Padawan/Legends



A Padawan, Padawan learner or Jedi Apprentice in Basic, was a child who began serious training under a Jedi Knight, chosen by the Knight himself from the ranks of the younglings.

Role


A Padawan followed and helped his or her Master everywhere, unless seen unfit by the master, from simple tasks to dangerous missions so that he learned from experience and personal guidance. When a Padawan was elevated to knighthood, he or she passed the 'trials' and their braid was cut off during the knighting ceremony. There was no fixed age when this happens: Padawans could even be adults, but for a Human, it usually occured in the Padawan's early or mid-twenties.

Haired species that were Padawans wore a small braid on the side of their head.

If a youngling was not chosen by any Jedi Knight to be their Padawan by 13 years of age, the youngling was placed into another, lesser role in the Jedi Service Corps&mdash;a tradition abandoned by Luke Skywalker when he created the New Jedi Order.

History
Since the time of the Old Sith War, the practice of multiple Padawans learning under a single Master was discouraged, due to their apparent prediliction to defect to the dark ways of the Sith. Thus, while ancient masters such as Arca Jeth had several apprentices at any given time, tradition came to dictate a single Padawan, allowing his or her master to better focus on their pupil better and give them more of their attention. Ironically, the inclusion of this practice in the Jedi code closely mirrored the Sith Rule of Two, with the Sith equivalent of the Padawan being the 'Shadow Hand'.

There were some exceptions in the Padawan age-limits. Revan (who without knowing was a Jedi Knight before his fall), while being mindwipped by the Jedi Conclave, he was re-trained as a Padawan following Bastila Shan due to the 'urgency' of his missions.

Anakin Skywalker became a Padawan under Obi-Wan Kenobi without ever training as a Youngling, due to his relatively advanced age of 9.

Post-Republic
After the Great Jedi Purge, several early Jedi that eventually formed the New Jedi Order never had the "rank" of Padawan since there was no Order or Masters to train them. Among these were Luke Skywalker who was briefly and privately trained by Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and Grand Master Yoda, and Kyle Katarn who was a Force sensitive was self-taught with guidance from Qu Rahn's Force ghost.

Yoda and Obi-Wan were Qui-Gon Jinn's "padawans", learning from his Force Ghost during the Great Jedi Purge. It was these lessons that let Obi-Wan and Yoda become Force Ghosts instead of dying completely.

When Skywalker established the New Jedi Order things were quite different: The traditional Padawan's braid, as well as the term Padawan itself disappeared at this time. The New Jedi Order used the term "Apprentice" instead.

Due to the small number of Jedi Knights, Luke Skywalker loosened the restrictions on the number of apprentices a Jedi could train at once. Skywalker, for example, simultaneously mentored his nephews Jacen and Anakin Solo. The problems of this new system were soon noticed, since the Master could not pay full attention to both his students,an example of this would be Kyle Katarn's students Jaden Korr and Rosh Penin (who turned to the darkside for a brief time), so this rule may have been replaced with the original rule, but this is yet unknown.

By 40 ABY, the traditional Padawan braid had made a reappearance on Jedi apprentices such as Ben Skywalker, even though the term padawan itself did not.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
 * Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
 * Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
 * Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
 * Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy