What more could the Jedi have done?

I think a lot of the discourse about the "Jedi being slavers" comes from a deliberately uncharitable and bad faith reading of them.

I agree with you that TCW raises these questions and chooses not to go through with addressing them because it is ultimately a kids show that isn't trying to tell a story about the clones' situation but about [the Clone War itself].

But whenever I see people choose to go into these deeper ethical debates, they almost always assign an unfairly disproportionate amount of blame onto the Jedi who are, for the most part, in the same boat as the clones. Even the clones themselves seem to understand the nuance of the situation and most are grateful to the Jedi for coming in and leading them.

Although, yes, the clones do have it much, much worse, the Jedi are still there, fighting, protecting and dying right alongside them.

The Jedi are blamed for being part of the Republic in spite of all its issues, far more than the Senate is for being the Republic, even though the Senate is the one with all the power.

I wonder what it is people wanted the Jedi to even do for the clones...

OPTION 1: Leave the Republic?

And let the Separatists (whose originally legitimate grievances have been hijacked by the Sith) freely commit mass atrocities and enslave other planets with their humongous droid army?

OPTION 2: Overthrow the Republic?

And then what?

So in the middle of a galactic war, the Jedi, with their limited numbers and resources, decide to start another one against the Republic to free the clones and ignore all the other planets getting destroyed and enslaved, and then...? [Also] the Republic citizens were largely unwilling to fight their own battles and preferred to leave all the fighting to the Jedi and the clones. So, now:

All of this ⬆️ is premised on the Jedi even being willing to throw away their democratic values, and on the clones even WANTING THEM TO DO SO. Yes the clones are in a terrible situation, but the harsh truth is that, canonically, they do share the same values as the Jedi.

People can argue that they're brainwashed into this, and I would even agree. But that doesn't make it any less true that these are still their values. Most of them want to fight for the Republic.

They should have the choice available to pursue another path if they wanted, but the show - and thus the clones and the Jedi - barely have the time to consider all these issues because they are in the middle of a war.

In the show, [the clones] are the conveniently available highly-trained army that the Republic was going to use with or without the Jedi because it was all a trap set by a Sith Lord.

The Jedi, who were supposed to be some hybrid of social workers, peace-keepers and diplomats, were drafted into a war they did not want, and did not fight [the draft] because they had made an oath to the Republic, and because the alternative was letting billions get killed.

They were between a rock and a hard place and chose to prioritize trying to end the immediate war first before fighting for the rights of the clone army (which - again - is not even their job! Padme, Mon Mothma and Bail and all the other politicians are RIGHT THERE!)

The Jedi were a minority religious order whose own situation in the Republic was precarious, as evidenced by the fact that the citizens were willing to cheerlead their genocide just a couple of years in and gleefully bought into anti-Jedi propaganda en masse.

A more charitable reading of the Jedi would take all this ⬆️ context into account before declaring them slavers/slavery-enablers and surmise that... no, they did not agree with how the Republic was treating the clone army.

They were most likely hoping the Senate would enact a democratic solution to this after the war, so they tried to end the war as quickly as they could.

And no, they didn't "selfishly decide to overthrow/kill Palps just because they found out the Chancellor was their religious enemy when they were unwilling to do so for the clones."

It was because they realised that - all this time - they had all been under the control of a Sith Lord who had orchestrated a sham war to destroy them and take power for himself.

^^^

The Jedi are not a government agency, they are a charitable religious order with a formal relationship to their government.

Charities do a lot of good—but governments always have the potential do more, because they have consistent funding from taxes, because they have existing infrastructure (physical and bureaucratic), because they can make systematic change directly at the source.

Charities are almost never able to make up the difference when government programs are cut.

The Republic government takes the Jedi for granted, as it takes its own stability for granted. It assumes it can allow corruption to slip in without consequence. That it can fail to care for its citizens without consequence. That it can use the clones without consequence.

The members of the senate do not die at the end of ROTS. Their fate is subtler, but Sidious says it himself:

“I AM the Senate.”

