Everyone Is Wrong About Why The Jedi Died

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 4 seconds ago

With The Mandalorian & Grogu jetpacking its titular duo to the big screen, Star Wars mania is at a fever pitch once more. After all, this is our first film in the franchise since the Sequel Trilogy ended with the disastrous The Rise of Skywalker. Fans can’t help but wonder which enemies and allies Din Djarin and his pint-sized ward will encounter and if they will be as scary as Grand Admiral Thrawn, a villain whose return was first hinted at in The Mandalorian Season 2. Now that Thrawn has returned from the distant depths of the galaxy, fans can’t help but wonder if anyone else will be able to match his villainy.

Of course, what makes Thrawn such a worthy adversary is that he understands more about the Force than even the fans do. By teaming up with the Night Sisters, who are powered by the Dark Side, he intends to use the Force to reshape the galaxy in his image. That means taking out Ahsoka Tano, Ezra Bridger, Luke Skywalker, and any other Jedi who stand in his way. To fans, that makes Thrawn a supervillain, one intent on ridding the galaxy of its most powerful protectors. But it seems that Thrawn has stumbled onto a secret that has escaped the entire fandom: the Force wants the Jedi to die.

The Most Shocking Heel Turn In The Galaxy

In the very first Star Wars movie, Obi-Wan teaches Luke Skywalker (and, by extension, the audience) about the Jedi, a noble order of space monks who have kept the galaxy safe for millennia. He tells the young man about how Darth Vader, a former pupil, turned to evil and helped hunt down the Jedi. Later, we see this dramatized in Revenge of the Sith: Emperor Palpatine lures Anakin Skywalker to the Dark Side, rechristening him as Darth Vader. Driven by a demented desire to save his wife, Vader leads the charge in hunting down and murdering the Jedi, from the mightiest masters to the youngest younglings.

Anakin’s heel turn was particularly shocking to Jedi like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Mace Windu, both of whom were interested in a prophecy about a Chosen One who would “bring balance to the Force.” After Anakin slaughters everyone in the Jedi Temple, our heroes reach the same conclusion that the audience did: that Anakin clearly isn’t the Chosen One. Later, George Lucas insisted that the prophecy was real and that balance was achieved by Vader killing Palpatine. However, that no longer seems to be canon now that Palpatine (somehow) returned from certain death. Whether you agree with Lucas’ or not, though, one shocking fact is clear: the Force wanted all of those Jedi to die.

The Force Is A Fickle Friend

Weirdly enough, the clearest evidence for this theory is buried in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. There, we see the blind warrior Chirrut Imwe offering a kind of prayer to the Force as he openly walks through a battlefield filled with blaster fire. The film highly implies that these blaster shots miss because it’s the will of the Force; that is, this mystical energy field kept blasters from killing someone they favored. This retroactively explains how our heroes kept getting away back in the Original Trilogy. Stormtroopers don’t actually have bad aim, but their shots rarely connect because characters like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Leia Organa are protected by the Force.

What does this have to do with Order 66 and the genocide of the Jedi? Everything, really. Once you accept that the Force is capable of deflecting blaster shots and generally choosing who lives and dies in a fight, it changes every aspect of the prequels. The Force wanted Qui-Gon Jinn to die so that Obi-Wan would guilt the Jedi into taking Anakin in. The Force wanted Shmi and Count Dooku to die, easing Anakin’s recruitment into the Dark Side. Incredibly, the Force even wanted Mace Windu and his entourage to die so that Anakin could be christened Vader and help kill almost every Jedi in the galaxy.

The Real Enemy Was Hiding In Plain Sight

Why would the Force want so many Jedi to die? It’s possible this mystic energy field agreed with the Sith that the galaxy had grown too complacent under Jedi stewardship. The Force might even have objections to Jedi practices like abducting children and forcing them into a cult. Whatever the motivation, though, Qui-Gon’s prophecy came true from a certain point of view. When all was said and done, we were left with two prominent Jedi (Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda), two prominent Sith (Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi), and a handful of Dark Side servants (like the Inquisitors) and Light Side allies (like Ahsoka Tano). Sounds pretty balanced to me!

Obviously, none of this removes moral culpability from Vader and Palpatine: these guys committed mass murder on an unheard-of scale, and they deserve their place as the galaxy’s biggest war criminals. They might have decided to kill all those Jedi, but it’s clear that this wouldn’t have worked if the Force hadn’t wanted all those do-gooder space wizards to die. They were betrayed by the very energy field they devoted their lives to understanding, and only after the Force suddenly and mysteriously diminished their power. 

Sorry, Obi-Wan. In addition to binding us and holding the universe together, the Force does penetrate everyone. Not always with ageless space samurai wisdom, though. Sometimes, it just penetrates people with lasers, lightsabers, and way too much sand!