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

I didn't take that away from the film at all but I'd be perfectly happy with such a scenario. I remember that was something many of us were speculating on around the film's title in the run-up to release.

 

Probably not but I did not get that impression.

Just wondering, are you referring to the "summon 'sabre" movement or the Rey/Kylo fight?

 

Posting in this thread because we're getting new info on how damaging the Jedi life is, from the Clone Wars Season 7 of all places. Spoilers for the most recent episodes:

Spoiler

The first thing Ahsoka does after leaving the Order, having nowhere to go, is joining up with a pair of criminal con-women sisters.

It also confirms what I said all along about Anakin's situation. Without the Jedi he wouldn't be able to find a decent job in the galaxy, much like how Ahsoka is struggling now. They have no formal education (I know Jorus C'Baoth somehow got a university degree, but we see this is the exception and not the norm. Even wookieepedia notes--C'baoth's early life was an exception to the rule among Jedi of that time: in principle, Initiates who were not selected to be Padawans by the age of thirteen were shifted into one of the divisions of the Jedi Service Corps).

For all those who insisted Anakin could have just solved all his problems by leaving the Jedi Order and their no-marriage rule, we see clearly here that Ahsoka is struggling to adapt in a world she wasn't trained for and has to settle in with criminals. It emphasizes just how damaging the Jedi way was to Ahsoka and how trapped Anakin was in an Order that didn't care for his wellbeing (emotional or otherwise) outside of him being a good little Jedi.

The Jedi ignore Anakin's hormonal issues and emotional needs, forcing him to have no one to turn to within the Order itself for guidance on healthy relationships. Their attitude is "If you don't like it, just leave", which means Anakin would then be cast out into a society he has no training for, struggling to get a decent job, just as we are seeing happen with Ahsoka in these new TCW episodes.

Obviously the Jedi don't deserve to be killed by Palpatine, but they need to answer for just how viciously they mess up the lives of those they recruit as kids (and let's be honest, Anakin didn't really have a choice in the matter, he would have gone to an orphanage or back to slavery with his mother if he didn't sign up with the Jedi. And Qui-Gon didn't tell Anakin about the no-marriage rule despite the fact someone as sharp as him would clearly have noticed his attraction to Padme even as a kid).

 

Spoiler

It's absolutely not the first thing she does after leaving. Do you see how much she's aged in between her last appearance in TCW and the new episodes? She's clearly been on her own for a while.

Spoiler

I don't know why you have such a hangup about Anakin's "hormonal issues". I hate to be graphic here, but I'm pretty sure the Jedi don't have any rules about masturbation. We also see in Master and Apprentice that Averross, though considered an unorthodox Jedi in a lot of ways, openly has sexual partners. This is not something anyone mentions in either Master and Apprentice or Dooku: Jedi Lost when talking about the ways Averross is not a traditional Jedi. Sex and attachment are not the same thing. And attachment was Anakin's downfall. He killed lots of lots of innocent children, committed genocide basically, just because he was madly in love. If he was just having one night stands, this would not have happened. (Anakin also has a nonsexual attachment to Palpatine that is also part of the problem and not at all related to "hormonal issues")

 

Convenient to expand on one line I wrote and miss out on the entire new TCW episodes that prompted my point, showing that

Spoiler

Ahsoka is struggling even without hormonal issues. It's lunch here and I just started watching the latest TCW episode. Ahsoka tells her new criminal gangster friends: "Things can't get worse for me than they already are."

Yep, just leaving the Jedi Order isn't that easy at all. You drop to the absolute bottom of society real quick unless you're Dooku who has a family fortune.

And non-attachment isn't emotionally healthy. Sounds like the Jedi would even prevent Anakin from getting a cat due to risk of attachment. What kind of a life is that?

 

But why? I imagine Jedi training would involve a lot of real-world-relevant skills (plus the specialization that you get e.g. as a Jedi Consular)

 

In the real world, there are a lot of postdocs and scientists who can't find decent jobs. I say this as someone who has a Master's degree and worked with 2 Nobel laureates myself, and I barely got a job when the recession of 2008 hit.

A lot of making it in the job market is connections (think Linkedin), and the Jedi with their ridiculous non-attachment rules make those very necessary connections unlikely. Ahsoka literally has no one once she leaves the Jedi.

In regards to Star Wars, keep in mind Palpatine probably has the economy rise and fall at his whim to ensure he stays elected. In any case, TCW is clearly showing

Spoiler

that for all her skills, Ahsoka can't get employment anywhere other than criminal gangster conwomen.

 

Friends and contacts are not attachments, just look at all the Jedi who has old friends here and there.

You mean beside all the friends and contacts she made as a Jedi?

