Star Wars: The Acolyte official trailer

[Errorname]

I assumed is explicit in the claim that Ahsoka is the best one.

Was that the claim? I think the claim was "Anakin is the best at training a pupil among the Jedi council" which I think holds up? Unless it turns out that Oppo Rancisis has a super cool padawan I'm not familiar with or something.

Cal sure seems to be an average member of the Order, just one who happened to be involved in a video game.

The average Jedi doesn't go toe-to-toe with Darth Vader twice and live to tell the tale.

[Peelee]

Was that the claim? I think the claim was "Anakin is the best at training a pupil among the Jedi council" which I think holds up?

If you only look at the finished product and assign all credit ro the teacher, then Qui-Gonn and Yoda's master were better than Anakin, at the very least.

The average Jedi doesn't go toe-to-toe with Darth Vader twice and live to tell the tale.

Apparently they do. Happened in Legends, too. You're assigning them "not average" because of an inflexible Vader bar to clear, but Vader is not an objective measurement. Plenty of people escaped him, constantly. Even an inquisitor he stabbed got away. Vader is a poor benchmark, you should probably choose a different one.

[Errorname]

If you only look at the finished product and assign all credit ro the teacher, then Qui-Gonn and Yoda's master were better than Anakin, at the very least.

True about Qui-Gon, although one could probably argue that his unorthodoxy means he might have more in common with Anakin than the larger Order and that he wasn't around during the time period being discussed. I don't know if Yoda's master did a great job, honestly, and even if they did they've been dead for many centuries, not the most relevant to how well the Jedi were training their younglings during the Clone Wars period.

Again, the state of Ahsoka's peers in the canon timeline is dire.

[Keltest]

True about Qui-Gon, although one could probably argue that his unorthodoxy means he might have more in common with Anakin than the larger Order and that he wasn't around during the time period being discussed. I don't know if Yoda's master did a great job, honestly, and even if they did they've been dead for many centuries, not the most relevant to how well the Jedi were training their younglings during the Clone Wars period.

Again, the state of Ahsoka's peers in the canon timeline is dire.

I mean, presumably we don't see most of the successful ones because theyre off being, well, successful. Success is boring.

[Peelee]

True about Qui-Gon, although one could probably argue that his unorthodoxy means he might have more in common with Anakin than the larger Order and that he wasn't around during the time period being discussed. I don't know if Yoda's master did a great job, honestly, and even if they did they've been dead for many centuries, not the most relevant to how well the Jedi were training their younglings during the Clone Wars period.

Again, the state of Ahsoka's peers in the canon timeline is dire.

Ezra confronted both Vader and Thrawn and made it out alive against both. By your logic, Kanan was the greatest teacher the Jedi ever had.

Except for maybe Kenobi, who trained Luke, who faced Vader and the Emperor and came out alive.

Anakin seems to just keep falling farther and farther down the ranks.

[Errorname]

Ezra confronted both Vader and Thrawn and made it out alive against both. By your logic, Kanan was the greatest teacher the Jedi ever had.

Just going off of how Ezra turns out Kanan's probably fine, especially for a self-taught novice. Better than expected at least. Hard for me to judge, I am not super familiar with Rebels.

I'd also say that I've never implied Anakin was a greatest of all time, merely 'better than his peers at the time', which is not particularly hard.

[ecarden]

I think the question of who is the best teacher depends on what they are attempting to teach. To the extent Anakin's only goal is to teach Ahsoka to survive, he was certainly quite successful. To the extent he was trying to train her to be a Jedi Knight, he failed utterly.

I do think this debate would benefit from figuring out what actually is being debated (Anakin's capability/ranking as teacher, or Ahsoka's capability/ranking as Force User as she has expressly rejected being a Jedi, repeatedly) and what is being evaluated (in-universe actions/events, or external importance/involvement).

Personally, I think Anakin was fairly clearly a good teacher to Ahsoka and Ahsoka has proven to be a successful and powerful Force User, though hardly the most powerful (indeed, she is defeated in straight combat in her own series and would have died, but for...whatever happened there after she went over the edge of the cliff). There's no objective measurement of best for either teacher or Force Users.

[Peelee]

I'd also say that I've never implied Anakin was a greatest of all time, merely 'better than his peers at the time', which is not particularly hard.

My point is you're assigning 100% of the former students deeds to the teacher, which is bad enough already, and even worse when the character in question has plot armor to such extremes that the universe literally opens holes for her to survive if needed. And that's not even going into how "not particularly hard" implies that if they were just better teachers, then most of the Jedi would have survived a plot engineered to have literally the entire army of the Republic turn on them in a moments notice for no discernable reason, and comes shockingly close to victim blaming. You're acting like this is a "get good, scrubs" issue with that line, instead of a concerted effort at the highest levels of power.

And that's ignoring that we see Anakin teaching in TCW, and he's not particularly good at teaching to be a Jedi. Teaching to be a Force user, sure. But teaching to be a Jedi? Ahsoka succeeded at being a Jedi in spite of Anakin, not because of him.

[Errorname]

And that's not even going into how "not particularly hard" implies that if they were just better teachers, then most of the Jedi would have survived a plot engineered to have literally the entire army of the Republic turn on them in a moments notice for no discernable reason, and comes shockingly close to victim blaming. You're acting like this is a "get good, scrubs" issue with that line, instead of a concerted effort at the highest levels of power.

I will fully admit that surviving Order 66 is a matter of luck as much as skill. Ahsoka survives a lot of situations that other Jedi would have died in both before and after but it's a point I have acknowledged that in the Purge itself she'd be dead if Rex hadn't hesitated. I am judging Ahsoka (and by extension, how well she was trained) primarily against her peers that appear in Clone Wars, which is admittedly a limited pool but what we see is dire. You have Kit Fisto's former Padawan, Nahdar Vebb, who has little respect for the Jedi teachings and picks a one-on-one fight with Grievous with predictable consequences, and Luminara's padawan Barriss Offee, who loses her faith in the Jedi as an institution and has the temple bombed

Ahsoka turning out to be a pretty good fighter and commander with a functional moral compass puts her ahead of the pack compared to what we see of her peers

And that's ignoring that we see Anakin teaching in TCW, and he's not particularly good at teaching to be a Jedi. Teaching to be a Force user, sure. But teaching to be a Jedi? Ahsoka succeeded at being a Jedi in spite of Anakin, not because of him.

