Obi-Wan Kenobi: the greatest of the old Jedi?

And that is exactly why Yoda, as he admitted himself, failed....because he didn't train Anakin at all nor did he help Obi-wan with the training. If he wasn't so worried about Anakin's future and focused more on his present condition, Anakin would've been a better jedi and he would not allowed himself to be fooled by PalpSidious's mind-trickery.

Yoda's training methods have worked for 900 years and he's trained Jedi in that same amount of time long before (and after) Dooku was even born. The only Jedi Yoda did NOT train was Anakin which, again, was his real failure because the Jedi Order could've been saved and the galaxy would not have fallen into darkness if Yoda had either helped Obi-wan with Anakin's training or trained the boy himself.

 

Yeah, I pretty much agree with that. I'm certainly not suggesting QGJ was the perfect jedi. For the record, although I don't consider him greatest, Obiwan is among my favourite characters in the saga. He's a top man and I like the way he's portrayed by both AG and EM.

 

Thanks for the clarification, but I think Qui-Gon overemphasized the Living Force to the detriment of the Unifying Force.


I think it was the other way around. The Jedi - Yoda and Obi-Wan included - overemphasized the Unifying Force to the detriment of the Living Force. And Qui-Gon ended up proving himself right.

 

I don't agree.

There has to be some kind of balance between the Living Force and the Unifying Force. The other Jedi may have focused too much on the Unifying Force, but Qui-Gon focused way too much on the Living Force.

And I'm not quite getting where Qui-Gon was proven right in the end.

Anakin didn't balance the Force all by himself. It took Luke to wake him up.

As for Qui training both Yoda and Obi-Wan, well, he was supposedly the first Jedi to retain his essence after death. That doesn't make him somehow greater than Obi-Wan and Yoda. It just means he figured it out before they did. If that was true, then you could make the argument that all teachers are greater than their students. And it took ten-plus years for Qui-Gon to actually be able to contact them. Obi-Wan was speaking to Luke moments after his death and was appearing and interacting with Luke within approximately a year. That's an example of the student surpassing the teacher.

 

Qui-Gon ended up proving himself right because if you notice in the OT, Yoda and Obi-Wan's teachings of Luke had a much greater focus on the Living Force than any Jedi teachings in the PT. Qui-Gon's focus on the Living Force was absolutely correct. He was the first to notice that the Sith had returned. After Order 66, Obi-Wan and Yoda revised their philosophies a bit.

Doesn't make Qui-Gon the "greatest of the Jedi", in the name of a more comprehensive picture I still give that label to Obi-Wan, but the greatest in that regard.

 

And aren't we talking about the greatest of the old Jedi? I would argue that post ROTS Yoda and Obiwan are actually in a way the beginning of the new Jedi, under the tutelage of Qui Gon. If we take the old Jedi as the Jedi order up to the demise of the Old Republic, I still think you have to go with Qui Gon because of the superior affinity with the Force which enabled him to do what none of the others prevoiusly had. It wasn't a fluke IMO.

 

Anakin didn't balance the Force all by himself. It took Luke to wake him up.


Luke would have never made the effort to "wake him up" if he had not stayed his hand and reveal his identity in ESB.



There has to be some kind of balance between the Living Force and the Unifying Force. The other Jedi may have focused too much on the Unifying Force, but Qui-Gon focused way too much on the Living Force.


I agree that there has to be some kind of balance between the Living Force and the Unifying Force. People seemed to be of the opinion that Qui-Gon focused more on the Living Force. I don't recall him ever doing that. If he had, he would have never believed in the concept of Anakin being the Chosen One to bring balance to the Force. When Obi-Wan told him that Yoda believes they should mindful of the future, Qui-Gon replied that they should not do so at the expense of the present. He said nothing about ignoring the future.

 

Qui-Gon was way too impulsive to be anywhere NEAR centered between the Living Force and the Unifying Force.

Obi-Wan did have his impulsive moments, but those were normally born out of necessity when he simply didn't have the luxury of stopping to think. He always wanted to have a plan whenever possible, prepare as much as possible for multiple outcomes.

What would Qui-Gon have done if the Hutts had discovered Queen Amidala on Tatooine?

What would Qui-Gon have done had Anakin lost that podrace?

He used his powers to influence the future when he "won" Anakin in that tossing of the dice with Watto and I think that was the ONLY instance of him giving any thought to anything beyond the moment.

Qui-Gon gave no thought to the possibility that the Council would have any objections to Anakin's training. That's appallingly blind and short-sighted of him and I believe that Qui-Gon's mistake in judgment directly impacted Anakin's first impressions of the Jedi Council, a first impression that probably fueled his problems throughout the next two movies.

He never considered the possibility that Anakin could place himself in danger during the Naboo battle.

He never stopped to think that maybe Obi-Wan wouldn't be ready to take Anakin on as a Padawan learner despite having been an apprentice and then a knight himself.

He practically used the living Force as a crutch against preparedness.

"Another solution will present itself." -- How about thinking for five minutes during that walk and coming up with a solution of your own?

 

Good point here, and I would add that he should have never made any comments about Anakin being the "Chosen One" right in front of Anakin. That was not information that Anakin needed, and it alternately put far too much pressure on Anakin and fed his arrogance. It would be fine to discuss it with the Council or with Obi-Wan when Anakin was not around, but calling a nine-year-old kid the "Chosen One" right in front of him--as the Council is rejecting him for training because he did not fit their conventional mold (a mold which they proved in later movies that they were incapable of or unwilling to work around)--was not appropriate.

I like Qui-Gon but I did have that issue with his behavior.

 

The issue with planning, though, is that it can leave you vulnerable if you rely too heavily on things going according to plan. One of Palpatine's greatest strengths, for example, seems to be not only his ability to think things through and outmaneuver his enemies, but also to adapt and respond to changing circumstances. When Padme manages to escape Naboo, for example, he simply shifts to focus of his plans to take advantage of her presence and become Chancellor. It's all well and good to have a plan of action in place, but it can be just as detrimental as impulsive action if you're attached to your plan at the expense of the mission.

I would say one instance where the Council might have wanted to rethink their plans and strategy for training Anakin would be when it became clear that the boy wasn't moving past his emotional attachments. In this situation, abandoning the plan and trying alternative approaches might have yielded better results.

That's true to quite an extent, yet I would say Jedi like Obi-Wan and the Council Members used to Unifying Force as a crutch in the same way. For example, they point out that they can't train Anakin because his future is clouded and Obi-Wan even says that the boy is dangerous. And yet, at this point, Anakin isn't dangerous, he's just a good-hearted child waiting to be molded. In some ways, the Council is falling into the trap of a self-fulfilling prophecy: by treating Anakin as though he's dangerous, they induce him to act in a manner that will confirm their beliefs. It follows the concept of labeling: a child that is treated as though he is intelligent by a teacher, for example, is far more likely to perform well and apply himself because that is what is expected of him.

Qui-Gon saw the necessity of seeing and judging Anakin for what he was, not for what he might become.

 

The Council said they couldn't train Anakin because he was too old. They knew that their way of doing things left them unable to properly deal with a child like Anakin who remembered his home and had already developed deep attachments. I find it hard to believe that the Council was simply being obstinate or arbitrary in their decision to reject Anakin. Could they have explained themselves in a better way? Of course they could have.

But they knew they were right and if Qui-Gon had taken a few minutes to think about it, he could have found a way around it. Obi-Wan was close to knighthood; Qui-Gon had acknowledged that once already and made reference to it again later on. If Qui-Gon could have found someone to care for Anakin until Obi-Wan's apprenticeship was over, he could have left the Order and trained Anakin without the Council's approval. Qui-Gon almost never thought about the consequences of his actions in the movie, nor proved he was capable in any way of taking a different approach when he ran into a wall.

The Council was proven right in that training Anakin could turn out to be disastrous for the future of the galaxy.

