Characters The Jedi Way - Jedi Discussion Thread - Jedi and the Force in The Clone Wars

The Jedi must be living it up in the temple, eh?

 

Well, maybe the Jedi aren't quite 'living it up' at the Temple. There are probably a lot of things that make the Jedi lifestyle less appealing to the general public no matter how lavish the Temple looks.

- no relationships allowed
- no parties
- no possessions
- no intoxicants (legal or illegal)
- only intellectual or quiet hobbies allowed, excluding violent martial arts
- no furniture (lots of space in the Temple, but they seem to like big empty spaces)

I've speculated that Jedi are given a stipend of some kind, partly for practical reasons of just getting around outside the Temple and partly for appearances if the Republic didn't comprehend not paying them. OTOH, Jedi could be like monks who are not allowed to own even money. They are obviously allowed to USE money on missions as we saw in TPM, but it is possible that they personally don't receive any money at all.

Can you imagine the Jedi having to show up at the Senate budget committee? Or an audit about what they spend on the annual budget for missions? The money would have to originate from the Senate, but it's possibly administered through the Judiciary budget. I strongly suspect that this was changed to the Chancellor's office during the Clone Wars.

I think that there are probably a lot of misconceptions about Jedi, most of them harmless, but a few of them exaggerated. Padme, an educated senator, thought that Jedi were 'not allowed to love' which is a bit of a simplification, but does make me think that even people who work in proximity of Jedi don't really understand them.

 

Oh come on, you know they break out the booze and lower the disco ball when nobody is looking on friday nights!

 

So true! And it just reminds me of a passage in Ambush at Corellia where Mon Mothma and Luke are talking about the future of the Jedi Order. This was published way back in '95, so I don't know how much (if any) of the text had information from the Prequel Trilogy influencing it. But Mothma, looking back on it from a post-Prequel world, I am utterly amazed at what she's saying - don't let the Jedi distance themselves from the population, but make them be a part of it.

It all ties in together, what we're discussing. What the Jedi are is not necessarily what the public sees. They see a small group of religious warriors who never seem to mingle, never seem to have any emotion, and do the bidding of the government. If they did "let loose" and relax, it would be in private, so the individual Jedi would not embarrass the Order or themselves. They don't let themselves be seen as "human", due in large part to training, but also due to tradition.

Viewed in this light, Mothma was warning Luke not to follow in the steps of the old Order, and not to make the same mistakes they did. It's experience talking. If the old Order had been able to relax their traditions, the galaxy could have been a much different place.

 

Which brings me to my next question: How do Jedi, particular of the old republic, do for fun? Did the temple have some sort of Gym/Recreational area, where the Jedi would spend their off time from missions as such?

 

[voice=borg]Fun is irrelevant.[/voice]

 

While I don't consider Jedi to be such killjoys as to be Borg-like I am awfully strict with them in my fics. So, no wild parties. If Jedi were asked to host a party it would turn out to be more like a wine and brie thing.

I haven't read that one. If it was '95 then it's just coincidence that it fits in well with the PT. Everything about TPM was Top Secret before it came out (though I was too busy avoiding spoilers then to know for sure) and Lucas wasn't even finished writing it in '95.

It's a timely warning for Luke and new Jedi Order. But I think it would be hard to follow. The nature of the Jedi and their philosophy to selflessly serve others with the Force naturally leads to some separation. And I think their 'no attachments' rule evolved because of past problems. The 'no possessions' wouldn't separate them so much from non-Jedi, but the 'no personal attachments' would. But if Jedi become involved with someone then that puts that person at serious risk. Just look at how Vader got Luke to Bespin in TESB.

At the end of the NJO series Luke decides to de-couple the Jedi from the Republic government. I think THAT would definitely be an improvement. That was at the heart of their downfall.

In retrospect, when the Republic was breaking up, the Jedi should have let it and not gotten into that. This probably would have led to a huge upheaval in the Order, possibly fracturing it with some leaving Coruscant or maybe them all getting kicked off (especially with Palpatine running things), but they would not have been so vulnerable if they were scattered. And viewed from a distance, they might have figured out what Palpatine was.

But the Jedi Order tried to hang onto their old arrangement when they didn't see that they needed to change and that did them in.