That is fair, and it's probably important to note that Ahsoka has a lot of other mentor figures in the show who are just as important to her development.

[Infernally Clay]

I didn't call him a bad Jedi. I called him a worse Jedi [than Ahsoka] which I assumed is explicit in the claim that Ahsoka is the best one. Cal sure seems to be an average member of the Order, just one who happened to be involved in a video game. Kanan also seemed pretty average, and is not a video game character, if that makes things better.

You're kinda missing the point that protagonists get special treatment. Out of the ten thousand Jedi that fought in the war, how many were protagonists in movies/TV shows/videogames? Maybe 0.1%?

Like, you say Kanan was average when he clearly was not. He defeated the Grand Inquisitor in the first season of Rebels and I think he even beat Maul but I can't quite remember. Cal Kestis clearly was not an average Jedi either, since he would go on to pretty effortlessly defeat Inquisitors and even take out Jedi Masters from the High Republic era. They are both examples of pretty exceptional Jedi, surviving things more experienced Jedi never would.

Protagonist in fantasy media never represent the average. They're always special in some way, that's why they're the protagonists. Ahsoka wasn't the best Jedi and nobody has claimed as such because it's pretty childish to reduce the conversation to who was the best, but we would be remiss to not address the fact that Anakin trained her to survive and throughout The Clone Wars she survived some insane situations thanks to his training. This is explicitly spelt out during the arc with the Trandoshan hunters, I think? Anakin is angry with himself for letting her get captured and deeply regrets he didn't find her sooner, but she tells him his training allowed her to not only survive but save others too.
Plus of course the Trandoshans were lucky Anakin didn't get to them first because he would have slaughtered them for what they did.

My point is you're assigning 100% of the former students deeds to the teacher, which is bad enough already, and even worse when the character in question has plot armor to such extremes that the universe literally opens holes for her to survive if needed. And that's not even going into how "not particularly hard" implies that if they were just better teachers, then most of the Jedi would have survived a plot engineered to have literally the entire army of the Republic turn on them in a moments notice for no discernable reason, and comes shockingly close to victim blaming. You're acting like this is a "get good, scrubs" issue with that line, instead of a concerted effort at the highest levels of power.

And that's ignoring that we see Anakin teaching in TCW, and he's not particularly good at teaching to be a Jedi. Teaching to be a Force user, sure. But teaching to be a Jedi? Ahsoka succeeded at being a Jedi in spite of Anakin, not because of him.

Now you're just letting your disdain for the prequels colour the conversation. We get it, you don't like any of this stuff. It has no bearing on the topic at hand.

If you had been following this conversation at all instead of using it to gripe about plot armour you'd know the original point being made is that padawans during the war were not trained to be Jedi, but to be military leaders, and this was A Very Bad Thing. So your point that Anakin failed to teach Ahsoka to be a Jedi is something you can easily accuse most Jedi of. It was causing a lot of issues with the padawans, as evidenced by the trauma many of the padawans carried throughout the war. The ones that were fortunate enough to survive the war would carry that trauma for decades. Ahsoka, Cal and Kanan are all very good examples of padawans who fought in the war and it broke them, Barriss too. Each of them in turn basically needed the equivalent of decades of therapy to recover, except for Ahsoka who kinda kept running from her problems for decades until Anakin completed her training by teaching her that she survived and now it was time to live.

Anakin's unorthodox approach to training Ahsoka was not to teach her how to win battles but to survive the war. In that regard, yes, Anakin was more successful than most. If you look back at how Cal or Kanan survived Order 66, you'll notice there's a trend of Jedi Masters sacrificing themselves so their padawans can escape. Ahsoka had to fight her way out and very few Jedi were able to do that. Fewer still outlived the Empire. A fair bit of that is credited to Anakin's teachings.

[Peelee]

Ahsoka turning out to be a pretty good fighter and commander with a functional moral compass puts her ahead of the pack compared to what we see of her peers

That seems to put her exactly on par with her peers, from what we see of them.

[Infernally Clay]

That seems to put her exactly on par with her peers, from what we see of them.

Not at all. Compare Ahsoka to Barriss, for example. When they were both trapped underground, it was Ahsoka that got them out. When that zombie outbreak thing happened, Barriss was infected and it was Ahsoka that saved her. Barriss survived Order 66 because she was in a prison cell, whereas Ahsoka survived it by fighting her way off a Republic battleship.

Naturally the deuteragonist of the cartoon is going to have much more impressive feats of skill and capability compared to the other padawans. It's no exaggeration to say she saw more action and survived more dangerous situations than her peers. In fact if you wanted to be generous to the Jedi Council (and some of you do like to be very generous with them), you could even assert they acknowledged Ahsoka's abilities when they offered her a promotion to Jedi Knight. If she had accepted, Ahsoka would have been a Jedi Knight before her seventeenth birthday. Even Anakin didn't become one until he was nineteen.

Ultimately Ahsoka was the student of one of the most powerful Jedi to ever serve the Order and through his lessons she too became one of the greatest Jedi the Order ever had. That's really all there is to it.

[KorvinStarmast]

However, I think addressing the problems with the Order as of TPM is part of what you see in the High Republic. In most Star Wars media, the order is either freshly destroyed, actually destroyed in story, or now rebuilding from having been destroyed. The High Republic shows a vital order, engaged with the galaxy, that doesn't try to make people emotionless, but rather aware of their emotions; there is even a point where two Masters talk about this... it's not wrong to have the feelings, you're [human], but you need to know how they're affecting you, and avoid the ones that will corrupt you. You can have joy and love and friendship, but you need to be aware of your anger and fear and attachment, and how they're affecting you.

That's a better summary than I had come up with, thanks.

it's not as if Anakin had a tattoo saying "totally the chosen one" or anything.

His mom told him he was too young to get a tattoo on Tattooine ... which now that I think of it, is kind of strange.

It's hard to deal with because the entire concept was just horrible writing.

Aha, someone addresses a root cause. +1

The Senate reacted to Palpatine declaring himself emperor by giving him a standing ovation, the CIS literally started a galaxy-wide civil war, but apparently it's all the fault of the Jedi Council for being "arrogant" or something?

I cannot mention the political context of the time of that movie's release, but I can reach back to the Roman Empire (for about a century before J Caesar, and then from about the time of Diocletian to Justinian) and see a similar pattern at play. George L had some source material to work with, so he wedged it in, plus magic.

Hell, they even let him go on a cushy protective service to Space Italy with a friend from his childhood!

My wife and I found that bit to approach nausea inducing. Me for the bad pacing and dialogue. She expressed her disappointment something like t his: "He's a handsome actor, why are they having him do so much pouting, and giving him such bad dialogue? They are wasting his appeal." (She found/finds H.C. to be quite handsome).

That's bad logic, though. Which, no surprise because I've never accused the prequel trilogy of having good writing,

Back to the root cause analysis ...

Kenobi was a brand new Jedi. So it was Kenobi screwing up, then? We see that or are told that, yes? Or do we just see Anakin have fascistic ideation and go do mini-genocides while hiding all that from Kenobi?

Again, not really seeing the Jedi being mean to Anakin.

If I may add some context: I got the idea that the way they wrote Anakin (in eps 2 and 3) was an attempt to make the appeal to the "rebellious youth" segment of their audience (which is similar but different to the way Luke was presented in Eps 4-6). And they boned it. (Yes, I used boned as a verb, Roy Greenhilt will be quite disappointed in me).

I will concede, they could theoretically have decided to let Anakin, Padme and Obi-wan die, but I would argue that their role as Jedi would not have actually allowed them to make that decision in practice, under any circumstances.

The author was George Lucas, not George R.R. Martin.

Spoiler: Some points

Show

They didn’t integrate him, that’s the problem. Making Anakin a padawan out the gate was a huge mistake because it meant he didn’t spend years in a classroom with other students like himself, as a youngling should, which would have made him feel like he belonged somewhere.

Anakin never felt like he belonged in the Jedi Order because the Jedi Order intentionally excluded him. There’s even a comic book where other padawans gang up and try to bully Anakin because they feel like he got special treatment. Obviously it doesn’t end well for them because Anakin is vastly more powerful than them even when they’re twice his age, but it emphasises that the Jedi Order did not treat Anakin like any other Jedi. They kinda didn’t want anything to do with him and he knew it. Imagine being raised as a slave, then being sent to train as a Jedi by an Order that doesn’t want you around.

Look at Ahsoka, for example. She’s only actually about five years younger than Anakin and she actually joined the Jedi Order around the same time as him (she was 3 years old, he was 8). She didn’t become a padawan until she was 14 and that was considered a young age to become a padawan given that a lot of younglings were being fast tracked to padawan status because of the war. So even though Anakin and Ahsoka joined the Order around the same time, Ahsoka spent the next eleven years building that sense of community and belonging whereas

Anakin spent almost no time at all with other Jedi besides Obi-Wan because they were always being sent on missions.

1. Learn by doing.

2. One of Anakin's most powerful manifestations in the Force was his ability to whine about how unfair life is to an extent that none of his peers could manage. His whining was so profound that my wife, mentioned above who had a positive reaction to the actor, was basically turned off of the Star Wars movies during Ep 2. She went with us to Ep 3 since it was a family outing, and her distaste was amplified by the time the movie was over.
He got special treatment because he was special, even though there was no tattoo.

It's no exaggeration to say Ahsoka is the most prolific survivor of the Clone Wars, thanks in no small part to Filoni making her a major player at every opportunity, so who among her fellow survivors turned out better than she did?

Is this perhaps a Mary Sue character? (No, I have not bothered to watch any more Star Wars stuff since Mandalorian Season 2).

Yeah, Anakin is a great teacher and mentor, ignoring the giant pile of kids he chops up whenever he's feeling stressed. Personally, when evaluating teachers, I find the number of elementary schools they've massacred ranks a bit higher than whether or not their favorite survives Dictator Daddy's kill order, but maybe that's just me.

Your metrics are sound. You are management material.

The only time in the series he could be considered anything other than a villain is Episode I.

Odd juxtaposition: Anakin was a pod racing hero. There was a video game in an arcade where we lived where you get to pod race. Also, I think Guitar Hero was coming out at about the same time. (I may be fusing memories, though, and GH came out later).

[Infernally Clay]

1. Learn by doing.

That's on the Jedi Order, not Anakin. He was an eight year old kid. If they wanted him to become a model Jedi, they should have tried raising him like one. Put him in a room with other eight year old kids dreaming of one day becoming the padawan of a great Jedi, rather than sending him off on missions as one already.

There's an arc in The Clone Wars where a bunch of younglings go off to Ilum to acquire lightsaber crystals and it's made pretty clear they had been friends for basically their entire lives. They supported and encouraged each other as they overcame the trials they needed to pass in order to earn their crystals. It was a fantastic look at the bonds being forged between these children before they were selected as padawans and sent off to war, where they would inevitably die within the next year or two. A bit bleak but, hey, that's Star Wars for you.

The point I'm making is that Anakin never felt like he belonged in the Jedi Order and for nearly all of the fifteen years he was a Jedi, he wanted to leave the Order. The other padawans resented him, the Council wanted nothing to do with him... They only promoted him to a Knight because they needed more generals for the war. How was Anakin ever meant to become the Jedi they wanted him to be if they never treated him like one? It's no wonder Palpatine found it so easy to get under Anakin's skin. The Jedi Order was doing itself no favours.

[Keltest]

That's on the Jedi Order, not Anakin. He was an eight year old kid. If they wanted him to become a model Jedi, they should have tried raising him like one. Put him in a room with other eight year old kids dreaming of one day becoming the padawan of a great Jedi, rather than sending him off on missions as one already.

