Lit "Unlearn what you have learned" - The Jedi Thread

The more I think about the end of RotJ, the more I wish we saw a lot more of that. Imagine if in TPM Qui-Gon offered himself up as a hostage to the Trade Federation rather than Amidala, making the argument that a Jedi was worth more to the Republic than some backwoods Queen.

 

I was thinking of TPM, and I'm wondering now if the Jedi last-minute decision to train Anakin literally had nothing to do with Qui-Gon's wish or the Battle of Naboo. It was to prevent the Sith from training Anakin. The options:

Jedi say no--Obi-Wan leaves the Order and trains Anakin on his own. The Jedi now know for sure Maul was a Sith and another one is out there. If they let Kenobi and Anakin out of their sight, the Sith will use ALL their forces to target Obi-Wan and, while he's a decent enough Jedi we all know he got lucky against Maul. Sidious will squash Kenobi like a bug and train Anakin anyway as a Sith. Even if Obi-Wan doesn't train Anakin, Sidious will still kidnap him and train him as a Sith.

Jedi say yes--At least Kenobi and Anakin are in the temple among other Jedi. It's a lot harder for the Sith to kidnap Anakin there. When they are abroad, all details of their missions are on confidential Jedi computers etc.

Ultimately the Jedi training Anakin was the lesser of 2 evils in a no-win situation--Kobayashi Maru.

Ironically, the Jedi should have just noticed Anakin's attraction to Padme , told him about the no marriage rule, and Anakin would have ditched Jedihood on his own. This still leads to the Sith kidnapping him anyway though.

 

Yeah, I don't mean to suggest that the familial dimension is irrelevant, but rather that it can't be the ultimate factor in Luke's decision making.

Vader is Luke's father, and he's willing to address him as such because that's one of the avenues through which he can remind him who he is... but he still needs to be the guy who'd offer any villain an alternative if he saw a way out of darkness for them. That's what it always boils down to for me.

EDIT:
Imagine (again) the alternative situation in which Vader and Anakin are distinct, and the former killed the latter. Luke still feels the conflict within him, and all the rest. What actually has to change about the encounter, assuming Luke is mature enough to overcome the desire for revenge and instead appeal to the man Vader used to be?

Very little, I think, beyond calling Vader "Justin", or whatever his name is, instead of "father". (Assuming "Darth Vader" is even an alias in this reality )

 

Mind you there's a very good argument the Jedi destroyed themselves by engaging in sophistry.

The Jedi believed they had to transcend "lower good" with family bonds for a "higher good" of loving all beings equally.

When, in fact, lower goods like family bonds are still immense goods and what saved the universe.

 

In both Legends and Canon, it seems a lot of people don't know who the Sith were. Bail Organa in the Wild Space novel never heard of them, bizarre for an educated Senator in the Legends galaxy where the entire history was Sith Wars. In the Lando canon comic, he seemed unfamiliar with them I think.

I'll go by Legends, since it's the most fleshed out by now. Did the Jedi do a serious history rewrite post-Ruusan?

Both the Great Hyperspace War and the Great Sith War lasted less than a year. It's possible these were basically whitewashed from history. The Hundred Year Darkness would have been written as only about Dark Jedi, not about the Sith.

The Jedi Civil War with Revan and Malak gets trickier. However, even the very title of the war, Jedi Civil War, shows the Jedi rewrote the war to portray Revan and Malak as bad Jedi, not as Sith.

The Great Galactic War, Cold War, Galactic War in the Old Republic MMO is very hard. It's all Sith all the time. However with the introduction of the Eternal Empire of Zakuul, everyone starts referring to the Sith Emperor as Valkorion and pretend he was always called that way, even by people like Satele Shan. Did the Jedi later on reframe the entire Old Republic MMO as a war between the Galactic Republic and the Eternal Empire of Zakuul, led by Emperor Valkorion, and literally wipe out all mention of the Sith?

