Saga Is the light side just as bad for the Force as the dark?

The PT did a lot of damage to the Yoda character

 

No, it isn't.

At that moment he was gone. It wasn't Anakin who murdered all those Jedi. It was Vader.

He didn't start down the dark path. He restrained himself from killing Vader.

You know the dark side? Anyway, Lucas and Yoda disagree with you.

Irrelevant for the point he was making. Fear still leads to the dark side, as any of those emotions.

Strawman.

What the...?!

Again, strawman. And I'm sure this is all about traffic jams...

But Anakin did, which was the one he was speaking to.

Of course I do. Everyone knows that Yoda was created to be the master of deceit.

Could you clarify that?

 

What's to clarify, I tend to agree with jansett. I think that the PT took the wise character we saw in TESB and turned him into a fool, easily played by the Palpatine character.

It made Palpatine the wisest character of the franchise. Except for maybe Luke, who as Jansett points out shows his own wisdom by choosing his own path instead of killing Vader as Yoda would have had him do.

 

Sure it is. When they are gone you miss them. You want to be with them. Perhaps you haven't experienced it yet...

He's gone or he isn't. One can't be consumed by something and then later not be consumed by it.

He tapped into his anger when Vader threatened his sister. Fear, anger, hate, suffering, gastritis, forever, dominate, any of this ringing a bell?

This would be the same Lucas who couldn't keep straight whether it was 1,000 years or 1,000 generations, right?

How does being afraid of jumping off a building lead to the dark side? Fear does not need to lead to anything. Fear can be useful. In no way does it lead to anger or anything else to the dark side.

Fear leads to anger, blah blah blah. Isn't a rabbit escaping a wolf trying to eat it experiencing fear? What does that have to do with the dark side?

Which would have been relevant if Yoda said ""The fear of loss is a path to the dark side, but just for you and only you, Anakin. For other people, it depends; maybe, maybe not. Like say if some day you have a son it probably won't apply to him, but it definitely will, to you."

The road to hell is paved in good intentions.

Well let's see, they made him a cold, compassionless master of dogma... And pretty stupid... And completely ruined the magic of his teachings in ESB. And ruined the Force forever and Yoda's teachings that the physical did not matter ("Judge me by my size,do you?" "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter", et al) in favor of the ludicrous pinball fight with his baby-sized light saber...

 

Don't forget the force bacteria in the blood, luminous indeed!

 

Maybe he had followed the Jedi code, he wouldn't have turned to the dark side.

Ah, the epitome of argumentation.

They were training Luke to save the galaxy, which implied getting destroying the Emperor and Vader. Fortunately Luke discovered another way, which only enhances his character.

No. But those emotions can lead to killing, and that's when you fall to the dark side.

And who are you to say he's uninformed when he's proven to be right?

The burden of proof is on you.

Irrelevant. Your point has proven to be false. They have investigated. And it's your assumption that they don't know his name (or his identity), not a fact.

He never said anything like that. Again, prove it.

Source? Again, baseless assumption.

Various reasons can justify that. It doesn't prove your point.

Oh my, janstett gave me a choice: X or Y. Z is out of the equation because... janstett says so.

Try again.

No. When Anakin told him about Sidious he went there to arrest him. Which is the only thing he can (and should) do.

Why not?

Says who?

You are the one who claims they did nothing. Prove it.

No, they weren't aware, as seen in the movies. Try again.

What question? And how exactly was he an idiot?

No, they weren't.

Again, you continue to judge characters, situations, and anything else under your baseless assumptions. That, by default, is unable to prove anything. Unless you can come up with some real arguments based on real evidence, I won't contribute to this pointless "debate".

