Arawn_Fenn posted:The Ashla/Boga(Bogan) material seemed to.
Arawn_Fenn posted:1. The dark side is merely "the Force, unleashed".
Arawn_Fenn posted:2. The Force is everything, and everything is the Force.
Traitor posted:That was half an answer... but the other half kept wriggling, chewing at the inside of his skull. Because the Force was not just a tool. If the Yuuzhan Vong existed outside it, the Force must be less than he had been taught it was. Less than he knew it was. Because he knew, bedrock knew, knew beyond even the possibility of doubt, that the Force was not less than he'd been taught. It was more. It was everything. If the Force was only about life, how could it be used to pick up a rock, or a lightsaber, or an X-wing starfighter? To move something with the Force, you have to feel it. A piece of rock has more presence in the Force than a living Yuuzhan Vong. There was a mystery here, one that nagged at him.
Arawn_Fenn posted:I see no evidence for this being the "traditional Jedi view"; in fact, it could be said that it conflicts with both ANH and TESB. It seems like an important enough point ( if true ) that Yoda or Ben might have mentioned it instead of sweeping it under the rug, no?
Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back posted:For my ally in the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you. Here, between you...me...the tree...the rock...everywhere! Yes, even between this land and that ship!
2Irandrura posted:I would say her teaching was this instead: the Force unleashed is nothing to fear. The dark side is not in the Force. The dark side is in you. Once you are aware of that, through self-knowledge and self-discipline, you have no reason to shrink from the unleashed nature of the Force.
2Irandrura posted:Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back posted:For my ally in the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you. Here, between you...me...the tree...the rock...everywhere! Yes, even between this land and that ship! While he mentions life, he also explicitly says that the Force is in non-living objects, such as the rock. Clearly it is more complex than the Force simply being something peculiar to life. Obi Wan claimed that it binds the galaxy together, which is more than just life.
Arawn_Fenn posted:Since Yoda and Ben both said that life creates the Force, I'm going with that.
Arawn_Fenn posted:Is this actually what we should consider a correct view? Is it even useful?
Arawn_Fenn posted:However, leaving the "evil" connotation of the word "dark" out of it, the dark side is fundamentally dangerous, and other sources have portrayed it as inherently corruptive. We assume Yoda's viewpoint in TESB to be based on accurate knowledge of thousands of years of Jedi history. Why does Yoda assert that "if once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny"? Because of the corruptive nature of the dark side. Apparently no Jedi in the recorded history of the Order was able to use the dark side consistently without falling.
Arawn_Fenn posted:It's like the One Ring in Tolkien. The Wise will not touch it. They know exactly what will happen.
Arawn_Fenn posted:Yoda said that the Force was between the land and the ship. He never said that the "crude matter" in those objects was part of the Force.
Arawn_Fenn posted:For if the Force is, in fact, everything, what else is left for it to bind?
Darth-Ghost posted:I think Vergere was just reflecting the Buddhist view that separation is an illusion, everything we perceive is an illusion, and all reality is really one.
2Irandrura posted: Vergere never advocated touching the dark side. I'm not sure why you bring it up. Vergere's teachings about the nature of the Force at no point state that it is acceptable to touch the dark side. Don't put words into her mouth.
