way to really explain my feelings on Mandalorian imperial history and the genocide of the Jedi without getting into things like (and this has links because I do not have the energy in me to explain everything in detail because it's just so much shit, people do entire doctorates on just tiny parts of any given one of these):

five hundred years of Ottoman oppression of the region (especially the blood tithe of devshirme and its role in the Janissary slave army; the English Wikipedia article is significantly kinder about the practice than the Balkans remember it being), and the rise of nationalism in the wake of its dissolution

the attempted genocide of the Serbs in Croatia in WWII (the Nazi regime of Croatia operated the third-largest concentration camp in Europe, and targeted ethnic Serbs more than all other groups combined, resulting in several hundred thousand dead Serbs at the hands of far-right Croats and Bosniaks, with records kept so poorly that estimates range from 200k to 500k, all committed without the use of mass extermination tools due to lack of adequate equipment), which most of the Western world has no idea about but features heavily in my own family's history

the attempted genocide of Croats and Muslims in greater Yugoslavia by the Chetniks in WWII (far-right Serb nationalists and Yugoslav royalists, resulting in the deaths of about 55k-73k Croats and Muslims)

the same shit happening in the 90s, once again on the same religious/ethnic divides (basically the same thing in the Balkans, a large number of conservative parties are of the opinion that a Serb who converts to Catholicism is now ethnically a Croat, and if they convert to Islam they are now ethnically a Bosnian/a Bosniak), resulting in tens of thousands of Bosniaks dead at the hands of Serb nationalists, and upwards of a million displaced. (Bosnian and Croatian forces also engaged in war crimes against each other and Serbs, but to a much smaller degree.)

The entire mess that is Kosovo, where even I can't really start to explain what's going on because it's been going on for so many years in so many directions and it's probably another 'the Ottomans fucked everyone over and then we turned around and went for each others' throats after they were finally gone'

Within that context, you have all this bullshit about propaganda fed to the people by the government, propaganda fed to the outside world to shift over international perception of the events, propaganda used to help the outside world forget about a horrific historic war crime, arguments about which nationalist attitudes were a direct result of Ottoman oppression instead of a later development, which current conflicts can be traced back to Ottoman oppression and who resisted versus who cooperated, who lied about what, who initiated what, which crimes can be attributed to a rogue military and which to the government, which crimes were supported by the population and which were supported only by the wealthy or high ranking, about what even actually happened, about who even actually died, about how many things were initiated by outside forces since there are theories that the CIA helped kick off or at least inflame the many conflicts of the 90s and 00s--

And I was raised in America, and have tried to do independent research every time my parents told me a story about history because I don't want to trust the words of two people on the history of millions, and it's always so much more complicated than you think.

Except for two rules, really, which is that almost everything traces back to the Ottomans fucking us over, and the Rroma always suffered for everyone else's bullshit even though they weren't involved in the conflicts in the first place.

[maaruin]

I watched The Acolyte episode 7 and all throughout, I kept seeing parallels to the conflicts between conservative Evangelicals and progressive secular education in the United States, which has been one of the driving forces in the Culture Wars of the last decades. I think many viewers will miss this, because the coven has many symbols that make them seem unlike Evangelicals (they are "witches", all of them are women, two women had a child with each other), but the parallels are there:

The coven is similar to conservative Evangelicals: insular and isolated, very worried about its survival as a group, and sees the children as a means to ensure this survival. They are immediately suspicious of the Jedi and see them as a threat to their way of life.

The Jedi are similar to Progressives: they are centeres in the urban core and see themselves as promoting universal interests (instead of the interests of a particular group). They are worried about the children's safety in their religious group, but at the same time have an ideal of non-interference.

Osha has parallels to people who grew up Evangelical but didn't really fit in. In our world, such kids may be queer, or doubt their religious beliefs, or just be curious about life in "the world". Mae and many of the witches view her as a potential traitor because of that. And more than that they view the Jedi as intending to steal their child - in their view the Jedi have much more agency than Osha. When people who were raised Evangelical leave their faith, their former fellow believers often view this as them having fallen for outside manipulation.

