Jedi Academy: "No Force power is inherently evil"

SC's still about, though more on FB I guess than here. EV, no idea, either got a girlfriend or joined the military. Maybe both.

 

Did his girlfriend join the military? That would be badass.

 

I agree. Typically dark side force powers can be used for good. Force lightning could be used to power an electronic device or work as a defibrillator. Force Choke can be used to keep someone from inhaling in poison gas and even Force Fear can dissuade an animal from attacking you.

 

So murdering someone in cold blood, because they will later commit an evil act, is a good thing right?

 

If by an evil act you refer to something like the massacring of many innocents after you or other people have found out what that person plans on doing and they are psychopathic to boot which would ultimately mean they would do it for the evulz then yes it would be a good thing since you can't fix psychopaths no matter what you do and they need to be dealt with in an extreme and harsh manner. I would even go father and say such a thing can be justified if they weren't psychopathic and you and/or others attempted to convince him/her of what they're doing is reprehensible even if they still go through with it out of revenge for how they were treated by other people or their government for that matter. If, however, this evil act was something relatively minor like petty thievery then no, cold blooded murder would NOT be a good thing unless, of course, they were psychopaths which would make it a-ok.

Then again, you're seemingly stuck in this dogmatic view on anything &/or everything with a negative connotation being automatically bad and anything/& or everything with a good connotation as automatically being good so I dunno why I or anyone else is even bothering to make arguments with you.

 

Ironically, if you read the fluff, Jaden Korr (the JA character) is supposedly really good at Force Lightning. But, instead of going 'oh cool!!' he is constantly worried about how good he is, and if that means he could go dark. The guy turns down Mastership because of these worries. In fact:

So, even the guy you are giving Dark Side powers has problems using them.

 

Something old from Stepping Into A Larger World: A Metaphysical and Philosophical Discussion of the Force that may be of interest

 

I have always understood that Force Lightning is actually the Dark Side flowing through you and coming out as energy and thus harming organic matter.

 

It is. It's a corruption of the force, pure and simple. Contention only arose from a generally of fans used to instant gratification who liked to be the Goodie but to use those powers. Since you can't use baddie powers and be a goodie, the powers have to be good!

"I rip his throat out using the force, but I do so with love and ponies. So, no dark side!"

 

Luke wasn't a stalwart Jedi at that time though, was he?

He got a bit emo between ESB and RotJ - his black clothing, use of telekinesis to choke the Gamorreans and attitude towards Jabba were deliberate elements to show how he was in danger of turning into Vader. Going by the WEG or WotC RPG rules as an example, I think Luke ended RotJ with 3 dark side points (Gamorreans, drawing on the dark side to attack the Emperor).

As for using Force Lightning - Mia Mesharad - It's not about how it's applied. Going by one canon source - one of the WEG rulebooks - Force Lightning is a corruption of the Force, therefore it's always bad. IIRC this is because it actually requires the user to draw on negative emotions such as anger / hate / fear in order to create it. I don't know if this has been overwritten by another piece of canon...

 

Corran Horn got pinged for this by Luke in 'I, Jedi'. He created an 'aura of uneasiness' around him while running around Yavin so he wouldn't get bitten by mosquitoes or something.

Your examples aren't great because they have easy solutions that aren't evil. First - telekinesis could be used to provide a safer heart massage, second - Choke is telekinesis, and telekinesis has many applications. 'Force Choke' is limited to basically 'squeeze til their eyes pop'. Third, rather than make the animal fear you, convince it you're uninteresting rather than a predator.

 

If we are to believe Heir to the Empire it was not TK choke but some kind of mind scramble

 

The piggies were grasping their throats, so it definitely looked like more than a "mind scramble".

 

Luke finished the CT with 2 dark side points. I'd have awarded him one for attacking Vader so furiously when the latter was down; I can't remember if the other is meant to be for his attack on Vader from under the stairs, or one for the two guards; or for taking 2 rounds to bash Vader's hand off. I'd thought the Gamorreans went to sleep and that was the noise they made, personally, but it's not something I care enough about to argue.

 

It seems the most logical to me that what makes it a "dark" power is determined by the state of mind you have to be in to perform said power. For instance, you'd have to be quite miffed to choke someone to death. Then again, you can also choke someone to death in a very serene mood if you're a psychopath. Or if you have a very detached mindset when it comes to the lethal necessities of the task at hand. Sort of a Donald Rumsfeld Jedi.

 

The problem with Force lightning is that it's been portrayed differently enough from author to author that it should really be split into separate powers.

Sometimes all it is is Force generated electricity... and within such portrayals, the position Mia is arguing is correct. It's bad if you use it on someone but okay if you're using it to jump start a car engine, or whatever. (For the same reason that TK is bad if you use it to choke someone, but okay if you're using it to stop a building falling on their head.)

Other times it's a literally a twisted corruption of life-sapping Force energy that can only be summoned in the first place through extreme hate and rage. And, in those cases, Ender's spot on. There's no positive application for such a power. The mere act of bringing it into being stains the soul.

Personally, I take "Force lightning" to mean the weaksauce electrical kind and "Sith lightning" to refer to the more potent corrupt energy.

Trip was doing a thread on it in Lit, once. But she gave up. Because she's a quitter.

 

Good point - I do seem to remember that the Nightsister's Lightning was actually what you define as 'weaksauce' lightning, actual electricity... Sidious' is a different beast entirely.

 

ur mums a quitter

(but yeah well tbh there really isn't much more to say about it than what you just did, i was just going to like go through the canon what used to be the canon and like, categorize every instance of force lightning or sith lightning or other electromorphic Force phenomena in order to back up that thesis. so yeah i'm sure it would have been hella boring probably tbh)

 

I fail to see how generating random electricity through the force could be ok except to retroactively justify the moral weakness of gen y fans who want to eat their cake and have it too.

 

we prefer "millennial" k thx

 

Heart massage in an emergency without cracking the patient's ribs?

 

Electrocuting an enemy= Bad!

Burning off an enemy's arm with a plasma blade= Okay!

Choking an enemy with your mind= Evil!

Basing an enemy's skull against a wall with your mind= Just swell!

Jedi are already very, very good at hurting people, even if they're hurting people in defense. Even if a Jedi says to himself "Well, at least I didn't use force lightning!" and that makes him feel better, it's no consolation for the guy with a smoking stump where his head used to be.

 

First off, electrocuting / choking is using the Force to attack or cause harm. Cutting someone's arm off could be a legitimate form of defense.

"Well what if I didn't have my lightsaber on me and needed to defend myself, can I choke him then?" - You are still causing someone harm with the Force.

As for the head / wall example, I take it you are referring to Yoda in RotS? I don't think that's ever been confirmed by an official source as to whether that's considered dark or not... to me it's dark.

Fact is though, over the years everything has been karked up by people changing their minds or having special cases (Luke using lightning in TUF, for instance). What West End Games (with approval of the EU overlords) made black and white has been completely banjaxed by the Prequels / Wizards of the Coast / Del Rey novels. Hopefully the 'new' EU can once again provide a sense of cohesion.

 

The original KOTOR had a pretty good understanding of light/dark mechanics. Using abilities outside of your alignment was extremely difficult. I recall force storm draining half of your force bar if you cast it as a light side Jedi, whereas a Dark side consular could spam it to her heart's content, which was juxtaposed by a player following a gray morality who could use any ability in the game despite alignment, but wouldn't be nearly as powerful as someone who specialized in one of the extremes of the force.

 

KOTOR was just borrowing from the 2nd ed WOTC d20 game.