The Tragedy of Mace Windu And The Death of The Jedi Order

Mace, how could you.

I believed in you.  You the picture of composure.  You were my hero. The absitively, posolutely baddest-ass Jedi in all the land.  All the galaxy.  When you told Count Dooku, “This party’s over,” I cheered.  Here, I said, here is proof that we can have the best of both worlds:  that I can be a good man, the best man, and still be cooler than Sith.

                      

Oh Mace.  What did you do, fool.

In Revenge of the Sith, Chancellor Palpatine is revealed to us to be nothing less insidious than the Dark Lord and evil incarnate.  Standing poised to deliver Palpatine the killing blow, Mace Windu, Senior Jedi Master of the Jedi High Council, has a choice to make:  to kill or not to kill?  Let’s review the facts.  Mace has gone to Chancellor Palpatine’s office with the knowledge that he is the Dark Lord of the Sith, and has gone with the intent to arrest him.

Again:  taking three Jedi Masters with him, Master Mace Windu has gone to arrest the Chancellor of the Republic because Mace has been convinced that the chancellor is actually the Dark Lord Darth Sidious.  This intelligence is brought to Mace by none other than the Chosen One, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, the one who is destined to bring balance to the Force (…or “So the prophecy says,” Mace snorts).  Mace Windu, senior Jedi of the Jedi Council, senses “a great deal of confusion” in Jedi Skywalker, and denies Anakin, boy of destiny, his rightful place of prophecy in this epic confrontation.

Arguably his rightful place.  After all, difficult to interpret are prophecies, according to Yoda.

Mace and his Jedi troupe descend on Chancellor Palpatine in the devil’s lair…his office.  “In the name of the Galactic Senate of the Republic,” Mace tells him, “you are under arrest Chancellor… The senate will decide your fate.”  The Dark Lord, of course, does not go quietly.  Mace successfully subdues the Dark Lord, but three Jedi masters sacrifice their lives for the cause.  Nevertheless, Mace, with his lightsaber at Palpatine’s throat, cool as ever, reiterates, “You are under arrest, my lord.”

And we love him.

Despite all that he has gone through, witnessing his comrades cut down before him, engaging the Dark Lord in a debilitating duel, and perhaps most devastating of all, understanding that the Jedi have been tricked into compromising their most cherished principles and become warriors instead of peacekeepers for a totally made-up war, at this most desperate hour Mace Windu reaffirms his mission to arrest the Dark Lord, and let the Republic Senate decide his fate.

For the naysayers that complain that Anakin’s Fall in Revenge is not illustrated acutely enough, that his fall to the dark side isn’t convincing enough, I can’t help but cringe.  As the familiar adage goes, a person doesn’t judge good art; good art strips you butt naked.  Recall the terrible moments of choice faced by Anakin in Episodes I and II.  Remember Anakin’s tough decision to leave Tatooine?  (“I can’t do it, Mom, I just can’t.”)  Yet he does it.  How about Anakin’s tough decision to go after Dooku rather than Padmé after his true love gets tossed from a Republic chopper?  For those who have experienced the primacy of free will, who have understood their past actions as events of choice, who have in essence accepted responsibility as the craftsmen of their own destinies and therefore for both the glory and misery of who and what they are, the fall of Anakin Skywalker to the dark side in Revenge of the Sith cannot cut out your soul with finer precision or more satisfying guilt.

When Padawan Anakin decides to take justice, government, into his own hands and indiscriminately slay a community of men, women, and children in Attack of the Clones, and when Master Mace stares into the eyes of the devil, and in fear of a mere possible future, crumbles, these are choices.  “Cruel man, nearsighted man!  How can you say that?” an averagely compassionate fellow says.  Let’s call him, I don’t know…“Lando.”

“Anakin just watched his mother die before his eyes!” Lando says.  “Mace Windu was trying to kill the Dark Lord, Evil Itself, for the safety of a galaxy!  Not the world, brother, a galaxy.”

I’ll get to “evil itself” in a minute.  The great illusion here is the confusion of justification in feeling a certain emotion – feeling hatred, fear, etc. – with justification of acting on that emotion.  Is it natural to feel the impulse to chop some fools in half with a lightsaber?  Sure.  But one certainly doesn’t need to.  One always has a choice -- though, to face the less attractive of those choices is often remarkably painful, and therefore an individual will often eliminate it from the realm of possible actions that can be taken.  Thus creating the perception, and familiar excuse, that “I had no choice.”

Right Lando?

Right mindless clone troopers who backstabbed their Jedi generals?  How about you self-serving Republic Senate, which applauded the government’s transformation into a dictatorship?  Or at last Anakin Skywalker, who finally, finally, understands he has a choice when his son Luke tells him, “I feel the conflict within you.  Let go of your hate!” and “I feel the good in you, the conflict.”  Or in other words, “Yeah, Dad, you know that kinda nagging feeling you got inside?  Yeah, that’s your conscience.”

Back to the action.  As Palpatine fries Mace with dark side lightning, Anakin, destined to be present at this moment, bursts into Palpatine’s office, and Mace asks Anakin to choose.  Choose! he says, to believe me or believe Palpatine!  I believe Mace would have been comforted more by Anakin choosing to help Palpatine at that moment instead of what Anakin’s response is:  indecision.  Of all the most excruciating experiences in life, uncertainty, in all its forms, is the most agonizing.  And fear of uncertainty the most dangerous catalyst.

Not that we have anything to fear here, right Mace?  Patience is a Jedi virtue, after all.

Right Mace?

We see the tension in Mace’s face in this pivotal moment as a confused Anakin hangs onto his faith in the Jedi Order by a mere thread.  Perhaps nothing can stop Anakin’s fall to the dark side, perhaps he will become the greatest of Jedi.  Both of these possibilities are as nothing, for now there is only the reality of what happens, that is:  when Anakin, the boy of destiny needed him most, we see the good man who is Mace Windu come undone.

Consciously betraying everything he believes in, Mace at last takes justice, government, into his own hands, announcing his decision with these fatal words:

“I’m going to end this.”

And we love him.

As our hearts pound in our ears, not unlike the sound of thunderous applause, we watch Mace pull back his lightsaber like a mallet, scream down deep inside, “Yes!  Yes, kill him!  KILL PALPATINE.” and watch lustily as Mace unleashes the triphammer that will strike down the DARK LORD.

It’s fun to blame Palpatine, isn’t it?  “Look,” we say.  “See?  There is the root of all our problems.  Not you, or me.  Certainly not me…”  So-called evil incarnate.  It’s fun and cathartic because we all have bad days.  Sometimes bad years, and sometimes bad decades.  Who wants to take the blame for that?  We all want stuff, the stuff we don’t have.  A toy… food… money.

A person? 

To save a person, Anakin?  To preserve an idea, Mace?

We wish and hope that with that one deft stroke, Mace will forever end the intrusion of sadness and badness into our lives and usher in the age of happiness and perfection not only that we all want but deserve.  Detrimentally, so did Mace.

In one swift motion, Mace, who moments ago battered a Sith Lord into submission and still reasserted his mission to arrest him, ultimately betrays everything he and the Jedi believe in.  Everything except this:

The Jedi will not lose.

And of course, the instant that prideful thought drives the Jedi Master into motion, that final never-ending swing, the Emperor has already won.  As Mace strikes Palpatine the deathblow, we know the principles of the Jedi Order are bankrupt, and the Republic, democracy, is truly dead. ~ Abel G. Peña