PT Is the Jedi philosophy a hurdle in relating to the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker?

They know that he is a Sith Lord when they confront him. Yoda can sense the dark side within him and he demonstrates skills that only a Sith Lord is capable of.

The Senate voted to give Emergency Powers to the Supreme Chancellor, who then orders the use of the Clone Army to battle the threat of the Separatists, who have announced their intention of attacking the Republic and forcing them to submit to their demands. And yes, they have made openly aggressive moves by hiring a bounty hunter and an assassin to kill the senator from Naboo. Obi-wan is there because he followed Jango to the Separatists base of operations and found out about the Separatist plan. Had the Geonosians let Obi-wan be, the Jedi wouldn't have gone to Geonosis yet. The same with the Republic. But the Jedi go to Geonosis to rescue Obi-wan and find themselves in an overwhelming battle, until the Clone Army arrives and the Jedi decide that they need to prevent Dooku from escaping and taking the war out to the galaxy, thus resulting in more death and destruction. The Jedi aren't doing this for personal gain. They're doing this to protect lives, even though they do not like that it has come to this. And when the duel begins, that is where what I said earlier comes into play.

Luke also went to Jabba's to rescue Han and part of that is to get Jabba out of the palace and into the desert, where he has the advantage. He will try and bargain, but he will fight and he knows that a fight will occur. The Jedi don't get a chance to bargain because they're forced into defending themselves.

 

Yes, after they confront him with their lightsabers drawn. It's realy simple, if it really were the case, that a Jedi only uses the Force for knowledge and defense, Anakin and Obi-Wan would have entered the room, telling Dooku he was under arrest, Dooku would'nt have any of it and would draw his sword, after which the Jedi would draw their weapon in defense. I think this is an important visual piece of story telling, which separates a Jedi from a Sith. A Jedi should not be eager to go to battle.

 

No quite the contrary, for me the downfall of Anakin - as mirrored by the downfall of the Republic and its institutions (Jedi) - is Lucas most elaborate and mature writing. Even Plinkett (!) conceded that Anakin's turn was not like in Jedi just a simplistic on-and-off switch mechanism, but carefully rooted in Anakin's personality, education and history: he had motivation to go dark side.

Anakin's tragedy was that he could not let go of his - good - attachments and that the fear of loss made him want to control death (the shadow of greed) and he thus lusted for power. His tragedy was that he in the end destroyed those he swore to protect and that he loved, including himself.

He was not suited for the Jedi ways as he was too old and already had formed strong attachments (with his mother) that plagued him. After his traumatic loss of his mother (and genocide revenge) he projected this forbidden attachment on his wife (I will not fail again). And a talented demagogic puppet player knew exactly how to exploit that and lead everything to perdition.

In it's core this is the the old narrative root of tragedy: the conflict between duty and personal desire, Super-Ego and Id - here just clad in a dystopian SciFi narrative.

 

it's a bit late for all that ,I think he's made it quite clear that he's going to resist arrest , plus he's already attacked them with monsters and droid armies and aircraft , I mean c'mon the dude's dangerous having your lightsabre ignited is the sensible thing to do .

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Anakin cannot let go of his attachments - the shadow of greed = the darkside etc etc.

When Anakin's nine years old, Yoda stigmatises him when he senses that he's thinking about his mother. (whom he has just left for the first time in his life).

Ten years later he freely admits to Obi Wan he has started having a dream about his mother. Obi Wan just tells him it will pass. So Obi Wan doesn't even see this as a problem. Just a normal thing that will pass.

It's not a very consistent message.

There's not many people who are asked to let go of their parents or parent for the sake of their duty. It's not really a familiar narrative, unless the person is secretly loyal to your parent's desires and objectives which are at odds with your chosen vocation.

The only time that people are aksed to forget their parents are people who join religious cults, because the cult does not want them to be influenced by anyone's perspective but their own.

Here's the thing. The Jedi were not happy about sending Anakin with Padme to Naboo. Palpatine insisted it was important and necessary, so in order to be seen to be loyal to the republic, the Jedi allow it. Anakin's duty is to do whatever the Jedi council tell him to do. But the council do not have faith in this "duty" that they are giving him. They are giving it to him in spite of their own feelings about it. While on Naboo, Padme endorses Anakin's expressed feelings that the is supposed to act on the premonition/dream about his mother, even though he acknowledges that it is a dereliction of the duty given to him by Yoda. Padme's reassurance, plus the fact that she is his duty and should she go to Tatooine it is his duty to accopmany her, validates Anakin's feeling that he can and should do something about his dream.

So the whole scenario of Anakin's suffering is borne out of confused loyalties and keeping up appearances. And not just Anakin's.

 

I don't think that happened , it seems like you're confusing some events .

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OK. They were blandly unstoppable superhero cops until the very end of the last film of the trilogy...

Doesn't change the point.

