Across its history one very important teaching was given from all Jedi Masters to their brand
new Padawans.
Your lightsaber is your life….
Because of this, brand new Jedi apprentices always tried to take the utmost care of their
sacred weapon, wherever they went.
But what happened if a Jedi broke their lightsaber or lost it in the line of duty?
What was the punishment for breaking your lightsaber?
Well, it’s probably a lot worse than you think….
The Jedi order utilized different punishments for the breaking of a lightsaber, depending
on one’s rank.
These rank-based punishments included penalties for Jedi Masters, Jedi Knights, Jedi Padawans
and Jedi Initiates, but since they weren’t given their own lightsabers, these punishments
were more for acting dangerously in the training dojos.
But either way we’ll start with Jedi Masters.
Masters Probably faced the least punishment out of any of the Jedi ranks for obvious reasons.
They were pretty much at the top of the tree and they were the ones often handing out the
punishments so it makes sense that they would be pretty safe.
The Jedi who could actually hand down penalties to Jedi masters were of course the Jedi Grand
Master, which was Yoda during the Clone wars, or the council as a whole.
The worst penalty a master would ever face for breaking his lightsaber was a hard slap
on the wrist from the council if it was done in a reckless way, or in a way that could
harm innocent lives.
If the Jedi Master lost his lightsaber in battle however, it was a much different story.
It was sometimes even seen as honorable to lose or damage your lightsaber in combat,
depending on the outcome of the fight.
When a Master fought so hard that his lightsaber broke, mid combat, but they came out on top,
they were considered a champion of the Jedi order, and even celebrated when returning
to the temple.
An alternate punishment for masters would be forcing them to build a new saber, which
when you think about it isn’t much of a punishment at all, and that was for good reason.
Most masters already had 2 or 3 lightsabers constructed and built as spares, for the unlikely
case that theirs would break or be lost in the line of duty.
During the Clone Wars, the number of Jedi who had spare lightsabers probably went up
significantly due to the heavily increased risk of loss.
Now next, we move on to the punishment for Jedi Knights with many years of experience.
These Jedi are punished differently from Knights who are freshly promoted, things get slightly
more harsh than the Master rank.
At this rank, the Jedi council would take the loss of a lightsaber slightly more seriously.
They would however take all of the circumstances of the loss into account before making a decision,
trying to be as fair as possible.
If an experienced Jedi Knight lost their saber while travelling through the dark and dodgy
streets of Coruscant’s level 1313, then the council would not be so forgiving since
they probably should be there and they should have been significantly more cautious, knowing
how dangerous Coruscant’s lower levels are.
If an experienced Knight lost or broke his saber while fighting an angry pirate who was
holding a man hostage however, the Jedi council would likely let this loss slide, given that
it was done for a noble cause.
Now the above rules pretty much totally went out of the window after the Clone Wars started,
as the Jedi Order had a significant lack of Jedi Generals to serve on the front lines
and lead clone troopers.
After the battle of Geonosis, where many jedi were slaughtered and succumbed to the separatists,
the council was deeply worried that they wouldn’t even have enough men to lead the Clones.
And this was actually a major reason why Anakin was promoted to Jedi Knight, because Yoda
and many of the other council members were worried about their dwidningly numbers.
Although this did cause huge controversy on the council, Anakin did eventually become
a knight, as we know.
Now despite being pretty lenient on the punishment for accomplished Knights if the situation
was understandable and noble, those who lost theirs on the dimly lit streets of Corellia
to a pickpocket would be forced to travel back to Ilum, and this time alone.
This *probably* wouldn’t be an issue for most Jedi who ascended to the rank of Knight,
but going alone was definitely challenging and took a lot of willpower to get through.
And in some cases, it was pretty likely that council would send the person to get his saber
back in an even harsher kyber crystal deposit than ilum, which would take far more work
and would be much more deadly.
Now moving on from that, we have the Jedi Knights who were either freshly promoted to
the new rank or ones who lack much experience on the field.
At this level, things get much more serious when a lightsaber is lost or broken.
