it’s really interesting seeing how people are apparently looking at anakin’s rejection to the title of master through his view point. they hate the council for denying him what they—and he—believes is his right. he wants the title without the work. it is already well established that he is an incredibly violate individual. he is consistently scolded and reminded by obi-wan that he does not heed the jedi way, most often when he breaks the rules for his own self-interest. he does not have the emotional maturity, nor the self-restraint literally every person on the jedi council has, to be a proficient jedi master. he wants it, sure, but he has done nothing to earn it. yes, he’s won battles. yes, he has been an immense advantage to the republic. however, physical strength, power and victories in battle do not make someone more deserving for the title. his reaction to being denied shows just how unready he would be. it was exactly why they denied him the title in the first place. no, the jedi didn’t hate him. no, they weren’t out to get him. they were, rightfully, worried and skeptical because of his very explicit attachments to those around him, his recklessness. let’s not this whole thing was a ploy by palpatine to simply alienate anakin even more. instead of getting upset at the jedi council for rightfully not making anakin a jedi master, let’s remember they’re not his enemy. they’re his comrades. they’ve fought beside him, they try to teach him. i would think the man who horrifically groomed anakin, isolated him and used his genuine fears and extreme traumas as a way to serve his own agenda would be seen as the enemy. but, every time i look at a post relating to anakin and the jedi council, they’re the enemies. they denied him. they’re evil. they were holding him back. it’s just very odd.

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.

Ironically, contrary to what most of the angry YouTubers are saying, I think The Acolyte is a story that heavily focuses on lore.

(Well, not really "lore", more like "fanon.")

But my point is, it makes a lot of metatextual commentary about these fanon tropes and lore elements that fans debate about ("are the Jedi truly good? Is the Sith way really so bad if they allow you to feel?") but it completely forgets that all those elements were created in the first place because they were telling a story.

Example: how the Jedi approach emotions.

This all then ties in to how Luke and Anakin approached the Force, how the former saved the galaxy because of his compassion,after the latter one doomed it because of his greed, etc. It's a metaphor for emotional regulation and teaching kids to be compassionate.

There's a reason this has all been laid out this way.

So when you're making a new story, and your narrative is that:

Well... no? That's not the story. Because the narrative of the Prequels clearly frames Anakin's selfishness as the cause, and that of the Original Trilogy clearly frames Luke's retreading of his father's path to darkness as a bad thing.

Same goes for:

Joining the Dark Side is portrayed as a bad thing, it's synonymous with losing yourself, not finding yourself. That's why Episode VI frames Luke not killing his Dad as a good thing.

So... are we just gonna ignore all that?

There's a narrative attached to these points, and you can either reject it or embrace it... but if you don't address it in some way, you're missing the point.

The same way that, if tomorrow I decide to join a soccer game, then pick the ball up and shoot a hoop, I'm missing the point. The ball is being kicked around for a reason, the game is soccer.

The Acolyte focuses on lore and fanon tropes too much... and forgets to even address what the story of Star Wars is.

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.)

ben solo is really such a masterpiece of a character…the only child of the skywalker lineage, raised by the greatest heroes in the galaxy, but still so lonely in his childhood because of his parents’ fame and their disapproval of his strong emotions. he feels isolated from his family because they’re all so good and he can’t live up to them. he’s so angry and passionate and human in the face of his larger-than-life role models.

then he finds out from a newsreel that the most angry, passionate, powerful Force-user in history is his grandfather, and it all makes sense. his parents were afraid he’d realize where those traits came from and justify them via connection to his grandfather, and he does. he clings to every bit of information he can find because he does have a family member like him, he’s not a lone hurricane in an ocean of peaceful warriors, but his family made him feel that way for years. so palpatine seizes his opportunity: he speaks as “vader”, playing into ben’s perception of his grandfather’s darkness and manipulating him into following the same path, and it works (for a while).

but goddamn if anakin skywalker is going to let his only grandchild’s life be destroyed like his was. he saved his son for a reason, dammit! so he fights right back against palpatine’s “vader” and relentlessly pulls his stubborn idiot of a grandson who is so much like him back towards the light. but he can’t do it alone and the Force knows this, so it does a favor for the Chosen One and creates the first dyad in generations between ben and rey. between a boy whose family ostracized him and a girl whose family abandoned her.

