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timepiececlockRead a very interesting analysis/critique of gender roles and social/culture trends (as seen from a comparative literary standpoint) of the Star Wars films, with a focus on the prequel trilogy.
Mostly it left me in agreement: "Yeah, the Jedi are physically the most badass and fantastic warriors(glowy swords!), but I never really bought the whole 'emotion=danger' bit either."
Why?
I've always liked the Jedi as fictional warriors because they embodied martial arts and magic, both things I love. But you know what? I've taken Aikido classes on and off since high school, and the main philosophical theme of Aikido (as I understand it, I haven't studied it, just absorbed it in classes) is love. Love for everything. It seriously is "love conquers all." Not in the sense that you should makeout with the opponent while they're trying to chop you in half with a sword, but in the sense that you have such a relaxed and loving peace of mind that nothing your enemy does can phase you, or drive you to be angry at them. It's not the kind of philosophy that says love is the same as anger and thus leads you to badness. It's the kind of philosophy that says "I love you because I love the world, I forgive you your violence, and I will pin you to the floor and break your arm if you insist on coming at me, but afterward I'll try to get you to a hospital and then I'll go home to my loved one and sleep well, and maybe have some snuggling with him/her too."
There's also the fact that with the exception of Star Wars, which I only saw a few times in my childhood/adolescence and liked well enough but was never enamored with, I was raised in the science fiction school of "Humanity's capacity for emotion makes us cool." Star Trek? Totally. I was raised on Next Generation, yo. Why frell did that frontin' mofo Q keep coming back to be messin' with my crew like dat? Because human emotion, illogic, and unexplanable attachments fascinated him-- fascinated him because it had taken us across galaxies despite its apparent absurdity.
Data was the perfect Jedi since his creation-- no emotional attachments, great intelligence, great physical strength, great adaptability, great learning and acquired knowledge, absolutely no sex drive or even capacity to understand male or female interaction. He was also psuedo-male in design, just the way that more than half of the Jedi we see on screen are men. And what did Data want (as much as a machine can want anything)? Data wanted to get in on this whole "emotion" thing. Data didn't want to be a eunuch or a machine. Data would have looked at the Jedi and asked them (with robotic detachment) why they choose to reject the one thing he believes he lacks-- the imperfection that would make him perfect.
I know that Jedi are big into mercy. Revenge isn't the Jedi way, yadda yadda yadda. But when I think of mercy, I know that what inspires mercy in me is the same thing that inspires my original intent to harm--passion. Presumably, if I were a warrior, I would be harming the person because I wanted to protect something/someone I valued. For the same reason, it's my capacity for deep emotional attachment to people/things that would allow me to put myself in the other person's place, and draw mercy from that. I would never spare someone on the idea that vengeance or punishment is wrong in some giant universal moral or dogmatic sense. Mercy is a personal act. I'd spare someone because I'd look at them, think of every person I loved or who has loved me, and for that I'd spare them. It's not about chi or the Force or universal goodness, it's entirely self-focused and self-referential. For me, mercy would come from identifying with my opponent, and if my opponent is evil because they embody excess and passion... that means I'd have to see myself in their place in order to spare them. Mercy comes from empathy which comes from passion. And living a life of stunted emotional growth isn't going to lend itself to that kind of empathy.
In the novel Ender's Game, Ender learns to outthink his enemies by knowing them and empathizing with them completely. I don't remember a conversation in the Star Wars prequel trilogy where Mace or Obi-Wan looks the Sith in the eye and says "I will defeat you because I know you, because I have been/am/will become you." Know your enemy to defeat him, all that Art Of War stuff. If Anakin's tragic flaw is that "he loves too much" ... you'd think that would be Ender's tragic flaw as well, because Grant says as much-- that the kid cares too friggin much and empathizes too deeply and that's why he's so dangerous to have as an enemy. But in the end
[ENDER'S GAME ONLY BOOK SPOILERS//]
...Ender weilds a crushing defeat, then offers mercy. This makes Ender awesome, but all the capacity for deep emotions that make him able to do this would also make him a terrible Jedi. Peter on the other hand would love the Jedi Order. They wouldn't let him in of course, but he'd love the political power that controlling them as a Senate leader would provide-- particularly because they are so dogmatic. Peter would coolly and logically manipulate himself into the Emperor's seat without having to get personally involved and have his face melted in the process.
