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Picture a Jedi. What image comes to mind? The hum of a lightsaber as it soars through the air. A figure in brown robes. Blue (or green?) light reveals the face hidden in the shadow of the hood. The tan robes flutter behind the noble warrior, agitated by a wind of mysterious origin. A stern expression and raised hand (using the Force, no doubt). Behind him, the weak and helpless (perhaps a mother and her young child?) look on in awe.
Or do you see a wise old sage, grey-haired and wrinkled, meditating beneath a waterfall, the living Force shining all around her? Or maybe a funny old hermit, sheltered in a damp and desiccated hut, where he seeks balance in the Force? Do you imagine a wise and canny diplomat, brokering a peace treaty between the haughty land-dwellers and their long suffering aquatic neighbours?
Perhaps.
Now, be honest. Do you see a padawan and his master in the Archives, reading about the forty-two different uses for Rotwang Root (including three in the cuisine of the little seen grasshopper people of Chapulines, not to mention its medical use as a cure for erectile dysfunction)? No? How about an older padawan, buried beneath an ever-growing mound of holopads and holocrons, her world narrowed down to a screen as she feverishly works on her Jedi thesis?
Just a moment, do you hear that? It sounds like the squealing of a pig the moment after he first learned where bacon comes from… Wait, it’s you. You’re laughing. You’re trying to say…something. Between hysterical fits of laughter, you’re trying to say…the Jedi don’t write theses.
Ah, well, that’s where you’re wrong. The Jedi are warriors, yes. The Jedi are mystics and peacekeepers and diplomats too. But everyone seems to forget that the Jedi are also nerds. Huge nerds. And when it comes to an organization as plain nerdy as the Jedi, it is guaranteed that you will come across stressed young people, vying to transform a two hundred word idea into an article composed of approximately two thousand lexemes that communicates various grandiloquent yet succinct and logical imaginings of the mind.
In other words, yeah, Jedi write theses.
“What do you mean, a thesis?”
Anakin and Obi-Wan sit in the common room of their shared quarters. Obi-Wan sits at the table, cradling a cup of matcha in his hands, while Anakin lounges on a pillow, his back to the balcony that opens on the common gardens. It’s been less than a month since Geonosis, and both men still bear wounds from their trials on the desert planet. Right now, Anakin’s learning that worse horrors than losing an arm await him in the near future.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Anakin. I’ve told you about the thesis requirement a thousand times.”
“Um, master, no, you have not. I’d remember.”
Obi-Wan chuckles, launching Anakin into pure bitch mode.
“Name one time you’ve told me about it.”
Obi-Wan frowns. He mutters to himself, “There was that time on Agamar, actually no, I was with Qui-Gon then…or Akiva perhaps…wait! No… Well, how about Ferrix? Yes! No, no, Qui-Gon was there too…”
He glances over at his padawan. Anakin drums his fingers against the hardwood floor and glares.
“I’m telling you now. In order to qualify for the rank of Jedi Knight, you must write a thesis of at least six thousand three hundred but no more than fifty thousand words long, not including the works cited, on a topic of your choice. Double-spaced, standard twelve point font. Your thesis will be assessed by the Council before you are permitted to attempt the physical trials.”
Anakin gapes.
“Six thousand three hundred words?! That’s practically a novel!”
Obi-Wan grimaces. His matcha stands forgotten on the table, the first casualty of Anakin Skywalker’s thesis.
“You don’t read much, do you? That’s about to change. I expect excellent work from you. After all—” He smirks. “—I’m the reason the Council imposed a maximum word length.”
He shakes his head, rueful but amused. “I’m still amazed that they didn’t appreciate all two hundred and fifty thousand words of my analysis of High Republic Outer Rim water economies.”
Obi-Wan’s bragging falls on deaf ears. Anakin is spiraling. His vision for the coming weeks consists of tiring but enjoyable mornings training his lightsaber forms with Obi-Wan and languorous afternoons in Padmé’s apartment, doing…things with her—unmentionable, married couple things—but now he sees himself in the Archives alone—without Obi-Wan!—for hours on end. Anakin almost wretches. Till now, the time he’s spent alone in the Archives hasn’t exceeded half an hour.
