#the jedi weren't wrong or “outdated”

[ripegreenfruit]

This is my Roman Empire. Fuck Disney forever.

        “It really has to do with learning.  Children teach you compassion. They teach you to love unconditionally. Anakin can’t be redeemed for all the pain and suffering he’s caused. He doesn’t right the wrongs, but he stops the horror. The end of the Saga is simply Anakin saying, I care about this person, regardless of what it means to me. I will throw away everything that I have, everything that I have grown to love - primarily the Emperor - and throw away my life, to save this person. And I’m doing this because he has faith in me, loves me despite all the horrible things I’ve done. I broke his mother’s heart, but he still cares about me, and I can’t let that die. Anakin is very different in the end. The thing of it: The prophecy was right. Anakin was the Chosen One, and he does bring balance to the Force. He takes the ounce of good still left in him and destroys the Emperor out of compassion for his son.” –George Lucas, The Making of Revenge of The Sith; page 221 “He takes the ounce of good still left in him and destroys the Emperor out of compassion for his son.” I’M GONNA YELL ABOUT THIS BECAUSE IT’S EXACTLY WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING. It’s easy to conflate the meanings of “attachment” and “compassion” for each other, because “attachment” has significantly different shades based on how we use it, that those definitions can make entire worlds of difference in whether or not they’re a good thing or a bad thing.  If we use the definition of “love” or “support” for “attachment”, then the Jedi saying, “Attachment is forbidden.” of course seems like it’s a terrible thing! But the way George Lucas talks about it, it’s always in the context of selfish, possessive feelings, of greed for that person, of the inability to let go when it’s time. “If he’d have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn’t have this particular connection as strong as it is and he’d have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them.”  –George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary “But he has become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation.“   –George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary “Because he was unwilling to let go of his mother, because he was so attached to her, he committed this terrible revenge on the Tusken Raiders.“ –George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary “Jedi Knights aren’t celibate - the thing that is forbidden is attachments - and possessive relationships.”  –George Lucas, BBC News 2002 interview “He turns into Darth Vader because he gets attached to things. He can’t let go of his mother; he can’t let go of his girlfriend. He can’t let go of things. It makes you greedy. And when you’re greedy, you are on the path to the dark side, because you fear you’re going to lose things, that you’re not going to have the power you need.” –George Lucas, Time Magazine 2002 interview This is the context of how George Lucas–and the Jedi, who frequently mirror in-universe what he says about how the Force works out-of-universe–talks about what attachment means, that it’s leading to greed, that it’s in the realm of possessive relationships, that it drives Anakin to be unable to let go (something that is narratively rewarded over and over in Star Wars), that it’s genuinely dangerous. Attachment is not the same thing as love–otherwise “he’d have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them“ would be “he’d have been trained to love people but not to love them“ and that makes no sense–and that’s why the above quote about Luke and Vader in Return of the Jedi is so important, that George doesn’t describe it as attachment, but instead compassion. That what happens between Vader and Luke isn’t a rebuke of the idea of attachment is bad, but instead a confirmation of how the Jedi were on the right track, that this was about compassion for each other. “Children teach you compassion. They teach you to love unconditionally.“ –George Lucas “Attachment is forbidden. Possession is forbidden. Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is central to a Jedi’s life, so you might say we’re encouraged to love.” –Anakin, Attack of the Clones Return of the Jedi isn’t just about the return of the Jedi to the galaxy through Luke, but also through Anakin.  Anakin returns to being a Jedi, he returns to compassion, he returns to selflessness, he returns to letting go.  That’s why the ending of him in white Jedi robes was so significant at the end of ROTJ.

Anakin has returned to being a Jedi and everything they taught him, including compassion over attachment, that that is what these things mean in Star Wars.

[antianakin]

You're not wrong that "Grey Jedi" doesn't follow Force lore because the it presumes that balance in Star Wars means USING equal amounts of dark and light. But that's not what balance means at all. Balance means ACCEPTING that everyone has dark and light side in them in order to keep from using the dark as much as possible. Yes, darkness in there, it's impossible to never feel sad or angry or scared, but what you CAN do is try not to act on those feelings in a way that harms other people or the environment. Darkness is inevitably linked with bad things, with hurting people, with selfishness and greed. You can't use a little of it all the time without that being a bad thing. The Dark Side is capable of twisting people who use it into even worse versions of themselves. Anakin, Dooku, and Bode are all said and shown to have been good people at one point who allowed those negative feelings to control them and that usage of the dark side to get them the results they felt were necessary ultimately twisted them into terrible people who did irredeemable things. That's just how this works. ALL of them felt like they could just do a little Dark Side and come out the other side okay. ALL of them felt like they were doing good or convinced themselves that it was for a good cause in the long run when in actuality all they were doing was being assholes and murderers.

"Grey Jedi" when applied to actual Star Wars lore doesn't mean someone who's balanced, it would mean someone who's tipping OVER that balance but maybe hasn't completely fallen into darkness, yet. So, effectively, Anakin during the Clone Wars. Dooku before The Phantom Menace maybe. Bode might have lived in this area right at the beginning of his deal with the Empire, it's hard to know for sure. But THAT'S how it would work because being "Grey" is not sustainable. You can maybe keep it up for a little while and still convince yourself that you're fine, but the truth is that it's a spiral downwards at all times and you're still hurting people and getting worse until you realize you're fully capable of committing genocides and naming yourself Emperor one day.

