Grey Jedi.
There are two definitions that I want to consider today.
The first is a Jedi who walks in the middle. They belong to neither the light nor the dark. They give in to neither, and stay neutral.
This concept is, as far as I am concerned, opposed to everything that Star Wars stands for.
The Star Wars Galaxy is about light vs. dark, good vs. evil, pure and simple. That’s one of the things I love about it. There are shades of grey that add some complexities but at the end of the day, you can’t really be neutral. You’re either doing what’s right, or you’re hurting the side that’s right through your inaction. That’s one of the themes that the Sequel trilogy touches on. The Resistance is good, they’re trying to fight against the First Order, and people don’t show up to help them at first. Those people, at least as far as my own personal opinion goes, are wrong. They’re the ones who sit back and let the First Order return. They knew the Empire was evil, but for whatever reason they’re not willing to fight them off with the ferocity that they deserve when the same basic evil comes back. And if that sounds unrealistic, let me remind you that the real-world political ideas that the Empire was based off of-you know, Nazism-still exists today. So, yeah. Not fighting is making an active choice to stand back and let evil win. So, yeah. I don’t really think you can be “neutral” in this Galaxy.
If you want to cut deep-and you know I do-there are two figures within the current canon who are supposedly neutral. That would be the Father from the Mortis arc and the Bendu from Star Wars Rebels, but neither of them really remain neutral. Both end up having to act in order to stop the darkness, which, I would argue, does place them on the side of the light, in terms of philosophy, at any rate.
So from a philosophical perspective, I don’t really think that there are neutral characters in this franchise. When it comes down to it, everyone has the choice between what is right and what is easy. Let’s get into the second definition of Grey Jedi.
The other definition of a Grey Jedi is a Jedi who operates outside of the Jedi Order. Think Qui-Gon Jin, or Ahsoka Tano. They’re a Jedi, they serve good-but they operate outside of the Jedi Order.
Now, I don’t think the phrase “Grey Jedi” really fits here. The concept that the Jedi Order, particularly the Jedi Order most of you are familiar with, the one of the prequel era, is the most good or the most light in the Galaxy, is, as Luke says in The Last Jedi, vanity. Those Jedi didn’t always do the right thing. I mean, the Jedi are human. They make mistakes, regardless of what era you’re in.
Let’s look at Mace Windu as an example.
Mace is a loyal and hardworking Jedi. He serves the Light. He doesn’t have any attachments. None at all. He’s friends with Yoda, sure, but like I get the idea that he would be able to let go of Yoda if he had to. No temptation to the dark side there.
But in following the “no attachments” rule, he is casually cruel to Anakin. My impression of Mace is that he doesn’t really see Anakin as a person, but as more of a mechanism. He’s the chosen one. To Mace, this represents danger, and I don’t really feel like he ever sees Anakin as a person, at least not in the way that a Jedi should. I think that the way Obi-Wan and Yoda look at Anakin-as a person full of trauma and grief and kindness-is more accurate. They see him as, you know, complex and worthy of love. Mace just sees the danger, because he is too detached from Anakin to really understand that a Jedi’s most important duty is compassion. If he had allowed himself to develop that attachment, I think he might have cared more about Anakina s a person, which might have prevented his fall.
I don’t necessarily have sources for all of this, so I suppose some of this is theory, but this is kind of my interpretation of the world George Lucas set up for us.
So, to review: I don’t think it’s possible to be neutral, at least in the Star Wars Galaxy. You’re allowing evil to spread by being neutral. The term “Grey Jedi” as it is used to describe rouge Jedi, is often inadequate, because these Jedi are often more light than the Jedi Council they’re supposed to be serving. I would describe Jedi like Mace Windu as grey-they simply are too attached to detachment or the rules to realize that they’re not good Jedi.
Christian Vaughan 