 

Although I agree with most of what you are saying Alexrd, I have to admit AOTC doesn't do much for Yoda as a wise character. He doesn't come across much like his ESB incarnation at all, IMO it is really inconsistent with the other five movies. It's actually pretty frustrating because I love the movies as a whole, but the Jedi in AOTC don't generally come of as very smart. If you really want some examples...
Obi-Wan:
- "In that case be extra careful." This line is dumb, a Jedi doesn't need to be told to be careful.
-"This weapon is your life." compared to "Your weapons, you will not need them."
-"There's an unusual concentration of TF ships over there R4." Isn't one too many?
Yoda:
-"...But who or why, harder to answer." What else is there to answer?
-"In grave danger, you are." Besides the fact that he speaks backwards, this is light-years behind ESB Yoda dialogue.
-"Victory? Master Obi-Wan, not victory. The shroud of the darkside has fallen. Begun the Clone War has." Besides the perhaps intended irony that the shroud is as strong as ever, this line just doesn't come of as profound as it is intended to.

It's just when I hear these lines I can't make a connect to other saga Jedi such as Qui-Gon, Luke Skywalker, non-AOTC Yoda and Obi-Wan in the OT. I know it sounds harsh, but that's just the way I feel.

 

Exactly! Unfortunately Lucas' style isn't to have two evenly-matched opponents , in order for one to look good the other has to be a complete imbecile. We saw it with Storm Troopers who couldn't shoot straight, a Legion of the Empire's best troops being taken down by teddy bears with rocks and sticks, and of course in the Prequels Palpatine's plan could only work if everybody else was a blithering idiot.

 

He's a padawan learner. I see nothing wrong with it.

Why not compare with "this is a weapon of a Jedi Knight". Just because Yoda says he won't need his weapons in the cave, doesn't mean he can go unarmed anywhere.

The Trade Federation still exists. Why would it be strange to see one of them?

As he says, the who and why.

Which TESB dialogue? This:

"Looking? Found someone you have I would say, mm?"

or this:

"No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try."

Still, the situations are different. What was he supposed to say?

Opinions.

Sure. I happen to disagree.

 

So you're saying with Luke they just cut to the chase and went to the final exam. Did they know they were training a Sith? Is it still the dark side if you just cut to the final step, or does it only count if you start with fear->anger->hate->suffering->killing?

LOL how much investigation did they do between Qui-Gon's death and funeral? Oh, this red and black tatooed guy with the red light saber must have been a Sith. Well done lads! That's solved!

There is no evidence in the film that they know anything more than that he was a Sith. The burden to prove they knew anything beyond that, as you say, is yours.

It's not me giving you the choice. It's a little something called deductive reasoning. I realize you are not familiar with it. Go ahead and present other logical alternatives, it's your moment to make excuses for their failure to unravel the conspiracy...

Not much of a plan. In fact, without any evidence, he should have sat on it until he could formulate a real plan and gather some evidence. You know, the thing he should have been doing for the past 10 years.

Especially since the Jedi's attack was used politically to trigger and justify Route Order 66.

Because it's in private, with no witnesses, and violates the spirit of a republic and due process. How about confronting him IN THE SENATE WHILE IT IS IN SESSION AND PRESENTING EVIDENCE? You really don't see why what they did was a tragically bad idea?

Not to mention the political angle -- the only one to leave the office alive is Palpatine and he can now claim there has been a Jedi insurrection to overthrow him. The Jedi do not get politics AT ALL.

Rule of law, due process, the Republic, public opinion, and four dead Jedi.

If the great Jedi plan was to confront Palpatine in private with four armed Jedi and no evidence, and no backup plan in case this goes to pot, it has been proven. The Jedi were caught with their pants down and everything they did from then on was reactionary. There was no contingency in place. Thus, they did nothing to prepare. Pretty simple. How does this escape you?

I beg to differ, all this was known to the characters. Prove otherwise.

SMH... Why is the clone template running to the Separatists? Obi Wan should have asked the question. But is too dumb to even think of it. He's just a thoughtless automaton chasing Jango from planet to planet.

