CT That Old Man Anakin

It doesn't change a thing. While that "level 1" explanation is certainly a possibility, it also fails to explain why all the other Jedi couldn't learn it as well. Obviously Qui-Gon was the only one who "had what it took" to discover this technique. Whether he did it in life or in death doesn't change a thing about the rest of the Jedi : They weren't able to find out about it until Qui-Gon came back to teach them.

Another weird thing with that theory : if Qui-Gon learned this technique during his life, why would he keep it to himself and not share it at that time? That's pretty selfish for a "selfless" individual.

It's pretty obvious to me that Qui-Gon only discovered the technique in death. Therefore, he was already in full possession of his skills and conscience, while dead.

 

Of course it doesn't "change a thing"; it is not presumed that any explanation would change the plot, only that it might explain it. It is not that the other Jedi couldn't learn it, it is that they didn't learn it.

Maybe he didn't know if it would work and had been planning to share it at some point. Maybe his pursuit of the knowledge was another sore spot between him and the administration. I don't think he intended to be killed.

The reference to him studying the secret of the Whills doesn't sound to me like it's a reference to something that took place after his death.

 

The argument your relied on to demonstrate that my theory didn't work was that it failed to explain why other Jedi weren't able to learn the technique while dead. I'm only saying that your theory also fails to explain why other Jedi weren't able to learn it in life. So that argument holds no water. I'm not trying to dismiss your theory as impossible, I'm just telling you why mine is still viable.

That's still a selfish move on his part. Unless he discovered the technique moments before his death of course.

He also took his time (10 years!!!) to come back and teach the technique to Yoda, right? That tells me it took him a lot of time to discover the technique for himself. In death.

What's not in the films is of no concern to me.

 

It's presumably called a secret for a reason: it's something they apparently didn't know, or the product of some esoteric area of study which they overlooked. It's not that they weren't able to learn it in any other sense than that.

It's not a move, it's a lack of a move. If he had been intending to put it in a holocron or something but hadn't gotten around to it yet, he wasn't ultimately planning to keep it to himself. And since we know that he does ultimately share the technique after his death, it's possible that he always intended to share it that way - if it worked.

 

Qui-Gon was able to discover it. Why nobody else?

It is selfish. By doing this and not teach the technique as soon as he discovered it, he causes all the Jedi that will die in the meantime to be ended by being swallowed by the Force and lose their consciousness (as per your theory). So that's selfish.

I edited my post above while you were replying (sorry). Here it goes :

"He also took his time (10 years!!!) to come back and teach the technique to Yoda, right? That tells me it took him that long to discover the technique for himself. In death."

 

That's the nature of discoveries: a specific person discovers something, because they happen to be looking in the right place. You could ask the same question about Plagueis and cheating death, or about anyone that is the first to discover something.

If we suppose that his ability to reach Yoda increased over that time, that and the concept that he studied some form of the technique before death are not mutually exclusive propositions. Connecting with Yoda may to some extent be a two-way street.

 

So, again, how does that point make my theory not viable? Like I said, it doesn't make it impossible for all Jedi to retain their consciousness after they die, yet have Qui-Gon be the only one who discovers the technique to interact with the world of the living.

In your first post you said :

What I've been trying to tell you for the last 3 or so posts, is that "it's the nature of discoveries". Qui-Gon had what it took to learn the technique, not the other ones. In life or in death. It's all the same. In my theory, other Jedi simply weren't able to discover the technique in death. in yours, they weren't able to do it in life. That's the exact same. There is no explanation eitherway, other than "Only Qui-Gon could do it".

That is entirely possible, but is that less a speculation than my theory? I don't think so. To me Qui-Gon retained his consciousness in death, and it took him 10 years to discover how to come back.

 

Just because Lucas changed something doesnn't mean it has to make perfect sense. Why am I not allowed to say that Shaw makes better sense?

