Cause like. Listen. Its an absolute tragedy and horrific that Celegorm's servants left ElurĂŠd and ElurĂn in the woods. Objectively awful and im not saying its not but im thinking very much about how they (and Elwing, though she survives and makes it to the Havens) are the child victims most focused on in the kinslayings but its highly unlikely that they were the only child victims, at the absolute bare minimum children died due to both kinslayings, i mean fuck its the fall of cities. People die when cities fall. Lack of food, water, injuries left untreated, harsh conditions with no shelter and honestly I don't think ElurĂŠd and ElurĂn were the only children who were murdered/abandoned/lost nor was Elwing the only child to live with the trauma and terror of what happened only to face it again at the Havens. But we hear their stories because (they're narratively important) they're royalty. I cant help but wonder about all the non-royal/noble children and what happened to them. Maedhros searched for ElurĂŠd and ElurĂn but was there a search for non royal children?
One of the reasons why I can't stand the "kidnap family" and the idea that it somehow served as a "redemption" for the Feanorians.
You can't redeem yourself for mass murder by taking care of two children when dozens, if not hundreds, of other children were left orphaned as a result of your actions.
And you'd think that such a "super progressive leftist fandom" would remember that kids without royal blood are just as important, but nope!!!!
tags by @zumurruds, because this definitely shouldn't be left without the possibility of being reblogged.
#zero doubt in my mind every single feanorian has killed multiple children in their lives.#they were behind 4 kinslayings. 3 of which were major populations containing children who never recovered from it.#maglor feeling pity and later growing affection for his child hostages does not in any way redeem him or his brothers of their crimes#especially since the moral thing to do would have been 1) not to kinslay in the first place 2) not take child hostages away from their home#and the people they loved who could impart on them their history and culture unblemished 3) surrender them to gilâgalad#or any other elven host immediately for their own wellbeing and safety.#forcing his child captives to trauma bond to him was an act of irreversible harm not love.#they lost out on a true childhood. they lost their history and culture and friends and people overnight. it rendered them incapable of#ruling any sindarin/iathrim faction afterwards or be truly accepted as leader as dior was because they were raised by the enemy.#furthermore adult elrond has entirely estranged himself from maglor in the series.#he does not dispatch a search party looking for him or host him in rivendell nor does he as a ruler of a significant realm beseech for#maglor in any way or try to repair his tainted reputation among elvenkind.#elrond canonically chooses to become immortal to preserve thingolâs line. which speaks of his true loyalties given who he was raised by.#he does not want to be associated with turgon even though he did not partake in any kinslaying at alqualonde. elrond simply does#not fuck with him because of the ban. which tells us elrond all but reviled the feanorians as an adult after processing his#childhood and trauma away from maglorâs influence.#when he introduces himself he calls earendil his sire not maglor and goes on at length to tie himself to his maternal sindarin heritage.#his sons carry on the el-naming tradition honoring elwe that began with dior eluchil. he wears a grey mantle and so do his kids.#he is named after thingols hall. he is a walking museum of his lost biological family and to me thatâs more interesting than the ultra#sanitization of ~kidnap fam. elrond tells ppl he loved maglor once as a kid and not afterwards. there's a gaping vacuum there that#he fills with his biological heritage instead. he becomes a loremaster to preserve his family's history & all that is good wise & beautiful#he's not interested in aligning himself with a dispossessed house that was the cause of so much bloodshed and terror.#he opens a big house that functions like doriath and sirion - a refuge for the weary and the oppressed. the opposite of the feanorians.#that textual version of elrond is so interesting to me. because elrond cannot be as 'kind as summer' if he honors the murderers of children#he cannot be a wise kind and benevolent figure if he presumes to 'forgive' maglor on behalf of all his victims just because maglor did not#kill HIM as a child and did the bare minimum of treating a hostage kindly after violently ripping him from everything he loved.#elrond knows that maglor killed OTHER children which imo explains why adult elrond is written the way he is. he does not prioritize#maglor over his victims. instead he throws himself into healing and protecting THEM! and tries to undo the hurt and harm that maglor caused#fandom weaponizing elrond's kindness will never sit well with me bc kindness has boundaries & doesnt prioritize the comfort of oppressors#over the safety and dignity of the people they hurt. a kind elrond will always honor the children and innocents lost!
Yes to all of this. One hundred times yes.
I take great comfort in knowing that canon Elrond has nothing to do with the fandomized version of him that people flatten into a "Feanorian heir" who has no respect or love for the heritage of his actual parents, who hates his mother, and who refers to the murderers of his people as "his fathers."
This is the part of the fanon that I hate the most, and it once again proves that people on this site are even less progressive and self-aware than the conservative Catholic monarchist Tolkien himself, no matter how many "good" labels they want to put on themselves. I hate their obsession with focusing on the "wholesome kidnap family" while completely ignoring the deeply ugly layers of the situation. Because letting the twins live wasn't some heroic act, it was a choice not to spill even more blood, WHICH IS THE BARE FUCKING MINIMUM.
