#also sidenote anon if someone wants to fight you in fandom just block them thats what i do

[merrysithmas]

You know there seems to be a lot of fighting within the fandom about the Jedi Order and weather or not they were flawed. It seems people go with one of two extremes.

The Jedi were THE good guys who never did anything wrong and if you criticize them your attacking the real world religions GL pulled from so yours bigot.

Or the were their the worst, weren’t any better than the Sith and, were a people who “needed” to be wiped out without any redeeming qualities.

As a SW newbie it’s very intense and a lot to take in. It gets feather confusing. Not to mention difficult to discern which claims have legitimate backing.

I feel like I can trust you not to be aggressive as well a more full picture person. With a trustworthy opinion. So I was wondering what are your opinions on the Jedi? Were they flawed? Why or why not? And how did those any flaws affect them especially in relations to training Anakin?

(That seems to be the biases for most arguments I’ve seen honestly. That either it’s all Anakin’s fault and he was ungrateful and this didn’t deserve to be a Jedi. Or the Jedi are his villain origin story) 

Aw anon! Thank for your good faith and please also do not let anyone's pushy fandom opinion get to you. You are 100% entitled to your thoughts on any fandom topic and those that try to monopolize the stage in fandom and cruelly cut down others are truly not worth attention or energy.

Everyone is allowed to think what they want on any topic (including hardline positions such as the "The Jedi were the Ultimate Good", or "The Jedi were useless and should end") - however the second anyone who thinks those things crosses the boundary of demanding others also follow those opinions or be branded "bad" "misinterpreting media" etc it's just nonsense. Don't feel intimiated by anyone to change your opinion.

Everyone comes at media from a different place, different background etc. Which means everyone has a unique and important perspective on its lessons - none of which are more true than another.

I feel like people take those hardline opinions in SW, prohibiting any other, because they look at SW through a single lens (like say, as an allegory for politics Freedom vs Fascism). That is valid, but Star Wars can be see as much more than a political story, or a political story and a spiritual story simultaneously if one chooses.

It can also be seen as an exploration of our inner lives- our duality. It can be seen as a story of Balance. It can be seen as a story which focus on themes such as those of Fatherhood, masculinity & femininity, passivity & aggression. Or as a story of opposed Good vs Evil - but what makes up good and what makes up evil? Everyone will have different versions of an answer for that. You can hold all these thoughts of SW together at once as well!

For instance, of course Star Wars has a obvious political side: Freedon vs Fascism. As an audience we nearly always side with the sympathetic rebels... no one wants the Empire to win in reality.

But we are allowed to be interested in the characters of the Empire... what led them there, what are their cruelest intentions? Are some brainwashed? Were some strong armed? What parts of them have humanity? None? Most? What about characters like Finn who were kidnapped and conscripted? Ventress who turned her back on Dooku? Reva who murdered families to ultimately avenge her family? Kylo Ren who was manipulated? Galen Erso who became an Imperial to save others, likely while killing many more during service? Han Solo who became as an Imperial conscripted soldier, who was a scoundrel and thief but was imperative to Luke's success? Vader who was a Sith but ultimately saved the Galaxy? Maul who realized the cruelty of the Sith? etc We are allowed to empathize, cheer on, and identity with all of them because they represent pieces of us, too.

The same can be said for the rebels & "good guys". Cassian Andor who used violence for good? Jyn Erso who was indifferent until it became personal? Rey who ran away from responsility and truth? Anakin Skywalker who used his unmatched power to kill thousands for the Republic and was cheered on as a hero of freedom? Saw Gerrera who was an insurrectionist but did what many thought "needed to be done"? Boba Fett who eventually sought to protect the people of Tatooine under a criminal empire? Nightsister Merrin who tried to kill Cal Kestis only to eventually see him as an ally? etc.

Thinking about things like these helps us to understand the world around us, and helps us better understand the human condition.

Star Wars is also a spiritual story. As a buddhist witch myself I do not see it as a story of diametrically opposed "Good vs Evil" but a story about Balance. People are free to see it as hardline good and evil, but in my view of the world those two things don't ever exist in a vaccuum.

