In the scene when Padme falls off the ship, Obi Wan could have at least called someone to help her. Not just leave her there to die. I get that they had to follow Dooku, but they still could have made attempts to help Padme. I don't believe that Padme would have simply continued on with Anakin.
shareYes. He is. Jedi are supposed to be heartless, it's what they're about. They're conditioned from early childhood to think of The Greater Good and ignore the feelings of individuals, and stifle their own feelings towards other individuals.
While I have issues with this, and think that bringing up human beings like this is a form of extreme psychological abuse (I can't speak to other species), the Jedi do have a bit of a point. To really achieve The Greater Good on a large scale you can't pay too much attention to the feelings of individuals, and if you want to see what happens when you try to base your politics on placating the feelings of individuals look at today's left-wing lunatic fringe, the "SJW" nitwits. They want to tear down anything that hurts the feelings of the people they care about, even though they have nothing to take the place of whatever institution they are attacking.
And no, I'm not a right-wing troll, I'm a life-long Old Leftie myself. But the intelligent kind, the kind that sees the big picture, and who has an overriding philosophy blah blah.
I know what you mean in that the Jedi believe in not letting personal feelings get in the way of your objective, but I don't believe you can live your life not feeling. I feel like Star Wars gives the message that by feeling too much, you end up like Anakin. Why can't you do the greater good and let your feelings be your strength in achieving that?
shareWARNING: You have got me started!
Okay, healthy and stable human beings are meant to both have feelings for others, and to see the big picture. They are meant to start life by forming profound attachments to their parents and other people close to them, and as they grow wise through education and/or life experience, to see the big picture and to be able to balance the needs of the individual against the needs of the society. The Jedi we see in the prequel films have deliberately interrupted that normal psychological growth in the members they bring up from early childhood, teaching them to ignore the feelings of individuals including themselves, which may make them a force for good in society overall... but which makes them profoundly and intentionally dysfunctional human beings (and probably other species as well). In Anakin we see what happens when the process of destroying the normal human capacity to love doesn't work, the capacity to love remains along with all the dysfunction.
I really dislike the Jedi of the prequels, they're a profoundly fucked-up society, and I think it was Lucas's intent to show them as a hidebound old institution so bound by its ridiculous rules and inner dysfunction that it was already on the verge of falling apart from internal dysfunction when it fell to attack. I mean, the Jedi can't have always have been inhumane and anti-emotion, I think they got that way over the ages, gradually forbidding their members more and more things as they tried to correct past mistakes, until finally they got to the point of forbidding their knights any feeling at all, even if they had to abuse them from early childhood to make them that way. But I'm the only one in the fandom that thinks so, everyone else disagrees when post stuff like this.
That's what I mean. If you feel nothing at all, you become a heartless monster.
shareObi-Wan spent twenty years being trained to be a heartless monster, and it took. Even though Padme was his sibling-in-arms by that point and seemed to have become his friend, he ignored her fall because helping her would have interfered with The Greater Good. Later in life he told Luke some whopping lies about his father in order to gain his allegiance on the spot, and finally, he sacrificed his own life for The Greater Good, when Luke saw Vader kill Obi-Wan his loyalty to the Rebellion was assured. Obi-Wan was like Dumbledore, not nearly as nice and fuzzy as he seemed, he was a schemer who used an innocent hero to his own ends.
Of course, Obi-Wan's one act that was motivated by personal feeling, his failure to kill the defeated Anakin on the lava planet, ended up being indirectly responsible for the death of Palpatine and the fall of the Galactic Empire. That was deliberate.
I feel like Obi Wan was also responsible for Padme's death in that when Anakin saw Obi Wan come out of the ship on the lava planet and assumed that Padme sent him there to kill him, Obi Wan should have clarified that Padme had no idea. But it's like because he didn't want to get involved, he didn't bother. Plus, he could have stopped Anakin from choking Padme besides simply saying "let her go."
sharemaybe he knew she had resourceful ways. she seems to be on top of things. but i agree.
shareThe "Jedi not getting emotionally involved" thing has been something of a controversy among fans for ages. They think it's an interpretation by George Lucas (who had a really crappy love life and got divorced, I think twice) trying to say love and marriage will only lead to ruin, which is mean and not true on a lot of levels. I don't think it's fair for Jedi to ignore their feelings, and it's not fair that they would "go to the dark side" if they got romantically involved with anyone.
The trouble is, the Jedi are supposed to be servants of the Republic, their lives dedicated to keeping the peace and defending against evil. It kinda goes against human (or sentient alien) nature to totally turn off one's emotions and focus on the greater good, at the expense of even one life.
It's interesting how the Jedi viewed training and emotional attachments at this time in Galactic History. I remember reading [and thinking how stupid it was] that they began training at 6 months old. 6 months....when you're still a baby..... I mean, that setup basically screws over anyone older than 1 who might have discovered their Force Sensitivity later in life. They should be trained regardless of age.
The online game, Star Wars the Old Republic, shows a slightly more relaxed view the Jedi Order had in recruiting 3,700 years before "The Phantom Menace." In the Old Republic era, they didn't keep as close track of people born with Force Powers, and usually would just bring them in to be trained the moment one of their Jedi noticed the force-user. It wasn't unusual to bring in teenagers or people as old as 40 to the Jedi Temple on Tython (the Order had set up shop there for safety reasons; long story). Granted, the established Jedi warriors did not approve of or sanction their members marrying anybody, even back then, but Jedi falling in love and marrying was still done in secret, just like with Anakin and Padmé.
You're right. I can't believe a film series as possible as this one would end send that kind of message.
share"The online game, Star Wars the Old Republic, shows a slightly more relaxed view the Jedi Order had in recruiting 3,700 years before "The Phantom Menace.""
Thank you, that actually backs up my supposition that the Jedi weren't always as inhumane as they were in the prequels. Institutions do tend to get more rule-bound and regulated over time, and the Jedi are very, very old.
And I haven't done any of the games and won't until I retire, so I appreciate any opportunity to glean the bits of canon therein from other fans. Thanks.
Edit: Regarding how some fans think that the message of the prequels is that love and marriage are toxic, well, the fandom does contain a certain number of members who want to hear that. Don't get me started.