This is not as positive as you think it is
It’s still Rosh Hashanah, and I’m going to post part of those 17 essays I swore I would never write. Starting off the year as I mean to go on? Or something.
I originally had this as the first thing on my list of essays that I would never write but would absolutely get me kicked out of Star Wars fandom but I am tired and cranky and I am going to explain why tagging fics where the Jedi Order reform and start allowing attachment as *Jedi Positive* piss me off so much.
First, let me make this clear. If you hate the Jedi Order and want to write those, go ahead. If you have issues with the Jedi and want to write those fics, go ahead. Nobody is stopping you. What I’m asking instead is to stop tagging them Pro-Jedi or Jedi positive. Use Jedi critical! Or not Jedi friendly! Please use those tags instead! Yes even if you think its Pro-Jedi! If you are saying that the Order needs to reform to be *good* then it is not Jedi friendly!
I mean, look, if you are writing those things then I have issues with the way you’re interrogating the text and will think that you’re *wrong* and also that you’re using some super problematic (and from my point of view, anti-semitic) tropes but if my 21+ years in fandom have taught me anything its that you are never going to get anyone to agree on anything, but tagging will at least allow us to have our own spaces? Like, you wouldn’t have gone into a [pairing of your choice] positive archive and post a fic where [pairing] break up because the one who isn’t your blorbo is abusive so your blorbo runs to *YOUR* OTP, because that wouldn’t fit the theme of the archive! So if your fic is saying that the old rules for the prequel Jedi are bad and need to be changed to be good, don’t put it with Jedi positive content!
So first. Attachment. Other people have talked about it better than I have, but have some links about what attachment means in the GFFA and no it really does not mean love.
(Listen I am not going to bother to rewrite the meta when Lumi has already done the work for me)
…. Honestly just have the entire attachment tag ok:
So. Having done your reading, for the purposes of the GFFA, attachment is greed/possession and *very very bad* for psychic space monks. It is not a thing that the Jedi can just suddenly *allow*. Letting Jedi start allowing attachments, which is the big thing I start seeing whenever people start *reforming* the Jedi is, to me, a Jew who lives in the US South, the equivalent of Jews for Jesus.
Whoa, TSB, you say. You’re going too far.
Not really. Let’s go with a central belief of Judaism. The messiah has not come, Jesus is not the messiah. For the Jedi, attachment is not allowed is one of the central core beliefs. So saying that the way the Jedi need to reform by changing one of their core beliefs hits me like the person who told me “oh honey, we don’t care how you worship, as long as you accept Christ” did. (Right after I was introduced as being Jewish!) If you’re changing the *core* of who the Jedi are, you’re making them no longer Jedi. It’s not just changing one thing, it’s changing *everything.*
And, while the Jedi are much more Buddhist then they are Jewish, they still hit me very much in my Jewish feels. Gee, I wonder *why* I could possibly resonate with a minority religious group who were hunted down and murdered and who get accused of a bunch of anti-semitic tropes including baby stealing and secretly running the government???? There are no parallels, clearly.
So look. Every single time I get hit with a fic that’s tagged Pro-Jedi and then its “we changed our rules about attachment and that stopped us from being murdered” what I hear is “the Jews accepted Jesus so we avoided pogroms/The Holocaust.” Or, as another friend pointed out “the Sikhs cut their hair, converted, and so the Mughal Empire let them live.”
Obviously I don’t speak for every Jew, and I certainly don’t speak for any Sikhs, so not everyone is going to agree with my take. But there are people that relate to Jedi and there is a reason why people are uncomfortable with Jedi reform and allowing attachment.
But if you’re going to write fic about the Prequel Jedi and have them reform, before you tag it pro-Jedi or Jedi-Positive, please consider if “well they have to change who they are to be good” is as positive as you think it is. Tags help people curate their fannish experience. I very much follow the philosophies of YKINMKATO and don’t like, don’t read. The backbutton is my friend! But when I think I’m getting positive fic and then it isn’t? That sucks. Please tag accurately.
…. And well, since I’ve broken my rule about not writing these essays I guess look forward to my future essays of “No the Jedi are not Catholic” and “Actually they don’t have any political power” and “please stop judging the Jedi Order by some middle grade books” and finally “Galidraan was not the Jedi’s fault oh my god Jango shot first”
Shana tova, everyone. Let’s try to do better this year.
