Should the Jedi be considered good or beneficial?

[JirinPanthosa]

Funny, that's the argument that Palpatine used in the ROTS novel...



No, I think there is a point that the Jedi needed some measure of accountability, but I think they became more independent.

Well, when I say it I’m not secretly programming the oversight to murder them all.

 

[Kor]

The Jedi Order was an odd duck. Even though the Jedi Knights were considered "guardians of peace and justice," the Order wasn't exactly an official Republic governmental agency or department, but more of an independent third party that the Republic was constantly calling upon to mediate and negotiate stuff, and even to fight in wars. I can just imagine all the contracts, confidentiality arrangements, etc. that had to regularly pass between the Jedi Order and the Republic.

Kor

 

[Ithekro]

The way the Jedi do things changes over time. The ability to pick young children to become Jedi would only be possible with through the machinations of the Republic and its testing programs. It is likely that in the days of the Old Republic, the Jedi recruited teens or adults who showed Force skills. Sometimes this went wrong and you got Dark Jedi, and sometimes even Sith Lords. Some of the wars from thousands of years ago could be the reason that the Jedi Council, after the Ruusan Reformation, changed how they did business, in an effort to prevent another New Sith War from happening. While it more or less worked, the remaining Sith managed to pinpoint the weaknesses of the Republic and Jedi and slowly cracked both, leading to the Clone Wars and both's destruction from within. Only post Endor and maybe post-Skywalkers will the lessons be learned again and something else will point the direction of the Jedi, or whatever order replaces the Jedi.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

Funny, that's the argument that Palpatine used in the ROTS novel...



No, I think there is a point that the Jedi needed some measure of accountability, but I think they became more independent.

Yeah, I'd definitely say they needed some accountability. Even though they were correct in their assessment that Chancellor Palpatine was the Sith Lord, Darth Sidious, they essentially took it upon themselves to attempt to unseat the leader of the Galactic Senate (and attempt to assassinate him, no less!) without oversight. Pretty major power grab that I imagine would have had devastating consequences for the Jedi Order (had they not been purged with Order 66).

 

[USS Firefly]

Or the Jedi should have stept back as generals of the army. And be more like ambassadors or diplomats

 

[fireproof78]

Or the Jedi should have stept back as generals of the army. And be more like ambassadors or diplomats

Definitely. Mace's comment about being keepers of the peace and not soldiers was apt at the beginning of Attack of the Clones. I thought it was a great opportunity for them to highlight some moral reservation for the Jedi taking on that military role. But, it never came up. The Jedi were like "Hmm, an unauthorized army conveniently falls in to our lap. Whelp, never pass up a free army, I guess."

The ROTS novel does a great job of saying that by fighting in the war at all the Jedi lost. But I don't know if they ever recognized why they lost.

 

[Reverend]

The fall of the Jedi began long before the outbreak of the Clone Wars. Becoming behold to the Senate must have certainly seemed like the reasonable and responsible thing to do rather than running around being a law unto themselves. However, the downside of that increased accountability is that they're also subject to the mandates of a *massive* political bureaucracy.

For the Order, the Clone Wars was (by design) a trap wrapped in a Xanatos Gambit, stuffed inside the Kobayashi Maru. The Jedi became Generals in the war in the hopes of ending it as swiftly as possible. A war BTW which they had every reason to believe had been orchestrated by one of their own who had joined the Sith; which makes it very very hard to just ignore.
If they refused, they would 1) probably violating whatever concord they had with the senate, most likely loosing any official authority they might have, 2) be guilty of standing by while half the galaxy burned in an unending civil war. They'd essentially become outlaws and pariahs. Not a move to be taken lightly.

The ROTS novel does a great job of saying that by fighting in the war at all the Jedi lost. But I don't know if they ever recognized why they lost.

I know people hold that novelization in high regard (and rightly so) but there's one aspect of it that's always bothered me; Anakin and Obi-Wan being propaganda celebrities.
Aside from all the problems it creates for the OT, it just doesn't sit right. I forget where I heard it (probably a BTS featurette for TCW) but I recall Filloni saying that George's idea was that Palpatine (who controlled the media) deliberately kept the Jedi out of Republic propaganda, at least in any specificity. Only ever portraying them as faceless and monolithic. Which the Jedi would take as a kindness since their selfless precepts make them uncomfortable with the spotlight, while in reality it allowed Palpatine to further mystify the Order (and not in a good way) while subtly shift the blame for the war in their direction.
I think there's even an episode on Coruscant the features a giant video wall of Palpatine playing the the background where he's basically "publicly dispelling accusations of Jedi warmongering" which seems to support this tactic. It keeps Palpatine the face the the Emp-I mean the democratic bastion that is the Republic, while using the Streisand Effect to erode trust in the Jedi.

