The Jindas are back! The Jindas are Endor’s band of traveling performers, and after their first appearance I had a few choice things to say about how the show presented the life of an artist as, ultimately, a wasteful one, leaving Saturday morning viewers with important lessons about obeying authority and prioritizing work over art. This episode… things get worse.
But first, some insight into Endor’s economy. A non-Ewok merchant, Mooth, owns a general store where the Ewoks take surplus goods to trade. It seems as if they have a barter system that’s in the midst of transitioning to currency-based, as Wicket has something called “monmon seeds” that have a value purely in their trading power rather than in any intrinsic use. (They might as well have just called them “money seeds”.) So don’t worry, American children, the primitive Ewoks will enjoy the fruits of capitalism soon. Be patient!
On the way to Mooth’s store, the Ewoks met the Jindas, who were lazing by a waterfall and invited the Ewoks to join them. The Ewoks told them they might, but only on the way back, reinforcing the artists’ reputation as lazy loafers and repeating the lesson from their previous episode that work comes first, then fun, if there’s time. (Okay, fine, it was probably more important for the Ewoks to gather supplies for the coming winter than to go to the beach. My point still stands.)
On the way back from Mooth’s, the Ewoks get captured by a tribe of plot-points, who imprison them for no apparent reason besides moving the story along. The Jindas show up and rescue our heroes, risking their own lives in the process. At this point, you might be thinking the show doesn’t have such a bad opinion of artists after all.
But then, we learn the tragic origins of the Jindas, and the nature of the curse that plagues them. They used to live happily as feudal vassals (my words, not theirs, but the description is accurate) to a Rock Wizard. They weren’t artists at all – they were farmers, working the Rock Wizard’s land and giving him a portion of their yields in return. One day the Rock Wizard suffered a great pain and blamed the Jindas, so he drove them from the land and cursed them – whenever they stayed in place for too long, giant rocks would chase them until they got on the move again.
The Jindas became great artists not because they wanted to, but because it was the only way they could find to support themselves under this curse of itinerancy. The day is saved by the Ewoks’ burgeoning economic system – the pretty stone that Wicket bought with his monmon seeds turns out to be the Rock Wizard’s lost tooth. With his pain gone, the Wizard frees the Jindas from his curse. They are free to return to their previous lives as serfs, working his land in return for his protection.
And the Jindas all cheer. The end.
The moral, children, is that nobody wants to be a full-time artist. All good-hearted people would naturally do something more productive, if they had a choice. Art’s a hobby. Growing food for your vassal lords, that’s a life.
It is, to say the least, an odd subtext for a cartoon created by, presumably, artists, but that’s corporate entertainment for you. Now get back to work! Those monmon seeds aren’t going to polish themselves!
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