How Wrong Were the Jedi?

[JLTucker]

Conceding everything. I don't have the will power or arguments to defend my position.

[StarSword]

But since we never see Jedi children on the front lines in combat, well...

Star Wars: The Clone Wars...

Ahsoka Tano. (The Clone Wars movie / Pilot to the series)
Send into a combat zone to be apprenticed to Anakin. Used as a combatant to destroy an enemy shield emitter.

The Nautolian Padawan (Episode "Monsters")
Thrown into a Temple door by Savage and killed.

Bariss Offee. (Season Two. "The Factory)
Send to fight on Geonosis to find and destroy a super-tank factory.

While these examples are in their teens, they still would be considered Child Soldiers in our world.

And if you bring the novels into it, Anakin killed his first man when he was about 13 (Rogue Planet). And the Jedi of 1000 years past IIRC brought young Padawans along to fight the Sith army (Darth Bane, although I'll grant the Order was probably in a manpower crunch by that point).

[RogueIce]

This is assuming, of course, that the Star Wars galaxy considers 18 = Adult the way we do. And even then they're not "fully" adults depending on certain circumstances (FE: can't legally purchase/consume alcohol in the US until 21).

I don't know what, if any, scientific rationale there may be for 18 being (for a lot of the Western world, anyway) the age of majority. But just because a bunch of Earth cultures adopted that in the modern age doesn't mean anything for Star Wars.

Anyway, granting Ahsoka as 13 or 14 (TCW did start as a theatrical movie so it still technically counts under the "movies only" rule from upthread) that doesn't mean she's a child soldier, in the SW context. As Havok pointed out, not all Jedi are human and for all we know Togruta standards on the age of majority are vastly different than ours, or even what SW humans might consider. Since I don't think anyone on here is an expert in Togruta physiology, biology or psychology who are we to say? For all we know they reach full emotional and mental maturity sooner than physical maturity (since Ahsoka does physically appear younger as mentioned between both her 'future self' and in comparison to Shaak Ti).

Basically, she's not human, so it's quite a bit of hubris to judge her (and the Jedi, for that matter) based on human standards, don't you think?

[Scrib]

They were religious fanatics and raised child soldiers. Of course they were horrible people.

This is such bullshit.
There is a tangible, REAL thing called the Force that these people can control and wield. It is not some adherence to a book written by crazy people with no substantiated evidence or proof. They are born with weaponry built into them. There is no fanaticism.

The Jedi are more like the X-Men, where if you don't have someone like Professor X take them in and train them, you get someone like Magneto taking them in and training them

Tucker has tapped out but I might as well ask since my curiosity is peaked: is The Force a real thing? I mean, the force as an energy field exists. But does the thing the Jedi venerate, the thing with it's own ineffable will,exist? Perhaps there is some Clone Wars shit that makes it clear (I ran into some shit that hinted at that) but a lot of the things that are marked as the "will" of the Force are ambiguous.

[Havok]

But since we never see Jedi children on the front lines in combat, well...

Star Wars: The Clone Wars...

Ahsoka Tano. (The Clone Wars movie / Pilot to the series)
Send into a combat zone to be apprenticed to Anakin. Used as a combatant to destroy an enemy shield emitter.

The Nautolian Padawan (Episode "Monsters")
Thrown into a Temple door by Savage and killed.

Bariss Offee. (Season Two. "The Factory)
Send to fight on Geonosis to find and destroy a super-tank factory.

While these examples are in their teens, they still would be considered Child Soldiers in our world.

And if you bring the novels into it, Anakin killed his first man when he was about 13 (Rogue Planet). And the Jedi of 1000 years past IIRC brought young Padawans along to fight the Sith army (Darth Bane, although I'll grant the Order was probably in a manpower crunch by that point).

Which is completely wrong as Anakin blew up the Nemoidian cruiser with all hands aboard when he was 9, not to mention whomever he may have killed when he was pod racing. Anakin is a special case however as writers are compelled to shoehorn his exploits in where ever they can.

[Havok]

They were religious fanatics and raised child soldiers. Of course they were horrible people.

This is such bullshit.
There is a tangible, REAL thing called the Force that these people can control and wield. It is not some adherence to a book written by crazy people with no substantiated evidence or proof. They are born with weaponry built into them. There is no fanaticism.

The Jedi are more like the X-Men, where if you don't have someone like Professor X take them in and train them, you get someone like Magneto taking them in and training them

Tucker has tapped out but I might as well ask since my curiosity is peaked: is The Force a real thing? I mean, the force as an energy field exists. But does the thing the Jedi venerate, the thing with it's own ineffable will,exist? Perhaps there is some Clone Wars shit that makes it clear (I ran into some shit that hinted at that) but a lot of the things that are marked as the "will" of the Force are ambiguous.

Like Flagg said, it's more of a philosophy. Yes the Force exists. Is it completely known and fully understood? No. But it clearly has very real effect and repercussions on the galaxy, especially when misused or manipulated.
The galactic leaders for thousands of years have relied on the Jedi, so even if it's not something that everyone can physically touch, it certainly has a tangible presence.
It's presence in a being can also be measured, by midichlorians in the movies and by some Jedi mind probe in the EU (before the midichlorians were introduced) and IIRC scientists have studied it outside the Jedi.

