"...the last of the Jedi will you be."

"Last" of the Jedi...yeah, right. I was thinking about this today, how many Jedi have we now seen that were in fact alive and well during (and through) the OT-era?

Just off the top of my head there was Vergere (though of course she was extra-galactic at the time). Kam Solusar was presumably doing his thing during the OT time, though i suppose until DE2 he was a "dark" Jedi? Vima Da Boda, 9 million years old in the depths of Nar Shadaa for some reason, but still a Jedi. And there's Elephantits Brand, hiding in a cloud in his Weeble-Wobble(tm) suit, but still a Jedi.

Who else?

 

I'm sure a lot of the folks who survived Order 66 were still kickin' around.

 

But all of those people seem to have abandoned what it is to be a true jedi. Useless in Yoda's eyes...therefore they dont make the list.

 

Useless huh? I really don't see how that would apply to any of the survivors of Order 66 when from all accounts they tried to continue fighting the Sith, but they were smarter this time and did it by fighting from within the system. They all listened to the beacon and went to ground, the Jedi Order was dead, and they needed to survive and continue the fight in any way they could.

 

The easy answer to why Yoda said what he did is of course that if he said to Luke, "When gone i am, the last of the Jedi will you be...except all the others, not yet created by EU authors are they", it doesn't exactly motivate Luke to re-build the Order so much

 

Are they all still alive and fighting the good fight when Yoda said this?

 

Of the others that survived, Qu Rahn was the only Jedi that Yoda would have certainly recognized as such; there were Aquinos and the Iron Knights, but he had himself excommunicated them, Halagad Ventor was on the Dark Side at the time and Callista was only a sort of alive... Of course, even Anakin Skywalker was still around.

There were of course several more Jedi, Knights and former Padawans, alive at the beginning of ANH - Wookieepedia names close to 30 - most coming from rather obscure, but canon sources - and several of them were participating even in the Rebel Alliance, but how many survived until Yoda uttered this is another thing...

It might also be claimed that what Yoda said was true from only a certain point of view: It was what Luke needed to hear at the moment. If Yoda would have said that after he is gone, there would be only two dozen Jedi left, Luke might not have taken his role as seriously as he did. He had to think that all depended on him, as it did. Luke was the shatterpoint; the other Jedi did not matter. They could not have achieved what he did. And so Yoda was silent about them.

 

I think it is an assumption made on Yoda's part. He knew many Jedi got slaughtered by Order 66, many more must have been slaughtered since then, others finally died of old age, and others just gave up on the entire Jedi thing. He probably figured by the time Luke got around to trying to rebuild the order, no old Republic Jedi would ever be there to hear his call.

Carnage

 

Yoda either did not find out who else had survived, did not beleive them to be Jedi, or the others were retconned in and during the OT, Yoda did not know about them.

 

No one knows, the stories of when they died or how they died have yet to be written.

 

Well said. Qu Rahn is rad.

 

Yeah, I think it's a cross between "certain point of view" and simply not really knowing. I'm sure to Yoda, the galaxy felt like a cold and lonely place through the Force. This could be attributed to the fact that he was on a Dark Side planet. Heck, Dagobah could have been blocking out some of those light spots of the other Jedi and Yoda could no longer sense their presence. Just a thought.

Also, I think it's the fact that Luke was the first Jedi who was "selected" to restore the Order. The Order 66 survivors abandoned the Order and tried to be Jedi on their own. But Yoda didn't want this for Luke. He didn't want him to be another ex-Jedi roaming around the galaxy twirling his lightsaber. He wanted him to rebuild what was lost in the Clone Wars. So, I think that sets him apart. The others had become so focused on surviving or waging wars, but Yoda, perhaps, thought that Luke was the last of the Jedi with the heart to rebuild the Jedi. Just another thought.

 

Rahn's pretty much the only one. People like Jerec, Tremayne, and Vader obviously don't count.

 

He was the last of the Jedi...from a certain point of view.

By ROTS, Yoda realizes the PT Jedi are pretty sorry excuses for Jedi. They blindly abide by their dogma without compassion. They allow themselves to become the puppets of a corrupt, dying Republic.

Perhaps in his little chats with a certain Jedi ghost, Yoda realized that the last true Jedi had been cut down in Theed.

 

Well can we even consider the Jedi who survived after ROTS "Jedi" anymore? Where were they the whole time Luke was fighting the Empire? Throwing away their lightsabers, going into smuggling....why is Luke the only Force-sensitive in the Rebel Alliance? And even when Palpatine gets tossed down the Death Star shaft and the Empire starts to collapse, can these people who've been hiding away for so long really just get back up and take on their former roles again? Especially if they've contributed little to nothing to the formation of the New Republic?

 

Actually at least 4 of the Jedi from the Dark Lord book took positions within the Empire to try and sabotage it as much as they could from within. People do what they can and obviously going around the galaxy showing off your Jedi skills at every turn wasn't going to help stop the Empire in any way. The Jedi who did all the little things, and I'm confident there were others, should be just as commended as anyone else who did what they could to try and topple the Empire.

 

Yoda was aware of Qu Rahn, who still existed as a true Jedi -- Yoda himself promoted Rahn to Master during his exile. He's pretty much the only one that can't be explained away -- except for the fact that he was on a vital mission and would die within a year. Yoda was probably aware of that, and knew that Rahn's destiny was not to teach Luke. It was to teach Kyle Katarn and in doing so quietly save the galaxy.