There's an arc in The Clone Wars where a bunch of younglings go off to Ilum to acquire lightsaber crystals and it's made pretty clear they had been friends for basically their entire lives. They supported and encouraged each other as they overcame the trials they needed to pass in order to earn their crystals. It was a fantastic look at the bonds being forged between these children before they were selected as padawans and sent off to war, where they would inevitably die within the next year or two. A bit bleak but, hey, that's Star Wars for you.

The point I'm making is that Anakin never felt like he belonged in the Jedi Order and for nearly all of the fifteen years he was a Jedi, he wanted to leave the Order. The other padawans resented him, the Council wanted nothing to do with him... They only promoted him to a Knight because they needed more generals for the war. How was Anakin ever meant to become the Jedi they wanted him to be if they never treated him like one? It's no wonder Palpatine found it so easy to get under Anakin's skin. The Jedi Order was doing itself no favours.

How is that supposed to help him? They can't turn him back to an infant to grow up in the Jedi Order. The other children aren't going to just magically integrate him.

Maybe more to the point, we don't ever actually see the Jedi ostracize Anakin in the way you describe. They promote him to Knight because he met the qualifications. They don't promote him to Master because he doesn't meet the qualifications, just like every other Jedi. By all appearances they go out of their way to give him every chance possible.

[Infernally Clay]

How is that supposed to help him? They can't turn him back to an infant to grow up in the Jedi Order. The other children aren't going to just magically integrate him.

Maybe more to the point, we don't ever actually see the Jedi ostracize Anakin in the way you describe. They promote him to Knight because he met the qualifications. They don't promote him to Master because he doesn't meet the qualifications, just like every other Jedi. By all appearances they go out of their way to give him every chance possible.

Who said anything about turning him into an infant? If younglings typically undergo around ten or eleven years of Jedi School before they become padawans, why not just put him in the fifth year with other eight year olds? He'd have to do some catching up, sure, but given his natural talent with the Force it's not like it'd be particularly difficult for him to do. You really don't believe putting Anakin in a classroom with children his own age would help him fit in? You honestly believe making an eight year old kid a padawan when you aren't s'posed to become a padawan until you're thirteen or fourteen was the right thing to do?

Also, as I already said, they didn't promote Anakin to Knight because he met the qualifications because there no qualifications to meet. Under normal circumstances your Jedi master tells the Council they believe you're ready for the Trials and if you complete them you become a Knight. Anakin never underwent the Trials. When the war broke out he and many other padawans were promoted to Knights to fill out the Order's ranks. They didn't need padawan learners they needed generals for the Grand Army of the Republic.

As for whether or not Anakin deserved to be promoted to Master, they refused him the position in the most humiliating way possible and then asked him to spy on Palpatine for them. If you can't even appreciate how tone-deaf that is...

[Peelee]

HMaybe more to the point, we don't ever actually see the Jedi ostracize Anakin in the way you describe. They promote him to Knight because he met the qualifications. They don't promote him to Master because he doesn't meet the qualifications, just like every other Jedi. By all appearances they go out of their way to give him every chance possible.

Not only all that, but they even let him sit on the council despite being an external political appointee rather than internal choice, which was unprecedented. And Anakin himself seemed to think it was somehow earned and that he should be promoted to Master solely because he was on the council. Not only did the Jedi go out of their way to accommodate him, but Anakin still acted like a trust fund baby who believed he deserved things despite not actually earning them.

[Mordar]

Not only all that, but they even let him sit on the council despite being an external political appointee rather than internal choice, which was unprecedented. And Anakin himself seemed to think it was somehow earned and that he should be promoted to Master solely because he was on the council. Not only did the Jedi go out of their way to accommodate him, but Anakin still acted like a trust fund baby who believed he deserved things despite not actually earning them.

Truth. Though I wouldn't have gone the nepo route and would have instead described him as the guy promoted to work the fryer at McDonald's now thinks he should be CEO. Anakin totally pre-saged the general attitude of the youth of the coming decades!

I mean, yes, he could dunk on almost all of them in combat...but there was much more to master than Light Sabrey.

- M

[Infernally Clay]

Not only all that, but they even let him sit on the council despite being a political appointee that they did not agree with, which was unprecedented. And Anakin himself seemed to think it was somehow earned and that he should be promoted to Master solely because he was on the council. Not only did the Jedi go out of their way to accommodate him, but Anakin still acted like a trust fund baby who believes he deserves things despite not actually earning them.

If we're moving the topic onto Anakin being refused the rank of master, it's worth remembering that Palpatine knew they wouldn't and they played right into his trap by not doing so. I think that's the part you're overlooking. For most of his life, Palpatine was Anakin's confidant and father figure. Whenever Anakin was frustrated with the Jedi, Palpatine was there to get inside Anakin's head and convince him that he wasn't being appreciated, that he deserved more. As Maul put it, Anakin was groomed from a young age to become Palpatine's new apprentice.

PALPATINE: It is upsetting to me to see that the Council doesn't seem to fully appreciate your talents. Don't you wonder why they won't make you a Jedi Master?

ANAKIN: I wish I knew. More and more I get the feeling that I am being excluded from the Council. I know there are things about the Force that they are not telling me.

PALPATINE: They don't trust you, Anakin. They see your future. They know your power will be too strong to control. Anakin, you must break through the fog of lies the Jedi have created around you. Let me help you to know the subtleties of the Force.

Had the Council made Anakin a Jedi Master, as tradition dictates one must be to sit on the Jedi Council, they would have robbed Palpatine of his ammunition. Let's not forget that they did this for Obi-Wan already, promoting him to Jedi Master because they wanted him on the Jedi Council. As the Jedi Council proved on multiple occasions they're more than willing to bend the rules or provide arbitrary reasons to promote Jedi to Knight or even Master as it suits them.

The only reason they didn't promote Anakin to Jedi Master is because they believed he was using his friendship with Palpatine to get on the Council, apparently oblivious to the fact it was obviously Palpatine's idea not Anakin's.

