How Yoda made Anakin feel through the years
[Side note: this is more specific version of How Jedi made Anakin Skywalker feel through the years. I focused only on star wars novels I had at hands, so it’s more brief overview than real analysis]
Rogue Planet:
“You seem to be ganging up on this boy [Anakin].”
“It could be worse,” Mace said. “Most of the Council are away today. Yoda would be much harsher-”
“That big-eared tree stump knows nothing about human children. And for that matter, neither do you.
[Thracia Cho Leem standing up for 12-years old Anakin]
The Clone Wars:
Yoda fixed him with a critical stare. “Trouble you have with your new Padawan, I hear.”
“I was explaining the situation to Master Yoda,” Kenobi said.
“If not ready for the responsibility of a Padawan you are, then perhaps to Obi-Wan she should go …”
Anakin didn’t take kindly to those kinds of psychological games, not even from Master Yoda - especially from him.
Remember me, Master? The Chosen One? The one you didn’t want to train?
“There are no problems, Master,” he said calmly. “Who could possibly make such a far-reaching judgment about a youngling’s future in such a short time, anyway? That would be rash. Unfair, even. It’s our duty to nurture talent and support it.”
If Yoda felt the barbs in Anakin’s comment, he didn’t show any reaction. “Mature your judgment is becoming. Perhaps teach you she will, as much as you teach her.”
Anakin bit back a riposte, because he would not rise to the bait. He bowed instead. “I shall do my utmost, Master.”
“Then go with you she will, to the Teth system.”
Anakin felt he was walking into something set up for him. Did you know this was coming, Obi-Wan? No, he wouldn’t show dissent. “Has the fighting spread that far? I didn’t think the Separatist army had any presence there.”
“No army. But kidnapped, Jabba the Hutt’s son has been.”
It took a couple of seconds to sink in. He couldn’t hide his disgust, not completely anyway. “You want me to rescue a Hutt?”
It was a test. It had to be. However much it rankled, Anakin was determined to pass it.
Kenobi dived in immediately. “We need Jabba’s backing to fight this war, Anakin. If we can’t use Hutt-controlled routes, we can’t fight in the Outer Rim. It’s that simple. I’m going to negotiate with Jabba while you retrieve the hostage.”
“Hostage …”
“His baby son. Rotta.”
Anakin wondered whether it was expedience, simple logic - both he and Kenobi spoke Huttese and were experienced in covert missions - or some exercise in character building. Yoda knew Anakin’s past, that he and his mother had been slaves of a Hutt. Jabba raked off a cut from the slave trade, too, so he was personally connected to Anakin’s boyhood misery, and even his mother’s ultimate fate. Callous didn’t begin to cover it.
Anakin bowed and walked away with as much serenity as he could muster. He didn’t want the Masters knowing the task had hit a raw nerve. He slipped into a machinery space off the docking bay lor a little privacy, sent a message to Padme to let her know he was fine and that he missed her-no mention of close calls with collapsing walls, or crazy Padawans-and centered himself again.
I’m not a kid. I shouldn’t be feeling like this. It’s not the Jedi way. Maybe Yoda was right; I was too old to train. I can’t be like them, all serene and unfeeling.
So the Jedi Council can pull out all the stops for a Hutt criminal when it suits them.
And they send me.
Is Master Yoda trying to teach me a lesson about submission to the will of the Force? Does he even remember how I came to be a Jedi?
Anakin wondered just how good, how clever, how brave he’d have to be to get any acknowledgment from the Jedi Masters. He didn’t serve for prizes; he served because Qui-Gon Jinn believed he had a destiny, and he needed to know what that was to make sense of the pain and loss in his life. But he knew as surely as he knew anything that his troops liked him and cared if he lived or died, and that Kenobi did his best to make up for the sheer … dislocation Anakin felt at being absorbed into this Jedi world of no families, no loves, and no passions.
One day, I must thank Master Yoda and the Jedi Council for contributing so generously to our cause. You would think they would take better care of their Chosen One. But all they seem to do, from what I hear-and I hear a great deal-is to frustrate and alienate young Skywalker. I believe they’re storing up trouble for themselves.
[Darth Sidious, better known as Chancellor Palpatine, to Count Dooku]
[TCW] GAMBIT: Stealth
“For the Kothlis engagement much praise have you earned,” said Yoda. “Save Obi-Wan and your Padawan you did, as well as the spynet facility.”
Praise from Yoda was rare. He should be thrilled… but he wasn’t. Because I’m tired? Or because it’s too little, too late?
Yoda nodded. “Good night, young Skywalker.”
But after taking a couple of steps toward the refuse station he hesitated. Go on. You might as well. You might not get another chance. He turned back. “Okay. Obi-Wan’ll kill me for saying this but I don’t care. Master Yoda…”
Yoda’s luminous eyes, which so often seemed disapproving, warmed. “Worry not for Obi-Wan, young Anakin. This night he spends in the Halls of Healing. Deep, untroubled sleep he requires and deep, untroubled sleep he shall have.”
“No kidding,” he said, impressed despite himself. “How did you manage that?”
“After nine hundred years a few tricks for dealing with wayward young Jedi have I learned,” said Yoda, close to outright amusement. “Forget that you should not, hmmm?”
It wasn’t often he and Yoda shared a joke.
“Yes, Master. Thank you. But that doesn’t tell me about Obi-Wan.”
Yoda retrieved his gimer stick and hopped to the ground. “Observant you are, young Skywalker,” he said, large eyes still half lidded in that inscrutable way of his. “Sleep well. Weary also are you. Mindful of that you must be.”
Anakin watched the ancient Jedi tap-tap-tap his way out of the dining hall.
So, what… was that a yes? A no? Or a work it out for yourself?
Revenge of the Sith:
“He’d been surprised by how graciously the ancient Jedi Master had invited him into his quarters, and by how patiently Yoda had listened to his stumbling attempts to explain his question without giving away his secret; Yoda had never made any attempt to conceal what had always seemed to Anakin to be a gruff disapproval of Anakin’s very existence.“
“Rejoice for those who transform into the Force. Mourn them not. Miss them not.”
“Then why do we fight at all, Master? Why save anybody?”
“Speaking of anybody, we are not,” Yoda had said sternly “Speaking of you, and your vision, and your fear, we are. The shadow of greed, attachment is. What you fear to lose, train yourself to release. Let go of fear, and loss cannot harm you.” Which was when Anakin had realized Yoda wasn’t going to be any help at all. The greatest sage of the Jedi Order had nothing better to offer him than more pious babble about Letting Things Pass Out Of His Life.
Like he hadn’t heard that a million times already. Easy for him-who had Yoda ever cared about? Really cared about? Of one thing Anakin was certain: the ancient Master had never been in love.
Or he would have known better than to expect Anakin to just fold his hands and close his eyes and settle in to meditate while what was left of Padme’s life evaporated like the ghost-mist of dew in a Tatooine winter dawn …
This. Just this.
Yoda didn’t like Anakin from the beginning, feared him even and literally sowed the seeds of the Jedi’s destruction. Even discounting Rogue Planet and the Clone Wars novel, the novelization of the PT bear this out as well. In this, Palpatine took advantage because Yoda’s arrogance, fear and poor treatment of Anakin set the tone for how all the other Jedi viewed and treated him leading to his ostracism. And ultimately made the choice between the Order that never cared or helped him and the Sith Lord who offered a solution to save the one he loved far easier. Even then Anakin was loyal and tried to do the right thing up until he felt he made one mistake too many and fell because he was desperate to save Padme from dying.
