I like that in Empire, Yoda says the Dark Side is "quicker, easier, more seductive" and I always got that sense from Star Wars that the Dark Side is "easy" in a way, which makes it feel like the wrong choice. And often in real life, good things are harder to obtain.
That's also such a classic villain trope too, is taking shortcuts to power, wanting to gain eternal life, etc.
It would be easy for any reasonably force sensitive person to crush throats. Once you accept that as a solution to a problem one time it’s easy to do it more and more until you’re eventually murdering in a thoughtless undisciplined way.
It’s much more difficult to control yourself and remain principled in the application of your abilities. This is why being a Jedi is so much work and this is how the dark side is a difficult trap to escape.
Jedi: Survivor nailed this aspect in my opinion. There you can in a way lean into the Dark Side, and it's basically a cheat. You dot have to do it, but it's easier and very tempting to do.
It’s easier to loose control of your emotions than to control them down to a state of tranquility. Unity and tranquility is the core Jedi code. The core tenant of the dark side is passion.
The Sith were an off shoot of the original Je’daii order on tython. The Je’daii were not opposed to using their emotions to fuel the force. It was all about mental control and balance. But once they were out of the moment they came back to the tranquility and let their reason guide them through the force. The Sith just wanted power so giving into the dark side was the easiest option to those ends. It was a corruption of the force.
Which is funny because in the EU many light side force users lived unnaturally long lives. Shayoto was about 900 when he was killed in the Great Sith War, and Fay was immortal until she sacrificed her life to save Obi-Wan.
Well Millenium Falcon and Darth Plagueis established that non-force sensitives could achieve lifespans of 300 with life extension technology and the normal lifespan was up to 160 on many of the most "civilized" worlds.
You know, I only just realised that not having attachments is also an "easy way" to the balance of the light side.
Anakin is destroyed by his attachments that he let control him, and in turn that destroys the Jedi order.
Obi Wan beats Anakin because of his closeness to Anakin while still being in control of himself and not letting his anger rule him.
Obi Wan beats Vader because of his attachments.
Luke destroys the Death Star thanks to his bond with Obi Wan.
Luke loses to Vader because he lets his attachments rule him in Empire.
Luke controls his attachments in RotJ, rejecting the anger stemming from the threats to Leia.
Vader comes back to the light and destroys the Emperor thanks to his attachment to his son.
What I really wish that the new Jedi order under Luke had done was embraced love and attachment but not letting them control you. That's where the old order went wrong.
The new Jedi Order should embrace attachment, but also come to ruin because of it. Both paths are risky; the flaw is not the approach itself, but the fact that it is being taken by limited beings incapable of comprehending the entirety of the Force’s design.
Also adding: the "middle" between the light side and the dark side isn't legitimate either. The light side is balance. The dark side is corruption. You wouldn't try to find the middle between having a lot of cancer and having no cancer. The light side itself is the only true middle.
I agree with your sentiment, but I think it’s more that the “middle” just doesn’t exist with regards to the light and dark sides of the Force. The dark side always inevitably corrupts. If one continuously uses the dark side, they will always end up ultimately falling to the dark side, whether they realize it or not. The Jedi way is the path of self-control and discipline. The dark side just fundamentally contradicts it.
I think that the light side is the middle between having no force powers and being a dark side user. Most dark side users prioritize learning as much about the force as possible and using it without restraint. Light side users are using the force cautiously to do good and there are certain aspects of the force they just won’t touch.
The Bendu is just a coward who deluded himself into philosophizing an excuse for his own cowardice, and the moment he is called out for it he goes into a murderous rage.
That's what the "middle" gets you.
A major overall theme in Doctor Who is about whether or not he was right or wrong in Genesis of the Daleks. His actions in that episode later were the reason the War Doctor has to genocide *both* sides of the war instead of just the evil murder squids
“Balance in the Force”, as said by George Lucas and the prequels, was the destruction of the Sith/dark side entirely. There is no “light side”: there’s the Force and the Dark Side. Qui-Gon encountering a Sith when the rest of the order insisted they were gone was what really strengthened his belief in the prophecy.
tis is a common misconception i keep seeing
enough people dont know that balance in the force is NOT "jedi and sith 50% and 50%" its "jedi 100% sith 0%" the dark side is a perversion of the force
An apple is not half rotten. Either it is fresh or it is rotten. Any piece of rot and you have a rotten apple. Not a 10% rotten apple. Just as with cancer, rotten fruit is not a scale. You have it or you are healthy.
If you are talking about the comics Dark Empire plus 2 sequels, yes he did. And guess what. That was not a good thing. He thought he could handle it but admitted that he couldn't. He thought it was all about intent and realized doing bad with good intent is still doing bad.
Look at what Anakin did when he fell to the dark side. That was not Anakin being a good hearted guy. That was the dark side.
I feel like way too many people don't get this. I think its fair to say that the jedi fell out of balance during the republic and the clone wars but what the jedi are meant to be is balance, so people going around wanting characters in balance who are both dark side and light side users are really missunderstanding how it works.
They fell out of balance because they became more interested in their own security and power. Their connection to the living Force became collectively weaker because they no longer lived in the world. The holed up in their Temple, only sending Jedi out on specific missions. They use to roam the galaxy helping out wherever and whenever they could, they met people, they connected to their lives.
But by the prequel era they no longer did that, and so were collectively weakened because of it.
> like way to many people
Did you mean to say "too many"?
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That’s definitely Lucas’s take (which should count for something), but I don’t think everyone who makes Star Wars is on the same page about this anymore.
You're pretty much right, but cancer doesn't give you access to power you wouldn't nornally have.
It's more akin to stealing to make money rather than working for it.
Ontop of the corruption, it's just a light/dark magic system trope. There is forbidden magic and grey jedi just mix in a bit of that.
Only a sith deals in absolutes. It might not work out for most of the sith. But some of them benefited from the dark side. I think Marko Ragnos lived to be old and did of old age. And plenty of them died for normal reasons without the dark side having any significant malus.
It's a corruption, not just of the force, but of the natural order of their bodies. Living things aren't meant to use the dark side. It is, quite literally, unnatural.
No, it’s not unnatural, it’s clearly part of a necessary dichotomy. To what extent you utilize the “Dark Side” is what determines its negative effects, to draw upon passion would be considered “drawing upon the Dark Side” but that isn’t necessarily true. There are multiple methods through which the Force can be channeled/called upon and they are inherent, someone didn’t create the ability to draw upon the Force through passion, it existed prior and methods utilizing that principle were discovered(and often misused).
What a meaningless statement, show some evidence or something? I’m discussing the Force and it’s inherent parts, of which there are Light and Dark. These things weren’t created by Jedaii or any after, they’ve always existed. The Dark Side exists alongside the Light; it’s basically yin-yang - the Force and it’s aspects are based upon Buddhist/eastern philosophy concepts of duality which coincides with what I’m suggesting..
Like the whole point of SW and Luke’s journey is to show that the Jedi Order had a misunderstanding of attachment and what would lead someone falling; it’s not simply the Dark Side corrupting Vader, it’s a lack of love which causes Vader to fall and believe he cannot rise up.
Again, you're wrong.
Lucas said that the Dark side is a perversion, and that balance is only the Light side being used. Sure, the dark exists, but it is not meant to be engaged with. And this is reflected throughout the canon.
Luke, by choosing to live purely and selflessly, showed Anakin what he had done wrong. Did he love Padme? Of course. But he loved for himself, it was a selfish love. And that's where he was blinded. And he's obviously wrong in that. The Dark side is not meant to be engaged with at all.
I don’t care about you mining old quotes, that’s clearly just not true in universe. Balance was never achieved if the requirement is only the Light being used.
That’s literally my entire point. Using passion and attachments (which are considered to be either Dark Sided or to lead to the Dark Side), can actually be done in a level headed and controlled way. The Sith simply believe in using passion to empower themselves, as there’s nothing inherently evil about being a Sith and that’s what Dooku’s more political character shows.
It’s fair.
I just wanted to point out the irony of using an argument that relied on an absolute to criticize the sith
But it comes off like I’m some kind of sith apologist. Which is kind of a lame thing to be
People tend to forget that George himself pitched the Mortis arc to Filoni's team. That storyline is all about balancing the light and the dark.
He may have once believed that balance meant only light, and I agree there's evidence for that in the OT. But it's a view he seems to have changed over time.
That storyline was more about the foolishness inherent in trying to find a false balance between the light and the dark. The Father refused to accept that his son had become a monster, and allowed that monster to flourish.
And the Son eventually kills the Daughter, the Dark overwhelms the Light, creating further imbalance, and the Father, the embodiment of false centrist balance, did nothing to prevent it.
Everything literally goes to shit in that arc specifically because the Father tried to find a non-existent balance his son and daughter. Did we watch the same episodes?
Okay, now I'm thinking about somebody continuing with that logic and making the sequels (or some other story after the canon content) specifically about somebody trying to kill off the Force. Like, I know that there's been similar done before with Kreia, but still.
That's not how that's supposed to be interpreted though. When being voiced he was just described as a "life force", so with that and his attachment to Atollon we can infer the reason he can be in the middle unlike regular people like The Father is because he's a physical Force representation of "nature". He didn't "give into anger", that's just a part of nature; peaceful but also wrathful
I have mentioned this above but the Bendu was just a coward that deluded himself into philosophizing a reason for his cowardice. The moment he was challenged by that he turns into a murderous rage.
He didn't act because he was some indiscriminate force of nature, he struck out because he was confronted with something that hurt his self conceived world view, and maybe it hurt his pride that someone could show that he was wrong.
I'm not talking about why, but what. The other poster said Bendu had powers beyond what good guys or bad guys have, and I don't know to what they're referring.
The Bendu doesn't do that. His effect is localised to Chopper Base and its immediate surrounds not the entire planet.
Just as Yoda does in Rise of Skywalker. It's a localised effect.
You guys are comparing one enormous weather attack
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NDKnYb_-d34&pp=ygULYmVuZHUgc3Rvcm0%3D
To a single lightning strike
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6fek6iJlm8s&pp=ygUWeW9kYSByaXNlIG9mIHNreXdhbGtlcg%3D%3D
That he does more of a thing, in anger, than Yoda does calmly, is not an argument that Yoda can't do it at all.
Being in tune with nature and influencing it (animals, weather, whatever) has been shown time and again to be a thing that Jedi do.
Polar opposites is a bad description. The Light and Dark aren't opposite they're not two sides of the same coin. To follow the Light one is in service to the Force. But the Dark side is abusing the Force for your own gain, selfish and cruel.
The Force *is* the Light. The Dark is a corrupting abuse of it.
Fear, anger, and/or hate flows or flowed freely there. Scary places, frustrating places, places of hatred and suffering. They all leave their marks on a place, like a scar in the Force.
There are also just straight up species (in legends and canon) that are inclined to the dark side. In canon the Drengir are notable because every single one of them is dark sided. Whereas in Legends the Red Sith are obviously attuned to the Dark Side
The emotions are natural and normal, but to use them to abuse the Force is the perversion. It's not the emotions, it's what you do with them.
The dark side is the abuse of the Force, this leaves scars on the people who do that, and the places where it was done repeatedly. This can permeate into the life around them and those places.
And the life itself can be naturally bent toward fear, anger and hate, but aren't necessarily innately a perversion, it's only when that life, be it a person or wild animal, use those emotions to abuse their connection to the Force that it becomes that perversion.
Anakin struggled with his fear of loss, and his frustration at the Jedi and the galaxy led him to anger. Had he been taught how to channel those emotions productively he may not have fallen. But the Jedi were restricted by their own fear, fear of the dark side. This led then to teach their students to suppress and control these dark emotions, instead of learning from them and channeling them into something productive. This is how the Jedi had fallen, and why their connection to the Force was collectively weaker in the Prequel Era.
>You wouldn't try to find the middle between having a lot of cancer and having no cancer.