ben feels it the first time he meets her: the power, the connection, and he thinks he’s finally found his own apprentice. so he tries and fights and kills his own master to protect her, but he’s skywalker stubborn and can’t just let go of everything he’s done as kylo ren. can’t go back to being ben, the unwanted nuisance who felt too much and knew too little. but then she rejects his hand as kylo and says she wants ben. she wants the lonely, angry, passionate boy who laughed and cried, smiled and scowled, loved and hated, and that boy wants her too. but that boy is still guilty and haunted and has spent so much of his life (as kylo and ben) being told he’s not good enough, but she makes him want to believe that he is.

but then she dies, and the Force goes so quiet that ben wonders if he’s lost his connection to it altogether. he holds her and spirals because she was good enough and he couldn’t save her but then he realizes she’s not gone yet and he can save her, he can finish what his grandfather truly started and save the woman he loves, but it can’t be for himself. he saves her selflessly and smiles even as he feels the Force leave him because he did it. ben solo’s first and last act without palpatine swaying his mind is to sacrifice himself for rey because he knows she’s better than him, that she’ll do more good in the galaxy to undo all the bad he did as kylo.

just. something about a boy who didn’t even know the full skywalker lineage fulfilling the wish that started it all. something about a boy who never lived up to expectations independently performing the greatest act of powerful selflessness in generations.

“Are you my real father?” hit like a truck because Leia Organa is tremendously powerful in the Force, some part of her remembers her mother, just vaguely, but she does.  “She was beautiful, kind, but sad,” Leia says in Return of the Jedi.  She remembers that day on Polis Massa in some way, just brief, fleeting memories, but she does.

“Sometimes when I look at Luma, I see her mother’s face. We all miss her very much.“ rings with so much truth in the Force that Leia, with her ability to see into people, to know when they’re lying, to read them like an open book, knows that’s true. Somehow, he knew her mother.  From there, it’s not a big leap to, “Are you my real father?”, it’s a reasonable conclusion, if the wrong one. But some part of her feels it, too.  Because some part of her must remember him as well, Obi-Wan was there that day, even if she may not knowingly recognize him.

If Leia remembers her mother, she likely remembers Obi-Wan, too.

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.

we talk a lot about the Jedi being the only group of people in the galaxy who consistently see the clones as people. but what if it goes both ways. if clones are little more than droids, then Jedi are the knights out of fairy tales and romance novels. the galaxy's perceptions and preconceptions are much like anakin's in tpm. the jedi are immortable infallible unkillable. they are paragons of virtue and light and intelligence. they are not people so much as concepts. legends. superheroes.

these people are as removed from the Jedi as they are from the clones. maybe even more so. the clones work with the Jedi every day. the clones see them make mistakes. simple human* errors. they see them mourn and rage and laugh. they see them try. so hard. they see them fail. they see them fall.

their Jedi are people. and the clones love them all the more for it.