The Prequel Jedi weren't outdated or stuffy, there's zero evidence to back that up at all. They knew exactly what they were doing and understood the Force better than anyone else we've yet to see in Star Wars. The Prequel Jedi were fully committed to helping the galaxy, even at the cost of their lives. They were mindful enough to recognize that the Jedi SHOULDN'T be soldiers but that they had to set aside that morality in order to save as many people as possible. They were competent enough to be the only ones to figure out the Sith trap and act on it before it closed on them and the only reason they don't manage to beat Palpatine is because Anakin chooses to betray them all. The Jedi chose a very specific path in life that required certain commitments of them, things that people like Anakin were incapable of following, but that doesn't make them outdated or stuffy, it just means that it wasn't the right path for Anakin to follow ultimately. Which actually shows that the Jedi Council were RIGHT back when they first met him, Anakin was too old and too set in his ways and the Jedi lifestyle would never have truly been enough for him. Yes, he was the Chosen One, but that doesn't actually mean he was prepared for what it took to be a real Jedi. He also could have genuinely benefitted from the Jedi's training and become a much healthier and selfless person had Palpatine just not interfered with it. Even if being a Jedi was not ultimately the path he wanted to take, the kind of training the Jedi go through could have really helped him come to terms with his past on Tatooine and move forward from it rather than letting it twist and control him for the rest of his life.

Cal and Cere aren't Grey Jedi because they struggle with darkness, that's just a very normal struggle that all Jedi go through and if you can come out of the other side without succumbing to it, you're STILL LIGHT, you're still a normal Jedi. There's no in-between Light and Dark with Star Wars, just like there's no in-between with balance in real life, you either are or you aren't. I've likened it to walking before. If you stumble, even if you don't fall and you get right back to walking afterwards, you were still unbalanced at the moment you stumbled. You can't somehow be in-between balanced and unbalanced, it just isn't a state that exists. There are levels to being unbalanced, from a stumble to a fall, but that's it. Cal and Cere might stumble a little, but they ultimately come right back to walking. They're just as balanced as they were before using darkness, because that's what it means to be a Jedi. They're still Jedi, just like they've always been. Because that's the path they've chosen.

The way to get morally gray characters in Star Wars is actually fairly simple. It's called Andor. Andor chooses to focus completely on characters who AREN'T Force Sensitive, who aren't bound by space magic rules and how it works. So they can be presented as more morally gray than someone like, for example, Obi-Wan Kenobi or Reva Sevander could in the Obi-Wan show. Luthen lives in a VERY gray world, as does Cassian and Saw Gerrera and Mon Mothma. Luthen sacrifices 31 men to protect the rest of his operation. Mon sells her daughter into marriage to protect herself so she can keep aiding the rebellion. The characters in Andor often epitomize what people seem to want out of "Grey Jedi" but without the space magic element that makes the entire concept not work. The characters in Andor are allowed to do objectively bad (even evil) things without it making them bad PEOPLE, or villains. It has an impact on the characters, obviously, but they can remain generally heroes on the "Light" side of the fight. It's not necessarily Game of Thrones in space from my perspective, it's better written for one, but it has the ability to treat its characters a little differently due to the lack of any Jedi or Sith who have to live by different narrative rules.

Jedi Survivor's main characters are almost all Force Sensitive: Cal, Cere, Bode, Trilla. And so by necessity, the narrative around them has to follow the space magic rules that Star Wars lives by and even the characters who AREN'T Force Sensitive generally have to have stories that follow that same structure (Merrin and Greez are unequivocally good guys who do good things, for example). Cal and Bode don't get to live in a middle ground where they can do unequivocally evil things and still be the good guys.

I think if we can accept that there are things Jedi are shown capable of doing in canon that Cal is incapable of doing in the games due to video game mechanics (i.e. he cannot carve through locked doors or walls, and he cannot jump more than about 10 feet without dying), then we can accept the opposite as well: there are things Jedi are shown to be INCAPABLE of doing in canon that Cal IS capable of doing in the games due to video game mechanics (using the dark side in fights all the time without any real impact on him). Yes, Cal was given a "dark side" power-up ability, and yes, you can continue to use it for him over and over again and it seemingly has no real negative impact on his character. But this is how video games work, every time we get given an ability in the game, Cal is able to keep it for the rest of the game in order to explore new areas and fight new things. But that doesn't mean that that's how using the dark side actually would work for Cal within canon if he were shown in something like a film or TV show rather than a video game.

And if you look at the actual STORY within the game rather than the basic gameplay options, it's made pretty clear that Cal using the dark side is akin to losing himself. He CANNOT use it without that risk being there and he has to keep letting it go. The first time he uses it on Nova Garon, Merrin stops him by saying they've both lost enough people and she doesn't want to lose Cal, too. When they talk on Tanalorr before making it to the Temple, Cal expresses fear of losing himself. After the funeral, Cal says to Cere that he nearly lost himself during that fight with Bode. Over and over again they let you know through the STORY that Cal using the dark side is a bad thing that he isn't using without consequence even though the ability exists in gameplay without any impact.

Cal isn't a Gray Jedi, that's not how it works. The game is doing the best it can to tell you that the dark side WILL ultimately cause Cal to lose himself if he keeps using it even though it has to let you keep using the ability due to how video game rules work. Cal is a Jedi, full stop. The dark side is bad and twists everyone who uses it, full stop. Stop pretending video game gameplay rules are the same as the story it's actually telling when the dialogue practically spells it out for you.