[//ENDER'S GAME ONLY BOOK SPOILERS]
If the Jedi reject passion and reject fear and reject grief and reject romantic love, how to do they expect to transcend an enemy who embraces all those things? You can't be above those things without being inhuman, and Star Trek and Farscape and Babylon 5 and Lord of the Rings and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Naruto (lord and savior, tm) tell us that being "human" in the emotional sense makes us more special than you (everyone not emotionally humanesque) in the long run. Less pretty, maybe, but more lasting.
I'd talk about Serenity, here, but I'm already behind a cut so I can't really cut for spoilers. Let me just say that Captain Mal wouldn't agree that taming one's passions will achieve a wiser or kinder society.
And for that matter, neither would The Doctor. The Doctor would not be a very good Jedi either, because the Doctor rejects authority, rejects societal elitism, and most of all-- the doctor dances. The Jedi don't dance. Dancing led Anakin off the true path of the Jedi, but the Doctor never would have stepped out the door on that path in the first place. He would have learned the magical Force stuff, then left through the back window, stolen a lightsaber and a spaceship and ran off to find an adventure and save the universe one puppy and war orphan and shopgirl at a time, to the tune of Glen Miller in his soul. And if you aren't following the metaphor, watch the new Doctor Who.
Okay, I kind of lost track there so I'm going to stop now. I think I've babbled enough. I just wanted to comment on this aspect of Star Wars that I've never really liked. I've never liked religious-based celibacy as being celebrated as the mental/emotional ideal.
I didn't even go into the gender stuff like I had planned to. Oh well, I'll summarize: I hated Padme's storyline in general, especially in the third film. Eowyn of Rohan wouldn't have let herself become the vessel for an evil man's seed and then died for no apparent reason. Heck, Leia wouldn't even have let herself become that. But yeah I was going to stop and stuff. So this is me stopping.
Mostly it left me in agreement: "Yeah, the Jedi are physically the most badass and fantastic warriors(glowy swords!), but I never really bought the whole 'emotion=danger' bit either."
Why?
I've always liked the Jedi as fictional warriors because they embodied martial arts and magic, both things I love. But you know what? I've taken Aikido classes on and off since high school, and the main philosophical theme of Aikido (as I understand it, I haven't studied it, just absorbed it in classes) is love. Love for everything. It seriously is "love conquers all." Not in the sense that you should makeout with the opponent while they're trying to chop you in half with a sword, but in the sense that you have such a relaxed and loving peace of mind that nothing your enemy does can phase you, or drive you to be angry at them. It's not the kind of philosophy that says love is the same as anger and thus leads you to badness. It's the kind of philosophy that says "I love you because I love the world, I forgive you your violence, and I will pin you to the floor and break your arm if you insist on coming at me, but afterward I'll try to get you to a hospital and then I'll go home to my loved one and sleep well, and maybe have some snuggling with him/her too."
There's also the fact that with the exception of Star Wars, which I only saw a few times in my childhood/adolescence and liked well enough but was never enamored with, I was raised in the science fiction school of "Humanity's capacity for emotion makes us cool." Star Trek? Totally. I was raised on Next Generation, yo. Why frell did that frontin' mofo Q keep coming back to be messin' with my crew like dat? Because human emotion, illogic, and unexplanable attachments fascinated him-- fascinated him because it had taken us across galaxies despite its apparent absurdity.
Data was the perfect Jedi since his creation-- no emotional attachments, great intelligence, great physical strength, great adaptability, great learning and acquired knowledge, absolutely no sex drive or even capacity to understand male or female interaction. He was also psuedo-male in design, just the way that more than half of the Jedi we see on screen are men. And what did Data want (as much as a machine can want anything)? Data wanted to get in on this whole "emotion" thing. Data didn't want to be a eunuch or a machine. Data would have looked at the Jedi and asked them (with robotic detachment) why they choose to reject the one thing he believes he lacks-- the imperfection that would make him perfect.
