Saga OT Force vs. PT Prophecy

I think it means that a would-be prophet said something once.

Yet the characters are still making those choices.

As Lucas says, We have a destiny, if we want to follow it.

 

I believe the prophecy was just someone foreseeing that something would happen, not a divinity deciding that it would happen.
"Destiny" in that context would simply mean "what will happen". As we all know, though, the future is always in motion, which means that destiny is a possibility, not inescapable reality.

As Arawn_Fenn said, we have a destiny, but we may choose not to follow it.

EDIT: Possibly (hopefully), the new trilogy will have something to say about this. For all we know, it may turn everything on its head and put the prophecy in an entirely new light.

 

Exactly/ And the language used by Lucas is more telling, in terms of the conceptualisation. The prophecy didn't simply 'come true' it was "fulfilled" - ie it is defined in terms of will; intention; agency.

 

And they are. Destiny is just a pre-determined path. If the character chooses to follow it or not is up to them.

It can be both. Anakin could have fullfilled the prophecy back in Episode III, but he chose not to and helped Sidious kill Mace Windu. Anakin turned back to the light and killed Sidious because of his son, not because there was a prophecy that said someone would destroy the Sith and bring balance to the Force.

Qui-Gon however, chose to free Anakin because he believed he was the Chosen One and destined to save the galaxy. A prohecy and its content is not set in stone, hence why it requires faith/belief.

He decides that because he created the characters and their story.

 

If he believes in that, he's free to say so.

I'm still wondering.

Who said it needs to be a deity? And 'has to decide' or 'has to foresee'?

A pre-determined path only says that said path exists and someone had a vision of it, not that it's the only pre-determined path or that someone needs to follow it.

If a prophet tells the future through a prophecy, it means the character has already made the choices. He's just telling a possible end game. The 'when', 'how' and 'if' is not determined.

 

He said according to Arawn_Fenn, "We have a destiny, if we want to follow it."

He's not preaching anything. He's stating his belief. If you agree or not is up to you, but that has no relevance in the fictional universe he created.

Where was a sermon preached in the movies?

Are you saying atheists can't appreciate and enjoy C.S. Lewis' books?

No. If I see your future and tell you what will happen, I'm predetermining a path for you. If you follow it or not, it's your choice.

A predetermined path is a potential path. It only ceases to be potential when it happens.

 

It's all about suspension of disbelief, which is a requirement for fantasy movies (atheist or not).

Because it's both.

 

I recently heard Empire Strikes Back described as a time-travel movie, and... it is one. The precognition creates a kind of predestination paradox. Any prophecy does or can, to some extent, and so the Balance of the Force prophecy concept does too, I think. The thing is, that doesn't even seem that bothersome, because the Force makes sense to me as something that would 'know all,' and the characters are all peering into it, "darkly." We can still see characters' decision trees and understand why they go down a certain path as opposed to another. Their wills aren't free; they're constrained by their own histories, as everyone is. But the story is (or can be) satisfying because we see and understand it at a human level.

If Anakin was created by the Force for a capital-P Purpose, that - I guess - could make sense in terms of storytelling, but in a way it removes the point of view to a higher plane than just humans/mortals doing things and seeing other mortals doing things. Now the 'character' whose decision tree we have to try to understand is a supreme energy field, and that's both less relatable and much harder to do.

Any communication of any kind spreads effects outward into real life. And sometimes values do need to be challenged (in the abstract here - I'm not saying that yours in particular need to be, just that challenging is a fine goal in the abstract). I think the problem is that the message that may or may not challenge anything here is unclear, and I'm unsure if anyone thought through the issues created by including all these elements - predestination paradoxes, people apparently created for A Purpose, etc. In short, I'm not sure what the challenge really is, or what it is meant to be challenging.


