Lit Yo, Jedi: Do You Even Train? You Sure As Hell Don't Act Like It

(because yo is like spanish for I or something, geddit? idk i don't speak spanish)

No, this isn't about Jedi physiques. Though my money is on Glaive as Mr. Galaxy. Rambo Luke, you say? He doesn't even lift.

So, basically, the Jedi are rarely portrayed as Jedi. I can only think of a few examples where Jedi are portrayed as Jedi would/should really be.

It's so rare for Jedi to be portrayed as Jedi that people have really low expectations for Jedi behavior/responses/characterizations, to the point that they're not expected to behave any different than "normal" people with no Jedi training. Sometimes the expectations are even lower, they're below even the expectations we have for each other.

I'm going to be vague in my examples, even though you probably know what I'm talking about, because I don't want this to turn into the same old thread.

Freaking out over Force visions. They're not all Anakin Skywalker. They're not ancient Greek heroes. Ancient Greek heroes didn't have Jedi training. They're not new to Force visions. Force visions are known to be unreliable. Yet they react to them like superstitious barbarians.

Losing their **** over the death of a loved one. This is where it really hit me.

If, ahem, an experienced Jedi with decades of training can't handle the death of a loved one without going dark side crazy or just generally acting like an idiot, what makes them any different than the rest of us? What good is Jedi training, then? What's this about calm and control, and not making decisions based on fear and anger? What is all that meditation for? Seems like all that meditation and spiritual/philosophical stuff is a waste of time, it usually doesn't amount to anything. They should just spend all their time practicing their saber skills.

I see this all the time. "So and so died" or "So and so died in a Force vision." So? So that justifies any behavior? Are they not Jedi?

Forget the unreliable nature of visions. Let's pretend they're 100% accurate all the time. So somebody is going to die. So? Should they lose their **** over death after decades of training?

It's gotten to the point where an experienced Jedi Master lost his cool over a few verbal taunts about, uh, a lost loved one. Yeah. And no one batted an eye. This was totally normal. To be expected.

Is this what we've come to expect from Jedi Masters? Freaking out over lame taunts from villains? It's as if they'd be easy targets for trolls if they signed on to the Jedi Council Forums. Well, I've trolled a lot of Jedi Masters on here, but I don't think they were real Jedi Masters.

The Jedi are often portrayed as if they don't train to control themselves at all. They're "normal people" with lightsabers just reacting emotionally. Maybe this is better because it makes them more relatable or something, I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think they're supposed to be all that relatable to begin with. They're not supposed to be like us, they're not supposed to be normal. They have, you know, a code that they dedicate themselves to and stuff.

But I guess it's just easier to portray them however, and then have them spout off meaningless platitudes to show that they're totally Jedi and didn't just get their Jedi degree from a three week online course.

Uh, this is long enough, right? Yeah.

Coming soon

Portrait of a Jedi 2: Electric Judgment Boogaloo

Okay, my follow up has nothing to do with the electric judgment power, I just hate it, that's all.

Will include:

The lack of interest in actual Jedi, from fans and writers.

 

But it still sort of feels like the same old thread when all of your examples are from a certain author (or the works under his influence) who pretty much just flat-out can't write Jedi. Which makes them sort of poorly suited to discussing what I think actually is a much broader problem.

 

I gave one example not from that author!

I could give more. Those are just the most obvious. But really, I can only think of a few exceptions. The vast majority of EU has this problem. The general portrayal of Jedi are just people with lightsabers and index cards with the Jedi code on it.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this thread. Maybe elaborate on my expectations for Jedi characters, which are rarely met. I guess I could go over the exceptions and point out why they shouldn't be the exception, but the rule. Or at least, more common. We could go over the bad examples and point out how far our expectations have fallen, to point how ridiculous the status quo is. Because I don't want more of those Jedi. I have no interest in the next Jedi with a goatee and an eye patch who's totally not your average Jedi (the focus is on superficial appearances rather than any character depth, because lightsaber colors are more important), because that is the average Jedi we've seen.

I could point out how it seems like most of the popular EU Jedi characters are rogue/unorthodox/gray (though it seems like some of those characters are just actual Jedi portrayed accurately), specialized, generic action heroes pretending to be Jedi, or on the edge of the dark side.

Indeed, it is a much broader problem, imo. Not sure how to go about it. I'm thinking most fans don't really see it as a problem.

 

I think a large part of that problem stems from the over-reliance on Jedi as protagonists.
Sure, Luke's story in the OT is interesting, fascinating and relatable, because who doesn't dream of being initiated into a society of magicians? But once the initiate has been enlightened, he/she just plays in a different league from everybody else, us as readers included -- after all, that's the whole point of it, right?
Or, viewed from another angle but essentially the same thing: the sage is not the hero. The Enlightened are great as supporting characters (usually in the literal sense, or else as antagonists), but telling stories from their point of view is both counterintuitive for the readers (lack of identification potential, huge inferential difference in outlook, knowledge, wisdom...) and extremely hard to write for authors. Some do pull it off in a limited way (I'm thinking of Ender's Game here, or other hyper-competence-fixated stuff like HPMOR), but it's tough on both ends.

So what happens when mediocre-to-goodish authors try to write from the perspective of full-blown Jedi, is they necessarily pull them down to experience feelings and drama and react in a way that (the authors think) readers can relate to. As every creative writing person will tell you, Rule Number One is to make your protagonists relatable. You can have far-out characters in your stories, sure, but the lead, the main POV, should be someone people can identify with.
And people are stupid.
So there. You want to write the Further Adventures of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master? You better be damn good and ready to expect some mental work from your audience -- or you stick to what should have happened in the first place: use Master Luke as an awesomely impressive supporting character for other heroes, rather than insist on giving his POV all the time like he is still that wide-eyed audience stand-in farm boy.

