Saga Are the Jedi Anti Passion or simply pro acceptance?

My view is basically that Anakin completely misinterpreted Yoda and Obi Wan due to his age, and Palpatine's whispers. Both Yoda and Obi Wan seem to know about the affair, yet they never confront him, only advise him (except for the one scene when padme falls out of the ship and he wants to "save" her).

 

Hm, I don't think they knew. Can't a Jedi be cast from the Order if they indulge in a romantic relationship? I'm pretty sure Anakin said something like that in Episode III. Taking a stance of anti-passion fits with their view of the darkside, since such a strong emotion can be one of the most dangerous floodgates for it, particularly when coupled with attachment. At the very least, Yoda senses Anakin's fear and advises him to detach himself from whatever it is he fears losing. Ergo, being a good little Jedi= no attachments.

If they'd known about the affair, it seems like Obi Wan would have stepped in to guide his wayward apprentice away from such a path.

 

Lucas, in an interview, did say that Jedi aren't required to be celibate - but that they are required to be unattached. A one-off encounter is fine - a relationship is not.

 

In ROTS, Padme is pretty sure that just her pregnancy will get Anakin kicked out of the Order if the Jedi find out.

 

sounds about right.

Iron_lord
her main source of information is Anakin, so that doesn't win me over. I think they might throw him out with more information. Not because they hate Love, but because he clearly wont accept loss.

 

Yeah...this is part of the problems I have with the PT Jedi Order...in terms of story-telling. The idea that 'marriage' is banned (which is what seems to be the case) doesn't really make any sense. Whether Anakin and Padmé marry or not, if they have the feelings they have then...they have the feelings they have.

The problem is that...the supposedly dogmatic rules the Jedi are supposed to have make no sense in any real-world context and are entirely unworkable...except on the most superficial basis.

When Yoda says "he's too old" (about Luke) he follows it up with something like "..yes, that's it, he's too old". To have "he's too old" actually be a rule is to completely misunderstand that Yoda is here feeling about for an excuse...it makes no sense that this was actually some sort of rule embedded in the 'Jedi Order' of old.

The idea that a rule could define the ability to learn to let go is utterly ludicrous...and before anyone says 'that's the point' I'll pre-empt that by saying ...it's so ludicrous nobody could ever believe it's a viable proposition, and certainly not something that could be sustainable for "over a thousand generations". Look at Obi-Wan's reaction to his master's death in TPM. Is that not attachment? Is his following his promise to Qui-Gon not an aspect of attachment?He sees the danger in training Anakin but...his master made him swear and he does so...which can be nothing more or less than his attachment to the memory of Qui-Gon - it certainly isn't something he senses is right (that is made plain throughout the latter part of the movie). And his reaction to Yoda telling him he can contact Qui-Gon...same thing. Attachment.

Delving into TCW territory, we're supposed to take from this that 'the prophecy is true, man' and (hence) that the Jedi in the OT are actually just working with Luke to bring this about. But that is an attachment to the prophecy, to an ancient, garbled vision.

So....Lucas thinks he is telling a story of avoiding attachment...but actually is telling a story absolutely dependent upon attachment at it's heart....just so long as it's not marriage, eh?

 

Why don't it make any sense? I can think of many reasons why they don't allow it.

 

she also probably talks to palpatine a fair, who for at least some time seems to be someone she respects, and he would absolutely further what anakin says in a back door kinda way as always.

 

Okay, I'll ask the question again. If Anakin and Padmé didn't get secretly married at the end of AOTC, would their feelings for each other just have died? Is marriage/partner the only dangerous attachment?

What is Obi-Wan's anger against Maul all about, if not attachment? Why does he keep a promise to his Master that he doesn't agree with, except because of attachment to his memory?

 

Ah, then I understand. I don't think they actually stated that the no marriage rule comes from the jedi's no appatchment policy and I theorise that that rule don't just come from that but a combination of reasons.

 

Right, which getting married makes worse because they're committing to each other and being together. The Jedi in question becomes emotionally attached and can be easily influenced towards the dark side if that Jedi is willing to put the needs of themselves over the needs of everyone else. They're more prone towards doing the kinds of reckless things that we see Anakin do, than a Jedi who has no emotional attachments. Obi-wan, for instance, fell in love during TCW. But he knew the risks if he were to commit himself to another person and couldn't bring himself to leave the Jedi Order right when he was needed most. He wasn't going to do what Anakin had done. That is why he said that breaking a commitment to the Jedi Order is not easily done. That sense of duty is strong in a Jedi.

