Lit "Unlearn what you have learned" - The Jedi Thread

Hey everyone!

So after arguing for the bajillionth time about Jedi principles of nonattachment, it occurred to me (and to a few other members of the Episode VIII thread) that there should be a thread about the Jedi themselves, and their religion - what they believe, their role in the galaxy, how they've changed over time (both in universe and out), who they are and what they absolutely aren't, and what they might become.

This thread is Jello Approved™.

I expect - and encourage - that this thread will involve a lot of discussion about real life religion and philosophy. As such, though, I also ask that we police ourselves and remain respectful.

This thread is open to discussions of Legends, but I've personally been impressed by the sheer amount of lore already in canon. What is the Bendu, and why isn't he a Jedi? Is Ahsoka still a Jedi? How do Force ghosts work? How do the Jedi interact with lesser Force traditions, and what can they stand to learn from them? What are the implications of going backwards on teachings? How can you be redeemed from the dark side?

But maybe the best place is to go back to this hot button topic:



What does this all mean? What are the Jedi beliefs on attachment/possession? How do they understand compassion, in their lives? Are emotions bad?

 

I really feel Ahsoka is no longer a Jedi. Like someone who use to be religious, and stopped because something so bad happened it ruined their faith. That is how I see Ahsoka and the Jedi. She still wants to be good, she just does not want to be a Jedi, does not want to stand for what they stand for. She wants to be a little darker, but not super dark side. I feel she is just Ahsoka, she does not have to be Jedi or Sith. That is how I see it.

What I would LOVE to be discussed here is Mortis. It is by far one of my favourite things in Star Wars, and I know many do not 100% enjoy it but Mortis is something I have wanted to discuss forever.

 

I think this could be interesting:

 

I think what I struggle with is...where is the line? She no longer serves the council, but does she still serve the Force? Does she still follow Jedi teachings? In other words: what makes Ahsoka not a Jedi? Is it just her fealty to the Order?

I have so many Mortis ideas. I think, ultimately, the arc is a repudiation of the idea that "balance" means "equal bad and equal good working side by side."

 

Aside from Legends' Jenna Zan Arbor, has there been any attempt to study midichlorians and why some can access the Force and some can't? Real world religions, in theory, are accessible to everyone. It seems Force sensitivity occurs in a small portion of the population. As such, I'm not sure how it became a religion, in-universe, when only a small segment of the population can access it.

Luke paid some lip service in the novel the Unifying Force about how even non Force users are part of the Force. Well, I'm not really seeing it, and I assume many galactic citizens don't either.

It just seems to me that, Jedi or Sith, neither of these movements will get much ground if 90% of the population can't access the Force. We saw in Legends how Demagol tried to genetically engineer Jarael to be Force sensitive, but completely failed. So obviously trying to breed people to access the Force was a thing.

Add to the fact that it's stated many people have never even seen a Jedi--how did they become a religion? Did the people worship them naturally (i.e. people start worshipping Superman?) Or did early Jedi take advantage of gullibility and demand it themselves? (Sinestro demanding his homeworld worship him as a Green Lantern). A mix of both?

Why are good Force ghosts treated as proof of the Force's divinity, but bad Force ghosts like Darth Bane dismissed as illusion? If living after death is proof of divinity, how come no one in Legends took Palpatine's return from death as his divine right to rule? Considering Palpatine came back in the flesh that everyone can see while Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan etc came back in visons only few can see, some extreme people in the galaxy might take this that the Sith way is the divine way and the Jedi are the "wrong" way.

 

My headcanon is that something like the Church of the Force always existed, and the Jedi were its monastic class, or high priests - the holy warriors and religious leaders. The prevalence of the phrase "May the Force be with you/us" implies to me a widespread belief. I wonder what the average person's spiritual life is like?

Well all life is part of the Force. I'd always assumed all life contained midi-chlorians.

Legends had a long tradition of being skeptical about genetic engineering/cloning and the Force.

 

Palpatine was "open-minded" about this apparently, resulting in DE. I'm curious as I mentioned in my edit why the galaxy takes Luke's word of Force ghosts which only he sees as proof of divine support for the Jedi way and not take Palpatine's return, which everyone saw, as divine support for the Sith way.

 

I draw the lines by the ideals. One example would be "you cannot love". If you love (and people find out about it) you would be expelled. I remember when I was a kid, I thought everything my parents told me were 100% true, even while just trying to cheer me up. It terrified me when I learned they were not all knowing lol. I think Ahsoka kinda views the order like that. She put all her faith in them, but when something happened that really messed up that perception, she stopped following their philosophies. I think what makes her "not a jedi" is when she stopped believing in the order, and self proclaimed herself to be on her own path.

