Saga What does the Prophecy mean by Balance?

But the "official" meaning of balance is a kind of headcount and is very much connected with Force users. Specifically if the number of Dark side users is greater than zero THEN the Force is Unbalanced. The Jedi think that if any Sith are left alive then the Force is unbalanced and this seems to be the official explanation as well.
So both numbers and Force users are important to have balance.

It is slightly odd that the light side can be used as much as you want but if anyone uses the dark side then the Force goes out of balance.

Regards
Nordom

 

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Well, it might not be any Sith. I say this partly because of the James Luceno EU books.

They say that the imbalance in the Force started at a point in the middle of the post-Bane millennium during which the Sith were basically "in hiding". We seem to have been given inconsistent references as to the exact timing. Labyrinth of Evil seemed to place it at "two hundred years before the coming of Sidious". ( Plagueis spoiler )Darth Plagueis seemed to place it at around one hundred years before 67 BBY, or around 167 BBY.

This means that prior to this point there were Sith around but the Force was not yet out of balance.

 

I wonder what would stop Jerec, Kadann, Cronal, Tremayne or Kar Vastor from declaring themselves sith?

 

But this is the movies forum and what the movies tells us about Balance.
Just how is the audience supposed to figure this out just from watching the films?
Based on just the movies then the logic seems to be, ANY Sith living = Force Unbalanced.

Regards
Nordom

 

But this is the movies forum and what the movies tells us about Balance.
Just how is the audience supposed to figure this out just from watching the films?
Based on just the movies then the logic seems to be, ANY Sith living = Force Unbalanced.



Well if we accept T canon there is still the danger of some nightsister declaring themselves sith.

 

I don't think you need any Sith to cause imbalance. They just happen to be strong enough to do so, even with only two at a time.

 

ok I'm weighing
The choosen one prophesy can be misinterpretted as yoda and mace agree.
Maybe just maybe there were far to many jedi that upset the balance of the force. Maybe it was the choosen ones position to create a balance. Maybe just maybe the jedi had courted with outright power for far to long an upset the equilibrium [get it equal] or dual nature of the force.
You can't have a quick reversion of power or balance straight away, balance takes time.Think Pendulum.
Balance as the SW fans you may aotomatically think that there is equality, balance doesn't = equality
I can balance a golf club on my shoulder where the heavy end is close to the shoulder blade and the shaft is 1 meter away. The weight is not evenly distributed but on the balance is achieved!The shaft doen't equal the weight of the club but it is still balanced on my shoulder

 

It's the balance of the Force, not the balance of the Force-users. The imbalance was not an issue of too many Jedi. It had nothing to do with Jedi numbers.

 

It's got nothing to do with numbers. There can be a million Jedi and one half-trained Sith and the Force would be out of balance. Why? Because of the way the Sith use the Force. We like to talk about light side and dark side but in truth there is no light side. There is only the Force. The corruption of the Force is what we call the Dark Side. As Palpatine said, the Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to abilities some consider to be unnatural. Let me give you an example of unbalancing the Force.

Let's say Darth Plagueis succeeded. Let's say he was able to use the Force to stop death or create life. This creates an imbalance. Plagueis is manipulating the Force, forcing his own will on it. In essence he is upsetting the natural order, twisting the Force to his own ends.

Another example - Palpatine. He used the Force to see the future and manipulated events so that the future he foresaw, the future he wanted, came to pass. Yoda has also looked into the future but "always in motion the future is." Yoda understood that while he could see the future, or at least what might be the future, he has to let events play out. He couldn't change what hasn't happened yet. I believe that when Mace and Yoda talk about the Dark Side and how they are effectively blind, it's referring to Sidious' manipulations, twisting the Force so that he's not just seeing the future, he's manipulating it. Sidious was also highly intelligent but he couldn't foresee his own demise. Luke could see his friends in trouble in Cloud City but even Yoda couldn't tell what their fate would be. Looking into the future and trying to change it, even for the right reasons, is the path to the Dark Side.

Anakin's entire fall from grace was all about control. He grew up as a slave. Then he was bound by the rules of the Jedi. He couldn't stop the death of his mother. In trying to prevent the death of Padme he ultimately caused it and fell into darkness. That need to be in control of everything around him was his undoing and ironically, he broke free of the Jedi only to become a slave to the Emperor, his body broken, no longer strong enough to defeat his Sith master. When Luke tried to save his friends...if he had succeeded, if he had gotten there in time to save Han from Boba Fett and rescue Leia, it would have led him towards the Dark Side because he'd be manipulating events to suit him.