Obi-wan in TPM is a Padawan who winds up taking his trial while fighting Maul on Naboo. It is not the normal, prescribed trail, but it is close enough. Obi-wan realizes his mistake as he's hanging there and lets go of his fear, his anger and his hate towards Maul and draws upon the Force to defeat him. And when Qui-gon is gone, Obi-wan lets go of his attachment to him. That is why he says to Anakin that he must let go of Qui-gon during the funeral. When Qui-gon died, Obi-wan let go of his feelings towards him. He does not make a promise to prevent others from dying ever again. He does not become obsessed with fighting death and becoming all powerful.

Jedi make promises all the time. That isn't attachment. He does so because he is honoring his Master's dying wish. Obi-wan also does so because he knows that Anakin destroyed the Federation's control ship and thus believes that there may be some truth to the prophecy. His reaction to Yoda's revelation isn't because of attachment, but because he now has someone else who verifies what he saw on Mortis. Obi-wan thought that his encounter with Qui-gon was a hallucination of what happened on Mortis. Backed up by the fact that Yoda claimed to have found nothing out about Qui-gon after he had alleged to have talked to him. When Yoda reveals the truth to him and opens his thoughts to Obi-wan, he realizes that he wasn't dreaming and that Yoda was not under attack from the Sith. He is stunned.

One can have strong feelings towards another person, without it becoming attachment.

Yoda and Obi-wan believe in the prophecy, but they aren't sure that it is Anakin. They believe that Luke and Leia are key to stopping the Sith. But it is not attachment. It is because Anakin had two children and Serenity and Qui-gon both told them that they have a grand role to play in events to come. Serenity even tells Yoda that he will train the one who will help bring balance to the Force. And he does, he trains Anakin to retain his identity after he has succeeded in fulfilling his destiny. He also knows that they will train one of the children.

So it is not attachment, but faith that the direction that they're on. There can be many paths, but their paths are clear. Luke's path is clear up to a point. Right up to when he goes to confront the Sith. Whether or not he becomes a Jedi or a Sith, is unclear. Just as it was unclear whether Anakin would save the universe or damn it forever.

Attachment is defined as greed, possessiveness, obsessiveness, jealously, fear, anger and hate. Attachment to an ideal time and place. To wanting to keep things frozen in time. Attachment is even in being unable to let go of others when death comes.

Anakin would have to let go of his feelings towards Padme. It isn't just being married to her, but the fact that he has focused on her for ten years. Remember, he says that he has thought of her for ten years. That he is haunted by the kiss that she gave him. That he cannot get over the time they spent together during the Naboo crisis. In novelization for AOTC, Anakin even dreams of an ideal life with his mother and Padme. A perfect world that is shattered by the first vision of Shmi in pain.

Attachment that he lets go of and learns from. And the promise is because he believes in Qui-gon. Honoring Qui-gon is not attachment.

 

Different readers define the word "attachment" differently - as do the Jedi. That might be where all the arguments come from.

 

I tend to favor what Lucas has said.

"The Jedi are trained to let go. They're trained from birth," he continues, "They're not supposed to form attachments. They can love people- in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith. But they can't form attachments. So what all these movies are about is: greed. Greed is a source of pain and suffering for everybody. And the ultimate state of greed is the desire to cheat death."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 213.

"It's about a good boy who was loving and had exceptional powers, but how that eventually corrupted him and how he confused possessive love with compassionate love. That happens in Episode II: Regardless of how his mother died, Jedis are not supposed to take vengeance. And that's why they say he was too old to be a Jedi, because he made his emotional connections. His undoing is that he loveth too much."

--George Lucas, Rolling Stone Magazine Interview; June 2005.

"This is obviously a very pivotal scene for Anakin because this is reuniting with his mother and his youth and at the same time dealing with his inability to let go of his emotions and allow himself to accept the inevitable. The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that he can't hold onto things which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn't willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he'd have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn't have this particular connection as strong as it is and he'd have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them. But he has become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of. His fear of losing her turns to anger at losing her, which ultimately turns to revenge in wiping out the village. The scene with the Tusken Raiders is the first scene that ultimately takes him on the road to the dark side. I mean he's been prepping for this, but that's the one where he's sort of doing something that is completely inappropriate."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"The scene in the garage here, we begin to see that what he's really upset about is the fact that he's not powerful enough. That if he had more power, he could've kept his mother. He could've saved her and she could've been in his life. That relationship could've stayed there if he'd have been just powerful enough. He's greedy in that he wants to keep his mother around, he's greedy in that he wants to become more powerful in order to control things in order to keep the things around that he wants. There's a lot of connections here with the beginning of him sliding into the dark side. And it also shows his jealousy and anger at Obi-Wan and blaming everyone else for his inability to be as powerful as he wants to be, which he hears that he will be, so here he sort of lays out his ambition and you'll see later on his ambition and his dialogue here is the same as Dooku's. He says "I will become more powerful than every Jedi." And you'll hear later on Dooku will say "I have become more powerful than any Jedi." So you're going start to see everybody saying the same thing. And Dooku is kind of the fallen Jedi who was converted to the dark side because the other Sith Lord didn't have time to start from scratch, and so we can see that that's where this is going to lead which is that it is possible for a Jedi to be converted. It is possible for a Jedi to want to become more powerful, and control things. Because of that, and because he was unwilling to let go of his mother, because he was so attached to her, he committed this terrible revenge on the Tusken Raiders."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

