In All Honesty I'm Getting A Little Bored Of People Absolving The Jedi Order Of Even Allowing Slavery

In all honesty I'm getting a little bored of people absolving the Jedi Order of even allowing slavery because the Order was drafted. Muhammad Ali was drafted and he resisted, and others have as well. There's always a choice, however dire the situation. The idea that a 'moral' organisation of Force Users powerful enough to lead the war effort, with abilities, lightsabers and mind tricks, couldn't even think to try is patently ridiculous.

The Reasons the Jedi Order isn't "good" anymore by the peak of the Republic

Slick: "It's the Jedi who keep my brothers enslaved. We serve at your whim. We do your bidding. I just wanted something more."

In the canon, as it is, Slick accuses the Jedi of keeping his brothers enslaved and nobody, not even Anakin or Obi-Wan, deny it. He didn't even accuse them of starting the slavery and system, just helping maintain it. The fact is, the Jedi could advocate for clone rights and side with actually helping people who need them in a meaningful way but they don't because they maintain the status quo, the Republic, however vile and corrupt it gets. Even when they're told, as part of Palpatine's cover story, that their men's brains have just been a little neutered by the 'inhibitor chips' to keep them less aggressive and essentially more servile.

Choose your side, a corrupt state blatantly sliding in to fascism (and believe me it wasn't subtle) as it fights separatists or actually freeing slaves being abused and killed right in front of you. The Jedi choose the former for the vast, vast majority of the War.

This is because...

Master enablers, again

Jedi Master Dooku: "The Jedi blindly serve a corrupt Senate that fails the Republic it represents."

More than once, the Jedi are accused of siding with corrupt entities over victims. This is shown explicitly in the Tales of the Jedi, but it continuously remains obvious with the clones and the Ahsoka trial. Now, I've heard people accusing panicking teenage Ahsoka of "making herself look guilty", but the Jedi weren't even fully convinced of her guilt. The reason they jettisoned her was primarily political.

This is what Mace Windu says in response to Obi-Wan's protest that things don't quite add up and Ahsoka could be innocent.

Mace Windu: "I understand your sentiment, Obi-Wan. But, if the council does as you suggest. It could be seen as an act of opposition to the Senate. I'm afraid we have little choice."

Apparently, innocence is a matter of "sentiment". Again, politics, their dated mandate and the system matter more to the Jedi Order than fighting for the right thing. When laws are unjust, it is a moral imperative to resist them, and allowing unjust courts and slavery is too big a pill to swallow even for war. Plenty of fascist states had soldiers and civilians follow inhumane orders, systems and laws throughout history, it still doesn't absolve them of just going along with it.

Not all that Compassionate

Ahsoka: "It's every citizen's duty to challenge their leaders, to keep them honest, and hold them accountable if they're not.”

From enabling slavery as opposed to resisting to just flat out callous decisions like never investigating Pong Krell's casualty numbers to leaving clones' bodies to rot while pausing a high stakes mission for the late Evan Piell to have a Jedi funeral, none of the Jedi's individual-based kindness absolves them of their role in the Republic's corruption and the systematic hierarchy of slavery that is GAR, draft or no.

Fives: "We are loyal soldiers. We follow orders, but we are not a bunch of unthinking droids! We are men! We must be trusted to make the right decision, especially when the orders we are given are wrong!"

At the end of the day, Fives was more of a hero than any of them and it shows. Resist, regardless! Sure, be smart and tactical, but resist, regardless. The fact we're even debating on the morality of system-propping organisations and characters allowing slavery for "the greater good" is making me despair.

Atlesian Lien will do fine:

"Atlesian Lien? For this?" the merchant said as he played with the furry tufts on his Caracal ears and considered the offer, "no. No, for Menagerie furniture of this quality? I need something more ... real."

General Ironwood, exhausted by a day of haggling with the cagey merchant, simply waved his hand and said.

"The Lien will do fine."

"No," the Merchant said, "they won't."

"The. Lien. Will. Do. Fine." Ironwood said with another wave of his hand.

"No. They won't!"

With the sense that a quick sale was further from his pocket than ever before, the Merchant poked Ironwood in the chest and said.

"What, you think you some kind of Huntsman, waving your hand like that?"

Ironwood then removed his glove and showed the Merchant his mechanical hand. He then placed the hand on a nearby boudoir and cracked the wood with a casual flex of the iron digits.

