Lit Why does the Force favor the Light Side over the Dark Side so much?

Never really understood this at all, when the Jedi Order serves the Galactic Republic and helps it remain strong and use diplomacy and politics to keep society under control things are great, the force has no need of a Chosen One to destroy the Jedi Order at all, it is only the Sith Lord's and their need for revenge on the jedi that causes the Jedi Order and Republic to fall, but the force balances this out by creating Anakin Skywalker knowing that he will one day destroy the Sith and restore balance by putting the Light Side back in control, the Republic will be restored and with be strong again, free of Sith influence and corruption, life is good.

But why doesnt the force just refuse to create a chosen one and allow the Sith Lord's to dominate the galaxy for thousands of years without any interuption at all? It has no issue with the Jedi serving for years and creates a messiah to destroy the Sith, basically interfering with their rule, it knew that the jedi would be killed off by vengeful Sith Lord's and allowed it to happen, yet provided the means for the jedi to stop the Sith.

Why doesnt the force just remain neutral and allow both sides to do whatever they wish? Kreia/Darth Traya was right, the force does have a will of its own, one should consider what would have happened if her plan to cause the death of the force had been a success? Would the force be killed or crippled? Perhaps Darth Nihilus should have been allowed to wander the galaxy feeding his hunger and destroying and devouring everything, that would also cause the death of the force as well, or the Yuuzhan Vong winning the war and slowly slaughtering most of the galaxy.

That would create a major disturbance in the force and its plans, how would the force balance itself out again if the Yuuzhan Vong had won the war? It always does, first with the Je'Dai, then the Jedi destroying evil, but with nobody left the balance would be hard to restore if impossible, maybe the Yuuzhan Vong would be allowed to regain their connection to the force again, in hopes that some of them would rebel and join the Light Side, thus restoring the balance by overthrowing the corrupt leadership.

But it just seems like the force favors the Light Side over the Dark Side too much, it would be great if it ignored both sides plans and allowed them to use it and abuse it, favoring no side at all, then whoever is strongest or smartest gets to use it until they wane and fall, instead of interupting and sending in people like Revan, the Jedi Exile or Anakin Skywalker to restore balance, why not just stay neutral and let either side do as they wish?

Even with the Rakata, it is obvious that the Kwa or Gree sent out the Tho Yor to gather force users to combat the Rakata and their Infinite Empire, instead of allowing the Rakata to remain in power until their slaves rebelled and killed them off on their own, the force interupted the Rakata's plans and allowed them to fall, why not let the Rakata fall victim to their own arrogance and not stop them?

 

The reason The Force favors the Light Side is to protect life.

 

According to Lumiya, Darth Vectivus favored life, was an honorable and noble man, was not evil and corrupt, a noble Sith Lord, not all dark side users are evil or insane, at any rate if the force favors the light side because it protects life, then why allow the dark side to be used by anyone? Why not prevent people that are evil from using the dark side? basically blocking its use?

 

comic book logic

 

I think it's a mistake to assume that the Force has any sort of agency.

Also, I would take anything Lumiya said with a grain of salt.

 

If you take that at face value then I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

Even if we accept the idea that the force is somehow sentient and capable of acting with intent, why would it hand the reins to Sith? The guys who start throwing lightning at you if they so much as think you're snickering at them?

What's with all the "maybe if we sit around and do nothing everything will be all right"? Don't tell me this is an actual real life philosophy.

 

And we're believing Lumiya why exactly? Also, I think you're thinking of the Force more as some sort of personified god than, well, a force. The way I see it, the only thing the Force really "wants" is to keep itself balanced. The Jedi protect the balance, while the Sith draw power from imbalance, so it's easy to see why the one group would come off as more favored than the other. So I don't really think of the balance as being between light and dark, because light is balance and dark is the absence thereof. But to prevent people from drawing on the dark side (ie the imbalance in the force) implies a level of anthopomorphism and agency that I just don't get the vibe the Force possesses.

 

Someone once said (Qui-Gon? Yoda? Obi-Wan? I don't remember) that the Force doesn't really choose sides, but when beings like Darth Plagueis and Sidious play with it on god levels then it becomes unhappy, and counters back = Anakin. Also imo, the Force wasn't happy with the Jedi Order, them acting like Generals, and its outdated ways, which is why Order 66, the Purge, and everything happened

 

That's pretty much how I see it. It doesn't favor either side, which is why sometimes you have the darkness overcoming the light and vice versa. Rather it favors balance, and if it plays any part in the rise or fall of a particular side, it's because one side's thrown it out of balance. The Sith by nature however, throw the Force out of balance more often than the Jedi, as they seek to dominate and pervert the world around them.

I'm also in favor of chucking Lumiya, her ideas about Darth Vectivus, and everything she said about Vergere out the nearest airlock.

 

The various authors all seem to have their own ideas as to what "balance" entails. I've pretty much given up on trying to reconcile everything.

As far as I can tell from the films, however, the "light side" is neither the yin, nor the yang, but the balance between them. There's that neat line in DotJ where it's mentioned, "There is a light within the darkness, and a darkness within the light" (alluding to the traditional yin/yang thang) -- and it's my hope that as the Je'daii develop into the Jedi, they come to understand that the dark side ITSELF is simply the darkness within the greater body of "light" that is the Force as a whole.

Leading beautifully into that quote from ANH!novel Obi-Wan to Vader: "You sense only a part of the Force, Darth"

Because the Jedi get the big picture. Or should.

 

From what I've seen, the Jedi don't seem particularly concerned with a light side. It's never mentioned in the films. Only a concern with balance.

