PT Yoda's thoughts about death in ep3 are a lie

True dat. Interesting to see similar sentiments though - on the danger of attachment, even if not phrased exactly the same way.

 

Of course. SW content can't be appreciated if it's not deemed canon by the Disney industrial machine.

 

Just to clarify, is my assumption here correct? perhaps someone who reads EU can tell me.

 

The Order is full of contradictions.
When Anakin tells Yoda that someone close to him is going to die, he basically just tells Anakin to get over it and move on with his life. I think Yoda thought he was helping Anakin with his attachment thing, but really he just made a bad situation worse. Much, much worse.
Yoda could have been more helpful. I mean, I get that you can't spend you whole life mourning someone, but Padme wasn't even dead yet. Instead of trying to find ways to save Padme (like with Ahsoka in Assassian) he just tells Anakin to let go of his attachment. Not extremely helpful.

 

There's nothing wrong with mourning someone or missing them. It's when you let it consume you and your actions and make it all about you and not the person you claim to mourn/miss that it becomes a problem. If Anakin truly had cared about Padme, he would've simply spent whatever spare time he had with her rather than trying to seek power to save her.

 

Ultimately Anakin went to Yoda for help, and Yoda told him to "train himself." whatever that means.

 

Methinks Yoda and Anakin were both stupid in that discussion.

There's Anakin telling Yoda about his visions of someone dying in some manner...really, for someone who is as desperate as he is for solutions(or Sith 'fairy-tales' masquerading as solutions), you'd think he'd be more specific. Like mentioning the cause of death(childbirth, it looked like) and asking Yoda about potential healing techniques instead of just expecting Yoda to go on a lecture about Jedi powers or something(for all Yoda knew, it could have been a vision of Obi-Wan getting murdered, in which case bringing up force techniques would be not helpful...). Who knows, had Anakin told his entire detailed vision, maybe they could have found some force insight through meditation.

Then there's Yoda who thinks the most effective way to help Anakin is to repeat Jedi platitudes. Might work on other Jedi, yeah, but at this point it should be obvious Anakin is not receptive to that kind of philosophy. It's like telling an addict 'Miss Substances, you must not...' and expect him/her to just train themselves out of addiction. If Anakin hasn't successfully trained himself out of loss issues in 13 years, why would he suddenly cure himself now?

BIFF TANNEN: Helloooo? Is anyone home?

 

we mourn our dead which is natural but we are really mourning for ourselves because of our own loss. when someone passes away they are no longer in pain. it's the people left behind that are in pain. yoda's point is not to feel bad for the deceased or mourn for them because they are beyond that. dwelling on a loss or dreading losing someone is pointless and negative. i'm guilty of this myself sometimes because i'm human but in a perfect world we could control this negativity, express it and then move on.

this is what the jedi try to do. they don't try to avoid feeling, they can't, but they try to avoid the negativity. the fear of loss can lead to greed and anger. anger leads to hate. hate leads to suffering.

 

To add to this, you'd think that Yoda, the Grandmaster himself, would suspect that Anakin wasn't being entirely truthful. Saying "Someone I know is going to die soon" isn't exactly helpful and in most circles, the people hearing this would want the person to give them more details to work with. Instead Yoda, like you said, likely assumed 'Ah, Obi-Wan he spoke of' and went with that rather than pushing Anakin further. Or he could've simply said, "Careful with these visions, you must be." Even if it were a vision of Obi-Wan getting murdered, Yoda should've known that Anakin tends to take the first thing he sees as 100% fact and warned him to not treat this as a certain future to come.

 

What? That was a confusing comment.

Yoda knows more than he's letting on. I'm pretty sure he knows Anakin is talking about Padme. You can tell from the way Yoda asks him who he is talking about, he just chooses not to pursue it any further, because to do so would be to open a huge can of worms.

And, of course, Yoda does say "Careful you must be when sensing the future, Anakin", and he says it very seriously. That's supposed to be the warning about the future being uncertain.