I know that Jedi are big into mercy. Revenge isn't the Jedi way, yadda yadda yadda. But when I think of mercy, I know that what inspires mercy in me is the same thing that inspires my original intent to harm--passion. Presumably, if I were a warrior, I would be harming the person because I wanted to protect something/someone I valued. For the same reason, it's my capacity for deep emotional attachment to people/things that would allow me to put myself in the other person's place, and draw mercy from that. I would never spare someone on the idea that vengeance or punishment is wrong in some giant universal moral or dogmatic sense. Mercy is a personal act. I'd spare someone because I'd look at them, think of every person I loved or who has loved me, and for that I'd spare them. It's not about chi or the Force or universal goodness, it's entirely self-focused and self-referential. For me, mercy would come from identifying with my opponent, and if my opponent is evil because they embody excess and passion... that means I'd have to see myself in their place in order to spare them. Mercy comes from empathy which comes from passion. And living a life of stunted emotional growth isn't going to lend itself to that kind of empathy.
In the novel Ender's Game, Ender learns to outthink his enemies by knowing them and empathizing with them completely. I don't remember a conversation in the Star Wars prequel trilogy where Mace or Obi-Wan looks the Sith in the eye and says "I will defeat you because I know you, because I have been/am/will become you." Know your enemy to defeat him, all that Art Of War stuff. If Anakin's tragic flaw is that "he loves too much" ... you'd think that would be Ender's tragic flaw as well, because Grant says as much-- that the kid cares too friggin much and empathizes too deeply and that's why he's so dangerous to have as an enemy. But in the end
[ENDER'S GAME ONLY BOOK SPOILERS//]
...Ender weilds a crushing defeat, then offers mercy. This makes Ender awesome, but all the capacity for deep emotions that make him able to do this would also make him a terrible Jedi. Peter on the other hand would love the Jedi Order. They wouldn't let him in of course, but he'd love the political power that controlling them as a Senate leader would provide-- particularly because they are so dogmatic. Peter would coolly and logically manipulate himself into the Emperor's seat without having to get personally involved and have his face melted in the process.
[//ENDER'S GAME ONLY BOOK SPOILERS]
If the Jedi reject passion and reject fear and reject grief and reject romantic love, how to do they expect to transcend an enemy who embraces all those things? You can't be above those things without being inhuman, and Star Trek and Farscape and Babylon 5 and Lord of the Rings and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Naruto (lord and savior, tm) tell us that being "human" in the emotional sense makes us more special than you (everyone not emotionally humanesque) in the long run. Less pretty, maybe, but more lasting.
I'd talk about Serenity, here, but I'm already behind a cut so I can't really cut for spoilers. Let me just say that Captain Mal wouldn't agree that taming one's passions will achieve a wiser or kinder society.
And for that matter, neither would The Doctor. The Doctor would not be a very good Jedi either, because the Doctor rejects authority, rejects societal elitism, and most of all-- the doctor dances. The Jedi don't dance. Dancing led Anakin off the true path of the Jedi, but the Doctor never would have stepped out the door on that path in the first place. He would have learned the magical Force stuff, then left through the back window, stolen a lightsaber and a spaceship and ran off to find an adventure and save the universe one puppy and war orphan and shopgirl at a time, to the tune of Glen Miller in his soul. And if you aren't following the metaphor, watch the new Doctor Who.
Okay, I kind of lost track there so I'm going to stop now. I think I've babbled enough. I just wanted to comment on this aspect of Star Wars that I've never really liked. I've never liked religious-based celibacy as being celebrated as the mental/emotional ideal.
I didn't even go into the gender stuff like I had planned to. Oh well, I'll summarize: I hated Padme's storyline in general, especially in the third film. Eowyn of Rohan wouldn't have let herself become the vessel for an evil man's seed and then died for no apparent reason. Heck, Leia wouldn't even have let herself become that. But yeah I was going to stop and stuff. So this is me stopping.
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oops! - Rashaka
Date: 2005-10-11 01:04 am (UTC)