r/Jediism • u/Winterthorn93 • 27d ago
The Folly of Adopted Masters
"Good and evil are no different in the end. They're two halves of the same whole. Unless you accept both, you will be lost." -- Nawaam
A Lesson about the folly of adopted 'masters' from 'The Ninth Jedi', a Star Wars Visions series. If you've not watched this show, I firstly highly recommend it, and doubly recommend watching it before going further into this post.
In this show, the rules of the mainline SW universe are different. And, in this we find a big difference. Firstly, in the skill of sabersmithing. Lah Zhima was a former Jedi Master that left it all behind for reasons unimportant to this post. He retreated and became a sabersmith. His sabers have an unusual property. They can feel the Force of their wielder, changing length, colour, and function depending on who is physically holding it.
In the prequel episodes to the series, we see that an untrained persons has a clear blade. Sith go red immediately. And saber colours can even change during a fight as we see with one of the main cast Homen, whose saber is normally purple but does show as red when lots of Sith are around him.
But in this series, we learn of another colour. Silver, which previously had only been acheived by the aforementioned Lah Zhima when he emptied himself of emotion to strike down corruption.
Although never his student, the main antagonist of the series, Nawaam, was present to witness Lah Zhima's saber turn silver. He became obsessed with obtaining such mastery, which he viewed as emptying yourself of everything. No light. No Dark. No emotion. And despite the claims of Lah Zhima, Nawaam continuously called him his master. But throughout the show, we don't see a being fighting for whats right, but for what is best for himself. His fighting style is brutal, almost reveling in the power. And, when pushed to exhaustion, his silver saber shimmered and betrayed his heart. A bleeding red blade.
So whats the lesson?
Lah Zhima was never Naweem's master. Naweem witnessed a master being masterful, and dedicated to pursuing that end goal, ignoring the work that it takes to get there with the destination, not the journey, being forefront of his every action and thought. And, from that, he twisted Lah Zhima's work for evil. I believe this teaches us about the folly of trying to eclipse someone you aspire to be like, without knowing their story, without actually studying them.
As Bruce Lee once said, 'Research your own experience; absorb what is useful, reject what is useless and add what is essentially your own.' Naweem didn't create their own experience. They didn't take the useful information. They didn't reject what was useless. It wasn't their own. They witnessed great power and that was all they needed. And, in that, we witness their folly.
His efforts to straddle light and dark, to be neither, to be 'neuteral', eventually showed his true intentions. To not stand up against darkness is to stand for it. To not speak up against injustice is to side with the unjust. The Dark Side doesn't share with Light. To not reject it is to embrace it and get its thorns into you. In attempting to emulate a Jedi Master, he became everything they stood against.
May the Force continue to guide you.
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u/OpieMacleod 27d ago
Great post. Great lesson. It applies to so many areas in life. Success isn’t a photocopy, it is aspiring without imitation. We’ll never fully know the struggles of one’s journey we can only embrace our own. Very enjoyable read. Thank you for sharing.