PT Did Mace Windu effectively destroy the Jedi?

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I'm curious. Exactly how was Mace supposed to know that it would have been safer to bring more than three or four Jedi Knights and Masters to arrest Palpatine? He doesn't know the extent of Palpatine's skills. He never knew the extent of Darth Maul's skills. The only Sith apprentice whose skills he was familiar with before this scene was Darth Tyranus (Dooku). And the latter was dead by this point. And the fact that Mace brought along support for the arrest in the first place shows some common sense on his part. At least he tried to arrest Palpatine first . . . which is more than I can say about Yoda. And neither Mace or Yoda ever bothered to alert the Senate of their actions, which revealed much of the Jedi arrogance that was first pointed out in AOTC. Even if either Jedi Master had succeeded in killing Palpatine, I doubt that most of the Senators would have viewed their actions with approval.​

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The fact that we don't really know how the encounter with Palpatine would have turned out if Anakin had been brought along makes me wonder how some people can declare Mace as "incompetent" for leaving the Jedi Knight behind. Mace had sensed great turmoil within Anakin, when he told the latter to stay behind. But in the end, only George Lucas knows what would have happened if Anakin had been a part of the arrest party.​

So again . . . why are certain fans determine to dump the downfall of the Jedi solely on Mace's shoulders?

 

How could Mace have known it would be safer to bring more Jedi? If you're facing a powerful threat, of course the more allies you have, the better. Sure, he had no way of knowing he would NEED that many, but bringing more couldn't have done any harm (aside from potentially taking time to gather more and public perception). Yoda didn't try to arrest Sidious because Anakin told Mace, not Yoda. Yoda wasn't there. And yes, the Jedi (especially the highest ranking Jedi) were definitely weakened by arrogance/overconfidence in the AOTC/ROTS time period.

That said, it is true that it really wasn't Mace's fault. Sidious defeated the Jedi Order and none of the Jedi was able to stop him; it was all of their fault, really. However, since Mace is the one who Anakin went to, and because he was one of the highest ranking Jedi, obviously he bears more blame than the average knight. It doesn't mean another Jedi would have done any better in his place, just that he failed, but so did all the Jedi.

As for not bringing Anakin, Mace definitely made the right decision there. He knew that Anakin had a personal relationship with Palpatine so obviously that could get in the way of things. All he should have done differently is get more Jedi together (Yoda and Obi-Wan perhaps) before going after Sidious.

 

You missed my point. Innocents would die but Palpatine's reign would end then and there. Millions/Billions would be saved and the Republic would survive.

If Mace and Co. had succeeded, Palpatine still wins because it makes it look exactly like a Jedi coup. They are stupid because their actions could not succeed under any scenario, because they didn't THINK. If they arrest Palpatine, he lives to fight another day and it does appear the Jedi have overthrown the government. If they kill Palpatine, they appear as assasins and still attempt a coup. No win. It is interesting to wonder what would happen if Palpatine is killed but the Jedi still appear to be insurrectionists.

They had the hologram at the time they return to Coruscant to turn off the beacon, and the Senate is in session with Palpatine spinning his lies to declare himself emperor. Sounds like a good chance to call him out and show the senate he is a liar.

They should have been gathering evidence for the past 15 years, but they weren't. But now that the revolution is sparked, they actually HAVE evidence and don't use it.

 

From what i have read about Windu, his style of fighting was where he enjoyed it. He tread closely to the dark side with this style of fighting. I imagine this made him very over confident and yeh when he went to face Palpatine he thought he could take him and he was right. He was the best Lightsaber fighter but anakin stepped in. IMO...

 

True, but if the Jedi confront Palpatine in private, they minimize practically to zero, the risk that innocent beings will be harmed/killed in their attempt to arrest/kill Palpatine. In the Jedi's mind, it's better to have the confrontation in private and face the bad publicity than to have the confrontation in public and put innocent beings at risk.

I'm glad to see your argument is not the Jedi were defeated= their stupid. While I disagree with you that their actions were wrong, I can respect that you maintain your argument whether the Jedi win or lose.

