With title

My preface: I've wanted to post this for a long time. This text literally expresses my attitude to what is happening with my favorite character Anakin Skywalker, and confirms my doubts about the "wisdom" of the Jedi Order (they are not fools, but they are not wise men either). Wisdom should include all aspects and all-round thinking, but at times it "stagnates", "ossifies" and turns into a rotting swamp, in which the light that it should carry is drowning. And as a result, enlightenment turns into extinction and darkness.

Further words of the author:

Jedi: "the era of stagnation"

“The main content of the second trilogy, that is, the prequel, was the story of how Anakin crossed over to the dark side of the Force and how the entire Templar was destroyed ... That is, excuse the reservation: not the Templars, of course. Jedi. All Jedi were destroyed. Except for a few - Obi Wan Kenobi and Teacher Yoda. The first film, The Phantom Menace, portrayed Anakin as a boy; the next two - "The Clone Wars" and "Revenge of the Sith" - a handsome young man.

Anakin's childhood was not that unbearably difficult or completely bleak, but it could have been better. His mother Shmi and he himself (father, by the way, is unknown) were in slavery from the dealer of spare parts Watto, on the familiar "hole of the universe" - the planet Tatooine. Since Anakin from an early age was distinguished by diverse talents (for repairing equipment, for programming), the owner encouraged his studies, and the boy was busy with creativity: he would assemble a racing car from the trash, then he would build a robot and program artificial intelligence for it.

So, by the way, the boy Anakin created, again, the well-known droid C-3PO. Talkative, cowardly, endowed with useless good manners, the bore C-3PO, whom we fell in love with as Luke Skywalker's "funny magic assistant", it turns out that it was once designed by his father. (But then this droid's memory was erased, so he started the "original" trilogy from scratch.)

Naturally, such an outstanding embodiment of the Force as the boy Anakin could not remain unnoticed for long, and soon he was discovered by the Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn, who immediately recognized the Young Anakin as the Chosen One. According to ancient prophecy, the Chosen One must restore balance to the Force (by exterminating the Dark Ones). In any case, the Jedi were obliged to take possession of this promising child.

By and large, it was the Light Jedi who brought Anakin the first real grief. It was they who separated him from his mother when they took him from Tatooine for the sake of a "great future" which, for Anakin himself, remained an empty phrase. The reason why the powerful (and, undoubtedly, not in need of funds) light and noble knights left the boy's mother in slavery and inflicted severe moral and psychological trauma on him remains unknown. You can find some kind of "rational" explanations, for example: a real Jedi must free himself from all earthly attachments - but this does not change the essence of the matter. Which of the nine-year-old Anakin is a "real Jedi"? And why should he suddenly free himself from attachment to his mother? After all, this is the most natural and, in general, the most positive of all emotions - love for mom!

Jedi ideology, presented in different ways from the screen, is constantly bursting at the seams. You can, for example, remember how Obi Wan Kenobi, in the form of a Force ghost, appears to Luke in Return of the Jedi: "You must stop Darth Vader." Luke, a mentally healthy and sensible young man, answers quite logically: "I cannot kill my own father." Then the luminous ghost of Obi Wan sighs and says, “Then everything is lost. You were our last hope."  What happens? That the Jedi were urging Luke to commit an unnatural act - parricide? And they did it right from the focus of the Power! If the earthly, living Obi Wan spoke so, it would be possible to write off such speeches for the usual human ability to make mistakes, to be delusional. But Obi Wan is already a ghost of the Force, so he cannot be wrong. Why is he pushing Luke to the brink of a psychological and moral abyss? Maybe this is the last test? Provocation? Harsh - and risky, especially when Luke remains "the last hope" ...

The Jedi's behavior towards Anakin Skywalker looks much more brutal and far more risky. No matter what they argued, remaining within the framework of naked theorizing, in practice the picture looked monstrous: in fact, they raised a man with their own hands, for whom it was the most natural choice to kill all the Jedi.

Moreover, the viewer, on common sense, comes to the conclusion that Anakin, in general, if he was not completely right, then, in any case, was not greatly mistaken when he chose the Dark Side.

Let's try to trace the path that led Anakin to the dark side.

