Chuck's thoughts on KOTOR 2, review, & Kreia?

[Yukaphile]

The organization they draft babies into. So they have no free will in the matter. Try again.

He's not the only one. That many Jedi had to marry in secret proves it doesn't work! Having loving sex with someone and forming an attachment isn't going to turn you into a psychotic freak. That's part of why the prequels failed. That's not realistic at all. Love doesn't turn you into a murderer.

The Jedi don't care about this world, just the next. The next that even they can admit they don't know about. It's about blind obedience to their god and faith. Which, you know... I don't do well. And again is no reason to kidnap babies and tell them to never have sex.

You're really ignoring the issues here. What if you want to stay a Jedi, feel you an keep helping the galaxy, but you just refuse not to form an attachment? It's against human nature. What then? Regulating what goes on in their own organization? Do you then think conservatives have a right to stick their noses in our bedrooms? Because that's what this is. It's not about foregoing attachments, it's about learning to let go.

[TrueMetis]

The organization they draft babies into. So they have no free will in the matter. Try again.

I don't think you understand what a draft is.

He's not the only one. That many Jedi had to marry in secret proves it doesn't work! Having loving sex with someone and forming an attachment isn't going to turn you into a psychotic freak. That's part of why the prequels failed. That's not realistic at all. Love doesn't turn you into a murderer.

I mean, that proves that a lot of Jedi will disobey the council. It doesn't actually prove that they're wrong in their beliefs. I think they are but you're going to need a better argument than "people disobey the rules therefore the rules are wrong." Also note that it wasn't love that turned Anakin into a murderer, it was the fact that he was a obsessive little shit. Other Jedi have been in love, other Jedi have gotten the fuck over themselves and realized they aren't the most important thing in the world.

The Jedi don't care about this world, just the next. The next that even they can admit they don't know about. It's about blind obedience to their god and faith. Which, you know... I don't do well. And again is no reason to kidnap babies and tell them to never have sex.

First off, "There is no death, there is the force" explains only that they believe they become one with the force when they die not how much importance they put on that afterlife, their actions suggest they care very deeply about the living world. Otherwise they wouldn't have done the whole "guardians of the Republic" thing. I really have no idea where you get the idea that they only care about the afterlife. Or care about the afterlife at all. Second taking in children with their parents consent is not kidnapping.

You're really ignoring the issues here. What if you want to stay a Jedi, feel you an keep helping the galaxy, but you just refuse not to form an attachment? It's against human nature. What then? Regulating what goes on in their own organization? Do you then think conservatives have a right to stick their noses in our bedrooms? Because that's what this is. It's not about foregoing attachments, it's about learning to let go.

If that's the case you need to grow the fuck up and realize that you can't have everything you want. I would love to still be in the military but be able to fuckoff whenever I wanted. Getting up a 0500 for PT sucks balls and I would love to just not. Doing so will get me charged. Also the Jedi do get to regulate their members relationships. It's nothing at all like conservatives wanting to stick their nose in people bedrooms because the conservatives aren't trying to do it to people who are willing part of their organization and accept the rules, but to everyone. Going back to the military the military gets to know about my relationships, because that affects my ability to do my job. Further they get to outright forbid me from pursuing certain relationship and punish me if I disobey.

Moreover the Jedi clearly don't actually forego attachments if Obi-wan bawling over Qui-gon's body or Yoda nearly collapsing in grief during order 66 are any indication. The issue is simply that Anakin's kind of a little shit. Ki-Adi-Mundi actually lost his entire family and didn't kill children because of it.

[Karha of Honor]

There is the argument that they've been indoctrinated and therefore that they can leave is something of a false choice. Though that's not a opinion I hold since we see several who did or contemplated leaving the order, and I find it highly likely that a lot of those who didn't get chosen to become a Padawan left rather than join the argicorps. And, and this is the most important, we see little of how young Jedi are taught and what little we see is entirely benign.

Is the Force telling them to pick the right kids?

[Yukaphile]

Then... would this not paint it as the fact that it's the Jedi Council itself, not so much the order, a few ruling over the many, that is at fault? I dunno, since the prequels, the Jedi struck me as a very political organization. And if that's the case, then yeah, I'll argue that the Jedi Council has no right telling Jedi they can't fall in love and marry and still be a Jedi. And I can't deny that. Hell, Nejaa Halcyon. He loved, and if his wife died, he'd have been a proper fucking Jedi and probably cried, then honored her memory in the best way he could, by still being the man she loved.

