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Discussion: Jedi Monoculture (Patreon)

Published:
2015-09-24 18:22:39
Edited:
2017-01-01 23:53:08
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Totally unrelated to my comic, but I'm putting it here:

A missed opportunity with the Star Wars prequels (and EU in general) is presenting Jedi as a monolithic culture. I've written before about how "Jedi Knights" were for years meant to be just a subset of "Jedi," the latter actually comprising a culture and religion that includes things beyond just military service. It's sort of how not all Christians are Knights Templar, assuming of course that all Christians have magic powers. The point of Yoda, in Lucas's own words, was that not all Jedi were warriors or soldiers. Obviously he forgot about this decades later, but whatcha gonna do.

Anyway, my point is that it made sense for the Jedi to appear monolithic in the original movies, because there were literally only two left (even then, Yoda and Obi-Wan represent very different outlooks and sensibilities). When a religion is going extinct, they tend to merge together all surviving elements, even if at one point they could have comprised completely distinct cultures and practices. 

Going back to an earlier time with Jedi could have let us see great diversity, culturally speaking. Samurai and Shaolin monks are both connected to Zen Buddhism, for example, but bushido and the ethics of Shaolin are definitely distinct. The diversity doesn't need to come from some "grey side of the force" or another equally contrived EU concept, just an acknowledgement that different practices, skills, and points of view are allowed and expected in a galaxy full of different cultures and species.

Avatar got four whole nations (and a few more subcultures) just out of telekinesis, after all.

Comments

John Daly

I heartily endorse every single word you just posted. That said, the Great Internet Spoiler Engine seems to be suggesting that the big bad of Episode VII isn't a Sith, but is instead one of the "Knights of Ren," and if we all join together and hope real hard maybe it'll turn out that Abrams and company will be retroactively creating parallel traditions and techniques. It wouldn't be that hard to argue that the historical importance of the Jedi Knights was just inflated by their affiliation with the Senate there in the late days of the Republic.

Adrian Sanabria

Great observations - the Avatar guys did a much better job of fleshing out their universe, IMO, but then, of course, they had 7 seasons to do it...

Steve Flores

"R-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-n? What's the Big Sleep?" There, I've got that out of my system. Anyway, it seems obvious that a galactic-scale civilization would be almost unimaginably diverse on any given cultural dimension, just because it's big. (Really big.) Perhaps the only sides we see in the movies are so monolithic because midichlorians are parasites that induce a near-rabid Manicheanism in their hosts to further their needlessly complicated reproductive cycle, a theory which I totally made up just now. :D

John Daly

Steve, I'd always just figured that Qui-Gon had caught midichlorians from some girl at a party on Nar Shaddaa and then gone around pretending that everyone had them and they gave magic powers, but I may like your theory more. ;)

Ben Hamill

This is patrons-only and I so want to link various of my friends to it. Alas.

Alexey Andreychook

Oh, I'm hoping REALLY hard he's not a Sith - those guys suffered from the lack of diversity even more. I mean, at some point EU actually established them all as a bunch fo darthvaders - angry prosthesised ex-Jedi knights with red lightsabers. Remember the original Emperor, as we saw him in Episode VI, that guy would never waste his time on practising glowy-stick-fencing, too busy abusing the Force for multiple-level machinations. Why would a Sith-warrior even need a weapon after crossing the line that prevents a Jedi from hurting living beings with the Force directly? Imagine a duel whith the Jedi-knight trying to deliver a blow while his body is being constantly messed with - one cannot simply force-choke a Jedi, obviously, but being able to non-contactly kung-fu a wrist out of the way, seems like a premise for a spectscular blood-bending choreography. Same goes for the motivation. In the world of omnipotent magical power you can easily imagine the existence of philosophies that conceive no grace in giving youself, your mind and your will, away for some kind of enlightement, and followers of those philosophies that put Control and Progress over Harmony and Peace. A great deep antagonist may be done out of not just anger and lust for power but some really positive end in mind corrupted by wild means (here we go Avatar again ^^'), or even an anti-hero mocking the Jedi for being "nothing but puppets of the Force".

