Master Yoda: warrior, philosopher, swamp-dwelling goblin. Perhaps the wisest, most respected and most powerful Jedi Knight who ever lived, countless young Jedi have sought his advice over Yoda’s 900 years, despite his inability to grasp basic sentence structure and syntax.
In honour of Star Wars Day, we take a look at some of the wisest things Yoda ever said (that were actually horrendously bad advice):
“Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is.”
The tragic and unexpected loss of a loved one is probably the second worst thing that any of us will have to deal with in our entire lives. The only thing worse than that? Some self-righteous bastard telling you to get the hell over it. And then adding insult to injury by telling you it’s “greedy” to miss them after their gone.
“Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things.”
Imagine for a moment that you have these amazing, mindblowingly cool superpowers. You can run really fast, jump huge distances, move things with the power of your mind, block lasers with your FRIGGING SWEET shiny laser sword AND you get to do it all in the comfort of a bathrobe. THEN imagine somebody telling you that you can’t get excited about those powers or use them to have epic adventures. Absolutely NOBODY EVER IS ACTUALLY GOING TO LISTEN TO OR AGREE WITH THIS ADVICE. IT IS LITERALLY THE MOST UNREASONABLE THING ANYBODY HAS EVER SAID.
“You must unlearn what you have learned.”
Over the course of an average lifetime, you learn some pretty useful stuff: how to not go to the bathroom in your pants, how to tie your shoelaces, how to insert food into your mouth rather than your eyeballs, how to talk to girls (admittedly not all of us master this one), etc. And Yoda wants you to unlearn all of it? BE MORE SPECIFIC WITH YOUR ADVICE, HOBGOBLIN!
“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”
What does this mean? No seriously, what the Force does this ACTUALLY mean? Firstly, train myself? Isn’t that kind of your job? Is there a book for dummies, or a YouTube tutorial on it, or… ? Secondly, if I let go of EVERYTHING I feared to lose, then I wouldn’t fear losing anything, which would mean I wouldn’t CARE ABOUT ANYTHING. This wouldn’t make me a great Jedi Knight, but a total and utter bastard.
“Yes, a Jedi’s strength flows from the Force. But beware of the Dark Side. Anger, fear, aggression; the Dark Side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan’s apprentice.”
One important thing to note here is Obi-Wan’s apprentice wasn’t “consumed” by the Dark Side, he was “consumed” by the FRIGGING LAVA HIS BEST FRIEND (THE GOOD GUY) LEFT HIM IN AFTER CHOPPING OFF ALL OF HIS LIMBS. Yoda is basically saying, “Fear is bad but ignorance is better. Just ignore the things you don’t understand or that might cause you trouble until they go away.” Why does anybody ever listen to this guy, again?
Let’s further review this sentence. According to Yoda, the Dark Side is: a) easy; b) quick to join you; c) helpful in a fight; d) dominates; and, e) offers you an exciting career path with a destiny. HOORAY! WHERE DO WE SIGN UP?!
“Size matters not.”
Come on, Yodude. This is so obviously an attempt at self-delusion by a teeny tiny kobold that it isn’t even funny.
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you.”
This one is important to contextualise. Yoda said this to a nine-year-old kid standing in a room full of judgemental, silent, staring incredibly weird looking wizard monks just hours after being taken from his mother by two guys he barely even knew. And the kid isn’t supposed to feel any fear? Why don’t you cut him some slack, you crotchety old bastard?! This is the intergalactic equivalent of shouting, “Get off my lawn, you damn kids!”
And listen, just because Jake Lloyd had the looks and acting skills of a robot DOESN’T MEAN HE IS AN ACTUAL ROBOT. That we know of. Yet.
“Only a fully trained Jedi Knight, with the Force as his ally, will conquer Vader and his Emperor. If you end your training now – if you choose the quick and easy path as Vader did – you will become an agent of evil.”
Is that like how you were a fully trained Jedi Knight with the Force as your ally when you stopped Darth Vader and killed the Emperor yourself, Yod– OH WAIT.
Just think for a moment how spectacularly, truly awful this advice is. If Luke had stayed on Dagobah to complete his Jedi training like he was told, he wouldn’t have confronted Vader on Bespin, and thus would never have discovered he was Vader’s father, which would mean he never set Darth on the path to redemption that ultimately led to the defeat of the Emperor. This one piece of “wisdom” almost singlehandedly ensured the Empire lived on forever in all of its totalitarian, Death Star-building glory.