Even Sol, who is in favor of taking Osha as a padawan, both respects her agency and doesn't intend to harm the coven. But Osha potentially leaving because of that would still be bad for the coven. This is actually a very important tension in religious freedom: the freedom of individuals to leave their religion is in conflict with protecting religious groups in their continued existence.

(More symbolically) Mae burning the Jedi book calls to mind attempts to ban books from schools because they are considered corrupting by some parents.

Neither group acts in a unified way. The tension escalates into violence because the more impulsive members of both groups act, well, impulsively.

We still don't know exactly what Mother Aniseya was trying to do when she turned into smoke. Sol didn't either but assumed that she was trying to harm her children. For someone outside a culture, it may be difficult to differentiate love and abuse in the interaction between parents and children in that culture - made even more difficult by the fact that love and abuse can overlap.

(This one is more of a stretch) When Indara forces the witches out of Kelnacca's mind, she ends up killing them. Even is someone only wants to fight the harmful ideas of a religious group, their action may end up destroying/damaging the group itself and not just the ideas.

The tragedy in The Acolyte was not inevitable. If people of both groups had acted more level-headed and tried to understand where the other was coming from, compromise may have been possible. Perhaps the same is true for our world.

[arizonaconservativegal]

Thanks for replying. I didn't think to check here until after work. I believe that you truly believe that your side isn't that bad and I'm under some sort of media hypnotism. Maybe I am and have turned into an elitist snob. I just don't get how you don't see conservative Christians as problems- you are aware when they talk about "religious freedom," they're usually only talking about the right to be obnoxiously Christian in public, right? I know very few conservative Christians whose idea of the religious freedom of others is "I don't want to ever see or hear about it and if you expose my kids to it I'll throw a huge fucking fit." These are the people who fight against evolution and sex ed in schools. I don't get it, man. But that's whatever, we're not going to agree. But...I really do hope you're right.

Anyways, what's your favorite Star Wars era? Do you prefer pre- or post Disney EU? I really like pre-Disney EU so I'm biased towards them and I am weird because I actually really like the New Jedi Order era. (And the pre-Filoni Clone Wars.)

Thanks for talking, even if it wasn't pleasant.

Matt-the-Atheist

Hello again Matt-the-Atheist. I'm actually enjoying our little chat.

Frankly I don't mind if people want to be obnoxiously Christian in public. I'm actually fully in support of their right to do so. That's cool with me. It hurts no one. And suggesting that it's a bad thing if they do so sounds kinda "I don't want to ever see or hear about it and if you expose my kids to it I'll throw a huge fucking fit" if you ask me.

As for people who fight against evolution in schools, that's a pretty tiny minority - I've literally never met one. I might grant you the point on sex ed, to an extent - that does tend to be a point of contention because if you ask ten people (Christians or otherwise) what the appropriate curriculum would be for any given age group, you'll get ten different answers.

Far more importantly though: Star Wars.

My favorite era is definitely that classic OT rebellion era and I'm also really fascinated by the fall of the Republic / early days of the Empire. I probably lean a bit more towards the pre-Disney stuff overall but there's plenty to love and hate about both timelines so I just pick and choose what I like from each and mash 'em all up together in a way that makes no sense to anyone else and ignore the rest and I'm perfectly happy lol.

Oh man New Jedi Order? I applaud the effort to do something different but I must admit I had a hard time with those books. I'm not really sure why. I did really like the legacy era after that though, much more than I expected. It's a fucking trip but it was fun.

Do you have a favorite character, canon or otherwise?

[mayxthexforce]

Posting it separately because I have no intention of starting discourse in a post where OP's only point was that priests are hot in a forbidden fruit type of way.

I'm so tired of seeing this take on Jedi and I wish there was a tag to blacklist to avoid it.

It's just the blandest, most surface level, Palpatine's propaganda believer level of understanding of the Jedi code. It's some "Oh the Jedi are not like US, they don't form bonds with people, they're incapable of love because they won't fuck me specifically" speech you'd hear from an antagonist in the SW universe. An emotional bond is not the same as an emotional attachment. Are some Jedi weird about intimacy due to the no attachments rule? Yes, Obi-Wan Kenobi himself was like "I should be punished by the council for wanting to hold Siri's hand while she's sad." when he was A LITERAL CHILD and actively misunderstood the Jedi code.

