It's ironic that the jedi disapproved of fear, yet were so afraid of the dark side that they deemed it as unmentionable. Their fear of the dark side is part of why they failed.
There's a great character in a Star Wars video game, Knights of the Old Republic, named Jolee. He quit the Jedi order out of frustration with the institutional philosophies around love and attachment. In the game, he says this: "The Jedi, with their damnable sense of over-caution, would tell you love is something to avoid. Thankfully, anyone who's even partially alive knows that's not true. Love doesn't lead to the dark side. Passion can lead to rage and fear, and can be controlled... but passion is not the same thing as love. Controlling your passions while being in love... that's what they should teach you to beware. But love itself will save you... not condemn you. "Love causes pain, certainly. Inevitably, love is going to lead to as much sorrow and regret as it does joy. I suppose there are perfect, eternal loves out there, but I haven't seen any. How you deal with the bad part of love is what determines your character, what determines the dark side's hold over you."
I think this is the underlying reason why I always found Anakin's story arc so profoundly sad. I grew up with the prequels and as a kid I didn't see all the glaring flaws; I just saw a little boy who was slowly corrupted, exploited and descended into manic paranoia. Framed like this, seeing all the moments when his natural human responses were stamped out by his mentors, is really unsettling. It also makes me realise why I always felt like Anakin was more of a victim than a villain. I know the prequels could have been executed WAY better but the main story - the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker - has always hit me hard. It may be accidentally and clumsily profound, but hey, we're still talking about it.
now think of all the young men in actual history and even right now, going thru the same exact experience as anakin. the pseudo-noble/ascetic "ideal" of emotional detachment... the false and unreachable "ideal" of selflessness... and all the excessive/unnecessary labelling that comes with being the chosen one or the jedi. cool lightsabers and awesome space adventures! but also immense loneliness and dehumanisation... which is every soldier, every missionary, every sailor...
the movies are actually kinda terrible eh? but the tv series really expand so much on the deeper issues ignored by the trilogies... and the video games / novels go even further.
@ oh ok fair point. To be fair I wrote this at a time when I was much less tolerant of people’s opinions. I was so angry that an animated version didn’t exist and I got arrogant. I still want to see it happen and believe or not I would also love a live action clone wars
Funnily enough, the first continuation of the Star Wars trilogy by Timothy Zahn addressed that emotional detachment that ultimately doomed the Jedi. In the follow up, Luke Skywalker and his wife founded the New Jedi Order that allowed expressions of emotions. Ultimately, the failing of the Jedi to accept emotions and deal with them healthily can be seen as the reason why they failed and continued to fail, until Luke reformed their teachings. Because I think this usually gets overlooked: The Jedi are wrong in-universe too. It's Luke's rejection of the teachings that rescue his friends, redeem Vader and End the Empire, not his embrace. So, yeah, Luke Skywalker is amazing and my favourite Batman villain
It's almost like the Jedi's overly prohibitive culture revolves entirely around fear of turning to the Dark Side. Hold on, what was fear supposed to be again, Yoda?
Ultimately, it is the tragedy of the prequels: the Jedi get their Messiah, and fail him. The Jedi do more to turn Anakin into Vader than Palpatine did.
This Is why I love Star Wars: Knights Of the Old Republic because it shows the fallacy on both sides of the force and how you can show your love and expression, and yet be strong warrior
I think my son might have picked up on this without even realizing. He's a big fan of star wars and often talks about how he thinks he would be be a grey jedi because he doesn't feel like the jedi are right, but the dark side is even worse. The reason this is interesting to me is because he has a mood disorder and he's seen a therapist for most of his life. He understands better than most people his age the importance of healthy expression and not suppressing his emotions. It makes sense why he would reject an order like the jedi based on what he's observed about them. He wants to help people, he wants to be "the good guy", and i know it would break his heart if the people he looked up to were constantly telling him that something he can't control is going to turn him evil.
It's ironic. The Jedi's absolute intolerance of emotional vulnerability, which they intended as a means of keeping themselves away from the dark side, only ended up pushing Anakin towards the dark side by making him bottle up his feelings and emotional needs. The Jedi created Vader.
I always had an issue with the jedi wanting to take recruits as infants, as no one can make the decision to commit to that lifestyle when they are six months old. I thought jedi preferred infants as it was much easier to force a child to accept this lifestyle than an adult.
Extended materials on the jedi code pretty much confirm that the reason they prefer to take kids as young as possible is because it's easier to indoctrinate a child into the thinking that having no loving family and no material possesions is normal. Going so far as jedi robes and bedsheets not being particularly soft and even scratchy. Because having a comfy bed would also lead to the dark side apparently
They have to be young so they can be indoctrinated while they don't have a concept of the permanence of death (especially important in Anikins case, he already understood that death is permanent). Wisecracked did a great video on this very idea.
I come from a family predominantly male, I have 3 uncles, a brother, and I myself work in a strongly male dominated engineering environment. My only female family member I have is my mum who is proudly stoic in her emotions. I know its a bit silly as its about star wars but videos like this genuinely bring me back down to earth about what I should be comfortable expressing emotionally, so thank you for this.
This not only teaches me about the Jedi but also helps me understand my depression. Especially 10:58 I have recently expressed my loneliness to my friends and family in a public cry for help, many people reached out to help me and other soldiers have told me how they feel the same in their unit. Never be afraid to reach out for help, there will always be someone there to care for you. 🖤
"It's close relationships with woman in particular, that are framed as the most dangerous. This is made especially evident in the prequels, where emotional bonds with women are framed as something that eats away at a man's sanity." George writing about his ex-wife Marcia.
I feel like the Jedi order had a philosophy of learning self-control that got skewed further and further into repression rather than maturity. It mirrors a lot of real-world dogma where people, particularly men, will brag about how mature they are despite having a serious amount of obvious insecurity they haven't dealt with.
I think it’s significant as well that Anakin was taken into Jedi training at such a young age. From adolescence his feelings were vilified. Children especially tend to see the world (or in this case, universe) in black and white. It comes down to emotions being bad and stoicism being good. Meanwhile, Luke was welcomed to the Jedi at a much later age, and one his first experiences turned out to be the loss of his aunt and uncle. He had already experienced the pain of loss, pre-Jedi. So when he was instructed that hiding his emotions would be in his best interest, he was already at an age and had experienced enough to know to defy said advice. Just a thought, but I love your channel!!!! You’ve done a few videos on masculinity now and it’s so strange to see more and more movies, shows, etc embody toxic traits of masculinity. I’ve even caught some tropes on my own, now that I’m looking. Interesting stuff!!
Even more messed up, if you happen to have a force sensitive child they'll snatch them up early on. Yeah, they'll let the parents keep them for a year or two, enough for them to experience the joys of parenthood for a little bit... then they just take them before the children are old enough to have really bonded with the parents. The JEDI are their childhood. "Sorry lady, your kid's metaclorian count is too high, so we're making them property of the galactic republic. Better luck next time!" Geeeesus, Lucas.
not gonna lie, I was fully expecting this video to discuss the more political flaws of the jedi that luke touches upon in episode VIII (e.g. letting sidious rise right under their noses), but what you talk about was even more interesting. the way the jedi condemn emotion has always kind of unsettled me, but I could never put my finger on why- this video essay "puts it into words", so to speak. thank you so much for these amazing discussions, it's so refreshing to see pop culture analysis videos that go beyond "Snoke's True Identity??!!?1!11?"
It always bothered me that for Jedi there are no 'correct' emotions... which makes one wonder how they appreciate and evaluate the world at all... if you can neither love nor hate, nor fear nor loath nor crave... what makes your moral compass.... and more importantly how to do you empathize with anybody?
I've thought this too, especially after playing the SMT games which put the 2 extremes in even more stark relief, essentially giving the player a choice between law *and* tyranny, or chaos *and* freedom. The suggestion being true freedom breeds chaos, and true order requires tyranny. I enjoy this interpretation because it encourages the player down a balanced, middle path, which isn't something you see a lot.
The Jedi way does indeed seem to misinterpret teachings of Stoicism and Buddhism, to name just two. There's a difference between detachment and non-attachment, and between emotional suppression and emotional non-judgement.
I always felt that those aspects of the Jedi order were supposed to be seen as toxic and that Yoda and Obi-wan are unreliable narrators. But maybe that's because I read a lot of fan fiction where it is clearly portrayed as such.
If you branch out into extended universe media, like games and books, it's definitely framed as more toxic. All of the SW games I've played have openly critiqued the flaws in Jedi doctrine.
Thanks for clarifying that. Your video made me think this might be an intentional aspect of the narrative, which would be pretty cool, but if George doesn't even hint at that in interviews then it is probably accidental.
It's interesting to see how this translates to the new movies. Kylo Ren is very expressive of his emotions, but what keeps dragging him to the Light are his feelings and his connections to his parents. What turned him into Kylo Ren in the first place was Luke's moment of pure rationality.
Well, it was luke's moment of rationality that prevented him from killing Kylo. Luke even says himself he regrets attempting to kill Kylo and wishes he had legitimately nurtured the kid, rather than simply letting him deal with it himself.
