Just now, KungFuFerret said:

But my point is do we ever see a "standard recruitment" in the franchise? Because I can't think of any examples at all of the Jedi dealing with potential children recruits other than the ones I mentioned above. I'm genuinely asking if there were any examples in Clone Wars that would expand on this subject.

No, we don't. But the non-screen materials (that you dismiss) do have them taking children without concern for the parents' permission. And while those members of the Jedi cult brought in as children can certainly quit later in life, that's not something many brainwashed cultists that have no other connections and minimal immersion in the outside world are likely to do.

If we're going to cite sources (the Bardottans from the Clone Wars) then we should probably not leave out parts of it.

"Undergoing a brief era of expansion into the greater galaxy, Bardottans settled several worlds, most notably Phu. The people of Phu and the other colonies generally continued their cultural habits of meditation and peacefulness, though tended not to be as secretive with their knowledge as their ancestors on Bardotta. Frangawl sympathizers also spread out into the galaxy in an attempt to revive their ancient traditions, gathering other species to their cause, such as the Ming Po and Zygerrians of Zardossa Stix. During this expansionist era, the Jedi Order began to induct Bardottan children into their ranks causing the Dagoyan Masters to accuse the Jedi of abduction and acts of war. This brought an end to induction of children from Bardotta into the Jedi Order, though other colonies were not as strict."

The Bardottans later give up their hard feelings for the Jedi at the end of the story arc, suggesting better relations in the future. Their culture is highly tied into the Force and having a personal, passive connection to it. Abstaining from the concepts of serving the Light or Dark sides of the Force or even actively having a connection to the Force, it's not a surprise they would get jealous when some of their younger generation leaves to join another religious culture that teaches opposite concepts but lets them wave around a laser sword.

Bottom line is that there's the opposite of confirmation about the Bardottan's claim against the Jedi. In fact, some colonies were chill with it. This is also dealing with situations that happened likely wayyyy before the republic of the prequels, maybe the Jedi order got a revision or two on their recruitment process since then.

Those of you who view the Jedi to be evil should probably be pretty excited for The Last Jedi then. XD

26 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

But my point is do we ever see a "standard recruitment" in the franchise? Because I can't think of any examples at all of the Jedi dealing with potential children recruits other than the ones I mentioned above. I'm genuinely asking if there were any examples in Clone Wars that would expand on this subject.

No. Ahsoka was apparently free to just walk away, but then she was a padawan, and clearly old enough to look after herself in the real world in a way a homesick five-year-old would not be.

• The Jedi are definitely not out-and-out good guys. Being 'the guardians of peace and justice' does not necessarily mean you abide by the law totally and are completely peaceful yourself. The casualness with which Jedi Mind Tricks are used is a case in point. And whilst they didn't know about the clone army until they were forced to use it, it is ultimately using living beings as expendable assets.
• The Sith, by comparison, are really, really not even trying to be good guys. When you can seriously consider causing a deeply destructive galactic war for your own personal ends.....yeah. No.

13 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

• The Jedi are definitely not out-and-out good guys. Being 'the guardians of peace and justice' does not necessarily mean you abide by the law totally and are completely peaceful yourself. The casualness with which Jedi Mind Tricks are used is a case in point. And whilst they didn't know about the clone army until they were forced to use it, it is ultimately using living beings as expendable assets.

I never stated the Jedi were out-and-out good guys. I simply disagree with the OP's statement of "Sith GOOD, Jedi BAD". And I've always stated that the Jedi as presented aren't great, when seen through the lens of the 2017 world. They have their issues, no doubt, but they are far from worse than the faction that casually murders and enslaves, all for personal power and for the lulz.

As to the "using living beings as expendable assets", well yes, they are soldiers, that's what they are on the big scale, whether they are clone soldiers or volunteers. I work with the VA, and that's not really an issue that most veterans have, the idea that they were considered expendable to some degree when it comes to conflict. But the Jedi didn't really have many good options. They had a massive, literally galaxy spanning army trying to conquer the relatively peaceful planets of the Republic. They could either just sit there and do nothing, and let them be conquered by the Seperatists, or use the army that they had to try and protect the people who were being invaded.

