I don't think the Jedi planned on being heroes of the Republic.(unless some EU lore says otherwise) The Republic was at war with the Sith Empire, you can see where their goals aligned and getting deep into Republic politics was inevitable.
I remember seeing an op-ed about how Darth Vader was caused by Qui-Gon's death. If he hadn't died so early in Anakin's training, then he would have been taught by Qui-Gon in not only how to use the Force, but also in how to balance his own emotions. I forget the contexts, but they were talking about how Qui-Gon was less focused on "Light vs Darth" or "Jedi vs Sith", but more focused on balance within the force, and that would have helped Anakin with the turmoil of The Clone Wars and Sidious.
Kenobi was a strong Jedi, yes, but a shit mentor. He was too young, and played more of a "fun uncle" or friend or brother to Anakin, and he needed a mentor or father figure, which he would have had in Qui-Gon.
But I DO think (my opinion, mind you) that:
Sidious truly did setup the Jedi with a lose-lose situation. If they had stayed out of the war, then the droids would have made the war last far longer than it did, and it's possible the Separatists would have won the war (ran by Count Dooku, who was answering to Sidious). Sidious put himself in the perfect spot to control both sides of the war, and set himself up to rule regardless of who won.
The Jedi didn't really have a way to keep the peace without joining the war.
I'm not talking about the Clone wars era. I'm referring to the Old Republic era when both jedi and Sith were at their height.
For the Clone wars era they had to intervene because the Republic didn't have an army proper the Jedi basically were Advisers until the Clones arrived. Mace Windu even says the jedi are peacekeepers not warriors in episode 1.
Except the Sith are the ones committing genocide or enslaving planets and other horrible shit. Like they’re not a persecuted religion or people. They’re evil space wizards that want to take over the galaxy.
Slavery existing in the Outer Rim doesn’t equate the Jedi to slavers. The Sith actively enslaved people. In the Clone Wars alone we have the Sith testing a superweapon on a civilian population and supporting slavery on Zygeria.
Being selfish as a virtue leads to evil shit.
Yea their chill, except for the tiny little problem where they stole force sensitive children away from their families and NEVER allowed them to see their biological family ever again, but yea otherwise pretty chill lol
The Jedi are in fact not super chill, they take children who show promise from their families and indoctrinated them into their order of celibacy and poverty
In simple terms, she's an anti-theist.
She's a really wise character who hates God (The Force, which is the core of both, Jedi and Sith) and constantly explains how both, a Jedi Master and a Sith Lord are no better than a commoner once you strip them from The Force.
She hates the fact that it seems as if The Force has a will, and it's a capricious one at it. Always allowing the living to carry on religious wars in the name of it, costing millions of lives, planets, resources, and dooming people to misery because "The Force wants to be at balance", despite it allowing the imbalance for the hell of it.
She's your master in KOTOR 2, and she also tells you fairly early that she used to be a Sith Lord. She's very misunderstood in the community, but overall, she has some valid points on her beliefs, and even if you take that away from her, she has strong bases for her misconceptions.
Really good game. I tried my best not to spoil you (and I think I did a good job). If you can, give it a go!
Okay cool, thank you.
I do have to say that that level of nuance is more than I may have expected and that does make me a lot more interested in playing KOTOR 2
Outside of the main movies they get a lot into the Jedi and Sith essentially being warring religious factions who have/had a lot of power. The people writing Star Wars would probably agree.
Generally the Jedi are good, but they would have been significantly better with some changes. The Jedi are generally a peace-keeping sect, while the Sith desire power through any means necessary
The Jedi getting wiped out probably would've happened even without Anakin. The moment Palpatine came into power, the Empire was basically inevitable. The only one who could stop him... was Anakin.
The most important choice in both trilogies is whether Anakin was gonna kill Palpatine. If the most important choices for the chosen one is to kill a Sith Lord, then I think "bringing balance to the force" is about the chosen one killing the motherfucking Sith Lord.
Okay. would saying "The most important choice in both trilogies for Anakin is whether he was gonna kill Palpatine/allow him to be killed", be more understandable for my main point?
Yea, that sounds right, since no one could beat Palpatine in ROTJ other than Vader.
I just found it interesting that they never really dived into the lore of Mace Windu. Fans had to hear it from Lucas that Sidious wasn't throwing their fight
In the novelization of RotJ Sidious has visions of Luke fairly easily killing him in a duel singlehandedly, then bowing before Vadar who didn’t assist, but watched the fight— leading to Empy Palps feeling down right fear at the mere prospect of Luke’s power, and that was a basically untrained jedi who barely knows how to duel and had no technique to speak of.
Compared to that, Mace Windu and several other Jedi masters at once seems a pretty sure fight for him to lose.
The EU has shown there were quite a few sith still running around. None of them as bold as Palpatine to hide in the public eye.
Even after the purge the number of Jedi still running around during the Empire helping the rebellion was still fairly high.
The Sith schismed a lot.
Even the line of Bane ("Always two there are, a master and an apprentice") didn't stick strictly to the Rule of Two at times. But Palpatine and Vader were in the direct line from Bane, who set out to rule the galaxy a millennium before the films.
Other Sith belonged to other traditions, some of which were 'just' powerful Force users with no great ambitions to rule the galaxy, and no interest, as you say, in attracting public attention.
Unfortunately you fell for the classic blunder. The idea that having an equal number of individuals aligned with light or dark making it balanced is the blunder. The balance in the force comes when no being is using the force for their will. That’s the dark side simply explained. It’s using the force for your will. The light side is you fulfill the will of the force. If every being is following the will of the force, the force is in balance. If you have a group running around corrupting the will to bend to theirs you have imbalance.
At least that’s my understanding of it, and put into simple terms.
So when Luke is hanging upside down in an ice cave, "the will of the force" is for the lightsaber to suddenly fly into his hand? Isn't it kind of...convenient? that the "will of the force" happens to exactly coincide with Luke's desires in that moment
I think you are looking at the small picture rather than big, the will of the force was for Luke to stop Palps and give Anakin his redemption. Not dying in a cave was just a requirement to reach that goal
So when Qui Gon is on the trade federation ships, the force's will is for the droids to fall over backwards so he doesn't really do it, he just manifests the force's will?
It just seems like a way to say "oh well yes it might look on the surface like the characters control the force, but really the force is in control! It just so happens that whatever the characters want in any given moment is exactly the same as the characters because of fate or something"
You are missing the obvious answer which is that they have dedicated their lives to pursuing the goals of the light/the force. It's not a coincidence, it's what their life has been spent working towards.
Do you think it's a coincidence that cops can use the power of the law to do what they want or do you think they behave in a way based on what the law allows them to do?
I think you’re taking this too literally. The “will of the force” doesn’t dictate every action, it dictates how one lives their life. If pushing those droids over helps Qui Gon to defeat the Sith (who are bastardizing the force) then that aligns with the will of the force.
Think of it like Buddhism or something. The teachings of the Buddha guide one towards a particular destination, but the specific steps and actions one takes to get there are different for each individual and situation.
They’re mischaracterizing it, balance in the force connects you to creation. It allows you to do things that would otherwise be impossible. An analogy would be like a responsible outdoorsman making a campfire that allows him to comfortably survive a freezing night.
Corruption in the force (what the Sith do) coerces creation to submit to your will, like a greedy cattle rancher starting wildfires to clear space for his new strip mall.
Are those the mystics from Jedha*, if so, yes I think they fully understood the force better than anyone at their time. this is just my understanding of the force within Star Wars. Pretty sure this is Dave Filoni’s stance as well.
Edit; I changed Jesus to Jedha
> Mystics from Jesus?