As for Mortis, I am kinda thinking it is more then a metaphor (I have seen some others have this idea) or a dream. I believe it is a magical, mystical thing that is 100% real. It is really interesting, and I do not think it's story is done yet. I also believe Ahsoka is still involved with Mortis.

 

Isn't Bendu just Vergere under different circumstances?

I'm at work right now but I anticipate posting in this thread a lot.

 

Sure! I more meant that this is usually presented as impossible, or unlikely, though Palpatine was able to pull it off. Granted, that may be a consequence of him transferring his essence.

I haven't read Ahsoka yet, but I'd love to know more about how she sees her path as different from the path of the Jedi.

He definitely does seem to have a lot in common with Vergere.

 

I think what Lucas was going for with the Force was attempting to merge science and religion in a society where the two aren't opposed. A bit of an irony is that Lucas may have been more onto something than he realized as there's quite a big swerve of science to the fact materialism being wrong (albeit, dualism is still unproven) with quantum physics, holographic theory, panpsychicism, and things like the anthropic principle. Nothing is proven for certain but quite a bit of the universe is weirder than we ever gave it credit for.

The Jedi believe in panpsychicism and a Buddhist ideal of all life being interconnected. As Einstein proved, all matter is ultimately energy and there is a universal energy field which underlines all reality. In this case, it just seems the Jedi are able to manipulate that energy field. They revere life, peace, knowledge, nonviolence, and order in both self as well as the galaxy as a whole.

1. What is the Bendu, and why isn't he a Jedi?

Bendu is a Force Shaman unrelated to the Jedi Order and apparently reveres both the Dark Side as well as Light. There's an implication that Bendu may be either an incredibly arrogant force wizard or representative of a group we've never heard of before.

2. Is Ahsoka still a Jedi?

She says she's not a Jedi. I don't think she's lost her faith in the Force (which is stupid to even think of because it's like losing your faith in gravity) but she no longer identifies as a member of the religious order. She's a believer in God but not a Catholic (or Knight Templar if you will).

3. How do Force ghosts work?

You are struck down and become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.

4. How do the Jedi interact with lesser Force traditions, and what can they stand to learn from them?

Implications are they were condescending and arrogant to them as well as inclined to take Force sensitive babies from their general vicinity. Kanan and Ezra by contrast, react properly which is respecting Bendu. Albeit, Kanan's actions to Bendu at the end when he brought an army to the man's homeworld were contemptible.

5. What are the implications of going backwards on teachings? How can you be redeemed from the dark side?

I don't think there's a physical "soot" to the soul or Anubis weighing your soul. You are on the Dark Side until you aren't and vice versa. Yoda's belief about the Dark Side is objectively wrong and he ascribes far too much power to it.

6. Mortis

I'm actually going to go against the grain here and state my belief. There actually isn't a Father, Son, and Daughter anymore than there is an Easter Wookiee. The satellite they encountered was a Force relic of some kind which just showed them a Force vision that was entirely metaphorical.

It was a warning Anakin would destroy himself if he did not become able to balance the Light in his heart (represented by a woman who looked a lot like Padme) versus the Dark (represented by the Son who is very similar to him in obsessive controlling psychosis).

7. The Origins of the Jedi

In canon, I'm inclined to think Rogue One alludes to the origins of the Jedi being people from Jedha (i.e. Jedi) and the Order of the Whils is the organization which the Jedi evolved from while the Church of the Force is the Muggle branch of the religion.

I'm inclined to think it's, again, equivalent to Buddhism and India with the Jedi being people who left the planet only to become a religion far more popular there than they were in their homeland. My inclinations being the Order of the Whills being less concerned with midiclorians and more with faith and Chirrut being a Muggle who tries to connect with the Force on his own.

8. Sith spirits

While there's a good argument that Darth Bane doesn't exist as anything more than a hallucination by Yoda ala the Cave, it's also entirely possible it literally was just Darth Bane and Yoda is stil in denial about the Force's true nature.

 

I'm curious what you mean by this.

 

It seems odd to me how Force ghosts are treated not as illusions but as proof of the Force being more than just genetic abilities, yet Sith ghosts are treated as illusions and rarely taken as evidence that the Sith have divine power on their side, or that their universe is evil (which in a metaphorical sense it is. The creators of Star Wars, LFL for Legends and Disney for canon, i.e. the "gods" of the Star Wars universe, do nothing but think up ways on how to make the heroes' lives as miserable as possible. The universe is literally called Star Wars and is populated with wars. New books, games, films etc create a constant state of warfare etc. and Luke and his friends never get peace in either Legends or canon---all for the sake of entertaining an Earth audience that the residents of the Star Wars galaxy have never even met or heard of. ).

