Imaginary Worlds - Mentors: Balance of The Force

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

In part 2 of our mini-series on mentorships, we travel to a galaxy far, far away. Amy Richau (co-author of Star Wars; I am Your Father and other Star Wars-related books) talks about her favorite partnerships between the Jedi and other characters in the Star Wars found family. Blogger Angry Staff Officer explains why the rigid rules for Jedi mentorships may have led to the downfall of the Jedi Council. And Ryan Arey of ScreenCrush says we can see how the rival philosophies of The Jedi and The Sith would play out in the real world on the show Cobra Kai, which imagines the rivalries from The Karate Kid being passed down to the next generation. Our ad partner is Multitude. If you’re interested in advertising on Imaginary Worlds, you can contact them here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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or any other depiction of death as a character in a fantasy world, let us know. Tell us when you first came across this version of death and why it spoke to you. Send us an email at contact at imaginaryworldspodcast.org and we might get in touch with you about being on the show. Thanks. You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. I'm Eric Malinsky, and this is the second of a two-part series on mentorships. This mini-series was partially inspired by my experience as a teacher at NYU. Teaching has been a great addition to my life, and it's been so gratifying to see what students create after the class is over with.

By the way, the next semester in the winter will be in person at NYU. But the inspiration for this particular episode about Star Wars actually came from another episode that we did back in the spring called De-Aging Well. In that episode, there was a roundtable discussion talking about how different franchises are dealing with aging characters. And eventually, we started talking about the Disney Plus show, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Is he not empirically, though,

the worst mentor in the world? He's like a Dumbledore, right? Like, it's sheer manipulation. He's completely playing this kid, both of these kids. In the last episode, we looked at superhero mentorships. But the relationship between superheroes can be tenuous. Star Wars is the opposite.

A Padawan and their master are bonded for life. Sometimes even in the afterlife. That's great if they have a positive relationship. If not... I don't know how you come back from your mentor or your mentee becoming Vader. You know, I guess you moved to the desert and try again with this kid. What have you become?

I am what you made me. Amy Rickow is a freelance journalist who has written several books about Star Wars, and her recent book, which is called Star Wars, I Am Your Father, looks at the entire saga through the lens of mentorships. What I really liked about it was that it really kind of allows you to think about Star Wars in terms of pairs, because a lot of times you think of them as like individual characters or like a group of like the Resistance or the Imperials. And it's kind of interesting to look at it through a different lens where you're just looking at the relationships between two different people. Now, there are a lot of interesting master-apprentice relationships throughout Star Wars media, from novels to video games to comics to the animated TV shows.

But for this episode, I'm going to focus on the characters that most people know from the three movie trilogies. Although, if you haven't seen those films, spoilers ahead. And while I was researching this topic, I came across a blog post called When the Force is Not With You, Mentorship in Star Wars. The article made some really interesting points, but what really got me curious was the name of the author. He calls himself Angry Staff Officer, and he is currently an active member of the U.S. military.

I am an officer on the dark side of the force, if you will. He created the blog to complain about certain aspects of the military and to talk about history and foreign policy. His superiors were okay with the blog, but they asked him to use a pseudonym. So I will keep referring to him as Angry Staff Officer. And Angry Staff Officer publishes a lot of blog posts about Star Wars with titles like Galactic Lessons Never Learned And Angry Staff Officer publishes a lot of blog posts about Star Wars,

with titles like Galactic Lessons Never Learned or Star Wars is Bullshit, Lies Science Fiction Taught Me About Strategic Planning. It really hit me when I was looking at how do I express military things and ideas to a non-military audience in a way that would make sense. And yes, I can use history. Also, I can use Star Wars. In my last episode, I talked about how fantasy genres are a good way to explore mentorships because the stakes are so high and there's an element of danger. And we looked at whether mentorship stories are really about committing to a life of service. That feels true for Angry Staff Officer.

He says mentoring is a big part of the military because they give young people a lot of responsibilities relatively quickly. And as a Star Wars fan, he started thinking about why the Jedi Order fell apart in the prequels. why the Jedi Order fell apart in the prequels. And he realized part of the problem was that the Jedi mentorship program was very strict, like even by military standards. There is no escape. That's the way. That's how it's done. You have a master and you have a Padawan.

That's always how it's going to be. Also, you don't have parents because they've taken you from them. And they're also your boss. So everything is reduced down to this one individual. have parents because they've taken you from them and they're also your boss. So like everything is reduced down to this one individual. And those pairs of individuals work in service to the Jedi Council. The whole idea of the Jedi Council is that it's this remarkable organization that can provide order inside a flawed universe. Who doesn't want that, right? No, that's great.