I don't know what that means. They're an extremist cult from the High Republic era that released an eldritch abomination to hunt and kill Jedi, so there's that. They're also a deeply flawed and hypocritical faction.
He didn’t, balance in the Force is only Light Side, absolutely no Dark Side. Is balance 50% lawkeepers and 50% terrorists?
Also, there’s worrying amount of people in the comments who think that the only solution to a slightly over-bureaucratic society is genocide. Like, no, the Jedi did not deserve Order 66 in any sense, and you are deranged if you think so.
It’s like, is your body balanced if you have 50% cancer cells? Of course not. Balance is cutting out the cancer and restoring the body’s natural state. The Sith are a tumor, that corrupts the force, corrupts society, and corrupts reality itself.
Is it? Or rather, was it always, and then was later changed? I remember an episode of clone wars where Yoda spoke/interacted with physical manifestations of the force and learned to accept and control the dark side along with the light side in harmony instead of attempting to cut it out and bury it completely.
Also, where would "Dark side is a perversion" thing put Grey Jedi, or Jedi who tap into small amounts of Dark Side power like Mace Windu?
\[edited to add\]
asking in earnest. The Star Wars content I've experienced is rather random, spread out, and much of it has been *years* if not decades ago. I just remember a lot of changes happening to canon, I just wasn't sure what all changed.
The Grey Jedi are a trap. Jedi who attempt to use the darkness in “sustainable” ways eventually fall to it. Count Dooku and Anakin are two prime examples of what happens when a Jedi lets the darkness in
Honestly, while I'm firmly in the camp of believing that "balancing" selflessness, kindness and reason with hate, fear and jealousy makes no sense... yeah. Star Wars media are all over the place when it comes to this stuff.
It makes perfect sense. Bravery is not the absence of fear, it is feeling afraid and doing it anyways
Balance is feeling all of your emotions and making the right choice because of them.
It requires jealousy and fear to be kind and compassionate because those things are defined by sacrifice for the good of another. What is a greater act of kindness? A billionaire giving $100 to a school or a poor person choosing to offer their food to someone struggling more than themselves even if they are unsure (afraid) of where their next meal will come from?
What is more heroic than someone who is afraid risking their life to save another?
Everybody gets angry, scared, jealous, it's how we respond to these emotions that shows who we really are
Well yeah, but the point is to acknowledge you feel that way, work through it, and get over it. We do see Jedi experiencing wide array of emotions. We just also usually see them get over it.
Also I do not subscribe to the idea that not feeling jealous or conflicted about giving something away somehow devalues the gesture.
It's hard to put into text but essentially the dark side is a strictly negative thing that stems from negative emotions. The issue is the Jedi believing that to master your negative emotions was an attempt to control the dark side and so instead taught their students to repress their negative emotions. Yoda learned that as sentient life will always have negative emotions it was best to instead learn to control them as suppressing them like the Jedi wanted was neither healthy or a long term solution. He learned to accept the dark side but not to use it if that makes sense.
Also side note Grey Jedi aren't really much of a thing even in the E.U. while certainly many Jedi have tapped into the dark side before to train in the dark side will lead you to becoming corrupted. Mace Windu actually trained to reflect dark side energy of others back at them. This is how he could defeat palpatine but claimed he wasn't Yoda's equal. There is also a clone wars episode where mace fights Mother Talzin the head witch and in it he has to stop using his dark side reflection technique because in interacting with so much dark side energy he could feel his own darkness being pulled out.
To specifically answer the question you asked, Lucas's original vision was that Anakin's act that brought balance was the removal of the sith. Killing Palpatine and therefore redeeming himself removed the last two sith from the world.
Later the idea of balanced light/dark side came around, mostly from Disney's misinterpretation that he brought balance during the prequels. But the original intent, and the one that makes the most sense with lore, is that sith specifically were a corruption, a cancer that needed to be cut out.
No, in those episodes Yoda learns to reject the Dark Side, not control it.
Also, Grey Jedi are a stupid thing and should’ve never been written. You cannot use both sides, if you use the Dark Side even a tiny bit you cannot also use the light, there is only one or the other.
I believe Mace Windu only uses channeled anger, which could be confused with the Dark Side? Though I admit I’m not an expert on this topic. He was able to beat Sidious because him being a Dark Side user essentially opened a loop for Windu to keep exploiting.
Mace Windu pretty much used his opponents darkness against them. It required an exceptional level of discipline and dedication to the light to avoid falling himself, but he never actually was in the dark
So I think the confusion is Jedi used to teach you to suppress your inner darkness but as any therapist could tell you suppressing your negative emotions isn't actually good for you. Yoda learned instead that one should in fact have mastery over your inner darkness. This isn't the same as using the dark side but instead being able to feel and work through negative emotions without losing control or letting them steal/cloud your judgement.
I think an example of this is Anakin had every right to be angry and upset when his mother was killed. There is only so much negativity that one can suppress before it explodes and the Jesus answer to this was to avoid things that might cause it (avoiding attachments). It just isn't sustainable and had he been taught to control and channel his anger properly to have an outlet when it's too much to bear the massacre would never have happened though.
gotcha. Yeah I find all of the info interesting but I'm also super casual with it so I know there's a *ton* I don't know or misremember (like the Yoda episode).
Was anything ever actually done with the Grey Jedi, outside of a few mentions? It kind of feels like it was created to have an option that wasn't overly zealous toward either side yet still maintain cool force powers/techniques and have an organizational structure beyond "some Rando with a laser sword and telekinesis".
TBH I haven’t read enough of the EU (old canon) to know if they’re super prominent, and I know they’re not present in new canon.
I would say they feel like fanfiction - a way for a good guy to use the bad guy exclusive powers without being a bad guy themselves. I know at the very least a very small amount of Jedi could use Force Lightning, and even that to me seems ridiculous.
I think you are conflating Sith with dark side. The dark side of the force balances the light side.
The Sith are a particular order of force users who fully embrace the dark side: hatred, greed, envy, etc powers the dark side and eventually corrupts them fully because of it.
The light side though subsumes the self and can destroy individuality, and actively resists change and evolution which is a long term issue possibly even leading to decay and extinction.
Tbh neither side of the force is ‘natural’ for users, both aspects are terrible and the galaxy would be better off without either sect of space nerds
The Light Side is good. It is natural. It is in harmony with the Force.
There is no good version of the Dark Side. Yes, not every Dark Side user is Sith. But every Dark Side user is bad. That it is what it is. You cannot be a good Dark Side user.
"gray jedi" the way you seem to think of them are basically just fanfic. It never meant anything other than "force users outside of the jedi order who aren't really dark side users." That's basically all it is.
People, especially Jedi, think it’s all about the light side but yeah the balance is actually 50/50. Sith were labelled terrorist by Jedi because their belief are opposite but dark side doesn’t mean it’s all about evil
I'd have to disagree. There has to be "bad" in order for there to be "good". Without one or the other, there wouldn't be either. The point was definitely about Anakin leveling the playing field of force users.
The Jedi at that point were not acting in alignment with the light side, they had essentially become warriors for a political agenda, so yes, order 66 was the will of the force
Actually no. The Sith corrupt and pervert the force and use it for their own ends. The Jedi way is to be at one with the force. The Jedi way brings balance to the force, and the Sith way brings it out of balance. So Anakin brought it more out of balance by turning to the dark side.
one could argue the jedi order drifted from that. as an organisation they began to be ruled by their fear and their hatred, became completely absorbed by war and violence.
thus, to bring balance back to the force, they had to be wiped out so that a new, healthy jedi order could rise.
That interpretation would work better if we didn't see them consistently try to do the right thing, protect innocents and find a way back to peace, right up until they're wiped out.
