ionscifi's picture
Disney Defenders
Posted By:

The latest in a long string of hilarious attempts to dishonestly defend Disney's mishandling of a 4 billion dollar sci-fi franchise, is ScreenRant's:

Disney Star Wars' Biggest Problem is a Focus on Canon Over Plot

No. Disney have lost the plot and should be shot out of a big canon. Figuratively speaking of course.

For example, in season two of The Mandalorian, Ahsoka Tano puts in an appearance and mangles one of the franchise's cornerstones - attachment.

That Star Wars draws inspiration from eastern philosophies is well known and many characters are named accordingly, eg. Ahsoka is named after the famous Indian emperor Ashoka.

Let's say you're Disney and supposedly care about canon but are completely clueless and resort to wikipedia as a starting point for fact-checking.

The entry for attachment is a disambiguation page - because it's a term which has varied uses and meanings in English - and includes one for psychological theory of, and another for its use in Buddhism.

Obviously you click on the Buddhism one right, because Star Wars and eastern philosophy. It is known Khaleesi!

Nope. Psychological theory of.

Facepalm.

So in this The Mandalorian episode we have to suffer Ahsoka dribbling inanely about Grogu being "attached" to Mando and how that's a path to the dark side.

Garbage.

Does he feel safe with Mando? Sure, and yes that's one indicator of a healthy caregiver relationship associated with infant psychological attachment.

Not only is that not the attachment of Star Wars, but they have previously ruled it out as any kind of issue for Jedi training.

In the Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode Children of the Force where the Sith scheme to steal force sensitive children, we and Ahsoka who is in that episode see that the Jedi don't take children at birth.

They are raised for some time by their families. Where infant psychological attachments would form.

The attachment which is potentially problematic for the Jedi is what we see between Anakin and Padme, and before that Anakin and his mother.

While in one of these cases we are again in parental territory, the attachment isn't infant and also not psychological in the western sense.

Western psychology has more than one theory of attachment but it is generally accepted that there are healthy and unhealthy forms of attachment.

In Buddhism and to the Jedi, all attachment is unhealthy.

In psychology attachment is between people (or living beings).

In Buddhism and to the Jedi, attachment can be to people or objects.

In psychology emotions can be healthy or unhealthy.

In Buddhism and to the Jedi, all emotion is unhealthy.

At its core, Buddhist / Jedi attachment is a possessive need for someone or something and just one of the of the inherent dangers of that is a potential willingness to commit evil in order to keep that person or thing in your life.

Palpatine expertly exploits this weakness in Anakin and over a period of years painstakingly lures Anakin closer and closer to the dark side until the perfect opportunity arises, then Anakin falls.

Grogu feeling safe with Mando but not the newly met Ahsoka should not have been any kind of issue at all.

Should Disney have even needed to fact-check this?

Attachment isn't some arcane article of eastern philosophy. It is one of the cornerstones of the franchise and has been a major theme throughout its long history.

It is canon.

We've given up on new Star Wars ourselves so won't be tuning in to see any more canon being "respected" but will continue to derive great mirth from articles like this one.

[ Main Image: Ahsoka Tano in The Mandalorian. Credit: Lucasfilm via IMDb.com. ]

References

Colbert, Stephen M. (February 1, 2022). Disney Star Wars' Biggest Problem is a Focus on Canon Over Plot. ScreenRant.

Wikipedia. Ahsoka Tano. (viewed February 2, 2022)

Wikipedia. Attachment. (viewed February 2, 2022)

Wookieepedia. Children of the Force. (viewed February 2, 2022)