"Jedi Kids" Topic

This just popped into my head the other day. The cute little Jedi kids in training who we see in Episodes 2 & 3; did they have any choice about becoming a Jedi? The immediate reaction is: Well of course they did! The Jedi would never FORCE anyone to join them if they didn't want to! Right? Right?

But really?

What could a pre-schooler really know about making a choice like that? What about their parents? How easy would it be for a Jedi to convince them that it was the right decision? Heck, Qui-gon practically kidnapped Anakin from his mother.

Children taken away from their home and parents and friends and put into a program of intense discipline that trains them to be warriors.

I dunno… not so sure about these Jedi…

Remembering back from when I used to love starwars growing up… I read that they are taken from their parents at a very early age. The pictures suggested infancy.

Jedi have changed a lot from their original screen time in the trilogy compared to the prequels. But one thing is always clear about Jedi is the strong belief in destiny. This belief could easily translate to infants of a certain caliber being destined for greatness etc.

Also Jedi aren't entirely meant to be warriors and more of a wisdom orientated organisation. Lukes training with yoda focused on inner peace, wisdom and so on. I think the idea of kids being forced into becoming killers is a bit far from the actual goal of the Jedi.

But yes technically most Jedi are taken from an incredibly young age. I am sure though that this was a made up thing in the prequels.

I think there's a difference between training kids to be warriors and using a warrior ethos to instill discipline. Why, I remember back in the day (yes, it's been that long), I took martial arts in college. One of the students got into a bar fight one weekend (two punches and a run, nothing serious), and the instructor gave him a stern talking to…almost kicked him out of class. The up-shot was that he wasn't training us to win bar fights, he was instilling discipline. (You like how I tied it all together there?)

The children are there to test the Jedi's. Nothing like a child to frazzle the Force out of you.

There's no need for you to ask questions.
This is Jedi Business.

I definitely preferred the take on the Jedi in the first trilogy to the take in the prequels. Lucas just kept digging deeper and deeper holes for himself.

if you go by a few of the novels, the jedi "strongly" encourage parents to give them their children so they can become a jedi. In one series a father hates the jedi for taking his son, when he was a baby, for jedi training. In another novel Yoda goes on a mission and take a couple young padawans with him. when they are ambushed, yoda uses the force to easily escape. His padawans had a more difficult time since they were not as well versed in the force as yoda was. So being a kid raised by the jedi was not a happy childhood in my view.

Presumably the Jedi are always on the lookout for kids with high Midicloran (sp?) levels and when they find them they take them--unless they are too old.

Possibly children with Force powers who grow up untutored have a tendency to succumb to the dark side and die young? Possibly in bad ends of spectacular villainous murder/suicides?

Given this any parent would likely agree, sooner or later, to what was best for the child: tutoring to control his gifts and redirection into a constructive, and probably longer happier, life.

They liked to grab them young, so they could more easily be trained. The Jedi Council considered Anakin too old to be trained when Qui-Gon brought him in.

Yes, that always seemed ridiculous. They want them younger than Anakin? So apparently Step 1 in making a Jedi is potty training.

So apparently Step 1 in making a Jedi is potty training.

Control – CONTROL – you must learn control!!!

Yep, another lame 'prequel' idea that turns the Jedi into the pet assassins of the meddlesome Republic.