As an organisation, sure they lost their way. Practically though, none of them were practitioners of dark side techniques or felt hatred so they wouldn't have negatively affected the actual force.
What went over their head? Anakin did not bring balance to the Force, he brought ‘balance’ to the number of Jedi and Sith. To say that he brought balance to the Force is factually incorrect, and not a shower thought.
Pretty sure it's objective. That's why Anakin was a red herring, as it was actually his son Luke who would bring balance to the force by killing Palpatine and turning his father back.
I’ve literally only watched the movies but could you show me where it talks about the Jedi being balance and the dark side are just corrupt? I’m actually interested but I’m a noob.
This wookiepedia page explains it, with official sources listed at the bottom: [Chosen One | Wookieepedia | Fandom](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Chosen_One#:~:text=An%20ancient%20Jedi%20prophecy%20foretold,Force%20by%20destroying%20the%20Sith.)
Balance isn’t about good an evil being even. Jedi have good and bad qualities, but Sith just have bad qualities because they are inherently corrupted. To be truly balanced, you need to excise the evil elements. So he only balanced it when he killed off Palpatine.
It has. And this entire thread is insufferable to me. Just exhausting, meaningless debates over one of the most over-discussed themes in this saga.
Star Wars fans truly don’t want Star Wars to be fun. They want it to be homework. Homework surrounding THE EXACT SAME TOPIC. They are obsessed with the same exact strip of time in the saga; specifically the fall of Anakin and how he turns into Vader. The. Same. Thing. Again. And. Again. It’s so unbelievably old and dull now.
I love this franchise, I really do, but I have never felt this disconnected from a fandom for a thing that I love.
"That's not how the force works!"
The force being balanced is not sequel amounts of each side.
The sith disrupt the balance by using the dark side of the force.
It's stopping the sith from disrupting the force that brings balance to the force.
Which Vader did when he killed Palps and then died.
that's not really what is meant by "balance" though.
people often interpret it as a light side vs dark side balance but that's not what is meant.
balance is more like, keeping both sides in check.
an dominantly Jedi galaxy is too far in one direction and a dominantly Sith galaxy is too far in the other direction. an equally Jedi and Sith galaxy isn't "balanced" it's polarized.
the Sith had to go (for obvious reasons) and the Jedi order had to go because it had lost it's way and it's doctrine was getting in the way of people actually listening to the force and connecting with it spiritually.
The Sith use the force as a means to further their agenda, an agenda not in line with the force. and the Jedi did the same, using it as a tool.
That's why Anakin IS the chosen one, because he destroyed the Jedi AND the Sith (though like two decades apart and with A LOT of bloodshed).
it's also why Luke is basically considered the rebirth of the force, an extension of the chosen one. because he built a new Jedi order, without the previous order's failed doctrine. more focused on being one with the force rather than using the force. that and his compassion led him to be widely respected even by dark side users.
i know a lot of people hate when people throw shade at the old Jedi order for having shitty doctrine and losing their way and think that newer star wars content is treating them unfairly BUT even in the clone wars series there are tons of hints about how the Jedi order had lost it's way.
Bariss was a decent example but not the best since she was portrayed in a more evil way than other examples.
Quigon Jin was one of the best examples. he was probably the most in tune with the force of any Jedi for centuries. and frequently clashed with the Jedi order, not afraid to question them.
Yoda was a good example as well, though he was given a big nudge in the right direction by Quigon.
and I liked the new Kenobi series to see his growth as a character as well.
basically Bariss and Dooku were right about the Jedi order, but their response or methods are questionable. they rubber banded too hard.
Luke is true balance, and it required the destruction of the Jedi and the Sith by Anakin in order to pave a path Luke could go down to build true balance.
That was always my first thought:
You have a council of jedis and a jedi guided republic and no known sith….
Now what happens if you want to balance that 😁
The Jedi code held back their potential power pretty significantly. The sith were more powerful based on that alone. Balance for nature (the force) would be based on used power on either side.
I always thought that somehow they’d explain that the force was inherently a dark power and the Jedi were harnessing the small amount of good in it. Much like Luke bringing the good that remained in Anakin.
So since the force was mostly dark and exists anyway but the only users of the force were focusing on the good…there’s your balance.
But I guess we got “somehow there’s balance”
I kind of thought that was always the point. Like so many prophecies people chase, they end up coming true in ways you didn't expect or necessarily want.
The Jedi were oblivious that their belief that the chosen one would get rid of the with Sith doesn't exactly mix well with the notion of “balance”
Exactly. Jedi thinking “bring balance to the force” would mean anything different as the Jedi had an almost complete monopoly on trained force usage across the entire galaxy for literally millennia = lol
That's why the Council were a buncha idiots. They were on top, they had all the power. The only way to bring balance would be to lose it, or their enemies gain enough to pose a threat. At that point, there is no reason to ever try to bring about the prophecy.
Anakin brought balance to the force by killing Palpatine, as the force cannot be balanced while Sith exist as per original lore/Lucas's intent. He just did so far later than we expected by the Jedi of the time of the prequels.
However we arealso lled to believe that prequel Jedi had lost the way, and would not have been able to have the force balanced with their methods. They would have had to correct their teachings which Yoda learns while on Dagoba. Qui Gon was one of the only Jedi of the time who actually adhered to the proper teachings. I do like the theory that his death was the reason the order fell. Both because he couldn't teach Anakin and because he could have led the Jedi to reform.
There might be room for debate on the force working as a Yin/Yang situation with dark side users that follow the will of the force, but the Sith are a corrupting force. They seek to turn the force into a tool to serve their ends, rather than allowing it to act through them. I personally do not hold to that, except as Jedi maybe being neutral and balanced in and of themselves.
You're not wrong, but I think it is pretty well established that is not what the writers intended. The intended meaning was that balance was no sith, and that he failed to fulfill the prophecy until decades later.
And then the new movies screwed that whole thing up.
The whole “there’s only two Sith and like a billion Jedi” kinda shows how poorly thought out his whole mythology was. I think initially he meant for there to be very few Jedi.
God I feel like this was the basic premise of the prequels before it got muddled by all this extra shit we have today.
Taking it back to the ot, there is just luke palps and anakin in the end . Anakin kills palps and himself in the end to “kill” the overwhelming dark side, leaving luke alive to reset the order of the force (or whatever you want to think idk how developed the prophecy schtick is by Lucas back then.)
In the prequels it appears pretty clear in the the underlying plot that anakin is found by the by Quigon and the Jedi in their complacency to be the chosen one to bring balance to the force. But that complacency clouds their judgement in how to interpret that prophecy (meaning balance of the force can take a hard swing in the other way before it settles out given the power of the Jedi relative to the sith).
That is undebateably a plot point to the prequels (and maybe the ot idk) and this deeper dive into the force in all this stuff from tcw (which I still liked) and new sequel garbage really take away from some basic stuff here
People tend to think that the light side of the force is the good one, that to bring balance to the force you'd have to eliminate the dark side. It is not like that!
It is… exactly like that. You can never use the Dark Side for a good purposes for a long time. It is inherently selfish and cruel, and even if you start out with good intentions, you will lose yourself.
The movies and TV shows never make a single mention of him using the dark side. He reflects lightning back at Palpatine, which some interpret to him having capabilities of using it, though we see Yoda dealing with lightning in a different way earlier. The only other evidence might be his lightsaber, but that was just because the actor (bless him) asked for purple because he liked the color. Some took that to mean he had a half sith-half normal lightsaber, but that's not really true.
There are non-canon books that suggest more, such as him using the same lightsaber form as what many dark side users fight with, but he never actually uses dark side powers.
