SPECULATION Lukes New JEDI Code

You asked "would he not been in danger of...."
I responded "yes" as in "yes he would not have been in danger of".

 

While I acknowledge that the words "sentiment" and "attachment" do not necessarily mean the exact same thing, they are certainly related and are part of the ultimate weappon against evil: love. Again, however, I must disagree with your conception of attachment, sentiment, and ultimately love, as being a selfish endeavor. I myself am married and have children. I am certainly attached to them, feel sentimental toward them, and love them. These are not bad things at all. In fact, these are the best things about those relationships.

I am not sure whether you have such relationships in your life, but I would argue that there is no more selfless endeavor than marriage and raising children. Granted, not everyone values marriage the same or approaches it from a truly selfless place any more. But there is a reason that people say that it is not until you have children of your own that you truly understand the unconditional love that your parents had for you. So, I would suggest that marriage and raising children is selfless and not about possessing them for yourself. There are things that I do as a parent in terms of discipline that I do not want to do... I don't want to take away my son's Star Wars Legos when he disobeys. But I do these things because it is my responsibility to teach them right from wrong. Can you have a fear of losing your loved ones? Of course. But the ultimate question is, what are you willing to do to prevent that loss? I will do everything I can to protect my family, but within limits. Am I going to murder a defenseless man, like Anakin did? Like Luke was tempted to do? No. I recognize that there is a greater good and a moral code on which I must live. In other words, as I said above, it is not whether you have attachments or such close relationships with others, but it is what you do with those emotions.

Anakin and Luke are most certainly a contrast in what they did with their emotions, sentimentality, and attachment to their loved ones. Anakin was willing to do anything, giving in to his emotions to commit unspeakable atrocities, to avenge his mother and do what he thought would ultimately "protect" Padme. And this included aligning himself with evil. Luke, on the other hand, momentarily gave in to his emotions, but he was not willing to do just about anything to protect his loved ones. He was able to let go of the evil intentions, not his attachments or love for others. It was his attachments and love for others that enabled him to recognize the potential evil he was about to commit. It was seeing his father in himself and loving his father enough to let go of his anger. To forgive his father for all of those atrocities he had committed.

This is exactly right. The fact that they had attachments or strong love relationships is not what determined whether they had the potential to do evil or do good. Those potentials were inherent in them on some level, either due to their different upbringing or their own moral fiber.

Attachments. Relationships. Love. Those are the things that make you truly strong. For me, as I said before, this moral (or Jedi) code should allow for these emotions because they are human emotions. Emotions that we must learn to respect and understand so that we can do what is right. We are not supernatural and really neither are the Jedi or Sith. They are just a representation of our own duality. But like the Jedi, we should all strive to do what is right and live up to the supernatural will of the Force.

Wow. Star Wars really is my religion...

 

I'm sorry, what?
I am just saying what happened. Luke is refusing to fight. Vader looks into his thoughts and finds out about Leia.
Vader says he will turn Leia and Luke goes loopy. He uses the Dark Side and knocks Vader down, holding the saber to his throat.
The Emperor pipes up and says his hate has made him powerful and to kill Vader and become his apprentice.
Luke in the midst of his hate, sees Vader's hand and then looks to his. He sees what he is becoming.
He throws his saber down instead of refusing to succumb to the Dark Side.
Only the Dark Side could've made him want to kill Vader. He never went there to do that. So even once he has calmed down he isn't then going to turn around and kill Vader!
Luke lets go of all the things he desired to keep. Had he turned he could've saved Leia and his friends. He would've lived. He would've been powerful.
But he let it go.

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 10, 2016, Original Post Date: Feb 10, 2016 ---

Not all love. Unconditional love is good and encouraged by Jedi.
Look I have kids too and I know if I had to choose between saving their lives or remaining a good person, I'd choose the former. Every time. Because I am attached to them. I fear losing them. That's what attachments do. You fear losing them because you make them part of yourself.

I think we're just looking at the term attachment differently. You view it as meaning a relationship with someone. I view it as meaning something you have become possessive of.

I have found being a parent to be the greatest fulfillment I could find but also the greatest curse. For if I were to lose my kids, that would be it for me.
So for a Jedi, this is too dangerous. Attachments are too dangerous. They should love everyone. But they can't become attached to individuals as this will lead them down a dark path and compromise their duty to the Force.

