#JediDefender

Pro-Jedi | Star Wars | DC Universe | Marvel Universe

[rogueleader14]

(UPDATED) The iconic Golden Trios of Sci-Fi & Fantasy.

[mortissoka]

I mourn the character Ahsoka could have been every day.

She's such a perfect character to explore the Jedi that were forged in the war (that was created to destroy them). The only character where this is mildly relevant is Cal, I suppose, but he was too young to have been truly CREATED in war the way Ahsoka was ESPECIALLY because of who her master was.

Anakin taught her to be a warrior, a commander, a soldier. He taught her to be one of the most proficient martial artists in the order but almost entirely neglected to teach her what being a Jedi is actually about. She learned some of those lessons through other characters (Aayla, Plo, Master Sinube etc.) but in her 14-year-old mind Anakin was still the "cool" master who while being non-traditional still taught her everything she needed (not true. He was already a mass murderer who had slaughtered children much younger than her before they even met.)

But she was a KID, and he was her older brother. Of course, she idolized him and was willing to overlook the issues that he clearly had.

And then the order falls, and suddenly, she realizes she has no real connection to their teachings anymore. Not in the way she should. She can kill an Inquisitor without a weapon in 3 seconds but she has no idea how to healthily cope with what happened to her because Anakin's method of helping her through the war was distracting her and framing it like a game (well-meaning but ultimately damaging).

He could never teach her to let go because he wasn't able to either. Other survivors remember their masters teachings about being able to move on and find new light but the example Ahsoka's master set was denying that anything bad could happen, taking revenge if it did and clinging onto everyone he loves in terror of it happening again.

This is also why I think Ahsoka saying "then I will avenge his death" / "I'm no Jedi" is SO interesting because unlike Luke and Obi-Wan who were willing to accept that Vader IS Anakin and let go of their fear and hate, Ahsoka accepts Anakin's false framing of him "having killed Anakin", so that she can view Vader as a boogeyman and let her anger and pain out on him without having to accept that he truly is her master.

She rejects her Jedi teachings and culture in favor of a brother who betrayed her. She would rather throw away the title and values of her murdered people than blame Anakin for what he did (this is also continued in the Ahsoka show. He was not a good master, Ahsoka).

I WISH that her show was set after Malachor and was a character-focused story about her being able to let go of Anakin and accept that he wasn't a good person and putting in the work to embrace the Jedi's teachings and be able to become what Anakin never could.

[rogueleader14]

Is it just me or does the Studio MDHR logo looks an awful lot like the old Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America logo?

[teylosthetitan]

Rarely have I seen a Star Wars poll that is more biased against the Jedi. I probably shouldn't have been surprised.

[rogueleader14]

STAR WARS AU CONCEPT: D-SQUAD REBORN

During the Galactic Civil War, D-Squad was reformed by the Rebel Alliance for special missions against the Galactic Empire. Once again led by Col. Meebur Gascon, who defected from the Galactic Empire due to his loyalty to the true Republic, the Empire's galactic-wide purge against the Jedi Order and their anti-alien policies and rhetoric, the new D-Squad includes Clone Wars veterans R2-D2, WAC-47 and QT-KT, as well as some surprising additions: HK-47 (rebuilt), PROXY (repaired), Guri (reprogrammed), Chopper, Mister Bones and K-2SO (survivied Scarif). Other members include BD-1, Lola, Whistler and Zeeo.

[fellthemarvelous]

I think the thing that really annoys me the most about people who claim "Anakin was the real victim in the prequels" in order to justify his actions is that it literally mirrors the real life ways in which the actions of men (specifically, white men) are consistently justified and blame is always shifted to the victims.

Fandom loves to blame Mace Windu (a Black man) more than all the other Jedi for Anakin's problems because Mace "didn't trust him" (which is also complete bullshit up until Revenge of the Sith). Mace actually got along with and trusted Anakin (Attack of the Clones and The Clone Wars showed us proof of this), but he didn't coddle Anakin. And it turns out he was right not to trust Anakin during Revenge of the Sith because Anakin ended up betraying him. That is not Mace's fault. Anakin failed to regulate his emotions and the entire galaxy paid the price.

Like yeah, Anakin had a shitty start in life. As a young child, he and his mother were slaves and that definitely had an impact on him psychologically. There is no fucking denying that.

But I continue seeing people act like Anakin slaughtering children during Order 66 was an understandable reaction to his fear of losing Padme after losing his mother (someone actually tried to argue this with me). Padme herself was horrified by what he had done, especially knowing he "did it for her".