The emblems on Mortis echo the yin-yang.

 

Yeah. TBH, I'd happily pretend that there was no such thing as "the light side" in Jedi terminology at all -- we have but one mention of a "good side", and other than that it's always "the Force" -- but since this is Lit, and the term comes up a lot, that wouldn't be appropriate.

Cool. Never actually seen/noticed those, before.

 

My view of the Force may provide an explanation for this, but at the same time it may not comport with a paradigm which includes definite light and dark sides (at least, pre-existing light and dark sides, of which the Jedi and Sith only call upon one each): If we think of the Force as simply power/life energy of the universe, then there might be different ways to access it. One way might be to focus on going with natural flows, trying to make one's will flow with the 'grain' of these processes and disturbing the 'way of things' as little as possible. There could be another way of accessing the Force which doesn't care about the how, and focuses instead on speed and brute power. I think you can guess how I would define each.

Of course, if the Force itself is dualistic and Manichaean, then this doesn't work as well because in my kind of preferred model, it's the method of access that would define light and dark. These methods can imply something about the users' approach to life and the universe (people who go after easy power even for a noble cause might find it alluring and 'fall to the dark side'). But using the easy power, while tempting, wouldn't necessarily corrupt the mind in a kind of Force psychosis or anything - it's simply power, corrupting like "normal" power does. (This might be similar to a version of Force use contemplated during the making of ESB, where to use telekinesis one has to use the 'dark side.' I assume because this is imposing one's will on the universe in a fairly direct way.)

I'm also not sure how applicable my preference is to the SW galaxy as often depicted because the Jedi and Sith are often presented as 'good and evil,' each aligned with a single side of a Force that is itself bifurcated into light (good) and dark (evil) sides. I'm not sure how to reconcile the way the dark side is always depicted as evil with how it is also sometimes depicted as a necessary half to the Force (kind of dueling "good versus evil" and "order versus chaos"/"creation versus destruction" models - which is more applicable here?). Even if the dark side isn't itself intended to represent 'evil,' it is so often portrayed in that kind of way that it's hard to avoid that impression.

I'm also not sure how someone like Jabba fits into things (not a Force user, but still causing great harm to sapient creatures - does this relate to 'the dark side of the Force,' if the Force is everywhere?).

 

Why does the Force favor the Light Side over the Dark Side so much?

That's like asking "why does that person favor being healthy over having cancer so much?"
or "why does that person favor being a nice guy over being a jackass so much?"

 

Since this is Lit, it seems appropriate to point out that in books such as Cloak of Deception, Revan, and Darth Plagueis, to name a few, it is said that the balance is indeed between the light and dark sides. This is also backed up in TCW's Mortis arc which tells us that too much of either one ( equally, too little of either one ) is an undesirable result; in Lucas-speak they both need to be there. Thus it does not make sense to say that light "is" balance. However, one might argue that the light side is less prone to imbalance than the dark, based on what we've seen and what we haven't seen in canon.

Those things happened because:

* Palpatine willed them;
* Anakin sided with Palpatine.

It wasn't the Force striking against the Jedi. It was the Sith.

 

Reasonable, but I think "less prone" may be underselling it. The Daughter -- while distinct from the Father -- is nevertheless the "good kid" who wants to please and serve him, and exists more or less in alignment with his will. At least as far as I can remember from TCW's Mortis arc. I only saw it the one time.

"It is in my nature to do what is selfless. My brother's will always be to do what is selfish." yada yada.

Assuming the analogy holds, then even on a strictly dualistic model, you don't need to worry about "too much" light, because the light is the side in step with the will of the Force, which seeks balance.

 

Name 3 who aren't.

 

Kyle Katarn, his apprentice Jaden Korr, and Jaina Solo. Though admittedly she didn't use the Dark Side for long.

 

I think it is more a situation that the light side is creative, binding, and supportive, whereas the dark side is entropic, destructive, and rending. It's a push/pull cosmic dynamic.

The trick to this is that life, ie. all living organisms are associated with the light side, they require it to exist. Qui-Gon's line from Phantom Menace about the midi-chlorians strongly suggests that in the Star Wars universe it is the Force that does something on a atomic level involving chemical bonds that makes life possible (best guess would be something to do with DNA replication processes).

Now, life is not inherently 'good' or 'bad' on a cosmic level, but as we, as living organisms, wish to continue existing, the general dominance of the light side of the Force is a vastly preferable state of existence for us. This would be why the Jedi would favor the light - because an imbalanced situation is necessary for living growth, rather than mere stasis.

 

"insane" is such a subjective term though . . .

I would say neither Vergere, Jacen Solo or Kyp Durron were evil or insane.

 

Insane is fairly subjective, but you can tell when someone is mentally/emotionally unstable.

Calling Vergere a dark-sider is debatable. Darth Caedus was both evil & insane. Kyp Durron I would agree is neither.

 

I'll give you those, but I was referring more to chronic dark side users.

 

Brakiss tended to paint himself as someone who used both the light and dark sides, in the Young Jedi Knights series. And he never really came across as all that insane or malevolent- though extremely selfish and ruthless.

 

The Jedi seem to favor balance, though. Supposedly an overweening dominance by the light side would eventually be a bad thing just as the opposite case of the ascendancy of the dark. I admit that I don't know what that would "look" like.

 

I think the Jedi favor a balanced state that is light side dominated. Expressed numerically is 0 is total dark side and 10 is total light side the Jedi would prefer things to hover around a 7, but they would favor stability to that number more than the precise position. Note how the Jedi order accepted a gradual darkening of the Force during the Prequel Era rather than trying to do something drastic to change it.