 

[fireproof78]

I know people hold that novelization in high regard (and rightly so) but there's one aspect of it that's always bothered me; Anakin and Obi-Wan being propaganda celebrities.
Aside from all the problems it creates for the OT, it just doesn't sit right. I forget where I heard it (probably a BTS featurette for TCW) but I recall Filloni saying that George's idea was that Palpatine (who controlled the media) deliberately kept the Jedi out of Republic propaganda, at least in any specificity. Only ever portraying them as faceless and monolithic. Which the Jedi would take as a kindness since their selfless precepts make them uncomfortable with the spotlight, while in reality it allowed Palpatine to further mystify the Order (and not in a good way) while subtly shift the blame for the war in their direction.
I think there's even an episode on Coruscant the features a giant video wall of Palpatine playing the the background where he's basically "publicly dispelling accusations of Jedi warmongering" which seems to support this tactic. It keeps Palpatine the face the the Emp-I mean the democratic bastion that is the Republic, while using the Streisand Effect to erode trust in the Jedi.

Yeah, that part always stood out to me as rather odd too, and creating a weird disconnect from PT to OT that already was a bit odd with the Jedi being around only 20 years ago, yet regarded as ancient oddities.

I do think that Palpatine manipulated the media, so using Obi-wan and Anakin as media darlings is completely out of character for him. He would want the attention on him. Even in Legends that was part of his rise to power is that he was just a nice looking face for the holocams and became this charismatic leader that allowed him to move on up. So, his efforts to "save the Republic" would what he would want the public to see.

 

[Ithekro]

I could see him using Anakin if the idea was to keep Darth Vader around as the Face of the Empire. The Empire's one loyal Jedi. That Obi-wan and Anakin were typically together on missions would cloud it slightly, but only make the Jedi's betrayal even worse for the new Imperial citizens, knowing that such a man as the hero, Obi-wan Kenobi, had betrayed the Republic and his friend Darth Vader.

Or at least that's the spin I would think Palpatine would attempt, had things got entirely to plan. Though if things had gone entirely to plan, he could have used Obi-wan's death fighting Dooku as the last other loyal Jedi, and thus leaving Darth Vader as the single loyal Imperial Jedi (public Sith Lord) in the Galaxy.

 

[Reverend]

I could see him using Anakin if the idea was to keep Darth Vader around as the Face of the Empire. The Empire's one loyal Jedi. That Obi-wan and Anakin were typically together on missions would cloud it slightly, but only make the Jedi's betrayal even worse for the new Imperial citizens, knowing that such a man as the hero, Obi-wan Kenobi, had betrayed the Republic and his friend Darth Vader.

Or at least that's the spin I would think Palpatine would attempt, had things got entirely to plan. Though if things had gone entirely to plan, he could have used Obi-wan's death fighting Dooku as the last other loyal Jedi, and thus leaving Darth Vader as the single loyal Imperial Jedi (public Sith Lord) in the Galaxy.

Of course one can find a way to justify it if one absolutely must (which you can do for just about anything if you try hard enough), but the larger point I was addressing is that it stuck out like a sore thumb to me as one of those "this a thing an EU author thought sounded cool in the moment" things and not one of those "this actually came from George Lucas who actually has a sense of the overview and has thought this out" things.

That's not a knock against Matthew Stover; he was hired to adapt a screenplay into a novel, and since by that point the novelizations (by which I just mean AotC & RotS) had become much more EU oriented adaptations than pure novelizations (complete with passing mentions of the events of recent and/or upcoming books in the prequel line) he was doubtless given a fair amount of latitude in putting his own interpretation on things.

This is in stark contrast to the Terry Brooks novelization for TPM, which by all accounts was very much a pure adaptation of the script, with some fairly close oversight from Lucas (hence the extended explanation of the history of the Sith, the Rule of Two and the first mention of Darth Bane.) As a result, the tone and content of the extra material (i.e. the bits not taken directly from the movie) feels much more in line with Lucas in a way the EU books rarely ever achieved,

I applaud his approach of having a good portion of the book shown from Anakin's perspective and internal monologue to really explore the internal conflict. But that whole "hero without fear" celebrity thing just doesn't feel right.