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đ potential return of queers-gambit
-> please read: advice & help needed.
please, don't just like or reblog. any comments or DMs are welcome to help find resolution to this dilemma!!
i mean, def spread the word - reblog, like, etc. - but i legit need your guys' help đĽş
here's the thing, my loves.
i use writing as a form of therapy. i love writing, coming up with stories, engaging imagination, and posting them for other people to enjoy - you never know the impact on the audience, the people you touch with mere words.
i want to write again.
i've officially started my chemotherapy and the urge to write during this time of turmoil is exact why i started in the first place.
i can't believe i let some losers make me feel as if i'm not allowed to express my creative ability because they're too lazy to tap into their own.
very disappointed in myself.
being said -
it's come to my attention that someone on Wattpad has copied all my stories, tweaked them a bit, and posted them as if it was their work. nobody has come forward with a name, so i'm at a loss. not only does this person get away with stealing my work, take all the credit, but i can't call them out - you guys can't call them out - and now i'm stuck in a dilemma.
if i write again, i run the risk of unintelligent, ignorant, no-good, lame, still-sucking-at-mommy's-tit pathetic ass LOSERS continuing to steal my work. and here's the thing - i write during very difficult times in my life, it's therapeutic, and i would LOVE to come back to this blog.
however, i cannot figure out how to protect myself from these parasitic vultures (who i know are reading this, since they're so obsessed with me, they literally saved all my work and posted after i deleted).
if anyone has advice on how to better protect my work from uncreative, thieving, no-better-than-AI vultures, please, share with me.
i miss you guys. i miss writing. any advice would be greatly appreciated.
also, someone asked if i'd post my old stories. i'm leaning towards no, because some of those stories are lowkey masterpieces and i'm afraid you guys would panic, save those stories without consent and possibly post as your own in case i have another scandal and quit again.
so if we could brain storm a way to keep my work safe and strictly MINE, i'd be happy to repost old work.
that's the thing - so long as y'all aren't STEALING from me, i'm happy to post.
On average, silvans will dress more simple than other elven races (bar some of the avari). Theyâve never felt much of the need to wear elaborate clothing, they preferred simple clothes they can throw on with no issues and that will last a while.
And, to be truthfull, the difference isnât that large between a silvan elf and a commoner noldo/sinda/etc. But! It because very apparent when a silvan is next to a noble elf. Itâs like introducing your public school friend to your billionar parents. The silvan isnât necessarily badly dressed, but you can definitely tell that itâs not the same extravagance.
And silvans can dress up elaborately when the situation comes for it, in fact, the few times that they do dress up, their clothes are spectacular. Filled with colors and patterns. But other than that? Nope.
It should be noted that the silvans donât have nobility. At least not in the way we understand it. There are elves and families that have more sway or money, but they do not have nobility or regency the way noldo/sinda/etc elves have. And even then, the preferred style remains to be simple clothing, though maybe of higher quality.
In other words, legolas either looks like a slouch or the best dressed elf there whenever heâs with the peredhel.
Not to be autistic on main but the valar putting the moon and then later the sun in the sky after the elves have walked under starlight for eons??? Wtf man. That's like the ultimate turning the main light on without asking after everyone's gotten used to ambient fairy lights. On a *cosmic* level. If I were an elf I would not stand for that shit personally.
Sorry if this seems out of the blue, this is a point I've seen like a handful of time on Tumblr & Twitter in regards to the coming of the Noldor into Beleriand, quite a few people see it as colonialism, the point brought up the most is in regards to Finrod' taking of Nargothrond, I really love your metas and would be interested in reading your thoughts on this. (Also congrats on getting your blog back âşď¸)
thanks anon!!
SO, lol, I actually avoid talking about this topic on tumblr but now is as good a time as any to try and arrange my thoughts!
The super short answer is that the episode ft. Finrod & the Petty Dwarves is basically the most textbook case of colonialism you can have in a book written by an author in the colonial period who a) possesses colonial biases, b) whose biases are very obviously present in the text and c) whose biases are very obviously rationalised in the text, often using motifs and ideas that are very nakedly drawn from colonial discourses of the 19th & early 20th century.
Longer answer: well, first I want to complicate the case of Noldor colonialism a little bit, because I think there's a tendency to flatten them into a very neat unilinear relationship, when the text presents something that is... both troubling and also slightly more multipolar.
Firstly, the Noldor going to Beleriand is very straightforwardly a colonial project of conquest & I don't feel any qualms about calling Feanor a proto-ethnonationalist. His speech covers it all: a tyrannical enemy that is simultaneously both weak & strong (the Valar), an eternal war of conquest for a golden age (for the Silmarils & against Morgoth), a promised golden age (the beauty & bliss of Arda, lords of the Unsullied Light), return to the glorious past (the waters of Cuivenen), birthright (our forefathers) and conquest (we will be masters of...). Everyone who buys into this speech, is buying into this vision of RETVRN to Middle Earth (to have kingdoms of our own which we can rule).
