Oh, For Force’s Sake—Of Course Jedi Can Have Sex

Firstly, the depiction of the Jedi in the prequels was greatly flawed, and should perhaps be disregarded entirely, including the ban on Jedi marriage. There was no such rule mentioned in the original trilogy, though there were warnings to keep personal attachments in perspective. The original trilogy essentially stated that while our attachments make us stronger (and can even redeem us), we must not compromise our moral and ethical ideals in service of avoiding personal pain. If the self is rooted in peace, and the will to life, the self cannot be lost and turned to evil in times of grief. If the self is rooted in the quest for power to compensate for the fear of loss, the self is an agent of chaos. That is a sensible tenet, and the prequels would be stronger by far had Lucas not resorted to restrictive dogma to serve as an unnecessary plot point, and had instead allowed the Jedi to be actual people in the prequels.

Further, spirituality is inherent in Jedi abilities – those who are not force sensitive are awed by the acts of Jedi, and find their acts unexplainable precisely because the uninitiated live in a world of logic based science which prohibits them from “letting go” and embracing the power of magical thought that allowed Luke to destroy the Death Star, and Rey to defeat Kylo Ren. To limit that potential with dogma and make Jedi powers commonplace quantifiable scientific phenomena by ascribing Jedi abilities to midichlorian was a huge mistake – the force of the prequels is not a mystic cosmic presence, but a power solely generated within the self. Eliminating the spiritual aspect of Anakin’s trilogy made his entire tale as bland and un-engaging as the romance found in a typical trashy novel set in reality – he was never connected to anything greater than himself, he never gave in to the force and allowed himself to be its tool, but rather, used the force exclusively as his tool, and so, there was never any sense of loss when we “lost” Anakin to the darkside. He was always a jerk. I suggest we should all eliminate much of the prequels from our head-canon, if you will.  

On that note – Anakin should have been a simple force sensitive teenage orphan (NO PROPHECY), still good and simple at heart despite being scarred by the tortures of slavery. He could have been rescued from that life by Jedi, met and married Padme, and become a selfless paragon of the order, similar to Obi Wan. Eventually, he would become disillusioned with the slow and steady pace of sustaining a delicate galactic peace, and he would become torn between Jedi teachings and the extremist fascist ideology of the burgeoning empire, which he would come to believe could bring order to the galaxy and put an end to suffering (perhaps partially spurred on by the hopes of creating a better world for his unborn child). It would be his distorted philosophical choice to betray the Jedi, who would represent an order free of the flaws we saw in the prequels (an order based on spirituality is, by default, directly opposed to a world increasingly obsessed with greed and status, and that is all that is necessary for a poignant tale of good v. evil – myopic internal politics only muddle this simple, important message). This would lend Anakin an actual likeable personality, and allow him to experience an actual downfall. Further, it’s a story that is true to life, and the forbidden romance angle is unnecessary to its development. Thankfully, The Force Awakens reflected many of the elements from this proposed narrative in both Rey and Kylo.

For the sake of argument, I’ll forget I wrote the paragraphs above, and I’ll pretend for a moment that I recognize the details of the prequels as canonical: Force sensitive children were not normal, and therefore normal child rearing rules were not applicable. A wronged teenage lover with raging hormones and potentially deadly telekinetic powers needs different guidelines, and romance, an often emotionally volatile experience, can easily come into direct conflict with those important guidelines. The Jedi knew that individual love connections could be manipulated in a way that would turn Jedi to the darkside – this evidently happened frequently enough that action had to be taken. Clearly, some Jedi would be able to compartmentalize romantic relationships, and would not be turned to the darkside even if those relationships were weighed on by outside forces – but if the council were to handle romantic permission on a case by case basis, and grant it only to those select Jedi who were deemed capable, it would look like favoritism to less enlightened Jedi, like Anakin, who was always bent toward envy, and always sought out perceived unfairness and victimization. So, it had to be a ubiquitous rule. Anakin was simply a $#!t person, and a $#!t Jedi. He could have chosen Padme and faced the music, at which point he would possibly be forced to leave the Jedi order – instead, he chose secrecy, and in his greed and lust for power, he tried to have everything, so he lost everything. He had a fatal attachment to all things worldly (which is not to say that some attachment is wrong, or evil, but that Anakin’s perspective was 0.00% enlightened). Technically, he never was a Jedi.

Every Jedi had the choice to leave. Some stayed with the order, and some left. Many had sex. Many loved deeply and never turned to the darkside. The Jedi tried to teach Anakin, well, anything and everything, but he never listened, because he thought he knew better. He had no patience, and he only wanted to rule the world by bending it to his will (the opposite of following the will of the living force). Anakin failed the Jedi – not the other way around.

