Full Series The Yoda Arc (6.10-6.13) Discussion Thread

Actually, the astral duel worked in Sidious's favor. He may not have managed to defeat Yoda there, but the illusion was carefully crafted to ease some of Yoda's doubts. In the illusion, the clone troopers open fire on the Sith without hesitation and Dooku kills them. That helps reinforce Yoda's belief that the clones are good soldiers and can be trusted to the end. Also, Anakin fights Sidious without hesitation, raising Yoda's faith in Anakin, making it less likely that he would suspect Anakin of going to the Dark Side. And no, Anakin beheading Dooku doesn't count, as Yoda told him specifically that the Sith were to be executed.

 

The Priestesses, iirc, told Yoda specifically before the duel that they had no control over what Yoda would see and that the Sith controlled it. Thus, Yoda would have no reason to trust anything in that vision. And given the vivid parallel between how Dooku dies in the vision compared to how he does indeed eventually die, I don't know how much of that vision Sidious is actually micromanaging, and how much of it is just calling forth the Dark Side in a way to create a vision that Sidious doesn't completely control.

Why would Sidious let the Jedi know where the Sith have been hiding? If Sidious could control that, why not make it look like they are on Naboo or something? How would Sidious even know more-or-less the way that Dooku would die?

But if Sidious is managing every last detail of the vision, then the fact that Dooku could be defeated by Anakin in the vision is only true because Sidious wishes it so. He could have created a vision in which Dooku schools them all single handed, and made it look like the Sith were so ridiculously powerful that they didn't have a chance against even the apprentice.

And instead of representing himself as he truly looks, he could have represented himself as anyone. "Darth Sidious" could turn out to be one of his political opponents, such that he turns the Jedi against someone in the senate he wants removed, etc.

IMO, the fact that he creates a scenario so dangerously filled with the truth and accurate representations just makes me think that he didn't have direct control over everything in the vision.

 

I believe the worms were a response from the Force in opposition of the overwhelming light side powers of Yoda. Yoda is small, green and frog-like so the worms not only represented the slimy lies of the dark side but what frogs and similar animals like to eat, worms.

However, these episodes are so mindblowing that I could be completely wrong.

Perhaps they were native species that were being posessed by the spirits of the dead Sith?

 

Hearing Liam's rich baritone first greet Yoda on Dagobah would now have a spot as one of my favorite moments of the Saga.

 

Well the worms could've been just so low a lifeform the sith spirits were able to posses and manipulate them into forming some kinda physical representation as they combine to create that large creature together. The planet is so stooped in the darkside as so many Jedi were sacrificed on that planet along with the Sith destroying themselves there, so its filled with all kinds of dark energy and life forces. I would say their powers are limited to Morraband but they can reach out through the force and contact the living much like Jinn.

The episodes werent bad. But they did feel like LOTR and Harry Potter to me. The Sith spirits reminded me of the death eaters, and Sidious was using his witch and sorcery magiks. Dont get me wrong, I like the occult in heroic fantasy fiction and mythology as much as anyone. Speaking of which they can apparently tell living Sith of the jedi's trespass on Morraband from across the galaxy as they told Yoda they would alert the Sith Lords and so both Tyranus and Sidious were informed through the darkside of the force. Darth Bane's spirit is less clear in the episode, seems if you show fear or the will to be submissive to his dark teachings than he's very much real, but if you're pure light and show no fear to his presence he's rendered powerless and off he goes back into his tomb.

I wonder if Palpatine went to Morraband and learned the darkside of the force through Darth Bane's spirit , the final test would be to defeat the manifestation after learning his lessons as the apprentice and to take his place figuratively, by becoming the Sith Master and carrying on the Rule of Two. This seems possible to do, as this was done also in the old Darkhorse comics with Exar Kun. Not sure where the canon lies nowadays with Darth Plagueis and all, is Palpatine part of an adulterated lineage going back to Bane's legacy or simply someone that went in search of and became empowered. We dont know why Palpatine was never suspected as a force sensitive as he was born within the Republic and he would have had to have kept his force sensitively a secret since childhood and he was not born apparently into a poor or obscure family or out in the outer rim.

