Quote Originally Posted by dancrilis View Post
I think it also likely depends on if lightsabers are solid or not - and they seem to go back and fourth on that, so maybe it is a lightsaber setting that Jedi can choose to use or not.
A lightsaber is a continual plasma stream, with particles held in place through the use of an extremely powerful energy field. 'Solid' isn't really a term that applies. For comparison, a high-powered water jet isn't solid, but it still possesses force an the ballistics of a bullet impacting such a stream are quite different from an equivalent still mass of liquid.

So a bullet that impacts a lightsaber blade will lose a huge proportion of its directional velocity and will deflect away at an angle. Now, because of the considerable physical mass of the slug it won't deflect directly backwards toward the shooter, and in fact will probably only shift 10-20 degrees. Such a shot could still very easily still hit the Jedi, especially if they aren't used to deflecting slugs, but it will do considerably less damage. This is akin to being hit by a ricochet, something that happens all the time in firefights, especially in enclosed spaces with lots of metal, but ricochets are far less dangerous than straight shots.

Truthfully, Jedi going into an actual combat zone should be wearing body armor because of the possibility of ricochets (blasters bounce off things too) but also explosions and shrapnel. Jedi in various Old Republic Eras did wear body armor in combat, and Obi-Wan wears it during the Clone Wars, but generally Star Wars is a franchise that eschews proper use of armor for distinctive character designs. Not just with Jedi, either. For example, the bounty hunter Sugi, who showed up in the most recent episode, wanders around combat zones in a tank top.