After reporting their loss of lightsaber to the Jedi council, the inexperienced Jedi Knight
would be stripped of any field duty they currently had and would be forced to accompany a Jedi
Master out on their missions, just like they were a padawan again.
Obviously, this infuriated many young and non-battle hardened Jedi Knights, but it was
considered a very crucial learning experience by the council and especially for those young
guys who were a bit more rebellious…
Kinda like Anakin…
On top of that, they would be put on watch by the Jedi Master that they were now travelling
with, and the Master would have to assess the low level Knight, to see if they were
still worthy to hold the rank of Knight.
The Knight on Probation probably wouldn’t have a lightsaber with him during this watch
period, but he would certainly be judged on his diplomacy, problem solving and negotiation
skills when doing peacekeeping across the galaxy.
In the unfortunate event that the Jedi Knight doesn’t perform well during this period…
well to put it mildly, he’s screwed.
If he does poorly, the master will then report back to the council that he is no longer worthy
of the rank of Knight, and have him immediately demoted back to Padawan, where he would have
to re finish his previous lessons and the Jedi trials all over again.
This is something you definitely do not want, as it likely hurts your chances of ever becoming
a master at all in the future.
Most Jedi who got themselves into this situation considered it almost like another mini jedi-trail,
which would test their ability and resolve to stay focused, and earn their position back
with pride.
Like a lot of rules and traditions, this type of punishment was again heavily reduced during
hte Clone Wars, for the exact same reasons as earlier, that Jedi General were in such
short supply.
The Jedi threw their traditions out of the window to ensure they had a fighting chance
in the war… and that really shows you how Palpatine forced the Jedi to throw away hundreds
of years of tradition, customs and history as part of his grand plan…
Now after that, we have the punishments given to Jedi Padawans who broke their lightsabers…
these ones were much, much more serious and could even cost a Jedi their entire position
in the order.
After breaking their saber, the Padawan would immediately be banned from all field duty
and excursions for a pretty decent period of time, unless they had a reasonable excuse
for why they lost it… and it also depended on how strict their master was…
While being banned from field duty, the Padawan would then be forced to go back and study
in the Jedi temple archive rooms for several weeks, focusing on things like history, tradition
and most importantly… how not to lose your lightsaber.
Im guessing they’d also be the victim of a quite a few joke about lost lightsabers
at the hands of Jocasta Nu or the other masters inside the temple library…
So give me your best lightsaber joke in the comments below.
After that, they would then be sent back to Ilum alone to collect another crystal and
make up for their loss, but as you can probably guess Padawans are much younger, meaning this
is a much more dangerous journey for them.
It wouldn’t surprise me if many hundreds of frozen Jedi bodies could be found the planet,
after Jedi tragically failed in their mission.
Now after they got their saber back, they would be put on very careful watch for their
next missions by their current Jedi Master, who will carefully determine whether or not
they were still worthy to be a padawan.
If they are deemed to not be worthy, this was pretty much the end of the road for their
chances of serving as peacekeepers across teh galaxy.
Since they were too old to regress back to the rang of Jedi initiate, they could face
two major punishments…
Either they would be sent to the Jedi service core, including the agriculture group on Dantooine,
where they focused on producing food and supplies for the Knights of the Order, or they could
face a much more fate.
They could be expelled from the Jedi order, which would leave them unarmed and without
protection on the streets of the Galaxy.
They might end up on the lower levels of Coruscant, like Ahsoka pretty much did after she left
the order, but possibly even much further down in the deepest and darkest levels of
the underworld, where anything that moves is a threat.
And as for the last rank Initiate, these younglings obviously didn’t have their own lightsabers
to break at all.
As a result, they were usually punished for doing dangerous things in training with the
lightsabers, just to teach them a lesson for when they get older.
If they were particularly rowdy, they would probably get kicked out of lightsaber class
temporarily, but most likely nothing more than that, considering they were so young.
So that is what happened to Jedi who broke their lightsabers.
Let me know down below if you agree with the Jedi’s punishments for these actions.
Are they too harsh or too soft?
Ill let you decide.
Thanks so much for watching, really hope you enjoyed the video.
Cheers guys, hope to see you in the next one!