But as anyone who knows anything about actual force, not the force, but force, it has to be controlled. Similarly, with the Jedi, they realize we can't just allow anybody to be doing whatever they want. There is an element of control there. But they bring that control down to a very micromanaging level. If they're doing that with every master and Padawan out there, how are they doing anything? If they're having meetings every time there's a, well, this is how I'm feeling with my Padawans

training, or we're really nervous about you because of X, Y, Z. One, they need some subcommittees. They need to bureaucratize a little bit better. But two, this idea as long as they can control their members that deeply, then they're able to control the galaxy. That leaves zero room for any type of initiative. That leaves zero room for innovation type of initiative, that leaves zero room for innovation, for anything like that. It just means everything's got to go through this group,

and, you know, groupthink is sort of where ideas go to die, so. Some of those strict rules were put in place to prevent the Jedi from turning to the dark side, and masters always have to be on the lookout for emotions like fear or anger in their Padawans. But frustration can be a gateway emotion to the dark side, and the Jedi Council could be really frustrating. That's why Amy Rickau's favorite Jedi character is Qui-Gon, who is played by Liam Neeson in The Phantom Menace. Qui-Gon gets to be a rebel, and he never strays from the light side of the Force. That's kind of a powerful mentor role where you're like, I'm going to lead you, I'm going to be your leader, I'm going to

like help you be a better person by showing you that you don't always have to follow the rules. And sometimes, you know, breaking the rules or going your own way or not taking the traditional path, like sometimes that is the right decision, your own way or not taking the traditional path. Like sometimes that is the right decision, even though it's not kind of the one that you're laid out to expect as a success story. Do not defy the council, master, not again. I shall do what I must, Obi-Wan. If you would just follow the code, you would be on the council.

They will not go along with you this time. You still have much to learn, my young apprentice. Another problem is that the Jedi seem to be paired with their Padawans based on who's ready and who's available. They're not exactly paired by a Myers-Briggs personality test. Qui-Gon may have been a good master to someone who was just as frustrated with the system as he was, but his mentee, Obi-Wan, was the ultimate rule follower. And when Obi-Wan got his own Padawan, he and Anakin were not a good match. What I always think of is like, if Qui-Gon had lived and could have been Anakin's, his Jedi master, like, would it have been different? And you would like, I would like to think that it maybe would have, and maybe he would have been the person who could have gotten across. But, you know, in the end, like that, you know, we'll never know.

You know, Qui-Gon became a little bit of a surrogate father, I think, for Anakin for the short time that they were together. Qui-Gon, sir, I don't want to be a problem. You won't be, Annie. I'm not allowed to train you, so I want you to watch me and be mindful. Always remember, your focus determines your reality.

Stay close to me, and you'll be safe. And I think that Obi-Wan was trying to fulfill that father figure, but became a little bit more like a brother. That's a little bit hard. When you have kind of a brother relationship, that's harder to be a mentor. It's harder to take advice or, you know, any kind of discipline from a sibling than it is from someone who is like a little bit, you know, more senior standing. We will find out who's trying to kill you, Padme.

I promise you. We will not exceed our's trying to kill you, Padme. I promise you. We will not exceed our mandate, my young Padawan learner. I meant it in the interest of protecting her, Master. Of course. We will not go through this exercise again, Anakin. And you will pay attention to my lead. Why? What? Angry staff officer thinks this breakdown in mentoring from Qui-Gon to Obi-Wan to Anakin comes down to the issues of trust and respect. I know he says at the end, oh, you were like a brother to me. But from the get-go, there is no trust or respect there. He doesn't actually respect Anakin.

He sees Anakin's powers. I don't think he likes him at all. And he's just constantly sort of berating him. And I think that that overshadows everything. Obviously, Anakin is going to feel that constantly. And I get it. I've had lieutenants where I'm just like, oh, my God. Like, can you just, can you not?

Like, can you just get your stuff together and stop being so much of yourself? And, you know, the nice thing is with lieutenants, one, they turn into captains. Can you just get your stuff together and stop being so much of yourself? And the nice thing is with lieutenants, one, they turn into captains and they develop. And two, if they don't, you get to say, hey, it's been real. It's been fun, but it hasn't been real fun. The army doesn't exactly need you anymore. Bye bye. Can't really do that with the Jedi.

