The Jedi Code and Obi-Wan Kenobi

You know what I love about that moment Obi-Wan said “Then my friend is truly dead,” and “Goodbye, Darth,”?

The final episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi is entirely about love. Obi-Wan leaves Leia and the ship of refugees because to him, they are more important. He finds the strength to break free of what would have been a stony tomb because he remembered Leia, and Luke, and Anakin, and how he loved all of them.

He wept as he spoke to Anakin because he loves him still.

But, as he said “Goodbye, Darth,” he let Anakin go.

He still loved Anakin more than anything. But Obi-Wan let Anakin go, because to hold on to him, to be attached in such a way that his life would still be centered on the memory of his brother, would be to burn with him. And he chose to love - to love Leia and Luke, Anakin’s living memory.

He was never truer to the Jedi and to the Force than he was in that moment. To love utterly selflessly and utterly determinedly, but without attachment.

What a beautiful thing it is, to choose to love the living without allowing the ghosts of the dead to cling to you.

What a glorious thing, to be a Jedi.

What Happened to the local Jedi temples from the acolyte during the Jedi purge?

For those unaware, while in EU there were several larger temples / enclaves of Jedi, notably on Dantooine during KOTOR - tbe high republic introduced a similar concept brought up again in the acolyte : smaller, regional temples / monasteries / outposts. Basically a way for the Jedi to have a foothold safe space in the outer rim far from Courascant. Places for them to oversee and help a region and have some sort of base to operate from.

I think “outposts” would’ve been better for the show to have used as it represents their role more - only a handful of Jedi, sparse accomodations just to regroup, recover and oversee an area. But not rly a big deal, since it’s easier shorthand for the function they serve to a new audience than a more militant connontation of “outpost.” But that’s pedantic!

even then, as you say there are Jedi spread throughout. 100 years isn’t THAT long, so can’t automatically assume they all got closed down in the same way if we saw them last 900 years ago.

But they were on the downturn, and in the recent canon novel “the living force” a padawan obi wan mentions years ago he spent time at one and is surprised to learn its since been closed, and there are various other ones having to close down (which has the interesting flourishes of needing officials to formally administer the signing over of the property to planetary gov, jedi masters needing to process and mark sensitive or historic objects and pass them along to the archives , donate other things etc”) , and in comics there are mentioned a couple outposts thag have been abandoned since the high republic - and if that pattern held there’s probably few if any left by TCW.

But I imagine if they’re still using any, which there very well could be a handful, but by that time the clone wars has taken care of that problem: a call for conscription amongst the Jedi would see most of these temples emptied as Jedi are obligated to join the war and are placed alongside clones; seperatist attacks on outer rim worlds would drive remaining Jedi into the core. Plus, if any of those frontier worlds signed on with the seperatists - expelling the jedi would be first on the docket.

So really, I don’t think any would be in use by the time of order 66. Tho there might be those too young, too old or entrusted with other duties deemed essential that for some reason aren’t able to rejoin Courascant. Unlikely but it could happen.

In that case, part of the sub 5% Jedi who survived the initial order 66, they’d be hunted down in the resulting purge - and with a comms blackout it’d likely be among the first places the empire attacks the outposts / local temples are an obvious rallying point and source of Jedi, but also symbolically as a bastion of the Jedi way and light of hope.

How 'The Acolyte' Disappointed Me, and Why the Themes of 'Star Wars' Matter

Someone recently commented on my 'On the Dark Side, the Jedi and the Moral Decay of Star Wars' essay with these words: 

"A lot of words for saying 'I don't like the newer media, but I won't get into specifics as to why.'"

Okay! I shall then finally clarify those specifics....

That first essay has, so far, been my biggest success on this blog, and it's attracted a number of interesting responses. Full disclosure: I wrote that fresh off the heels of feeling depressed over how the Acolyte ended, and after reading/listening to several of Leslye Headland's interviews, where she went into great detail about her ideas behind the show's choices, the themes she's trying to get across, and what personal baggage she brings to Star Wars. 

Why was I depressed?

Because the show's finale ended with the deeply problematic implication that Osha, by killing Sol and joining Qimir, has achieved true self-actualization. As Leslye herself put it, it's a 'positive corruption arc.' Interesting way to phrase it. 

