In the years following the release of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge Of The Sith, many have speculated the possible survival of numerous Jedi who were believed dead during the chaos of Order 66, but there are some whose fates should never be reworked. With the advent of many new releases in that time that have expanded the Star Wars universe, a growing problem has arisen that threatens to turn the critical event of Order 66 into a joke. Now that more and more Jedi have been revealed to have survived the purge of their order through The Mandalorian, Star Wars Rebels, The Bad Batch, and more, the number of survivors is beginning to rival that of the victims.
While most of these surviving Jedi never had their deaths directly confirmed on screen, Star Wars‘ recurring lack of commitment to permanent character deaths shows that none are safe from resurrection. It’s possible for any dead Jedi to make a triumphant return at the simple wave of a writer’s hand, but the resulting damage done to the integrity of both that character and the entire Star Wars mythos could be catastrophic in certain cases. As Star Wars ceaselessly grows with each new addition to its canon, there are 5 Jedi who would only do more harm than good if they were to return.
5 Shaak-Ti
Across all canonical and non-canonical iterations, no other Jedi can match the comical amount of deaths suffered by Jedi Master Shaak-Ti. Though not all centered around Order 66, Shaak-Ti has died once by the hands of Darth Vader, twice at the hands of General Grievous, and even once in the jaws of a sarlacc. Lucasfilm has struggled to answer how specifically she dies, but she certainly dies.
While a Revenge of the Sith deleted scene and her role as a boss fight in the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed video game are far from canonical, Shaak-Ti’s demise was confirmed to have occurred off-screen during Anakin Skywalker’s siege on the Jedi Temple. Anakin himself supposedly impaled Shaak-Ti through the back as she was in deep meditation, just as Yoda foresaw through the visions given to him in the dark cave on Dagobah in The Clone Wars. The unfortunate, death-prone Jedi has clearly had enough, and retconning Shaak-Ti’s death yet again only to bring her back and have her die once more in a new way would simply be cruel at this point.
4 Luminara Unduli
As the subject of one of the most shocking twists of the early episodes of Star Wars Rebels, a bigger tragedy for Luminara Unduli than her own death would be if it were undone. Episode 5 of Rebels‘ first season, “Rise of the Old Masters,” serves to demonstrate just how diabolical Sith tactics can be, as the preserved remains of Master Luminara are used by the Grand Inquisitor to create the illusion that she’s still alive, baiting any Jedi foolish enough to attempt to rescue her. While Luminara herself did not technically die during the events of Order 66, she was taken captive by the Empire and later executed in her imprisonment. It’s highly unlikely that Star Wars would make such a significant blunder to forget or ignore this character’s canonical fate, but Luminara’s death was another to occur off-screen, and it unfortunately wouldn’t be the first resurrection of a character that was visibly deceased.
3 Plo Koon
Not unlike its off-screen deaths, Star Wars has a running correlation between explosions and a lack of commitment, and a case could certainly be made that others have survived worse than Master Plo Koon’s crash. As one of the Jedi who are very clearly slain on-screen by the clones during Order 66 itself, the likelihood that Plo walked away from his starfighter being shot down and exploding against the side of a building are slim to none. However, as cases like Echo and even Chewbacca have shown, the possibility of a Star Wars character coming back from such a blast is enough of a non-zero percentage that even the cast of The Mandalorian were convinced that Plo Koon was alive. Though his death was very unceremonious for such a prominent Jedi, his tragic loss at the hands of the clones he placed such trust and loyalty in would be invalidated were he to miraculously return.
2 Aayla Secura
Akin to Plo Koon, Twi’lek Aayla Secura was another of the Jedi Masters killed in the commencement of Order 66, though in much more direct means. Of all the methods the clones employed to exterminate the Jedi, there may be none more conclusive than riddling one with enough blaster fire to down a rancor. It wouldn’t be out of the question for a Jedi Master to survive a direct hit from a blaster, seeing as some have even lived through direct impalement from a lightsaber. However, the sheer amount of bolts the clones annihilate Aayla with seems to pointedly drive home how absurd the question of her survival would be. More than any other Jedi, a return for Aayla Secura would surely mark death’s departure from any sense of stakes in Star Wars.
1 Mace Windu
In the many years since the release of Revenge of the Sith, speculation of who had the most potential to survive Order 66 always led to the same Jedi Master as the answer. While Mace Windu somehow has the best survival odds of any Jedi on this list after being blasted out of the window of a skyscraper, his possible return may be the most potentially problematic as well. It’s made abundantly clear that Mace was always one of the most powerful Jedi of the Order, and it wouldn’t be entirely unreasonable to think he could survive such a fall, but his existence in the Empire’s galaxy would simply raise more questions than his return would be worth.
Mace Windu’s entire character revolves around his unwavering righteous nature as a Jedi Master; his virtues simply would not allow him to give up the fight against the unjust if he was still breathing. Even without the use of his lightsaber or his own hand, Mace still would’ve led the Rebellion himself were his body able. Yet his presence in the fight against the Empire was nonexistent, and the notion that he would ever hide himself from the galaxy like other Jedi survivors would fly in the face of what Star Wars has established for Mace Windu.
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