 

Anakin is the only one who is eager to go to battle with Dooku. Obi-wan isn't and tries to tell Anakin that they need to work together, but then he rushes Dooku.

It is a consistent message because neither Jedi knows what those dreams are, which is why Anakin doesn't feel compelled to leave until the very last one that he has on Naboo. At no point until then, does Anakin show concern and fear about his mother's well being in AOTC. When he does in TPM, he is told what can happen if he lets fear into his heart since he is still being evaluated for training. And Obi-wan doesn't appear to be concerned as they may be nothing more than just feelings of attachment manifesting as dreams.

It's not just his mother, but all attachments. And that is because as a Jedi, having these attachments is dangerous. How can he be a good Jedi, if he isn't able to focus his attention on the mission at hand? If he's distracted, it could get someone killed. If he focuses all of his attention on his attachments, he will begin to give into the dark side. Which is what happens to him.

No. The Council is confident in Anakin's ability to protect Padme without Obi-wan, or an experienced Jedi present. It's Obi-wan who has the problem.

OBI-WAN: "I am concerned for my Padawan. He is not ready to be given this assignment on his own yet."

YODA: "The Council is confident in its decision, Obi-wan."

MACE: "The boy has exceptional skills."

OBI-WAN: "But he still has much to learn, Master. His abilities have made him, well, arrogant."

They only express concern when it comes to Palpatine and that's after he's demonstrated that he might not be objective.

The problem is that while she can take care of herself, Anakin is still putting her in danger by leaving Naboo. And not just that, but he doesn't contact Obi-wan or the Temple, to inform them of his situation. He takes matters into his own hands which is a very reckless thing to have done and he does so without really thinking about it.

The Jedi aren't wrong to teach their own to not become attached to people and to love compassionately. Lucas even says that if Anakin had been raised in the traditional manner, he wouldn't have the problems that he has and things wouldn't have fallen apart as they did.

 

Wouldn't have happened is an important distinction when comparing what needed to happen to serve the theme of the Tragedy.

The tragedy falls down if we talk in terms of the Jedi. If you say to an audience, this is what tragedy is in the eyes of Jedi then is no longer strictly Tragedy - all it is doing is just developing the characterisation of the Jedi.

The tragedy of Anakin Skywalker explores how the fall of one man led to the collapse and re-awakening of the galaxy at large. The Jedi had a role to play in this fall, as much as the Sith, and the tragedy of Anakin echoes the tragedy which is the force out of balance (plus all the personal conflict, that is the source/explanation).

 

My issue is, that attachment is not really a very relatable subject. Everyone knows examples of people doing bad things out of anger, hate, greed, lust, and jealousy. These are things we see in our everyday lifes, and throughout history. Anyone here have any parents who got divorced over attachment? When you're being robbed, is the robber attached to your money? Was Hitler attached to Poland, when he invaded the country, and started WWII? The whole idea of attachment is a nice topic for a philosophical discussion, but does it make Anakin's journey relatable to me? Not really, unlike Luke's journey, Anakin's struggles with attachment seem pretty alien to me. Saddest of all is the reality, that despite the movies' musings on the danger of attachment, they struggle to provide a credible reason for Anakin's sudden hatred of Obi-Wan, a man he says was a father to him.

 

I agree with everything CT-867-5309 said, and I don't feel he has been properly countered yet.

Instead there is a dumb debate of "who started it" going on.

Here is my opinion though, the Jedi were wrong, they paid the price, and Ob1 and Yoda had 19+ years to reflect on their mistakes. Yoda only only said "Force is for defense only" after twenty years of regret. Back in his heyday he was basically curbstomping Imperial Guards with the force.

And I also do believe Lucas fully intended for the PT to show the flaws of the Jedi. He didn't spell it out because it isn't a kids show, but he did include incredibly cryptic lines such as:

Down a dark path this will take us -Yoda
Are we even on the right side in this war -Padme (paraphrase, but a very telling line)
From my point of view the Jedi are evil! -Ani (that one is a stretch I'll admit)

There are many more examples from Qui-gon early on in the trilogy all the way to Mace's lines in the final film. Little cookies spread throughout.

And don't allow me to forget to mention the striking image of Jedi essentially leading storm troopers (clone troopers) into battle?!?!

Honestly, I've never doubted the Jedi were wrong. If they weren't they wouldn't have lost.

 

Anakin hates Obi-wan because he cut off his arm and legs and is leaving him to burn. He hates him because he didn't fall in line with him and turned his wife against him. He sided with the Jedi and the Republic over him. As to attachment in general, Lucas has done what he's always done. What all writers do.

BILL MOYERS: I'm not a psychologist, I'm just a journalist, but it does seem to me there's something autobiographical with Luke Skywalker and his father--something of George Lucas in there.

GEORGE LUCAS: Oh, yes. There is, definitely. You write from your own emotions. And obviously there are two sides to the redeemer motif in the Star Wars films. Ultimately Vader is redeemed by his children and especially by having children. Because that's what life is all about--procreating and raising children, and it should bring out the best of you.