Furthermore, Vernestra's actions that frame Sol for several murders, all to protect her own reputation, and to avoid oversight by the Senate, confirmed one of the things that I was really worried this show would do as soon as we began learning plot details, which is that it's leaning into this very persistent edgelord take that the Jedi are actually big ol' bastards not worth seeing as heroes. 

It's the Dave Filoni gospel of the Jedi Order as a morally broken and fundamentally hypocritical institution, a decaying monument to religious hubris, who brought about their own destruction with their arrogance and so-called rejection of emotion making them lack empathy. 

This is, as many of my followers know already, a giant misreading of George's storyline in the prequels, and what he was actually telling us about the Jedi's philosophy and code. And in my experience, it gets us some vicious pushback when we try to inform fans of it, even if we back it up with proof of George's words. 

George really did intend the Jedi to be the ultimate example of what a brave, wise, and all-loving hero should be, and are very specifically inspired by Buddhist monks. They do not 'repress emotions': they learn to regulate their emotions, so as to not let the negative ones feed the Dark Side, and they have the moral fortitude to focus on their spiritual duty. They're professionals that have dedicated themselves to a higher calling, and who still feel and display the same emotions we all feel, unless I watched very different movies from everyone else. We see that Jedi characters can still crack jokes, cry when they are sad, become scared or anxious, feel strong love and loyalty to their peers, and can even be righteously angry in some situations BUT always knowing when to pull back.

The Jedi of the prequels were victims of manipulation by Palpatine, and were caught in between a rock-and-a-hard-place with the Clone War, and they were ultimately destroyed not by their own actions, but by the treachery of Anakin Skywalker, who failed to overcome his own flaws because he refused to really follow the Jedi teachings, and was gaslit by Palpatine for decades on top of that. 

Leslye's take on Star Wars, based on how she wrote the story of the Acolyte, is that "yup, the Jedi were doomed to destroy themselves by being hypocritical and tone-deaf space cops," and she also outright compared them to the Catholic Church (this reeks of Western bias and misunderstanding of Eastern religions). The one that really stunned me, was when she said she designed Qimir to be her own mouthpiece for the experience of being queer and suppressed, who isn't allowed to just be her authentic self in a restrictive world. Which, to me, implies that Leslye wanted to depict the Dark Side as actually a misunderstood path to self-actualization that the Jedi, in keeping with their dogma of repressing emotions, only smear as 'evil.' 

Let me remind you all: Qimir is officially referred to as a Sith Lord, by Manny Jacinto, by Leslye, etc. And what are the Sith, exactly? 

Space fascists. Intergalactic superpowered terrorists. Dark wizard Nazi-coded wannabe dictators, whose ideology is of might-makes-right, survival of the fittest, and the pursuit of power for power's sake. To depict followers of this creed as an analogy for marginalized people who have literally been targeted and murdered throughout history BY the real-life inspirations for the Sith.... I find revolting and tone-deaf by Leslye. 

SO.... seeing how that show ended, and reading up on how Leslye intended it to be interpreted (Osha's 'triumph' over the 'toxic paternalism' of Sol/the Jedi in general), really put me in a funk, because deep down, I could just sense that this was not at all compatible with the ethos of Star Wars. It made me go on a deep-dive into the BTS of the writing of the prequels and George's ideas about the Jedi, and it's how I discovered the truth that Dave Filoni has been pretty egregiously misrepresenting George's themes for several years now, usurping George's words with his own personal fanfic about the motivations of characters like Anakin, or Qui-Gon, or the Jedi Council, etc. 

His influence on the franchise has caused this completely baseless take on the Jedi to become so widespread as to rewrite history for modern fans. Who are utterly convinced now that this anti-Jedi messaging WAS George's vision all along, and they get real mad at you if you show them actual proof of that being a lie. 

And the Acolyte is perpetuating this twisting of the very core of Star Wars. This is what I meant by the 'moral decay of Star Wars.' 

The Star Wars saga was made by George Lucas in 1977 to accomplish these specific tasks: 

To remind people of what it really means to be good.

What evil actually looks like, and how it comes from our fears and greed.

To teach kids how to grow up and choose the right path that will make them loving, brave, honest people that stand up to tyrants.

To give the world a story that returns to classic mythological motifs and is fundamentally idealistic, to defy the uptick in cynical and nihilistic storytelling after the scandals of Vietnam and Watergate broke Americans' belief in there being such a thing as actual heroes anymore. 

