Re: Which fictional character are YOU?!?!

"Shuurai" <Shuurai11@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1128525987.028241.253120@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> > > I would agree that the Jedi were ineffective and arrogant, but that's
> > > still a long way off from calling them pure evil. What actions do
> > > you think depicted them as evil?
> >
> > Look at why Anakin turned to the "Dark side." What was being offered
> > that he wasn't getting from the "light"?
>
> Lies. Palpatine claimed he could save Padme, but revealed he did not
> actually have the answer after Anakin turned.

As opposed to the Jedi Council not _letting_ him save Padme. But then,
since he'd actually had the unmitigated gall to fall in love, forcing him to
choose between that love and obeying the Jedi Council's ossified rules.
That right there is the seminal wedge that was driven between them.

And for purposes of judging the actions and positions of the Jedi Council,
it doesn't matter whether what Palpatine said was lies. The claim was
attractive when set against what the Jedi were offering.

>Aside from that he was
> offered power and glory.

He already had power and glory.

>He was immediately ordered to murder the
> Jedi in cold blood - including the children.

That Palpatine was evil is no exhoneration of the Jedi. Two sides, both
evil, have been set against each other before--would citing one of the
biggest Real World examples invoke Godwin's Law?

> > In the original series, who were the ones lying to Luke? Was there
> > anything that they told him that was right?
> > "Don't go. You need more training? If you go without training, you'll
be
> > corrupted by the Dark Side."
> > Luke goes anyway. Comes back--strangly enough, without having turned
> > to the dark side.
> > "No more training do you need." (Say what?)

> Which could also be nothing more than their being overly cautious.

And willingly letting innocent people be tortured and die.

> Being "wrong" doesn't equate to being evil. They weren't sure he was
> ready to face the Dark Side. When he came back, he had just faced the
> greatest power the Dark Side had to offer and hadn't been turned, which
> meant his training was complete.

How long has Yoda been training Jedi? This great master of the Force,
with literally centuries of experience, recognized by everyone as a true
expert in the field, made such a basic mistake?

Yoda himself said that if Luke went, he might be able to save his
friends. He also said that there was another hope, so some taking some
risks was justified (unless, of course, real people, whom one has a real
attachment to, don't matter--but then Jedi aren't supposed to have real
attachments to other individuals, as shown by it being "wrong" for Anakin to
love Padme as an individual as opposed to some nebulous "the people," which
is perhaps their greatest evil right there).

But then, Yoda started off with "I cannot train him" and "he's too old."
I submit that if Yoda had his way, Luke would have grown old and gray on
Dagobah, never leaving the planet again.

> > Obi Wan. "Darth Vader murdered your Father."
> > Vader. "No, Luke. I am your father." (Which was the truth here?)

> Well, I'll agree I never bought the "point of view" argument that
> Obi Wan used, but at the same time I think he was just trying to
> spare Luke the truth. Technically a lie, but telling a white lie
> to protect someone isn't enough to make you evil.

And it's very easy to justify things like that.

Obi Wan left Luke woefully unprepared to deal with the truth when he
faced it. And since, from the beginning, Obi Wan intended for Luke to
"learn the ways of the Force if you are to come with me to Alderaan." That
would put Luke directly into the path of meeting Vader, a path that would
inevitably lead to the truth becoming know. Instead of trying to prepare
Luke to deal with it, they let him go right on with the hero worship of his
father so that, when the truth is finally revealed, it almost destroys him.

> And besides, Vader wasn't telling him out of kindness or any real
> interest in honesty - he was trying to turn him. He was also resolved
> to kill Luke if he couldn't be turned.

Irrelevant to what Obi Wan and Yoda do.

Okay, now I can give Obi Wan the benefit of the doubt on this, but when
Luke is preparing to leave Dagobah, why didn't Yoda say something like
"Luke, of you are determined to go, there's something you need to know...."
For that matter, the shock might well have been enough to cause Luke to
reconsider leaving at that time.

Instead, they allow the lie to stand at a time when it can no longer be
justified as a "white lie."

For that matter, lets talk about Luke and where he was at that time. In
the original movie, Luke was hidden away at the hind end of nowhere, a
reasonable thing to do with a "lost heir" that has to remain lost to
survive. But what do we find in TPM and AotC? We find that Luke is put on
his father, Vader's, home planet, and is staying with Vaders stepfather.
Looks more like Luke was set up as sacrificial bait to draw attention away
from Leia.

> > Obi Wan. "I thought I could train him as well as Yoda. I was wrong,"
> > Yoda. "We're going to dump this particularly difficult training issue
> > [Anakin being overage and not as susceptible to brainwashing as a
younger
> > child might be] so we'll dump him on a new-minted Jedi Knight rather
than
> > have our best and most experience teachers handle it."
> > Of course, by that time it's entirely possible that Yoda had managed to
> > convince Obi Wan that it really was all his fault.

> That's bad decision making, not evil.

When you make a decision, you are responsible for the forseeable results
of that action.

> > I'll give Yoda this much. At least in AotC he realized that if you're
> > going to a gun fight it helps to bring some guns--even if it is in the
> > form of a slave army that was built in secret without any oversight of
> > either the Jedi Council or the Government which they supposedly serve.

> Incompetence doesn't qualify as evil either.

Actually, my point here is along the lines of receiving stolen property
is theft just the same as if you stole it yourself. By bringing in that
army, Yoda endorsed the means used to produce it. Let's look at that army
for a moment. I won't go into any morality issues of cloning itself, but
the end result is a person--just a person with lots of identical sibs. So
what do they do with these persons? They indoctrinate them from birth as
soldiers in this army. There is no choice in the matter. That's slavery
every bit as much as what was on Tatooine. And the Jedi didn't even bat an
eye at it.

--
David L. Burkhead "Dum Vivimus Vivamus"
mailto:dburkhead@xxxxxxxxxxx "While we live, let us live."
My webcomic Cold Servings
http://www.coldservings.com
Updates Wednesdays



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