Clark Kent and Jar Jar Comparison
Clark Kent and Jar Jar Binks. Both had power. Both had to learn to harness it.
Do we see Jar Jar Binks acting like a young Clark Kent trying to grasp his powers? Seems so.
Like Clark struggling to understand why he can kick a football over the horizon or run faster than everyone else, Jar Jar is curious/scared/excited that he can jump high, land graceful and always seems to be lucky…there’s that word again!
His abilities manifest themselves oddly and awkwardly and he was still trying to hone them in Episode I. He got in bombad Gungan poodoo and exiled for flooding Boss Nass’ mansion – which may have been a genuine accident! Poor guy. Like Clark Kent crash landing in the corn fields when he attempts to fly for the first time, or being so powerful he destroys all that surrounds him, Jar Jar was trying to come to terms with great Force sensitivity which brought trouble crashing down around him, forcing often expulsions…and eventually something much worse.
The events that happen in Jar Jar’s life once we encounter him in The Phantom Menace show a person doing awesome feats like that dive into the water or the balcony trick, but his face is always that of surprise. “Whasa mesa doin?”
We know the Force is a powerful, binding, willful thing in the Star Wars galaxy. It can be used for good or evil. When mastered, the wielder is nearly unstoppable. We can also see that Jar Jar does not always seem to be in control of the situation. Sure, we can speculate that this is how he wanted us to see things, but it’s just as likely (if not moreso) that he was exuding Force powers that weren’t yet under his control, perhaps even subconsciously.
The real question is whether or not Jar Jar was evil at the start, if he became evil after rejection from not only the outside world, but his own people, or if his emotions tipped the scales in favor of the Dark Side. In Episode I, he surely seems good, however as the episodes go on, his actions set the stage for intergalactic war and the Emperor’s rise to power. That all seems downright devious.
At some point, Jar Jar figured it all out. Like Clark, Jar Jar harnessed his power and used it. But where Superman set out to save the people…Darth Jar Jar set out to rule them.
(The CK/JJ Theory courtesy of users bry_e and onemananswerfactory.)