Jedi Colors and Braids

[Noth]

I found this bit of fanon about Jedi robe and Padawan braid colors and thought I'd post it here, since it seems fun to explore and use in RP. I expanded it a little from the original to include more braid colors, mostly because the ones given didn't cover very many possible fields of study, so this is my personal version. You can see the original list in the link. Use it or don't use it, up to you!

Standard: A yellow band at the top, given when they achieve the padawan rank, signifies new beginnings. A red band at the bottom, given at 16 or when they become a senior padawan, signifies they are on the road to wisdom and knowledge. Other beads or bands indicate individual fields of study.
Grey: Neutral, used for spacers in species that don't grow hair and use beads instead or to mark years.
White: Healing and medicine.
Blue: Mechanics/technology.
Pale Blue: Unifying Force.
Red: Piloting.
Brown: Diplomacy and scholarship.
Green: Living Force.
Yellow: Martial arts and lightsabers.
Bronze: Artificing.
Black: Covert Ops/Shadow training.

These colors may additionally be used for a Jedi's robes once they reach the rank of Knight. For example:

A Jedi artificer, engineer, or inventor might wear black and golden yellow robes.
A Jedi healer might wear blue and pale blue robes.
A Jedi diplomat might wear brown and cream robes.
A Jedi scholar might wear green and white robes.
Etc.

I personally don't really think the robe colors match up to the braid colors, but whatever, this is fun fanon and not by any means a required canon thing, especially since the site was working on data from 2004 and there's been more stuff since then. This is more up to individual taste. I know on our server we mostly have colors meaning Enclave stuff, but there's some pretty colorful Jedi robes in the comics and concept art! Might be fun to explore.

How do you all use colors in your character design and outfit choices? Do you like these ones? Is there any symbolism you use yourself when designing your Jedi outfits?

[Orell]

Okay, breaking my thoughts on this up into three sections:

1: Fascinating!

It does make sense that the Jedi Order would have intense traditions about this sort of thing. It's logical that a near-religious sect with firm traditions would have meanings behind... well, just about everything. And honestly, I like fanon that tries to add to the world, instead of fanon that tries to subtract from it.

.........I mean, sure, I have a few hundred pieces of fanon about midichlorians and shit, but still!

2: Yeah, but...

A lot of this comes from my personal perspective. I was raised agnostic, I went to college in computer science, and I'm generally just anti-tradition when it comes to things.

To me, personally, tradition is pointless unless there's a core to it. For example, in programming, indenting and commenting and five thousand other minor ways that define how code should be written. On the face of it, it's just style crap... but then it gets explained, that it's about readability and making it so that another person can come along and improve the code...

...and then you don't do that shit because you don't want to be easily fired and replace but I'm digressing...

But there's some other bits that don't make sense. Like... with Jedi, I always feel like Practicality is a critical component. The Jedi Order has always felt "Accidentally Religious" to me. Practicality wins out first and foremost, but traditions can easily come about as a result of natural superstition (aka "trying to ascribe meaning unto random events").

I just kinda wonder how much focus the Jedi Order would have on Padawan Braids and Robes, especially since a number of species can't have braids at all (...haaaaaaiiiiiiirrrr...).

3: Merging together...

There is one reason I can think of why this sort of thing would come into play: Career Path.

I was a Cub Scout as a little brat, and there was the whole badges thing. That's not exactly a Tradition thing so much as it is a Progress thing. "Here's where you are on the path", the badges say, "And here's what you need to do to advance".

For a child? Trying to find their place in the world? That can be a very powerful thing, and one worthy to explore.

............I just probably won't because I keep forgetting that my characters have scars and tattoos and shit >_>.

[Iaera]

Colour is an interesting thing in Star Wars... from the very beginning, the movies relied heavily on bold, dramatic colour-coding. I won't get too into that topic, so suffice to say that it's a very meaningful choice for a Star Wars character.

Iaera was initially conceived of as a rough-around-the-edges "war Jedi," more warrior than peace-keeper, forged in the inconvenient, harsh realities of the raging Sith Wars. Accordingly, I chose as her initial, long-time outfit a charcoal-grey robe... she was a Jedi Knight, and a dedicated one at that, but perhaps one with a little too much blood on her hands to be considered 'pure.'

As RP on the server evolved, Iaera turned into the go-to Jedi Master for all things Jedi RP, and then leader of Jedi Custodum. Her role and portrayal had changed... she was not so much a front-line warrior anymore, but rather a reserved, contemplative leader. Between that and her Echani heritage, I effected white robes, as she had become in many ways the quintessential Jedi of Begeren Colony.