Anakin's rampage during Order 66 was not a valid crash out. It was not. It was evil. It was monstrous. It was inexcusable. The Jedi did nothing at all to deserve what happened to them. Nothing at all. Nothing. There is no argument that can be made that will ever justify what Anakin did to the Jedi Order.

There's nothing wrong with having empathy for Anakin, but empathy doesn't erase accountability. It's not the fault of the Jedi that Anakin chose not to regulate his emotions. The Jedi couldn't control Anakin's actions, and that's the whole point. Palpatine couldn't control Anakin's actions either. Every horrible thing Anakin did as Darth Vader was Anakin's choice.

It's just exhausting watching Anakin constantly get infantilized to the point that his choices are always blamed on the people he hurt the most. The Jedi. Padme. Obi-Wan. Ahsoka.

What happened to Anakin as a child does not exempt him from accountability for his actions as an adult, nor does it make Anakin's choices anyone else's fault. The Jedi trained him the best they could, but Palpatine's dark side influence was stronger (the war really helped too). He knew what he was doing was wrong when he was doing it. He knew he was wrong for what he did to the Tusken Raiders in Attack of the Clones (like why do you think he didn't tell Obi-Wan???). He cried before slaughtering the younglings hiding in the Jedi Council chamber. He cried after slaughtering the Separatist leaders on Mustafar.

Neither Padme nor Obi-Wan are to blame for Anakin's choice to Force choke Padme. Anakin made the choice to do that. He was very angry and instead of behaving in a rational and civilized manner, he physically harmed the woman he sacrificed the entire Jedi Order for because she was going to leave him.

Understanding someone's suffering does not justify the harm they cause. Anakin continued to do really horrible things even though he knew it was wrong. Acting like someone else is to blame for Anakin's choices removes his agency and misses the entire point of what makes Anakin Skywalker such a tragic character in the first place.

Could the Jedi have handled Anakin's issues better? Perhaps(????), but let's not forget that Anakin spent three years deceiving the Jedi Order so they had no idea what he was doing behind their backs, they didn't know about the vision of Padme dying or that Palpatine was grooming him, and they were operating under wartime pressure and a lot of political manipulation. The Jedi were not omniscient.

Just because the Jedi failed to save Anakin does not mean they caused his actions. His pain does not justify his actions. He chose to lead the 501st into the Jedi Temple and made the very active choice to kill innocent children who were not even remotely involved with the war at all. They were at school and a man they all looked up to chose not to control his emotions, came in and murdered almost all of them. We literally watch the news in this ridiculous country always try to find ways to justify the actions of white men who chose not to control their emotions and who chose to walk into schools and slaughter innocent children and their teachers. We watch people on Fox "News" try to justify the actions of those men and place blame on everyone else, and it's usually some form of "maybe if people had been nicer to him he wouldn't have done it" in order to reframe the perpetrator as the victim. I see so many "the Jedi weren't nice enough to Anakin" (which isn't even true) or "if they had made Anakin a Jedi Master he wouldn't have slaughtered them" type of statements in this fandom and honestly it just blows my mind.

I never see anyone applying those justifications to female characters, that's for damn sure. Reva was treated with hostility despite the fact she was basically doing the same thing as Anakin (taking out her pain on others), except she was one of those children who survived Anakin's rampage on the Jedi Temple. She was literally one of his victims and fandom tears her apart. What Anakin did to her was deeply traumatizing and she had no one to guide her, no one to help her cope with what happened to her. She was thrust into a dangerous situation with a target painted on her back and did what she thought she had to. There is so much context for her actions but she doesn't get nearly the level of empathy from fandom that Anakin does despite being one of his personal victims. I'm not justifying Reva's actions either, but it's wild how the double standards are so obvious. (Reva slander is not welcome here at all.)

And portions of the fandom will continue to blame everyone else except for Anakin for the choices that Anakin made of his own free will.

[a-sad-pop-tart]

The council told Anakin what he needed to hear. Palpatine told him what he wanted to hear. That's why Anakin chose Palpatine, not because the council was "too mean."

[samuel-the-blonde22]

Something that I saw that's still boggling my mind is that: "the Jedi Council could have saved itself if it was just nicer to Anakin."

And... there is just something so gross and insulting to me about that.

Like... "oh, if only they were nicer to him! If only they could have pandered to his every need! Then he couldn't have felt the need to MURDER EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM!"

...

What?

Are you telling me that the genocide of an entire people was justified because of the Council not being nice enough?