When I watched AOTC the first time, I was excited that Obi-Wan was being sent on a detective adventure and looked forward to someone, anyone, being smart enough to uncover a crucial piece of the truth. Only they made him the stupidest idiot in the universe, not a detective. Worse, Dooku basically tells him the truth and gives away everything and they don't even question that it might not be a wholesale lie. Tsk tsk. Much like the prequels in general, high hopes get dashed in a heap of disappointment.

OK so they weren't even mildly interested for 5 seconds? That's more like it.

Mod edit: No personal attacks

 

You're procrastinating between two positions here, and I'm not sure you are even aware of it. You say it can't be eliminated, then say "when it is" (then backtrack from that). Which is it? Is it eliminated , or isn't it? But...it can't be, so we'll have to go with it isn't. So, what is it that leads to 'weakness'. In fact, what is this 'weakness'? How is it manifested?

But, at the beginning of the prequels we are already into the plotting of Palpatine, he already has his sticky fingers into mant pies - hence he can claim to the Trade Federation "I will make it legal". So, what is this 'weakness'? You mean that there is no war? That corporate greed has been kept in check? Sounds like hell, doesn't it?

There is no "goodside" or "lightside", and from that perspective I agree with you. But the darkside - the imposition of an individuals will upon the Force, the use of the Force for the exhaltation of the self - is not an aspect of the Force in balance.

If you are surrounded by evil, even 'little eviils' it takes effort simply not to do evil. But then what is 'evil'? More pertinently for this discussion, aren't we supposed to see the darkside as evil? I believe so. And the universe does not require evil to operate. I think one has to understand that 'evil' is not a required aspect to be in tension with 'good'. Evil is not the same as yin, or yang. Evil is something that sentient beings bring to the party.

You have mentioned predators before, as if this somehow means something in terms of the good/evil dichotomy. Do you suppose that a lion hates its prey? You think lions are driven by anger to hunt? Animals do not make moral choices, they are subject to the patterns of their lives and their genetic codes far more than we are. That is what makes us, ultimately, different from other animals. It is that which leads to us having, and expecting from others, a sense of responsibility for our actions.

You are referring to Tatooine in terms of slavery, I take it? You know this is outside of the jurisdiction of the Republic, and its existence certainly did nothing to benefit the galaxy. The 'lab experiments' occured outside of the Republic, and were unknown to anybody in the Republic (except the Sith, of course). In the first case they have no power to do anything about slavery outside of their own borders, and in the second case they knew nothing of what was going on, so I don't see how your accustaion that "they all turned a blind eye to it" has any credence.

You think evil lurks in the night? Or in the shadows? Night and day, light and shadow, male and masculine...they do not equate with good and evil.

 

Your right about it not really being the place, sorry I was trying to make a point and it got a bit out of hand. I was an Officer in the Army so have studied and read quite a lot about how wars are waged.

Getting back to SW's though, Alderaan was a peaceful planet which made it a good target for the Empire because they were stating...hey look what we can do to a peaceful planet, imagine what we could do to you if you go against us, type of thing?

 

It being in the Core rather than the Rim, plus a well known world, might have played a part- more shock to the Core, which has most of the money and technology, and thus can contribute most to the Rebellion if not intimidated into submission.

 

They wanted the location of the rebel base, and they had Leia captive. That's her homeworld. Had they captured someone else, they would have targetted their homeworld. It was about leverage over the person.

 

False. TESB says that there is. In Lucas' version of the Force, that is, as opposed to your rewrite.

The dark side is a part of the Force, not use of the Force. Otherwise "use the dark side" as we hear it in the films is redundant. Use your use of the Force? And it is a necessary part of the Force in balance. In Lucas' own words it has to be there. We are told in a variety of sources, some of which profited from direct Lucas involvement, that the balance is between the dark and light sides, which makes balance without the dark side a nonsensical proposition. As we know from the Force Wielders of Mortis too much dark ( equivalently not enough light ) and too much light ( equivalently not enough dark ) are both undesirable outcomes. A Force which is all light and no dark can hardly be called in balance; that defies the whole concept of balance.

Human exclusionism is nothing more than antiquated myth, now increasingly scientifically debunked.