That... is completely contradicted by Matt Stover's Revenge of the Sith novel. Look at this.

Yoda's voice was still gentle, and understanding. "The fear of loss is a path to the dark side, young one."
"I won't let my visions come true, Master. I won't."
"Rejoice for those who transform into the Force. Mourn them not. Miss them not."
"Then why do we fight at all, Master? Why save anybody?"
"Speaking of anybody, we are not," Yoda had said sternly. "Speaking of you, and your vision, and your fear, we are. The shadow of greed, attachment is. What you fear to lose, train yourself to release. Let go of fear, and loss cannot harm you."

The dumbass has a legitimate point for once, and Yoda ignores it. I dunno. Maybe individual Jedi care about the living world. The Council? Not so much. They're severely out of touch with the needs of not only the galaxy, but also what it means to be both a mortal within this world and a Jedi. I think the Disciple put it best in that are often insulated and shielded from the outside world. Hell, being raised in the Temple from birth just means they don't know what the galaxy at large is like. Kind of like a child born into wealth and inheritance will never understand the working class people. And I find it very questionable to take babies to raise in the Jedi Temple. Again, Luke and Leia turned out fine. It's something even Yoda eventually had to concede to. I think before you're allowed to become a Jedi, you should experience the outside world a bit more. Going with my former analogy, this would be similar to someone born to poverty who then works his or her way up into fortune.

Um... I do agree no one is entitled to get everything they want, but for two consenting, loving people? For the rules to be explicitly written to outlaw attachments on penalty of expulsion? That's just bullshit. It's not comparable to a professor taking advantage of a college student because this assumes the Jedi exist on a higher plane than we do, when they're just as much flawed mortals as we are, though they sometimes like to pretend they aren't, they know everything. They have every right to wanna be able to, in theory, positively contribute to saving the galaxy and still have a partner to come home to in order to love and cherish. And a family. You keep harping on and on about how they choose to stay with the Jedi, but you seem to want to ignore that the rules aren't working, and Jedi do break it, and don't fall to the dark side, and have instead fallen for other reasons. I feel as if by taking babies before they're young enough to understand anything into the order, they have no freedom in the matter. Joining the Jedi should be like your faith. Your parents instruct you in the complexities of the real world as best you can, and once you come of age, you can decide on whether or not that's what you want. Again, look at Luke. Why do you think the demands of Jedi service cannot mutually coexist with a loving and supportive family even though the EU has proven time and time again that it does work for many?

Then doesn't that make them even bigger anti-sex hypocrites than they already are? Oh, you can form attachments, just not sexual ones. But again, in Matt Stover's Revenge of the Sith novel, Obi-Wan is practically a dead droid, and when fearing Anakin is dead, his best friend, just breathes it out and in. He just... lets it go. As if on rote. That strikes me as spiritually dead. And yet it is consistent with the Jedi and their detachment from what it means to be human. Or at least what the Council tells its members, and demands how they behave. Because remember, Obi-Wan was a Council member at this point.

Bwahahahahaha! They let Ki-Adi-Mundi have a family, but not anyone else? Now admittedly I know a bit about this. It was not a loving partnership but just to help his species procreate, in other words it's very much like a political marriage or an arranged marriage. It again points to the "no attachments" view of the Jedi. It's okay to marry, even have sex. Just don't, you know... form any of those nasty attachments, because all things pass. We all die at some point. We just gotta focus on what's coming in the next world. We exist on a higher plane. I side with Jolee Bindo more, that the Jedi should focus more on teaching younglings how to be in love while controlling their passions and to learn how to let go. Then I'd be fine if they drafted babies. But... I dunno, for an organization that preaches the power of love, to love and respect life, love and respect free will, love and respect all things, that strikes me as rank hypocrisy. Love everything! Just not for too long, because all things pass. Love everything! But don't form an attachment, you sick animal. That's not something we do. We're past body needs. Okay, maybe I did descent towards hyperbole a bit towards the end, though, but I dunno, I just really hate the Jedi and their own latent hypocrisies. Even they're not immune. I guess I just see the Sith as being more honest about their own hypocrisy.

