#also you: drops a meta so profound it made my heart hurt into my inbox

[intermundia]

i dw to write meta (lazy) so i'm just gonna yell at you and hope you write it for me

i cannot stop thinking about 'mercy never defeated an enemy, master'. what a stupid, narrow thing to say, a petty little brat snipe from a child. i understand why obi-wan doesn't correct him - he is already trying to teach him One lesson and not really succeeding, Two lessons would probably send anakin into a rampage. but man, oh man, it's eating my brain right now

mercy is about power, right. the christian ideal of the powerless forgiving the opressor is the one i learned from cultural osmosis first - but actually, mercy matters most, i think, materially, when it's the powerful showing mercy to the defeated, or to those they could destroy but don't have to. mercy is a jedi thing, it's SO jedi, it's basically a jedi's first instinct when it comes to conflict, like 'let's not do this, friend, i can probably hurt you so much and i don't want to'. jedis will bring the hurt, but only when absolutely necessary. pain and suffering are things they don't want to carry into the world, or inflict on others. it's not an easy thing, mercy, it means you must empathise with an opponent, recognise that they are a being and that the harm they have done is a separate thing from them, or it can be. that choices are made every moment and that your own choices control the future of others as well. and that the best thing is not to act from revenge, or even justice, but harm reduction and generousity. jedi choose to do that, they choose to be connected to the entire galaxy via the force, it's the whole thing about emotions and attachments, you gotta let go, you gotta love the whole thing even the worst parts, because the worst parts are also important, and if they are people then they can change.

it doesn't make the jedi marks, or naive. they'll execute those to whom it would endanger others to show mercy to, when it seems necessary. palpatine would never have received mercy unless he was utterly defeated and stripped of all power to harm others - but even then, i don't know. is cutting out someone's tongue to keep them alive more merciful than just killing them? but anyway, if shown an ounce of mercy then palpatine would inflict a tonne of pain. there are those whose capacity for change is so far gone, and whose spite is so strong, that mercy would not defeat them.

but you know who mercy would defeat? anakin fucking skywalker. if he showed an ounce of mercy to himself then he would not have Fallen. Luke defeats him with mercy - and then anakin defeats palpatine by murder. if anakin showed mercy to himself in training, he'd be able to deal with obi-wan not showering him with the praise he's starving for. it's mixed with the pride and validation and maturity thing.

but also. mustafar. obi-wan did not show mercy to anakin when he was burning to death. anakin's capacity for change - was it gone? not forever, but it was very far away and damaged further by the suffering he experienced from being burned. obi-wan did not feel merciful on mustafar. and he failed to defeat his enemy.

jfc i hadnt really processed the exquisite, majestic irony of that line coming from anakin, the fact that mercy would have killed him on mustafar, and did end up killing him on death star ii. he is uniquely vulnerable to mercy, bc his capacity for mercy is what he destroyed in his fall to the dark. it's almost like mercy is his narrative achilles heel. he is vulnerable to vulnerability, weak to feeling weak, so of course he burned that weakness from his life, and he is punished for that hubris by dying in the way he sought to avoid.

the discussion of mercy always reminds me of the theory of finite and infinite games, games played to win and games played to keep playing. civilization (and the living Force) is an infinite game, while an individual's life is full of finite games. essentially by being merciless, anakin thinks he wins a particular battle, and that is what it means to defeat an enemy. obi-wan has a broader perspective, less attachment to personal outcomes, and so usually is able to exercise mercy when it’s the best way for everyone to keep playing the infinite game of civilization. mercy would have killed vader, because it was best both for him, and civilization at large.

anakin just doesn't realize that his limited kind of totally winning a particular fight comes at the cost of actually losing the infinite game. he doesn't see that being ruthless is actually a sign of weakness. showing mercy is, as you say, about power, because it's a sign of being willing to not have complete and final victory in a finite context in a way that is actually an ultimate victory. it’s about keeping that higher perspective of what winning really looks like, a form of victory that includes the best outcome for the defeated party as part of the calculus (and as you say, that outcome may not be a reward or reprieve for an individual who stubbornly presents a threat to the infinite game).

like, the sith showed no mercy to the jedi, but the jedi win in the end in every way that matters. they are strong in their willingness to take an individual loss, bc even losing a tremendous defeat in a finite context, their philosophy returns to the galaxy after sidious and the sith is destroyed. this is bc hope and love survive in all conditions, like the green growing in the cracks in the concrete. you cannot defeat the will to life. people are good, this philosophy argues, and generosity over greed is how we survive as a civilization. a sith can only win finite games, but will always lose the game of building a civilization and making it thrive, carrying life into the next generation. they are a cult of death and violence, and not to quote jurassic park, but life finds a way lol

anakin not understanding this, having a myopic, selfish, greedy orientation to life and to love, is what held him apart from the jedi, and turned him to evil. i suppose releasing that greed, feeling mercy for his son, may have led to his death, but it is also his victory in the end. he's able to join obi-wan and yoda in the force bc he was able to see beyond himself and gift civilization the chance to thrive in saving his son. that selflessness is actually the sign of both a good jedi and a good parent—giving everything to protect and encourage your vulnerable charge, until/unless they're ready to step out on their own. feeling mercy for their weakness, is what will give them strength in the end and give strength to civilization as a whole.