PT Jedi Order was consumed by the dark side

Luke didn't retire. He went to the location of the first Jedi Temple for a reason and it isn't to hide, which is why he left part of the map with Lor San Tekka and part of it with Artoo. He is looking for something and is intending to be found when the time is right.

 

darth-sinister wrote

The lines between good and evil have become blurred and because the Jedi did evil things in the service of good, they lost sight of who they were and were thus consumed by the dark side.

What "evil" things did the Jedi do?

IIRC, they mostly turned battle droids into scrap metal. Of course Mace Windu might be an exception when he really attacked Jango Fett, but other than him?

http://starwarsscreencaps.com/star-wars-episode-ii-attack-of-the-clones-2002/75/

Since the Force is created by all living beings, then procreation is probably the will of the Force, but killing is not.

 

Invading Confederacy worlds in TCW might be an example.

It's not like the movies can show all the dubious things that can happen in 3 years of war, after all.

 

Iron_lord wrote

Invading Confederacy worlds in TCW might be an example.

You are right, that's aggressive and not defensive. But other than that, do we have any examples from the PT where the Jedi were the first to attack?

 

Obi-Wan and Anakin actively chose to engage Dooku, after Dooku gave them the chance to take the passive route.

Obi-Wan sought out Grievous to kill him, after planning an invasion of a Confederacy controlled world.

The Jedi invade Geonosis with the intent to stop the Confederacy before they can start a war... and start a war in the process.

None of these instances sound like the Jedi were acting defensively.

 

Precisely. I again point to Luke in the OT. In ANH and TESB, Luke takes a proactive approach as a member of the Alliance. But after his training, Luke stops leading missions for the Alliance and instead helps out in other ways. Though when trying to rescue Han, he straddles the line between what Obi-wan would do and what his father would do. But by and large, Luke spends his time in ROTJ fighting a different battle. And as Yoda tried to tell Ezra, Luke had to figure out why he should fight as much as how he should do it.

 

I'm inclined to disagree with Filoni on this one. Its true that many Jedi were becoming Arrogant as Yoda said in episode II, and certainly master Windu was on the verge of the dark side before he was killed in III, but I see no evidence that the order as a whole was consumed by the dark side. The war is difficult, but the Jedi had no choice, it was effectively forced on them, either take up Military rolls to protect the Republic, which they have done time and again in the past, or refuse, with no basis for doing so and risk angering the general public and the senate. I believe the war is hard on them, but I don't believe they were consumed by the dark side.

 

Fear is the path to the dark side and by fighting, the Jedi gave into fear. The very fact that the Jedi fought in the war, which Lucas indicates is wrong, is giving into the dark side. That's why the lines between good and evil become blurred. The Jedi should never have fought in the war, regardless of what everyone else thought that they should be doing.

 

Jedis slipped on the dark side of the Force.
Obi Wan and Yoda are escaping from the Jedi purge and instead of having patience,they act in a rush,trying to kill both Sidious and Darth Vader.
This is how they give even more reasons to Sidious to portray Jedis as traitors and enemies of the Republic.
That was not the Jedi way. And if Obi Wan would have killed Anakin,acting how Master Yoda instructed him,than,what would have happened in the future?

 

Anyone have anything interesting to add?

To recap, some earlier posts...

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Indeed.

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No, but he wasn't fighting a defeated opponent. He claims the truth: he's dangerous and has too much power and control to be left alive.

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What law is he breaking?

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Palpatine is the one who resisted arrest and killed 3 Jedi Masters in the process and tried to kill Windu more than once. Why would Mace believe he would go along this time?

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They don't know what eventually happens, but Mace's justification is sound because its true: he controls the senate and the courts. There's no "justice" for him. Mace would probably be arrested after killing Sidious, at least until the truth becomes public knowledge. But he was still doing the right thing.

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The novelization is irrelevant to what's presented in the movies. There's was no expression from Mace in the movie to justify that creative liberty/interpretation from the Stover. It's not something from Lucas.
Agree to disagree, to me Mace looks relieved to see Anakin in the finished film. Not anger that Anakin disobeyed a direct order, rather a "Stay back, fellow Jedi." gesture. I think this is important.

It's the betrayal element of Anakin's turn. Mace represents the entire order being stabbed in the back by Anakin and Palpatine.​

HevyDevy said: ↑​

I agree, but he doesn't foresee and follow through on where this will lead him.​

I know. But that's on him.

