I wonder how much of Yoda being Grand Master of the Order for so long (he was alive for a solid chunk of the time between the Ruusan Reformations and TPM) contributed to the Jedi being so static. If the position had switched more regularly... btw, I'm a little salty Legends never explored that period really. Just the beginnings with the Bane trilogy and the end with the stuff leading up to the prequels
It’s a great point and one Dooku brings up in the Clone Wars novelization:
“The Jedi Order’s problem is Yoda. No being can wield that kind of power for centuries without becoming complacent at best or corrupt at worst. He has no idea that it’s overtaken him; he no longer sees all the little cumulative evils that the Republic tolerates and fosters, from slavery to endless wars, and he never asks, ‘Why are we not acting to stop this?’ Live alongside corruption for too long, and you no longer notice the stench.”
He’s right, of course. Maybe Yoda did notice all the cumulative evils, the stench of corruption, the gradual slide of the Order into a more extreme position. Maybe he didn’t. There is a fine line between stability and what eventually evolves into malignant stagnation, the kind of status quo which rots from the inside, only revealing the true corruption (and I use this term in a non-pejorative manner) that has eaten away at the foundations and structures which a body has been built upon.
In my mind, yes, there should have been more rotation in the Order’s leadership. I mean, most of the governments we laud as semi-functional today have term limits, elections, etc. so one party, one person, one ideology doesn’t rule supreme.
According to the Legends portion of Wookieepedia, the term for a Master of the Jedi Order was life, not unlike the American Supreme Court System. What is also interesting is that the highest-ranking member of the High Council was not necessarily the same person, although it often was. For sentients with semi-normal lifespans, this is less of an issue, but Yoda’s species live a long time.
And I find it interesting, that Yoda would consolidate so much power around himself, although obviously, he delegated roles to the High Council, the Council of Reconciliation, etc. Also intriguing is the fact he would be the first person to chide another Jedi for worrying about the future, as it was always in motion, but by keeping both of these positions for such a long time, he almost seems to be exerting his own form of control over the Order, to keep the Ruusan Reformations as they were meant to be, as a way of avoiding confrontation with the Dark Side, with the Sith, who - if there were to be a belief in true balance in the Force - would inevitably rise again.
This is not to say Yoda meant ill, but he, too, acted from a place of fear in many ways, which I think was part of his own reckoning with the Force Priestesses during his Journey of the Soul in the last part of TCW. The Order was stagnant, was clinging to an old, stifling legislation born of a horrific war - Dooku was right and had every reason to bring up those qualms and leave when it became apparent nothing would change from the inside. (Now, in terms of Dooku turning Sith to fight that stagnation - that’s a whole other story.)
What if there had been a rotation, what if Yoda had become more of a figurehead - a professor emeritus or something akin to a royal with no real, day-to-day power? Hell, Dooku himself would have made a great candidate. And I think the Order was beginning to realize this, at least by the time of Master and Apprentice, when Qui-gon was extended the invitation to join the Council. (And let’s not forget Yoda was against this.) But by then, it was too little, too late, the hard work of internal change needed to be done centuries before that, and by the time the Clone Wars rolled around, they only thing that was going to budge the concrete-immovable customs of the Order as a whole (individually is a whole other story, as single people obviously acted in accord to a combination of their own moral code and the Order’s, even Obi-wan does this, but as a group, as an institution - it was stuck), was to blow the whole damn thing up.
And I think Luke realized this in TLJ. (Yes, I always bring this up because I personally liked the general aims of that arc, if not all the details.) He tried to recreate the Order from what he knew from Obi-wan and Yoda, from texts that would have likely been more in line with post-Ruusan thinking and realized that it was not going to work. The man was right, in a way, the Jedi - as they had been at the end - did need to end, because they were so far entrenched in a singular way of thinking (as an institution) that there was almost no way out.
So, yes. This is a very long way of saying, if there had been a rotating governance of the Order, I think things would have been very different. Also, they had better re-canonize Ruusan and explore that period because the politics are just FASCINATING and have such long-reaching consequences for the eras we are most familiar with and for the evolution of the Jedi Order as a whole.