The Sith are consumed with the idea of bending the Force to their will. They see the Force as a tool to give them everything they could want, be it an empire or immortality. The Jedi accept the Force as it is. They accept the will of the Force. They accept death. The Sith are incapable of that. They can't accept life for what it is and in trying to change the laws of nature so to speak, they corrupt it, creating an imbalance. What the Sith don't understand is that by being passive, by allowing for the will of the Force, what they want to achieve can happen. A Jedi can achieve immortality and influence the universe in death, as part of the Force. The Sith could never accept that idea. The quick and easy path, the path that allows them to use the Force as a tool rather than rely on it as an ally is what they follow. And there are consequences for that. Anakin, in trying to save Padme from his visions, ended up causing those visions to come to pass. Palpatine, for all his manipulation, couldn't see his own death coming. Even Luke, when he tried to save his friends in Cloud City, ended up suffering himself.

 

The Jedi are cruel and want to wipe out the Sith for some reason.

 

I can't put it any better that Jedsithor, the Sith corrupt the Force by simply being what a Sith represents. Not every dark-side user can be put into that category. So in order to balance the Force one must remove the Sith from the equation.

 

I think the whole notion of even including in the films this idea of "imbalance" is the problem. It does feel like two things must become equal again in order for balance to be achieved. Then you get all sorts of ideas about how the light and dark had to be in harmony...really? Or there were too many Jedi or that 1 Sith equals 50,000,000 Jedi or something and therefore 1 Sith is pretty much one too many!

Why didn't he just say that the Force is being pulled toward the dark side or corrupted by the dark side or simply that the dark side is on the rise, diminishing the possibility for clarity and justice and harmony and must be turned back to the light? I don't know...I guess anything that didn't create the possibility for confusion and too much ambiguity.

 

How about balance as in nature: plant and animal populations flourish and decline over time. A huge increase in one, say wolves, leads to a decline in deer so when the deer population crashes, a few years later the wolf population crashes. The deer population increases... and put that n the wider scale of the total environment. Over time, the ecosystem is in balance regardless of the specific species status.

Now have a meteor, or man, or something introduced to upset this cycle. Wipe out the wolves. The deer increase. Foliage is decimated. Smaller animals have trouble foraging. Soil erodes for lack of plant cover.

The system is out of balance, even though certain species continue to thrive (for a while).

In nature, there is no morality. You eat and breed to survive. Small animals are eaten by larger, plants are consumed but none of this is right or wrong (only wrong for the eaten animal individually).

I can't help but think balance is much like this. Compassion balances greed, selfless balances selfishness.

Introduce a "cancer" to this system and greed overwhelms compassion, selfishness overwhelms selfless. The system starts to go out of whack and if tipped far enough, may not tip back by itself. One might say the Sith are that cancer.

 

What's wrong with the darkside of the force? Are the Sith evil/villains, just because they're Sith, and use the darkside? That sounds like poor villain characterization. "He's evil bceause he uses dark powers"!

 

It being "anger, fear, aggression" is one problem with it. Its association with Hatred is also an issue:

"Don't give in to hate. That leads to the Dark Side."
"Release your anger. Only your hatred can destroy me."
"Strike me down with all of your hatred, and your journey toward the Dark Side will be complete."

Now in the EU we get some hints that passion- any passion- may be of The Dark Side- which is possibly why the Jedi discourage romantic love. But it's still left a little hazy.

 

If you think dominating others, forcing your will on them, enslaving them, wiping out all forms of dissent is not wrong - then I guess you have to be right. Maybe we should elect a Sith our next US president - pfiffle on Obama or Romney - we want a Sith lord who'll get things DONE.

 

Luke didn't turn to the darkside in Episode 6, because, it was a philosophical and religious thing for the Jedi, just like their belief about the Sith being evil.

Vader promised Luke that he would spare the rebels if Luke turned to the darkside. Why didn't Luke turn to the darkside in episode 6? The question isn't about the empire, it's about the darkside. Jedi believe the darkside to be evil because it's a part of their belief system. Vader also told Luke that he could defeat the empire if only he turned to the darkside. Which Luke didn't do. It wasn't about the empire, it was about the Jedi and sith faiths.

Also, how did the Sith/Empire/Palpatine, quote
dominating others, forcing your will on them, enslaving them, wiping out all forms of dissent
?

 

Look up the Empire, or Palpatine, or Dark Side of the Force, on Wookieepedia, it'll tell you everything you need to know.

 

The Sith wanted to rule the galaxy, which means government.
What will were they forcing onto others?
Define, "wiping out all forms of dissent"?
How/where did the movies hint that the sith empire in the OT had large-scale slavery?

 

Where's your proof that the Empire was a benevolent and just government?

 

Which is fairly silly- there's a lot more evil in the SW universe than just the Sith. Slavery, for example.

 

My proof that the empire was a benevolent and just government is that they did evil, wrong, things in retaliation to the rebels. All the bad things they did, while evil and unjustifiable, were in retaliation to the "good guys".

 

So, so, so, so, so not true.

 

If the rebels never existed, owen and beru lars survive.
Alderaan survives.