“Do or do not,” Yoda said. “There is no try.”
“Hmph.” The old woman across from him, withered from age and skinny as a garden rake, crossed her arms. “Seems to me that a body that ain’t tryin’ ain’t learning. And thems that don’t learn, don’t grow.”
Yoda blinked. “Try one does, and fail. Frustrations this leads to. Hate. The dark side.”
“Only if one is sillier than Magrat around a baby bird,” muttered the old woman to herself. She shook her head. “You try, you fail, you try again. You try better and fail better and you learn. And learnin’ never led to any darkness. That comes from selfishness, from removing yerself.”
“The Jedi must be removed.”
“Or your wand gets wilted?” The old woman sighed and stood. She was dressed like a crow, a scruffy, dusty crow in mismatched black. With piercing blue eyes she looked at his Jedi robes. “Seems to me that the best fix for your problem is get up and get yer hands dirty. Nothing wrong ever came from doing a little honest work.”
“Yes. Work hard a Jedi must. Serve the order.”
“Serve the people. Order finds its own way or it don’t, it makes no never mind. You’ve got to look to the small things.”
“Think of the many, a Jedi must!” Yoda felt the old temptation to fall into anger. The dark side tempted him as he stood against this woman, dressed like no Sith or Jedi he’d ever known.
She lifted her chin. “Thinking of the many is what lost you the galaxy. You took children and stripped them of the first thing they ever loved. Told them never to hold to anyone. You can’t protect what you can’t love.”
“A distraction, love is. Leads the mind from the ways of the Force it will.”
“If your Force requires you to leave all you love, and love only yourself, it’s no force of good at all.” She pulled a shawl of faded black around her shoulders. “Now, I suppose you ought to try learnin’ now. Perhaps after you do some tryin’ you’ll grow up a little.”
Yoda stood, leaning on his cane. “When nine hundred years you reach-”
“I won’t reach ninety and I’ll still be wiser than you!” the old woman snapped.
Only practice calmed the inner rage that he was close to succumbing too. “Wisdom you speak, perhaps. A name you have?”
“Granny,” she said. “Thems that knows me well call me Granny Weatherwax.”