There's really no exit for Obi-Wan. And this lineage of mentorships continues from Obi-Wan to Luke. Now, Obi-Wan didn't have to mentor Luke. He wanted to. But angry staff officer is not impressed with the fact that in the short time Obi-Wan guided Luke, he didn't tell him the truth about Anakin. How did my father die? A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. He betrayed and murdered your father.

So the idea of building mutual trust is one of those keystones, keystone tenets of the army. You don't establish trust by concealing information. And what we find with Luke especially is his arc is just sort of one litany of concealed information from his mentors who he trusted after the other. Some people might say that Obi-Wan and Yoda are trying to protect Luke. That's what I was going to say. I think they're, you know, they're often the lying is to either protect the mentee from physical danger or information that they see is dangerous. I think I can get behind it up to a point of not always sharing the full information. But something so massive as lying to the mentee about their father, who their father is,

and never really getting to that at the point where the mentor is alive, I think really breaks down the whole basis of trust. Luke never really finished his Jedi training. After the original trilogy was over, he started his own Jedi school. And in the 2017 film, The Last Jedi, we learn in a flashback sequence that Luke was very concerned about his Padawan,

who was also his nephew, Ben Solo. And when Ben was sleeping at the Jedi Academy, Luke went into his mind. I saw darkness. I'd sensed it building in him. I'd seen it in moments during his training. But then I looked inside, and it was beyond what I ever imagined. Ben woke up, saw Luke holding a lightsaber, and that was the moment Ben turned to the dark side and became the villain, Kylo Ren. A lot of fans were angry, saying that Luke would never consider killing his nephew without giving him a chance to redeem himself. But that scene did not make Angry Staff Officer angry. He thinks that Luke's instincts were thrown off, because at that point, Luke had been putting the Jedi Council on a pedestal.

He even had a shelf of Jedi sacred texts. he even had a shelf of Jedi sacred texts. If we accept that Luke has been basically soaking up as much Jedi stuff as possible since then, this just makes sense. This is just following the ways of the Force. So commitment means that you're in it for the long haul. So your mentee is going to make mistakes. The person who you are looking out for is going to make mistakes. I tell every new officer that, especially if they're working for me, like, look,

you're going to make mistakes. They're going to be really stupid. This is your time to make those mistakes at the beginning of your career, as long as you learn from them. There's no room for that here. Say Luke has the mutual trust built up with Ben at the time. Then he's able to address this head on and say, this is what I'm feeling. Let's dig into this versus, you know, standing over him with a lightsaber in the middle of the night, which is not exactly rationally calculated to make anybody feel OK. rationally calculated to make anybody feel okay. Amy Rickow says there are still positive Master Padawan relationships, especially in the comics and the novels.

And she says there are a lot of good mentorship stories beyond the Jedi. There's a huge amount of found family in Star Wars. And I think that's kind of right for mentorships, whether it's like, you know, I'm the pilot of your ship and like you're a part of my crew or whether it's a true, you know, like you're my Padawan, I'm a master. In fact, when Amy brought up The Last Jedi, she talked about the way General Leia mentored Poe Dameron. We took down a dreadnought. At what cost? You start an attack, you follow a thrill. Poe, get your head out of your cockpit. There are things that you cannot solve by jumping in an X-Wing and blowing something up.

I need you to learn that. There were heroes on that mission. Dead heroes. No leaders. For Poe, that was the big lesson he learned. You know, the hard way in The Last Jedi is that he was trying to be a leader, but Leia was kind of like, you know, like the way you're doing it is not, you know, Poe is more of like a hotshot pilot.

He really transforms from being like, I'm going to get into an X-Wing and blow up some stuff. And so he could have like stayed there, but he, you know, I think that Leia and Anvil though both show him what it is to have a larger idea of what does it really take to conquer this huge evil. Yeah, and also, too, when you think about matching mentors and mentees, I imagine that Leia could have been looking at Poe and thinking, I was married to a guy like you. That didn't turn out well, at least for him. And maybe I could be a good person to like you. That didn't turn out well. It's for him. And, you know, I maybe I could be a good person to guide you. Yeah. And I think it's a great moment when, you know, Poe is unconscious

and they're kind of loading him into like this, you know, the ship that they go in, like Holdo and Leia, like basically make a joke about how they both like him. That one's a troublemaker. I like him. Me too. I like him. Me too. Sometimes you're the hardest on the people that, you know, you see potential in and that you care about. Angry staff officer agrees. In fact, what he liked the most about Yoda was that Yoda never treated Luke with kid gloves. What Yoda and Obi-Wan are attempting to do is push Luke through his, you know, get him out of his comfort zone and push him into learning more about himself.

