CaptHawkeye wrote:
Watching Yoda, it's easy to see that according to the OT alone, Yoda was a shrewd, wise Jedi Master with a disgruntled outlook upon the galaxy and a distrust of Obi Won Kenobi and other former or aspiring "Jedi". His character was extremely cynical, believeing Luke was likely to fail against Vader and possibly even turn to the Dark Side. Hell when Luke came to the planet he didn't even trust him. (Hence the clumsy old man act.) Even though Kenobi had presumably been in contact with Yoda over Luke's coming to Dagobah.
I was always of the opinion that Yoda was never as cynical or bitter as he let on, rather that it was more of a facade that was supposed to help Luke with his initial training. Helping him to "unlearn what he had learned" so to speak. I also felt that his conversation with Kenobi in front of Luke was sort of a "good cop, bad cop" routine to help Luke pull his head out of his ass a bit.
It's not surprising to me that he thought Luke would fail against Vader when he departed Dagobah for Bespin, because at the time even Obi Wan (Luke's proponent) admitted he wasn't ready to face Vader. Luke did fail against Vader at Cloud City eventually, walking right into the trap laid out for him. Not that I fault Luke for doing so entirely, I just point it out because it shows that Yoda and Obi Wan knew what they were talking about and there was the very real risk that Luke could have been killed.
Then you watch the Prequels right? And in the prequels, Yoda teaches young students. He casually jokes with them, when he's talking with just Windu and Kenobi, he even seems lighthearted then as well. He expressed concerns with Obi Won taking Anakin as his apprentice in Episode 1, but condoned it nonetheless.
I was under the impression that Yoda did not condone it whatsoever, and that Anakin's training was the result of the Council's decision with Yoda dissenting.
Later, when people ask Yoda for help, he is very laissez-faire about his advice. Mike pointed out that Yoda's advice always seemed to amount to "smile and let it happen" which is pretty much the truth. This contrasts with Yoda's later decision to personally train Luke, and to stop taking a backseat to the lives of his students.
In the case of Anakin Skywalker, was Yoda's advice wrong? I would argue that if Yoda knew truly how deep Anakin's attachment to Amidala was he might have tried to do more to help him, but it was Anakin's attachment to Amidala that caused his fall to the Dark Side after all and if Anakin hadn't let his fear of losing her control him, then events would have played out very differently in RoTS.
In Dark Rendezvous, we get a good insight into Yoda's training with then Padawan Dooku. It appeared to be quite hands on, and we do see other instances of Yoda taking a personal interest in certain students including Dooku. Sometimes he is more direct in his instruction, other times he seems to get the student to learn the lesson on his or her own, such as the case when Dooku was going to break his own arm out of spite during a Jedi training game against Yoda, and then stopped realizing how petty his actions would be.
Yoda has also designed the Jedi Order with lots of little rules like "Don't fall in love". These rules and practices were ostensibly designed to micromanage the lives of the Jedi living in the order. So he wouldn't have to. Also, the great prophecy which fortold the coming "Bringer of Balance to the Force" he interprited like Windu, VERY optimistically. Basically "The Jedi will win in the end."
Plus your clarification
It's actually an error I made recalling sources. But it still works for the overall point, IE: That PT Yoda was basically lazy and over confident. And saw no problems with the conventional teachings of the Jedi even though the problems were clear to people like Qui Gon.
He definitely realized in RoTS (the novelization really emphasizes this) that the Jedi Order had failed to change and adapt appropriately. I'd hardly call Yoda "lazy" though.
Mike's commentary noted that Yoda had basically turned the Jedi Order into his puppet which is pretty much true. So why wouldn't he be happy? As far as he's concerned his model of the Jedi Order is the most successful in history. After 800 years their have been no major wars until the Clone Wars which were certainly started by Sith intervention.
While Yoda certainly held a lot of influence on account of his senority, power, and having trained a great many of the Jedi Order when they were younglings, I wouldn't think to refer to the Order as his puppet. I can recal multiple instances of Yoda lamenting at what the Jedi Order had become due to the Clone Wars. The book Dark Rendezvous, and Vol. 5 of the Clone Wars comics demonstrate this very well. Also, Yoda's influence wasn't great enough to deter the Jedi Council from permitting Anakin's training at the end of Episode One. A lot of influence does not necessairly mean total control.