... Qui-Gon took the boy with him to the planet Coruscant (where the capital of the Galactic Republic was located) and demanded permission from the Jedi Council to teach the Chosen One in all the intricacies of Jedism. By the way, the Jedi Council is very pompous meeting in the spectacular Jedi Temple on the same Coruscant. This temple plays an important role in the history of Anakin and consists of five giant spiers. The largest spire, in the center, serves as a sacred place for contemplation. The other four are the High Council, the Primordial Knowledge Council, the Reconciliation Council, and the Reassignment Council. (This structure alone can judge how complicated, even bureaucratic, everything was arranged in the Jedi world ... somehow not in Zen, to be honest!)

So, the Council did not give permission to train the boy Anakin. There is nothing to spoil the child! First, Anakin is too old to start training. The boy is already at a conscious age, he has significant life experience. It will be difficult to brainwash such a guy. Secondly, Anakin experiences negative emotions - fear and anger. Which is not surprising given his past. (The fact that the attitude of the Jedi to Anakin's life circumstances was the reason for the increase in fear and anger is not taken into account.) Quite conveniently, there was an occasion to regale Anakin (and the audience) with the maxim: “Fear is the way to the dark side. Fear breeds anger; anger breeds hatred; hatred is the key to suffering. I feel a strong fear in you, ”says the wise Master Yoda to Anakin during the Jedi Council.

Yoda is right in essence: fear is the father of many troubles and vices. But how soulless and out of place it all is!

Eventually, the dying Qui-Gon will instruct Obi Wan to train Anakin. Here the Council, albeit reluctantly, agrees. Why?

The most logical thing would be to assume that the Council, though slowly, came to the conclusion: it is much more dangerous to leave such a gifted boy unattended at all than to start his training, despite the "strong fear" and other "shortcomings."

At first glance, the choice of a mentor looks somewhat artificial. Obi Wan Kenobi was considered a very average Jedi, so Anakin kept saving his life along the way. The behavior of Obi Wan himself regularly looks completely reckless (if not "stupid"), and the young student had to "clean up" after the teacher. Although it is postulated that they were friends, Obi Wan constantly nags Anakin and actually humiliates him. Then Anakin, and for the umpteenth time, has to pull the "mentor" out of the next pit.

So was Qui-Gon Jinn wrong about Obi Wan Kenobi? Why did he choose such a weak teacher for such a dangerous young man?

According to one suggestion, Obi Wan was just pretending. But in fact ... Secretly ... Carefully hiding from everyone, he was a mighty Jedi. He just successfully pretended to be a weakling. But then why? Where is the logic?

Or maybe the Jedi reasoned like this: since we could not get rid of the inconvenient Anakin, we will give him a frankly bad mentor so that he does not reach the Jedi heights?

But here - in general, it does not even lurk, but lies on the surface - there is a great danger: surpassing the teacher, the student begins to wise up on his own and in the end it is not known what he will think of (which, in fact, happened). No, a strong student needs a strong teacher, and the Jedi could not help but understand this (otherwise how did they even manage to exist for so long).

It seems to us that the answer is simple: and there was simply no one better.

The Jedi in the prequel are reminiscent of the Politburo of the mature stagnation era. A formal approach, indifference to a particular living being, a complete lack of flexibility, undercover intrigues ... Yoda - and he looks ossified in his great wisdom. Humanity will come to the old Taoist much later, when the Jedi are exterminated. Presumably, then Obi Wan will cover his famous ability not to condemn anyone (you see, he had enough time, living as a hermit on Tatooine, to think over everything that happened and analyze his own behavior first of all).

The Jedi actually used Anakin. And this is very insulting: to understand that you were taken advantage of by those whom you idolized, considered the focus of the Power of Light.

By the way, Obi Wan Kenobi had a flaw with the Jedi Code: Anakin did not understand many of the provisions. And then Chancellor Palpatine appears, who begins to secretly, but consistently and intelligently cultivate the seeds of Darkness in Anakin's soul ...

* * *

So, one of the most important factors in Anakin's transition to the dark side was the lack of trust in mentors. And in this, Anakin was right: such mentors do not deserve any trust. Virtually every prominent member of the Jedi Council had a purpose of their own, and Anakin did not like being a puppet of someone else's interests at all.

One of the most important reasons for Anakin's fall is his forbidden love for Padma Amidala.

