A new way to understand the Prophecy?

So we can at least agree that Obi didn't know these were nightmares, then? And I do think Ani didn't tell him how bad they were - he was covering up how much these dreams disturbed him.

Yes, Obi thought it was a source of amusement -a crush - nothing to worry about.

At the end of AOTC I always thought Obi sent Ani off w/ Padme thinking they'd both "get it out of their systems." Meaning - I think he mistook it originally as mostly hormones.

Well to me - he came off as very immature - "It's not fair!" And I know that perception is widely shared.

Ani struck me as someone w/ no patience for talk - he wants action! That's why he concentrated so much more on his physical skills than his spiritual or mental ones.

Well I think it was 60 % ego stroking, 20% encouraging his worst habits and 20% due to the "sibling rivalry" dynamic between Ani and Obi that Qui-gon saddled Obi with.

Yes, in a race - as in battle. I think it's horrible advice the rest of the time. And unfortunately Ani must have taken this to mean - never think - because that's what I see in ROTS. And that's one of the things IMO that hurt him. If that was him using his instincts - well it didn't serve him well.

Yeah - wasn't that right after he cut him loose? I'm sure a conscientious Jedi like Obi worked on that in the 10 years after TPM - Qui obviously felt him capable of doing so on his own. I also took that as a sign of Qui's own blindess - he had little respect for Obi's Unifying Force strength.

I'm not sure Ani's strength was the Living Force - Ani's problem was he didn't spend enough time comtemplating or reaching out to either side of the Force.

 

The Prophecy, as I've found it leaves open to interpretation how it is to be fulfilled.
But, in my mind it does indicate that Balance will be restored.

The only specific reference I've found to it was in Labrynith of Evil

"...that unfold the dark times would.
Born into their midst the Chosen One is, to return balance to the Force."

After reading much of the above discussion, perhaps the following quote from Lucas might be helpful:

The film is ultimately about the dark side and the light side, and those sides are designed around compassion and greed. The issue of greed, of getting things and owning things and having things and not being able to let go of things, is the opposite of compassion--of not thinking of yourself all the time.

~George Lucas
Of Myth And Men
A conversation between Bill Moyers and George Lucas on the meaning of the Force and the true theology of Star Wars
Time Magazine, April 1999

 

I think it's really a question of semantics whether you call them "bad dreams" or "nightmares". And I think that since "normal" Jedi don't have nightmares, it is quite possible that Obi didn't even know what a nightmare really is.

Obi didn't sent them to Naboo. He was opposed to sending them there, and he even expressed his concerns to the council. But they didn't act on it, unfortunately.

He was a bit immature at the time, in this respect. But that doesn't exclude the possibility that there was some truth to what he said. Being immature doesn't mean you have to be wrong about everything you say. In fact, children are very immature by their nature and often they perceive truths the "mature" adult simply don't see. "Truly wonderful the mind of a child is...". I think he was right about Obi-Wan not understanding a few things about him.

According to the books, he spent a lot of time talking with Padme and with Palpatine.

I think there was a much deeper level of insight with respect to what's going on inside Anakin behind the tactics of Palpatine.

I don't think it's a horrible advice at all unless you confuse genuine feeling or intuition with acting on emotional turmoil. Acting on instincts or "feeling" is about listening to the wisdom of the higher self, which often has a lot more wisdom than the intellect. Anakin didn't use his instincts or his intution any more than his mind in ROTS. He just acted on emotional turmoil. Nothing to do with "feeling" the way Qui-Gon meant it.

Oh, I don't perceive Qui-Gon as "blind". Quite the contrary - he saw the weaknesses of the Jedi Order perfectly - even Yoda at the end of ROTS acknowledged how much he had underestimated him. Obi improved it, that is no question. And having to deal with Anakin was a help in this task. I suspect that Qui-Gon insisted on Obi taking Anakin as his apprentice partly because he figured that Anakin might be just the right challenge for Obi with respect to the Living Force thing. In this respect, Obi had changed a lot for the better by the time of ROTS. But it never became his strongest side.

I don't think that contemplation is the way to get in contact with the Living Force. I think contemplation is about establishi

 

It's not what you see because you choose not to, but it is there. Why do you think the characters use words like prophecy and destiny. They say things like "nothing happens by accident" and "you cannot escape your destiny" for a reason. The reason is because they're all part of a higher power's greater, cosmic plan. You're real good at equating Star Wars with the real world and it is spiritual people here in the real world that say things like "everything happens for a reason" and that's the same as Qui-Gon saying "nothing happens by accident".