Given that, as you've pointed out, Palpatine has just survived a coup by the Jedi couldn't he argue (convincingly) that he sent the troops and Anakin there to arrest the Jedi and the Jedi fought back? Not to mention, their evidence doesn't show Palpatine to be a liar (unless i'm missing something). The attack on the Jedi Temple took place after the coup attempt, so he's seemingly justified in his retaliation.

 

If any one Jedi is to blame, it's Yoda. Oldest Jedi , who had a hand in training everyone in the order at some point, over eight centuries of being set in his ways and won't adapt to the changing times, until his precious order got wiped out and had no other choice but to adapt or die,

 

It is kind of pathetic that he never even had the slightest suggestion to investigate the senate or Palpatine. You would think that they knew they were only interacting with Sith apprentices and not the master, so they should have gone off in search of the master to end things quickly.

 

They did, Dredalus.
They investigated members of the Senate and even the Chancellor's staff. Sate Pestage, if I remember correctly, was thought in passing to have been Sidious. They never really investigated Palpatine because the Jedi admitted that he was already in control of everything already so why waste the time. Pity...

 

I think they also believed that it was Mas Amedda at one point as well, So obviously they did do a little bit of investigating into the senate. But it wasn't exactly a great deal of investigating. Mind you as we saw in the films the Jedi didn't exactly do a lot of investigating into anything really.

 

Why are you determined to criticize Mace for not bringing more than three Jedi Masters with him to arrest Palpatine? Exactly how is he supposed to know how many to bring? You won't even give him credit for having the sense not to confront Palpatine alone.

Exactly what are you saying here? The Jedi had been investigating the Senate and especially Palpatine's circle ever since they learned about the existence of a Sith master. Are you also saying that Mace should have sent for Yoda to confront Palpatine? Mace was a very powerful Jedi Master. He was more than capable of facing the Chancellor. Hell, even Yoda had difficulty in his duel with Dooku. And Mace still brought along three other Jedi Masters with him for good measure.

None of us know really how a duel between Mace and Palpatine would have ended if Anakin had not been a major factor in the situation. Why pretend that we do?

 

He didn't train Anakin and that was his real failure. Every jedi that Yoda had trained throughout his 8-centuries career has never fallen to the Dark Side (with the exception of Count Dooku) but the second Anakin walks into his doorstep, Yoda refuses to make him a Jedi. What's worse, he allowed a newly-appointed Jedi Knight like Obi-wan to train the boy alone when Yoda could've done the honors himself. Added with the fact that PalpSidious is undermining Obi-wan's teachings behind his back and corrupting Anakin's mind, you end up having a recipe for disaster. I agree that Yoda didn't adapt to the changing times but the way he trained the entire Jedi Order is NOT what doomed them all, it was his refusal to train Anakin that led to their destruction because he unknowingly and unwittingly allowed PalpSidious to mind-twist Anakin into becoming his apprentice.

 

MACE WINDU: Nevertheless, I feel we should keep a closer eye on the Senate.
YODA: I agree.

 

They still fell though.

 

Do we really know that Count Dooku was his only student that had fallen? And I don't think that Yoda's teachings would have helped Anakin. Yoda was too stuck in the Order's dogmatic beliefs at the time. And even HE ended up receiving more teachings from Qui-Gon's ghost for nearly another two more decades.

And I still believe that Anakin was more responsible for his own downfall than anyone else. As for the Jedi's downfall, well I believe that was a collective effort.

 

Before Yoda died, the very last Jedi he trained has the same problems that Anakin had but unlike him, Luke didn't succumb to the Dark Side. He became a true jedi so if Yoda's teachings helped Luke, then it could've helped Anakin too. As for Anakin's downfall, I believe that too is a collective effort from the Jedi's mistreatment of him to PalpSidious' mind tricks leading up to Anakin making his fatal decision. Lastly, I don't think anyone under Yoda's watch would be able to turn to the Dark Side without him sensing it. After all, Yoda did sense Anakin had turned even before he and Obi-wan saw the hologram footage of Anakin killing Jedi.

 

Yoda's perspective on the Jedi changed during his fight with Sidious. He realised that the Jedi had been fighting the wrong fight and this, as well as Qui-Gon's teachings, suggest that even if he had been the one who taught Anakin, the result may have been the same...