[Peelee]

Truth. Though I wouldn't have gone the nepo route and would have instead described him as the guy promoted to work the fryer at McDonald's now thinks he should be CEO. Anakin totally pre-saged the general attitude of the youth of the coming decades!

I mean, yes, he could dunk on almost all of them in combat...but there was much more to master than Light Sabrey.

- M

That's fair, yeah.

[Keltest]

If we're moving the topic onto Anakin being refused the rank of master, it's worth remembering that Palpatine knew they wouldn't and they played right into his trap by not doing so. I think that's the part you're overlooking. For most of his life, Palpatine was Anakin's confidant and father figure. Whenever Anakin was frustrated with the Jedi, Palpatine was there to get inside Anakin's head and convince him that he wasn't being appreciated, that he deserved more. As Maul put it, Anakin was groomed from a young age to become Palpatine's new apprentice.

PALPATINE: It is upsetting to me to see that the Council doesn't seem to fully appreciate your talents. Don't you wonder why they won't make you a Jedi Master?

ANAKIN: I wish I knew. More and more I get the feeling that I am being excluded from the Council. I know there are things about the Force that they are not telling me.

PALPATINE: They don't trust you, Anakin. They see your future. They know your power will be too strong to control. Anakin, you must break through the fog of lies the Jedi have created around you. Let me help you to know the subtleties of the Force.

Had the Council made Anakin a Jedi Master, as tradition dictates one must be to sit on the Jedi Council, they would have robbed Palpatine of his ammunition. Let's not forget that they did this for Obi-Wan already, promoting him to Jedi Master because they wanted him on the Jedi Council. As the Jedi Council proved on multiple occasions they're more than willing to bend the rules or provide arbitrary reasons to promote Jedi to Knight or even Master as it suits them.

The only reason they didn't promote Anakin to Jedi Master is because they believed he was using his friendship with Palpatine to get on the Council, apparently oblivious to the fact it was obviously Palpatine's idea not Anakin's.

Ok, but if they knew that Palpatine was the bad guy the whole time, they would have just dealt with him directly, not bothered with competing for influence over Anakin. You're chastising them for doing badly in a race they hadn't signed up for in the first place.

[KorvinStarmast]

Not only did the Jedi go out of their way to accommodate him, but Anakin still acted like a trust fund baby who believed he deserved things despite not actually earning them.

Complete with pouting. Good assessment.

[Infernally Clay]

Ok, but if they knew that Palpatine was the bad guy the whole time, they would have just dealt with him directly, not bothered with competing for influence over Anakin. You're chastising them for doing badly in a race they hadn't signed up for in the first place.

I'm chastising them for their own goals. I know some of you have this odd belief that the Jedi Order did absolutely nothing wrong and everyone else is to blame for anything that went badly, but that isn't supported by the material. When I say the Jedi retreated from the galaxy and that created resentment towards them, that isn't me making it up, just like I'm not making it up when I say the Jedi Council knew about the clone troopers and chose to do nothing about it because they figured they'd just win the war before anything could happen. Despite Peelee accusing me of doing so, I'm not dumping headcanon in this thread and acting like it's real.

The Jedi Council made mistakes and some of those mistakes were ones Palpatine knew they'd make and was able to take advantage of. You say they did badly in a race they hadn't signed up for, except they did. They're the Jedi. Sith Lords are meant to be their speciality, if you'd believe Obi-Wan anyway. Just because they think they defeated the Sith a thousand years ago, it's no excuse for a lack of vigilance and this show - The Acolyte - has a very real chance of making the Jedi Council look even worse if it reveals they knew the Sith were still active centuries before Palpatine was even born.

Don't even get me started on the fact the Jedi apparently have star maps that accurately predict when and where Force sensitive children will be born and not only did they fail to pick up Palpatine they also failed to pick up Anakin too. The more we learn about how the Jedi Order operates the more incompetent they appear to be.

[Wintermoot]

I'm chastising them for their own goals. I know some of you have this odd belief that the Jedi Order did absolutely nothing wrong and everyone else is to blame for anything that went badly, but that isn't supported by the material. When I say the Jedi retreated from the galaxy and that created resentment towards them, that isn't me making it up, just like I'm not making it up when I say the Jedi Council knew about the clone troopers and chose to do nothing about it because they figured they'd just win the war before anything could happen. Despite Peelee accusing me of doing so, I'm not dumping headcanon in this thread and acting like it's real.

The Jedi Council made mistakes and some of those mistakes were ones Palpatine knew they'd make and was able to take advantage of. You say they did badly in a race they hadn't signed up for, except they did. They're the Jedi. Sith Lords are meant to be their speciality, if you'd believe Obi-Wan anyway. Just because they think they defeated the Sith a thousand years ago, it's no excuse for a lack of vigilance and this show - The Acolyte - has a very real chance of making the Jedi Council look even worse if it reveals they knew the Sith were still active centuries before Palpatine was even born.

Don't even get me started on the fact the Jedi apparently have star maps that accurately predict when and where Force sensitive children will be born and not only did they fail to pick up Palpatine they also failed to pick up Anakin too. The more we learn about how the Jedi Order operates the more incompetent they appear to be.

It's not other people that are on the wrong end of the see-saw here. I don't see anyone saying "the Jedi Order did nothing wrong", simply that not putting Anakin on the council and promoting him to Master wasn't wrong. And it wasn't.

You on the other hand, seem to strongly be of the belief that Anakin did nothing wrong and deserved to be put on the council?

So maybe realize that everyone else is operating somewhere in the broad center of this argument, its you that is pressed up on the all-or-nothing end.

Also, just to be clear, a lot of the "incompetence" that you keep harping on was directly due to sabotage/influence by bad actors (Palpatine). Just like the entire civil way that tore apart the republic was due to his influence/scheming.