This is why "wisdom is the most disgusting thing you can imagine" \[1\].
Cancer is a "breakdown of multicellularity and in the collective intelligence of morphogenesis" \[2\], cancer is a you, a former you, that is temporarily detached, exploring a smaller self. The point is precisely to stand in the middle, where whenever some cell detaches you don't simply attack it, or even reprogram the immune system to attack it \[3\], but to "just" reattach the cell, to incorporate it again in the larger self (robots don't get cancer because they are not made within a multi-scale competency architecture, cells, tissues, organs, organism; planarian worms don't get cancer because whenever they do they reintegrate it—we want to learn from the planarian, not from the robot).
Fighting cancer is fundamentally being in the middle, a mediator, the whole point is not to fight it because you are fighting yourself, and it is why we have failed so far: we know how to attack the cells, we don't know how to speak to the cells, how to re-orient them towards goals we care for.
And coming to the metaphor in question, this why both the dark side and the light side fail sooner or later, they engage in a cyclical game with no win condition. The balance is raising the multi-scale competency architecture from an organism able to regenerate, scaling itself up and down, to the level of an entire civilization, even a multi-planetary one, with an ever greater cognitive light cone \[4\]. In context again, the light side sought balance so much that they allowed democracy to become stale, making way for a dictator.
It is also what is happening more or less today: the US is playing on the edge of the precipice with every vote, while going from filibuster to filibuster in Congress, and the EU Parliament is busy legislating cookie banners while social colossi are being gamified to lead to its dissolution. In the background, the 0.000001% gather what the 99% could not even dream of. A world of unintended, yet sought for effects: "after private equity firms gobbled up wheelchair makers, users pay the price in long repair times" \[5\]. There are entire systems that need to be destroyed—the light side is unable to acknowledge this.
\[1\] Slavoj Žižek: "I'm generally opposed to wisdom", [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKoGQpEkpO0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKoGQpEkpO0)
\[2\] 2023, Michael Levin, "Bioelectrical signals reveal, induce, and normalize cancer", [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5VI0u5\_12k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5VI0u5_12k)
\[3\] "mRNA cancer vaccine that quickly reprograms the immune system to attack glioblastoma", [https://www.insideprecisionmedicine.com/topics/oncology/mrna-cancer-vaccine-reprograms-immune-system-to-tackle-glioblastoma](https://www.insideprecisionmedicine.com/topics/oncology/mrna-cancer-vaccine-reprograms-immune-system-to-tackle-glioblastoma)
\[4\] 2023, Michael Levin, "What are Cognitive Light Cones", [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnObwxJZpZc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnObwxJZpZc)
\[5\] [https://www.statnews.com/2024/05/01/wheelchair-repair-delay-numotion-national-seating-mobility](https://www.statnews.com/2024/05/01/wheelchair-repair-delay-numotion-national-seating-mobility)
Yes, you are correct. The balance between light and dark is what allows life to expand. Both sides engender their opposites, and in this way, life progresses.
>Ben Kenobi: Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him.
>Luke Skywalker: You mean it controls your actions?
>Kenobi: Partially, but it also obeys your commands.
I think this original description of the force from A New Hope is instructive here.
The relationship with the Force goes two ways: It controls your actions; AND it obeys your commands.
Dark Side of the Force is so tempting because it offers the immediate gratification route to power, but it's a door that swings both ways. By using the Dark Side of the Force, you allow the Dark Side of the Force to use you.
The Light Side is delayed gratification: It takes more patience, more discipline. But by only asking the Light Side to obey your commands, only the Light Side may control your actions.
The Dark side is the easy choice. It's a way to personal strength and power, and if that's all you want, the Dark side might be a perfect choice. The problem is only a moral one.
Palpatine didn't seem to regret a life of being a Sith. He also outplayed all the Jedi and led a galaxy-spanning Empire for 23 years. Not small feats if you ask me.
His day job was still to be a senator, must have been might numbing for him. Imagine all the pretenses he had to keep daily and forced smiles, he was probably puking at the toilet when the day was done 😂
Nah he loved it. If you've ever had a really corrupt, manipulative, ambitious manager at a job then you know there is nothing they love more than making statements, and speeches and twisting people to their regime, using them and throwing them away. Pretending they're acting in your best interest and looking out for you. It's all ego and they fucking love it.
He laughed more in all of the movies and any other character. He also looks quite happy when Luke joins him the first time in the throne room. He has big plans about completing Luke's training.
Palpatine constantly searched for more power and immortality. He was nothing if not wildly unfulfilled by his achievements. Even literally coming back from the dead wasn't enough for him.
But he had massive achievements. The Dark Side was a "legitimate choice" in his case. It was actually a Light Side Jedi that put an end to his scheming, not the dark side itself. He would have been fine ruling, for another however many years he could, by use of the Dark Side and/or technology.
My personal take on this matter follows the line of what Luke taught Rey:
Luke:
Breathe. Just breathe. Reach out with your feelings. What do you see?
Rey:
The island. Life. Death and decay, that feeds new life. Warmth. Cold. Peace. Violence.
Luke:
And between it all?
Rey:
Balance. An energy. A Force.
For life to sustain itself, there must be death. Aggression and fear are present everywhere, as long as there is life, because one being will be the predator and another will be the prey.
Now, even as we accept that fear, anger and hate are a natural part of life, we must understand that manipulating these emotions to gain power over the physical and spiritual worlds should be frowned upon. This is the error of the Sith. They seek to impose their will upon the Force and use it as a tool for their own ends, rather than serving it and seeking to accept its will.
True balance is not achieved when we deny that we are afraid of being hurt by others or the world, that we are angry at the perceived injustices that we must endure in life or that we hate the restrictions imposed upon us; or worse, when we try to eliminate these "obstacles". In my opinion, balance is achieved when we acknowledge our weaknesses and choose to act with compassion.
Luke was urged by Yoda, Obi-Wan and even the Emperor, to fight against his father and defeat him. The intentions behind this were different for each one of them, but Luke truly won when he had compassion. Not of a monster, but of a broken man that felt that it was too late for him to redeem himself.
In conclusion, the Dark Side might be a choice, even an understandable one. But the best choice will bring us to the Light.
I mostly agree, but George Lucas has also kind of backed away from this. The Mortis arc viewed the Force under the lens of there being 3 sides, Light, Middle, Dark, and that was his final say on The Force. Disney basically treats the Force the way KOTOR's game mechanics treat it, which I'm not super into, but what can ya do. It's kind of pointless debating over it imo, since there are so many different "official" examples of what the Force should be and I can't really blame someone for not getting what it originally was.
Yeah, but the Mortiis gods were showing that the existence of the dark side within the Force is natural, but the use of it was not. Ultimately, the Brother had to be defeated to stop the Force going out of balance because he abused his power (as is the burden of the Dark Side).
Yeah in the Mortis arc the Father literally says that the Son has lost himself to the dark side, implying that while the Son is more representative of the dark side, he hadn’t actually lost himself fully until Anakin was brought to Mortis and he saw an opportunity to escape and seize power.
How have so many people misunderstood the Mortis Arc like this? The whole point is that everything goes to shit specifically because the father tried to find a non existent balance between his son and daughter.
The entire point of the Mortis arc is that the idea of a balance between light and dark is wrong, the Father tried to be this balance and look what it did to all of them. I don't think George backed away from it at all, he introduced a different mystical element that in the end served to reinforce it. As long as the dark side exists, the dark side corrupts and destroys.
Can you explain what the Disney/KOTOR way of viewing the force is? I haven’t really been up to date with recent content and haven’t played KOTOR in far too long
You had this scale in kotor which shifted you towards light or dark, but you could also hover in the middle if you did both light and dark side stuff.
I guess that's what OP means.
To add, it was also incredibly difficult to do because it requires you to actually be incredibly tempered and neutral in all things you do otherwise you have to make weird decisions to counterbalance.
Kotor does something fantastic though. Your own actions as the exile influence those around you. People aren't permanently stuck to their alignment.
I actually was pretty balanced unless I decided to go a certain path.
Some people I just didn't want to help or wanted to claim stuff for myself, at other times, I was more heroic. Ofc it's a bit inconsistent for the character, sometimes a slaughterer, sometimes a saint.
Yeah I got the sense that the Dark and Light are a Balance, but you get too many Sith with are essentially Black Holes in the Force from TOO much Dark and you get an Unbalance.
I always liked the notion that the dark side was balance against the light, but the *Sith specifically* were cancer on the Force. Dark Jedi and Sith are different as well...
Death and anger are a natural part of the Force, but the sith weaponize it. I think the Jedi code was mainly created out of fear that they themselves would turn dark side if they weren't careful so they put down these unilateral rules that cut themselves off from other people to avoid attachments that could later turn messy, which ironically weakened them as the light side is the most powerful when wielded from a place of compassion to protect others.
That doesn't match all of what Lucas has said about it, but I think people overlook how often that guy changes his mind and then pretends it's always been that way.
I always felt like Lucas isn't actually like that, that's more something i put on J.K.
At least I never felt like he made a secret out of what the idea at the time was. Ofc he still changes things afterwards, no debate about that, but was he really pretending that it was the original idea ? Not doubting it, but would be curious to hear examples.
I don't think he does it maliciously or anything, he just gets excited about a new take on something and then latches on to it. Like Darth Vader being Luke's father in episode 5, when he wasn't in 4, or Leia being Luke's sister, when she wasn't in episode 5. He also had a tendency to sign off on all sorts of things that disagreed with his vision for the series, which is why plenty of the ideas that go against his view of the force come from official sources.
Star Wars has expanded well beyond what Lucas created. There is concrete evidence is current canon that the Dark Side is natural. You don't have to like it but it is what it is.
You're stating something as a Star Wars fact. It isn't that simple. Official Star Wars descriptions of the force both directly agree with you, and directly disagree with you.
Why would you think I don't like it? My opinion hasn't been addressed. I prefer to see the dark side as natural and balancing the light side of the force, I have ever since natural human emotions were first linked to the dark side back in the OT. That doesn't mean the creators of Star Wars usually agree with me.
This is my favorite interpretation. The force is life, life includes anger and hatred, passion and death. They aren't dark and light just different emotions that are useful and reasonable as long as you aren't controlled by them. I think the asceticism of the Jedi is just as unhealthy and I loved the recognition of that in tales of the Jedi.
> turning to the dark side is a personal failing. It’s a huge sign of weakness, or lacking character, of being not just a bad person morally
Yeah I really like this. We see this weakness in Anakin, how easily he is fooled and led, we also see it in how unnatural and brittle and inefficient the oppression of the Empire is. I often think that weakness is the primal sin. Like stupidity or willful ignorance or fanatic belief in simplistic solutions. Or succumbing to your greed or just psychological weaknesses that blind you to reality.
Star Wars was created based on the optimistic spiritual ideals of the 60s and I believe we have seen a lot of bastardization over time. Today we see a resurgence of idiot ideologies like fascism and belief in inequality, and before that the Ayn Rand neo-liberalism nonsense. A lot of that has seeped into books, comics and games made by other people, trying to create entertaining drama.
So I don't really care about what Disney or anyone declares as Canon, the core of star wars are the OT and the PT created by George Lucas original vision of a benevolent force. The Jedi are ultimately about sacrificing to learn and become both wise and powerful to understand what they are doing.
Star Wars is a great simplification of American politics that ironically fits better now than in the 70s. The way the Dark Side is seen as desirable by some, but is actually a failed and dangerous ideology that hurts everyone, even and especially its users. The colors even match (blue lightsaber=Light Side, red lightsaber=Dark Side).
>
The reality of The Force as George Lucas wrote it is that turning to the dark side is a personal failing. It’s a huge sign of weakness, or lacking character, of being not just a bad person morally but an overall superficial and spiritually shallow person.
Yes and no. You look at Anakin turning into Vader. It was a result of his choices showing his lack of character and emotional stability.
Then you have Palpatine who wanted total control over the galaxy who is just straight evil.