HevyDevy said: ↑​

He still wants to make the galaxy safe,​

And Sidious wants peace. But they want that through force.
I agree, I'm just trying to demonstrate Anakin kind of sets off a chain-reaction. Things spiral pretty quickly from preventing one Jedi killing someone Anakin wants alive, to security at any cost. The events are moving faster than Anakin is processing. He knows what he is ultimately agreeing to, but the window to turn it around and make it right gets smaller and smaller over the course of the entire movie. Totally on Palpatine's conscience of course.

HevyDevy said: ↑​

When Anakin stops Mace he thinks Palpatine is willing to go quietly.​

Anakin doesn't care about that. He's just there because he needs Palpatine. His words.
He can do that with Palpatine behind bars. If Mace had taken Palpatine into custody when he says "I'm too weak, don't kill me, please!" why would Anakin object? It is more convenient and less costly for Anakin than what actually ends up happening.

HevyDevy said: ↑​

A part of Anakin had compassion for Palpatine (a surrogate "father"), despite everything Palpatine had done.​

Maybe, but that's not why he's there.
He's selling his soul, doesn't mean the devil isn't attractive. His complicated history with Palpatine and the Jedi unfortunately eases the transition.

HevyDevy said: ↑​

Luke can't defeat the Emperor. But he can make Anakin reflect and do something only Anakin is "written" to be able to do. Luke shows Anakin an unconditional compassion he wasn't sensing from the Jedi Council decades earlier.​

When was the Council ever uncompassionate? Perhaps a review of the definition of the word is in order.
I don't particularly fault the Council, but it is very paradoxical. Agree to enlist Anakin as a padawan, but simultaneously always keep him at arms length because you don't fully trust him. The most important Jedi, yet who isn't treated like a raised-from-birth Jedi. The weight of the galaxy on his shoulders, do any of the other Jedi truly relate to him? They aren't intentionally cold but they don't fully accommodate for Anakin not being like other Jedi, and I don't they ever truly imbue in him just what it means to be a Jedi. He is getting there at the start of ROTS, but it is tragically basically too late. Palpatine capitalises on their distrust of Anakin, and ultimately enslaves Anakin with an (again pardoxical) offer to no longer feel powerless over himself and the galaxy.

Like I said earlier, after Anakin's parental-figure's deaths (Qui-Gon and Shmi) Palpatine misleadingly shows him the most compassion of anyone besides perhaps Padme.​

HevyDevy said: ↑​

It's poetic justice, Palpatine feigned compassion for Anakin, his prize, but Luke shows Anakin something genuine and this is Palpatine's downfall.​

Luke shows him a way out. Something he thought wasn't possible or didn't exist. And at the last moment, he took it.
I think we are agreeing here.

HevyDevy said: ↑​

It is a contrast to both Mace's coldness to Anakin and Obi-Wan's perceived abandonment of Vader on Mustafar.​

?!?!?!

What coldness or abandonment? You're comparing two completely different situations. As if Mace and Obi-Wan were the wrong ones here when Anakin was the one keeping secrets from them, not trusting them, breaking the rules, being selfish and letting fear and attachment control his actions.​

Mace is pretty cold to Anakin in TPM and ROTS, maybe just because he is one of the most vocal members of the Council. He communicates both Anakin's failure to qualify to be a Padawan and refusal to be made a Jedi Master respectively. Whatever the Council's reasons, I don't think Anakin felt he could be completely honest with them like he is with Palpatine.

The the films are written it seems there is a lot stacked against Anakin that would make him fall.​

As for Mustafar, I was just trying to demonstrate the contrast at the end of each trilogy. Leaving the Jedi - OBI-WAN: "You were my brother Anakin. I loved you." (past tense), and rejoining the Jedi - LUKE: "I'll not leave you here, I've got to save you!" Luke never gives up on Anakin like the PT Jedi did.​

HevyDevy said: ↑​

Mace makes Anakin feel like the choice is easier to make.​

No, he doesn't. And Anakin doesn't care about the choice. All he cares is Palpatine's knowledge because he can't bear the fact that Padmé might die.
He doesn't? Mace contradicts what Anakin has been taught to believe about his fellow Jedi, they are doing something Anakin has been ashamed about doing himself earlier in the film. And Mace states "He is too dangerous to be left alive!" just like Palpatine said about Dooku. It is about saving Padme, but Palpatine cowering helplessly and by extension Padme, who believes Anakin is strong enough to protect her from anything, look more deserving of compassion to Anakin than an angry Mace here. I'm not saying Anakin is right, but like I said the devil makes him an offer that seems hard to refuse.