THAT is the soul of Star Wars. That is what George meant for this remarkably creative universe to say with its storytelling. But I sincerely think that what the Acolyte told, was that morality is relative, the heroes of this saga are actually bastards, the fascist death-cult is misunderstood, and a young woman being gaslit into joining said death-cult is a triumphant girlboss moment. When it actually comes across as the tragedy of a broken person choosing the wrong path that will only make her miserable, full of hatred and powerlust, and hurt innocent people along the way. 

The Acolyte betrayed one of George's most critical lessons: that the Dark Side ruins people, and if you want to truly become your best self, you must choose the path of Light, and the Jedi are the ones who have best mastered that path. So if the future of Star Wars is to continue framing the Jedi and their teachings as some corrupt and immoral system that is making the galaxy worse, then I would rather stick to rewatching the classic scripture of Episode 1-6. George wrote a complete and satisfying story, that is thematically consistent, and in my opinion should have been allowed to rest. 

I will not hate on new fans that love the new material, but I will pity them if they really think any of this is actually faithful to George's vision (they may very well simply not care, either, which troubles me too), and I am afraid of a show like Acolyte teaching young people to see the Jedi's philosophy as wrong, and the Sith as having a point. 

(P.S. I have a moral duty to clarify this, given the discourse around the show: No, this is not a problem with 'wokeness,' or diversity, or representation; that side of the fandom is very sick in the head and not to be taken seriously. 

It's a problem with Leslye's themes and tastes as a storyteller, being fundamentally against the ethos of Star Wars and how it soured the entire show in hindsight for me... a show that I was actually really liking, before the finale dropped its thematic nuke.)

literally every jedi: we are encouraged to love, just not to be possessive of people. we are encouraged to be in touch with our emotions, just not to let them control us

manipulative villain who hates the jedi: the jedi are cold and unfeeling and don’t want anyone to love or have feelings ever

the fandom: hmm… who to believe about jedi teachings?

I am actually quite intrigued by the idea of a version of the jedi order where they aren’t affiliated with a state, and are instead wandering nomadic wizards. The only thing I don’t like is pitting that hypothetical version against the prequel jedi- I’m not interested in that kind of judgmental evaluation, I’m just interested in the different ways they might live and follow their philosophy.

One option for this is through a different branch of the order that isn’t the one we see based on Coruscant. Another is the new jedi order that might have formed sometime after the events of rotj or ros… (It used to feel a bit mean in the wake of rotj, seeing as part of the triumph of the trilogy was in a republic restoration, but the sequels far outstrip this in terms of bad outcomes, so…) It’s not that hard to imagine that in the political fallout of the empire, it wasn’t as simple as recreating the republic as the prequel jedi once knew it, instead the former empire disintegrating into constituent parts, some of them holds out of facism, some of them not, with the new jedi as a neutral group without a single base, because that’s the galaxy they find themselves adapting too. It likely isn’t a golden era for the galaxy, the wounds too many to heal from quickly, or a particularly peaceful one, but at least it’s not under the centralized oppressive control of an evil sith emperor, and while some of the anti-jedi prejudice cultivated by the empire would undoubtedly live on in places, they would not be hunted to the ends of the galaxy. It is interesting to think about them in this scenario. I’m not interested in the question of if they would be better or worse. But I interested in the ways they would be different, existing in different circumstances.

Post-ROTJ Legends actually does get pretty deep into this kind of stuff, in the formation of Luke’s New Jedi Order and how they do, and don’t, organize their own internal structure and associate with the galactic governments and adapt to new circumstances.

(With varying qualities of writing, of course, but that’s always a fact.)

