Lit Are you okay with how the new canon enforced celibacy in the new Jedi Order?

Personally, I am not. Something about it seems out of character for Luke. Besides, many of the ancient Jedi like Nomi Sunrider had relationships. I understand the challenge involved, for it didn’t work out for Jedi like Satele or Jaina. However, I’m a fan of Mara Jade and her relationship with Luke. My sister-figure just read the Thrawn Trilogy and Union. She likes the idea, too. Plus, I believe one of the most egregious acts of the new canon was the lack of Mara in general. Her resistance against Yuuzhan Vong disease was amazing and admirable. I actually drew inspiration from her fight with Jacen in Sacrifice for a duel in my own novel. Mara’s banter with Luke was something else.

Personally, I think Luke’s choice to allow the New Jedi Order’s members to have relationships was a correction of the previous Order’s error. The secrecy and tension of Anakin’s relationship with Padme was key to enabling Sidious’ pushing Anakin toward the dark side. Due to its covert nature, Anakin couldn’t go to the Jedi for help. Additionally, we see Obi-Wan inclined toward romantic relationships, and yet he never follows through. I believe Obi-Wan is an example of how Jedi of the old order could have handled relationships.

Of course, you all are entitled to your own opinions vis-a-vis this topic. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

 

No. It’s tremendously frustrating seeing the prequel Jedi taken as representative of how the Jedi are supposed to operate at all times and in all incarnations, as opposed to misguided and overzealous and indirectly responsible for the rise of the Empire due to the restrictiveness of their religious dogma and organizational structure. It has to be some kind of recency bias; the prequels and TCW are fresher in the zeitgeist than Return of the Jedi, the whole point of which was that Luke defying the wisdom of his teachers and refusing to let go of his attachment to his father was what allowed the Jedi to return.

It’s especially distressing (although maybe not surprising) to see Lucas himself envisioning a post-ROTJ future where Luke never takes a wife and spends his time trying to rebuild the Jedi by indoctrinating infants. I find it impossible to believe that this was the intention of the counter-cultural Lucas of the ’70s, who had the day won in the original trilogy by the new generation rejecting the worldview of the old and choosing love over passion-less non-attachment.

 

Are you guys mistaking legends with new canon? In canon we don't really know what Luke's opinion on the matter was. We have only gotten one comic mini so far regarding his order and they didn't delve into romantic relationships too much during it (all we saw was that the students seemed to be good friends).

In High Republic though there technically was a celibacy rule it really wasn't enforced too much and several members were involved at one time or another.

 

I can’t speak to the comics, but Luke pushes the non-attachment rule hard in The Book of Boba Fett, and in TLJ he argues for the end of the Jedi based on the PT order’s failure to stop Palpatine, as if any new Jedi must by necessity operate exactly the same as they did in the prequels and he would be powerless to institute any changes or reforms.

 

I’m glad that Luke Skywalker is a Jedi and not a revisionist yeah.

 

Yes I like it mutch better, they are jedi knights, space munks. They are above thinking about relationships and kids, GL, Pablo and Filoni all agreed on Luke never getting married or having kids. The non-attatchment rule is part of being a jedi and has been since the beginning.

Kanan Jarrus is the best we see off this, he cares for Hera and loves her, but dont let his attachment get in the way of his jedi role. Him having a kid is concidence and not something he knew about and he wou det let that get in the way of him bring a jedi. Ezra is being the same way at the end, Ahsoka still feels this even after she saw the jedi orders failure.

 

Really it only has been since 2002.

 

Im talking about in-universe, but outside it, im sure GL has always thought of the jedi like this as they are portrayed in the OT with both Ben Kenobi and master Yoda. Both of them seems to go the non-attatchment rule.

 

I don’t know, romantic love just never comes up as an issue for the Jedi in the OT or TPM. We know that Lucas put the kibosh on certain things in the pre-prequel EU and Jedi being in relationships and getting married wasn’t one of them. I would guess it was just something he came up with while working on the plot for AOTC.