Well, about what you said at the 20:51 . It makes a lot of sense that Anakin takes it more to his heart. He was surrounded by many living jedi and was pretty much raised by them. Pressure is real, just like in the case when you don't want to dissapoint you parents even if you openly disagree with them. It's not really ones fault to be at least conflicted in a case like this. Luke on the other hand met Obi-Wan and old Yoda as a young man, but not a 9 year old. No wonder he could say "Yeah, um... No, I can decide on my own". Great video, not only does it make Anakin's story better, but also it's a interesting and important topic to understand as a man in a modern world. Love your channel! (found it recently)
I always wondered -- since the Jedi Council originally refused to train Anakin because he is "too old" -- then what were they planning to do with him? Send him home for someone else to take advantage of? Jail him for the rest of his life? Or maybe just kill him. That never made any sense to me.
As a child I was told to man up often. Every emotion expressed was labeled as being a wuss. However it just made my life harder. Men need to express themselves more. lack of expression leads to more pain than actually opening up. As a star wars fan I thank you for this video. It expresses an issue this world, where in we dwell, that is sadly prevalent in modern society. It's never wrong to feel. Lack of expression leads to men becoming cold, disconnected, and stressed. Good job on the video dude.
If one dives deep in the lore you’ll see that the earliest of lightsaber wielding monks tried to balance the light and dark side of the force. They are allowed dark thoughts and emotions thus much more stable. The Jedi order is so fearful of the dark side and emotions that lead to the dark side they BAN any emotions. Which is actually backwards thinking since A: this makes some Jedis ticking emotional time bombs and B: some of the most famous Jedis like Luke have shown has shown balancing emotions can be more powerful than staying on one side of the force.
I would say the council treating attachments like a bad thing is why Anakin turned. If Qui-Gon wasn't attached to Anakin, he wouldn't have freed Anakin from slavery or fight for him to become a jedi. And if that didn't happen, the sith would've found Anakin and raised him in the dark side. Thus Anakin would be devoid of love and compassion and Luke and Leia wouldn't exist. If the council actually help Anakin properly grieve over his mother's death and didn't make him have to keep his marriage a secret, Anakin wouldn't have become desperate and fall for Palpatine's manipulations.
Another reason I loved the KotOR games was they offered pretty sharp critiques of both the Jedi and Sith philosophies, especially through the characters of Jolee Bindo and Kreia.
Maybe the craziest thing about that rejection of Anakin is that he's being incredibly calm for a child that just lost - for ever! - his only caregiver and attachment figure: He#s not raging, crying, throwing a fit or demanding to return. I think the 'fear leads to the dark side' might be shop-lifted from the Buddhist 'attachment causes suffering', but Buddhists don't offer a toxic solution like 'suppress all your emotions or we'll kick you out' .
Great video. Many of these ideas are touched on in the "Knights of the Old Republic" games. The Jedi are presented as flawed and the cause of their own problems. Jedi don't always "fall" to the dark side, but rather they are pushed to it due to the overly rigid dogma of the Jedi. Conversely, the Sith characters are presented as embracing their emotions and are, in some ways, more supportive than the Jedi. The game deals with both the Jedi Code and the Sith Code, which highlight their views: Jedi Code: There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force. Sith Code: Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
I almost wanna tweet this to Mark Hamill to hear his response. This might be incredibly eye-opening stuff for someone who’s been in the eye of the hurricane.
YEESSS!!! So nice to see such a well-made critique of what most people praise in Star Wars. I've always felt like the Jedi are just as misguided about the force as the Sith. The idea that emotions, especially LOVE of all things, makes you vulnerable to darkness is so incredibly skewed. The Jedi suppress emotion too much, while the Sith let their feelings take control of their actions; neither philosophies promote healthy methods of processing emotions. Anakin is an unfortunate victim of circumstance, living his life being controlled by one power or another, never really given the choice to decide for himself how to approach inner turmoil. What redeems him in the end is finally breaking those chains and making his own choice-- the choice to listen to his feelings and let his love for Luke lead him back to the light side. Love and familial bonds are what saved the galaxy. Thank you for posting another amazing video essay on one of my favorite topics!!
I never noticed how they cloaked Yoda in shadows when he gave Anakin, as you put it, “the worst advice I’m the galaxy.” Who really is the villain in this movie...
This is why I agree with Luke in the most recent film that the Jedi order needs to end. All it's caused is a perpetual system of war in the universe. Ray is the first chance at a Jedi who embraces emotion yet doesn't fall into the dark side. I actually wish she hadn't preserved the texts at the end of the film and had let them burn.
This is an amazing point of view. I would also add, that Yoda suffers from a great deal from emotional attachment. Accept his attachment is to the ideals of the Jedi, and not individuals. Episodes 1-3, Yoda spends the majority of the time dissapointed, and even angered, not because of the pain others were going through, but because it upset his idea of what a jedi should be. Even in 4-6, Yoda showed the same behaviour. He was dissapointed in Luke before he even began training, and when Ben's voice spoke to defend the idea of training him, he became visibly annoyed, arguably angry at the idea of a Jedi who could be visibly annoyed, arguably angry.
This is brilliant, but I find myself at odds with the idea that it was “George Lucas’ fault or the film’s fault.” You do mention that in the end, the moral of the original trilogy was that the rejection of the Jedi teachings won out, and in the prequels, the acceptance of them ended in suffering. Both of these morals seem in line with the argument against the Jedi philosophy. Luke, in the new trilogy mentions that he “became a legend” because he was able to see beyond the one-sided Jedi teachings. In short. It seems like this is less of an issue with the films, and more of a moral of the series.
The problem is that in the prequels, they don't actually take the time to acknowledge that it was the Jedi order that caused Anakin's turn to the dark side. Instead they framed it in a way that made it seem like it was Anakin's fault for having emotions in the first place. The emotions themselves weren't the problem, it was the way he dealt with them (which was the result of Jedi teachings). Obviously, it's not an excuse for the things that Anakin did. But Anakin was subject to years of emotional abuse at the hands of the Jedi. And the prequels never took the time to address that. Had they framed it in a way that made it clear that the Jedi were being abusive, it would have been a completely different story.
To be fair, George Lukas made 6 Films, 3 in which the hero does not deny their emotions - and win- as well as 3 films in which the hero is taught to deny their emotions by a cult and everybody suffers. I would consider this a rounded achivment to showcase the entire problem. Most people just appear to not understand cautionary tales when they dont explicitly tell them the message.
Lucas lost his filmmaking touch a long time ago. Really it was the people around him (especially his ex-wife as the film editor) who made the originals great. Yeah, JJ Abrams wasn't any better, but still the point stands.
Hopefully this will help settle the argument against Luke's portrayal in The Last Jedi. The seeds for his rejection of the Jedi Order were in the original trilogy. "It's time for the Jedi to end" indeed.
The problem with what you are saying is that Luke changed his mind at the end and said "I will not be the last Jedi". The story arc of the Jedi's failure was completely dropped because of poor writing.
I'm really curious what you think about Avatar the Last Airbender, specifically episode The Guru in season 2. In that, the Guru tells Aang much of the same things about attachment that the Jedi do, but Aang also is unable to detach himself from his loved ones. It'd be really cool if you did a video over that show!
But that final chakra, known as the sahasrara chakra, has more to do with oneness with the universe/realizing everything is connected/seeing the world from the perspective of the DIVINE etc. Its not that love is evil, it's that in order to experience this divine oneness you have to see the world not as "me, my friends, lover and family" (not as an INDIVIDUAL) but as a being who is connected to the ALL, the higher, bigger picture that is the universe
Yes! This is why I always loved Luke as a hero, even as a kid when I didn't really know why I attached to him so much, but its because he doesn't accept that Jedi/Toxic masculinity bullshit. He wins using love and empathy and compassion.
Jedi Council after meeting Anakin for the first time: Yoda: Whelp, we've got the strongest potential Jedi on record, who just so happens to the child of prophecy and destined to defeat the evil we've been prepping for for literally 1000 years, who misses his mother. Where is she anyway? Windu: Oh, she's a slave to a piece of shit on Tattooine. Yoda: Do we have it in the budget to go and buy her freedom? Windu: Uhhhhhh yeah, but it means we'd have to carpool to get Kyber Crystals on Ilum for a couple weeks. Toda: Unacceptable. Whatever, I'm sure leaving this woman on a slave planet in the shittiest part of the galaxy will have no long term consequences. If anyone wants me, I'll be telling some pointless psycho-babble to another angsty teenager armed with a laser sword and zero emotional regulation capabilities.
I have to admit, this was not easy to sit through, given how much nostalgia I have for the Star Wars franchise. But I think that discomfort is useful in understanding the deep flaws in the writing of Jedi culture. I always took the Dark Side of the force to be about dominance. A Desire to dominate and control the universe, and the fear of loss is one part of that. As such, a binding to the force would be looking at the universe as a whole; to strive for balance, to guide and not to dictate. The failure of Anikin Skywalker was the arrogance of the Jedi order, ignoring the personal suffering and letting it manifest into something far darker. Of course, the methods of getting there are directly contradicted by the wordings of Jedi teachings, as you rightly point out in this analysis. Thank you, good sir, for another enlightened editorial that has helped me to understand the Star Wars universe better!