He pleads, “Why a thesis? Last I checked, the Jedi are warrior monks, not library-bound…dorks!”
Obi-Wan’s reply is as swift as it is sage.
“As peacekeepers, we are called to master the skills of rhetoric as much as the skills of the lightsaber. If not more so! You’d be surprised how often a Jedi finds himself in need of solid research skills, my young padawan.”
Anakin pouts. He’s sick of everyone calling him “young.” He isn’t young, he’s nineteen! Obi-Wan’s just jealous that Anakin isn’t some dried up, crusty old man in his thirties.
“But master—”
“Cease your complaints, Anakin. You’ll also need to prepare for the oral defense—”
“Oral?” Anakin yelps.
He hunches over and gags. He looks up to see Obi-Wan rolling his eyes at his dramatics. Anakin glares, still disgusted.
“Don’t be so dramatic, Anakin. I’ll explain—”
Anakin draws himself up. He addresses his master with rehearsed formality, like an eleven-year-old in a community production of Henba the Hutt, Part IV .
“There’s no need to explain. I’m leaving now.”
He stalks out of the room, furious at the entire galaxy. Obi-Wan grins.
“Ah, youth…” He remarks to no one in particular. “They truly are the future.”
A few days later, Anakin is nowhere to be found. Obi-Wan checks all his usual haunts: the padawans’ sparring facility, the gym, Padmé’s apartment…but all he finds is a handful of rambunctious Younglings and one flustered former Handmaiden, who insists that the Senator is far too occupied with preparations for an important vote to accept visitors at the moment.
At a loss, Obi-Wan asks a passing padawan, who insists that she saw Skywalker, looking rather beside himself, in the Archives. Despite her insistence, Obi-Wan is shocked to find Anakin at Obi-Wan's favourite cubby, tucked away near a small window that looks out on Coruscant. He fails to notice Obi-Wan, too engrossed in jotting down notes on flimsi as he swipes through a holopad.
The padawan is wrong about one thing though. Anakin looks more than flustered; he appears positively harried. He looks as though some nefarious villain has forced him to fight one against twelve with his dominant arm tied behind his back.
“How’s the thesis coming along?”
Anakin startles. The ensuing silence is deafening.
“You haven’t even chosen a topic yet, have you?”
Obi-Wan smirks. The familiar expression reminds Anakin of a smug goat, which his master must’ve been in a past life. He rushes to defend himself.
“That’s not true! I’m writing about—”
He thrusts his finger down on the holopad at random. He glances down. A constipated expression flashes across his face.
“—Darth Plagueis the Wise.”
Obi-Wan exhales in a manner that Anakin suspects is a stifled laugh. He glares at his master. The man is so smug, with his stupid mullet and his stupid, smug goatee—his goatee is so smug that it must have been a smug goat in its past life too!
“A bold choice, writing about a Sith. And he is…?”
Anakin gestures like he can wrench the answer from thin air.
“He’s, um, a wise Sith, who, uh, did a bunch of, um, evil but, eh, also wise things like, um…”
He shuts the holopad off. Anakin convinces himself that the click echoes through the room like a gavel pronouncing a verdict rendered.
“Look, if you want to know, then you’ll have to read my thesis—which I’m busy working on, by the way—when it’s done. I am grateful, master, for your interest, but I don’t need your help, so you can leave now.”
A pause.
“Please.”