Blaming them for that, to me at least, feels like blaming a guy who suddenly finds himself having to defend a house from zombies, finding it's stashed full of guns and ammo, and then coming to him after say "Those guns were made by child laborers who didn't get paid! And this house used to belong to a drug dealer! Those are his guns!" Ok yeah, that's a crappy origin, but he didn't have many options at the time.

And besides, let's not forget that ALL of this conflict, the moral arguments being laid at the Jedi's feet about the ethical quandaries of clone soldiers and stuff, were all due to a SITH pulling strings to gain galactic power and domination.

It's like getting mad at one of the victims of JigSaw, who was told "chop off that person's arm if you want to live, or I will kill you." Blaming the victim for having to do what they had to, in order to survive, is missing the fact that JigSaw is the real criminal here, setting up these situations, and then forcing people to make terrible choices.

23 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

The Sith, by comparison, are really, really not even trying to be good guys. When you can seriously consider causing a deeply destructive galactic war for your own personal ends.....yeah. No.

Yeah, the comparison just really doesn't fly at all. Some of the Jedi's practices are questionable, based on modern day understanding of psychology and ethics, but there is nothing redeeming about the Sith's behavior. They outstrip all of the Jedi's bad behavior, and do so gleefully, for nothing more than personal gain.

On the topic of "stealing kids away". The best example I can think of is the arc in The Clone Wars in which Cad Bane steals the holocron from the Jedi Temple and proceeds (under Palp's orders) to kidnap the Force Sensitive children listed inside it. Bane was posing as a Jedi and going to the houses of these children taking them.

It's been a while since I last saw this arc, but from what I remember, the interaction with the parents leads me to believe that this is not the first time these parents have spoken to the jedi (about their kids). And of course the Jedi knew of the children's existence, so they didn't immediately grab them when they first found out.

My extrapolation is, when the Jedi find out about the Force Sensitive children, they approach the guardians of the children and discuss the possibility of allowing the children to be trained by the Jedi when they are of appropriate age. I imagine in this scenario that the Jedi representative would lay out all the facts and explain what life would be like for the child. They then leave and allow the parent some time for them to decide if that is a life they want for their child.

As I said, that conclusion is entirely from extrapolation, but the notion that the Jedi would just steal children never really sat well with me. There's no real evidence to support that, and if it turns out that the Jedi do in fact do just that, I don't think it would be something that I would include in my games.

1 hour ago, HappyDaze said:

No, we don't.

Sure we do. We see a quick glimpse of Ahsoka's first meeting with Plo Koon, and there's no indication that there was any coercion or anything like that involved.

The Jedi being child-snatchers is just nonsense edgelord misinterpretation of the movies.

46 minutes ago, kaosoe said:

It's been a while since I last saw this arc, but from what I remember, the interaction with the parents leads me to believe that this is not the first time these parents have spoken to the jedi (about their kids). And of course the Jedi knew of the children's existence, so they didn't immediately ****** them when they first found out.

He was also using some sort of mind-control device on the parents.

7 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

Sure we do. We see a quick glimpse of Ahsoka's first meeting with Plo Koon, and there's no indication that there was any coercion or anything like that involved.

The Jedi being child-snatchers is just nonsense edgelord misinterpretation of the movies.

Yet your example doesn't come from the movies and instead comes from the nonsense animations that give us heliocopter lightsabers.

25 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Yet your example doesn't come from the movies and instead comes from the nonsense animations that give us heliocopter lightsabers.

Doesn't matter, since the comment I replied to was about the franchise, not just the movies. Your preference doesn't matter here.

To me the jedi stealing children is propaganda by palpatine to sway the masses. Propaganda is gwnerally not truthful.

7 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

But was that based in fact, or in Bardottan misconceptions?