subhuman clones and superhuman jedi

I don’t know if I will ever get over how incredible the Obi-Wan Kenobi show was at threading the needle of using mostly established characters, adding new characters that played into the themes that were already established, while also making it feel like it opened up a whole new world of stories to be told. Would a story about Obi-Wan and Luke have been as meaningful, if well told? It’s very possible that it could have been!  But using this opportunity to focus on Leia instead, to take two characters who never really interacted beyond a few lines said about each other, and developing an entire dynamic there, while also tying it directly to the heart of the Obi-Wan & Anakin dynamic, balancing that these two saw each other as themselves just as much as they had a connection because of the other people in their lives, I really can’t get over it. And I can’t get over the inclusion of Reva as a Jedi youngling, she’s not just a fleshed out Inquisitor there to fill up the space, she’s vital to the story being told, she is a face and a voice of the younglings that Anakin slaughtered, she is a character with a journey that is her own path to walk and she will make her own choices, but she is also a reflection of the central Star Wars character (as all characters connected to the heart of the story should be to a degree, in my opinion) in that her choice to not become like Vader illustrates Anakin’s choices all the more. Just as the Obi-Wan & Leia dynamic is a story unto itself, so is Reva’s story, but they are also part of the bigger theme of Anakin Skywalker’s legacy, they are both at the same time, just as Obi-Wan Kenobi is himself, his character is an extension of Anakin’s character on a narrative level, and later an extension of Luke’s character, that is his function in the bigger narrative, but that doesn’t mean his own story within that structure can’t be important and meaningful. The show has Anakin Skywalker’s presence looming over everything in this series, he’s not even actually in that many scenes, but I feel his ghost in almost every single frame of the story, and I’m just never getting over how good that was. I cannot comprehend how well done the character work in this show is, how the characters are serving the themes that George Lucas established, but they’re also telling a story that I was invested in.  I wanted so desperately to see that hug when Obi-Wan and Leia reunited.  I wanted so desperately to see Obi-Wan and Anakin meet one more time, to tear each other apart one more time.  I wanted so desperately to know how Reva’s story would end, how this would affect Leia going forward, how it was a love letter to the prequels movies, how it was connective tissue, the story of how they got from Point A to Point B, but also was a journey worth taking on its own, because I got to see Reva’s face crumple when she asked if she’d become him, I got to see Obi-Wan fix Leia’s droid and teach her a little about the Force, I got to see Owen come to a gentler understanding of Obi-Wan and ask if he wanted to meet Luke, I got to see Anakin absolve Obi-Wan of guilt while still trying desperately to hold onto him. I just cannot get over how it walked the fine line of established characters and something new, that I want approximately a hundred fics about Obi-Wan and Anakin’s conversations in this show, I want another hundred fics of Obi-Wan and Leia, I want a hundred fics about the life Reva could have had in a better world or where she goes from here or how she survived up to this point. I CANNOT GET OVER HOW DEFT THIS SERIES WAS AT GIVING ME THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS.

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.

I'm sorry, so the Jedi are to be blamed for the war between the republic and the separatists? They’re the ones who doomed the galaxy? Not, I don’t know, maybe the separatists themselves, who you know kinda started the war? Not Count Dooku, apprentice of a Sith Lord? Not the Sith Lord himself working from the shadows, playing both sides, pulling the strings to lead the galaxy into destruction and a dictatorship? Not the actual antagonists of the movies which the Jedi, our protagonists, the heroes of Lucas' story, were forced to fight by being pushed into a corner and without even being fully aware of the chess board? Okay. Sure.

#did we see the same movies? #because I remember several assassination attempts on padme #which lead to the jedi getting involved #which lead to figuring out more and more conspiracies #which lead to the republic declaring war against the separatists #all thanks to palpatine of course #which lead to the Jedi being drafted into this war #what else should they have done? #nothing? #let people die? #let the separatists win and enslave people? #since palpatine was playing both sides #the empire would have been the outcome anyway #the jedi would have been declared as traitors even faster #and a version order 66 would have still happened #can we just start blaming the people who did the actual bad thing and not those who tried their best to do good #but couldn’t win because the odds were against them? #i also distinctly remember a literal planned execution of two jedi and a senator! #of course the jedi order had to come help and save them #because you know #that’s what you do when members of your family are about to be executed publicly and unjustly

So the "Gray Jedi" thing kind of misunderstands the terminology of "light side" and "dark side" as it concerns the Force. Never mind that "light side" itself is a post-movie thing as there it was generally understood that the Force is, in itself, light (meaning good) so there wasn't any need to refer to it in those terms...

But the main point of confusion seems to come from viewing it like a brightness color meter where on one side you have pure white, on the other you have pure black, and in between there's gray. Hence the idea that you can just kind of balance the two and get all the benefits with none of the sacrifices.

In reality it's better to think of it in the dictionary terms. Wherein "dark" means "absence of light" meaning that there's some gray part in between. There's just light and if you don't have any of that... There's darkness instead. Nowhere in Lucas writings is the Force really described as this two-sided thing you can balance. You're either good or you lack goodness and are therefore evil.

If you think of it like that the Gray Jedi don't make any sense. Because like... What does it even mean in such a context? That they give to charity in the morning then kick a puppy in the afternoon to "balance" themselves? That they're merciful some of the time and ruthless others? That they're altruistic but also spend a lot of time psyching themselves up with rage so they don't lose their dark side powers?

Now I kind of want a satirical fic of someone attempting to be a Gray Jedi and living like that.

You don't need a satirical fic when this exact thing exists in canon. It's called The Clone Wars (2008) and shows Anakin living EXACTLY like this for about seven seasons' worth of episodes.

*SLAMS DOOR OPEN*

AND ANOTHER THING ABOUT CLIEGG LARS AND SHMI

"Oh the power dynamic, ha, yeah, bad writing George, he PURCHASES her, frees her, and then MARRIES her, oh, that's a healthy dynamic"

Okay I need you all to think about this:

If he buys a woman who has nothing (because she's a SLAVE on the CRIME PLANET)

And then says "You're free"

and follows that up with "ON THE CRIME PLANET"

What happens next?

What happens if you just turn a woman loose with nothing on the CRIME PLANET?

Yeah. Yeah.

"Well he could get her a ride off-planet" with what, the money he used to free her? To send her where? To his friends off-world? Why is he still living on the CRIME PLANET (that has nothing but SAND, where he FARMS WATER) if he has friends on other planets and the money to travel offworld?

Does Cliegg Lars have a spaceship parked out back?

Can he take her a few lightyears to Naboo? Set her loose on Theed? I mean...the fact that Naboo and Tatooine are in the same sector does raise some questions, but also, again, Naboo is the Peace Planet and Tatooine is the CRIME PLANET.

The point is, he said "Hey, you're free. Hey, come live with me. Move in with me. NOW YOU HAVE EQUAL CLAIM TO MY PROPERTY THANKS TO THIS LEGALLY BINDING DOCUMENT, do whatever you want."

Man was rickety and old and in a Space Wheelchair. There was no Unfair Power Dynamic. This dude was not Taking Advantage of Shmi. He said "Girl you deserve better, come live on a farm in the desert. I mean...you still deserve better, but this is the best I can do, hope it's enough."

I do love that Rogue One said "we need a character to represent the absolute WORST the Empire has to offer, all of the most evil that encapsulates the Empire's tyranny and atrocities" and slapped Anakin RIGHT the fuck in there. And then they went OUT OF THEIR WAY to film him like a MONSTER. This is not the Anakin Skywalker of the Disney+ realm that wants you to remember who he used to be, this is a literal nightmare monster and nobody CARES who he used to be or if there's "good" in him because there's clearly no good in him NOW, or if there is he isn't choosing to act on it so it may as well not exist.

They could've utilized the Emperor if they'd wanted to, they could've had him pop in, but they don't. They use Anakin. Because Anakin is the one who murdered babies, Anakin is the one who betrayed everybody he loved, Anakin is the one who destroyed the symbol of hope in the galaxy and threw it into darkness for his own selfish agenda. Anakin is the most monstrous of all, and Rogue One refuses to pull its punches about that. Anakin is an ANIMAL, he is a rabid bear in Rogue One, just pure rage and violence and nothing else. That's all that matters. Literally nobody in the Rebellion gives a single shit about the "good" in him because it just plain DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER, he's a monster whose sole purpose is to destroy goodness in the galaxy.

More than Krennic, more than Tarkin, more than Palpatine, it's ANAKIN who will always be the symbol of the worst things the Empire was capable of inflicting. He IS the Empire's legacy, he will be how people remember the Empire for decades to come.

I don't see how this is Anakin critical, it's just his character arc. Like OP you're absolutely correct. No one but Luke even knew about Vader's true identity or internal struggle or would've even cared for all the reasons above.

Vader is an absolute beast. And Kenobi illustrated that as well.

I'm not sure who you're responding to here, but if you're responding to the tags I put on this post, I tend to tag a LOT of my posts with either "Anakin critical" or "anti Anakin" tags if it's anything but particularly neutral to positive about the character just for safety purposes (it means anyone following me for my opinions on other stuff but doesn't want to see anything negative about Anakin can filter it out). I sometimes will only do "Anakin critical" if I don't think it's that negative and I can get away with it, but I usually do both. Other people reblogging this may be keeping those tags on for similar reasons.

You're not WRONG that the idea that Anakin is a villain and that some characters might see him as little else shouldn't be considered critical or anti since it is just... who Anakin is. He's a villain, even in the Prequels he's a villain-in-the-making. A lot of his narrative involves him being evil and trying to stop the actual good guys (Luke/Leia/Han/the Rebellion in the OT, the Ghost crew in Rebels, the Rebellion in Rogue One, etc). However, I was particularly enthusiastic about my positive feelings on Anakin getting portrayed as nothing more than a monster in this post, so that's when the tags tend to come into play.

I think Rogue One takes this idea of "Vader" (as in the person that most of the galaxy would know as "Darth Vader", not a separate entity from Anakin narratively) even farther than the Kenobi show does. The Kenobi show's message about Anakin is that there is still parts of Anakin IN THERE and that's important, but primarily because Anakin can choose to be better and is choosing NOT to. Obi-Wan needs to let him go because Anakin is choosing to be a monster even as he also remembers the person Anakin used to be more fondly.

Rogue One doesn't care about ANY of that, Anakin's past doesn't matter at all, nobody has to know or accept that Anakin was once good in Rogue One, the ONLY thing that matters at all anymore is that he's choosing to be a monster. He is a symbol for everything wrong with the galaxy, a symbol of the Empire's tyranny and selfishness and greed. He's always been that, but he's been a lot of other things to in some of the other stories that add a bit more depth and nuance to his place in the narrative. The Kenobi show I think does reflect that nuance, especially with Leia and Reva as proxies for his story, while Rogue One simply... chose not to. Because that nuance quite simply doesn't matter to the story they're telling, and I LOVE THAT about Rogue One, so so much. Anakin doesn't always have to be this crazy nuanced tragic villain. Sometimes he can just be the symbol of the worst that humanity has to offer and that's great!

That makes sense, but I thought she died of a broken heart and was sad right before she died? Also wouldn't sensing good in someone be a sign of being force sensitive?

The core of that interpretation is that "she lost the will to live" is the cause of Padmé's death. However, I have four issues with this:

The movie itself is not supporting the idea that she died of a broken heart. I am not buying into the "Palpatine drained the life from her to resurrect Vader" theory, because that power became canon only with Episode IX.

I have my own explanation. The older one is that Padmé's connection to Anakin allowed her to feel his emotional torment of turning into Darth Vader, just like she was able to feel Anakin's emotional pain in the "Padmé's rumination" scene, and this experience of oneness was lethal when Anakin not just physically, but spiritually burned up, and the torment of fear, anger, hate, aggression burning away Anakin and leaving the charred shell of Vader.

I developed the new one after I heard Lucas summarizing attachment in an interview as: “If you have a bird in your hand and you hold it too tight because you don't want it to go and fly, eventually you'll crush it. The important part is to let it go and fly off and be on its own. It will come back. And the love will be even stronger.”

I think, Anakin's attachment to Padmé - grasping her, clinging to her, grabbing her, not wanting to let go of her, holding too tightly - that manifested itself in him reaching out with the Force and grabbing her, choking her, didn't end when he let her go on Mustafar.

Visually, it’s important to note that the audience is left without any clue, apart from Sidious makes it clear that it was Anakin who killed Padmé in his anger, and we could see him angrily grasping into her, and she is choking. From that point, Padmé is dying, and as Anakin becomes more and more Vader, her condition worsens. Everything is pointing to the notion of suffocation. It was shown numerous times that the Force, for it is greed or compassion, knows no distance. Padmé felt Anakin’s pain in the scene, Padmé’s ruminations, Leia felt Luke in Empire Strikes Back and in Return of the Jedi. Also, Obi-Wan and Yoda are both attuned to the Force as a whole, feeling the shifts from Light to Dark in Revenge of the Sith and in A New Hope. Anakin was still grasping into Padmé, even after she was taken to the edge of the galaxy, hold on to her so strong, that he crushed her soul, spirit, Living Force, killing her. When he finishes his transformation to Vader, entirely giving himself away to his greed, selfishness, self-centeredness, fear, anger, hate and pure attachment, taking his first breath as Darth Vader, Padmé takes her last breath and dies.

