Whatever your feelings are about the prequel trilogy, it has to be admitted that one particular event was highly anticipated: Order 66. Those stories have been a topic of interest since "Ben" Kenobi talked about how Darth Vader hunted down and destroyed the Jedi Knights." As important as Anakin Skywalker's turn to the dark side was, the near-extinction of the Jedi was just as crucial to the rise of the Empire. Now, according to a new book, we know why.
"The perfect Jedi trap."
This phrase appears in Matthew Stover's Revenge of the Sith novelization: "The Clone Wars were the perfect Jedi trap. By fighting at all, the Jedi lost." It goes on to explain that "each Jedi is alone, surrounded only by whatever clone troops he, she, or it commands." Order 66 proved the effectiveness of this scheme. Thomas Bacon of ScreenRant says about the pivotal event in the Star Wars galaxy, "It was brutal and effective...and yet, since then, there have been a surprising number of Order 66 survivors." Is this a storytelling loophole to make for good tie-in novels and TV shows or something more concrete? I'm not complaining about knowing Kanan Jarrus or Grogu, but it is a valid question.
We finally get an in-universe answer to why so many Jedi survived. A quote from Captain Rex is cited in Marc Sumerak's The Secrets of the Clone Troopers and gives a good answer:
"Even though Order 66 was designed to be a directive that we couldn't resist, not every clone ended up pulling the trigger. Some, like my friends in Clone Force 99, were less susceptible to the inhibitor chip's influence, due to their genetic augmentations. Others were simply strong enough to resist, least until their Jedi general could escape."Captain Rex
Says Bacon, "It seems, though, that Order 66 was a lot more chaotic than we'd thought, and potentially many more Jedi survived." Something of even greater note is a consequence of this flaw in the plan. "This further helps explain why Palpatine turned on the clones. He would probably have been fine with maintaining a clone army whose loyalty was unswerving, but the resistance of some clones would have concerned him."
Darth Vader was depended on to "do what must be done," but Order 66 was a complete slaughter of the Jedi because the clones were intriguingly individual. Hopefully, there is the potential for more stories to be found in these exceptions.