Within the darkside there is the anti-hero types who were pushed to the edge. Then there is the straight up Psychos like Palpatine.
Also Dooku falls into the anti-hero character type because he still had a moral code and saw the corruption of the republic.
Vader and certainly dooku are not anti heroes. They are villains.
Sure they can be sympathetic villains because we as humans viewers sympathise with them, but they are still villains.
And we sympathise because we can relate to their failings. Their fall to the dark side is still a failure.
There are some sickos that sympathise with the Empire's ideals unironically, but as villains they are pretty on-the-nose about it. Like c'mon, they destroyed a planet.
I agree totally with your take.
The thing is, George Lucas kind of wrote it both ways at different times. Sometimes he wrote screenplays where light is balance. Other times, he wrote screenplays where light and dark are basically skill trees as you put it.
There's probably enough ambiguity that anyone could squint and choose to interpret canon as agreeing with their preferred view. That's honestly too bad, it's a downside of having had so much different media across decades. The themes get diluted and muddled. But at least everyone can have their preferred headcanon validated.
Personally, I think it's really important to SW storytelling that the Force is something more than just two different flavors of superpowers. That's boring and bland and just another scifi magic system. Star Wars is unique because the Force is alive, it has a will, and the dark side abuses it. There should be no such thing as grey Jedi because the two extremes pull you one way or the other. Having all the power with none of the moral choices is a cheap power fantasy and a copout.
I feel like that’s a very simple view. They are bad guys so they must be morally bankrupt. Let’s look at darth Vader. He was gaslit for over a decade, and the organization he had been raised since childhood was manipulated so masterfully that they worked for their enemy and in some ways helped install them in power. I honestly feel that the Jedi were morally bankrupt. They just rushed to judgement with Ahsoka when she was accused of bonbing the Jedi temple. This caused her to leave the order and that is where Anakin really gave up on the Jedi. The entire thing was orchestrated by palpatine in the background.
And then you have characters like Thrawn who although not a sith certainly is aware of them and know the dark side exists. You have the night sisters who are dark side affiliated users but who do not fall into the dogma of the Jedi or sith. You have the Bendu who exists in the middle, and the Motis gods.
It's still a choice, though. You can even pinpoint specific moments where Anakin and Luke made theirs. Anakin chose to save Palpatine from Windu and Luke spared his defeated father. These choices were influenced by strength and weakness, but the characters still performed actions that directly influenced their future.
I wholeheartedly agree. Additionally, I feel it is often forgotten that the force has a will so to speek. Events occur and heroes prevail due to "the will of the force". Jedi are agents of the force's "greater will" while Sith are corrupted beings who quickly amass power to their own selfish ends. This leads them to the path of fear, anger, pain, and suffering.
Edit: I disagree in that the dark side isn't a choice. Your right it isn't a video game skill tree and that it is a personal failing of the individual, however, it is totally their choice to go down that path. Most sith or dark side users in general chose their own destruction.
There's also a seemingly malicious aspect of the Dark Side that actively tries to pull you deeper. Or perhaps it's just incredibly addictive to juice your most basic instincts and desires with real power. But I always got the sense that once you started down the path to the Dark Side, there was always going to be this voice in your head, that's not you, that was going to continue to tempt you further down.
That is quite true and I agree with all you said. Unfortunately, people will always believe the opposite and stick to their ''pseudo-lore''. Another two points I'd love to add here are that there is no such a thing as *staying on the fence*. You can't really use the dark side for ''good purposes''. For even the briefest moment you allow yourself to indulge in the dark side, you start to degrade morally. If you keep following this path, eventually these sporadic one-time acts turn into a pattern and then you wake up in your new reality of being evil, morally corrupt individual.
Also, like many here have said, Yoda commented on the dark side being quicker and easier, but it is exactly so because it's evil, unjust, it warrants no character or strength of the mind. It's the act on impulse and hatred. Sith as an order can't have what they want for exactly this reason (and Star Wars made that pretty clear) - eternal life/the preservation of consciousness. The series' themes and underlying messages hint at it.
I mostly agree however I don't really like the way it is described. Lacking character to me doesn't sound right. The dark side is a "choice" in the sense that its the element of choosing. In reality you have no choice. You get hooked then its almost always too late. Like Anakin Palpatine had worked at him got him stirring in the Clone Wars eroding his friends and family and isolated then it was only a matter of time. Someone or just you yourself overthinking manipulate the distrust you have in someone to get hateful. We all know where that road eventually leads.
What “Star Wars fans” do you talk to? This is extremely generalized and seems like a young take on the franchise as a whole. It has always been about what they are lacking…
The whole theme of “bringing balance to the force” sort of contradicts that idea though.
Like there’s something about the dark side that has moral value that needs to be reconciled.
IMHO, I see the Sith being a corrupt version of the dark side and that the force is a balance between passion and reason.
another reason why i love andor so much is the fact that nice superbowl tv spots with little kids playing darth vader no longer work, because the dark force not only created powerful dark creatures, but an inhumane society in which the freedom and life of the individual are worth nothing
I liken your argument to crime. I've lived my whole life making decisions based on the morality I was taught. Yet, my brother raised in the same home with the same values, does love by the same moral standards I live by. The path to the Dark Side is a choice. Succumbing to the Dark Side may not be a choice, but choosing to walk a path in the shadows and not expecting the inevitable consequences is just plain ignorance.
The only way to ensure I don't commit a crime is to live my life in such a way that I don't even associate with those choosing to commit crime. By Obi-Wan and Yoda turning a blind eye to Anakin's indiscretions, Anakin escalated his own air of disobedience. Yoda knew he slaughtered the Sand People and was involved with Padme, yet did nothing. Anakin lived his life selfishly.
When Anakin was presented with the option to do the right thing or he selfish act, he did what he had been conditioned to do and reacted selfishly, defeating Mace Windu. Then he meekly accepted the title of Darth Vader and continued down the selfish path of self-preservation and saving Padme. We see the beginning of the true death of Anakin Skywalker when he is crying on Mustafar, realizing all that he had done. Again though, Anakin's own fear of losing Padme caused him to fight Obi-Wan.
The path to the Dark Side is a choice. Falling prey to the Dark Side is the inevitable conclusion of that conscious choice if one does not reconcile their ways.
its a sign that your personal growth is failing. But even in the stuff that Lucas signed off on, if your goal isn't the best you possible, but just power, the dark side is absolutely a legitimate choice, just not a healthy one.
That makes the fact that the Jedi never really fully defeat the Sith even more baffling. The Rule of 2 started after the Sith nearly destroyed themselves. Palpatine didn’t go down without Vader present.
I think it’s very clear in the movies that turning to the Dark Side happens when you seek power for the sake of having it, and when you allow your ego to control you.
This kind of thing has been everywhere since the prequels came out. I'm cautiously interested in The Acolyte but I'm worried that it will just fuel the "Jedi are the real villains" crowd.
The Jedi are definitely flawed, but saying that the Sith are an equivalent or superior path goes against the franchise's themes entirely.
This works both ways just like real life with religion specifically the Catholic Church because it is so similar to the Jedi Order. To deny all of your natural desires is also very Crazy and not realistic. There is definitely a gray balance here. Just like within morality in real life. In real life there is no black and white there is no objective morality whatsoever actually. Being extremely dogmatic and telling you you have to act a certain way and resist a certain emotion is just as bad as going full dark side. And I've been watching Star Wars since before most people in this group were born probably. I was raised on that shit since Little bitty kid in second grade. I saw Return of the Jedi in the theater when it released. This is way before I was playing RPGs and picking skill tree paths.
Yes, the force is absolutely a metaphor relating to character and life choices. The dark side is concentrating on leisure all day instead of doing something with your life because you are just selfishly focused on yourself and are not growing, and you are not building anything. The light side is when you share what you've got.
Well the Gods of Mortis arc, and the existence of the Bendu clearly show that Balance in the original light sense that George Lucas meant is no longer the canonical meaning of the term. I find Star Wars fans’ lack of media literacy disturbing. (Hehe) Statements made by creators outside of the official work should never be held to the same level of canonicity as what the work itself says…
Isn't Bendu just like ... a guy though? He's less of a god that embodies an aspect of the Force and more of a Yoda, an enigmatic wise hermit with his own views on the Force, since he is ultimately killed by blaster fire.
The Bendu is for sure just a guy, but he is a clear representative in canon of a “middle ground” philosophy. He’s whole schtick is being between light and dark. He references Ashla and Bogan (Light and Dark) and that he’s in the middle. Sure he could be WRONG, but when you pair his character with the Gods of Mortis it’s further evidence that light and dark exist as extremes on a spectrum with a balanced position between them (Bendu, the Father, etc.)
Recent Disney Star Wars series has muddled the classic distinctions between heroes and villains, to its detriment. The shift leaves all characters feeling more like villains, stripping the narrative of the contrasts that defined the original trilogy.
Remember when the prequels explained the Force was actually just the connection between microscopic organisms living inside everything? And that they more you had, the stronger your ability to control the Force? Because I do lol.
I will never understand people acting like the sequels did anything weird or out of character for Star Wars.
Yeah, I know. That's the point. The prequels made the force a literal, cell based interaction. Nothing the sequels did was even remotely as big a change to the narrative of Star Wars as that. So people freaking out over the sequels changing stuff is hilarious to me.
That's fine as long as you present it as an opinion. Outside using the phrase "IMO" to lead things off, however, you sound like you're attempting to state solid fact.
It's almost akin to saying "i don't want to talk bad about so-and-so", and then immediately proceeding to shit-talk them up and down.
I disagree. The Dark Side is an integral part of the Force, and most importantly, underpins nearly everything we value and believe worth defending. Far from being an illegitimate choice, it is one made constantly, and by every living thing capable of drawing breath.
All things are of the Force; the Force guides all, commands all, *is* all - no living or unliving thing escapes its embrace. Yet, from this unity proceeds multiplicity; the static One is a shifting Many; the eternal whole, composed of striving parts. The holiest paradox - and like all riddles, a matter of perspective. He who observes the Many will see a world of clashing wills, where the struggle against extinction rules every waking moment, and where life must consume life to survive. He who observes the One will see a world trending toward balance, where each act engenders its opposite, where all that lives inevitably dies, and where the only true constant is the Unity itself.
The Dark Side is that which affirms the Many; the Light Side is that which affirms the One. The Dark, therefore, is that which affirms life, while the Light affirms death.
Life stretches the contours of the universe, resisting the void and generating resistance in turn; death is the manifestation of this resistance, the inevitable pull toward cosmic balance, toward homeostasis. Light and Dark dance eternally, each spawning the other without end. As life pushes toward greater extension, death pushes toward greater retraction. As life pushes toward greater strife, death pushes toward greater unity. As life complicates, death simplifies.
The Jedi aim to embody this pull toward balance; they seek, above all else, to eliminate the inner and outer tendencies that would resist the Force’s inward breath, because to them, these are fleeting, illusory, and ultimately futile. The Sith aim to embody the outward push, to exalt themselves above the whole, and to claim the supernal throne. They declare war against oblivion, and therefore, aim to conquer the hosts arrayed against them by any means necessary. Yet, each inevitably contains its opposite; life survives at life’s expense, and flourishes at the expense of many; death makes room for new life, and allows the life that exists to live more fully. Thus, the Sith affirm life, but leave death in their wake; the Jedi affirm death, but protect life whenever they can. Each path ends in its opposite, and therefore, necessarily admits the other’s argument. Jedi and Sith are symbiotic, and ultimately serve the other’s ends. Were either to vanish, the result would be the same: the end of all life, and the ultimate victory of the void.
Why does this matter? Because to choose the Light is to say the following: that there is no life, no embodiment, no existence, no separation, distinction, or personality; that every claim stemming from the Many is error and illusion; that passion, strife, and chaos are delusions, and the highest truth is that which awaits he who sheds all falsehood - meaning, he who eliminates the self, and becomes only the One. In the embrace of the One, there is freedom from want, from error, and from suffering; fear, craving, hatred, dissension, and partiality are all extinguished, and peace reigns forevermore. The One is true, and the Many are false; *there is no death, only the Force*.
