Lit no attachments

did the no attachments rule in attack of the clones serve any purpose besides making a reason that padme and anakin couldn't get together to create tension in the movie? i remember it being explained why they couldn't have attachements but does it really make sense?

 

As I said once before, it existed so Anakin could have something vaguely justifiable to be pissed off about.

 

AOTC and making sense? You ask to much

 

The IU reason is that forming romantic bonds makes it too easy to fall to the dark side, which only really makes sense in the context of "the Order is old and bloated and doesn't work anymore".

 

A lot of monastic orders have such rules, it's not a stretch that the Jedi Order would have them.

That's one of the major bits of subtext in the movies. I very much doubt it was unintentional, given that the entire saga is resolved when Anakin's and Luke's emotional attachment to each other ends up saving the galaxy.

 

Well it's interesting to see the gradual evolution of the rule. Over in 181st we are reading Tales of the Jedi, which I see, chronologically, as the swan song of the old ways of the OJO. The traveling, truly hermetic masters who were free to marry and reproduce, and an Order whose structure was far more informal. So I can see the genesis of the no attachments rule (as much as I disagree with the rule; exhibit A of course being Luke freaking Skywalker) coming about as a result of the horrors of that era and the fact that Nomi Sunrider seems to have taken on a leadership role within the Order, and may have planted some of the initial ideas as a reaction to how things with Ulic tumbled out ("I'm going to irrevocably cut you off from the Force because I'm angry and our romance made no sense from a reader's perspective! RARRRRRRGH!"). We see the first Jedi Council starting to push the restriction under such figures as Atris and Vrook Lamar, and its further refinement in the TOR Jedi. The hereditary Jedi fiefdoms during the New Sith Wars suggest to me that the rule was allowed to lapse for a time following the TOR era; and of course the Warfare guide discusses how the post-Ruusan OJO tried to distance itself from the Jedi Lords of the era, and one consequence of that was the distancing from relationships and attachments.

Overall I think that it's a dumb rule, and exists purely for the sake of George's awful AOTC plots (and much of the prequel-era EU makes it clear that the Order made all sorts of unoffical exceptions, so Anakin just comes off in an even worse light), and I'm glad that Luke did away with it.

 

Um, I'm pretty sure she would have done exactly that. See TCW Episode "Shadow Warrior" where Padme does exactly what Anakin would do in a similar situation.

 

This. The no-attachment rule is best understood as a form of risk management. Attachments are a threat, because they induce the potential to make moral compromises, which due to the way the Force works Jedi cannot afford - because how you feel about something largely controls what you do about it, and the dark side is always there offering you options.

Yoda tries to make this clear to Anakin in Revenge of the Sith, when they have their little heart to heart and he tells him to let go, that love means acceptance of what happens and allowing the freedom to let those you care about take their own risks and choose their own actions, otherwise you are smothering them. Yoda's phrasing is not exactly the best. A better variant is in Vision of the Future, where Luke has to learn to understand that loving Mara means he cannot protect her from him or from herself, he has to let her make her choices and to take risks when they are together.

The thing is, doing this is really, really hard. It requires a pretty darned enlightened perspective, and the history of the galaxy is riddled with Jedi who tried and failed to keep their attachments from leading them down a dark path. So during the Russan Reformations the order just chose to ban them altogether.

Now, there are two aspects of the historical context that also inform the rule. The first is the Jedi Lords - heriditary famillies that arose in territories abandoned by the Republic proper during the New Sith Wars. These were literal Force-using noble hierarchies controlling whole systems, and as part of the Russan Reformations their power was to be broken, which the no attachment rule did pretty darn soundly. Second, the rules that were put into place during that period, including the no attachments prohibition and the restriction of only infants and toddlers being trained were developed by Master Fae Coven, who was grand master at that time. Master Coven was a Jenet, not a human. Jenet species psychology is very different from that of humans. Thus rules that seem very restrictive to humans, such as having children raised by total strangers without contact with their biological parents at any point, was actually normal Jenet practice. so it is quite possible that the rules that were initially put into place should have been editted over time to make them fit better with the species makeup of the order.

Considering Yoda's exceedingly long dominance of the order, however, it is not surprising that extremely hidebound practices unsuited for the changing times were retained.

 

Well TCW isn't really well known for respecting established canon or character interaction. I do find it odd that its gotten so bad that they ignore the movie that its based on.

That being said the in-story explanation is that Obi-Wan was just manipulating Anakin..,

 

Above, we have a lot of good reasons for the rule - as well as reasons for abandoning it - but I think it's important that RL monastic rules are not uncritically used as explanations as their historical reasons can bee very specific. F.ex the celibacy of the catholic church is based on a view of sexuality as sinful - or the idea that earthly needs distance you from the higher purpose of God - and as far as I know, none of these views can be applied to GFFA, at least not in general.

 

The closest thing to the Jedi excuse would be police and military. And, as we can see just from the GFFA, the very existence of police and military with families making hard decisions completely demolishes any Jedi arguments for celibacy.

Unlike most real world celibate, and often times chaste, monastic orders' reasons.. the Jedi Order doesn't make the claim that sex and romance actually distance a person from the Force. Buddhist, Taoist, Catholic, etc monastic traditions basically all say sex and romantic love would be some kind of impediment to closeness to God or realization of Ultimate Reality. Contrast that with the Sufi tradition in Islam, for example, where all of these can be achieved while married and having children and even enhanced by it. And Sufi-based chivalric orders existed in the Abbasid era that merged the pursuit of gnosis with martial and ethical chivalry.