Finish this later.
Old Stoneface

 

It seems you and I are not talking about the same concepts at all.

VERY convoluted. And how would he "discover that his mysterious knowledge could do that when he died" if at the moment he died he had not retained his consciousness, and had no way to try what he had discovered? Very, very convoluted. Because if he had somehow "prepared" his body before he died to use that new knowledge, then his body would have disappeared, like Obi-Wan's and Yoda's did.

So no matter how you look at it, he did something after his death, therefore needed his consciousness.

Simpler version : Qui-Gon died knowing nothing. He retained his consciousness, like all Jedi do. He learned the trick to reappear and interact with the living, and spent more than ten years trying to achieve it. This explanation raises far less questions, like "why would he wait for so long to reappear?", "why did his body not disappear if he had done the trick during his lifetime? etc."

That's a misunderstanding. I was referring to your theory that Jedi lose their consciousness when they died. That's why I said "so how can they act upon things in death?" because it's clear to me that Qui-Gon did something while he was dead to become a Force Ghost.

My exact quote : "So how can they act upon things in death? If the Force swallows you whole when you die, how can you have the time / the energy / the ability to retain your consciousness?"

I still haven't seen this quote by Yoda you keep referring to. He never says such a thing as far as I remember (but I may have forgotten this particular quote, therefore I'd really like you to write it verbatim, if you'd please).

Dooku punished himself by turning to the Dark Side, he's the only one to blame. The Force didn't lock his Force ghost up somewhere to punish it. His turn to the Dark Side did. In short : people who turn to the Dark Side give up their souls. Some kind of poetic justice.

I do not remove Anakin from Vader. I remove the Jedi from Anakin. Like I have said many many times, Anakin is still alive after the turn, while his Jedi self is not.

Not to the Force, they're not. The privileged connection between the Jedi and the Force was abolished, therefore the Force lost Anakin as far as it was concerned (I express this as facts, but that's of course only my opinion). Anakin was nowhere to be found, non-existent, dead. Again referring to the Jedi here. Not the person.

Anakin the person is rewarded by freeing his Jedi soul from eternal grief. That's a reward as far as I'm concerned.

We are looking for in-universe explanations so I'll drop the first part of that statement. As for the second part : Vader replaced Anakin (Jedi Anakin), therefore ended his life. So he killed him.

There is no parallel with real ghosts, because we are dealing with FORCE ghosts, who as far as we know are somehow the exclusive property of Jedi, and there's a reason for this. Therefore, everything has to be looked at and studied from the fictional point of view of the entity called "The Force". Not life, not death. Only the Force.

My opinion is that when the "privileged bond" is broken between Jedi and the Force, the ghost is created. That has nothing to do with life or death, although for most Jedi, the bond only breaks when they die. But that's just coincidental.

Force Ghosts Club is a Jedi club. That's Jedi Heaven. A lifetime achievment award for outstanding contribution to the Force and its sustainment. (that's a joke)

This is a sad fact. Only Jedi have this privileged connection to the Force. Han Solo does not have it. Just like not everyone is born with the eyesight required to become an Army pilot. Jedi and the Force have a privileged connection.

The Jedi are not infallible, but it's still true that the Jedi Anakin had been never came back.

Nowhere. There are no hard facts about Force Ghosts in the films other than Christensen being the ghost. We are both speculating as to what it means (or, in your case, does not mean).

That's not Heaven we are talking about. Maybe Heaven exists in the SW universe and Lando can go there if he pleases. But we are discussing Force Ghosts. Which excludes any non-Force users and Sith according to Lucas.

Because the Force does not mold the Force Ghost. They are automatically created when the bond between Jedi and Force is broken. Therefore, Anakin got it when he turned.

Well, fair enough. To me he's just a better man.

I did not mean to tell you what you can or can't do, and you are -of course- allowed to diss Lucas's changes with the OOT as long as you please. I also do it occasionally.

