PT Jedi Order was consumed by the dark side

Lucas basically spells it out for the audience in the PT that the Jedi are not perfect and they have a hand in their own downfall. I am continually stunned when I meet people surprised by this notion. It's one of the major themes of the prequels -- how good people can either go bad or, through their own mistakes, let things crumble. It's right there in the films.

 

Yes, exactly! It’s always odd to me when people say the prequels are bad because the Jedi are shown to be imperfect and make mistakes. It’s like there's this idea that the Jedi are perfect noble heroes, and any mistakes they make are Lucas’s mistakes - as if he was trying to portray the Jedi as perfectly wise and good and flawless, and just failed spectacularly because he sucks and the prequels suck. But that wasn’t what Lucas was doing with the story at all. The Jedi weren’t perfect, and that’s… pretty important in the story. They weren’t evil either, but they were flawed and even though they meant well they made mistakes. That’s one of the things that make the story so interesting. Perfectly good heroes vs. utterly loathsome villains wouldn’t be a very compelling story, imo.

 

In the new canon, it more or less states the Jedi Order were corrupted by the dark side.

 

Where and how is that stated?

 

jaex wrote

It’s like there's this idea that the Jedi are perfect noble heroes, and any mistakes they make are Lucas’s mistakes - as if he was trying to portray the Jedi as perfectly wise and good and flawless, and just failed spectacularly.

But that's exactly what he did back in 1977 with ANH. Just as a friendly reminder: The 1970's weren't plastered with role models left and right. Heroes were essentially anti-heroes and audiences were getting fed up with that. I also can't recall any real life personalities that would have qualified as heroes, essentially it was a miserable time.

With Star Wars George Lucas returned hope to the world and gave audiences a father figure / mentor / hero or whatever you'd like to call it with the character of Obi-Wan Kenobi, played by Sir Alec Guinness who had played before characters of unwavering integrity (e.g. Bridge Over the River Kwai, Damn the Defiant, Dr. Zhivago) and/or cunningness (e.g. Lord Feisal in Lawrence of Arabia). Apparently a very deliberate choice.

I can only speak for myself but I accepted everything Kenobi said in ANH in good faith (and while I accepted the premise change of Lucas turning Vader into Luke's father I didn't like the ramifications it had for the Kenobi character).

So yes, from an OT point of view the Jedi were indeed the guardians of peace in justice in the Old Republic, because that was George Lucas message to us as the audience.
Were they infallible?

BEN I have something here for you. Your
father wanted you to have this when
you were old enough, but your uncle
wouldn't allow it. He feared you
might follow old Obi-Wan on some
damned-fool idealistic crusade like
your father did.

Apparently not. Ben Kenobi uses Uncle Owen's derrogatory description of a "damned-fool idealistic crusade" (without rebunking it), which suggests that in hindsight he probably agrees that the Jedi also did some foolish things in their time. Which suggested to us at the audience that a Jedi like Obi-Wan Kenobi was capable of self-criticism (I for one would have loved to see an idealistic crusade to free slaves with all the positive and negative side effects this might have had on the Jedi Order. IMHO, Lucas really missed a great opportunity here).

Gamiel

Check out post # 14 of this thread: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/jedi-order-was-consumed-by-the-dark-side.50039234/#post-53330989

("consumed", not "corrupted"!)

 

That's a pretty big leap to make off of a line that Obi-Wan says in reference to himself, in present day, with the benefit of experience. But the Jedi being corrupted isn't something that would be something to talk about in that situation. I don't think his statements equal that the jedi are perfect and infallible. Have a very great day!

God bless you! God bless everyone!

 

dagenspear wrote

But the Jedi being corrupted isn't something that would be something to talk about in that situation.

But that remains the essential question, were they really corrupted and consumed by the dark side as Yoda claimed in "Shroud of Darkness":

EZRA: "Yoda, you're powerful. You must know a way to destroy Vader and his Inquisitors."

YODA: "Padawan, thousands of Jedi once there were. Then came war. In our arrogance, join the conflict swiftly we did. Fear, anger, hate. Consumed by the dark side the Jedi were."

EZRA: "Was it wrong for the Jedi to fight? Is it wrong for me to protect my friends?"

YODA: "Wrong? Hmm. A long time, fought I did. Consumed by fear I was, though see it I did not."

EZRA: "You were afraid?"

YODA: "Yes, afraid. Hmm, surprised are you? A challenge lifelong it is, not to bend fear into anger. There's still a way."

EZRA: "Yeah, but Master Yoda, how are we supposed to win if we don't fight back?"

YODA: "Win? Win, hmm. How Jedi choose to win, the question is."

EZRA: "We already chose. We're going to fight."