Anakin, too concerned with his own injured pride, fails to note how Obi-Wan assumes a forced nonchalance at his padawan’s rejection. Till now, Obi-Wan has avoided any thought of the full significance of Anakin’s graduation to knighthood. He attempts to release the sting of rejection into the Force with a cavalier shrug. When that fails, he reassures himself that Anakin’s attitude is natural. After all, he is almost a Jedi Knight in his own right, and Obi-Wan…
For almost twenty-five years, Obi-Wan has been either a padawan or a master. Once Anakin passes his trials, however, Obi-Wan too will be a Jedi Knight, attached to no one in particular, and yet responsible to the whole galaxy. Obi-Wan and Anakin’s bond will—must!—weaken. Both men will learn to rely on the Force alone.
He sighs. Despite his youth, Obi-Wan feels far too old to be dealing with civil wars and uncivil apprentices.
“If you need any help, my young padawan—”
Anakin cringes. Will people ever stop calling him young! He can’t wait to be old. No one will disrespect him then.
“—I’ll be in the Room of a Thousand Fountains meditating on the living Force.”
“Very well. I’ll be here, researching—”
“Darth Plagueis the Wise.”
“—Darth Plagueis the Wise,” Anakin echoes his master, but Obi-Wan has already turned away.
He makes his way to the Room of a Thousand Fountains. His mind is a tempest of emotion. The weakness that he cannot purge, his unwavering attachment to Anakin, leads him to the end that it always leads. Suffering. Obi-Wan tries to center himself in the Force and fails. Memories flood his mind and he surrenders; he loses himself in their bittersweet embrace.
He casts his mind back to his Knighting ceremony; the day he accepted Anakin as his apprentice. Has it truly been ten years? Ten years since his duel with Maul? Ten years since his master become one with the Force? He recalls the harsh scent of ozone emanating from the orange ray shield that blocked his path, how his body ached from his fall, the way his muscles clenched as he stood helpless, useless, scant meters away and yet unable to protect his master from a sudden punch to the face and a stab through the heart. He remembers how he gripped tight to a man he never understood—a man who he still struggles to understand—yet a man with whom he had shared his life for over a decade. He held tight to his body, but could not grasp his spirit as it left him to join the living Force. Obi-Wan had been taught all his life to rejoice at such a union, but when the time came, all he could do was strike down his master’s murderer and rush to hold tight to a man whose final words were, “Train the boy.”
Obi-Wan obeyed. Though he had been a full-fledged Jedi Knight for less than a day, he took on Anakin as his padawan. In one fateful duel, he lost a master and gained an apprentice. Anakin the padawan is the fulfillment of a vow. Anakin the padawan is the final link joining master to apprentice. His knighthood will be the end of an era.
Palpatine groans. The impatient knock at his door means one thing. Once again, the Sith Lord faces the most gruelling gauntlet in his quest to rule the galaxy: his once a week, hour-long appointment with that young fool Skywalker. It’s irksome that his precious time is taken up by a mewling brat. As both the Chancellor and a Sith Master, there is no end to the tasks that he must attend to. Why, there’s a vote essential his plans that will take place in a matter of days.
Sometimes, late at night, cocooned in his imported red-and-black Naboo silk sheets, Palpatine wonders if Anakin is the Force’s preemptive punishment for his grandiose schemes. It’s not that the boy is difficult to deceive; far from it, the boy is more gullible than tourists on a space cruise to Mustafar. The rub arises from the boy’s unfortunate tendency toward brattish whining. Each week, Palpatine listens as the idiot boy prattles on about his puerile anxieties. Each week, he suppresses an all-consuming urge to strangle the infantile dolt. Each week, he forces himself to feign sympathy for the boy’s—eugh—feelings.
Today, Anakin appears frazzled. His hair is greasy, which suggests that he hasn’t showered in days, if not weeks. Palpatine shudders. Teenagers! Moreover, the bags under his eyes are such a dark blue as to almost seem bruised; an unnatural pallor marks his face, which is locked in a resigned grimace, like a wounded man fighting for his life. Although the boy’s lack of concern for basic hygiene disgusts him, Palpatine takes pleasure in his obvious distress. If that fool Kenobi wants to leave his chick unattended, then it will be all the easier for papa Palpatine to swoop in and claim the boy for his own.
Anakin, ever the supplicant, reaches out to him.
