Ancient Order of the Whills

"The secret of the Ancient Order of the Whills, he studied."

―Yoda to Obi-Wan Kenobi on Qui-Gon Jinn^[src]

The Ancient Order of the Whills was a higher order of beings deeply connected with the Force. They had holy men known as Shamans.

History

"The ability to defy oblivion can be achieved, but only for oneself. It was accomplished by a Shaman of the Whills. It is a state acquired through compassion, not greed."

―Qui-Gon Jinn to Yoda^[src]

One of their Shamans was known to have discovered the secret of eternal consciousness and, later, Qui-Gon Jinn learned the secret, allowing him to interact with the living after his death.^[1]^[2]

The Whills kept a collection of stories, called the Journal of the Whills, that chronicled the history of the galaxy.^[3] A Keeper of the Whills was responsible for adding new information into it. One such Keeper was told the story of the Skywalker family's exploits during the Clone Wars and the Galactic Civil War, by the Astromech droid R2-D2 one hundred years after the Battle of Endor.^[4]

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Behind the scenes

In early drafts of A New Hope, the name 'Whills' is equivalent to the Force.

"Originally, I was trying to have the story be told by somebody else (an immortal being known as a Whill); there was somebody watching this whole story and recording it, somebody probably wiser than the mortal players in the actual events. I eventually dropped this idea, and the concepts behind the Whills turned into the Force. But the Whills became part of this massive amount of notes, quotes, background information that I used for the scripts; the stories were actually taken from the Journal of the Whills."

―George Lucas^[src]

It is a common misconception that "Whill" is the name of the unknown species of Yoda. George Lucas has firmly denied this. Because their form is totally unknown, and since the Whills were an early concept of the Force, some fans have speculated that the Whills are of spiritual substance more or less like Wisties and probably immortal. However, this is unlikely to be true, as Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith: Illustrated Screenplay and The Art of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith both have Qui-Gon Jinn stating that he knew of only one Shaman who had achieved immortality. However, Qui-Gon also states in the Revenge of the Sith novelization that immortality is a possible end-result for working with the Whills' teachings.

Since the journal was composed in 104 ABY, it's possible that the events explored in the Star Wars: Legacy were not part of the narration. In fact, it is unclear to what extent the narration covered the history of the galaxy as we know it.

The idea of Jinn learning the secrets of immortality from a Shaman of the Whills was later contradicted by "Voices" from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which indicated that he had learned from the Force Priestesses, but his training was incomplete.