PT What Could The Jedi Have Done Differently?

Hello everyone,

I've heard many things on how individual Jedi could've acted differently, but how could the Jedi as a whole acted differently?

In legends continuity the Clone Wars was the first galactic sized war in a millenium. I think that's good results, but it's up in the air if that's truly because of the Jedi or the Republic itself.

In current continuity I'm not sure, but the line "I will not let this Republic that has stood for a thousand years-" or something of the sort implies at least 1000 years of peace.

I don't want to nitpick the Jedi's collective missteps, just the huge culprits.

The Clone Wars. Could they have feasibly not fought in this war? If they left Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padme to die on Geonosis I think the war could have been postponed since an 'invasion' didn't happen. That doesn't solve the Separatist problem though.

The Separatist problem is a Republic problem and not necessarily a Jedi problem. They become a Jedi problem because of the Jedi's connection to the Republic. Could they competently sever the connection with the Republic (and being Separatists themselves lol?)

They were just in such a crappy position. I feel like they were at the end of a 'nothing lasts forever' scenario. Sure there are a lot of little things that the big players could've done to avert some of the disaster, or in some cases feel like completely getting off scott-free, but I just feel like the Jedi at that point were done.

What do you think they could've done on a broader scale that could've saved them?

 

Probably would have done the Jedi some good to have looked into what Dooku said on Geonosis and to find out where the Clone Army came from as opposed to just assuming Dooku was lying and to not look into the Army at all.

 

Yeah, there was absolutely no reason why they couldn't have freed Shmi and put her in an apartment somewhere. If you're going to take in a ten year old with a slave mother, you gotta be slightly accommodating. I'm sure Anakin could focus better on his Jedi training if he knew his mother wasn't still a slave to Watto.

 

Maybe looked into recruiting older potential Jedi. Think of how many force sensitive people could be receuited as Jedi..

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Shmi was free (and had been free for quite a while) by the time she got kidnapped. And Anakin knowing that she was no longer a slave wouldn't have stopped him from acting on his visions of her in pain and suffering (which could have happened anywhere at any time). And that's solely on him and his inability to let go of his attachments and fear.

It's Anakin who needs to let go, not the Jedi who need to cater to him and his fears.

 

This confuses me. As I understand it, the Jedi forgo attachments in order to treat everyone with equal love and consideration. Yet, it seems, this does not extend to the relatives of Jedi. Not only are the related Jedi to have no contact with them, but no other Jedi are, either. I mean, if Ani had been having visions that, say, Senator Organa or some person he'd never met was in danger and might die, would the Jedi be so quick to dismiss them as dreams, or just tell Ani, "Forget it. Cut them off and don't look back."?
If the Jedi were treating everyone equally, they'd look after the welfare of a Jedi's family just as they would any other person. And saying, "Well, it's just one person," brings up the question, "Well, how many people have to be in trouble for the Jedi to help?" Plus, I don't see how asking one Jedi (not Ani) to look in on Shmi's situation, or even just one comm call to the Tatooine cops to check on things, is "coddling" Ani. Rather, in easing his worries, it might help him focus more on his training and have real assurance that the Jedi do, indeed, care about everybody.

Back on subject, one thing the Jedi should have done is, as others have proposed, stopped and thought about what the heck was going on. Where did these armies come from? Who's running things? How did this happen under our noses? After Geonosis, they should've handed over command of the army & starfleet to their respective officers and concentrated on their duties as keepers of the peace, and looked into the causes of the conflict. Instead, having swallowed Palpatine's con whole, they went from interstellar peacekeepers to generals in war to an attempted conspiracy to overthrow the government to a (perceived) dangerous cult that needed to be stamped out. They let their fear for the Republic override their better judgement and made a hasty decision. By the time Kenobi and, maybe, Yoda started to wonder what was really going on, the Jedi were already way down the path to doom.

 

The Jedi don't forgo attachments in order to treat everyone with equal love and consideration. They do that and they forgo attachments, because attachment is a sign of greed, fear and thus are pathways to the dark side.

Anakin had visions and acted on them because of his fear of loss and attachment. That's why Yoda asked him about the content of the visions. Were they about himself or someone else? Were they close to Anakin or not? In the end, the reality is that Anakin's attachment is at play, and he should let go of that fear. That's the solution for his problem. Yoda realized that and gave him the right counsel.

Anakin doesn't own other people's lives. He can't be at Shmi's side all the time in order to protect her of any possible danger she might find herself in. She certainly wouldn't want that of Anakin. That's would be a slave life. A slave of fear. And he can't control Padmé's fate either. It's not like he has visions of situations where his actions can prevent loss of life. He has visions of what he fears to lose, and he acts because of that fear. Not because of the well being of others.