That's a tough question. It would certainly depend on the individual and their species. Things that Jedi might do for fun:

- Reading
- Art (though anything produced like paintings or carvings would have to be given away)
- gardening
- non-competitive sports
- cooking
- academic topics like history, literature, philosophy
- music
- lying on warm beaches
- camping / picnicking
- puzzles

Things that they might be allowed to do with limitations:
- hunting
- competitive games
- performing
- attending performances
- fattening foods
- animal care

Things that Jedi would be forbidden to do:
- gambling (when not on duty )
- addictions
- collecting beer bottles
- collecting anything
- night-clubbing
- eating competitions
- selling anything
- blowing things up (again, when not on duty)
- pets (in terms of ownership)

However, I think that being a Jedi is mostly a full-time occupation and hobby and that Force abilities require constant practice to keep them active, like an athlete keeping in shape. So, that won't leave a lot of time for other activities.

 

So the Jedi are like mindless robots?

 

More like members of the clergy.

Or more accurately/less relatably, monks. The Force is a "hokey religion", and they're its devoted followers. They spend a lot of time meditating, they train in a martial art, they learn more about this mystic force from their elder members, they wear nifty brown robes... Pop the Temple onto a mountain in Tibet and they'll fit right in. And they were raised in this lifestyle from extremely young ages (Anakin was, what, nine when he was "too old"?).

Yes, the Jedi are real people with flaws and individual personalities and desires, but they are also (from infancy) part of an ancient monastic order of galactic peace-keepers. It's important not to swing too far in either direction (robotic or overly loose). You can distinguish a real character without having them get wasted Saturday nights.

 

Well, I'll bet that crowd at the opera in ROTS drinks it by the tank! But since this is the GFFA it's probably blue wine.

Agreed! Lucas was very un-subtle about patterning the jedi after shaolin(or howeever it's spelled) monks. Jedi occupy a bizzare niche of being both clergy and law enforcement in the Old Republic. And the requirements for that a pretty demanding.

But you'll still have a wide variety of personalities among any group of Jedi. They would certainly all socialize in different ways. That would not be affected by them all adhering to a Jedi code that forbids material possessions and attachments.

 

I know this question that mioght be old, but has there ever been a story or info about the Jedi Temple in Star Wars Insider yet?

Because I think that some sort of story is due. It could tell us a little more about the temple in general.

 

Another question I have is, When the Jedi are/were bought to the temple, were they already named or do the Jedi name them as soon as they arrive? For all we know, Obi-Wan could have been named Baloo Babaloo, and the Jedi decided to change it to Kenobi.

 

The only case of the Jedi naming a child that I know of is Baby Ludi Billane, who they renamed Aris-Del Wari;

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Aris-Del_Wari

"After the groundquake of Ord Thoden, a team of Jedi rescue workers found a Force-sensitive child in the ruins of the Ord Thoden capital Domitree. Presuming the child's parents to be dead, the Jedi named the child Aris-Del Wari and decided to train her in the ways of the Force."

It doesn't end there, though;

"When Jonava Billane recovered and learned her child, Ludi, had survived and been rescued by the Jedi, she traveled to Coruscant and petitioned to be reunited with her daughter. However, the Jedi Council rejected her petition, arguing that giving back the child to her would be too dangerous now that the baby's mind had been opened to the Force."

Reactions were mixed;

http://www.holonetnews.com/46/jediwatch/1337_1.html

I'm obsessed with this incident, because I think it gives insight into a huge flaw in the Order and its policies. The resulting anti-Jediism is, in my opinion, very understandable.

 

Whie kept his name.

 

Of course, it also goes to say that the mother had a couple of supporters try to storm the Jedi Temple, but Yoda or some other jedi stopped them with a mind trick. Afterwards, the mother was too busy trying to sign deals to make a Holo-movie about her situation to care about the baby, which was still taken by the Jedi to some location off Coruscant to continue Jedi training.

But that does raise the question. When looking for potential Jedi, before the whole ruusan reformation, how did Jedi go getting new members? Did that include getting force sensitive children, or did they go to different locations, like a Military Recruitment thing like us, and test potential people to see if they have a high Midi-Count?

 

Oh, I'm not saying the mother wasn't despicable too, but the way the Jedi simply refused to hand over a child to its own mother is plenty reason for contempt.

 

I'm inclined to think that the Jedi keep the names their younglings are born with. Count Dooku and various others obviously have their family names and are publicly known by their family.

Custody battles are always tough, but what is this custody battle from??? There is no book or comic reference for it, just a web page. If it's AU then it's a matter of debate about whether the Jedi Council would actually make such a decision if the situation ever came up.

I would think that if the Jedi had a youngling for a short time and the previously unknown parent stepped forward to reclaim the child that they would surrender custody if the parent's identity could be verified.

 

If the situation... ever came up? It's all fiction, though. I'm not one of those people who argues canon. It looks like it's considered as such, so I take it as such. Besides, this adds an interesting shade of gray to the Star Wars universe.

As for where it's from, it seems it was written up just for the HoloNet News site.