For example, I still don't understand whether Anakin is supposed to be a demigod or if he is just one of many. If his creation by the Force was intentional and it knew what he would do, then we have to try to understand why it did _that_ and not _this_ (why didn't it just go Raiders of the Lost Ark on Palpatine, or create a person who could be friendly and prevent Palpatine from ever becoming a dark sider in the first place?). If the Force did _not_ know what would happen, then Anakin's creation and eventual effect is a ridiculously coincidental Hail Mary pass thrown from the International Space Station... that is, if he is the only person generated by the Force. If instead he is one of a multitude, then, well...

 

Exactly as I've said time and again. The Force creating Anakin doesn't mean that it forced everyone's hand. It just means that sooner or later, events will converge and a choice will have to be made. Qui-gon saw a number of different events occurring together as they did, as being more than mere coincidence. The return of the Sith, tying into the invasion of Naboo and the discovery of a boy who had no father and was incredibly strong in the Force pointed towards the prophecy of the Chosen One. The one who will bring balance to the Force by eliminating the Sith. Qui-gon puts his faith in the boy and in the Force that this is true and that their meeting was supposed to happen. Likewise, Luke realizes that because his father has already come to Endor to supervise the construction of the Death Star, ahead of his decision to go, that their meeting was meant to be. That he must trust his instincts and in the Force that a confrontation is not only necessary, but that he can achieve a different outcome from what the Jedi want out of him.

When people put their faith in a higher power, that doesn't mean that they do not put faith in themselves or in the hands of certain other individuals, such as doctors attempting to heal the sick. The placing of faith in a divine power simply means that they hope for an outcome and maybe, just maybe, an otherworldly power will help them along. Sometimes its as simple as that, sometimes it's nothing more than looking for spiritual guidance.

Building off of that, Anakin's destiny was foreseen, but not when. In ROTS, he could have fulfilled his destiny in Palpatine's office. Dooku was dead, Maul was excommunicated. There were no other Sith than Palpatine. But Anakin chooses to run from his destiny because it involves a sacrifice, one which he cannot make. Years later, he makes another choice. This time to save his son at the expense of his own life, but in doing so, fulfills his destiny. He isn't choosing to fulfill his destiny, but that is a result. Cause and effect.

It's like in "The Matrix" films. In the second film, Neo sees that Trinity will die. He is told that he already knows what will happen, but he has to understand why. When he confronts the Architect he is given a choice like Anakin was. He can save Zion and lose Trinity, or he can condemn Zion but save Trinity. He has already made his choice before even going into the Matrix that last time. He goes against his destiny and in doing so, eventually starts to find a different path. A path that leads to his finding a way to end the war, without anymore deaths. Without anymore sacrifices other than his own. He doesn't fight Smith with the intention of fulfilling a prophecy, but because he has to save the lives of billions. It's just as a result, he fulfilled the prophecy without really intending to.

Well, if you really want to get into it, who says that you made all the decisions in your life on your own accord? Perhaps your life was already mapped out, even though you believe otherwise. That every choice you made, good and bad, was all part of the plan. That is what some people believe. It is your choice to believe otherwise and you may be right. But you may be wrong. All Lucas did was say, this could be it. Or it could be this. Or it could be something else.

The message is that in life, sometimes, you have to take action to enact change. That if you refuse to do something, at some point, you will find that you have no choice but to do that which you are avoiding. If Anakin refuses to save Luke, then everything will continue to go to ****. Palpatine will survive the destruction of the second Death Star. The war will continue until the Alliance is destroyed. And the Force will forever remain unbalanced. But by making a choice, he his choosing to stop the horror by saving his son.

 

Hmmm....bu the message within the OT was clear enough anyhow. The problem comes with overwriting that with a pre-determined, Force designed outcome. That is why the PT negatively impacts upon a crucial element of the OT, imo.

The entire tale becoming the "fulfillment" of a prophecy, born of the 'will of the Force', lessens the impact of human agency/choice from the original story.

 

I don't see how, agency is still shown.

 

How? A Jedi Knight, a Bardotta worshiper, or a Shaman of the Whills foresaw Anakin killing Palpatine and bringing balance to the Force. That doesn't take away Anakin's choice to save his son. It just means that his actions was foreseen, but not where or when or even why he does it. This factoid was then written down somewhere and for many years, the Jedi have kept the knowledge of this vision of the future within the Temple Archives until one day, another Jedi Master encounters said boy and learns of the Sith's return. The rest goes from there.

