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PT Is Mace Windu to Blame for the Jedi's Downfall and the Republics?

Discussion in 'Prequel Trilogy' started by JBJB1029, Feb 21, 2018.

  1. JBJB1029

    JBJB1029 Jedi Padawan

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2018
  2. Alexrd

    Alexrd Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 7, 2009
    No.

    Source: Revenge of the Sith.
     
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  3. Martoto77

    Martoto77 Jedi Master star 5

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    Aug 6, 2016
    Simply by existing, Sidious is directly responsible for everything. Apparently.
     
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2018
  4. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    That isn't everyone's view.
    Sidious capitalised on other's weaknesses and flaws, exploited the cracks already existent in the Republic. Without Sidious it likely wouldn't have headed where it did, but I think you are cheapening the apparent Star Wars message that everyone has some potential for great good or great evil.
     
  5. Martoto77

    Martoto77 Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 6, 2016
    According to what I've been told on this forum, Sidious the Sith's existence and use of the darkside means that "the darkside clouds everything". Thus indemnifying the Jedi order from any reproach in relation to their handling of things from TPM onwards. That would cover any transgressions that Mace, or anyone else, could arguably have been seen to have made.

    I don't agree with it either.
     
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2018
  6. MoffJacob

    MoffJacob Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Dec 25, 2015
    Yes. At least Yoda thought that the plan to arrest Palpatine was a BAD idea
     
  7. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Yoda was worried about the whole "taking control of the Senate until the corrupt Senators were gotten rid of" issue, at least. So was Mace.

    The movie scene seems to be a combination of two novel scenes.

    Movie

    MACE WINDU: I sense a plot to destroy the Jedi. The dark side of the Force surrounds the Chancellor.
    Kl-ADI-MUNDI: If he does not give up his emergency powers after the destruction of Grievous, then he should be removed from
    office.
    MACE WINDU: That could be a dangerous move ... the Jedi Council would have to take control of the Senate in order to secure a peaceful transition . . .
    Kl-ADI-MUNDI: . . . and replace the Congress with Senators who are not filled with greed and corruption.
    YODA: To a dark place this line of thought will carry us. Hmmmmm. . . . great care we must take.


    Novel scenes

    "Have you considered," Ki-Adi-Mundi said carefully, from far-away Mygeeto, "that if Palpatine refuses to surrender power, removing him is only a first step?"
    Mace looked at the blue ghost of the Cerean Master. "I am not a politician. Removing a tyrant is enough for me.
    "But it will not be enough for the Republic," Ki-Adi-Mundi countered sadly. "Palpatine's dictatorship has been legitimized— and can be legalized, even enshrined in a revised Constitution—by the supermajority he controls in the Senate."
    The grim future inside Mace's head turned even darker. The Cerean was right.
    "Filled with corruption, the Senate is," Yoda agreed from Kashyyyk. "Controlled, they must be, until replaced the corrupted Senators can be, with Senators honest and—"
    "Do you hear us?" Mace lowered his head into his hands. "How have we come to this? Arresting a Chancellor. Taking over the Senate—! It's as though Dooku was right—to save the Republic, we'll have to destroy it..."
    Yoda lifted his head, and his eyes slitted as though he struggled with some inner pain. "Hold on to hope we must; our true enemy, Palpatine is not, nor the Senate; the true enemy is instead the Sith Lord Sidious, who controls them both. Once destroyed Sidious is... all these other concerns, less dire they will instantly become."



