Jedi

A Jedi, often called a Jedi Knight, was a devotee to the ways of the Jedi Order, an ancient order of protectors united by their ability to harness the power of the Force. Adhering to a doctrine that favored the light side of the Force, the Jedi aspired to attain a state of inner tranquility through calmness and meditation while avoiding emotions affiliated with the dark side of the Force, such as anger and hatred. Nevertheless, Jedi philosophy did not forbid a Jedi from acting in self-defense or in the defense of others, and they were colloquially known as Space Wizards to citizens of the galaxy. To that end, a Jedi's only possession was their lightsaber, a symbol of their role as guardians of peace and justice.

Before the time of the Galactic Empire, Jedi worked with the Galactic Republic with a commitment to freedom and democracy. The Jedi and the Republic's ideals brought them into conflict with an order of dark side wielders known as the Sith, who sought power and dominion over the galaxy. Emerging victorious from their wars with the ancient Sith, the Jedi carried on in their duty as peacekeepers for over a millennium until the advent of the Clone Wars twenty-two years before the Battle of Yavin. Faced with a pan-galactic civil war between the Republic and Confederacy of Independent Systems, the Jedi adopted the mantle of generals and soldiers in the Grand Army of the Republic. After three years of conflict, the Jedi discovered that the Sith had deceived them and engineered the war to restore them back to power. However, just before the Sith were defeated, the Jedi were betrayed by one of their own—the Chosen One Anakin Skywalker, who had been seduced to the dark side and anointed Darth Vader by the Sith Lord Darth Sidious. Using the Jedi's own clone troopers to initiate a systematic purge of the Jedi Order, the Lords of the Sith all but eradicated the Jedi in one fell swoop, reducing the order from thousands of Jedi Knights guarding the galaxy, to a handful of survivors cast into exile across the galaxy.

The Sith ruled the galaxy through the Empire for a generation, but did not succeed in completely wiping out the Jedi Order. As a result, Ezra Bridger and Luke Skywalker were, in turn, trained as new Jedi by Jedi Knight Kanan Jarrus and Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, respectively. Skywalker, the son of Vader, was also taught the ways of the Jedi by Grand Master Yoda and fought for the Alliance to Restore the Republic during the Galactic Civil War. On his death bed, Yoda gave his final apprentice the mandate of passing on his lessons to a new generation of Jedi. Shortly afterward, Skywalker succeeded in redeeming his father, who sacrificed himself to save his son by killing his Sith Master, Emperor Sidious, thereby destroying the Sith and fulfilling the prophecy of the Chosen One.

During the era of the New Republic, Skywalker worked to rebuild the Jedi Order by training a dozen apprentices, including his young but powerful nephew, Ben Solo, but Solo fell to the dark side and became Kylo Ren, apprentice of Supreme Leader Snoke, master of the Knights of Ren, and a warlord of the First Order, while Skywalker's training temple and students were destroyed. As the First Order rose to power, Ren and Snoke sought to destroy Skywalker, who, in self-exile, briefly trained Rey in the ways of the Jedi until he sacrificed himself to save the Resistance, after which time Skywalker's sister, Leia Organa, continued her training. When a reborn Darth Sidious—Rey's grandfather—revealed himself to the galaxy, Ben Solo, the opposite in a dyad in the Force with Rey, was redeemed, and Rey sacrificed herself to destroy the phantom Sith Lord, preventing the rebirth of the Sith Order. Rey was saved from death by Solo, who gave his life for hers, allowing the Jedi to live on.

Text and facts from the “Jedi” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.