HevyDevy said: ↑​

You misunderstand, sorry if my grammar was bad. I was talking about Mace being betrayed by Anakin. Mace's impulsiveness and lack of insight into Anakin's psyche influences Anakin's dark side action of surprising Mace by turning on him.​

So Mace is at fault (don't see where's the impulsiveness or lack of insight) for Anakin not following his advice and doing the wrong thing?

Arguably, Palpatine is at fault most, followed by Anakin (particularly his actions following Mace's death), followed by Mace. But Mace made a mistake in the heat of the moment. I'm not going to budge on this.​

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Sorry about the confusion of the last post, I ran out of time to edit. Just to repost the second half;
My writing is in red.

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How was that? He lost his weapon (and hand) and by some fluke survived a suicide jump to escape Vader.

 

Bump

 

There is also the crazy weird possibility that Yoda saying that the Jedi were consumed y the Dark Side was only ever meant to be Yoda's own opinion not Filoni 'overwriting canon' or anything. It's even possible that Yoda is you know... wrong. It happened before (when Palpatine played him like a banjo) and it happened after (when Luke rejected becoming Yoda/Obi-Wan's assassin and took his own path on the Death Star II.) He's a very wise being but not infallible.

 

Or that what he said is true, based on what happens in the films.

 

To me the Jedi of the PT had definitely lost their way... though if they had gone to the darkside might be too strong, its at-least debatable.. but in their quest to be good and not go to the darkside I think they took it to far and became something they shouldn't have... I believe they were a decayed idea of what Jedi should be and this is why we see Luke looking to go back to the first Jedi temple, he's looking for what the Jedi were in their purest form before the rot...

And I do think the Jedi order over time decayed... to the point we see them in the PT... one thing that stands out to me is that the Jedi live and are centred in a middle of a giant city, a world that's one big city.... is this really the home of the Jedi, is this really where they should be... it stands out to me as wrong, the Jedi are about life, life feeds the force and the force feeds life, the Jedi should be all about nature, not living in a metropolis... That's what felt so right about where Luke was in TFA, a world of big oceans (which are full of life) with natural islands, to me it screamed this is where Jedi's should be... natural organic quiet soul-full, a place where they can connect with the force and live off nature... that's more Jedi to me, not a busy noisey un-natural landscape with manufactured products that we see them living in during their latter years (as seen in the PT)...

I think the Jedi started where Luke is and were all about connecting with the force/nature and over time they became more involved with the politics of the galaxy, the birth or the republic perhaps taking up their time and effort, and the republic calling on their help more and more to the point that the Jedi moved from their nature roots and moved to the centre of the republic on industrial worlds as that would make things easier for them to engage and be accessible and help but it meant they lost touch with their roots and over time started to decay while in their fight against the sith and protecting/helping the republic...

Its on of the reasons why Yoda goes to dagobah I reckon, he's getting back to the Jedi roots, a world dense with life... a natural world not taken over by industry... to help him clear his mind and connect back with the force better as he himself said in the PT (or mace) that their connection had weakened..

 

Yep, simply put; They shouldn't have interfered in Republic vs. CIS battle, especially not as Jedi Generals... They were consumed by the war, and the Dark Side. Order 66 was the last finishing move, they were already lost when they joined the one side as Generals, they were peace keepers, not soldiers. And the reason for their action was they were interfering Senate too much as well as they were being the puppets of the Senate.

 

Some discussion on this here if anyone is interested.

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/analysis-of-yodas-arc.50039815/

 

This is intentional I think, the place of Coruscant in the story I see particular relevance in.

Coruscant is sort of set up from the characters' pov as a kind of haven in TPM - when Padme gets there, everything will be fixed by the Senate and her planet will be saved. "Things will change when we reach the Capital, but my caring for you will remain."
But when we get there we find the Senate, much like the current Republic, is too powerless, lazy and corrupt to really help her. All that really ends up coming of it is Palpatine sneakily gets himself elected as Supreme Chancellor, and he will of course gradually take more and more control of the galaxy from his perch on Coruscant over the 13 years the trilogy occurs in.

Also notice the first Coruscant scene in the saga is Sidious and Maul discussing the Sith revenge plan; kind of an omen I think. Like you said, the Jedi being centered on this world and not a humbler environment is very telling. It is definitely kind of a catch-22 by the end of the trilogy - operate independently of the Senate and risk not holding the power to make a real difference, go against the Senate autonomously and risk raising suspicion that the Jedi are treasonous and out for themselves.