 

I mean that all you have to do to stop being of the Dark Side is....stop.

Metaphysically speaking.

 

Eh, that's actually something I hold to in my real life beliefs in the fact Star Wars humanity doesn't have the "Problem of Evil" like it does in Christianity. Humans, Wookiees, and Pittens are all part of the Force in a way which isn't true in many religions.

Why is there war in the galaxy? Hate? General nastiness? Because people bring them into the universe.

They're a part of the Force just like people are.

We create the Dark Side (and the Light) while they create us.

The Divine and Mortal are one in the same.

 

But this is also presented as very, very difficult. It's presented sometimes as an addiction and I think if you don't die at the moment of your redemption - and we saw this in Legends with Quinlan Vos and Zekk - there's a hard road ahead. Ultimately this isn't too different from many religions, though, where setting yourself on the path to good is part of becoming good.

Yoda doesn't seem to believe so much that a "soot" remains on the soul, but rather that it's really difficult and nearly impossible to defeat the Dark Side's hold on someone.

 

Even taking aside any mystical "dark side Force withdrawal", most darksiders would be facing life in prison unless they have an evil government backing them like the Empire. One of the things I wondered was what exactly was Han expecting in trying to "redeem" Kylo? If Kylo went with Han, he would face life imprisonment or have to spend the rest of his life in hiding from both the New Republic and First Order (which won't work long--Han himself can't even hide from Kanjiklub and the Guavian gang).

If Kylo didn't go with Han and let him live, Snoke would either kill him or give him a fate worse than death. Kylo killing Han means at least the First Order won't be hunting him the rest of his life.

Obviously the right choice was for Kylo to surrender and accept life imprisonment (or a plea bargain for a shortened sentence and give info and testimony against Snoke). But it's not as easy as just stop using the Dark Side by that point.

 

It always seems like the Jedi have been allowed by whatever government they're affiliated with to deal with their own however they see fit. Maybe that's a practical matter: what mundane prison could hold a Jedi?

 

The Republic had no problem imprisoning Ahsoka before her trial in TCW. Tarkin even specifically said that Jedi won't be allowed to deal with their own here as they had in the past.

 

Why would Kylo Ren go to prison?

I mean, possibly on Jakku.

But what crimes had he committed against the New Republic?

 

This thread is going too fast.

The understanding of Force ghosts provided by Lucas is that you're maintaining your identity as your Living Force reunites with the Cosmic Force, or aggregate Force energy in the universe. Ordinarily at death the ego is obliterated when this happens and "self" is lost.

Somehow, this is achieved by "letting go," essentially a form of Nirvana with the Force ghost thus being akin to a Bodhisattva. Sith by their nature can't achieve this incorporeal form of immortality since they can't let go.

I'm still on my phone so Ill follow up later.

 

My brief thoughts on the Jedi:
they should allow more diversity, and be more decentralized. Different temples with different philosophies.

It seems like Luke took a good first step in his New Jedi not being affiliated with the New Republic, from what we know so far anyways.
If the Jedi do truly return, and number in the dozens/hundreds/thousands again, I think they should be more decentralized and diverse, here are some ways in which they can do that:

1. Some temples allow family/marriage/offspring, some don't.
For the Jedi temples that do allow marriage/family, let them emphasize how it's a tougher path, and teach how to deal with loss and conflicts of interest without turning to the dark side.

2. Some temples have a council that's centralized with all its members obeying its assignments, some temples are just for training and meeting and exchanging information and its members just follow what the Force tells them.

3. Maybe a few temples are affiliated with the New Republic, a few temples are affiliated with no government, and a few temples are affiliated with the New Separatist Union or the Chiss or Confederacy of Corporate Systems.

Complicit in the Hosnian Cataclysm, being there when Snoke gave the order and not protesting, then watching it with a front-row seat. As well as attacking and torturing Resistance pilot Poe Dameron, then taking part in the fight against the Resistance at Maz Kanata's castle and Starkiller Base, including the murder of Resistance member Han Solo.

 

Prove it in court!

I always got the impression from that scene that he actually wasn't cool with it at all, taking into account the look Hux gives him when he receives the ok and the fact that he went back to his Star Destroyer rather than to the ceremony and his body language seemed kind of melancholy.

 

He was just sad he didn't get to storm the senate chamber and freeze everyone like the infinitely cooler and less stupidly named Exar Kun.

 

Eh, all Kylo Ren did was stare at the beams. Snoke and Hux were the ones who did the Hosnian Disaster. Vader wouldn't be guilty of anything regarding Alderaan other than holding Leia in place.