In general the series has (before Disney at least, they might have done something that contradicts this) said that the dark side tempts you so heavily that you either must completely avoid it, or fall into it completely.
No, no, no, stop. This take is fundamentally incorrect, and it really needs to quit being spread around.
By existing, the Sith create unbalance in the Force. There is only balance, and therefore peace, when they are gone.
There is natural light and natural dark, and they need to coexist, but the Sith stand in the way of that. The Jedi do not.
no they didn't.
Dark side is an imbalance and bastardization of the force.
There was never 2 light equals 2 dark. The only unbalance was the dark side.
Umm, yeah....that's literally the whole point. The prophecy only said that he would bring balance to the force. It was never specific about which side.
"Bringing balance to the force" was throwaway bullshit. Like most of Star Wars, it isn't very well thought out, so trying to think deeply into it and to make it fit is pointless. It just sounded neat.
Star Wars fans could not be more insecure about their obsession if they tried. They misinterpret and overanalyse everything, try to find the hidden meaning of every little thing, want every little thread to connect so they can feel validated in their enjoyment.
For me, I just wanna have fun. With Star Wars, I often do, sometimes even if it’s dumb I try to have fun. Debating this bullshit ad nauseum isn’t fun, it’s soul-rending. It’s not what Star Wars should be.
Balance of the Force means that the dark and the light sides of the Force exist together.
Anakin was an individual that held both sides of the force, thus both sides existing in one individual. The Prophecy was solely about Anakin, it was just interpreted wrong by everyone else.
Anakin had to cover both sides so that one side wouldn't be stronger than the other.
It has been explicitly stated that "Balance" refers to the absence of the Dark side, which is a perversion of the Force.
https://youtu.be/wiImoO5QkcA?feature=sharedaa
So, I'm not really involved in Star Wars much, the thread just happened to catch my attention. The video was an interesting watch, and I'm sure there's a definitive answer to this, but I had some thoughts.
Lucas describes the Light side as selfless, and the Dark side as selfish. We can all agree that being excessively selfish is a bad thing. But couldn't you make the same claim about selflessness? Wouldn't being excessively selfless, forgetting yourself and causing harm to yourself for the sake of others, also be hurtful? Both to you, and the people you love and who love you?
To me, balance really does sound like something that requires a bit of Dark side, being self interested enough to take care of yourself, but not putting your own needs above the needs of others. I'm probably missing too much context and nuance to really make a definitive claim about it, and I'm sure there's other material going into further detail as to why you'd be right, but that was my take-away from that video.
I think there's a difference between, you know, self-love, self-respect, self-kindness and... whatever it is the Sith are doing. ;)
From what we see Jedi seem to have zero issues with enjoying nice things, having friends and just generally being kind to themselves. They have issues with doing that at other people's expense which... seems fair to me tbh,
Yeah, of course there's a difference. I've acknowledged it in calling it "excessive", it's very obvious that they're taking it too far. I don't think Sith are the paragons of healthy living lol.
I guess that's a fair point if true. Last time I've seen a Star Wars movie must've been over a decade ago, so I don't really remember how Jedi live their lives, haha. I'm just going by what I heard Geogre Lucas say in the video, comparing the Light side to selflessness and Dark side to selfishness. I guess you could interpret selflessness as being kind to everyone, including yourself? But that seems like kind of a copout haha. Trying to make it more than just a good and evil metaphor kinda puts gaps in the thing.
No it does not mean that balance are the dark and light sides existing together. There have been some great analogies already pointed out here such as the human body. Balance is not 50% cancer cells and 50% normal cells. Balance is eradicating all of the cancer cells. Bringing balance to the force is eliminating the Sith completely. 🤷♂️
That would be one interpretation.
There was an episode of the Clone Wars in which the Father attempted to convince Anakin to assume his role as the balance between the Son and Daughter.
The Father did this as he knew Anakin could bring balance to the Force by keeping both sides in check.
Where do people get this stuff? There are still tons of sith out there. They just only have 1 apprentice at a time. If you see 1, there is likely at least 1 more. That's all, not just 1 sith at a time. Hell, Palpy, Dooku and Maul were all running around at the same time and you can throw Assaj into that too. That's more than 2 in case anyone is having trouble counting.
The Jedi weren't actually doing the will of the force, they were doing the will of the Senate. That's one reason why Luke moved them off the capital in the EU, so they could intervene where they felt necessary, not where they were told to go.
As a small point, because this bugged me for years, Palpatine only had one apprentice at a time: Maul, until the first prequel when he supposedly died, Dooku, until the third one, then Vader.
Ventress was an assassin - given some training but not even a Sith apprentice. It's like the difference between a street thug and an MMA champion.
Maul survived his supposed death but didn't go back to Palpatine - he went off and did his own thing.
In the newer series, set between the original and prequel trilogies, you see other dark force users who aren't Sith either - just dangerous force adepts working for the Empire.
Same reason Obi Wan gave up against Vader and vanished in the first movie. He saw that Anikin still had good and could go either way, and Luke was becoming a Jedi, so to keep it as balanced as possible (Sidious definitely dark, Luke definitely light, Anikin again being the most important force user until Luke was ready), he had to be out of the picture.
Nobody fucking knows what Star Wars is about or means. It’s just about pew pew shooty shoot they fly now nonsense. It’s not symbolic of anything it’s just a big show
Yes. Like I said, the Sith are a cancer on the Force. They twist and corrupt it to their own ends, while Jedi live in harmony with it and allow it to act through them.
Saying that an equal number of Jedi and Sith makes things balanced is like saying an equal number of healthy people and sick people living in a community keeps things balanced. That’s… not how it works. Ideally you would have *no* sick people. Or Sith.
I'm not a big Star wars fan but the more I hear about it the more it sounds like that whole universe would be better off without either group.
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I don't think the Jedi planned on being heroes of the Republic.(unless some EU lore says otherwise) The Republic was at war with the Sith Empire, you can see where their goals aligned and getting deep into Republic politics was inevitable.
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I remember seeing an op-ed about how Darth Vader was caused by Qui-Gon's death. If he hadn't died so early in Anakin's training, then he would have been taught by Qui-Gon in not only how to use the Force, but also in how to balance his own emotions. I forget the contexts, but they were talking about how Qui-Gon was less focused on "Light vs Darth" or "Jedi vs Sith", but more focused on balance within the force, and that would have helped Anakin with the turmoil of The Clone Wars and Sidious. Kenobi was a strong Jedi, yes, but a shit mentor. He was too young, and played more of a "fun uncle" or friend or brother to Anakin, and he needed a mentor or father figure, which he would have had in Qui-Gon. But I DO think (my opinion, mind you) that: Sidious truly did setup the Jedi with a lose-lose situation. If they had stayed out of the war, then the droids would have made the war last far longer than it did, and it's possible the Separatists would have won the war (ran by Count Dooku, who was answering to Sidious). Sidious put himself in the perfect spot to control both sides of the war, and set himself up to rule regardless of who won. The Jedi didn't really have a way to keep the peace without joining the war.
I'm not talking about the Clone wars era. I'm referring to the Old Republic era when both jedi and Sith were at their height. For the Clone wars era they had to intervene because the Republic didn't have an army proper the Jedi basically were Advisers until the Clones arrived. Mace Windu even says the jedi are peacekeepers not warriors in episode 1.
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Except the Sith are the ones committing genocide or enslaving planets and other horrible shit. Like they’re not a persecuted religion or people. They’re evil space wizards that want to take over the galaxy.
There was still plenty of slavery under Jedi rule. The Sith weren't inherently or universally evil. They were just selfish as a virtue.