 

In fact, we don't really have many clues on how sex is looked upon in GFFA - if there f.ex. could be one view that overshadows most others for humans f.ex. As RL strategy that's probably wise - and SW is also a family brand - but it can easily creat som confusion as people tend to read RL values into GFFA without the historic luggage that should be required. Anyway, as you say - the Jedi Order's non attachments rule bascially has nothing to do with their view on sex and romance - most RL monastic traditions do.

 

The closest thing I've seen is a book called Scholar Warrior about Taoist Scholar Warriors. The author asserts that Scholar Warriors avoided marriage primarily because it would hamper their ability to cultivate Tao in their lives, resulting in energy wasted in things other than spiritual cultivation. Jedi non-attachment seems motivated primarily for practical military/diplomatic/law enforcement reasons... and again, the existence of police, military and diplomats that would no doubt have to make hard decisions from time to time might prove how weak of a justification the Jedi have for their position. Even the whole danger of the dark side thing is pretty weak IMO.

Whatever proof Anakin Skywalker gives for this particular take on non-attachment, I think Luke's entire Order gives better proof the other way. And the old Jedi Order prior to Ruusan making non-attachment = celibacy a hard and fast rule when prior to that there were exceptions, and romantic love relationships were even more common prior to the Jedi Civil War. I know there are OOU reasons for all of this, but IU... no one batted an eye at Ulic and Nomi's budding relationship, and Andur and Nomi's marriage was a non-issue. And obviously, Crado and Sylvar were together and Master Vodo, no anyone else, took issue with it. Non-attachment can be practiced in many ways.

I can't help but go back to this with reference to real life traditions in this regard. Islamic piety, and mysticism in particular, stresses non-attachment to the point that the Qur'an says:

[Yusufali 4:135] O ye who believe! stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be (against) rich or poor: for Allah can best protect both. Follow not the lusts (of your hearts), lest ye swerve, and if ye distort (justice) or decline to do justice, verily Allah is well-acquainted with all that ye do.

In this case, to "stand out firmly for justice" makes me think of just the kinds of matters Jedi deal with regularly. Even when we talk about a situation where a Jedi would be faced with sacrificing one life to save many... I'm not sure, in the case of Jedi, making the case for non-attachment on the premise that if such a situation arose and the one life needing to be sacrificed was a family member it would be too hard. I think the most sound reasoning for such a non-attachment would be a desired goal that Jedi should be able to be equally attached to all lives, in which case sacrificing one life... especially an innocent life... to save many would be just as hard. If the Jedi cultivate a kind of cold, rational, detachment then they are on a slippery slope to the dark side anyway. In fact, it's probably a surer way to the dark side than the life of a loved one being in danger.

The entirety of the PT is an example of this... though the Jedi Order itself wasn't shifting to the dark side they were certainly distant enough from the day-to-day lives of "common beings" that they left the galaxy vulnerable to the influence of the dark side and the Sith by their ambivalence essentially helping to turn the common beings away form them. And Jacen Solo is a prime example of cold, rational detached assessment of a situation resulting in a Sith Lord. Whereas, in the very same person, love resulted in him turning a malevolent World Brain into a benevolent force on Coruscant. Anakin Solo went out in a blaze of light side glory by channeling his love for his family, friends and teammates in SBS. And of course, the power of Luke's love turned Darth Vader away from the dark side and saved the galaxy from the dictator ship of Palpatine but also the unravelling of the universe via the imbalance in the Force. The same situation is repeated between Leia and Luke saving the galaxy from clone Palpatine's Dark Empire.

 

A question.

How in Palpatine's blue sky do you have a male and female ''monks'' training at the same place and people not getting pregnant? I know some non-human races are probably less horny but there is a reason why the nuns and priests are for the most part isolated from eachother.

 

Sublimation. Jedi can control their bodies and condemn their desires to the Force.

Or maybe not.

Exactly! Love all your points here - but this is very important, I think.

I agree, save that he was also an example of someone who was prepared to do anything for his daughter = attachment. But again, one could argue that it wasn't his love for his daughter that was his undoing - but his readiness to diminish the value of others. Which is exactly the same as what happens to Anakin Skywalker (and much clearer if you follow CW than if you've only seen ROTS)

 

The later addition of Jacen's motivations being all about Allana don't sit well with his earlier depictions, from DNT to Betrayal and Bloodlines. He's just cold there. And then later it's like "oh yeah, Allana. That's his motivation."

 

I have an upcoming project to re-read NJO, DNT and LOTF, and among other things, check out Jacen's consistency Wish me luck - and cross your fingers it will happen in this century But I agree that from my one-time reading, I found Jacen detached in those novels. Already in start NJO he was going to extremes because of a principal, which IMO fit well as first step on that road.

But maybe it is a point in the road to his fall being (at least) three-part? First, you have a general readiness to go to extremes. No alarm. That's pretty usual. Then you have the growing detachment. That's alarming, especially as it goes on - but it still doesn't make you a Sith. A Sith comes from the combi of a cold jerk and a passionate ego project. The latter is what Allana is to Jacen - and that is when he inevitably falls.

And in terms of the no attachments rule - that would be an argument why a 'healthy' Jedi, wouldn't fall because of attachments - the attachment would be the last thing to tip the wagon - not the main reason.

 

Good luck. I think there is an abrupt shift sometime after Sacrifice where he starts to become unhinged. Prior to that you could say he was being cold and rational. Nelani Dinn and Thracken Sal-Solo are prime examples of his cold calculation to kill them.

 

Having no attachments is damn near impossible for beings that live and work in the galaxy. Even Windu had an attachment.

 

I wonder if it means no post cards. They travel about the galaxy and all.

 

He also had an attachment to the Republic, since it represented civilization.

 

Observation: none of the ex-Joiner Jedi in DT seemed all that disturbed about having participated in giant daily bug orgies. Jaina even seemed kinda into them. Is it inconceivable that sex just isn't that big of a deal to them?