That only holds up until you realize they still did nothing about slavery.
This is why I will always argue that world-building-wise, the prequels and BBY are generally more interesting, because they create a more nuanced view of the politics of the Galactic Republic.
The actual plots of episodes 1,2&3 leave much to be desired, but to me, there’s a reason why Andor is so compelling compared to the Mandalorian, it’s the politics.
Anyone who thinks politics don’t belong in a Star Wars movie isn’t really into fantasy, which Star Wars most certainly is.
Nek Minit they’ll say game of thrones, lord of the rings, the expanse, Avatar the Last Airbender etc (in my opinion some of the greatest fantasy/sci-fi of all time) shouldn’t have so much politics.
Like… that’s what fantasy is. Politics, human relationships and how people live and struggle against each other for their interests, in a fictional world with different rules/physics/history.
The Star Wars Sequels are trash because they neither have a good plot, nor good world building.
The Jedi were complicit in the corruption and injustice of the Galactic Republic, no doubt, and is great world-building, if you ask me.
This is why Dooku made a shitty Sith. His underlying reasons were just, but didn’t stop to think about who he was hooking up with. He’s ultimately a tragic figure of someone who meant well and fucked it up.
Sith ethos doesn’t work like that. It’s a self-centered philosophy; you gain power for the sake of doing what you please. Palatine was never going to have Dooku as an apprentice long term.
Anakin’s reasons were selfish. His relationship with Padme was always toxic, immature, and selfish. Him wanting to save her was fundamentally selfish. It wasn’t for her sake as a person apart from Anakin. That’s exactly the kind of behavior the Sith philosophy encourages.
Putting the right guy in power never worked historically since power corrupts. The power structure is the problem. That’s one of the core ideas of anarchism
Wasn’t a big part of the Jedis’ problem their standoffishness?
Far from wielding power, they played at peacemaker and diplomat long after open war had erupted, resorted to questionably sourced mercenaries to do their dirty work, and relied enormously on prophecy to save them without properly understanding what it implied.
“Too Little, Too Late” might as well have been the motto of the late Jedi Order.
The power structure is the problem.
The lack of structure was a recurring problem for The Old Republic and the Jedi Order. The Trade Federation’s greed went unchecked early on, because the Jedi-as-space-cops presented no material threat. The Senate routinely dithered in the face of adversity, as it was easily subverted by staling tactics and backstabbing. No standing military meant a reliance on an assortment of killer robots, mercenaries, clones, and bureaucrats-turned-shock-troops, none of whom proved to be particularly reliable.
Far from “power corrupts” as the theme of the Prequels, I might argue the real moral was “power abhors a vacuum”. If you’re not willing to occupy the center of political gravity, someone else will.
It’s also one of the main ideas behind the American constitution but we try to regulate power with checks and balances but because it’s kinda hard to understand having multiple leaders that rule over different parts of the government and make sure no one gets corrupt people over time seem to have only given a shit about who is in charge of the military and now we have presidents that can effect normal citizens by enacting laws and are unanimously considered our leader
I mean, it has worked historically, just extremely rarely. Singapore was one such recent example.
The issue is that people die and the next person usually fucks everything up again.
Anarchy has similar issues.
The real problem is just us; humans.
That’s the next core idea: power structures attract the wrong people. Take Stalin who was worse than Lenin. Lenin had benevolent ideas but got corrupted, Stalin took that position with bad intentions from the start.
Fatalism only serves the status quo.
It’s not fatalism, but fact. Humans are the real issue. We weren’t biologically evolved to deal with such large groups, along with certain other DNA quirks.
That said, with technology and/or time such a flaw could be fixed so that we either are able to overcome our biological shortcomings, and/or technology allows us to achieve structure without hierarchy while also preventing hierarchy from springing up as well.
I read the text before even looking at the bottom picture and then realized I was making literally the exact same face lol perfect