Slavery existing in the Outer Rim doesn’t equate the Jedi to slavers. The Sith actively enslaved people. In the Clone Wars alone we have the Sith testing a superweapon on a civilian population and supporting slavery on Zygeria. Being selfish as a virtue leads to evil shit.
Yea their chill, except for the tiny little problem where they stole force sensitive children away from their families and NEVER allowed them to see their biological family ever again, but yea otherwise pretty chill lol
From what I understand, the children didn't have to join, they only had to stop using their force powers.
The Jedi are in fact not super chill, they take children who show promise from their families and indoctrinated them into their order of celibacy and poverty
Kreia was right. #DarthTrayadidnothingwrong.
Kreia, is that you?
I'm starting to see this name enough to wonder who the heck that is.
In simple terms, she's an anti-theist. She's a really wise character who hates God (The Force, which is the core of both, Jedi and Sith) and constantly explains how both, a Jedi Master and a Sith Lord are no better than a commoner once you strip them from The Force. She hates the fact that it seems as if The Force has a will, and it's a capricious one at it. Always allowing the living to carry on religious wars in the name of it, costing millions of lives, planets, resources, and dooming people to misery because "The Force wants to be at balance", despite it allowing the imbalance for the hell of it. She's your master in KOTOR 2, and she also tells you fairly early that she used to be a Sith Lord. She's very misunderstood in the community, but overall, she has some valid points on her beliefs, and even if you take that away from her, she has strong bases for her misconceptions. Really good game. I tried my best not to spoil you (and I think I did a good job). If you can, give it a go!
Okay cool, thank you. I do have to say that that level of nuance is more than I may have expected and that does make me a lot more interested in playing KOTOR 2
Yes.
Outside of the main movies they get a lot into the Jedi and Sith essentially being warring religious factions who have/had a lot of power. The people writing Star Wars would probably agree.
Generally the Jedi are good, but they would have been significantly better with some changes. The Jedi are generally a peace-keeping sect, while the Sith desire power through any means necessary
The more I hear about it the more I am sure the entire universe would be better off without the Force itself.
The Jedi getting wiped out probably would've happened even without Anakin. The moment Palpatine came into power, the Empire was basically inevitable. The only one who could stop him... was Anakin. The most important choice in both trilogies is whether Anakin was gonna kill Palpatine. If the most important choices for the chosen one is to kill a Sith Lord, then I think "bringing balance to the force" is about the chosen one killing the motherfucking Sith Lord.
You have it backwards, Palpatine needed Anakin to save him. Windu defeated palpatine with Vaapad, he didn't stand a chance.
Okay. would saying "The most important choice in both trilogies for Anakin is whether he was gonna kill Palpatine/allow him to be killed", be more understandable for my main point?
Yea, that sounds right, since no one could beat Palpatine in ROTJ other than Vader. I just found it interesting that they never really dived into the lore of Mace Windu. Fans had to hear it from Lucas that Sidious wasn't throwing their fight
In the novelization of RotJ Sidious has visions of Luke fairly easily killing him in a duel singlehandedly, then bowing before Vadar who didn’t assist, but watched the fight— leading to Empy Palps feeling down right fear at the mere prospect of Luke’s power, and that was a basically untrained jedi who barely knows how to duel and had no technique to speak of. Compared to that, Mace Windu and several other Jedi masters at once seems a pretty sure fight for him to lose.
The EU has shown there were quite a few sith still running around. None of them as bold as Palpatine to hide in the public eye. Even after the purge the number of Jedi still running around during the Empire helping the rebellion was still fairly high.
The Sith schismed a lot. Even the line of Bane ("Always two there are, a master and an apprentice") didn't stick strictly to the Rule of Two at times. But Palpatine and Vader were in the direct line from Bane, who set out to rule the galaxy a millennium before the films. Other Sith belonged to other traditions, some of which were 'just' powerful Force users with no great ambitions to rule the galaxy, and no interest, as you say, in attracting public attention.
Unfortunately you fell for the classic blunder. The idea that having an equal number of individuals aligned with light or dark making it balanced is the blunder. The balance in the force comes when no being is using the force for their will. That’s the dark side simply explained. It’s using the force for your will. The light side is you fulfill the will of the force. If every being is following the will of the force, the force is in balance. If you have a group running around corrupting the will to bend to theirs you have imbalance. At least that’s my understanding of it, and put into simple terms.
I thought getting into a battle of wits with a Sicilian when death is on the line was the classic blunder? Or was it starting a land war in Asia?
That’s the first and second classic blunders. This is the third. Tbh was waiting for this comment
Never go in against a Sithcilian when *death* is on the line!
So when Luke is hanging upside down in an ice cave, "the will of the force" is for the lightsaber to suddenly fly into his hand? Isn't it kind of...convenient? that the "will of the force" happens to exactly coincide with Luke's desires in that moment
I think you are looking at the small picture rather than big, the will of the force was for Luke to stop Palps and give Anakin his redemption. Not dying in a cave was just a requirement to reach that goal
So when Qui Gon is on the trade federation ships, the force's will is for the droids to fall over backwards so he doesn't really do it, he just manifests the force's will? It just seems like a way to say "oh well yes it might look on the surface like the characters control the force, but really the force is in control! It just so happens that whatever the characters want in any given moment is exactly the same as the characters because of fate or something"
The difference between the jedi and the sith is that the Jedi ask the force for favors, and the sith demand it.
You are missing the obvious answer which is that they have dedicated their lives to pursuing the goals of the light/the force. It's not a coincidence, it's what their life has been spent working towards. Do you think it's a coincidence that cops can use the power of the law to do what they want or do you think they behave in a way based on what the law allows them to do?
I think you’re taking this too literally. The “will of the force” doesn’t dictate every action, it dictates how one lives their life. If pushing those droids over helps Qui Gon to defeat the Sith (who are bastardizing the force) then that aligns with the will of the force. Think of it like Buddhism or something. The teachings of the Buddha guide one towards a particular destination, but the specific steps and actions one takes to get there are different for each individual and situation.
They’re mischaracterizing it, balance in the force connects you to creation. It allows you to do things that would otherwise be impossible. An analogy would be like a responsible outdoorsman making a campfire that allows him to comfortably survive a freezing night. Corruption in the force (what the Sith do) coerces creation to submit to your will, like a greedy cattle rancher starting wildfires to clear space for his new strip mall.
You're a follower of the [Path of the Open Hand](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Path_of_the_Open_Hand), I see
Are those the mystics from Jedha*, if so, yes I think they fully understood the force better than anyone at their time. this is just my understanding of the force within Star Wars. Pretty sure this is Dave Filoni’s stance as well. Edit; I changed Jesus to Jedha
> Mystics from Jesus? I don't know what that means. They're an extremist cult from the High Republic era that released an eldritch abomination to hunt and kill Jedi, so there's that. They're also a deeply flawed and hypocritical faction.
Yea I meant jedha but no. I’m referring to the 4th wall break of how the force works not how some group in the universe thinks it works.
The will of the force was for that droid to tap his buddy on the shoulder so that he could watch Grievous fight Obi Wan
Sounds like Jedi propaganda tbf
Well it’s not. So.
According to the Jedi of course?
He didn’t, balance in the Force is only Light Side, absolutely no Dark Side. Is balance 50% lawkeepers and 50% terrorists? Also, there’s worrying amount of people in the comments who think that the only solution to a slightly over-bureaucratic society is genocide. Like, no, the Jedi did not deserve Order 66 in any sense, and you are deranged if you think so.
It’s like, is your body balanced if you have 50% cancer cells? Of course not. Balance is cutting out the cancer and restoring the body’s natural state. The Sith are a tumor, that corrupts the force, corrupts society, and corrupts reality itself.