 

I think the point is that first and foremost... the only survivors of the Jedi Purge from GL's point of view from the beginning were to be Obi-Wan and Yoda, and the Skywalker twins. That continues through to when we see the purge on film. EU-wise... well, not even Order 66 survivors could continue to tread the Jedi path and remain alive. They had to hide their abilities, or get co-opted into the Empire's service, try to sabotage it from within, or join the Rebels and continue to not only hide their abilities... but do NOTHING that was overtly linkable to the Jedi Order. In short, all who survived through the OT would have had to completely abandon their identities as Jedi Knights. Even Qu Rahn, presumably, wasn't all that active during the Empire's reign. His most important contribution came after the Empire fell, and that was short-lived. By the way, I hate that he's been retconned as having gone to Dagobah and been taught the immortality training by Yoda... couldn't he have just discovered it on his own, or couldn't it just be a similar situation to Anakin's appearance as a spirit? Jedi Knight did happen a few years after the OT as I recall...

Anyways, Luke Skywalker was the only person actively pursuing and living in the Jedi path by the time of ROTJ. All the others may have survived the purge, but they weren't Jedi anymore. Plain and simple.

 

Yoda's sending a talented, but sketchily trained young man to go face down a guy he himself couldn't defeat. Kenobi's dead, Rahn's on his mission and would (had he lived) likely remained in hiding keeping the secret of Ruusan, and what other few survivors were likely were beyond Yoda's ability to reach, lest he tip his and their hands. Kenobi and Yoda literally went all in with Luke (ignoring Leia, or planning to teach her beyond the grave if Luke failed).

I recall a line Kenobi said in the ANH novelization, how there may be a few Jedi still out there, but their help couldn't be counted upon. Either too hard to get in touch with, or just undependable.

 

yoda was just sitting in a swamp and presumably talking to obiwan and qui-gon jin until he trained luke,so is yoda a jedi under that classification also?

 

Let's not forget that Yoda has, or rather, had, a very narrow, conservative view of what a Jedi was. Although Qui-Gon helped to change his views somewhat, most of the surviving "Jedi" and former Jedi held beliefs and opinions contrary to what Yoda would consider to be proper. Aquinos wouldn't count, nor would any of the dark siders, "King" Brand, Altis's group, etc.

As has been pointed out, Rahn is pretty much the only exception to Yoda's line in ROTJ. Perhaps a better backstory for him would have included an antagonistic relationship with Yoda, but that's obviously not the case. Perhaps we'll see a fix for this sometime in the future.

TC

 

Good question. The answer to that is a very definite...maybe.

 

Good point. I hadn't thought of the fact that most of the surviving Jedi were heretics and exiles.

 

There are extended lists of Purge survivors here and here.

Two lists of Jedi known to be alive as of RotJ can be made: Jedi who were not regarded as heretics, and were not in seclusion (who Yoda would consider as "still Jedi" if he knew they were alive); and Jedi who were in seclusion, or Jedi who had been regarded as heretics (ie, Jedi who'd either excluded themselves or been excluded - the former group includes some undeniably orthodox Jedi like Ikrit, Ood Bnar and Empatojayos Brand, but the two groups are put together because there's some overlap, and because Yoda's statement could stand up straight even with the existence of both groups).

Note that "seclusion" refers to Jedi who have deliberately isolated themselves, rather than ones who're simply running around hiding; also, note that I'm ommitting several groups: Jedi who ceased to consider themselves Jedi (eg. Dark Jedi), untrained descendants of Jedi, proactive light-side Force-ghosts like Aryzah, and those, like Quin Vos, whose situation at this point is unknown...

1.) Jedi who were not regarded as heretics, and were not in seclusion

Jedi Masters
Qu Rahn (Jedi Master - promoted to that rank by Yoda on Dagobah)

Jedi Knights
Tyneir Renz (Jedi Knight, GAR Colonel and Alliance operative; was alive after Hoth, so probably active as of RotJ)

Jedi Padawans
Corwin Shelvay (was alive during the build-up to Endor, anyway - although it's possible that he'd been betrayed and murdered by Shira Brie by the time of RotJ itself. All this is also true of Erling Tredway, if he had some training from his father)
Ana Tathis (trained as a padawan under a "Lady Caryn" during the Dark Times; appears in an RPG unit with an apparently post-Endor setting)
Cryle Cavv (is it true that "Two for One" confirms him as a former padawan of Yoda's?)
Hal Horn (assuming that he wasn't actually Neeja... )

Note also that Kai Justiss (0 BBY), Drun Cairnwick (0 ABY) Nos'lyn (1 ABY), and the obscure Kaoln and Qid Proko survived into the period of the Galactic Civil War. Trig Kilwallen, a slightly-trained former padawan/youngling.

2.) Jedi who were in seclusion, or were regarded as hereics

Jedi Masters
Aqinos
Ikrit
Ood Bnar

Jedi Knights
Ilum and the other Iron Knights
Vima-Da-Boda
Callista Ming
Empatojayos Brand
Halagad Ventor
Halbret

Padawans
Ephaan Kenzon

Now, for one reason or another, it's possible that Yoda might have discounted the handful of "orthodox" Jedi: Qu Rahn has a specific job to do on Ruusan, Cryle Cavv is a sneak-thief, Ana Tathis is lacking in formal training - even assuming Yoda recognized "Lady Caryn" as a Jedi - and all the others could concievably have died around the time of Endor.

On the other hand, it's possible that there was actually an active, but small, Jedi Order operating in secret as part of the Alliance: Tyneir Renz, Cryle Cavv, Drun Cairnwick, Kaoln, Corwin Shelvay and Erling Tredway all have Alliance connections, and it's technically possible that Shelvay and Cavv actually have full knight status... and because Qid Proko is working as a mechanic, I'm tempted to connect him to Cavv, a former member of Cracken's Crew, who started out as mechanics before they moved into anti-Imperial resistance....

- The Imperial Ewok