I really hate that "eventually one of you is going to snap" bit, because it's obviously referring to Anakin while completely misunderstanding the point of Anakin

Anakin did not snap because he was forced to control his emotions (I mean you could say he snapped with the tuskens, but that's him snapping because he stopped trying to control himself), he chose the dark side, that's how it works, the dark side is not some thing you do subconsciously and have no control of and is therefore "not reeeeeaaaaally evil" (as headland so obviously believes), it's a choice, it's evil, it's giving up on being in control and indulging in your baser desires

Really Anakin only snapped AFTER he turned to the dark side, when he lost his shit and started strangling Padme, when he had already betrayed the Jedi/Republic, murdered children, and destroyed democracy

The idea that he snapped just seems like more of that "he wasn't really in control of himself therefore he's not culpable for his actions" crap

Now that the trailer is out, it's probably best that I get this out of the way before acolyte releases

The Jedi are right about the Force and the dark side

The Jedi did not lose their way

The Jedi were not corrupted

The genocide of the Jedi was not their fault

The Jedi are not wrong for being part of the Republic, it is in fact a good thing

The Jedi are not arrogant for thinking the sith are gone

and while we're at it the sith are evil, always, end of discussion

The Jedi do not steal children

If someone wants to leave the Jedi, that's allowed, no one will stop them

The Jedi are right about attachment

Attachment is not love (SW uses the Buddhist definition because Lucas is a Buddhist and the Jedi are based off Buddhist monks, Buddhism defines attachment as being possessive or unwilling to let go of people or things)

The Jedi do not forbid emotions, they forbid being controlled by your emotions, you must control them

The Jedi are not forbidden from loving people, nor are they celibate, they just can't get married (big whup) because their duties must come first

Being peacekeepers doesn't preclude the Jedi from fighting in war, sometimes to keep the peace you have to fight back, especially when its against tyranny, see WWII (or Ukraine today)

Gray jedi are not a thing

The Jedi are not slavers or complicit in slavery

Oh and of course, the Jedi are not elitists for not training non Force sensitives, (Han voice) that's not how the Force works, dave filoni broke the rules so he could shoehorn sabine into a Jedi (to give the benefit of the doubt, I do believe sabine's role as ahsoka's apprentice was meant for an original character but things got condensed by executives, so maybe filoni isn't entirely to blame here)

(Edit)

The Jedi are not cops

The Jedi are not the government/the rulers of the Republic/galaxy

The Jedi do not persecute other Force groups

Padawans are not child soldiers

Feel free to add anything I forgot

I see no difference.

It's truly wild to me how many people out there don't understand that the Star Wars prequels are a tragedy or how tragedies work.

Posts like "these are the Jedi failed movies" truly just make me shake my head. They're actually the "fascism wears a smile until it strikes you down and then it's too late" movies. They're the "the senate became corrupt and clapped in the face of genocide" movies. They're the "make people scared enough of war until they accept authoritarianism" movies. They're the "fear and possessiveness will tear you up on the inside" movies. The Jedi were the heroes of lore, people loved and looked up to them, looked to them for safety, and then too much got put on their shoulders on purpose by Palpatine, and also by a senate that didn't want to act (not you Padme and Bail and Mon, you're perfect). They were drafted and used and scapegoated, which is, you know, a tenet of the vast majority of authoritarian governments (Hitler and Stalin, for instance, might be on different ends of the political spectrum, but they sure both did scapegoat specific groups and commit mass murder, just differently).

When some people say "these movies are about the fall of the Jedi" what they mean is "the Jedi failed" but that's not what "the fall of the Jedi means." It means they were wiped the fuck OUT. Like, Jesus, in Rogue One Tarkin is talking about burning out the final MEMORY of the Jedi by blowing up the holy city in Jedha. Palpatine had to get rid of the Jedi because to get rid of the Jedi was to get rid of the final people standing in his way after he had already worn them out. His intention was not only to kill them, but to alter the galaxy's entire perception of them. To rip away hope. People are always looking for the Jedi to be Bad or nitpick their mistakes (because while other people are allowed to make mistakes, the Jedi never are). Palpatine made himself look like a benevolent grandpa who would keep everyone safe. And that, more than anything, is what gave him SO much power. He stole the narrative.

It's just like. Of course WE know what was going to happen! We know from watching the OT that the PT can only end in tragedy. But the characters don't know that! They don't have all the info! That's how a tragic story structure works. We see it coming and they can't.

Anyway. The Jedi are laser-sword wielding monks with psychic powers who just wanted to do what they could to help. The world would be better if more folks remembered that.

