A Jedi Shall Not Know Anger, Nor Hatred, Nor Love...

I was thinking about this... does anyone else find it odd that the poster says this (sort of a byproduct of the Jedi Code "There is no emotion"), and hints that this is the reason Anakin Skywalker heads down the path of the Dark Side...

... except that without Luke feeling anger towards Darth Vader for bringing up that he was going to try and convert Leia, so that he was being fueled by the hatred of the Dark Side, which led to him attacking and defeating Darth Vader due to the love of his sister... the entire galaxy would have been doomed.

Certainly we've seen examples in the EU of where strong emotions in Jedi can get them into trouble, but they don't seem to be any better off than their counterparts in the PT who were supposed to be without emotion. Does this mean that there's some middle ground such that strong emotions are bad whereas small emotional feelings are okay?

 

The Jedi code "There is no emotion there is Peace"

The Jedi are an order which thrives on Serenity with the greater Force which is different from Logic because the Force is what guides a Jedi not any particular conclusions. In fact the force actually acts quite IL-Logical in most instances such as placing all your eggs in one basket on a boy of 9 years old and heading to places because of farseeing visions.

To be a Jedi Knight is to be a slave of the Force and subliminate your own personal will to the greater good of the universe.

That way is best I think but it's a hard one

 

That way is best I think but it's a hard one

That may be... but without Luke basically ignoring those three emotions on the poster in the final duel in ROTJ, the galaxy would have been doomed. I just find that odd...

 

I think that's in the Jedi Code (and always has been) because strong emotions on either side can easily lead to the Dark Side. That's why Obi Wan and Yoda didn't want Luke to know that Anakin was his father, because they believed that any emotional attachment or feeling can lead to the dark side. But Luke proved them wrong and succeeded where his father failed by using his emotion, his love of rhis father, to save him.

So the new order Luke starts (if Lucas makes a sequel trilogy) will probably incorporate emotions into it and won't be as strict and inflexible as the old Jedi order.

 

Ironically speaking I'm sure if Luke had listened to the Force he might have suceeded as well and had he continued using those emotions the galaxy would have similarly doomed

 

What I think is that the Old Order thought that any and all emotions would bring one too close to the Dark Side. That's why they took kids at an early age. They wouldn't get attached to anyone, save their master, and they could grow up without emotions basically.

Well, Luke didn't really get that kind of training since the Order had been destroyed and whatnot, so even though Obi-Wan and Yoda preached to him about not acting on his emtotions, he did act on them.

 

"That may be... but without Luke basically ignoring those three emotions on the poster in the final duel in ROTJ, the galaxy would have been doomed. I just find that odd..."

My short story, Forever Dark, deals with this issue, more or less.
The main character, an elf by the name of Keil, is faced with the question of when to succumb to emotions. Or, more specifically, passion. Is passion to be avoided because it blinds a warrior? Or is to be embraced because it can fuel a warrior?

The conclusion my story dilineates is that when emotions are introduced into the situation, you'll be pretty darn lucky if the outcome is a beneficial one. Emotions are illogical at times and are unstable. There is no harmony in passion, depending on your point of view, of course.

The outcome of Luke's submission to passion was a fortunate incident, though he did dismiss this passion in the end and managed to attain a cool, rational mind...just before Palpatine began blasting away.

My point with all of this? I believe that emotions can often make a situation much worse and can serve only to obscure clear perspectives. However, sometimes, if we're lucky, expressing emotions might produce a positive result.


On another note: I've always wondered about the Jedi Code. The Force is life, essentially, correct? Emotions are a natural part of life. By avoiding emotions, aren't the Jedi actually contradicting the ways of the Force?

Even Taoism, the religion/philosophy that the Jedi and their code appear to be based on, states that emotions shouldn't be ignored, but accepted. At least, I recall reading that...

 

I think again the Jedi are not about emotions and life but being an extension of the Force...

