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‘Star Wars’ fans wonder if the Jedi ever lift a finger at home

Can you use The Force to do the laundry?

Image via Lucasfilm/Star Wars: The Last Jedi

You’re a Jedi Knight who’s just spent a busy day protecting some isolated planet. After jetting back to Coruscant you park your starfighter, head down to your Jedi Order apartment, and crack open a tall frosty one. And hey, if you just so happen to use the Force to float a bowl of nuts over to the sofa, what’s the harm?

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Apparently, quite a lot, if an entertaining thread on r/StarWars is anything to go by. The OP wonders whether Jedi ever get lazy after a long day of Star Wars and use the Force for menial tasks when they’re chilling out at home.

Serious Star Wars quickly point out that this is a major Jedi no-no. The highest-voted response underlines that “Jedi serve the Force, not the other way around” and that using it as simply a tool is frowned upon by Jedi teachings. We can see an example of this in Attack of the Clones during the dinner scene between Anakin and Padme. Anakin uses the Force to levitate a pear over the table, noting “If Master Obi-Wan caught me doing this he’d be very grumpy”.

It’s worth remembering that the Force is a living energy and, while it appears to be essentially unlimited in scope, perhaps frittering it away on stuff you could easily do physically isn’t paying it the respect it deserves.

The flip side to the Jedi’s philosophy of understanding the will of the Force is the Sith’s ambitions to bend it to their will. So, if anyone’s going to use the Force to grab a beer from the fridge without bothering to stand up, it’ll be Palpatine and his ilk.