While I agree about your points the Jedi aren't flawed because they don't let men express emotion, its because they don't let anyone express it, this isn't really a gender issue.
jedi are contradictory. George wanted them to be like samurai, knights, old western marshals and monks all at once. But samurai, knights and marshals had wives and children. They weren't chaste warriors. Monks don't engage in violence but share the pledge to abstain from strong emotions and have penitence for their transgressions. If George Lucas wanted his jedi to be monks, they shouldn't carry lightsabers or be violent at all. An order of emotionless warriors who kill in self-defense shouldn't be seen as the police force of a universe.
The contradictions in the Jedi code are many. You cannot bury your feelings, and be in touch with your intuition. The two are contradictory. Not showing your feelings is not the same thing as not having those feelings. To a less than astute outside observer they may look the same, but the results of those two situations are exactly the opposite. Barely repressed rage and angst make for good drama, but they are not a way to enlightenment or even good judgement. Also the idea that children can be taken from their parents and sucessfully raised into mentally healthy adults by people that repress all their feelings and do not believe in personal attachments is kind of odd. It makes me wonder what Lucas's childhood was like.
I'd love to see a followup to this video incorporating themes from the animated Clone Wars series. There are two specific parts I remember, one where Obi-wan approaches Anakin about his attraction to Padme being natural, and another where Yoda goes on a spiritual journey where he faces his inner 'dark side'. A memorable line from that scene went along the lines of, 'Acknowledge you I do... but control me, you do not.' I think that the goal of the Jedi was self control over reactionary emotion, but they made the mistake of going too far towards emotional repression. On the flip side, the Darkside advocates giving in to every emotion and desire without restraint. I think part of the eventual goal is to reach that 'Grey Jedi' middle ground, where one has a healthy relationship with their emotions and desires while still having the self-control and restraint to not be consumed by them. I think throughout the series Obi-wan demonstrates a more balanced Jedi, having attachments and emotions, but not allowing them to rule him.
This makes me completely reconsider Vulcan philosophy. The Vulcans and Jedi treat emotion similarly, as something to be suppressed behind a stoic mask. They both view releasing pent-up emotion as being potentially dangerous and have an impartial utilitarian ethical code. However, the Vulcans have additional (different) reasons for rejecting emotion. Vulcans see emotion as clouding logical decision making and objective analysis of a situation, while Jedi rely on intuition. I don't blame the Vulcans. Their world suffered war & genocide because outraged, passionate people, convinced they were good and their enemies were evil, committed atrocities in the name of fighting what they saw as evil. Morally-motivated violence. Maybe this is a good approach for policy & decision making. But emotions are vital in our personal lives. Star Wars and Star Trek philosophy are pretty different. Star Trek emphases moral ambiguity while Star Wars is very black & white. Star Trek is explicitly non-interventionist, while in Star Wars conflict is baked into the name as the only way for good to triumph. Star Trek celebrating science, reason & The Enlightenment, while Star Wars harking back to mythology & spirituality. But parallels can be drawn on this issue of emotion.
I always interpreted him crying on Mustafar as showing REMORSE for everything that he had done. A last glimmer of the good still in him, that Padme might have been able to save... if Obi-Wan hadn't shown up.
I always believed that the Jedi effed up on leaving Anakin's mom enslaved when they easily could have bought her freedom and had her live on Coruscant. I mean... they are the freakin' Jedi Order after all. Who exactly could tell them no?
Its interesting how far from the typical representation of a masculine hero Luke is. At least in the original Trilogy. Caring, emotional, compationet. Not at all stoic, distant & cold. Heck even his greatest victory which would be the redemption of his father had nothing to do with the jedi Training & Teaching but in fact cotrary to it. Your father strayed from the path of good Jedi: he is lost you should kill him Luke: I still can & will save him All of this also explains his rejection of the Jedi in the latest movie. Following those ways more lead him to almost killing his nephew staying true to himself stopped him before he actually did it but even just Considering it lead to making things worse. You could make an argument for that moment being the point were Luke maybe realised the ways of the Jedi aren't any better than those of the Sith in the long run
Now I'd really like to see your take on how TFA and TLJ dealt with all this, especially in regard to fear, emotional detachment and how some characters in the new trilogy don't conform to gender norms for masculinity
That was awesome. Thank you for making this video. I'm with you--repressing emotion is so toxic. I lost my father at the end of 2016, and I grieved heavily all year. A day didn't go by that I wasn't in tears at one point or another. An acquaintance said to me (in a toxic masculinity sort of way): "well crying doesn't change anything--it's not like you can resurrect the dead." "Well, I can't resurrect the dead, but accepting the grief, letting the tears wash over me and and expressing it is definitely doing something--it's preventing from becoming an emotionally stunted and scarred basket case."
Wow I'm blown away at this and completely agree! I had anxiety/depression and with CBT (which comes from Stoicism teachings) I was under the impression that logic is good and emotions to are bad...until I asked my therapist if he viewed it the same way. He said that cognitive therapy is about thinking logically, yes, but within my own fears, but it's healthy to feel emotions. I used to be such a "cold"person until I learned to embrace my emotions and find a peaceful balance within myself. I now express my emotions as nature intended because it's how I feel at the time, I've just been lucky enough to have people in my life that understand that emotions are part of being human. Great video essay! 😊
This was real refreshing, I wish you'd looped in TLJ just considering I feel Rey, Kylo and even Luke now recognise the damaging elements of the Jedi's religion, and its take on fear vulnerability, emotional health. I really hope to see something on it from you in the future, I'd love to hear your interpretation.
The opening argument that the Jedi Order is dominated by men originally made me scoff. Star Wars lore is filled with powerful and independent women who are just as powerful as their male counterparts, the two characters you showed in the background especially! But then I realized that this added characterization only comes in supplemental material...ultimately, it's completely meaningless in the grand scale of Star Wars's cultural impact.
The Jedi Order was written to be flawed. Lucas intended for Luke's defiance of the old Jedi teachings to be a good thing. Vader's return to the light through his emotional connection to his son was the resolution of the films for a reason.
I love this video. This is one of the reasons why I did not have a problem with Luke in TLJ. Just the plot holes and inconsistency is what I had an issue with. I really hope that they make Rey into a Grey Jedi.
I absolutely love you. I've always felt empathy for Anakin. When I saw the movies I was angry at the other jedis, how they didn't give him the understanding of his feelings that anyone would need. I HATED Obi Wan with all my heart. Anakin was supposed to not care for his ENSLAVED MOTHER, to surrender his love for Padme, to not care for their deaths. "In the end is the Jedi and their philosphy of emotional detachement that's ultimately responsable for the creation of Darth Vader". Masterfully said.
The Jedi didn't understand that balance was more than just putting emotions aside. For a Jedi to be balanced, they would have to be balanced with their instincts, their emotions, and their mind. The traditional Jedi are none of those- imbalanced even though they see themselves as balance incarnate. Too much fear is bad, yes, but you must recognize fear and face it. Without fear, courage is simply foolishness. Attachments and love are bad when they are possessive, yes, but when unconditional in healthy relationships, they are a way to anchor oneself. The Jedi could not understand this, and died because of it. Building on what you said in the last part of the video, Rey is an interesting character because she shows not stoicism, but empathy. Her character could be in balance with her own emotions, and Kylo presents a similar emotional conundrum. Kylo seeks to harness his raw emotions without anything else, but keeps falling prey to the same emotions he uses- in a sense, he starts becoming ruled by them. It's an interesting contrast.
“The Star Wars cinematic universe is now thankfully out of George Lucas’s hands. And it’ll be interesting to see how Disney handles the Jedi mythos moving forward...” Boy, that didn’t age well, huh?
I always interpreted Luke’s journey as being about emotional responsibility as opposed to suppression. Though I will say I strongly agree that the Jedi Philosophy as defined in the Prequels is stupid, and I’m really glad that so many subsequent pieces of Star Wars media (Clone Wars, Last Jedi, etc,) critique this.
I love how this idea of emotional intelligence is extended to the new trilogy as well! Ben Solo becomes Kylo Ren because the teachings of the Jedi fail him. His parents send him away when he is very clearly emotionally troubled, and Luke's teachings which stem from the past end up not helping him with his darkness at all. The idea of "balance" doesn't stop just at The Force, but also in those who wield it. Kylo loses to Rey in The Force Awakens because killing Han leaves him unbalanced emotionally. In order for the Jedi and the Sith to really reach their peak powers, they need to be balanced themselves. It's no wonder why meditation is practiced so much, in order for the Jedi to calm themselves and keep their connection strong. After Anakin loses everything he loves and cares about, his characterization as Vader is remarkably cold. He no longer has any emotional ties to anything, and ironically, he's more in control than he ever was as a Jedi.
Also the point of Luke not being seduced by the Dark Side: Luke is surrounded by people who support him. Beru and Owen raised him, and his friendship with Han and Leia helped him as well. He's grew up a normal, well-adjusted human being, which is why he has the most control over his emotions over his father, who had none of that. Luke knows that his fear and anger were normal feelings to have and wasn't ashamed of them, but he doesn't let them define who he is. He can tap into the power it gives him in The Force, but he chooses not to kill his father because he doesn't give in to his feelings. Seriously, the Jedi could have benefited from a little psychology training.
Said it before and I'll say it again. Star Wars would've been a very different story had the Jedi not been so stupid and recognized that yes, Anakin was irreversibly attached to his mother and been a little flexible with their code for once. All they had to do was pay Watto whatever currency he'd ask for, emancipate Shmi, give her a nice apartment on Coruscant not too far away from the temple where she could be safe, pay for all the necessary accommodations, and allow Anakin to visit her now and then. At least once a week minimum. Anakin's mind would be at ease, he'd be emotionally secure, and he could focus on his training. But of course, they left her on a horrible desert planet ruled by giant slug monsters, teaching Anakin that HE CAN'T DEPEND ON THE JEDI FOR SQUAT. It's no wonder he turned to Palpatine for guidance. At least he promised Anakin things the Jedi Order could never give him, alienating him for any harmless mild outburst. This is the major flaw of the prequels. It's a story that in order to function as Lucas designed, REQUIRES the Jedi Order to be fools largely responsible for their own demise. The entire order is dysfunctional, but... he'd have you think it isn't. But what's encouraging to me is how many people see through this. Most Star Wars fans and creators (at least from my experience) see and understand full well how fucked up the Jedi Order is and poke fun at it all the time in other media, defying Lucas' world view with stories about Jedi who defect, marry, start families and are better for it. Heck, anyone remember that time the Jedi Order was SUED by a mother for their practice of stealing force-sensitive babies from their families? "Sorry lady, your kid has too many metaclorians, so they're property of the galactic republic now. Better luck next time!" Point is, I think there's a significant sect of the SW fandom that soundly rejects Lucas' outdated views and those of the Jedi. And that, I think, is a good sign for the future.
The jedi philosophy made for prequels is already broken to make Anakin turn to the dark side in a coerent way. If jedi order was correct, anakin will be only a selfish rebel.
It's a satire of dogma. The Jedi destroyed themselves by becoming the inflexible, totalitarian regime they thought they were fighting against by deluding themselves and the galaxy into perceiving them as benevolent (hence why no mother was ever seen suing for their child, they were indoctrinated into the Jedi order as much as their children would be).
I get what you're saying... on paper. But that's not the way Lucas intended for it to come across. He really does think the Jedis' ways are perfectly fine and Anakin's entirely in the wrong. It's us FANS, and various creators who contributed their own vision to the old EU and the new canon, that frame it as this ingenious cautionary tale, because with a little tweaking it is just that... but that's OUR perspective, not Lucas'. He didn't mean for Jedi philosophy to be broken. That's just OUR interpretation of it.
I never really looked in to Lucas' interactions with Star Wars, so this surprised me. I always interpreted the prequels as a cautionary tale: "In these three movies, I'm going to show the real Republic the rebels fought to bring back. Don't let nostalgia blind you, kids!" Every flaw, i've seen as intentional. The jedi being flawed, the republic being flawed... This is interesting.
I don't think Lucas intended for the Jedi ideology to ever be presented as good. Luke doesn't go by it at the end and spares his father, for example. And as for Anakin, his attempts to bottle his emotions and follow the Jedi principles ultimately leads him to snapping, him being unable to properly express his emotions due to being raised in an environment that condemned that.
Theoretically, but the original Star Wars films and prequels are very specifically about boys coming of age. Technically women Jedi exist in the prequels but they don't even speak. The central focus of the 6 core movies are boys becoming men and so that's what we are talking about.
"The Star Wars cinematic universe is now thankfully out of George Lucas' hands." 2020: Um, well this is awkward. But great video and exploration of the how truly the Jedi jacked up Anakin.
There’s a huge conversation going on about what media is communicating to women , and a much more subdued conversation about toxic masculinity - which Ive only ever really seen female reviewers covering. So seeing a male reviewer talking about this stuff is really important. thanks so much for covering masculinity in the media as much as you have.
Won a patreon supporter with this! :) Fantastic work, as always. I can see the same echos of this troupe in comic book movies with men not being able to have open relationships with women - Superman and Louis, Spiderman and Mary Jane. It's framed as they are keeping the woman safe but also keeping them at a distance. That same underlying fear that women will, in some way, take their atomnity and strength. It's such a damaging ideology for both men and women to live in...
anne berry the problem for superheroes is that they deal with unscrupulous people, so a loved one is a weakness, a soft spot for any villain to exploit, is different. In the comics is expressed intentionally to show the humanity of the hero and the way that he or she reacts to the knowledge of this being a weakness but at the same time the need to love and be loved, in the Jedi order is shown as a loss of strength since is viewed as a weak willness to "not feel" and will and wisdom is the core power of the Jedi.
Bronn in A Song of Ice and Fire, heck... Brianne, Aria, Jon, everyone.... and see how messed up that world is. It's even in Harry Potter, though not to a toxic degree, that's just British stiff-upper-lip BS. Sorry to my friends in the UK, but you know it's true; as it is in the USA, Mexico, many African nations, Europe, Asia, Australia.... omg, the entire planet is a slave to stuffing their emotions???
I've always felt that the "balance" that they keep touting throughout episodes 1-6, that someone is supposed to bring to the force, is actually the embracing of both the light and dark side of the force together. Jedi were supposed to be all logical. Yet the Jedi were led by someone who had too much emotional attachment to the idea of logic that they became visibly upset at the idea of someone who didn't view it the same. The Sith on the other hand were supposed to be the embodiment of following your emotions, except that it was led by someone who was had no emotional connection to anything.
You, sir, just expressed some...ahem, feelings...that I have had for some time but have never been able to put into words. Well done. A lot of people, both men and women, need to see this video.
What annoyed me most about The Last Jedi was how it hinted at doing something new and interesting by letting go of the Jedi and Sith and establishing a new order, only to immediately forget it and go back to the way things were, a battle between good guys and bad guys. Great video btw.
I think the reason that they had everything go back to good guys and bad guys at the end of the movie was to show that growth isn't linear. Through the movie we see Luke trying to teach Rey that it life isn't black and white and Kylo is also beginning to learn this, but when it came down to it the two of them truly didn't understand the lesson. They essential failed, but like Yoda said they must learn from their failures. So they had to fail first to learn from it.
I don't think things really went back the way they were at the end of The Last Jedi. That last scene between Rey and Kylo Ren wasn't your typical Jedi vs Sith. TLJ was only the second act, I trust in the third one.
I agree that it feels like a missed opportunity. However, it make sense if you consider that Kylo is the heir of the old ways, while Rey is the herald of the new. Kylo Ren refusing to change makes him indeed the bad guy, while Rey accepting to reform from the root shows her as the heroin. I think either Kylo Ren will see the err of his ways and change in the next movie, or he will not, and it is Rey who will find balance between light and dark within herself. Perhaps both.
When I was little, I thought the jedi were cool, but as I grew older and older I increasingly felt something was off about their philosophy. Sure, letting your emotions control you is bad, but the jedi just bottle them up and bury them. Doing that just causes them to fester and build up. And thus, when someone finally reaches their limit, they end up turning to the dark side because they have never *actually* been taught to control their emotions, just run away instead. So when this bottled up emotion finally catches up and there's nowhere to run, the person doesn't know how to confront their feelings and thus control them, so they snap - just like Anakin did. You are 100% right that the jedi are responsible for Darth Vader.
![Stromae, Pomme - “Ma Meilleure Ennemie” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Visualizer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1F3OGIFnW1k/mqdefault.jpg)
Ironically Vaders final healing came from his emotional connection to his son.
It's ironic that the jedi disapproved of fear, yet were so afraid of the dark side that they deemed it as unmentionable. Their fear of the dark side is part of why they failed.
jedi: only a sith deals in absolutes
jedi: but all emotion is evil tho
There's a great character in a Star Wars video game, Knights of the Old Republic, named Jolee. He quit the Jedi order out of frustration with the institutional philosophies around love and attachment. In the game, he says this:
"The Jedi, with their damnable sense of over-caution, would tell you love is something to avoid. Thankfully, anyone who's even partially alive knows that's not true. Love doesn't lead to the dark side. Passion can lead to rage and fear, and can be controlled... but passion is not the same thing as love. Controlling your passions while being in love... that's what they should teach you to beware. But love itself will save you... not condemn you.
"Love causes pain, certainly. Inevitably, love is going to lead to as much sorrow and regret as it does joy. I suppose there are perfect, eternal loves out there, but I haven't seen any. How you deal with the bad part of love is what determines your character, what determines the dark side's hold over you."
All my homies love Jolee Bindo.
kotor is the best piece of star wars media by far, its better than all the movies
Better than Andor?
I think this is the underlying reason why I always found Anakin's story arc so profoundly sad. I grew up with the prequels and as a kid I didn't see all the glaring flaws; I just saw a little boy who was slowly corrupted, exploited and descended into manic paranoia. Framed like this, seeing all the moments when his natural human responses were stamped out by his mentors, is really unsettling. It also makes me realise why I always felt like Anakin was more of a victim than a villain. I know the prequels could have been executed WAY better but the main story - the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker - has always hit me hard. It may be accidentally and clumsily profound, but hey, we're still talking about it.
now think of all the young men in actual history and even right now, going thru the same exact experience as anakin. the pseudo-noble/ascetic "ideal" of emotional detachment... the false and unreachable "ideal" of selflessness... and all the excessive/unnecessary labelling that comes with being the chosen one or the jedi. cool lightsabers and awesome space adventures! but also immense loneliness and dehumanisation... which is every soldier, every missionary, every sailor...