[Scrib]

This is such bullshit.
There is a tangible, REAL thing called the Force that these people can control and wield. It is not some adherence to a book written by crazy people with no substantiated evidence or proof. They are born with weaponry built into them. There is no fanaticism.

The Jedi are more like the X-Men, where if you don't have someone like Professor X take them in and train them, you get someone like Magneto taking them in and training them

Tucker has tapped out but I might as well ask since my curiosity is peaked: is The Force a real thing? I mean, the force as an energy field exists. But does the thing the Jedi venerate, the thing with it's own ineffable will,exist? Perhaps there is some Clone Wars shit that makes it clear (I ran into some shit that hinted at that) but a lot of the things that are marked as the "will" of the Force are ambiguous.[/quote]
Like Flagg said, it's more of a philosophy. Yes the Force exists. Is it completely known and fully understood? No. But it clearly has very real effect and repercussions on the galaxy, especially when misused or manipulated.
The galactic leaders for thousands of years have relied on the Jedi, so even if it's not something that everyone can physically touch, it certainly has a tangible presence.
It's presence in a being can also be measured, by midichlorians in the movies and by some Jedi mind probe in the EU (before the midichlorians were introduced) and IIRC scientists have studied it outside the Jedi.[/quote]
The Force clearly exists, but that's not what the Jedi believe. They attribute some sort of intelligence or at the very least will to it. It's like storms; definitely a thing, doesn't mean that there's some (immanent in the case of the Force) power behind it as people in the past believed.

I know a ton of Jedi talk about the "will of the Force" I just can't recall ever actually seeing a concrete manifestation of this offhead. Maybe Anakin's birth in Luceno's Darth Plagueis (that name is horrible) and some prophecies in the post-ROTJ New Jedi Era but even that is fuzzy.

[Havok]

Even within the Jedi there are different ways of approaching the Force, what they call the Living Force and the Unifying Force. What is murky is what the "will of the Force" is. And again it comes down to the individuals approach and philosophy.

Qui-Gon viewed Anakin as being a product of the Will of the Force, whereas I don't think that Mace and Yoda did. Which is strange because at the time Yoda believed heavily in viewing the future and destiny through the Force while Qui-Gon was very much "like live in the moment dude" about it. Meaning that it was Yoda that believed in the plan, while Qui-Gon believed in the moment. How they viewed Anakin was the opposite of there core beliefs.

[Scrib]

Even within the Jedi there are different ways of approaching the Force, what they call the Living Force and the Unifying Force. What is murky is what the "will of the Force" is. And again it comes down to the individuals approach and philosophy.

Qui-Gon viewed Anakin as being a product of the Will of the Force, whereas I don't think that Mace and Yoda did. Which is strange because at the time Yoda believed heavily in viewing the future and destiny through the Force while Qui-Gon was very much "like live in the moment dude" about it. Meaning that it was Yoda that believed in the plan, while Qui-Gon believed in the moment. How they viewed Anakin was the opposite of there core beliefs.

The problem is, if this is just a matter of different philosophies that are not backed by any concrete fact, philosophies that aren't just about how to use the Force but what exactly this deity is, then they're almost functionally indistinguishable from religions no? The Force may be real but their needs to be a real basis for the Jedi practices for it to not just be religious.

[Batman]

The Force: Force Choke. TK. Precog. Force Lightning. Energy Absorption. Force Healing. Mind Manipulation. Force Storms. The Force undeniably exists and one can undeniably use it.
Religion: Um, there's like this big sky pixie whom we can't actually prove exists who never verifiably does anything but is really powerful and all so we all should live by his patently stupid rules so we would really appreciate it if you believed in him/will kill you if you don't.
Not quite seeing the similarity.
Yes, I rather think the fact that unlike the deities of real world religions, the Force undeniably exists makes a not inconsiderable amount of difference.

[Havok]

There are. Lightsabers, psionic empathy, psychokinesis, mind control, super human physical feats. It is the martial practices of the Jedi that ground it in reality and not the fantasy of religion. The philosophy comes in in how different people approach the mysterious aspects of the Force.

The Jedi or Sith don't have a better answer than you do for what "it" is, but that said, there are also no books or practices that dictate how the Jedi work that were not created through the actual real use of the Force. Their "religion" was created almost scientifically through trial and error.

[Scrib]

I don't disagree that most of the stuff they do doesn't count as religion. Fighting,healing,prophesying all that stuff is "real". I don't even think that things like their policy towards training kids (or Darth Bane's Rule of Two, despite it's dependence on certain "truths" about the dark side)is that religious, that can simply be based in a pessimistic view of people and their response to temptation.

Things like training Anakin because something, something Unifying Force? Something, something Force has a disposition that we should care about unlike our response to say, electricity's movement in a circuit or a river's path?

