PT Mace Windu's Fatal Flaw

Unwittingly, Mace Windu played a noteworthy role in Anakin's fall.

Like Anakin, Mace has dark side tendencies. For instance, he decapitated a disarmed Jango Fett on Geonosis, something even Dooku found appalling. Also, his lightsaber color is symbolic of walking the blurred line between light (blue) and dark (red).

I think this was a huge reason why Mace was always so strict with Anakin. He disliked the dark side tendencies that Anakin had, because he struggled with them as well; he projected them onto Anakin.

In ROTS, Mace explicity says "I don't trust him (Anakin)." "If what you told me is true, you will have earned my trust. But for now, wait in the council chambers."

If Mace and the other Jedi weren't so harsh with Anakin, he wouldn't have felt so alienated from the Jedi Order. It was this alienation that Palpatine greatly exploited to create confusion in Anakin (as well as protecting Padme of course).

Granted, Anakin did some untrustworthy things (revenge-driven slaughter of an entire Tusken camp and hiding a forbidden marriage).

However, if Mace and the other Jedi tried to constructively help Anakin improve, things might have turned out differently.

Thoughts?

 

Interesting take.... never saw Mace as one who himself struggles with the dark side. I sort of like your take

As for Jango though, I believe the novelization treats it as more of an accident on Mace's part - I think it was elaborate that Mace sensed Jango's Shatterpoint at that moment was his jetpack. Expecting Jango to jet off, Mace raised his strike in an attempt to just sever a leg or something to incapacitate him. Let's not forget Jango would be an insanely valuable prisoner. However, he didn't count on the jetpack malfunctioning, so that resulted in Jango not being able to quit while he was ahead....

 

I agree with this take in full, actually. This kind of goes hand-in-hand with the notion that the Jedi's over-zealous piousness brought about their own downfall, this quality was just exacerbated and manipulated by Darth Palpatine and that Sith Legacy backwards to such a point where it would be their un-doing.

 

In his efforts to save democracy, Mace Windu ended up turning to undemocratic means (removing an elected official and executing someone without a trial). For this reason, I see him as a tragic character.

 

Watching the scene in the movie again, i could definitely see it being an accident....Mace reacted so fast probably expecting him to blast off like you said but instead of disabling him in a less lethal manner he took his head clean off.

You see him look down afterward and i wonder if he's thinking. "Oops."

Mace definitely seemed to have some issues though, he was dead set on killing Palpatine regardless of Jedi ROE.

 

Seagoat, you raised a good point.

I never noticed this before because the scene happens quickly -- Just before Mace beheads Jango, you see the jetpack trying to fire.



darklordoftech, excellent point about trying to kill Palpatine. Can't believe I forgot about that one.

 

I think in that situation, killing Palpatine was really the only viable, rational option. If they took him prisoner - which would be difficult; he was powerful enough to kill three Jedi Masters without batting an eye, and Mace was barely overpowering him, so keeping him captive and transporting him to a cell he wouldn't be able to escape would be no easy feat - all that would come of it would be that the courts and the Senate, who were under Palpatine's thumb, would support his innocence, allow him to be released, and probably prosecute the Jedi for treason while they were at it. Plus, it's not like Mace was an idiot. He must have known Palpatine had some sort of sinister endgame plan up his sleeve, and any plan that involves becoming the most politically powerful man in the galaxy and playing both sides of a war for over three years is not going to end well for anybody. We know that that plan was Order 66, but even without knowing the specifics, in that situation, it was logical for Mace to try to kill him before he could find out the details the hard way. If he'd succeeded in killing Palpatine, he would have saved the galaxy a whole lot of trouble.

An "elected official" who had committed treason, and who had gotten elected in the first place by arranging for the invasion of his own planet. And they did initially try to arrest Palpatine and take him in for a trial - it wasn't until Palpatine resisted arrest and murdered three of Mace's comrades that Mace decided he was too dangerous to be taken alive. Palpatine was the one to first take the situation out of the hands of democracy.

 

Trusting (or assuming he could trust) Anakin was his fatal flaw. Anakin's alienation stem from his own superior feelings and his reluctance to adapt to the Jedi. It's unreasonable to expect an entire order to change their way of life because one teenage boy can't control himself. At that point, Anakin has not given them reason to trust him with greater responsibility (no emotional control, disobeys orders at Geonosis, throws tantrum in council chamber, hides marriage and massacre - and like Mace said - he's close to Palpatine, who is another person Mace is suspicious about).

 

This thread's fatal flaws are the assertions that Mace and the Jedi were so harsh to Anakin, and that Mace was "always" so strict with Anakin.

If by "always" you mean not at all in TPM and AOTC, then yeah. Otherwise, no.