Let's drop that red herring. The only reason people argue that the Jedi should have done something about Shmi is not because of Shmi herself, but solely to pander Anakin and ease his fears. But doing something about Shmi wouldn't have done anything to ease Anakin's fears, because Anakin's problem is attachment and fear of loss. It's ridiculous not only to find it acceptable that Anakin should be a slave of his fears but that the Jedi as a whole should be slaves of Anakin too.

Nobody is free from danger or death, slave or not. That's why Lucas established that Shmi had been freed years before Anakin went to her. Because her freedom was irrelevant to her situation and to Anakin's problem. The Jedi accept that from the get go. They help people out of compassion and when they know they can help, not out of fear, attachment or recklessness.

 

Letting Anakin spend a decade with the thought that his mother was a slave to Watto is pretty messed up. Even if she was freed the day after Anakin departed Tatooine, Anakin doesn't know this until the events of AOTC.

Imagine hearing from these protectors of peace and justice that you're supposed to be wholly compassionate, but also your mom has to continue being a slave. That's not gonna put your mind at ease about the morals and ethics of these space monks.

 

The morals and ethics of the Jedi have nothing to do with it, nor was Anakin's mind not at ease because of Shmi being a slave, but because he was afraid to lose her. Her condition as a slave or free person is irrelevant to that fear or her life being in danger.

Messed up is arguing that the Jedi should forgo their ways and duties and be slaves of Anakin's fear of loss by pandering to his attachments instead of accepting the fact that it's Anakin who needs to let go.

 

This is a particular point that I would say is very misunderstood in regards to the storytelling. Anyone might not like it of course but it was very much addressed in TPM.

Which is what is shown in both TPM and AOTC:

Anakin has not been disturbed in dreams in the 10 years since last seeing her and as far as he knows she is still a slave. That particular point was specifically resolved in TPM. That isn't to say that he didn't miss her. Obviously he did. He had accepted that being in the Jedi Order meant leaving her behind. His not sleeping well anymore because he dreams of his mother is a recent thing. Presumably in the past month after she was taken by the Tuskens.

 

Nice try, but it's not about pandering to Ani's fears. It's about showing compassion for someone who may be in trouble. Ani had visions of the future, a recognized Jedi trait. They were of people (first Shmi, then Padme) in danger of death. The Jedi are sworn to protect those in danger and to help those in need. The Jedi had the ability to do that, no matter who is in danger. And, if they couldn't, they could refer it to someone in a better position to help (the police, the military, charity organizations, medical personnel). Deciding not to help at all, nor ask anyone else to help, because it "panders to Ani's fears" is cold-hearted nonsense. Yes, Ani couldn't control other people's lives, but that doesn't mean the whole Jedi organization should leave Shmi to a horrible fate. That's the philosophy of pre-redemption Scrooge, not "guardians of peace and justice". Hey, by that reckoning, why do the Jedi help anybody at all? Their lives are their own, not the Jedi Order's. And, after Ani's visions proved true, abandoning Padme to a sad fate after plenty of warning is just callous, almost malicious.
Ani had a great many problems. And it was his responsibility to face them and deal with them. But it certainly didn't help matters knowing that the organization he was part of, that presented itself as those who help the helpless in the name of the Force that linked all living beings together, had said his mother's life wasn't their problem. And that none of them would help at all, just so he can learn a lesson. And that's just the sort of policy that made Palpatine's con so much easier to spring and for people to accept.
And I notice you didn't challenge my assertion that the Jedi acted in haste and left themselves wide open to get suckered in, then nearly obliterated.

 

Just because Anakin is a terrible person, doesn't change the fact that the Jedi seem like terrible people for not freeing Shmi.

They can both be bad.

Plus, imagine the psychological damage that must do to a ten year old child,and all in an attempt to teach Anakin a lesson. That's messed up.

Plus, which organization decided to go ahead and train this little kid in the ways of the force while also inflicting this psychological damage? Yep, the Jedi.

 

The Jedi are compassionate, their compassion has nothing to do with this discussion. You're arguing because you want them to pander Anakin, that's really the basis of the argument.

Visions of the future are not the future, and not all visions are the same. There are visions where a Jedi can help save lives and prevent something bad from happening, and there are visions where they can't, where the visions are nothing but the consequence of fear and attachment, which is the case with Anakin's.

Anakin couldn't do anything to prevent the visions he had, and he shouldn't have done anything because there was nothing he could do to prevent what he feared would happen. Yet he decided to act on those fears and attachments that fueled his visions, so he made those visions a reality, he saved nobody and committed atrocities because of that.

