The people who go on about how Anidala is supposedly greedy and selfish don’t seem to grasp that maybe a massive religious group that has the backing of the government who expects you to dedicate your life to only that religious organization and that government while not really letting you have a life outside of that is actually even more greedy and selfish? I have more of a problem with the religious group who believes that they have exclusive rights to babies with special abilities over a couple who just wanted to be together because they are in love.

Me: Fallen Order was good but the story was pretty run-of-the-mill as far as Star Wars goes and didn’t really do anything special, was very risk averse in general, I bet Survivor will be about the same.

Jedi Survivor: This is the story of Cal Kestis, a man broken by a life of constant war, struggling to maintain his faith and morality while fighting as a guerrilla rebel under the tyrannical reign of a brutal Empire. Traumatized and worn down, he finds himself increasingly forced to compromise his code to survive, prompting him onto a quest to find a possibly mythical world where he can escape the endless bloodshed and become something more than a killer.

In his quest, he finds himself confronting the failures of the Jedi Order and learning to reject the dogma that led them astray, while also facing his trauma and embracing the things that make him human, that which the Order had taught him to repress. Yet he does this without losing the core positive teachings of the Jedi, instead learning to follow the true ways of their predecessors rather than the shallow, rigid, close-minded thinking that the modern Jedi Order had fallen into.

He finds sanctuary and closure in neither violence nor stoicism, but in the arms of his family and the love he feels for them, eventually facing and defeating individuals that the system failed, allowing him to learn from their mistakes as well. He discovers new ways of viewing the world yet retains his own self.

In the end, despite loss and struggle, he regains his faith in the Force and what it really means to be a Jedi, beginning his journey of healing and forging a meaningful life even with knowledge that the dark times persist, accepting that he cannot single-handedly change the world only do what he can, as well as that he cannot fight hatred with hatred, only with love, and that even if the times ahead will be full of challenge and hardship, life is still worth living and freedom is still worth fighting for.

Me: 🫠

You know what? I’m tired of phrasing it any more nicely than this: 

If you think the premeditated and near-complete destruction of an entire groupe of people and the hunting down of any survivors and sympathizers (including children and the elderly) by stormtroopers was meant to be a commentary on the people who got exterminated rather than the guys commanding the stormtroopers, you are, in fact, not thinking. 

least favourite kind of character

Would all these people who want the Jedi to be lavished in praise and positively be an example of bad media literacy?

No. The "I want the Jedi to be the quintessential good guys" crowd isn't illiterate. "Bad media literacy" doesn't really exist most of the time, it's just a buzzword to say "You had a different take than me."

While it is true that "The Jedi Are Flawed" is as essential a theme to Star Wars as "Career Politicians Bad", the thing about the "Pro Jedi Order, no criticism allowed, they're perfect" crowd isn't that they don't get that, they just want it a different way.

There's always been this perception of Star Wars as having the most binary morality that ever binaried, where the Jedi are Superman and the Sith are Red Skull, and that's never really been true. The Jedi are subtly criticized in every single work of Star Wars media. The Jedi have never been the unquestioned good guys in Star Wars. They're nominally good, but they're the pinnacle of Lawful Neutral at least on the Council level.

The people who are "pro Jedi Order" want them to be the unquestioned Lawful Good guys though. It's what they want Star Wars to be. They don't want Star Wars to be closer to KOTOR 2. They don't want that nuance of morality. They want all the criticisms of the Jedi to come entirely from the mouths of the spooky boys who wear black and red so you know they're evil.

And that's a perfectly fine thing to want. I don't think they're ever really going to get it, it's like wanting Star Trek to not be political, but wanting that in and of itself isn't a problem.

There's also the fact that discourse is increasingly a zero-sum game. So if you think the Jedi are flawed and deserve criticism, people take that as you saying they deserved to get massacred and that the Sith are right about everything. Which is ridiculous.

That's just what internet discourse is. That's just what discourse becomes when you're defending a position in a work that the work isn't already defending for you.

I truly cannot fathom how anyone could watch Star Wars and come away thinking that the Jedi did nothing wrong/that their philosophy was correct. Like did you even watch Return of the Jedi? If the Jedi had had their way, Luke would have killed his own father. The entire point of Star Wars was that the Jedi were very wrong and flawed.

Mace Windu gets all the hate for everything that was wrong with the Jedi Order during the time of the Republic’s fall when there is a certain little old green frog that is literally right there that should be getting some of not more of the blame…but if I speak

not pro jedi, not pro sith, but a secret third thing

Anakin & Trauma

So there´s this talk around saying that being part of the Jedi Order was akin to taking therapy and that it was Anakin the one who didn´t respond well to therapy and I honestly don´t know where to begin because this is honestly false and is victim blaming.