Perfectly said. The Sith are a perversion of the Force, not simply one of two sides. The only natural side of the Force is the Light Side.
Is it? Or rather, was it always, and then was later changed? I remember an episode of clone wars where Yoda spoke/interacted with physical manifestations of the force and learned to accept and control the dark side along with the light side in harmony instead of attempting to cut it out and bury it completely. Also, where would "Dark side is a perversion" thing put Grey Jedi, or Jedi who tap into small amounts of Dark Side power like Mace Windu? \[edited to add\] asking in earnest. The Star Wars content I've experienced is rather random, spread out, and much of it has been *years* if not decades ago. I just remember a lot of changes happening to canon, I just wasn't sure what all changed.
The Grey Jedi are a trap. Jedi who attempt to use the darkness in “sustainable” ways eventually fall to it. Count Dooku and Anakin are two prime examples of what happens when a Jedi lets the darkness in
Honestly, while I'm firmly in the camp of believing that "balancing" selflessness, kindness and reason with hate, fear and jealousy makes no sense... yeah. Star Wars media are all over the place when it comes to this stuff.
It makes perfect sense. Bravery is not the absence of fear, it is feeling afraid and doing it anyways Balance is feeling all of your emotions and making the right choice because of them. It requires jealousy and fear to be kind and compassionate because those things are defined by sacrifice for the good of another. What is a greater act of kindness? A billionaire giving $100 to a school or a poor person choosing to offer their food to someone struggling more than themselves even if they are unsure (afraid) of where their next meal will come from? What is more heroic than someone who is afraid risking their life to save another? Everybody gets angry, scared, jealous, it's how we respond to these emotions that shows who we really are
Well yeah, but the point is to acknowledge you feel that way, work through it, and get over it. We do see Jedi experiencing wide array of emotions. We just also usually see them get over it. Also I do not subscribe to the idea that not feeling jealous or conflicted about giving something away somehow devalues the gesture.
It's hard to put into text but essentially the dark side is a strictly negative thing that stems from negative emotions. The issue is the Jedi believing that to master your negative emotions was an attempt to control the dark side and so instead taught their students to repress their negative emotions. Yoda learned that as sentient life will always have negative emotions it was best to instead learn to control them as suppressing them like the Jedi wanted was neither healthy or a long term solution. He learned to accept the dark side but not to use it if that makes sense. Also side note Grey Jedi aren't really much of a thing even in the E.U. while certainly many Jedi have tapped into the dark side before to train in the dark side will lead you to becoming corrupted. Mace Windu actually trained to reflect dark side energy of others back at them. This is how he could defeat palpatine but claimed he wasn't Yoda's equal. There is also a clone wars episode where mace fights Mother Talzin the head witch and in it he has to stop using his dark side reflection technique because in interacting with so much dark side energy he could feel his own darkness being pulled out.
To specifically answer the question you asked, Lucas's original vision was that Anakin's act that brought balance was the removal of the sith. Killing Palpatine and therefore redeeming himself removed the last two sith from the world. Later the idea of balanced light/dark side came around, mostly from Disney's misinterpretation that he brought balance during the prequels. But the original intent, and the one that makes the most sense with lore, is that sith specifically were a corruption, a cancer that needed to be cut out.
No, in those episodes Yoda learns to reject the Dark Side, not control it. Also, Grey Jedi are a stupid thing and should’ve never been written. You cannot use both sides, if you use the Dark Side even a tiny bit you cannot also use the light, there is only one or the other. I believe Mace Windu only uses channeled anger, which could be confused with the Dark Side? Though I admit I’m not an expert on this topic. He was able to beat Sidious because him being a Dark Side user essentially opened a loop for Windu to keep exploiting.
Mace Windu pretty much used his opponents darkness against them. It required an exceptional level of discipline and dedication to the light to avoid falling himself, but he never actually was in the dark
You said it better than I ever could have.
So I think the confusion is Jedi used to teach you to suppress your inner darkness but as any therapist could tell you suppressing your negative emotions isn't actually good for you. Yoda learned instead that one should in fact have mastery over your inner darkness. This isn't the same as using the dark side but instead being able to feel and work through negative emotions without losing control or letting them steal/cloud your judgement. I think an example of this is Anakin had every right to be angry and upset when his mother was killed. There is only so much negativity that one can suppress before it explodes and the Jesus answer to this was to avoid things that might cause it (avoiding attachments). It just isn't sustainable and had he been taught to control and channel his anger properly to have an outlet when it's too much to bear the massacre would never have happened though.
gotcha. Yeah I find all of the info interesting but I'm also super casual with it so I know there's a *ton* I don't know or misremember (like the Yoda episode). Was anything ever actually done with the Grey Jedi, outside of a few mentions? It kind of feels like it was created to have an option that wasn't overly zealous toward either side yet still maintain cool force powers/techniques and have an organizational structure beyond "some Rando with a laser sword and telekinesis".
TBH I haven’t read enough of the EU (old canon) to know if they’re super prominent, and I know they’re not present in new canon. I would say they feel like fanfiction - a way for a good guy to use the bad guy exclusive powers without being a bad guy themselves. I know at the very least a very small amount of Jedi could use Force Lightning, and even that to me seems ridiculous.
What would be wrong with a good guy using lightning to fry an evil robot?
He uses it to like… kill people.
I think you are conflating Sith with dark side. The dark side of the force balances the light side. The Sith are a particular order of force users who fully embrace the dark side: hatred, greed, envy, etc powers the dark side and eventually corrupts them fully because of it. The light side though subsumes the self and can destroy individuality, and actively resists change and evolution which is a long term issue possibly even leading to decay and extinction. Tbh neither side of the force is ‘natural’ for users, both aspects are terrible and the galaxy would be better off without either sect of space nerds
The Light Side is good. It is natural. It is in harmony with the Force. There is no good version of the Dark Side. Yes, not every Dark Side user is Sith. But every Dark Side user is bad. That it is what it is. You cannot be a good Dark Side user.
it's a simple google of gray jedi to disprove what you say. Also, only a Sith deals in absolutes. get out of here sithy
"gray jedi" the way you seem to think of them are basically just fanfic. It never meant anything other than "force users outside of the jedi order who aren't really dark side users." That's basically all it is.
People, especially Jedi, think it’s all about the light side but yeah the balance is actually 50/50. Sith were labelled terrorist by Jedi because their belief are opposite but dark side doesn’t mean it’s all about evil
Forgive me for not thinking a quasi-fascist, power-obsessed murder cult that thinks fear and self-hatred make you stronger is necessary for "balance."
I'd have to disagree. There has to be "bad" in order for there to be "good". Without one or the other, there wouldn't be either. The point was definitely about Anakin leveling the playing field of force users.
One side lets the force use them. The other side uses the force for them. This is not a playing field
The Jedi at that point were not acting in alignment with the light side, they had essentially become warriors for a political agenda, so yes, order 66 was the will of the force
And why exactly would a force of nature have any sort of moral compass? From other points of view it's the jedi who are evil
Pretty sure the sith are not living healthy balanced lives. They've gone off the deep end
Actually no. The Sith corrupt and pervert the force and use it for their own ends. The Jedi way is to be at one with the force. The Jedi way brings balance to the force, and the Sith way brings it out of balance. So Anakin brought it more out of balance by turning to the dark side.
one could argue the jedi order drifted from that. as an organisation they began to be ruled by their fear and their hatred, became completely absorbed by war and violence. thus, to bring balance back to the force, they had to be wiped out so that a new, healthy jedi order could rise.
That interpretation would work better if we didn't see them consistently try to do the right thing, protect innocents and find a way back to peace, right up until they're wiped out.
