Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
Oh. I agree completely. The thing is that while this is certainly a flaw of the Jedi Order, it's a well known and understood flaw (by themselves). This is why they don't normally train Jedi if they've already reached a certain age without having been trained already.

The Order understands that their teaching methods and expecations of members require specific things that are very difficult for someone not raised by the Jedi from early childhood to actually achieve. They also know that their own outlook, having been trained from childhood via these methods, will leave them incapable of effectively guiding such people. Which is presumably specifically why they normally don't do this.

Hence why I said that the mistake was in teaching Anakin at all, not that they were bad at teaching him once they started. They knew they were going to be bad at teaching him. That's why they didn't want to do it in the first place. They made an exception and it bit them in the butt. Bad.
If you extend from this, it pushes a lot of fault onto Qui-Gon. By the time Anakin arrives on Coruscant, the Council is in a huge bind. Anakin is strong in the Force, unbelievably so, to the point that he's already manifesting Force abilities spontaneously. At this point, if that cut him loose not only is he a 'danger to himself and others' the Order is also learning that the Sith, or at least something a lot like the Sith, is active in the galaxy and if they just Anakin loose that force will snatch him up and turn him into an agent of evil. Worse, the Council knows that Qui-Gon will teach Anakin regardless of what they say, even if they push him out of the Order entirely. If they choose not to train Anakin, they loose all control over a being who they correctly identify as a child of prophecy. The Council decides, reluctantly - Yoda's tone at the end of TPM strongly suggests that any vote they held was a long ways from unanimous - that accepting Anakin and allowing Obi-Wan to train him is the least bad option.

Maybe that was wrong. Maybe an Anakin who becomes Palpatine's apprentice immediately following TPM does less damage than Anakin within the Jedi Order. Impossible to say, though of course Palpatine could have and would have corrupted someone else within the Order (ex. Bariss Offee) to act in his stead anyway.

And this leads back to the real issue being that the Jedi Order was too hidebound and strict. It was unable to adjust to a situation outside very strict pre-determined expectations. In this it demonstrating the typical flaws of bureaucracies everywhere: if the situation isn't in the manual, a proper solution does not exist and leadership forbids the line agents from formulating one. Historically, in order for a bureaucracy to succeed and avoid problems of this kind it needs to engage in almost constant review, reorganization, and restructuring in the hopes of adapting to new conditions (this generally works imperfectly at best, but at least the goal is understood). The Jedi Order of the PT changed nothing for 800 years. That's crazy. Of course they proved unable to adapt when a genuine unexpected circumstance slammed into them.