“Did you ever hear of the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?”
Palpatine stops. He almost expires on the kriffing spot. Does the boy suspect…?
No, of course not. If the Jedi Council remain ignorant of the Sith cuckoo who presides over their favourite hatchlings, the Senate, then the powerful, but painfully idiotic boy in front of him knows nothing.
He composes himself and dons a mask of polite surprise.
“That is not a story I would expect the Jedi to tell you.”
Anakin pouts—such an obnoxious habit. Palpatine will fry that out of him soon enough, though. (Failing that, he’ll force a mask on the insufferable boy.) For now, he feigns grandfatherly sympathy and listens as the boy whines about his petty pains.
“I’m writing about him for my Jedi thesis. I’ve scoured the archives, but all I’ve found are several introductory texts that all cite the same dubious source, one actually useful article hidden behind a paywall, two book reviews—but not the book!—and a medical article about how plagues are different from epidemics.”
Palpatine expresses his sympathy, then smiles.
“In fact, I have heard of Darth Plagueis. Yes. I once read about him in the most fascinating book about the old Sith empire. That was truly an awful time for the galaxy. Awful, yet terrific!”
Anakin startles.
“Terrific?”
“In the old sense of the term, Anakin. In the old sense.” He chuckles. “Yes, the Sith inspired both terror and awe in the obeisant chattel.”
He gestures to a chair in front of his desk.
“Sit down, Anakin, and I will tell you the tale of Darth Plagueis the Wise.”
Anakin sits, eager to learn what Palpatine has to teach him. He makes it so easy. Despite his unfortunate proclivity for whining, the boy will make an excellent Sith apprentice. He is a powerful fool, desperate for a puppet show of respect.
Soon, Palpatine will liberate himself from the shackles of decorum and democracy and force the galaxy to take its proper place: bowed before him, broken and bloodied like that useless fool Maul. Palpatine teaches harsh lessons; he inflicted pain and taught Maul the power of fear—the power of the Dark Side!—and he will use the same reliable methods—pain and death and loss—to teach the galaxy the lesson that all Sith teach their supplicants. Dark delight overcomes him; he resists the urge to cackle. He cannot, for fear that present company may suspect his true intentions before the appointed hour. Soon, he consoles himself, soon he will be free to cackle whenever he wants. He will maim and murder, enslave and exploit, and no one will be able to stop him.
After his appointment with the Chancellor, Anakin meets Padmé for a caf date. She’s waiting for him when he arrives. The caf bar is glamorous: a roaring waterfall covers the farthest wall. It flows into a central pond, brimming with pale pink lotus flowers. Tables and chairs carved from glasswood surround the central water feature like moons orbiting a water planet; ivy dangles from the ceiling, sheltering each table from the curious eyes and ears of its neighbours. It all speaks to Anakin of a wealth even the Hutts would envy.
Then, he sees Padmé. Her beauty is so stunning that the opulence around her may as well be sand. She wears her luscious chestnut hair in its customary golden cage, and her long-sleeved dress is of relative simplicity: a deep, square-cut neckline tops the tight-fitted waist, from which the petticoat-padded skirt flares out and flows down to her feet, forming a veritable waterfall of colour.
The dress is beautiful, but of course Padmé looks beautiful in anything…or nothing at all. Anakin shakes his head. A simple dress means that she must have come straight from the Senate. He smiles. Padmé always wants to relax after another gruelling session of long-winded speeches and foolish debates.
Padmé spots him. She smiles and waves, like a perfect, adorable angel greeting him at the gates of paradise.
“I hope you don’t mind that I’ve ordered for us.”
Anakin collapses in his seat.
“Whatever. I need all the caf I can get thanks to Obi-Wan’s stupid thesis.” He groans. “I’m up until two every night reading about dusty old Sith and their creepy beliefs. Eugh. How am I ever gonna write six thousand words?”
He pauses.
“You got me the caramallow drip, right?”