We see in the Dark Forces novellas that Kaan and the Brotherhood of Darkness were called Dark Jedi when Yoda told the story to Luke, and they were not mentioned as Sith in Dark Forces 2 game. No mention of Sith at all until the Jedi vs Sith comic book and Darth Bane novels. I'm guessing the Jedi literally rewrote the New Sith Wars as Dark Jedi wars. Ruusan is also lost, odd when the government reformation is literally called the Ruusan Reformation. I'm guessing the Jedi erased it from the maps to prevent anyone getting the Valley of the Jedi power.

We see in TCW that Korriban was renamed Moraband, probably to confuse any wannabe Sith.

So did the Jedi in Legends do what religions are sometimes accused of in the real world--rewrite (lie) about history in Legends?

 

I think it's more the case we're a bunch of lepidopterists asking why the heck people don't know about butterfly patterns.

The Star Wars galaxy has 20,000 years of information for over a million worlds. While it's more a matter of bad writing that Bail Organa doesn't know about the Sith given they were vast enemies of the Republic for a couple of occassions--the simple fact is the Star Wars galaxy is probably full of huge fascinating stories and periods of history we don't know about. Bail Organa would know about the Sith but he'd probably know about them only because they led to the Ruusan Reformations.

And there's massive numbers of events we wouldn't know about like Alderaanian house conflicts, long dead powers, and so on.

Mind you, in Legends, I always felt there was one element which needed to be touched on and that was whether the Jedi really did commit genocide against the Sith in the Great Hyperspace War.

 

The Sith species seem quite alive in TOR. I believe in one of the guidebooks (Jedi Path? Book of Sith? Can't remember) Mace Windu scribbles in that there are no Sith species anymore circa Clone Wars, but it sounded like he didn't know what happened to them. If the Jedi wiped them out, I think Mace would know...

I guess with Legends over now, we'll never know why the Sith species disappeared (unless it becomes some massive ingame event in TOR or something). It's possible they were wiped out during the New Sith wars.

Also, the Sith were a big deal historically. This would be like a Senator not knowing about the Mongol Empire, Roman Empire, etc.

 

That's kind of actually underscoring the point as Vitiate's rule is based on the fact he saved a small number of the Sith and built a new Empire for them in the Unknown Regions.

They wouldn't have to flee if they weren't destroyed and there's no native Sith on Korriban anymore by KOTOR.

 

I think the Jedi prefer to train kids rather than risk them becoming dangerous in all cases. In Anakin's case, Qui-Gon had forced their hand by freeing him from slavery and transporting him across the galaxy.

I really don't think a 9 year old kid is anticipating marrying his crush who doesn't pay any attention to him. He's literally always wanted to be a Jedi.

I mostly agree, but I don't think Luke would have had any reason to trust that this stranger named Justin would care enough to save him. The conflict Luke feels in Vader has everything to do with Luke's identity.

I don't think this is what is meant by the importance of nonattachment to the Jedi. Remember: Yoda doesn't shame Anakin for being close enough to another person to be sad and scared that they were going to die. Yoda tells him that death is a part of life and to find solace in the Jedi teachings about life and the Force.

It seems more likely that the population at large just doesn't know the difference between the Jedi and the Sith. These are very old wars. Most people today couldn't name political factions from 1000 years ago, or important wars.

Most people know very little about the Roman Empire and couldn't tell you what a "Mongol" is.

 

While we know that the Sith were openly responsible for many wars in Legends, that might not be the case in canon. For all we know, 1000 years before the movies, the Sith ruled through the Mandalorians.

As for Legends, I suspect that both Jedi and the Banites made a strong effort to purge the galaxy of knowledge about the Jedi, the Sith, and The Force in general.

 

Yeah, I agree. I don't think it's a plausible hypothetical, it was just an easy way of illustrating the distinction I'm making between Luke saving Vader because he's in a position where he can save him, and Luke saving Vader because of wishful thinking and a blood relation.

 

That said, it seems important to note that Luke is willing to die without destroying the Sith for his conviction that not fighting the Emperor in this moment is the best thing. I don't know how to feel about this yet, in the context of your analysis.