[TrueMetis]

There is the argument that they've been indoctrinated and therefore that they can leave is something of a false choice. Though that's not a opinion I hold since we see several who did or contemplated leaving the order, and I find it highly likely that a lot of those who didn't get chosen to become a Padawan left rather than join the argicorps. And, and this is the most important, we see little of how young Jedi are taught and what little we see is entirely benign.

Is the Force telling them to pick the right kids?

I'd imagine they are using the force in their selection process, like they do everything else, but since it is ultimately the parents decision whether the kid goes with the Jedi and the parents are decidedly not force sensitive then there only so much effect the force can has in this process.

Then... would this not paint it as the fact that it's the Jedi Council itself, not so much the order, a few ruling over the many, that is at fault? I dunno, since the prequels, the Jedi struck me as a very political organization. And if that's the case, then yeah, I'll argue that the Jedi Council has no right telling Jedi they can't fall in love and marry and still be a Jedi. And I can't deny that. Hell, Nejaa Halcyon. He loved, and if his wife died, he'd have been a proper fucking Jedi and probably cried, then honored her memory in the best way he could, by still being the man she loved.

Well yeah, one of the points of the prequels is that the council is decidedly out of touch. But the issue is not so much that they're wrong about attachments being dangerous, but that they handle it badly.

That... is completely contradicted by Matt Stover's Revenge of the Sith novel. Look at this.

Yoda's voice was still gentle, and understanding. "The fear of loss is a path to the dark side, young one."
"I won't let my visions come true, Master. I won't."
"Rejoice for those who transform into the Force. Mourn them not. Miss them not."
"Then why do we fight at all, Master? Why save anybody?"
"Speaking of anybody, we are not," Yoda had said sternly. "Speaking of you, and your vision, and your fear, we are. The shadow of greed, attachment is. What you fear to lose, train yourself to release. Let go of fear, and loss cannot harm you."

The dumbass has a legitimate point for once, and Yoda ignores it. I dunno. Maybe individual Jedi care about the living world. The Council? Not so much. They're severely out of touch with the needs of not only the galaxy, but also what it means to be both a mortal within this world and a Jedi. I think the Disciple put it best in that are often insulated and shielded from the outside world. Hell, being raised in the Temple from birth just means they don't know what the galaxy at large is like. Kind of like a child born into wealth and inheritance will never understand the working class people. And I find it very questionable to take babies to raise in the Jedi Temple. Again, Luke and Leia turned out fine. It's something even Yoda eventually had to concede to. I think before you're allowed to become a Jedi, you should experience the outside world a bit more. Going with my former analogy, this would be similar to someone born to poverty who then works his or her way up into fortune.

I don't know that it's a legitimate point, to me it sounds like worthless nihilism. Something Yoda definitely should have beaten with a stick. Because "nothing in this life matters" does not follow from "they've gone to a better place so don't be sad".

And yeah the Jedi, and the council especially, are out of touch. I just don't see that as a huge moral failing, after all when push came to shove they were willing to fight. Unlike the Republic itself who was largely content to let their slave army fight. The only reason this became such a big deal is that between the Jedi being out of touch and the Republic being corrupt and complacent as hell the Sith were able use that to their advantage. And I have a hard time imagining a situation where the Jedi could have done much about that.

Similarly the attachment thing, yeah they handle it badly. But given the information and experience they have I'm not going to condemn them to much for their decisions. The issue here isn't so much that we disagree, it's the we disagree on the scale of impact. IE Had the Jedi allowed attachment and Anakin and Padme gotten married openly I don't think it would have changed a thing.

[Yukaphile]

We see this in one of the Legends books, Jedi Apprentice. Want it pasted here? I know it's a low-tier canon in Legends, but it's still worth noting.

And going out into the world is dangerous. Does that mean we should stay inside forever? No. The attachments themselves are not dangerous. They act inherently as if attachments are bad because it's beyond them and we all pass into the Force. We don't cling to something that eventually passes on into paradise. That's my take on their view, something Matt Stover's novel digs heavily into. Again, I prefer to think like Jolee Bindo. Life is dangerous. The world can kill you. But then... well, refer to how furiously SF Debris deconstructed the Prime Directive in his review of "Dear Doctor."

We all die, and when there's something of a tangible, provable afterlife, is there really a point to anything? Why not kill yourself now and ascend to light and peace? No, seriously? A lot of things remain constant in the universe, and that is conflict, that is death, and he has a point. Anakin never learns that you can't save everyone, but when he asks Yoda if you can't save everyone, why even try, Yoda just offers blind platitudes. Yawn.

