The latest Disney Plus war of stars Series, The Acolytewas always controversial. The war of stars Fandom has a notoriously vocal minority who are, for lack of a better term, fanatics, and Lucasfilm had already promised to fight back before the start of the series. But after The Acolyte Episode 3, a completely different war of stars A controversy has arisen that has reignited a tiring debate on internet forums and social media: Are the Jedi the good guys or the bad guys?
Countless people (including me) have commented on the following topic: war of stars‘ Lightsaber wielding monks, their relationship to powerand their machinations. But the inability of some fans to recognize nuance and their over-reliance on binaries has brought us back here – the fact that on the back of The Acolyte just makes the whole thing more stressful.
The events of The Acolyte Episode 3
All The AcolyteThe third episode of “The Witches of Brendok” takes place in flashback: 16 years before the start of the series, a coven of witches is hiding on a planet called Brendok after fleeing persecution by those who believed they were using the Force for evil purposes. This is the first canonical cult of witches since the Nightsisters of Dathomir that is much closer to the evil side of using the Force, though the series goes to great lengths to make sure we don’t paint the Witches of Brendok with the same broad brushstrokes (they even have them chant a spell entirely in English, because I’m sure any other language would be “too scary”).
Much like the miracle of Anakin Skywalker’s conception (he had no father and was created entirely by the will of the Force and carried by his mother Shmi), the witches have two twin girls in their midst: Mae and Osha, “created” by their mother Aniseya and carried by her partner Koril (also a woman, yay, space lesbians!).
The witches know that a group of Jedi have landed on Brendok, and are determined to hide the girls from them, as it is illegal to train children in the Force (unless you are a Jedi). When the Jedi show up uninvited, the girls are discovered, and Andara (played by Carrie-Anne Moss) explains to the witches that they have the right under Republic law to test Force-sensitive children. Osha wants to go with the Jedi, as she longs for a life away from Brendok, but Mae and the other witches are suspicious and plan for the girls to fail the Jedi test on purpose. Koril calls the Jedi “deranged monks.”
However, Osha refuses to lie and passes the test. Lee Jung-jae’s Sol tells her that if she wants to join the Jedi, she would have to leave her mother and sister behind and never see them again, a decision he says he made. four years old (No one should be making decisions like that at four years old, at that age you still occasionally wet your pants.) But Osha decides to go with them, and in a fit of rage, Mae starts a fire in the witch’s temple. They all die, including her mother, but it’s very clear that there’s a side of the story we’re not hearing, and that this version of events isn’t entirely true.
After the episode aired, Social media Was in flames with people who argue about the morality of the Jedi, and if they actually do that, Kidnapping children and indoctrinating them into a cultConvinced supporters of the idea that the Jedi were and always will be the good guys railed against the idea—especially when, God forbid, it was presented from the perspective of black lesbian witches—but as with most internet debates, the truth is far more complex.
The Acolyte reminds us of the mistakes of the Jedi
The Jedi are a complicated, flawed group of people whose loyalties and motivations have changed dramatically since the era of the High Republic, through the Clone Wars and beyond. The original war of stars The trilogy portrays the Jedi as tragically extinct warriors of justice and peace, while the prequel trilogy shows the cracks that formed among them after they got too deeply involved with the government. The sequel trilogy promised a democratization of the Force, an understanding of it outside the rigid confines of Jedi teachings, before somewhat destroying that with the bizarre Rey Skywalker crap.
During the High Republic, the Jedi Order experienced its golden age, working alongside (but separately from) the Galactic Republic. Their teachings were more flexible: they could become Wayseekers, or Jedi who were completely independent of the Council. In addition, the Barash Vow was introduced, allowing Jedi to isolate themselves from society to get closer to the Force.
But the lack of proper communication channels during this time led to a spread of rumors and whispers about a dark force gaining strength on the edge of the galaxy – and it is precisely this kind of fear that can cause four mostly well-meaning Jedi to completely disrupt a tense situation. igamesnewsTasha Robinson writes about the events on Brendok:
None of this paints a good picture for the Jedi. The whole sequence, with its deliberate omissions and obfuscations, directly addresses the questions fans have had about Jedi recruitment since the prequel films showed us more about the induction process. The basic Jedi rules are remarkably similar to Tactics of real cults: The trainees are separated from their families and taught to deny any personal ties. They are forced to accept the ascetic values of their teachers and it is made clear to them that any deviation or opposition to them is grounds for exclusion from their surrogate family. dark threatAdditionally, -era Jedi reject students ages nine and older on the grounds that they are “too old.” This suggests that they believe students should be young enough to be malleable and not have troublesome emotional attachments or opinions of their own.
Although we do not yet know what caused the downfall of the High Republic, after watching this latest episode of The Acolyte. Until we meet Anakin Skywalkerthe Jedi have obviously become too draconian in their beliefs, are too openly afraid of the dark side, and are too blind in their loyalty to the Republic – so much so that they do not even sense that Emperor Palpatine is in their midst.
They take a powerful child from his slave, demand that he give up all ties, and order him never to form new ties – except those within the Order, of course. Then, between Palpatine’s antics, the burgeoning war with the Trade Federation, and the Jedi’s refusal to give Anakin an inch, the poor boy is squeezed in a stress vise until he breaks. And so ends the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One, whose gift was wasted by the very people who should have nurtured it.
We have been told that the Jedi have flaws since the beginning of war of stars as a franchise. Luke Skywalker’s refusal to kill his father was motivated by affection, by familial love, by loss, all things that the Jedi are fundamentally against. But since Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi dared to ask whether the power could perhaps be wielded by anyone, be it a street child on Canto Bight or a scrap collector on Jakku, it seems war of stars Fans struggle to realize that the Jedi in this universe are not inherently the righteous good guys. They are flawed beings like everyone else who can be manipulated or used for questionable purposes.
Expanding the boundaries of what the Force can be, how people who are Force-sensitive can be trained, speaks to a broader spiritual theme that Lucas and his Knights of the war of stars Roundtable has been trying to figure this out for decades. You don’t have to be indoctrinated into a cult to be religious, spiritual or gifted, and you certainly don’t have to be trained by the Jedi Council to restore peace, justice and democracy to the galaxy. It seems The Acolyte is determined to remind us of this.
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