 

[BillJ]

No, they aren't. They seem to "represent" the Republic, but the Republic has no oversight over them. The Republic representing a bauble that the Jedi and Sith fight over.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

Yeah, that part always stood out to me as rather odd too, and creating a weird disconnect from PT to OT that already was a bit odd with the Jedi being around only 20 years ago, yet regarded as ancient oddities.

I do think that Palpatine manipulated the media, so using Obi-wan and Anakin as media darlings is completely out of character for him. He would want the attention on him. Even in Legends that was part of his rise to power is that he was just a nice looking face for the holocams and became this charismatic leader that allowed him to move on up. So, his efforts to "save the Republic" would what he would want the public to see.

I don't see Palpatine using the media for Obi-Wan and Anakin being out of character. If anything, it would create more friction between the two, as Obi-Wan would be reserved and not want the attention, while Anakin would welcome it for the glory it would bring him. Only after turning Anakin to the Dark Side could I see Palpatine turning the narrative of the Jedi into pariahs and coming to the forefront, becoming the face of the Empire.

 

[tomalak301]

It's kind of interesting reading this thread because I'm watching Clone Wars (If you read my thread it's kinda similar to this one right now) and with each episode realizing that the Jedi are not all they are cracked up to be is such a harrowing experience. I do think individuals are good (Ahsoka, Old Yoda, Qui Gonn, Plo, Obi Wan and Luke) but the whole are corrupt and almost narcissistic.

 

[fireproof78]

It's kind of interesting reading this thread because I'm watching Clone Wars (If you read my thread it's kinda similar to this one right now) and with each episode realizing that the Jedi are not all they are cracked up to be is such a harrowing experience. I do think individuals are good (Ahsoka, Old Yoda, Qui Gonn, Plo, Obi Wan and Luke) but the whole are corrupt and almost narcissistic.

I don't think the Jedi are automatically bad, but neither are they automatically good, which is pretty much the base assumption of the OT. The biggest thing for me, and where the PT and TCW fails, is it rarely shows the good side of the Jedi, or the Republic to give us a sense of what is lost when these institutions should remain. I would love to see the good side of it, rather than just "not Sith, not the Empire."

 

[Ithekro]

Perhaps the High Republic series will provide a set of stories of the Republic and Jedi that fits their reputation from the OT, rather than their failing reality of the PT era.

 

[Reverend]

I don't see Palpatine using the media for Obi-Wan and Anakin being out of character. If anything, it would create more friction between the two, as Obi-Wan would be reserved and not want the attention, while Anakin would welcome it for the glory it would bring him. Only after turning Anakin to the Dark Side could I see Palpatine turning the narrative of the Jedi into pariahs and coming to the forefront, becoming the face of the Empire.

As history has show again, and again; the best way do demonise a group is to strip them of their individuality. To reduce them to a single, two-dimensional idea. So giving them a literal human face by putting individual Jedi front and centre of a propaganda campaign in contrary to Palpatine's goals in the war. Remember, the war's function isn't to "win" it's to destroy and sow discord. He doesn't want people to feel good about the war, he doesn't want public heroes; he wants fear. Making the clones, or more precisely; those helmets the face of victory and security makes way more sense when the end goal in so slide the Republic into an authoritarian dictatorship.

As far as creating friction between Anakin and Obi-Wan, he has much more effective levers than just putting Anakin's face on some posters and running a few overly flattering newsreels about them.

 

[Oddish]

The Republic enjoyed 25,000 years of freedom for trillions of sentients, thanks to the Jedi. I say that's adequate cause to call them benevolent.

 

[Turtletrekker]

The Republic enjoyed 25,000 years of freedom for trillions of sentients, thanks to the Jedi. I say that's adequate cause to call them benevolent.

Was that because of the Jedi or in spite of them?

 

[Reverend]

Alternate take on history: for the last few thousand years, the galaxy has been periodically consumed by enormously destructive conflicts precipitated by the Jedi religion and it's internal schisms. Governments have been toppled, Empires risen and warred amongst each other, whole planets have been laid waste and untold billion have been killed, all because a bunch of jumped up wizards in bathrobes can't agree whether or not there can be life after death.

 

[JD]

It will be very interesting to see if The High Republic gives us a new perspective on this question.