[Mordar]

If we're moving the topic onto Anakin being refused the rank of master, it's worth remembering that Palpatine knew they wouldn't and they played right into his trap by not doing so. I think that's the part you're overlooking. For most of his life, Palpatine was Anakin's confidant and father figure. Whenever Anakin was frustrated with the Jedi, Palpatine was there to get inside Anakin's head and convince him that he wasn't being appreciated, that he deserved more. As Maul put it, Anakin was groomed from a young age to become Palpatine's new apprentice.

Had the Council made Anakin a Jedi Master, as tradition dictates one must be to sit on the Jedi Council, they would have robbed Palpatine of his ammunition. Let's not forget that they did this for Obi-Wan already, promoting him to Jedi Master because they wanted him on the Jedi Council. As the Jedi Council proved on multiple occasions they're more than willing to bend the rules or provide arbitrary reasons to promote Jedi to Knight or even Master as it suits them.

The only reason they didn't promote Anakin to Jedi Master is because they believed he was using his friendship with Palpatine to get on the Council, apparently oblivious to the fact it was obviously Palpatine's idea not Anakin's.

But this is just another Fork from Sidious. Absent his existence, if somehow everything else played out the same with Anakin coming to the Order late, and some non-Sidious spawned some kind of shooting war for a non-internal-politics reason...Anakin wouldn't have been on the council or a Master. It wasn't time yet. You don't make a high school star the starting NFL QB even if his name is Manning/Brady/whatever. You don't give the department chair to the surgeon who just finished med school, even if she seems to be the neurosurg prodigy that was prophesied.

Sidious played *very* well, and I think that all the Lucas hate sometimes misses how well he set up this plot (must have had help, right? Maybe Clancy co-wrote). He forces nudges the Council to accept Anakin as a special envoy - not a traditional sitting member. If they refuse to make him a Master because he hasn't earned the promotion, Sidious plays as we saw. If they give him the honorary title, Sidious digs deep into the leverage of "See what I made happen for you? Aren't you excited to learn all of the other things I can make happen for you? I saw your potential long before those clowns, and I can advance it further than they ever will. Plus they still don't trust you. Shouldn't you be a leader amongst the Council?"

I'm chastising them for their own goals. I know some of you have this odd belief that the Jedi Order did absolutely nothing wrong and everyone else is to blame for anything that went badly, but that isn't supported by the material. When I say the Jedi retreated from the galaxy and that created resentment towards them, that isn't me making it up, just like I'm not making it up when I say the Jedi Council knew about the clone troopers and chose to do nothing about it because they figured they'd just win the war before anything could happen. Despite Peelee accusing me of doing so, I'm not dumping headcanon in this thread and acting like it's real.

The Jedi Council made mistakes and some of those mistakes were ones Palpatine knew they'd make and was able to take advantage of. You say they did badly in a race they hadn't signed up for, except they did. They're the Jedi. Sith Lords are meant to be their speciality, if you'd believe Obi-Wan anyway. Just because they think they defeated the Sith a thousand years ago, it's no excuse for a lack of vigilance and this show - The Acolyte - has a very real chance of making the Jedi Council look even worse if it reveals they knew the Sith were still active centuries before Palpatine was even born.

No one has claimed they were perfect that I have seen. Again, a substantial space (a whole galaxy?) between "did absolutely nothing wrong" and utterly incompetent.

I think the bar has been set prohibitively high. "Retreated from the Galaxy", or are more and more outnumbered, more and more tasked? Has NASA retreated from space, or has their mission been changed? Re: Sith lords as speciality...is that accurate (legitimate question)? While they may be the only group that was presented in the films that can oppose the Sith, does that make them their specialty? If it were their only job, then yes...but with hundreds of other threats and literally (right? fact-check please!) no Jedi currently alive ever having shared time with a Sith isn't it reasonable that this mythological bogeyman could manage to avoid detection? Even with an amazingly effective nationwide measles vaccination program the US still saw sporadic cases, even before any vaccine challenges.

Even if the Jedi know Palpatine is a bad actor (which some of them certainly seem to believe) before all is revealed, should they prosecute absent evidence? Assassinate him? Law enforcement is very very regularly forced to be reactive, and despite the Jedi version of precognition, there is no Pre-crime Division. The Jedi had a great run. Someone extremely talented came along and was able to understand their weakness and, with a confluence of circumstance, ambition, planning and skill, exploit it. And he would have gotten away with it too...if it wasn't for those meddling kids who just happened to include the last remnant of the Jedi. Even the best get beat.

- M

[pendell]

Not really. Again, a concerted, systemic effort to wipe out the Jedi isn't going to leave the "best" Jedi alive. It's largely going to get down to luck. Kenobi, for example, was lucky that his clones fired a single shot and never bothered to confirm, unlike others who had blaster fire poured into their corpse like it was going out of style. Ahsoka was lucky in that she was excommunicated from the Jedi (another reason she can't be the best - she wasn't one after that anyway, a card she herself played on multiple times occasions) and wasn't in the same position as, say, Ayla Secura.

Hell, she survived a direct confrontation with Vader. Not because she was good but because Filoni can't kill his characters and came up with one of the worst mechanics where space and time can just open up for her to save her when nothing else can.

She's not the best Jedi. She just has the strongest plot armor.

"In my experience there's no such thing as luck" -- Obi-Wan Kenobi.

I think we have to accept that the Star Wars universe is a universe in which there really is no such thing as a random outcome -- at least, not at the macro level when it comes to intelligent beings. Destiny, Fate, Chosen One -- all of these concepts reflect a universe in which "luck" has no place when it comes to survival. "Luck" did not destroy the Death Star at Yavin, and "luck" did not save some Jedi while leaving others to perish. Some died, and others lived, because their destinies so decreed it. "Luck" , in Star Wars, is just a way of saying "there is a Force in the universe which dictates the destinies of people, but we do not understand why it does what it does." It can seem random, but it's not.

Which fits very well with the meta-fact that this is a film universe, where almost nothing happens on-camera unless it's scripted. There are a few ad-libbed scenes , of course, but characters don't live or die based on random chance.

