Sometimes I think about when Luke asks Yoda about Vader and Yoda is all, “Unfortunate this is.” Because Luke “isn’t ready for the burden.” Because his training isn’t complete. Yoda says that AS HE’S DYING. How else was Luke ever going to find out?
They weren’t going to tell him.
Granted there are Force ghosts, but clearly they weren’t planning to tell him that was actually his father he was fighting till after he’d become a Jedi. Which involved killing Vader. So even if Luke survived, if Yoda and Obi Wan had their way, he would only find out he’d killed his own father after the fact.
I suppose that if you were convinced it was the only way, you could consider it the merciful option, but can you even imagine?
#this is why i do NOT LIKE THE JEDI TBH
There’s some good basis for that. And to be honest, since the prequels, I’ve never read the Jedi as if they’re supposed to be flawless and worthy of uncritical admiration. There’s a lot of shady stuff going on with the Jedi. I mean, that’s the entire reason the Emperor wins.
They’re a monastic order, for god’s sake. Granted some
of them go out and hero around the galaxy (before the Clone War, that is). But whatever they were
10,000 years ago, at this point the order as a whole has chosen fear and repression over actually
overcoming their own internal flaws. The reason Anakin isn’t allowed to get
together with Padme is because passions are dangerous. And, well, yes they are. People do stupid and harmful stuff because of their passions all the time. We
see exactly how wrong it can go via Anakin, in fact. But hiding from the fact that your emotions can go out of control by trying not to have any isn’t
going to help you.You can’t not have passion.
At least humans can’t; who knows
about some other species. You have to learn to DEAL with that stuff, not stick
your head in the sand and hope it doesn’t get to you.The Emperor brings the entire enterprise down around their
ears by starting a war, and then putting them in charge of it. Thus bringing the Jedi into confrontation with all the things about the real world that they have been withdrawing from for the past however long. They’ve forgotten how
to absorb the impact of the kinds of passions that come with war and being forced to engage
with the extremes of life. And so, despite a few exceptional Jedi nearly
managing to hold things together, the order falls. It falls in the eyes of the Republic before Palpatine ever finishes the execution, and that’s his real victory: the lack of desire to rebuild the Jedi. The belief by the galaxy at large that they FAILED rather than that they were assassinated.(Meanwhile Emperor
Ubertroll has fun playing real-life chess with himself for a few years, not
actually caring which side wins because the whole point is to fuck with the
Jedi till they ruin themselves.)And–despite Lucas’s failure to really communicate his
point in the prequels–half the reason Anakin falls is because he’s right in the things he’s
angry about: the Jedi ARE bullshit half the time, and you can’t argue against that point with him without first admitting to the failings he knows damn well are
there. But no one ever does that.
Even Obi Wan, who is in so many ways nearly a perfect hero, can’t quite work through
his own conditioning to admit the Jedi are as fallible as anybody else.The Clone Wars cartoon is important for a lot of reasons,
but a major one is this. There, you see it all. You see how fucked up the whole existence of clone troopers
is. And that the Jedi know it. They do their best to treat the clones as
people, but it’s not enough to make up for it. And the Emperor gets them on
that point, too. If they’d stood their
ground on the morality of growing humans just to die for them, they would have
headed off the tool of their own downfall. (Although he does kind of have them by the balls, there. Once the Republic Senate decides on clone troopers, what are the Jedi going to do: declare mutiny? Maybe they should have.)You see in Clone Wars, too, that the further the war goes,
the more the Jedi get lost. Start thinking as soldiers instead of Jedi. And
they get called on it here and there. You get the mirror held up to them so
that you can see how they’re losing it.You also get to see Anakin as a man who is actually a hero
and has a lot of good in him, but also a growing amount of anger as he watches
his world fall apart around him and people dying and can’t stop it, even though
he’s supposed to be the “Chosen One.” And how he’s angry because he was pulled up out of poverty
and slavery to this privileged place, and yet it’s like he’s still constantly
being judged. "You’re the Chosen
One, but you’re not good enough for this and you’re not good enough for that
and you’re still not allowed to live your own life or love who you want.“ He’s
privileged now, but he’s still got the gatekeepers controlling him. And the
tension between the fact that some of their rules have really good
reasons…but some of them are frankly out of cowardice.So I love that the Jedi are really rather screwed up and
riddled with weaknesses, and Palpatine sees that and his entire scheme is to bring
them down simply by forcing them to confront their flaws. Because he knows they
won’t be able to do it.None of it would have happened if Qui-Gon Jinn had survived. He was the only person who saw Anakin for everything he was – which is to say, a complicated, compassionate, hurt child full of unimaginable power. He was the only person brave enough to take him on (Obi-Wan doesn’t think it’s wise at first; he really only takes Anakin on himself because of his fierce devotion to Qui-Gon and Qui-Gon’s dying wish).