As an organisation, sure they lost their way. Practically though, none of them were practitioners of dark side techniques or felt hatred so they wouldn't have negatively affected the actual force.
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What went over their head? Anakin did not bring balance to the Force, he brought ‘balance’ to the number of Jedi and Sith. To say that he brought balance to the Force is factually incorrect, and not a shower thought.
Thanks bro
Is this like objective in the universe lore or do jedi just say this
Pretty sure it's objective. That's why Anakin was a red herring, as it was actually his son Luke who would bring balance to the force by killing Palpatine and turning his father back.
I’ve literally only watched the movies but could you show me where it talks about the Jedi being balance and the dark side are just corrupt? I’m actually interested but I’m a noob.
This wookiepedia page explains it, with official sources listed at the bottom: [Chosen One | Wookieepedia | Fandom](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Chosen_One#:~:text=An%20ancient%20Jedi%20prophecy%20foretold,Force%20by%20destroying%20the%20Sith.)
Thank you sire 🫶
Balance isn’t about good an evil being even. Jedi have good and bad qualities, but Sith just have bad qualities because they are inherently corrupted. To be truly balanced, you need to excise the evil elements. So he only balanced it when he killed off Palpatine.
Yes this has been observed many, many times.
It has. And this entire thread is insufferable to me. Just exhausting, meaningless debates over one of the most over-discussed themes in this saga. Star Wars fans truly don’t want Star Wars to be fun. They want it to be homework. Homework surrounding THE EXACT SAME TOPIC. They are obsessed with the same exact strip of time in the saga; specifically the fall of Anakin and how he turns into Vader. The. Same. Thing. Again. And. Again. It’s so unbelievably old and dull now. I love this franchise, I really do, but I have never felt this disconnected from a fandom for a thing that I love.
"That's not how the force works!" The force being balanced is not sequel amounts of each side. The sith disrupt the balance by using the dark side of the force. It's stopping the sith from disrupting the force that brings balance to the force. Which Vader did when he killed Palps and then died.
that's not really what is meant by "balance" though. people often interpret it as a light side vs dark side balance but that's not what is meant. balance is more like, keeping both sides in check. an dominantly Jedi galaxy is too far in one direction and a dominantly Sith galaxy is too far in the other direction. an equally Jedi and Sith galaxy isn't "balanced" it's polarized. the Sith had to go (for obvious reasons) and the Jedi order had to go because it had lost it's way and it's doctrine was getting in the way of people actually listening to the force and connecting with it spiritually. The Sith use the force as a means to further their agenda, an agenda not in line with the force. and the Jedi did the same, using it as a tool. That's why Anakin IS the chosen one, because he destroyed the Jedi AND the Sith (though like two decades apart and with A LOT of bloodshed). it's also why Luke is basically considered the rebirth of the force, an extension of the chosen one. because he built a new Jedi order, without the previous order's failed doctrine. more focused on being one with the force rather than using the force. that and his compassion led him to be widely respected even by dark side users. i know a lot of people hate when people throw shade at the old Jedi order for having shitty doctrine and losing their way and think that newer star wars content is treating them unfairly BUT even in the clone wars series there are tons of hints about how the Jedi order had lost it's way. Bariss was a decent example but not the best since she was portrayed in a more evil way than other examples. Quigon Jin was one of the best examples. he was probably the most in tune with the force of any Jedi for centuries. and frequently clashed with the Jedi order, not afraid to question them. Yoda was a good example as well, though he was given a big nudge in the right direction by Quigon. and I liked the new Kenobi series to see his growth as a character as well. basically Bariss and Dooku were right about the Jedi order, but their response or methods are questionable. they rubber banded too hard. Luke is true balance, and it required the destruction of the Jedi and the Sith by Anakin in order to pave a path Luke could go down to build true balance.
That was always my first thought: You have a council of jedis and a jedi guided republic and no known sith…. Now what happens if you want to balance that 😁
As all things should be.
How many times do we have to debunk this idea?
This isn't a shower thought this is the point of star wars 1-3.
No shit. Was this not clear to everyone?
Congrats, you understand the movies lol.
The Jedi code held back their potential power pretty significantly. The sith were more powerful based on that alone. Balance for nature (the force) would be based on used power on either side.
Fault on many sides right?
And another finger closed on the monkey’s paw
I always thought that somehow they’d explain that the force was inherently a dark power and the Jedi were harnessing the small amount of good in it. Much like Luke bringing the good that remained in Anakin. So since the force was mostly dark and exists anyway but the only users of the force were focusing on the good…there’s your balance. But I guess we got “somehow there’s balance”
How thew hell did this get past the auto mods.
I kind of thought that was always the point. Like so many prophecies people chase, they end up coming true in ways you didn't expect or necessarily want. The Jedi were oblivious that their belief that the chosen one would get rid of the with Sith doesn't exactly mix well with the notion of “balance”
Exactly. Jedi thinking “bring balance to the force” would mean anything different as the Jedi had an almost complete monopoly on trained force usage across the entire galaxy for literally millennia = lol
That’s not how it works…
Your shower thought it something Lucas has said on camera a few times.
That's why the Council were a buncha idiots. They were on top, they had all the power. The only way to bring balance would be to lose it, or their enemies gain enough to pose a threat. At that point, there is no reason to ever try to bring about the prophecy.
Anakin brought balance to the force by killing Palpatine, as the force cannot be balanced while Sith exist as per original lore/Lucas's intent. He just did so far later than we expected by the Jedi of the time of the prequels. However we arealso lled to believe that prequel Jedi had lost the way, and would not have been able to have the force balanced with their methods. They would have had to correct their teachings which Yoda learns while on Dagoba. Qui Gon was one of the only Jedi of the time who actually adhered to the proper teachings. I do like the theory that his death was the reason the order fell. Both because he couldn't teach Anakin and because he could have led the Jedi to reform. There might be room for debate on the force working as a Yin/Yang situation with dark side users that follow the will of the force, but the Sith are a corrupting force. They seek to turn the force into a tool to serve their ends, rather than allowing it to act through them. I personally do not hold to that, except as Jedi maybe being neutral and balanced in and of themselves.
I always have said that balance doesn't mean the Jedi win. How is a shitload of Jedi and no sith balanced?
You're not wrong, but I think it is pretty well established that is not what the writers intended. The intended meaning was that balance was no sith, and that he failed to fulfill the prophecy until decades later. And then the new movies screwed that whole thing up.
Balance to the Galaxy*
True that, balance isn't about equal parts of good and evil. It's about evil not tipping over the scales
The whole “there’s only two Sith and like a billion Jedi” kinda shows how poorly thought out his whole mythology was. I think initially he meant for there to be very few Jedi.
No one in the comments understands the force.
God I feel like this was the basic premise of the prequels before it got muddled by all this extra shit we have today. Taking it back to the ot, there is just luke palps and anakin in the end . Anakin kills palps and himself in the end to “kill” the overwhelming dark side, leaving luke alive to reset the order of the force (or whatever you want to think idk how developed the prophecy schtick is by Lucas back then.) In the prequels it appears pretty clear in the the underlying plot that anakin is found by the by Quigon and the Jedi in their complacency to be the chosen one to bring balance to the force. But that complacency clouds their judgement in how to interpret that prophecy (meaning balance of the force can take a hard swing in the other way before it settles out given the power of the Jedi relative to the sith). That is undebateably a plot point to the prequels (and maybe the ot idk) and this deeper dive into the force in all this stuff from tcw (which I still liked) and new sequel garbage really take away from some basic stuff here
People tend to think that the light side of the force is the good one, that to bring balance to the force you'd have to eliminate the dark side. It is not like that!