The Jedi code discouraging attachments because they lead to possessiveness and selfishness is nowhere near the same as the Jedi being unable to love or bond or be intimate with people, and especially not the same as them refusing to do so by choice. They're defenders and protectors of life, someone who doesn't love, who refuses to love and bond, cannot be a Jedi. Look at Dooku and Pong Krell, they sucked and fell to the dark side because they didn't love selflessly, because even before falling to the dark side they had selfish and straight up hateful detachments to those around them. The whole point of the original trilogy was that Jedi must love without attachments, and that's what saved the galaxy: the fact Luke loved his father but was willing to let him go, and Vader loved Luke more than he hated the Jedi.

Also??? Saying "the Jedi have too much compassion and empathy to have casual sex"??? Tell me you were raised by the weirdo kind of conservative that based people's worth on their genitals and how much use they gave them outside of marriage without telling me.

And as a side note, IMO the Jedi aren't like priests. The Jedi are not a religion. Because a religion is a particular system of belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods. The force is not a superhuman power in the SW universe, it's in everything and everyone. It'd be like saying that believing in gravity or in microorganisms is a religion. We've been shown many Jedi who have their own religious beliefs. The Jedi are more like scientists than priests, you can have a Muslim scientist, a Jewish scientist, a Catholic scientist; just like you can have a Jedi who worships the Naboo goddess of protection, or Twi'Lek Jedi who worship their own goddess, or Mirialan Jedi who wear headscarves for cultural and religious reasons, or Wookiee Jedi who celebrate life day. Jedi, like scientists, just so happen to have a higher understanding of the workings of something that very much exists than the average person. Because while not everyone can be a Jedi or a Sith, just like not everyone can be a scientist, anyone can study the force. We have characters like Henrietya Antilles who wrote entire books about Sith culture and artifacts and their uses, and she doesn't have a pinch of force sensitivity in her.

[thefreedomofthesea]

https://www.tumblr.com/thefreedomofthesea/760011476075511808

You reblog this and then say you want religions to be banned. Curious. It’s almost like you only believe in people having the right to live their lives how they want until it annoys you. Not unlike a conservative, in fact!

hey nice of you to notice my blog, really. but this comparison is kind of out of hand.

Let me remind you that being religious is not a decision made in a vacuum, and here we are talking about organized religions. If you are anything close to Catholicism, your rulebook constantly tells you that God abhors homosexuals (Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13 […]), women must be submissive to men, otherwise they can (and should) be assaulted (Ephesians 5:22-33 […]), and that it is a sin to wear cotton clothing (Deuteronomy 22:11).

It is not necessary to mention the horrors committed by practitioners of Muslim religions in the name of the holy book that they also take as their rule.

and this is a standard for all institutionalized religions today. The point here is: any religion follows a rulebook and you can't claim to be of that belief without those rules dominating your life, and those, most of the time, are enough to kill, rape, assault and violate others.

Other than that, if you just want to believe that there is a greater force that rules destiny, fine, go be a Jedi. And I've never seen in the transsexual rulebook anything about killing your different ones to please the little man hiding in the clouds.

[clevercrumbish]

The thing about Star Wars is that it's philosophically founded on the idea that at the very least once you have become a particular kind of space knight wizard, having normal emotions about things and/or doing any kind of fucking is a slippery slope that will eventually give you a weird skin condition and yellow eyes and make you a fascist who can choke people with telekinesis, and while it's understandable that this a holdover from the kinds of martial religious traditions George Lucas was attempting to evoke with the Jedi in the first place, the big problem that the franchise runs into is that this and/or the terrestrial philosophical equivalents are in reality not actually true at all no matter how much various conservative religious traditions want them to be.

And Star Wars knows this but is powerless to do anything about it which is why the franchise is at its worst and starts getting really weird like it's experiencing a floating point rounding error whenever it is time to actually explain or depict what the fuck having a normal love life/strong emotions and being filled with evil shadow magic that makes you shoot lightning from your hands actually have to do with each other.

[rantingoverbadfic]

The crime of doubting your elders

Ugh, it always gets my hackles up, when a Star Wars fic' plot twist involves someone being accused of having Fallen and resulting in that someone going on the lam.

