It seem to me to be a running theme is fanfics dealing in the Clone Wars era of Star Wars that Windu be a Jedi hardliner who will stick to the letter of the Jedi Code while Yoda and other Council-members are more flexible with it.

For example in fics where someone tries to change the Code, Windu will usually be the most resistant to the idea while Yoda eventually becomes the proponent of the potential changes having been convinced by the main character.

Similarly, in fics where the Jedi have to work with someone who either is a good Force user who is no affiliated with the Order or an actual Grey or Dark-sider for reasons of pragmatism, he's usually the one in fics who will act irrationally and demand they immediately arrest/kill the individual in question. Sometimes Windu will even falls to the dark side in the attempt to either carry it out or convince the Council they need to be stopped.

Does anyone think this is supported by canon?

I think most of this comes from Windu's actions when they tied to arrest Palpatine. Specifically when he says that Palpatine is too dangerous to arrest and must be killed.

 

In general, the Jedi Council is portrayed pretty terribly in fanfiction. It's a similar portrayal to how Dumbledore is sometimes portrayed: as this moustache-twirling authority who just want to manipulate the main characters into doing what they want. Realistically, I feel Windu would be one of the Jedi Masters most understanding of unorthodoxy considering his own unorthodox Vaapad helps Windu channel his inner darkness to help him fight for good. Sure, like all experienced people he would advise caution but I doubt he'd be a dick about it.

The Jedi Council has done some dick-move stuff on occasion but overall I feel that those were exceptions and mistakes as opposed to their modus operandi.

 

I haven't read any fanfic featuring him, but based on what I remember from the films and the surprisingly good Windu-centric book 'Shatterpoint', he has a lot of respect for the code (and indeed, the law of the Republic), but recognises that while there are certain lines you can't ever cross, sometimes you need to bend the rules to get shit done. He'd probably be ok with a more flexible approach to the letter of the code so long as you could show that there was no way through the situation without a little flexibility.

 

What about changing the code to preserve the Republic?

 

Maybe it's because I haven't read a bunch of SWFF, but I've never read even one where the Council is portrayed anything like in the movies or the canon fic I've read.

They (or a number of them) are always portrayed as argumentative for the sake of arguing, vindictive, irrational, and highly emotional, the antithesis of what it means to be a Jedi and all the canon sources. There were a few members over the 4000 years that shouldn't be there, but virtually none in the last few decades or so.

Ki-Adi-Mundi seems to always be the one to take the most heat as being irrational and illogical for some reason. I think it's the conehead thing or something.

There was one recent HP/SW story where a pair of them go down to the Underworld and whip out their sabers in trying to capture HP and Ahsoka... I think. They hadn't even done anything to warrant threatening in such way. HP does the logical argument thing and insists on knowing why he's being arrested, but since the Council is evil (i guess) they ignored him and just threatened him with the lightsaber until he disapparated away with Ahsoka.

I was like, "What?"

It was way over the top and I pretty much X'd out at that point.

Anyway, I'm not saying they don't exist because there's a few, but for the most part the Council is very moderate in what they do. They break their own rules if the cause is good enough and keep a hard line on certain things, but they aren't entirely inflexible in some cases. They just have to be really good cases. Everything else is fanon or badly written canon.

 

Either I am greatly confused or Windu's obsession with the code has been lampshaded in the past. I could swear the Nostalgia Critic said "shut up about the code already."

 

Probably both. The Jedi Code (There is no Emotion, there is Peace, etc.) is the Major thing which is constantly being pushed and explained if there are any Jedi present. They always wind up talking about it in some form, because it's so ambiguous in certain ways.

Then there are a number of tenets that are also pushed which is basically their sub-laws on behavior (A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for aggression or personal gain, etc.)

The latter you'll hear a lot about, especially during the Master/Padawan scenes.

The thing is, this is the Jedi, you can't separate the Code or their tenets from them, it's what makes them Jedi. If they're tired of hearing about it then they need to pick up a Republic Commando or X-wing series stories instead of the Jedi ones.

But back to your original question about Mace being a hard-liner. Mace is... aggressive'ish and he comes across as a hardass sometimes, but he's usually right. Yoda is the hardliner. There are a number of instances in canon EU where he doesn't budge on certain things.

 

Read Matthew Stover's novelization of Revenge of the Sith and Shatterpoint for a very philosophical canon look at Mace Windus character.

But yeah, the fanon interpretation is odd. Especially because in the moment you noted, he's actually going beyond the codes focus on the rule of law and mercy by noting that it would be impossible to put Palpatine on trial.