They did. It's in the movies. They simply don't have all the answers.

You seem to forget that the whole point of the army, and the debate surrounding its creation, was to assist the Jedi who were not able to keep the peace due to the separatist crisis. There are no "respective officers". The Jedi, as servants of the Republic, were forced into the war, because that was Palpatine's plan since he manufactured the crisis. The Jedi can't simply stay in the sidelines and ignore their oath of service to the Republic or help save the lives their swore to serve and protect. That the army would serve under the Jedi is the premiss of the whole thing.

Why are they terrible for not freeing Shmi (assuming it's within their power to do so)? And why Shmi of all the slaves?

 

Why shouldn't the warriors of peace and justice at least attempt to free slaves? I feel like that question answers itself.

Because slavery is wrong.

This whole thread is about what the Jedi could have done better through the events of the PT. By ROTS, the entire galaxy turned against them. So maybe, just maybe, the Jedi should have done smaller scale stuff, like freed slaves, so that the galaxy wouldn't view them as terrible people.

 

Guardians of peace and justice in the Republic. There's no slavery in the Republic.

And saying that "the Jedi should free slaves" is a completely different argument from "the Jedi should free Shmi". An argument that can be made and is easy to explain why: they aren't going to open war with the Hutts in the outer rim where they have no jurisdiction or power over.

Yes, slavery is wrong. No Jedi argues that.

 

@Alexrd

I disagree. You'll just have to accept that.

 

Again this is all actually answered in the movies themselves. Would Qui-Gon love to free slaves? In fact all the slaves? Sure. He didn't come there to free any slaves. The only reason he put himself out there to free the both of them (then settled on Anakin) was because he felt he was the Chosen One. If he didn't they he wouldn't have even tried to free Anakin.

Should Qui-Gon have threatened Watto? Got him to remove the slave explosive implant then simply cut him down afterwards?

The point is made that there is no slavery in the Republic. Tatooine and the Outer Rim are not part of that. Should the Republic invade and take over the Outer Rim to stop slavery? Should the Jedi start an illegal war? They don't have the number of Jedi to do that so then they'd need a Great Army of the Republic!

Sound familiar?

Acceptance of the difference is understood but the point I'd make is that these issues are actually addressed in the movies. You simply don't agree with Lucas' decisions on them while for myself I accept that it's his story and that this is how he very ably deals with them.

If he brought points like this up and didn't address them then that would be a problem. That he so specifically makes a point of why the Jedi just don't invade the Outer Rim and Tatooine starting a war with Hutt Cartel tells us that he thought of this and addressed it.

This comes under the same line of thinking of why Padme didn't just go back to Tatooine and buy Shmi then take her to Naboo? That the Queen of a planet should buy this one slave above all others is the question. Padme should just use her office for her own personal gain and wants? What about all the other slaves she met? What about the entire planet? The entire system?

Lucas is making the point of differentiation between the kind of thing that Anakin ended up doing compared to Padme and Qui-Gon.

 

And because it didn't affect his current mission. In fact, it helped. Same with saving Jar Jar from Boss Nass's punishment.

Which is an idea that was expressed at the very beginning of the movie: to be mindful of the future but not at the expense of the moment.

 

This is a point that has to be stressed and restressed over and over again. Anakin was not having dreams of his mother for the previous 10 years. They are dreams specific to her capture that he was unaware of that started the month prior (possibly before she even was captured but certainly after). The parallel to Luke is Han and Leia who were captured and Luke went to save them.

At the time Anakin accepted that he had to leave her behind but also that they would meet again. Even if he would have known that she was freed on Tatooine soon after he left then that would not have changed anything substantially. If anything he knew that as slave owners go Watto was strict but fair. The dreams came in response to a specific event.

 