It's all about the clones. The Jedi are evil but they just know it. Just like Palpatine doesn't know he's evil. It's the many of the truths we cling to depend on our own point of view thing. Oh sure it was horrible that those Jedi children were butchered, but what of the clone children. Having half their lives taken from them and being forced to take combat training at the age of 5. Don't they count for anything? Don't their lives mean anything. You can spin this issue all you want but you cannot get away from the fact that R. A. Salvatore's Attack Of The Clones novel clearly sheds the truth about Lucas' intentions of what the clones represent. They represent sentient beings that are born into bondage.
They represent slave trafficking on an industrialized level.
You really think Lucas would of allowed Salvatore to write such things that would clearly turn the Jedi into the bad guys if that was not the case? Lucas even wrote the story as such that in the movies
it is implied that a Jedi Master ordered the clone army to begin with.

Actually this what I've already said. Anakin was corrupted by the Jedi because the Jedi are corrupted. Just like a child here in the real world is very likely to become corrupted because the child's parents are corrupted. From the Jedi's point of view they never lost their honor and integrity. Just like from Palpatine's point of view, he has honor and integrity. The Jedi had to wiped out so they would understand their ways were what wiped them out to begin with. There was no other way, they couldn't change. They were given a savior and they were shown the way but they chose to keep on being corrupt. Even though they knew the war was wrong they chose to keep on fighting.

You can think whatever, but these characters are being watched over by a higher power. Lucas just doesn't come out and admit it. He said the Whills, that were part of the story from the beginning, are beings that are watching over the mortal characters but he said he scrapped this idea, but he's just playing a game with everyone, because sure he scrapped
the idea of actually seeing the Whills in the movie but they never

 

That's your spin on it. I don't buy it. Qui-gon who is a key figure spoke of quieting your mind and listening to the Force. Knowing what it wants you to do. That's key to a Jedi's life. That's where Anakin went off. He didn't listen to the Force. That's where the Jedi went off - they didn't listen to the Force.

There is a Will of the Force - that's key to the Saga. It's acknowleged in the movies - which is mainly what I draw upon. The "Whills" are never even mentioned in the movies. Your appreciation of the Saga comes mainly from EU - my comes from the movies. It may explain our different takes on it.

The Clones symbolized much more what was wrong w/ the Republic - not the Jedi. The citizens of the Republic had these clones to do their fighting for them - so they didn't have to defend their homes themselves - A failure of integrity. And one the Jedi failed to pick up on. (Fighting along side the clones made them like mercenaries.) I don't need to read the novel to tell me that - the people of the Republic were using the clones NOT the Jedi.). It's the difference between the people of the Republic and the Ewoks - it all ties in together.

And the Jedi did not corrupt Anakin. Power (and Palpatine) corrupted Anakin - power tends to corrupts and it corrupted him. He reminds me a saying by Lincoln. Any man can handle adversity but if you want to see what he's really made of - give him power. Anakin was a nice guy when he was powerless but all the power went to his head. He couldn't handle it. He became self-centered and greedy. Lucas has said it time and time again - Anakin was simply greedy. The Jedi didn't teach him that - that was Anakin's failing.

If Anakin was meant to be the "savior" of the Jedi he let them down. He didn't lead, he didn't follow anything but his own selfish desires and he didn't even get out of the way.

You see a "greek apocolyptic myth - fine. I go w/ what Lucas has said he was trying to show - and what I think he succeeded in showing. That society has to become more rational - that doesn't fit in w/ "gods" guiding anyone. Lucas has given us a story where everyone's fate was in their own hands - all anyone had to do was stick to their prinicples and they would have been fine. Qui-gon, Yoda, Obi-wan, Mace, Padme, ANAKIN. Again and again and again - their failures were ones of integrity. And Luke's epiphany was one of honor and integrity. He saves the galaxy by sticking to his prinicples - by choosing good over evil. His fate was in his own hands - no one else's. It's right there - you don't need a novel to understand it.

 

1) how are the jedi *not* using the clones? do you suppose the clones could just walk away and live their lives? do you think that the indoctrination there is meaningless?

2) anakin let his elders down because they let him down first. they took a ten-year-old and demanded him to obey their rules, not his. how was he to know why they didn't understand him?

3) if society is supposed to become even more rational than it now is, i don't see any chance of us coming back to our instincts and being in tune with our surroundings in any way. you think what is wrong with us is that we don't rationalize enough and quantify everything?
well, sorry, but you're wrong. western civilisation is all about rationalizing and denying feelings. that's why we so easily invented political correctness and we can now speak of collateral damage as i'm sure the jedi thought that the war they were leading was killing people to achieve some greater aim.
being in the world is not about intellect, it's about being in tune with yourself and what surrounds you, it's quite simple. enlightenment isn't achieved by thinking, it might be achieved by doing, but it's sure as **** also achieved by feeling.

right now we're all surface and no depth.