And conversely, the senate has become Sidious, become the Sith. They have entirely lost the ability to exercise conscience.

The Jedi, on the other hand? They face the consequences of the Senate’s failing conscience daily, alongside the clones. They die, they witness death, they fight to prevent it where the Senate does not. They choose to be there, along side the clones, because the clones are alive, not in spite of it. The Jedi would never have been trapped by a droid army in this way. Given a droid army, they would have flocked right to the living people most in danger. Sidious knows that.

Imagine if you heard that your local quirky small religious organisation, that you know for its charitable efforts in the community (I’m talking a small local group, not like the whole Catholic Church or something) had been recruited as soldiers. And like, you knew they did martial arts lessons of some kind because they felt that bodily health was tied to spiritual health, and that being able to defend the weak was important, but shouldn’t recruiting them as a military be illegal? They’re not trained for one on one combat and disarming gun owners, not war?

But by an old legal loophole, it is legal. The Jedi can be recruited. They would protest but…there are vulnerable people getting hurt. The clones and the civilians. They can’t just leave them.

And I’d like to add a third bullet point to the what more could they have done argument that I sometimes see.

Option 3: Leave the Republic and Take the Clones with them

Part of this is already covered above, with the clones having agency to choose to fight and care about the Republic’s people, even though it’s mixed up with brainwashing.

But an even stronger argument is much less philosophical:

Feeding 2 million people is hard.

Impossible, even, without some existing infrastructure of irrigated fields, farming equipment, knowledgeable farmers. Or alternatively, without thousands of people dying of starvation and disease while you make your early mistakes. The Jedi keep gardens, but not on the scale of commercial or even full subsistence farming. The clones are able laborers, but they are not farmers. “But they could learn.” Yes, they could—but talk to a farmer sometime. Farming is a craft, with complexities and traditions and things that you simply cannot figure out without someone telling you or making big mistakes. There is no such thing as unskilled labor.

In order to hide a population of 2 million people, you need a lot of space. Like a lot.

I shoved some basic assumptions into a land-food calculator:

[ID: a food calculator website, showing various options for types of food. Fruit and Vegetables, eggs, wheat and grains, and Pathway and storage are checked off. Meat options are all left blank. End ID]

And for just a hundred people (the max it would let me enter), with only fruit, vegetables, and eggs—no meat at all—you need at minimum 1.6 sq km.

For 2 million people, that scales to 31 thousand square kilometres (12 thousand miles) of arrable land, and is likely a vast underestimate considering the clones’ metabolisms. It doesn’t even include living spaces. Or the land and labor needed to grow textile-crops, or spin their own thread for clothes.

And they have no safety net, no funds to buy food from other people while they get set up, because whatever planet (or planets if they split up) with 12 thousand convenient square miles of arable land they’re on has to be a secret, since they’re hiding from the Republic. Thousands, at minimum would die. Probably hundreds of thousands, just like in the war. Remember, there’s no access to manufactured antibiotics or bacta either, and they have no experience with whatever remedies might be available from the local fauna either. The clone medics were well trained, yes, but on manufactured supplies and equipment, not getting medicine from the land.

And convenient arable land tends to already be inhabited. Do the locals want 2 million new neighbours? Are the Jedi and the clones going to kick them out? Accidentally or on purpose? I don’t think they really want to go about reinventing settler violence and genocide.

Take the clones to a neutral planet then!

Well Mandalore can barely feed its own population, so toss that out. And besides—taking in an extremely capable army of 2 million people would be seen as an act of war, no matter what diplomacy you try. Neutrality wouldn’t last long, the planet’s population would no doubt find the clones at fault (blaming immigrants is a classic), conveniently available to fight, and with a fresh sense of loyalty to their new home. Oh look suddenly they’re fighting a war again. The Republic is absolutely capable of raising a natborn army—as proven by the stormtroopers—and that is now a threat to the clones, not a liberation. And the Separatists still have a droid army, by the way.

