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English
Series:
Part 4 of Jedi History, Organisation, and Culture
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Published:
2019-02-09
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346
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1/1
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The Development of Jedi Schisms

Summary:

How Jedi, or groups of Jedi, might interact with the Council. What was tolerated and what wasn't? How authoritarian were they?

Work Text:

I don’t think that Jedi had recognised factions or groups, as in political parties. There was nothing nearly so organised or acknowledged. The Jedi Council is not democratically elected. They elect their own members. It is an oligarchy, and power is pretty centralized. However, I do believe that a number of Jedi with similar concerns might have presented them to the Council together to strengthen the impact. They might say, for example, that they had all meditated together, and come to a conclusion, and requested that the Council consider what they have to say. Whether or not the Council would listen would be uncertain. Sometimes they would, sometimes they wouldn’t. 

I don’t think that presenting one’s ideas to the Council was considered unreasonable either. It may not be a democracy, but it wasn’t quite a totalitarian dictatorship either. Having your own opinion and voicing it was alright, so long as you toed the line in the end. The Council is dependent upon the testimony and the reports of the Jedi Knights and Masters; they are okay with Jedi coming to them with concerns and observations; they’re even alright with people having differing opinions from them. However, the word of the Council, once given, is to be accepted. Rogues like Qui-Gon were tolerated, but frowned on, and factions that insisted on disobeying or contradicting the Council, and causing trouble, would likely have been censured. If these factions took exception to that, then they would probably, eventually, leave the Order. Sometimes, this created a schism. There are many such schisms in Jedi history. According to Legends, the most recent in the PT, was lead by Master Djinn Altiss who believed that marriage should be allowed in the Order, and that you should be allowed to have more than one padawan if you felt the Force willed it. Unsurprisingly, the Council did their best to keep Altiss’s actions hushed up, and declared him a heretic. It wouldn’t due to lose valued Jedi to his dangerous teachings when their numbers were so few, and the Dark Side was so dangerous…