Anakin, Yoda and the Tusken Raider Massacre

[darth_timon]

An observation I made about Yoda in AOTC- he senses Anakin's emotional distress when Anakin lost his mother, yet I have never heard of Yoda confronting Anakin about it or even telling Obi-wan. Surely such a tramatic event, especially one concerning the Chosen One (and especially given Yoda himself had called Anakin's future 'clouded') should have been dealt with? Did this happen in one of the books, or is this another example of just how badly the Jedi handled Anakin?

[Eulogy]

Did this happen in one of the books, or is this another example of just how badly the Jedi handled Anakin?

The Jedi should not have let Shmi remain on Tatooine in the first place. Surely it would have been easy to remove the bomb inside her and set her up with a decent place to live and an actual job, but the Jedi are mired in dogma/evil/idiots/complacent and inflexible (take your pick). So yeah, it's definitely the latter.

[Sea Skimmer]

I think the point was if Anakin couldn't suppress his concern about his mother, he by definition couldn't ever be a jedi by the rules in place and would just fall to the darkside one way or another. So basically Yoda was right in the first place to believe he was too old to begin the training because he was too attached to his old life. That was the mistake. They should have just dumped him back on Tatooine free and let him work out a way to free his mother and forgotten it had all ever happened ect.. Confronting him about the issue later on was just going to be even more trouble.

[Havok]

Dont blame the Jedi exclusively. Palpatine, I'm sure, had an active role in keeping Anakin and the Jedi, not only off balance when it came to Anakin, but also directly from intervening in his mothers situation.
Keep in mind, we arent talking about slavery in the wretched form we know it, but as it was presented in TPM. Its not like Shmi or Anakin were tortured on a daily basis. They had an apartment as big as some I payed for. Anakin had enough free time and lack of oversight to build a protocol droid and a fucking pod racer.
Also, the issues with Anakin freaking out about his mom seemed to be a relatively recent development around AOTC. How long were the evil Jedi really "ignoring" Anakin's issue compared to how long it was an actual issue.
Please keep in mind, I pretty much ignore the EU and go by what the movies give us.

[Simon_Jester]

I think the point was if Anakin couldn't suppress his concern about his mother, he by definition couldn't ever be a jedi by the rules in place and would just fall to the darkside one way or another. So basically Yoda was right in the first place to believe he was too old to begin the training because he was too attached to his old life. That was the mistake. They should have just dumped him back on Tatooine free and let him work out a way to free his mother and forgotten it had all ever happened ect.. Confronting him about the issue later on was just going to be even more trouble.

Of course, you could turn that around and say that if the Jedi were willing to give one of their own knights a break and relax the whole ramrod-spine act, they'd have been able to handle Anakin a lot better. It's not like it would have killed them financially to buy Anakin's mom a ticket to some place where she wouldn't be threatened by space bedouin.

Basically, the prequel Jedi were built around this tremendous, artificial self-denial that tries to force them into a deeply inhuman role. If they were perfect and never made any mistakes this would be all right, they'd do well enough that way. But as soon as they make mistakes in dealing with someone like Anakin, their inflexibility and dogmatism makes those mistakes worse- they keep making the mistake again, only harder. They'd reflexively fire Anakin if he admitted to having problems, so Anakin can't talk about the problems, which makes them worse.* By half way into Episode III, Anakin has to turn to a Sith Lord just to find someone who's willing to talk to him; how is that a good way to run an order of warrior-mystics?

Random thought: it reminds me of how Cold War intelligence agencies would fire homosexuals because they were vulnerable to blackmail. I'm sure the policy made sense from the point of view of the people who made it, homosexuals were vulnerable to blackmail in the 1950s. But if you take a step back, it's obviously recursive- the reason they were vulnerable to blackmail was that they knew you'd fire them if you found out about them. Being more tolerant would make the problem go away, and being less tolerant just meant that any gays in your organization would keep it a secret until someone did try to blackmail them.

With the Jedi, rejecting any Jedi who has emotional issues means that the first Jedi to come along with emotional issues is sure to become a renegade sooner or later.

[JME2]

I don't think the EU has ever tackled whether or not Yoda confronted Anakin. We do know from the ROTS novelization that Yoda didn't confide in Obi-Wan.

My thought was even though Yoda sensed his anguish, I always assumed the massacre at Geonosis and the outbreak of the Clone Wars pushed any concerns Yoda might have had to the back-burner.