"Always in motion is the future" would have been salient, but I guess that would have defused the situation, and that can't happen because that's not the story.

 

But Yoda should've known after 13 years of knowing Anakin that the guy is not exactly an open book about his secrets. Even if Yoda knew who Anakin was talking about, he still should've pressed the issue to get Anakin to come out and say it. Plus, as anakinfansince1983 said, the responsibility was on Anakin to realize that his obsession with loss was getting out of control and he needed help.

 

Isn't that what intervention is for? If someone with a severe issue that's destroying them won't open up and admit it, friends and family jump in to help? Anakin clearly won't talk, but he's clearly torn up about something so...intervention? If he has to drag Obi-wan into this, then so be it. After all, he's supposed to be their Chosen One, so having him be emotionally ripped for the Sith is not in their best interest.

 

It's almost a "don't ask, don't tell" situation with Anakin, because he's broken a pretty serious rule, and technically it's probably supposed to result in expulsion.

Getting it out in the open might help Anakin. It also might force an ultimatum on him (divorce your wife and separate from her) that he might refuse, resulting in his expulsion.

It's a very delicate situation.

 

It means to banish all fear and selfishness from your heart, by accepting that your loved one will die because that is the way of life.

The novelization has it that Yoda thinks he is referring to Obi-wan. And speaking of Obi-wan, he knows about the relationship, but he also knows that Anakin won't ever talk about it to him which is why he asked Padme to get him to open up and to let her know that he knows, but that he won't turn them in. This is why he went to see her before he left for Utapau.

 

No. It means "I don't want to put in the time or effort to actually help you myself, so go do this on your own."

"Train yourself," certainly wasn't the guidance that Qui-Gon gave to Yoda when he wanted to learn how to preserve his existence after death.

 

When Yoda went to the Force planet and to Moraband, he had to accept his faults and limitations, in order to pass the tests. Obi-wan already taught Anakin how to let go, he just refused to do so. You cannot teach someone who doesn't want to learn. Being a Jedi means constantly training yourself as Serenity told Yoda.

 

Anakin says: "I won't let these visions come true, Master Yoda."

He's letting his attachment take over and try to change the natural cycle of things. To which Yoda replies:

"Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed that is."

He never said you should be happy that people die. He said said you should be happy for those who become part of the Force.

A Jedi doesn't (or in Anakin's case, shouldn't) let sorrow and attachment take over. Hence the advice to learn to let go and not mourn nor miss.

What?! Care to explain?

Lucas isn't trying to convince anyone that Anakin's turn is valid nor is Yoda saying he should be happy if Padmé dies. But hey, let's blame others for your own extrapolations.

Here.

 

I guess what I'm trying to get at is Yoda didn't even bother to ask Anakin who was going to die or in what way. Instead of actually being concerned that someone is going to die, he just turns the conversation around into another lecture for Anakin.

 

None of that happens in the movie. In the movie Yoda denies Anakin his mentorship, and ironically is mentored by Qui-Gon.

 

There is nothing that Yoda can teach to Anakin. The boy has already been trained to let go of his attachments. He just has to actively carry that out. It is called self discipline. That's why Yoda said, "Train yourself". That's not what Anakin wanted to hear. He wanted to hear what Palpatine told him, which is that the Force can stop someone from dying. Anakin said to Padme that he would learn to stop people from dying and that he would be the strongest Jedi ever if he could. Qui-gon taught Yoda how to retain his identity. That's different as Yoda is taught a technique in the Force and as Qui-gon told Yoda, the ability to defy oblivion cannot be done for others. Meaning you cannot stop someone else from dying. But a Jedi can learn to retain their consciousness and thus commune with the living.

It doesn't matter. Yoda would still say the same thing because that is all a Jedi can do. Accept the deaths of their loved ones and move on from it. To not let fear, anger, hate, jealousy, obsessiveness and greed get the better of him.