Padmé nods. As though she could forget that her husband’s taste in caf comes in one flavour: sweet. Padmé prefers the bitter taste of unadulterated caf, but to each their own.
She takes another sip before replying. She needs it more than Anakin realizes. While Anakin, as usual, appears to be ignorant of the upcoming vote to permit the use of so-called “extraordinary means” to obtain information, Padmé is all too aware of the deadline for the proposed addendum. For the past two weeks, she has dedicated all her out of session time to defeating the proposition. She has researched statistics and studies in support of her arguments and engaged in private meetings with other Senators, cajoling them to oppose the Republic’s swift embrace of barbarity. The war has just begun, and already the Senate is debating the use of torture.
She forces herself to end the train of thought. Her date with Anakin is meant to distract her from her fears for her beloved Republic.
“I’m surprised. I mean, Six thousand words?”
Anakin nods, eager to have Padmé’s support. She laughs.
“It’s so short. I’ve read, not to mention written, introductions to general reports that are longer than that.”
Padmé’s nonchalant attitude toward reports impresses Anakin. Reports are like novels but worse, in that, in addition to being longer than a sand wyrm, some sick individual called a statistician replaces the romance and space fights with discussions of gender ratios and statistical analyses of the failure rate of x-wings. As much as he admires his wife’s intelligence, though, he nevertheless feels the need to defend himself.
“That’s for the Senate! You expect Senators to read. It’s different for Jedi. We’re the type to take action, not read a boring report.”
He sips at his caf. He harbours doubts about sharing the worst of it with Padmé. She is such a sweet angel, and he doesn’t want to sully her mind with the Jedi’s bizarre rituals. On the other hand, he could really use her sympathy right now…
He leans toward Padmé. His body language is conspiratorial.
“The Jedi want me to do…” He whispers, “An oral defense.”
Padmé sips her caf and hums in assent. She glances down at his abs and smiles.
Anakin’s flattered, but he’s got to make her understand. The stupid thesis has him at his wit’s end.
“They want me to defend oral.”
Padmé splutters. Caf drips down her dress. A droid bustles over with a cloth napkin, beeping frantic apologies.
Demure as a maiden, she dabs her pink lips with the fresh cloth. The tasteful mood lighting makes her eyes sparkle. She glances over at him; a soft smile graces her face. She is the most beautiful woman Anakin has ever known. How can she be in love with a fool like him?
His face burns hot. His mouth has gone drier than Tatooine in summer. His hands are clammy. He’s almost twenty, and she’s still making his tummy do flip-flops.
“I mean, dentistry.” The words won’t come out right. “You know, defend oral health.”
Padmé giggles. She’s adorable (so adorable), but Anakin needs her to take this seriously.
He pouts.
“Stop laughing. Master Yoda is ancient, probably older than the galaxy, and he has a sweet tooth. I bet he has disgusting cavities.” Anakin gags. “I feel sick just imagining it. What does dentistry have to do with Jedi Knights?”
Padmé nods. She nibbles on her thumb, like an angel.
“Have you been doing more crunches lately?”
Anakin blushes. He was hoping that she’d notice, that’s why he chose his thinnest robes, but still…she’s so brazen. On Tatooine, only scum like bounty hunters talk about things like that in public. Respectable people know that shows of affection are meant to be private, never to be exposed to the jealous glare of the twin suns.
Anakin loves how daring Padmé is. She is the most wonderful woman in the galaxy. He’ll do ab crunches everyday if it means Padmé will stay with him forever. He’ll do whatever it takes to keep Padmé as his wife.
“Yeah. It’s tough to find time cause I’m so busy working on my thesis, but I make sure to get my crunches in.”
“I can tell.” She licks her lips (still so adorable) and smiles. “Let’s head back to my flat. We can practice a different kind of oral defense.”
She winks, stands up, and saunters toward the exit.
Anakin gulps. He rushes after her, caf forgotten.