Except in the Mandalorian Wars. You can't say afterwards the corrupting influence retroactively proves them right. With that logic, the Soviets' behavior in Eastern Europe retroactively proves the Nazis right in that they were really were, for the most part, inhuman animals. Disciple sums it up best. If they had entered the war united, there would have been no Jedi Civil War. It wouldn't have split the order. The Jedi Council, as bureaucrats, should have been the ones to make the calls on who lives and who dies, not a lone Jedi who wasn't prepared for it. We see in the prequels they're in those elements making those decisions. So... yeah. Not buying it. It is a moral failing when you ignore the needs of your own members and the galaxy and let whole worlds die.

Oh really? Again, it paints them as hypocrites. Love is so important we'll deny it to our members. Any organization that tells me I can't bone the most gorgeous girl in the universe I've fallen in love with, when love is the most positive force in the universe and can save you, can go eff themselves. And I do disagree. The novel really sells you on this. Anakin was trapped and had nowhere to turn. If he could have been more open with his marriage, he could have asked Obi-Wan for advice, who was a hell of a lot more friendly than Yoda. Obi-Wan had been in love too, with Siri. And he had seen how it impacted Qui-Gon in Jedi Apprentice. So there you go.

[animalia]

I would like to point out that in many real life religious organizations including the catholic priesthood, that when people choose to join them, including taking a vow of chasity they are an adult who has presumably grown up with experiences with the outside world and other experiences who then chose to to take said vows. They have experiences with other people, a chance to grow and meet them. Al;thought they may know a priest if they attend mass with their family it is one of a variety of career options and isn't even to be the one most likely to be encouraged. If the choice comes up this would be a very personal one. Contrast this to the Jedi of the PREQUEL ERA who are isolated when they are very young and know no other life for quite some time. I am bringing this up to say it isn't even the lack of sex that is the issue as celibacy is a thing in many real world religions, as are monastic vows. It's the fact that these things happen when they are CHILDREN AS OPPOSED TO ADULTS that are the problem.

[Karha of Honor]

The social conditioning is too strong for them to ever consider it.

Star Wars is a fairy tale / space fantasy. IRL psychology, sociology and history does not matter. But it's important to not look stupid with what your baddies are doing and why.

[planescaped]

I remember when I first realized that KOTOR 2 was a retelling of Planescape Torment. Atton being Morte, Kreia being Ravel, Mira being Annah, Visas being Fall From Grace, Hanharr being Ignus, ect.

Most of their backstories mirrored PS:T characters, the plot had huge parallels. It was actually quite fascinating unraveling it all back when my memory was fresher for both games.

NWN2 Mask of the Betrayer is also the same thing. Chris Avellone told the same story three times, and it worked each time. XD

[Nealithi]

The debate seems to have gone from Kotor 2 and moved onto the jedi as an order. But on that thought. I think the jedi order may infact be broken. I have had people around me saying that the whole if you love someone you will go crazy to save them. (My father concerning my mother specifically.) Yoda and his advice were broken. If every vision of the future is a must be. Then where did his line about always in motion is the future he tossed as Luke come from?
The whole see the future so bad things can be prevented is ignored by Yoda so he can give a harsh object lesson on someone hurting? I think his compassion was a bit low here. Was Anakin too close? Yes. You still try and help. You were given a warning so you could help. Not so you could stand on a summit and look aloof. The bring in only infants. How much 'consent' do the parents give? There should be a huge number of non-jedi force users out there. But it seems like the Jedi try and claim all they can get to. How would they get that many people to agree? You know they practice that Force suggestion thing quite a bit. . .

I am not saying they do that. But it is a line you could follow. Yoda says nine is too old to train? That also leads into the whole idea that they need to indoctrinate young or lose their grip. Something they would not fear if they really were the best choice.
And really what was shown on screen does not give much hope. Removing Palpatine is something they will have to think on and do carefully. So they sent in an assault force to kill him off? The courts are too corrupted to trust? Couldn't they have just done some espionage and gotten recordings of him sending orders to the separatists and put them out publicly? Trial by media works you know.

Sorry I love the idea of the Jedi. But the Old Republic games and the prequels leave me to think the order needs purging every so often. As they get too arrogant for their own good.