#'i wish padme and i could show him that' honestly the most condescending foolishness

[panharmonium]

Glancing sideways at Obi-Wan, remembering his former Master’s restrained but heartfelt praise of that mission, he felt a twinge of guilt.

I wish I could tell him about Padme. The Jedi are wrong. Love doesn’t weaken us. It makes us stronger. I wish Padme and I could show him that. He’s very alone.  (Karen Miller, Wild Space)

about the quote accompanying that last edit - 

i haven’t read wild space for so long, i forgot a lot of the things i didn’t like about it.  but like all the karen miller books i’ve read, it’s not my personal favorite.  and it’s been a long time since i wrote any star wars meta, but i’ve had that edit in my likes for months and i don’t want to attach a bunch of irrelevant meta to someone else’s lovely work, so here i am.

to whoever the anon was who asked me if i would write jedi order meta (a million years ago, i realize) - at the time i said i wasn’t sure, but times have, apparently, changed.

disclaimer:  personal opinions ahoy!  if they are not your opinions, that’s great! cool beans!  this is a fictional universe in which we all engage for fun; no need to get stressed - please feel free to hit the ‘ew, don’t like it’ tumblr button and go have fun with fandom in whatever way appeals to you! :)

(that disclaimer includes a request to please refrain from reblogging this for the sole purpose of arguing or starting a star wars debate™, even a good-natured one.  i’m literally just trying to organize my own personal interpretation of something on my own personal blog, for my own personal enjoyment.  i promise you there is no need to hit me up with ‘BUT HAVE YOU CONSIDERED THE FOLLOWING REBUTTAL - ’  i promise.  it’s cool.)

(under a cut for absurd length and many scanned book excerpts)

so, that wild space quote.  

my response to it hinges entirely on a question of author vs. character.

if this is solely a character’s point of view, then i find it eminently believable. this is a thing anakin might say.  it demonstrates yet again anakin’s fundamental misunderstanding of everything he’s ever been taught, but it’s very much a believable misunderstanding for him to operate under.

if this character bit is supported and endorsed by the author - which i suspect is the case, given that this is the angle i see the majority of star wars authors and fans taking - then that’s a different thing.

i feel like i’ve written variations on this post several times before, but surprisingly enough i am still staunchly opposed to virtually every interpretation of the jedi i have ever read, including wild space (shocking, i know, what can i do). it’s frustrating to me that the Prevailing Opinions out there about the Jedi Order are virtually all assumptions, not facts, and that these assumptions have for some reason been accepted as the only possible truth, the only possible extrapolation from canon, when in fact it is just as reasonable, just as textually-supported, and, i would argue, more realistic for us to extrapolate and make inferences supporting a different conclusion.

anakin’s interpretation of the jedi order in the quote above represents the Prevailing Opinion: “the jedi are wrong.  love doesn’t weaken us.”  this interpretation, in turn, relies on an assumption: “the jedi think love weakens us.” however, contrary to popular belief, the statement "the jedi think love weakens us” IS in fact exactly what i said it is: an ASSUMPTION.  

a presumption, i might even say, and one that i don’t personally feel is particularly well-supported by canon.  even anakin himself, when teased by padme, shows that he’s been taught enough jedi philosophy to know that “love” is more complicated than “love/emotions = bad!” and that “love” and “attachment” are not the same thing.

Padme: Are you allowed to love? I thought that was forbidden for a Jedi.

Anakin: Attachment is forbidden.  Possession is forbidden. Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is central to a Jedi's life.  So, you might say that we are encouraged to love.

which is still something of a rudimentary explanation, less nuanced than what an older knight or master might give you, but it absolutely indicates a deeper philosophical understanding of jedi pillars than what people usually credit anakin for knowing or obi-wan for teaching.

obi-wan says in ANH that the jedi knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy for “over a thousand generations.”  now, even estimating ridiculously low and saying that humans in the star wars universe only ever live to be thirty years old (i don’t know! it’s a dangerous galaxy!), a thousand generations is still thirty thousand years.  that’s…. significantly longer that our society’s entire written history, never mind the lifespan of any one modern-day religion.  

when we have so little canon information about the jedi order, obviously everybody is free to extrapolate about it however they like, but - when you look at things and recognize how truly old the order is - it’s just baffling to me that there is so little attention paid to canon/legends textual evidence of the philosophical nuance of the jedi order, to the near-certain existence, as with any real-world religion, of varying yet equally accepted schools of thought within the jedi order (not schools of thought elevated above the jedi order by some lazy label like ‘grey jedi’), to the idea that the jedi order is OVER A THOUSAND GENERATIONS OLD, and can you honestly not envision the sheer volume of scholarly debate and theological treatises and movements and growth and accumulated history and depth and internal interpretations that this organization necessarily must encompass?  think about any real-world religion today - think about how many different interpretations one religion might have for a single line of holy text, never mind an entire holy book - think of all the non-textual supplementary material that contributes to any philosophy or theology, i.e. the hadith; think about the exegesis that accompanies any religious text; think of the incredible volume of critical thought and literature and liturgy that falls under the umbrella of just one modern-day religion, and can you honestly imagine that the jedi order - which again is tens of THOUSANDS of years older than any of our religions - isn’t bursting at the seams with philosophy and history, with debate and interpretation, with myriad streams of literalist and revisionist schools of thought - ALL equally jedi, and ALL included in a jedi education?  