Silence and the reflected glow of an unseen lamp welcome Obi-Wan as he enters his quarters. At this hour, the communal living area has long been ensconced in artificial darkness. Outside, the airways of Coruscant brim with the buzz and bright lights of its residents’ busy lives. The Jedi, however, prefer to align their lives to the ancient rhythm of sunrise and sunset.
Well, Obi-Wan reflects, most Jedi.
The Council can afford little time for rest as the Republic prepares for war with the Separatists. Already, the Senate has approved the use of “extraordinary means” during interrogation—a revolting obfuscation—and the Jedi Council has been scrambling to reign in the addendum.
In addition, the Council must find time to fulfill their original purpose: to counsel and guide the Jedi Order. Obi-Wan’s business with the Council was the latter; personal, not political. He met with them to discuss his plans for the future following Anakin’s graduation to knighthood.
Obi-Wan shuffles toward Anakin’s room. A glance confirms his suspicion: the boy is asleep at his desk. The lamp’s dim glow casts a halo on his long brown curls, which seem as though they are forged from gold. Sheets of flimsi surround him like autumn leaves. His arms serve as a pillow for his face, half of which is exposed to Obi-Wan’s gaze. Like a bolt of electricity, Obi-Wan is struck by the boy’s peaceful expression. The boy’s peace—so foreign to his waking life—reveals his youth. In sleep, he appears almost angelic.
Obi-Wan once again wonders whether his teachings will be sufficient. Anakin is the kind of man that lives for the harsh buzz of lightsabers clashing, not the subtle drip of water as it pours from a kettle. Despite his steadfast faith in his padawan’s proclivity for justice, Obi-Wan harbours fears about the ways that the Dark Side may tempt a man whose blood burns with a passion that rages like magma.
The Council’s words rattle around Obi-Wan’s exhausted brain like a thunder tube. Yoda assured him that he has been a compassionate master. Mace commended him for tempering the Chosen One’s flame. Even when he confessed his attachment to Anakin, his fear of loneliness, and the pain he feels when Anakin rejects his help, the Council brushed off his concerns like they were mere cobwebs, flimsy remnants of past lives. Their faith in Obi-Wan is like a rushing river. It sweeps away boulders as though they are pebbles.
It astounds him. They offered him a seat on the Council.
The complex emotions stirred up by their words cloud Obi-Wan’s connection to the Force like mud in water. He is thankful for the Council’s kindness. He knows that he does not deserve it. For all his endless efforts to remonstrate himself for it, there is nothing Obi-Wan can do about the plain fact that even a glimpse of Anakin causes his heart to exclaim in its own silent, painful tongue: “That’s my boy!”
Obi-Wan cannot sleep. Emotions are a more potent stimulant than caffeine. So, he will find succour in a cure he learned from Master Qui-Gon. He will make tea.
He centers himself as he moves through the familiar motions of domestic ritual. As he fills the kettle with water, he reflects on how its emptiness is the key to its usefulness. He ignites the flame of the burner. Its fickle dance reminds him of the Force, its potential to help and harm in equal measure. He measures out the tea, then sifts it into the cup. Each grain is like a person, seemingly insignificant on its own, but capable of potent force together. He waits for the water to boil. He counts his breaths, directs his focus toward drawing out the inhalations and exhalations. He pours a small measure of water and whisks the tea. He fixes his focus on his breath. With a final exhalation, he pours more water. Then, though a vestigial guilt haunts him, he adds a drop of honey. Qui-Gon insisted that to sweeten green tea was tantamount to a crime against nature. If Obi-Wan focuses, he can hear the echo of his master’s voice as he chides him.
A strange grief overcomes him. Now, he is the master that his padawan fights and flees in equal turns. Though Anakin insists that the Senator and he are mere “close friends,” Obi-Wan is no Force-blind fool. If they weren’t so ridiculous, Anakin’s efforts to hide his flirtations would be insulting, as though Obi-Wan never had his own secret tryst deep in the verdant, violent tropics of Mandalore.