 

Extract from George Lucas interview with Bill Moyers, TIME magazine, [APRIL 26, 1999 VOL. 153 NO. 16].

MOYERS: When Darth Vader tempts Luke to come over to the Empire side, offering him all that the Empire has to offer, I am taken back to the story of Satan taking Christ to the mountain and offering him the kingdoms of the world, if only he will turn away from his mission. Was that conscious in your mind?

LUCAS: Yes. That story also has been retold. Buddha was tempted in the same way. It's all through mythology. The gods are constantly tempting. Everybody and everything. So the idea of temptation is one of the things we struggle against, and the temptation obviously is the temptation to go to the dark side. One of the themes throughout the films is that the Sith lords, when they started out thousands of years ago, embraced the dark side. They were greedy and self-centered and they all wanted to take over, so they killed each other. Eventually, there was only one left, and that one took on an apprentice. And for thousands of years, the master would teach the apprentice, the master would die, the apprentice would then teach another apprentice, become the master, and so on. But there could never be any more than two of them, because if there were, they would try to get rid of the leader, which is exactly what Vader was trying to do, and that's exactly what the Emperor was trying to do. The Emperor was trying to get rid of Vader, and Vader was trying to get rid of the Emperor. And that is the antithesis of a symbiotic relationship, in which if you do that, you become cancer, and you eventually kill the host, and everything dies.

Link that to my earlier quote (you know, about destroying the Sith and getting rid of evil in the universe, bringing balance to the Force) then... the Sith are the darkside - it is their use of the Force that is the darkside (if the darkside is to be equated with evil). How else can you equate removing the Sith with removing evil? (which Lucas clearly does)

 

"goodside of the Force"?, don't remember hearing that?

No, as George Lucas said, destroying the Sith destroys evil in the universe and leaves the Force in balance. So, it is the Sith's actions, their use of the Force that is evil (the darkside).

So you do think that lions make the moral choice to be predators? I also don't know of any civilised country that embraces legal responsibility for animals, so what do you mean by "increasingly scientifically debunked"? Do you think we should be trying animals for their behaviour?

 

No need to apologise, just that I'm quite interested in history generally, and military history (humans being humans) is a rather large sweep of that, and I had to restrain myself. I'm not as unambiguously pro the dropping of the bombs as my answer may suggest, I think all such actions should always be open to criticism, but I can at least understand the motivation in terms of ending the war.

 

Is this the part where you pretend not to know where you heard that, because stalling and denial are such great strategies? Read the thread, where it has been spelled out for you, if you refuse to familiarize yourself with the films.

As I said, "destroys evil in the universe" cannot be taken literally. At the end of ROTJ we do not find ourselves in a universe somehow deprived of either the existence of or the sapient capacity for evil.

If you equate the dark side with evil itself, then the dark side cannot be destroyed, certainly not by killing a few Sith. In fact you'd have to pretty much mind control the entire galaxy into being "good" at all times. Nothing of the sort matches what we have seen of the post-ROTJ period even after the PT, and it is extremely doubtful that such a thing is consistent with Lucas' intentions. Even if one were to irrationally assume that the only possible evil in the universe must come from Force users, not all dark side users are Sith. The Annotated Screenplays even suggest that Jedi use the dark side on some level while fighting ( they also portray the dark side as the villain of the story and describe Luke using both sides simultaneously, not unlike Revan ). And again, all good and no evil is not a balance. Balance is not all of one polarity and none of the other. It is pointless to try to use the term "balance" to refer to a situation which is the exact opposite of balance. As we have learned in the EU the Banite Sith have become powerful enough to directly affect the balance, and thus it is not surprising that their destruction is said to allow the restoration of balance to the Force. It may be commonly assumed that any Sith unbalances the Force by simply existing, but this assumption fails to recognize the fact that there were Sith in existence before the period when the Force went out of balance. A Force thrown out of balance any time someone imposed their will upon it ( which the Jedi do as a matter of routine, according to Obi-Wan's 1977 dialogue ) would be a fragile thing indeed, and not anything described by Lucas or consistent with the implied backstory of his films.

