10 Star Wars characters’ dumbest decisions reveal that some of the galaxy’s heroes were actually part of the problem. It’s easy to point to Anakin Skywalker or Emperor Palpatine as two of the most powerful villains of Star Wars, but a few heroes are plenty culpable themselves due to their questionable, shortsighted decisions. While Palpatine is no doubt the mastermind, behind the scenes even in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, many Star Wars characters inadvertently helped to create Darth Vader and caused plenty of other issues, too.
Despite many of these characters being Star Wars’ strongest Jedi and wisest leaders, they didn’t always make the best decisions. Tough calls had to be made to address threats of war and manipulations by the Sith, but some heroes had odd responses to situations that were pretty straightforward. 10 choices in particular not only are the galaxy’s dumbest but also reveal that many of Star Wars’ best characters worsened the issues in the galaxy.
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10 Qui-Gon Jinn
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
Qui-Gonn Jinn is everyone’s favorite Maverick Jedi, but he may have taken it a bit too far when he landed on Tatooine to get ship parts and left with a little boy. Qui-Gon immediately knows Anakin is special, but that kick-starts a reckless commitment to getting Anakin off Tatooine, going against the Jedi’s wishes to train him no matter the risk, and ignoring the fact the Jedi have rules about ages and attachments for a reason. Anakin, while then just a sweet little boy, was already a bit of a red flag, but Qui-Gon unilaterally decided that was fine.
Given that Anakin would go on to become a genocidal teenager and a tyrannical ruler in his early 20s, it’s possible Qui-Gon may have been better off leaving well enough alone. While a well-known rule-breaker, it would have behooved Qui-Gon to take anyone else’s opinion into account rather than barreling his way through an entire Jedi code and Council of Jedi Masters to get what he wanted. Obviously, his death further complicated things, but even had he lived, removing a 9-year-old from his mother (whom he left enslaved) and presenting him to the Council as a non-negotiable would have backfired.
9 Mace Windu
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
Mace Windu wasn’t exactly following the Jedi way of compassion when he met and immediately seemed to form a personal vendetta against a 9-year-old. While he had reason to be concerned about Anakin joining the Order, particularly given how Qui-Gon had refused to hear any discussion about it, icing Anakin out as a child and acting perturbed by his presence throughout the prequels may not have been the best course of action. It’s within the realm of possibility that being treated as a nuisance and a threat for 13 years had a maor effect on Anakin’s view of the Jedi.
8 Padmé
Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones
While few could fault Padmé for falling for Anakin during their early days on Naboo, when he was constantly calling her “M’lady” and making fruit float toward her through the Force, her responses to the mounting evidence that Anakin was turning to the dark side are bewildering. Most alarming is when Anakin confesses that he went on a brutal, rage-fueled rampage, slaughtering Tusken men, women, and children. Rather than raising alarm bells that send her running to the Jedi Council, Padmé seems unfazed, telling Anakin, “To be angry is to be human.”
Padmé’s commitment to her relationship is honorable, and none could accuse her of lacking loyalty, but it might have been helpful if she had at least mentioned to Obi-Wan that Anakin was very comfortable with murder. This continues in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith when she tries to negotiate a path forward in their marriage after discovering Anakin murdered a room of younglings, a meeting for which she took the time for an outfit change and did her hair. But of course, to be willing to do ethically ambiguous things in the name of love is to be human.
7 Master Yoda
Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones
Yoda had significant hints that Anakin was trending in the Darth Vader direction, but he had a pretty foolproof plan for addressing it: ignore Anakin’s concerning behaviors and, if that didn’t work, simply tell Anakin to stop it. In Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, Yoda senses fear, pain, and death through the Force, explicitly linking it to Anakin, when Anakin commits genocide against the Tusken Raiders. Presumably, Yoda became a little too busy with the Clone Wars to follow up, because he never asked Anakin about what may have led to those disturbances in the Force.
Since ‘ignore it’ failed, because Anakin brought his fears, anxiety, and nightmares directly to Master Yoda in Revenge of the Sith, Yoda had to employ Plan B, which involved reminding Anakin that his feelings were bad. Helpfully, Yoda added to this tenet by telling Anakin to simply not mourn or miss the dead. Given that Anakin had buried his mother just a few years before, after seeing how the Tuskens had brutalized her, this probably didn’t help him all that much.