Not to rant about the Jedi as a family again, but it always makes me so happy to think about the smallest younglings insisting on being picked up and as a result, honored, experienced jedi masters having conversations about Very Important Jedi Matters with toddlers hugging their necks and older younglings being delighted that there are jedi from species big enought to keep picking them up almost until they become padawans, and padawans helping escort younglings to ilum and helping teach initiate classes and the younger padawans gathering around the senior padawans to hear all about the adventures they just had on an off world mission and young jedi knights taking on their first padawans being terrified they'll mess something up because this isn't just a class, this kid is now their responsibility. This is their kid now and being comforted and guided by older knights and masters and old grizzled masters taking on apprentices as young as seven and loving them with their whole hearts and younglings seeing a knight or a master or a senior padawan and just knowing that that's going to be their master and creche masters who wave to their initiates who have become padawans as they walk past in the hallway and asking them to step in and help with a class and archivists who encourage their curiosity and help them navigate the temple archives and all the jedi who don't even recognize that lost-looking kid in the corridor but still stop and ask them if they need help or directions and yeah.

The Jedi are flawed. Obi-Wan has an entire movie when he's 25 where he's a snarky asshole sometimes, he hurts his friends sometimes. Qui-Gon is hypocritical in that he says, oh, I don't presume anything when he very much is presuming things and also treats his current Padawan roughly in favor of a new one. Jocasta is a little full of herself and her archive. Ahsoka takes 30+ years to get her shit together about what Anakin did, she routinely snaps at people for things that aren't their fault. Mace has a tense day and is brusque about it. Shaak doesn't immediately believe Fives. Kit can't get through to Nahdar about how he's handling the war. These are all flaws! They come from incredibly sympathetic places and I bet half of you are thinking of reasons why these actions aren't so bad, hell I've written essays in the past about why these are sympathetic places to be coming from, that it's entirely understandable why they act why they do! That's not the point I'm making here. The point is: they're still flaws and they make for more interesting characters, but that I don't believe they should be condemned for them. So many times "flawed" is meant as the same thing as "so we must think they're corrupt, arrogant people who everyone should be shaking their finger at" (often with a side bonus of "and that's why they fell" as if you can separate out that Sidious was going for genocide from the beginning, as if that wasn't always the shape of the story we're seeing). So many times, "You just can't admit your faves are flawed." When, no, I think the Jedi are flawed like I think Luke is flawed, like Leia is flawed, like Han is flawed, like Padme is flawed, like Bail is flawed. They all get to make mistakes, to miss things, to stumble, to have a frustrating day, to snap at someone out of turn, etc. I just don't think those flaws are worthy of condemnation and I don't think the Jedi's flaws are worthy of condemnation either.

Jedi aren't flawed in ways padme was flawed. Jedi believed so much in their place as peacekeepers that they didn't even looked that they were the center of war in the galaxy. They hid things, they acted secretively and mostly they rejected anakin and his fears... The only reason anakin is a Jedi is because obi wan promised to train him one way or the other. His anxieties about his mother were ignored.

Padme is flawed in a way real person is flawed. Jedi are flawed as a institution.

What...? The Jedi were absolutely aware that they were in the middle of a war, that's why Mace looks like his soul is leaving his body in the meeting with Palpatine in AOTC, because they really don't want to go to war, they literally had to be drafted into it because they didn't want it. The Clone Wars is one long string of them trying desperately to save people because they're in the middle of a war and the other option is to do nothing about it and there's a whole storyline in TCW where Bail goes to Toydaria and the theme is, "Neutrality is not compassion in the face of evil being done." The Jedi are never like, "Wheeee! Fighting people is fun!", they instead try to negotiate right up until the Republic makes negotiation with the Separatists illegal. Even in the final months of the war, Mace is still offering the droids the chance to surrender because they won't win and he could just mow through them, but he'd rather give them a chance. They're aware this is war and there just aren't any good options. The Jedi did not reject Anakin or his fears--they do say that you have to overcome fears because that's literally how the Force works, Lucas has been extremely clear that the dark side is based on fear, if you act out of fear, that is the dark side. That's basic worldbuilding. And the Jedi were very accepting of Anakin--Mace compliments him on Vanqor, Luminara compliments him on Geonosis, Aayla compliments him on Maridun, Jocasta encourages Ahsoka to talk to him because he'll understand her troubles, Plo compliments Anakin's teaching when Ahsoka is missing, that he's trained her so well she'll survive anything, etc. Hell, they gave him a youngling to train, that's their most sacred duty, because they believed he would help her and they had faith in him. And who did Anakin ever even tell his anxieties about his mother to? The only scene we ever see him say anything is AOTC where he says he's dreaming about her, nothing beyond that. When Obi-Wan says dreams pass in time (because Anakin did not say they were disturbing dreams), Anakin changes the subject and says he'd rather dream of Padme, making nothing about what he tells them indicate that this was something that needed more care. The Jedi aren't perfect, they miss things, they make mistakes, but this is my point, that you could say the same thing about Padme, who never helps Shmi despite that she ate at her table and her son saved Padme's planet. She ignores that Anakin told her that he killed children on Tatooine and only said, "Being angry is human." as if he wasn't talking about murdering kids. She's willing to run away with him after he joined the Sith and murdered more children. She doesn't actually help Teckla, who works for her and is suffering under the wartime restrictions and poverty it induces. And that's not saying that Padme is a horrible person! There are reasonable explanations, context, and defenses for all of those things! Both in-world and out-of-world, she is a compassionate, caring person doing her best with only shitty choices available to her. And my point is that the Jedi are in the same boat, that they make mistakes and miss things and have flaws, but I don't condemn them for it any more than I would condemn Bail Organa for being part of the Empire when it rose or Padme for ignoring Anakin's warning signs.