Attachment isn't just marriage, but about feelings towards individual people.

 

Which is kind of the problem - this:


the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he'd have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn't have this particular connection as strong as it is and he'd have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them.


is basically a massive "Anyone raised by their mother can't become a Jedi"

as well as being an argument that the attachments created by a typical upbringing are insurmountable.

 

I see it more as failure on the council and obi wans part to teach him how to let go (he may still be attached, but that isn't the key to his fall, his greed for life is). I think it is all about a new situation handled poorly, but also highly manipulated by a certain father figure.

 

Well, they're not insurmountable as Luke proved. The trouble is that Anakin was nine and filled with fear when he left. Luke was twenty and he was wanting to leave home. He was only afraid to take the first step, but then does so when the Lars were killed. Anakin was conflicted as he wanted to stay, but he wanted to leave as well. Being trained from a young age, before being attached to his mother, it is easier for the Jedi to avoid many of the problems that they've encountered. In the first few weeks of life, all newborns will become attached to their parents quickly. As we grow up, in most cases, we learn to be less attached at the hip to our parents. For those who do so, they will reach the age where they are willing to move out and be on their own. To take that larger step into life.

Greed is of the dark side and is connected to attachment. So he is greedy in that he wants his mother to be alive and he is greedy in that he wants his wife to be alive. He is afraid of death. He wants the power to stop death, so that he will never be alone. The ROTS novelization put it as one day, Anakin came to the realization that he was afraid of death.

The Council taught him everything he needed to know. It was up to him to follow his training or take the quick and easy path. He chose the latter because it was easier than the former.

 

That never really made sense to me. The Jedi Code is sort of loosely based on Buddhist/Zen teachings, which also teach the necessity of letting go of earthly attachments - which, when it comes to intimacy, means a complete no-no to sex, because it is very easy to get attached in such situations. So the Jedi saying that you can fool around all you want, just don't fall in love seems like a "have your cake and eat it too" scenario. If you fear romantic attachment because it can interfere with your duties so much, then why permit one of the ultimate expressions of it?

 

Exactly....so how does a ban on marriage address that? If they hadn't got married, there would still be the same feelings, they don't just disappear, and marriage doesn't magically make people more in love/attached to each other. And how does it address attachment to those other than lovers/partners

If what is underlined is the case then....why is there a ban on marriage at all? Surely the Jedi brought up from infancy would be impervious to such notions of attachment? So why would the order even have that rule? Just in case they train someone who is "too old"?

"Your feelings do you credit, but...." ..when is Anakin ever told this by the Jedi? He is told that to have any feelings is wrong. The way the Jedi are written in the PT it is as if they reject all emotion, not learn to deal with it.... and please don't tell me 'that's the point, that's what they had wrong' because....they had stood "for a thousand generations"....what, getting it entirely wrong? Not understanding?

 

Marriage is very expressly and clearly a commitment though (the Christian form at any rate). The vows are all about what you vow to do for the other person. To the Jedi, one person having such influence is a big no-go. Whereas a casual relationship can be discarded far easier... in theory. It's the difference between simple mutual attraction and an actual long-term relationship.

 

1. The ban on marriage prevents Jedi from going out and forming attachments to people. Obi-wan didn't follow through on his growing feelings of attachment for Satine because he knew that he would have to make that commitment to her over the Jedi Order and his sense of duty prevented him from doing so.

2. Feelings between people can be let go off. That entails separating from each other and moving on, rather than focusing on those feelings. People can and have done that in the real world. If Obi-wan or another Jedi had been with Anakin and Padme, things wouldn't have escalated between them. Anakin might still have the feelings, but the other Jedi would have nipped it in the bud.

3. No, marriage doesn't automatically cause people to fall in love. But it is the end result of that relationship escalating into making a commitment to each other, which can fuel the darker aspects of emotional states of being. By discouraging both attachments and marriage, then a Jedi is less prone towards engaging in those feelings and activities.

