gffa:
TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT THE JEDI ORDER IN STAR WARS CANON
[A Meta/Reference Guide on AO3]
aka, SO WHAT DO THE JEDI SAY AND DO IN THE ACTUAL CANON?
Previously on gffa Is A Nerd: I’ve done reference posts on the Jedi Temple before, but so much of it was Legends and a bunch more canon has come out since that I wanted to focus on a post about what we’ve been given about the Jedi Order in canon! While we never actually get that much about them (seriously, it’s a handful of comics, games, and books, even The Clone Wars was really light on actual Jedi worldbuilding) there’s finally enough that I wanted to collate it as much as I could.
Another goal is that it’s often hard for me to distill out what is actually true of them in the source material vs my own assumptions or what is said to be canon when Lucasfilm’s story has actually never said any such thing or what I’ve read in so many fics that I forget it’s not actually canon. This is no judgement on those assumptions or bits of fanon, many of them are ones I whole-heartedly embrace!
But this time I wanted to create something of a master post about what the Jedi have said, done, and taught in the canon (though, expect it to always be something of a work in progress, as new content is always being added or I hunt down something I hadn’t yet finished) or what Word of God commentary has said about them, because I find them endlessly fascinating and enjoy seeing what my assumptions about them are versus what actually goes on!
This is a master list focused specifically on Canon, so Legends is a separate continuity from this. Partially this is because I enjoy Canon, partially because this is Lucasfilm’s property and they get to define the rules, partially because George Lucas’ view on the old expanded universe was that it was separate from his Star Wars.
“There’s this notion that everything changed when everything became Legends. And I can see why people think that. But, you know, having worked with George, I can tell you that it was always very clear–and he made it very clear–that the films and the TV shows were the only things he considered canon. That was it.” –Dave Filoni, The Star Wars Show, speaking of working with George Lucas
”I don’t read that stuff. I haven’t read any of the novels. I don’t know anything about that world. That’s a different world than my world.” –George Lucas, on how the old EU was not canon to his Star Wars
Which means that many commonly referenced elements that are often assumed to be Canon are not. For example, the concept of the Jedi being kicked out at the age of 13 was brought up in the Jedi Apprentice books (which started in 1999, before Attack of the Clones or Revenge of the Sith existed) and have not been referenced anywhere in Canon. They’ve been contradicted by Legends (there was a 17 year old Padawan in The Way of the Jedi who did not appear to fear aging out) and has also been contradicted by Canon (Ahsoka was 14 when we met her, Caleb was 13 when he became a Padawan, but was described as “too young” for it normally, but the war had forced everything to accelerate).
Canon vs Legends is relatively simple to tell–most anything that was published before April 25th, 2014 is NOT canon, most anything published after IS canon. There are some guide books that will have a Legends disclaimer in the back despite being set after the date, the role-playing books appear to not be canon, the mobile games exist in kind of a limbo as I’ve never seen any yea or nay on them, and some require judgement from the audience–ie, LEGO Star Wars is probably not going to be canon, I think it’s safe to say! But most serious stories released after that date are part of the tapestry, which often does reintroduce elements (like Thrawn being reintroduced in Rebels or Bant Eerin in An Obi-Wan & Anakin Adventure) but only what appears in those specific stories is canon, not their previous histories in Legends.
This master post will be broken down into seven sections, grouped together as best I can!
SECTION 1 - HOW THE FORCE WORKS
SECTION 2 - JEDI CULTURE & PHILOSOPHY & TEACHINGS
SECTION 3 - JEDI AS A PEOPLE
SECTION 4 - PSYCHIC SPACE WIZARDS DOING PSYCHIC SPACE WIZARD THINGS
SECTION 5 - JEDI TEMPLES
SECTION 6 - JEDI AND THE BIGGER GALAXY
SECTION 7 - EVERYTHING ELSE (REAL WORLD ANALYSIS + OTHER NOTES)
Hopefully, this will be interesting and fun to look over for anyone who’s into this kind of thing! This is not a value judgement on the worthiness of Legends elements, as I enjoy many Legends things, too. This is not an attempt to control what other people enjoy putting into their fic or treating as part of the tapestry of their Star Wars or talking about! Merely this is “what is part of the canon as we move forward with Star Wars” and a fun exercise in shedding my own assumptions about what the Jedi have actually said and done themselves.
I’ve done my best to organize things into groupings that help show consistent themes with the Jedi, as well as sourced things as best I can. I always encourage people to read the source material for yourself, as any second-hand telling of things is going to be imperfect, no matter how much I worked to stick largely to just quoting the material!
Op it may interest you to know that recently some books came out that actually talks about this. Iirc it’s considered to be canon under the Disney/Lucasfilm banner so you may want to give them a look.