And that's, that is critical there. If you are comfortable, you can't really learn. True learning comes from discomfort and boy, Yoda makes Luke uncomfortable in many ways. I won't fail you. I'm not afraid. You will be. You will be. As a Star Wars fan, I find all this very interesting. But I'm not in the Jedi or the military, so I was wondering, how would this play out in the civilian world? Well, there is a TV show that imagines how the philosophies of the Jedi and the Sith

could exist in the real world, or at least a slightly more realistic world. After the break, the competing schools of karate in Cobra Kai tap into the light and dark sides of the Force. If you like imaginary worlds, I think you'll like Decoder Ring, Slate's podcast about cracking cultural mysteries. In each episode, the host, Willa Paskin, digs deep into a cultural question, object, or idea, and tries to figure out where it comes from, what it means, and why it matters. They cover subjects from why the laugh track disappeared from TV comedies to the strange history of Chuck E. Cheese.

And many of their episodes cross over into the territory of imaginary worlds, like they've done episodes about the philosophy of vampires, the moral panic around Bart Simpson in the early 90s, the fan fiction subculture around Watson and Sherlock, and they did an episode about Ong's Hat, which is a sci-fi conspiracy theory which began as an art project but took on a life of its own. Decoder Ring tackles an eclectic mix of topics and makes them fascinating with tons of research, original reporting, and insight. And you can listen to it

wherever you get your podcasts. the attention. We're down here all day with no odor protection. Wait, what's that? Mmm, vanilla and shea. That's Old Spice Total Body Deodorant. 24-7 freshness from pits to privates with daily use. It's so gentle. We've never smelled so good. Shop Old Spice Total Body Cobra Kai is now entering its fifth season on Netflix. And before we discuss the parallels between Cobra Kai and Star Wars, I need to explain what Cobra Kai is. And to do that, I need to give away a few minor spoilers. The show is set several decades after the original Karate Kid movie from 1984. You might remember in the original film, Ralph Macchio played Daniel LaRusso, a kid who had just moved from New Jersey to California,

and he gets bullied by another kid named Johnny Lawrence. Johnny is part of a vicious karate school called Cobra Kai. This is a karate dojo, not a knitting class. You don't come in my dojo and drop a challenge and leave, old man. Now you get your boy in the matter, you and I will have a major problem. Too much advantage, your dojo. Name a place. Tournament. Daniel learns karate from a Japanese man named Mr. Miyagi, and eventually Daniel defeats Johnny in the All-Valley Karate Tournament.

Ralph Macchio and William Zabka are back as Daniel and Johnny, and even though they're middle-aged men, they still can't stand each other. What the hell are you doing? You come to my house? Are you insane? I was trying to make things right. Let the past be the past. You still can't leave well enough alone, man. In the first season, Johnny starts Cobra Kai again

with her motto, strike first, no mercy. In response, Daniel starts his own karate school called Miyagi-Do, named after his late mentor, Mr. Miyagi. When we first meet Johnny, he's a broken-down man looking for a purpose. He starts training a teenage kid named Miguel. All right, you ready to begin your training? Yes, sensei. What the?

Lesson one, strike first. Never wait for the enemy to attack. You could have given me like a warning. Quiet! Miguel and Johnny actually bond pretty quickly because Miguel is looking for a father figure and Johnny feels like a failure because his own teenage son won't talk to him.

But as the training continues, Johnny realizes that the philosophy of Cobra Kai is corrupting Miguel, who was a good kid. Look, I know we want to win, but it's got to be the right way. We don't have to fight dirty. Dirty? There's nothing dirty about winning, sensei. You taught me that. Don't worry. I got this. No mercy. The most interesting thing to me about Cobra Kai is that throughout the show, we see that being a bully and being bullied is very fluid. Once a kid learns how to use force to protect themselves, it is so tempting to abuse that force,

even if they're being trained by Daniel in the light side of the force of karate. Ryan Airy produces videos for the site Screen Crush, and he did a great video comparing Star Wars to Cobra Kai. The whole thing about Cobra Kai is it's making you feel strong through violence. It's the ability to kick ass is what makes you a strong person. And the Sith also operate on fear.

You know, you have to be afraid of the person at the top in order to serve them in a way that like by serving the emperor, you're serving yourself. The way that Cobra Kai dojo will pit people against each other and they'll have competitions against each other is very similar to that. The character who developed that philosophy is John Kreese. He was the main villain in the original movies and he's back for the show. Always remember your enemies think that they're doing what's right. They think they're the hero and you're the villain. But now you know the truth. There is no good.