6 Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru
Star Wars
Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen knew that a mysterious Jedi had left a baby in their care just as the Empire rose to power, and, in the Obi-Wan Kenobi show, they are directly exposed to the horrors of the Empire. Not only do Imperial Inquisitors show up on Tatooine and threaten Owen in particular, but one, Reva, also returns and tries to kill their 10-year-old nephew specifically. While Beru and Owen were ready to fight an Inquisitor in hand-to-hand combat, they evidently weren’t ready to discuss how bad the Empire was with Luke.
While it made sense for them to shield Luke from some of the truths of his lineage, it’s odd that they neglected to explain how much of a threat the Empire posed to him. By the beginning of A New Hope, Luke is not only ambivalent about the Empire, but he is also ready to join the Imperial Academy if it means getting off Tatooine. Perhaps if Beru and Owen had been a bit more honest about how much an Inquisitor had previously wanted to murder him as a child, Luke would have thought twice about employment with the Empire.
5 Obi-Wan Kenobi
Star Wars
Alec Guinness’s portrayal of Obi-Wan Kenobi in A New Hope was wonderfully cryptic and set a perfect precedent for Ewan McGregor taking up the torch in the prequel trilogy. However, Obi-Wan’s shroud of mystery was not the most helpful for Luke. As Luke was meant to single-handedly carry on the legacy of the Jedi, it would have been beneficial if Obi-Wan had given Luke the facts more directly, rather than vaguely talking about the Jedi, the Clone Wars, and Luke’s father. Particularly disclosing Luke’s parentage may have at least eased that shock for Luke, who famously responded with crushing denial.
4 R2-D2
The Empire Strikes Back
R2-D2 seems to have taken on Anakin’s penchant for chaos, given that he elected to sit back and watch Luke romance his sister rather than explain that maybe they shouldn’t be kissing. Failing to intervene while the twins were getting flirty is just one (although one of the worst) secrets that R2-D2 kept from everyone else in Star Wars; throughout the Skywalker Saga, R2 remains remarkably uninvolved in explaining any of the events he was present for, from telling Luke about the history of the Jedi to revealing that Obi-Wan was stretching the truth a bit about Vader killing Luke’s father.
3 Lando Calrissian
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Lando Calrissian’s betrayal of Leia and Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back is well-known, but he doesn’t seem entirely reformed by the sequel trilogy. When the Resistance sends out a desperate distress signal for any allies to come fight with them when they are on the brink of extinction in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Lando is evidently too busy to go save their lives. For The Rise of Skywalker’s battle on Exegol, though, he suddenly has not only the ability to come and fight, but is also able to persuade an army to turn up too.
2 Rey
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
At the end of The Rise of Skywalker, Ben Solo transfers his life force to Rey, resurrecting her but sacrificing himself. Despite the emotional weight of that loss, when Rey gets back to the Resistance, she is ready to celebrate, all smiles along with everyone else. She elects to forego acknowledging Ben’s death, and she doesn’t exactly seem that broken up about it. Maybe she grieved on the ship ride over and had already worked it out of her system by the time she returned. (To be fair, she had more than earned a bit of celebrating.)
1 Princess Leia
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Leia, who became a Force ghost in The Rise of Skywalker, had an even worse send-off for her son. When Ben dies on Exegol, none of his Force ghost family show up. They did manage to make an appearance for Rey to bury their lightsabers on a planet they both hated, though. Given that Obi-Wan and Yoda were willing to appear duriing Anakin’s funeral, despite him killing one of them and all their friends, it would’ve been nice for Luke and Leia to set aside some time for Ben’s death.
While many on this list are Star Wars fan favorites, their missteps suggest that even the franchise’s greatest heroes caused some serious issues for the galaxy. While none can be held as responsible as the Empire or the First Order, who sought the power to destroy entire planets with the push of a button, these grave oversights had major ramifications, many of which were plenty destructive themselves. Of course, it’s also a nice reminder that, especially in Star Wars, good and evil aren’t black-and-white concepts.