Not to mention Sidious can just go for a state visit or a holo call, use order 66, and claim the clones went rogue.

Maybe there’s a reason both logic and the Force didn’t tell the Jedi to just skidadle. The clones situation is just bad. Really bad. There was no way out but through, and even that was a trap.

That’s why it’s called a tragedy.

(While you were busy applying your gritty nihilist bothsides-ism to a hopepunk sci-fi show, I was studying the blade (re: doing the most basic amount of world building))

It's never not hilarious how The Clone Wars Season 3 Episode 7 "Assassin" is basically just "what Anakin should have done"

Like aside from the obvious-that Ahsoka actually talks to Yoda about what she's having visions of-there's also the fact that she doesn't avoid the visions either

In a bit that was cut (albeit still remains in most novelizations) from the final version of ROTS, Anakin stops sleeping altogether in order to stop experiencing visions (although I think you can still get the basics of this across in the final version of the film since we never see him experiencing more visions)

Assassin shows us why this was precisely a wrong move

Throughout the episode Ahsoka either meditates on her vision or experiences new ones as she sleeps, the results being the visions became clearer or they changed because of Ahsoka's actions, ultimately resulting in the vision not coming true

So basically if Anakin hadn't been all "gotta avoid things that make me uncomfortable!" (Or y'know just listen to Yoda's correct advice) and worked through the visions he would have either changed them or gotten a clearer picture

Wait wait wait lmaooo that completely turns the “he hadn’t slept in days of course his judgement was off” around (not even to mention the fact if you’re a couple nights of missed sleep away from mass murder that’s already a problem). It’s not that he couldn’t sleep from nightmares/insomnia, it’s that he deliberately chose not to. Bro what

Intentionally stopping sleeping is a Sith trait by the way. It’s their whole defiance of nature and constant paranoia against betrayal thing. Plagueis and Tenebrous both only learned the skill of never sleeping at all as Sith masters (Sidious too I think). Truly Anakin’s was speedrunning

I would personally disagree with the sentiment that TCW is the worst interpretation of Anakin.

I understand the point. But, I feel like clone wars can act as a way of looking at Anakin from an outside perspective. The rest of these characters don’t see Anakin suffering until it’s too late we aren’t seeing what a mess he is how fragile he is how his fear is consuming him.

he’s putting up walls.

Ahsokas just happy to see him again, Obi-wan is growing tired and wearing thin these are things we see the most in that final season.

Season seven almost acts as how Ahsoka saw Anakin. Strong, Quippy, Always looking out for the little guy.

To her the Anakin she left was just as whole and alive when she returned.

we know that’s untrue but that’s what she sees.

I understand that the show itself probably wasn’t reading in to deep and was using nostalgia off of the previous seasons to drive season seven.

but. I choose to look at it in a sadder way a way that allows for that version character to exist.

The clone wars is about Ahsoka and Rex at the end of the day. And to them, Anakin never changed.

Clone Wars not as historical truth, but as Ahsoka and Rex recalling the events years later…. I like it. I like it a lot in fact

When did the Jedi lose their way?

A notion put forward by Tales of the Jedi and The Acolyte is the idea that the Jedi were losing their way, as an Order, by letting themselves become more institutionalized and mired in bureaucracy.

Is that the intended narrative? Nope!

Because here's the thing, Lucas acknowledges the fact that the Jedi start to be corrupted, at some point. But if you ask him, that happens as a consequences of being used as generals during the Clone Wars.

But during The Phantom Menace? The Jedi are in their heyday.

Their only fault is that:

This notion that "they were so institutionalized/detached from the regular Joes of the galaxy that they became dispassionate and lost their way, forgot about the little guy" is absolute headcanon from fans and current authors. Lucas never brings it up once.

On the contrary, during development, he and concept artists took measures to make them look less institutionalized and heartless.

The Jedi temple isn't meant to signify an ivory tower, it represents a place of warmth/worship that contrasts with the coldness dispassion of the Senate building.