There is no bad. Only weak or strong. Johnny's arc on the show is to move away from his old mentor and that toxic philosophy which corrupted him as a child. Johnny's growth as a character comes through mentoring kids, but that process is very messy for him. Cobra Kai points out that not just anybody should step up and be a mentor, and you should be doing it for the right reasons. Johnny starts off being a mentor because he wants to recapture part of his past. So he passes that need to recapture the past onto his student Miguel and he takes when Miguel you know kind of slights him or pushes him away he takes it personally now compare that to

Mr. Miyagi and Daniel Mr. Miyagi had his regrets in life he was lonely but he did not have to take on Daniel he saw something he saw some goodness in him. Again, if you want to apply that to Star Wars, Yoda is a mentor who took great delight when he was younger in teaching students. You see him with these kids and everything, he loves his job, and he is not interested at all in the acclaim of being Master Yoda. The ultimate line about mentor relationships for me comes from Last Jedi, when he says we are what they grow beyond, and the greatest teacher failure is. The characters in Cobra Kai don't always line up exactly with their Star Wars counterparts. Palpatine, Anakin, and Obi-Wan are more like archetypes that different characters can embody depending on what direction the story goes.

But Mr. Miyagi is basically Yoda. You remember a lesson about balance? Yeah. A lesson not just karate only, a lesson for whole life. The actor Pat Morita died in 2005. So we see him in a lot of flashbacks from the original films, which are presented as Daniel's memories. And the school of Miyagi-Do is similar to the Jedi.

Training ain't over yet. You may know the moves, but none of that matters unless you have balance. I balance on my skateboard every day. I didn't mean balance in your body. I mean balance in your body. I mean balance in your life. Miyagi-Do is literally about balance. They have all these exercises about balance and standing on the thing. And the force, the way the force is supposed to operate is balance. And I'd say that is the key tenet that they both sort of like the philosophies are based on.

And of course, defense first. A lightsaber can be used for offense, but it's primarily a defensive weapon. The reason why a lightsaber is more effective than a blaster is because it can deflect blaster bolts in the same way that Miyagi-Do karate is. The problem for Daniel is that he is not Mr. Miyagi. He can't get himself to respect or trust Johnny. Those flashes of anger and arrogance throw Daniel off balance. Now, among Star Wars fans, there's been a lot of discussion around whether Star Wars canon

should include a middle path called the Grey Jedi. The Grey Jedi would be able to balance light and dark in a way that doesn't corrupt them. And that's basically what Johnny Lawrence is trying to become, as a person and as a mentor. I don't think Johnny ever has found that balance. I think that he comes near it at points, but it's always his own ego or his own sense of nostalgia, which is a big theme in season three, that kind of keep him from achieving that sort of like zen balance. In Star Wars and Cobra Kai, the dark side has a tactical advantage because all they

want to do is win. The downside for the Sith and Cobra Kai is that darkness can eat away at them and turn them against each other. If someone is in the Jedi or they're training with Miyagi-Do, they're trying to win, but not just for the sake of winning. They want to create a more just and equitable place to live. They also don't want to cheat or cause unnecessary harm. And that means they lose sometimes, at critical moments.

They might lose with dignity, but it's awful to watch their enemies spread their toxic beliefs and draw more young people over to their side. In the end, we know that the Jedi and Miyagi-Do are going to win because they're the good guys and these are Hollywood stories. Somehow there is going to be a happy ending. But Ryan says the light side of the force also has an advantage within the stories. There's also a thing about Miyagi-Do where it's based in service.

You know, like Daniel learned his moves, muscle memory, from doing jobs, from helping out, from building things, from painting and improving the world around him. So in that way, I would say that like Miyagi-Do's philosophy is more serving others and Cobra Kai's philosophy is more serving itself, which is why Miyagi-Do struggles. And the same thing with the Sith. The Sith don't give a crap if what anybody else thinks about it, they are just out to

win, whereas the Jedi are trying to take care of the whole galaxy and not even looking out for the Sith. whereas the Jedi are trying to like take care of the whole galaxy and not even looking out for the Sith. In other words, if the dark side is focused on conquering, the light side has to focus on creating. That way, every mentee and every new generation can be a new hope. That's it for this week. Thank you for listening. Special thanks to Ryan Airy, Amyy rickow and angry staff officer my assistant producer is stephanie billman you can follow the show on twitter facebook and instagram and imaginary worlds is now available on amazon music just go to

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