First, again, I'm asking what are the boundaries of Jedi compassion? Will they help anyone in need? If someone is in danger, will they come to their aid? And if the answer is, "No," will they call for someone else to help, instead? Or will they just leave someone in danger and do nothing, just so one Jedi can learn a lesson? And helping someone in need is bad because it's "pandering"?
Further, regarding the visions, who gets to say which are OK and which aren't? When Ani had visions of Shmi in danger, she was still alive. And when he had them of Padme, so was she. If someone had taken some action, Shmi might've survived and Padme probably would have. But Ani was told that no one would do anything. Let them die; it's not our problem, or anybody else's. And, again, it's all so Ani can learn a lesson, even if innocent people suffer. That's the very thing Jake Skywalker was preaching: it's not my problem, and you'll just have to learn not to trust the Jedi, no matter who dies. And if that's the kind of "peace and justice" the Jedi were preaching, there's something really wrong here. Are the Jedi so cold-hearted that they'll completely cut off the families of those who gave them their followers, leaving them without hope or compassion? Do they pick and choose who gets help based on what's best for their own number? Are they condemning people to death just because an accident of birth gave them Jedi children?
As for the war, there are, indeed, respective officers for the Army. The Jedi weren't doing all the fighting. There are ground troops and pilots, and those Republic officers commanding them. The Jedi could very easily have said what Qui-Gon told Padme, "I cannot fight a war for you." That's not their job; they more like marshals than soldiers. And they could handle investigating the cause of the crisis, while the military does its job and fights the enemy. And it most definitely not the Jedi's job to overthrow the government and put themselves in charge. What we see is a Jedi Order who got suckered into a fight they shouldn't have been part of, and who rushed headlong into actions that nearly destroyed them.
As for Shmi, I'm sure Qui-Gon would've loved to free all the slaves, if he'd been able. But he couldn't at that moment. He showed what compassion he could, and tried to help. In the original EU, he did prepare a way for at least Shmi to be freed. Sometimes, you give what help you can, and try to bring in others to do the same. There are different ways to help, but, in Shmi's case, the Jedi weren't helping at all. What are they there for, then?

 

Yes. When you read the name of the thread, what did you expect to find in here?

He brought a point up and did address it. But I don't like how he addressed it. So again, when you read the name of the thread, what did you expect to find in here?

This is the same issue that was in the thread about how the Jedi come across in the PT. I think they come off as cold and uncaring based on what I saw in the film. People disagreed and stated their points. I stated my points. It was civil because we agreed that you can watch a movie and feel all sorts of ways about what you saw. Then other posters came in and could not wrap their heads around how everyone wasn't landing on the same exact opinions they had and it got awkward for everyone.

I understand the movies just fine, but if a thread is asking what the Jedi could have done to not end up in a situation where almost the entirely galaxy is willing to turn their backs on them and allow them to be killed by the state, maybe at least attempting to get the senate to do something about a slave trade in the Hutt regions would be my go to response.

 

I apologize if I went on a bit giving my opinion. As I've posted elsewhere, sometimes I do have a tendency to furiously beat the proverbial dead horse. I hope I was at least civil.

 

Exactly what was in it. Those who agreed with his decisions, those who don't and think he should have done it another way and those who don't but acknowledge they were his but they'd do it another way.

Again what was stated above. The wrinkle that you are bringing is a meta-approach as to ask why would anyone in the thread bother to state what they think that Lucas' story indicates are his points and how he addressed them. We can't be entirely definitive of course but between the six movies and what he says in and about them along with other material associated it's pretty indicative.

I don't see any of that as awkward at all. Anyone can think and react as they will. The point that someone like myself or Alexrd makes is that as best we can we provide what we think is most likely the point that Lucas is making in the movies. When someone makes their points about what they would like to see or how they would have liked things to be done that's fine. It's also fine for someone to point out what they think is Lucas' point and how he has addressed the issues raised.

Quite and the points brought in response to that were based on material right from the movies themselves.

As mentioned about TPM how exactly would the Jedi leading the Republic with an invasion of the Outer Rim on Tatooine starting a war with Hutt Cartel get the galaxy to see the Jedi in a better light? If anything it'd hasten their demise. Sidious would certainly have loved it.

The Republic is shown as an incredibly vast body and in all of that there is no slavery. Slavery now is completely outside it in places like the Outer Rim. That is a bad war. In the movies the Jedi are the general of the Republic army against the Separatists. There couldn't be a more "popular" war but yet due to that war Sidious was able to use it to turn the galaxy on them at a moments notice saying they were using it to seize power illegally.

That seems to me to be the exact point Lucas was making. Jedi going into war was a bad idea. It was bad enough when they were conned into it but if they had actually done it of their own volition then it'd be far worse. They aren't there to expand the Republic like it's an Empire but to keep the peace and not start wars. The Jedi way would be to negotiate with Hutts to try to get slavery abolished on political lines.

As noted Qui-Gon could have easily forced Watto to give up Shmi but that would have been wrong. He attempted to do it the proper way and he couldn't but was able to free Anakin. Would you have wanted Lucas to just have Qui-Gon kill and steal for what he needed? To do anything necessary like he was a Sith?

 

Okay, then do that. I never said they should go to war to free slaves. Just that they should put forth some attempt at getting the senate to do something.

I previously said...

Now you're saying that they should go about it with negotiations. Okay. Do that. Again, I never said they should go to war and I don't know where that thought came from.