PT Intentional or unintentional?

I have two questions about things that GL may or may not have intended.

1. In Attack of The Clones, we see a fair bit of very casual force usage from Jedi masters that seems a little lazy, character wise. Obi Wan grabbing the map ball at the end of the Youngling scene, Yoda with his lightsaber at the start of the Dooku fight, and Yoda grabbing his cane at the end.
Considering Anakin says that Obi-Wan would be grumpy about his force fruit move, is Lucas saying something about the Jedi?
We know things like Obi losing his lightsaber were intentional examples of a similar thing on GL's part after all.
One point against my point though is that Hayden has said that that force fruit scene had ad-libbing in it since GL hadn't been happy with what he wrote.

AND

2. Is Obi-Wan's infamous "Absolutes" statement actually hypocritical *on purpose* by GL?
Maybe GL didn't intend for that line itself to be an absolute, but he sure did have the Jedi throwing around absolutes in the PT ("You know my lady, Count Dooku was once a Jedi...").

I think my first question is just overthinking something that GL thought looked cool, but my second question I think is more plausible.
Thoughts?

 

"His abilities have made him, well... arrogant."

"Yes, yes. A flaw more and more common among Jedi. Too sure of themselves they are, even the older, more experienced ones."

Intentional.

The operative word here is "deals in". Vader gives Padme and Obi-Wan no ground for negotiation, for compromise, his deal is simply "If you're not with me, then you're my enemy," which he demonstrates by trying to murder his wife when she tells him he is "going down a path [she] can't follow." The sight of Obi-Wan made her his enemy, Obi-Wan's allegiance to the Republic made him his enemy; Obi-Wan's statement is just recognizing this.

 

the examples you chose are all used for practical uses. Sure Yoda technically COULD bend down and pick up his cane and Obi-Wan could walk a couple of feet to pick up the map ball but you could say they are flexing the force muscle so to speak, or doing a force workout. In other words practicing. Anakin on the other hand was showing off to impress a girl. THAT is what Obi-Wan would have been grumpy about. Though in Anakin's mind Obi-Wan is the grumpy dad who gets mad 'just because' totally missing the point. Remember what Padme said earlier "all mentors have a way of seeing more faults than we would like, it's the only way we grow". This was after Anakin himself accused him of being "overly critical". This was simply Anakin reinstating his belief.

As for the "only a Sith deals in absolutes" being itself an absolute I don't think was intentional, just an awkward consequence of a point Lucas was trying to make.

 

He's saying something about what Anakin was doing that he shouldn't, which was using the Force to show off. That's not what Obi-Wan or Yoda were doing.

No. That criticism is people going out of their way to ignore the context and Obi-Wan's main point.

Anakin says "If you are not with me, then you are against me."

That's an ultimatum. That's Anakin's new way of dealing with others. The Sith way.

Obi-Wan's reply of "only a Sith deals in absolutes" is, paraphrasing: "Look what you've become, only a Sith would say that". He's contrasting what he was (a Jedi) against what he became (a Sith). It's not to be taken literally, as if dealing in absolutes is something exclusive to the Sith.

The Sith do deal in absolutes, and Anakin making that statement is showing what he has become. Obi-Wan is exposing that to his face.

 

Obi-Wan's statement was poorly phrased but a valid point. The use of ''only'' did make it sound like an absolute but he's correct to say that the Sith philosophy is ultimately an absolutist one - it's my way, or nothing. Dooku in the ROTS novelisation has a more elaborate version whereby he divides people into ''useful'' or ''disposable'' with only Sidious in another category as being simply too powerful to confront either way.

 

I think there may be some irony there. After all, Obi-Wan ultimately leaves Anakin to die because he believes Darth Vader has consumed him completely, which turns out to be wrong. "Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny." Not quite true either. Perhaps the Sith aren't the only ones dealing in absolutes.

 

Is that really true though?
I don't think there was a specific reason given for why Obi Wan left Anakin behind. It could just as well be that he thought he was dying anyway, and that there was nothing he could do for him one way or the other.

And I don't think that the dominate your destiny part has turned out to be wrong either. Anakin's destiny was dominated by the dark path he had taken, even right to the very end. It doesn't mean that there can't be good in you, or that you will ever only do dark deeds, just that the darkness will be dominant. In the end, Anakin needed to kill someone, and ended up dying due to doing so. Both hardly positive outcomes when judged on their own. He couldn't return to who he was, merely start making amends.