There is only the Force -- which, as we were told in the first film, both controls the actions of people but also can obey commands. I suspect people make their own "luck", their own destiny, in Star Wars. Act in accordance with the Dark Side -- the Dark Side has more influence both in your life and over your eventual fate. If Anakin had fulfilled his role as chosen one in the prequels, not only would many Jedi dead in the OT be alive, but he also wouldn't be walking around in a moveable coffin.

It's the same with Plot Armor. It really is a thing in Star Wars -- Force Armor. If the Force wants to arrange matters so that Ahsoka "luckily" survives an impossible confrontation, in-universe that is entirely possible and doesn't break any rules.

My overall point is that I will not accept an argument, in the GFFA, about any character being "lucky". There aren't any. If anything, "luck" indicates a skill at probability manipulation stemming , consciously or unconsciously, from attunement with the Force. It's why Palpatine, for example, always seems to get the lucky breaks. When the universe is actively stacking the deck in your favor, it's not hard to walk away from a sabacc table with everyone's money.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Errorname]

Truth. Though I wouldn't have gone the nepo route and would have instead described him as the guy promoted to work the fryer at McDonald's now thinks he should be CEO. Anakin totally pre-saged the general attitude of the youth of the coming decades!

Anakin is absolutely being entitled here but he's also completely right that he is being deliberately snubbed by the council. They don't want to promote him, Palpatine does, so they give him the responsibilities but not the rank. He's not wrong to perceive that as an insult, especially from the perspective of someone who's been doing the exact same amount of fighting and commanding during the war as the masters have been.

The Jedi are also not wrong to recognize that Anakin is not mature and not particularly stable, not cut out to be a master. Both sides have an understandable perspective here and are being pitted against each other deliberately.

[Infernally Clay]

No one has claimed they were perfect that I have seen. Again, a substantial space (a whole galaxy?) between "did absolutely nothing wrong" and utterly incompetent.

I think the bar has been set prohibitively high. "Retreated from the Galaxy", or are more and more outnumbered, more and more tasked? Has NASA retreated from space, or has their mission been changed? Re: Sith lords as speciality...is that accurate (legitimate question)? While they may be the only group that was presented in the films that can oppose the Sith, does that make them their specialty? If it were their only job, then yes...but with hundreds of other threats and literally (right? fact-check please!) no Jedi currently alive ever having shared time with a Sith isn't it reasonable that this mythological bogeyman could manage to avoid detection? Even with an amazingly effective nationwide measles vaccination program the US still saw sporadic cases, even before any vaccine challenges.

Even if the Jedi know Palpatine is a bad actor (which some of them certainly seem to believe) before all is revealed, should they prosecute absent evidence? Assassinate him? Law enforcement is very very regularly forced to be reactive, and despite the Jedi version of precognition, there is no Pre-crime Division. The Jedi had a great run. Someone extremely talented came along and was able to understand their weakness and, with a confluence of circumstance, ambition, planning and skill, exploit it. And he would have gotten away with it too...if it wasn't for those meddling kids who just happened to include the last remnant of the Jedi. Even the best get beat.

- M

See, this is where the debate breaks down. I say the Jedi made mistakes and I explain the mistakes they made, then I get called out by people who say the Jedi didn't make mistakes. I've pointed out when Anakin did something wrong, when Palpatine manipulated events to his advantage... Yet the same people ignore all that because I say the Jedi Council was arrogant about this or incompetent at handling that. It's like we can't actually have a real conversation about this stuff because the same people are so intent on absolving the Jedi of any responsibility regarding anything that ever happened. Just because nobody has explicitly said "the Jedi were perfect" doesn't change the fact that some of you are adamant they've never made a single wrong decision ever - and before you try to say that's not true, not one of the usual suspects has said "okay maybe they shouldn't have done that". The way certain people go on you'd be led to believe the responsibility for the events of the prequels was 100% Palpatine's and 0% the Jedi's and if that ain't arguing that the Jedi did absolutely nothing wrong I don't know what is.

I mean I can literally sit here and say "the Jedi Council was wrong to not tell Anakin that Obi-Wan wasn't actually murdered and that he just faked his death so he could go undercover and foil a plot to assassinate Palpatine" and you'll have someone pipe up and say "if Anakin couldn't figure it out himself he didn't deserve to know". So y'know what I just give up. The galaxy wasn't a mess before Palpatine showed up, he did it all himself. The Jedi Council never made any mistakes, it was all Anakin's fault. The war didn't mess up a whole generation of padawans, the Jedi raised them perfectly. Did I miss anything?

Either way it's clear that I'm just imagining all this stuff and none of it ever happened so we can just end the discussion there.

[Mordar]

Anakin is absolutely being entitled here but he's also completely right that he is being deliberately snubbed by the council. They don't want to promote him, Palpatine does, so they give him the responsibilities but not the rank. He's not wrong to perceive that as an insult, especially from the perspective of someone who's been doing the exact same amount of fighting and commanding during the war as the masters have been.

The Jedi are also not wrong to recognize that Anakin is not mature and not particularly stable, not cut out to be a master. Both sides have an understandable perspective here and are being pitted against each other deliberately.

Is it a snub? Is someone just enlisted not being promoted to Sergeant after finishing boot being snubbed? Now, he can certainly take it as a snub (Sidious' whole intent in that action), but it is not an insult to not be made the youngest and least experienced Master (ever?). No matter how many droids he's fought, or ships he's shot down...it isn't an insult for a war hero not to be placed on the Joint Chiefs when they were "only" a Captain.

Obviously agree with the rest of your point.

See, this is where the debate breaks down. I say the Jedi made mistakes and I explain the mistakes they made, then I get called out by people who say the Jedi didn't make mistakes. I've pointed out when Anakin did something wrong, when Palpatine manipulated events to his advantage... Yet the same people ignore all that because I say the Jedi Council was arrogant about this or incompetent at handling that. It's like we can't actually have a real conversation about this stuff because the same people are so intent on absolving the Jedi of any responsibility regarding anything that ever happened. Just because nobody has explicitly said "the Jedi were perfect" doesn't change the fact that some of you are adamant they've never made a single wrong decision ever - and before you try to say that's not true, not one of the usual suspects has said "okay maybe they shouldn't have done that". The way certain people go on you'd be led to believe the responsibility for the events of the prequels was 100% Palpatine's and 0% the Jedi's and if that ain't arguing that the Jedi did absolutely nothing wrong I don't know what is.