[PainRack]

Errr.... Qui Gon explictly set Shimi free, by providing her with that gem to buy her freedom with. I won't deny that the caveat of her hanging out with Lars was a tad too hackeyed, but well, that's true for tons of the backstory in Star Wars.

Eulogy, you seem to forget that it was Shimi own idea to get married to Lars and stay on Tatooine in the first place.

[Eternal_Freedom]

But Watto says that "I sold her years ago to a moisture farmer. Last I hear, he freed her and married her."

So no, Qui Gon didn't set her free.

[Havok]

Errr.... Qui Gon explictly set Shimi free, by providing her with that gem to buy her freedom with. I won't deny that the caveat of her hanging out with Lars was a tad too hackeyed, but well, that's true for tons of the backstory in Star Wars.

Eulogy, you seem to forget that it was Shimi own idea to get married to Lars and stay on Tatooine in the first place.

Uh... no. Watch the movies at least. I can get fucking up EU nonsense, but if you can't keep facts explicitly stated in movie dialogue down, don't bother commenting.

And how is it "hackneyed"? Just ignorant Lucas bashing. If the movies had been made in chronological order, no one would even bat an eye at this "hackneyed" backstory, or any others.

[LaCroix]

But Watto says that "I sold her years ago to a moisture farmer. Last I hear, he freed her and married her."

So no, Qui Gon didn't set her free.

Well, maybe she gave that gem to Lars so he could buy her and set her free? He was a mere farmer, and slaves are expensive - after all, Watto thinks one slave is equal in value to a ship. (And if she would have tried to buy herself, Watto would have taken the gem from her - all his slaves do possess is his, after all. See Anakin hiding his podracer.)

[Eternal_Freedom]

But Watto says that "I sold her years ago to a moisture farmer. Last I hear, he freed her and married her."

So no, Qui Gon didn't set her free.

Well, maybe she gave that gem to Lars so he could buy her and set her free? He was a mere farmer, and slaves are expensive - after all, Watto thinks one slave is equal in value to a ship. (And if she would have tried to buy herself, Watto would have taken the gem from her - all his slaves do possess is his, after all. See Anakin hiding his podracer.)

That's nt really the point, I was correcting Painrack who said Qui-Gon freed her.

[Scrib]

I think the point was if Anakin couldn't suppress his concern about his mother, he by definition couldn't ever be a jedi by the rules in place and would just fall to the darkside one way or another. So basically Yoda was right in the first place to believe he was too old to begin the training because he was too attached to his old life. That was the mistake. They should have just dumped him back on Tatooine free and let him work out a way to free his mother and forgotten it had all ever happened ect.. Confronting him about the issue later on was just going to be even more trouble.

Of course, you could turn that around and say that if the Jedi were willing to give one of their own knights a break and relax the whole ramrod-spine act, they'd have been able to handle Anakin a lot better. It's not like it would have killed them financially to buy Anakin's mom a ticket to some place where she wouldn't be threatened by space bedouin.

Basically, the prequel Jedi were built around this tremendous, artificial self-denial that tries to force them into a deeply inhuman role. If they were perfect and never made any mistakes this would be all right, they'd do well enough that way. But as soon as they make mistakes in dealing with someone like Anakin, their inflexibility and dogmatism makes those mistakes worse- they keep making the mistake again, only harder. They'd reflexively fire Anakin if he admitted to having problems, so Anakin can't talk about the problems, which makes them worse.* By half way into Episode III, Anakin has to turn to a Sith Lord just to find someone who's willing to talk to him; how is that a good way to run an order of warrior-mystics?

Random thought: it reminds me of how Cold War intelligence agencies would fire homosexuals because they were vulnerable to blackmail. I'm sure the policy made sense from the point of view of the people who made it, homosexuals were vulnerable to blackmail in the 1950s. But if you take a step back, it's obviously recursive- the reason they were vulnerable to blackmail was that they knew you'd fire them if you found out about them. Being more tolerant would make the problem go away, and being less tolerant just meant that any gays in your organization would keep it a secret until someone did try to blackmail them.

With the Jedi, rejecting any Jedi who has emotional issues means that the first Jedi to come along with emotional issues is sure to become a renegade sooner or later.

Their strategy would have worked if they had stuck to it. Don't train anyone old enough to have already formed emotional attachments. Simple.