Regardless, attachment in general isn’t something the OT holds up as anathema to being a Jedi, as it’s what allows Luke to redeem Vader and defeat the Empire. Ben’s and Yoda’s non-attachment prevented them from seeing the good in Vader; ultimately their worldview was proven wrong, and Luke was justified in his decision to ignore them.

The inference I drew from this, especially in light of how the Jedi were depicted in the prequels, was that Luke would forge a new path for the Jedi going forward, where love and attachment were embraced and only the greed and possessiveness that destroyed Anakin were safeguarded against. I guess Lucasfilm saw it differently.

 

Even with Anakin Skywalker ans he redeemed him, he saw that it was his fathers attachment that led him ti the dark side and almost Luke in ROTJ when Vader mentions his sister. Both Kenobi and Yoda forged Luke as their weapon against the Sith, Yoda and Kenobi are right in ESB. Sure they might have mistaken Anakin, but that dosent mean Luke will try to be the big revisionist and change them, GL and Filoni seems to go with this.

 

I'm fine with it. Celibacy didn't lead to Anakin's or the Jedi's fall. Anakin's egotism and selfish attachment and possessive love did that.

The Jedi's blindness to the Sith Lord in the midst and his machinations via the Clone Wars wasn't due to them disallowing their members to get hitched.

Had Anakin Skywalker been allowed the marry Padme openly, he still would have fallen. Because it wasn't their secret marriage that lured him to the dark side, it was Anakin's unwillingness to accept that Padme *might* die. Because he "couldn't live without her," and it set him on a course of doing literally whatever it took to attain the power to "save her".... which led directly to her death.

None of that changes if he can openly marry her, if Obi-Wan were married to Satine too! Yoda's advice to "train yourself to let go of all you're afraid to lose" remains that same. Celibacy or not.

Stang, the Jedi Order didn't care that Anakin and Padme were knocking boots! They cared that he let his attachment to her distract him from his duties, the biggest of them being not giving in to fear, greed, anger and hatred!

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I actually think that the idea of Jedi not having attachments is a good thing for several reasons. For starters, let's say that a Jedi had a family, and that family was murdered, said Jedi would probably want to take action. This could actually be very bad for the Galaxy at large because you have a person with space magic running around the Galaxy out for blood.

Now, look at another task that the Jedi are supposed to have. They are peacekeepers and are supposed to settle political disputes, which means being neutral. By the Jedi taking that vow of attachments, especially family attachments, they are able to do their job without a bias.

Jedi are not like regular people, they are given this great immense power, and with it comes a set of restrictions that they must follow. Sure, attachments can make one stronger, but they can also lead to darkness, so it's honestly just better for the Jedi to have no attachments period than to run the risk.

 

jedi have sex in High republic

 

Makes you wonder about Old Republic.

 

I'll have to watch that episode of BOBF he is in again but I'm not sure we can make many conclusions about his view on the topic of romantic relationships when he is talking to a being that isn't even old enough to talk yet.

And yes Jedi exploring their sexuality seemed to be a very common occurrence in the High Republic era.

 

I think the non-attatchment rule was more open in past then in prequels era, when they were more strict about the rule.

 

I think it's relevant to make the distinction between celibacy(no marriage) and chastity(no sex). Jedi are celibate, they are not necessarily chaste. This is according Lucas himself.

I think people get really tripped up on this, because western culture, especially, has made romantic love sort of the highest ideal... and it really doesn't have to be. Nor should it necessarily be in this case. Jedi have a higher calling to serve the will of the Force by serving all beings. That familial bonds could become a hindrance to that is clear, it becomes even more pronounced when those familial attachments lead down the dark path.

