Spoilers ahead for Star Wars: The High Republic - The Blade #3 and Star Wars: Yoda #4While Yoda and the Jedi Order present themselves as the benevolent guardians of peace and justice across the Star Wars universe, they themselves are guilty of adhering to a callous policy that perpetrates injustice upon some of its .
Despite Yoda's for the Jedi recruitment policy, two recent issues of Marvel's Star Wars franchise prove that it's broken in a way that will necessarily result in disgruntled who are easily susceptible to the dark side of the Force. One of the most controversial aspects of the Jedi Order has always been its recruitment policy. The policy calls for the conscription of children as young as possible who are then required to cut off all links with their former family, friends, and home. Yoda and the Jedi Order believed this was necessary to create optimal Jedi who act without emotion or ion but in harmony with the Force. Anything less, the Jedi believed, risked the initiate becoming drawn to the dark side of the Force, where emotion, ion, and feeling are its hallmarks.
Jedi Rules Are Impossible for Some Species
In Charles Soule, Marco Castiello, and Jethro Morales' Star Wars: The High Republic - The Blade #3, a Jedi Knight named Barash Silvain reveals that her people, the Kage, have the innate ability to everything from the time that they are born. As she herself its, she not only re her parents, and siblings but also "how it felt to be with them." Barash and any other Kage Jedi are biologically incapable of adhering to a fundamental requirement for being a Jedi, namely giving up one's past and prior attachments. And yet, she was accepted into the Jedi Order and expected to suppress and deny who she innately is. While Barash is able to maintain a sense of herself despite her training, the effect of the Jedi recruitment policy, in the case of Kage initiates, is nothing short of biocultural genocide. Indeed, Kage is famous for later going into solitude from the Order, originating the Barash Vow as a way to come to with her relationship to the Force.
The Order Devalues Other Cultures to Enforce Its Own
In Jody Ho, Luke Ross and Nolan Woodard's Star Wars: Yoda #4, Master Yoda invites his former Padawan Count Dooku to restart his teaching duties at the Jedi Temple. Dooku is surprised at how inclusive the Jedi Order seems to have become, and how they now take in recruits from species who normally are hated rivals but yet have them, with the proper training, become friends and trusted colleagues. However, it's made clear that this isn't because the padawans are enlightened enough to overcome prejudice, but because they've been raised ignorant of their cultural backgrounds and history. Yoda explains that being raised away from their people has stopped his trainees picking up unhelpful prejudices - a belief which turns out to be false, as the two padawans begin feuding after learning of their people's enmity.
Star Wars its You Can't JUST Be a Jedi
The Jedi Council believed that the benefits of the Jedi recruitment policy outweighed its disadvantages, but recent comics show that the Order's standards attempted to ignore cultural and biological differences and enforce a uniform experience and identity, even when that wasn't possible. This caused unnecessary suffering, as Jedi across the years found innate aspects of their being suddenly clashing with the Jedi Order's demands. Though Yoda may not have realized it, the Star Wars franchise has finally itted a hypocrisy within the Jedi when it comes to how they treat different species.
Star Wars: The High Republic - The Blade #3 and Star Wars: Yoda #4 are on sale now from Marvel Comics.
