Full Series Lucas, Philosopher Kings and the Clone Wars

Am i the only one who thinks Lucas's political ideas show up too much in the Clone Wars?

He just loves the idea of an almighty Philosopher King

I am the only one getting fed up with all this royalty saving the ignorant masses all the time.

The Mon Cals had a great democratic tradition, changed by Lucas. Thank goodness we can retcon it.

Why do Mando's need a duchess?

All the insurgencies we had seen against the seps seen lately depend some dynasty to lead them. Why?

Why cannot we just see some average joe's having legitimacy. Running a resistance movement and successfully mounting a counteroffensive or running a resistance movement without the need to put a king on the throne?

 

Wasn't Palpatine's career a subversion of the "great Philosopher king" concept? he was a king/emperor, or hereditary absolute ruler- he was a philosopher- writing books like The Weakness of Inferiors- his career ended badly.

 

so true.

 

Watch the prequel trilogy.

 

Palps was evil from the start, not a Philospher King gone wrong.

 

DEMOCRACY! I BELIEVE IN THE REPUBLIC, THEREFORE I BELIEVE IN DEMOCRACY!

copypaste thirty times.

 

Your point being?

 

You people and your distinct political systems. Kings, chancellors, emperors, presidents, prime ministers, whatever. They're all the same to me.

 

You forgot Queen, Duke, Archduke, etc........

 

Same thing.

 

What that all of them don't make a hill of beans difference in what happens to their societies?

 

No, you are not the only one getting fed up with the royalty. For a tale that emphasizes the breakdown and restoration of Democracy, the Democracy that was broken down is annoyingly filled with royalty. I don't care if they are constitutional monarchs, the fixation with every leader being a well-intentioned noble I feel to be a little condescending and too decadent, especially since this individuals are often portrayed as living in their own little bubble and despite 'caring deeply for the people' don't seem to have a whole hell of a lot of interaction outside of their royal retinues. And the Queen of Naboo with her ever changing grand attire seems unapproachable and as pompous as Louis XIV in her facade.

I'd hope that the Republic that the Rebellion re-forms has little in common with the one of the PT and TCW. The Pantorans, with their government headed by a "Chairman" is more along the lines of what I'd like to see. Or prime ministers, presidents, or they could borrow other titles that might jive with Star Wars better like Doge (title for elected leader of Italian Republics) which has been used in relation to the Dugs.

 

These two were particularly frustrating. While the overall need for every leader to some manner of monarch or in a position of nobility is growing in its ridiculousness, it's the retconning of previously non-monarch rulers into the what's now the usual par for the course ruler that's most frustrating of all. The Mon Calamari are long-established to be governed by a democracy, and the Mandalorians by the chieftains of the clans and the Mand'alor. It's completely unnecessary and eye-roll inducing to see these unique cultures chopped down to suit the run of the mill monarchy Lucas seems to have fallen so deeply in love with.

 

you know what, Ahsoka is a Shili Princess i have heard...according to Lucas.

 

You know, I was thinking Onderon in TCW might be more like Naboo and the real kind Dindup or whatever might have been elected like the Queen of Naboo (right?). That makes more sense when stacking the Onderon arc next to "Heroes on Both Sides". To bad there are alot of things that just don't connect there right now. Rather confusing. But I'm a n00b and I'm sure someone will set me straight.

 

I still think they could have played the Revolution vs. Absolute Monarch angle.

Make Rash the legitimate king of Onderon. Mina Bonteri is appointed by him to serve in the senate and she's all on board with the Separatist cause. Make Dendup just a revolutionary not a King. The Rebels are looking to overthrow Rash and establish a democracy but are being oppressed as Rash has CIS support. After Dooku kills Mina, Lux joins up with the Rebels that at one time he thought were terrorists to help oppose the CIS that he now hates and to liberate his planet and helps secure support from the Jedi via Ahsoka. And when Dendup is caught, he can be more firey spirited and say that he will not call off the attacks because it is the will of the people, rather than being some marginalized former King that refused to pick sides (which doesn't mesh with Mina's story at all).

