It’s no secret that the Jedi Order had a lot of rules and regulations. Particularly leading up to the Fall of the Jedi in the Star Wars timeline, the Jedi Code was strictly laid out, though many Jedi didn’t exactly stick to it themselves. While some Jedi adopted a flexible view of the Code or opted for a more Gray Jedi approach, others simply ignored their blatant violations or reasoned them away as being “for the greater good.”
This rigid viewpoint, coupled with several Jedi simply not practicing what they preached, led to a disillusionment with the Order for many, both within and without the Jedi ranks. These deviations from the Code not only undermined the integrity of the Jedi and sowed discord among their ranks, but they also primed the galaxy to turn against them and fall in step with the Empire. The more the Jedi came across as hypocritical, the more inclined people were to either resent or feel indifferent towards them, and eventually forget their former glory altogether.
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The Fall of the Jedi era takes on special importance, as the Jedi council grew more dogmatic in demanding strict adherence to the Jedi ideals while simultaneously taking some large leniencies themselves. The biggest hypocrisy found in the Jedi’s actions is easily the Clone Wars themselves. The Jedi were long held to be keepers of the peace and unbiased representatives of the Republic, sent to deescalate and defuse situations, but never take outright sides. However, when the Clone Wars started, the Jedi quickly snapped into soldier mode, becoming generals in the Republic’s army. This sharp about-turn from peaceful emissaries to outright soldiers of war was glaringly at odds with how they had been presented for centuries.
Even before the transformation into soldiers, however, the Jedi Code violations ran the gamut from being understandably flexible to downright oppositional. A less dramatic exception to Code rules was Ki-Adi-Mundi’s marriage. He was allowed to follow the Cerean custom of polygamous marriages and to father multiple children due to his species’ declining birthrate. Although that goes against the Jedi’s ban on romantic love and attachment, it can be reasoned as a necessary exception.
An important tenet of the Jedi life is that of valuing peace over emotion, serenity over passion and harmony over chaos. It is taught time and again that tapping into anger and violent emotions is a path to the Dark Side. However, Jedi Master Mace Windu himself was skilled in Ferocity Form lightsaber fighting, which relies on the wielder utilizing dark and angry emotions. And, in a post-Jedi Order galaxy, Kanan deftly pushed into Sabine’s own anger and frustrations in Star War Rebels when training her to fight with the Darksaber, again at odds with the Jedi creed.
Even Obi-Wan, in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, accidentally summed up the hypocrisy of the Jedi by saying: “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.” The fact that his exclamation is itself an absolute shows just how blind and narrow-minded the Jedi had become and how, in a sense, Anakin was justified in feeling that the Order had fallen from its ideals.
This flexible view of the Code had a number of different effects on different characters. Qui-Gon Jinn, who never really fell in line with the strict views of the council, adopted a more Gray Jedi approach to things, acknowledging the necessity of true balance and bending a few rules where he needed. On Tatooine, many other Jedi might not have rigged a gambling event and taken a child back with them, but Qui-Gon did.
In contrast, other Jedi had more drastic reactions to what they saw as a hypocritical turn in the ranks. Barriss Offee, a Jedi Knight and friend of Ahsoka Tano’s, despised the Jedi’s turn to violence and transformation into soldiers. This was such an affront to her that she became radicalized enough to attempt to blow up the Jedi Temple itself. Her dark turn may have been a strong reaction, but her disillusionment was not without merit. When she explained that she felt the Jedi had become too violent, Anakin’s next move was to double up on lightsabers to confront her.
Her actions, too, helped set up another consequence of the Jedi not following their own code. Following her bombing of the Temple, she set up Ahsoka to take the fall. The Jedi council was rather easily duped and they kicked Ahsoka out of the Order while also facilitating her trial in the Republic. Even though Anakin retained his faith in his Padawan and eventually cleared her name, restoring her place as a Jedi, the damage had already been done. Ahsoka saw clearly how hypocritical the Jedi had become, and no longer felt that her own beliefs aligned with a corrupted Order. Because of this, Ahsoka declined to return and officially left the Jedi.
While discovering herself outside the Order, Ahsoka met the Martez sisters. From them, she learned that the Jedi were not as revered or respected among regular citizens as she had been taught. The sisters lost their parents in a hostage situation in the Clone Wars, and they blamed the Jedi for facilitating their deaths, saying the Jedi were more soldiers than anything now and had willingly sacrificed the lives of their parents. This wasn’t the first time, either, that there was an expressed disdain for what the Jedi had become. On the planet Mygetto in The Clone Wars, the Lurmen, a pacifist species, greatly resented the Jedi’s presence, as they no longer kept the peace and only brought war.
Ultimately, these larger and larger cracks in the Jedi’s adherence to their own code opened up the floodgates for destruction. Anakin, though misguided in his eventual loyalties, saw very clearly how the Jedi preached and enforced one set of rules while blindly practicing their own exceptions. This led to his ultimate and very volatile rejection of the Jedi way, ushering in Order 66 and the mass execution of the Jedi themselves.
But Anakin’s turn on the Jedi was not the only thing that made their downfall possible. Other Jedi and citizens of the galaxy had already become disillusioned. They were facing internal splintering, as more and more Jedi felt the Order was not what it once was and stood for. Externally, the galaxy was growing weary of an unwanted war and saw how the Jedi had easily made the switch from peacekeepers to soldiers, with people no longer respecting the Order the way they once did. Disillusionment became an easy path to resentment, which made it much easier for the public to accept that the Jedi had turned against the Chancellor and the Republic itself. With the Order all but extinguished, and with many peoples’ last memories of the Jedi being less than favorable, it was all too easy for the Empire to swoop in and for the Jedi themselves to fade away to old legends.
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