Scientifically debunked should be somewhat self-explanatory. It has nothing to do with "embraces legal responsibility for animals", whatever that means. You might as well ask me to justify gravity by showing you a country that grants citizenship to falling rocks. Besides, it's not about what you don't know, it's about what you do know. For example, you know exactly what animals are thinking, just like you know things about the Force which Lucas has specifically contradicted.

As others have tried ( and failed ) to make clear, Lucas never called the dark side a cancer. Fans see the dark side as a cancer. Fans insist on throwing out Lucas' concept of the Force and replacing it with their own. That doesn't change by posting a quote in which Lucas only uses the term "cancer" to describe the interpersonal dynamic between the two Sith. It only necessitates putting words in Lucas' mouth. The Sith are not the dark side. A side of the Force is not the same thing as a small group of people. Destroying the Sith does not destroy the dark side.

Probably the whole Empire, reign of terror, subjugating the galaxy, destroying planets kind of thing.

 

You're reading too much into a turn of phrase. Evil can never be eliminated, but even when you think it is would be more along the lines of what was intended.

Weakness is manifested by complacency, laziness, the absence of the drive to evolve -- and crucially the loss of survival instinct.

Elsewhere in this thread I used the analogy of the body politic and how it compares to a real body. Its muscles must be exercised, its immune system must be kept healthy. A person living in an antiseptic germ-free environment becomes susceptible to the common cold; a body at rest 24/7 begins to atrophy. It is the same for a society.

The tolerance for what I call "soft evil" increases -- no need to upset the social order over something small; why rock the boat when things are good? That is why the GFFA tolerated corruption in the core systems, slavery and crime in the outer rim, and the creation of an army of slaves.

The weakness being corruption, the tolerance of it, crime, slavery.... And the absence of a survival instinct. Notice there was no immune response to Palpatine's plotting. The body politic had no antibodies.

I disagree. It is part of the force, not something foreign to it. For whatever reasons, the force/living force/midichlorians make it possible. We may not understand it, but it is part of the force.

It depends on your point of view. I see the mindset of "evil" as being justified, to them, in Darwinian terms. Weakness is to be eliminated. A predator accomplishes this when he eats the weakest of the herd.

A kind, liberal society runs against Darwinism, survival of the fittest. It helps the weak survive and prosper. And even places a higher value on them as a gesture of compassion. From a purely Darwinian/naturalistic perspective, this prevents the gene pool from weeding out undesirable traits.

One could even take it so far as the prologue to Idiocracy did...

And I'm sure the Sith would say their actions are not moral choices and are akin to the behavior of a predator; or in fact that it could be their moral obligation to destroy weakness where they see it (which in many ways is one of the functions of a predator). There are people in real life who see weakness and seek to destroy it simply because it is weakness. They also see strength as morality.

We hear Padme talk about slavery in lofty, idealistic terms, how the Republic will write a piece of paper that will outlaw it, not unlike Nevil Chamberlain waiving his piece of paper signed by Hitler that England and Germany will not go to war.



Great. There's a piece of paper somewhere. Meanwhile there are people still living their lives in slavery.

Was the Republic actively trying to end it? Was it boycotting trade with systems that used slavery? There is no indication of that.

Most of what we see is on the personal level, out of Padme (naive idealist) and Qui-Gon (numb automaton). "We didn't come here to free slaves." Remember? Mr. Living Force wasn't too upset about people being property. He didn't try very hard to free Shmi, just a token effort he quickly backed off on. Just as nobody was upset about growing an army of slaves on Camino.

Evil lurks everywhere. It can never be eliminated. It is naive to expect it to be vanquished.