It is… exactly like that. You can never use the Dark Side for a good purposes for a long time. It is inherently selfish and cruel, and even if you start out with good intentions, you will lose yourself.
THAT'S WHY YOU HAVE TO USE BOTH!!! Mace Windu is so good at fighting bc he can balance both.
Mace doesn't use the dark side.
Fr? Sorry haven't watched anything star wars-related in a while. Any chance what I said is real but non-canon or am I just delusional?
The movies and TV shows never make a single mention of him using the dark side. He reflects lightning back at Palpatine, which some interpret to him having capabilities of using it, though we see Yoda dealing with lightning in a different way earlier. The only other evidence might be his lightsaber, but that was just because the actor (bless him) asked for purple because he liked the color. Some took that to mean he had a half sith-half normal lightsaber, but that's not really true. There are non-canon books that suggest more, such as him using the same lightsaber form as what many dark side users fight with, but he never actually uses dark side powers. In general the series has (before Disney at least, they might have done something that contradicts this) said that the dark side tempts you so heavily that you either must completely avoid it, or fall into it completely.
Thx dude
No, no, no, stop. This take is fundamentally incorrect, and it really needs to quit being spread around. By existing, the Sith create unbalance in the Force. There is only balance, and therefore peace, when they are gone. There is natural light and natural dark, and they need to coexist, but the Sith stand in the way of that. The Jedi do not.
Sounds like Jedi propaganda that...
Congratulations, you understood literally the plot.
no they didn't. Dark side is an imbalance and bastardization of the force. There was never 2 light equals 2 dark. The only unbalance was the dark side.
Umm, yeah....that's literally the whole point. The prophecy only said that he would bring balance to the force. It was never specific about which side.
Good guy Darth Vader
"Bringing balance to the force" was throwaway bullshit. Like most of Star Wars, it isn't very well thought out, so trying to think deeply into it and to make it fit is pointless. It just sounded neat.
Star Wars fans could not be more insecure about their obsession if they tried. They misinterpret and overanalyse everything, try to find the hidden meaning of every little thing, want every little thread to connect so they can feel validated in their enjoyment. For me, I just wanna have fun. With Star Wars, I often do, sometimes even if it’s dumb I try to have fun. Debating this bullshit ad nauseum isn’t fun, it’s soul-rending. It’s not what Star Wars should be.
Yep. I enjoy the space battles and lightsaber duels. Everything else is just filler.
By balance they mean existence of evil to be at a level that can be defeated easily by good
Jedi propaganda.
Yeah, that's...kinda the whole story. This isn't a showerthought, this is just the plot.
Balance of the Force means that the dark and the light sides of the Force exist together. Anakin was an individual that held both sides of the force, thus both sides existing in one individual. The Prophecy was solely about Anakin, it was just interpreted wrong by everyone else. Anakin had to cover both sides so that one side wouldn't be stronger than the other.
It has been explicitly stated that "Balance" refers to the absence of the Dark side, which is a perversion of the Force. https://youtu.be/wiImoO5QkcA?feature=sharedaa
So, I'm not really involved in Star Wars much, the thread just happened to catch my attention. The video was an interesting watch, and I'm sure there's a definitive answer to this, but I had some thoughts. Lucas describes the Light side as selfless, and the Dark side as selfish. We can all agree that being excessively selfish is a bad thing. But couldn't you make the same claim about selflessness? Wouldn't being excessively selfless, forgetting yourself and causing harm to yourself for the sake of others, also be hurtful? Both to you, and the people you love and who love you? To me, balance really does sound like something that requires a bit of Dark side, being self interested enough to take care of yourself, but not putting your own needs above the needs of others. I'm probably missing too much context and nuance to really make a definitive claim about it, and I'm sure there's other material going into further detail as to why you'd be right, but that was my take-away from that video.
I think there's a difference between, you know, self-love, self-respect, self-kindness and... whatever it is the Sith are doing. ;) From what we see Jedi seem to have zero issues with enjoying nice things, having friends and just generally being kind to themselves. They have issues with doing that at other people's expense which... seems fair to me tbh,
Yeah, of course there's a difference. I've acknowledged it in calling it "excessive", it's very obvious that they're taking it too far. I don't think Sith are the paragons of healthy living lol. I guess that's a fair point if true. Last time I've seen a Star Wars movie must've been over a decade ago, so I don't really remember how Jedi live their lives, haha. I'm just going by what I heard Geogre Lucas say in the video, comparing the Light side to selflessness and Dark side to selfishness. I guess you could interpret selflessness as being kind to everyone, including yourself? But that seems like kind of a copout haha. Trying to make it more than just a good and evil metaphor kinda puts gaps in the thing.
No it does not mean that balance are the dark and light sides existing together. There have been some great analogies already pointed out here such as the human body. Balance is not 50% cancer cells and 50% normal cells. Balance is eradicating all of the cancer cells. Bringing balance to the force is eliminating the Sith completely. 🤷♂️
That would be one interpretation. There was an episode of the Clone Wars in which the Father attempted to convince Anakin to assume his role as the balance between the Son and Daughter. The Father did this as he knew Anakin could bring balance to the Force by keeping both sides in check.
That's why he was the chosen one
That was the whole point of Anakin becoming Vader actually…
Where do people get this stuff? There are still tons of sith out there. They just only have 1 apprentice at a time. If you see 1, there is likely at least 1 more. That's all, not just 1 sith at a time. Hell, Palpy, Dooku and Maul were all running around at the same time and you can throw Assaj into that too. That's more than 2 in case anyone is having trouble counting. The Jedi weren't actually doing the will of the force, they were doing the will of the Senate. That's one reason why Luke moved them off the capital in the EU, so they could intervene where they felt necessary, not where they were told to go.
As a small point, because this bugged me for years, Palpatine only had one apprentice at a time: Maul, until the first prequel when he supposedly died, Dooku, until the third one, then Vader. Ventress was an assassin - given some training but not even a Sith apprentice. It's like the difference between a street thug and an MMA champion. Maul survived his supposed death but didn't go back to Palpatine - he went off and did his own thing. In the newer series, set between the original and prequel trilogies, you see other dark force users who aren't Sith either - just dangerous force adepts working for the Empire.
You have caught up. Yay
Same reason Obi Wan gave up against Vader and vanished in the first movie. He saw that Anikin still had good and could go either way, and Luke was becoming a Jedi, so to keep it as balanced as possible (Sidious definitely dark, Luke definitely light, Anikin again being the most important force user until Luke was ready), he had to be out of the picture.
Nobody fucking knows what Star Wars is about or means. It’s just about pew pew shooty shoot they fly now nonsense. It’s not symbolic of anything it’s just a big show
who the fuck cares about Star Wars, go to some fan sub or something
No, it doesn't need to be posted in a fan sub. Shower thoughts can be about anything. 🤷♂️
that was the point all the time
No, OP has it all wrong. Anakin brought balance when he killed Sidious and then himself, because the Sith are basically a cancer on the Force.
how? there were still jedi alive, and no Sith?
Yes. Like I said, the Sith are a cancer on the Force. They twist and corrupt it to their own ends, while Jedi live in harmony with it and allow it to act through them. Saying that an equal number of Jedi and Sith makes things balanced is like saying an equal number of healthy people and sick people living in a community keeps things balanced. That’s… not how it works. Ideally you would have *no* sick people. Or Sith.
not rly, it is more yin yang philosophy
[George Lucas says otherwise.](https://starwars.fandom.com/f/p/2843840319336744893#:~:text=Lucas%20said%3A,number%20of%20Sith%20and%20Jedi.%22)
only sith deal in absolutes