Star Wars on Trial by Keith R. A. DeCandido, David Brin, Tanya Huff, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Matthew Woodring Stover

answer to the famous apres question: "will you call me later?" The perfect male cop-out? Getting to have your cake, eat it, but never having to pay for it?
    Uh, sorry, babe. I can't commit. Or call. Master Yoda won't let me. But wasn't that fun?
    Yeesh. This is "wisdom"? No wonder Young Skywalker gets married without permission!
    All right. Point by individual point, this can be called nitpicking. But the pattern adds up, relentlessly, to a clear picture of Yoda that doesn't support all the superficial press he's given, as an archetype of right-living. Rather, if you look closer, he's an imperious little elfguru, secretive and domineering, judgmental and unkind. Humorless and never, ever informative. Oh, one can see how this might fit somebody's cartoon image of an austere and demanding, quasi-oriental sage. Indeed, there are plenty of real and historical figures that Yoda may be modeled after. But must we take this lying down? Even J. R. R. Tolkien, in his later works, ripped the sweet/wise veil off of his elves, exposing them as selfish creatures who brought Middleearth to the brink of ruin.
    Which brings us to the point of ultimate betrayal, pictured in Attack of the Clones. One of the most horrific scenes I ever witnessed. Has anyone else noticed?
    The Jedi Knights aren't an army. They are an elite corps of secret agents! The 007 James Bonds of the Old Republic. So why does Yoda order all but one of them to charge-in the worst frontal assault since the Light Brigade-straight into an obvious death trap, where they will be surrounded and slaughtered by innumerable robots, monsters and flying aliens? Only his peer and equal-Master Mace-refuses to fall for this. Instead, Mace does his job as a secret agent, sneaking in the back way and almost capturing the villain, single-handedly. Had even two or three of the other Jedi Knights accompanied him as helpers, then all would have been well.

    But that wasn't Yoda's plan, you see. Instead-how convenienthe takes delivery of a new army at just the same moment that he hurls the older one to its doom. A new army trained to be much more obedient than that rabble of psychic adepts and bickering individual agents. A new army that represents everything worrisome about civilizations and institutions. Sameness, rigidity and amoral, ruthless efficiency.
    Oh, it's implied that Yoda merely grabs a clone army that someone else ordered. But why assume that incredible coincidence? Take the plainest evidence of all, the actual sequence of events. Isn't the simplest answer that Yoda was the one to secretly order the clone army? (There is no evidence to contradict it and the astute clone-makers certainly thought they were doing it for Yoda's Council.) Yes, the situation is ambiguous ... but it smells of one of the worst betrayals in cinematic history.
    Even if you balk at following me that far, remember how, in The Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon spoke of a need to "restore balance to the Force." This-like so much about George Lucas's new-agey religion-stays frustratingly unexplained. But it sure implies that old Yoda had an "unbalanced" agenda. One with its own dark side.
    We'll get to that matter in just a second, but first, let me reiterate the challenge. Is there any tangible reason to believe that anybody in his right mind ought to listen to that vile green demon-muppet? Always secretive, mysterious, grouchy and unhelpful. Never actually achieving anything useful (except to annihilate his own knightly order). Is this an archetype of wisdom that we should hold higher than, say, Benjamin Franklin? Than George Washington, George Marshall, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King and all the other hero-teacher-leaders of our democratic enlightenment? Or even the hapless Old Republic? So, what do we make of the "eternal struggle between two sides of the Force? Other than the fact that it sounds a bit like Manicheanism, or the Zoroastrian mythos of light vs. darkness, forever equal and tearing the cosmos apart?