The Jedi Order - Tumblr Posts
Bastila: What’s your problem with the Jedi Council?
Amnesiac Revan: They don’t let me miss them. Neither do you…
Probably, somewhere on Dantooine or on any other planet you choose...
Mission: And what if Darth Malak attacks Dantooine? What will all these masters will do then?
Amnesiac Revan: I have no clue! They used to do hardly anything, but now they don't do even that!
So I was watching the Wrong Jedi arc (yes I cried, yes i hate myself, yes I hate Dave Filoni) and I got an idea.
What if the Jedi trusted Ahsoka? Bc despite what some people seem to think, they weren't evil monsters. The Jedi were just trying their best.
Anyway, I think that it would change the story a lot. One of the main reasons Anakin Skywalker, mister main character, fell, is because he had lost both his padawan and his faith in the Jedi council. So if Ahsoka not only stays around, but the Jedi trust and support them, maybe Anakin doesn't loose faith. Maybe Palpatine dies in a tragic elevator accident that definitely didn't have anything to do with Fox.
I have so many ideas for this AU, but the main one is just how Ahsoka can grow without Order 66 completely wrecking her life.. How she can turn from an annoying youngling to the one of the wisest and most powerful Knights. But most importantly, she gets her brothers, she gets her masters, she gets her family, and she gets to be Auntie Ahsoka.
This is all just an excuse to give Ahsoka a happy ending :)
You know what the worst thing about Ahsoka is?
It's that she could never have a happy ending.
From the moment she was introduced as Anakin Skywalker’s padawan, from the moment she existed as a Jedi, she was doomed. Because no matter how much she tried to fight, how many good things she did, her character is bound by the narrative, just like every prequels character is.
The Jedi order will fall. Anakin will become Vader. The 501st will be follow their orders.
Everything Ahsoka loved will die (at least most of it). It must, for the timeline and the story to stay intact. Her culture. Her brothers. Her masters and friends and family. All of them, doomed just like her. Nobody gets what they want, except for Sidious.
Her story was already written. And it was not a happy one.
Post-Siege of Mandalore Ahsoka just makes me so sad.
Like, this is a girl who has been fighting for the better part of her rather short life. She’s gone from being a youngling to a soldier to an outcast to a soldier once again. And she was so close. Everything was going to be perfect, the Clone Wars would be over, and she would be what she’d always wanted to be, what she was meant to be. A peacekeeper. A Jedi.
But the Order fell. Her brothers turned on her. The Clone Wars did end, but nobody truly won. Ahsoka’s world crumbled, and yet she still has to keep fighting. Fighting the Empire, fighting Thrawn, fighting herself. It never ends. She never gets to see her masters or her brothers or her culture again. Ahsoka can never stop, because it isn’t in her blood to stop, it just isn’t possible for her. But it’s eating her up, and despite what some people may think, Ahsoka was never truly happy after that tragic day on an icy, unnamed moon. She left that girl, the young and joyful Jedi, in the snow alongside a pair of twin lightsabers.
and that just makes me really sad.
I'm going to be a heretic and say that the Jedi's problem wasn't that they were involved the Senate, it was that they weren't involved enough in the Senate. The Jedi should have moved out to the Unknown Regions if they didn't want to deal with the responsibilities of the Republic. They should have involved in politics by voting for leaders, running for election and utilizing their representation to push for their interests and agenda.
"but they didn't want to be involved-" look here people, you do not choose to get involved in politics. Politics involves everyone; you have a choice to play or not play. There is no option to opt out. By not playing, you forfeit the game to your opponents, and you lose before you begin.
That's how Palpatine wins. He sets the game, and the Jedi forfeit; they were doomed to lose from the start.
i think the Jedi-Positive and Jedi-Critical stances can be summed up on whether you value authorial intent or authorial execution.
Most of the Jedi-Positive people I follow quote George Lucas and director commentaries to prove their points, as well as utilize analyses from others at LucasFilm that have to keep the general status quo. It's all based on what Lucas was trying to portray, while ignoring the product in execution.
