I just love how⊠messy Rebellion Era Jedi are.
Half of them are traumatized survivors of Order 66, trying to cope with the near-total violent eradication of their home, their friends, and everything they ever knew, often in unhealthy ways. (Cere cut herself off from the Force, Caleb changed his name, buried his identity, and turned to drinking, Cal suppressed his Force abilities so badly he had to relearn all of them.) Most of them were children when the Order fell, far too young to have everything ripped away from them, half-trained and frightened and constantly on the run. Running away from the pain, from the trauma, from who they are. Moving from place to place, trying to find somewhere, some safe haven, some remnant left of the Jedi Order, someone they can trust, who still remembers the Jedi as they are and not who the Empire has decreed them to be.
The older ones didnât escape the trauma either; they had spent their entire lives as Jedi and now suddenly everything was gone and everyone was dead and they could no longer practice their culture or beliefs for fear of discovery, they had to take everything they knew and go underground, hiding who they were and escaping to preserve what remnants of their Order remained. (Jocasta desperately trying to save and protect the gathered knowledge in the Archives and libraries, Obi-Wan and Yoda forced into isolation and hermitage with nothing but the Force and their memories.)
Imagine the constant fear and paranoia they must have felt. Can this person or this person be trusted? If their secret is revealed, will they be ratted out? Rejected? Cast aside like vagrants or turned over to the Empire relentlessly hunting them down for crimes they didnât commit? After all if the clones could betray themâtheir closest friends and brothers-in-arms, that they fought alongside for yearsâif they could just turn on them within the blink of an eye, how could they be safe anywhere in the galaxy? Imagine the poisonous lies they had to swallow, had to bite back rebuttals against, any time anyone talked shit about their Order, crowed about the glorious Empire and its Emperor, the man who had orchestrated the murder of their people. Imagine knowing the truth, the horror and destruction, and not being able to speak about it. Being utterly alone in a galaxy that was once filled with bright lights, lights that in a single horrible moment were snuffed out en masse, a tear in the Force so horrible itâs still reverberating years later.
And then there are the kids born after Order 66, who come into an openly hostile galaxy without any knowledge of the Force, who donât even know what they are, who have no context for the strange things they just âknowâ and can do. The ones that wonât have a supportive community of people like them to help them train and manage their abilities, who will never have that because Palpatine didnât just wipe out the Jedi, he killed the Nightsisters, neutered the Guardians of the Whills, had the Lasat mass disintegrated, got rid of any other Force discipline besides his own, practically erased all knowledge and memory of them, to consolidate his power. These kids wonât understand why they get weird feelings, why theyâre so oddly lucky, why things move and shake around them when theyâre emotional. They havenât been taught to be mindful, to be disciplined, to guard themselves against the whispers of the Dark Side. Theyâre fidgety, inattentive, impatient, and full of anger. (Ezra, Leia, Luke.) The lucky ones can hide their abilities just long enough to escape notice. The unlucky ones get captured and tortured and experimented on, harvested, turned and then sicced back on people just like them like rabid dogs.
And I live for it when the survivors and the new generation manage to come together, kindred souls drawn to each other by fate and the will of the Force. Tiny flickering candles of Light finding each other again, gathering strength together, sparking hope wherever they are just by being who they are. Stumbling awkwardly through half-remembered lessons, reconnecting with their pasts and gaining new futures. Trying to survive together under a regime that is actively hunting them down and trying to kill them, for who they are, for what they are, for what they remember and know, for the threat they represent against Palpatineâs stranglehold on Force power. Everything the children of the Force are taught puts them in more danger, everything the survivors manage to teach and pass on paints a bigger target on their backs.
But Jedi canât not get involved. The Force itself calls them back into the fight, calls them to inspire hope in the hopeless, to rise up and fight against evil, hold the Darkness back. Calls them back to themselves, to take up the mantle of Jedi again and stand firm as the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy. And when the Jedi come out of the shadows, rebels line up behind them, emboldened to take up arms. The whole Alliance adopts the language of the Jedi (âMay the Force be with you.â) and even when their champions fall or go missing they carry on, a movement started and led and encouraged by Jedi (Ahsoka as Fulcrum, Kanan and Ezra, Luke Skywalker) until they topple the Emperor and avenge the dead culture they pay honor to at last. And young Force Sensitives and Jedi survivors can finally come out of hiding and be safe, rebuild what was lost, come home.
Just⊠Rebellion Era Jedi, man. đ
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