Lit A question on Karen Traviss and her work(s)

I practice non-attachment, I think it's healthy. I learned from experience the wisdom in the Tao Te Ching, Dhammapada & Bhagavad Gita. I'm glad GL put it in SW. Westerners wreak a lot of havoc getting all attached to people & things; it's not easy but I believe that learning to let go can be a powerful force for good in everyone's life. Sometimes, non-action is better than action. You have to give people space to work their own issues out & make their own journey to self knowledge & enlightenment. The sooner everyone on earth learns that possessions do not of themselves bring happiness the sooner we'd all be living in a happier world. So I obviously don't think that Jedi philosophy is full of it or out of touch. GL secreted some real wisdom into his fiction.

 

They actually talked with each other in Republic. He mentioned how he he had to deal with his family's deaths and avoiding attachment when the Clone Wars hit after Obi-Wan went MIA and Anakin was with him

 

I didn't say either of those things! I said "I believe learning to let go can be a powerful force for good in everyone's life" and that it is wisdom. And they're not "religious beliefs" for me, I see it as wisdom from the collective human experience, which you can take from anywhere. I'm an atheist.

 

And, of course, if not Yoda for a therapist (or agony uncle) then Palpatine???

 

Yoda never said one untrue thing to Luke, and you're acting as if Ben's one big lie was somehow a multitude.

 

Speaking of Buddhism and "not his therapist"....one never stops learning. No living person is ever so wise that they have no room to grow, that they do not need advice, or that they are above seeking and giving emotional comfort. Yoda has been the therapists for jedi more experienced and wiser than Anakin, and he has used other jedi for that purpose himself. I see no reason why Anakin should not expect honest advice and guidance from the head of his order: why else is there a head of the order in the first place. I am also surprised that his asking would be considered a personal failing on his part - being able to recognize one's limits and ask for advice is one of the most mature things he has ever done.

You can manipulate someone with the truth. An incomplete truth dolled out in convenient portions is not any better than a bold faced lie.

 

Precisely. And by not coming clean with Luke, Yoda chose to become complicit in Obi-Wan's lie.

It's a mixed bag, really. All EU sources aside, the movies either heavily imply or outright state that attachment such as Anakin's would earn him expulsion from the Jedi Order, depending upon how literally you want to take the dialogue. Remember, Obi-Wan says that at Geonosis, before Anakin and Padme have even been married. And in Revenge of the Sith, a similar implication is made that Anakin will have to choose between service to the Jedi and his relationship with Padme were they to be open about it—one or the other, not both. The scope of the EU complicates matters a bit, by introducing exceptions to this rule. However, it's also believable that these are very much exceptions, few and far between, or that such measures of clemency aren't paraded about for fear that others will see it as an acceptance of previous unacceptable behavior. Thus, you could see that from what he knows, Anakin has every right to believe that his transgression against the code will be responded to harshly, whether that's actually what would be done or not. As would Nejaa, and in the scope of Traviss' novels, that goes likewise for Etain.

Traviss also questions the moral implications of using mind tricks. She's not alone in that, and there was even a lengthy quote on the responsible use of such power by Yarael Poof in The Essential Guide to the Force. But still...that's something that's never reflected upon in the films, or even most EU works. You're expected to take it as a cunning power of the good guys. As an outside viewer of a fictional universe, I enjoy the hell out of Jedi mind tricks. They're useful, often amusing, and downright hilarious when they fail or have unintended consequences. But were I a resident of the galaxy far, far away, a functioning member of this universe who knew that this power existed and was practiced with relative frequency, by a government supported agency of warrior monks whom I know nothing about or their inner workings...I would be deeply concerned, and that's putting it mildly.

 

Yeah, he was like the on-call substitute Councilor or something, because he's always on the Council before he's supposed to be. Pre-TPM material is always trying to stick the TPM Council where it isn't supposed to be.

Ki-Adi-Mundi's entire existence is basically one long, continuing retcon.

Because no one knows about her. I would guess, though, given that she was allowed to leave and come back and have kids and all that, one could imagine a similar situation to Mundi, where there's a special dispensation involved. It could also be profitable to link her to Djinn Altis, and his similarly Council-defying-yet-formally-Jedi gang.

As for the Lost Twenty, I've always favored narrowing down conditions to be "Lost." It could be Jedi Masters who leave the Order over a philosophical dispute (which Leem ostensibly doesn't do), rather than just pulling out because they're old or don't want to do it anymore or have a family or want to get out ahead of censure. Alternatively, it could exclude those Jedi who don't leave the Order in good standing, and Leem could be excluded on the basis that she was violating Jedi rules at the time, and even if, as with Altis, they're not willing to exercise any power to expel them, they're also not willing to honor those who essentially jump ship because they're breaking the rules.

 

If Anakin can't suck it up (as Mundi did when his entire family died) he has no business being a Jedi. That was Xanatos' problem. I can't understand why this is difficult to grasp.

 

I don't even think we need to worry about dispensations. The Council has never shown even an inclination for throwing people out because of marriage or a relationship. The worst anyone got is a scolding. No one got expelled for anything except having fooling about with Dark Side stuff.

 

That's what the Jedi Order sorely needs more of: Therapists.

Hell, the whole damn galaxy needs more therapists. Might solve a whole lot of problems.

 

Dooku's best friend wasn't expelled for stealing a Sith Holocron (in Secrets of the Jedi), but for lying about Dooku's involvement. "Using the Dark Side" didn't have anything to do with it.

 

Are you saying Anakin should have been receiving therapy from his initiation into the Order, when he gave every appearance (and I'd say was) a very normal and quite well adjusted child? Or are you referring specifically to the time from Shmi's death through the Clone Wars?

So no dabbling in the dark side or being a worthless, conniving little excrescence prepared to drop one's best friend right in it?

 

There's a difference between nurturing and manipulating, but the difference isn't always clear...

 

You seem to know everything about the EU. How do you do it!?

 

Uh . . . oh, you know. Years of training, that type of thing. Solitude. Heavy medication . . .

 

I feel that Anakin trusted Obi-Wan more than he trusted the Jedi Order and I actually think that Obi-Wan did kinda accept him for what he was, warts and all. I think it was his fear of loosing Padme outweighed his feelings and respect for Kenobi. Then followed by what he viewed as a double betrayal on Mustafar of everyone who he thought still loved him.

 

But you can't call it untruth at the same time.

All truth is incomplete. By this reasoning, anything is tantamount to a lie. Thus the concept becomes essentially meaningless. This aside from the fact that "tell the truth all the time" is a poor substitute for morality when there are reasons not to and the fate of the galaxy is riding on it.

Not just one lie - all of them. All his deceptions and untruths.

 

You've piqued my curiosity; are you getting your perspective from different sources to me or fielding a different interpretation? I'm basing my understanding of young Anakin on The Phantom Menace, its junior novelisation, Rogue Planet and the first half dozen Jedi Quests. In none of those, excepting the bizarre, never-repeated yet highly enjoyable maybe-future-Vader flashes in Rogue Planet, can I recall ever detecting anything untoward or disturbing in his personality. In fact, Rogue Planet ended with him receiving counseling. In this period his fears are really quite normal and when necessary he deals with them using his training.