"On second thoughts," the Merchant finally said, "Atlesian Lien will do fine."

I would have to say Padme did not compromise herself, and when she chose Anakin everything had gone to Empire so I guess it was a moot point anyway.

Still, entirely agree with you on everything else.

I think the crux of the disconnect between Prequels era fans is that the Jedi supporters believe the Jedi are good and right, and it is on this that we should support, and the Jedi critical fans are like no one in this era is good and right, including the Jedi, and the fact that you won't admit the Jedi are wrong is driving us insane

Because frequently when Jedi supporters are arguing with me, they are dismissing the notion that the Jedi could ever do anything wrong and then bring up how awful Anakin is as a way to say I am wrong, because I support Anakin

Which I don't support Anakin????

I like him, he is an incredibly compelling character especially as someone who knows what it is like to repress your feelings and want so badly to hold onto the ones who care for you

But I don't support him, it's actually because I relate to him that I don't, I wish I could save him, I have compassion for him, but he killed people, he committed genocide, twice??? In the Prequels??? He is exactly the type of person who terrifies me in real life, I don't support him

My love of his character writing does not mean that I am overlooking his clear moral failings or even that agree with him, because I don't, I actually love his character more because he is written to be so flawed morally, he is an exploration of emotional repression and how wanting power, even if it is to save someone else can still make you a bad person, it is this complexity that drew me to him as a character

I am drawn to morally complex characters in spite of the fact that their actions go against my morals, because I personally find morally complex characters to be more compelling

So why then, if I like morally flawed characters do I have such an issue with the Jedi and their morals in particular

Quite simply, it's the way they aren't written (especially in the Clone Wars) with that same moral complexity, they are written as if they are moral good

And it is this framing of them that a lot of Jedi supporters have clearly sided with and made their reason to support the Jedi, they believe the Jedi are good and believe that fans should support morally good characters so they can't understand why I wouldn't support them

But the Jedi aren't morally good and I find the inability to acknowledge that alarming

The Prequels movies do a much better job of showing how their inaction leads to bad things, but even in the Prequels there isn't a full of acknowledgement of how far they have fallen

Whereas the Clone Wars just doesn't acknowledge it, at all, they flatten the story down so it has no moral complexity, they have clear cut good guys and bad guys, the Jedi are the good guys, no matter what, the bad guys are the Sith, their is the occasional attempt at making the morality of the Clone Wars more grey but it is inconsistent, and overall the approach is a binary

The issue is, in painting the Jedi as morally good, the Prequels era glosses over how they aren't, they aren't objectively good, no one in the Prequels era but in pretending that they are, you make the meta around the canon morally complex

You have people defending the Jedi's use of the clones, choice to ignore slaves and chain themselves to the Repiy, handling of Anakin and the Padawans in general, involvement in the war and everything else because the Jedi are framed as good guys

I have yet to meet anyone defending Anakin's actions because he is so clearly framed as the guy falling to the Dark Side, we are meant to mourn his fall but we aren't meant to think he was in the right

Not everything the Jedi did is bad, but enough is that placing them on a pedestal and calling them the heroes, acting like they don't deserve this slander when Jedi critical fans are just pointing out how the Jedi are morally compromised, is messed up

There is no moral high ground when it comes to the Prequels, everyone compromises themselves (including Padme, she stayed with Anakin,), but some fans want to act like there is and so we have a disconnect

I am going to fuck off your page, but I want to put this out for the Anti-Jedi guys who might see this.

The point of the Prequel trilogy was that the rise of Palpatine was the fault of the Republic. The Republic gave up its liberties for security and got a Dictator for their troubles. Even then the Republic was not aware of what they had given up, as seen in Padme's words: 'This is how liberty dies, to thunderous applause.'

It was in the political arena, the Republic Senate, that the battle for liberty was truly fought by senators like Padme, and Organa, who opposed bills that granted Palpatine greater powers or expanded the Republic Army, and petitioned that Palpatine relinquish his emergency powers towards the end of the Clone War.

But notice that the Jedi do not participate in the pivotal political conflicts that marked the fall of the Republic. The Jedi did not oppose Palpatine on his political moves throughout the Trilogy and the Clone Wars series. When Palpatine appointed the Jedi Generals over the Clone Army, the Jedi Council served. When Ahsoka was framed and brought before a military tribunal, the Jedi Council stripped Ahsoka of her Jedi rank and threw her to the Republic Military.