 

Was Anakin really too old though? Or was he just too old for the method they were trying to foist on him? I ask this because Luke certainly succeeded in becoming a Jedi although he was twice Anakin's age when he started. Luke remembered his home and had deep attachments as well and he, in my opinion, went on to surpass his teachers. There's nothing to suggest that Anakin couldn't have been properly trained had they approached his instruction in a different manner. Think of how Yoda and Obi-Wan introduce themselves to Luke -- they're kind, understanding, act a little odd, but are wise mentors. Compare this with Anakin's introduction to the Council -- where they basically shine a spotlight on him, berate him for missing his mother, and tell him they can "see through him." The approach they took with Luke was successful for a reason, not the least of which because he was never told he couldn't love his friends and shouldn't miss them.

But wasn't that Qui-Gon's plan? To train Anakin himself if the council refused. He even told Obi-Wan that he would do what he had to do. I felt the movie implied that, had Qui-Gon not been killed, he would have done as you said: gotten Obi-Wan through the trials and then left the Order and trained Anakin without the Council's approval.

Yes, they were proven right. But how much of that was a result of their fears and projection of those fears in their dealings with Anakin? Like I said, they fell into the trap of a self-fulfilling prophecy -- treat Anakin as a threat and he will eventually become one. The fact that he was potentially dangerous should not have had bearing on how they handled him. We have to judge others as they are, not as what they might become. Anyone has the capacity for good or evil and this is especially true in Star Wars: Anakin, Padme, Palpatine, Luke, Leia, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and so on all had the possibility to be a force for justice and prosperity or destruction. Not all of them chose the same path, but they were all capable of either rising or falling.

 

Oh, I think the Council was obstinate, about their way of doing things. They were completely unwilling to think outside the box. It was their way or the highway.

Should Qui-Gon have known the Council was this way? Probably.

But as far as Anakin being left untrained, being sent back to Tatooine after the Council's rejection...what would the consequences of that really have been? He obviously was already using the Force or he would not have won those pod races, among other things. Would the Sith have found him anyway, thus leaving the galaxy in a worse state, with Anakin turning to the Dark Side even earlier than he did and without fathering Luke and Leia, who saved the galaxy?

Could Qui-Gon have left the Order and trained Anakin on his own, and kept him from the Dark Side? Possibly, if he had lived.

ETA:

*standing ovation* Thank. You.

As I said, Anakin was too old for the Council to train him as long as they stubbornly insisted on using their one-size-fits-all method which requires that children be taken to the Temple as infants. Not too old for Jedi training, period. A little flexibility in their approach would have gone a very long way.

 

Regardless of whether the Council was right or not (and I think it's about fifty-fifty there, they weren't right, but they weren't wrong either), the issue here is that Qui-Gon was fifty to sixty years old, had grown up in the Temple, spent at least the past three decades receiving orders, following through on orders, arguing with the Council.

HE KNEW BETTER. He knew better than to try to ram his own agenda down the Council's throats, especially in front of Anakin (who was hurt and humiliated at being rejected) and in front of Obi-Wan (don't tell me that Obi-Wan wasn't stunned, either; the look on his face was an open book). The fact that Obi-Wan was stunned while this meeting was going on tells me that he knew Qui-Gon was far out of line.

Obi-Wan had his own little run-ins with the Council. He argued against being assigned as Padme's security detail and he took issue with Mace Windu's lack of trust in Anakin. If he's to believed, he argued against pitting Anakin against a friend when the Council decided to have him spy on Palpatine. Obi-Wan wasn't a good little foot soldier all the time, but when he lost a fight, he made the most of it. He TOLD Anakin he disagreed with the position they were putting him in, but Anakin only heard what he wanted to hear, as usual.

No one's going to convince me that Qui-Gon ended up being right, because the price was FAR too high. The virtual extermination of the Jedi and a generation of terror in the galaxy, for all of which Obi-Wan bore the burden of blame. I'm sure if Qui-Gon was around, he would finger-pointed the Council until he was blue in the face.

 

As far as whether Qui-Gon should have known better than to put both Anakin and Obi-Wan in that position, I tend to agree with you there.