Basically they are not individuals but beings of light

 

Basically they are not individuals but beings of light

Right... but I don't believe Yoda was simply talking of JEDI as being "luminous beings," but all of sentient life. Hence those people with emotions and little Force-potential are still luminous beings... and they can FEEL.

re: Valyn -- yes, Luke did acquire rational thought, and throw away his lightsaber, right before the Emperor says "So be it, Jedi" and begins the Great Luke BBQ... but I find it amusing that Luke declares himself a Jedi, like his father, IMMEDIATELY AFTER being fed by anger and hatred and acting out of love.

 

A Jedi Shall Not Know Anger, Nor Hatred, Nor Love...

I wonder why they chose to use a much more esoteric style of grammar for noun phrase of the type "no this or no that," especially when begun by "not." It's not incorrect, mind you, to use "nor" in such a case (as opposed to the more common "or") but generally much less common in either written or spoken grammar for such a use. I guess it just sort of makes things more flowery, like Mortal Kombat's "There is no knowledge that is not power" and other similar things.

 

That's because it's a test of his endurance and will. Luke Skywalker was being pushed to the very limits of his anger, rage, love, and pain to see if he as a Jedi could control these emotions and handle them in a crisis.

My belief is the Force not Yoda or Ben was guiding Luke in redeeming Anakin Skywalker and so blinded by love of his sister the Dark Side almost claimed Vader for all eternity.

Remember the Prophecy of bringing Balance to the Force.

Luke was not only being driven by his Love but the very master of reality itself

 

Genghis12:"I guess it just sort of makes things more flowery, like Mortal Kombat's 'There is no knowledge that is not power' and other similar things."

That's my take on it. People will look at it and go "Oh, wow! Cool! Gnarly!" etc etc...

As for the Mortal Kombat line, I've never heard of that. Which game was it from? Or was it from the television series?

I know in the animated Battletech series there was the phrase "Information is ammunition". I really liked that one.

 

The dark side is quite emotional, while the light side is void of emotion. The perfect example of this is how Qui Gon and Darth Maul both act when seperated by the energy wall.


!snap

 

The dark side is quite emotional, while the light side is void of emotion. The perfect example of this is how Qui Gon and Darth Maul both act when seperated by the energy wall.

I got to disagree. I don't think light-siders are void of emotions so much as they are at peace with their emotions. They still have them but they are contained unlike darksiders whose emotions are barely contained.

 

That's pretty much what I ment. I guess void isn't the best word choice.


!snap

 

Agreed.

Do you think Qui Gon wasn't afraid to die? That he didn't know pain? That he wasn't torn by taking Anakin from his mother?

These things are all Jedi and if being like Darth Maul is the price of emotion then I say take away.

But instead I get the ebst of both worlds.

 

Personally I absolutely hate what Lucas has done to the Jedi. dp4m is right - without the Dark Side Luke never would have saved the galaxy to allow us to have the NJO. Besides that, how can we possibly sympathize with the Jedi now?

I grew up during the 80's, and all I ever wanted to be as a child was a Jedi Knight. Who wouldn't want to be? They were pillars of justice and bravery. Never quick to anger but always the first to stand up for those who couldn't stand up for themselves. Their will was indominable and their hearts were kind. How could you not want to be a Jedi?

But now we've been thrown this "Jedi Code" crap. You're telling me that to trust in my ability to be a champion of justice I am required to give up every other ambition in my life to do it? That I have to be a mindless automaton to the will of the Force which even Yoda at 800+ years old still doesn't fully understand? What the hell is this, the GFFA by Carl Marx???

Of course you cannot give yourself over fully to emotion. To do that is to lose your humanity. But neither can you shun emotion completely or the same fate will befall you. A robot is no more a living being than a living being is a robot. You lose your "humanity" (forgive the stereotype) to this cold and calculating race of "machines".

Oddly enough, the Vong are kind of a byproduct of such a backlash. The Vong remind me of what would happen to a culture similar to the Vulcan's from Star Trek after centuries of suppressing their feelings. We've seen in what it can be like for a Vulcan to 'snap' - they become very angry and powerful individuals. What if a similar thing happened to the Vong? They had suppressed all their emotions until one person - someone like Overlord Shimra - used their own god's against them and sort of "pushed" the Vong into a spiral that only led into a path of hatred and anger.