Qui-Gon understood that this child was, essentially, half-midichlorian. He also knew that Anakin had probably unconsciously manipulated events so that Qui-Gon would find him and take him on (or that Anakin was such a strong conductor for the Force that the Force did all of it). And because he had spent the most time with Anakin and had the best understanding of human nature of any of the Jedi, he was the one who had to train him – or at least be nearby while his training was happening.
This, however, put a giant target on his back. This is why Palpatine sent Darth Maul after him, specifically…that, and one other thing.
All of the shitty aspects of the Jedi? Yeah, Qui-Gon saw it. And he rejected it. He knew what the core aspects of being a Jedi were – the original intention of the group, not the semi-radical repressive rules that had been formed over the years. He didn’t give a shit that he was never promoted. He butted heads with Yoda all the damn time. Putting Anakin’s training aside, if Qui-Gon Jinn even survived long enough to fight in the war….it wouldn’t have worked. He would have known how to deal with it. He would have known how to steer the Jedi through an experience they couldn’t understand. He would have saved the Order, or at least, maybe saved the Order’s reputation. (And then if he had lived long enough to help raise Anakin, Anakin probably wouldn’t have turned to the Dark Side, because Qui-Gon would have been there to say, “Look, the Order has a lot of things right, but a lot of shit wrong. Live your life.”)
That combined with his ability to train Anakin in the Light made it imperative that he be killed as soon as possible. Killing Qui-Gon was probably #1 on Palpatine’s Destroy Everything To-Do list, but sensing that Qui-Gon had found Anakin probably sped things along. To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if Qui-Gonn’s death was the only reason Palpatine trained Darth Maul. Whether or not Darth Maul knew that, however…
I frigging love Star Wars meta. People actually respond to you. <3
I always felt like this was a somewhat idealistic reading of Qui Gonn, but I agree that he would have been the best shot at training Anakin up and keeping him from falling. (As heroic as Obi Wan was, he had too many of the exact personality traits that fed into Anakin’s problem.) And maybe yeah, if Qui Gonn had been around to butt heads with Yoda and the council more, argue about things and force everybody’s perspectives to open up, the Jedi would have been better positioned to deal with the entire disaster. It doesn’t even matter if Qui Gonn was always right. They just needed somebody who was ready to argue and question the path they were choosing.
I’m not sure he could have prevented the outcome, though. By the time Palpatine got in office, he’d already laid all his groundwork and it might have been too late. The only possible save by then was to identify old Palpy as the Sith Lord, and then either dig up enough evidence to out him to the Senate or else suck it up and go after him anyway, and live with the entire Jedi Order being declared traitor for saving the galaxy from itself. Anakin’s corruption sealed the deal, but even if he hadn’t fallen, it wouldn’t have stopped Palpatine’s plan (although if it came to that, I’m betting he would’ve been the one to actually off the bastard before having to go into exile, so at least old pruneface wouldn’t have been around to savor his victory).
Which would be a hella interesting AU, actually.
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