So, "she lost the will to live" doesn't mean, she lost the conscious wish to be alive. It should refer to “will to live” like “testament of the will of a living body to cling onto existence” or “the patient is at the will of her body.” Padmé, as a living thing, her biological form lost the "will" to function, to live, to uphold and preserve her, to cling into existence. The medical droid describes the dying process, not the cause of her death – what it was repeatedly stated that was beyond its understating.

Oh. OH. OH. “If you have a bird in your hand and you hold it too tight because you don't want it to go and fly, eventually you'll crush it." I generally never really considered that Anakin had actually killed her, I tend to lean towards the idea of Padme died in a very fairy tale kind of way, of a broken heart because her beloved Republic that she worked so hard to fix and her beloved Anakin that she worked so hard to fix, had both been burnt down to ashes, but the concept of Anakin desperately clinging to her in those moments, so hard that he reaches out and crushes her through the Force, like a bird in his hand just hit me like a truck. Because you're right that it's a continuation of his actions towards her on Mustafar, that it's important that he strangled her on Mustafar so you can see that he hasn't stopped, not really, when she dies not much later.

Padme being out of breath on Polis Massa, the way she and Anakin mirror each other, the way you can hear the heartbeats, they're connected in those moments... what if Anakin was holding onto her so tightly he did crush her? "It seems, in your anger, you've killed her." sounds like a lie from Palpatine, especially when Anakin denies it, he felt that she was alive! He felt her, he was still connected to her, he was still holding onto her. But what if it wasn't on Mustafar that he killed her. What if was on Polis Massa that he killed her. Because we know Vader can and has choked people from a distance before and boy does it look familiar:

"Balance" when talking about the Force.

First off, let me preface this by saying the best explanations I've seen about the concept of Balance of the Force are the below two:

What follows is simply my way of explaining "the Prophecy of the Chosen One who will bring Balance to the Force"... with diagrams!

(Quotes I used as sources can be found at the bottom of the post.)

On that note: let's get cosmic!

I. The Living Force's natural state.

The Force has two aspects.

The term “Balance of the Force” refers to the Living Force’s natural state... balanced. As seen below:

On one side, you have one BIG cog. That’s the Dark Side.

On the other side, you have a lot of small cogs. That’s the Light Side.

You need a lot of good cogs to balance out that one bad cog. Why? Because being an asshole is easier, and more people choose the easy way over the hard way, in the galaxy. It takes many good deeds to make a difference and one bad one to make it all go up in flames.

Neither Side is either benevolent or malevolent. The Dark and Light Sides are non-sentient metaphysical aspects of the Living Force, they're not good or evil, they just are. And, for better or for worse, they're both essential to have Balance.

So where's the issue?

II. The Force at the start of the Prequels.

The issue is that the Dark Side has been growing more and more. This is causing the Force to gradually become unbalanced.

The Republic has grown corrupt, the Jedi haven't but they've become its lapdogs. More and more senators and bureaucrats take bribes, the crime lords and slavers grow more ruthless, corporations become increasingly power-hungry... and a phantom menace seems to be speeding up the clock for when this will all go to hell.

That phantom menace is the Sith. More specifically, Darth Sidious.

The Sith are literally the galaxy's only order of Force-sensitives who constantly use the Dark Side to make the Force submit to their will, rather than following the Will of the Force. Their endgame is to be to control everything, Balance be damned.

And they're winning. The Force's few remaining champions, chiefly the Jedi, are completely unprepared in the face of this threat.

So the Force retaliates and creates a Chosen One, destined to destroy the Sith: Anakin Skywalker.

That’s it, that’s his destiny, as dictated by the Cosmic Force: destroying the Sith, thus bringing Balance.

Just one problem... at the end of Episode I, Sidious gets elected Chancellor and essentially is put in charge of the whole galaxy.

The Sith have as good as won.

III. The Force at the end of the Prequels.