Let's Talk About How the Jedi are Villains

[ginneonthursday]

I don’t know man. Sith have real evil-sounding names.

[ysrthgrathe]

Not only arrest. Mace Windu acutally says: &quotHe’s too dangerous to be kept alive!&quot
Very constitutional…

[gillsing]

“Always two there are, no more, no less. A master and an apprentice.”

Easy enough to deduce that the master ordered the apprentice to kill the Jedi in Episode 1. And thus when Palpatine turns out to be the other Sith, he becomes a suspect of conspiracy to commit murder.

And are we really sure it’s not illegal to be a Sith? If I lived in the Star Wars universe, I’d probably want it to be illegal to use the dark side of the Force to create a galactic police state. Seems quite reasonable that Sith might have been outlawed in the old republic, and that a story for children didn’t bother going into the legalities.

[suinicide]

Of course we only see the sith through the lens of the Jedi, a fanatical religious group above the law, bent on the extinction of the sith.

[anchovies]

The real villain in Revenge of the Sith is severely inadequate women’s healthcare.

[spoilsport]

@Drake Dynamo

Alright, let’s talk about how the Jedi are the real villains of Revenge of the Sith. First off, they are completely in the wrong when they go to arrest then-Chancellor Palpatine. Because when you think about it, they had no evidence that he had done anything wrong- the only thing they knew for sure was that he was a Sith. And technically, there’s nothing illegal or wrong about being a Sith, other than that it goes against the Jedi ideology.

Except for that whole &quotmanufactured a Galactic Civil War, overturning democracy with mind-control super-powers and bureaucratic emergency war powers&quot thing. Small potatoes!

So what effectively happened when Mace Windu went to arrest Palpatine was a group of religious fanatics, with no legal authority,

Except the Republic had relied on Jedi for over a thousand years as the &quotkeepers of peace and justice&quot, suggesting a fatal flaw not merely in the bureaucracy, but the absence of a developed leagal system and national police in the Republic: the Jedi were not the only ones to grow complacent in the absence of large-scale conflict. The first party of (six?) Jedi had been cut down: Palapatine was going to be arrested until he displayed sufficient prowess to be a danger even to Jedi in numbers (in addition to having turned the Republic Courts over his knee).

… tried to kidnap the democratically elected leader of the galaxy for holding different religious views from them.

Except for that &quotkilled thousands of clone soldiers in a manufactured war that has impacted the galaxy at large&quot thing. Clearly the Republic doesn’t have a functional government at that point (the more-or-less mind-controlled Senate would never vote No Confidence in Palpatine by the time the Jedi work out are told that he’s the BBEG.)

No one wonder no one objected to the cleansing of the Jedi Temple: it was a breeding ground for radicals.

Into killing children, much? &quotOh, you aren’t going to kow-tow to Palpatine? You’re going to be reassigned to a pine box (or hole in the ground).&quot

Furthermore, the Jedi were clear hypocrites. Their job was to keep the peace of the galaxy and not to intervene. Yet when a group of star systems sought to leave and form their own government (note, they were not annexing people, they merely wanted to leave, hence their name &quotthe Confederacy of Independent Systems&quot), the Jedi decided it was appropriate to take command of entire armies and lead them into battle because they were fighting robots; as if the lack of living combatants made their blatant disregard of their creed acceptable.

Yeah, that whole Naboo Blockade thing was just a weekend joy-ride (also killing many off-screen), and the battle droids never invaded other systems throughout the Clone Wars, or arrested and attempted to execute investigators (Jedi) or Senators of the Republic illegally, while being led by the nose by the apprentice Sith (Dooku) into open war with the Republic. Instead of scooting along and &quotmaking peace&quot in their brand new Confederacy.

Just think about it from the perspective of a citizen of the CIS: here you have a government you want to leave sending in armies led by religious fanatics to oppress you.

Except that the crowd attending the execution was permitted to flee, they were not cut down; they were not even detained. The clone army (built in secret by Palpatine, to hand to the Jedi, when they reached that part of his plan) was fighting a droid army. Hells, if the droid army hadn’t been called into action, the entire situation could have been resolved without further bloodshed: Windu didn’t start by cutting off Jango’s head, he held him at lightsabre-point (effectively &quotyou are under arrest, do not resist.&quot)

I would certainly be afraid of a government that did that. The Jedi’s job was to be peacekeepers- they should have acted as mediators between the CIS and the Republic,

Yeah, except this is exactly what Obi-Wan was doing: investigating the motive behind the Separatists and finding Sith manipulation, ten years after barely surviving the last Sith manipulation of hostilities (Naboo). Obi-Wan didn’t leap to cut Dooku down, quite the opposite: Dooku had Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Senator Amidala prepared for summary execution. Oh, yeah, and that part where Palpatine calls for war on the Senate floor against the Separatists with the very army(ies) he had made for the Civil War in the first place just to kill-off the Jedi.

but no, they decided to go to war, because one of the leaders of the CIS, Count Dooku, was also of the opposing religious philosophy. I’m sorry, but I can no longer stand by the labeling of the Sith and the CIS as the villains- the Jedi were the hypocrites and aggressors.

