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"the jedi don't have therapists-"

jedi philosophy, and in particular the practices and teachings that jedi were expected to implement in their everyday lives, was therapy. dialectical behavior therapy (dbt), to be exact. anyone who's familiar with dbt knows where i'm already going with this, but like genuinely look up the basic tenets of dbt and it's identical with what the jedi were doing.

dbt, to put it simply, is a specific therapy technique that was designed for ptsd and past trauma. it's pretty different from traditional talk therapy. it combines a few different environments (individual, group, etc.), recognizing that no single format of treatment can stand alone.

the key focuses of dbt include:

emotional regulation- understanding, being more aware of, and having more control over your emotions

mindfulness- regulating attention and avoiding anxious fixation on the past or future

interpersonal effectiveness- navigating interpersonal situations

distress tolerance- tolerating distress and crises without spiraling and catastrophizing

i'm sure it's already clear from that list alone how much the jedi teachings correspond with the goals of dbt. the jedi value, teach, and practice the following:

identifying and understanding emotions

mindfulness and living in the present

compassion, diplomacy, and conflict resolution (on interpersonal scales, not just planetary or galactic)

accepting and tolerating certain levels of distress or discomfort (particularly mental, such as discomfort at the thought of losing a loved one to death)

idk man seems almost as if jedi mental health practices and dbt are two sides of a completely identical coin. (fun fact: both star wars and dbt are products of the 70s.)

and guess what? dbt was specifically designed as a treatment for borderline personality disorder. remember that one? or, if you don't, maybe you remember a specific character, the one who was literally used as an example by my professor in my undergrad psych class when she was teaching us about bpd?

tldr: simply existing within the jedi community, practicing jedi teachings, surrounded by a support network of other jedi of all life stages, was the therapy for anakin. even when viewed through a modern lens. it was even, more specifically, the precise type of therapy that has developed in modern times to treat the exact types of mental issues he was struggling with.

I killed a part of me to keep you alive.

And u never noticed

Disney, hire me as your Attachment Advisor, I will shove so many George Lucas quotes at your producers and writers, I will shove so many context-laden clips from the movies and TCW at your creatives, I will make powerpoint essays about how it's more Buddhist-aligned, not Attachment Theory-aligned, I will cite literally every time attachment has ever been discussed by Lucas AND in the show itself and show you that it's always aligned with fear, possessive feelings, and selfishness, I will do this work for you for free, I can even literally just point you to my Jedi Citations collection, DISNEY, HIRE ME AS YOUR ATTACHMENT ADVISOR, I CAN HELP YOU.

Attachment is not a joke. losing your favorite person can mentally destroy you.

What pisses me off sometimes is that many of the people in this fandom already understand attachment but just choose to not use that understanding for the Jedi.

Like. If you weren’t completely confused by Shuri’s arc in the new Black Panther you understand attachment.

If you understood why elenore let chidi leave in the finale of the good place, you understand attachment.

In fact I can think of like eight super hero movies where attachment (and learning to let go of it) is the KEY conflict.

Attachment is not a hard concept to grasp at all. “Letting go” is NEVER portrayed as a bad thing in media. Like. Never. Especially when it’s about letting go of a loved one who died instead of getting revenge.

When people watch a super hero movie and the super hero starts acting like a villain and a side character goes “you’ve got to let her go” I never find paragraphs on tumblr about how the hero should have kept acting like a villain and that side character was the real bad guy.

It’s just that the Jedi don’t struggle with it. The Jedi already practice attachment. They’re already at peace. And since Anakin has been a Jedi for so long and has given no real indication of struggling (I mean they don’t know about his secret wife), they just tell him to practice attachment and think that’s enough. Bc he should already know.

And when people say they shouldn’t have expected this of Anakin bc he wasn’t raised a Jedi… the Jedi are not the only ones who don’t act on attachment. The first person to explain attachment in the movies is Shimi Skywalker. She lets Anakin go and live a better life bc she is not attached to him. She tells him to not look back. This is the woman who raised Anakin. He was raised in a no-attachment household. He has no excuse. He was always taught about attachment. He knew what he was doing was wrong. He did it anyway.

Anakin was not confused by attachment. And neither is the audience really. There are so many stories about how attachment is bad, Lucas just calls it by its name. People choose not to like the Jedi bc they don’t find them interesting. Which is fine I suppose, but if you don’t like the Jedi bc the sith aesthetic is more your speed, just say that. Stop pretending you don’t understand a very common moral conflict.

All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.

Baruch Spinoza, On the Improvement of the Understanding

Mikel Jollett, Hollywood Park

It’s strange, I felt less lonely when I didn’t know you.

“Things arise and she lets them come;

things disappear and she lets them go.

She has but doesn’t possess,

acts but doesn’t expect.

When her work is done, she forgets it.

That is why it lasts forever.”