The old Order Jedi training methods were wrong on more levels than I can count, and if they weren't, Obi-Wan, Yoda and the New Order would have continued them, but we can just agree to disagree on that. (And for those who want to say that "well they worked for 900 years," so did slavery of various minority groups. So did oppression of women.)

And yes, Obi-Wan rebelled/protested the Council when he needed to do so, which is one reason I have labelled Obi-Wan as "the greatest of the old Jedi." He was neither a shill for the Council or a total rogue. He knew how to juggle the Jedi philosophy with--yes--attachment. He had balance. As far as the scene in which Obi-Wan gave Anakin the assignment to spy on Palpatine: I think that Anakin knew that Obi-Wan could be trusted, which is why he was venting to him; I don't think Anakin was angry at Obi-Wan personally, merely angry at the Council. If Obi-Wan were not on the Council, I think Anakin might have trusted and confided in him more than he did, for example, about his marriage to Padme. The dialogue in the ROTS script indicated that the main reason he didn't tell Obi-Wan was that he felt that Obi-Wan would be under obligation to report him to the Council.

On Order 66, etc.--I'm going to ask a question I've asked before, why does no one blame Palpatine for this? It was not Obi-Wan's fault. It was not the Council's fault. And no, it was not Anakin's fault that Order 66 happened, it was Anakin's fault for making the choice to take Palpatine's side, but if (general) you think that Order 66 would not have happened without Anakin, you're giving Anakin a lot more credit than I am. Palpatine did not need Anakin, he wanted him as a way to give the Jedi Order the finger (by recruiting their "Chosen One") and because Palpatine was too lazy to do his own dirty work (he had Sate Pestage do a lot of that for him as well). But his mission was to exterminate the Jedi, and he would have done that whether Anakin joined him or not. By all means let's blame Anakin for joining Palpatine, but as far as the idea that Order 66 and the Empire would not have happened if Anakin hadn't been trained, I disagree. Anakin did not make Palpatine evil, it was the other way around.

Order 66, the extermination of the Jedi and the Empire was Palpatine's fault. Period. Anakin could have remained on Tatooine untrained, and two possibilities exist: one, Sidious would have somehow found him there and recruited him anyway, or Sidious would have enacted his destruction of the galaxy alone or with the help of another apprentice.

 

Just a note on the comparison I made above regarding the old Order: I am by no means comparing the plight of Jedi Padawans to the plight of oppressed women or slaves. I made the comparison because for centuries, it was the generally accepted notion that these institutions "worked," but that does not mean that they actually did work or would continue to work. And a policy that cannot withstand scrutiny with a better defense than "it's worked this way for X amount of time" is a weak policy. Which was proven, because Palpatine exploited it, and would have done so even if Anakin had stayed on Tatooine.

 

Actually Sids exploited the training methods but ONLY in respect to Anakin's training, not the 900 yrs of tradition.

Sids does get the blame.

Sorry I can't type much - I severely sprained my wrist and can hardly use one hand.

 

Oh ouch. So sorry, hope you can get it fixed soon. My left forearm is in a brace due to tendonitis but I'm counting my blessings now.

Palpatine exploited Anakin's attachments, but I wonder, what might have happened if the old Order had taught him how to deal with those attachments, instead of simply telling him that "attachment is forbidden"? If one believes the EU, the other Jedi considered Obi-Wan as having "attachment issues," and I disagree. Obi-Wan was normal and stable. Anakin did not deal with his attachments very well, the other Jedi pretended not to have any.

 

It was not proven because it was Anakin, a prodigy the Council didn't feel it could train properly, who was the weapon the Sith used to destroy the Order and plunge the galaxy into a generation of terror and oppression. Had it been someone who was raised as a "normal" Jedi like Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan or Windu or Yoda, yes, that would have proven it. But Anakin's case proves NOTHING against the Jedi Order's way of doing things.

The thing of it is, the Jedi Order was not ready for Anakin. Now, there's no real proof that they wouldn't have been willing to adapt to new methods and new philosophies, but they weren't ready for it when Qui-Gon dragged Anakin back to Coruscant with him. They knew they weren't ready.

If Anakin hadn't been the Chosen One and still failed to become what the Council would consider a "proper Jedi," no one can say that they wouldn't have taken a look at his case and then begin the process of changing.

Obi-Wan drew strength from his attachments because he'd been taught that attachments have a place within the heart of any Jedi. And I doubt Qui-Gon was the only person from whom he drew those conclusions. True, Obi-Wan didn't have parents he remembered, but Qui-Gon seemed to be a father to him in many ways (a relationship that was mutually affectionate).

That sort of pragmatic outlook on attachments couldn't have come to fruition overnight. It probably took years of reflection and hard work on Obi-Wan's part and it paid off in spades. Anakin strikes me as the type who didn't put any work into anything he didn't WANT to be better at or didn't think he should have to be better at.

I don't know if we can take the books or TCW into account, but if so, Obi-Wan also had several romantic attachments in his life as well and knew when it was time for them to end and how to conduct himself in a manner befitting the Jedi Code while they were going on. Again, if you take the books into account, he didn't learn that from Qui-Gon, who nearly turned to the Dark Side after the woman he loved was killed on a mission, unless he took the example of Qui-Gon as what NOT to do when you're faced with a romantic entanglement.

Change takes time and patience and trial and error. It's just plain bad luck (and the manipulation of the Sith) that brought the most powerful little nine-year old to them for the very first time.

I don't get where all the anti-Jedi stuff is coming from. Yes, there were a lot of problems, but no matter how you want to dismiss the fact that it was working for them, it WAS working for them. They only lost twenty of them in centuries of history. I think it's mostly an excuse to defend Anakin, who was already dismissing Obi-Wan's guidance from nearly the first scene of Episode II.

 

They tried, he failed.

They didn't.

No, they didn't.

There are way too many contradicting examples for these statements to be true.

 

But is it not worth fighting for what we believe in? Qui-Gon believed in Anakin, saw the potential in him, and wanted to give him an opportunity for a better life than that of a slave. He not only owed Anakin for his help in getting them off Tatooine, but could sense that the boy had an important destiny (and here he was right -- Anakin was the Chosen One). In this case, is it not worth fighting an established authority? The future of a little boy hangs in the balance. He had hoped to get the Council's blessing in this affair, but Qui-Gon clearly would have had Anakin trained even if the Council refused to budge.

I'm not arguing that Obi-Wan was a puppet of the Council with no initiative of his own -- on the contrary, I'd say he was quite right in contesting all those points you mentioned. The problem is, he never took a stand and followed through on his opinions and disagreements. Obi-Wan followed the code and obeyed the Council, and that's to his credit. But I also feel that he should have pushed his own agenda more strongly. Much as he didn't want to take on the job of Padme's security detail, he still accepted the position even though he knew it was likely to be detrimental to Anakin. I feel that too often he trusted the Council too much rather than his own feelings, experience, and intuition. He was Anakin's master and knew him best. Of course, I do wish the Council would have given his opinion more consideration as well.

No one has said that Obi-Wan bears the burden of blame for the extermination of the Jedi. He's probably one of the people least responsible and his self-blame was due to guilt that he unfairly shouldered. I find your argument a bit odd, though, simply because you seem to be saying that Qui-Gon should have left Anakin in slavery. Qui-Gon's actions did not lead to the extermination of the Jedi--that was a result of Palpatine's plotting. All Qui-Gon did was free a Force-sensitive boy and attempt to show him a better life. Could he have gone about it a bit more smoothly? Sure, but his heart was in the right place.

 

I'm not saying Qui-Gon should have left Anakin there, but he didn't take him simply out of the goodness of his heart. He did, after all, leave Anakin's mother there. Qui-Gon did a good thing taking Anakin away from there. I'll never argue against that. It was a bad situation and I think that taking Anakin with him was the only thing he did right regarding Anakin.

But he knew better than to promise Anakin he'd become a Jedi knowing (no matter how convinced he was of his own righteousness regarding the prophecy) that the Council would have numerous problems with it. He should have told Anakin that he would certainly try to convince the Council to take him in and allow him to train.