I said before that the natural state is not good. Good is an act of will; it requires action, character, effort. The natural state is arguably apathy, and apathy lends itself to the growth of evil -- "all that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

 

Obi Wan was, in the AoTC novel:

P204-207
Obi-Wan stared at the closest embryo, floating contentedly in its fluid, curled and with its little thumb stuck in its mouth. In ten short years, that tiny creature, that tiny man, would be a soldier, killing and, likely, soon enough killed.

He shuddered and looked to his Kaminoan guide.

"Come," Lama Su bade him, walking along the corridor.
...
"Would you care to inspect the final product now?" the Prime Minister asked, and Obi-Wan could hear excitement in his voice. Clearly he was proud of this accomplishment. "I would like your approval before you take delivery."

The callousness of it all stuck Obi-Wan profoundly. Units. Final product. These were living beings they were talking about. Living and breathing and thinking. To create clones for such a singular purpose, under such conditions, even stealing half their childhood for efficiency, assaulted his sense of right and wrong, and the fact that a Jedi Master had began all this was almost too much for him to digest.

The tour took him through the commissary next, where hundreds of adult clones- all young men Anakin's age- sat in neat rows, all dressed in red, all eating the same food in the same manner.

"You'll find they are totally obedient," Lama Su was saying, seemingly oblivious to the Jedi's discomfort. "We modified their genetic structure to make them less independent than the original, of course."

"Who was the original?"

"A bounty hunter called Jango Fett," Lama Su offered without any hesitation. "We felt that a Jedi would be the perfect choice, but Sifo-Dyas handpicked Jango himself."

The notion that a Jedi might have been used nearly floored Obi-Wan. An army of clones strong in the Force?

"Where is this bounty hunter now?" he asked.

"He lives here," Lama Su replied. "But he's free to come and go as he pleases." He kept walking as he spoke, leading Obi-Wan along a long corridor filled with transparent tubes.

The Jedi watched in amazement as clones climbed up into those tubes and settled into place, closing their eyes and going to sleep.

"Very disciplined," he remarked.

"That is the key," Lama Su replied. "Disciplined, and yet with the ability to think creatively. It is a mighty combination. Sifo-Dyas explained to us the Jedi aversion to leading droids. He told us Jedi could only command an army of life-forms."

And you wanted a Jedi as host? Obi-Wan thought, but he did not say it aloud. He took a deep breath, wondering how Master Sifo-Dyas, how any Jedi, could have so willingly and unilaterally crossed the line to create any army of clones. Obi-Wan realised that he had to suppress his need for a direct answer to that right now, and simply listen and observe, gather as much information as he could so that he and the Jedi Council might sort it out.

And in The Clone Wars: Wild Space, Yoda thinks that the clones raise deep questions of ethics and morality- but in this time, when the Republic has desperate need of them, those questions might be overridden.

 

Very much EU explanations, however fascinating (although the novelisations do reside in a somewhat grey area). It's still a nice expansion on what little was addressed in the film regarding the issue - something very typical of the novelisations.

To everyone involved in this thread - I'm keeping it open because there's a great deal of discussion going on which is pushing the topic into interesting areas, but remember the golden rule: Films, not fans. I don't want to have to lock the thread because of tempers being lost & a potentially intelligent discussion degenerating into a petty flame war.

 

That's one of the main advantages of a novel- you can see what someone is thinking- which is a bit harder in movies, unless we get "thoughts as a voiceover".

 

Very true - the TPM novel really developed the story in many ways, largely in the relationship between Obi-Wan & Qui-Gon, as well as making Jar-Jar a far more relevant & worthwhile character - but without getting into canon nonsense, there's always that nagging feeling in SW that the additional development is the creation of the novelisation's author & not The Man Responsible For Everything.
In some cases, the additional material that appears in the novelisations is granted further legitimacy by it being included in a shooting script that's made public, but sadly, it still dwells in that realm that could be rendered non-existent by future developments (Owen Lars being Obi-Wan's brother is probably the best example).