The Jedi's harsh treatment of Anakin is also all but entirely absent over the course of the trilogy.

 

Good points in the OP, but I just wanted to look at this one bit:

The reason Mace didn't trust Anakin was because not only was Anakin very close to Palpatine, someone the Jedi hugely distrusted already, but Anakin had just thrown a hissy fit in the Council. A 22-year-old Jedi, who should've known better, who had just received the honor of being put on the Council, threw a hissy fit because they didn't make him a Master. This probably ruined whatever respect Mace had for Anakin, as in Mace's eyes, Anakin was only doing this for his own selfish purposes and not for the larger Jedi and Republic. His later line about 'you will have earned my trust' was, in my belief, Mace's way of saying, "Consider this your second chance at winning back my respect after that fit you threw in the Council."

Yes, Mace is overly-strict and could back off a bit, but when dealing with Anakin, could you really blame him for not grabbing Anakin, calling him his closest friend and ally and having a few drinks with him?

 

Yes, it is very much the poor handling of the Jedi that influenced Anakin towards Darkness but I disagree that Mace shouldn't have said what he did. Warning, caution, and discipline of the young when they err are good.

 

The issue with Mace is that he embodies exactly why the Jedi Order fell to Palpatine: the adherence to tradition and conformity above all else. They'd become hidebound and ritualistic and did things a certain way because that was what the Code said to do, not because he'd thought about it in any great detail and concluded it was the right thing to do.

Anakin clearly wasn't ever going to be a conventional Jedi; he started older than the norm and quite apart from his potential being literally off the scale he had already formed attachments, to Qui Gonn and most pertinently to his mother, which 'normal' Jedi avoid by starting so young. However, attachments aren't allowed for Jedi, but instead of helping him accept that and remove/move on from the attachment, everyone involved decided that they should just pretend it didn't happen and hope Anakin got the memo. The same when Anakin formed attachments to Palpatine (as a friend/mentor) and Padme (whom he loved), they didn't deal with it at the time they just made it clear they disapproved and presumed he'd just cut the attachment of his own free will, because That's What Jedi Do.

So when it comes down to the heat of the moment Mace has got Anakin figured totally wrong. He thinks he's dealing with a powerful Jedi whose going to follow the Council blindly and do the Will Of The Force as interpreted by Mace and Yoda, what he's actually dealing with is a young man whose suffering a lot and has a fair amount of resentment towards the council and affection for the target they're about to attack. He only realises this at about the point he bids farewell to arms (well, one arm anyway.)

It's like DARTHLINK says, he sees Anakin's kvetching about not being made a master as being a temper tantrum by an immature, selfish brat, but then decides 'I'm/we're right, he's wrong. Case closed.' So while you can hardly fault him for not being bestest buddies forever with Anakin, you can also see why Anakin is going to be very resentful of a man whose basic reaction to him is 'shut up and obey, because I said so.' Neither comes out looking all that wonderful...

 

That's not how I feel about it, AFS. For me both are factors.

 

If I was Mace, I would have at least called Yoda, or maybe just sent a message to all the other Jedi, and told them that Palpatine was Sidious. Why didn't he even tell anyone but the 3 guys he happened to be travelling with?

 

What matters is if Anakin perceived them as being harsh, which he did. In ROTS, he tells Palpatine that the Jedi don't trust him. This perceived alienation is something that Palpatine exploited.

Of course, Anakin didn't become evil just because the Jedi were strict. However, Anakin's perception that he was alienated from the Council was a weakness that the Palpatine exploited. Besides ROTS isn't really about Anakin becoming evil. It's more about his decision to sell his soul to save Padme, which ironically is the very course of action that leads to her death. After swearing allegiance to Sidious, he does become more evil (willing to kill Younglings and choke Padme e.g.)

 

No the fatal flaw with Mace was not stabbing Palpatine in the eye instead of going for that ridiculous sabre slash.

 

We are talking about Mace Windu? Mace "The Jedi didn't have a lightsaber that fit me so I made my own and created a whole new super violent fighting style to go with it so I don't turn to the dark side" Windu. I don't think rule bound traditions or lack of creativity is his problem here. His problem with Anakin is that the young Jedi is a little **** who thinks he needs to be praised to high heaven. And they do help him to try to move on from the attachment; the problem is Anakin doesn't want to move on or accept loss, he wants never to lose.

 

You make excellent points. I agree with all of them except this one. Fett was trying to kill Windu, when Mace killed him with a flurry of strikes. He was relying on instinct, and also while Fett may have been unarmed for a few fractions of a second, a man that deadly is never truly unarmed. I think Windu's kill there can easily be classified as self-defense.