 

People keep forgetting Luke is fully confident his friends are going to blow up the Death Star. He's essentially on a suicide run to distract the Emperor and Vader long enough for Lando to take the Death Star down.

The Jedi will die with Luke but the Sith will be ended.

 

Not sure I buy that. Things are already not going according to plan by the time he gives himself to Vader.

 

Yes, the plan is completely shot to the Nine Corellian Hells.

But by and large any argument that begins with, "Luke won't fight the Emperor even if it kills him" doesn't hold any water.

I remind you he tries to murder Palpatine then and there while the Emperor is unarmed and Vader saves Palps.



Luke won't fight VADER.

He'll gladly kill Palpatine.

It's just Palpatine so ridiculously more powerful than Luke that he easily overwhelms him.

 

The Yoda arc in season 6 of TCW suggests that Qui-Gon knew the Sith Lord's identity, but couldn't tell Yoda. In Mortis, Father says that Son broke the law of time when he showed Anakin his future, but I think one need not rely on this contrivance to explain this.

One might suppose that since these Force ghosts exist outside of time, they know what the desired outcome is and the necessary steps to reach that outcome. Qui-Gon might tell Yoda who Sidious is, but that might result in a less positive outcome. It seems Vader was necessary for Anakin to bring about balance (edit: this is supported by Father erasing Anakin's memory to set him back on this course and telling him he will bring balance). Thus, Yoda and Obi-Wan, knowing Luke straight up ignored them about Dagobah, realized that he needs reverse psychology.

Of course, the retcon falls apart when you consider that Obi-Wan says "that boy is our last hope," obviously ignorant of the future. Sorry Filoni.

But the reverse psychology explanation makes even more sense under those circumstances!

 

It's not really something I ever gave much thought to beyond a general, "He's feeling, not thinking", especially given how everything panned out in the end.

I suppose before left he seemed pretty confident that Leia could have picked up from where he left off (somehow) and he may have behaved differently if she wasn't in the picture.

If he isn't just "going with the flow", I'd assume he realises he's outmatched by the Emperor, knows he's not going to be able to get away and he understands that any kind of fighting at this point is just going to be giving the Emperor what he wants. So he stops playing.

 

I think it's also noteworthy that Luke is suffering some severe emotional turmoil. In the novelization, it's a bit more detailed but Palpatine offers to spare the Rebel fleet if Luke joins him as his apprentice and the whole "strike me down" is less out of context as Palpatine is planting the seeds for Luke to understand if he becomes the Emperor's apprentice that he has the opportunity to kill him if he becomes more powerful.

The corruption is a bit more layered.

Luke refusing to kill Vader makes it clear to Palpatine he's not playing this game.

 

I've admittedly not caught up on this thread, but it's my impression that Luke's plan ended when he met Vader at the docking platform on Endor and told him "come with me" and Vader said no. After that, he was kind of content to just die on the Death Star along with the Emperor and Vader in the Rebel attack, and he was just winging it.

 

No, I mean when he throws his lightsaber away and says, "Never. I'll never turn to the Dark Side. You have failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me." He's made a decision in that moment.

But it also means, "Do to me what you will. I'll never play your game."

 

Yeah I think Luke didn't expect that anyone would be getting off the Death Star alive at that point, and if anything he was distracting Vader and Palpatine from potentially evacuating.

 

Yeah. I don't think he was thinking in terms of "Okay, so Vader will take me to the Emperor and then I'll assassinate him" or w/e.

 

Now I want a SW Infinities comic for Episode VII where the premise is that the Death Star exploded when Luke was helping Anakin take his mask off.

 

I have trouble buying this, because even if he thought this was the case on the surface, once the Emperor lets him know that



the success of the mission is no longer a certainty.

He more or less is explicitly going to try to save Vader.

 

Well, that's where the whole "your faith in your friends is yours."

I'm sure there was doubt which is what goaded him into fighting to start, but when he achieved clarity again I don't think he was thinking in terms of doubt any longer.