Sure, the Jedi may be fighting a war, but they were not fighting all the time, and Yoda was good friends with Padme. It can't be that hard to get some updates on Senate happenings over the cantina table at breakfast.

Ultimately, the fall of the Republic in the prequels was due to the Republic giving up its liberty and allowing an Empire to rise as a result. The Jedi were simply the first in line to give up.

I've seen a lot of posts on my feed lately that have, in some way shape or form, said "the story of the Jedi is tragic cause the Jedi caused their own genocide" followed by a list of just...stuff that's either untrue or the other option would've been worse in that game of roulette that Palpatine set up specifically to force the Jedi to make questionable decisions and wear them down with the weight of them. (Untagged posts btw, if you're gonna post shit along these lines please for the love of fuck tag it "Jedi critical," there are tags for a reason)

So I'm here to outline why that's complete and utter bullshit in one easy, simple to understand, post! No matter what the Jedi did, or what you think they did, they did not cause their own genocide. The fault of their genocide is solely on those who chose to commit said genocide of their people and culture.

Ignoring the fact that Palpatine's entire plan, the whole point of everything that we see in the Prequels, was to kill off all of the Jedi and erase their culture--so he was gonna figure out some way to do it, with or without Anakin/the clones/Dooku/etc.

You cannot make someone commit genocide against you.

That is the stupidest argument ever.

Committing genocide is a choice, one that you actively have to make over and over again--which we see Anakin do, even long after all (or all except a measly few survivors, most of which were literal children in the Prequel-era and couldn't have possibly done anything to piss Anakin off) of the Prequel-era Jedi--aka the ones that people say "brought this on themselves"--were dead!

The Jedi Order as a whole could've been the shittiest, most repressed group of arrogant assholes the galaxy had ever seen. They could've called Anakin a whiny bitch to his face and told him that Dooku should've gone for his head instead of his arm. They could've danced on his mother's grave and had tea parties with the Tuskens.

And guess what?

They still could not have made Anakin and Palpatine commit genocide against them. It was their choice, and their choice alone.

The only people that had no choice in committing that genocide were the clones and guess who took that choice away from them? Because it certainly wasn't the fucking Jedi!

Which is hilarious because most of these posts I've seen have said something along the lines of "the Jedi used the clones as slaves," ignoring the fact that--even if that were true (and it's not)--Anakin and Palpatine used them as slaves too!

And it was so much worse when they did it because, not only were they not given a choice, they were fucking mind-controlled in order to commit genocide against their will! So they didn't even get the choice to refuse and face the consequences of that--which is an option for them during the Clone Wars, albeit a shitty one.

So no, the Jedi did not bring anything upon themselves.

Start holding Anakin responsible for his own shitty decisions, and start tagging your damn anti-Jedi and Jedi critical posts properly!

Now there are two of them!

"General," Amonico Glass said as he leaned forward and placed his corpulent elbows on the table, "the Audit you are asking for is inconceivable. The overtime alone I would have to authorize would be downright criminal! What you want from my company is out of the board's range!"

Through the holoimage, General James Ironwood leaned back in his chair and said.

"Not ... for a Schnee."

Two figures flickered into view behind Ironwood. Behind Ironwood Weiss Schnee, dressed in a white blouse with its sleeves rolled up her forearms and buttons loose at her throat and chest, placed a hand on Ironwood's left shoulder and struck Amonico a glare over her thin, wire-rimmed glasses.

Whitley Schnee, his plain white business suit making the young man sharper than his age would imply, hovered by Ironwood's right shoulder and stared sharply at his older sister's intimacy with Ironwood while Ironwood said.

"May I present my auditors, Weiss and Whitley Schnee, they will audit your firm's sheets."

The holoimage then faded out and shut off.

Across from Amonico, Bram Thornmane smashed a white-gloved fist onto the table and said.

"This is getting out of hand! Now there are two of them!"

Amonico sighed and fell back against his chair, he then took off his glasses and polished them before he said.

"Jacques should not have agreed to that arrangement."

"Weren't those ships used for colonizing India and the Slave Trade?"

We need to go back to using sailing ships full time like immediately. Yes it would take longer to get places but the Aesthetic is unmatched

Like there is nothing sexier hthan this