The Jedi used to wear uniforms, it was softened to a humble tunic.

Because the intended narrative is that the Republic (including the Jedi) and Anakin's downfall are paralleled with Palpatine's rise to power. There is a direct correlation, both in-universe and thematically.

And it all starts when Palpatine becomes Chancellor after pushing out Finis Valorum, marking the end of an age of value.

A scree-bat launches itself from a branch, opening flimsi-thin wings to flutter over to a berry bush. It lands on a bobbing branch and chitters with happiness. Its sharp teeth puncture the skin of a purple fruit, round with juice, and sugar spills over its tongue.

The Room of a Thousand Fountains is an oasis in the Force, and from Coruscant’s durasteel structure. These days, the arching canopy of its trees and the trickle of water over the land provide the only true shelter in the Temple. Always, there were pockets of distress or anxiety here. The daily fluctuations no one is immune to. But beneath those was always the foundation of goodness wrought by a thousand years of difficult, personal work done by a collective of individuals seeking rich soil.

Under the soil—there are layers of earth here, deep enough to turn a patch of space on a city planet into real water system—an eight-legged chanit marches, holding a grain of sand in its first set of legs. It follows a string of its fellows, thousands long. Each carries a brick for the base of their colony.

The foundation is still there, those individuals working as hard as they ever have, harder even, to be the best of themselves.

Dozens of species of moss, clover, and grass cover the ground. They spring up easily from the right soil, and with enough water. Their roots are tended by fungi gardeners in a relationship half as old as the Force itself.

But after two years of war, even the Jedi Order can begin to buckle, hairline cracks appearing in the structure. Others in the Order are aware of how war clouds the Force. Each of them are aware of their own struggles.

A single betnek tree grows taller than anything else in the garden. Its bark is smooth, its leaves wide. It holds a taf-hawk's nest in its branches and shelters a Jedi in its shade. After it traveled from Ryloth through deep space as a seedling nearly eight hundred years ago, its tap roots reached through the soil of the gardens until they broke through the stone base of the Temple.

It is Yoda alone whom the Force allows to reach out and touch the cracks, trace the way they’ll develop, see the way the whole will shatter if left unattended.

In a time when most Jedi favor the saber, Yoda meditates. He fills the cracks with vines, moss, and mortar made of gentle joy. He lifts columns and braces roofs with woody sprouts until they heal on their own. To pockets of fatigue, he offers the high trickle of streams over layers of silt and loam and sand and home, so that war weary jedi find healing. His work is never ending. Often, he loses ground. Still, he centers himself in the Force and stands, as mighty as betnek tree and as subtle as moss, a bulwark against the evil prowling outside his home.

This is what it means to be the grandmaster of the Jedi Order

—the canon compliant part of This Story can Kill You

I firmly believe that unfortunately for everyone, Obi-Wan and Anakin's entire sense of humor when they're together should consist of,

One of them: *says something mildly fucked up but overall pretty funny*

The other: "that's soo fucked up, why would you say that??" *says something slightly more fucked up but also slightly less funny*

The first one: "uggh you're useless" *says something more fucked up and not funny at all*

The other: *laughs and continues to up the fucked-up-ness ante*

Third person in the room with them: *has gotten progressively more worried/annoyed/straight up uncomfortable (depending on who that person is)*

Obi-Wan & Anakin: *notices the third person is uncomfortable*

Obi-Wan & Anakin: *starts saying fucked up things again but this time specifically targeted to make the other person more uncomfortable*

Mace Windu's sense of humor on the other hand consists of sideye-ing anyone who is even mildly sarcastic in his presence like, "do you wanna rephrase/retone/reevaluate that before I have to actually assign you real therapy and/or remedial courses in diplomacy/etiquette/ethics?" and then moving on as though nothing happened

As you can imagine this makes putting him in a room with Anakin and Obi-Wan interesting, as they keep upping the ante and he's just sitting there like "the only way I will deign to respond to any of this is if either one of you asks me directly in simple clear words for professional help," and obviously Anakin and Obi-Wan can never do that because that would mean they lose

By the way the first part of this post is fully cannon and can be observed in the brain worm episode

Admittedly Obi-Wan is doing most of the heavy lifting in this case, but the principle holds true

Someone explain the mortis arc to me in a way that doesn't make it sound like the stupidest world building decision since midi-chlorians

Okay I just re-watched the arc so I'll attempt this.

