Beating a Dead Tauntaun Department, Part Two: Is there such a thing as Grey Jedi?

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™ Lucasfilm Ltd.


On Quora, Jason Lowman asks:

Is there such a thing as Grey Jedi?


Grey Jedi exist only in the minds of Star Wars fans who are enthralled with the idea that a Jedi Knight can use both the dark and light side of the Force without suffering the fate of Darth Vader or Assajj Ventress.
Other Quora members, such as Mike Prinke and Eric Lowe, have written extensively on the topic of the non-existence of Grey Jedi. They’ve pointed out the same facts about the “Grey Jedi” mythos, which are:
  1. There’s no mention of “Grey Jedi” anywhere in the official Star Wars canon, especially in the material that most counts: the eight (soon to be nine) Skywalker Saga films, the three existing Lucasfilm Animation TV series, or any of the canonical novels, comic books, or post-2014 Lucasfilm-licensed video games
  2. None of the maverick Jedi characters seen or mentioned in the aforementioned canon are Grey Jedi. Not Qui-Gon Jinn. Not Ahsoka Tano. Not Quinlan Vos. Not Mace Windu.
  3. The Lucasfilm Story Group, the arbiter of what is and what is not canon, states that Grey Jedi are not a thing in Star Wars lore.
  4. The term “Grey Jedi” is apparently derived from Timothy Zahn’s unfortunate coining of the term “Dark Jedi” in the best-selling Thrawn Trilogy in the early 1990s. Zahn was forced to do this because, in one of the few instances in which George Lucas personally intervened into the creation of the Expanded Universe, Star Wars’ Maker did not allow Zahn to use the name “Sith” for the alien race that became the Noghri. (This, plus a strict ban on any stories set in the Clone Wars era, is one of the reasons why the Thrawn Trilogy gets some of its “historical facts” about the Star Wars pre-Empire era wrong.)
  5. The fans who came up with the concept of “Grey Jedi” probably knew of the Dark Jedi trope (even Star Wars: Rebellion, a computer game released in 1996, uses the term to describe both Vader and the Emperor) and extrapolated the notion that if a Jedi could use both sides of the Force, (a) he/she would be badass and (b) would adopt the demonym Grey Jedi as a sign of a balance between Light and Dark.
As “video game cool” as Grey Jedi might seem to the fan-fic crowd, they do not exist.
End of story.

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