The Jedi Order´s Philosophy on it´s own isn´t a therapy, not even real world buddhism from which George Lucas took some narrative clues is a therapy, it is a way of life, yes, a philosophy under which it´s members WILLINGLY become a part of it but this isn´t a therapy.

They don´t address trauma, they don´t address anxiety, they don´t address suicidal ideation, etc.

In fact, while Lucas took some narrative clues from real world buddhism, we can´t truly say in good faith the Jedi Order works like real world buddhism, beggining with the fact that they take away choice from their members, they are brought too young into the fold to make a real decision over if they want to become part of their order or not, they take away their parents and cut all connections forever, that doesn´t happen in buddhism, they are openly an armed part of the state even if their functions are diplomacy, buddhism isn´t part of any state , I could go on but I guess the idea is clear.

So blaming Anakin for not "responding well to therapy" isn´t just false, it´s victim blaming, it´s willingly ignoring the context of the story.

In the story the roots of Anakin´s trauma came from slavery and the forced separation from his mother, both situations that never were addressed by the Jedi Order or by Obi-Wan in Anakin´s training, they were openly suppresed while sending Anakin the message that he was the problem for caring and fearing for his mother´s life, his mother who was left alone with a bomb inside her body in a planet ran by the mafia, this isn´t therapy, this is gaslighting.

Wether the Jedi Council or Obi-Wan were aware of it, they willingly made Anakin doubt his own reality and made him take the blame for not taking well his separation from his mother and I don´t know you but if someone, anyone, told me I had to leave my mother behind as a slave with a bomb inside her body because their physophy said so and I was their chosen one so I have to obey them I would have punched them in the face and left to free my mom, chosen one prophecy and Jedi be damned but Anakin was a child, he didn´t have the emotional and verbal skills to even express how wrong all of this was and how much harm they were doing to him.

The signals were clear from the beggining, Obi-Wan noticed that Anakin didn´t have any friends in the Order, that he mostly expend his time with droids and it was the same even when he became an adult and a respected general, can you imagine the level of isolation Anakin had to felt living inside the Jedi Order, that he no longer could relate to the people around him because they saw him as a stranger and he saw them as strangers as well?, that he had to expend his time with droids? when he used to have many friends and acquitances and people who cared about him in his planet of origin despite the horrible reality that he was a slave?, do you believe it talks well about the Order the fact Anakin had better emotional balance and support network living as a slave on Tatooine but with friends and family than living as a member of the Jedi Order?

The Jedi Order were not a supporting network for Anakin, they could not be because their way of life and philosophy openly harmed Anakin, keep him from addressing his trauma, keep him from having comunication with his mother, keep him from learning to manage his emotions without suppresing them and openly shunned him for his past as a slave in current disney canon so don´t tell me this is how a supporting network works or that Anakin was at fault for all of this.

The only person close and interested enough in Anakin to notice the dissaster happening to Anakin´s mental state was freaking Sheev Palpatine, he inmediately noticed Anakin was going to grow up bitter and resentful of the Jedi Order given how they keep him separated from his mother, he noticed he needed a friend who didn´t talk about the Jedi code every five minutes, he noticed he needed a father figure because he never had a father and Obi-Wan actively refused to be one given his beliefs and phylosophy, too bad for Anakin that Palpatine was also a sith lord who planned on destroying his very sense of self and person so he could use his power, he saw all of this happening and let it happen because it helped his cause and he could be the cool parent who lets Anakin talk about his issues without jedi philosophy as he used to do on Tatooine with his Mom and his friends while also adding some psycological issues of self worth to Anakin´s trauma under the image of him caring for Anakin´s well being. Don´t get me started on the Jedi Order allowing this for the sake of keeping a good political relationship with the Chancellor, what´s a kid well being in comparision to a good relationship with the Senate after all but this is a rant for another day.

While Obi-Wan´s love and company could and did help to weather the worst of this, the fact Obi-Wan seemed to care first because of his promise to Qui-Gon, the fact that he didn´t care for Anakin for himself when all people need to be cared for themselves at least in their early years to grow up emotionally stable, need to be loved for themselves, not just for who they are to an institution or as a symbol like the chosen one, which the Jedi Council shunned and put in doubt from the beggining anyway, even if Obi-Wan himself tried to believe in that because his master cared for that stuff, by doing this Obi-Wan subconciously send Anakin the message he was only worth to the Order and to him because he was the chosen one, if he wasn´t then he would have been left a slave on Tatooine just like his mother was, which isn´t that far from reality, Qui-Gon only got interested in Anakin for his force sensitivity, not his kindness and generosity helping strangers when he didn´t have much himself and was a slave.

