a jedi does not cling to the past.
and obi-wan kenobi knows, too, that to have lived his life without being master to anakin skywalker would have left him a different man. a lesser man
something something… star wars fandom’s western centrism as demonstrated through its preoccupation with the word ‘master’ as must having the secret meaning of ‘enslaver,’ when we know that the jedi are explicitly influenced by asian cultures including buddhism, daoism, and martial arts, where masters and master-disciple relationships are held in extremely high importance
In Italian the word Master translate with Maestro, that means teacher. We do understand pretty well what it is intended. Enslaver or slave owner is Padrone, entirely another world.
you have a point! it would be more accurate to say ‘english centric’
i’ve actually always been interested in how jedi ‘master’ is translated in different languages. i know that in chinese they use 大師 (dafu, lit: big teacher), while 主人 (zhuren, lit: person who owns) would be used for ‘slave master.’ something tells me that ‘master’ in the teacher sense and ‘master’ in the enslaver sense don’t usually share the same word
The assumption should be that there are two very different meanings of the word… and that Anakin knows pretty well the difference. SAdly some dumb parts of the fandom, clearly brainwashed by Palpy’s antiJedi propaganda and a little too much self identified with Anakin, want the jedi to be the bad ones, and Anakin being the poor victim, going from a real slave owner to other slave owners and cultist to the last slave owner, Palpy, without considering for a single moment that the Jedi were the good guys and that their relationship with younglings was entirely meant to be of reciprocal learning, both for the master and the disciple, as canon itself states multiple times. It’s probably just because in English there is this little lack of a better word, that they can distort reality this way… But it’s really not that hard to see, if you understand how canon works
I think I also need to point out that “Mr./Mister” came from “Master”. “Mrs.” came from “Mistress”.
And I think it’s important to realize that etymologically, there’s also “Magister”, which is more closely associated with teachers. I’m pretty sure that’s actually what evolved into the term “Master” and became more common-my used.
(We still get, like, Master’s Degrees and stuff in higher education.)
I copied a bit from this website. Basically, historically, the term “master” was primarily associated with education for quite some time. It seems that only started changing around the mid-13th century.
late Old English mægester “a man having control or authority over a place; a teacher or tutor of children,” from Latin magister (n.) “chief, head, director, teacher” (source of Old French maistre, French maître, Spanish and Italian maestro, Portuguese mestre, Dutch meester, German Meister)… From late 12c. as “man eminently or perfectly skilled in something,” also “one who is chief teacher of another (in religion, philosophy, etc.), religious instructor, spiritual guide.” Sense of “master workman or craftsman, workman who is qualified to teach apprentices and carry on a trade on his own account” is from c. 1300.
I honestly think a lot of the problem with the fandom and the prequels is that the prequels, genre-wise, are closer to high fantasy, while the OT is more an adventure/space western.
Has anyone read Tolkien or other types of fantasy? “Master” is used pretty much everywhere we’d use “Mr.” today.
Also, apprenticeships were something pretty ubiquitous, across the world? They’re not as common nowadays, but they used to be the default way of learning a higher craft.
Apprentice -> Journeyman -> Master are fairly common terms, I think?
(I didn’t even realize the term “Master” was such a point of contention with Star Wars fans… 😶)
SWpromptsandask 