I think it's interesting that - in order to make his "free-thinking Jedi" characters hold any semblance of rationality in their arguments - Dave Filoni needs to resort to artificially dehumanizing the other Jedi and painting them all with the same "we dogmatically worship protocol" brush.
He does this with Huyang in the recent Ahsoka episode.
"Lolz he's so narrow-minded, preachy and by-the-book, unable to think outside the box, just like the Jedi in the Prequels."
My first reaction was being amused at the fact that Filoni had to resort to making the Jedi Order's ideals and rules be embodied by a literal machine for his anti-Jedi headcanon to start making sense.
But then I remembered: Huyang isn't just any droid.
In The Clone Wars, he had a sassy personality, he had a pep in his step, he had a sense of humor...
This character was human in his behavior, he was fun and whimsical.
But now he's been reduced to, I dunno, "Jedi C-3PO"? Basically?
"Ha! He's blunt and unsympathetic because he's a droid, but it's funny because the Jedi were the same, they were training themselves to be tactless, emotionless droids."
And Filoni does this with Mace Windu too, in Tales of the Jedi.
Mace, who brought a lightsaber to the throat of a planetary leader to defend the endangered Zillo Beast...
... and who went waaay past his mandate by mischievously sneaking around Bardottan authorities and breaking into the Queen's quarters because he felt something bad was afoot...
... was reduced to being an almost droid-like, rule-parotting, protocol purist who sticks to his instructions (and is implied to be willing to let a murder go unsolved so he can get a promotion).
I mentioned this at the end of my first post on Luke in The Last Jedi... while changes in personality do happen overtime and can be explained in-universe... if you don't show us that progression and evolution and just leave us without that context, that'll break the suspension of disbelief, for your audience.
Here, we have two characters with a different (almost caricatural) personality than the one they were originally shown to have.
Now... we could resort to headcanons, to make it all fit together.
We could justify Huyang's tone shift 'cause "Order 66 changed him". And we could make explanations about TotJ's Mace:
Being younger and thus more ambitious and a stickler for the rules, and only really becoming more flexible after getting his seat on the Council and gaining more maturity.
Being such a teacher's pet in the episode because we're seeing him through the eyes of a notorious unreliable narrator, Dooku.
There'd be nothing wrong with opting to go with either of those headcanons to cope with this. After all, Star Wars is meant to help you get creative.
But the problem I encounter is that:
Filoni has an anti-Jedi bias, so the above headcanons clearly wouldn't really track with his intended narrative.
We'd be jumping through hoops to extrapolate and fill in what is, essentially, inconsistent characterization, manufactured to make Ahsoka and Dooku shine under a better light.
And that sours whatever headcanon I come up with.
Edit:
Also, yeah, as folks have been saying in the tags... wtf is "Jedi protocol"? The term isn't ever mentioned in the movies, I skimmed through dialog transcripts of TCW, never saw it there.
So it's almost as if - if Filoni wasn't draining characters like Mace and Huyang of all humanity and nuance - his point about "the Jedi were too detached and lost their way, but not free-thinkers like Qui-Gon, Dooku and Ahsoka" wouldn't really hold much water.
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"Hello buir, this is your grandson."
"Buir? ...grandson??"
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Was very frustrated I couldn't come up with anything for Cody Day (2/2/24) and then remembered that I have other ways to create chaos.
Anyway, TCW/Mandalorian time travel shenanigans! After o66, Cody ended up with the Tribe, never removing his helmet and devoting himself to taking care of the foundlings as a way to ease his guilt. He took a shine to Din, raised him as his own, and taught him everything he knew. ('What do you mean you're not supposed to physically assault droids with your bare hands?')
He was probably lost in one of the assaults on the Tribe that resulted in them having to relocate so often, but that's one of the reasons Din was so adamant about never removing his helmet: he wanted to honor his buir's memory.
Eventually Mandalor Din (lalala what season 3 lalalalala), Grogu, and Protector Paz end up interacting with some kind of Force bullshit and get chucked into the past. They then meet Cody, whose scar is in the exact same place as the marking that Din's buir always painted on his helmet.
(scar not pictured, as this figure of cody does not have a face)
((meanwhile paz and rex are Not About these shenanigans. mandalor please step away from the proto-stormtrooper. cody please remove yourself from within reach of the extremely well-armed mandalorian. why do second-in-commands always have to deal with idiot leaders paz and rex did nothing to deserve this))
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Star Wars action figures are the worst things to ever be produced. You mean I can have my favorite character in my room? They'll just stand or sit wherever I put them and chill with me? Or I can buy their significant other too and they can kiss or hold hands? Fuck this, man. I'm too broke.
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