the-house-of-abrasax:moonlightsdreaming:(re: tags from this post.)  One of the things I love so much

the-house-of-abrasax:moonlightsdreaming:(re: tags from this post.)  One of the things I love so much about this book is that it really understands the horrible position they’re in–they’re faced with the choice of using someone they know isn’t fully ready or letting more people die/be subjugated under Separtists’ cruelties.  The Jedi do not want this war, that point is made several times, they don’t want it, but they feel obligated to answer when Palpatine asks them.  They feel obligated to defend the Republic when they’re tasked with it.But there are only so many of them and they’re spread thin and they’re just barely holding themselves together.  Your point about everything feeling like a rubberband being pulled taut is a great one–it’s especially felt it in Anakin, but with the Jedi as well, they’re constantly, constantly being pulled on and every time they pull off the impossible, they’re asked to do it again, except even better.They know something’s wrong, but the Force isn’t guiding them like it’s supposed to, they’re lost in the dark, and they know they’re asking more of Anakin than they should, but they don’t see another alternative, they don’t see another way to save the people they’re supposed to save.And I think one thing that gets lost a lot is an important one:  The Jedi think there will be a future for them to recover in.  They’re asking so much from Anakin, but they think there will be time after the war to set things right, to let him and themselves recover from all of it.  “Let’s just get through this war and then we’ll have some breathing room.”  They have no idea their doom is on the heels of the war’s end and there won’t be any time afterwards to recover.And it really, really makes me wonder how things might have gone better if they had had that time afterwards.  If they’d been able to return to having clarity via the Force, if they’d been able to return to building things instead of fighting and destroying, if they’d been able to lighten up and have the serenity (instead of being ground down by the constant war and death they were all immersed in) to find a better path–for themselves and for Anakin.There’s that moment from one of the comics, where Anakin hints pretty strongly that he’s thinking about leaving the Jedi after the war (by saying that he wants something more from life) and Obi-Wan says that, after the war, he’ll support any decision Anakin makes.That says to me it’s one of the greatest tragedies of the PT–they’re willing to change, just not in time and not enough to save themselves or Anakin Skywalker.So much of what they were asking of themselves (and of Anakin), so much of how taut they were pulled, seemed like it was a temporary situation, they assumed they’d have all the time in the world to fix things afterwards, but that right now it meant they had to be extra strict, they had to keep their eye on the ball, because they were so worn down and so without their guidance that they’d lose their shit if they didn’t.  It felt very much to me like the Jedi were all white knuckling their way through this war out of necessity and that kept them from doing anything about Anakin, because they needed him.I genuinely believe it wasn’t just dislike for Anakin that made them mistrust him, because certainly Obi-Wan loved him, but still tried to keep Anakin in the structure of the Jedi.  But they knew he wasn’t ready, they knew he was still struggling to let go, but they needed to save people’s lives and he was one more (along with all of the Jedi) they needed to ask to do it.So, you know, I cry a lot about how Obi-Wan knew they were giving too much of themselves, all of them were, but that he thought they would have the time to fix it after the war, he thought there would be time to give Anakin whatever it was that wished for.  I CRY ABOUT IT A LOT.And it really, really makes me wonder how things might have gone better if they had had that time afterwards.  If they’d been able to return to having clarity via the Force, if they’d been able to return to building things instead of fighting and destroying, if they’d been able to lighten up and have the serenity (instead of being ground down by the constant war and death they were all immersed in) to find a better path–for themselves and for Anakin.Yes, this! This is such a great question. The war was causing/exposing cracks in the foundations of the Jedi order and it’s really fascinating to wonder how they would have dealt with the fallout. Aside from living with the way they were manipulated into the public arena (evolving them from a reclusive sect into the faces of republic might) and are likely to be firmly fixed in the limelight for the foreseeable future. There’s also the pure and simple trauma the Jedi would have experienced on an individual level: releasing one’s emotions into the force as a way of handling events is all well and good for the cloistered existence the Jedi lived previously but it’s not quite enough for a post-war existence. Because, lets face it, Anakin may be the prime example of the way a Jedi simply couldn’t deal but he was by no means the only one: Barriss Offee, Quinlan Vos, Pong Krell. There are probably a lot of unnamed others as well. Suddenly there are Padawans who have seen their Masters get slaughtered (and vice versa), Obi-Wan being forced to watch Qui-Gon’s murder changes from a horrific singularity to the norm. Those Jedi that had been given the rank of commander at the age of fourteen, have to find a way to cope with the knowledge that they had sent countless clones to their deaths and memories of all the atrocities that war visits on innocent people.Then there are the others who have gotten a little too used to having that kind of power. Now the Jedi as a whole have to wonder if the war drove Krell mad or if he had always had that kind of darkness inside him and they had never seen it or ignored it. What does it say about the pre-war order if the latter is true? I completely agree with you that change was on the horizon. In fact the Jedi probably knew that it would be forced upon them weather they wanted it or not. The war was causing/exposing cracks in the foundations of the Jedi order and it’s really fascinating to wonder how they would have dealt with the fallout. Aside from living with the way they were manipulated into the public arena (evolving them from a reclusive sect into the faces of republic might) and are likely to be firmly fixed in the limelight for the foreseeable future. There’s also the pure and simple trauma the Jedi would have experienced on an individual level: releasing one’s emotions into the force as a way of handling events is all well and good for the cloistered existence the Jedi lived previously but it’s not quite enough for a post-war existence. andSuddenly there are Padawans who have seen their Masters get slaughtered (and vice versa), Obi-Wan being forced to watch Qui-Gon’s murder changes from a horrific singularity to the norm.This is the heart of the matter and such a fascinating question–because the Jedi had thrived for at least a thousand years in their current form, from their point of view, they wouldn’t have had much reason to rethink their methods, what they were doing was working really well for them!  