Are Jedi younglings, 'non combatants?'

An interesting thought as I was watching Revenge of the Sith hit me.

We know Anakin's killing of the younglings was, in general, a very bad thing. I don't dispute that. He betrayed those who were his comrades and who he should have protected.

But most see it as Anakin killing 'defenseless' children.

I take issue with 'defenseless'.

When Bail shows up at the Jedi temple, he witnesses a young teenage Jedi carve up a half dozen Republic soldiers. This happened with others too, like Bene and Whie. The troopers return fire and kill him. We're *meant* to feel sorry for the Jedi child, but that kind of sympathy is unequal with the death the kid just dealt. A civilian or child holding a weapon is no longer a civilian according to modern rules of engagement.

"Master Skywalker, what do we do? There are too many of them."

Perhaps its just me, but I get the sense from that line that youngling would have been more than willing to use his weapon in the defense of his friends and home, as is only natural. The one thing that changes though, is his status as a non combatant.

Few would think it purely evil if a platoon of soldiers shot a young teenager who blew up half a dozen of their comrades with a grenade or gun. It's a sad fact of war. Being a soldier and killing a person has no quantitative age limit past about five or six. U.S. soldiers were permitted to fire on women in Mogidishu for example, who were carrying the RPGs that were downing helicopters left and right. That they weren't *actively* shooting at those soldiers is irrelevant, they were assisting in taking lives and that lifted their protection as civilian bystanders under the rules of war. Thus, barring Jedi babies and toddlers (who were still capable of deflecting LASER BULLETS with their EYES CLOSED) I find it hard to believe these people were non combatants during the Temple attack. Sure, the Clone Trooper attack was an act of aggression, but as soon as those kids picked up their sabers and went to their master's aids to fight, they made themselves legitimate military targets. I doubt Palpatine even had to lie too much about the circumstances of the raid itself. From what we saw, nearly all the Jedi were fighting off the invasion 'resisting arrest' so to speak.

Now you could say it was murder because a couple of six year olds fighting a war hardened Jedi Knight in a saber duel isn't 'fair'. I counter, that's war. War isn't meant to be fair. So long as you remain standing and the enemy is dead, that's all that matters. Age or skill is irrelevant on a battlefield when facing an enemy. Knights on horseback with plate mail hammering peasant uprisings may not seem glorious to us, but that type of battle was by far more common in medieval days than two equally matched forces going at each other. And those peasants still managed through skill and luck to kill some of those Knights to boot.

It is one of those point of view things, because while I think we can all agree that the Sith assault on the Jedi temple was a bad thing, for me it wasn't because they were attacking a bunch of, 'peaceful, passive' monks and their children. To me it was bad because of what the Jedi stood and fought for, not because the Sith finally hit the Jedi directly where it hurt.

 

Awesome post.

I can't believe the "There are too many of them" line never stuck out to me before.

 

The younglings that Anakin Skywalker fought in the Jedi Council Chambers are certainly non-combatants. They're a bunch of innocent children that are totally unarmed and clearly incapable of defending themselves. It's a senseless and horrific act of murder that has no grounds for defense whatsoever.

Furthermore, I think any sympathy we should feel about the younglings having the capacity to defend themselves is muted by the fact that this is a massacre to begin with. They're individuals that are being attacked without reason in their homes by an advanced army force that comes to slaughter them.

The fact they're fighting back doesn't make it any less horrific.

We're meant to cheer the young padawan, who is clearly no longer a youngling by the fact he has a lightsaber, in his brave defense against a bunch of heavily armed soldiers. If nothing else, it also highlights what a gigantic group of cowards that the Stormtroopers really are.

You can almost hear Scout talking about it to Darth Vader.

Scout: [to Vader] It was twenty years ago. You hadn't promoted yourself to Executor yet. You were just a petty Sith Lord. Huh! You and your gang of murderers gathered your small ounce of courage to raid across the border for food... weapons...

[indicates her binds]

Scout: ... hmph. Slave labor. My father was the village magistrate. A simple man with a simple code: justice. He gathered the few people that he could to stand against you.

[laughs]

Scout: You and your bullies were driven back by farmers with pitchforks! My father saved his village at the cost of his own life. You had him shot as you ran away! A hero... at a thousand paces.

Vader: I'm sorry. I don't remember any of it.

Scout: You don't remember?

Vader: For you, the day Vader graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday.

The status of non-combatant doesn't mean much anymore when the orders are to KILL EVERYONE.

 

That was not war. That was slaughter. That was betrayal.