4. The other part is dealt with through self-discipline. Obi-wan had trained himself mentally for years to let go of those feelings of attachment, thus when Qui-gon died, he let go of him. He accepted his death and moved on. And when Satine entered his life, he had to let go of his feelings for her. And when he realized that he was attached to Anakin during their duel, he forced himself to let go of him and accept him as a total loss. By the time he became one with the Force, he had no attachments. No thought of self. No sense of self. Total compassion and unconditional love. That is how he was able to become a ghost.

Having the training and knowledge is one thing. Always applying it is another. As I've said many times over the years, being a Jedi is not an easy job. They are always tempted by the dark side. They must always battle against it even after passing the trials. Dooku was an experienced Jedi Master who long ago passed the trials and he still became a Sith Lord. And that is because he finally gave into the darker emotions in his heart and thus he fell. Yoda, despite his longer life and experience, learned that he still had darkness in his heart.

A Jedi is tested every day and every day, that Jedi must learn to let go. The rule exists because a Jedi can be tempted regardless of how they're trained. Training from birth can make it easier to help guide these young Jedi into adulthood, but also guide them so that they can love others, but not be attached to them.

Obi-wan taught Anakin that a long time ago. That is why he was able to hide his feelings from most of the Jedi, but not so much with Obi-wan and Palpatine. That's why when Obi-wan visited Padme before leaving for Utapau, he stated that he knew the truth of their relationship.

PADME: "You’re not just here to say hello. Something is wrong, isn’t it?"

OBI-WAN: "You should be a Jedi, Padme".

PADME: "You’re not very good at hiding your feelings."

OBI-WAN: "It’s Anakin . . . He’s becoming moody and detached. He’s been put in a difficult position as the Chancellor’s representative . . . but I think it’s more than that. I was hoping he may have talked to you."

PADME: "Why would he talk to me about his work?"

OBI-WAN: "Neither of you is very good at hiding your feelings either."

The Jedi didn't really get it wrong. They gave Anakin the tools that he needed, but they underestimated his stubbornness and willfulness. They didn't know that Palpatine was a Sith Lord and undermining what he was being taught. And Obi-wan gave too much leniency because he thought that she was good for him, since Anakin would confide in her more than he would him. Yoda and Obi-wan believed that Anakin would deal with it by training himself to let go of his fears. Luke does the same thing and we've seen how he has turned out. And as we've learned with TFA, there are no guarantees in life.

 

I think the problem is the Jedi stressed the need for perspective, but lost their own perspective. They believed that they needed to put aside passion and attachment, but became passionately attached to the notion that they could do anything in their quest to destroy the Sith. They could go from keepers of the peace to leaders of armies. They could go from serving the Senate and the law to deciding to be a law unto themselves. Once again, Palpatine, that consummate con artist, exploited the Order's flaws (arrogance regarding their position, fear of a potential Sith victory) and used it to his advantage.

Thing is, ideally, the Jedi are against passion which is out of balance, or overwhelms one's duties and responsibilities. By that reckoning, a Jedi should be able to marry and start a family, provided they can live up to their responsibilities and not lose focus. It's similar to the Christian notion of a husband and wife being devoted to each other, but putting devotion to God first (with the faith that God will bless the marriage in return). But, it looks to me like the Jedi were so fearful of what might happen when someone loses focus that they decided to just eliminate all attachment, supposedly removing the source of the problem. But, instead, by demanding unquestioning obedience to principle without really explaining why or making some allowance, they created resentment in Anakin's mind, giving Palpatine yet another way to cause trouble. The result: self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

The thing is that the Jedi didn't forbid the idea of Jedi having friendships in and out of the Order. They just taught their own members to accept that there are times when a Jedi needs to be clearheaded enough to not be distracted by threats to their loved ones. After all, during the Clone Wars, there were Jedi siblings in the Order. They were allowed to be trained at the same time, but under separate Masters. When one was killed, the other did not lose control. Yoda and the two Masters had managed to do right by those Jedi. Anakin's problem isn't so much that he was forbidden from Padme, but that he let his own desires to cheat death overwhelm all other rational thought. He only wanted Palpatine to live so that Padme would live. That is why he falls and fails.

 

Yes I agree. anakin had too much power for his young age,mix that with young love(palpatine was able to seduce him to the dark side by threatening his wife padmes life)and you will get bad decision making(joining the darkside when his wife died of natural causes). I also agree with the misinterpretation with yoda obi wan & mace windu & i feel the same way about them not confronting him about the time he was spending with palpatine. Maybe if they did he woulndt have had such a strong hold on anakin, or maybe as jedi they were giving him the freedom to choose. Trying to let him handle it on his own, but he could not.