Jedi Baby-Snatchers?

So I'm reading my way through Outbound Flight now... I have to say, the whole concept of Jedi coming in and plucking babies from their families because they're force sensitive and all that... it's rather quite creepy. I've never thought of Jedi as baby-snatchers, but that seems to be what, at least Zahn, is implying. And also this concept that because they are force sensitive they MUST be trained as Jedi... why? Just cause someone is good at something, why should they have to do it? My friend's really good at IT work, but he'd rather spend his time playing guitar... also, why do they assume everyone believes Jedi are the right way to go? Jedism is a religion, they even use the word religion to describe it, why would every parent be willing to give they're kid over to this religion? If someone came by and said to you "Hey, your baby would make a great Rabbi" or something and demanded you gave your baby up for that reason, wouldn't you physically kill that person for trying to take your child away?

The more I read about the Jedi the less I seem to like them...

 

I would be more inclined to abstractly kill them.

 

It's not baby snatching when the conversations go like this:

"We would like to train your child as a Jedi."
"No."
"Okay."

The reason you've never thought of the Jedi as baby snatchers before is because they aren't, except in the minds of one or two authors who seem determined to make them such.

Do the Jedi try to persuade them to reconsider? Certainly, because untrained Force Sensitives can be dangerous (see: Kaj in CNoF, for example), but the final say is with the parents and the Jedi respect their decision.

 

Hmm, perhaps C'Baoth is just nuts (Well, we KNOW he is...), but while Obi-Wan didn't think it was the best course of action, at the same time he wasn't horrified by what C'Baoth was doing. I guess this could just be Zahn's interpretation.

 

I find this to be a little odd as well.

What kind of freedom choice does the child as an individual get?

We, irl, for the most part, decide what we want to do with our lives after school(age 17-18)- a point where we are somewhat mature and educated enough to make the decision.

There's no way the Jedi could raise a child from birth without putting bias into their heads about the Jedi. I guess what I'm trying to say is, they lose a lot of their freedom to explore and choose for their own where they want to take their lives.

 

Isn't that the same with anyone who raises a child? People tend to be the religion of their parents, after all; they tend to ascribe to the same ethics. Life experiences create bias. Being raised by Jedi isn't special in that regard.

 

I didn't see it so much as an example of Traviss-class slant on Zahn's part, as simply that C'baoth was a bit nuts and that the Outbound Flight was an unusual situation to begin with.

 

Raising a child among the Jedi isn't all that different from raising them to believe in a specific religious faith, something that is very common in our world. A lot of people remain in the faith that they were raised in as little kids because they were taught from infancy that their particular faith was the one true faith in the world. All of the complaints that are made about Jedi raising children could be equally applied to any parents in our world who are deeply religious because those children will probably grow up to heavily biased in favor of that particular faith.

 

Point taken here, but for some reason it still feels a bit off.

I think it would sit better with me if the child would stick to mere education(about the force included) till they are mature enough to make the decision to go the Jedi route or not.

 

How often does the conversation go like this:

"We would like to train your child as Jedi."
"You would like to train our child as Jedi."

...?



- The Imperial Ewok

 

Well played

 

Not really... well, at least not as a response to what I said.

He might've well have said that a Jedi would cut the parents down in cold blood on the recieving of a negative answer.

 

i think its a responsibility of the Jedi to at least identify any force sensitive children to give them the proper tools to at least understand their connection to the force and what power they potentially have

this way, they do not hurt themselves by accidentally misusing their power in a way that could have been easily prevented with a 5 minute discussion


now granted, a parent has every right to decline any of this
and i imagine that the jedi would respect any decision like that, plus offer any help for the child regardless

i dont think one book about one semi-crazy jedi is really indicative of the order as a whole
so while we saw one case where a jedi decided to take things way too far and not actually give a choice in the matter, i bet there were a bunch of others where that was not the case

 

I think Qui-gon's conversations with both Shmi and Anakin in Episode I are pretty indicative that jedi were fairly good about letting the parent(s) have the final say in whether or not the child goes on to training.

Besides I highly doubt the Jedi would have been able to maintain the Republic's support if kidnapping were one of their primary activities.

 

were the jedi wrong to take baby ludi? no they thought her mother was dead. they were right not to return ludi to her mother it would have been too dangerous. jovanna had no understanding of the jedi rules once a child is taken they cannot be returned.

 

Wasn't Ludi's mother also much more interested in cashing in on her story than actually getting her kid back?

 

The whole baby snatching thing depends entirely on the author. Most don't care, and so don't talk about it. Those who do deal with it tend to do one of three things:

1) Jedi are good guys. They always ask permission before taking children. Most parents fall all over themselves trying to give their children away. Those children not taken, when mentioned, either become Sith or angsty anti-hero Jedi.

2) We want a moral dilemma, but don't want to upset the status quo, so some sort of controversy is introduced in such a way that the Jedi are still deific, a la baby Ludi.

3) We honestly want to throw doubt on the Jedi, and so depict baby snatching. Karen Traviss, and iirc, Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader

Given that their enforcement is the main thing maintaining Republic power, they could probably get away with just about anything.

 

I think it's just cooler when Jay and Silent Bob go and pick up the Force-sensitive kids.

Too bad that was non-canon.

 

The Jedi had the permission of Shyrne's father and were given no inkling that his mother was still in the picture.

So that was more about painting Roan's dad in a bad light than the Jedi.

 

How in Vader's Wii can the mages be baby snatchers when the parents give their consent?

 

An urban myth doesn't have to be true to be believed thus:

Person 1: Bloggs' kid is going to be a Jedi
Person 4: Bloggs' kid left his parents to be a Jedi
Person 10: Did you hear? Bloggs' kid got grabbed by the Jedi

As for C'Boath on Outbound Flight - he was indeed going nuts. BUT in regard to the lack of challenge, Jedi are trained to be respectful and deferential to Masters, they are deemed to know what they are doing. After all, look what it took for the Jedi to accept Dooku had gone bad, C'Boath is a similar case.

 

We also need to consider that the Jedi of the OJO were not supposed to marry, so I assume they just wandered around and spread their genes here and there (GL is a hippie dude ). If they are not supposed to have families the Jedi order would die out after a generation or two if they weren't going around "collecting" force sensitive children. While doing so, some Jedi might respect the will of the parents more than other Jedi. Also, not so wealthy parents might be more eager to give a child to the Jedi and se it as an honor than wealthy parents.

Don't blame the authors, the concept is faulty. You need to breed and raise to fill your ranks or recruit externally. Depending on your recruiting success you'll do so more or less agressively.

 

I prefer to think of the Force and genetics sort of like red hair or blue eyes, it pops up every now and again. IIRC. there are quite a number of cases of non-Force sensitive parents producing a Force-sensitive child. I guess though if one parent was Force sensitive, they would have a chance.

There are excaptions though, look at Granta Omega.

And we forget to think that for quite a long time Jedi were seen as heroes. Perhaps parents would be honoured that their child should be considered for Jedi training. A good example of this is Roan Shryne, Dad said yes but mum said no.

 

Personally I'd be less worried about the Jedi turning up to take my kid than the One Sith, who would be far less likely to care about your opinion than just cut your head off if you objected. Maybe even if you didn't. Whether or not the Jedi ever mind tricked parents, you can be sure as anything that the Sith most certainly did.