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I disagree. Luke was tempted by the dark side but he did what Anakin couldn’t: he resisted temptation and refused to fall, without surrendering his attachment to Vader or to his friends. The danger isn’t attachment, the danger is possessiveness, obsession, fearfulness of letting go. Anakin didn’t fall because he loved Padmé, he fell because his love was selfish, and the strictures of the Jedi order drove him to Palpatine.

The throne room scene in ROTJ and the scene in Palpatine’s office in ROTS are intentional mirrors of each other. Anakin and Luke are presented with the same temptation: make a deal with the devil to save someone they care about from death. Unlike his father, Luke rejected the Emperor’s offer but he didn’t forsake his attachments to do so. Indeed it was his refusal to relinquish his attachment to Vader that saved them all. The ending of ROTJ proves that the PT order was wrong: attachment doesn’t have to be a liability, it can also be a Jedi’s strength.

The proper term would be “reformer.” Revisionism would be looking at the role the Jedi played in the rise of the Empire and Anakin’s fall and deciding that they bear no responsibility for what happened and no systemic change to Jedi doctrine is necessary to prevent something similar from happening again.

 

I think this is really an important distinction and I also approve of the Jedi being celibate monks. It gives them more of a mystical aura and I don't think this should be something wrong with the Jedi that needs to be overcome. I did like the old Legends stories with the Jedi having families but we've already got those stories and I'd like for the new canon to stick to the Jedi order and it's traditions as they were established in the prequels. I also think that we could see other force traditions that are light side but not follow the same doctrine. But for me the no attachment rule is a central part of the Jedi doctrine and giving it up would make them something else.
I personally also don't think that the Jedi played much of a role in Anakins fall, to me this always feels a bit like victim blaming. Anakin was just a very toxic and emotionally immature person. Which doesn't mean the Jedi are perfect, had they sent him to therapy when he was young he might have worked through those issues. But those issues were also the exact reason why they originally refused to train him because they recognized that the Order wasn't right for him. So if they made a mistake it was not sticking with that decision. He would probably have ended up with Palpatine earlier in that case but that discussion is moot anyway.
So honestly I think the whole no-attachment rule gives the Jedi a certain mystique that they would lose if they had families and we'd probably see whole dynasties of Jedi, which I don't particularly like either.
My take might also be heavily coloured by growing up during the PT and Clone Wars, which means for me this will probably always be the ultimate take on the Jedi. If they show a Jedi Order open to relationships that is not a deal breaker to me. But showing the Jedi as examples that you can also find spiritual fullfillment beyond romantic love and families is a take I definetely like better.

 

Neither the Old Jedi Order or Luke Skywalker believe love always leads to the dark side in the canonical Star Wars works. In George Lucas’ descriptions of Anakin he distinguished between possessive and non possessive love. He doesn’t think love requires fear of change. He also doesn’t believe ordinary humans have to give up attachments or be free of fear. But these things are impermissible for a Jedi in the movies (examples in Yoda’s dogma in The Phantom Menace and The Empire Strikes Back)

per GL “ Anakin wants to be a Jedi, but he cannot let go of the people he loves in order to move forward in his life. The Jedi believe that you don’t hold on to things, that you let things pass through you, and if you can control your greed, you can resolve the conflict not only in yourself but in the world around you, because you accept the natural course of things. Anakin’s inability to follow this basic guideline is at the core of his turn to the dark side.”

The traditions of the Jedi are the result of thousands of years of societal evolution in a galaxy with a small minority of force capable individuals. The Jedi are required to live a more detached lifestyle than a normal human because they wield powers of the Force.

I don’t personally believe in the Jedi religion or the religions on earth it’s based on. But I see Luke as someone interested in carrying on the traditions of the Jedi and the lessons he learned from Yoda.

 

And that is honestly one of the least thought out ideas Lucas ever had. Maybe if George had thought about it for just a couple seconds he would have realized that his idea there was pretty much just condoning one night stands. Yep no relationships for Jedi. But going to the club and hooking up with a hottie...........no problem.

