Order 66 is one of the most diabolical moments of the Star Wars franchise ever created to be certain, but it’s also not quite as perfect as it appeared. Most of the Jedi were decimated by this order, but if anyone was paying attention to the Clone Wars then they’ll have seen that many upon many Jedi had already been slain before the order was ever given. Not only that, but the Jedi ranks were thinned out and the order had been forced to streamline several Jedi padawans straight into knighthood, whether they were ready or not. In a sense, the Jedi started their own destruction long before the Clone Wars, and Darth Sidious helped it along in a big way, as did Darth Maul and several others that had killed Jedi over the years leading up to the war. On top of that, the Jedi had lost several of their own to the dark side or simply because there were those that saw the faults in the order that had been building for a long time. It sounds odd to think that anyone would be blaming the Jedi for their own downfall, but they are in a big part responsible for what happened during the Clone Wars and Revenge of the Sith. The older Jedi believed that the order was secure, they didn’t think to the past moments when the Sith had stood against the order and nearly won, nor did they think much of Darth Maul, as the whole idea of the Rule of Two was brought up and then largely forgotten when it was no longer convenient. Plus, the creation of a clone army that was ordered by one of their own, Master Sifo-Dyas, despite the rejection of the council that his vision of a coming war would require the building of an army. Unfortunately this gained the attention of the Sith, and eventually Palpatine and Darth Tyranus, aka Count Dooku, had Sifo-Dyas killed and brought in Jango Fett as the template for the clones. As they were funding the project, the Sith had total access to the program and were able to put their own plans into place. In essence, because the council didn’t head Sifo-Dyas’ premonition, they ushered in their own downfall.
About a decade or two in the past a lot of people wouldn’t have put much, if any, blame on the Jedi for their own downfall since the story of Darth Vader and Palpatine ending the order would have still held some water. But Order 66, despite being a machination of the Sith, was still something that the Jedi might have been able to halt had they been able to pay greater attention to what was happening in the galaxy, and had actually listened to Force, which they claim to do so often. The blame doesn’t belong solely to the Jedi, but their complacency and their inability to do much more than defend and react became a huge burden that helped to drag them down when the moment of their extermination finally came. Those that survived were either lucky or highly skilled and weren’t going to go down easily, if at all. Yoda and Ahsoka were two of those that were quick enough and smart enough to realize what was going on quickly since neither of them hesitated as they cut down the clones around them without pause.
After traipsing around the Star Wars universe for long enough one might wonder when we’re going to see things move forward again, but it might be that the most recent trilogy has left a bad taste in the mouths of many people. This could be one reason why we’re still exploring the past in so many different ways since a lot of people probably don’t want to risk telling a story that’s going to be torn apart by the fans if they get something wrong. Or it’s simply the way it is, that the past needs to be given the kind of framework that explains the unexplained and tells stories to fill up the empty spaces that people have continued to find during their perusal of the franchise. Whatever the case is, the future of Star Wars is still in question, but the past is still being shaped and examined in a number of ways as people continue to absorb what happened. The blaming of the Jedi for their own predicament is still something that a lot of people might not have guessed would happen a while ago, especially with how Order 66 was given and the diabolical sense of timing that was used for this act. Those Jedi that did escape might be more numerous than a lot of people realize, but in a galaxy where Jedi are still hunted now and then it feels as though seeing a great number of them isn’t always that great of an idea.
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