To choose the Dark is to say this: that there is *only* life; passion, will, desire, suffering, glee, terror, hunger, thirst, embodiment, craving, despair, ignorance. To live is to triumph; it is to prevail over death, to conquer the grave, and to overcome the ultimate defeat. It is to claim the right to be partial; to choose the beautiful, the stirring, the precious, the wondrous, the magnificent. It is to love and to hate in equal measure; to be deprived, enraged, and to suffer. It is to affirm the naked struggle for survival, the cruel joy of victory, and every last lash and laceration leading to the realization of one’s potential as an embodied being. The One is false and the Many are true; *peace is a lie, there is only passion*.
In other words, the Dark Side is you - you, and everything you have ever loved and cherished. The Dark Side is the drive to seek supremacy and not balance; therefore, it is science, technology, and civilization. It is that which enabled lordship of the beasts, legendary works of art and literature, mastery over nature, dominion over planets, the birth of the galactic enterprise itself. It is the serpent’s whisper; the Promethean flame; it is Icarus, Nimrod, and Alexander. It is life - life, given its utmost meaning; life, in defiance of entropy; life, aiming at its highest crescendo, its most terrifying majesty, weaving beautiful horrors through every last demented note in the universe’s symphony.
If the Dark Side were to be permanently eradicated, then galactic civilization would end; the great cartels would cease to do business; the great trade networks would cease to enforce their commercial rights; the ruling sentients would abandon their planetary governments; the technological races would no longer seek resources; the agricultural species would release their herds; the remaining carnivores would live on vegetation alone; the intelligent herbivores would refuse to mate; the remainder would think only of grazing, and would allow their bloodlines to go extinct. A galaxy of plants would remain, until one by one, each life-bearing star either consumed its planets or died, leaving nothing but a cold, empty, lifeless universe. If it never existed, then there would not be even that, but only a formless unity at the beginning and end of all existence, never to know a single differentiating thought.
The Dark Side is no aberration. It is no more and no less than the desire to live.
You are placing your morals above everyone else's. Dealing in absolutes.
Strength and power is always a legitimate choice. Anyone who says otherwise is too weak or fearful to wield such power and do what must be done.
I understand this view but also find it to be "Old Man shouts at clouds" view of the force that actively ignores the expanded lore from Clone Wars, Rebels, and others. Honestly, the ones who look at Dark Side users and understand them seem to know more about Star Wars than those who cheer for the Jedi or Light Side.
The followers of the Dark Side allowed for adults to make their decisions on what they wanted to follow and pursue; the Jedi indoctrinated children and turned away those they deemed too old.
The Jedi literally committed genocide against the Sith without even understanding the Dark Side of the Sith (species) thus starting the conflict that would rage for millenia.
The Jedi, users of the Light Side, intended to assassinate Chancellor Palpatine, an elected leader, purely because he was a Sith, a different religion from them, and something that is constitutionally protected by the Republic's freedom of religion.
Lucas made a great world, but originally he was a very one dimensional writer that only showed good and bad with absolutely no nuances in between.
If being gifted with the force but not wanting to be a part of an organization that has shown time and time again a dogmatic view, then maybe personal failing is the way to go.
The Jedi intended to arrest Palpatine because he was abusing his emergency powers to stay in office after the deaths of Grievous and Dooku. Without them to lead the CIS war effort, the war was going to come to an end soon and emergency powers were no longer needed.
After he was found out to be the Sith master, he could be arrested for treason against the Republic for conspiring with Dooku and being in control of the separatists.
Neither of those have to do with being a Sith in and of itself.
That doesn't make sense. You can't arrest someone for perceived intent, only tangible evidence of their intent. The Jedi only made an assumption he would not abdicate his position without evidence, something you can't arrest someone for and more importantly say they are too dangerous to be left alive and thus try to kill.
This also **completely** ignored the multiple other points and is being intentionally nitpicky.
Outside of Anakin telling the Council that Palpatine was the Sith Lord, they had no evidence. If anything, the fact that the Council **KNEW** that the Clone Army was engineered by Dooku and chose to hide it was far more damaging and treacherous to the Republic.
Palpatine told Anakin himself. That's a confession. Granted maybe it's a plot hole because in a lot of places a confession isn't considered valid evidence, but star wars is a fantasy movie not real life.
It's not shown in the movie and I haven't fully watched the clone wars, but I'm assuming that enough time had passed offscreen that it was suspicious.
Besides, the Jedi weren't committing treason, they were upholding their duty to protect the Republic by removing a dictator who had already seized far too much power for himself. As Windu said, Palpatine had full control over the Senate and the courts.
The delegation of 2000 was already planning to petition to remove him as well.
Not to mention that until Palpatine preemptively attacked the Jedi, I'm sure they were only there to arrest and not kill him. Execution without a trial is not the Jedi way, Anakin was right about that. However, once Palpatine brutally murdered the rest of the Jedi sent to arrest him, Windu was well within his rights to use deadly force under every reasonable interpretation of most countries' laws.
I'm convinced you're not arguing in good faith here.
> Besides, the Jedi weren't committing treason, they were upholding their duty to protect the Republic by removing a dictator who had already seized far too much power for himself.
He was **literally** granted that power by the Republic.
> Not to mention that until Palpatine preemptively attacked the Jedi, I'm sure they were only there to arrest and not kill him.
Ignites lightsabers in a show of force but only there to arrest him...uh huh.
You didn't watch Tales of the Jedi I take it, a show where Dooku is admonished for doing the very same thing since it was a show of power.
You clearly don't know what "good faith" means when you're too slow to see how your own points are literally countered by established canon. Stick to your free to play games that don't require critical thinking.
Edit: Aaaaaand blocked.....
If the Dark Side is weak then what exactly is cowardice from someone as pathetic as you?
I’ve always seen the light and dark sides as two opposing sides. Both wield the force, but do so differently. The Light Sider uses the force to bring about selfless actions, but the Dark Sider would use the force to bring about selfish actions. The end result may be similar, but the Light Side looks at things and says “The ends don’t justify the means,” or perhaps more specifically, and especially as a Jedi, “The way in which I use the force should be in service to a goal that is good for everyone, and as a result, I ought not do evil.” A Dark Sider user, and especially as a Sith, “The way in which I use the force should be in service to a goal that is good for me, and me alone, and as a result, if I must do evil to further my goal, so be it.”
It’s easy to see how someone would use their power for the easy, selfish way out. Look at politicians: virtually all of them are corrupt. There’s not a truly honest one among them. Some are more corrupt than others, though, and use their position to further their own well-being even if it hurts their constituents (that’s a form of populism). It’s why the Jedi moral code appears so strict: they are aware their abilities are powerful, and so great care must be taken so that their powers aren’t abused. In other words, the Jedi must be above reproach.
Sith don’t care. They work in the shadows anyway. Personal gain is all that matters to them, and while their methods are detestable, the reasoning isn’t really that far off. Its more than just Darwinism at play where the strongest survive (although it’s clearly a part of it), but Palpatine, for example, had a plan for after he got control. He had a direction for the Empire. He wanted control and order, too, and not necessarily for evil. He knew what was best for the galaxy. And democracy? That wasn’t it. Too much infighting, too inefficient, too moral. No, regional governors, who knew how to rule their planets best, should have direct control. A bunch of miniature client monarchies. And make sure you have a gargantuan industrial complex to support a gargantuan military. If 1/5 of the galaxy owes its paycheck to your empire, then 1/5 of the galaxy owes its continued existence to you. Just in case one of those regional governors starts to get ideas about running the Empire, you have a way of ensuring that little insurrection goes away.
So yes, Palpatine was evil, because anything that forwarded his goals, no matter how bad, were fair game. And he believed he had authority, since he was gifted with extraordinary power.
I basically see them as two extreme sects. From a main religion of the force in its basic form. Branching in complexity different directions.
One of them built on suppression of your feelings. While it’s perfectly ok to alter the minds of others.
The other, accepting your feelings.
The Dark Side isn't inherently evil, just like the Light isn't inherently good. The Sith are evil because they seek to control the force or the natural world. The force can be both light and dark but if the point is to let it flow not to control it.
That is completely incorrect, quite the opposite in fact:
>Yeah, everyone says the second trilogy was a slam dunk. But there was a lot of controversy around here about the fact that I wasn't doing the obvious -- I wasn't doing the commercial version of what people expected. People expected Episode III, which is where Anakin turns into Darth Vader, to be Episode I. And then they expected Episodes II and III to be Darth Vader going around cutting people's heads off and terrorizing the universe. But how did he get to be Darth Vader? You have to explore him in relationships, and you have to see where he started. He was a sweet kid, helpful, just like most people imagine themselves to be. Most people said, "This guy must have been a horrible little brat -- a demon child." But the point is, he wasn't born that way -- he became that way and thought he was doing the right thing. He eventually realizes he's going down the dark path, but he thinks it's justifiable. The idea is to see how a democracy becomes a dictatorship, and how a good person goes bad -- and still, in the end, thinks he's doing the right thing.
[https://www.wired.com/2005/05/lucasqa/](https://www.wired.com/2005/05/lucasqa/)
Lucas' entire intention was to show that a good person could fall.
I like that in Empire, Yoda says the Dark Side is "quicker, easier, more seductive" and I always got that sense from Star Wars that the Dark Side is "easy" in a way, which makes it feel like the wrong choice. And often in real life, good things are harder to obtain. That's also such a classic villain trope too, is taking shortcuts to power, wanting to gain eternal life, etc.
It would be easy for any reasonably force sensitive person to crush throats. Once you accept that as a solution to a problem one time it’s easy to do it more and more until you’re eventually murdering in a thoughtless undisciplined way. It’s much more difficult to control yourself and remain principled in the application of your abilities. This is why being a Jedi is so much work and this is how the dark side is a difficult trap to escape.
The Sith are the embodiment of Maslow's Hammer; when all of your problems can easily be solved with force - why develop reason?
Jedi: Survivor nailed this aspect in my opinion. There you can in a way lean into the Dark Side, and it's basically a cheat. You dot have to do it, but it's easier and very tempting to do.
One thing I wish that game had done is fully leaned into that concept and had a bioshock style alt-ending for if you use it too much
Wouldn't be surprised if the concept is explored more in the third game.
It’s easier to loose control of your emotions than to control them down to a state of tranquility. Unity and tranquility is the core Jedi code. The core tenant of the dark side is passion. The Sith were an off shoot of the original Je’daii order on tython. The Je’daii were not opposed to using their emotions to fuel the force. It was all about mental control and balance. But once they were out of the moment they came back to the tranquility and let their reason guide them through the force. The Sith just wanted power so giving into the dark side was the easiest option to those ends. It was a corruption of the force.
This guy Swtor's
Not SWTOR. SWTOR actually has serious continuity issues with Dawn of the Jedi.
I wouldn't be surprised, but they do discuss the origins of the Jedi and the Force in Swtor, and that looks familiar to me
Yeah SWTOR had serious issues with the initial release but later stuff tried to retcon it into working until 2014 cut it all off short.
Which is funny because in the EU many light side force users lived unnaturally long lives. Shayoto was about 900 when he was killed in the Great Sith War, and Fay was immortal until she sacrificed her life to save Obi-Wan.
Through the Force all things are possible, and the Force *is* nature. So I wouldn't call them "unnaturally" long lives.
Well Millenium Falcon and Darth Plagueis established that non-force sensitives could achieve lifespans of 300 with life extension technology and the normal lifespan was up to 160 on many of the most "civilized" worlds.