    "This report—from where does it come?"
    "The Jedi still have friends in the Senate," Mace Windu replied in his grim monotone, "for now."
    "When presented this amendment is, passed it will be?"
    Mace nodded. "My source expects passage by acclamation. Overwhelming passage. Perhaps as early as this afternoon."
    "The Chancellor's goal in this—unclear to me it is," Yoda said slowly. "Though nominally in command of the Council, the Senate may place him, the Jedi he cannot control. Moral, our authority has always been; much more than merely legal. Simply follow orders, Jedi do not!"
    "I don't think he intends to control the Jedi," Mace said. "By placing the Jedi Council under the control of the Office of the Supreme Chancellor, this amendment will give him the constitutional authority to disband the Order itself."
    "Surely you cannot believe this is his intention."
    "His intention?" Mace said darkly. "Perhaps not. But his intentions are irrelevant; all that matters now is the intent of the Sith Lord who has our government in his grip. And the Jedi Order may be all that stands between him and galactic domination. What do you think he will do?"
    "Authority to disband the Jedi, the Senate would never grant."
    "The Senate will vote to grant exactly that. This afternoon."
    "The implications of this, they must not comprehend!"
    "It no longer matters what they comprehend," Mace said. "They know where the power is."
    "But even disbanded, even without legal authority, still Jedi we would be. Jedi Knights served the Force long before there was a Galactic Republic, and serve it we will when this Republic is but dust."
    "Master Yoda, that day may be coming sooner than any of us think. That day may be today." Mace shot a frustrated look at Obi-Wan, who picked up his cue smoothly.
    "We don't know what the Sith Lord's plans may be," Obi- Wan said, "but we can be certain that Palpatine is not to be trusted. Not anymore. This draft resolution is not the product of some overzealous Senator; we may be sure Palpatine wrote it himself and passed it along to someone he controls—to make it look like the Senate is once more 'forcing him to reluctantly accept extra powers in the name of security.' We are afraid that they will continue to do so until one day he's 'forced to reluctantly accept' dictatorship for life."
    "I am convinced this is the next step in a plot aimed directly at the heart of the Jedi," Mace said. "This is a move toward our destruction. The dark side of the Force surrounds the Chancellor."
    Obi-Wan added, "As it has surrounded and cloaked the Separatists since even before the war began. If the Chancellor is being influenced through the dark side, this whole war may have been, from the beginning, a plot by the Sith to destroy the Jedi Order."
    "Speculation!" Yoda thumped the floor with his gimer stick, making his hoverchair bob gently. "On theories such as these we cannot rely. Proof we need. Proof!"
    "Proof may be a luxury we cannot afford." A dangerous light had entered Mace Windu's eyes. "We must be ready to act."
    "Act?" Obi-Wan asked mildly.
    "He cannot be allowed to move against the Order. He cannot be allowed to prolong the war needlessly. Too many Jedi have died already. He is dismantling the Republic itself! I have seen life outside the Republic; so have you, Obi-Wan. Slavery. Torture. Endless war."
    Mace's face darkened with the same distant, haunted shadow Obi-Wan had seen him wear the day before. "I have seen it in Nar Shaddaa, and I saw it on Haruun Kal. I saw what it did to Depa, and to Sora Bulq. Whatever its flaws, the Republic is our sole hope for justice, and for peace. It is our only defense against the dark. Palpatine may be about to do what the Separatists cannot: bring down the Republic. If he tries, he must be removed from office."
    "Removed?" Obi-Wan said. "You mean, arrested?"
    Yoda shook his head. "To a dark place, this line of thought will lead us. Great care, we must take."
    "The Republic is civilization. It's the only one we have." Mace looked deeply into Yoda's eyes, and into Obi-Wan's, and Obi-Wan could feel the heat in the Korun Master's gaze. "We must be prepared for radical action. It is our duty."
    "But," Obi-Wan protested numbly, "you're talking about treason..."
    "I'm not afraid of words, Obi-Wan! If it's treason, then so be it. I would do this right now, if I had the Council's support. The real treason," Mace said, "would be failure to act."
    "Such an act, destroy the Jedi Order it could," Yoda said. "Lost the trust of the public, we have already—"
    "No disrespect, Master Yoda," Mace interrupted, "but that's a politician's argument. We can't let public opinion stop us from doing what's right.''
    "Convinced it is right, I am not," Yoda said severely. "Working behind the scenes we should be, to uncover Lord Sidious! To move against Palpatine while the Sith still exist—this may be part of the Sith plan itself, to turn the Senate and the public against the Jedi! So that we are not only disbanded, but outlawed."
    Mace was half out of his pod. "To wait gives the Sith the advantage—"
    "Have the advantage already, they do!" Yoda jabbed at him with his gimer stick. " Increase their advantage we will, if in haste we act!"
    "Masters, Masters, please," Obi-Wan said. He looked from one to the other and inclined his head respectfully. "Perhaps there is a middle way."



    The RoTS novel has Mace contact Yoda right after Anakin tells him about Palpatine - and the implication is that Yoda is endorsing the arrest at least:


    In the virtual nonspace of the HoloNet, two Jedi Masters meet.
    One is ancient, tiny, with skin of green leather and old wisdom in his eyes, standing in a Kashyyyk cave hollowed from the trunk of a vast wroshyr tree; the other is tall and fierce, seated before a holodisk in Coruscant's Jedi Temple.
    To each other, they are blue ghosts, given existence by scanning lasers. Though they are light-years apart, they are of one mind; it hardly matters who says what.
    Now they know the truth.
    For more than a decade, the Republic has been in the hands of the Sith.
    Now, together, blue ghost to blue ghost, they decide to take it back.
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2018
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  8. Martoto77

    Martoto77 Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 6, 2016
    Yoda seemingly doesn't think anything is ever a good idea during the entire saga. (except for Luke
    burning the tree in TLJ
     
  9. Alexrd

    Alexrd Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 7, 2009
    No, he didn't.

    And Palpatine had to be arrested once he revealed himself to be the Sith Lord behind the whole war. Not to mention that arresting Palpatine is not why the Jedi and the Republic fell. It fell because Palpatine did what he did successfully. Of course, there are people who think evil people doing evil things shouldn't answer (or be responsible) for their crimes, but that's not a debate that should merit any attention.
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2018
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  10. Martoto77

    Martoto77 Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 6, 2016
    "Destroy the sith, we must." Arresting does not seem to be on Yoda's mind.
    There was no need for you to introduce it to this board then.
     
  11. Darth Weavile

    Darth Weavile Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 10, 2017
    Yoda said that after the Jedi were pretty much destroyed and Palpatine created the Empire.
     
  12. Martoto77

    Martoto77 Jedi Master star 5

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    Aug 6, 2016
    So it's relative then.
     
  13. Martoto77

    Martoto77 Jedi Master star 5

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    Aug 6, 2016
    So it's relative then.