I mean I can literally sit here and say "the Jedi Council was wrong to not tell Anakin that Obi-Wan wasn't actually murdered and that he just faked his death so he could go undercover and foil a plot to assassinate Palpatine" and you'll have someone pipe up and say "if Anakin couldn't figure it out himself he didn't deserve to know". So y'know what I just give up. The galaxy wasn't a mess before Palpatine showed up, he did it all himself. The Jedi Council never made any mistakes, it was all Anakin's fault. The war didn't mess up a whole generation of padawans, the Jedi raised them perfectly. Did I miss anything?

Either way it's clear that I'm just imagining all this stuff and none of it ever happened so we can just end the discussion there.

For anyone else...

Clearly the bold mustn't mean me. I've said all they can make are wrong decisions. That's the nature of forks. I've said it is because they and the whole galaxy got played. Anakin didn't have many opportunities to make good choices either. Absolutely outmanuvered. Palpatine (Sidious) didn't make the Galaxy messed up. People did. He took the disorder and crafted order from it. He gave his greatest threat no right choices to make except the ones he knew they were hugely unlikely to make (e.g. just straight assassinating him). There's a lot of frog and the scorpion going on, but this time it worked out for the entity counting on things behaving based on their nature.

Sidious is the architect of the entirety of the story. He won in the prequels because he was better than his opponents. He lost in the OT because he was the victim of destiny. And because he made mistakes...but even if he didn't, destiny was going to find him. At least it didn't make him marry his mother and kill his father first.

- M

[Infernally Clay]

Is it a snub? Is someone just enlisted not being promoted to Sergeant after finishing boot being snubbed? Now, he can certainly take it as a snub (Sidious' whole intent in that action), but it is not an insult to not be made the youngest and least experienced Master (ever?). No matter how many droids he's fought, or ships he's shot down...it isn't an insult for a war hero not to be placed on the Joint Chiefs when they were "only" a Captain.

Obviously agree with the rest of your point.

It is a snub, and intentionally so. Obi-Wan straight up accuses Anakin of using Palpatine to get himself on the Council. That's coming from Obi-Wan, who is the closest thing Anakin has to family.

A recurring theme of the Jedi Council, at least in regards to Anakin, is they do the least possible. They didn't teach him to let go of attachments, for example, they gave him a padawan and left it to her to deal with. It was Ahsoka who had to have that conversation with Anakin, to tell him he needed to let her go, and it was under less than ideal circumstances because Ahsoka had been kicked out of the Order and sentenced to death for a crime she didn't commit and the only person who stood by her side was Anakin. He didn't get to let go of Ahsoka. She was taken from him and you can't blame Palpatine for that. That was all on the Council, both for not having Ahsoka's back and for forbidding Anakin from helping her.

For anyone else...

Clearly the bold mustn't mean me. I've said all they can make are wrong decisions. That's the nature of forks. I've said it is because they and the whole galaxy got played. Anakin didn't have many opportunities to make good choices either. Absolutely outmanuvered. Palpatine (Sidious) didn't make the Galaxy messed up. People did. He took the disorder and crafted order from it. He gave his greatest threat no right choices to make except the ones he knew they were hugely unlikely to make (e.g. just straight assassinating him). There's a lot of frog and the scorpion going on, but this time it worked out for the entity counting on things behaving based on their nature.

Sidious is the architect of the entirety of the story. He won in the prequels because he was better than his opponents. He lost in the OT because he was the victim of destiny. And because he made mistakes...but even if he didn't, destiny was going to find him. At least it didn't make him marry his mother and kill his father first.

- M

I'm just not too sure about removing all agency from the Jedi Council here. The idea that Palpatine engineered a galaxy wide conflict that left his enemies with no right choices just seems like an excuse to absolve the Jedi of their culpability. Palpatine was clever but he wasn't that clever. You say the Jedi couldn't just assassinate the guy but that was their Plan B. Even before Anakin told them that Palpatine was the Sith Lord they had been looking for, the Council had agreed that they would depose Palpatine if he didn't willingly surrender his office and install an interim government until they could figure out how to handle the existing corruption.

Plus it's not like Palpatine can be credited for things that happened centuries before he was born. Palpatine didn't instruct the Jedi to abandon the temples and outposts they had manned for centuries. They chose to retreat from them because they felt they were no longer necessary, that the Jedi could just as easily help the galaxy from Coruscant as they could anywhere else, despite the fact that this meant they relied more and more on an increasingly corrupt Galactic Senate for orders and knew less and less about what was happening in the galaxy.

Case in point, Tales of the Jedi. The Galactic Senate is asked by one of its members to send Jedi to a planet where criminals have kidnapped the politician's son. The Jedi do so, sending Dooku and Qui-Gon to rescue the politician's son. Except it wasn't criminals that kidnapped the politician's son. He wasn't even kidnapped. He had joined with villagers who were trying to get the attention of the Republic because the politician in question was corrupt and abusing his power for personal gain. The Jedi had no idea. How could they? They had no outposts nearby any more, they didn't send people out to do rounds and check on planets any more.

Time and time again we are shown the Jedi grew complacent. It's not that they didn't care about the galaxy, they just had no presence in it. Systems could be suffering famine and poverty or corruption and the Jedi would never know even though, centuries before, the Jedi would have been on top of such things. The Outer Rim suffered the worst. If it wasn't pirates or criminal organisations like the Hutts, it was native fauna or natural disasters on planets too far from the galactic core to get help. You were truly on your own out there, despite the fact that centuries ago the Jedi had many outposts in the Outer Rim and were never too far away to help. Is it any wonder the people of the Outer Rim systems began to hate the Jedi and the Republic wanted to secede from the Republic and govern themselves?

That's kind of the point of shows like The Acolyte that are set during the High Republic era, no? To show us what the Jedi Order should have been.