Obi-Wan came across the same situation in one of the CW books (Karen Miller's "Siege") with a little girl who helped him while he was healing wounded and sick villagers and he wanted to be able to take her away from there and take her back to Coruscant with him. But he didn't, and he explained to her why he couldn't. She was disappointed, but buoyed by his assurance that she was indeed "good enough," but she was just too old and it was too late. It's not stated whether Obi-Wan had a direct hand in the entire village being granted refugee status on Naboo (thereby leaving the planet for better lives), but I would think that he could have helped to arrange it, that even though he couldn't take her back to the Temple, they weren't simply leaving her and her family and friends to a bad situation.

That's what I believe Qui-Gon should have done.

 

As far as I'm concerned, the fact that they didn't adapt to new methods and new philosophies, did not even try, was proof enough. I'm not sure what Anakin being the "Chosen One" had to do with it. Since they knew that he was older than most initiates that they took, and knew that he not only was close to his mother but was a slave, why didn't they look at his case and begin the process of changing? Instead, they tried to train him using the "one size fits all" method that they had used on every other Jedi.

And yes, Obi-Wan knew how to handle his attachments. I have acknowledged as much already. I am one who does believe the CW novels and series and does believe that Obi-Wan had lovers, although I find the philosophy that "It's OK to have a lover as long as you aren't 'attached'" to be appalling and backwards. There's a thread on that in the prequels forum.

I'm not sure where the manipulation of the Sith comes into play with Qui-Gon finding Anakin. The Sith started manipulating him soon after TPM I would assume, given Palpatine's statement at the end of TPM.

Again, if that's their only argument for keeping the institution and their policies, it's not a very good argument. All policies deserve a review once in awhile, meaning, more often than every 900 years, no matter how well they seem to be "working."

As far as the anti-Jedi sentiment being an "excuse to defend Anakin," I came into this thread to make the statement that Obi-Wan is the greatest of all the old Jedi. (In fact, the greatest Jedi of all time.) Can I dismiss some of the arguments on the other side as "Well you just don't like Anakin"? The idea that "the old Jedi are right, Anakin sucks, end of story" is just as simplistic as the idea that Anakin bore no blame whatsoever for his fate.

I would be opposed to the old Order policies even if someone other than Anakin had become Palpatine's apprentice, for this reason: they did not treat the Jedi padawans as individuals. They did not look at their backgrounds and personalities and adjust their teaching/training accordingly. They trained them all exactly the same way, and they "had to" take children into the Temple as infants in order for their philosophy to "work." I have stated before that the Jedi should have allowed so-called "attachments" to people other than their Jedi Masters (attachments which are normal for all humans, and in the case of the SW universe, sentient beings) and then taught them how to put the good of the group before the good of the person to whom they are attached. Why couldn't they do this? Without other explanation, it looks like laziness and inflexibility.

 

Qui-Gon did try to free Anakin's mother though, by betting the racing pod against their freedom and he even tells Anakin that he tried to free Shmi but "Watto wouldn't have it." I think he did the best he could with the window of opportunity he had. And why not tell him that he would become a Jedi? Don't forget that Qui-Gon would have trained Anakin with or without the Council's approval; he didn't lie to the child.

The problem I have with your example is that it presupposes that Anakin was destined to fail in his training to become a Jedi. Who says that that little girl couldn't have been a Jedi? Now, obviously circumstances were different for poor Obi since it was the middle of a war, but Qui-Gon had no such issues with Anakin. Obi-Wan was a mature, capable Jedi, ready to take the trails and become a Knight himself and Anakin had great potential. Luke certainly proved that it's never too late to begin to learn the ways of the Force.

Also, let's take a look at Count Dooku -- one of the Jedi's most illustrious masters did turn to the Dark Side -- and see that age had nothing to do with it. The Order's inflexibility was a major problem however.

 

Good point. And let's not forget that Dooku's Jedi Master was none other than Yoda. Dooku, as I understand it (although I haven't read Dark Rendezvous yet, it's sitting on my Kindle) turned because of his own disgust with the way the Order operated, particularly after they ignored Qui-Gon's warnings about the Sith returning and then Qui-Gon died.