 

The whole 'canon' issue is strictly for labeling for me. If the custody battle described were in one of the books or comics, and I wrote a fanfic that showed the Jedi contradicting this by returning a child to a previously unknown parent, then I might label my fic as 'AU', to show that I'm diverging from the sanctioned pro-fic that a lot of people might have read. But if the custody battle is just on the HoloNet news online then I wouldn't bother with putting 'AU' on my fic, since it would be another fanfic interpretation that adds no more or less complications to the GFFA than my fanfic does.

But the whole custody battle potential for the Jedi could be a huge complication for them. They replenish their numbers only by taking in and adopting very young children. What happens if:

- a parent gives a child to the Jedi and then changes their mind?
- a grandparent or other potential guardian objects to a child being given to the Jedi after the fact?
- a child from outside the Republic goes to the Jedi and that planet's government objects?

Now, the Jedi have been taking in children for a long time, so the precedent-setting court cases have probably already been settled a long time ago. And the Jedi very likely have the courts on their side. But that wouldn't stop people from publicly making noise about custody disputes.

 

I've actually thought a little about this - I don't have anything in canon to support this, so this is purely conjecture on my part.

When a parent or other legal guardian gives a child to the Order, I've always been of the mind that it is a full legal adoption, that the parent/guardian gives up all rights to the child. This authority is then granted to the Master when the child becomes a Padawan. There's probably forms and stuff that the family and the Order fills out and signs, as well performing whatever ritual is needed to make it legal from whatever culture the child is from. Parents, after the fact, would have to fight a legal battle to regain custody that they willingly gave up in the first place.

Potential guardians, as long as the parent is in his/her right mind, I do not believe should have any say in the issue, unless of course, it is part of their culture. Then it would be a family/clan/whatever issue and would be decided from there.

Out-Republic, the planet really couldn't object because it is, again, a family issue. And I do not believe, however tied to the Republic the Order may be, that the Jedi would not accept people from only Republic worlds. The Jedi Order has influence both in and out of the Republic, and works within both systems.

Which leads me to another, related, point. I hate the depictions of the Jedi has child-stealers. The Order would be firmly against that, as not only would kidnapping children (for that's what it would be) tarnish their moral authority, they would get in serious trouble with the law. The Order is strictly a volunteer-only order, as far as children can volunteer. That's where the parents come in.

 

While I'm not quite condemning the Jedi as the Baba Yagas of the Galaxy, there is a certain moral ambiguity with how they recruit members. It's ironic, for instance, that Obi-Wan Kenobi says in Revenge of the Sith that he is loyal to democracy when his democratic rights were never allowed him in the case of choosing whether or not to join the Order... or so I'm assuming. Regardless, this is likely the case for some Jedi out there.

 

Who has democratic rights as a baby? Basically, Jedi adoptions of children amounts to one family adopting children from other families.

The sticking point is how voluntary the adoption is for the family, not the children. The babies never have a say, but they don't have a say about who their original families are either.

My guess is that there is huge peer pressure to let children go to the Jedi. That is not entirely voluntary IMO, but I doubt that the Jedi are ever allowed to take any if a family refuses. Does the Republic compensate families in any way for it? That could be complicated.

We saw in TPM that if the Council doesn't think a child is suitable for training, like Anakin, that they will not take them no matter how high their midichlorine count is. I think that if a family really said no that the Jedi would accept that.

Whoa, a master having to fill out forms to adopt a padawan. That could be quite amusing; GFFA forms could be quite complex.

I sort of get around that issue by assuming in my fics that once an initiate becomes a padawan they are legally an adult in the Republic. That's a bit young I think, but Amidala was 14/15 when she was elected queen. So, I place the age of majority very young in the GFFA.

 

Things that Jedi would be forbidden to do:
- gambling (when not on duty)
- addictions
- collecting beer bottles
- collecting anything
- night-clubbing
- eating competitions
- selling anything
- blowing things up (again, when not on duty)
- pets (in terms of ownership)

Why am I getting plot bunnies with that list?

 

I think that there would be some adoption papers that a Jedi would have to fill out in order to adopt a child.

 

Your argument is a bit shaky to me. There's a difference between being born into a family and being handed over into an institution. The lives Jedi live after being given to the Order are highly specific ones and demand a certain discipline that forces them to deny themselves many commonplace enjoyments and activities the average Republic citizen can indulge in. Life is more a training process for them than it is a genuine life. They are raised in preparation for servitude, religious devotion, and to act as galactic peacekeepers, all of which I imagine is quite taxing.

This I agree with. I am also curious about whether or not families are somehow compensated. What is a Jedi youngling worth?

The thing is, they did take Anakin. So who's to say there might not be other exceptions?