do we honestly think that the jedi code is five precepts scribbled on a piece of flimsi, and that everybody interprets them the same way?  we know that’s not true.  mace windu tells qui-gon that taking a second padawan is impossible because “the code forbids it,” and i hear that - but nowhere in the familiar ‘there is no emotion’ mantra do we get guidelines for padawan-raising.  that directive has to come from somewhere else.  we KNOW there’s more text.  we KNOW there’s more history.  but somehow we just refuse to extrapolate this knowledge out to its fullest logical extent, which is that the jedi order has a thousand generations’ more history, more text, more commentaries, more scholarly debates on every subject, and that while one tradition for, say, padawan-raising is accepted currently, the one-padawan/one-master convention isn’t just some arbitrary rule.  every structure and every tradition comes with a history, a conversation, and about 200 philosophical treatises, all of which are considered equally Jedi, and all of which are available to be checked out from the Archives.

this is how it would really work: padawans taking exams are tasked with answering questions like ‘explain, with textual evidence, so-and-so’s interpretation of the Fourth Precept, including references to such-and-such’s landmark rebuttal and the modern-day commentaries of X, Y, and Z.”  when masters tell their students that levitating their clothes into the laundry chute is a frivolous application of the Force and thus to be discouraged, certain impudent young scholars *cough obi-wan kenobi cough* troop down to the Archives and return later that night with ten different texts in hand, all of them ruminating on virtue or vice: applications of the force in everyday life, relevant portions circled. padawans taking saber classes are instructed not only in the elements of combat but in philosophical paradigms, and ethical dilemmas - a “real discussion about competing conceptions of the good” (to quote the office, of all things!), as in this excerpt from cloak of deception:

or this, about emotions:

With both eyes open now, he studied his Padawan. Obi-Wan sat cross-legged in a chair with his eyes closed. But his shoulders were tensed, and beneath his eyelids Qui-Gon could see movement.

“Are you all right, Obi-Wan?” Qui-Gon asked softly.

Obi-Wan opened his eyes and met his Master’s gaze. “Yes,” he said slowly. And then, “Well, I don’t know.”

“You are afraid,” Qui-Gon stated plainly.

A look of shame came over Obi-Wan’s face, but he did not deny it. “My heart is full of dread,” he admitted. “I wish we were on another mission - any other mission. I am not sure I have the courage to face the Holocron…”

Qui-Gon leaned toward his apprentice. “You have every right to be afraid,” he said quietly. “Allow yourself to feel the fear - really feel it - and then let the emotion go. If it comes back, feel it again and let it go again. There should be no shame in one’s emotions.”

“I am not at fault if it comes back?” Obi-Wan asked, looking up.

“No, Padawan,” Qui-Gon replied. “We cannot control how we feel. Only how we choose to handle our feelings.”

A look of true relief crossed Obi-Wan’s face, and he smiled slightly. His shoulders relaxed and he closed his eyes. (JA, Jude Watson)

about love:

No attachments. He did not see this as a conflict. He saw it as a great truth - that he could love, but have no wish to possess. That he could trust, but not resent those who let him down. (JA, Jude Watson)

about discipline, from Rogue Planet - discipline tempered by understanding, discipline that instructs rather than punishes, discipline that is as willing to point out the teacher’s error as it is the student’s:

and

THAT is the kind of education obi-wan kenobi received, and that is the education he provided for his own student. that is the jedi order. qui-gon jinn’s interpretation of jedi precepts and philosophy doesn’t make him something un-jedi.  it doesn’t make him a radical, and it doesn’t make him a “grey” jedi. “grey” jedi isn’t a thing.  differing interpretations and meaning-making, in this thousand generation-long tradition of scholarship and spiritual development, IS jedi - certain universal principles that the entire order accepts, but with nuances, readings, and applications that vary across individuals/traditions/historical periods.  

THAT is the jedi order.  or at least, it’s a more realistic conception of the jedi order than the oversimplified, unlikely, and unimaginative version that authors are typically referring to when they write sentences like “the jedi are wrong about love.”

#boop be doop i fell down a star wars shaped hole today #¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #that quote though -_- #'i wish padme and i could show him that' honestly the most condescending foolishness #like obi-wan doesn't actively choose the life he lives every single day #also uhhhhh good lord it's late #this is why i don't write meta anymore; i don't have tIME #but anyway the jedi deserved a few hours of my day #star wars #meta #order appreciation