The Clone Wars actually goes into this topic, and is essentially the reason Ahsoka Tano left the jedi order
the movies are actually kinda terrible eh? but the tv series really expand so much on the deeper issues ignored by the trilogies... and the video games / novels go even further.
@@alveolatewe need an animated version of revenge of the sith to properly conclude Anakin’s arc
They made it the lastseason isabout that @@thetin-candalorian3319
@@LostInTranslation-kl2of stop gate keeping and let me enjoy Star Wars
@ oh ok fair point. To be fair I wrote this at a time when I was much less tolerant of people’s opinions. I was so angry that an animated version didn’t exist and I got arrogant. I still want to see it happen and believe or not I would also love a live action clone wars
Funnily enough, the first continuation of the Star Wars trilogy by Timothy Zahn addressed that emotional detachment that ultimately doomed the Jedi. In the follow up, Luke Skywalker and his wife founded the New Jedi Order that allowed expressions of emotions. Ultimately, the failing of the Jedi to accept emotions and deal with them healthily can be seen as the reason why they failed and continued to fail, until Luke reformed their teachings.
Because I think this usually gets overlooked: The Jedi are wrong in-universe too. It's Luke's rejection of the teachings that rescue his friends, redeem Vader and End the Empire, not his embrace. So, yeah, Luke Skywalker is amazing and my favourite Batman villain
It's almost like the Jedi's overly prohibitive culture revolves entirely around fear of turning to the Dark Side.
Hold on, what was fear supposed to be again, Yoda?
Anakin turned to the dark side because he had no support. Jedi can no longer comprehend attachments that is why Anakin's mother was left behind.
Ultimately, it is the tragedy of the prequels: the Jedi get their Messiah, and fail him. The Jedi do more to turn Anakin into Vader than Palpatine did.
This Is why I love Star Wars: Knights Of the Old Republic because it shows the fallacy on both sides of the force and how you can show your love and expression, and yet be strong warrior
I think my son might have picked up on this without even realizing. He's a big fan of star wars and often talks about how he thinks he would be be a grey jedi because he doesn't feel like the jedi are right, but the dark side is even worse. The reason this is interesting to me is because he has a mood disorder and he's seen a therapist for most of his life. He understands better than most people his age the importance of healthy expression and not suppressing his emotions. It makes sense why he would reject an order like the jedi based on what he's observed about them. He wants to help people, he wants to be "the good guy", and i know it would break his heart if the people he looked up to were constantly telling him that something he can't control is going to turn him evil.
Luke’s Jedi order solves this problem
The joke is that Jedi are in fact all fear. Fear of the dark side, fear of attachment, fear of emotions, and specifically fear of fear itself
A human trying to live without human attachment is like a dog trying to live off clovers. Even if it survives it's seriously unhealthy.
It's ironic. The Jedi's absolute intolerance of emotional vulnerability, which they intended as a means of keeping themselves away from the dark side, only ended up pushing Anakin towards the dark side by making him bottle up his feelings and emotional needs. The Jedi created Vader.
Yes
“Ironic” - Palpatine
I always had an issue with the jedi wanting to take recruits as infants, as no one can make the decision to commit to that lifestyle when they are six months old. I thought jedi preferred infants as it was much easier to force a child to accept this lifestyle than an adult.
Charles Bailey interesting, that makes sense.
And we know what happens when churches do this...
The word you are looking for is "indoctrination".
Extended materials on the jedi code pretty much confirm that the reason they prefer to take kids as young as possible is because it's easier to indoctrinate a child into the thinking that having no loving family and no material possesions is normal. Going so far as jedi robes and bedsheets not being particularly soft and even scratchy. Because having a comfy bed would also lead to the dark side apparently
They have to be young so they can be indoctrinated while they don't have a concept of the permanence of death (especially important in Anikins case, he already understood that death is permanent). Wisecracked did a great video on this very idea.
And when anakin finally snapped
They were all like
“oH nO hOW CoUlD tHiS hApPEn?”
I come from a family predominantly male, I have 3 uncles, a brother, and I myself work in a strongly male dominated engineering environment. My only female family member I have is my mum who is proudly stoic in her emotions. I know its a bit silly as its about star wars but videos like this genuinely bring me back down to earth about what I should be comfortable expressing emotionally, so thank you for this.
Man i totally get that, having to learn to express yourself is a journey man.
This not only teaches me about the Jedi but also helps me understand my depression. Especially 10:58 I have recently expressed my loneliness to my friends and family in a public cry for help, many people reached out to help me and other soldiers have told me how they feel the same in their unit. Never be afraid to reach out for help, there will always be someone there to care for you. 🖤
Chewy is the best male role model in star wars.
"It's close relationships with woman in particular, that are framed as the most dangerous. This is made especially evident in the prequels, where emotional bonds with women are framed as something that eats away at a man's sanity."
George writing about his ex-wife Marcia.
I feel like the Jedi order had a philosophy of learning self-control that got skewed further and further into repression rather than maturity. It mirrors a lot of real-world dogma where people, particularly men, will brag about how mature they are despite having a serious amount of obvious insecurity they haven't dealt with.
Have you ever heard of the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker the brave? It's not a story the Jedi would tell you.
I think it’s significant as well that Anakin was taken into Jedi training at such a young age. From adolescence his feelings were vilified. Children especially tend to see the world (or in this case, universe) in black and white. It comes down to emotions being bad and stoicism being good. Meanwhile, Luke was welcomed to the Jedi at a much later age, and one his first experiences turned out to be the loss of his aunt and uncle. He had already experienced the pain of loss, pre-Jedi. So when he was instructed that hiding his emotions would be in his best interest, he was already at an age and had experienced enough to know to defy said advice. Just a thought, but I love your channel!!!! You’ve done a few videos on masculinity now and it’s so strange to see more and more movies, shows, etc embody toxic traits of masculinity. I’ve even caught some tropes on my own, now that I’m looking. Interesting stuff!!
Even more messed up, if you happen to have a force sensitive child they'll snatch them up early on. Yeah, they'll let the parents keep them for a year or two, enough for them to experience the joys of parenthood for a little bit... then they just take them before the children are old enough to have really bonded with the parents. The JEDI are their childhood. "Sorry lady, your kid's metaclorian count is too high, so we're making them property of the galactic republic. Better luck next time!" Geeeesus, Lucas.
not gonna lie, I was fully expecting this video to discuss the more political flaws of the jedi that luke touches upon in episode VIII (e.g. letting sidious rise right under their noses), but what you talk about was even more interesting. the way the jedi condemn emotion has always kind of unsettled me, but I could never put my finger on why- this video essay "puts it into words", so to speak. thank you so much for these amazing discussions, it's so refreshing to see pop culture analysis videos that go beyond "Snoke's True Identity??!!?1!11?"
It always bothered me that for Jedi there are no 'correct' emotions... which makes one wonder how they appreciate and evaluate the world at all... if you can neither love nor hate, nor fear nor loath nor crave... what makes your moral compass.... and more importantly how to do you empathize with anybody?
I've thought this too, especially after playing the SMT games which put the 2 extremes in even more stark relief, essentially giving the player a choice between law *and* tyranny, or chaos *and* freedom. The suggestion being true freedom breeds chaos, and true order requires tyranny. I enjoy this interpretation because it encourages the player down a balanced, middle path, which isn't something you see a lot.
I wish they'd emphasized this as the reason for Luke's disillusionment in Last Jedi.
The Jedi way does indeed seem to misinterpret teachings of Stoicism and Buddhism, to name just two. There's a difference between detachment and non-attachment, and between emotional suppression and emotional non-judgement.
Peter Ford it isn't supposed to be Buddhism. It's a fictional religion created by George Lucas and he could have done whatever he pleased with it.
I always felt that those aspects of the Jedi order were supposed to be seen as toxic and that Yoda and Obi-wan are unreliable narrators. But maybe that's because I read a lot of fan fiction where it is clearly portrayed as such.
Must be, because George Lucas sincerely believes all that nonsense Yoda spouts in the prequels. It's painful to watch interviews with him about it.
If you branch out into extended universe media, like games and books, it's definitely framed as more toxic. All of the SW games I've played have openly critiqued the flaws in Jedi doctrine.
Thanks for clarifying that. Your video made me think this might be an intentional aspect of the narrative, which would be pretty cool, but if George doesn't even hint at that in interviews then it is probably accidental.
It's interesting to see how this translates to the new movies. Kylo Ren is very expressive of his emotions, but what keeps dragging him to the Light are his feelings and his connections to his parents. What turned him into Kylo Ren in the first place was Luke's moment of pure rationality.
Well, it was luke's moment of rationality that prevented him from killing Kylo. Luke even says himself he regrets attempting to kill Kylo and wishes he had legitimately nurtured the kid, rather than simply letting him deal with it himself.
‘Only a sith deals in absolutes’ IS an absolute statement
Well, about what you said at the 20:51 . It makes a lot of sense that Anakin takes it more to his heart. He was surrounded by many living jedi and was pretty much raised by them. Pressure is real, just like in the case when you don't want to dissapoint you parents even if you openly disagree with them. It's not really ones fault to be at least conflicted in a case like this. Luke on the other hand met Obi-Wan and old Yoda as a young man, but not a 9 year old. No wonder he could say "Yeah, um... No, I can decide on my own".
Great video, not only does it make Anakin's story better, but also it's a interesting and important topic to understand as a man in a modern world. Love your channel! (found it recently)
I so agree with you 😅
I always wondered -- since the Jedi Council originally refused to train Anakin because he is "too old" -- then what were they planning to do with him? Send him home for someone else to take advantage of? Jail him for the rest of his life? Or maybe just kill him. That never made any sense to me.
As a child I was told to man up often. Every emotion expressed was labeled as being a wuss. However it just made my life harder. Men need to express themselves more. lack of expression leads to more pain than actually opening up. As a star wars fan I thank you for this video. It expresses an issue this world, where in we dwell, that is sadly prevalent in modern society. It's never wrong to feel. Lack of expression leads to men becoming cold, disconnected, and stressed. Good job on the video dude.
If one dives deep in the lore you’ll see that the earliest of lightsaber wielding monks tried to balance the light and dark side of the force. They are allowed dark thoughts and emotions thus much more stable. The Jedi order is so fearful of the dark side and emotions that lead to the dark side they BAN any emotions. Which is actually backwards thinking since
A: this makes some Jedis ticking emotional time bombs and
B: some of the most famous Jedis like Luke have shown has shown balancing emotions can be more powerful than staying on one side of the force.
Thank the fucking gods I'm not the only one who read the Jedi dogma as being that of an emotionally abusive cult.
I've always read Anakin's turn to Vader as being the fault of the Jedi for not supporting him, not that fault of his relationship with padme
It’s a common reading folks have but the movies and Lucas are very clear that his “attachments” are what made him turn.
I would say the council treating attachments like a bad thing is why Anakin turned. If Qui-Gon wasn't attached to Anakin, he wouldn't have freed Anakin from slavery or fight for him to become a jedi. And if that didn't happen, the sith would've found Anakin and raised him in the dark side. Thus Anakin would be devoid of love and compassion and Luke and Leia wouldn't exist.
If the council actually help Anakin properly grieve over his mother's death and didn't make him have to keep his marriage a secret, Anakin wouldn't have become desperate and fall for Palpatine's manipulations.
Another reason I loved the KotOR games was they offered pretty sharp critiques of both the Jedi and Sith philosophies, especially through the characters of Jolee Bindo and Kreia.
Maybe the craziest thing about that rejection of Anakin is that he's being incredibly calm for a child that just lost - for ever! - his only caregiver and attachment figure: He#s not raging, crying, throwing a fit or demanding to return.
I think the 'fear leads to the dark side' might be shop-lifted from the Buddhist 'attachment causes suffering', but Buddhists don't offer a toxic solution like 'suppress all your emotions or we'll kick you out' .
Great video. Many of these ideas are touched on in the "Knights of the Old Republic" games. The Jedi are presented as flawed and the cause of their own problems. Jedi don't always "fall" to the dark side, but rather they are pushed to it due to the overly rigid dogma of the Jedi. Conversely, the Sith characters are presented as embracing their emotions and are, in some ways, more supportive than the Jedi.
The game deals with both the Jedi Code and the Sith Code, which highlight their views:
Jedi Code:
There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force.
Sith Code:
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
I almost wanna tweet this to Mark Hamill to hear his response. This might be incredibly eye-opening stuff for someone who’s been in the eye of the hurricane.
YEESSS!!! So nice to see such a well-made critique of what most people praise in Star Wars. I've always felt like the Jedi are just as misguided about the force as the Sith. The idea that emotions, especially LOVE of all things, makes you vulnerable to darkness is so incredibly skewed. The Jedi suppress emotion too much, while the Sith let their feelings take control of their actions; neither philosophies promote healthy methods of processing emotions.
Anakin is an unfortunate victim of circumstance, living his life being controlled by one power or another, never really given the choice to decide for himself how to approach inner turmoil. What redeems him in the end is finally breaking those chains and making his own choice-- the choice to listen to his feelings and let his love for Luke lead him back to the light side. Love and familial bonds are what saved the galaxy.
Thank you for posting another amazing video essay on one of my favorite topics!!
It's so painful to watch this after The Rise of Skywalker.
I never noticed how they cloaked Yoda in shadows when he gave Anakin, as you put it, “the worst advice I’m the galaxy.” Who really is the villain in this movie...
That's the thing. It's a story that's subversive showing the roots of his fall.
This is why I agree with Luke in the most recent film that the Jedi order needs to end. All it's caused is a perpetual system of war in the universe. Ray is the first chance at a Jedi who embraces emotion yet doesn't fall into the dark side. I actually wish she hadn't preserved the texts at the end of the film and had let them burn.
no wonder luke was pissed off in the last jedi lmao. after watching this i'm pissed off too
This is an amazing point of view. I would also add, that Yoda suffers from a great deal from emotional attachment. Accept his attachment is to the ideals of the Jedi, and not individuals. Episodes 1-3, Yoda spends the majority of the time dissapointed, and even angered, not because of the pain others were going through, but because it upset his idea of what a jedi should be.
Even in 4-6, Yoda showed the same behaviour. He was dissapointed in Luke before he even began training, and when Ben's voice spoke to defend the idea of training him, he became visibly annoyed, arguably angry at the idea of a Jedi who could be visibly annoyed, arguably angry.
“Thankfully the Star Wars cinematic universe is out of George Lucas’s hands” oh if only we knew what was coming.
This is brilliant, but I find myself at odds with the idea that it was “George Lucas’ fault or the film’s fault.” You do mention that in the end, the moral of the original trilogy was that the rejection of the Jedi teachings won out, and in the prequels, the acceptance of them ended in suffering. Both of these morals seem in line with the argument against the Jedi philosophy. Luke, in the new trilogy mentions that he “became a legend” because he was able to see beyond the one-sided Jedi teachings. In short. It seems like this is less of an issue with the films, and more of a moral of the series.
The problem is that in the prequels, they don't actually take the time to acknowledge that it was the Jedi order that caused Anakin's turn to the dark side. Instead they framed it in a way that made it seem like it was Anakin's fault for having emotions in the first place. The emotions themselves weren't the problem, it was the way he dealt with them (which was the result of Jedi teachings).
Obviously, it's not an excuse for the things that Anakin did. But Anakin was subject to years of emotional abuse at the hands of the Jedi. And the prequels never took the time to address that. Had they framed it in a way that made it clear that the Jedi were being abusive, it would have been a completely different story.
I feel sad for my Grandfather...
To be fair, George Lukas made 6 Films, 3 in which the hero does not deny their emotions - and win- as well as 3 films in which the hero is taught to deny their emotions by a cult and everybody suffers. I would consider this a rounded achivment to showcase the entire problem. Most people just appear to not understand cautionary tales when they dont explicitly tell them the message.
" Star Wars is now thankfully out of George Lucas hands." boy that didn't age well
Lucas lost his filmmaking touch a long time ago. Really it was the people around him (especially his ex-wife as the film editor) who made the originals great. Yeah, JJ Abrams wasn't any better, but still the point stands.
Of course it did, TROS is the only SW movie worse than the three prequels
Hopefully this will help settle the argument against Luke's portrayal in The Last Jedi. The seeds for his rejection of the Jedi Order were in the original trilogy. "It's time for the Jedi to end" indeed.
The problem with what you are saying is that Luke changed his mind at the end and said "I will not be the last Jedi". The story arc of the Jedi's failure was completely dropped because of poor writing.
I'm really curious what you think about Avatar the Last Airbender, specifically episode The Guru in season 2. In that, the Guru tells Aang much of the same things about attachment that the Jedi do, but Aang also is unable to detach himself from his loved ones. It'd be really cool if you did a video over that show!
But that final chakra, known as the sahasrara chakra, has more to do with oneness with the universe/realizing everything is connected/seeing the world from the perspective of the DIVINE etc. Its not that love is evil, it's that in order to experience this divine oneness you have to see the world not as "me, my friends, lover and family" (not as an INDIVIDUAL) but as a being who is connected to the ALL, the higher, bigger picture that is the universe
Yes! This is why I always loved Luke as a hero, even as a kid when I didn't really know why I attached to him so much, but its because he doesn't accept that Jedi/Toxic masculinity bullshit. He wins using love and empathy and compassion.
Same
Jedi Council after meeting Anakin for the first time:
Yoda: Whelp, we've got the strongest potential Jedi on record, who just so happens to the child of prophecy and destined to defeat the evil we've been prepping for for literally 1000 years, who misses his mother. Where is she anyway?
Windu: Oh, she's a slave to a piece of shit on Tattooine.
Yoda: Do we have it in the budget to go and buy her freedom?
Windu: Uhhhhhh yeah, but it means we'd have to carpool to get Kyber Crystals on Ilum for a couple weeks.
Toda: Unacceptable. Whatever, I'm sure leaving this woman on a slave planet in the shittiest part of the galaxy will have no long term consequences. If anyone wants me, I'll be telling some pointless psycho-babble to another angsty teenager armed with a laser sword and zero emotional regulation capabilities.
I have to admit, this was not easy to sit through, given how much nostalgia I have for the Star Wars franchise. But I think that discomfort is useful in understanding the deep flaws in the writing of Jedi culture.
I always took the Dark Side of the force to be about dominance. A Desire to dominate and control the universe, and the fear of loss is one part of that. As such, a binding to the force would be looking at the universe as a whole; to strive for balance, to guide and not to dictate. The failure of Anikin Skywalker was the arrogance of the Jedi order, ignoring the personal suffering and letting it manifest into something far darker.
Of course, the methods of getting there are directly contradicted by the wordings of Jedi teachings, as you rightly point out in this analysis. Thank you, good sir, for another enlightened editorial that has helped me to understand the Star Wars universe better!
While I agree about your points the Jedi aren't flawed because they don't let men express emotion, its because they don't let anyone express it, this isn't really a gender issue.
jedi are contradictory. George wanted them to be like samurai, knights, old western marshals and monks all at once. But samurai, knights and marshals had wives and children. They weren't chaste warriors. Monks don't engage in violence but share the pledge to abstain from strong emotions and have penitence for their transgressions. If George Lucas wanted his jedi to be monks, they shouldn't carry lightsabers or be violent at all. An order of emotionless warriors who kill in self-defense shouldn't be seen as the police force of a universe.
The contradictions in the Jedi code are many. You cannot bury your feelings, and be in touch with your intuition. The two are contradictory. Not showing your feelings is not the same thing as not having those feelings. To a less than astute outside observer they may look the same, but the results of those two situations are exactly the opposite.
Barely repressed rage and angst make for good drama, but they are not a way to enlightenment or even good judgement.
Also the idea that children can be taken from their parents and sucessfully raised into mentally healthy adults by people that repress all their feelings and do not believe in personal attachments is kind of odd. It makes me wonder what Lucas's childhood was like.
I'd love to see a followup to this video incorporating themes from the animated Clone Wars series. There are two specific parts I remember, one where Obi-wan approaches Anakin about his attraction to Padme being natural, and another where Yoda goes on a spiritual journey where he faces his inner 'dark side'. A memorable line from that scene went along the lines of, 'Acknowledge you I do... but control me, you do not.'
I think that the goal of the Jedi was self control over reactionary emotion, but they made the mistake of going too far towards emotional repression. On the flip side, the Darkside advocates giving in to every emotion and desire without restraint. I think part of the eventual goal is to reach that 'Grey Jedi' middle ground, where one has a healthy relationship with their emotions and desires while still having the self-control and restraint to not be consumed by them.
I think throughout the series Obi-wan demonstrates a more balanced Jedi, having attachments and emotions, but not allowing them to rule him.
This makes me completely reconsider Vulcan philosophy. The Vulcans and Jedi treat emotion similarly, as something to be suppressed behind a stoic mask. They both view releasing pent-up emotion as being potentially dangerous and have an impartial utilitarian ethical code. However, the Vulcans have additional (different) reasons for rejecting emotion. Vulcans see emotion as clouding logical decision making and objective analysis of a situation, while Jedi rely on intuition.
I don't blame the Vulcans. Their world suffered war & genocide because outraged, passionate people, convinced they were good and their enemies were evil, committed atrocities in the name of fighting what they saw as evil. Morally-motivated violence. Maybe this is a good approach for policy & decision making. But emotions are vital in our personal lives.
Star Wars and Star Trek philosophy are pretty different. Star Trek emphases moral ambiguity while Star Wars is very black & white. Star Trek is explicitly non-interventionist, while in Star Wars conflict is baked into the name as the only way for good to triumph. Star Trek celebrating science, reason & The Enlightenment, while Star Wars harking back to mythology & spirituality. But parallels can be drawn on this issue of emotion.
I always interpreted him crying on Mustafar as showing REMORSE for everything that he had done.
A last glimmer of the good still in him, that Padme might have been able to save... if Obi-Wan hadn't shown up.
This brings to mind the scene in Game of Thrones when Maester Aemon advises Jon Snow that, “Love is the death of duty.”
The Jedi are all about duty.
I always believed that the Jedi effed up on leaving Anakin's mom enslaved when they easily could have bought her freedom and had her live on Coruscant. I mean... they are the freakin' Jedi Order after all. Who exactly could tell them no?
Its interesting how far from the typical representation of a masculine hero Luke is. At least in the original Trilogy. Caring, emotional, compationet. Not at all stoic, distant & cold. Heck even his greatest victory which would be the redemption of his father had nothing to do with the jedi Training & Teaching but in fact cotrary to it. Your father strayed from the path of good
Jedi: he is lost you should kill him
Luke: I still can & will save him
All of this also explains his rejection of the Jedi in the latest movie.
Following those ways more lead him to almost killing his nephew staying true to himself stopped him before he actually did it but even just Considering it lead to making things worse.
You could make an argument for that moment being the point were Luke maybe realised the ways of the Jedi aren't any better than those of the Sith in the long run
Now I'd really like to see your take on how TFA and TLJ dealt with all this, especially in regard to fear, emotional detachment and how some characters in the new trilogy don't conform to gender norms for masculinity
That was awesome. Thank you for making this video. I'm with you--repressing emotion is so toxic. I lost my father at the end of 2016, and I grieved heavily all year. A day didn't go by that I wasn't in tears at one point or another. An acquaintance said to me (in a toxic masculinity sort of way): "well crying doesn't change anything--it's not like you can resurrect the dead." "Well, I can't resurrect the dead, but accepting the grief, letting the tears wash over me and and expressing it is definitely doing something--it's preventing from becoming an emotionally stunted and scarred basket case."
Wow I'm blown away at this and completely agree!
I had anxiety/depression and with CBT (which comes from Stoicism teachings) I was under the impression that logic is good and emotions to are bad...until I asked my therapist if he viewed it the same way. He said that cognitive therapy is about thinking logically, yes, but within my own fears, but it's healthy to feel emotions. I used to be such a "cold"person until I learned to embrace my emotions and find a peaceful balance within myself. I now express my emotions as nature intended because it's how I feel at the time, I've just been lucky enough to have people in my life that understand that emotions are part of being human. Great video essay! 😊
This was real refreshing, I wish you'd looped in TLJ just considering I feel Rey, Kylo and even Luke now recognise the damaging elements of the Jedi's religion, and its take on fear vulnerability, emotional health. I really hope to see something on it from you in the future, I'd love to hear your interpretation.
This has quickly become one of my favorite channels!
Woooo! Yes! I'm so glad we get a video about this! Perfect timing!
The opening argument that the Jedi Order is dominated by men originally made me scoff. Star Wars lore is filled with powerful and independent women who are just as powerful as their male counterparts, the two characters you showed in the background especially! But then I realized that this added characterization only comes in supplemental material...ultimately, it's completely meaningless in the grand scale of Star Wars's cultural impact.
The Jedi Order was written to be flawed. Lucas intended for Luke's defiance of the old Jedi teachings to be a good thing. Vader's return to the light through his emotional connection to his son was the resolution of the films for a reason.
You spoke too soon about how Disney would handle Star Wars 😂
I love this video. This is one of the reasons why I did not have a problem with Luke in TLJ. Just the plot holes and inconsistency is what I had an issue with. I really hope that they make Rey into a Grey Jedi.
You keep making me see things that were invisible to me before
I absolutely love you. I've always felt empathy for Anakin. When I saw the movies I was angry at the other jedis, how they didn't give him the understanding of his feelings that anyone would need. I HATED Obi Wan with all my heart. Anakin was supposed to not care for his ENSLAVED MOTHER, to surrender his love for Padme, to not care for their deaths. "In the end is the Jedi and their philosphy of emotional detachement that's ultimately responsable for the creation of Darth Vader". Masterfully said.
"How disney handles the mythos moving forward"
ahah, about that...
The Jedi didn't understand that balance was more than just putting emotions aside. For a Jedi to be balanced, they would have to be balanced with their instincts, their emotions, and their mind. The traditional Jedi are none of those- imbalanced even though they see themselves as balance incarnate.
Too much fear is bad, yes, but you must recognize fear and face it. Without fear, courage is simply foolishness. Attachments and love are bad when they are possessive, yes, but when unconditional in healthy relationships, they are a way to anchor oneself. The Jedi could not understand this, and died because of it.
Building on what you said in the last part of the video, Rey is an interesting character because she shows not stoicism, but empathy. Her character could be in balance with her own emotions, and Kylo presents a similar emotional conundrum. Kylo seeks to harness his raw emotions without anything else, but keeps falling prey to the same emotions he uses- in a sense, he starts becoming ruled by them. It's an interesting contrast.
Thank you for telling us that it is okay for men to express their pain and why some of the popular shows took on misguided world views.
“The Star Wars cinematic universe is now thankfully out of George Lucas’s hands. And it’ll be interesting to see how Disney handles the Jedi mythos moving forward...” Boy, that didn’t age well, huh?
I always interpreted Luke’s journey as being about emotional responsibility as opposed to suppression. Though I will say I strongly agree that the Jedi Philosophy as defined in the Prequels is stupid, and I’m really glad that so many subsequent pieces of Star Wars media (Clone Wars, Last Jedi, etc,) critique this.
