prillalar | For Your Own Good: Jedi, Psi Corps, and Wizards

For Your Own Good: Jedi, Psi Corps, and Wizards

Back in the day, I thought the Jedi were the good guys. They were noble and used their powers for good. Then Episode I came out and suddenly they looked a lot more sinister.

I realised that the Jedi reminded me strongly of the Psi Corps in the Babylon 5 universe. Although nothing is ever black and white in JMS's worlds, the Psi Corps were definitely positioned as bad guys.

These are the parallels I see:

Innate, unusual powers. The Psi Corps are telepaths. The Jedi can use the Force to do all manner of supernatural things, including mind control. They are born with these abilities -- they're special.

Indoctrination from a young age. ("The Corps is father, the Corps is mother.") In B5, any human discovered to have telepathic ability is required to join the Corps. Children are taken away from their parents and raised by the Corps. The Jedi also train as children. Qui-Gon says to Shmi that if they had been nearer the Republic, they would have discovered Anakin's Force sensitivity early. Now, at 9, he's "too old". It's not known, however, if these children are made to join the Jedi or if their parents can refuse. But the fact that they are trained from such a young age means that they are less likely to question the way the group operates.

Authority without accountability. While most of the Psi Corps work as commercial telepaths, there is a group of high-rated telepaths called Psi Cops who work as enforcers. They inspire fear in telepaths and normals alike. The Jedi have special status that allows them to do more or less as they please. Recall in Episode II when Obi-Wan and Anakin crash into the club. "Jedi business," they say and wave everybody back to what they were doing. In Episode I, Qui-Gon takes command of every situation he is in, and others expect him to do so.

Abuse of power. Psi Cops disregard the rules against unauthorized mental scans when it is advantageous for them to do so, against other telepaths and against normals. The Jedi use their powers to influence the minds of others. Qui-Gon uses the Force to try to cheat Watto into accepting currency he can't use. Obi-Wan uses the Force to make the Death Stick pusher in the club leave and go home to contemplate his future, even though that had no bearing on their mission.

The more I thought about it, the more sinister the Jedi seemed to me. The idea of a group with unusual powers who are raised to think they are better than everyone else and who are given wide latitude to do what they deem necessary is frightening.

Which brings me to Harry Potter and the wizarding world. The wizards also share several of these characteristics. They have special powers. They are a group apart and most seem to consider themselves better than the Muggles. Children with magical ability and Muggle parents are assimilated into the wizarding world and taught to think of the world they were raised in as "other".

I wonder what would happen if a child didn't attend Hogwarts. We know that Harry was taken off to Hogwarts against the explicit wishes of his legal guardians. But he's a special case. What if Hermione's parents didn't want her to go to Hogwarts? What if Justin Finch-Fletchly decided he'd rather go to Eton after all?

These kids are able to do some magic without training or wands. It's only after they are somewhat trained that they are forbidden to do magic at home in the holidays. It can't be tracked solely by their wands, though. When Harry blows up his Aunt Marge, he does it accidentally, no wand needed, and the MInistry knows about it.

So, if Hermione didn't go to Hogwarts because her parents wouldn't let her, you can be sure that she would learn how to do magic anyhow. What would the MInistry do? Would they leave her alone or crack down on her to stop? Or would they force her parents to let her go to Hogwarts after all? If a telepath doesn't want to join the Corps, they are forced to take drugs to damp their ability. Would the Ministry do likewise?

The thing that creeps me out most about the wizards, and I've raised this point before, is how cheerfully they use their Memory Charms, mostly on Muggles, but also on each other. They erase experiences from people's minds without permission. It's an incredible violation. But nobody really seems very fussed about it. That's scary. Scarier than the Jedi, actually.

So, in conclusion, with great power comes great responsibility, but nobody really seems to remember that.

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The idea of a group with unusual powers who are raised to think they are better than everyone else and who are given wide latitude to do what they deem necessary is frightening.

Which brings me to Harry Potter and the wizarding world.

***smooch***

I adore you. I've been trying to put that into words for quite a while now, and you've stated quite eloquently the things I haven't been able to.

Because there's nothing scarier than a group that's doing things for the "right" reasons, for the "noble" cause. And it all fits neatly together with "Dumbledore: Criminally Stupid, or Just Plain Evil?" But that's an essay/rant for another day. [g]

The Psi-Corps, EXACTLY. Episode I made me see the Jedi as a sinister dark force too and I couldn't place exactly what it was that creeped me so much, but you hit it spot on.