But secondly, the Noldor do not have an economically extractive relationship with the Iathrim. The Noldor settle the lands of the North, which are occupied by the Northern / Mithrim Sindar. If there is a relationship of economic exploitation & assimilation, it is specifically with the Mithrim Sindar - who do retain affiliation to Doriath, but who also function semi-independently and are semi-racialised against the Iathrim i.e. the Iathrim treat them as untrustworthy spies because their land came under Morgoth (The Problem of Ros in Peoples of Middle Earth). I think if you want a real world analogy to the political relationship between the Noldor & the Iathrim, this would be closer to the relationship between colonial Europe and Japan between the 16th - mid-19th century (i.e. mostly trade, sometimes with unfair terms wrested by force/domination viz. Caranthir imposing taxes on trade between the Dwarves & Doriath).
This is not to say that there is no racialisation of the Sindar in relation to the Noldor, because there very much is embedded in the very name i.e. "Grey" Elves & also, say, in Curufin calling Eol a "Dark Elf", when Eol is a kinsman of Thingol. This is in line with the Noldor political project which positions them as uniquely poised & blessed to seize and rule Arda for themselves.
Thirdly, the other problem is that the Sindar themselves (esp. the Iathrim) have a colonial relationship with another group of elves - the Nandor & the Avari. Both Amdir & Oropher (Sindarin; the latter from Doriath) go east and rule over local Silvan populations. Though Oropher ostensibly adopts their "tradition" to attempt to return to a state of Elvish existence before the Valar invited them to go west, Tolkien also notes, in Unfinished Tales -
Under the leadership of these [Sindar + Noldor] they became again ordered folk and increased in wisdom.
and
The Silvan Elves had invented no forms of writing, and those who learned this art from the Sindar wrote in Sindarin as well as they could. By the end of the Third Age the Silvan tongues had probably ceased to be spoken in the two regions that had importance at the time of the War of the Ring...
But fourthly, the reason we avoid the implication of colonial land theft from the Iathrim is because of the First Battle of Beleriand - where Morgoth assaults the Sindar, forcing them to retreat into what becomes Doriath. The lands the Noldor possess in the North are empty because of an authorial narrative device that both presents Noldor intervention as necessary to preserve the Iathrim & which simultaneously frees them of too much of the taint of colonial land theft. This is a very common exculpatory device and one which also repeats some of the tropes of the colonial idea of terra nullius particularly evident in Maedhros' response to Thingol's 'granting' of lands - A king is he that can hold his own, or else his title is vain. Thingol does but grant us lands where his power does not run.
I think it's useful to keep these intra-Elvish tensions & racialisations in mind because it complicates figures like Fingolfin, Fingon, Maedhros, Thingol & more accurately describes their relationships with each other. It also complicates the narrative of Noldor colonialism & implicates the Sindar in a colonial project of their own. And ironically, it also means that with the Petty Dwarves, we come to what is actually, canonically the most clear-cut form of colonisation in the text and which consistently remains the same across the many versions of the tale - and it implicates Finrod, who is otherwise treated as someone who fosters intra-racial friendships in a way that his Feanorian cousins are significantly less successful at. This is already long, so I'm putting the rest of it beneath the cut.
In The Shaping of Middle Earth the founding of Nargothrond is still taking shape - there are variants in which Celegorm & Curufin establish it after the Bragollach & where Finrod establishes it after the Bragollach, both of which can be regarded as extremely early drafts that are inconsistent with the more formalised drafts that appear later. Because of this lack of detail, I won't be including them in this. Morgoth's Ring also includes no details about the founding of Nargothrond.
In the published Silmarillion, we are presented very straightforwardly with the fact that Finrod has founded Nargothrond with the help of the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains + information from Thingol & that he is not the first occupant of this cave system. Noldor, Sindar & "Great" Dwarves are all implicated in some form or the other in the act that follows, which later on in the Silmarillion we learn Mim, the Petty Dwarf still resents.
In that labour [delving Nargothrond] Finrod was aided by the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains; and they were rewarded well, for Finrod had brought more treasures out of Tirion than any other of the princes of the Noldor. ... But Finrod Felagund was not the first to dwell in the caves beside the River Narog. - Of The Return Of the Noldor, The Silmarillion
and
They loved none but themselves, and if they feared and hated the Orcs, they hated the Eldar no less, and the Exiles most of all; for the Noldor, they said, had stolen their lands and their homes. Long ere King Finrod Felagund came over the Sea, the caves of Nargothrond were discovered by them, and by them its delving was begun; and beneath the crown of Amon RĂťdh, the Bald Hill, the slow hands of the Petty-Dwarves had bored and deepened the caves through the long years that they dwelt there, untroubled by the Grey-elves of the woods. But now at last they had dwindled and died out of Middle-earth, all save MĂŽm and his two sons; and MĂŽm was old even in the reckoning of Dwarves, old and forgotten. - Of Turin Turambar, The Silmarillion
This is pretty straightforwardly colonialism, right down to the nasty implication that the Petty Dwarves have more or less died out because of having been expelled/pushed out from their lands. Finrod straight up does not recognise their claim to this land and has moved them out - or else the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains have done this for him. The latter is made gruesomely explicit in the narrative in Peoples of Middle Earth.
Finrod had help of Dwarves in extending the underground fortress of Nargothrond. It is supposed originally to have been a hall of the Petty-dwarves (Nibinnogs), but the Great Dwarves despised these, and had no compunction in ousting them â hence MĂŽmâs special hatred for the Elves â especially for great reward. Finrod had brought more treasure out of Tuna than any of the other princes. - The Shibboleth of Feanor, Peoples of Middle Earth
Earlier on in The Shibboleth of Feanor, Tolkien tells us that Finrod wasn't just going to Middle Earth because he wanted to explore, but because, like Galadriel, he wanted a realm of his own to rule i.e. that both of them, to some extent, have bought into Feanor's vision of Noldor rule in Middle Earth, regardless of actual occupants:
like her brother Finrod, of all her kin the nearest to her heart, she had dreams of far lands and dominions that might be her own to order as she would without tutelage. [emphasis my own]
In Part IV: Quendi & Eldar in The War of the Jewels, Tolkien actually gives us a lot more insight to the Elvish mindset concerning the Petty Dwarves when they first appeared, which connects with colonial notions of indigenous peoples not really having an official claim or stake in the land they occupy because it doesn't occur in a way recognised through a colonial/occupier lens -
This grievance [that the Sindar had hunted/killed the Petty Dwarves] was set aside, when treaties were made between the Dwarves and the Sindar, in consideration of the plea that the Petty-dwarves had never declared themselves to the Eldar, nor presented any claims to land or habitations, but had at once attacked the newcomers in darkness and ambush.
The Petty Dwarves are also described in HIGHLY racialised, if not outright inflammatory terms, like lmao sorry but holy shit all of this is just an incredible series of racist canards after the other, invoking 19th century ideas of (racial) degeneracy -
The great Dwarves despised the Petty-dwarves, who were (it is said) the descendants of Dwarves who had left or been driven out from the Communities, being deformed or undersized, or slothful and rebellious.
In note 7, p. 408 in The War of the Jewels we have this section, which draws heavily on very tropey colonial imagery of the savage indigenous person -
The [Petty] Dwarves were in a special position. They claimed to have known Beleriand before even the Eldar first came there; and there do appear to have been small groups dwelling furtively in the highlands west of Sirion from a very early date: they attacked and waylaid the Elves by stealth, and the Elves did not at first recognize them as Incarnates, but thought them to be some kind of cunning animal, and hunted them.
Which all points to a very highly racialised depiction of the Petty Dwarves, before we get to the section re. the founding of Nargothrond, which once again reiterates their "primitiveness" against the sophistication of the Noldor, when Finrod builds Nargothrond on their dwellings -
The most famous example, after the great dwelling of Elwe at Menegroth, was Nargothrond < Narog-ost-rond (âthe great underground burg and halls upon the River Narogâ), which was made by Finrod, or completed and enlarged by him from the more primitive dwellings made by the Petty-dwarves.
I think the version which has hmmm, let's say it has become one of the more "accepted" versions of the tale in some parts of the fandom & has caused some controversy in the past, is the one presented in Nature of Middle Earth -
The tale of his dealings with the Petty Dwarves who still lingered there, remnant of a once more numerous folk, is told elsewhere. But during the years of peace that still remained Finrod carried out his design, and established the great mansions that were later called Nargothrond (< Narog + ost-rond), the cavernous halls beside the Narog. In this labour he had at first help from the Petty Dwarves and their feigned friendship; for which he rewarded them generously until MÎm their chieftain made an attempt to murder him in his sleep and was driven out into the wild. - VII The Founding of Nargothrond in Part Three: The World, its Lands & its Inhabitants
There are some pretty loaded terms used here, given the context above re. 19th century ideas about racial hygiene & degeneration theory, the figure of the "savage native" and the ways in which the Petty Dwarves are consistently represented as literally, inherently morally degenerate represented in their actual physical degeneration. "Feigned friendship" is one, the other is Mim attempting to murder Finrod in his sleep. These are again tropes that are commonly associated with colonised peoples in 19th century literature - deceptive, violent, feigning friendship, but ultimately betraying the benevolent coloniser.