ONLY A SITH DEALS IN ABSOLUTES
That in it's self is a absolute
I love how this idea of emotional intelligence is extended to the new trilogy as well! Ben Solo becomes Kylo Ren because the teachings of the Jedi fail him. His parents send him away when he is very clearly emotionally troubled, and Luke's teachings which stem from the past end up not helping him with his darkness at all. The idea of "balance" doesn't stop just at The Force, but also in those who wield it. Kylo loses to Rey in The Force Awakens because killing Han leaves him unbalanced emotionally. In order for the Jedi and the Sith to really reach their peak powers, they need to be balanced themselves. It's no wonder why meditation is practiced so much, in order for the Jedi to calm themselves and keep their connection strong. After Anakin loses everything he loves and cares about, his characterization as Vader is remarkably cold. He no longer has any emotional ties to anything, and ironically, he's more in control than he ever was as a Jedi.
Also the point of Luke not being seduced by the Dark Side: Luke is surrounded by people who support him. Beru and Owen raised him, and his friendship with Han and Leia helped him as well. He's grew up a normal, well-adjusted human being, which is why he has the most control over his emotions over his father, who had none of that. Luke knows that his fear and anger were normal feelings to have and wasn't ashamed of them, but he doesn't let them define who he is. He can tap into the power it gives him in The Force, but he chooses not to kill his father because he doesn't give in to his feelings.
Seriously, the Jedi could have benefited from a little psychology training.
@@Dzumeister yep
It's Ashoka, Luke, and Rey who reject that logic and become the best Jedi around.
lmaoing at the end where you were so hopeful
Anakin didn’t fail the Jedi order
The Jedi order failed anakin
Said it before and I'll say it again. Star Wars would've been a very different story had the Jedi not been so stupid and recognized that yes, Anakin was irreversibly attached to his mother and been a little flexible with their code for once. All they had to do was pay Watto whatever currency he'd ask for, emancipate Shmi, give her a nice apartment on Coruscant not too far away from the temple where she could be safe, pay for all the necessary accommodations, and allow Anakin to visit her now and then. At least once a week minimum. Anakin's mind would be at ease, he'd be emotionally secure, and he could focus on his training. But of course, they left her on a horrible desert planet ruled by giant slug monsters, teaching Anakin that HE CAN'T DEPEND ON THE JEDI FOR SQUAT. It's no wonder he turned to Palpatine for guidance. At least he promised Anakin things the Jedi Order could never give him, alienating him for any harmless mild outburst.
This is the major flaw of the prequels. It's a story that in order to function as Lucas designed, REQUIRES the Jedi Order to be fools largely responsible for their own demise. The entire order is dysfunctional, but... he'd have you think it isn't. But what's encouraging to me is how many people see through this. Most Star Wars fans and creators (at least from my experience) see and understand full well how fucked up the Jedi Order is and poke fun at it all the time in other media, defying Lucas' world view with stories about Jedi who defect, marry, start families and are better for it. Heck, anyone remember that time the Jedi Order was SUED by a mother for their practice of stealing force-sensitive babies from their families? "Sorry lady, your kid has too many metaclorians, so they're property of the galactic republic now. Better luck next time!"
Point is, I think there's a significant sect of the SW fandom that soundly rejects Lucas' outdated views and those of the Jedi. And that, I think, is a good sign for the future.
The jedi philosophy made for prequels is already broken to make Anakin turn to the dark side in a coerent way. If jedi order was correct, anakin will be only a selfish rebel.
It's a satire of dogma. The Jedi destroyed themselves by becoming the inflexible, totalitarian regime they thought they were fighting against by deluding themselves and the galaxy into perceiving them as benevolent (hence why no mother was ever seen suing for their child, they were indoctrinated into the Jedi order as much as their children would be).
I get what you're saying... on paper. But that's not the way Lucas intended for it to come across. He really does think the Jedis' ways are perfectly fine and Anakin's entirely in the wrong. It's us FANS, and various creators who contributed their own vision to the old EU and the new canon, that frame it as this ingenious cautionary tale, because with a little tweaking it is just that... but that's OUR perspective, not Lucas'. He didn't mean for Jedi philosophy to be broken. That's just OUR interpretation of it.
I never really looked in to Lucas' interactions with Star Wars, so this surprised me. I always interpreted the prequels as a cautionary tale: "In these three movies, I'm going to show the real Republic the rebels fought to bring back. Don't let nostalgia blind you, kids!" Every flaw, i've seen as intentional. The jedi being flawed, the republic being flawed... This is interesting.
I don't think Lucas intended for the Jedi ideology to ever be presented as good. Luke doesn't go by it at the end and spares his father, for example. And as for Anakin, his attempts to bottle his emotions and follow the Jedi principles ultimately leads him to snapping, him being unable to properly express his emotions due to being raised in an environment that condemned that.
The hopes for the Rey trilogy didn’t age well but the rest of it makes good points although it’s also leaving out a lot of things as well
The only thing I have a problem with here is that the Jedi suppress feelings in all members, not just boys.
Theoretically, but the original Star Wars films and prequels are very specifically about boys coming of age. Technically women Jedi exist in the prequels but they don't even speak. The central focus of the 6 core movies are boys becoming men and so that's what we are talking about.
"The Star Wars cinematic universe is now thankfully out of George Lucas' hands."
2020: Um, well this is awkward.
But great video and exploration of the how truly the Jedi jacked up Anakin.
This video unironically helped me to not be afraid to express myself
There’s a huge conversation going on about what media is communicating to women , and a much more subdued conversation about toxic masculinity - which Ive only ever really seen female reviewers covering. So seeing a male reviewer talking about this stuff is really important. thanks so much for covering masculinity in the media as much as you have.
Won a patreon supporter with this! :) Fantastic work, as always. I can see the same echos of this troupe in comic book movies with men not being able to have open relationships with women - Superman and Louis, Spiderman and Mary Jane. It's framed as they are keeping the woman safe but also keeping them at a distance. That same underlying fear that women will, in some way, take their atomnity and strength. It's such a damaging ideology for both men and women to live in...
anne berry the problem for superheroes is that they deal with unscrupulous people, so a loved one is a weakness, a soft spot for any villain to exploit, is different. In the comics is expressed intentionally to show the humanity of the hero and the way that he or she reacts to the knowledge of this being a weakness but at the same time the need to love and be loved, in the Jedi order is shown as a loss of strength since is viewed as a weak willness to "not feel" and will and wisdom is the core power of the Jedi.
Bronn in A Song of Ice and Fire, heck... Brianne, Aria, Jon, everyone.... and see how messed up that world is. It's even in Harry Potter, though not to a toxic degree, that's just British stiff-upper-lip BS. Sorry to my friends in the UK, but you know it's true; as it is in the USA, Mexico, many African nations, Europe, Asia, Australia.... omg, the entire planet is a slave to stuffing their emotions???
Wellington Smith oh wow your right. Harry distanced himself from ginny to protect her.
I've always felt that the "balance" that they keep touting throughout episodes 1-6, that someone is supposed to bring to the force, is actually the embracing of both the light and dark side of the force together.
Jedi were supposed to be all logical. Yet the Jedi were led by someone who had too much emotional attachment to the idea of logic that they became visibly upset at the idea of someone who didn't view it the same.
The Sith on the other hand were supposed to be the embodiment of following your emotions, except that it was led by someone who was had no emotional connection to anything.
You, sir, just expressed some...ahem, feelings...that I have had for some time but have never been able to put into words. Well done. A lot of people, both men and women, need to see this video.
What annoyed me most about The Last Jedi was how it hinted at doing something new and interesting by letting go of the Jedi and Sith and establishing a new order, only to immediately forget it and go back to the way things were, a battle between good guys and bad guys. Great video btw.
I think the reason that they had everything go back to good guys and bad guys at the end of the movie was to show that growth isn't linear. Through the movie we see Luke trying to teach Rey that it life isn't black and white and Kylo is also beginning to learn this, but when it came down to it the two of them truly didn't understand the lesson. They essential failed, but like Yoda said they must learn from their failures. So they had to fail first to learn from it.
I don't think things really went back the way they were at the end of The Last Jedi. That last scene between Rey and Kylo Ren wasn't your typical Jedi vs Sith. TLJ was only the second act, I trust in the third one.
I agree that it feels like a missed opportunity.
However, it make sense if you consider that Kylo is the heir of the old ways, while Rey is the herald of the new. Kylo Ren refusing to change makes him indeed the bad guy, while Rey accepting to reform from the root shows her as the heroin.
I think either Kylo Ren will see the err of his ways and change in the next movie, or he will not, and it is Rey who will find balance between light and dark within herself. Perhaps both.
I loved this. I would really like to see your take on Kylo Ren/Ben solo’s backstory&feelings.
Yeah he should definitely make a video on that.
When I was little, I thought the jedi were cool, but as I grew older and older I increasingly felt something was off about their philosophy. Sure, letting your emotions control you is bad, but the jedi just bottle them up and bury them. Doing that just causes them to fester and build up. And thus, when someone finally reaches their limit, they end up turning to the dark side because they have never *actually* been taught to control their emotions, just run away instead. So when this bottled up emotion finally catches up and there's nowhere to run, the person doesn't know how to confront their feelings and thus control them, so they snap - just like Anakin did.
You are 100% right that the jedi are responsible for Darth Vader.
I never realized the slippery slope fallacy in the Jedi. They are so much more conservative than I realized