MIRJAHAAL

(It probably started after his first encounter with Fives)

the PT-era jedi order vs. chinese culture

as for the jedi order, now let's look at the prequels: it's a space fantasy greek tragedy styled after classical european literature, with an underpinning of american political critique. to me, when examining the jedi through an east asian lens, or at least a chinese lens, i'll highlight a couple of points:

part of the reason the jedi have calcified to serve the ruling class of the galactic core is because they have tied themselves to the senate. this is in direct contrast to the jiānghú (martial arts world, essentially fantasy imperial china), where the xiá (martial arts warrior, knight-errant) usually deliberately distance themselves from the corruption and ineffectiveness of law and government to enact justice and chivalry based on their own moral codes, often becoming wandering warriors and outlaws: they are lawful, but the law they follow is not governmental but their own chivalric code. i've written about this before: by aligning themselves with the corrupt and ineffective government and getting entangled in "courtly" politics, i see the PT-era jedi order as a deconstruction of the xiá, as they're dragged down alongside the corrupt government as it inevitably falls.

more pertinently, regarding filial piety, the jedi are portrayed as antagonistic in TPM/AOTC in part because it forces anakin to be separated from shmi, his own mother. in chinese culture, as much as martial arts lineages consider each other family and are supposed to treat each other as such (hence wayward apprentices being considered evil, as it's considered betraying your family and violating filial piety), "birth" families are acknowledged and aren't supposed to be abandoned: in the legend of the condor heroes by jin yong, the two protagonists are raised by their mothers while receiving martial arts training from their respective mentors; in the kung fu panda holiday special, po's martial family lets him go home to his adoptive dad's noodle shop for the winter solstice (a festival commonly associated with family reunions in chinese culture). from a chinese perspective, an arrangement like that of the jedi in canon (forcibly separating children from their families and not ensuring their well-being) would be fundamentally absurd. @praetor-canis wrote about it here as well, with additional references to japanese traditions.

but once again, the jedi are not east asian-coded: textually, they are more heavily inspired by the knights templar, a medieval christian order whose members were forbidden to hold possessions or be in physical contact with women or their own families, and were ultimately wiped out by political machinations. just because the jedi's aesthetics take cues from east asian traditions does not make them east asian-coded.

this isn't even going into how filial piety and confucian values are criticized even among east asians in the modern era (in part due to western imperialism and reforms in response to that), and even if many of us are still influenced by confucian values in daily life, we often don't apply them as rigidly as our ancestors did. the assumption that this is not the case (i.e. that east asian culture is static and unchanging) is orientalism at its finest again!

a critique of fanon

all of the above is simply an analysis based on the films, and now, to address the pro-jedi fanon: do better. just because george lucas injected a dose of orientalist trappings into his films (and the EU followed in his footsteps) doesn't mean you have to as well.

the jedi order being portrayed as having their own culture and traditions is not something i fundamentally object to: it's natural for a community to develop a shared culture that bind them together, even if the films (which are my core canon) don't elaborate on them much. the problem here is cultural appropriation of east asian traditions: as mentioned, the jedi order's main historical basis is a european christian order, so forcibly assigning them east asian traditions and erasing said traditions from their original cultural and symbolic context just for the ✨aesthetic✨ is highly disrespectful.

for instance (and most egregiously to me), i've heard this one idea floating around about the jedi having "tea ceremonies", which is probably a blatant rip-off from east asian tea ceremonies. east asian tea ceremonies have their own cultural and symbolic values, and the wikipedia pages/sections of chinese and japanese tea ceremonies each have extremely detailed rules for where, when, how, etc. to make, serve, and drink tea. i once again reiterate, the jedi order are NOT east asian-coded, they're medieval christian-coded. therefore, i find that particular headcanon to be inappropriate.

as for why the pro-jedi folks leave out filial piety? it's more convenient for them to justify the jedi's actions for the sake of their skewed rewrite of the narrative if they selectively apply the concept of filial piety only to their "east asian-coded" jedi. (that could potentially part of why jedi lineages are such a major talking point in the fandom, but that's an argument for another time.) shmi skywalker's enslavement and unconditional love for her son are inconvenient for them, so they rewrite her into a caricature and mouthpiece for their own views on canon. this applies more broadly to every character in star wars, really, but when discussions of filial piety are concerned, shmi is probably the biggest victim of this mischaracterization (as well as anakin himself, but that's a given in this fandom).

disclaimer to everyone else: i am a hongkonger (ethnic han chinese) who has studied postcolonial literature and linguistics for my minor degree. that's enough qualifications to criticize this fandom trend, right?

conclusion

fanon jedi culture appropriates traditions from east asian culture because canon started it first, which is no excuse for fanon additionally assuming the jedi to be based on east asian traditions (and thus east asian-coded), even though they only take visual aesthetic cues from them and are more textually influenced by european christianity than anything else.