It is obvious to Palpatine (as to any sane creature) that one who has loved ones is extremely vulnerable. Therefore, noticing Anakin's attraction to Padmé, Palpatine arranges so that Obi Wan and his student receive a responsible task - to be the beauty's personal guard. And then Palpatine could just relax and wait, allowing events to develop naturally.

The Jedi Council further aided Palpatine's plan by recalling Obi Wan for another assignment. So in the end, a handsome young Anakin, not fully trained, subject to all sorts of passions and weaknesses (the Council is well aware of all this, but for some reason no one, not even Yoda, attaches much importance to this), is left alone with a young beautiful girl ... Of course, this girl is formerly a queen, and now a senator, and Anakin is previously a slave of some dealer in spare parts on a seedy planet, and now a Jedi-dropout and a bodyguard ... But when and who was it stopping?

However, yes. After all, the Jedi explained to the young Skywalker that passionate feelings are absolutely unacceptable. Was there an explanatory conversation? Was! What's more?

Only the "era of stagnation" in the Jedi world can explain such thoughtlessness. Here, what is called the “formal attitude” to the personality, its individual characteristics, and its fate worked in full measure.

Didn't it occur to any of the Jedi that it was more than enough to tell the young boy about the "harmful passions"? In order to achieve true dispassion - not the ability to control oneself after a sleepless night spent in hot fantasies, but real dispassion, when a young girl evokes nothing but warm, brotherly or paternal feelings - years of spiritual exercise are needed. And even then there are breakdowns, because all people are human and nothing human is alien to them.

And then for some reason everyone decided that it was enough for a guy overwhelmed by passions to say: "Don't look at the beautiful Padmé, she is not for you, and in general your destiny is celibacy, because that's how it is for us, the Jedi," and that's it, the job is ready , he will obey. What arrogance!

... But we remember that arrogance is one of the greatest vices in the interpretation of "late Ben", "officer and gentleman" performed by Guinness. The true wisdom of Alec Guinness gave us the answers to all our questions twenty years ago ...

However, let us follow how the Jedi themselves dug their own grave.

Anakin's feeling is passionate; his love is earthly, he longs to possess a girl. In theory, such feelings are a direct route to the dark side. In theory. In fact, they represent a completely natural stage in the emotional and physical development of a young person. Demanding that the young man behave like an eight-hundred-year old man, the Jedi actually expected the impossible from him: that he should distort, mutilate his nature. He, in their opinion, should not improve himself, not investigate and subordinate himself to reason, but simply break.

Anakin had the will to disobey. And in his attraction to Padmé, he is absolutely right.

And then the detonator of Anakin's first earthly affection is triggered: in a dream he sees that his mother is in danger. The Jedi were of no help to Shmi Skywalker. They simply took away from her the only living being that she held dear. Well, yes, she later got married, but how can you forget your son, being apart from him? Of course, she was sad and not completely happy.

And then - the raid of the sand people (the very same Tatooine natives, whom we saw in the "original" trilogy, in "A New Hope"), who captured Shmi as prey. This is what caused Anakin's disturbing dreams - he did not cut ties with his mother. The young man already knows: it is useless to ask the Jedi for help in such an "empty" case as rescuing some kind of Shmi Skywalker on the distant planet Tatooine. Serious adults have more important things to do. Therefore, Anakin simply takes the matter of saving mom into his own hands and flies to Tatooine. True, the Council sends him some orders after him, but this is about mom! And Anakin sends the Council to hell.

Mom still has time to die in the arms of her beloved son. And then Anakin is overcome with hatred. Undoubtedly, this hatred affected everyone who treated his mother so cruelly. Including the Jedi Council. But only sand people were at hand for revenge. And, not remembering himself from grief and rage, Anakin exterminated the entire tribe, including the elderly and children.

It was here that Master Yoda felt the "great outrage of the Force." Mostly caused not by the death of a minor barbarian tribe, but by the rage of a young Skywalker. It's time to actually draw at least some conclusions ...

And Anakin completely lost faith in the Light side. What intriguers they are, liars and mumblers! They didn’t really teach anything, they jerked them with discontent, tortured them with senseless (unrealizable) demands, they forbade saving my mother, they forbade me to love Padme, they forbade me to be a normal person at all - but what in return? Never mind! The sacred right to be a brainless tool in the hands of politicians who do not even consider it necessary to explain something to him.