Do you really think, it would have been that easy for the Order to counter Palps' convoluted plans, if all they needed was the identity of the Sith Lord? No.

Collecting Sith artifacts is not illegal. There is plenty of ugly art and abhorrent books in RL that gets collected by people with too much money and not enough morals. Malleus Maleficarum, for one thing, or Nazi paraphernalia for another.

Reading or discussing Sith texts and teachings is not illegal. It would completely defeat the purpose of the Jedi Order being the vanguard against the new Sith uprising. If someone starts to doubt the Jedi philosophy, you don't inoculate them against those doubts by mindlessly praying the dogma, you do it by taking those doubts seriously and talking them out to their logical conclusion. How are shadow operatives supposed to be successful undercover, if they can't sell to their marks that they fully believe something that goes against the Jedi belief tenets? And more importantly, how are they supposed to get back from their undercover persona, once the mission has ended? They would need to rebuild their old personality completely anew, and if simply learning something Dark is enough to Fall and is an imprisonable offense, who is going to guide them through that process? (By the way, the Order became dangerously close to being such an inflexible, dogmatic organisation that quashed all dissent - which is precisely why they became vulnerable. If Dooku's concerns hadn't been waved aside time and time again, he wouldn't have decided that becoming a threat to the Order by throwing his lot in with a Sith Lord was such a bright idea, but since he wasn't going to be unquestioning little follower, he saw no recourse).

The Order doesn't even have the monopoly on teaching about the Force or teaching Force-sensitives - Sith, as the more extreme outlier of the opposite beliefs aside, there are plenty of other Force traditions and schools of thought in canon. The Guardians of the Whills, the Green Jedi, the Grey Jedi, the Dathomiri Nightsisters - they are all still there and still legal.

The problem with the Sith and their philosophy is not that they exist and that people (again, Dooku as an example, as well as Sifo-Dyes have been established as being sort of experts in engaging with Sith on an academical level) want to disect those critically, it is that in order to be a practicing Sith, one usually commits acts of violence - which are already illegal under most Republic Laws, whether you use the Force for it or old-fashioned Molotov cocktails and blasters. Commiting genocide? Illegal. Killing a sentient being? As long as it wasn't done in self-defense - illegal. Stealing children, stealing property, defrauding or embezzling? Probably also all illegal. Makes absolutely no difference, what your religious and political affiliation is. Some of those crimes the Jedi, by the way, do as well, and yet no one is up in arms about all Jedi being declared criminals simply for being part of the Order. Because mind-tricking someone into cutting you a favorable deal is still fraud.

Sure, if someone finds out that the Chancellor collects Sith artifacts, this will automatically mark him as suspicious in every rational persons mind, and if the Order dug in, they would find evidence of his crimes. But the fact that he is a Sith, in and of itself, doesn't make him holding a political office illegal. Look at the real life politics - how many ultra-conservatives and nazis and racists have somehow managed to become legally elected representatives?

So, no, just because your character is suspected to have Fallen, there is absolutely no reason for them to go on the run. What is the Order gonna do, try to get them to see a mind healer? Boo-fucking-hoo, free session of psychotherapy, so what? It is only a suspicion. The Council would have first to prove that a) the character really has Fallen, b) that they did become specifically a Sith and not some other garden-variety Dark-Sider and c) that they committed some actual crimes, not just the thought-crime of no longer believing the Jedi doctrine. Until then - excuse me, but this esteemed Council is full of bantha-poodoo, and as suchnI have chosen to ignore their verdicts.

P. S. I actually resorted to googling whether there really was some sort of law in canon that I just forgotten about and it seems that there actually was an anti-Sith-law on the books in the Old republic. Which is insane. How do you teach future generations about how fucked up Sith philosophy is, if you can't even talk about it? How do you inoculate them against falling for the same shit again? Thats right - you don't. You end up with a whole generation ripe for recruitment by any wandering Sith Master. It is not that different that how suddenly laws are springing into life that forbid the teaching of critical race theory, which instead of inoculating the students against racism and inequality, allows it to flourish in plain view.