Mim himself is an interesting figure to me because he also shares a name with a figure from Wagner's Ring Cycle - the role Mime the dwarf plays is strikingly similar in places to the narrative role Mim plays in relation to Turin. Adorno writes extensively about Mime & the dwarf Alberrich as anti-semitic figures in Wagner's Ring Cycle in In Search of Wagner & its worth a read to understand some of the antisemitic strains of ideas that are embedded in there - inherent physical inferiority linked to "deficient" personalities, linked to deceitfulness and greed. To an extent, these are also similar tropes and ideas that are present in the narrative around Mim and the Petty Dwarves - again, Tolkien may not have consciously been an antisemite, but he was working in a literary tradition rife with it (if he was drawing on the Nibelungenlied, he would have been drawing on it at a time of rising (white) European nationalism(s) - this also holds true of the Kalevala & other old English myths) and drawing on it at a time where these ideas were basically the water & atmosphere of the average white conservative.
So, elevating this narrative as hmmm. Justifying or absolving Finrod of what he does in banishing the Petty Dwarves - remember, this is not his realm, he is an intruder building on their land - reifies certain colonial (and antisemitic) ideas i.e. that he has more of a stake to this land than they do, that they are doing this out of greed or inherent moral & physical degeneracy, that their violence is proof of this and therefore, circularly, that their violence justifies his seizure of their lands. Its very much still a colonial narrative through and through.
TL;DR - yeah Finrod is very implicated in the Noldor colonial project, and in ways that are equally as ugly if not uglier as the Sons of Feanor.
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wait no omg a tired jedi sick of trying to explain jedi relationships to people who just don't get it. (So your master is your dad? No your brother? no So you don't love them? of course I love them) and flips the script. Explain what a father is to me. No no give me an exact list of measurable traits of what makes a father. Is it going to be the same list if I ask someone else? It turns into a month long academic debate.
Jedi Head canon: The reason Jedi rarely get marries, is because thereâs simply very little need for it. Think about what marriage functionality dose? Itâs mostly about asset and property division, which is kind of a moot point for most Jedi. Sure thereâs the social aspect, a recognition of time, love, and decisions, but those can happen outside the realm of marriage. I think when marriages happen, they happen with people outside of the order as a way to accommodate the outsiderâs traditions. Personally, Jedi simply donât have traditions that corresponds with legal marriage.Â
I was rereading this story (highly recommend as itâs hilarious), and a thought occurred to me.
What if Jedi CAN get married, as long as whatever process they go through (such as the fanon Mandalorian riduurok) doesnât require putting the spouse(s) before all others in importance (attachment)? They donât even necessarily need permission for it, just to notify the Council afterwards.
HOWEVER, itâs well-known throughout the galaxy that Jedi canât get married because this is the excuse they use to get out of every awkward accidental diplomatic nightmare marriage they stumble upon, since there are possibly millions if not billions of marriage traditions in the GFFA. They also use this excuse to refuse unwanted advances/proposals.
And this is a technique sanctioned and encouraged by the Council and all the masters. Funny marriage stories are told by Knights and Masters to embarrass their Padawans and former Padawans. The stories trickle down to the creche, where they become half-legend. Some Senior Padawan is in charge of keeping the tally board that tracks which Padawans, Knights, and Masters have the most accidental marriages that need to be dissolved, and that responsibility gets passed to the newest Senior Padawan when they get Knighted. The reason Mace Windu and Depa Billaba were both Knighted quickly is that they were unfortunate enough (in their eyes) to get stuck with the task, and they were tired of having first Qui-Gon Jinn and then Obi-Wan Kenobi come report to them every time they got in a mess.
And how does this work with Anakinâs belief that Jedi couldnât marry? Part of it was that he didnât grow up in the creche to hear the stories, part of it was that his own master was always using the excuse to get out of marriage proposals on diplomatic missions, and part of it was that Padme wanted a Nabooian wedding, and their traditions DO place the spouse before all others. So even though he didnât realize the full truth, he also shouldnât have married her in that tradition.
There are actually Jedi marriage vows that donât put the spouse before others. Itâs considered more of a spiritual recognition of love that both/all partners are willing to let go of for the greater good, and Jedi marriage traditions donât require cohabiting or even seeing each other very oftenâwhy would they need to when they have a Force bond that lets them communicate and feel each others emotions when apart? (Anakin also missed the memo on this one because by the time he was old enoughâie, not a Padawanâto learn more about it, the Republic was at war and no one was focusing on getting married, plus it wasnât that common.)
You've mentioned Jedi Wedding Traditions in some of your AUs. Do you have headcanons about what some traditions are, things you think would be cool/funny, or just general thoughts?
Oooooh... as you know I love questions.
I accept your offering of a QUESTION.
Let's see...
I like to ascribe to the idea that Jedi do not have great grasp on gender in general (they have some classes on common expression of Gender across the galaxy so thy can blend in, and classes on heir own cultures and gender expressions as an elective in later years). There is such a variety of beings, with all sorts of gender/sexualities/expressions all growing up together that it leaves the idea of gender a bit melted. This means that, though there is an escort to the altar, all parties are escorted.
