Lit A/V Clone Wars Continuity Discussion (Spoilers Allowed)

Part of the problem is that the Jedi are defined by their opposite to the Sith, in the same sense that it's a problem that they're defined by their status as a government bureaucracy.

 

Because power corrupts. You're not allowed to touch power with a ten-foot pole. The Jedi who set the system up, the Jedi who swore allegiance to the Republic, are to blame as well, because they assumed a position of power. They are part of the corruption, they are among those who corrupted the government in the first place.

The Jedi are part of the system, and if the system is to be blamed, they must be blamed as well. Now, if they had chosen to only give the Republic a helping hand when they believed it acted in accordance with their service to the Force....

Exactly. Following the light side only makes the dark side stronger. Following the Unifying Force (or Cosmic Force as I guess Mr. Lucas wants us to call it now) "tames" the opposing tendencies and keeps them in balance.

 

The balance of the Force isn't the balance of the Force-users, remember?

 

The problem isn't really concerning the sides of the Force, although as I pointed out in the chronological journey thread, the "true nature" of the Force is that the sides are ultimately illusory. By defining yourself strictly in opposition to the Sith -- whom ally with the dark side of the Force, the selfish side rooted in the individual -- you're playing to and enslaving yourself to that dialectic, rather than transcending it, which is what Qui-Gon, Yoda, and Obi-Wan do when they merge with the Cosmic Force.

 

Not according to the person who invented the concept of the Force in the first place. Is the balance of the Force "illusory" as well?

 

No, but it was up to them to not follow the first and not be involved in the second.

 

And if you work and accept being funded by the government, there goes any pretense that you are the champion of peace and justice. You're just public servants, and you do what the Senate tells you to do. As long as the Jedi are supposed to be just one of the government's arms, I don't even see why they are supposed to be the good guys.

 

Well what did the Jedi do from 25,000 - 1,000 BBY and 10 ABY - perpetuity?

 

They're monks. Monks can A.) beg, or B.) acquire land where they can grow what they need. Acquiring land through the government is a bad idea.

 

If getting funded is justification for serving a bad guy...

Charitable donations would be enough.

 

Palpatine bears total responsibility, and I hate how the EU tried to make him more of an opportunist and less of a manipulator.

 

Begging is what many orders of monks do. It has a very ancient tradition, and it is absurd to say that suggesting begging as an option for a monastic order is "horrible".

And where can they get the land? Aren't there a trillion uninhabited planets out there? Just go and do what K'Krukh did.

They are to blame because they accepted to work for that organization in the first place. Palpatine bears more than enough responsibility himself -- in fact, most of the responsibility for about 80% or so of all bad things happening between 32 BBY and 4 ABY can be placed on him, I reckon.

 

Nomi Sunrider, Bantam-era Luke, Corran Horn

 

There's nothing to foresee. It's a matter of principle. And also, common sense. No good men ever get voted into office (and at some point, of course, the worst man actually got voted into office). That's why, if you are as hot on peace and justice as you claim, you don't serve the Republic, you serve... I don't know, peace and justice?

 

The Republic spanned a bigger part of the galaxy, was made up by thousand of worlds, and had not know war for a thousand years. I think that count as peace, and since it seems that it was only in the last hundred years that people really wanted to secession so do I think that the justice part mostly worked.

 

Most of worlds in the Republic were dirt-poor $#%holes exploited by their Senators. And beyond the Republic, the Hutts. But the Jedi stayed mostly on Coruscant where all the wealth was accumulated -- so some of it would trickle down to them, of course. I don't think that a system such as this counts as "peaceful", but even if it does, injustice is at its very core.

 

Mace Windu makes an argument for serving the Republic being synonymous with serving peace and justice in Revenge of the Sith:

"Jedi do not fight for peace. That's only a slogan, and is as misleading as slogans always are. Jedi fight for civilization, because only civilization creates peace."

And earlier: "The Republic is civilization. It's the only one we have."

Yoda, on the other hand, comes to the conclusion that the Jedi were ill equipped to deal with this iteration of the Sith.

Finally, he saw the truth.
This truth: that he, the avatar of light, Supreme Master of the Jedi Order, the fiercest, most implacable, most devastatingly powerful foe the darkness had ever known . . .
just --
didn't --
have it.
He'd never had it. He had lost before he started.
He had lost before he was born.
The Sith had changed. The Sith had grown, had adapted, had invested a thousand years' intensive study into every aspect of not only the Force but Jedi lore itself, in preparation for exactly this day. The Sith had remade themselves.
They had become new.
While the Jedi --
The Jedi had spent that same millennium training to refight the last war.

As I'm fond of saying, the Sith attacked from within, while distracting the Jedi by playing to their expectations by having the Sith apprentice lead proxy armies in invasion from without.