Coara Naandi

Naandi suffers from a flaw common to practitioners of an ascetic lifestyle. After years of discipline, seclusion, forced impassiveness, mortification of attachments, despair over failures, a desire for peace in a age of war, and the daily responsibility to perform a work that seems somehow detached from the needs of the world, Naandi has developed what might be called spiritual torpor. Her thoughts are heavy with the sorrows of the world, and her only relief is escapism. Often listless, inattentive, and absorbed by her work in the vivariums (that many count unimportant), Naandi habitually finds herself seeking the serenity of the Force in meditation or in walking the paths of ancient gardens. But ultimately, that path of discontentment leads only to apathy and despair. Occasionally accused of being neglectful, careless, even slothful by her master, it sometimes seems as if Naandi has given up completely and only remains a faithful Jedi because of a strong sense of physical discipline and a love for the Force.

All this could perhaps be a symptom of having forced herself to reject love’s claim on her by companions and fallen friends. Even as memories and feelings are recalled and forgotten, she wavers between peace in the Force and spiritual discontentment. Sometimes she feels it is the blight of obedience to the Jedi Code. Mostly she feels it is her own inadequacy.

Overall, Naandi is a very needy person. This is not typically a devastating flaw, but it is absolutely incapacitating for a Jedi. As a result, she has been isolated and this causes an unmediated melancholy. Most could, perhaps, overcome these flaws—as has been her goal—however Naandi is completely unable to cope with her flaws and the consequences of them. Only her master, believing that inserting her back into the field of war where success is defined by the number of dead, attempts to correct this failing.

Purpose: Once Naandi was driven by service and care for those she loved. Having abscised those feelings of devotion—in obedience to the Code she follows—she is now driven solely by self-discipline. Sometimes there is a dishonesty to her service because she is merely hiding—from herself and her superiors—the true attachment she has formed for those she cares for. On a more metaphysical level, self-actualization is only achieved by her pursuit in the knowledge of the Force and fulfilling her role in its designs. She is honored to have been given the connection she has with it, and strives to better understand her purpose, even if her purpose is very small. She is unfailingly motivated by her service to the Jedi Code and her fate in the Force. She rarely meets her own expectations, and sometimes selfishness guides her actions rather than self-sacrifice, but she yearns to be the ideal Jedi: the kind that never falters and is never recognized.

Love: Naandi is well aware of the hold that love can have on her—not the eros or passion for another—but the selfless love for strangers and brothers. Love always carries with it the threat of loss. Love is vulnerability to one’s disapproval, the fear of pain, and the governor of emotion. It hinders judgment in the context of fate and duty. It places one life above others. But for all its handicaps, love completely governs Naandi’s thoughts and actions. It is how she connects herself through the force. It is love, admiration, compassion, care, and responsibility that bind her relationship to living things. And cut off from that, she is an empty vessel, isolated from the Living Force. Love is a paradox to Naandi—it is the one thing she cannot understand and yet feels most strongly. She knows the Jedi Code, and believes in it devotedly. She would never compromise that devotion by giving too much love to any one thing. However, she also recognizes her dependency on love, and accepts that to be her greatest weakness. She fears abandonment more than any other thing. But her devotion to the Code often forces her into isolation because she also fears the betrayal in her heart by becoming too dependent on those she cares for.

Happiness: Serenity in the Force is her happiness, and Naandi feels this no stronger than when she is in the fellowship of her companions. Because this is often denied her, she has sought to find peace in seclusion, and seeks her joy from the quietness of nature. Although she would like to discipline herself into stoicism, Naandi is easily moved to joy—just as her sensibility is easily moved by nearly any emotion.

Anger: The only anger that Naandi is vulnerable to is the rancor of others. As a pacifist, she is evasive of conflict and particularly sensitive to—even fearful—of the aggression of others. This does not mean, however, that Naandi is completely dominated by people of stronger tempers. She can be silently defiant—even bitter—in her passive aggression against those of authority with whom she does not agree.

Hate: Although chiefly governed by compassion and sensitivity to others, Naandi, due to her sensibilities, is also very passionate about things she finds objectionable. She hates war and battle, apathy, and the chaos of a self-serving government.

Fear: Naandi fears loss. This is perhaps her greatest failing. She easily forms strong bonds to people and places, and every deracination of those connections is another injury to herself that she is incapable of healing. She fears the apathy of repression that she, by discipline to the Code, forces upon herself, and the isolation that she lives in. But the one thing she allows her mind to daily harrow her with is her fear of failure and the purposelessness of her life.

Sadness: Naandi is easily affected by all emotions and quick to share in the feelings of others. Sorrow is the most potent of all of these. She bears the memories of many wars and many fallen friends. She sets them aside like old dreams. She forgets them. She folds them away like other lives. Her ability to forget wounds sometimes makes her seem cold, but to reopen those memories is a flood of dangerous emotions. Naandi is full of feeling, but it is that intuitive relationship to living things that connects her so strongly with the Force. And yet with her hope and her peace in the Force, she is also able to mask such strong emotions under a quiet spirit.

Power: Naandi believes that a Jedi is merely a channel of the will of the Force. To be filled with that power, the Jedi must empty herself of herself. All selfish motivations, thoughts of exultation, and desires for strength must be laid aside. Only then can the full power of the Force flow through the Jedi. Their bodies are only a vessel to be filled; their hands are but a tool of its will. Their fate is not their own. The Jedi must diminish and it is because of this that Naandi finds strength even in her weakness. The Jedi’s purpose is solely to reveal the power of the Force.