The problem is mostly that Filoni seems to suggest through pre-OT / Rebels Yoda (!) that fighting in general is bad for a Jedi, but ignores all the statements of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda in the actual OT, which suggested to Luke and the audience that Luke had to fight!

Either Kenobi and Yoda didn't believe what they were saying / hadn't still learned from past experience or were deliberating applying reverse psychology on Luke, i.e. telling him to do something (but actually encouraging him to do the opposite, knowing he wouldn't listen):

ESB:

YODA Stopped they must be. On this
all depends. Only a fully trained
Jedi Knight with the Force as his
ally will conquer Vader and his
Emperor.

ROJ:

YODA (shakes his head)
Ohhh. Not yet. One thing remains: Vader. You must confront Vader. Then,
only then, a Jedi will you be. And confront him you will.

LUKE I can't kill my own father.

BEN Then the Emperor has already won. You were our only hope.

Of course we could argue the semantics of "conquer", "confront" and "kill" but from what I've read everywhere, everybody in the audience seemed to expect the outcome of his confrontation with either Luke or Vader being dead.

And while that line was deleted, it clearly shows us the mindset of Obi-Wan Kenobi prior to 1983 and according to Lucas and Kasdan:

BEN She hasn't been trained in the ways of the Jedi the way you have,
Luke... but the Force is strong with her, as it is with all of your
family. There is no avoiding the battle. You must face and destroy
Vader!

 

Star Wars Rebels. Yoda's words to Ezra.

 

re: what Obi-Wan says about the Jedi in the OT

Not everything a character says is gospel truth - you have to consider who says what, and in what context. Characters lie, misunderstand things, or look at something from their point of view while someone else’s point of view could be totally different, and of course the truth might be something else entirely too. And even if there exists a character who functions as a reliable authorial mouthpiece in the story, would Obi-Wan “Certain Point of View” Kenobi really be that character?

In the scene in ANH where Obi-Wan tells Luke about the Jedi, it’s natural that he wouldn’t get into a discussion about the failures of the Jedi with Luke when he wants to recruit the kid to become a Jedi and defeat Vader. And he isn’t even lying, he’s just not telling everything there is to know about the Jedi. It’s perfectly reasonable to say that the Jedi were guardians of peace and justice. They were. They just weren’t always perfect and they made mistakes.

 

Again, Yoda says how a Jedi chooses to fight and win, is the question. Ezra thinks that the only way to win is to kill the Sith and the Inquisitors. He still wants revenge for the death of his parents because he hasn't let go of them. He's still attached to his past. Luke thinks that the only way to win is to kill the Sith. Both have to understand that just outright fighting the Sith is not the solution. But how they approach it is. Luke chooses to win by not killing his father and by stopping the fight. Ezra must learn to win in the same manner, or suffer the fate of all Sith.

 

**** it, this really shouldn't be a question.



No.

 

darth-sinister wrote

Both have to understand that just outright fighting the Sith is not the solution. But how they approach it is. Luke chooses to win by not killing his father and by stopping the fight. Ezra must learn to win in the same manner, or suffer the fate of all Sith.

How could Luke possibly understand this, if everything Yoda and Kenobi told him (confront - conquer - kill) suggested the opposite?

Only if both spent considerable time on Tatooine and Dagobah perfecting their skills in reverse psychology, it would make sense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_psychology

 

When in battle, the jedi have killed. I wouldn't say that that's connected to whether or not they're any more or less fallible than their past version. Have a very great day!

God bless you! God bless everyone!

 

It's less reverse psychology and more that Luke has to figure it out for himself. This is why it is his Jedi trial. He has to face the Sith and defeat them, but he also has to accept that his father must die. But how it all goes down is up to Luke to figure out. It isn't that Luke shouldn't kill his father, but Luke seeking out an alternative to fighting. Once he realizes that Vader is at Endor and is coming for him, Luke finally realizes what he has to do. He has to try and save Anakin and bring him back from the dark side. He does not go aboard the Death Star to fight him. He goes there to fight for his soul and his father's soul. When Mace went to confront Palpatine, he went there to stop him from destroying the Republic, but he went out of fear. He was afraid to lose the Republic and he was angry at the revelation that Darth Sidious was Sheev Palpatine and had been playing them all this time. He went in there to win that fight, be it by arresting him or killing him. This is what Palpatine counted on and why he goaded Mace into killing him, so that Anakin would make his choice.

Yes. They went to Geonosis out of fear. They withheld that their powers were diminishing from the Senate out of fear. They used the Clonetroopers knowing that they did not authorize their creation and that the Sith had, because of fear. They were willing to spy on the Chancellor because they feared that he was corrupt and went against their principles by justifying it as war. They went to arrest him rather than trying to figure out a more logical solution to dealing with him. There's a reason why Barriss said that the Jedi were being tainted.

 

Yes. They went to Geonosis out of fear. They withheld that their powers were diminishing from the Senate out of fear. They used the Clonetroopers knowing that they did not authorize their creation and that the Sith had, because of fear. They were willing to spy on the Chancellor because they feared that he was corrupt and went against their principles by justifying it as war. They went to arrest him rather than trying to figure out a more logical solution to dealing with him. There's a reason why Barriss said that the Jedi were being tainted.[/quote]

Well, I know the Order was being corrupted by darkness but alot of times it's people who consider the Jedi to be just as evil during this era as the Sith. My no was a response to that.

 

I hate the whole concept of blaming the Jedi anyway... It's futile and only erodes the characters and leaves no real progression in the end.

 

I never got this impression from the PT and I'm confident that this is not what George Lucas tried to convey. Replace the word "fear" with "prudence" and it makes a lot more sense, IMHO.

What Barriss (of all the people...) criticized was that the Jedi had somewhat lost their ways. And that apparently met with the approval of George Lucas, yet that' still no indication he would have agreed to the extent where Filoni tried to take this with "Shroud of Darkness".

 

I slept (yet another) night over the issue and perhaps had an epiphany. I also think Filoni would be chuckling reading our discussion and probably intervene by telling us "Guys, you are taking this way too literally".

Like I said before, the "consumed by the dark side" statement comes from a Yoda almost 20 years after events of RotS (he had plenty of time to reflected on events in the PT), but just 3 years before everything he tells and suggests to Luke together with Obi-Wan which is utterly incompatible with what he tells Ezra.

Remember Luke's very first Jedi lesson?

BEN You must do what you feel is right,
of course.

And, of course, Luke feels it right to talk and turn his father, rather than to kill him, yet Obi-Wan and Ben encourage him to do so (hence my reverse psychology argument).

In contrast, Ezra feels it to be right to fight and destroy the Sith, but with that mindset there is a high probability he will turn to the dark side, so Yoda needs to tell him something that has the weight to make Ezra reconsider his approach.
So he exaggerates what contributed to the Jedi Order's demise.

Essentially, the role Yoda plays in Rebels has characteristics of an oracle. I don't think this is coincidence. Remember the Oracle from the Matrix Trilogy (BTW, there is a new thread in the SW Saga section...)?

In the first film she offers him "crap" (symbolized by brown cookies) before she tells him the truth in the sequel (symbolized by red wrapped candy). But everybody in the world of the Matrix seems to agree that whatever the Oracle tells a person is exactly what that person needs to hear at a given moment in time to act accordingly.

So it comes down to this: Yoda's "consumed by the dark side" statement is exactly what Ezra needs to hear, yet it doesn't have to be an accurate summary of what actually transpired in the PT or what Yoda really believes in.

Is that a palatable interpretation we could all agree upon?

 

What if it was?

Why not? Do we not see that in the films? That the Jedi are doing things that go against their principles? Do you not see Obi-wan hesitate for a moment when Anakin confronts him on this? Yoda says that their actions could lead to a dark and dangerous path. Lucas pointed out that when good and evil become mixed, everything is gray. Why not take it to its logical conclusion, which is that the Jedi way had become wrong? Think about it, Luke only fights in the war until he's been trained. Then he's assisting, but not leading the conflict. Kanan is adamant that he and Ezra not fight the Empire the way the Jedi of old did.

 

Where? They are the guardians of justice and peace and it's their duty to protect the Republic, Yoda says that the Jedi will do their duty. All that Mace said was essentially that they are policemen, not military personnel.

Where are the evil actions of the Jedi that did turn them grey? And still, grey doesn't equal dark, i.e. "consumed" by the dark side

When I think about Luke I can't help but notice his various actions that qualify as attacks on Tatooine in ROJ. Apparently that neither did taint him or had him be "consumed by the dark side". If his Jedi conduct on Tatooine is impeccable, so are the actions of the Jedi Knights of the Old Republic.

 

And then they become Jedi generals and commanders, and start acting like soldiers who lead other soldiers. Note that Kanan isn't General Jarrus. Luke isn't General Skywalker.

Fighting in a war that they had no business fighting in. Winning battles for the Sith. Being aggressive instead of diplomatic. Consumed by the dark side doesn't mean that they're evil. It means that they've become morally compromised and were lead by the negative emotions that make up the dark side.

It wasn't right either. He was still filled with anger over being lied to and acts aggressively, such as choking the Gamorreans and threatening Jabba, even taking pleasure in the thought of wanting him to pay. Luke is being consumed by the dark side. He's not evil, yet. But he's being affected by the dark side. Talking to Yoda and Obi-wan calms him. Then we get to the Death Star and it starts up again. The rest we know.

 

And I enjoyed reading it.