Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
I don't think it's a fair read to say that the Jedi supported an ineffectual Republic, it worked very well for a very long time. Nobody is going to make a movie called Star Wars Peace, so we only see the fall, and no government looks good when it's being actively demolished. But both the OT and the PT repeatedly inform us that the Republic worked pretty well for a long time.
I dispute the read on the 'it worked very well for a long time'. I think we are meant to understand the Phantom Menace as a glimpse at how the Republic and Jedi have historically operated. I do not think we are meant to read it as having only recently become the way it is.

Quote Originally Posted by LibraryOgre View Post
One suggestion I have seen, vis a vis Anakin, is that the Dark Side won the Duel of the Fates with the death of Qui Gonn. Sure, Maul [kinda-sorta] died, and Obi-Wan "won", but Obi-Wan wasn't equipped to deal with Anakin, to train him well, whereas Qui Gonn was. Had Qui-Gonn survived, he could have guided Anakin through his tribulations. But he did not, so Anakin was left with "brother" Obi-Wan instead of "Father" Qui-Gonn.
This is Filoni's stance, and it's possible that he got this directly from Lucas.

I don't fully agree with that, I think there's a pretty persuasive argument that Qui-Gon's unorthodox stances and fixation on prophecy might have resulted in an Anakin who was messed up in entirely different ways, but I can see it.