like. these are not neutral historians. these are not unbiased narrators. these are men who wake up every morning and choose manipulation as a lifestyle.

and yet people hear palpatine whispering into anakin’s ear like “the jedi are hiding things from you… they don’t trust you…” and go. wow. compelling. source: dude in a hood who has never told the truth once in his life.

HELLO???

of course he’s going to say that. what else is he supposed to do. sit anakin down and go “hi yes i am actively trying to emotionally isolate you from your support system so i can turn you into my apprentice and ruin your life” like be serious 😭

same with maul going “you’ve been indoctrinated by the jedi” as if HE wasn’t raised in a sith pipeline since childhood. sir. that is not a revelation.

and dooku. walking around like a philosophy professor going “the republic is corrupt” yeah okay, we know, and your solution is… fascism with extra lightning???

The Jedi taught emotional control, not repression.

The Jedi took kids with parental consent, they did not kidnap them.

The Jedi did not hold people against their will, they could leave the Order at any time.

And like... what the fuck are you talking about? From what we see of canon, healthy coping methods are the thing that the Jedi teach you in the Temple. They are fucking constantly talking about mastering your emotions and they're always checking up on each other and shit.

You could even argue that "flunking out of all the healthy coping mechanism lessons the other Jedi take" was the problem with Anakin, who constantly responded to people asking about his wellbeing as if he was being interrogated and literally, empirically, could not healthily manage his emotional responses to things even when his life depended on it.

I wonder if people take Anakin's accusation that Luminara had "given up" on the padawans (after the factory explosion) as fact, and don't listen to Luminara's own rebuttal that she had not, in fact, given up on them, simply that if they had died she was prepared to let them go - i.e., mourn them, but also celebrate their memories.

(Seriously, those are all statements Luminara herself makes during the episode.)

If Luminara had, say, argued with Anakin that it was all a lost cause, ordered that the recovery machinery be turned away, insisted that Anakin ignore Ahsoka's message, and refused to help Anakin free the padawans, I could maybe understand people saying she's "cold" and detached and doesn't care about Barriss and is an example of why being unattached is a "bad thing."

But she doesn't. She doesn't abandon anyone or give up on anyone. In the face of Anakin's budding frustration and anger, she simply asserts that she is prepared to let people go when their times come. And since it turns out the padawans' times have not come, she helps Anakin rescue them.

(As an aside: yeah, she was wrong to refuse Ahsoka's help in facing Ventress in an earlier episode. But she openly admits to her mistake. And her mistake occurs after Ahsoka had been impetuous and reckless multiple times already on the trip (Luminara had just saved Ahsoka's life when Ahsoka was about to jump in front of a rapidly descending lift, right before Luminara goes after Ventress), so I can't really blame Luminara for not being keen at that point on taking an impulsive teenager with her to a fight against Ventress.)

So whenever I come across this image:

I keep in mind that it's from a book written by Karen Traviss, who is a brilliant author (I adored Legacy of the Force: Bloodlines and Sacrifice) but whose stance on Anakin, Yoda & the Jedi and Star Wars morality is this:

As opposed to George Lucas' stance on Anakin, Yoda & the Jedi and Star Wars' morality, which is this:

In a children's story about Light and Dark, good and evil, selflessness vs selfishness, George Lucas marks the Empire as absolutely evil and the Rebels as absolutely good, in the Original Trilogy.

In the Prequels, the situation is more complex (the Jedi are drafted into a war and forced to do things they know they shouldn't be doing, but have to for the greater good; the Sith bring about order to a corrupt government) but the morality stays the same... the selfish, greedy Sith are absolutely evil and the selfless, compassionate Jedi are absolutely good.

That's George's thesis.

And, as a character, Yoda's function is to deliver that thesis. It's no wonder why Lucas treats Yoda's words as absolutely correct:

Yoda is Lucas' mouthpiece in the Prequels, his self-insert.

George Lucas' narrative frames Yoda as objectively right.

So when Karen Traviss questions the Jedi, particularly Yoda's character and wisdom, she's disagreeing with George Lucas' thesis.

Which is fair. Traviss, is a different person than Lucas, she's an ex-journalist with a more "grey" view of the world and a different philosophy re: fiction aimed at children. "Death of the author" and all that. Again, fair enough.

And if you like Travis' interpretation and philosophy more than George's, if her read resonates with you more... also fair enough.

But the EU is not a reliable source on Lucas' vision.

I've talked about this in MUCH more detail here, but if you do care about George Lucas' vision, then maybe don't draw from the Expanded Universe, which includes content written by authors who expressly disagree with him, like Traviss.

Sounds logical, but for some reason people will read the above-posted Dooku quote and treat it as reflective of Lucas' vision, when it's not the case.

George Lucas' Dooku doesn't have an issue with Yoda or the Jedi (at least not openly, as Darth Tyranus, the Sith Lord he wants them all dead). Dooku's issue is with the Senate and the Republic.

George Lucas specifically added that most Jedi share Dooku's concerns. Before he's revealed to be a mass-murdering, Sith who enslaves neutral systems, the Jedi think he makes a good point and are even reluctant to consider him a murder suspect.

But let's not start saying that Lucas' Prequels are meant to be about "the Jedi's failure" and "Dooku being right that the Jedi are corrupt.

Because that's not the case.

If that's how you see them, great. It's certainly how Traviss saw them. To each their own, authorial intent be damned.

But it's not what they were about, to Lucas. Stating the contrary is... I dunno, lying? Rewriting history?

It's as if I got hired to write a Lord of the Rings prequel seen from Gandalf's POV. And y'know what, maybe I don't like Gandalf. So I write him as a scheming asshole going “myahahahah, fuck hobbits! I’m gonna let them keep the One Ring so a bunch Nazgûl will swoop through the Shire and murder them!” and suddenly, everyone starts writing posts about the notion that “Growing up is realizing that Tolkien always intended for Gandalf to be the secret villain of LOTR!” as if that had always been the case and I didn't just reframe him that way retroactively.