— Lao Tzu

One thing that was really good about episode 4 of Ahsoka is that it knew exactly what the theme needed to be, the same thing that it always comes back to in Star Wars: Attachment. Ahsoka starts the episode off by saying that, if they can't get to the map, they may need to destroy it, stranding Ezra, because letting Thrawn come back is worse, knowing what would happen. Sabine's big temptation in this episode is exactly that--Baylan promises her that she can see Ezra again, because she thinks he's the only family he has left that she can do anything for, because she's so afraid to live without something that she makes a deal with the dark side. It's the exact same situation that Ezra had to make at the end of Rebels--he could bring Kanan back, but it would mean destroying all that Kanan saved in that moment, possibly even tear open time itself. He could have brought his parents back, but it would have let Sidious into the World Between Worlds to tear everything down. Which was the exact same situation that Anakin faced, that Ezra's was a riff off Anakin's, the willingness to trade the entire galaxy's freedom and lives for the one person (who wasn't even actually dead, either!) he was too afraid to live without. Which was the exact same situation that Luke faced, that he could save his friends if he would just give in to the dark side. It's the recurring theme of Star Wars, to face what attachment means to the Jedi, who are based on Buddhist monks, that attachment means the fear that makes you cling to someone or something so hard that you only end up hurting yourself--and Sabine, in her Jedi training, has to face this choice and she couldn't do it, she couldn't be selfless enough to let go and we can see it's going to be a shitshow. It's such a human, empathizable choice, she lost so much, her family is dead, she thinks Ahsoka is dead, she's been stagnating since Ezra left, she feels lost and adrift, of course she makes the wrong choice, of course she gives in to the fear that is attachment, and of course it's going to be awful. OUR GIRL IS GOING THROUGH IT, PLEASE BE KIND TO HER!!!!

I was watching the Clone Wars featurette about the Holocron arc and Dave talks about the scene where Bane threatens to kill Ahsoka. He says "we're seeing a dark side of Anakin, and in a very clear illustration of why Jedi should not have attachments, we see that attachment get exploited." So clearly at what point in time he understood the whole attachment thing. What happened?

Unlike Karen Traviss, I think Dave Filoni actually understands what "attachment" means, in Star Wars. Apparently, it's the Star Wars theme that he and George spoke the most about.

"The biggest area of the Force and the Jedi [that] George and I have gotten into discussing the whole deal with attachments. And, arguably, that's what Anakin whole life is hinged on, is this - like you've mentioned - he has a lot of attachments to Artoo and how how right or wrong is that? Is it that the Jedi have made themselves dispassionate, that they are actually deceived by the Sith and they fall apart?" - Dave Filoni, Rebel Force Radio, 2012

What I've noticed is that, while understanding the meaning of attachment... Filoni doesn't seem to agree that the Jedi embody the concept of compassion.

He has acknowledged sometimes that "attachment is bad" is the theme of Anakin's story (but question if it's really so bad, unlike Lucas who says it's understandable but bad) but disagrees that the Prequel Jedi represent the obvious counter-theme, "compassion is good."

If you read what Filoni says, he argues that:

The Jedi have lost their way, taken the "rid yourself of attachment" rule and pushed it to an extreme where they've rid themselves of any empathy and thus compassion. They've focused so much on being selfless that they've forgotten how to love.

All except for Qui-Gon, who is the only one that truly knows how to love without getting attached, to love selflessly.

And personally, that strikes me as a coping headcanon, a way of reconciling the theme and feeling the Jedi like Mace, Ki-Adi, even Yoda and Obi-Wan are stoic, unlikable and too different from Luke.

Sure, they're not perfect, but nowhere in the films is the Jedi's stance on love framed as "bad" by the narrative. The narrative agrees with their philosophy, and George echoes it.

In fact, among 772 collected George Lucas quotes, I've never seen him state that theme while adding the asterisk that "of course, the Jedi of the Prequels have forgotten how to be compassionate, except for Qui-Gon who was the true Jedi."

And of course he doesn't do that. Because doesn't that muddy the waters so much?

Supposing Qui-Gon truly is the only character that embodies the concept of "compassion"... doesn't killing him off in the first film confuse a targeted audience of children?

Bearing in mind that the Prequels are about how greed makes people and institutions become the very thing they swear to destroy, and Star Wars as a whole is about being selfless instead of selfish:

In one corner, we have Anakin and the Senate showing what you're not supposed to do.

In the other, you got Padmé, Shmi and the Jedi, showing you what you should do instead.

Simple. I can see a kid getting this (and I did). But according to Filoni, that second point is incorrect. Instead, it's:

In the other, we have... Qui-Gon, who is one of the first film's four protagonists that dies at the end, without openly stating anything about the trilogy's theme. Theoretically, there's the Jedi who state and address the theme, but they don't themselves embody it so they don't count. So really... in this corner we have nobody (?)

That seems overly complex, a whole lotta hoops to jump through. Doesn't make sense. But hey, good luck learning the lesson, kids.

So yeah, Dave Filoni gets what attachment means. He just doesn't think it's as bad as Lucas' films frame it as, and disagrees on the Jedi narratively embodying the concept of compassion.

And I think it's coping. It's connecting non-existent dots, Always Sunny-style, to justify not liking characters that weren't meant to be developed much, due to their calm, collected nature and secondary/tertiary role in the story.

Coping and coming up with headcanons are what any irritated Star Wars fan does when they're confronted with something they're unable to make sense of.

“I care because I passionately believe that important stories ought to make sense.” As well you should—and when a story does not, you apply that passion to finding a way to make it make sense. [...] When a rational and inquisitive mind is confronted by the engaging yet irrational, it often responds in this manner. This process is not usually appreciated by those undergoing it; the most common reaction is a deep irritation. But isn’t that always how pearls are formed?” - Don DeBrandt, Star Wars on Trial, 2006

Unless they choose to make documentaries and click-baity YouTube video where they decide to spew hate and get angry pointlessly. Which I'd argue is still worse.

even when i'm away, all i think about is you. i can't fucking get away. you're in my head like a parasite, and i can't deny that i like it, but it drives me fucking insane. i'm so fucking attached to you. i don't know what to do.

pro tip: when writing about star wars, simply don't tack on a line about attachment. it's not necessary. i promise you can talk about jedi loving each other without bringing up attachment

There is no soul so vile, no heart so barbarous, that it is not susceptible of some kind of attachment.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions