The Jedi Order Was Wrong To Condemn Attachments

During Attack of the Clones, we learn that emotional attachments to particular individuals are strictly forbidden for Jedi. Indeed, we're given some idea as to why this rule was established when we see that Anakin's descent to the dark side is partially a result of his close bond with his mother. However, Lucas didn't leave this issue closed.

Return of the Jedi shows Darth Vader's redemption occuring precisely because of his attachment to his son. His son was likewise the result of a union which the Jedi Order had proscribed for any and all Jedi. Anakin's return to the Light Side of the Force was brought about by personal attachment.

Perhaps the Jedi were wrong to summarily dismiss all attachments as harmful. A more balanced perspective would have served them better.
Depending on the circumstances, an attachment could be harmful or possibly beneficial.

BaronLaw

 

Depriving the Jedi of family attachments from a young age was a very clean, simple, black-and-white kind of rule.

The fear was that a Jedi's personal attachments would create a risk for abuse of power, or possibly blackmail -- and this was simply the easiest way to address that risk.

I don't have a problem with the policy itself, I have a problem with the fact that when the Jedi embarked on the project of training Anakin, a boy who obviously did have such an attachment to his mother, they simply relied on strict enforcement of their original policy, and did not appreciate the need to do more.

As a result of the no-attachments policy, the idea and nature of such attachments seems to have become foreign to the Jedi, and as a result, they were unable or unwilling to properly address Anakin's attachment to his mother and the impact that would have on his development as a Jedi. This Achilles' Heel proved to have grave consequences.

 

I also think that you can see this experience changed the philosophy of OBi-Wan. In the PT, when Anakin is discussing his feelings to Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan tells him "to bury your feelings". In the OT, he tells Luke "bury your feelings, they do you credit, but they could be made to make you serve the emperor" I think this demonstrates a difference. In the PT, it was just merely bury and ignore your feelings. In the OT, he doesn't condemn Luke for having feeling: they do you credit. He also gives him an easy to understand rationale for controllong his feelings.

 

Do they mean outside attachments, or all attachments period?

Because to forbid attachments, any, is unnatural. You can't prevent it-hell, look at the bonds between master and apprentice.

 

I agree with DarthNigel completely.

The only (well, MAIN) reason the Order gets in trouble with the Code is that they break their own laws when they allow Anakin to be trained. - Anakin was too old, old enough to have a very strong attachment to his mother.

But I agree that not all attachments can or should be prohibited - the bond between Master and Apprentice is a good example.

At the same time:

"Energy becomes matter; Matter becomes Energy."
"There is no death, there is only the Force."

"There is no fear, there is no pain, there is no death...there is only the Force."

(From Jedi: Mace Windu and SW: Republic #57)

And Yoda's line from TPM: fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.

This is the reason why attachment is forbidden - it can work on the emotions - anger, fear, envy, jealousy, pride, despair.

Obviously, love and attachment can be good things as well, it can make people fight for things and work harder.

But I guess the Jedi felt (and they obviously have a lot of experience in this area compared to us ) that an emotional attachment is simply too dangerous.

The Force is mostly strongly with a Jedi when he or she is at peace.

 

It may have been one of those policies that got gradually distorted. Maybe the Jedi only wanted to avoid attachments and gradually this was taken to mean NO attachments of any kind so as to avoid any "messes". A sort of "take out the middle-man" approach. However, if this is (or was) done this probably made the Jedi unable to deal with a Force Adept having an attachment(s), making the Jedi more susceptable to attacks from the Dark Side (since a lot of Jedi are going to be unable to detect such attachments and their possible problems). A slippery slope deal. I doubt that a lot of Jedi were lazy, but slipping occurences like this can be hard to see as it happens over long periods of time. Of course, this all depends on exactly how the Jedi are tested against the Dark Side; however, with getting younglings before they attach to their parents, and generations of Jedi not being exactly familiar with them, it creates a potentially dangerous mixture.