The heroes don't always have to be looking to re-establish some better type of government from the past. Sometimes the past sucks and they should look to the future. Instead of trying to put some impotent legitimate king back in power, they could have played the angle that Rash IS the legitimate King, but just as in real world history there's a conflict in whether a King rules through consent of the people (that Rash no longer has) or whether it is some kind of divine birthright.

 

The point was more that Philosopher + King does not have to equal A Good Thing.

 

Its because the Star Wars Galaxy represents an advanced civilization and a monarchy with a strong nobility is the best government there could be

"The tendency of an advanced civilization is in truth Monarchy. Monarchy is indeed a government which requires a high degree of civilization for its full development....An educated nation recoils from the imperfect vicariate of what is called a representative government."
-Benjamin Disraeli

"The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and, however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true to fact. The people are turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right."
- Alexander Hamilton

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
- John Adams

I love the monarchies and the nobility, the more the merrier in sci-fi.

In all seriousness, real life democracies can be just as corrupt and evil as any monarchy. There are plenty have been plenty of examples good monarchs and nobles throughout human history, so I see no reason why that wouldn't be the case in the Star Wars Galaxy as well. It would be nice to see both in the SW Galaxy, which makes sense since you have so many choices on where to live in the Galaxy. My biggest problem in sci-fi when it comes to government types is the bad habit of making monarchies automatically bad and democracies are automatically good.

 

Mon Cala didn't need a monarchy, that was ridiculous, not only did we ignore the Council at large, we also got stuck with Lee-Char. Onderon on the other hand actually had a monarchy throughout its history and thus it does not rankle me nearly as much.

 

I fail to see how monarchy is the best form of government. That's for all intents and purposes what Palpatine was striving for and the whole point of the story is that kind of power consolidation corrupts and is bad. I'm unsure how Lucas or the EU envisions Onderon, but with Naboo it's unlike any monarchy I'm aware of. The nobility of most monarchies is/was hereditary. There were some instances of monarchs being elected like in the Holy Roman Empire and early France, but even then the selected ruler generally ruled for life, was elected by fellow privileged hereditary nobles, was selected from amongst said nobles, and so long as they kept producing male heirs (at least in Capetian France) they could hold onto power and prevent another election. But with Amidala she is elected - seemingly by "the people" and not a hereditary nobility - and she served for a given term. Aside from the pompous attire and attempt to portray the government as an romanticized institution and giving Amidala her own Versailles, she seems more like a president/prime minister (still can't fathom who would vote for a 14 year old).

She seems like she's Queen in name only, yet Lucas seems to hold some kind of romantic view of such rulers and insists on depicting rulers as pseudo-royalty which I feel is counter productive. Especially if you're trying to establish that they care deeply for their people, yet seem to exist in this bubble of decadence in their royal courts, and the aesthetics can have the psychological effect of inflating the sense of power that the person wields. Louis XIV exploited that aspect to the max. I actually didn't get that feeling with Padme as much as I do with Satine.

I can tolerate some monarchs in the Star Wars universe, but with each new one either being created or retconned, it's just annoying IMO to see the Galactic government as being a senate with an elected Chancellor that reminds me to some extent of the Roman senate (though the CIS parliament takes this to the extreme aesthetically as well). But then on a planetary level everyone is just a decadent Louix XIV. Non monarchies are few and far between, and the one that really springs to mind is Pantora, with its Chairman... who turns out to be bad...

 

Yup yup yup.


I think people are more likely to want a strong single leader in difficult times - someone to take action, to be decisive.

But in general, having one person being in charge of a nation/world is not necessarily the best solution - there are so many competing interests and difficult decisions to make that it seems very risky to leave it up to the perceived wisdom of a single individual.