Senator Palpatine, then, is he Bester?

Scarier than the Jedi, actually.

Don't the Jedi do that, too? I mean, I kind of assumed a lot of the mind-whammying included memory-wiping.

The Prequels gave me a new appreciation for ~~Chipmunk Boy~~ Luke, being as how he seems to have an actual moral center and all. I can see Luke constructing a healthy Jedi Order post-Tril.

Not a Babylon 5 fan (the Psi Corps bit just screams SF! cliche! to me) but the Hogwarts analogy was certainly interesting!

On the other hand, the wizarding world is not in a position of strength. Muggles outnumber them by several hundred to one. Their three most feared curses are nothing on what technology has.

Wizarding society isn't so much in a position of power as it is marginalised and under great need for secrecy. That's why I think yes, they do have strict laws; they crack down on people like nobody's business; they will do whatever it takes, I think, to ensure they remain hidden from the Muggle world. It's a harsher reality than our own, and yes, I think for them, the ends justify the means.

*ponders* You could get so many plot bunnies out of this...

It would be an unusual society indeed where the powerful and/or gifted did not rise to positions of authority and decision-making. Sometimes those people are obviously skewed toward the "dark side" (Vader, Voldemort, etc.), but most use their capabilities for good (at least as they define it). Often the accountability of these groups is only to others of higher rank within the same order or group. It is only in very modern times that the idea that the powerful are accountable to the common people (or that the powerful cannot make unilateral decisions for the common good) has come about. And I think that any cursory look at our own system will show that the powerful pretty much still do as they please (for example: who won the popular vote in the American presidential election of 2000?).

The intense training and self-discipline the Jedi (and to a lesser extent the wizards in HP) go through make them a much more trustworthy source of authority and law than, say, F.B.I. or the L.A.P.D. I also like that there seems to be consequences for Jedi and wizards when they exercise their special powers. Both can exhaust their mental and physical resources and become tired/weak. So they have to dole out their magic wisely.

Thing is, I think that in a complex society someone has to make those difficult decisions, for better or worse. Qui-Gon's occasional use of the Force for mind control is a moral judgement call that he has earned the right to make. After all, the Jedi aren't going around using the mind trick to get free drinks -- they're putting their lives on the line for a just cause. There is a definite amount of personal sacrifice involved in being Luke Skywalker or Harry Potter.

Colonial is a good word for it. Even though Arthur loves Muggles, he loves them in a pat-them-on-their-heads, bless-their-hearts way. Very condescending.

*basks in the love*

And it all fits neatly together with "Dumbledore: Criminally Stupid, or Just Plain Evil?" But that's an essay/rant for another day.

Oh, I read something like that the other day, here , by

millefiori.

I always wanted to equate Qui-Gon and Bester, actually, though it's not really a good fit. Bester only wishes he were Palpatine. *g*

I'm not sure about Jedi and wind-wipes -- I don't think we've seen it, exactly.

I only really began to love Luke after Episode I. I always thought he was stupid, but I think that's really his strength -- his need to always follow his heart. That's why he succeeds in the end.

On the other hand, the wizarding world is not in a position of strength. Muggles outnumber them by several hundred to one. Their three most feared curses are nothing on what technology has.

I wonder what would happen if they tried to set themselves up that way. I don't think we've ever seen Magic vs Technology in the HP-verse, so it's hard to say which is more powerful. [insert obligatory Sufficiently Advanced Technology reference] It would certainly be interesting. I've been having some thoughts along these lines.

But if people began to fear the wizards, I think they could have the same kind of control that the Jedi or the Psi Cops do. The people could take out those groups too, if they co-ordinated to do it. But individual fear prevents them.

The more I write Luke, the less I trust Obi-Wan and Yoda.

The Jedi, like the Psi-Corps, are stagnant. They do not grow, they do not cope with new thought or independence.
And according to EU, infants are taken from their families at 6 mo or earlier and raised in a creche setting. "The Temple is Mother, the Code is Father." (not canon, but my spin)

I honestly don't think the wizards need to do as many memory charms as they do. The average person will very carefully not see things out of the ordinary. They will dismiss it as seeing things, a trick of the light, or something like that.
And Lockheart is a prime example of memory charm abuse.

Darnit, now I want to write fic where Hermione's parents "pish and tosh" the whole idea of Hogwarts.

I also like that there seems to be consequences for Jedi and wizards when they exercise their special powers. Both can exhaust their mental and physical resources and become tired/weak. So they have to dole out their magic wisely.