Most of the main characters kind of gravitate towards central Coruscant over the trilogy, and I think the contrast between Padme's small lush planet of Naboo and the bustling hectic environment of the City was done on purpose. Padme ends up living there in Ep2 and Ep3, after tellingly lamenting "I shouldn't have come back" when her decoy is killed on arrival. There is also another attempt on her life later in the film, which fittingly leads her to hide back on Naboo, of course allowing her to develop her feelings for Anakin. (ROTS- "Hold me, like you did by the lake on Naboo. So long ago when there was nothing but our love. No politics, no plotting, no war.")

Furthermore, Anakin turns on Coruscant, the inhabitants of the Jedi Temple are wiped out there, and Vader is even reconstructed as a cyborg on the planet.

"Please your majesty, stay here, where it's safe!" is very ironic if you think about it - the corruption taking hold (largely because of Palpatine) means that while Coruscant (and by extension the Republic, and Empire) appears stable on the outside, beneath the surface it is decaying at the roots, which is actually much worse.

 

Do note what Ahch-To and Lothal look like compared to Coruscant.

Spoiler

Spoiler tags are only for size of pictures, not what's being filmed for Episode VIII. Compare it to the Sith Temple on Malachor.

Spoiler

Which is similar to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.

 

You could also say Luke does everything possible to avoid a fight with Jabba:

- first,he sends the Droids with a message of wanting to negotiate, and even offering them as a gift in the name of peacefully starting negotiations.

- when that fails,he sends Leia in, on a stealth mission to free Han.

- when THAT also fails, he enters the situation directly. And,again, he's still trying to find a non-violent solution, first trying a mind-trick, then some non-subtle threat negotiation, only finally resorting to fighting when he's surrounded by enemies and Jabba won't negotiate. Even when confronting the Rancor, he temporarily incapacitates it, then tries to escape. Only when realizing he cannot escape and the Rancor's going to eat him does he use the door to kill it. And even before the Sarlacc battle, he gives Jabba one last chance to end this whole situation peacefully. So he's a Jedi who's not unwilling to fight,but only of he must.

2 things,though,that I always wondered about. 2 flaws with his plan. Because it's obvious he wanted to have all his friends there,in various ways, as backup if his negotiations failed. Which,of course,they did:

1) When he Force pulls the gun to himself,seeming with the intent of assassinating Jabba... what next? He would've been easily overwhelmed ,and who's going to help him? Lando, obviously,appears ready, but Leia is still in chains,and has no weapons, Threepio won't do anything, Artoo can try maybe, and Han And Chewie are still locked in the dungeon.

2) What if Jabba accepted his offer? I mean,right at the beginning. Should we be led to believe Jabba will just give back his 2 new gifts to Luke as well? Would Luke actually be willing to sacrifice Threepio and Artoo for Han?

 

1. Luke's anger got in the way, which is why he reached for the blaster.

2. Lando would have gotten the droids out.

But as Lucas and Kasdan discussed, Luke had a very strong feeling that his plan was going to fail in Jabba's palace. Thus he was going to manipulate Jabba into taking the fight out to the Sarlaac. Lucas said that Luke anticipated most everything that happened except for the Rancor. That's why Threepio tries to warn Luke, but is cut off.

 

I really liked that conversation in Rebels. It really helps reconcile PT warrior Yoda with the pacifist Yoda we meet in the OT.

 

IMHO, there is nothing in the Coruscant architecture of the Jedi Temple that remotely indicates dark side influence.

What I think it represents (and was apparently a deliberate decision of George Lucas) is a literal "ivory-tower" in which they live in / assemble.

And I still don't see why the Jedi Order was consumed by the dark side.

If fighting was a clear path towards the dark side, we saw plenty of that in ROJ (Luke attacking the gunner on Jabba's sailing barge with his lightsaber) and Kenobi would have probably said something when Luke replied "I can't kill my own father" (as this inevitably included fighting).

 

Fighting isn't the path to the dark side, but fighting out of fear is. The Jedi Order went to Geonosis, not because they wanted to help Obi-wan, but because they were afraid that they would not be able to stop the pending war. They knew full well that there were not enough Jedi to protect the galaxy during a massive, full scale war. And they knew that they shouldn't get involved like that, but they did because of their fear. Their fear of losing everything that the Order has worked hard for the last thousand years was going to come crumbling down around their ears. So taking control of the Clone Army and leading the charge was done out of fear. Fear of losing everything.