Also: where do you draw the line? Today it's Anakin's mother, tomorrow it's someone some other Jedi was fond of. Pretty soon that whole attachment thing is out of the window. Jedi are meant to go to an area, do their job and leave, not to go around setting up accommodation for whoever they wanted. By helping Shmi they would have been acknowledge that she had some special value to Anakin, which she wasn't supposed to.

[Adam Reynolds]

Well, maybe she gave that gem to Lars so he could buy her and set her free? He was a mere farmer, and slaves are expensive - after all, Watto thinks one slave is equal in value to a ship. (And if she would have tried to buy herself, Watto would have taken the gem from her - all his slaves do possess is his, after all. See Anakin hiding his podracer.)

A slave is equal in value to a Podracer, not a starship. Also he wasn't wanting to let go of Anakin due to his abilities with repairing things. Shmi presumably had much less value to him.

Regarding the length of time that his mother had been an issue for him, according to the AOTC novelization he began having nightmares just before the events of the movie.

[Eulogy]

Their strategy would have worked if they had stuck to it. Don't train anyone old enough to have already formed emotional attachments. Simple.

Also: where do you draw the line? Today it's Anakin's mother, tomorrow it's someone some other Jedi was fond of. Pretty soon that whole attachment thing is out of the window. Jedi are meant to go to an area, do their job and leave, not to go around setting up accommodation for whoever they wanted. By helping Shmi they would have been acknowledge that she had some special value to Anakin, which she wasn't supposed to.

First, Anakin was the CHOSEN ONE (tm) and thus presumably had some exceptions shoehorned in for him. Remember the big deal about the prophecy?

Second, the Jedi Order can't exactly call themselves the good guys if they let problems fester. I mean, why shouldn't they free slaves, lift poverty, cleanse corruption, heal the sick, and all that good stuff? Bringing the hammer down on bad guys is all well and good, but the Jedi Order are little more than rentacops with magic and glowy swords by the time of the prequels.

[Darth Fanboy]

Second, the Jedi Order can't exactly call themselves the good guys if they let problems fester. I mean, why shouldn't they free slaves, lift poverty, cleanse corruption, heal the sick, and all that good stuff? Bringing the hammer down on bad guys is all well and good, but the Jedi Order are little more than rentacops with magic and glowy swords by the time of the prequels.

I hear that the Jedi were completely omnipotent just before the prequels, that they didn't just sit on Coruscant and Force Choke every slave trader from the comforts of the Temple is inexcusable.

I also hear that about 10,000 individual Jedi in a galaxy with at the very least trillions of inhabitants should have no problem policing everything and at all times.

[Eulogy]

I hear that the Jedi were completely omnipotent just before the prequels, that they didn't just sit on Coruscant and Force Choke every slave trader from the comforts of the Temple is inexcusable.

I also hear that about 10,000 individual Jedi in a galaxy with at the very least trillions of inhabitants should have no problem policing everything and at all times.

Way to miss the point! I didn't say the Jedi were Dei Ex Machina who makes everything better forever. Yes, they can't be everywhere at once. Yes, they require food and drink and a place to crash. Yes, it takes time for them to do their work. But Tatooine (with all the swelling pimples on its face) alone shows that they either didn't care to solve some problems (which makes them hypocrites) or they didn't know about these problems (which means that they need better intelligence gathering).

I mean, these guys can feel a bazillion lives screaming and then being snuffed out. Don't tell me they couldn't do much better.

[Scrib]

First of all Eulogy, Anakin's exceptions amounted to him being trained by a Jedi Knight despite his age. Training was the only exception he would ever get. That's the problem with inflexible systems, compromise can invalidate your entire belief system. Anakin was a Jedi, he wasn't supposed to have attachments, saving Shmi was tantamount to saying "We know you're still attached to this person, so we're going to help her for your sake." And doing it for Anakin first would have sent the message that the Jedi were out for their own interests first, which would damage their reputation as impartial arbiters. And she didn't even need that much help, she was in much better straits than a lot of slaves.

And how exactly are the Jedi supposed to solve this problem? Attack every evil person in the SW galaxy? They're keepers of the peace, not out-and-out crusaders. Where would it end, there are tens of thousands of planets, all of them with their own problems. Who are the Jedi to decide what's right for them? It's the Republic's job and they damn sure aren't going to do something when it could upset a large number of their citizens. There is only so much you can enforce on that scale. Not to mention that I'm not even sure that Tatooine is part of the Republic (I really, really doubt it, see; Watto's dialogue) and they don't have an army to go around arm-twisting people with.