 

Does Luke Skywalker train? Luke Skywalker trains too much and has been at the steroids if anything.

 

Should have used "lift" and "bro" in thread title. 4/10

 

Not sure if I agree that Jedi are supposed to be "not relatable" and "not normal". Because the prototypical Jedi, Luke Skywalker, sure is both those things. If Jedi in stories would all be super stoic like Ki Adi Mundi and ANH Obi, we might not even get more Jedi stories because no-one would read them.

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I forgot which Jedi Master lost it over being taunted over a lost loved one.

I think it makes sense for Jedi to act like normal people when they're prospective Knights, but once they become knights they should be pretty stoic. Like Obi-Wan when Satine is killed. You know he feels it as keenly as anyone else, but he doesn't let it influence his behavior.

 

Come to think of it Jedi are all pretty lousy at dealing with angst. Or just problems. Daily problems. And the "best Jedi" are always the worst. Look at the good old KOTOR/TOTJ days -- you've got Exar and Uliq who are amazing and emo as all get out. Sylvar's a loony. Nomi's Freakazoid. Revan and Malak are supposed to be the galaxy's celebrity heroes but they got all nutso over a map. Satele had to remind her star pupil to "be kind" in Fatal Alliance because that's... apparently the best instruction she had to offer. And he forgot anyway.

And don't get me started on Bane-era Jedi. You read Jedi vs Sith and it's like the sides don't matter. One's called Jedi and one's called Sith. And they mix up all the time. I think all Sith were Jedi or something. Kaan and Githany and Twi'lek muffin-eater.

And then PT-era I think a lot of the authors (and you Filoni -- you're not getting out of this one!) can't get out of "if we need a good antagonist, it's gotta be a Dark Sider," but since Dark Siders are rare, you've got to turn your Quinlans and Barrisses and Xanatoses and Sora Bulqs and Aurra Sings and etc etc etc so the Jedi have someone to fight. Because the PT-era Jedi Masters apparently suck at teaching so we're told. But when were they any better? That time period around 500 BBY nobody wants to write about?

I'll give Luke's Jedi a pass. He didn't know what he was doing. Actually I won't give him a pass. The crap his nephew and son pulled was inexcusable.

Yeah all Jedi suck. Traviss was right. It's all a farce.

 

The post NJO Jedi were genuinely terrible people.

 

brb, stealing OP for ETE article.

 

I'd argue it is because most of the storytelling sucks.

 

It's the superhero conundrum. Do you want your heroes to be archetypes, or to be relatable and human? Most Jedi fall into the "relatable and human" category, more like the Marvel heroes, where they're just everyday people with the same problems everyone else has and it just so happens that they also have incredible, galaxy-shaking power. If Jedi were portrayed the way they should be, if they filled their mandates narratively, they'd all be DC heroes, larger-than-life paragons with ways higher than our own, just human enough to be a character that struggles in some ways, but also inhuman enough to make it clear that they're something beyond.

 

The dark never bothered Anakin anyway, which did not help. Luke, on the other hand, knew to let it go.

 

iunno guys everyone liked Dark Rendezvous

 

^ Beat me to it.

 

That book actually shows Jedi as they are theoretically supposed to be, though. Vibrant and alive, delighting in humour, seeming more like extensions or augmentations of ordinary people than either something removed from the ordinary or simply, well, ordinary. Jedi are supposed to have a natural connection to the Force, being Force-sensitives and all, and are supposedly immersed in a training regimen that hones this natural sensitivity in various constructive ways. Since the Force is life, generated by and connecting all living things, the Jedi should be alive. Yes, they control themselves and keep it under mastery, but that should make them all the more infused with that vibrancy. Channelling it, storing it, *strong* in it. Dark Rendezvous made the Jedi fun, human (for want of a more inclusive word) and engaged with the universe around and between them, which is why it's one of my favourites.

I agree that very few works really explore what a Jedi is - not "magic superhero with laser sword" or "cripplingly flawed monks destined to be blindsided by the Sith" - and even fewer know to make the Jedi compelling.

 

This reminds me of my thread about if the Jedi are boring. And the answer is yes.

You know who's a cool Jedi? Qui-Gon Jinn. He's stoic but still projects fatherly warmth in his scenes with the Skywalker family, and projects a degree of disobedience when dealing with the Jedi council in their ivory tower.

Shame we didn't get his side of the Plagueis novel.

 

For me, this is just a microcosm of the way in which all Star Wars characters are written as post-modern Americans. This effects everyone, but it's worst for the Jedi because they're basically a pre-modern religious order (Buddhist/Jain/Hindu/Christian) combined with the Medieval European and Japanese ideals of chivalry. So they combine in themselves most of the things that post-modern Americans least resemble or understand. Instead of trying to deal with this, though, most authors just take the easy way out and portray Jedi as angst-ridden, doubtful loners with a dark side--i.e. the Most Relatable Post-Modern Character Trope Ever (TM). Or else they're just Regular, Easy-going Bros (TM) who happen to have a lightsaber--which, if not particularly interesting, at least isn't going to seriously jar your reader's expectations.

I mean, sure, being a member of a religious order dedicated to the martial pursuit of justice probably isn't in the life experiences of most people--but isn't that the whole point?

 

I'd argue he was a master of both aspects... Ghosting was the Cosmic Force. But then he goofed and couldn't keep his physical form so there's that.

Worth noting Qui-Gon was a relativist, "the boy is dangerous," "from your point of view," and both these ideas are repeated by Obi-Wan in the OT. "Let go your conscious self and act on instinct."