Perhaps you missed the key factors: Palapatine had been impairing the Jedi ability to foresee trouble (until it was on them) and even Yoda recognized that the Jedi were on the defensive and had been painted into a war by Palpatine (by mid-TCW). So the Jedi should give up? Let Palapatine execute every one of them (including younglings) because of Palpatine’s Machiavellian quest for power and revenge? The Republic should quietly be manipulated into an Empire under a genocidal cracker-box who is willing to employ planet-destroying weapons against under-funded, under-staffed freedom fighters (yes, I have come to understand you’d love to label them &quotterrorists&quot, it fits your narrative) who wish to restore democracy to the former Republic? Palpatine recognizes and rewards your devotion to the cause. Wanna be a planetary governor? There are some non-human worlds that need to be stomped on in the Galactic Empire. Because they aren’t human. And I understand the Senate won’t be around forever…

Because otherwise, the Jedi were out peaceably resolving (manufactured) trade disputes, chasing down (politically-motivated) assassins, and otherwise being the FBI/Secret Service IN SPAAAAACE! until Palpatine had them spoon-fed his Unstoppable Plan for Galactic Domination™.

[spoilsport]

@suinicide

Of course we only see the sith through the lens of the Jedi, a fanatical religious group above the law, bent on the extinction of the sith.

Actually, if you were watching the same movies:

1. Jedi envoys sent to peacefully resolve the trade dispute ordered by Palpatine himself to be executed
2. rounding up Naboo citizens and placing them in camps where they die off-screen, just to bump Valorum and generate sympathy in the Senate to grab the big chair (step 2 in the Plan for Galactic Domination™)
3. Sending an assassin after the democratically-elected Queen of the Naboo
   This isn’t just a catchy tv-ad campaign, or the usual quid pro quo and alliances or support-building in government.
   Ok, that’s 40 minutes into just the first Episode… Also not subject to &quotJedi-colored glasses&quot.

Edit: At this point in history, the Sith are presumed extinct for over a thousand years, the last time the Sith nearly burned the Galaxy to dust. Not like the Jedi are looking for Sith to exterminate.
edited by Spoilsport on 4/25/2017

[spoilsport]

:)

All the EU (Legends now?) stuff actually made Windu a little to close to falling to the Dark Side (something about his fighting style drawing on suspiciously-sounding-like-the-Dark-Side.) But the whole reveal/resolution was a bit rushed IMO. Not like &quotDeathly Hallows&quot rushed, but time-crunched.

Did the Jedi Order grow fat and complacent over a thousand years? Yes
Did the Republic become mired in bureaucracy and ripe for take-over? Clearly.
Was the Jedi Order manipulated &quotmasterfully&quot by Palpatine, both as an institution and individually? Certainly (and it didn’t help that he was concealed from them as well: they didn’t know they were in his game as pawns.)
Are the Jedi the &quotbad guys&quot? Not if you believe the author.
Not great world-building for the alien-on-the-street view of it all, though.

There would have been other avenues for &quotouting&quot the Jedi: &quotThe clone army was commissioned by a Jedi, didn’t you hear? Master Sifo Dyas! Why would they do that unless they knew the war was coming? And Jedi were involved in that thing at Naboo years ago? THEY MANIPULATED THE WHOLE THING!&quot

Meh.

Edit: stupid typos!
edited by Spoilsport on 4/25/2017

[johnmoose]

…I found it funny enough. I assumed this was just an extension of the old joke about the original trilogy being about a youth who gets radicalised when he loses his family in an airstrike, joins a religious cult and kills countless lives in a terrorist attack, this being a rather ironic good guy for an American movie. I might be wrong on this, but I don’t think this thread was meant as some cutting witticism about current political events. Star Wars is enjoyable fiction, but it tends to get weird when you try to draw analogues between it and the real world, which some fans find rather funny. Sometimes a fan theory is just a fan theory.

[spoilsport]

DD, I take all my fandoms (somewhat) seriously when they are being misrepresented! If I didn’t, I’d have nothing to complain pointlessly about! :) <- note explicit designation as joke

[nathanielsterben]

when i saw this it reminded me of a youtube video about how destroying the death star literally destroyed the economy of the entire galaxy, if you are interested in the video you can see it here

[scienceandponies]

Considering the Sith pastime of forming empires to grind anyone and everyone under their heel and trying to topple the Republic with wars that sow unimaginable devastation across the galaxy, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if there were still a few anti-sith laws hanging around on the books somewhere from before they were all supposedly wiped out 1000 years ago.

Also, all those assassinations and secretly controlling both sides of the war might be legally actionable.