It also means there are no gender driven traditions for the Jedi. If their partner wants to include their own traditions then the Jedi is happy to include it, but if asked about those traditions there is always a bit of baffled confusion.
The Force is a huge part of all of traditions. Marriage, to the Jedi, includes a Force Bond that can even be created between Force Sensitives and Force Nulls. This always need to be created by the officiator. When created improperly, it can create instability where all the parties involved become caricatures of themselves, where they are molded by their new partners expectations of who they are. When done right it is a thread between all partners in the marriage, providing a sense of wellbeing, but not much more.
Due to the fear of attachment, there is an involved process to be able to marry in he Jedi traditions. This includes couples counseling (before and for 10 years after the marriage). This process also involves and obstacle course that is in a secret part of the temple. Officially this is so that the ones being married could make sure that they could work together. This is even mostly true, it is also so a lineage can get together and laugh at the being running the obstacles.
The only restriction on or what a being could marry is that they could participate in the Force Bond, and is both capable of and gives their consent. This has led to roughly a dozen Jedi throughout history who married their Kyber Crystal. Eight Jedi, throughout the 25,000 years, married the Force itself(couples counseling in all these cases was...interesting), one of which is quoted as saying "I am in a Polycule with the dead and the Force, and that is still not the weirdest part of my life". One Jedi may or may not have ended married to a Sith Holcron, or a Sith Ghost possessing a Holocron (no one is really sure) in an unfortunate series of events that Jedi scholars have spent the last 1500 years debating if it was misrecorded, created wholsale, or somehow actually happened (some scholars maintain that this marriage is the reason why there is an involved process).
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It is a common belief in the galaxy that the Jedi are not permitted to love. Silently, some people mourn the children given to the Jedi, believing they will be brainwashed to hide their emotions and be unable to love. Disdainfully, some parents who don't wish to give their children to the Order claim that their children will never know love if they are taken in by the Order.
But love is a word with many connotations. How can a Jedi affirm or deny such accusations when they may be working with widely different definitions of the same word? When beings can mean any number of disparate emotions, many compatible with their way or life and many others contradictions of their code, values and vows?
The Jedi do not claim love is forbidden to them. How could they, with what love means to them? Saying love is allowed is misleading, and saying it's encouraged severely understates how important love is to them.
Love is essential, central to a Jedi's life. One cannot be a Jedi if they are devoid of love.
The Jedi do not claim that love is forbidden to them, as they share an ideal of kindness and compassion for all forms of life.
How could they strive towards this without love, as they understand it? Not affection, necessarily, for a Jedi must be compassionate even towards those they dislike. Rather, a deep respect for life, an attempt to understand it and its connections, and an endless drive to reduce suffering where they can.
That, to a Jedi, is love.
A Jedi must love everybody. They love the starving, the abused and the slaves of the galaxy, because they need their help. They love pirates, slavers, and corrupt politicians, when they dislike and want to stop them.
They even love the Sith.
But for many beings in the galaxy, that is not enough. For many beings in the galaxy, that is not love. And as long as the Jedi reject the cruel thing the galaxy calls love, that grasps and steals and demands to own, long as the Jedi accept the inevitability of death, the futility of holding on to what is not meant to be held, there will be those that call the Jedi loveless.
How sad, a Jedi would say, to be unable to conceive love without cruelty.
âDo or do not, there is no tryâ is actually a very valid advice. It doesnât take much analyzing to understand that it means âdonât half-ass things, but do them the best of your abilitiesâ. It means you should put all of your effort into doing smth. âTryâ in this statement stands for âdoing half-heartedly, without actually applying any abilities and powersâ.
The advice seems pretty obvious. I donât understand how anyone can interpret it as âYoda doesnât appreciate Lukeâs effortsâ. The guy almost outright says heâs half-assing his assignment, refusing to believe he can do it. But if you donât believe you can do it = you donât do your best thinking youâll fail anyway = you most likely to fail or not to get the result you want.
Yoda actually explains where Lukeâs mistake is and demonstrates it with his own example, encouraging Luke to do the same.
A tragedy that I will forever think about for a very long time.
If we completely disregard everything Palp says, and look at what Jedi do and say and even some of Anakin's line in AOTC about how they operate. You see that their unconditional love of life and balance is that of very mindful people.
Such as the idea of not acting in anger or ill will is something as someone of faith struggles with at times because emotions are messy and never going to be fully conculsive. But the Jedi are about doing what you can to deal with your actions, Jedi doubt but they still want to learn so they can make sure that they understand all sides. Take the scene of Phantom Menace where the Council are doubtful of Jinn's claim before meeting Anakin but still give him a chance as to explain and see for themselves as to make the correct judgement.