However I was under the impression that this thread had become a Force Ghosts discussion and that we were now trying to find out an explanation for the ghosts' appearances, so we have to use that Christensen Ghost as a key element on which to base our theories, and not just overlook him and develop theories that make Shaw work as the ghost. Because that is simply not true : Canonically, Christensen is the ghost. The "viable" explanation has to take that into account.

So what I'm saying is until you can make sense of Christensen as the ghost and develop a theory from that cold hard fact, my theory will prevail (as far as I'm concerned).

Your personal criticism of the change is not a problem at all, and if that's what you want to do, fire away. But I thought we had moved on from that and were now trying to establish what the deal was with the Force Ghosts and why they look the way they do in the films.

 

I'm always astonished that some people dismiss the Tuskens as "monsters" . Lucas said he wanted his story to be a moral one , to be about right and wrong , so to to hear people say it doesn't matter that anakin slaughtered men, women and children is rather depressing .
the Tuskens were sentient beings .

 

I'm not entirely convinced that even Lucas knows the "why," in-universe. What the ghosts are and how they function has varied so much between each film, and between drafts of films. Lucas probably just put it in as a deliberate tie to the film that was then in-production.

The tuskens seem more vicious than any wild chimpanzees or elephants I'm aware of, but Anakin's massacre of them is at least analogous to wiping out an elephant herd or chimpanzee troop. These are animals with minds, who show the signs of having emotions, smarts, etc. They mourn their dead. Tuskens are at least on that level, and may be on a human level (we don't know - Anakin calls them animals, but lots of humans have called other humans "animals" in efforts to demean them, and anyway (1) humans ARE animals (2) animals have minds, cultures, feel pain, etc.).

Anyway my point was that I agree.

 

From the RotS movie.
In the scene where they talk about the twins and after Bail leaves, Yoda asks Obi-Wan to stay.
YODA
(continuing) Master Kenobi, wait a moment. In your solitude on Tatooine, training I have for you.
OBI-WAN
Training??
YODA
An old friend has learned the path to immortality.
OBI-WAN
Who?

So it is said in the movie.
So immortality is a learned ability, not an automatic function that kicks in once the Force can't see you.
This speaks against all jedi getting immortal Force Ghosts because then there is nothing to learn.

I will have to get back to the rest of your post later.

One thing, I would like to ecco Lt.Cmdr.Thrawn's comment, Lucas might not have given this anywhere near as much thought as you and I are doing.
To him it might just be neat visual tie in with the PT in the OT. Afterall Lucas has said that Vader can't be redeemed but later he talks about Vader's redememption

So the current version might not even make sense.

Bye for now
Blackboard Monitor

 

Actually, I already addressed the question of immortality in an older post, I was referring to the quote that apparently states that people don't retain their consciousness when they die (as per the end of your post I quoted above).

I absolutely agree with you both that Lucas may not even know the answer, and that it's all probably a tie-in as far as he's concerned. But I'm not interested in Lucas' opinion. I only want to understand. I think it's possible to make sense of it all.

 

Not quite, if death has any kind of equalizing effect. It seems arguable that if one dead Jedi could learn a secret, essentially by virtue of being dead, then any dead Jedi could eventually learn the same secret. But that is not what we see happen. By contrast, in life it is entirely reasonable to infer that Qui-Gon discovered the knowledge simply by looking in an area which the other Jedi were not especially concerned with for whatever reason. It is not that the other Jedi weren't able to do it, it is just that they never discovered the knowledge in question.