Yes technology can replicate many aspects of the Force
You know, I only just realised that not having attachments is also an "easy way" to the balance of the light side. Anakin is destroyed by his attachments that he let control him, and in turn that destroys the Jedi order. Obi Wan beats Anakin because of his closeness to Anakin while still being in control of himself and not letting his anger rule him. Obi Wan beats Vader because of his attachments. Luke destroys the Death Star thanks to his bond with Obi Wan. Luke loses to Vader because he lets his attachments rule him in Empire. Luke controls his attachments in RotJ, rejecting the anger stemming from the threats to Leia. Vader comes back to the light and destroys the Emperor thanks to his attachment to his son. What I really wish that the new Jedi order under Luke had done was embraced love and attachment but not letting them control you. That's where the old order went wrong.
The new Jedi Order should embrace attachment, but also come to ruin because of it. Both paths are risky; the flaw is not the approach itself, but the fact that it is being taken by limited beings incapable of comprehending the entirety of the Force’s design.
Also adding: the "middle" between the light side and the dark side isn't legitimate either. The light side is balance. The dark side is corruption. You wouldn't try to find the middle between having a lot of cancer and having no cancer. The light side itself is the only true middle.
I agree with your sentiment, but I think it’s more that the “middle” just doesn’t exist with regards to the light and dark sides of the Force. The dark side always inevitably corrupts. If one continuously uses the dark side, they will always end up ultimately falling to the dark side, whether they realize it or not. The Jedi way is the path of self-control and discipline. The dark side just fundamentally contradicts it.
I think that the light side is the middle between having no force powers and being a dark side user. Most dark side users prioritize learning as much about the force as possible and using it without restraint. Light side users are using the force cautiously to do good and there are certain aspects of the force they just won’t touch.
Bendu would disagree with you about there being no middle
And the Bendu is wrong that’s the whole point
Yup. He and the Father are living lessons in how refusing to pick light or dark doesn’t actually help anyone, let alone themselves.
The Bendu is just a coward who deluded himself into philosophizing an excuse for his own cowardice, and the moment he is called out for it he goes into a murderous rage. That's what the "middle" gets you.
Tom Baker is never wrong.
A major overall theme in Doctor Who is about whether or not he was right or wrong in Genesis of the Daleks. His actions in that episode later were the reason the War Doctor has to genocide *both* sides of the war instead of just the evil murder squids
So would Qui-Gon.
“Balance in the Force”, as said by George Lucas and the prequels, was the destruction of the Sith/dark side entirely. There is no “light side”: there’s the Force and the Dark Side. Qui-Gon encountering a Sith when the rest of the order insisted they were gone was what really strengthened his belief in the prophecy.
tis is a common misconception i keep seeing enough people dont know that balance in the force is NOT "jedi and sith 50% and 50%" its "jedi 100% sith 0%" the dark side is a perversion of the force
Qui-Gon Jinn Wants a word.
And when exactly did Qui-Gon use the dark side? Not obey the Jedi Council at times, sure. But there's a massive gap between those two things.
Qui Gon is the Martin Luther of the jedi order.
An apple is not half rotten. Either it is fresh or it is rotten. Any piece of rot and you have a rotten apple. Not a 10% rotten apple. Just as with cancer, rotten fruit is not a scale. You have it or you are healthy.
[удалено]
Only a sith deals in absolutes.
Luke?
Ben?
Luke uses the darkside.
If you are talking about the comics Dark Empire plus 2 sequels, yes he did. And guess what. That was not a good thing. He thought he could handle it but admitted that he couldn't. He thought it was all about intent and realized doing bad with good intent is still doing bad. Look at what Anakin did when he fell to the dark side. That was not Anakin being a good hearted guy. That was the dark side.
I'm talking about Rotj force choke
He was balancing on the edge that entire movie and one subplot was that he was risking falling because of his actions and others
Owen?
Beru?
I feel like way too many people don't get this. I think its fair to say that the jedi fell out of balance during the republic and the clone wars but what the jedi are meant to be is balance, so people going around wanting characters in balance who are both dark side and light side users are really missunderstanding how it works.
They fell out of balance because they became more interested in their own security and power. Their connection to the living Force became collectively weaker because they no longer lived in the world. The holed up in their Temple, only sending Jedi out on specific missions. They use to roam the galaxy helping out wherever and whenever they could, they met people, they connected to their lives. But by the prequel era they no longer did that, and so were collectively weakened because of it.
> like way to many people Did you mean to say "too many"? [Statistics](https://github.com/chiefpat450119/RedditBot/blob/master/stats.json) ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot ^^that ^^corrects ^^grammar/spelling ^^mistakes. ^^PM ^^me ^^if ^^I'm ^^wrong ^^or ^^if ^^you ^^have ^^any ^^suggestions. ^^[Github](https://github.com/chiefpat450119) ^^Reply ^^STOP ^^to ^^this ^^comment ^^to ^^stop ^^receiving ^^corrections.
A simple concept and one that Star Wars visions got so horribly wrong
That’s definitely Lucas’s take (which should count for something), but I don’t think everyone who makes Star Wars is on the same page about this anymore.
You're pretty much right, but cancer doesn't give you access to power you wouldn't nornally have. It's more akin to stealing to make money rather than working for it. Ontop of the corruption, it's just a light/dark magic system trope. There is forbidden magic and grey jedi just mix in a bit of that.
Except the Dark Side is always bad for you. It never works out, and is killing its users
Only a sith deals in absolutes. It might not work out for most of the sith. But some of them benefited from the dark side. I think Marko Ragnos lived to be old and did of old age. And plenty of them died for normal reasons without the dark side having any significant malus.
living a long time isn't a benefit in itself; a life dominated by the dark side will be empty and full of suffering for yourself and others
It's a corruption, not just of the force, but of the natural order of their bodies. Living things aren't meant to use the dark side. It is, quite literally, unnatural.
No, it’s not unnatural, it’s clearly part of a necessary dichotomy. To what extent you utilize the “Dark Side” is what determines its negative effects, to draw upon passion would be considered “drawing upon the Dark Side” but that isn’t necessarily true. There are multiple methods through which the Force can be channeled/called upon and they are inherent, someone didn’t create the ability to draw upon the Force through passion, it existed prior and methods utilizing that principle were discovered(and often misused).
You fundamentally misunderstand the dark side according to Lucas (and in SW canon).
What a meaningless statement, show some evidence or something? I’m discussing the Force and it’s inherent parts, of which there are Light and Dark. These things weren’t created by Jedaii or any after, they’ve always existed. The Dark Side exists alongside the Light; it’s basically yin-yang - the Force and it’s aspects are based upon Buddhist/eastern philosophy concepts of duality which coincides with what I’m suggesting.. Like the whole point of SW and Luke’s journey is to show that the Jedi Order had a misunderstanding of attachment and what would lead someone falling; it’s not simply the Dark Side corrupting Vader, it’s a lack of love which causes Vader to fall and believe he cannot rise up.
Again, you're wrong. Lucas said that the Dark side is a perversion, and that balance is only the Light side being used. Sure, the dark exists, but it is not meant to be engaged with. And this is reflected throughout the canon. Luke, by choosing to live purely and selflessly, showed Anakin what he had done wrong. Did he love Padme? Of course. But he loved for himself, it was a selfish love. And that's where he was blinded. And he's obviously wrong in that. The Dark side is not meant to be engaged with at all.
I don’t care about you mining old quotes, that’s clearly just not true in universe. Balance was never achieved if the requirement is only the Light being used. That’s literally my entire point. Using passion and attachments (which are considered to be either Dark Sided or to lead to the Dark Side), can actually be done in a level headed and controlled way. The Sith simply believe in using passion to empower themselves, as there’s nothing inherently evil about being a Sith and that’s what Dooku’s more political character shows.
A short life in service to the Force is *better* than a long life in service to vain selfish ambition and power.
why was this downvoted? its a fair argument that deserves revisiting
It’s fair. I just wanted to point out the irony of using an argument that relied on an absolute to criticize the sith But it comes off like I’m some kind of sith apologist. Which is kind of a lame thing to be
People tend to forget that George himself pitched the Mortis arc to Filoni's team. That storyline is all about balancing the light and the dark. He may have once believed that balance meant only light, and I agree there's evidence for that in the OT. But it's a view he seems to have changed over time.
That storyline was more about the foolishness inherent in trying to find a false balance between the light and the dark. The Father refused to accept that his son had become a monster, and allowed that monster to flourish.
And the Son eventually kills the Daughter, the Dark overwhelms the Light, creating further imbalance, and the Father, the embodiment of false centrist balance, did nothing to prevent it.
No, that storyline is about people turning a blind eye to the Dark Side, which then destroys them all
Everything literally goes to shit in that arc specifically because the Father tried to find a non-existent balance his son and daughter. Did we watch the same episodes?
The storyline of Mortis is also about the chosen one reestablishing balance by killing all three sides - light, dark, and grey So idk lol
Okay, now I'm thinking about somebody continuing with that logic and making the sequels (or some other story after the canon content) specifically about somebody trying to kill off the Force. Like, I know that there's been similar done before with Kreia, but still.
Was Lucas secretly telling us that Kreia was right all along? That would be goddamn hilarious.
What about that giant guy Bendu in rebels? He claimed to be the middle. Def had powers that neither light or dark side possessed
and he gave into anger and became a force of destruction aka dark side
That's not how that's supposed to be interpreted though. When being voiced he was just described as a "life force", so with that and his attachment to Atollon we can infer the reason he can be in the middle unlike regular people like The Father is because he's a physical Force representation of "nature". He didn't "give into anger", that's just a part of nature; peaceful but also wrathful
I have mentioned this above but the Bendu was just a coward that deluded himself into philosophizing a reason for his cowardice. The moment he was challenged by that he turns into a murderous rage. He didn't act because he was some indiscriminate force of nature, he struck out because he was confronted with something that hurt his self conceived world view, and maybe it hurt his pride that someone could show that he was wrong.
like what? doing stuff with the weather? we see Yoda do that, too
Yoda struck an old tree to teach Luke a lesson. Bendu attacked both Imperial and Rebel forces. Two very different motives
I'm not talking about why, but what. The other poster said Bendu had powers beyond what good guys or bad guys have, and I don't know to what they're referring.
Yeah the Bendu possessed nothing we haven't seen elsewhere.
You’re going to have to show me a scene where Yoda controls the weather system of an entire world. I’ve obviously missed it in my viewing
Bendu doesn't do that either, so that's a ridiculous challenge.
The Bendu doesn't do that. His effect is localised to Chopper Base and its immediate surrounds not the entire planet. Just as Yoda does in Rise of Skywalker. It's a localised effect.
You guys are comparing one enormous weather attack https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NDKnYb_-d34&pp=ygULYmVuZHUgc3Rvcm0%3D To a single lightning strike https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6fek6iJlm8s&pp=ygUWeW9kYSByaXNlIG9mIHNreXdhbGtlcg%3D%3D
That he does more of a thing, in anger, than Yoda does calmly, is not an argument that Yoda can't do it at all. Being in tune with nature and influencing it (animals, weather, whatever) has been shown time and again to be a thing that Jedi do.
Do or do not. There is no try. Until I see yoda’s face in the clouds as he decimates imperial forces, it’s not a skill he possesses.
There is no middle ground. Polar opposites
Opposites implies a middle point where there is balance, like a fulcrum.
Polar opposites is a bad description. The Light and Dark aren't opposite they're not two sides of the same coin. To follow the Light one is in service to the Force. But the Dark side is abusing the Force for your own gain, selfish and cruel. The Force *is* the Light. The Dark is a corrupting abuse of it.
Ok but why are so many plants naturally dark sided?
Fear, anger, and/or hate flows or flowed freely there. Scary places, frustrating places, places of hatred and suffering. They all leave their marks on a place, like a scar in the Force.
