RotS Novel is a MUST READ - *MASSIVE SPOILERS LIE HERE* (Off-Topic)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Monday, December 21, 2015, 15:29 (3263 days ago) @ cheapLEY

My only issue right now is: the Jedi seem like little babies. It just hit me tonight after I watched Revenge of the Sith.

Yoda, after failing to defeat Palpatine, immediately declares he must go into exile. Then in the OT when we first see him, he's hanging out, doing nothing, and even initially doesn't want to train Luke.

Now we have Luke doing the same thing after failing with Ben Solo.

Why are the Jedi so quick to give up and go into exile after making mistakes?

It seems meditation before action is a big thing for them. Leads right to silly stuff like these...

I mean, I get that, but it seems like Yoda was pretty content to just hang out in a swamp until he died. Doesn't seem like he really had any plans to train Luke, until Luke came to him.

Of course, he spent that time training with Qui-Gon, so it's not like he wasn't doing anything. But they just don't seem to be about making sure things get done.

The Revenge of the Sith novel by Mathew Stover is everything that the movie should have been. Stover manages to take everything from the movie and make it make sense, including Yoda's decision making towards the end.

In the novel, while Yoda is battling the Emperor, he comes to the realization that despite all his skills and power, his hundreds of years of study and practice, he just doesn't have what it takes to defeat Palpatine. He realizes these new Sith have spent decades (or far longer if you include their entire lineage) preparing to destroy the Jedi. Meanwhile, having thought the Sith were no more, the Jedi were completely unprepared to deal with such a foe. Yoda realizes that if he lets Palpatine escape, the consequences for the entire galaxy would be disastrous. But he also knows that if he dies at Palpatine's hand, there will be nobody to pass these insights along... nobody to prepare a new kind of Jedi who would ultimately have a chance against the new Sith. "A problem this is" he thinks to himself.

So when Yoda gets blasted down to the bottom of the Senate chamber, he seizes and opportunity to escape. When he says "Failed, I have..." he is not speaking specifically about his battle with Palpatine. He is saying he has failed as the leader of the Jedi. Keep in mind, he has just witnessed, and felt, the death of thousands of Jedi, all of whom he trained from childhood. To come face to face with the man responsible for the destruction of the Jedi and realize he was right under Yoda's nose the entire time, and Yoda was unable to stop him in any way... it really is a low point for the poor little guy.

So Yoda goes into hiding. He and Obi-wan, 2 of the greatest Jedi to ever live, come to understand that there is a purity to the Sith's passion that drives them to be stronger than any Jedi could hope to be. The Jedi order has spent centuries training the Jedi to be dispassionate, thoughtful, ruled by logic and not emotion. But since the Force is ultimately something that is felt, the Jedi were shooting themselves in the foot. To defeat the Sith, they would need a Jedi who was as driven by love as the Sith are by hate (ironically, Anakin very much could have been such a Jedi). That's why Obi-Wan didn't keep Luke and train him from birth. Yet, despite their awareness of their own flaws, Yoda and Obi still had difficulty breaking free from their own dogmatic molds. They lied and manipulated Luke more often than they were honest to him. So did the Emperor. When it comes to understanding his past and his power, the only person who was truly honest and open with Luke was Vader. Vader actually did as much to propel Luke as Yoda or Obi-wan did, by encouraging him to use his feelings, to trust them.

It all has the ring of fan-retconing to a certain degree, but the idea is that Yoda and Obi-wan understood that there were certain lessons Luke needed to learn from Anakin, either directly or at least by confronting him. "You must confront Vader... only then, a Jedi will you be". This wasn't about Luke beating Vader in a fight. If the test was to beat the bad guy in a saber duel, he would have told Luke to face the Emperor. No, Yoda's final task to Luke was to have him stand face to face with his father, with no more secrets or lies between them. Luke's love and compassion for his father and sister were so strong, so uncompromising, even the Emperor took notice. More importantly, so did Vader. He looked at his son and saw strength and power born out of love, not hate. That is why Vader, already wounded, was able to pick up the Emperor and carry him across the room while being blasted by Force lightning (an attack that leveled everyone from Yoda to Mace to Luke and even Anakin himself when he was younger). So in the end, Yoda was right both philosophically and in a very literal way. It was love that allowed Luke to face the Sith and remain true to himself, and it was Vader's love for his son that gave him the strength to carry the Emperor even while his own body was being obliterated.

Woah, I blacked out there for a minute. Hey... who did all this typing?!

Seriously thought, go read the Revenge of the Sith novel ;P