Man I'm gonna miss the EU. It was a bit all over the place at the beginning but all of the major arcs after Hand of Thrawn were tightly plotted and really expanded the lore. The yuuzhan vong arc was a treasure trove even if they did kill off the two best character in the whole damn universe (Anakin JR & Chewi).
Zahn's ability to scope a plot that goes from everything-is-doomed to amazing-twist-saves-the-day in each of his _Heir to the Empire_ series is fantastic. Plus, his pacing and character development feel significantly richer than other Star Wars Universe books I've skimmed, and really feel like they naturally build on the original 3 movies.
Thinking about it, it'll be interesting to see if the new movies stick to the pre-Disney EU idea of Luke's new Jedi Order being one that allows marriage and families.
As far as I can tell, Lucas' idea of celibate Jedi is just a Christian/Catholic artifact. There's no real attempt to justify it, and indeed there's no mention of such a thing in the original trilogy. Obi-Wan talks about Luke's father being a Jedi, and neither thinks this is especially odd.
In my own mind (and hopefully to some extent at Disney), the prequels and special editions are C-canon, to be disregarded whenever they conflict in any way with the pre-1997 scripts.
In fact, isn't the opposite more likely? If the whole midichlorian thing was true, it stands to reason that Jedis would want to reproduce, in order to have children who would share their biology and hence their attractiveness to midichlorian... which is confirmed by the Skywalkers' "family gift". Remaining celibate would look like an attempt at actually rooting out midichlorian-friendly genetics, which is just illogical.
(Disclaimer: I'm not a big StarWars geek, I've only seen the movies and occasionally read some comics, and I loathed the "prequel trilogy")
> there's no mention of such a thing in the original trilogy
Then again, in the original trilogy the only trained force-sensitive people we hear of are 3 human male and Yoda. On top of that we have a brother and a sister. There's not a lot of room for romance here.
My point is that there isn't a lot of "material" to dive into the question of "marriage/romance among the Jedis": Star Wars (the original trilogy) is basically a Swashbuckler in space, with all the associated trope of the hero building up its crew and his skills to fight the final boss, and the only romance that is developed isn't about the main character but his sidekicks. Maybe it was avoided for Luke specifically because of the "no-marriage" rule then ? I don't know, I'd rather say it wasn't developed because it isn't that interesting for the plot. But that's just a wild guess.
> Then again, in the original trilogy the only trained force-sensitive people we hear of are 3 human male and Yoda. On top of that we have a brother and a sister.
Those are who we see. We hear references to others in a manner which is ambiguous to whether they are strictly in the past or just rare and comparatively low-profile at the time.
The brother and sister outside of the trained count have to refer to Luke and Leia (Luke isn't trained at the beginning of the trilogy, but is at the end), so 4 human males (Luke, Vader, Kenobi, and Palpatine) in the trained count would double-count Luke.
I parsed it as saying
"in the original trilogy the only trained force-sensitive people we hear of are 3 human male and Yoda."
STOP, now a related thought about why one of them is unlikely to reproduce due to the limited female characters in the movie.
"On top of that we have a brother and a sister."
But I can see how your reading of it would make sense, since it removes the potential count error I read it as having.
The original trilogy seems to suggest that there is some form of inheritance related to force abilities, and the new trailer re-emphasises this. "The force runs strong in my family".
It seems from an evolutionary perspective that it's a very bad idea for Jedi not to marry and have kids, because it stops the traits that make them strong enough in the force from being carried on or even improved in the next generation.
With the Sith not being restrained by such a code, it would seem like this puts the Jedi at a significant disadvantage.
But isn't that kind of the whole point? The Jedi are at a disadvantage, they impose all sorts of rules on themselves that put them at a disadvantage. The goal of the rules, though, is to eliminate temptation and lust for power, because those things are incredibly destructive when they manifest in someone as personally powerful as a Jedi.
Not to mix franchises or anything, but it's a little bit like how Gandalf won't touch the one ring or allow it to be offered to him. He could have taken it and killed all the Orcs by himself. But at what cost?
I personally think the idea of the Jedi as celibate defenders of justice makes far more sense, and is far more satisfying. But of course directors can't help but add lame love stories to otherwise exciting adventure stories, and the vast majority of people are hung up on the whole "family" thing, so I guess I'll just have to live with it :)
> ... Jedi as celibate defenders of justice makes far more sense
Agreed. People (at least human people) are strongly hardwired to see to the well being of close kindred, specially their own offspring. Trying to renounce to wordly affairs and commit to a goal and an ideal that is greater than yourself while trying to raise a normal family would be insane.
On the other hand, there is no reason to think that a whole family/clan cannot be formally committed to such goals and ideals. So, I think the new taboo should be that Jedis can only marry other Jedis. And the consequences of one member of your particular family unit going Sith may be catastrophic.
That's a great question. I have assumed that Jedi justice would follow a vaguely American/European precedent based system but now I see that was strictly projection on my part.
