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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

PT Star Wars ethics

Discussion in 'Prequel Trilogy' started by Stalepie, May 10, 2013.

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  1. Stalepie

    Stalepie Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Oct 2, 1998
    Hello.I don't understand why it was considered bad for Anakin to kill all of the sand raiders (?) that had taken his mom and tied her up to die. It seems like he should have definitely done this, but the characters in the movie, and the audience as a whole, seemed to regard this as the "path to the dark side." He was eradicating terrorists, or getting rid of a band of thieves, and they were probably up to other no-good, and they may have raped his mom, too.

    He was supposed to give them some kind of trial? In the Star Wars universe there are trials for these situations?
     
  2. kubricklynch

    kubricklynch Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 10, 2012
    He killed the kids as well, who were presumably innocent. And a Jedi isn't supposed to kill unless it's necessary, regardless of whether or not they deserved it.
     
  3. SlashMan

    SlashMan Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 5, 2012
    Plenty of the Tuskens had no intention of attacking him. While the men would defend their camp against intruders, the women and children had no business in such matters. To make things worse, Anakin was fully aware of this and gave into his anger anyways.
     
  4. DarthBoba

    DarthBoba Manager Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 29, 2000
    Well, it's been a good ten years with this topic, so I guess I'll just be succinct.

    Should he have not have murdered every last Tusken for what they did to his mother? No.

    Would people have forgiven him for doing it anyway? Yes.

    That's really all that can be said about this, IMO.
     
  5. Placeholder

    Placeholder Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 30, 2013
    What's more unethical, killing a camp of raiders responsible for attacks on innocent civilians or using a slave army of beings created to be nothing but canon fodder? Are the Jedi really in a position to be judging Anakin or anyone else? The ethics of Star Wars is always an interesting debate
     
  6. Darth Xalfrea

    Darth Xalfrea Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 2, 2013
    If EU is anything to go by (And don't ya'll start saying it doesn't count because this is the closest thing we get to really analyzing them), the Jedi Order as a whole has always thought themselves to be high and mighty above everybody else. They judge things based on the Force and if it's the "Will" of the Force that does so.

    The Jedi are also indeed vehemently against killing. They always try to push finding non-violent solutions to problems, unless the stakes are really dire.
     
    Lady_Misty likes this.
  7. Placeholder

    Placeholder Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 30, 2013
    The will of the force is another interesting topic given what happens to the Jedi order. Again, maybe they aren't so clean after all. The force certainly seemed OK with them getting hunted down to near extinction.
     
  8. Seagoat

    Seagoat Former Manager star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jan 25, 2013
    Ok this is gonna be weird, but...

    Why does everyone assume that the sandpeople raped Shmi? I don't quite see where this comes from. I mean, they certainly would have tortured her, but I just can't see the tuskens sexually assaulting her.
     
  9. Darth Dominikkus

    Darth Dominikkus Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Apr 5, 2013
    Him killing the raiders was another step forward in his path to the Dark Side. He was afraid of losing his mother, so he went back to the camp. When she died, the anger sttled in and he slaughtered that camp. Jedi aren't supposed to go rambo on creatures like that, it's not in their "morals".
    Remember:
    Fear->Anger->Hate->Suffering
     
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  10. kubricklynch

    kubricklynch Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 10, 2012
    This is the first I've heard someone saying that. That's... quite gross... to say the least.

    EDIT: I say gross, because I assume that's interspecies, but now that I think about it, I don't really know what the Tuskens look like underneath those masks.
     
  11. Stalepie

    Stalepie Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Oct 2, 1998
    Damn it! The first response I get is from someone named "Kubrick"!!
     
  12. Stalepie

    Stalepie Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Oct 2, 1998
    Wait a minute... the women and children had no business in such matters? Who gave the Tuskens sexual pleasure, and cooked their food? Or whatever women do in Tusken society. Why does it matter if the children were killed if they were probably just gonna grow up to be *******s like their dads? He eradicated a whole camp of evil, just like our fighting boys do in Afghanistan and Iraq a lot. He should have been praised or given a medal or something. In my opinion.
     
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  13. Stalepie

    Stalepie Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Oct 2, 1998
    If you kill the parents of the kids how are the Tusken kids going to survive? Like by kidnapping other weak humans and eating them? or hunting for animals? The kids are supposed to live like "Lords of the Flies"?
     
  14. Stalepie

    Stalepie Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Oct 2, 1998
    Why wouldn't the Tuskens rape her? What did they take her for? Just to tie her up? Is it... uh, they just wanted to tickle her a bit? I mean... what was the point?
     
  15. only one kenobi

    only one kenobi Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 18, 2012
    Hmmm...yeah. We've seen plenty of this kind of 'thinking' throughout history. The results are never good. But, to be fair to you, Lucas leaves/gives little reason in his storytelling here to understand things differently. The Tuskens are used as a 'bogeyman', a very shallow outline which allows us, the audience, to hate a whole species/race/ethnos. There is no level at which we are expected to understand the Tuskens except on that very shallow basis. Given the (supposed) story-line of TPM, where the Gungans and the Naboo overcome their fear and loathing of each other, here we are simply represented with an 'evil race' who "walk like men" but are just animals. The fact that they are.....reminiscent of bedoiun (and so Arab) in their dress and nomadism and the prevailing conflicts that Western states are involved in I feel this was unworthy of the Star Wars films - it plays to existing pre-conceptions and fears.

    You might argue that the words spoken against the Tuskens are by the characters, to which I would respond that those words are written by Lucas - and at no point does he offer any reasons to doubt them....