“No. Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.”
Think about it for a moment. Is this not, without any exaggeration whatsoever, the 100% WORST thing a teacher could ever say to a student? How would anybody possibly learn anything if they weren’t allowed to try it? It is the most unhelpful, paralysing thing you could ever be told as a student.
“Now Luke, find all powers of 2 such that, after deleting the first digit, another power of 2 remains. (For example, 25 = 32. On deleting the initial 3, we are left with 2 = 21.) Numbers are written in standard decimal notation, with no leading zeroes. Just remember that there is NO TRY. If you get this wrong I will be VERY ANGRY AND DISAPPOINTED IN YOU AND REFUSE TO TRAIN YOU FURTHER OR LIFT YOUR X-WING OUT OF THE MUD, EVEN THOUGH THE FATE OF THE ENTIRE GALAXY IS AT STAKE.”
Oh, and just for those keeping score at home, here’s a List of all the things Yoda tried (and spectacularly failed) to do himself.
May the 4th Be With You!
“thus would never have discovered he was Vader’s father”
I tried re-reading this to make sure, but I’m pretty confident when I say you mean the reverse. Vader is believed to have not had a father at all, much less it be Luke. Lol Just thought I’d let you know.
May the Fourth be with you!
I read it at least a dozen times. I am glad someone else caught it too.
And here it is, a year later, and still wrong. Not only did not do, didn’t even try.
Ha! LOVE.
May the Fourth be with you.
(Psst… I do believe the appropriate Star Wars Liturgical reply is… “And also with you.”)
I know Yoda takes a lot of flak for his “there is no try” line, but in the sense he meant it, that you should act confidently without believing in the possibility of failure, is a valid sense of self-actualization. At least between you and the force. I don’t think I would want a battlefield commander to argue he should “keep no reserves – there is no try.”
Look, the Yoda in anything other than Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, DOES NOT EXIST.
And the things he said when he was nearly at death’s door, were in fact usefull.
If Luke had remained on Dagobah and completed his training, he would have lost his friends but he would have kicked Palpy and Darth’s asses easily in the following confrontation. PLUS we would have been spared the ordeal of having to watch our beloved/hated Imperial forces being exterminated by F***ING teddybears.
Of course, Luke would have been rather sad if he had allowed himself to be but he would have had a guaranteed victory over the forces of evil.
Do or do not. There is no try.
Applying that to your evil and twisted mathematical issue, I’d say: do not. I’m not even going to try.
Actually if Luke remained on Dagobah, his friends would have died and he would never have been able to defeat both Vader and the Emperor. Only the Chosen One can destroy the Sith, and if Luke hadn’t given Vader the love and faith he needed to redeem himself, Luke would have been roasted in lightning by the Emperor (as he almost was except that Vader intervened). Faith is the the key to victory in the Star Wars universe, something that both Obi-Wan and Yoda completely lacked when it came to believing in Luke and Anakin’s redemption. After all, if Luke hadn’t “tried” to turn his father back to the light, where would the galaxy be?
Luke is Vadar’s father??? HOLY CRAP!
How retarded are you like seriously writing this article do you know how genuinely retarded you are, you literally know nothing of anything and spew shite over what you think you know…..do a bit of research before writing articles for the love of god
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LOL, Vader was never the chosen one.
Darth Lucas only made that up when he needed more money.
i think the author of this is naive. these are good pieces of advice. minus the specific details referring to a fictional movie storyland, these ideas have been argued by philosophical and religious scholars for literally thousands of years. lucas is intentionally channeling this wisdom through the plot device ‘yoda.’ duh.
Newsflash: philosophical and religious scholars have been spewing pretentious bullshit for thousands of years. I’m sure the author is smart enough to realize this. What makes this article worth reading is that it destroys the New Age/Buddhist/Stoic asceticism that Lucas was channeling trough Yoda.
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Robbie, I sincerely hope you are a very young man that just hasn’t grasped higher thinking yet and not a 30-something still living with your parents yelling at sitcoms while cleaning your semi-automatic. Fingers crossed!
Bill,
Thank you for your concern for my wellbeing.
I assure you that I am over 30, very well educated, happily married and, perhaps most importantly, possessed of a very sound grasp of irony, parody, satire and other comedic techniques which I can’t help but think it would be helpful for you to obtain a stronger grasp of before you comment on someone else’s work in future.