Star Wars Legends

Stuck in the Middle with Bendu

by Madge

There’s an ongoing debate within the Star Wars community about which side of the Force is better: the Light or the Dark. It’s not always a discussion of power, but more of morality – a question of what is a better path to follow. The Jedi are typically seen as the good guys, the champions for the Light side and fighting for peace in the galaxy. They’re also known for incredibly shadowy practices done for that dubious and questionable Greater Good. Things like keeping young kids from their families, and telling them that emotions are bad – both of which are pretty yikes-inducing. On the other side of the spectrum are the Sith, the ‘bad guys’ who believe in promotion of the self over others, and work towards breaking chains. They’re also the ones who build up a massive totalitarian Empire (helmed by Emperor Sheev “Rules are Optional” Palpatine). Each side has their merits, and they’ve been discussed at length on Never Tell Me the Pods Episodes 3 and 22, so I won’t get into that too much. Instead, I want to focus on what happens when a Force-user falls in the middle of the spectrum: the Gray Jedi.

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Star Wars Legends

Search Your Feelings — They’re Buried in There Somewhere

By Rhi

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is a classic role-playing video game, published by Bioware in 2003. The game is set some 4,000 years prior to the Clone Wars. Even though the game is set so far in the past, there are many similarities between the two time periods: the Republic and the Jedi Order are mired in war, the Dark Side and the Sith are a potent threat, and the Jedi Order is absolutely awful at basic emotional intelligence. By demanding that all members of the Order reject their own emotions as a matter of course, the Old Republic Jedi Council sends many of its padawans down the same road that Anakin Skywalker would one day walk: Struggling to follow the restrictive rules of the Order, chafing under the chains, and eventually giving into decades of unaddressed emotional turmoil in a rapid fall to the Dark Side.There are three characters in particular who follow this path. Bastila Shan, Juhani, and Yuthara Ban each have stories that demonstrate a way that the Jedi Order has failed them–and failed all Jedi. While we only see the fall of these three characters, many more padawans and knights face the same emotional struggles.

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Editorial, Star Wars Legends

Corran Horn Is A Sleemo

by Abby Gavit

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I have distinct memories of sitting in a book-cramped study and spectating over the shoulders of my male cousins while they traded the joystick back and forth in an attempt to beat the trench run level of X-Wing Alliance. It was summer in Texas, meaning that second story room was swampy and too warm with three of us clustered around the computer screen as my cousins flew and got shot down in rotation. Anyone familiar with that sequence in A New Hope knows it’s mesmerizing – that it has an evocative simplicity which still managed to capture my imagination even after being rendered down into clunky late-90’s era graphics. I remember being riveted. I also remember not being allowed to play.

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