Ulicus from the Vergere thread posted: Really, I tend to think that Vergere doesn't differ from Jedi Orthodoxy in regards to what the Force is. She just moves to different terminology because she (incorrectly) believes that there could be an individual unable to be corrupted by the dark side. The dark side is a useful way to describe the Force's natural tendency to completely kark up individuals who draw too heavily on its power... but the Force doesn't put the evil thoughts in your mind, it takes what is already there and accentuates it. That's really all Vergere was saying (in Traitor, at least) and I don't get why it's so offensive. She didn't suggest that there was no external element to individuals being corrupted by the dark side, simply that what they become is based on what they are. Where she's a bit silly is in believing that it's possible to shape an individual who has no innate darkness within their spirit for the Force to bring out. She wanted Jacen to be that individual and, at the end of the NJO, I think he was. Vergere's naive in that she seems to think "perfection" is a sustainable state. Of course, the above is only my own interpretation. Addition: All Vergere really does is pose a question. This analogy will demonstrate: “Bail Bogan is called a bad chef by everyone he encounters. He can rustle up food in double quick time – much quicker than Aalya Ashla - but it is always, without fail, vile. Yet, really, what right to we have to call him a bad chef? He has never been given anything but the worst ingredients… and it’s not exactly fair to expect him to work with something he has no access to. So, really, isn’t it more appropriate to suggest that Bail Bogan is not a bad chef so much as a man forced to prepare bad ingredients?” As you an see, it would be nonsensical to suggest that Bail Bogan’s non-existence is implied by the above. "There is no dark side" does not mean "what you call the dark side does not exist", it means: "I don't think you should call it the dark side."
Ulicus from the Vergere thread posted: Vergere's wrong because she postulates that people can use the dark side, whatever you want to call it, and not be corrupted in practice. She's also wrong to assume that it is a requirement for true greatness. She believes it's possible for what she considers the "living Jedi dream", to exist, a Galahad type figure that is utterly pure and thus unsusceptible to being transformed into an evil being. She wants to shift the emphasis of blame from the Force to the Force user - making individuals aware that it doesn't "take you over" so much as it unleashes and amplifies the evil within - but she doesn't actually put forward a different cosmology at all. If such a "perfect being" could exist then, certainly, I think they could use what is called "the dark side" without having to worry. Such a being can never exist however - or if they can, they can't exist in such a state for long - and so, for all practical purposes, the fact of the Force twisting and further corrupting should be acknowledged as its dark side. Like it is. Do I think Yoda is unaware that the root of what makes the dark side dangerous lies in the souls of sentient beings? No, he just realises that there is no practical benefit to telling up and coming Jedi this. As this board, and Jacen himself proves, it can lead to confusion and to a belief that the dark side does not exist, or that one need not fear the dark side as long as they have "good intentions". It makes more sense for Yoda to point to the dark side and say "fear that and keep away" rather than to point to people and say "fear yourselves and try to purge yourself totally of evil". I mean, which is the more likely to be achieved? This is why Vergere is technically right to call the dark side the "lie" of the Jedi (even though she either does not understand, or does not agree with, the Jedi's rationale for calling it such), because - by the use of such terminology - they have pinned the majority of blame on the Force and this isn't "fair". The dark side is not "innately" evil to anything but our own perspective. It twists, it corrupts and it transforms individuals into agents of evil... but it's not ITS fault that it does that, anymore than it would be gravity's fault that we'd go splat when we jumped off a hundred-foot building. That'd be our fault.
2Irandrura posted:He said to feel the Force in, among other things, 'the rock'. Rocks are not alive.
Yoda posted:You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.
2Irandrura posted:Vergere never advocated touching the dark side. I'm not sure why you bring it up. Vergere's teachings about the nature of the Force at no point state that it is acceptable to touch the dark side. Don't put words into her mouth.
Arawn_Fenn posted:[quote=2Irandrura]The Force permeates the galaxy.
Arawn_Fenn posted:Contradict yourself much?
2Irandrura posted:I would say her teaching was this instead: the Force unleashed is nothing to fear. The dark side is not in the Force. The dark side is in you.
Arawn_Fenn posted:When most people, including myself, refer to the "dark side", we are referring to something we know as the dark side of the Force.
Arawn_Fenn posted:We're not talking about "the dark side that is in you". Vergere's so-called "point" that evil requires internal darkness -- really, you think? -- is not an interesting or revolutionary one.
MedStar: Jedi Healer posted:Barriss frowned. "Jedi refer to the 'light side' and the 'dark side,' but really, these are only words, and the Force is beyond words. It is not evil, just as it isn't good-it simply is what it is. Power alone doesn't corrupt-but it can feed corruption that already exists. A Jedi must constantly choose one path or the other.
MedStar: Jedi Healer posted:Had her previous experience truly been of the dark side? No, she decided. As she had also told Uli, the Force did not choose sides. But to wield that kind of power, no matter how noble the intent, would almost certainly lead to ruination-if not today, then tomorrow, or the day after. Each time, the temptation to use it would become more compelling, the reasons for doing so more justifiable. She could feel the truth of that to her core. That kind of power could not help but be addicting. It would consume anyone who was less than absolutely pure, less than all-wise, less than wholly selfless. Barriss was by no means a bad person, she knew that. But she was not perfect, and such contact with the Force on a regular basis needed perfection to survive uncorrupted. Did it make sense to have the powers of a god, without the wisdom of a god?
MedStar: Jedi Healer posted: He nodded and hurried away into the gathering gloom. She turned to go as well, but something stopped her. In that moment, Barriss felt something new rise within her, a certainty as strong and real as her journey to the center of the Force had been: she was a Padawan no longer. And the knowledge of why welled in her, equally unmistakable: You truly became a Jedi Knight on the day when you realized that you already were one.
Arawn_Fenn posted:Her stance that the dark side is not inherently corruptive contradicts canon. The ultimate trajectory of NJO seems to demonstrate this.
The Unifying Force posted:What he found instead was formless, supple, and fathomless-an infinite emptiness, but as serene as a wind toppling trees to encourage new growth. A being of light, Jacen was drawing into himself all of Onimi's lethal compounds, neutralizing them and casting them out as sweat, tears, and exhalations. He understood at last why he had failed to catch Anakin's lightsaber when Luke had tossed it to him: he was never meant to catch it, because he had become the lightsaber. He had attained the ability to cut through any resistance in himself; to sever the bonds of preconception; to open a gaping hole into a reality more expansive than any he had ever dared imagine; to heal. As his grandfather had done, he had broken through the apparent opposites that concealed the absolute nature of the Force, and found his way into an unseen unity that existed beyond the seeming separateness of the world. For a moment all the cosmic tumblers had clicked into place, and light and dark sides became something he could balance within himself, without having to remain on one side or the other. The consciousness that was Jacen Solo was strewn across the vast spectrum of life energy. He had passed beyond choice and consequence, good and evil, light and dark, life and death. All that had been required of Jacen was complete surrender-a technique once mastered by the Jedi Order but at some point misplaced; transposed to an emphasis on individual achievement, which had opened a way to arrogance. In that the path was available to any who chose to seek and follow it, Jacen understood that the discovery was really a rediscovery. [...] Jacen realized that, in a sense, he had paraphrased Onimi. He had passed beyond the tradition of the Jedi Order into a more embracing reality. But instead of attempting to steal the authority of the gods, or to become a god, he had finally allowed himself to merge with the Force in its entirety and become a conduit for its raw power, which flowed through him like the thundering headwaters of a great river. The conjoining of the Force and his Vongsense enabled him to render himself small enough to follow Onimi wherever he went or attempted to hide; to counter Onimi's every action, and merge with his living vessel on a molecular level. [...] Jacen continued to stand firm, righting the world. He had become so powerful as to be dangerous to his own galaxy, for he could see clearly the temptations of the dark side and the desire to force one's will on others-to so completely dominate that all life would kowtow to him. He purged his mind of all pride and evil intent and entered a moment of unadulterated bliss, where he seemed to have unlocked the very secrets of existence. He knew that he would never again be able to reach this exalted state, and at once that he would spend the rest of his life trying.
Arawn_Fenn posted:BTW "everything is one" is a meaningless statement, and is not useful, much like the "dark side in you" emphasis.
Arawn_Fenn posted:Then again, what does one expect from a chickenhead?
Irandrura posted: Arawn_Fenn posted:Then again, what does one expect from a chickenhead? I'm sorry? Are you attempting to insult Vergere, or me?
