You Often Quote The Bible, Why Is It That You Think That One Particular Religious Book Is Correct

You often quote the Bible, why is it that you think that one particular religious book is correct

I don't so much think the bible is correct as I have faith that the bible is correct.

Life is vanity. All is vanity.

The only thing that matters is what you believe in and live for.

The Bible says that ALL I have to do is believe that Jesus Christ, because he died and rose again, has defeated death and is the only way to salvation as a result.

That makes sense to me and it is easy. So I believe that the Bible is correct.

the plot of the phantom menace is not actually about trade disputes

The Phantom Menace has, in my opinion, the strongest plot of the three prequel films. Unfortunately, that plot is obscured by its execution on screen – the audience isn’t given a crucial piece of information, without which the plot doesn’t make sense. Said crucial information is the double identity of Darth Sidious as Senator Palpatine. All the talk about trade disputes is just a smokescreen; the real driver of the plot of The Phantom Menace is Palpatine’s scheme to become Supreme Chancellor of the Republic.

Palpatine’s plan isn’t particularly convoluted. 1) Sidious eggs the Trade Federation into invading Palpatine’s homeworld of Naboo. 2) Oh no, the current Chancellor and the Jedi and the Senate and the Courts are unable to deal with this crisis! 3) A vote of No Confidence is the current Chancellor is called, preferably by a pasty but Palpatine can do it himself if he must. 4) Palpatine is elected as the new Chancellor. 5) Palpatine uses his new powers as Chancellor (and his secret influence as Sidious) to resolve the crisis on Naboo. 6) Hooray for Chancellor Palpatine, the guy you want in charge during a crisis!

Darth Sidious’ identity was never meant to be a secret from the audience – there were tie-in materials naming the emperor from the original trilogy as the Emperor Palpatine released before The Phantom Menace. The later parts of the film are framed as if the viewer is aware of the dramatic irony; the way the camera lingers on Palpatine’s shadowed face after Yoda and Mace Windu discuss the Sith at Qui-Gon’s funeral, the implicit threat behind his words to Anakin at the parade when we know he is in the market for a new apprentice.

It also has the advantage of making the audience feel exhilarated when you put things together without having it directly spelt out for you. Le Gasp! The friendly Senator Palpatine is in fact the dastardly Darth Sidious! This is all part of his evil plan to become emperor of the galaxy! Our heroes haven’t a clue! Oh no!

Without including the Sidious = Palpatine reveal, you leave viewers who haven’t already been primed with the information from the tie-in materials wondering why the Sith’s evil plans revolve around creating corporate tax cuts and why they were made to watch a Republic Senate session if it didn’t advance the story. This could have been rectified by showing Sidious’ entire face during his conversation with Maul. As it is, unless you have been mesmerised by the magnificent chin of Ian McDiarmid, you are left with no way of putting together that the two characters are the same person.

Not only does this obscure the plot of The Phantom Menace, it muddies the tragic arc of the entire prequel trilogy. The Jedi are Doomed with a capital D because the Jedi wonder about the Sith Master with the Sith Master in the same room, close enough to overhear their conversation. Nobody knows little Anakin Skywalker needs to be protected from kind and fatherly Chancellor Palpatine. Nobody is going to discover the Big Bad or his grand plan until it is already too late.

So, why include anything about trade or taxation at all? Why not have Darth Sidious hire some exciting space pirates to attack Naboo rather than the dry Trade Federation?

One reason is that it presents Sidious as a more cunning and dangerous villain. The Trade Federation’s greed masks his own political motives; his ability to manipulate people is his greatest weapon. If Sidious’ plan is too obvious but the Jedi and the Senate still don’t figure it out (which they aren’t allowed to, because we know from the original trilogy Palpatine becomes emperor) then you risk having the good guys and the bad guys sharing custody of the idiot ball.

It also demonstrates the failing nature of the Republic. Healthy democracies don’t suddenly swing into authoritarianism and people don’t attempt to break away to form a new government if they think the current one is doing a job good. Mundane issues like trade disputes flaring up into outright violence demonstrates how dangerously unstable the political situation is becoming – important foreshadowing for the outbreak of war in the next film.

im so dead tired of self aware genre fiction. i dont want the snarky knight or the brooding spaceman to joke about how overplayed something is. gimme back unashamed affect. gimme dudes speaking in thees and thous and starship captains making poignant speeches and shit and stop fucking worrying about being seen by critics or the general public as shlock

I don't think the Jedi are portrayed as evil per se, but rather they are ineffectual and complicit in evil.

They are Republic Agents

Building off allronix, Legends material in general just doesn't like Jedi at all, the Old Republic era just being particularly negative. What is it with the old Star Wars EU wanting the Jedi to be assholes? Their whole shtick is helping people, so were did all the writers for the games, books, and comics get "bad as the Sith, got it"? I mean, my bet's on the whole obsession with "grey" morality, fanboyism for the Sith aesthetic, and Lucas' message going over a few million heads, but who knows.

Anon, you may have the wrong blog. This is a Jedi hate zone. I do not care for the Jedi. And I don’t have to even glance at Legends canon to come up with some pretty fucking damning asshole moves by the Jedi Order. Legends writers didn’t “want” the Jedi to be assholes--they were assholes, they have always been assholes, they are still assholes. The PT and TCW are part of Disney canon, and there is plenty to unpack in those alone.

A very very very incomplete list of shitty things the Jedi have done, in Disney canon, just off the top of my head:

The Jedi knowingly and deliberately send a 14-year-old into an active war zone and this is not framed as remarkable or objectionable at all. That’s the plot of the pilot of TCW: Ahsoka, then the equivalent of a US eighth grader or high school freshman, joins Anakin and Obi-Wan in the middle of a war zone. She remains in active war zones for most of the next several years of her life, acting as a commanding officer for a bunch of manufactured 11-year-olds created specifically to fight and die. That’s an asshole move or several.