Then another episode takes place, which can be considered the most important step of Anakin on the path to Darkness. To some extent, the Light Ones are again responsible for this step. We are talking about the operation to free the captured Chancellor Palpatine (then he had not yet revealed his true face - for some reason, even the wise Yoda did not know about anything and did not feel any "disturbances of the Force").

The intrigue was complex, but overall it looked like Chancellor Palpatine was captured by rebels - separatists. Their leader, Count Dooku, seriously wounded Obi Wan Kenobi, after which Anakin had to join the battle, who defeated the count. And then Palpatine gives the order: to decapitate the unarmed, defeated enemy - "he is too dangerous to be left alive!" (recalls, by the way, the requirement of the ghost of old Ben: to destroy Darth Vader).

Anakin, however, freezes in some doubts: somehow not chivalrously ... The enemy is defeated, he surrendered, he is wounded and unarmed ... But Palpatine is the chancellor, Palpatine insists, and Anakin obeys.

Why did Anakin obey an inhuman order that seemed wrong to him? And why on other occasions did he violate the wrong orders of the Council?

Because Anakin didn't trust the Jedi at all. And he did not have a clear idea which orders were correct and which were not, so the young man was forced to be guided by one single criterion: his own opinion. If it was about mom, then the advice is not a decree to him: in any case, mom needs to be saved. When it comes to Padmé, the Council is also not a decree: he loves Padmé. But if we are talking about Count Dooku, who is not related to Anakin at all ... here a hesitant young man who does not have clear moral criteria may obey the order. After all, in the end, he was trained: the Council is always right, obey the orders of your elders!

But the Council, as it turned out, was almost never right ...

* * *

Anakin was still with the Jedi — perhaps by momentum, but most likely — because of Padmé. Anakin eventually entered into a secret marriage with her (witnessed by two droids, our old friends R2-D2 and C-3PO).

Meanwhile, the Council is giving Anakin another reason to part with the Light Side. For starters, the young man is publicly humiliated by refusing to be promoted to the rank of Jedi Master. Moreover, he is ordered to spy on his patron, Palpatine. And this is simply low.

And then Anakin had another ominous dream: as if Padmé had died. He remembered well how the affair ended when he had a similar vision of his mother. Therefore, Anakin is terrified.

He is still trying to find some way out of the situation, remaining on the Light side. It seems that the Jedi temple contains some information that could save Padmé. But access to this part of the archive for him - as for the uninitiated - is closed. And the Jedi refused to raise the young Skywalker to the rank of Jedi, despite the high patronage of Chancellor Palpatine.

Finally, Anakin turns to the wisest of all - to Master Yoda: prophetic visions persistently tell him about the imminent death of a loved one ... what to do, what to do?

In response, Master Yoda burst out with a priceless sermon:

“Death is a natural part of life,” he said in his inimitable florid style. - Rejoice for your loved ones, who have transformed into Power. Do not mourn for them and do not grieve for them. After all, attachment leads to jealousy, and a shadow of greed leads to jealousy. You must let go of everything that you are so afraid of losing. Fear of loss can lead to the Dark Side. "

Oh, how wonderful - for eight hundred years! But it is definitely not feasible when you are barely twenty and the woman you love is facing death. (Subsequently, Yoda tried to advise something similar to Luke, but he stopped in time: it did not work with father, and will not work with his son.)

... And Chancellor Palpatine is right there: he promises to save Padmé if Anakin goes to the dark side. The dark side, according to Palpatine, has the power to conquer death.

By and large, there is nothing holding Anakin on the Light Side anymore. And he becomes a supporter of Palpatine - all, "with giblets."

And then finally the truth is revealed to him: Chancellor Palpatine is the very Sith Lord Darth Sidious, whom the Jedi hunted for a long time and without success.

Once again, Anakin’s moral precariousness is evident, and nothing has convinced him that the Jedi Council can be trusted. Discipline required the Sith Lord to be “turned in”. And Anakin reports his discovery to one of the masters, Windu. And he once again demonstrates distrust of Anakin: they say, you wait for me in the Jedi temple, and I will grab a couple of faithful knights and go and figure it out myself. Maybe this was the last straw. Either way, Anakin changed his mind.