 

At the end of the movie. At the end of AOTC. Mace:"Where is your apprentice Obi-wan?" Obi:"On his way back to Naboo. He is escorting Senator Amidala home." If the Council didn't send Ani there (obviously) then Obi-wan did. He did that thinking they would boink their brains out and get over this physical attraction.

Probably - who understand everything about another human being? But I don't see any sign that Ani tried to bridge the gap.

Well I never read the AOTC novelization but on screen Aankin doesn't seem to a guy of deep introspection.

Qui-gon was talking about listening to the Force. Letting it guide your actions. Like Luke in ANH. You've said I try to make the Saga a documentary but you can't leave out the Force. You can't substitute pychobable for places where Jedi mean the Force. I've yet to see much wisdom in life that didn't come from intellect; I don't put much stock in this higher self stuff.

Yes, Qui saw others' failings and was blind to his own. Much like most of us.

Actually - asking, nay demanding, that Obi train Ani was a failure of integrity on the part of Qui-gon. It was not his place to do so and he should have left Ani to the Will of the Force. (Of course it was Obi's place to say no - another failure of integrity.) Anything Obi "gained" from his association w/ Ani pales in comparison to what he lost.

Quiet reflection = contemplation to me.
QUI-GON: Life forms living together for mutual advantage. Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to you, telling you the will of the Force.
ANAKIN: They do??
QUI-GON: When you learn to quiet your mind, you will hear them speaking to you. To me - quiet your mind means through meditation. Meditation and contemplation are equivalent for me - perhaps it was a bad analogy on my part. Anakin never gets quiet in any way.

 

Because they, at least, were fighting along side them. Risking their lives equally. Living w/ them as equals. Unlike the people of the republic.

We've beat this dead horse before - you know I think Ani should have spoken out - made waves - gotten his point across somehow. He didn't even try. He pretended to follow the rules and then broke them behind everyone's back.

Depth comes through thought. Not feeling. Babies feel. Toddlers feel. Adults think. Or they should - I see no signs that many do.

What's wrong w/ our society is no one thinks - everyone feels - and does whatever feels good. And rationalizes that it's OK because it's all about them anyway. People think too much? Hah! How many people read anymore? Read anything of substance - not trash and mind candy? How many people understand what their goverments are up to? Not many. No - that would require paying attention to something besides "American Idol". People don't vote because that would require them to think. People watch "news" that presents badly slanted opinions because that frees them from the bother of making up their own minds.

I have to compaign against "Intelligent Design" and people think too much??? Show me this society where there's too much rational thinking - I'll pack today.

 

Well, then he underestimated the attraction Anakin felt with respect to Padme, as he underestimated the significance of the nightmares.

I don't see any sign that Anakin tried to bridge the gap, and I don't see any sign that he didn't. Since we don't know whether he tried or not, it's all a question of interpretation, and of prejudices we have about the characters.

IMO it's just not possible to squeeze a story as complex as SW into 6x2.25 hours on screen. I'm not an EU fan, to clarify that. But when it comes to the line-edited movie novels, I take account of them.

Well, if you dismiss "the higher self" issue as "psychobabble", that has nothing to do with the Force, then I suspect that you haven't studied that higher self stuff very thoroughly.

"A very great Jedi Master you have become, Qui-Gon Jinn. A very great Jedi Master you always were, but too blind I was to see it....Your apprentice, I graefully become." (Yoda, in Stover, p. 442). Please tell me where you find any notion of failing or blindness in this.

I disagree - for reasons, see above.

Funny, that's not the conversation that took place in the movie. In the movie it states:

QUI-GON: Life forms living together for mutual advantage. Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to you, telling you the will of the Force. When you learn to quiet your mind, you will hear them speaking to you.
ANAKIN: I don't understand.
QUI-GON: With time and training, Ani, you will.

It would be helpful if you could make up your mind whether you accept the Novels as canon or just go with the movies. And it's interesting to follow the parts of my posts you decide not to respond to.

Anyway, I've never disputed that Anakin didn't live up to his potential because his emotions kept interfering. And quieting your mind doesn't necessarily mean sitting there crosslegged doing Zen Meditation. There are a lot of other meditative practices that are more suitable for connecting with the Living Force. A good teacher has t

 

sorry, but they are still using them. because all by themselves they cannot win this war. they are keepers of the peace not soldiers.
they are using people. it's blatantly obvious. they lead them to destruction because that's a good and self-righteous thing to do. they have people built for them and indoctrinated for them, just like the members of their order and they use them to their ends.

what is the part that gives you a headache? just because we all have armies that defend us doesn't make having armies and fighting a war a good idea. quite the contrary.