For example-A person can give advice on Marriage without being married-having studied Psych. However, one whould keep in mind that experience is the better teacher-a married psychologist would be preferred, right?

However with Jedi's, that does not mean they should ALL experience the DS...it is too dangerous to attempt, but they should not be ignorant of it either-the middle ground the Jedi's have to walk on-having compassion without attachment-is a very fine line. In terms of Obi-Wan's words to Luke, I feel that the former was basically saying that it is good Luke has compassion, but that Luke needs to be in control of it-for HIS reasons and not the Emperor's. Unlike Vader, who let his compassion become altered into hatred of those who would hurt whom he has "love" for which lent to his fall most of all.


Ciou-See the Sig

 

Do they mean outside attachments, or all attachments period?


I would guess outside attachments are forbidden, but other attachments are to carefully watched as well. Obi-wan was quite attached to Quigon, and he came very close to the Dark Side when Maul killed him.

The Jedi forbid attachments because of exactly what happened to Anakin. It makes them unstable. Anakin fell to the Dark Side partly because of his mother's death. Obviously this wouldn't happen with no attachments.
His attachment to his son brought him back to the lightside, but that wasn't very good for Palpatine. Without attachments to his son, Vader would have killed Luke, and everything would be okay in the Empire.

 

I too, completely agree with Nigel.
People keep knocking down all of the strict rules that the Jedi have, yet that's what kept them around for so long. The moment they started going soft, but not soft enough for Anakin, things went to Hell.
They didn't condemn them to be jerks as many people seem to think. There were very real reasons for it. The obvious example is that of Anakin. A Jedi loses someone close to them (mother, father, girl/boyfriend, wife, kid) in an extremely brutal way... could they control their actions?
People keep bringing up the fact that it was the attachment Luke had for Vader that eventually saved him. Yes. But if Anakin didn't go psycho from attachment to begin with, no redemption by attachment would have been neccessary.
Even then, Vader was fully prepared to use Luke's attachment for him to lure him to the darkside. Then later Luke's attachment to Leia, which Luke very nearly took the bait for let's not forget!
I think Vader's redemption, while very moving, was definately the exception more the rule.

 

I think the Jedi Order should allow relationships specifically for procreation. In regards to family attachments: No.

We found out in Attack of The Clones that going into the saga the Jedi's numbers were already dwindling to the point where they couldn't keep a firm grip on the galaxy.

Having existing ties to your family throughout your training would only be a obstruction and distract from a Jedi's discipline.

They cannot fully devote their lives to the cause of peace and justice while making frequent visits to their homeworld.

<[-]> Saber

 

Actually, I think attachments within the order would work-they have to trust one another, and the Master-Padawan bond would have to be a close one, I would imagine.

 

they were well intentioned, but limited in foresight, which lead them to thier downfall.

 

The problem wasn't necessarily with the rule itself, but with the way they handled the rule once Anakin joined the Order. The Jedi needed to make many exceptions to the rule with Anakin, because Anakin himself was an exception to the rule. Instead, they drastically changed his way of life without easing into things, or so it seems.

Anakin needed that attachment with his mother, because it was already there. Cutting off all ties like that, especially to one who was nine, is quite harsh, no matter what the rules of the Order are. Because of this, he really, really began to miss her, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Had the Jedi allowed him to visit her once in a while, as was his wish, perhaps he would not have been so worried by the time of AOTC and therefore may not have left in a rush to go see what was up. He had no knowledge of how she was doing -- had he known sooner that she had been freed and gotten married, perhaps he would have been able to sleep easier at night without worry, because he would know she was in good hands.

I don't think it was necessarily wrong for the Jedi code to forbid attachments, but I think that it should have only applied to those Jedi who grew up in the Temple their entire life rather than Anakin, who already had an attachment, and was not going to let go of it at the drop of a hat just because the Jedi told him to.