Losing your emotions is forgetting who you are. It's been clinically documented that human beings can not function well without expressing their emotions. People who bottle their feelings have a tendency to explode. Wouldn't it be incredibly ironic if what the Jedi were doing was actually 'creating' more Dark Jedi than preventing them? What if it was the lack of expression over years of time that cracked some of the Jedi. Like Dooku? Like Anakin? Even Sidious himself? Being indifferent means turning a blind eye on both the Light and the Dark.

Luke is the founder of the New Jedi Order. By that prospect alone should we respect his own "faulterings" (if you want to call it a fault) in revealing his own emotions at times, not revive some old Jedi rule about living a life of utter distance from emotion.

To know one's emotions is to know one's self. And if you don't know yourself how can you possibly master something (the Force) that is based entirely internally and feeds directly off the emotions you are using to weild it?

"Something ain't stiring the Kool-Aid man..."

 

Quote:
"Do you think Qui Gon wasn't afraid to die?"

No, he wasn't.

Quote:
"That he didn't know pain?"

Well pain is a physical response, not an emotion.

Quote:
"That he wasn't torn by taking Anakin from his mother? "

Didn't look like it.

 

Yeah because he had a handle on his emotions but he still had them.

 

Hmmm, you know it's funny, for jedi who are not supposed to give in to emotion, they sure do encourage you to feel rather than think. Anyone care to explain this?

 

Yes I can explain it - at least I can explain why they're hypocrits!!! See my post above...

 

Well basically the idea of being a Jedi is a hard life. I'm sorry that's how you feel but it's the right thing to do...

Ironic isn't it.

* You give up your family
* You give up your wife/husband
* You give up your children
* You give up your wealth
* You give up your ability to be judgemental, angry, hateful, and spiteful
* You give up your ambitions
* You give up free time in order to devote yourselves to others

You give all these things up solely because you want to help other people. You give them up so people won't HAVE to give up these things and they don't have to fear Stormtroopers comming into their house and blowing their heads off or people poisoning their air so they can make a quick credit. They Have sacraficed EVERYTHING so that other people may have a good life and the Republic that provides it may continue for 25,000 YEARS...

And what happens?

People hate you for it

George Lucas has shown us the ultimate truth of the Star Wars galaxy and our own

This universe sucks.

Better the Jedi be greedy people who are flawed so people don't have to feel how Very GRATEFUL and AWED they should be. That's my .02

 

This is a tricky topic. But I like it.

On one hand, to give in to your emotions blinds you to reality and will leave you vunerable (the "nyah nyah nyah!" offense works particularly well). On Bespin, Luke's impatience, anger, overconfidence and knee-jerk reactions fail him when he is faced with the cool, collected demeanor of Vader. Maybe if he had played it cool he might not have been beaten so badly.

But later, on the second Death Star, Luke's all-consuming rage helps him to best Vader for the last time. This may seem like a contradiction, but I do not think so. At this point both individuals are "in the red zone" when it comes to conflicting emotions, and the fight becomes a psychological one where Vader is at a disadvantage, from a combatant's point of view: he's not in control of his emotions anymore, nor is his heart really in it. He has no drive and no focus. Luke's head may not be where it should be (just as Obi-Wan's wasn't in TPM), but his heart, his passion, is greater than that of Vader's at the moment. The key to being a 'knight' is for the two to be synchronous.

 

Seriously guys just because Luke beat Vader with a lightsaber the universe was saved? I mean yes it turned out for the best but whose to say he couldn't have proven his good otherwise, survived, perhaps even saved Vader while showing his serenity

 

The answer to why Jedi aren't allowed to mate is easy.

If Jedi could have babies then we'd get jedi sorcerors alot. ;p

a little hint to all those who've read Terry Pratchett's Discwrold novels.