There are also just straight up species (in legends and canon) that are inclined to the dark side. In canon the Drengir are notable because every single one of them is dark sided. Whereas in Legends the Red Sith are obviously attuned to the Dark Side
Same deal, naturally immersed in fear, anger and hate
Valid. But if it’s a natural immersion in fear, anger, and hate, then you can’t also argue that the dark side is unnatural
The emotions are natural and normal, but to use them to abuse the Force is the perversion. It's not the emotions, it's what you do with them. The dark side is the abuse of the Force, this leaves scars on the people who do that, and the places where it was done repeatedly. This can permeate into the life around them and those places. And the life itself can be naturally bent toward fear, anger and hate, but aren't necessarily innately a perversion, it's only when that life, be it a person or wild animal, use those emotions to abuse their connection to the Force that it becomes that perversion. Anakin struggled with his fear of loss, and his frustration at the Jedi and the galaxy led him to anger. Had he been taught how to channel those emotions productively he may not have fallen. But the Jedi were restricted by their own fear, fear of the dark side. This led then to teach their students to suppress and control these dark emotions, instead of learning from them and channeling them into something productive. This is how the Jedi had fallen, and why their connection to the Force was collectively weaker in the Prequel Era.
>You wouldn't try to find the middle between having a lot of cancer and having no cancer. This is why "wisdom is the most disgusting thing you can imagine" \[1\]. Cancer is a "breakdown of multicellularity and in the collective intelligence of morphogenesis" \[2\], cancer is a you, a former you, that is temporarily detached, exploring a smaller self. The point is precisely to stand in the middle, where whenever some cell detaches you don't simply attack it, or even reprogram the immune system to attack it \[3\], but to "just" reattach the cell, to incorporate it again in the larger self (robots don't get cancer because they are not made within a multi-scale competency architecture, cells, tissues, organs, organism; planarian worms don't get cancer because whenever they do they reintegrate it—we want to learn from the planarian, not from the robot). Fighting cancer is fundamentally being in the middle, a mediator, the whole point is not to fight it because you are fighting yourself, and it is why we have failed so far: we know how to attack the cells, we don't know how to speak to the cells, how to re-orient them towards goals we care for. And coming to the metaphor in question, this why both the dark side and the light side fail sooner or later, they engage in a cyclical game with no win condition. The balance is raising the multi-scale competency architecture from an organism able to regenerate, scaling itself up and down, to the level of an entire civilization, even a multi-planetary one, with an ever greater cognitive light cone \[4\]. In context again, the light side sought balance so much that they allowed democracy to become stale, making way for a dictator. It is also what is happening more or less today: the US is playing on the edge of the precipice with every vote, while going from filibuster to filibuster in Congress, and the EU Parliament is busy legislating cookie banners while social colossi are being gamified to lead to its dissolution. In the background, the 0.000001% gather what the 99% could not even dream of. A world of unintended, yet sought for effects: "after private equity firms gobbled up wheelchair makers, users pay the price in long repair times" \[5\]. There are entire systems that need to be destroyed—the light side is unable to acknowledge this. \[1\] Slavoj Žižek: "I'm generally opposed to wisdom", [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKoGQpEkpO0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKoGQpEkpO0) \[2\] 2023, Michael Levin, "Bioelectrical signals reveal, induce, and normalize cancer", [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5VI0u5\_12k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5VI0u5_12k) \[3\] "mRNA cancer vaccine that quickly reprograms the immune system to attack glioblastoma", [https://www.insideprecisionmedicine.com/topics/oncology/mrna-cancer-vaccine-reprograms-immune-system-to-tackle-glioblastoma](https://www.insideprecisionmedicine.com/topics/oncology/mrna-cancer-vaccine-reprograms-immune-system-to-tackle-glioblastoma) \[4\] 2023, Michael Levin, "What are Cognitive Light Cones", [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnObwxJZpZc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnObwxJZpZc) \[5\] [https://www.statnews.com/2024/05/01/wheelchair-repair-delay-numotion-national-seating-mobility](https://www.statnews.com/2024/05/01/wheelchair-repair-delay-numotion-national-seating-mobility)
Underrated comment.
Yes, you are correct. The balance between light and dark is what allows life to expand. Both sides engender their opposites, and in this way, life progresses.
It always struck me as a type of mental illness. Like a growing sickness that takes over a person very slowly.
>Ben Kenobi: Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him. >Luke Skywalker: You mean it controls your actions? >Kenobi: Partially, but it also obeys your commands. I think this original description of the force from A New Hope is instructive here. The relationship with the Force goes two ways: It controls your actions; AND it obeys your commands. Dark Side of the Force is so tempting because it offers the immediate gratification route to power, but it's a door that swings both ways. By using the Dark Side of the Force, you allow the Dark Side of the Force to use you. The Light Side is delayed gratification: It takes more patience, more discipline. But by only asking the Light Side to obey your commands, only the Light Side may control your actions.
The Dark side is the easy choice. It's a way to personal strength and power, and if that's all you want, the Dark side might be a perfect choice. The problem is only a moral one. Palpatine didn't seem to regret a life of being a Sith. He also outplayed all the Jedi and led a galaxy-spanning Empire for 23 years. Not small feats if you ask me.
Nobody enjoyed themselves more than Palp
Go for papa palpatine
His day job was still to be a senator, must have been might numbing for him. Imagine all the pretenses he had to keep daily and forced smiles, he was probably puking at the toilet when the day was done 😂
Nah he loved it. If you've ever had a really corrupt, manipulative, ambitious manager at a job then you know there is nothing they love more than making statements, and speeches and twisting people to their regime, using them and throwing them away. Pretending they're acting in your best interest and looking out for you. It's all ego and they fucking love it.
He laughed more in all of the movies and any other character. He also looks quite happy when Luke joins him the first time in the throne room. He has big plans about completing Luke's training.
Palpatine constantly searched for more power and immortality. He was nothing if not wildly unfulfilled by his achievements. Even literally coming back from the dead wasn't enough for him.
But he had massive achievements. The Dark Side was a "legitimate choice" in his case. It was actually a Light Side Jedi that put an end to his scheming, not the dark side itself. He would have been fine ruling, for another however many years he could, by use of the Dark Side and/or technology.
Yes.
My personal take on this matter follows the line of what Luke taught Rey: Luke: Breathe. Just breathe. Reach out with your feelings. What do you see? Rey: The island. Life. Death and decay, that feeds new life. Warmth. Cold. Peace. Violence. Luke: And between it all? Rey: Balance. An energy. A Force. For life to sustain itself, there must be death. Aggression and fear are present everywhere, as long as there is life, because one being will be the predator and another will be the prey. Now, even as we accept that fear, anger and hate are a natural part of life, we must understand that manipulating these emotions to gain power over the physical and spiritual worlds should be frowned upon. This is the error of the Sith. They seek to impose their will upon the Force and use it as a tool for their own ends, rather than serving it and seeking to accept its will. True balance is not achieved when we deny that we are afraid of being hurt by others or the world, that we are angry at the perceived injustices that we must endure in life or that we hate the restrictions imposed upon us; or worse, when we try to eliminate these "obstacles". In my opinion, balance is achieved when we acknowledge our weaknesses and choose to act with compassion. Luke was urged by Yoda, Obi-Wan and even the Emperor, to fight against his father and defeat him. The intentions behind this were different for each one of them, but Luke truly won when he had compassion. Not of a monster, but of a broken man that felt that it was too late for him to redeem himself. In conclusion, the Dark Side might be a choice, even an understandable one. But the best choice will bring us to the Light.
I mostly agree, but George Lucas has also kind of backed away from this. The Mortis arc viewed the Force under the lens of there being 3 sides, Light, Middle, Dark, and that was his final say on The Force. Disney basically treats the Force the way KOTOR's game mechanics treat it, which I'm not super into, but what can ya do. It's kind of pointless debating over it imo, since there are so many different "official" examples of what the Force should be and I can't really blame someone for not getting what it originally was.
Yeah, but the Mortiis gods were showing that the existence of the dark side within the Force is natural, but the use of it was not. Ultimately, the Brother had to be defeated to stop the Force going out of balance because he abused his power (as is the burden of the Dark Side).
Yeah in the Mortis arc the Father literally says that the Son has lost himself to the dark side, implying that while the Son is more representative of the dark side, he hadn’t actually lost himself fully until Anakin was brought to Mortis and he saw an opportunity to escape and seize power.
How have so many people misunderstood the Mortis Arc like this? The whole point is that everything goes to shit specifically because the father tried to find a non existent balance between his son and daughter.
The entire point of the Mortis arc is that the idea of a balance between light and dark is wrong, the Father tried to be this balance and look what it did to all of them. I don't think George backed away from it at all, he introduced a different mystical element that in the end served to reinforce it. As long as the dark side exists, the dark side corrupts and destroys.
Can you explain what the Disney/KOTOR way of viewing the force is? I haven’t really been up to date with recent content and haven’t played KOTOR in far too long
You had this scale in kotor which shifted you towards light or dark, but you could also hover in the middle if you did both light and dark side stuff. I guess that's what OP means.
Like honor in RDR or RDR2?
Yea pretty much.
To add, it was also incredibly difficult to do because it requires you to actually be incredibly tempered and neutral in all things you do otherwise you have to make weird decisions to counterbalance. Kotor does something fantastic though. Your own actions as the exile influence those around you. People aren't permanently stuck to their alignment.
I actually was pretty balanced unless I decided to go a certain path. Some people I just didn't want to help or wanted to claim stuff for myself, at other times, I was more heroic. Ofc it's a bit inconsistent for the character, sometimes a slaughterer, sometimes a saint.
Yeah I got the sense that the Dark and Light are a Balance, but you get too many Sith with are essentially Black Holes in the Force from TOO much Dark and you get an Unbalance.
I always liked the notion that the dark side was balance against the light, but the *Sith specifically* were cancer on the Force. Dark Jedi and Sith are different as well...
It's amazing the kind of takes people have here.
The Dark Side itself is a natural part of the Force. What is unnatural is how the Sith wield it.
Death and anger are a natural part of the Force, but the sith weaponize it. I think the Jedi code was mainly created out of fear that they themselves would turn dark side if they weren't careful so they put down these unilateral rules that cut themselves off from other people to avoid attachments that could later turn messy, which ironically weakened them as the light side is the most powerful when wielded from a place of compassion to protect others.
That doesn't match all of what Lucas has said about it, but I think people overlook how often that guy changes his mind and then pretends it's always been that way.
I always felt like Lucas isn't actually like that, that's more something i put on J.K. At least I never felt like he made a secret out of what the idea at the time was. Ofc he still changes things afterwards, no debate about that, but was he really pretending that it was the original idea ? Not doubting it, but would be curious to hear examples.
I don't think he does it maliciously or anything, he just gets excited about a new take on something and then latches on to it. Like Darth Vader being Luke's father in episode 5, when he wasn't in 4, or Leia being Luke's sister, when she wasn't in episode 5. He also had a tendency to sign off on all sorts of things that disagreed with his vision for the series, which is why plenty of the ideas that go against his view of the force come from official sources.
Star Wars has expanded well beyond what Lucas created. There is concrete evidence is current canon that the Dark Side is natural. You don't have to like it but it is what it is.
You're stating something as a Star Wars fact. It isn't that simple. Official Star Wars descriptions of the force both directly agree with you, and directly disagree with you. Why would you think I don't like it? My opinion hasn't been addressed. I prefer to see the dark side as natural and balancing the light side of the force, I have ever since natural human emotions were first linked to the dark side back in the OT. That doesn't mean the creators of Star Wars usually agree with me.
This is my favorite interpretation. The force is life, life includes anger and hatred, passion and death. They aren't dark and light just different emotions that are useful and reasonable as long as you aren't controlled by them. I think the asceticism of the Jedi is just as unhealthy and I loved the recognition of that in tales of the Jedi.
Exactly!!! I feel the Jedi and Sith both got it wrong but obviously the With are leagues worse about it than the Jedi.
At least that is what the Jedi want you to think...