 

Eh, for me, the first post is amazing mainly down to this bit:

I doubt Palpatine even had to lie too much about the circumstances of the raid itself.

 

"That was not war. That was slaughter. That was betrayal."

Which is how many a war has been won to play devil's advocate.

But I agree with Charles in that the Order was to leave no survivors, whatever the resistance may have been. However, it just made Palpatine's job easier in pointing out how dangerous the Jedi are. If a young teen can kill six assault troopers, what about the rest?

 

It'd be nice to imagine that the Jedi Temple Raid was like the Battle of Thermopolaye where 300 Spartans (plus the Thesbians and other people who don't matter) were able to hold off a million Persian soldiers. However, I think that turns it into a far more glorious battle than it really was. The few Jedi Knights in the Jedi Temple like Jocasta Nu, Serra Keto, and Cin Drallig pretty much waged as valiant a defense as possible against 6,000 Stormtroopers plus the Chosen One who killed 61 of the Jedi knights himself.

I was always struck by the Clonetrooper mission in the video game also where one of the things you're supposed to do is blow up the Library.

Yes, a video game where the protagonists BURN BOOKS.

Take note, Devil's Advocate really doesn't add much credibility to the argument. But yes, the reaction you're supposed to have is that you should hope the Jedi killed as many Clonetroopers as humanly possible.

I'm not really sure what the argument is other than a bunch of people put up a valiant defense to save innocent children only to die horribly anyway.

 

Exceptr this literally was a betrayal and salughter.

Oh, that little kid who said there were too many of them? Sure he wasn't talking about there being too many of them to run from?

 

Heh heh, subtle. I like it.

To add another layer to this discussion, what about Sith trainees? Let's say adorable little engine of destruction Darth Maul, age seven or eight, gets sent on a mission by Sidious to kill some Coruscant police officers. I'm taking Jedi out of the equation to side step the 'disarm and subdue' debate which a Jedi could do since they're supermen. In other words, police officers are trained to go for a target's center of mass, not to shoot weapon's out of people's hands. The only situation I'm taking about here is life or death.

Lil' Darth Maul has already chewed through a Coruscant SWAT team, one survivor has a clear shot and takes it.

What, or is there, a difference between a Sith youngling and a Jedi? You could say since Darth Maul was 'raised' to be a maniac, that he was, truthfully, horribly abused and since he is still a child should be spare. Should the officer try to disable Maul? Or shoot to kill? Which is the correct choice? Is there one?



"Take note, Devil's Advocate really doesn't add much credibility to the argument. But yes, the reaction you're supposed to have is that you should hope the Jedi killed as many Clonetroopers as humanly possible.

I'm not really sure what the argument is other than a bunch of people put up a valiant defense to save innocent children only to die horribly anyway."

Which is rather hard to swallow, since the entire point of the Clone Wars was to humanize the Clone Troopers and make them relatable. Sure what they did was wrong, but does that mean we should just uniformily root for them all to be slaughtered? Men who were, until a few hours ago, loyal allies of the Republic and soldiers who were given a lawful order by their Commander in Chief? Note that for all the Clones knew, the Jedi rebellion was real. Maybe that changed later, but not at this time. Why should I root for the slaughter of decieved soldiers in that case? Does the value of their life change just because they're now enemies of the Jedi?

 

The Jedi were literally minding their own business when Darth Emo McAngstypants waltzed in with the 501st and began popping caps. In your scenario with Maul, he's being active and goi9ng out, slaughtering people.

 

Hit Darth Maul with a number of stun bolts until he goes down. Forgive me but in real life, in Vietnam for example, people forced to kill children in battle were not exactly easy to get over it. It was considered one of the most mind numbing and mentally devastating acts in the war.

The entire point of the Clone Wars is to kill Jedi and set up their fall. The Stormtroopers are humanized by the Clone Wars but this only really makes their fall to the Dark Side all the more horrible. Unlike Anakin too, the Clone Troopers never get redemption either, they all end up getting blown up with the Executor.

And good riddance.

Seriously, MS, you missed the part where Order 66 reinforces that the Clonetroopers ARE EVIL and fundamentally treacherous people who WERE NEVER the Jedi's friends?

 

They're not EVIL - missed that part. They're fundamentally pragmatic.

 

Can't agree with you here. The Clone Troopers were shown for the most part to be loyal, admirable soldiers and individuals who cared about their comrades, the Jedi, and the Republic. They were sold a line about the war just like the Jedi were, and they were programmed to be more susceptible and docile to commands from their superiors. EVEN THEN, some Clones ended up becoming allies of certain Jedi.