The Jedi-Critical stance tends to look at the prequel execution, and they question the obvious uncomfortable moments that have real-life parallels to atrocities. They tend to be more Legends fans, whose writers actually delved into the terrifying implications. It's all on criticizing execution while disregarding intent.
Like, take the argument about Jedi children. A Jedi-Positive person would argue that all the children are all given up with consent from their parents; this is what I am sure Lucas was intending to portray. A Jedi-Critical person will look at this and go "wait. how much 'consent' was in this encounter? the government can legally take these kids and have a representative show up to a farmer's house and tell the farmer they can technically say no? that is some bullshit." And there is real-life evidence for this. It's more on the execution.
Or the argument about love. Jedi-Positive people turn to Lucas's interview to show that they really meant it in the Buddhist sense, and if you value intent that works. Jedi-Critical people would argue that the marketing states that the Jedi cannot love, and nothing in the movies states that the Jedi meant non-toxic love when they eschew attachments.
They're both valid positions, but I think a lot of fandom brutality comes from not understanding either view, or demeaning one view in favor of another. It's perfectly acceptable to value one over the other.
best kind of writing is the kind that's like 'we didn't think about the implications of any of this, and surprise! we created nuanced characters and complex worldbuilding'
I like the Jedi, but I don't know why "A powerful military organization that actively supports the government while not being a part of the government should have criticized the corrupt policies of their state and raised objections to enslaving and buying human beings" is such a negative take that it warrants being put in the jedi critical tag.
thinking too deeply about the scene where palpatine just goes, 'well, if you want to save your wife from dying, you have to go murder a bunch of kids. it's okay, i know this has nothing to do with prenatal care, but trust me on this one.' like, i know it's just shorthand for 'he's evil now', but what purpose does this serve? what is the reason for murdering children? is it just for palpatine's shits and giggles? does he want to check to see if anakin is really that desperate? why tamper with useful apprentices that could be used as an army, and could eventually serve as viable replacements for anakin lest something happen?
like, lucas went with child murder, and didn't do anything interesting with it. like, at least do something useful with the dead children, like, use their souls to keep luke and leia alive and that's why they make it through childbirth. make anakin drag them up to the top of the jedi temple to show dissenters to the new empire, this is how we deal with traitors. use the dead souls to purge the light of the temple and shroud it in darkness. do something creative!
or, at least, let the dead babies haunt people. every strike vader lands, he can hear a child's cry at the end of it. they sob loudly, and he rips his eardrums from his mangled ear to dull the pain. they whisper in luke's ear as a child, avenge us, and luke wonders if he's gone insane. everytime padme cries out in her birthing, she can hear fifty echoes of babies and children crying with her. and when she turns her head to her daughter and son, the voices that so fervently cried out for help were silenced in eerie quiet, and then she knows.
i don't know where i was going with this. anyway, uh, utilize the child murder properly!
this came in response to seeing some blog post on my dash about the jedi and republic. i'm usually cool with the jedi, but this post set me off because of the way it defended the Republic.
i understand being jedi positive and jedi critical. i will side eye you immensely and run screaming if you are empire positive beyond the whole 'cool aesthetic and badass villains' and empire crits should and are the norm. i even get being new republic positive-while they suck, they are way better than the neo-nazis.
what i don't understand is, especially in the context of the prequels, is being republic-positive. like, the republic is not this holy paragon symbiotic relationship with the jedi that flourished harmoniously without the evil Sith. like, it's canon that the republic has been failing and a problem since like, before baby palpatine existed. the jedi behold themselves to the republic out of tradition, not for the republic itself. the republic is george lucas's hamfisted take on fucking american imperialism. are you seriously trying to defend this? you really want to look at me and tell me that everything was fine with Bush Era Politics? really?
"That boy is our last hope."
"No there is another."