It may appear harsh to a child, but as an adult, you can see that they want to make sure that Anakin can have the best outcome given the circumstance that the Council is privy to. The Council ask Anakin how he feels, and Anakin takes this as an attack on his person because he was raised to keep everything appearing fine as to not be caught by his master. His anger at the question and his attempts to hide his emotions is what worries the Council. As a child, I viewed this scene as adults not being fair. But as an adult with more context, I can say they were seeing if Anakin would fair well with them.
The Jedi are aware of their emotions and frequently make sure to feel them, process them and then let them ease. Fear, anger and hate are not avoidable but they can be managed if you understand that acting within them does not help you. Anakin unable to vocal his problems with fear is shown in how he lashes out in anger to not be pressed on it. As a Jedi, as a teacher or mediator being heavily part of their culture, his inability to manage it or vocalise it is a concerning trait that they are unsure will be fixed with time with them.
The Jedi can help better those who want it rather than help someone who refuses they need it. This is something I see a lot in the prequels, and in the OG, they are always ready to help. Their help, in fact, instilled hope in the foundations of the Rebellion. The politicians, Bail, Mon Mothma, Riyo Chuchi to name a few, understood that the Jedi were figures and individuals that aided those.
You see it in the OG Star Wars Film, Episode 4, that the Rebel meeting ends with "May the Force be with you" a very Jedi farewell. It in fact made me cry when I rewatched the film, as you could see on my blog. But you can see it in the symbols of the Rebels being a reconfigured Jedi Symbol, the wings and the star moved up.
In the end, the action of taking in Anakin. Obi-wan's act of duty to master and child, something that could be easily disallowed by the Council but they allowed it. Backfired on them. They taught this child, then teenager then man, that they are encouraged to love, unconditionally to those that could labour ill will to them. They died by a betrayal that stung so deep. Not just because Anakin was the Chosen One. But because that was their friend, classmate, possible tutor and helped around.
The children saw him and saw safety. But he killed them. Those children in a similar position to him as a child, before an adult asking for direction and only be met with a gruesome end.
The tragedy of the Jedi is that their kindness and their way, of going down with their principles was their downfall. They tried to help the clones by not resisting the draft as to make sure the clones weren't subjected to unfair Admirals, they tried to make sure that they could help the planets they were stationed on as much as they could in their stay, they tried to keep eachother up when there was so much death. It was all difficult and a few slipped through the cracks because they couldn't be everywhere at once. And the amount of Jedi dying was happening at such a high number that the council wasn't the same number it was at the beginning of Phantom Menace. And that as before Order 66.
In the end, the Galaxy lost the Jedi Order and the Jedi Order died the way they lived. Hopeful and trusting. After it all, the rebellion had some Jedi around, such as Ahsoka, Kannan, and Erza, doing what the Jedi before them did. Helping those who needed it.
I haven't watched Andor but I've seen a few talk about the lack of Jedi showed how much the Galaxy needed the Jedi. So I will leave that comment at that.
The Jedi are very pro volunteering and giving aid to the planets that need it. They do lots of missionary work on the planets affected the most by the war. Bail and PadmĂŠ also help give relief aid as much as they can. The two parties team up and create a bill in the senate that gives aid to war torn planets.
âDo or do not, there is no tryâ is actually a very valid advice. It doesnât take much analyzing to understand that it means âdonât half-ass things, but do them the best of your abilitiesâ. It means you should put all of your effort into doing smth. âTryâ in this statement stands for âdoing half-heartedly, without actually applying any abilities and powersâ.
The advice seems pretty obvious. I donât understand how anyone can interpret it as âYoda doesnât appreciate Lukeâs effortsâ. The guy almost outright says heâs half-assing his assignment, refusing to believe he can do it. But if you donât believe you can do it = you donât do your best thinking youâll fail anyway = you most likely to fail or not to get the result you want.
Yoda actually explains where Lukeâs mistake is and demonstrates it with his own example, encouraging Luke to do the same.
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I swear, anytime I've ever argued with someone who thinks that the Jedi either 1. enslaved the clones themselves or 2. were complicit in their slavery because they didn't do anything about it---literally none of them have ever been able to answer my very simple question:
What would YOU have them do, instead of what they did?
Because, looking at it logically, there was literally nothing they could've done that wouldn't have either put the clones in MORE danger or condemned everyone else in the galaxy to death and dictatorship.
Like, first of all, the Jedi didn't enslave the clones themselves because they didn't even KNOW about them until Obi-Wan ended up on Kamino while investigating Padme's attempted assassination. The only people who know about the clones are:
1. Palpatine, the fascist who's literally plotting to wipe out the Jedi using the clones AND the person who likely came up with the whole thing or---at the very least---greenlit it and said "oh yeah, let's make an army of slaves and eventually mind control them to murder people, sounds fun!"
2. Dooku, another fascist who's plotting to wipe out the Jedi using the clones, and the person who wiped Kamino out of the Jedi Archives SPECIFICALLY SO THEY WOULDN'T FIND OUT ABOUT IT AND STOP THEM.