As for lifting poverty and cleansing corruption, just lol.

[Terralthra]

Errr.... Qui Gon explictly set Shimi free, by providing her with that gem to buy her freedom with. I won't deny that the caveat of her hanging out with Lars was a tad too hackeyed, but well, that's true for tons of the backstory in Star Wars.

Eulogy, you seem to forget that it was Shimi own idea to get married to Lars and stay on Tatooine in the first place.

...what gem? I just watched through The Phantom Menace this past weekend, and I didn't see Qui Gon give Shmi a gem. Can you provide a screenshot, or something?

[JME2]

Errr.... Qui Gon explictly set Shimi free, by providing her with that gem to buy her freedom with. I won't deny that the caveat of her hanging out with Lars was a tad too hackeyed, but well, that's true for tons of the backstory in Star Wars.

Eulogy, you seem to forget that it was Shimi own idea to get married to Lars and stay on Tatooine in the first place.

...what gem? I just watched through The Phantom Menace this past weekend, and I didn't see Qui Gon give Shmi a gem. Can you provide a screenshot, or something?

It's from the EU novel Tatooine Ghost.

[Terralthra]

Errr.... Qui Gon explictly set Shimi free, by providing her with that gem to buy her freedom with. I won't deny that the caveat of her hanging out with Lars was a tad too hackeyed, but well, that's true for tons of the backstory in Star Wars.

Eulogy, you seem to forget that it was Shimi own idea to get married to Lars and stay on Tatooine in the first place.

...what gem? I just watched through The Phantom Menace this past weekend, and I didn't see Qui Gon give Shmi a gem. Can you provide a screenshot, or something?

It's from the EU novel Tatooine Ghost.

That would seem to be overruled by G-Canon, where Watto explicitly says he sold her to Cliegg Lars. Lars loved her and married her, sure, but there's explicit contradiction: she was bought, not free.

[Tiriol]

...what gem? I just watched through The Phantom Menace this past weekend, and I didn't see Qui Gon give Shmi a gem. Can you provide a screenshot, or something?

It's from the EU novel Tatooine Ghost.

That would seem to be overruled by G-Canon, where Watto explicitly says he sold her to Cliegg Lars. Lars loved her and married her, sure, but there's explicit contradiction: she was bought, not free.

I think (I'm not sure, I haven't read the book in question) that Shmi gave the gem to Lars who in turn used it to buy Shmi.

[Marko Dash]

IIRC the gem was a critical component in a rare ship or landspeeder that watto happened to own that was worthless without it. shmi gave the gem to lars, who bargained it to watto in exchange for shmi.

[Terralthra]

That doesn't match either. The Tobal Lens was the item traded to Watto according to Wookiepedia's write-up on Tatooine Ghost, and that is described as being in a case by necessity, because simply looking at it could blind someone. Also, the summary there makes no mention of Qui-Gon Jinn giving it to her. She remembers at a key moment that Lars has it, but there's nothing about her giving it to him.

[PainRack]

Errr.... Qui Gon explictly set Shimi free, by providing her with that gem to buy her freedom with. I won't deny that the caveat of her hanging out with Lars was a tad too hackeyed, but well, that's true for tons of the backstory in Star Wars.

Eulogy, you seem to forget that it was Shimi own idea to get married to Lars and stay on Tatooine in the first place.

Uh... no. Watch the movies at least. I can get fucking up EU nonsense, but if you can't keep facts explicitly stated in movie dialogue down, don't bother commenting.

And how is it "hackneyed"? Just ignorant Lucas bashing. If the movies had been made in chronological order, no one would even bat an eye at this "hackneyed" backstory, or any others.

read the EU at least. Its explictly stayed that Shimi gave Lars the gem which purchased her freedom. I can't remember if this was linked to Watto financial insolvency but the ruse was neccessary

[Havok]

So... all they had were 20,000 Republic Credits... oh and a big honking gem that can buy a slaves freedom that Qui-Gon just happened to forget about.

"Got anything on the ship to barter with?"
"Just the Queen's wardrobe... oh hey what about that big gem you have?"
"DUHHHH! *head slap* You will make a much wiser Jedi than I, Obi-Wan."

"read the EU at least" yeah fucking right.