Yoda may of suffered a heart attack after the fight as the astral force battles are very much real to the Jedi and Sith. Sidious pulled out trying to trick Yoda to keep on falling to his death, which he may of succeeded as Yoda took a while to come back and needed some vocal coercion.

The Force Priestesses themselves seem to act outside of the light and the dark, some of the sisters appear quite dark much like the Son of Mortis and daughter was kinda ambigous in morality as well as the father was. But how they hold the final say in who is able to remain in limbo remains unanswered, who placed them in charge. is there a God in the Star Wars universe, Solo makes reference to Hell so seemingly which may of been explored at some point as Lucas seemed intent on creating a whole religion to rival Dune's lol. According to Yoda all creatures are luminous beings not this crude matter(meaning flesh). Not really sure how remaining in limbo is something a Jedi should be doing, as its more a Sith trait, a refusal to move from the physical realm and failure to let go of their body as they're supposed to be entirely selfabsorbed ect ect.

Yoda in the episode already accepts the Jedi are defeated and have lost by betraying their own code during the Clone Wars and so lost their way and too late for them, so retaining his spirit from beyond was a way to immortality(why would jedi crave such a thing while we're told in ROTS of the Sith's fascination with immortality during the opera meeting) and pass on teachings if the Jedi should be destroyed. Yoda and Windu in ROTS are betrayed quite different , in fact most of the characters arent the very much what we saw in the movies as Lucas badly wrote and directed them, and CW serves to try and fix but also creates more problems or questions than it solves.

 

Welcome to the boards!

I interpreted these Sith specters as echoes of Sith long dead, all of whom have long lost their identities after death, hence why they all appear the same. They are literally shadows of their former selves. As to how they can reach out to the present-day Sith to inform Sidious and Tyranus of Yoda's presence on Korriban/Moraband, I agree with your interpretation; they can reach out to contact those strongly attuned to the dark side of the Force, but cannot leave the planet, whose nexus of dark side energies allow them to take astral form. Which is actually quite consistent with the Legends EU, if you choose to interpret it that way.

I actually enjoyed the parallels to those franchises, particularly LotR. Moraband is a dead world empowered by darkness, not wholly unlike Mordor. Darth Bane's spirit can probably be treated the same way as the other Sith spirits, an echo of a long dead Sith, but this time one who was powerful enough to retain some semblance of his identity...provided of course that he wasn't simply an illusion conjured up by the Priestesses to test Yoda. Remember, they reached out to him immediately after Bane's ghost dissipated, as Yoda had passed the test and stood strong against the darkness.

Well, Palpatine was so strong in the Force from birth that he was right away able to conceal, to mask his Force sensitivity from others even involuntarily, according to Darth Plagueis. This was evident by the fact that he successfully hid his Force-sensitivity from Hego Damask (Plagueis) until he had a fit of anger. However, Palpatine's father Cosinga noticed that the infant was abnormally strong and concluded that he was a Force-sensitive, but presumably because he hated the thought of surrendering his son to the Jedi, Cosinga did not allow a young Palpatine to join the Order; not that Palpatine ever harbored such thoughts. He was always obsessed with the dark side of the Force, and according to Book of Sith, he was searching for and collecting ancient Sith knowledge even before he met his Master Darth Plagueis. Palpatine was destined to be the one to bring about the completion of the Grand Plan, to ensure the Sith's 1,000-years-in-the-making victory over the Jedi Order. Even if we discard old EU lore about Palpatine visiting dark side-empowered worlds like Korriban and Dathomir (the latter of which happened thanks to Son of Dathomir), we know from his dialogue in Sacrifice that he was very much familiar with the ancient Sith homeworld, as is logical given his vast knowledge of the Sith and even ancient techniques like the Sith sorcery he displayed in that very same episode.

The Priestesses' gift to Yoda was a reward for his future contributions in teaching the one who would help restore balance to the Force, Luke Skywalker, who does so by redeeming his father and enabling Anakin to fulfill the Chosen One prophecy. It may also be that Yoda is needed as a Force ghost beyond the original trilogy for some as-of-yet unknown purpose. Yes, retaining one's identity after death and achieving immortality seems antithetical to a Jedi's nature, but I think that the ones who are chosen to learn the technique are completely selfless and understand that their learning it allows them to serve the greater good, and the Force, in a greater capacity even after death. They must be true to this tenet, and that is probably why only a chosen few can ever be selected to learn this technique. They do not learn this technique to grow in power, but only to continue serving the will of the Force. It's a sort of spiritual reward, much like those who are religious believing in an afterlife that people go as a reward for living a good, righteous life.