Most of the Clones ended up being evil by proxy and brainwashing, but not all of them were. It's hard for me to root for them all getting slaughtered in Episode III when there was still so much confusion over whether or not the Jedi rebellion was 'real', and the fact that the legal head of the government they served was SATAN didn't exactly help.

You really think it's impossible that most Clones were deceived as to the true nature of their leaders?

 

Your definition of pragmatic includes shooting close friends in the back and then murdering children?

I don't think any morality system in the world allows that you can undertake any action without moral consequence so long as you were ordered to do it.

Which is exactly what the Clonetroopers can and will do.

See Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru
See the Jawa Slaughter
See the Jedi Temple Massacre
See Turning on Ben Kenobi and the other Jedi

Hell, Bly might have been DATING Aalya when he butchered her.

What deception? The Jedi Rebellion was absolutely real and so is the Empire. The Clone Troopers spread the dominion of the entirely legal Galactic Empire across a million worlds. Butchering Force Sensitive children, arresting protesting Senators, and enslaving Wookiees. They feel nothing. No pity, no remorse, no friendship, no love.

They're not Droids. They CAN feel. They CHOOSE to be what they are.

The Slave Lords of the Galaxy.

Ironic, given what certain authors see them as.

 

If the above have been flagged as threats to the all-important Republic, yes. ( And for all we know they left all the child killing to MC Midi Count.)

 

The point is that the Clone Troopers fall into the machinery of the Empire with the Republic. They don't even notice the switch between being servants of a peace loving and Democratic regime with Jedi officers who care for them and want them to be human beings and the Empire who treats them as disposable tools.

That the facilitate this is something that should make you loathe them.

That's what I think at least.

It's really a commentary on soldiers in Democratic Regimes that turn to Fascism. Their silent consent is one of the worst parts of it.

 

masterskywalker : "Master Skywalker, what do we do? There are too many of them."

I only saw the film once, so my memory of RotS is fading a bit, but I didn't think the small children had any weapons. Their comment above may not have meant that there were too many to fight, but maybe too many to escape from? hide from?

I believe the children were innocent, and the fact that Anakin Skywalker was willing to kill them anyway was meant to show just how far he has fallen. This wasn't the first time that Anakin had killed children either, remember. He killed the children of the sand people too.

 

Well, we know the Republic wasn't exactly at its peak. Maybe by that point there wasn't really much difference between the "peace-loving" ( ha! ) Republic and the Empire. And their opinion on the whole matter continues to be irrelevant to following orders.

 

My point boils down to the fact they followed Orders which were evil.

 

Well, the Younglings were armed, so that is not an issue. However, if these guys were the equivalents of Yoda's class in AotC, the ones who moved like poorly configured battle droids, and needed giant blast helmets to protect them because they couldn't even block probe blaster shots, they certainly were non-combatants if I ever saw ones.

Comparing them to Zett is pointless. He was considerably older, and looked to be heroic as well, rather than ordinary. These kids were the equivalents of children armed with kitchen utensils. Definitely non-combatants. Had they been given a few more years, however...

 

I think this argument is pretty much irrelevant--it's discussion for the sake of discussion. What makes the Jedi younglings victims of the attack is that they had been forced into a situation where the army their organization was allied with turned on them completely unexpectedly and without warning, with the intention of wiping out the entire population of the Temple whether they resisted or not.

Even if you accept the idea that the Jedi Temple massacre was legal because the Jedi had taken action against the Chancellor, that one act of "treason" does not justify the absolute elimination of every member of the organization--least of all those who were youngest and by definition lowest in rank and not responsible for the actions and political decisions of the organization as a whole.

Furthermore, while most of the younglings we see onscreen were old enough to hold a saber, we know that the Temple also held infants and young children of every age, as well as wounded Jedi and staff not trained in combat. What do we suppose were done with these individuals? I gather they weren't taken to holding cells, conscripted into Imperial service, or released to Coruscant child services.

I think then to question whether or not we as an audience should feel sorry for Zett Jukassa (who has just seen most of his friends and teachers killed without reason by allies), by bringing up what are, in this particular case, ridiculously irrelevant terms like "civilian" and "defenseless" and most particularly "rules of engagement" is abominable.