Put simply, the prequels are fundamentally incompatible with reason and spirituality, and they lack the basic structures of good, compelling writing. Perhaps it’s better to forget them – trying to reconcile the flaws of a work is futile when the work is wholly flawed (episodes I – III)

@25 dwcole – The prequels were not a cautionary tale regarding the dangers of Buddhism.

All Earthly religions are simply guidelines for reaching enlightenment – for most people that’s all religion is – a series of stories and mantras meant to augment our behavior, thereby hopefully making the world a better place. Importantly, this viewpoint largely omits the spiritual aspect of religious belief in favor of subjective morality (much as this discussion has) – anyone can feel pain, search for answers, and find relief in their lives through joining a religion and applying those teachings to their lives, but few are called to serve god – by which I mean, few feel compelled to put their lives on the line in the service of god and trust in god’s will. In our reality, that lifestyle sounds like pure magical thought, but in the Star Wars universe it’s entirely possible to tap into cosmic powers and carry out the will of the force.  

See – the Jedi were called to serve the force – they’re literally the chosen few who are capable of wielding it in the name of life and justice, but importantly, that doesn’t mean they’re free from temptation and corruption. Buddhism (the only real world analog for the Jedi religion) represents a lifelong commitment to attaining enlightenment, and devoted monks continue to have spiritual epiphanies till the day they die. Those monks are the few who are called to that lifestyle, and have the willpower necessary to shut out all distractions in an effort to hear the divine and do its will. Sex is a distraction. If a monk is interested enough in sex that he can’t commit to the monastery, he isn’t called to serve the divine, just as you and I, average people, are not called to that life of devotion. That doesn’t make it wrong for a select few to follow that difficult path – in fact, major societal advances and corrections often emerge thanks to the work of a few outsider visionaries.

Anakin wasn’t called to that life, and he could have admitted as much – but he craved power and notoriety, operated primarily on envy and pride, and never believed in anything greater than himself, so he tried desperately to have it all. Had he listened to a single thing the Jedi had attempted to instill in him, he would have been a good person, because they provided him with the exact tools he needed to avoid turning evil. For most people, getting your arm cut off once would be enough to put some humility in you, but Anakin believed he was “special,” that he basically was the god at the center of the force, and that rules therefore didn’t apply to him.

The Jedi had to be devoted completely, and live lives as free of distraction as possible, because unlike a Buddhist monk, Jedi powers are tangible, and extend beyond their own lives and spheres of influence, and can have devastating effects on the world at large, which makes the temptation to seek power far more seductive, and realistic, and greatly increases the necessity of the mantras, rules, and teachings which keep Jedi from wavering from serving the will of the force, and into serving only themselves. The dilemma with Anakin was as follows: the Jedi lifestyle was fundamentally incompatible with his mindset, but his innate power was so immense that he required tutelage, as he could become a tool for great evil if left unchecked. It was a risk worth taking. If anything, the Jedi trusted Anakin too much, and came to have so much faith in his sheer ability that they overlooked his shortcomings in the realm of discipline. 

@36 Baalzie – It isn’t about not having emotions – it’s about disallowing yourself to be controlled by blind emotion, which, if you think about it, is the source of every problem our society faces. People who exhibit self control are exemplary humans – it’s people who can’t control themselves (in this example, darksiders) who belong in “max sec psych wards.”

@37 Aeryl – On the surface, the “love heals all” ending of RoTJ may seem to state that it was Luke’s attachment that won the day – but in reality, his victory was purely a result of surrender. He refused to take the path of most resistance, and surrendered to the force, and to the hope that his father felt an attachment to him. The Emperor used the force to realize his personal will on the galaxy, Vader used the force to realize his personal will on the galaxy – that’s the path of most resistance, of hubris, of shaping the galaxy to one’s own liking, which Luke refused to take when he threw his lightsaber aside – he understood that if he gave in to hubris, the cycle would only start anew, and he would be corrupted just as his father had been. It was this act of surrender, his helplessness, his willingness to die, to sacrifice himself for peace, and his resulting torture, that drove Vader to act out of love, which, importantly, was still an act committed largely in Vader’s own interest, entirely so if not for the fact that he himself died as a result. Luke sensed the conflict in Vader between attachment to power, and attachment to family, and through trusting in the force, he found an option of inaction which brought out the best in Vader, and set the galaxy back on its proper course. That’s not attachment (on Luke’s part), or “turning to family” – that’s allowing oneself to be a tool of the force, instead of bending the force to one’s will.