I don't know -- I thought that Yoda's whole point to Luke in ESB, when he lifts the ship, is that there's no difference between lifting something that large and lifting something small. Though that seemed to be contradicted in AotC when Yoda had to hold up that huge pillar. (Jeez, George, keep changing stuff!) Hmm.

In re magic, the HPverse seems different to me than most magical settings in that using magic doesn't really seem to have a cost involved. People use magic all day long without much effort at all. Certainly duelling takes it out of people, but so would physical duelling -- I don't recall seeing anyone exhaust their magical power.

After all, the Jedi aren't going around using the mind trick to get free drinks -- they're putting their lives on the line for a just cause. There is a definite amount of personal sacrifice involved in being Luke Skywalker or Harry Potter.

Now you've got me wanting to check in AotC to see if Obi-Wan paid for his drink in the club. *g* Maybe he got it free like cops get free coffee.

Luke isn't part of the Jedi order, though. There is no order for him to belong to and he's not been indoctrinated from youth. He's had a small amount of training which he then uses in his own way.

Harry is also in a special position. But what's the excuse for the Ministry to use that poor Muggle in GoF to run the campground for the World Cup and then cast memory charms on him *hourly*? That's more what I'm talking about. I'm not down on Obi-Wan for "these are not the droids you're looking for" but I am down on him for Mind Tricking the death stick boy.

The more I write Luke, the less I trust Obi-Wan and Yoda.

We have a saying in this house: "You lie like Obi-Wan!"

In the original trilogy, almost everything he tells Luke isn't true. Assume he's lying until proved otherwise. And Yoda really seemed to have some sort of agenda which I don't think we'll be able to understand until we know what happened to him in Ep III and after.

Darnit, now I want to write fic where Hermione's parents "pish and tosh" the whole idea of Hogwarts.

Yeah, I've been pondering that. If Hermione was not allowed to go to Hogwarts, she would find magic books somehow and she'd teach herself to do magic. That would be interesting.

The Jedi in Eps 1 & 2 were not the Jedi I was looking for. Based on the original trilogy, I imagined them as being much more like knights errant in the King Arthur books of my childhood, riding out alone or in twos and threes to battle injustice, occasionally massing for battle against a greater evil. Qui-Gon trying to whammy Watto into taking currency he couldn't use was *not* what I had in mind. *sigh*

There are things about the wizarding world that bother me a lot more than the use of memory charms (although it does make me squirm when someone points it out--high-handed lot, aren't they?). It bothers me that they have no *culture*. They make great candy, have popular music, and play a sport, but where are their novelists, their playwrights, their actors, their composers, their painters? What do they *produce* with their powers to justify their feelings of superiority? It also bothers me that, as you mentioned above, magic carries no price, costs no effort, uses none of the wizard's energy. They're essentially getting a free lunch, and that's so wrong that just about every fanfic writer I've read corrects it. There's no way you can kill someone with two words and not have it *cost* something.

I've explored the idea that "The Light Lies and the Darknes tells the truth." Vader never lies to Luke. Yoda is senile, and wants only his final revenge. I think the whole idea was to turn Luke into a guided patricidal missile.

I think Hermione's forms of self-created magic would be an interesting story, seeing whether she goes with the hermanuetical "like-produces-like" sympathetic magic or the more shamanistic imitative magic. I think it'd be the latter. And i think with a solid grounding in science, she'd be using basic chemical processes in her potions.

::applauding:: Splendid analysis. We've talked about some of this stuff before, but I didn't recall bringing the Psi Corps into it at that time.

How do elves fit into this unholy plot? (:

Damn, this is an insightful post. I hadn't even thought of the Jedi compared to the Psi Corps - mostly just because the Psi Corps is presented as the evil entity in the B5 universe, and the Jedi are the good guys in SW. Same with the HP universe - the wizards are, generally, the good guys. The muggles we've had the most contact with are just as diabolical as Umbridge, for instance. One could argue that Harry doesn't pay attention to her blatant child abuse because he's been an abused child for years. Anyway, that's a tangent. Just...yeah, I totally see what you mean.

I don't know -- I thought that Yoda's whole point to Luke in ESB, when he lifts the ship, is that there's no difference between lifting something that large and lifting something small. Though that seemed to be contradicted in AotC when Yoda had to hold up that huge pillar. (Jeez, George, keep changing stuff!) Hmm.

Well, consider the situation that Yoda was in during that seen in AotC, and also consider Luke's mindset in TESB.