 

No, this is the part where I advise you that, no matter what you might hear within TESB I do not hear any reference to the lightside/goodside of the Force. Just because you've said it is, it does not follow that it is. So, at the risk of repeating myself, I don't recall hearing "goodside of the Force" in the movies. If someone has said it then by all means tell me when, otherwise please stop telling me that I have to accept your interpretation of the scene.

Hang on a minute. Just a couple of posts ago you were proclaiming that 'we even have George Lucas' own words', now here you want to ignore them? Are George Lucas' own words worth something or not? Given that you go on later here to establish whether or not my views are in line with what Lucas had in mind, I find it odd that you simply discount his own words on the matter.

But, for the sake of argument let us suppose that it cannot, indeed, be taken literally, let's see where that takes us (we should, after all, still take Lucas' words into account, yes?)

Yes, I see where you are coming from with this. So, given that Lucas must have meant something by his words, then he must be talking about a particular form of evil. What might that be? Well, the destruction of the Sith leads to the destruction of this (particular form of) evil, and brings balance to the Force. Now, what might this particular form of evil be? The Force is brought into balance and this particular form of evil is destroyed by the destruction of the Sith.....(feigns pondering and strokes imaginary beard)

Hmmm, here's an idea. Let's suppose that this particular form of evil is an evil that actually imbalances the Force. In fact, we don't need to suppose, that is exactly what is described. The Force needs to be put back in balance, and that is fulfilled by destroying this particular form of evil in the galaxy. And that is fulfilled by the destruction of the Sith. The Sith being......... the darkside users in the galaxy.... Wait a minute. So, it is the darkside that is the particular form of evil that is destroyed. So, it is the Sith use of the Force, the darkside, that is causing the imabalance in the Force.

What do you mean by "what we have seen of the post-ROTJ period"? The saga ends with ROTJ. And, as for it being extremely doubtful that this is what George Lucas intended.....its based on his words. I'd say that makes it remarkably more likely than not.

In the films, they are.

Irrelevant to the discussion. Luke denies the darkside. he almost succumbs to it but pulls back, refuses it - that is the point where he truly understands what it is to be a Jedi (that it is the choice of how you use the Force).

But who's talking about good? Only you keep insisting on this 'good' side of the Force. That is not what the Jedi use, nor is it what they talk of using. Yoda says how one should use the Force, not how one should use a certain good aspect of it. They talk only of the Force.

Strawman. Nobody has made any such argument, so why are you behaving as if they have. It is clear that the Sith since TPM are imbalancing the Force - and that their destruction is what brings balance simply emphasises that. And what is ti that clouds the Force? The darkside. So the Sith are the progenitors of the darkside, and when the Sith are destroyed the darkside also is lifted, bringing balance to the Force.

Actually "scientifically debunked" is another example of 'weasel words'. Do you mean there are actual scientific studies that show that animals have thoughts the same as ours? Where? Because there aren't even scientific studies which show what thoughts we have. Anyway, this is pretty irrelevant to the point being made, and some of your confusion is down to your usual habit of part-quoting when responding(and thereby entirely missing the context). I shall repeat what I originally said and highlight the important part; "Animals do not make moral choices, they are subject to the patterns of their lives and their genetic codes far more than we are. That is what makes us, ultimately, different from other animals. It is that which leads to us having, and expecting from others, a sense of responsibility for our actions."

Hence why I asked whether you do think lions make a moral choice to be predators? Do you hold them morally responsible for the deaths they cause? Do you think animals should be tried for their actions? if not, then this scientific debunking might not be all you claim it to be, I think.

But the Sith are the darkside. Their use of the Force is the darkside. Lucas must have been talking of some evil that was destroyed when destroying the Sith. I'm ready to count that it is limited to that which imbalances the Force, which is....."clouded by the darkside the Force is" - the actions of the Sith.

But by your own logic this makes no sense. All the other Imperial officers suddenly stop being evil? No, you are right. The evil that is destroyed is limited to that which imbalances the Force. That being the darkside. And that the darkside is cleared by destroying the Sith leads to the conclusion that it is the Sith that create the darkside. Do you know. I completely agree with you.