--Time Magazine Interview, 1999.

Lucas wrote Luke's story based off of his relationship to his father when they disagreed about what direction his life should take. When it came to Anakin's story, part of it was based off of his issues of trying to find a balance between the thing that he loved which was telling stories and being a father to three children. To determine what mattered more, his family or his work. That's why he quit after ROTJ and spent his time working on things that allowed him to work, but also to have time for his daughter and then his other children.

And as to the issues that plague Anakin, they're issues that people deal with as much as Luke's issues were. We've all dealt with fear of loss and how we process that loss (Anakin). We've all dealt with wanting to figure out who we are and where we are going (Luke). They're universal feelings and truths.

After they moved to attack him.

 

"If you didn't deserve it, nothing bad would have happened to you" isn't really the greatest line of reasoning.

 

I was being facetious...

And Darth-Sinister, I think you missed the point of what I was saying. I honestly do not care who started it, my opinion is that Yoda, Obi, and the rest of the jedi made mistakes. I believe Yoda in TESB had learned from his mistakes.

I wasn't even addressing your argument, and I still am not, but feel free to criticize mine.

 

In some ways the Jedi had simply become too comfortable with their own success.

After the last Sith war that had taken place over 1000 years ago the Jedi had never really faced an enemy that could threaten them in any meaningful way. Of course there were individual deaths and failures but the Order as a whole remained very stable. Without a true obstacle to force them to adapt their ways the imputes to explore other choices slowly eroded away and became arrogance.

Yoda had begun to sense this in TPM but it did not penetrate fully until his battle with Plalpitine when he saw that he did not really have it, that he had never really had it, that the Jedi had been training for the past war while the Sith had adapted to a new way of thinking.

The Jedi Order was basically still a force for good but unable to see the need for change because nothing serious enough had occurred to make them see that what they were doing had become dogmatic.

I suspect that there might have been a bit of the hero worship complex at work as well. In the novel Catalyst we hear of people practicing yoga and other arts on the grounds of the Temple I cant help but wonder if this kind of interaction gave even a Jedi an inflated sense of who they were and what they practiced.

A perfect storm of complacency hidden behind good deeds adulation.

 

I dont nessesarily have to "relate" to characters in films, I just have to understand them. PT achieves this and delves into this element deeply, as the films focus more on shades of grey, difficult decisions etc.

 

Lucas knows his psychology and the myths that mirror those issues , attachment , obsession , greed etc. are pretty common in those old Greek myths .
I remember reading an interview with Lucas where he talked about child psychology and how a lot of that had informed the writing of the films , he said something about the popularity of Darth Vader with kids : that kids liked him because he was so powerful .
As for Anakin I do think there's an Oedipal element in there , Padme becomes a substitute for Shmi .

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Kids like Darth Vader because he's powerful and scary and bad but he's in a movie and doesn't exist. Kids aren't as stupid as we'd sometimes like to think.

You introduce that kid to a seven foot tall person in a Darth Vader or even a Chewbacca costume and watch them run for cover, until they realise it's a person pretending to be Darth Vader from the movie, and not real.

 

"Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is."

 

Not for overwhelming majority of people it doesn't.

 

I don't think attachment is used at all in Greek myths. Attachment is a common in Eastern religions, and philosophy, but many of the vices and virtues in Greek and Roman myths are precursors of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The vices in particular are perfectly encapsulated in the seven deadly sins: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride.

 

see Orpheus .
plus - Greek myths are full of jealousy and possessive behavior .

 

For the overwhelming majority of human beings, having a spouse or a life partner does not equate to greed, jealousy or possessive behaviour.

 

Except Buddhism doesn't define attachment as sinful, only undesirable. Attachment prevents someone from becoming truly enlightened. A fallen Buddhist would not be a force of evil, but simply someone too caught up in the illusions and the material temptations of the ordinary world. So, by Buddhist definition Anakin would not have to be a bad person, just a bad Jedi. It's only when Lucas brings in a IMO less than credible version of the Judeo-Christian tale of the Tree of Knowledge, and Eve's temptation by the serpent, that Anakin almost instantly turns into a maniac.

It's also interesting to note, that Buddhism doesn't aim to judge what is good and evil, but to minimize human suffering and pain. Whereas the PT seems to push the narrative, that Anakin's fears and attachments are a guaranteed recipe for galaxy wide suffering, this is actually not the kind of suffering Buddhism alludes to. In the Buddhist tradition it is Anakin himself who suffers the most, as his attachments prevent him from reaching a place of true enlightenment.

I think it is fair to say, that Lucas misrepresents the concept of attachment, by placing it in the context of the Judeo-Christian tradition of the battle between good and evil, introducing a spurious connection between attachment and evil, effectively turning it into a deadly sin.

 

But Anakin is so attached to his mother that when she's tortured to death he becomes enraged and slaughters the Tusken village