Hot Take:  If we were meant to see the Jedi as cold, unfeeling, and sterile, we would not have have seen their home framed in warm golds and peaceful pan shots and awe-inspiring art literally almost everywhere:

If we had been meant to see them as cold and unfeeling, Star Wars would not have been coy about it. STAR WARS KNOWS HOW TO SHOW US “CLEAN” AND “COLD AND UNFEELING” AT THE SAME TIME AND THEY AREN’T SHY ABOUT IT:

These two things are shown incredibly differently.  Kamino is shown in bright, sterilized white.  It feels cold just looking at it. In contrast, the Jedi are shown in these gorgeously warm colors, we see their great tree, we see their beautiful mural on the ceiling, we see Jedi walking together just to chat, we see children being absolutely adorable as they cluster around and Yoda teasing Obi-Wan while praising the wonderful minds of the children, we see the Jedi mourning their fallen brothers and sisters, we see warmth in them. If Star Wars wanted us to think they were cold, uncaring assholes, THEY KNEW HOW TO DO IT.  WE SEE THAT WITH KAMINO BEING RIGHT THERE.

ugh i get ENDLESS feels about Luke's micdrop line:

I'll never turn to the dark side. You failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi. Like my Father before me.

because Luke isn't saying he is a Jedi like the Order were Jedi. A Jedi who shuns emotional knots and strives for emotional neutrality. He is a Jedi like his Father, like Anakin Skywalker.

The type of Jedi Anakin was.

Even in ANH he doesnt say he wants to learn from the Order. He wants to learn how Anakin did it.

And he does. In time, he allows married and older Force-sensitives to join his Order, he embraces attachments (and even marries himself and has children in the EU).

And at that pivotal moment in TESB: Luke is clearing the guilt and torment of his father - he is holding up Anakin's dream: the dream of being emotionally invested, attached, loving, fighting for that love, and it making him strong and noble. He is holding up THAT dream, the one Palpatine used (and the Jedi Order to a degree in their fear) to convince Anakin he was weak, a failure. Luke is holding up that dream and saying No. No it makes me strong.

And you can't use it to turn me to the Dark. As Luke watches the fleet under attack and Sidious mocks him, tries to use his attachment to his rebel friends to weaken him, Luke uses his love for them to keep him strong, to help him resist. To not give in.

When Vader watches Luke do this-- this alter-ego, this dark Phantom must melt in the acid that is Anakin's psychological resurrection.

Luke doesn't want to be a Jedi like the Order. The Order failed, according to Yoda. Was blinded.

Luke wants to be a Jedi like Anakin was. A different kind of Jedi. A Skywalker. He saves Anakin's soul by showing him, Sidious, and the galaxy that great goodness can come from Anakin's way.

When Anakin is dying and Luke weeps, "But I have to save you," this is what Anakin means when he says:

You already have.