 

Your argument about immortaility has holes.
1) Immortality = Not dying, can't be what Yoda talks about as Qui-Gon is already dead.
2) You then tried to argue that immortality only aplies here in our world and not in the after-life. Not so, in Christianity and many other religions, humans have an Immortal soul. That soul keeps existing after the body has died. But it doesn't do so here. It goes into the after-life. So an unending existence as a spirit here or in the after-life is pretty much the same thing. So that can't be what Yoda talks about either.
3) You then brought up "regular" ghosts and how they were different from Force Ghosts. The difference isn't big. Both are spirits of dead people. Both can be seen and can speak and be spoken to by the living. Regular ghosts can sometimes move things etc. In some cases ghosts come back because they have unfinished buisness with the living. I would think that one reason Obi-Wan hung around as a Force ghosts is to help Luke.
So they are in many ways similar. So if Force ghosts are immortal then regular ghosts would be as well.

So Yoda said that Qui-Gon has learned the path to immortality. If all Jedi automatically live forever as Force ghosts in the "netherworld of the Force" they are in effect immortal and then Qui-Gon hasn't learned anything. If all Qui-Gon learned was how to speak to those in the world of the living then that isn't immortality. That would just be an ability to speak with the living. A sort of opposite of Necromancy. So what Yoda says here speaks against Jedi getting automatic Force ghosts after death as that requires no learning.
So no other words are needed. Qui-Gon has learned the path to immortality, he is already dead so it isn't about stopping death. So then it must be a way to exist forever as a spirit. So that alone pokes holes in your theory about Jedi getting "free Force ghosts", as they would exists forever as spirits.
So Yoda words here indicate that for Jedi and non-Jedi death is the end of your existence. At least until Qui-Gon learned how to avoid it.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

I think it's called Vivimancy.

 

Is the title of this thread about a follow-up song to Weird Al Yankovic's "The Saga Begins"?

*My my, that old man Anakin guy,
maybe later
he'll be replace by a young Vader..."

 

Arawn_Fenn :

I understand what you're saying. You think I said death had an "equalizing effect" on Jedi, but that's not what I meant. Qui-Gon is portrayed as an original in TPM, with views of the Force contradicting those of the Council members. I very much thought that only a Jedi with his philosophy, and perhaps special skills could have discovered the secret. So all Jedi are not equal in death. Qui-Gon was the only one able to discover that secret, in life or in death.

Samuel Vimes :

I understand what you're saying too, I try to see it from your point of view.

I'll repeat it : to me, immortality refers to the world of the living only. It requires you to endure while the living die around you. That's how I define immortality. There can be no immortality in the afterlife, because there are no mortals there. Everyone is everlasting, the concepts of mortality and immortality cannot exist when there are no mortals.

So Qui-Gon had to come back to be referred to as "immortal" by Yoda.

Re: appearing as a Force Ghost: I'm not sure Jedi exist as Force Ghosts in the afterlife. But I think they retain their consciousness. Maybe the Force Ghosts are only a manifestation of that consciousness in the world of the living, that is to say they only take the appearance of a Force Ghost when they appear to a mortal. Therefore, I guess you could find a middle-ground here and say that Qui-Gon did discover a way to become a Force Ghost, because he's not a Force Ghost in the afterlife, but only a "presence" or "conscience". The important thing is that Jedi do retain their consciousness in death.

Although I will again say that Force ghosts cannot be compared or justified using the "human ghosts" from our lore, because we are again referring to the Force, and not life and death. If you think in terms of life and death, Force Ghosts make no sense. But if you forget the concepts of life and death, and see the Force connection as the "final frontier" here, the existence of Ghosts only depends on who is bound with it, and who isn't (or isn't anymore). And Jedi are bound with the Force until they either die or leave the Order. Of course, everything and everyone is technically "bound" with the Force, but because Jedi are special to the Force, privileged, attuned to it, they get something more.

 

No, that's what I'm saying should be the case.

 

Alright, well... We'll just have to agree to disagree on this.

 

And I still argue that normal ghosts are very similar. Both are of dead people, their apperance is similar, semi-transparent, glowing. They can do many of the same things.

And what about the midis, they are living things that connect you to the Force. Once you die, your midis die as well and then you should have no connection to the Force. That suggest that your conciousness will fade away as you have no link to the Force anymore.
Also why would a jedi that leaves the order but doesn't turn loose his or her Force Ghost? They aren't acting in any evil or destructive way so why would the Force treat them as Sith just because they quite an organisation. That would like argueing that you have to be amember of a specific church in order to get into heaven. And yes I know that some churches use this but I mahve problems with this reasoning.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

The Plot-Demands-It???

 

By that token, we are all immortals. If that concept applied to the SW universe as well, there could be no path to immortality to discover if everybody's soul was immortal.

The fact is that, just like our very human lives, we do not know what happens when we die in the SW universe. I would assume Yoda knows as much about it as the priest telling you that God and Heaven are a path to immortality. The only thing he knows for sure is that Qui Gon came back. As you said yourself, Jedi are not infallible.

"There is no death : there is only the Force". That's the Jedi code, which applies to Jedi only. Other variants exist, sych as "Death is the Force", but that can be interpreted just as well as "whether you get to live on or not depends on your bound with the Force", or "in death, you will become part of the Force", but that never suggests a loss of your consciousness.

When Yoda says "death is a natural part of life, rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force", he does not mention a loss of consciousness either. And it's safe to assume he knows Anakin is talking about a non-Jedi anyway. Furthermore, Yoda may not even know what he's talking about.

This changes nothing. Anakin's consciousness was stuck in Limbo, whether it looked like a Force ghost or not. My biggest mistake in this debate has been to compare the Force ghost and the soul to introduce the concept of Jedi selling away their souls when they turned. However, that complicated the whole debate, because it made you see everything from a very human point of view that death is necessary for the soul to be detached from the body. And because everybody, not just Jedi, are entitled to "a soul". To me Force Ghosts are the manifestations of a Jedi's identity as seen by and through the Force. That would be a better comparison.

We very early on agreed that we didn't know how Anakin had done it. I only know that he is "the One" and had access to a level of mastery of the Force other Jedi could only dream of. What if he simply found his way back by himself?

And they are only for Jedi, and they do not look like the deceased person necessarily. They have nothing to do with the concept of death, they only care about who's still a Jedi and who's not - as per Christensen's presence. So the ghost connection is vague at best.

That is not at all what my understanding of midichlorians is. I think midis do not belong to anyone, they travel in a continuous flux, through everyone and everything. The Force after all, is an energy, as per Obi-Wan. Skywalker happens to be a better vector than most, towards and through which many midichlorians gravitate.

Also, you are again referring to death, when I am only referring to losing your bound with the Force. And even so, if when they die, people return to the Force, are they not surrounded by midichlorians, or even becoming midichlorians themselves?

Finally, if Qui-Gon is dead and has no connection to the Force anymore, how does he use his power to materialize and reappears through the Force?

I of course meant when they turned, without realizing this would create confusion with the "lost 20". But in their case, whether they get to retain their consciousness after they die or not entirely depends on what they do once out of the Order. If they still apply Jedi principles on a daily basis, it makes sense that they would. If they left the Order to convince bartenders to give them free refills at the bar, not so much.

TOSCHESTATION :

I don't think anyone got the irony in my tone when I wrote this. My point was that Qui Gon was the only one who had been able to do it at that point. And Arawn Fenn was suggesting that every other dead Jedi should have been able to do it, which suggested he had found the technique during his lifetime.

That's why I asked the question you quoted, which had to be interpreted as : "Why would it be ok for him to be the only one to find this in life but not in death?"

Although I must say, your answer is definitely the reason behind Lucas' decision. But I'm still looking for in-universe explanations to the Force Ghost business.

 

In the rough draft… Ben explains that… if "Vader becomes one with the dark side of the Force, he will lose all identity. If he turns to the good side, he will pass through the Netherworld" and in the revised rough draft, Yoda "will rescue him before he becomes one with the Force."

--Laurent Bouzereau, Star Wars The Annotated Screenplays