There are a species of beings called Force-wielders who are very strong in the Force and there are very few of them left. To balance the powers of his Daughter (who is strong with the light) and his Son (who aligns with the dark), the Father has kept his family isolated on Mortis.

What are Force-wielders? "Intentionally depicted as vague and mysterious." The Father refers to their nature as "reflective". They are apparently influenced by the people around them (the Son takes the form of Anakin's mother, for example, to talk about Anakin's guilt). The Son can "feed off" hate and aggression. The Daughter tells the Father not the blame the Son, as it is "his nature" to be Dark. Are Force-wielders beings with full autonomy and choice or are they more like mirrors of their environment? I'm leaning toward the former, but the arc is intentionally vague.

Why do the Daughter and Son's powers need to be balanced? In Qui-Gon's words, the beings are an "amplifier and magnet" for the Force. If the Son's power exceeds the power of the Daughter, the Son's dark side energy will be amplified across the galaxy, which will have disastrous consequences. Vice versa, if the Daughter's power exceeds that of the Son's, her light side energy will be amplified across the galaxy, which will throw the Force into an imbalance.

Why is it bad if the Force is imbalanced? The Daughter and the Son are not the Force themselves. They are an external factor. If the will of the Force is to be carried out, it must be carried out by people the Force chooses — Anakin, Luke, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, etc — not by the imbalanced influence of the Daughter's power in the Force. To add to this interpretation, the Father refers to the "laws of time" and works to reverse the Son's violation of these "laws of time". There may also be "laws of destiny" that limit what Force-wielders can do with their powers, which would explain why the Father must ensure the balance between his Son and Daughter.

But! There is a problem. The Father is old and he is dying. Soon, he will not be the "fulcrum" between the Son and the Daughter.

But! Yay! There is someone who can. Anakin, as the Chosen One, has the power to overcome both the Daughter and the Son. In hopes of Anakin taking over his job when he dies, the Father calls Anakin to the planet.

Things go terribly, and the arc becomes a big metaphor for the events of the movies. Anakin turns to the Dark Side (joins the Son/joins Sidious), then turns back to the Light Side and brings balance to the Force by killing the corruptive influence of the Dark Side (kills the Son/kills Sidious).

Thank you for the in depth explanation!

Thinking of the mortis people as influencing the force rather than representing or being the force definitely helps. I will admit that my deepest problem has not much to do with them and actually it’s the fact that Anakin somehow resurrects Ahsoka.

That just… it breaks all the rules for me. Like if Anakin could actually bring people back to life in the right circumstances, that would turn the conflict in ROTS into what Anakin thinks it is—a problem of him not having enough power and knowledge—rather than what it actually is—a philosophical and emotional issue of him being unable to face the possibility of loss. It would change the entire genre of ROTS from space opera where Anakin has to make moral choices to a D&D fantasy where Anakin just hasn’t labeled up enough to do what he wants, and just validate everything Sidious says about needing more power.

The stuff with the Force gods/users is just kind of fluff around the real problem: Filoni wants to treat Anakin as his blorbo and give him extra special powers rather than recognize him for the poor little meow meow he clearly is.

(I am willing to admit the aesthetic of Ahsoka and the bird (morai?) is great, and probably the only good thing out of the whole affair)

Someone explain the mortis arc to me in a way that doesn't make it sound like the stupidest world building decision since midi-chlorians

@casualmonsterenjoyer you weren’t aware there was a prompt but you did in fact succeed. this is the only answer I will be accepting