Honestly given that this is supposed to be a franchise for all ages it is just more proper to keep on going with the assumption that sex=relationships than to go with whatever was going through GL's mind at that moment.

I give Lucas props for creating the franchise but at the same time when you leave him completely unchecked he doesn't always come up with the best ideas. We are talking about a guy that created the scenario for it to be acceptable for Jedi to take children away from their families.

 

I mean why not, one way is doing it like Rae Averos and doing it with no attachment, or like Kanan who does it with compassion and healthy attachment similar to High republic jedi. As long as it dosent go against you being a jedi, Kanan and Rae still functioned as jedi under the rule.

Luke, Ahsoka, Cal, Ezra and Rey seems to work with this rule. Have the non-attatchment rule, but also have your circle of friends and family who you have compassions for as long as it dosent go against you as a jedi.

Jedi can have relationships and long as they Following the non-attatchment rule. They can have friends and family. Lovers and one night stands. Girlfriends, wifes and children would be breaking it. Kanan's relationship with Hera is what I think the jedi would be ok with.

 

This is exactly correct. It’s not attachment itself that leads to the dark side, it’s the terrible things that people choose to do in order to gain the power they need to keep their attachment. Like Jolee said, that’s what the Jedi should train their students to avoid, not the attachments themselves. Especially if we’re sticking to PT Jedi traditionalism where every Jedi is inducted into the order as an infant without ever consenting to the self-denial of that lifestyle.

That was the dogma of the Jedi during the PT but it’s not necessarily true. Obi-Wan had attachments, Ahsoka had attachments, Kanan and Ezra had attachments. None of them were evil. Attachment in and of itself doesn’t dictate whether or not you turn to the dark side, choice is the determining factor. PT-era Jedi had attachments but it was basically “don’t ask, don’t tell.” The difference is, none of them turned to evil to keep their attachments. Anakin did. He became angry, jealous, and possessive and once he had power, he only wanted more. That’s the slippery slope of the dark side, not accepting the emotional attachments innate to your own humanity.

Yoda didn’t teach him about non-attachment, that wasn’t added to canon until Episode II. I don’t see Luke as being wed to Jedi tradition because his own training was completely untraditional. He came to the Jedi as an adult, he completed his training in like a week, he maintained attachments to his family, and he won by ignoring his masters. Luke of all people should know that you don’t have to rigidly adhere to ancient hidebound traditions to be a great Jedi.

 

I kind of love that the Jedi traditions and strictures present a serious culture class for most people that love Star Wars and might want to see themselves as a Jedi. No, most of us wouldn't want to adhere to that particular understanding of the teaching, but we can learn something from the principle of non-attachment.

It's one shared by most religions and spiritual disciplines in this world. Most of them don't take it to the monastic celibacy level, but many of them do. My own tradition actively forbids celibacy, yet non-attachment or possessive love that doesn't accept the impermanence of things is perhaps not forbidden but certainly very discouraged. Especially in the mystical path. Still, one can marry and practice non-attachment and acceptance of death when it is time.

There's obviously no Earthly religion or organization like the Jedi Order, but I think we can at least come to an understanding that if there were a group of people capable of superhuman feats, telekinesis, mind control, that are able to take on battalions of our most powerful militaries we'd all be comforted if they had strict ethical guidelines and programs of collective and individual discipline. Celibacy being one of them, not because they might produce superhuman dynasties but because their familial/romantic attachments could lead to the emotion turmoil that sets them on a path of destruction that hurts potentially millions of us or destroys entire cities, nations or continents.

The Jedi actually have a pretty decent failsafe that the Avengers, X-Men or Justice League do not.

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I’m fine with it, provided it’s criticised within the narrative as a fundamental flaw of the Jedi ala The Night’s Watch in ASOIAF.

Otherwise I think the message of “you can only be a good, selfless person if you abstain from relationships and family” is a horrible thing to be teaching to kids.