Time went on, of course... and Knights of the Fallen Empire turned the Sith War dynamic on its head. Now, Iaera was a relic of a bygone era - a Jedi trained to fight Sith, and an adherent of an Order that no longer existed. I sported the fancy new Follower of the Old Ways legacy title, because that's how I felt - like an old, mostly irrelevant symbol for the way things used to be. Iaera thus became an avatar for my frustration with KotFE, and accordingly, she wore brown - like that crazy old wizard, Obi-wan Kenobi.



And now, I'm back to grey... I wonder, I wonder...!

[recoveringgeek]

Iaera thus became an avatar for my frustration with KotFE, and accordingly, she wore brown - like that crazy old wizard, Dai Yarwin.

F.T.F.Y.

[Karmic]

Really interesting.

Like you Orell - I can certainly see this being a bigger thing for the Padawans (I think that's what you were saying about children at the end) and Apprentices - a way of identifying one's self that break from the "allowed robe norm".  The braids more than just robes with slashes of color (at least for those species with hair), simply because it would be a way for them to age appropriately individuate from their "family".  For those without hair, then I see both creating fake braids to fit in/but not as well as then using slashes of color in robes/robe color.  Depending on how lenient their Master was of course.

But then as one grows into adulthood, and is more secure in their own identity (or maybe...), grows out of such displays of rebellion.