If the Bardottans had a choice in the matter, they wouldn't have considered the Jedi thieves in the first place. The Bardottans are a highly Force-sensitive species, with their own cultural Force tradition. However, Force-sensitive children from their off-world colonies were taken away to the Jedi temple, which was seen as abduction by the Bardottans. It seems like the Jedi have a bad habit of going, "Why wouldn't someone want to join our awesome religion?" nd they just run with that logic. If the visions Maul received by breathing in the ashes of the dead Sith on Moraband are accurate, they were also responsible for the destruction of the original Sith, back when the Sith were just a splinter faction of Jedi who wanted to be allowed to have emotions. I think the Jedi have a lot of skeletons in the closet that the Coucil around the time of The Phantom Menace is trying to atone for.

Just now, Nivrap said:

If the Bardottans had a choice in the matter, they wouldn't have considered the Jedi thieves in the first place.

Nah. In the real world, people call their government officials thieves for collecting taxes and their elected leaders tyrants for upholding the rule of law. Doesn't mean these people are getting robbed or oppressed.

7 minutes ago, Nivrap said:

If the Bardottans had a choice in the matter, they wouldn't have considered the Jedi thieves in the first place. The Bardottans are a highly Force-sensitive species, with their own cultural Force tradition. However, Force-sensitive children from their off-world colonies were taken away to the Jedi temple, which was seen as abduction by the Bardottans. It seems like the Jedi have a bad habit of going, "Why wouldn't someone want to join our awesome religion?" nd they just run with that logic.

This is entirely possible from what little information we have. However an equally likely scenario is that the Jedi approached those non-Force-sensitive Bardottan parents, honestly explained the pros and cons of having their children grow up in the Jedi temple, and those parents made a informed decision to let their children train as Jedi. Then, as more and more young Bardottan sensitives left to become Jedi, the Dagoyans, angry that their pool of potential new Dagoyans was dwindling, started calling the Jedi thieves out of anger. And since the Dagoyans are clearly their leaders, that opinion started spreading across the planet, and fewer and fewer Bardottans were welcoming when the Jedi came calling, and eventually the Jedi decided discretion was the better part of valor, and just stopped trying.

Both are equally possible, so making assumptions one way or the other isn't useful to the discussion.

20 minutes ago, Absol197 said:

This is entirely possible from what little information we have. However an equally likely scenario is that the Jedi approached those non-Force-sensitive Bardottan parents, honestly explained the pros and cons of having their children grow up in the Jedi temple, and those parents made a informed decision to let their children train as Jedi. Then, as more and more young Bardottan sensitives left to become Jedi, the Dagoyans, angry that their pool of potential new Dagoyans was dwindling, started calling the Jedi thieves out of anger. And since the Dagoyans are clearly their leaders, that opinion started spreading across the planet, and fewer and fewer Bardottans were welcoming when the Jedi came calling, and eventually the Jedi decided discretion was the better part of valor, and just stopped trying.

Both are equally possible, so making assumptions one way or the other isn't useful to the discussion.

"They took our jobs!!!"

37 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

Nah. In the real world, people call their government officials thieves for collecting taxes and their elected leaders tyrants for upholding the rule of law. Doesn't mean these people are getting robbed or oppressed.

Just because taking Force-sensitive children is the law doesn't mean it's right. But considering how deeply intertwined the Jedi are with the Senate, the majority of the Republic's citizens are probably thrilled to have their children grow up to become Jedi. And when the only other alternative is being placed on a government watch-list, what other option is there?

1 minute ago, Nivrap said:

Just because taking Force-sensitive children is the law doesn't mean it's right.

And just because someone doesn't like something doesn't mean it's wrong. The point I think he's trying to make, is that just because they say they are being robbed, doesn't mean it's actually a fact. You only have to look at today's political climate to see prime examples of how a commonly held opinion/belief, can be completely false, but good luck convincing the people they are wrong.