Funniest fucking exchange between these two. seriously, i rewatched ESB and these two were fucking killing me. Absolutely hilarious. i'm dying. first of all, way to disregard the other actual force sensitive you met personally, who is literally his sister. also, didn't you dumb fucks just say that you needed to leave these two to die? and how it was a trap and luke could get hurt? you should be encouraging him to save his replacement. why are you just letting your backup plan get killed? i mean, you should be trying to get him to go. this is really shitty planning, and honestly, george lucas can say that obi and yoda were right all he wants, but he's the one who created the narrative that obi-wan and yoda were willing to fuck up their backup plan. there are losing their other potential replacement by not letting him help. what a load of bullshit.
i'd like it to be remembered that this is the conversation we got AFTER luke left. this was their reaction: 'whelp, he's going to die or turn, guess we'll rely on this other girl who we discouraged him to save.'
it's even worse knowing that obi-wan is aware of leia's existence, and has a preexisting relationship. you'd think that he of all people would understand what leia is capable of. he's just willing to let this kid, the kid that he is fully aware of in terms of potential and strength, the kid that is literally their other hope, die and is just like 'welp, she'll die. maybe we can resurrect her in case luke dies and we run of pinball chances.' idiots, these two. i love them.
i forgot to add this to the original post, but what was obi-wan and yoda's plan if luke didn't save leia? like, assuming he died, and leia was taken prisoner or died, what would they do? would they run jedi boot camp in leia's prison cell? would they perform some ancient jedi resurrection ritual to try to bring them back? was force ghost corpse possession on the table?
what was the plan?
"That boy is our last hope."
"No there is another."
Funniest fucking exchange between these two. seriously, i rewatched ESB and these two were fucking killing me. Absolutely hilarious. i'm dying. first of all, way to disregard the other actual force sensitive you met personally, who is literally his sister. also, didn't you dumb fucks just say that you needed to leave these two to die? and how it was a trap and luke could get hurt? you should be encouraging him to save his replacement. why are you just letting your backup plan get killed? i mean, you should be trying to get him to go. this is really shitty planning, and honestly, george lucas can say that obi and yoda were right all he wants, but he's the one who created the narrative that obi-wan and yoda were willing to fuck up their backup plan. there are losing their other potential replacement by not letting him help. what a load of bullshit.
i'd like it to be remembered that this is the conversation we got AFTER luke left. this was their reaction: 'whelp, he's going to die or turn, guess we'll rely on this other girl who we discouraged him to save.'
it's even worse knowing that obi-wan is aware of leia's existence, and has a preexisting relationship. you'd think that he of all people would understand what leia is capable of. he's just willing to let this kid, the kid that he is fully aware of in terms of potential and strength, the kid that is literally their other hope, and is just like 'welp, she'll die. maybe we can resurrect her in case luke dies and we run of pinball chances.' idiots, these two. i love them.
sometimes, despite the clear eastern influences, the jedi and star wars are so painfully christian. they might as well be wearing crosses.
i posit that george lucas’ biggest flaw isn’t that he sucks as a dialogue writer, but that he’s too chicken-shit to commit to the bit. upon requests, i will elaborate.
i don't know why, but everyone in the prequels feels like they have a smoking habit. obi-wan, anakin, padme, yoda, mace, everyone. they all are collectively poaching cigarettes and the reason they're all so cranky all the time is because palpatine cracked down on tobacco and they're all in withdrawal.
i love how everyone at lucasfilm tried their damn darnest best to convince us that the Jedi were pure good, but at least half of fandom gives them lawful neutral at best.
the jedi are very funny to me. they are space hindus who strongly believe in the christian concept of evil.
okay not-Dharmic religious jedi crits, you guys have got to understand the difference between what is george lucas' 'straight white man' nonsense, and shit that is, actual Buddhist and Hindu philosophy.
striving for for letting go of attachments isn't Lucas nonsense, it’s actual south Asian philosophy. controlling your emotional responses is not unnatural and weird, that is just dharmic goals. these things are not inherently bad of themselves, until you define ‘over emotional’ as having natural responses of emotion and ‘attachment’ as a child worrying for his enslaved mother, then it is george lucas' straight white man nonsense.
begging you all as a hindu jedi neutral.
i think that the nicest thing that I can write about the jedi is that they are fundamentally trying their damn best. they were put into extremely fucked up positions and their genocide was a sign of the general dusk of morality in the universe. they never set out to ruin anything, and wanted only to bring peace and justice to the galaxy. they tried so hard, and they had nothing to show for it.