This truly makes me mad because doing this to a kid isn´t just cruel, it´s abuse be it blind on the Jedi Order´s part or willing abuse on Palpatine´s part, an injustice, a never addressed injustice and even the narrative tries not to tackle this in all i´ts intensity but this is why Lucas said that Anakin was a victim and sure the Jedi were also victims of Palpatine and Anakin by proxy during Order 66 but I think fandom needs to address more in good faith that Anakin himself was their victim first if not the entire Jedi Order (and Palpatine of course) of the adults who were in charge and supposely cared for him and truly didn´t, not in the way that truly matters.

So it is any surprise Anakin wanted to leave the Order to raise his child with Padmé? because honestly I believe that in his situation that was the healthiest decision he could make without completely cutting his ties to what he loved and respected of being a Jedi, so it´s tragic he didn´t get that opportunity because the other adult in his life decided he wanted him as his weapon and manipulated him by isolating him from all his loved ones into becoming exactly that.

I hate this meme so much. They act as is you leaving without any support system because all you have known in life is the Jedi Order is a good thing because the Jedi Order builds a statue of you. Look at how hard life became for Ahsoka when she left the Jedi Order. Do you think a statue is going to help her survive? The only reason why Count Dooku didn’t suffer financially is because he came from an aristocratic family. Others are not so lucky, some don’t even know about their family because the Jedi took them when they were a baby. If I was someone who had left the Jedi Order because I became disillusioned by it and now have struggle to survive, I would be insulted that the Jedi Order had built a statue of me instead of helping me find a way to survive outside of the order.

Some of the discussion that happens within the Star Wars fandom, particularly discussion of the Jedi, can be really upsetting to observe if you have certain disabilities. In fact, I’m having a hard time even liking the Jedi right now because I can’t help but associate them with some really ableist takes that I’ve seen in their defense.

Let me explain: a lot of people with certain disabilities (such as autism, ADHD, bipolar disorder, and C-PTSD) deal with something called emotion dysregulation, which means that you feel emotions more intensely than the average person and that this strong emotional state sticks around for far longer than it should. When you have emotional regulation issues, an event that might make somebody else a bit sad or mildly frustrated has the ability to put you out of commission for hours or even an entire day. Emotion dysregulation is very stigmatized, even in people who go out of their way to avoid harming people or lashing out while dealing with an episode. People with this specific issue are often told that they are “dramatic”, “attention seeking”, or “future abusers” for what amounts to an automatic emotional response that a person cannot control. This constant pushback forms a metaphorical blister that can easily be popped back open when you see anything that reminds you of what caused it in the first place.

Now, let’s move on to the Jedi. While it can be argued that their teachings were intended to instruct people to reign in their BEHAVIOR as a result of their emotions, several lines in the fist six movies sound an awful lot like they are condemning having negative emotions at all. Yoda literally tells both Luke and Anakin that emotions like fear and anger BY THEMSELVES are of the Dark Side, and these lines were very difficult for a lot of people who have dealt with trauma, neurodivergence, or other issues that cause “big emotions”. These lines, intentionally or not, mirror a lot of the things that real people have said to those of us dealing with emotion dysregulation, and people have every right to talk about this in their own spaces unmolested.

Some of the defenses of the Jedi in the context of how they are instructed to deal with their emotions come off as dismissive at best and ableist at worst. Yes, if you dig through Star Wars canon enough, you can find portrayals of the Jedi and emotions that point to a more nuanced view where choices and actions are the source of evil rather than the emotions, but this does not change the fact that the Yoda lines and other emotionally repressive applications of the Jedi Code very much exist in parts of canon. A person who found the emotionally repressive variant of Jedi teachings to be upsetting due to a disability will likely feel as though you are trying to dismiss their feelings and belittle them if you “correct” them for “misinterpretation of the Jedi”. I get that it sucks to see people bash your blorbos, but if someone is doing it because they are dealing with something IRL like trauma or ableism, then it’s best not to engage and just let that person work through it.

I have also seen people who are defending the Jedi make statements that outright attack people for having intense emotions. I remember a take that basically said that you were a baby or a psychopath if you found the Jedi code regarding emotions to be “too hard”. I’ve seen people dismiss the trauma that Anakin went through and its possible effect on how he reacted to some aspects of the Jedi order in a way that mirrors the invalidation that those of us with emotional regulation issues have experienced for being “too much” for all of our lives. Yes, it is important to avoid harming others when you are in a bad place, and no Anakin was not a great person, but so many of these takes are devoid enough of nuance that they read as if they are just trashing people who have “too many”emotions.

Feel free to defend your favorite characters all that you would like, but please spare a thought for those of us who might not dig everything about them for reasons connected to disability and trauma. The Jedi aren’t real, but we very much are.

i think the Jedi-Positive and Jedi-Critical stances can be summed up on whether you value authorial intent or authorial execution.

Most of the Jedi-Positive people I follow quote George Lucas and director commentaries to prove their points, as well as utilize analyses from others at LucasFilm that have to keep the general status quo. It's all based on what Lucas was trying to portray, while ignoring the product in execution.