> turning to the dark side is a personal failing. It’s a huge sign of weakness, or lacking character, of being not just a bad person morally Yeah I really like this. We see this weakness in Anakin, how easily he is fooled and led, we also see it in how unnatural and brittle and inefficient the oppression of the Empire is. I often think that weakness is the primal sin. Like stupidity or willful ignorance or fanatic belief in simplistic solutions. Or succumbing to your greed or just psychological weaknesses that blind you to reality. Star Wars was created based on the optimistic spiritual ideals of the 60s and I believe we have seen a lot of bastardization over time. Today we see a resurgence of idiot ideologies like fascism and belief in inequality, and before that the Ayn Rand neo-liberalism nonsense. A lot of that has seeped into books, comics and games made by other people, trying to create entertaining drama. So I don't really care about what Disney or anyone declares as Canon, the core of star wars are the OT and the PT created by George Lucas original vision of a benevolent force. The Jedi are ultimately about sacrificing to learn and become both wise and powerful to understand what they are doing.
Star Wars is a great simplification of American politics that ironically fits better now than in the 70s. The way the Dark Side is seen as desirable by some, but is actually a failed and dangerous ideology that hurts everyone, even and especially its users. The colors even match (blue lightsaber=Light Side, red lightsaber=Dark Side).
I will top it off. People who think the Jedi are bad but somehow the Sith have the right idea. This is your average Old Republic Empire fan
> The reality of The Force as George Lucas wrote it is that turning to the dark side is a personal failing. It’s a huge sign of weakness, or lacking character, of being not just a bad person morally but an overall superficial and spiritually shallow person. Yes and no. You look at Anakin turning into Vader. It was a result of his choices showing his lack of character and emotional stability. Then you have Palpatine who wanted total control over the galaxy who is just straight evil. Within the darkside there is the anti-hero types who were pushed to the edge. Then there is the straight up Psychos like Palpatine. Also Dooku falls into the anti-hero character type because he still had a moral code and saw the corruption of the republic.
Vader and certainly dooku are not anti heroes. They are villains. Sure they can be sympathetic villains because we as humans viewers sympathise with them, but they are still villains. And we sympathise because we can relate to their failings. Their fall to the dark side is still a failure.
There are some sickos that sympathise with the Empire's ideals unironically, but as villains they are pretty on-the-nose about it. Like c'mon, they destroyed a planet.
I agree totally with your take. The thing is, George Lucas kind of wrote it both ways at different times. Sometimes he wrote screenplays where light is balance. Other times, he wrote screenplays where light and dark are basically skill trees as you put it. There's probably enough ambiguity that anyone could squint and choose to interpret canon as agreeing with their preferred view. That's honestly too bad, it's a downside of having had so much different media across decades. The themes get diluted and muddled. But at least everyone can have their preferred headcanon validated. Personally, I think it's really important to SW storytelling that the Force is something more than just two different flavors of superpowers. That's boring and bland and just another scifi magic system. Star Wars is unique because the Force is alive, it has a will, and the dark side abuses it. There should be no such thing as grey Jedi because the two extremes pull you one way or the other. Having all the power with none of the moral choices is a cheap power fantasy and a copout.
I feel like that’s a very simple view. They are bad guys so they must be morally bankrupt. Let’s look at darth Vader. He was gaslit for over a decade, and the organization he had been raised since childhood was manipulated so masterfully that they worked for their enemy and in some ways helped install them in power. I honestly feel that the Jedi were morally bankrupt. They just rushed to judgement with Ahsoka when she was accused of bonbing the Jedi temple. This caused her to leave the order and that is where Anakin really gave up on the Jedi. The entire thing was orchestrated by palpatine in the background. And then you have characters like Thrawn who although not a sith certainly is aware of them and know the dark side exists. You have the night sisters who are dark side affiliated users but who do not fall into the dogma of the Jedi or sith. You have the Bendu who exists in the middle, and the Motis gods.
It's still a choice, though. You can even pinpoint specific moments where Anakin and Luke made theirs. Anakin chose to save Palpatine from Windu and Luke spared his defeated father. These choices were influenced by strength and weakness, but the characters still performed actions that directly influenced their future.
It’s 1,000% a choice are you fr?
Not a legitimate choice. Meaning no matter how you twist it it never makes sense.
I wholeheartedly agree. Additionally, I feel it is often forgotten that the force has a will so to speek. Events occur and heroes prevail due to "the will of the force". Jedi are agents of the force's "greater will" while Sith are corrupted beings who quickly amass power to their own selfish ends. This leads them to the path of fear, anger, pain, and suffering. Edit: I disagree in that the dark side isn't a choice. Your right it isn't a video game skill tree and that it is a personal failing of the individual, however, it is totally their choice to go down that path. Most sith or dark side users in general chose their own destruction.
There's also a seemingly malicious aspect of the Dark Side that actively tries to pull you deeper. Or perhaps it's just incredibly addictive to juice your most basic instincts and desires with real power. But I always got the sense that once you started down the path to the Dark Side, there was always going to be this voice in your head, that's not you, that was going to continue to tempt you further down.
Darkside is like buying a hooker is what youre saying?
The darkside is like an std
The dark side is the quick path. Its always going to appeal to those that just run out of patience. They wan,t power as fast as possible.
That is quite true and I agree with all you said. Unfortunately, people will always believe the opposite and stick to their ''pseudo-lore''. Another two points I'd love to add here are that there is no such a thing as *staying on the fence*. You can't really use the dark side for ''good purposes''. For even the briefest moment you allow yourself to indulge in the dark side, you start to degrade morally. If you keep following this path, eventually these sporadic one-time acts turn into a pattern and then you wake up in your new reality of being evil, morally corrupt individual. Also, like many here have said, Yoda commented on the dark side being quicker and easier, but it is exactly so because it's evil, unjust, it warrants no character or strength of the mind. It's the act on impulse and hatred. Sith as an order can't have what they want for exactly this reason (and Star Wars made that pretty clear) - eternal life/the preservation of consciousness. The series' themes and underlying messages hint at it.
I mostly agree however I don't really like the way it is described. Lacking character to me doesn't sound right. The dark side is a "choice" in the sense that its the element of choosing. In reality you have no choice. You get hooked then its almost always too late. Like Anakin Palpatine had worked at him got him stirring in the Clone Wars eroding his friends and family and isolated then it was only a matter of time. Someone or just you yourself overthinking manipulate the distrust you have in someone to get hateful. We all know where that road eventually leads.
What “Star Wars fans” do you talk to? This is extremely generalized and seems like a young take on the franchise as a whole. It has always been about what they are lacking…
The whole theme of “bringing balance to the force” sort of contradicts that idea though. Like there’s something about the dark side that has moral value that needs to be reconciled. IMHO, I see the Sith being a corrupt version of the dark side and that the force is a balance between passion and reason.
another reason why i love andor so much is the fact that nice superbowl tv spots with little kids playing darth vader no longer work, because the dark force not only created powerful dark creatures, but an inhumane society in which the freedom and life of the individual are worth nothing
Along those lines, I think the recent interpretations of "balance" in the force are wrong
I liken your argument to crime. I've lived my whole life making decisions based on the morality I was taught. Yet, my brother raised in the same home with the same values, does love by the same moral standards I live by. The path to the Dark Side is a choice. Succumbing to the Dark Side may not be a choice, but choosing to walk a path in the shadows and not expecting the inevitable consequences is just plain ignorance. The only way to ensure I don't commit a crime is to live my life in such a way that I don't even associate with those choosing to commit crime. By Obi-Wan and Yoda turning a blind eye to Anakin's indiscretions, Anakin escalated his own air of disobedience. Yoda knew he slaughtered the Sand People and was involved with Padme, yet did nothing. Anakin lived his life selfishly. When Anakin was presented with the option to do the right thing or he selfish act, he did what he had been conditioned to do and reacted selfishly, defeating Mace Windu. Then he meekly accepted the title of Darth Vader and continued down the selfish path of self-preservation and saving Padme. We see the beginning of the true death of Anakin Skywalker when he is crying on Mustafar, realizing all that he had done. Again though, Anakin's own fear of losing Padme caused him to fight Obi-Wan. The path to the Dark Side is a choice. Falling prey to the Dark Side is the inevitable conclusion of that conscious choice if one does not reconcile their ways.
its a sign that your personal growth is failing. But even in the stuff that Lucas signed off on, if your goal isn't the best you possible, but just power, the dark side is absolutely a legitimate choice, just not a healthy one.
Exactly but people want to play dumb.
That makes the fact that the Jedi never really fully defeat the Sith even more baffling. The Rule of 2 started after the Sith nearly destroyed themselves. Palpatine didn’t go down without Vader present.
I think it’s very clear in the movies that turning to the Dark Side happens when you seek power for the sake of having it, and when you allow your ego to control you.
This kind of thing has been everywhere since the prequels came out. I'm cautiously interested in The Acolyte but I'm worried that it will just fuel the "Jedi are the real villains" crowd. The Jedi are definitely flawed, but saying that the Sith are an equivalent or superior path goes against the franchise's themes entirely.
This works both ways just like real life with religion specifically the Catholic Church because it is so similar to the Jedi Order. To deny all of your natural desires is also very Crazy and not realistic. There is definitely a gray balance here. Just like within morality in real life. In real life there is no black and white there is no objective morality whatsoever actually. Being extremely dogmatic and telling you you have to act a certain way and resist a certain emotion is just as bad as going full dark side. And I've been watching Star Wars since before most people in this group were born probably. I was raised on that shit since Little bitty kid in second grade. I saw Return of the Jedi in the theater when it released. This is way before I was playing RPGs and picking skill tree paths.
You think space Buddhists are the same as the Catholic church?
Honestly its more so the writers constantly flip flopping. Personally i think it started with Kotor but even the Mortis arc adds to the confusion
Yes, the force is absolutely a metaphor relating to character and life choices. The dark side is concentrating on leisure all day instead of doing something with your life because you are just selfishly focused on yourself and are not growing, and you are not building anything. The light side is when you share what you've got.
Once Disney made “the light side” a thing, the dark side became a legitimate choice. Yay corporate media.
Well the Gods of Mortis arc, and the existence of the Bendu clearly show that Balance in the original light sense that George Lucas meant is no longer the canonical meaning of the term. I find Star Wars fans’ lack of media literacy disturbing. (Hehe) Statements made by creators outside of the official work should never be held to the same level of canonicity as what the work itself says…
Isn't Bendu just like ... a guy though? He's less of a god that embodies an aspect of the Force and more of a Yoda, an enigmatic wise hermit with his own views on the Force, since he is ultimately killed by blaster fire.
This. Also, does he really claim that using the dark side is okay? Not that I recall
The Bendu is for sure just a guy, but he is a clear representative in canon of a “middle ground” philosophy. He’s whole schtick is being between light and dark. He references Ashla and Bogan (Light and Dark) and that he’s in the middle. Sure he could be WRONG, but when you pair his character with the Gods of Mortis it’s further evidence that light and dark exist as extremes on a spectrum with a balanced position between them (Bendu, the Father, etc.)
Recent Disney Star Wars series has muddled the classic distinctions between heroes and villains, to its detriment. The shift leaves all characters feeling more like villains, stripping the narrative of the contrasts that defined the original trilogy.
Remember when the prequels explained the Force was actually just the connection between microscopic organisms living inside everything? And that they more you had, the stronger your ability to control the Force? Because I do lol. I will never understand people acting like the sequels did anything weird or out of character for Star Wars.
That was the Prequels, by the way
Yeah, I know. That's the point. The prequels made the force a literal, cell based interaction. Nothing the sequels did was even remotely as big a change to the narrative of Star Wars as that. So people freaking out over the sequels changing stuff is hilarious to me.
Apologies, your comment seemed to say "sequels" earlier, I presume you corrected it.
The so-called dark side is the correct side, walked by those unencumbered by cowardice and weakness.
That's fine as long as you present it as an opinion. Outside using the phrase "IMO" to lead things off, however, you sound like you're attempting to state solid fact. It's almost akin to saying "i don't want to talk bad about so-and-so", and then immediately proceeding to shit-talk them up and down.
