why… why do you disgrace my house in this way…
[cn: nongraphic sex talk, aggressive awkward Christianity… Star Wars?]
This is just so…
*vague hand gestures* The original image was Weird enough, and this– this– this—
I mean– I mean if we’re invoking Obi-Wan as a Christ figure, which makes sense in so far as the Jedi were always at least as much Space Catholics as they ever were Space Buddhists, then that raises the question of on what level the two are comparable, when it’s certainly not that Obi-Wan was Messianic in any sense. So their point of similarity is that– is that they’re two people who tell you what to do? And– and specifically, to not have sex?
Ffffff this is just making me wonder about celibacy codes and circumventing patrilineal Jedi monarchy again. Like, why even is that… a thing… I know “forgoing attachments” but lol no, as if the mentor/apprentice bond isn’t an attachment? I didn’t even get why that was A Thing with unlocking Aang’s chakras in ATLA, much less here. I mean I just *drags hands down face* I don’t Get the narrative mechanics of forbidden love in the first place. God.
But that’s kind of beside the point because like– like, what is this? Obi-Wan is Christ? Obi-Wan’s stake in his padawan’s… sexual relations… is comparable to a deity’s stake in… I don’t even know how the original would phrase it… the actions of his creations?
There’s a semi-parallel authority I guess but ?? Obi-Wan isn’t going to say something like “your body is my temple.”
I’m so CONFUSED.
The Ace Theist 
February 27th, 2016 at 3:41 pm
When I first saw the Original Trilogy, I was a child in Catholic school and found “May the Force be with you” to be an obvious analogy to “Peace be with you.” Many years later, it would seem to me that the Jedi were more like Buddhists than Catholics, and knowing that George Lucas had a love of Samurai films, this makes even more sense.
Then, I think of my time practicing zazen with a Soto Zen Buddhist sangha. Avoiding attachments is central, but things like marriages and student-teacher relationships were acknowledged as attachments. It was a tricky balance. The Jedi order, however, would seem to be more like monastic Buddhism. So, the student-teacher/master-padawan relationship would be an acceptable attachment. Part of what I thought was going on in the Prequel Trilogy was to show that the tenets of the Jedi order weren’t sustainable, and that Darth Sidious was going to exploit that to help bring the order down.
But, I guess this is what happens when a seminarian and minister is also a Star Wars fan.
February 28th, 2016 at 12:33 am
(I always assumed it was some sort of…adaptation of Buddhist doctrine, which does have a lot to say about not forming attachments because the world is impermanent and attachments cause suffering [which is very much where ATLA is drawing a lot of its inspiration with regards to the Air Nomads from]. But since Jedi aren’t quite Space Buddhists, it’s not a one-to-one translation.)
February 28th, 2016 at 8:54 am
Does this explain why there had to be a forbidden love plot?
February 28th, 2016 at 2:46 am
i honestly think it’s just that obi-wan looks so damn white jesus-like.
also it’s Hilarious. (“i loved you, anakin!!!!)
and yknow commentary on the creepiness of the jedi council controlling relationships. when they…recruit kids, preferably younger than anakin was.
related: just today i read part of an Awful book because it had a whole chapter on “may the force be with you: cyber-spirits, and the religion of star wars.” and the dedication was to derrida, and the title was simply “on religion.” turned out it was creepy christian echo chamber and all about how religion is inescapable and modern and future and the source of morals and gudklskscndj. PLEASE get the fundamentalists away from the jedi council
February 28th, 2016 at 8:59 am
Oh. Oh I didn’t even think about that. Yeah lol he does look prototypical White Jesus.
(….Who’s Derrida?)
lol “get the fundamentalists away from the jedi council” but are the Jedi Council not fundamentalists though? Seeking organized involvement in state and military operations, cutting off kids from outside relationships, similar rhetoric on “evil is seductive” ….
February 28th, 2016 at 8:00 pm
no they absolutely are. but they’re seen as the good guys anyway. and that’s the scary part.
February 29th, 2016 at 10:10 pm
Derrida was a French postmodernist philosopher who…didn’t write anything literal, ever. His work is extremely difficult to understand because it is entirely metaphorical guesswork. My college roommate and I were both philosophy majors and he had to read Derrida in one of his philosophy elective classes: he read the work (he reads extremely diligently and thoughtfully), then appeared in class to be told it was about something completely different from what he had thought, and he couldn’t see the connection at all because postmodernists are often incomprehensible.
March 1st, 2016 at 8:07 am
…Lovely.