THE GARDENER ONLY DETERMINES A FLOWER AND A WEED

 

mosymoseys:

          THIS IS  CHOICE OF A GARDENER (traitor, matthew stover)

WHY?  Because it’s the wookieepedia quote of the day and that’s as good an excuse as any to talk about this flawless fucking line. and why is it so fucking flawless? 

i’m glad you asked because goddamnit i’m about to tell you. 

Because at first glance it’s so easy to see the dark side in it. the role of the gardener is precisely the kind of power the sith seek. it represents an exaltation of the self above all others. 

  To assume the role of the gardener is to be master of their garden, deciding through their own choice and their own actions who is a flower and who is a weed. who deserves life and who deserves death. it is unlimited power, answerable to no one, and the gardener’s choice is absolute: if the gardener decides you are a weed, you are a weed.

But! there’s a light side interpretation as well. it’s less obvious i think but then isn’t it always that way? the quick and easy path leads to the dark side.  And like all things in the light it requires not the exaltation of self, but the release of self.  It requires the gardener to look at the power being offered to them and ask what right do i have to make  this choice?  If any given person could equally be a flower, what right do i have to decide they are a weed. 

  The answer is: maybe you don’t.  To be a jedi is to look at that promise of unlimited power and recognize that no one, not even you, deserves it.
Now it’s not always that simple and sometimes the universe forces our hands and a choice has to be made.  But even then the lesson of the gardener can still serve as a powerful reminder of the gravity of that choice and how it should not be made lightly. 

  Your weed is always someone else’s flower because only a sith deals in absolutes.
so that’s what makes this quote so fucking amazing – its ambiguity, the fact that it can be interpreted and applied equally well from both the jedi and the sith perspective.  Because isn’t that what vergere was always about? is it what the teacher teaches or what the student learns?  I think we all know the answer to that one.  It doesn’t matter which interpretation – if either – vergere had in mind when she spoke those words to jacen, it matters which lesson we choose to learn. 

And you really can learn either here.  You take this quote to be anointing you the gardener and granting you ultimate power over life and death unrestrained by any external morality. or you can take this quote as a reminder that there are no absolutes in the universe and every life is equally precious and you have no right to decide otherwise.
and isn’t that just fucking amazing?

                                                                                        matthew stover