Palpatine promised to help rescue Padmé; Palpatine was the only one who treated him with respect and support all this time. Therefore, Anakin at the last moment intervened in the duel between Master Windu and Palpatine and with a sudden blow cut off the Master's hand with a sword. After that, Darth Sidious easily destroys Windu. The choice is made, the die is cast, the Rubicon is crossed. From now on, Anakin finally goes to the dark side and receives a Sith name - Darth Vader.

* * *

It is instructive to compare how Palpatine / Darth Sidious / The Emperor lures Anakin Skywalker to his place and how unsuccessfully he tries to repeat this act with Luke Skywalker.

In the case of Anakin, the entire Jedi order is on the side of the dark side: it was the Jedi who, in their arrogance, finally shattered the moral foundations of a very dangerous young man. In the case of Luke, on the contrary, on the side of the Light side - even as if Darth Vader himself. After all, it was Darth Vader who clearly explained to Luke what an unsightly future awaits him: loneliness, universal hatred and selfless service to the nasty evil old man who, as if on purpose, gets into an important conversation between father and son, shouting: “Oh yes! I can feel the hate flowing through your veins, my disciple! " - although in fact, the Emperor in Luke does not cause anything but irritation in this scene. Palpatine is not just not listened to - he is a hindrance, a buzzing fly.

The success could not be repeated. Why?

It is speculated that because Anakin was vulnerable because of Padmé Amidala. Luke didn't have such a passionate affection.

But love, even passionate, cannot in itself be the cause of the fall. Many additional factors are required.

Everything was pushing Anakin to fall.

And everything kept Luke from falling.

The Jedi paid a terrible price for understanding, but those who remained were able to correct the mistake.

Anakin was unlucky in that sense. Nothing - neither the state nor the knightly order - can exist for a long time in a state of stagnation. At some point, there is an explosion, a revolution. In this case, Anakin - Darth Vader served as a weapon of revolution: he begins the systematic extermination of the Jedi.

Obi Wan and Yoda survived, as we know. In the final battle between his former mentor and former apprentice, Obi Wan managed to cripple Anakin and throw him into the boiling lava. Not bad for a mentor who has failed his mentorship.

"Obi Wan killed your father" - remember? Oh yes, Obi Wan, Master Yoda and all the wise Jedi Council - they all somehow killed "the good man Anakin Skywalker." All of them, with lies, manipulation, arrogance, intrigue, mistrust, insults, inattention, a formal approach to a very gifted and very young person - they all pushed him to the Dark Side.

And when this, quite naturally, happened - they tried to destroy it physically.

However, Darth Vader did not die: burned and barely alive, he was saved by Darth Sidious. Now Darth Vader has to live in a special spacesuit, equipped with a special life support system, and breathe through a mask: inhale - exhale.

Well well. It's time to remember the "prophecy": that the young Skywalker is destined to "restore the balance of the Force." In fact, such prophecies are very insidious: those who know them do their best to ensure that something sinister does not come true - and usually achieve the exact opposite result.

The prophecy said that the chosen youth would restore the balance of the Force ... by destroying the Sith. It is somehow illogical: what kind of "balance" can there be when the Dark Ones are destroyed? This is not a "balance" of the Force, but simply the triumph of Light. If you think about what happened, the Council itself brought Anakin to the point that he ... really restored the balance: on each side there were two left (Obi Wan and Yoda - Light Ones, Darth Sidious and Darth Vader - Dark Ones). What they wanted to get - they got it. “Maybe we misinterpreted the prophecy,” the wise Master Yoda dropped meaningfully on this matter ...”

I apologize for the crooked translation, mainly the translator helped, but the essence seems to be conveyed. After reading it, I stopped believing even more in the "Light Jedi", and indeed in everything that is openly declared as "bringing good and light." In Star Wars, only Luke, little Anakin and Padmé were true goodness and light. And when someone starts talking about what the Jedi Council is the wisest and the kindest, and Obi-Wan is the very embodiment of kindness and fluffiness, then think about what they will do to you if you are not pleasing to them. They will not even lift a finger to somehow save or sort out your problem, and will you be immured in disgusting armor, equipped with prostheses, while morally and physically crippled. Them easy to say that you yourself chose to be bad, instead of trying with your wisdom and experience to understand what drives you. Wisdom should cover all aspects, and not be one-sided and divide the world into black and white. "Only the Sith make everything to the absolute" remember? Oh god! How many times have Jedi done the same thing? Or does it not count? In short, pleasant reading and may the force be with you, my fair ones.