Then Anakin falls, Palpatine wipes out the Order, and criminalizes the Jedi. Yoda's world falls apart, everything he built came crashing down to a menace that was right in front of him. The many rules and precedents he designed did absolutely nothing to protect his Order. Ultimately handicapping it. The Prophecy he had read suddenly became terrifyingly vague. What if by "balance to the force" the prophecy did not mean "Jedi = Win" but actually had implied "Sith = Win".
RoTS Novelization backs this up well. There is a quote along the lines where Yoda is thinking about how the Sith spent 1,000 years in hiding training to fight the next war, while the Jedi spent that whole time preparing to fight the previous one. I would add to this that the point when this really hits home for Yoda is when he realizes that Palpatine has beaten him in the Senate Arena. Again I refer to the novelization of the film, where Yoda realizes that he as the Champion of the Jedi Order did not have what it took to beat the Sidious. Even after everything leading into that fight, I think it took his actual defeat in order to really demonstrate how he had erred.
Thus we have OT Yoda.
OT Yoda is cynical and broken. He initially refuses to train Luke and strongly distrusts him. When he finally concedes to train Luke, he's still very cynical of Luke's abilities and never quite believe in him. He staunchly believes Luke will end up just like his father. Because for all intents and purposes, the boy sitting in his hut right then whining "Ben tell him i'm ready!" was the spitting image of his father minus 60 years.
Like I said earlier, I believe this was all part of his teaching in order to help Luke open his mind. While Luke had a lot of experiences in life comparted with PT-era padawans, his preconceptions would hinder his training. He needed Yoda to lift the X-Wing after all, because in his mind it was too big. Yoda is one of those teachers who doesn't always explicity say things out loud, but rather enables students to learn lessons on their own from time to time.
Regardless, Yoda goes along with it. He has to rush the training because Luke is already old and...well, the Empire isn't getting any younger, and neither are they. (Though he still believed Luke needed a lot of work when he left Dagobah). During the training Luke is impatient, whiny, and disbelieving. And Yoda, like he was Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in space, (minus the cursing) consistently turns Luke's own impatience against him. Embarrassing him routinely.
It's easy to see why the Jedi initially felt that training from a young age was a good idea, even if it had it's downside. Especially when you see the younglings in AoTC easily handling the training remotes that Luke had difficulty with in ANH. Hence why Yoda had to try and deprogram Luke of certain preconceptions about the world around him. By allowing Luke to believe Yoda was just an old hermit and then revealing himself subtly in the hut, Luke was forced into the realization that not everything is as it appears and forced him to open his mind further. Then, by coming up with the excuse that Luke was "too old to begin the training" it prompted Luke to really commit himself and prove to Yoda that he was willing to undergo the training. Note how there wasn't much resistance from Yoda when Luke objected to that statement. Furthermore, I think we can tell that Yoda was blowing smoke when he said Luke was too old, because he had to have known at the end of RoTS that it would be quite a long time before he would ever see Luke again (if ever) once he was taken to Tatooine.
He forgoes teaching Luke many of the old minor rules like "don't fall in love" or other precedents that he used to live by. Seeing the inefficiency of those rules in his new training.
Or perhaps he nows sees those rules as unecessary or even hindrances.
Luke eventually rushes to fight Vader, and loses.
But amazingly, he does not turn. Even after he learns the truth. He fights Vader to the very end, willing even to kill himself to escape the Dark Side. This is where things seemed to change. Like Anakin, Luke rushed into a fight and got his ass kicked, he met the Dark Side face to face and even heard out its offer to "join us". But unlike Anakin, he chose to run from Dark Side. Luke comes back to train, and Yoda accepts to train him again. Because unlike Anakin, Luke CAME BACK.
Honest question, you think that if Anakin had a similar experience like Luke had in the cave he might have come back?