Obi-Wan sips the tea. He focuses on its rich flavour, its heat as it flows to his center, and the warmth emanating from the cup. Thoughts of the Council and Anakin’s fate flit through his mind. He refuses to entertain them. His awareness of the Force sharpens; he feels it flow through him, through Anakin, through the plants on the balcony, on and on without end. He feels the thrum of life that animates the Temple. To think he was afraid of loneliness! Loneliness is an illusion. Qui-Gon tried to teach him. How can Obi-Wan ever be alone when the living Force flows through him?
Obi-Wan decides. He will accept the Council’s offer. He cannot teach Anakin to give up attachments by keeping him as a padawan. Knighthood will instruct the boy in releasing his instinct to possess. As for Obi-Wan, he will be a master to all Jedi, including Anakin.
His tea finished, Obi-Wan rinses out his cup. He watches the dregs swirl down the drain. His mind is emptied of all fleeting concerns.
The ritual accomplished, he puts Anakin to bed like he used to do when the boy was a child. Obi-Wan scoops him up, stifling a grunt. Anakin is much heavier than he used to be. Assisted by the Force, he floats the boy down on the dusty futon tucked away in the corner. Obi-Wan rolls his eyes. Anakin always forgets to put it away in the morning. He tucks the boy under the covers. The boy, the man, doesn’t stir.
As he moves to turn off the lamp, he glances over Anakin’s scrawl and catches a snippet: “It is essential that a Jedi free himself of attachment. For example, if anything happened to Obi-Wan, …” The remainder of what Anakin had written has been scratched out.
Obi-Wan smiles. Anakin may have grown, but he remains the same child that Obi-Wan met on Tatooine. For the first time in years, Obi-Wan recalls his padawan’s childhood promise: “I will free the slaves.” A knot eases itself loose inside him. Everything will turn out for the best.
He presses a switch. Darkness engulfs master and apprentice.
Anakin Skywalker
Master Obi-Wan Kenobi
Chiyue 32, 7955.671 CRC
An Excerpt from “Tackling Attachment: A Critical Analysis of the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise, Written in Partial Fulfillment of the Rank of Jedi Knight”
Not much is known for certain about Darth Plagueis the Wise. From his name, one can infer two things: one, that he was a Sith, and two, that he was wise. It may seem like a paradox that one may be a Sith (who are infamous for both their great cruelty and passion) and yet also be wise, but when one considers the different definitions of the term “wise,” one realizes that wisdom may signify concepts other than discernment. For instance, wisdom may also signify a broad and vast learnedness. As such, perhaps Darth Plagueis was called “the Wise” because of the extent of his knowledge of the Dark Side. In fact, Darth Plagueis is said to have “had such a knowledge of the Dark Side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying” (S. Palpatine, personal communication, Hunio 33, 7955.5 CRC). However, scholars estimate that, despite his great knowledge and power, Darth Plagueis was overthrown by his apprentice, Darth Sidious, around 7936.313 CRC (Jotzke-Yan 233). Thus, the great irony of the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise is that “he could save others from death, but not himself” (S. Palpatine, personal communication, Hunio 33, 7955.5 CRC). Ultimately, like all Sith, his attachment was his undoing.
Therefore, close examination of the ironic tragedy of the life of Darth Plagueis the Wise reveals the pitfalls and perils of attachment, a problem of which all Jedi Knights strive to free themselves. The tragic tale of Darth Plagueis the Wise reveals that attachment inculcates a possessiveness that, at best, is concerning in its fierceness and lack of discernment and, at worst, is an insulting disservice to the autonomy of sapient beings. To seek to own another person renders one in consequence a slaver, the worst, most despicable type of person in all the galaxy. Further, attachment inevitably leads to the fear of loss, especially the fear of permanent loss due to death. As all Jedi are taught, “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate[, and] Hate leads to suffering” (Master Yoda, personal communication, Mabril 25, 7945.313 CRC). Thus, in the end, suffering is always the bitter fruit of attachment.