SWTOR 30 Day Jedi Challenge - Day 8

• Day 8 - Romance: The Order has pretty clear ideas about passion and attachments, but not everyone agrees. How does your Jedi feel about romance and sexuality? Do they have any past loves or liaisons? What attracts them to a person and do they ever act on that attraction? Do they enjoy committed relationships or casual encounters? One at a time or several? Is your Jedi in a relationship now?

Arri respects the Order's concerns about attachments and the danger that passion can present to one who is connected to the Force. However, she does not believe that attachment is binary. In her view, rather, there is a spectrum of attachment, from ignorance on one end, through disinterest, proceeding through concern and connection all the way to obsession. She believes that either end of the spectrum is unhealthy.

Passion is not something to be feared, in Arri's worldview. Emotions can provide a useful counterpoint to logic and reasoning, but they should not control you. In that sense, passion is simply a measure of how much power your emotions have.

There was someone she became more attached to than she expected. One of her agemates was a solemn miraluka named Arimand Surik. He was far more advanced than her, as he'd been accepted into the Order when he was very young. But he was also very patient, and when she struggled in her lessons (as she often did) he was always willing to help out, with practice or with study. They seemed completely different - she was bright and cheerful, and he was serious and somewhat intense, but their differences seemed to complement each other rather than clash. They became closer as the years progressed, and what started as friendship grew to something deeper. Arimand finished his training on Vornu well before Arri was ready to move on, and when he was sent to Tython and she was left behind, she truly understood what her masters had meant about the problems created by attachment.

But he continued to progress rapidly, and after being released from his training as a Knight, he returned to Vornu to continue to work with the Academy. Arri had worried that he might have forgotten about her, or decided that their relationship was inappropriate, or nothing more than childish infatuation. But when he pulled her close and they embraced again, her fears evaporated into smoke, and she knew that though they might be separated from time to time, what they shared could not be taken from them.