The Jedi-Critical stance tends to look at the prequel execution, and they question the obvious uncomfortable moments that have real-life parallels to atrocities. They tend to be more Legends fans, whose writers actually delved into the terrifying implications. It's all on criticizing execution while disregarding intent.

Like, take the argument about Jedi children. A Jedi-Positive person would argue that all the children are all given up with consent from their parents; this is what I am sure Lucas was intending to portray. A Jedi-Critical person will look at this and go "wait. how much 'consent' was in this encounter? the government can legally take these kids and have a representative show up to a farmer's house and tell the farmer they can technically say no? that is some bullshit." And there is real-life evidence for this. It's more on the execution.

Or the argument about love. Jedi-Positive people turn to Lucas's interview to show that they really meant it in the Buddhist sense, and if you value intent that works. Jedi-Critical people would argue that the marketing states that the Jedi cannot love, and nothing in the movies states that the Jedi meant non-toxic love when they eschew attachments.

They're both valid positions, but I think a lot of fandom brutality comes from not understanding either view, or demeaning one view in favor of another. It's perfectly acceptable to value one over the other.

Masterlist of all my anti-Jedi posts

The Meta:

The divide between Prequels era fans Here

The way you take the story depends on how you look at it Here

The Jedi's downfall is a tragedy and this inevitable and that doesn't mean I support genocide wtf??? Here

The Clone Wars both wants the Jedi to be unquestionably good and be three dimensional and these things conflict Here

The Republic and the Jedi are shown to have fallen in the canon but the audience overlooks it cause the Separatists are the bad guys Here

Why are we treating the massacre of the Tusken Raiders so lightly???? Here

The Jedi being the issue:

The Jedi Order is itself flawed Here

The Jedi's actions are the issue, it doesn't actually matter how they internally handle their emotions in the face of those actions Here

The Jedi encourage emotional repression, thanks Here

My issue with the Jedi's attitude towards attachment Here

The Jedi aren't impartial they just don't care Here

The Jedi having all the force sensitive kids is weird actually Here

The Clone issue:

The clones are slaves and we need to acknowledge that Here

On a similar note, there is no AU where the clones have free will that is consistent with the canon Here

Anakin:

Anakin's fears are valid actually Here

How can Anakin be too old to become a Jedi, how is this not alarming to you Here

So do you even like the Jedi?

Liking the Jedi involves being critical of them. If you like the Jedi uncritically, you weren't paying attention.

The main plot of Return of the Jedi involves Yoda saying "The dark side permanently corrupts you" and Luke proving Yoda wrong. The follies of the Jedi Order are baked into the story.

Do you know how many entries in Star Wars present the Jedi Order is undeserving of criticism?

Zero.

The Jedi are noble and want to help people. They are the mediators and negotiators of the galaxy, and soldiers when necessary. But they are also arrogant to a fault, unwilling to entertain anything outside their interpretation of the Jedi Code, quick to violence where their religious rivals are concerned, and possess a level of state power that makes the Vatican look like a treehouse club.

A New Hope, Obi Wan says "The Jedi were the guardians of peace and justice" and implicitly says they failed to do that entirely by the fact that the Empire is terrorizing the Galaxy and the Jedi are nowhere to be seen.

Their failure is written across the story.

It's easy to like the Jedi. I like the Jedi. The Jedi are cool. It's very difficult to like the Jedi uncritically.

Shit like this?

This is what "no media literacy" looks like. It's also just boring. The idea that several entire organizations (one of which is literally just an entire race) are all hyper-theatrical chaotic evil murderhobos with no legitimate grievances with the actions of the Jedi and the Republic is just so fucking boring as a concept.

Imagine if someone said that about the Catholic Church in real life?

It's one thing for a jedi apologist to oddly claim Slick was lying about wanting freedom and lying that the Jedi "kept [his] brothers enslaved", it's another for that someone to become increasingly hostile with their reblogs and tags just because others like me disagree as well as misrepresenting, dismissing and even calling other people's opinions "propaganda" like we're the Kremlin.

Hmm. My 'bad' I dared stumble on their blog in my feed and disagree with them on a post or two by saying I felt the Jedi could have done more for the clone troopers and Ahsoka in canon, which they started aggressively responding to weeks later.

But, the crowning moment of toxicity? They compared my point that I can criticise the Jedi Order, their actions and still enjoy Jedi characters while still acknowledging their flaws... to being 'homophobic', right during Pride Month. Since I'm gay, that is a gross tactic I can't abide.

Just great. Disingenuously using real-life, minority groups as a meat shield for your fictional, magical lightsaber favs really shows your priorities in life. Overzealous stans, whatever fictional character or group you're stanning, stop using real minority groups as meat shields to protect your feelings and your favourite characters from criticism.