Was Zett a civilian? No; he was a proficient apprentice in a member of an armed and well trained order tied to the government. Was he defenseless? No, he was in possession of a deadly weapon. None of those factors should have any bearing on our sympathy for Zett because what was happening was not a battle between enemies. It was an egregious and violently reactionary use of military force against every member of an ancient institution of that same government in response to the actions of a few. You can't consider that one scene without taking that fact into account. For Jedi of any age, no matter how much or little training they had or weapons they used, what happened that night was horrific and terrifying and unjustifiable.

Can we feel sympathy for the clone troopers? Yes. After all, these "men" weren't much older than Zett, and were never given an opportunity to choose their own loyalties. For all they knew, every Jedi was an enemy of the state. But should this in any way diminish our sympathy for Zett and his compatriots? Absolutely not. It should increase our contempt for the man who deliberately created a situation in which biologically manufactured thirteen-year-olds would be ordered to attack a group of children trained in the use of weapons and supernaturally effective martial arts: Palpatine, the evil mastermind.

If not for Palpatine, the whole sad situation, from the stormtrooper march on the Jedi Temple to Zett's tragic death, would never have occurred because without his machinations, the Jedi would have never have been implicated in the attempted assassination of a Chancellor and the clones, if they even existed at all, would not have had reason to launch an unreasonably universal retaliation on the Jedi.

If we loose sight of all this, and consider just a few scenes of Jedi fighting clones, and use only that information to weigh our moral responses to the attack, then we risk losing a

 

A Jedi is NEVER unarmed. Like the Clonetroopers, these force sensitive younglings were trained from birth to be warriors, to use their skills in the force, as well as martial arts & lightsaber training to fight evil. It's the same kind of excuse given here on these boards for why individuals like Kyp or Tahiri shouldn't be imprisoned, who can fight their mind tricks & keep them imprisoned? What kind of prison can hold them? They'd be better off running free doing good in the universe as a way to make up for any wrongdoings, because no non-Jedi can contain them.

You are right tho, Anakin killing them was meant to show how far he had fallen. I believe that all of us understood that.

Tusken Raider children, Jedi younglings, even Mandalorian kids...treating them them same way you'd react to some Alderaanian or Chandrillian child, you'd be asking for death. It's quite possible thast that room full of cute younglings even unarmed could've destroyed a squad of 501'st Clonetroopers. They had the force potential to explode heads, without the training & discipline to know how to control that outburst of force power. Part of the reason that children taken in by the Jedi are never allowed to see their real families again, may be that a non-Jedi cannot put up a barrier to protect themselves from an uncontrolled force tantrum.

 

I'm amused that people are assuming younglings=Jedi.

Padawan, Knight, Master=Jedi.

Younglings=Harmless Children.

 

To be clear, I mean force sensitives. I emphasize force tantrums & the like, children with unnatural powers that do not have the discipline or training to know when to hold back. I can imagine a 3 year old force sensitive abandoned on the streets of Nar Shaddaa, her mother laying face down a few feet away catatonic & dying from a brain aneurysm cause she was poor & couldn't afford to feed her child properly. For simplicity's sake, I would call the child a Jedi, but I'm sure you understand what I mean.

Alderaanians, Dantoonians, Corellians= Harmless Children.

Tusken Raiders, Mandalorians, Force sensitives, Ewoks= These children can kill you!

 

...we're having a topic whether to feel sympathy for the Jedi during Order 66 or not?

I mostly agree with Taloncard's post. Not to mention I think the first poster is ignoring a lot of the context of the scene too. Its not like the clone troopers were just out on patrol on Coruscant somewhere and then someone with a lightsaber leaps out and attacks them. The 501st invaded the Jedi Temple in huge numbers with orders to kill everyone. Sure, the Jedi fought back. Should they have just lied down and been shot to look more sympathetic? We already had plenty of Jedi killed by their previously loyal clone troopers with little to no warning, and the Temple massacre was equally horrific.

Maybe they weren't defenseless, although I think the younglings were the beings in the Temple closest to being defenseless, but all the Jedi there were just desperately fighting for their lives, or fighting to give others enough time to escape- both of which seems pretty heroic, considering the circumstances, I think.

Its supposed to be tragic, the end of an Order that mostly brought good to the galaxy. Unless we're going to start questioning the point of the Jedi... that sure seems to be brought up more and more often (especially with FotJ going on now).

The clones... well, that's a whole other debate, but for now, they received orders to kill Jedi, and they followed those orders. We know why they received those orders, because Palpatine is the evil villain... and that should be enough to feel sympathy for the Jedi, right?

Funny to hear how other people interpreted RotS... well, sometimes its funny.