John Daly

Alexey - one of the most positive things to come out of the junking of the EU (in my incredibly humble opinion) is that now most of what we know about the Sith comes from Palpatine, who was (1) a shameless liar, and (2) more complex than most of the Jedi were ever allowed to be. For all that he clearly had a bug up his exhaust port about wiping out the Jedi, his actual rule seems to have been divorced from poorly explained mysticism and all about good old-fashioned racism and control issues - which were arguably more about the man himself than the philosophy that fed his rise, if that makes any sense. By the same token, we can see Dooku as a Jedi-trained opportunist who went dark to feed his own ambitions, Maul as some poor jerk hijacked from Dathomir and trained as high-end cannon fodder, and Vader himself as a largely political operative with magical powers. None of them really comes close to setting the parameters of what a Sith *has* to be, and that's... well, that's a lot less limiting than what the weird and artificial orthodoxy of the Council made the Jedi. There's real room to grow once we can get Zhang Yimou to direct an Old Republic movie with Aaron signed on as story consultant...

Alexey Andreychook

Exactly, John. Without the artificial-red-cristals-lore we only have one megalomaniac with some great background (that death-fighting story from Episode III was awesome *_*) and his victims. Despite the fact that all he said was just for manipulation, we can only imagine the Traditon that gave him those legends and skills to use. By the way, what may differ an antagonistic Jedi subculture from a Sith one? As I said, being able to hurt someone with the Force directly is a good start, but what defines "hurting"? Does it counts if a jedi mind trick causes death or one cannot make a stormtrooper kill himself without crossing the force-murder line?

John Daly

Alexey - I think you're exactly right. Any unsympathetic look at disciples of Jedi traditions (as we've seen them so far) would pretty much have to start with mind control. Granted, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan generally resorted to it as a means of avoiding violence (and casually forcing bystanders to stop smoking death sticks), but they were *incredibly* comfortable breaking it out, and potential abuses are just so... obvious. [And yet it seems to be a power the Sith disdain!] I'd think the question of what constitutes "hurting" would depend on how it actually works, though; if the idea is that the Force allows for a kind of subconscious telepathic conversation in which the Jedi simply "talks" the target into doing something that isn't against his or her nature - if it's the equivalent of a debate but takes place in moments - it's potentially very different from totally denying someone the power to refuse you.

Alexey Andreychook

John - in that case we have two possibilities: 1) The Sith cannot mess with people's minds, bodies only (which makes the Jedi far more creepy). 2) The telepathic conversation thing is quite subtle and makes a Jedi do "these are not the droids you're looking for, because, see, we both know this is not your dream job, you would never join the troops if you had a choice, but life is life, and even now you have your chance to improve things - just let us through" unlike Sith's "you don't want to check us because you're lazy and focus on your girlfriend - she's definitely cheating on you" - which contradicts with the Obi-Wan's words about "weak minds". Still! What if it doesn't? Since the Strong Mind would never join the (evil) troops, what if the Force chooses only those who are strong enough to leave their comfort zones? That's unforgiving but justly.

John Daly

Alexey - To be fair, if we're going with the "it's a hidden conversation and the Jedi are ethically in the clear" model, then it might just be that Obi-Wan meant "weak minds" in the sense of being untrained in dialectics and critical thought, and therefore unable to organize effective counter-arguments to whatever the Jedi are proposing. As for the Sith, I suspect the Jedi style of persuasion is... I don't know, inefficient? If the Force is somewhat shaped by the state of mind of everyone in a room, then it would make sense for a Dark Side user to be more powerful and more in tune the more scared or angry or hateful everyone around him or her happened to be. If you do a Jedi mind trick, nobody notices; if you Force choke someone in front of ten other people, their panic then makes you stronger.

Alexey Andreychook

John - I'd say, there're plenty of ways to thrive on people's weaknesses and fears without exposing oneself to the risk of being shot, but yes, it is a way for a baddy to take control over a room of relatively harmless characters.

Alexey Andreychook

It has just popped up in my mind: what if the "Sith" is merely a name different Jedi creeds have been calling each other, you know, like "heretic"? EDIT: I mean, centuries after the original Sith culture was destroyed/scattered (if we are not ignoring the EU completely). And THAT explains the prequels' monoculture and midichlorians both! The end of "Good Ol' Republic" was actually Jedi Dark Ages with one Church slaughtering the others away from big politics and being left alone for stagnation, with all of its superstitions and no one to disprove those.