Jar Jar Binks - The Perfect Sith Lord?
Jar Jar Binks is really stupid.
In the very first scene with Jar Jar, Qui Gon asks him if he's brainless after having saved his life. It's uncharacteristic of the Jedi to essentially dismiss a person's intelligence, and if it doesn't make sense in the world of the Jedi, we need to assume it makes sense in the world of the author. What is Qui Gon = George Lucas telling the audience by introducing Jar Jar in this way? He's saying "don't pay any attention to this character, he's unimportant" right off the bat. And yet Jar Jar keeps popping up in the story, so obviously, he's not unimportant.
When you add all this to the fact that Jar Jar never really does much to benefit the side we are assuming he's on, it adds up perfectly. It's genius, actually. The audience already hates him but never suspects him. If it really was GL's plan to have him be a Sith all along, it would have been the perfect plot twist. One I kinda wish he would've kept.
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He went down in instant infamy as one of the most unlikable, inane characters of all time. I'm certainly not here to argue about that opinion. For the most part, I held it myself when I first saw the movie in theaters back in 1999, although it didn't bug me as much as it did others. In the years since I have heard the theory that Jar Jar had been originally marked as a Sith, and that idea intrigued me. As a writer myself, I am always looking for interesting ways to believably present unlikely plot twists.
So, naturally, I did some intense research by rewatching the film tonight with my husband, dogs and leftover Christmas candy. What I discovered in watching The Phantom Menace with this Jar Jar = Sith theory in the forefront of my mind is that it really makes perfect sense.
In the very first scene with Jar Jar, Qui Gon asks him if he's brainless after having saved his life. It's uncharacteristic of the Jedi to essentially dismiss a person's intelligence, and if it doesn't make sense in the world of the Jedi, we need to assume it makes sense in the world of the author. What is Qui Gon = George Lucas telling the audience by introducing Jar Jar in this way? He's saying "don't pay any attention to this character, he's unimportant" right off the bat. And yet Jar Jar keeps popping up in the story, so obviously, he's not unimportant.
Jar Jar doesn't make sense as comic relief either. He's bumbling and stupid, not at all like GL's typical comic relief (I.E. Literal, intelligent, but often naive robots who make comedic observations, or large, walking carpets that grunt and groan). And his stupidity is the exaggerated, slapstick variety that even other characters fail to find amusing or endearing. It's the irritation that they feel towards him that will sometimes come across as funny because we can relate. Now, can you think of another Star Wars character that was introduced in a similar fashion? Can you, or can you not? Wouldn't it be a beautifully symmetrical story arc to have two pillars of the dark and light side of the force, start out as unrecognizable dummies?
That leads me to another question that I had, and that Yoda himself answers in the film. If Jar Jar is this evil figure, why wouldn't Qui Gon or Obi Won recognize him? They do initially think he's stupid of course, but wouldn't they be able to sense something like that? And then Yoda says it - the dark side is hard to see.
When you add all this to the fact that Jar Jar never really does much to benefit the side we are assuming he's on, it adds up perfectly. It's genius, actually. The audience already hates him but never suspects him. If it really was GL's plan to have him be a Sith all along, it would have been the perfect plot twist. One I kinda wish he would've kept.
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