The energies of dark and light coexist in all of us, giving us continual hope and trials. I even feel labeling them as "dark and light" is a misnomer. It is more passivity and aggression. Both of which can be used for good and bad intentioned acts.

The way I see it the Sith and Jedi, in their dogma, missed this with their constant opposition and fighting. The Force is one - there is no dark or light, only the whole unified Force. To me, it is the individual that chooses the intent of their actions: we can use passion to inspire peace, violence for protection, attachment for inspiration & as an anchoring good. Or we can use all those things for bad.

Our guiding light for well-intention is our principles of tolerance, acceptance, compassion, and understanding. The Jedi espouse these views and often act on them - their code is certainly a pinnacle of philosophy which can inspire well-intentioned deeds- however they are imperfect, like us all!

Yoda once said fear is the Path to the Dark. The way I see it, the Order unintentionally taught fear of emotions which had no alignment- emotions are inherently neutral. Yoda realized this in RotS. Simply having certain emotions don't make someone "closer to the dark side"... it is how we handle them that does that. By fearing passion, attachment, anger, we do not learn how to face and embrace them. By seeking always to "control" them and not act on them, express them, embody them, free them, alchemize them, we miss out on what they have to teach us. And that need for control over them gives them power over us and our inexperience.

In The Jedi Path, a jedi textbook, we learn of the extremism of the early Jedi which to me, when taken to certain extents - was distasteful! I am a Jedi fan and I disliked it.

Though they were an Institution which strived for good, the early Jedi were warsome, conformist, and frighteningly strict with no room for natural evolutionary growth through the ages. It's akin to say... people who insist the US Constitution written 300 years ago must be abided by at all costs, when many feel it should be a living document open to growth and change. Or like the language or French which prohibits official changes in its structure to include slang from different languages etc. It doesn't grow or change, and sometimes this weakens institutions - not strengthens them.

The Sith on the other hand embraced these emotions without a code of ethics - they feared a Code because of what they saw as the suffocation of the Jedi rules and regulations. Unfortunately this caused them to go hog wild in the other direction, leading to chaos. They used these emotiona (and the power that came with them) to crush, kill, dominate, and destroy. Their perverse beliefs were to weed out the weak in society and obtain a "rightful" position of authority. Truly evil! However if we look at this as a microcosm of our inner duality, it makes sense. We often seek to weed out or kill what we see as weak in ourselves - for good or bad.

In the Book of Sith, we see the Sith develop many incredible skills the Jedi lack because of their unwillingness to change. Sith alchemy, although used for evil by the Sith - can easily be drawn as a comparison for things like IVF, medicine, science, cloning, vaccines etc. Things that "go against nature" (the Jedi on the other hand insisted "nature" was the final say of the Force on one's reality).

In fact, Darth Plagueis' writings on the midichlorians and the "ability to manipulate life" and break it down to its bare essentials VERY MUCH screamed modern science to me. It screamed self-determinism and rising above our "natural"-born state. It screamed a "challenge" to the will of "God" (The Force). Dr Frankenstein stuff. The Sith argued nature was also a prison - one that our minds & intellect can propel us beyond. I believe in Christian mythos this would be like the Apple eaten in the Garden of Eden. Sure, it opened the couple to the evils of the world, but also gave them free will and intellect.

Simple things like glasses, medicine, X rays, cars, etc. The Sith are rebuking acceptance of "nature" as a lack of ingenuity and an insult to the free will and mind - a stagnation. They despise the Jedi for their inertia. Interesting stuff!

Unfortunately, again, the Order of the Sith and its leaders (such as Plagueis) uses this knowledge for selfish reasons. Hurts others to obtain it.

The Sith mantra remains somewhat inspirational: Peace is a lie; there is only passion, Through passion I gain strength, Through strength I gain power, Through power I gain victory, Through victory my chains are broken, The Force will set me free.

In a way, they are correct! Where does peace come from but from our passion to obtain it? If we weren't so intent on our will to meditate, relax, self care... we wouldn't achieve it. Through this passion and the benefits we reap from it we can gain strength of character. Through that, personal power of will. And through that, freedom from our egos or circumstances.