Again, different ideas of attachments here. I am not saying Luke stopped loving Leia. Quite the opposite. He loved her unconditionally but didn't act out of the fear of himself not having her, if that makes sense? He had to let go of the fear of losing her, to Vader, to the Emperor. Anakin had to let go of his hatred and desire for power in order to save Luke out of unconditional love and compassion. You can't act selflessly or give your life if you are attached because you desire those things, you want to be alive to enjoy them, to be possessive of them.

 

so how do you reconcile that he appeals to Vader when Palpatine has him on the ground? he's clearly still attached to his own life.

and by asking Vader to violate his own code, doesn't that still make him a hypocrite if what you're saying is true?

even with what may be his last breath, he's trying to save himself, but more importantly, he's trying to save his father.

 

Again, probably best if I quote the maker on this:

"The Jedi are trained to let go. They're trained from birth," he continues, "They're not supposed to form attachments. They can love people- in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith. But they can't form attachments. So what all these movies are about is: greed. Greed is a source of pain and suffering for everybody. And the ultimate state of greed is the desire to cheat death."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 213

"It's about a good boy who was loving and had exceptional powers, but how that eventually corrupted him and how he confused possessive love with compassionate love. That happens in Episode II: Regardless of how his mother died, Jedis are not supposed to take vengeance. And that's why they say he was too old to be a Jedi, because he made his emotional connections. His undoing is that he loveth too much."

--George Lucas, Rolling Stone Magazine Interview; June 2005.

The Jedi didn't discourage love, but they did discourage attachments. Lucas defines attachment as holding onto emotional states, instead of letting them go. Obsessing and worrying about things that are out of your control. It's about accepting the natural course of life, people you love do die. A Jedi must at all times show compassion, which is unconditional love for all people. To not think about themselves.

 

Indeed, he hadn't crossed the line. What would make him succumb? I dunno, maybe if Vader threatened his wife and kids?

But he told Obi Wan he wasn't going to do that. I don't see your point. Luke went there to redeem Vader. But he knew he might fail and thus might likely be killed himself.

He's being tortured by lightning. He's in agony. Can't blame him for crying out for his dad then! But the fact is, he already made the rational choice.

He's not asking Vader to violate his code. He is screaming for his fathers help. There would be nothing wrong in Anakin destroying Sidious out of love for his son.

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 10, 2016, Original Post Date: Feb 10, 2016 ---

Because this someone else wrote the frickin' story we are talking about! His visualised intentions are the movies we are discussing.
He explicitly says attachments are bad and showed this in his movies. To me it's clear. So I am with George. You're not. Fine.
But I think it makes my position on this stronger.

 

We certainly can view these terms differently and I appreciate these kinds of discussions. In many respects, I think we agree more than we disagree. To me, the concept of attachment as "possession" is really more something you do than something you have.

Anyway, attachments can mean many things, but putting the vernacular aside, the question the thread posed is a good one: What should Luke's Jedi Code (or Rules) look like? For me, I think the old Jedi approach to attachments and emotions was misguided. Teach your followers how to deal with their emotions and how to act, not simply forbid them from having those emotions, which is essentially impossible. Ultimately, our emotions are part of us, they are all human (or alien?) emotions, meaning they are not of the perfect supernatural... not always part of the Light. To deny those emotions is what I believe makes them dangerous. It is what you do with those emotions that is important.

Unfortunately, George Lucas has, at times, demonstrated that even he does not fully understand his own creation. I personally think part of what is great about Star Wars is that it has transcended what George Lucas believed it was and it has become part of a collective consciousness, understanding, and reflection of our own morality and humanity.

 

Maybe a hypothetical situation here would help.

A Jedi gets married and has a child. They are attached to that child. They fear losing it.
How do they overcome that fear? How do they not act on that fear if the child is threatened?

Again, we are given a prime example with Anakin.
He is attached to Padme. He has a vision of her dying. This turns him to the Dark Side.
It's pretty explicit isn't it?
I think saying that it's about how we act on our attachments is kind of like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.
If you become attached (and don't let go) then you will already be acting selfishly - not selflessly as a Jedi should.

This seems to be the fall back position a lot of people have when presented with a Lucas quote - unfortunately.