 

Because there is a distinction between an individual choosing to act in such a way as to affect an outcome, and an individual whose entire being was conceived miraculously in order to fulfill a pre-conceived plan.

 

The element of choice IS still there regardless if people choose to ignore it.

 

This assumes though, the Force was the one that did it. Remember, Lucas had Palpatine talk about Plagueis who was alleged to have created life.

 

I don't get it. Why do people pretend that a prophecy that is "fulfilled" (meaning agency, choice, WILL), by means of a child born of IMMACULATE CONCEPTION does not impact upon the human choice of the moment? The intention is clear.

 

Keeping in mind that I don't necessarily like these elements added by the prequels, what I can come up with is: the prophecy and Anakin's creation actually are disconnected. Anakin is created - by the Force, or by some colony of midichlorians, or as a direct result of Darth Plagueis, or whatever - in a reaction to some event in the linear time stream. He has exactly the same kinds of (technically 'unfree') choice available as do other people - he just happens to be very strong in the Force because he was created directly by it (just go with it). Eventually, he does what he does in Return of the Jedi.

In addition to that, hundreds or thousands of years previously, one (or many) Jedi (or other people) foresaw - in a method similar to what Luke and Yoda did on Dagobah - that there would be a time when dark siders again had risen to power and that someone would come along, a light sider, and would put an end to their rule. Everything else could be down to interpretation by later characters.

 

Who says that Anakin's conception was immaculate? Shmi says there was no father, but that could mean a number of things.
Yes, what we're presented with in TPM lends itself to divine interpretation, but what Palpatine hints at in ROTS leads me to suspect that there's more to it than we've been told so far.
The idea of Palpatine actually telling Anakin that he created him by manipulating the midi-chlorians was even scripted (and filmed?) but left out, which means that Anakin being a Sith creation is a very real possibility and might be an important plot point in TFA.
That's what I mean when I say that the new trilogy might turn everything on its head and put the prophecy in an entirely different light. What we thought it meant might not be true at all - and that idea could very well have been in the back of GL's mind all along.

 

Why does any story need to be told? Because someone wants to tell that story. Lucas was creating a modern myth. The minute he discovered Campbell's works in 1975, Lucas found out that this was the story he was wanting to tell. The journey of a hero towards a great destiny. Luke doesn't want to face Vader because he hates Vader and everything he stands for. Vader killed his father, Obi-wan, his family and friends. Even hurting Han and Leia. Luke hates the monster that did this, but this monster is also his father. There is conflict within Luke as to saving his father versus killing his father and for Luke, he wants to run from it. He doesn't want to even go there, because he is afraid of the outcome. But as it was with the Lars four years earlier, so it is now that Luke must face his father. He cannot keep running from his destiny. He must embrace it. And Qui-gon wouldn't train Anakin because he was too old and had an attachment to his mother, unless he needed a specific reason to do so. The attachment issue feeds into why Anakin would choose to become evil and betray everyone and everything that ever mattered to him, in the name of power.

It is, but many put their beliefs in said sky fairy because it is their solace. Religion is one avenue that mankind has with regards to answering the unknowable. Back before science was even a thing, there was religion. People look for things to believe in because sometimes the alternative is unthinkable.

Or maybe not. Even Han starts to believe.

He has Palpatine tell Anakin that a Sith Lord could manipulate Midichlorians to create life. That takes away from a divine influence and suggests a more sinister agent was involved. Anakin's actions also leaves Obi-wan, Mace and Yoda believing that Anakin isn't the Chosen One. That it was all bunk. They doubt and thus go on believing so.

Anakin's not thinking about the prophecy when he does this. He's not doing it because he was destined to do so. He is doing it because he knows it is the right thing to do. The future is always in motion.

Again, who said that the Force did it and not a Sith Lord looking to create the ultimate Sith, but unknowingly created the very being who would destroy them.