I don't think Dooku found it appalling either, at least for the reason you name. Dooku had no problem killing unarmed/innocent people, the films make this quite clear. What may have appalled Dooku was one of his most useful minions being killed needlessly right at the beginning of the war, or the super-soldier template he had based his entire clone army on (the same army whose ultimate purpose was to destroy the Jedi) being so easily dispatched by a Jedi. Remember, in the original canon Jango Fett had infamously killed 12 Jedi in battle with his bare hands. Such a death had to be a great disappointment when you take his prior feats into account.

He does. It is explained in the novelization. At the time Yoda is across the galaxy and thus Mace must act immediately with the Masters he has at his disposal. I actually don't mind that's it's not included in the film. It would have been a pretty redundant scene.

That's your opinion sir. In TPM the Council soullessly question a child who has been ripped from his mother, and then later on in the film they reject him from the life he has dreamed of, while talking to Qui-Gon and acting as if he isn't even there. They show no remorse or empathy for his situation. Quite harsh in my opinion.

 

I am not denying that Anakin has the vast majority of the responsibility for his fall, but simply that he doesn't have the entire responsibility. Obviously he shouldn't be spared discipline entirely but from what we've seen it seems that more often than not, when Anakin thinks outside of the box to solve a problem, he gets criticised for not following the orthodox route and no credit for the fact it actually worked. The council were very quick (and rightly so) to take him to task for his little tantrum about not being given automatic mastery, but when he managed to land the giant wreckage of a semi-destroyed battleship through skill alone... they just treated that as part of the job. Did anyone who wasn't Palpatine actually congratulate him for that?

He shouldn't be treated any differently, he should have been treated as an individual with emotions and feelings instead of just the will of the force with arms and legs. The Council really should have noticed that this dude was STILL not operating by the standard rules and wondered if that was symptomatic of a deeper problem instead of just punishing his transgressions, then waiting for it to happen again and punishing it again. If they were really so concerned about his relationships with (for example) Palpatine or Padme, they should have spoken to Palpatine and Padme not just said, 'Hey Anakin, no more talking to your friends in the senate, because the Force.'

As I said, Anakin is responsible for his own actions and his own fall... but the council mishandled the whole thing AS WELL. Obi-Wan at least mentioned that getting Anakin to spy on Palpatine was a really, really bad idea... so they went and did it anyway. I don't recall any of them even trying to discuss alternatives, or ways to help Anakin in his task. They basically just agreed he'd have to suck it up, which he totally failed to do, and no-one noticed until it was way too late.

 

They didn't praise him because praise is not expected or warranted as a Jedi. To them it really is just another day on the job. So it kind of steps on your next point about not being treated any differently. They do aim to be vessels of the Force; they say it time and again; it's what they base their whole philosophy on.

I'm not entirely certain to which occasions you refer, but I don't think Anakin is criticised because he thinks out of the box, but because he often thinks he can do no wrong and the plan will work because he's "Chosen One". That's arrogance, and it is a fault that needs to be corrected.

They do speak to Padme - ROTS deleted scene has Obi Wan going to her and pointing out why he's worried for Anakin. Palpatine does what he wants, and the Jedi don't trust him anyway. But the Jedi are not there to help Anakin make nice with his (secret!) attachments, they're there to make sure Anakin doesn't cultivate those distractions in the first place.

I do think Anakin's problems are entirely his responsibility. Part of being a grown-up is making your own decisions and accepting consequences. It is his completely his decision to trust Palpatine over Obi-Wan, to marry Padme despite knowing it is forbidden, to go running off after his mother, to slaughter the tuskens, and to betray the Jedi.

 

Yeah, but by the time of ROTS, Anakin has clearly NOT TAKEN THIS ON BOARD. That's his failing, totally. No question there. He has failed to achieve/maintain proper Jedi detachment and serenity, repeatedly. It's obvious to everyone he's not following the code of the Jedi. BUT the Council go ahead and react like they would with someone who IS a proper Jedi and expect it to work all the same. They rebuke Anakin, quite rightly, for not following the Jedi way. Now a Jedi who does follow the code would meditate and learn the lesson they were trying to teach, fair enough. Anakin would just say 'my way works too, so the council can stick it where the sun doesn't shine' and not learn a thing - or learn totally the wrong thing, courtesy of Palpatine egging him on.

I am NOT saying the Jedi were at all responsible for Anakin's failing, I am saying they are at fault for not acknowledging it and preparing for potential consequences. He's made the attachments, he's cultivated the distractions but the only solution the Jedi come up with is to pretend he didn't and hope it goes away. By the time of ROTS it's way too late, he's out of their control.

 

Ah okay I understand now. Though if they did something drastic like kick him out of the Order or ban him from Palpatine altogether I doubt Anakin would take that well either.