I also see a contrast in Luke and Anakin with regards to the people they had lost. Owen and Beru were killed by the Empire, and Vader killed Obi Wan, do you think that experience helped keep Luke from the Dark Side as well? By contrast, Anakin wasn't courted to the Dark Side by the being responsible for the deaths of his mother, or comrades in the war.
The next time, Luke is no fool. The next time we see him, he's ready for war and ready for the Force. In ROTJ, Yoda has changed as well. He's still cynical and has ominous fears of the future, but he no longer believes Luke will necessarily fail. Even if he does, their is still hope with Leia. Before he died, he seemed pleased with himself and Luke. Even though things weren't over. He had trained Luke, he had really tried to make things better, and for the first time, it was showing.
This is Yoda in the end. In my opinion, Yoda repented the mistakes he had made in the PT. Evidenced by his change in attitudes and training techniques. He still tried to run away from the big problem early in TESB. He tried to run from the Galaxy and run from the terror that was ultimately his responcibility. Then, he learned what he had done wrong, from all of the fundamentalist teachings he had sewn into the Jedi Order to all of the silly machincations he believed he had control of. He was still religious, but he was no longer foolish, arrogant, and inactive. In the end, the Prophecy favored no one. Vader killed the Jedi Order true enough, but in the end, he ALSO killed Palpatine. Effectively ending the Sith.
I disagree that Yoda was trying to run away from any problems, and I really disagree with your statement that the terror was ultimately his responsibility.
I see Yoda as knowing he has little time left, and as being ready to quite literally pass on the reins of the Jedi Order to the next generation, knowing full well that it will be a far different Order than the one he had known, hoping that Luke will be able to shape the New Jedi Order into something more adaptable so that the mistakes of the past would not be repeated.
Luke referred to himself as a "Jedi" but only in that he was opposed to the Sith. (And we was basically trying to light a fire up Palp's ass.) I believe that since Yoda skipped and disregarded most of the old teachings of the Jedi, Luke was a new kind of Force User. Not necessarily a Jedi, but not a Sith.
Errr...what?
He was the first of a new breed of Force User. His Father had cleared the way for him. Now the ultimate point of the Prophecy was clear to Yoda in death as it had been to men like Qui Gon in life. The Jedi and the Sith were both judged by the Force and it wanted them out of the way. Luke was given a clean slate to work off of. And unlike the EU's wretched "oh yeah he totally made teh new jedi's doode" belief, I strongly believe that Luke created a new order of Force Users post-ROTJ. One not bound by obsolete traditional beliefs and practice and inaction. (As Yoda had eventually learned the error of.) Yet not bound by self destructive, perpetual violence either. (As Vader had eventually learned the foolishness of.)
And yet Luke based his New Jedi Order on what little of the Jedi History he could recover. He changed a lot of the practices and traditions true, but didn't change the core beliefs of the Jedi. They even kept the Jedi code did they not? Yoda even refers to Luke as the last of the Jedi, Luke refers to himself as such in Yoda's hut before he dies before Yoda corrects him, telling him that he has to confront Vader first.
It's the path Yoda takes and the ultimate result of the Great Prophecy that I felt like looking at this time. Yoda went from being this stogy old Priest with delusions of power and confidence, to a broken, old man hateful of the Galaxy around him and the people he knew. Finally ending his life in a middle ground, accepting the problems and issues the Galaxy faced, but no longer believing they were unsolvable. The Prophecy ultimately worked out the exact manner it said it would. No Jedi, no Sith, only Luke.
So yeah, who's got what to say?
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Delusions of power? Hateful of the galaxy? Hateful of people around him? How so? While I don't think Yoda's outlook on life was rosy and cheerful during his time on Dagobah, I find it hard to believe that he had become quite so negative. On his deathbed he appeared quite contrite to Luke with regards to the secrets hed had kept about Luke's lineage. I saw Yoda as someone who had experienced a lot of grief and remorse even before the PT trilogy had been released, and feel that while proud of Luke he was still aware of the possibly grim fate Luke would have should he lose to Vader and/or Palpatine.