It is a bit of a wishy-washy statement though, because it isn't even defined what "starting down the dark path" means. Obi Wan lashed out in anger against Maul after Qui Gon had died, Luke lashed out against Vader when Vader mentioned turning Leia, both would technically be enough to start on a dark path. Seeing how the darkness didn't dominate their destiny, it seems it needs to be more of a trend, and a specific agreement to take that approach instead of backing down again (which both Luke and Obi Wan did).

 

I see no reason to believe it wasn't entirely intentional. Lucas is extremely clever with his dialogue. Here he specifically says Sith "deal" in absolutes. Jedi believe in absolutes like the Sith being evil while the Sith deal in absolutes where good and evil are merely points of view.

Obi-Wan: Anakin, Chancellor Palpatine in evil.

Vader: From my point of view the Jedi are evil

Obi-Wan: Well then you are lost!

Yet we know in Star Wars there is good and there is evil. Many truths a person believes in do depend on your point of view as Obi-Wan himself tells Luke but things like the evil of the Sith who want to throw the Force and therefore all existence into darkness isn't one of them.

 

That's why context is important (nay, essential), otherwise the point is missed and we get stuff like this being thrown around:

"No, try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try." - Yoda

OMG!!! Yoda is dealing with ABSOLUTES!!! Jedi are HYPOCRITES!!! LOOK how flawed and wrong they are!!! FLAWED! WRONG! (slightly exaggerated, but sadly not by a large margin)

 

Obi-Wan watched the system he devoted his life to become an Empire capable of destroying entire planets, spent twenty years in exile, then died at the hand of his brother. Luke saw his nephew slaughter an entire generation of Jedi, and the experience left him convinced that the Jedi Order needed to end.

I'd say both of their destinies were dominated by the dark side; it doesn't have to mean they "fell", but that the consequences of their darkness will be with them forever.

 

The Jedi believe in good and evil, but they ideally also recognize that there is good contained within evil just as there is evil contained within good. The Jedi don't believe in shades of gray, but they also don't believe in absolutes.

That's how yin and yang work, after all:



See? No absolutes, but also no gray. It is possible to understand that good and evil exist in all things in different measures, while also maintaining a clear view of what good and evil are.

When Anakin killed the Younglings, for instance, he was doing it because he thought it would help save Padme's life. There was a good motive driving the act, but that doesn't mean the act itself is anything other than evil. However, it does mean Anakin is potentially redeemable.

I've read a lot of interpretations claiming the Tao is all about shades of gray, but from my reading I'm not sure I agree. I think there's a moral clarity to the Tao which is not contradicted by its unity of opposites.

 

Good point but in that case they have an "absolute" clarity on that view of good and evil. Either way the point is the Sith deal with good and evil as a point of view when it suits them as opposed to the Jedi.

 

When did Kylo ever slaughter "entire generations" of Jedi when in the movie Luke is the last one left? Or is this some EU thing?

 

AN entire generation. The one Luke was training. We see the aftermath of that slaughter in Rey's visions in both movies.

 

Point 1- That’s just Obi-Wan and Yoda making things convenient for themselves. No different than you and I using a controller to turn the console off, when we could just as well walk a few feet, look for the off switch and turn it off there. Anakin was using it to show off. The latter is what Obi-Wan frowns upon.

Point 2- As stated, the point of that dialogue is that only the Sith deals in black and white. While that itself is an absolute statement, the point was that unlike the Jedi who would try to negotiate, the Sith is all “you’re either with me or you’re my enemy.” Anakin made this clear to both Padmé and Obi-Wan. No negotiation, no compromise. You either stand with him or get crushed.

Though it’s prudent to point out that the Jedi don’t really attempt to reason with the Sith (well, for understandable reasons) — it’s always “Sith? You die!” So there’s a bit of hypocrisy there, but let’s not lose the point of what Obi-Wan was trying to say.

 

Not quite true. Windu & Co. tried to arrest (not kill) Sidious twice. And the previous confrontations with Maul and Tyranus weren't necessarily aimed to kill either. Obi-Wan had no choice but to kill Maul and Anakin was convinced by Palpatine to kill Dooku.

It was only after they learned the full extent of the Sidious' web, when the Sith were in complete control of the government and virtually destroyed the Jedi Order, that Yoda made the statement: "Destroy the Sith we must."

And for all intents and purposes, destroyed they should be.

 

One generation. Not multiple. Most of Luke's students were killed, with the rest joining Ben and the First Order.