Yes, he has gone back on certain things. But in terms of attachment, every quote says the same thing and is backed up by what he has put on screen. I don't see how you can then say he doesn't understand his own movies.

 

Hypothetically? I mean, it almost impossible to answer this.
Luke very nearly did. Perhaps in Sidious hasn't piped up Luke might have just go and done it and turned evil?
More likely, if Vader had threatened Luke's wife and kids (if he had any) this would have drove him further.
If Leia had literally just been killed by Vader in front of Luke, maybe then Luke wouldn't have turned back?
Not sure. And I am not sure I understand the purpose of the question.

edit: Wait, you asked me this in response to me already giving you the wife and kids answer? You're confusing me, man!

 

Then I don't have a clue what you are asking me?
You said "what would make Luke succumb and kill Vader".
Clearly, as that doesn't happen, I take it to mean that you are asking for a hypothetical situation to explain why Luke would've gone further?
Is that not the case because then your question makes no sense at all?

 

But just because you have an attachment to someone doesn't mean that you have to do anything (including evil) to protect them. You can (and perhaps should) still do what is ultimately the right thing to do. As I said above, I am not just going to murder someone in cold blood because I have a child of my own. But that is the moral dilemma... that is the choice we ultimately have to make. Does it make it easier to make certain choices if you do not have those attachments? Perhaps. But to deny our own emotions and human needs can also lead to certain evils. That is why I keep saying, for me at least, it is not as important that you have attachments, but what you actually do. We are all tempted by evil from time to time, no matter what path we choose to take.

But that's the thing about art. It doesn't just inform you of what the "maker" believes or thinks, it challenges you to look closely at your own beliefs. It drives a discussion about meaning. Great art transcends the maker's beliefs and understanding.

BTW, thanks for the great discussion. I think we are transcending the maker!

 

"This is obviously a very pivotal scene for Anakin because this is reuniting with his mother and his youth and at the same time dealing with his inability to let go of his emotions and allow himself to accept the inevitable. The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that he can't hold onto things which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn't willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he'd have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn't have this particular connection as strong as it is and he'd have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"When you get down to where we are right now in the story, you basically get somebody who’s going to make a pact with the Devil, and it’s going to be a pact with the Devil that says, 'I want the power to save somebody from death. I want to be able to stop them from going to the river Styx, and I need to go to a god for that, but the gods won’t do it, so I’m going to go down to Hades and get the Dark Lord to allow me to have this power that will allow me to save the very person I want to hang on to.' You know, it’s Faust. So Anakin wants that power, and that is basically a bad thing. If you’re going to sell your soul to save somebody you love, that’s not a good thing. That’s as we say in the film, unnatural. You have to accept that natural course of life. Of all things. Death is obviously the biggest of them all. Not only death for yourself but death for the things you care about."

--George Lucas, “Star Wars: The Last Battle,” Vanity Fair, 2005

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 10, 2016, Original Post Date: Feb 10, 2016 ---

Sorry to ask this and don't dwell on it but...

Someone murders your child in front of you and you have a sword in your hand. How do you react and what do you do to that person?

More simple than that:

You have a child that you are obviously attached to - you worry about them all the time. You will do anything to keep them safe. How do you balance that with being a selfless Jedi that must act for the collective rather than your own needs and desires?

 

I have no problem answering these questions, as I think they definitely inform the debate. If Luke has made further attachments, perhaps fathering a child (Rey?), does that make him weaker and more susceptible to the corruption of the Dark Side? I personally don't think it has to...

No question, there is temptation. What is the right thing to do in that moment when someone has killed a loved one? Plenty of people would say the right thing is to mete out justice then and there. I personally don't think it is my place to be the one to mete out that justice. But what are the surrounding circumstances? Are others in danger allowing me to come to their defense? If so, I would certainly want to disarm them. Has the assassin thrown aside his or her weapon? Has he or she simply fled? All of this informs what I hope I would do. I don't know for certain. But I hope that I would do what Luke did (and Anakin did not)... the right thing.

Who says these two things have to be different and exclusive of one another? I personally believe that I can do what is necessary to keep my children safe and act in support of the greater good. And perhaps the best way that I can act for the greater good is to be a selfless father (Jedi Master?) and teach my children (Jedi apprentices?) right from wrong and to be the best citizens of society that I can...