20 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

And just because someone doesn't like something doesn't mean it's wrong. The point I think he's trying to make, is that just because they say they are being robbed, doesn't mean it's actually a fact. You only have to look at today's political climate to see prime examples of how a commonly held opinion/belief, can be completely false, but good luck convincing the people they are wrong.

Yeah, you got it.

22 minutes ago, Nivrap said:

And when the only other alternative is being placed on a government watch-list, what other option is there?

What is there in the movies or the shows to support that this would actually happen? Do you think Anakin's mother would have been on a Republic no-fly list for refusing to let her son go with Qui-Gon? That's not at all how things play in the movie.

12 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

What is there in the movies or the shows to support that this would actually happen? Do you think Anakin's mother would have been on a Republic no-fly list for refusing to let her son go with Qui-Gon? That's not at all how things play in the movie.

Based on The Clone Wars and the comics, the Jedi don't take too kindly to Force-users outside the Order. In the Anakin & Obi-Wan comic specifically, Yoda mentions that even Jedi who leave the order have to be watched because "For the Jedi Order only, Jedi training is."

6 minutes ago, Nivrap said:

Based on The Clone Wars and the comics, the Jedi don't take too kindly to Force-users outside the Order. In the Anakin & Obi-Wan comic specifically, Yoda mentions that even Jedi who leave the order have to be watched because "For the Jedi Order only, Jedi training is."

Then again, there's no indication that the witches on Dathomir are being watched, or that the Bardottan mystics are, is there?

3 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

Then again, there's no indication that the witches on Dathomir are being watched, or that the Bardottan mystics are, is there?

The Jedi weren't aware of the witches' existence, and were essentially barred from even interacting with Bardotta, requiring Jar Jar to vouch for Mace Windu to even let him through the front door.

6 minutes ago, Nivrap said:

The Jedi weren't aware of the witches' existence, and were essentially barred from even interacting with Bardotta, requiring Jar Jar to vouch for Mace Windu to even let him through the front door.

If the Bardottans can just tell them to stay away, it doesn't sound like much of a government watch-list.

1 hour ago, Stan Fresh said:

If the Bardottans can just tell them to stay away, it doesn't sound like much of a government watch-list.

The thing is, Bardotta isn't a member of the Republic. The planet itself is in a pretty out-of-the-way sector of space. So the Jedi were basically taking children from the colonies of a non-Republic civilization, without the jurisdiction of the Senate.

To be fair, the Jedi religion has little to do with the Republic. There's no evidence that they did or did not need anything from the Republic before the prequel era.

*this part is supposition* I would imagine the only reason they started to become so ingrained into the Republic was because 1 it was part of Palpatine's master plan to ruin them so he convinced the republic the jedi needed to be overseen and 2 because eventually even without Palpatine there would be calls for oversight on Jedi, the moment one of them makes a mistake and cuts down an innocent or mind tricks the wrong person. *end of supposition*

To say that their inducting Bardottans into the order was out of their jurisdiction is assuming they needed to get permission from the Senate in the first place, which we simply don't know.

The problem with being able to control minds and having to take children away is that not everyone will believe the child went willingly, regardless of what the parents say.

I Imagine That Parents Have Been Telling Their Children For A Thousand Years To Behave Or The Jedi will take You Away.

We also have proof that Palpatine loved snatching kids with force sensitivity which makes you know the Sith bad.

Not that the Jedi are good, but in comparison to the whole Sith having issues with murdering each other for power....

Lets not forget how the Apprentice, becomes the Master by you know murdering the Master.

If you want proof of how Jedi don't steal children lets examine Obi Wan not kidnapping Luke and training him to be a Jedi, because despite the fate of the Galaxy being in his hands Luke's Uncle said no.

Lets not kid ourselves Obi Wan is fully capable of Mind ****** the Uncle into letting him take Luke for training, but he didn't even tho Luke needed to be trained to be a Super Jedi to save the Galaxy from his Dad and the Last Sith Lord.