The true responsibility of the Jedi

Star Wars is the story of the rise and fall of an Empire. It is the story of how damaging is the manipulative force of evil. It is the story of how dangerous is being victims of your own fears.

In the words of George Lucas in an interview:

It is about good and evil... in us. [...] Watch out, because there are people out there who don't play by the rules and if you are not careful you are going to lose all your freedom. At the same time, those people not playing by the rules, because they are selfish and greedy, turn themselves into evil people who don't care about the others.

The universality of this message is one of the main reasons why I love Star Wars since I was a little kid, the reason why, to some extent, I always identify myself with the rebellion and the Jedi. 

However, growing up is mainly about improving yourself and challenging your own beliefs. Therefore, this is the post where I will try to make sense to a sensation, to what was a hidden message (hidden to me, maybe it was clear to all of you and you didn't know how to tell me). The sensation is the following: it is true that there is an amazing set of villains that do awful things across the Galaxy, but can we take into account the true responsibility of the Jedi? I believe that the answer to this question will have some of the universality that characterizes Star Wars and, thus, it is worth sharing.

The more I think about it, the more I come close to the conclusion that the Jedi are the main responsible for the rise of the Empire. My reasoning is three-folded.

First, the Jedi lifestyle. The Jedi are peacekeepers, they are a Republic's institution and, thanks to their power and wisdom, they help the Senate to find solutions to many issues. For this reason, as Qui-Gon Jinn noticed, it is in the Outer Rim territories that a Jedi has a true purpose. However, every time the great majority of Jedi were in Coruscant, the very center of the Galaxy. In being so focused in interacting with the Senate, the Jedi overlooked the situation in the Outer Rim where the separatists gained power until they rebelled.

Moreover, along the saga is very often reminded that a Jedi has to focus on the moment, without being distracted by the future (like Yoda says in Ep. V). It is also true that a Jedi has to be mindful of the future, but not at the expense of the moment (Qui-Gon quoting Yoda, Ep. I). It is then easy to imagine how easy was for the Sith Lord to distract the entire Jedi Council by simply making something else happening in front of them. Even when Count Dooku in Ep. II explains Obi-Wan that the Republic is under the control of the Sith Lord, that they are not seeing what is really going on, and that everything is connected to the political movements happened in Ep. I, they don't find the lucidity of analyzing such reveal and proceed blessed in their clouded judgment.

The situation is then exasperated by the military role the Jedi assumed during the Clone Wars. Even the (at the time) general Tarkin noticed how unfit the Jedi, peacekeepers by definition, were for such a role (Clone Wars, s03e09). The danger of such position was evident by the constant concern to their clouded judgment and, as we saw at the end of the fifth season of the Clone Wars, a widespread hostility towards the general of a very painful war. It was even too easy to make the population believe to the betrayal of the Jedi, once the purge started.

A second criticality: the Jedi were very naive to face the creation of the clones' army. The hints that the clones were the crucial point of the plot were all over the place. They find out that Kamino was erased from the archive and that only a Jedi could have done it. The investigation quickly leads to Sifo-Dyas, a Jedi dead over 10 years before (i.e. when the Chancellor began his office) that is allegedly responsible for the creation of the army. They decide to ignore the fact that an army was created for the Republic way before the moment it was needed and simply put themselves at its lead. 

Then we come to the sixth season of this beloved animated series. In the first episode, a clone goes crazy and executes, cold-blooded, a Jedi. From now on, the hints that something is really wrong and they really don't realize what is going on just pile up. First, the separatists interfere with the investigation and then they find proof of a conspiracy started even before the war. The constant involvement of the Supreme Chancellor in an investigation that yields no conclusive result would have been enough to raise some green eyebrow, but something else catches their attention.

In the last arc of the series, the Jedi follows a trail connected to the Sifo-Dyas death (s06e10). It is now that the Jedi council finds out that someone was acting in the name of an already deceased Sifo-Dyas. Right after that, Count Dooku shows up revealing his identity as Lord Tyranus and killing all the witnesses. Even after this sloppy investigation, the Jedi Council comes to the truth: their enemy created the clones' army. They decide to keep it secret; right after that, Yoda leaves for a journey to deepen his understanding of the Force, the Chancellor gets kidnapped, and the reveal leads to no precautionary measure.

At last, Anakin. The Jedi can perceive the thoughts of other living creatures, can feel their emotions. The first time Anakin stands in front of the Council (Ep. I), they feel his fear. In Episode II, Yoda finds suspicious that Palpatine is trying to push the young Skywalker closer and closer to Padme but, although he was recognizing that the Dark Side was clouding his vision and recognizes the arrogance in Anakin, just let this dangerous union happen.

It is not that Yoda is unable to understand the feelings of the troubled Jedi. He feels his pain when he slaughtered like animals the Tusken Raiders on Tatooine. However, once he is interrogating Anakin on that matter, he can't feel he is lying. Essentially everyone around the young Skywalker knows that he is not the Jedi he was supposed to be, including Padme, Count Dooku and, since a long time (see the comic book Obi-Wan & Anakin), the supreme Chancellor Palpatine. The naivety on the personal development of Anakin allowed the Sith to have their most powerful allied, an allied that killed every Jedi in the Temple.

In conclusion, the Jedi are devoted to the protection of all living creatures and that's admirable. However, they translated their vocation into a blind chase for inequality, at the heavy expenses of their perception of a bigger picture. This is the reason why they were so easily manipulated, distracted and, ultimately, killed. 

Moreover, their political (and lately military) role compromised their original mission. The inability of recognizing their own limits pushed them deeper and deeper into the game of the evil forces until the Jedi Council itself became an institution simply afraid of losing its power. This is the true reason why they kept the truth on the clones hidden: because, after proving themselves inadequate for the military roles during the war, such revelation would have compromised the view of the political forces about their wisdom. It is then (in the episode mentioned) that the Jedi stopped being victims of a clever plot and became actors in it instead.

The responsibility for the fall of the Republic is thus of the evil forces AND of those that put themselves in the position of defending the democracy, but fell short in recognizing their inability and thus became more worried about keeping their position rather than stepping aside and letting someone else taking care of it.

On this point of view, we can read again the words of George Lucas and identify who else was running their life in a selfish way, thinking they were doing some good when they weren't.

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