Yoda has seemingly come to accept the inevitable outcome of the Clone Wars, but as we see in RotS, he does everything within his power to combat it, even if he knows that in the end it is a losing battle. For "all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." His realization in the RotS novel that he couldn't defeat Sidious only adds to the enormity of this revelation, and is the final point in which he realizes he is ready to accept his new purpose; to wait for the son of the Chosen One to arrive so that he may one day train the boy. Hence, why it is shortly thereafter that Qui-Gon Jinn contacts Yoda to begin his training.

 

I meant " Windu and Yoda portrayed" not "betrayed", I hate typing,lol.

Thanks for the welcome.

Yeah, am sure there is different points of view as we may get by ascertaining from the episodes, also what the writers meant to portray according to their opinion may not be what ended well translated up on screen and we're walking away with more questions than answers. But thats what these writers want as well, its a business they want us hooked asking for more and getting little. I personally do not believe the priestess conjured up an illusion like that, if so it would of been more setting up Yoda to be killed by the Sith where there was a 50/50 change of either the lightside or darkside winning and they didnt care which but they appear to be on the side of good, the goodside as Luke puts it. Jinn and the Priestesses tested Yoda a few times with illusions and testing his mettle as he has sins of pride and hubris. However, Jinn does warn Yoda way back in the cave, "give power to that which you fear and it will show itself to you."

Yoda though was being tempted by the Priestesses is much like God testing Abraham to sacrifice his son or the Devil tempting Jesus out in the desert, and the sisters are some sorta duality and may be representing both good and evil, light and dark which I guess they are. As "priestesses" they must be affiliated with a religion or diety of some kind.

Yoda though in the end failed to understand the force as shown in the OT I think, as he grossly underestimated Anakin and Luke and was ready to teach another Skywalker had Luke failed(why Kenobi and Yoda waited so long to train him or used Skywalker as a Luke's name on Tatooine is bad storytelling and hard to retrofix imo). Yoda in these episodes all of sudden is more enlightened and never apparently informs his own council who also appear to treat Yoda with suspicion and they're all but ready to have him committed to the ward for possible darkside corruption or mental health or both. But this Yoda is enlightened only enough to fill the audience in on the weird Jinn voices popping up in AOTC and ROTS strange ending with Yoda now all ready to teach Kenobi and fill a Lucas gap. Yoda failed to believe in the good, the capacity for redemption and forgiveness along with love as it was a son's love for his father and a father's love for his son which lead Anakin back to the light and do what the Sith do, destroy themselves. Yoda and Kenobi were training Luke to kill Vader and the Emperor, was a crash course really and they had a fall back candidate if Luke washed out or failed at the task. Luke was also supposed to remain on Dagobah for perhaps years learning with Yoda and Kenobi but instead he chose to rescue his friends on Bespin and stay with the Rebel Alliance. You had Yoda and Windu conspiring against Anakin early on in ROTS and Yoda claiming the "prophecy misread" and all of those things - so he was wrong as it was indeed Anakin but also Luke who was created by Anakin and carried his good side while Vader was Anakin's darkside(but Luke and Leia are twins so they both share Anakin's goodside).



I dont know what is the established canon these days with regards to Plagueis or clone wars arcs. I had hoped the boring Clovis arc wouldve introduced something about Plagueis, perhaps Clovis was an adopted son and Sidious saw him as a threat and rival but there wasnt much there cept to show Anakin getting angry but he never bothers to look for a deeper answer to why Clovis did what he did and just prior he showed more honor by not blowing up his relationship to Padme or having him arrested for assault. They should of had Anakin investigate, instead he's basically they're trying to show the Anakin of ROTS.

 

There is no reason to be confused about what is and isn't established canon, the announcement was very clear that everything on-screen in TCW and the films is canon and everything else is not.

 

Todd the Jedi that is incorrect, the announcement was very clear that everything on-screen in TCW and the films is canon and everything else is not.