And 3. Jango, who doesn't give a DAMN about the clones, is in it for the paycheck, and who literally hates the Jedi so he's also 100% on board for the whole "use the clones to murder the Jedi" thing.
All of these people have a vested interest in keeping the clones a secret from the Jedi and we literally SEE them do everything they can to keep the Jedi from finding out. Obi-Wan finding out was an accident and, by then, it's out of their hands---it's too far gone to stop it and they have to alert the Senate, especially given that it's connected to a senator's would-be assassinator.
Obi-Wan couldn't exactly be like- "oh, what happened during my investigation? Nothing, don't worry about it, don't check my navigator" -like, exactly how well do y'all think it would've gone if the Jedi had tried to hide the clones from the Senate and the Senate found out about it? You do realize that Palpatine would've just used that against the Jedi as well, right?
SECONDLY, what about the fucking LOGISTICS of trying to save the clones from the Senate once they ARE found out?
Assuming that the Jedi just decide to take the clones, pack up, and LEAVE---which would mean abandoning their ancestral temple, likely abandoning all of their sacred artifacts that likely can't be moved (either bc they're permanent, too delicate, or there just wouldn't be enough room), and the dangerous artifacts like sith holocrons that could very well hurt anyone who comes into contact with them + give Palpatine more power if he finds them.
And ALSO assuming that the Jedi can somehow take care of themselves---including their sick, injured, elderly, and CHILDREN---after abandoning their home and all their resources and without any funding from the Republic. AS WELL AS just ignoring the fact that, by doing this, they'd be abandoning every other planet and cause that they would usually help because---again---they no longer have the resources or support of the Republic + they have to focus solely on protecting the clones...
1. Where would they keep the clones? In the Republic theyâd just be captured and forced to fight in the war anyway, the Separatists would kill them or force them to fight for a dictatorship, and they definitely wouldnât be safe in the Outer Rim where gangs and criminal empires run rampant and would turn them in for a quick buck---not to mention that it'd be incredibly dangerous for the Jedi, since they aren't well-liked among those planets + some factions literally keep Jedi slaves as a show of power/money
2. How would the Jedi take care of them? what about food, water, clothes, medical supplies, shelter, other necessities? Again, this is assuming that the Jedi THEMSELVES don't factor into needing the food, water, etc. which they actually would, which would mean needing even more resources. They donât have tons of money, âtheir moneyâ is allocated to them by the Republicâwho, in this case, would not be giving them money
And 3. thatâd either just get civilians killed because they arenât fighting at all in TCW or get clones killed because they DO fight but just don't take orders from the Republic, which would cut off their supplies, which would make the âsaving clonesâ thing pointless.
So, very obviously, the Jedi can't just fucking pack up and leave---if you say that they can and that it's a totally feasible thing for them to do as of the Prequels, you're a liar and you're ignoring all of the logistical questions because you know that it won't work.
"B- But why don't they just force the Senate to listen/free the clones? They didn't do anything to try and fight for them!"
Well, I hate to tell you this, but the Jedi were kinda in the middle of a fucking WAR, they didn't exactly have the time to draft up a "Clone Rights Act," present it in the Senate, argue about it for days/months/years, revamp it, gather political allies to back the bill, etc. etc. while they were juggling a thousand other things and trying to protect the Republic from the fucking fascist dictatorship attacking and enslaving entire planets. In fact, it's one of several reasons why the Jedi were unable to uncover Palpatine's plot until the end of the war- (before then being betrayed by Anakin, who fucked everything up).
Ignoring all of that, though, how would you propose the Jedi "force" the Senate to do anything?
1. They canât go on strike to protest what the clones are going through, thatâd get people killed since they're no longer helping anyone/protecting people from the Separatists.
2. They canât physically force anyone to do anything or use a mind trick to force their way, thatâs sith behavior and a dictatorship---and we all know that if the Jedi DID do this y'all would scream, cry, and complain about how "evil" the Jedi were.
and 3. the Jedi have no political power, so itâs not like they can push the Senate to free the clones in that way either, they couldn't even stop the Senate from DRAFTING THEM INTO THE WAR---what makes you think they could convince the Senate to give up their ENTIRE FUCKING ARMY in the MIDDLE OF A FUCKING WAR???
The Jedi literally have no way to help the clones without making things worse, the only thing they can do is try to keep them alive in battle, encourage them to embrace their individuality, and hope that once the war is over they'll be able to do more to help! That's all they can do!
Not to mention that the same people that whine and cry about how "evil" the Jedi are for not somehow saving the clones NEVER seem to hold the same vitrol for the POLITICIANS who ACTUALLY HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE THINGS!!!
No one ever rages against Padme or Bail or Mon Mothma for not doing anything to help the clones, no one bashes Riyo Chuchi for only helping the clones AFTER the war when the Empire was tossing them out---why is that? Why are they never held accountable? Why is it never THEIR responsibility, even though they have more power than the Jedi?