 

Spoiler

Have you watched Season 7? Where are they now? Whatever "friends" you refer to are clearly so distant they are of no relevance. As would be expected in a lifetime spent devoted to nonattachment.

 

No, and most of them are probably fighting a war in one way or another.

 

Oh, I forgot, you don't have Disney Plus yet in Europe? You can catch up on Season 7 in the Clone Wars spoiler thread. Read the spoilers and then come back and discuss.

Spoiler

Ahsoka is shown as literally having no one to turn to other than criminals.

Wartime isn't an excuse. Jake Sisko handled himself fine in Star Trek's Dominion War as a civilian for example. Luke Skywalker in 8 also showed that the Jedi way leaves you less equipped to deal with emotional traumas, not more equipped. And his isolated Jedi lifestyle even before the temple destruction left him incapable of doing basic research such as (spoilers for Rise of Kylo Ren comic)

Spoiler

lack of basic forensic investigation resources that would have shown Kylo didn't blow up the temple and that he didn't take any students.

 

Yeah, I expanded on that one line because that's the part I disagreed with. I agree with your general point that being raised in the Jedi Order would make it hard to live in the real world, especially on Coruscant where you otherwise have to be super wealthy to live in the upper levels.

I disagree that the Jedi wouldn't let Anakin have a cat. Just look at Lene Kostana and her convors in Dooku: Jedi Lost.

 

I remember now Aayla had a pet too in the EU. The irony for both canons is that in the real world here on Earth there are people who end up FAR more attached to their pets than their romantic partners even. Yet the Jedi forbid marriage and not pet ownership...

 

Marriage are so much more than saying that you really like somebody, especially in cultures that expect that a marriage/similar also involve a political alliance between the families of the couple and if the Jedi don't acknowledge this they will likely not be seen favourably and possibly make them hostile to the Jedi and their decisions.

I can give you some other reason to why the order decided to forbid marriage that has little to do with attachment.

 

All the more reason Jedi recruits should be adults who can make an informed decision about this choice and not infants/kids.

 

Can you expand on this?

 

I have to go back to work now, but to put it simply a kid like TPM Anakin should be fully informed about the no marriage rules and honestly they shouldn't have to make this choice as a kid, but at least after puberty.

At no point do we see Qui-Gon or anyone point out this rule in TPM. Shmi would have been horrified.

 

The second draft says that “The Skywalker” started the Jedi. Maybe that became “the Prime Jedi”?

 

And this is why I'm glad the Colin Trevorrow script never came to light, otherwise this thread be on fire right now.

 

That is already part of SW thx to The Last Jedi when Luke explains the Force to Rey on Ach-To! It would hardly be new in TROS or Duel of the Fates. And that script came to light, everybody knows it by now. TROS even honored that idea still thx to the Dyad with Rey and Ren.

 

The Dyad wasnt a light-dark bond though. It's a powerful Force bond, period. Balance was restored to the Force after Ben returned to the light. It would have been catastrophically left out if balance had Rey turned at any point.

At no point does the light-dark balance presented in Mortis or TLJ suggest *evil* is a necessary component of the cosmos. We actually see how this played out in Mortis, the Son wasnt considered "fallen" until after Anakin arrived. The Son was representative of the entropic aspect of the Force, yes, but *evil* akin to the Sith is still presented as something distinctly out of whack with the metaphysics of the Star Wars universe.

IG: @jedisufism

 

So question,

What would everyone think about how the Jedi see the end of the universe, would they think the force would exist even if the universe did not?

 

@ColeFardreamer
Pretty much this.

While Colin's script has Rey saying lines like

This isn't Balance of the Force, this is Grey Jedi nonsense

Well if Yoda says that life creates the Force then if their is no life...Then I guess not.

 

Yeah that Duel of the Fates stuff is ... bleh.

If you do want to go down a road where the dark side isn't just an unnatural cancer on the Force and instead to talk about the light and dark sides as fundamentally necessary in terms of passive and active, surrender and control, day and night, that's fine... but not if you don't understand that the Jedi, as presented in the first six films, would already have that kind of holistic relationship with the Force -- or at least aspire to one -- and the issue with the various darksiders would be that they're fans of throwing the balance out of wack in favour of an eternal night.

 

minor spoilers for Clone Wars Season 7

Spoiler

It just occurred to me how absurd it is that the Jedi apparently don't have a department for transitioning former Jedi to civilian life. It's like they couldn't possibly believe anyone would actually leave.

Why don't the Jedi have their HR department or whatever put together a resume of Ahsoka's skills and send them to companies and agencies across the galaxy? There must be quite a few institutions who are indebted to the Jedi for some reason or other who could give Ahsoka employment. It's the least they could do for people who they basically took at birth and indoctrinated before they were old enough to make any choice as whether to join the Jedi willingly.