Disaster Lineage in Star Wars: Examining Yoda’s Legacy of Death and Destruction

We know that there isn’t a single Jedi we can call perfect because they all have their own fair share of flaws and mistakes. But while that may be true, there is one Jedi lineage of masters and apprentices that tend to be more flawed compared to the others. We are talking about Jedi Master Yoda’s own legacy of death and destruction, which fans have started calling the Disaster Lineage. But what exactly is the Disaster Lineage in Star Wars?

The Disaster Lineage is Yoda’s Padawan lineage, which started with Count Dooku. This is called the Disaster Lineage because it led to the rise of two Sith Lords and flawed Jedi. As such, this lineage contributed to a lot of deaths and destruction in the galaxy, including the fall of the Jedi Order and the rise of the Empire.

No one is ever perfect, and anyone would accept the fact that even the Jedi aren’t the most ideal people in the galaxy. Nevertheless, for some reason, the Disaster Lineage tends to be the most flawed out of all of the Jedi lineages we’ve seen in Star Wars. Now, let’s examine just how flawed this legacy of death and destruction is to understand why fans call it the Disaster Lineage.

Yoda’s Padawan lineage is most unusual

While we all know that the Jedi Order trains Jedi from a very young age by taking them to the Jedi Temple, where they learn the basics of being a Jedi, the true training starts when the Jedi turns into a Padawan. That’s when the Padawan is assigned to a Jedi Master or Knight, who will teach them what it actually means to be a Jedi. During the Jedi’s time as a Padawan, they get to hone their skills and prepare themselves for the Jedi Trials, which will complete the Padawan’s training and turn them into a true Jedi Knight.

Of course, the Jedi who we know spent 800 years training Jedi is Master Yoda, who went on to reach 900 years old and was the strongest Jedi during the final days of the Jedi Order, where he served as its Grand Master. During that span of time, Yoda trained plenty of Padawans. And these Padawans ended up having their own Padawans, who also ended up having their own apprentices.

As such, lineages were formed from all of the different Padawans that Yoda trained, and we know that Luke Skywalker became the greatest out of all of his apprentices. Nevertheless, the most prominent of all of Yoda’s Padawan lineages turned out to be the most unusual because it started a series of events that led to one of the darkest times in the history of Star Wars. Fans eventually started calling this the Disaster Lineage.

The Disaster Lineage started with Count Dooku, who served as one of the final Padawans who trained under Yoda. Dooku went on to train his own apprentice in the form of Qui-Gon Jinn. And we know that Qui-Gon was the one who trained Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Obi-Wan reluctantly took Anakin Skywalker under his wing because he had to fulfill Qui-Gon’s final wish of training the young boy, who Jinn believed was the Chosen One who was supposed to bring balance to the Force. And Anakin took in Ahsoka Tano during the time of the Clone Wars.

We also found out during the ‘Ahsoka’ series events that Ahsoka took on an apprentice in the form of Sabine Wren. As far as we know, Sabine is currently the final Padawan in the Disaster Lineage that started when Yoda trained Dooku.

Now, this is called the Disaster Lineage because some of the biggest disasters in the galaxy’s history happened because of the different apprentices who were part of this lineage. And as Huyang told Ahsoka in the ‘Ahsoka’ series, she came from an unusual line of Padawans.

A legacy of death and destruction

In the ‘Ahsoka’ series, one of the things that Baylan Skoll told Ahsoka was that she was part of a legacy of death and destruction. Of course, Anakin told Ahsoka in the World Between Worlds that she was part of a long legacy that started when the masters in their lineage passed down everything they knew to their apprentices. And we know that Ahsoka didn’t want to embrace this legacy due to how dark and destructive it was.

We know that Count Dooku contributed to this legacy because he had opinions that were different from the Jedi’s beliefs. He saw that the Jedi Order was basically allowing the Republic to stay corrupt, which was why he became disillusioned by the fact that the Jedi were doing things against what they believed in. Eventually, he fell to the dark side and became the Sith Lord known as Darth Tyranus, who was responsible for leading the Separatists against the Republic during the Clone Wars.

Dooku’s own apprentice, Qui-Gon Jinn, was a renegade because he always tried to do things his way. He often disobeyed the Jedi Council and preferred to run after ancient prophecies. Qui-Gon also believed in the Living Force, which embodied the Force. And while Qui-Gon was never evil, he was still unusual as he often disobeyed the Jedi Order.

Qui-Gon trained Obi-Wan, who people call the most normal out of all of the apprentices of the Disaster Lineage. He is the quintessential Jedi in terms of his convictions and beliefs. But he still had his own fair share of flaws, especially because he fell in love with Duchess Satine Kryze in the past.

Then there was Anakin Skywalker, who fell to the dark side, turned into Darth Vader, destroyed the Jedi Order, and hunted down Jedi and Rebels alike. It is safe to say that Vader caused the most death and destruction out of all of the apprentices of the Disaster Lineage, even though he was supposed to be the Chosen One.

Anakin trained Ahsoka Tano, who was loyal to the Jedi Order and the light side but became disillusioned when the Jedi Council didn’t trust her when she was framed for the bombing of the Jedi Temple. Ahsoka left the Jedi Order before becoming a true Jedi, which means that she was still an unusual type in the sense that she was never truly the prototypical Jedi.

Ahsoka took in Sabine Wren, who was born a Mandalorian. Huyang said that Sabine would have never been a Jedi in the past because she lacked the innate talent and Force sensitivity to be one. Nevertheless, Ahsoka still trained her. Sabine allowed the Imperial remnants to travel to a different galaxy, where they believed Grand Admiral Thrawn was banished, as they sought to bring him back.

That said, most of the members of this lineage ended up contributing to the different disasters that happened in the galaxy. Dooku and Anakin killed millions or even billions. Of course, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, and even Sabine aren’t entirely innocent regarding their flaws and contributions to the different disasters that happened.

This is why this is the most unusual and the most disastrous out of all of the Padawan lineages in Star Wars, even though it has some of the most prominent characters we’ve seen in the franchise.

Flawed characters make great stories

People would call the Jedi of the Disaster Lineage failures in many ways. But the thing that needs to be considered is that flawed and imperfect characters make great stories that are compelling and relatable because fans love seeing their own flaws and imperfections in the characters that they see on their screens.

So, concerning the Jedi of the Disaster Lineage, they are reflections of the failures of the Jedi Order itself and the different flaws that even Yoda had. It might be true that Yoda is often seen as one of the greatest Jedi of all time, but he had his own fair share of flaws despite his seemingly boundless reserves of wisdom. He could not ultimately lead the Jedi Order to evolution and to address the flaws of the Jedi that contributed to the rise of the Disaster Lineage.

As such, the Jedi somewhat needed to fall for them to understand the failures and flaws that the Order had. It was the will of the Force for the likes of Dooku and Anakin to fall to the dark side so that the Jedi and the galaxy itself could have a soft reset that would have allowed history to progress on a better note. And, of course, the Jedi also needed to accept their flaws and inner darkness.

Such was the case for Ahsoka Tano, who learned to embrace that she was part of a legacy of death and destruction but also learned that her legacy and inner darkness did not define her as a person. And this is why the Jedi of the so-called Disaster Lineage were still more than what their legacy defines them to be.

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