[autistic-ben-tennyson]

How Star Wars led to Reaganism

Found some interesting articles from historian Rick Perlstein about how movies like SW, Superman and Rocky helped push America to right wing politics. While Lucas did include some left wing, anti Vietnam war themes and aesthetics in his movies, that wasn’t how most Americans interpreted them. Americans identified with the rebels as the underdog. It being a black and white whimsical fairy tale with a lack of moral nuance during a decade of morally grey films that came after Vietnam and Watergate appealed to those who would vote for Reagan. It would have an affect on pop culture and the movies that were made after. Movies of the 80s like Back to the Future and Indiana Jones continued the trend of whimsical, special effects filled movies during the Reagan era. Should people really be surprised at the news of Spielberg being a Zionist when a lot of his films are conservative?

I feel like people shouldn’t be surprised at this or why there’s a lot of conservatism in the SW fandom as it’s there in the story too. There’s a lot of sexist and racist tropes in the franchise from the Tusken raiders, The Bad Batch and how Han and Anakin treat their love interests. Most of the villains are just evil for the evulz with even the more sympathetic villains being made out to have done it to themselves. Contrary to what some say, Lucas intended the Jedi to be entirely in the right and puts the blame entirely on Anakin for his fall. That’s a fairly conservative way of thinking that puts all the blame on the individual for being tempted or “lazy” as opposed to looking at systemic, psychological and child rearing issues and how they influence people. Star Wars is a very moralistic religious story. It has some left wing themes but is very conservative with its black and white morality and people shouldn’t be as shocked by the existence of right wing fans as they are.

[ahsoka-in-a-hood]

ooh this is where the 'we're being gaslighted!' happened!

well, I'm bored and feeling fighty (personally I am not a pacifist), though i hate to be a pedant (i love to be a pedant) but gaslighting means deliberately undermining someone's sense of reality by convincing them real things are imaginary

it doesn't even mean lying

you're not being gaslighted or even lied to if you say 'cultural genocide' and someone asks where.

you're not being gaslighted or even lied to if you say 'satine banned the language' (yes i've seen this) and someone points out that she's the only character to speak Mand'oa in TCW and that the signage and korkie's class notes are in mandoa (note: i have not personally fact checked the writing one as i haven't learned what mandoa looks like)

you're not being gaslighted or even lied to if you say 'she should have at least tried to talk to/reason with the conservatives' (yes i have seen this one) and it's pointed out that "even extremists can be reasoned with" is an actual line said by her on screen, or if you say obviously she banned traditions and someone screenshots her saying "we are a people of tradition"

or if you say she banned mandalorian religion but deathwatch, her actual canon opposition, are not opposing her on religious grounds and the closest TCW comes to showing any kind of mandalorian religion is when Satine speaks some sort of death rites to a dying assassin

or if it's pointed out that Almec is an unreliable narrator and not a good source for information

or if it's pointed out that Concord Dawn is referred to as an independent province she has a treaty with rather than as a prison colony if i'm remembering correctly (it's been a few months since my last rewatch)

or that TCW is a separate continuity to Legends

or that Maul and deathwatch's plan hinged on the fact that she had popular consensus and that Mandalore had some form of elections

or that there might actually be more to mandalorian culture than open carrying, honor duels, might makes right, and imperialism.

...or that realistically, there's no such thing as a warrior culture where literally everyone can be a warrior and no one is providing for the warriors, so any system that privileges warriors is a caste society by it's very nature, and while TCW doesn't exactly delve into that class aspect, it doesn't shy away from who exactly is providing for deathwatch's warrior lifestyle either (they take slaves)

or that the very foundation of 'tyrannical Satine' is that she must be outright lying about her values the whole time, because she would not actually be able to enforce any of that as an actual pacifist, which interacts very oddly with her role in TCW story as the one who is critical of Obi Wan and the jedi for compromising their values as she, and many fans, perceive them, contrasting her with Obi Wan's more pragmatic approach to peace-keeping

Well I might be done. Or maybe I'm not. I won't venture to analyse what it is going on in the minds of Satine antis, but i'm thinking about what it is that gets to me about her. I like her well enough, sure, but that's not what makes her a hot button. It's all too tangled up in politics for me. [TEXT REDACTED FOR POLITICS AND REAL LIFE] Satine was an activist. Everything she does is twisted out of all proportion. She's not especially charismatic, she's angry, she's caustic, she could be described as 'strident' she is called hysterical in the show, she's 'too extreme' she's too much, she's an archetype of the exact kind of person so many people hate

and i respect that

and like so many activists, she worked her whole life and still lost in the end. but for 15 years mandalore had a peace. Korkie and his friends got to have a childhood and grow up without war. It's never enough but it's still worth it.

