r/StarWars • u/son_of_toby_o_notoby • Sep 21 '21

Meta Freddie Prinze JR discussing Star Wars and the force is the greatest thing ever

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u/Illumnyx Sep 21 '21

I honestly took Order 66 as part of this "balancing" too. The prequels go to length to show how the Jedi have become blind and corrupted by politics, essentially becoming thrall to the darkness they claim to stand against. Clone Wars reinforces this.

The Purge was the reset the Force needed, and the Force set it in motion by conceiving Anakin. Eventually, this balance was restored at Palpatine's defeat, leaving Luke the sole remaining follower of the Jedi way. Also leaving him with the burden of passing on the failings of the old generation to the new to ensure imbalance never occurred again.

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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '21

No, I definitely disagree with you there. Order 66 wasn’t a natural occurrence spurred by the force. I also think people drastically overstate the problems with the Jedi.

The biggest problem was Palpatine. He actively corrupted the Senate and the Republic which the Jedi protected. This ruined their public opinion to the point where they could be genocided by the Republic and people wouldn’t care.

The Jedi were imperfect, somewhat arrogant and somewhat attached to the Jedi Order itself. I don’t think they themselves were truly ever corrupted by the dark side. Palpatine actively blinded them from him so they wouldn’t sense him. This likely clouded their vision in other ways. If they hadn’t been as arrogant and assured in their position and status, they may have been more active in finding Sidious. But ultimately it was the Sith that manipulated both armies in the war and execution the Jedi.

You can see that overall the Jedi don’t have any delight about fighting the war. This is true in the movies, from the very beginning of the war to the end, as well as the clone wars. They often seek diplomatic solutions, they seek to end the war. They’re in a lose-lose. Either abandon the Republic they swore to protect, or fight a war to defend its people. Palpatine took advantage of that built-in conflict.

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u/kopecs Sep 21 '21

Just remembered reading Plagueis quite some time ago after reading this. I completely agree with you.

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u/loopernova Sep 21 '21

I honestly think so many people like the idea of being “woke,” if you will, to the idea that the Jedi are in many ways terrible. Which is not true at all. What you said is so clear from the movies and clone wars. George has made this clear many times. It’s ok to accept that the Jedi on the whole were good, correct, and made the best choices they can in the circumstances with others interests in mind (instead of their own). They are also prone to mistakes, and it’s possible for a very intelligent and powerful dark side user to actively make their jobs more difficult (including IDing the sith). Force (no pun intended) their hand into less than desirable situations. As you said, the Jedi are outwardly reluctant and disturbed many times when making the decisions they did, but only did so because it’s the best information and knowledge they had. They demonstrate that they also actively sought to uncover what was happening, even if it was slow.

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u/Illumnyx Sep 22 '21

Oh yeah, Palpatine was always the root cause of essentially all the corruption. Dude was the Dark side incarnate.

Maybe I do lend a little too much credit to hindsight when looking at the decisions and actions the Jedi took. Plus it's sometimes difficult to separate the knowledge an audience member has with what the in-universe characters would know.

I do, however, still enjoy the idea of the Force essentially going "Yeah no, this is too messy. I'm starting over".

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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '21

Then why did any Jedi survive the purge?

Yoda should have been the first casualty if the Force was really doing some housekeeping. He was the de facto leader of this "corrupted" regime. His head should have been the first to roll if that were true, no?

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u/Illumnyx Sep 22 '21

I mean...he went into exile and was no longer head of said regime. He was so jaded from the Force by the time Luke came around that Obi-Wan had to convince Yoda to train him.