Re: Ariel/Cal
"Must be nice, not to have to care," she said. It was always easy to have opinions when you didn't deal with the practicalities of life, and it sounded like Jedi didn't have to worry about the day to day dealings of a government. "So you were a detached third party. You could help based on logic, but without knowing the people involved and I don't mean the governments, but the actual people. Maybe if more time was given to getting to know the actual people, the Republic would have been stronger and this Empire wouldn't have taken over."
She smiled. "Rule through force and power is driven by having more soldiers and weapons. The fear only exists because you know you are outnumbered, because there are agreements with other realms, because magic is involved. There are a lot of reasons why governments fall."
Ariel nodded. "Religions are always more complicated than one can share in a few words, but in the end, it's whether you believe it or not." And there it was, the explanation about the Jedi and what they did. "Your Jedi doesn't seem very different from most governments and churches. The theory of it and the reality aren't always the same." She knew that the higher up you went into any organization, the less pure the motives were. She and Eric tried hard to help, but there was no doubt that they had much more privileged lives.
She wasn't sure if it was something about his religion or if Cal had been sheltered because despite the many planets, he wasn't exposed to people, but he sounded incredibly condescending. "Yes, I'm aware that I can think whatever I want. If my father, the King, couldn't tell me what to think, I doubt a religion from another reality has anything to do with my choices. In fact, it would be rather limiting if humans made decisions based on what some mystical force told them to."