 

Yoda most likely would have been wrong for Anakin. Matt Stover in the novelization of RotS said that Yoda was shocked but honored that Anakin had come to him for advice. There Yoda gives him the spiel don't miss this person that you see dying. REJOICE that they are going to be joining the Force. Yoda didn't even want Anakin in the Order so why should he be the one to say taht he would train him.

 

Hence, why Yoda failed the Jedi Order because of his dismissal towards Anakin. If Yoda felt that way about him, he wouldn't have bothered in wanting to train Luke since Yoda felt that Luke is too much like his father. As the old saying would go, "like father, like son".

 

This is exactly the same mistake that Yoda made, later in the movie. And yet, many fans refuse to criticize him for trying to kill Palpatine without the Senate's knowledge or approval. Unlike Mace, Yoda did not even try to make an arrest. Yet, fans rush to defend his actions. After his failure to defeat Papatine, Yoda finally realized it was a mistake to attempt to kill the Emperor in the first place, as he crawled to safety away from the Senate chambers. Mace didn't get the chance to come to such a realization, because he was killed.

 

These arguments are ridiculous.

Mace Windu went to arrest the Chancellor because he knew he was a Sith Lord. The duty of the Jedi is to destroy the Sith. Mace tried to arrest Palpatine because he was also the legally elected head of the Republic. When Palpatine displayed the ability to fight even after being disarmed of his physical weapon, Mace realized that Palpatine was too dangerous to try and take alive. If he continued to try to arrest the Sith Lord, he would likely die and the Sith would be free to proceed to annihilate the Jedi.

With this information in mind, Mace Windu decided to kill the Sith Lord who had masterminded the Clone Wars. And if Anakin hadn't interefered, he might have succeeded.

Mace had the right idea. Politics and war are the tools of the Sith and to try and fight them there is fighting on their chosen battlefield where failure is almost pre-determined. The only way to stop the war and end the conflict once and for all is to cut off the head of the monster. Kill the Sith and their plans come to an end.

Mace learned his lesson from Geonosis, he didn't try to kill Dooku there and doomed the galaxy to three years of war. In ROTS, he made the right choice and tried to kill Palpatine and if Anakin hadn't been such a terrible Jedi, Mace Windu would have ended the Sith menace that day. Order 66 would never have been issued, the Empire would never have come to be and the Sith Order would have died with Palpatine in that office.

 

Sidious + the Jedi being unwilling to adapt to the times is what lead to their downfall

 

Windu was familiar with Dooku, who was incredibly powerful. He out-dueled Anakin and Obi-Wan on multiple occasions and fought Yoda to a standstill. At this estimation he had to know that the person pulling Dooku's strings had to be incredibly powerful, on-par if not above Yoda's skill.

 

Dooku seemed to mean more to Yoda than any of his other students. If you read Dark Rendezvous and use it to fill in the blanks it almost seems that Yoda is referring to Dooku during the OT when he speaks to Luke about falling to the dark side. I always felt that to Yoda Dooku is the one that got away.

 

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Yoda-"If informed, the senate is, multiply our adversaries will."​

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Like you said, most of the senators wouldn't approve of what Mace and Yoda would do with PalpSidious no matter what course of action they take against him. If they tell the senate what they're planning to do to their chancellor, it'll make the entire republic turn against the Jedi Order which is exactly what PalpSidious wants to happen. The Jedi will all be viewed as a threat to the senate and the galaxy thus allowing PalpSidious to gain the senate's approval to initiate Order 66 against the Jedi. In Yoda's case, all bets were off by that point because all of his fellow Jedi are being killed off by clone troopers under PalpSidious' command and his own life was on the line. Arresting PalpSidious was no longer an option for Yoda after what he's done so this is now an all or nothing showdown between the Jedi grandmaster and his Sith opponent.​

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I agree. It wouldn't have matter if Mace had brought Anakin with him or not because the outcome will be the same as the movie with Anakin betraying and helping Sidious kill the Jedi Order.

 

Perhaps if Mace & the Jedi Posse had walked into the trap, as originally scripted...

maybe those fans would have been more sympathetic towards Windu.

Though I wouldn't hold my breath...