Yoda tells Luke that it's no different, lifting the X-Wing as opposed to the rock (and R2). And I think he meant it - there is no difference. But the *stress* is what makes Luke fail at that point. He's concentrating on other things - his frustration, his grief, his fear. Yoda faces similar things in AotC. He's pissed off, he's not fully aware at first what he's doing because he's so mad at the fleeing Dooku. The struggle he's having with that pillar come from that.

And that is the Jedi fall in microcosm, I think. For a millenium or so, the Jedi have faced no real foe, nothing bigger than the diplomatic struggles of the Republic. The Sith are legend and even the Council believes them gone. Only the extremely powerful Jedi have even the smallest inkling of the imbalance in the Force. When Palpatine bursts on the scene in Episode I, when Darth Maul kills Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan responds in a rage that Jedi are supposed to be above, that's an indication that the galaxy is going to hell in a handbasket. The Jedi don't see or know about Dooku's army or Sifo-Dyas' - I'm convinced that they would have if they had been focused on doing so. They had become complacent and less diligent against the "dark side" and had therefore opened themselves (and through them, the galaxy) to takeover. They'll lose to Palpatine and Vader because they weren't prepared. They were blindsided by it. Now they've got to struggle with keeping the galaxy safe (the pillar or x-wing) and keep themselves alive (what makes the pillar or x-wing too big).

If that made any sense.

Luke isn't part of the Jedi order, though. There is no order for him to belong to and he's not been indoctrinated from youth. He's had a small amount of training which he then uses in his own way.

Very true. Luke has that advantage, at least through the movies. He's also the only *known* Jedi after Yoda dies (because Leia is only Force-sensitive), which adds to that advantage. Moreover, Luke isn't in a position of power because no one recognizes Force-wielding as such any longer - "hokey religions and ancient weapons", and "the jedi are dead and so is their religion" or something like that in ANH. Once the New Republic is rebuilt in the Expanded Universe, Luke has to struggle with the idea of power all over again. I don't know if you read the books, but his nephew Jacen specifically struggles with this idea. How much power should a Jedi have, and how should he wield the Force? What's the morality of it?

Hmm. Now I'm thinking too much, and I'm spamming your journal. Moving on. :-)

Augh!!! Obi-Wan and Dumbledore have the same damned agenda!!

Oh, man.

I like what you say about the fall of the Jedi. The Sith seem much more focused. But they only have their agenda to worry about; the Jedi must have many claims on their attention.

I'm always very impressed by Palpatine. He's this amazing Sith Lord and Yoda can't even sense an inkling of that when Palpatine is right in front of him. "Hard to see, the Dark Side is." But why?

I don't read the books or consider the EU canon, but it's always interesting to hear about.

I'm interested in what you say about wizard culture. But I don't think it's a given that it doesn't exist, just because it's outside Harry's focus.

There are, obviously, painters, sculptors, er, tapestry makers, whatever the correct term is for that.

We haven't seen anyone read a novel, but I do recall Ron having comic books about "Martin Miggs the Mad Muggle" (or similar). Dumbledore engages that group, the Weird Sisters, to play at the ball.

I just don't think we can generalize from the books, which are from Harry's POV, that there are no playwrights, no actors, no composers, no cultural tradition.

I suppose Harry could have spent more time learning to play the flute Hagrid made him, though. *g*

The elves only sort of fit in. They do have special powers, but they are more along the lines of "better, stronger, faster" than anything else, I think.

I find *them* creepy because they live so damned long compared to the other races. It *must* make them value human/dwarf/hobbit life less than their own.

Elves are stuck up, I guess, and patronizing. And they were Tolkien's pets. *g*

See, it's all about the spin. *g* But that's why it's so creepy. Anyhow, everybody always thinks that they're the good guys.

What you say about the books being from Harry's pov is a good point. An average eleven-year-old boy is more apt to be interested in a sport he can play than in great composers. (< a href=http://pistorius.livejournal.com>My husband would have been an exception. *g*) But I'd like to see more hints of wizard culture, even the aspects of it that Harry wouldn't be interested in. I think JKR could have done that, but I get the impression that *she* wasn't particularly interested in those things, so they didn't make it into the story.

There's a lack of depth to the Harry Potter books that disturbs me--not depth in the sense of Deep Thoughts, but depth in the sense of perspective. It's not three-dimensional. It's all surface. There are other children's books where that's not the case, where a reader is very much aware that there's a bigger world in the book which is outside the child protagonist's experience.

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For Your Own Good: Jedi, Psi Corps, and Wizards

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