Obi-Wan mindfucks some dude in a bar for offering to sell him space drugs. Relatively minor, played for laughs, but dear god that’s fridge horror.

Luminara advises Anakin to abandon Ahsoka and Barriss to die when they’re trapped under rubble--because going looking for their apprentices, making any effort at all to save them, is a sign of untoward emotional attachment, and that’s bad, that’s the dark side talking. That’s an asshole move.

The Jedi throw Ahsoka to the wolves and won’t even admit that they fucked up; they frame their hideous mishandling of the situation as a test from the Force so that Ahsoka can prove her worthiness to be Knighted to the people who just threw her to the wolves and a probable execution in the first place. That’s an asshole move.

The Jedi High Council shames a 9-year-old Anakin Skywalker for missing his mother and being afraid when he’s lightyears away from home, surrounded by strangers who clearly don’t want anything to do with him. Because attachment and fear lead to the dark side, or whatever. That’s an asshole move.

(Don’t even get me started on the ways orthodox Jedi doctrine as depicted in the PT/OT/TCW is a toxic unhealthy dysfunctional shitshow ...)

Aaaand the big one: the Jedi are complicit in slavery. The clones are slaves. The Jedi don’t object to this; they don’t even acknowledge that slavery is happening, much less do anything to try to stop it. They just ... say vaguely nice basic-decency-level things at their enslaved soldiers, often with a nice patronizing cherry on top, and then go right back to utterly failing to lift a finger to actually fix the problem. (Often while rubbing the clones’ expendability in their faces by contrast--whatshisnuts Piell gets a moving eulogy when he gets killed on a mission, while the clones who died along the way don’t get a single word of recognition.) That’s--you guessed it!--an asshole move.

I could go on but it’s like 2 am so fuck it.

The Jedi Order’s purpose is not actually helping people. It’s just ... demonstrably not. Their purpose is some combination of:

to serve the Republic, which means to serve the interests of the Senate, which I hope you’re willing to grant is a wee bit corrupt

to maintain their own hegemony over the study and use of the Force (and use it for the benefit of the state)

to serve the will of the Force, which is conveniently ill-defined and vague and mostly useless for practical purposes such as “eliminating poverty” or “freeing slaves who aren’t the goddamn Chosen One”

Individual Jedi sometimes take it upon themselves to go above and beyond, but ... as an institution? Bullshit. They don’t help people-in-general, or people-who-need-it-who-are-right-in-front-of-them. They help people who are useful, people who are expedient, people who are strategically advantageous. Anything else would “exceed their mandate.” And god forbid you help someone you’re personally attached to. (Especially if your last name is “Skywalker.”)

As for ~Lucas’s message~ ... ugh. Look.

The point of the PT--or maybe just the point I personally took away from it, since we self-evidently do not agree on what these movies Really Mean--is that good intentions are not enough to save democracy from getting warped into authoritarianism. All the “good” institutions of the Old Republic were fatally flawed; all the “good” people in a position to do something to stop the rise of the Empire were also fatally flawed. Their hypocrisy and complacency and willingness to compromise the ideals they claim to hold (i.e., the fact that they were assholes) allows--and sometimes directly causes--terrible things to happen. Those terrible things eventually reach critical mass in ROTS.

The Jedi hurt people, by action or by inaction, and while they didn’t deserve to die for it, it is not surprising that their repeated, systemic, colossal failures bit them in the ass. It’s a tragedy. That’s how tragedies work.

Regarding the Sith: it’s not a zero-sum game, here. The Sith are awful, canonically. The Jedi are also awful, canonically. The nature and scope of their respective awfulness may not be the same, but just because the Sith are morally worse doesn’t mean the Jedi are morally good. Remember how the Jedi are complicit in slavery? That’s usually the purview of the bad guys, in fiction, but since the Jedi are framed as good guys I guess that makes it more okay or something.

And the thing is, I think I get why we have this disconnect. Or at least one of the major factors. The content and the framing of the narrative--PT, TCW, OT, everything--are not always in alignment. The content says “these people are morally questionable at best.” The framing (and, of course, the marketing) says, more often than not, “these people are the heroes, never mind the morally questionable stuff, shhhhh.” TCW is absolutely terrible about this, which is why I hate it, but the movies are not exempt, which is why they can be so goddamn frustrating.

At least in Legends canon you’ll occasionally see a character who says “wow, the Jedi are total assholes” without being immediately painted as morally bankrupt or a dupe of evil.

Anyway I’m off to make more tea in my Darth Vader mug, which I shall sip while wearing my Darth Vader t-shirt. You really caught me on a thematically appropriate night.

To be fair, lgbtq leanings have priority over slavery.

there's been a lot of obnoxious pop history trends in the last few years but the bizarre total sanitization of vikings/pirates has to be one of the worst. like sorry to the queer neopagan anarchy symbol in bio twitter user community but like. are you aware both vikings and pirates enthusiastically traded slaves

As fascinating as that is:

Fun little math trick I find really helpful: the ratio of a mile to a kilometer is within 1% of the Golden Ratio. That means that if you have a good memory for Fibonacci numbers (1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89) you can convert pretty accurately by taking consecutive Fibonacci numbers.

For example, 89 kilometers is really close to 55 miles (55.3). Or, say you need to convert 26 miles to kilometers: 26 can be written as 21 plus 5, so taking the next Fibonacci number up gives 34 and 8, meaning it should be around 42 kilometers. Sure enough, it's 41.8 km!