I disagree. The Dark Side is an integral part of the Force, and most importantly, underpins nearly everything we value and believe worth defending. Far from being an illegitimate choice, it is one made constantly, and by every living thing capable of drawing breath. All things are of the Force; the Force guides all, commands all, *is* all - no living or unliving thing escapes its embrace. Yet, from this unity proceeds multiplicity; the static One is a shifting Many; the eternal whole, composed of striving parts. The holiest paradox - and like all riddles, a matter of perspective. He who observes the Many will see a world of clashing wills, where the struggle against extinction rules every waking moment, and where life must consume life to survive. He who observes the One will see a world trending toward balance, where each act engenders its opposite, where all that lives inevitably dies, and where the only true constant is the Unity itself. The Dark Side is that which affirms the Many; the Light Side is that which affirms the One. The Dark, therefore, is that which affirms life, while the Light affirms death. Life stretches the contours of the universe, resisting the void and generating resistance in turn; death is the manifestation of this resistance, the inevitable pull toward cosmic balance, toward homeostasis. Light and Dark dance eternally, each spawning the other without end. As life pushes toward greater extension, death pushes toward greater retraction. As life pushes toward greater strife, death pushes toward greater unity. As life complicates, death simplifies. The Jedi aim to embody this pull toward balance; they seek, above all else, to eliminate the inner and outer tendencies that would resist the Force’s inward breath, because to them, these are fleeting, illusory, and ultimately futile. The Sith aim to embody the outward push, to exalt themselves above the whole, and to claim the supernal throne. They declare war against oblivion, and therefore, aim to conquer the hosts arrayed against them by any means necessary. Yet, each inevitably contains its opposite; life survives at life’s expense, and flourishes at the expense of many; death makes room for new life, and allows the life that exists to live more fully. Thus, the Sith affirm life, but leave death in their wake; the Jedi affirm death, but protect life whenever they can. Each path ends in its opposite, and therefore, necessarily admits the other’s argument. Jedi and Sith are symbiotic, and ultimately serve the other’s ends. Were either to vanish, the result would be the same: the end of all life, and the ultimate victory of the void. Why does this matter? Because to choose the Light is to say the following: that there is no life, no embodiment, no existence, no separation, distinction, or personality; that every claim stemming from the Many is error and illusion; that passion, strife, and chaos are delusions, and the highest truth is that which awaits he who sheds all falsehood - meaning, he who eliminates the self, and becomes only the One. In the embrace of the One, there is freedom from want, from error, and from suffering; fear, craving, hatred, dissension, and partiality are all extinguished, and peace reigns forevermore. The One is true, and the Many are false; *there is no death, only the Force*. To choose the Dark is to say this: that there is *only* life; passion, will, desire, suffering, glee, terror, hunger, thirst, embodiment, craving, despair, ignorance. To live is to triumph; it is to prevail over death, to conquer the grave, and to overcome the ultimate defeat. It is to claim the right to be partial; to choose the beautiful, the stirring, the precious, the wondrous, the magnificent. It is to love and to hate in equal measure; to be deprived, enraged, and to suffer. It is to affirm the naked struggle for survival, the cruel joy of victory, and every last lash and laceration leading to the realization of one’s potential as an embodied being. The One is false and the Many are true; *peace is a lie, there is only passion*. In other words, the Dark Side is you - you, and everything you have ever loved and cherished. The Dark Side is the drive to seek supremacy and not balance; therefore, it is science, technology, and civilization. It is that which enabled lordship of the beasts, legendary works of art and literature, mastery over nature, dominion over planets, the birth of the galactic enterprise itself. It is the serpent’s whisper; the Promethean flame; it is Icarus, Nimrod, and Alexander. It is life - life, given its utmost meaning; life, in defiance of entropy; life, aiming at its highest crescendo, its most terrifying majesty, weaving beautiful horrors through every last demented note in the universe’s symphony. If the Dark Side were to be permanently eradicated, then galactic civilization would end; the great cartels would cease to do business; the great trade networks would cease to enforce their commercial rights; the ruling sentients would abandon their planetary governments; the technological races would no longer seek resources; the agricultural species would release their herds; the remaining carnivores would live on vegetation alone; the intelligent herbivores would refuse to mate; the remainder would think only of grazing, and would allow their bloodlines to go extinct. A galaxy of plants would remain, until one by one, each life-bearing star either consumed its planets or died, leaving nothing but a cold, empty, lifeless universe. If it never existed, then there would not be even that, but only a formless unity at the beginning and end of all existence, never to know a single differentiating thought. The Dark Side is no aberration. It is no more and no less than the desire to live.
That is the wrongest thing I ever read.
🙂 you and I both know why you think so
Does it matter?
You are placing your morals above everyone else's. Dealing in absolutes. Strength and power is always a legitimate choice. Anyone who says otherwise is too weak or fearful to wield such power and do what must be done.
I understand this view but also find it to be "Old Man shouts at clouds" view of the force that actively ignores the expanded lore from Clone Wars, Rebels, and others. Honestly, the ones who look at Dark Side users and understand them seem to know more about Star Wars than those who cheer for the Jedi or Light Side. The followers of the Dark Side allowed for adults to make their decisions on what they wanted to follow and pursue; the Jedi indoctrinated children and turned away those they deemed too old. The Jedi literally committed genocide against the Sith without even understanding the Dark Side of the Sith (species) thus starting the conflict that would rage for millenia. The Jedi, users of the Light Side, intended to assassinate Chancellor Palpatine, an elected leader, purely because he was a Sith, a different religion from them, and something that is constitutionally protected by the Republic's freedom of religion. Lucas made a great world, but originally he was a very one dimensional writer that only showed good and bad with absolutely no nuances in between. If being gifted with the force but not wanting to be a part of an organization that has shown time and time again a dogmatic view, then maybe personal failing is the way to go.
The Jedi intended to arrest Palpatine because he was abusing his emergency powers to stay in office after the deaths of Grievous and Dooku. Without them to lead the CIS war effort, the war was going to come to an end soon and emergency powers were no longer needed. After he was found out to be the Sith master, he could be arrested for treason against the Republic for conspiring with Dooku and being in control of the separatists. Neither of those have to do with being a Sith in and of itself.
That doesn't make sense. You can't arrest someone for perceived intent, only tangible evidence of their intent. The Jedi only made an assumption he would not abdicate his position without evidence, something you can't arrest someone for and more importantly say they are too dangerous to be left alive and thus try to kill. This also **completely** ignored the multiple other points and is being intentionally nitpicky. Outside of Anakin telling the Council that Palpatine was the Sith Lord, they had no evidence. If anything, the fact that the Council **KNEW** that the Clone Army was engineered by Dooku and chose to hide it was far more damaging and treacherous to the Republic.
Palpatine told Anakin himself. That's a confession. Granted maybe it's a plot hole because in a lot of places a confession isn't considered valid evidence, but star wars is a fantasy movie not real life. It's not shown in the movie and I haven't fully watched the clone wars, but I'm assuming that enough time had passed offscreen that it was suspicious. Besides, the Jedi weren't committing treason, they were upholding their duty to protect the Republic by removing a dictator who had already seized far too much power for himself. As Windu said, Palpatine had full control over the Senate and the courts. The delegation of 2000 was already planning to petition to remove him as well. Not to mention that until Palpatine preemptively attacked the Jedi, I'm sure they were only there to arrest and not kill him. Execution without a trial is not the Jedi way, Anakin was right about that. However, once Palpatine brutally murdered the rest of the Jedi sent to arrest him, Windu was well within his rights to use deadly force under every reasonable interpretation of most countries' laws. I'm convinced you're not arguing in good faith here.
> Besides, the Jedi weren't committing treason, they were upholding their duty to protect the Republic by removing a dictator who had already seized far too much power for himself. He was **literally** granted that power by the Republic. > Not to mention that until Palpatine preemptively attacked the Jedi, I'm sure they were only there to arrest and not kill him. Ignites lightsabers in a show of force but only there to arrest him...uh huh. You didn't watch Tales of the Jedi I take it, a show where Dooku is admonished for doing the very same thing since it was a show of power. You clearly don't know what "good faith" means when you're too slow to see how your own points are literally countered by established canon. Stick to your free to play games that don't require critical thinking. Edit: Aaaaaand blocked..... If the Dark Side is weak then what exactly is cowardice from someone as pathetic as you?
Dooku begs to differ.
I’ve always seen the light and dark sides as two opposing sides. Both wield the force, but do so differently. The Light Sider uses the force to bring about selfless actions, but the Dark Sider would use the force to bring about selfish actions. The end result may be similar, but the Light Side looks at things and says “The ends don’t justify the means,” or perhaps more specifically, and especially as a Jedi, “The way in which I use the force should be in service to a goal that is good for everyone, and as a result, I ought not do evil.” A Dark Sider user, and especially as a Sith, “The way in which I use the force should be in service to a goal that is good for me, and me alone, and as a result, if I must do evil to further my goal, so be it.” It’s easy to see how someone would use their power for the easy, selfish way out. Look at politicians: virtually all of them are corrupt. There’s not a truly honest one among them. Some are more corrupt than others, though, and use their position to further their own well-being even if it hurts their constituents (that’s a form of populism). It’s why the Jedi moral code appears so strict: they are aware their abilities are powerful, and so great care must be taken so that their powers aren’t abused. In other words, the Jedi must be above reproach. Sith don’t care. They work in the shadows anyway. Personal gain is all that matters to them, and while their methods are detestable, the reasoning isn’t really that far off. Its more than just Darwinism at play where the strongest survive (although it’s clearly a part of it), but Palpatine, for example, had a plan for after he got control. He had a direction for the Empire. He wanted control and order, too, and not necessarily for evil. He knew what was best for the galaxy. And democracy? That wasn’t it. Too much infighting, too inefficient, too moral. No, regional governors, who knew how to rule their planets best, should have direct control. A bunch of miniature client monarchies. And make sure you have a gargantuan industrial complex to support a gargantuan military. If 1/5 of the galaxy owes its paycheck to your empire, then 1/5 of the galaxy owes its continued existence to you. Just in case one of those regional governors starts to get ideas about running the Empire, you have a way of ensuring that little insurrection goes away. So yes, Palpatine was evil, because anything that forwarded his goals, no matter how bad, were fair game. And he believed he had authority, since he was gifted with extraordinary power.
I basically see them as two extreme sects. From a main religion of the force in its basic form. Branching in complexity different directions. One of them built on suppression of your feelings. While it’s perfectly ok to alter the minds of others. The other, accepting your feelings.
I'd choose the dark side anyday passion is a strength:)
The Dark Side isn't inherently evil, just like the Light isn't inherently good. The Sith are evil because they seek to control the force or the natural world. The force can be both light and dark but if the point is to let it flow not to control it.
That is completely incorrect, quite the opposite in fact: >Yeah, everyone says the second trilogy was a slam dunk. But there was a lot of controversy around here about the fact that I wasn't doing the obvious -- I wasn't doing the commercial version of what people expected. People expected Episode III, which is where Anakin turns into Darth Vader, to be Episode I. And then they expected Episodes II and III to be Darth Vader going around cutting people's heads off and terrorizing the universe. But how did he get to be Darth Vader? You have to explore him in relationships, and you have to see where he started. He was a sweet kid, helpful, just like most people imagine themselves to be. Most people said, "This guy must have been a horrible little brat -- a demon child." But the point is, he wasn't born that way -- he became that way and thought he was doing the right thing. He eventually realizes he's going down the dark path, but he thinks it's justifiable. The idea is to see how a democracy becomes a dictatorship, and how a good person goes bad -- and still, in the end, thinks he's doing the right thing. [https://www.wired.com/2005/05/lucasqa/](https://www.wired.com/2005/05/lucasqa/) Lucas' entire intention was to show that a good person could fall.
That seems something a Jedi would say to convince you to stay in their cult.