You'll see the Sith and Jedi codes are literally complimentary- there is a reason for this! It is because the Force is not split into good and evil... people did that. Institutions did that. Luke, in TLJ, tries to teach this to Rey in his first lesson on Ahch-to. That is a very "Good vs Evil" Christian-influenced morality which I don't personally find applicable to the concept of the Force.

In my opinion the Jedi Way is Goodness, but the Jedi Order is an Institution run by people - who no matter how much they profess to be good, are always corruptible. We see this example many times in canon from Jedi. The jedi Path is goodness. However the Order and its rules often equate themselves to the Path, which is their folly.

Conversely, the Way of the Sith is self-realization, but the Sith Order is an Instituion run by people - who no matter how much they profess to be seeking freedom, are often unstable in their confusion and pain. This corrupts their actions to violence and evil. However, as they are only people... it means they are capable of redemption. We see examples of this as well in Maul and Vader.

The Jedi Order did not "deserve" to be obliterated by any means. But I think focusing on "deserve" is a little misguided. In the SW mythos, by creating the Chosen One the Force presented a litmus test to all Institutions in the Galaxy - the Sith, the Jedi, the Senate, the individuals involved, the people of the Galaxy at large. How they reacted to and treated the McGuffin of Anakin was essentially cementing their fate in stone. Like the Prince in Beauty and the Beast turning away the Old Woman at the castle and being condemned by it.

The Jedi neglected his special needs, the Sith manipulated him, the Senate used him as a weapon for war victory, Padme married him despite knowing he was grieving his mother and wanted to be a Jedi, Obi-wan often fumbled with him because of his own inability to self-analyze, the peoples of the galaxy murdered his mother, enslaved him.

In the eyes of the Force, the galaxy failed its child.

That is not to the say the Jedi were not overwhelmingly good intentioned, they were! Some in the Senate also desperately wanted peace. Padme was struggling with her own lack of childhood and nervous breakdown. Obi-wan had been derailed his entire life by Qui-gon's death. Anakin was continually abused and used for his abilities in every direction. The tragedy of Star Wars is: They were all good, but they failed regardless.

All those institutions were built on some kind of instability which pervaded as tiny cracks to their ethics. Letting evil seep in (how Sidious slithered through). They were all going to fall eventually, it was just a matter of when and how.

Which I think leads to the important number one lesson of Star Wars (to me) whether you look at it as Good vs Evil, a political story, a tale of inner Balance, a metaphor for the soul, a philosophical exercise on duality, or a spiritual story... the main lesson is:

Hope.

That you can be good and fail. And start over.

You can be bad and succeed in your badness - realize it is wrong, and start over.

We can see our passion as power and be free.

We can see our passion as an enemy and have peace.

It depends on inner wisdom, love, and support. It depends on sometimes reaching out in compassion, and other times turning our backs. It depends on our will to fight, and other times our wisdom not to. It depends on killing the past and other times accepting it and letting it guide us.

It depends on many things but most of all, empoweringly, It depends on what we want.

And as for your question about how I feel Anakin was influenced by the Jedi and whose "fault" his fall was - in my opinion, as per textual on-screen canon, it was everyone's. The Jedi, the Sith, the Senate, Padme, Obi-wan, many many others, and of course also Anakin himself.

However... it is those very same people and systems, The Jedi, the Sith, the Rebellion, Padme (Luke), Obi-wan, many others, and of course Anakin himself... which also redeemed him. And saved the galaxy.

Intention. Choice.

Duality.

😉

#ask #anon #sw asks #anakin skywalker #i could go on and on and on further but ill #but ill spare you lol #the only true evil in SW imo is Sidious (the devil figure) #aka the sith Lord of which no one ever is except sidious #when vader killed sidious and by defacto finally became the Sith Lord and not a slave he killed himself to free luke #proving his ultimate goodness and destroying evil and bringing balance to the force #he had a chance to finally have ultimate power inherited from every sith for ten thousand years and all they passed down teachings #and he threw it away in 1 minute for luke and leia his children and their future in a kind galaxy #also sidenote anon if someone wants to fight you in fandom just block them thats what i do #we are all here to have fun #dont feel bad about block block block #the tldr of this ask is it better to be good or authentic? the answer is both and the space in the middle