    In terms of the story itself I have always wondered whether the taking and torturing of prisoners by the Tuskens was a regular thing. It suits one particular character nicely, after all, to have the fears of loss exacerbated in Anakin's character. How fortuitous for Palpatine that this occurred...hmm? So, by killing every Tusken Anakin destroys all evidence of why they held his mother. If Palpatine was behind it then....no-one can ever now learn of that. Thanks to Anakin's rage he quite possibly let the real mastermind behind his mother's murder off the hook.

    As for whether we should understand and 'forgive' Anakin his actions here? Really? he made himself judge and jury, kills without recourse to any legal process except his own right to uphold what he considers right? Is that any different to what the Imperial troops do to Owen and Beru in ANH? Is that how Jedi are supposed to operate? Is that how anybody is supposed to operate? Really?
     
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  16. Lady_Misty

    Lady_Misty Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 21, 2007
    According the the EU Tuskens aren't human they are sort of rodent like. So no marriages for them between humans. They might find humans and other species repulsive and maybe foolish to walk the Wastes.

    People that murder the innocent don't deserve medals. I don't care if he/she is from the same country as me.


    Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

    "The Starman and Moon Goddess."
     
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  17. SlashMan

    SlashMan Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 5, 2012
    I always found it odd how Tusken Raiders seemed to be bumbling nomads in ANH, but in AOTC, they are shown to be ruthless and downright evil warriors.

    In the movie, it's not clear why Shmi was kept for so long. All we know is that she's stayed alive for an unbelievably long amount of time. In the novel, it specifies that the Tuskens were fascinated by her persistance to stay alive, despite the torture and beatings.
     
  18. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    As DarthBoba said, this topic has been rehashed for over a decade and is usually very popcorn worthy.

    From an ethical standpoint the biggest argument against it was the one Anakin himself gave: "I'm a Jedi, I know I'm better than this." With his training, he (supposedly) should have been able to calm himself and walk out with his mother's body, only drawing his saber in self-defense, i.e. against the Tusken men who were charging him just outside the tent.

    That stance tells me very little other than Anakin did not have the personality to be a Jedi, but by this point in the saga, that's not exactly news. "Anakin" and "walk out calmly" can't be said in the same sentence unless it's followed by laughter.

    I found what he did "wrong, but certainly forgivable." As far as him "making himself judge and jury," it's not like there was any other judge and jury on Tatooine, other than the Hutts (who weren't going to give a rat's ass), and Anakin knew this; therefore I have a very hard time condemning him for killing the men, who either directly participated in the torture or did nothing to stop it.

    The worst aspect of Anakin's crime was killing the women and the children as well. It seems as if the women would be able to untie Shmi or otherwise protest but I'll give them a pass for the obviously misogynistic and oppressive society they lived in; they were probably afraid of meeting the same fate that Shmi did, so I say they are innocent, and the children certainly so. But I can still forgive Anakin for it because my horror over the kidnapping and torture of an innocent woman for nothing but sport (and let's not pretend Shmi was the first victim, the EU indicates that this was a regular ritual that adolescent Tusken boys conducted as a "blood rite") trumps any horror I have over quick death with a lightsaber.

    If he were tried in a real world courtroom and I were on the jury, I'd convict Anakin, but for manslaughter. What happened in the Tusken camp was not first-degree murder by any stretch of the imagination; what happened in the Jedi Temple in ROTS is an entirely different story altogether.
     
  19. gezvader28

    gezvader28 Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Mar 22, 2003
    is this a joke ?
     
  20. kubricklynch

    kubricklynch Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 10, 2012
    The point is not made clear in the film (if I remember correctly, it's been a while since I've seen it), which could be considered a flaw IMO. I don't know that rape was intended, seeing as AOTC is a PG rated film. Assuming the Tuskens aren't human, they presumably would not be attracted to a human woman.
     
  21. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    I don't think they raped her; I haven't been given much reason to think they did. The EU sources on their motives imply that the adolescent male "blood rite" includes capturing a living being, with bonus points if the being is sentient, and slowly torturing it to death, with further bonus points if the being resists as Shmi did. Rape could be part of the torture but rape is usually about power, not testing the subject, so the motives don't really match.
     
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  22. Lady_Misty

    Lady_Misty Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 21, 2007
    The Raiders that were bothering Luke took off after Obi-Wan made that noise and they saw him.

    Some EU sources say that the Raiders FEARED whatever had destroyed that village. I honestly don't go for what the Raiders did in Tatooine Ghost but if at any point the Raiders saw Obi-Wan take out his lightsaber and cut up a few weapons and possibly kill a few warriors they are going to label him dangerous and to run off if they see him. The upcoming novel about Obi-Wan on Tatooine alludes to him stepping up to the plate during a vicious time between the Raiders and Farmers.

    Don't know about you but if I saw someone with a weapon that caused the same type of damage to an entire village of my people and there wasn't a single survivor I'd hightail it too. It would explain them wanting to come back in greater numbers.
     
  23. Reveen

    Reveen Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 4, 2012
    Uh, I think when you refer to a band of desert nomads as "terrorists" your argument is dead on arrival. I'm not even acknowledging that other fun post of yours, Jesus.

    Frankly, I blame the order, they don't seem to be the kind of people who are on the ball with helping out people with unstable personalities, what with their blanket stigma on negative emotions.
     
  24. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jul 2, 2004
    I have a feeling they did...
    [​IMG]
     
  25. DARTHVENGERDARTHSEAR

    DARTHVENGERDARTHSEAR Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jun 8, 2002
    That looks so right.
     
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