Contains spoilers for Star Wars: Yoda #5!Despite the fact that many Star Wars fans regard Yoda as the strongest Jedi in the franchise, he’s actually a terrible Jedi Master. Yoda presided over the collapse of the Order itself, and was unable to stop one of his most promising apprentices turning to the Sith. On top of this, Yoda failed to stop many Jedi under his care from making huge mistakes and being seduced by the dark side, offering advice but always holding back from actually stepping in and ensuring things turned out for the best. Now, Yoda's own wisdom explains why.
In Star Wars: Yoda #5 by Jody Houser and Luke Ross, Yoda reflects on the nature of training padawans, revealing that he believes they can be given guidance, but their masters must step back and allow them to make choices - even bad choices, "otherwise, mere children will they always be." Yoda's thoughts come as he takes a class of padawans to a forested planet, leaving them alone despite a growing grudge between two trainees. Unknown to Yoda, one of the students is being pushed towards the dark side by a young Dooku, who Yoda recently asked to help train the young Jedi. Inevitably, left to their own devices, the two padawans begin a deadly fight.
Yoda Allows His Students to Fail Too Often
When fans first met Master Yoda, he was an old hermit hiding out on Dagobah following the rise of the Empire and the fall of the Jedi. While he did accept Luke Skywalker as his student, Yoda wasn’t too involved in taking down the Empire. Instead, Yoda taught his new student everything he knew and allowed him to use that knowledge and training as he saw fit, even if that meant allowing him to fail - and fail he did (as shown in Episode V). At the time, this made sense - Yoda's time was over, and he trusted this new hero. However, it turns out Yoda has always taken this approach, from begrudgingly allowing Anakin Skywalker's training and fall to leaving two confused trainees to duel to the death.
Yoda Shirks Responsibility Whenever He Can
Yoda is of course right that his padawans can't grow unless they're allowed to make consequential decisions and even fail, but it's clear that he applies this attitude from far too early in their training, and far too often. Recently, it was revealed that Yoda spent years based on a backwater planet, having committed himself to protecting its inhabitants. While this was a righteous and heroic quest, it effectively took Yoda away from the Jedi Council for years at a time, softening his influence. Ultimately, Yoda enjoys being free to wander where the Force takes him, but by abdicating responsibility, he has repeatedly allowed darkness to fester into a major problem.
Yoda let Luke go fight Darth Vader before he was ready, resulting in Luke losing a hand and nearly his life, which would have meant the end of the Rebellion and victory for the Empire. Before that, Yoda dismissed Anakin’s concerns regarding visions of Padmé’s death, refusing to give him the guidance he so desperately needed. And before that, Yoda failed to see how Dooku's pursuit of prophecy was turning him away from the light.
Now, Yoda is doing nothing to address a situation that could lead to one student harming another out of fear-induced paranoia - and not only that, but Yoda is giving them the perfect time and place to act on those delusions without any supervision. Again and again in Star Wars lore, Yoda does not truly watch over and guide his students, which sometimes leads to them losing a limb, and other times leads to the rise of a galaxy-wide fascist regime - and all because Yoda prefers to be a hands-off master to his Jedi charges.
Star Wars: Yoda #5 is available now from Marvel Comics.