So their general practices may not be religious, but some of the things they do are based on very specific understandings of the Force that maybe don't rest on the strongest ground, and are analogous to ancient peoples attributing intentionality to phenomena (like storms or rivers) that had needed none. THIS is where the similarity to religion comes in,not before.

[biostem]

I look at it like this - "The Force" definitely is real within the SW universe. Since all known effects that stem from it come from sentient (or at least living) creatures, the explanation for it is skewed by the emotions and personalities of those that use it. It's not like we have an objective or outside perspective on what the force wants, (if anything).

The closest we get is when Luke asks Obi-Wan if the force controls his actions, and Obi-wan replies "partially". That at least gives the impression that the force *does* have some influence on those that can sense and manipulate it.

At the same time, one of the things that most annoyed me about RotS was how they kinda retconned that Sidius got to look how he does from having his own force lightning reflected back on him - I had previously thought that it was a side effect of being a dark force user - that it deteriorated your body at a much increased rate.

[Batman]

Could be a combination of the two-using Dark Force powers deteriorates your body at a much increased rate, and having them redirected at you speeds that process up something fierce.

[Havok]

I always hated that. I always assumed Sidious looked like that because he was decrepit and fucking old, not because of the "dark side", but because he drew on the Force to stay alive so long, just like how Yoda implied that he was as old as he was because of drawing on the Force.

I was actually relieved that Palpatine's change came from the force lightning because why the fuck would he all of a sudden deteriorate after coming into power over such a short period, when he had been using the "dark side" so much longer rising to power, and one assumes with much more frequency, with no side effects?

[Batman]

For starters, we don't know to which extent Palpatine used the Force as opposed to simple guile and cunning to maneuver himself into the position he was in at the beginning of the movie series (at least not from the movies), and there's the fact that some Force powers are apparently 'neutral' rather than light/dark. TK seems to be neutral as does precog or energy absorption, so it's possible that using the 'neutral' powers (possibly even excessively) doesn't result in the deterioration using the 'positively evil' Powers does.

[Havok]

Well what are the "evil" powers that Palpatine would use? Outside of lightning, which I have always maintained is not anymore "evil" than TK, what else is there?

[Scrib]

Well what are the "evil" powers that Palpatine would use? Outside of lightning, which I have always maintained is not anymore "evil" than TK, what else is there?

Force Storms

But TK can be used for many neutral things. Lightning seems to be a tool almost certainly always used to injure and maim. And then there's using telepathy and mind control for nefarious purposes, though you could argue that that doesn't count as an exclusively evil power. However, some might say that drawing on rage itself is basically "dark"

[Batman]

Well what are the "evil" powers that Palpatine would use? Outside of lightning, which I have always maintained is not anymore "evil" than TK, what else is there?

I got nothing. Heck I can't even tell you why lightning would be automatically Dark Side besides the fact that far as I can tell only Dark Siders use it.

[Havok]

To me it comes down to intent and the feeling and emotions you are experiencing and using to conjure XYZpower.

I mean is someone going to sit here and tell me Yoda couldn't use lightning to start his Jedi scooter because that will make him evil? Fuck no. What makes him evil is using it to fry your nuts off. Or getting angry and throwing you out the window. But if he is happy as a clam and decides to use it to pop his popcorn, forever will it not dominate his destiny.

[Flagg]

To me it comes down to intent and the feeling and emotions you are experiencing and using to conjure XYZpower.

I mean is someone going to sit here and tell me Yoda couldn't use lightning to start his Jedi scooter because that will make him evil? Fuck no. What makes him evil is using it to fry your nuts off. Or getting angry and throwing you out the window. But if he is happy as a clam and decides to use it to pop his popcorn, forever will it not dominate his destiny.

Unless using lightning requires a "bad" emotion like rage, anger, etc.

[StarSword]

Which is completely wrong as Anakin blew up the Nemoidian cruiser with all hands aboard when he was 9, not to mention whomever he may have killed when he was pod racing. Anakin is a special case however as writers are compelled to shoehorn his exploits in where ever they can.

My bad, Hav, I meant "killed his first man face-to-face".

[Havok]

That would imply that the Force itself has sides, which while I know even Lucas itself has said it does, is ludicrous as it implies true sentience and that it recognizes rage and knows to give access to certain abilities or powers based on the individual requesting access, no matter the species or how their brains or physiology work.

[Batman]

I never liked that particular misinterpretation of what the OT gave us. There's nothing wrong with being angry or raging against or hating slavers, or the Empire, or any other entity that does things the people they're doing it to would really prefer they didn't. The bleeping first installation of Wars has Luke saying he hates the Empire.

[Flagg]

That would imply that the Force itself has sides, which while I know even Lucas itself has said it does, is ludicrous as it implies true sentience and that it recognizes rage and knows to give access to certain abilities or powers based on the individual requesting access, no matter the species or how their brains or physiology work.

Yeah it's dumb, but would explain why we never see Jedi using lightning. I mean most of the aliens we see are just humans with bumpy foreheads like in Star Trek. At least they can't interbreed.