EVERY SINGLE MOMENT OF THIS WAS SUCH A FUCKING BANGER. Baylan Skoll is reading exactly what Ahsoka fears and sets up this vision for her, that he says her legacy is one of death and destruction--which hurls her into a vision-slash-flashback of the clone wars, where she felt like this is all she learned as a Jedi, because this is what the galaxy was when she was growing up in it. That this is Anakin--or Ahsoka's own mind using Anakin as a proxy, because she STILL emotionally and mentally sees him as the one who teaches her, even if it's not really him, she imagines it to be him, because he's her Master, the one who taught her what she needs to know--but also this is the center of everything she can't let go of, all the hurt and fear and loss, it's all tangled up in Anakin and what he became. That she loves him and fears him in the same breath, that she remembers the good, the charming young man who was teaching her how to survive, who gave everything he had to her, while also remembering what he became, that he was so powerful that he became the worst nightmare the galaxy had ever seen, that neither of these is the whole of who he is, that he is all of this and more. He isn't just Anakin Skywalker, he's also Darth Vader. He isn't just Darth Vader, he's also Anakin Skywalker. He isn't just Anakin and Vader, he's also everything of Obi-Wan, of Qui-Gon, of Dooku, of Yoda--and she has to learn to accept that the same is true of her, too. The potential for tremendous darkness lurks in all their hearts, that's what the Jedi teach. No one is above the dark side. No one is above fear and clinging on and holding too tight. It's a lifelong journey not to give in to those things and you are so much more than just any one moment or even any one aspect. Yes, if she's everything he is, then she does have the potential to become the same kind of nightmare of death and destruction that he did, just as she fears. It's why she's held herself back from the galaxy, from the Ghost crew, from Sabine especially, because she's afraid, and only agreed to train Sabine in the first place because whatever abilities she has, they're so low Sabine can't become another Vader. Grogu does have the potential to become another Vader. Ahsoka does have the potential to become another Vader. She has killed many and destroyed so much. But that's not all she is. She's also saved so many lives. She also gently tucked Roo Roo Page back into her mother's arms. She also taught Petro and Katooni and Gungi and Zatt and Byph about how to get their crystals. She also saved Kaeden's life. She also protected Ezra from Vader. She's all those things, plus more, just as Anakin was all the things he was and more, too. Baylan was right that part of her legacy is death and destruction, but he's a dark sider, he lies and twists the truth, and the truth is--Ahsoka Tano, like every Jedi before her, is more than just one part of her legacy.

#THE ABSOLUTE FUCKING GALL OF TARKIN #BLOWING UP THE LOTHAL COMMUNICATIONS TOWER JUST TO STOP A REBEL MESSAGE BEING BROADCAST #AND LOOKING RIGHT STRAIGHT A GENOCIDE SURVIVOR FROM THE LAST WAR #A MEMBER OF A PEOPLE WHOSE CHILDREN WERE SLAUGHTERED BECAUSE OF THE WAY THEY WERE BORN #BECAUSE THEY LOST THE WAR THEY WERE DRAFTED INTO #THE CHILD WHO HAD THAT WAR TAKE NOT JUST HIS PEOPLE FROM HIM BUT HIS ENTIRE CULTURE SO HE CAN'T EVEN PUBLICLY BE WHO HE IS #AND TELL HIM, "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN A WAR. BUT I DO." #IMAGINE TELLING THAT TO THE FACE OF SOMEONE WHO SUFFERED EVERYTHING KANAN HAD AND SLEEPING JUST FINE AT NIGHT #ANYWAY FUCK TARKIN WITH A RUSTY SPOON

A handful of reasons I love the Jedi:

- giant family!!

- can cast Animal Friendship at will

- big swishy sleeves

- everyone learns and practices emotional regulation skills

- free therapy! no insurance needed! 

- no pressure to date or get married or have kids

- no getting kriff-zoned by your friends

- people respect your personal space

- people respect everyone of all ages, kids and elders alike

- mischievous frog grandpa

- lots of sass and banter (but not the mean kind)

- get to travel around the whole galaxy and learn about lots of different people and cultures

- move things with your mind! magic!!

- and jump really high! never worry about falling off something tall again, fear of heights cured!

- giant library

- giant gardens

- laser swords!!!

-fluffy robes you can sleep in

-funky hair styles. Can cut hair short.

-physical dicipline

-accessibility to knowledge and useful skills

-communal living

-Temple: Big, pretty, and filled with art

-many languages

-practice droids!!!

-lots of mentors

― Twelfth Doctor (Doctor Who)

― Twelfth Doctor (Doctor Who)