 

Finished watching this episode again. Some really interesting stuff. I enjoy it more now than I did before the first time, and I loved it then!

Yoda was instructed that his mission was to train the next generation, and he would need to live beyond death to do that. So what we've seen in ROTJ wasn't Yoda fulfilling the purpose of the Priestesses purposes for Yoda. Yes, Yoda guided Obi-Wan to learn so Obi-Wan in death could get Luke to Yoda. But Yoda didn't train him after death. I wonder now what role Yoda played after ROTJ. Seems like that episode set it up to be something substantial.

And about the title, 'Sacrifice', along with the Trials in those episodes - made me wonder if Yoda was actually not as much worried about saving Luke for Luke's sake, or was using him to be what was needed to give Vader the ultimate opportunity to pass the Final Test.

"No, you can't be a Jedi until you confront Vader." - really a pre-requisite for Knighthood, or getting Luke to do what needed to be done to Rescue Anakin? Was Leia as "another" not a new hope to defeat Vader, but to Save him?

Imagine Luke conversing with Ghost Yoda down the line, and learning that he was basically just being used as a tool/pawn, with getting Anakin into Force Ghost World being the real goal. Next generation of Jedi already getting peeved at getting manipulated by the masters.

Makes me wonder if in the Story Group Canon going forward, there will have been more interaction with Luke and the Force Ghosts post ROTJ than the Old EU, and if the Jedi Ghost World has a goal of rapidly expanding, and being a substantial plot point.

There's a lot of material just hinted at in those episodes, and I wonder how much of them Lucas had payoffs for in mind - and how many (if any) of them the Story Group has decided to go forward with.

Also: in watching this arc with my daughter again, (4 yo), she pointed out how much Darth Bane looked like Vader's mask. Good eye!

And thoughts?

 

Merging the two threads together for the sake of clarity.

 

I love this arc and how it leads into ROTS. However, the one thing that bothered me was the council sending Anakin with Kenobi to Felucia. It should have been Obi Wan alone. Anakin's line in ROTS about his powers doubling now makes no sense.

 

...Am I misremembering, or is the screencap in the OP not actually from this arc?

 

Just rewatched this arc and I heard the phrase "There is another Skywalker". My question or theory (whatever you may call it) is that maybe Luke and Leia were already conceived at that time.

 

I believe those were Yoda's last words, so I believe they wanted some continuity and incorporated the audio of his last words, along with other bits.

 

My theory was that there is another Skywalker, Shimi gave birth to another child at some point or her sibling had a child. What always struck me as odd was that Jinn never tested the mother only the child.

 

If you want to walk on the Sky, all you need to do is build a Bridge(r).

 

Agreed.

Not sure if it will be Ezra, but I suspect we'll see another Skywalker in Rebels or ST.

 

I don't know if we will see another Skywalker in name, but most likely by family lineage (daughter or son of Han and Leia) in the ST. As to Shimi never having been tested, I don't see why she would be. Anakin was already older than what was normally the age of a youngling being brought into the Order, so Shimi was just too old to begin IMO. Even if she was force sensitive.

 

I decided to watch this arc again tonight, and I've just finished The Lost One. I felt like this episode, even though written to connect with the following three, feels more like a stand-alone. Voices + Destiny + Sacrifice focus specifically on Yoda, but the plot of TLO follows Obi-Wan and Anakin, too. In AOTC, I enjoyed Obi-Wan's investigation and the mystery surrounding Sifo-Dyas' involvement; so its appropriate to watch Obi-Wan (and Anakin) get to the bottom of the situation.

I wonder how TLO would be different, if instead it was Yoda that went to Oba Diah, only to have Dooku confront his old master. It would be exciting to see TCW portray a duel similar to the one that occurred on Geonosis. I can only imagine what else they might say to each other and how such a duel would play out. It would pull all four episodes together better, but I don't think I'd sacrifice Anakin dueling Dooku again.

 

I'd probably love the arc just for getting to hear Liam Neeson on the show again and for making Darth Bane 100% canon (voiced by Luke Skywalker himself no less). But overall it was just a legitimately good arc imo. Not perfect, but good.

 

Yes, me too, loved this sequence of Jedi's!