[americankimchi]

trying to find more padawan obi wan fics out there that don’t do the following:

turn qui gon into a villainous caricature by reducing him from a complicated, traumatized character to Horrible Person Who Abused Our Poor Obi-Wan Unjustly For His Entire Padawanship Without Pause

turn yoda into a crusty evil gremlin who is cold, calculating, and supremely manipulative. usually framed in a way to make him stuck in his old ways. basically the jedi equivalent of a republican conservative.

and for some reason ki adi mundi also gets this treatment??? what’s going on here

forget that the jedi are a religious community and not a government/military organization

ignore the jedi’s philosophies and ignore or misinterpret the tenets of the jedi code in bad faith

CONSTANTLY say that the jedi are incapable/not allowed to love because ~love is attachment and attachment is forbidden~ when this is so far off what canon AND george lucas tells us it’s hysterical

have obi wan defect/be abandoned by/get kicked out/otherwise leave the jedi order for whatever reason to join the mandalorians

if above happens, uses obi wan and the mandalorians as a mouthpiece to criticize the jedi order for being an inherently flawed organization for which there is no redemption

and instead does the following:

literally just treats the jedi with respect. please. i’m begging you. if i see another “the jedi order lets their children be abused within their organization because for some reason an entire temple full of level 100 psychic empaths would either not notice or care that one of their own is suffering” ice cold take i’m going to explode

[trueshredguitar]

okay i have thoughts

i rly deeply want the armorer to not be some kind of malicious religious leader who uses religion to exercise power over others. like i understand that may be where the writers are taking it and it’s not a bad storyline to explore. bo-katan’s obviously heard of and is disgusted with Children of the Watch and if that’s something they’re going to expand on, then exploring religious trauma through Din’s expulsion from the Tribe is at least interesting (and honestly necessary after jj abrams — curses and hexes and damnation be on his name — handwaved away the exploration into the ugly truth of the Jedi Order that Rian Johnson started up in TLJ).

but honestly i really want it to be that she’s just as trapped in the Way of the Children of the Watch as Din is, desperately clinging to the Creed because like him it’s what’s protected her for this long. like the whole “secrecy is our strength” thing has been Canonically Reinforced by the fact that the moment they stepped out of the covert more than one at a time, DOZENS of them died. she’s probably the de facto leader of the covert and deeply grieving about losing so many. the idea that she’s clinging to the one source of stability and order in her life after such upheaval and loss — even if it results in something negative like casting Din out — that’s an idea that rings true to a lot of people who have been or are in strict religious households/communities

or the idea that she feels like her culture and her entire way of life will just disappear if the rules keep slipping, and after so many have died it feels like a slap to the face that din would Betray them like this… or you know, “I care about him, but if he breaks the rules and I don’t condemn it, what am I even standing for? What does that make me? Do I lose my own identity for not condemning it? Will I lose others if I don’t condemn this? What will they think of me? If I don’t condemn this, will I be kicked out? Will I lose my home and my means of living and my protection?”

i think this reading is backed up a bit by two things. firstly, she seems completely uninterested in taking the Darksaber from Din, even if defeating him and taking the blade — which she easily could have — would have given her massive amounts of power. secondly, when din asks her what he can do to redeem himself she really does give him exact instructions on what to do to be back in the tribe, if not being very helpful about how to get around the obvious hurdle of Mandalore being. yknow. Space-Nuked To Hell And Back.

anyways. to have someone try to enforce a conservative religious Creed because she a) truly believes it’s the only thing protecting them b) fears the loss of her identity and c) is working through massive amounts of grief, then getting upset when the Creed she’s upheld seems to fall apart around her is To Me a much more interesting storyline than just her being a flat villain.