Would be a fun thing just to play with anyway, among a guild or just among some friends - or your own personal back-story for your Jedi and where they came from. (Doesn't have to be jedi...)

~~~

Now Noth as to your final question - if color/clothing choices plays a roll in your RP.     Not for a Jedi no, but for Karmic - it means so many, many things.

One of the core concepts of Karmic's character centers around (duh) manipulation, and in particular for her - the use of subtle (assassin so again duh..) techniques in order to do so.  But as she was a slave and is now a Darth - such strong training means that its gone beyond just the "Job", obviously, into who she is as a Personality/Person.  I like to joke that almost everything about Karmic, including most of the words that come from her mouth in public, have multiple meanings. As much as I'm kidding (because I don't think about what she says THAT hard...lol), I'm not kidding with how she definitely uses clothing and colors as part of her personal toolbox - to manipulate others without them realizing it. 

She always has on (icily and oocily if you inspect her) her hand and wrist slave chains.  I quest with those suckers, I Rp in them, - they are in reality - ALWAYS ON! 

I have four tabs of clothing, some in multiple color combinations - because of that reality.  At any given moment you are seeing her, what Karmic is wearing and the colors she has chosen to wear all have a purpose and meaning behind the more superficial appearances.  Including the reason she never wears pants.

Much like people use the type and color of a flower to send certain messages; Karmic and her chosen clothing work the same.

Its always been more interesting to me - as the person behind the character - the sorts of things people don't ask about and don't figure out  (icily or oocily).  When I think they'd be great RP conversational topics, and are "more obvious to ask about", but people rarely do - outside of the superficial assumptions most make about what Karmic's wearing in public.   

[Noth]

Interesting replies everyone!

I tend to disagree about the Jedi being accidentally religious. I think it's more the other way around. They are a religious order first and foremost, who accidentally became something else. They moved from the Je'daii who were pretty non-standardized and served a specific function (protect the Tython system, make sure Tython doesn't have Force-storms), to wandering warrior-monks seeking inner peace and to understand where that all went wrong. I think religion and standardization would have become a major focus for them, only to fall back into the role of civic protectors when they teamed up with the Republic later on. It's what makes them Jedi instead of Je'daii, that cultural shift. I always play my Jedi as religious first, dutiful second.

And speaking as a religious person, symbolism has power. Symbolism can express things about your worship, your relationship with gods (or as it would be, the Force), and show a sense of unity within a religion. And I love the idea of the padawan braid because for me the symbolism is this:

When you're learning and growing, you get all of these achievements, all of these skills. You grow out your braid (or add to your chain of beads if you don't grow hair) and demonstrate through that the path you've taken to get where you are. Longer it is, longer you've been on that path. And not everyone may choose to decorate their braid, so it also shows whether or not expressing that is important to you. Then, when you become a knight, you offer that up to the Order. The braid-cutting is highly symbolic (cutting off the old life, etc.) but also a kind of sacrifice. You sever who you were, start a new path, and become a Knight of the Republic. That's some very powerful symbolism.

Practically, it also tells, at a glance, what your skills are. And that can be useful if a senior knight is trying to shepherd padawans around to different jobs in a crisis.

As for how that translates into robes and things later on... No idea.

I use color symbolism a lot for my characters, but for me it's usually more about what elements I associate them with. I.E. Bren wears earth tones and sticks to cream and brown because he's a pretty orthodox Jedi, but the highlights are bronze, reddish-brown, and blue because I also associate him with earth and water; Aybekk has his padawan orange but if he gets his choice he has clothing in pale colors, with a dark grey/silver and green lightsaber, because I associate him with metal and air; etc. But it would be interesting to make some outfits using a more standarized and universe-specific symbolism as well.

[Imazi]

My first thought is definitely that this allows Jedi identify each other at a distance. Certain colors in certain arrangements instantly mean : Friendly> Jedi > specialization. Color coded Jedi for your convenience.

[Maryck]

The Prequel Era Jedi have always been my go-to inspiration for Jedi outfit tones and silhouettes. With regards to Maryck, when he was the younger knight it was almost as if he put on the black bodysuit to mount armor on first, and then draped a Jedi tunic over it with plastoid boots and gauntlets, almost like being a Jedi was an afterthought to their new roles as warriors. Over time as he's developed and grown up, he's lost the armor and the bright blues and kind of regressed to this old fashioned black and brown tunic, trousers, leather boots et al. He still maintains his old gloves, some things just don't get burned away.

I digress, I'm also the guy who's favorite lightsaber hilt is the Skywalker legacy one, I'm a little old fashioned! Besides, I feel as though the hideous padawan braid/rat-tail combo is the trial all hair-bearing Jedi must take to earn the right to the sick Jedi Mullet™

[Noth]

My first thought is definitely that this allows Jedi identify each other at a distance. Certain colors in certain arrangements instantly mean : Friendly> Jedi > specialization. Color coded Jedi for your convenience.

Yeah, this is my thought too.

I always just thought it was sort of odd (not surprising, but odd from a design choice perspective) that in KotOR games and comics we see so many colorfully clad Jedi, and lots of variety in robe design, to SWTOR having pretty prequel-era looking Jedi designs, very little variety. I'm sure it was a designer choice to create looks players would instantly recognize, but there's room for more creativity there I think.

[Iaera]

I think that's just more a symptom of a failed art direction in SWTOR. For the first few years, 95% of Jedi-class outfits were vomit-inducingly ugly abominations... with the other 5% sort of inspired by the classic robe look for tradition's sake. So there was tons of variety, it was just universally awful, which left a lot of diehard Jedi RPers like me to take the only available option: drab robes.

[Malkisho]

Guess who has new outfit ideas?! This guy!

However, I do have some thoughts on the matter. The problem with colors is there will always be some kind of issue with interpretation. Mandos have this issue, even with the old canon working in their favor for having a definitive i think if anyone took this policy upon themselves dictionary for a handful of colors. Still, there was discrepancies, disputes and what have you.

If any jedi does this, there will be some head shakes. I do like the fanon though. It's just hard to pull off.

Also, yeah I noticed the jedi kind of get the shaft for outfit designs. Mal's "combat" outfit is very "What if Darth Vader turned to the force." I hope Bioware improves this a hair or three. Because it would be nice to see some good jedi outfits that aren't just "Oh. How original obi-wan of them." Jedi outfits based upon Kyp Durron, Kam Solusar and Corran Horn would be pretty nice.

[Noth]

I feel like what this thread is getting at is that we need a thread where we post our toons' outfits and talk about them. :D Someone should start that. (Or I will, if we don't get a lot of takers.) With Outfit Designer not caring about armor class, it opens up a lot of outfit variety, which is nice. I know I've seen some good outfits out there! We have a lot more to choose from now, so some variety and creative designing should be easier than when the game was younger.

And yeah, @Malkisho, I definitely feel that, having been sorting through dyes for just that problem on my Mando. But the nice thing is, we also have a small server, and some of the colors are just...  intuitive, because Star Wars already has some distinct color-coding for the Jedi already. I see plenty of different colors on Jedi Night, usually as highlights to other outfits. I think with Jedi having the right sillhouette sometimes is almost more important than having the standard earthy colors, so maybe fewer headshakes than you'd think!

[Imazi]

I feel like what this thread is getting at is that we need a thread where we post our toons' outfits and talk about them. :D Someone should start that.

Ask and you shall receive. Zmaj beat you too it.  Make a (fashion) statement

[Noth]

I went to look up this page again, and noticed it went down. Here is the page on the Wayback Machine if anyone was interested in the original fanon.

I also found out about this lore oddity: The Dahgee Jedi. They're another planetary sect like the Greens, who wear stripes to signify loyalty to the Republic. It's a nice little clue to some possible Jedi symbolism, where stripes might represent loyalty.

There are also the Norris Robes which I forgot about, but are a nice reminder of yet another Buddhism reference in Jedi symbolism and philosophy.