That they deserved to die because a few members didn't give Anakin anything he wanted?

That it was their own fault that they died?

[rogueleader14]

Dear Insomniac Games,

All I ask is one thing: no romance between Wolverine and Jean Grey. I'm REALLY sick and tired of that idiotic aspect from the comics.

[ankahikoibaat]

did not expect to ever come back to write more parallels about Sikhism and the Jedi Order and yet here we are.

I talked about the concept of 'moh', or attachment as it translates to more generally in my first Sikhism & The Jedi Order post, but expanding on that a little bit - Anakin embodies all five of the negative aspects of human nature as described in Sikhism. These are traits we, as humans and Sikhs, are meant to overcome when faced with them.

These five "thieves" as they are sometimes referred to are kaam, krodh, lobh, moh, ahankar or lust, rage or uncontrollable anger, greed, attachment and pride. All of them are characteristics we see in Anakin. In many cases, he doesn't just embody them, but ultimately, he embraces them. (Padme's death just turns his lust into that for power, if we really look at it.)

While in the movies, we see the Jedi mostly talk about attachment, the subtext does suggest that they are meant to overcome these other negative traits as well. Anakin's anger is met with caution, his desire for more status and power is also met with caution - and understanding that he either does not recognise or simply ignores.

I'm not going to go too indepth here, this is honestly just Sikhism and the Jedi Order 1 point 5 thoughts I had in the shower today. These are things that you don't have to be a Jedi to work on, and try to work past. Not impossible to achieve, or at least attempt to achieve, since people do it everyday.

So why couldn't Anakin?

[mortissoka]

"Padmé and Anakin are Ahsoka's parents" "No, actually it's Rex and Anakin" "No, it should be Plo and Shaak Ti-"

Ahsoka doesn't have parents. Stop shoving Jedi into nuclear family roles. I'm so tired of it.

Jedi are raised in a community. You have a Master that guides you in the ways of the force until you're attuned enough to let it guide you on your own, and you won't need a teacher anymore. Then you let them go. This doesn't mean that you stop caring about your Master but you have thousands of Masters and you have thousands of brothers and sisters and Padawans too.

Aayla doesn't not teach Ahsoka because she's not her Master. She is still a Jedi Knight, and Ahsoka is a Jedi Padawan. They are all part of the same Jedi family, so of course, Aayla also does her best to guide her. So does Plo. So does Luminara. So does Master Sinube. They are raised in a way that they are all close and connected enough to each other to all fill teaching roles and be able to confide in each other and help each other and I think that's beautiful.

[mysticaltora8276]

A reminder that I do not like the Sith. They are not a misunderstood minority religion. They are the bad guys. They are space Nazis pure and simple. I do not feel bad for them or their ideology because their ideology is an awful ideology that promotes might make right which is wrong. Just saying that in case anybody thinks that I am ever going to stop harping on how the acolyte try to portray the Sith, the bad guys as some sort of a “persecuted minority faith.“

This is about as bad faith take as you can get in Canon equivalent to Karen Traviss’ warped view.

[antianakin]

"Anakin would have not fall if the Jedi had trained him in a forest planet ​🙂​"

I don't think he would but I also don't think a few trees would have stopped him in willingly partaking in mulitple genocide so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Well, that's a new one.

I wonder how they explain away all the OTHER Jedi who don't become racist, sexist, genocidal fascists despite also being raised on Coruscant. You'd think there'd be TONS more of them if the lack of trees was the true culprit here.

[lucasandryawaifu]

I doin't understand people who complain about Mace being "oddly hostile" to Anakin in TPM. Not only he wasn't - he just didn't want him to enter the Jedi Order, nothing more, no insult, no side-eyes or snick remark; Anakin was just too old - but he wasn't the only one. The whole council didn't want him. Yoda is the only one who didn't want him to enter the Order until Obi-Wan threaten to leave, not Mace. So why single him out?

I know why, but people, please be more subtle in your racism

[rogueleader14]

This probably might not happen, but I think it would be cool if the NFL selects Ella Langley to helm the Halftime Show performance during the Eagles-Cowboys Thanksgiving Day game!

[rogueleader14]

I might be in the minority, or the only one, but…

Seeing them interact in Marvel Rivals makes me think that Emma Frost and Adam Warlock would make a great couple! What do you think?

[rogueleader14]

Am I the only one who thinks that the Matt Hagen Clayface should be a Nightwing villain while Batman deals with Basil Karlo's Clayface?