And they were very much not public figures, they were a form of Buddhist monks who were a culture unto themselves.  (Canon has described it as a “religion” a couple of times, but that honestly doesn’t really cover it–they were an entire living, breathing culture with their own history and intellectual schools of thought and philosophy and art.  Their loss wasn’t just murder, but the loss of an entire history of a people.)It was only in the last few years (as compared to the thousand year long history they had in their current form) that they were shoved into the spotlight they had never known, they were shoved into an incredibly traumatic way of life that they didn’t know how to deal with, they were put under tremendous pressure to finish this war, they were held up on this pedestal that they couldn’t possibly live up to, and if they did, they were just asked to do it again, only even better.  I’m not sure how any group of people could have held up under that kind of intense pressure, especially a group of people who were used to having the Force to help them with clarity and suddenly that was taken from them.  They were asked to adapt to an entirely new way of thinking, of processing, while put literally under fire, in a handful of years.  An entire way of life cannot change in a handful of years, no matter how aware they were of the dangers of their situation.That said, they were still too stagnant and didn’t adapt fast enough, they were both too removed from and too deeply entrenched in the Republic for the good of either–they were mysterious and distant and next to impossible for non-Jedi to understand, but they were also directly under the authority of the Republic, they were beholden to it, rather than to their own ideals.  This put them in a position where, in times of peace, things worked great.  But when you applied pressure, that’s when the cracks in the foundation showed and they broke under the strain.  And, honestly, as much as I cry for how deeply horrible and unfair it was what happened to the PT Jedi, if they were able to be crushed like that in a handful of years, they couldn’t have been that strong or stable anymore.THAT SAID, what if they had managed to survive the war?  Let’s say the clones were never tasked with Order 66, the Separtists have either been defeated or rejoined the Republic, Palpatine was exposed/defeated, and the Jedi are now in the spotlight as the heroes of the Clone Wars.  What now?It would be difficult because the Jedi would want to withdrawn from that spotlight, that’s not who they were meant to be, they recognize that their people are traumatized from the war, that this is not what they’re supposed to be, but they had to set that aside for the sake of the war.  But at the same time the Republic would turn to them for help, because they’d become so reliant on the Jedi by this point.But I like to think the Jedi would have made sure to back off–especially if politicians like Bail, Padme, and Mon were in better positions of power, those who would understand that the Jedi needed to pull away, because their people were traumatized, they needed to heal, they needed to find their path again.  Especially if the Force was finally clear to them again, it would tell them to either step back from the Republic or open yourself up more.One thing that further supports my belief that they wanted to evolve was a line from Wild Space, early on, too:          “Then you should return to the Temple,” said Mace. “I can oversee the cleanup operation here. You are our only beacon in the darkness, Yoda. Without your wisdom and foresight, I doubt we can prevail.”        He meant the words kindly, a declaration of confidence, but Yoda felt the weight of them settle into his bones with a cruel finality.        Too old am I to be the last hope of the Jedi.Which is obviously a foreshadowing to the OT, where Yoda is Luke’s chance to learn to be a Jedi, but it’s also a perfect illustration of the impossible position the PT Jedi were in:  Yoda didn’t want to be the hope of the Jedi or their beacon on the darkness, he didn’t want to lead, that’s why he’d started shifting power to Mace already.But then the war happened and they needed a guiding light, someone to look to when they were feeling lost, they were on unsteady ground and so they needed the most experienced among them.  They needed a guiding light in this time of darkness and Yoda was still the strongest among them.After the war, when they no longer needed him for that?  You can bet your ass Yoda would have been out of there so fast, he would have retired to go teach younglings and offer advice if asked, but to let the next generation grow as they would.I don’t think it would have been easy for the Jedi to recover, to find a better path for themselves, but the Force would be with them again, they would have the breathing room to realize that they needed to take a more active role in their recovery, they’d have had the time to recognize that things were going wrong and their people needed more help than they were getting.  I love the idea that they would come back to Barriss and try to understand what went wrong with her, how they could help her, how they could help all their children who had been sent to war too early because they had little other choice.And I like to think Obi-Wan would have been a big part of this–he recognized the issues they were facing, he knows what it’s like to want to help someone (Anakin) but not really know how to or to have the time for it, because there was always some other planet to save, there was always a war to fight.  Obi-Wan recognized the wisdom of the Jedi and the Masters before him, but he also wasn’t at all afraid to go against their advice–this book has Yoda telling Obi-Wan that Anakin needs him as a Master more than anything right now, and Obi-Wan appreciates the experience that Yoda brings to the conversation, but still immediately thinks:  No, what Anakin needed was a friend.Obi-Wan was a rising star in the Jedi Order, he seemed very well-respected and seemed to be on a fast track, Yoda definitely had a strong interest in him, Mace seemed to appreciate him, he was already on the High Council.  And he willing to do his best to support Anakin’s choices after the war, whatever they were.Which says to me that Obi-Wan would have recognized that they needed something more than what they had, that he was willing to change and grow, to accept attachment (so long as it was in a healthy way, which is what I think he was trying to do with Anakin), he just… never got that chance, because Palpatine had outplayed them too well.AND THAT MAKES ME CRY ALL OVER AGAIN FOR WHAT THE JEDI COULD HAVE BECOME. -- source link
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