re: anakin. he followed the rules because otherwise he would have been very alone in this world, because the jedi actually abandon you for not following the rules. they didn't and couldn't understand him. they were two different worlds colliding, the world of feeling and the world of abstraction. they have a failure in communication which you'll need some time to understand and actually overcome. much like the different worlds men and women inhabit. same species, totally different approaches.
he was ten-years-old, i'm not getting tired of repeating this, and all he had was the vague promise of seeing different worlds and being freed. i don't know what part of fear you don't understand. if fear of death lead him to not run away from his slavery then it might as well have prevented him from putting his feet down in an order where he's the outsider and everyone else falls in line.

and this is not a dead horse. quite the contrary.

re: feelings. i think you easily substitute intuition with doing what feels right. how is love not a feeling? how is love not felt? if it's not felt you might as well forget it, what's the use?
babies feel and adults alike. we all feel. if we didn't we might as well be droids. if you didn't feel you wouldn't enjoy your religion so much or movies or stories or whatever really. if it doesn't touch your soul, you're dead. that is feeling.

what you do is place the mind *before* everything else. and the mind doesn't go before everything else because we aren't composed of the mind solely. we are made of instincts, of feelings (or call them emotions) we are made of reason and we must combine these otherwise our world is dead and devoid of warmth and compassion.

the jedi were dead wrong taking kids from the family and claiming the attachments to them would lead to jealousy and greed. if that is true we are all greedy and jealous all of the time, becaue we are all attached to people and as social animals we need to bond and have friends and we need to love. we grow *through* relationships, we grow through being with people, not the other way around. we aren't kept in isolation of what our reality is until this one day that we are suddenly mature. it doesn't happen that way.

all of the western societies are quantifying and counting and rationalizing. we have all lost touch with our feeling side and would rather do away with it. we need *scientific* proof for everything. we need a proof for why pets make us feel good, why the occasional hug makes us feel good. we need a proof that god exists, because otherwise we don't believe it. we have lost the ability to *trust* our guts and feelings.

you also seem to liberally substitue *thinking* with rationalizing. it doesn't work that way. love cannot be rationalized, neither can belief. thinking is an ability some consider to be unnatural, true, but it's not the same as rationalizing.
to be perfectly honest with you i don't know what the definition for thinking is, but i'm pretty sure it's not solely concerned with rationalizing.

 

D_F - We'll have agree to disagree on the Clones - fighting along side people is not using them - if it was - then the Jedi were being equally used. They were not asking the Clones to do anything they weren't willing to do too. It was the people of the Republic sitting back safe and warm while others fought for them that were using them both. Not that the Jedi were right to be in that war - they had abondoned their role as peacekeepers too easily.

His job was to be alone in the world - that's the job of a prophet - of a savior. I'm sorry - I didn't pick him for it - the Force did. (Look at other savior figures - Christ, Frodo, Neo - they all stood alone at some point and suffered for their "calling".) The Chosen One - everyone throws that around like it was an entitlement. It wasn't. It was a responsibility. An awesome one to be sure. That's why he was given so much power. That's why he had more midichlorians than blood. He was given powers equal to his task or the story makes no sense.

Feelings are good - w/o them we would be droids. But a lot of warmth and compassion actually comes from thinking - thinking above instinct. Instinct does not = compassion. Instinct = self preservation. Emotions are good - but they can't rule our lives. Otherwise we are the waste of the greatest development in evolutionary history - the cerebellum. If all we needed was instinct and feeling then the brain stem is/was enough. A crocodile has that. I think humans are more than crocodiles.

The Jedi were social animals - they all lived together for crying out loud. They loved each other. They cared for each other. They were ALL dedicated to something "bigger than themselves." They saw more than their own day to day petty concerns. They wanted to leave the galaxy a better place than they found it. They put that wish above concern for themselves. That's growth. That's a "higher plane." "Human nature is what we're put on this earth to rise above."

Understanding things needn't take away your enjoyment of them - it can only add to it. No disease was ever cured by gut instinct or feeling. No war was ever stopped. No great civilization built. You want gut instinct and feeling? Go live w/ a pack of wolves. Nothing wrong w/ them - beautiful animals but pray you don't get injured or sick or are unable to contribute to the pack - then you're expendable and cut loose. Instinct isn't as "pretty" as people make it out. It's brutal really. "Mothers" kill other female's babies - males kill babies to bring a female into heat, old and sick and weak are killed or abondoned. That's why humans are greater - we care for the lesser among us - we care aginst instinct - agianst self interest. Well, if we're living right we do.

Rational = Having or exercising the ability to reason. Think = To decide by reasoning, reflection, or pondering. To me they are the same thing.

As for my

 

I think you've both made some excellent points here, and while you seem to be diametrically opposed in some senses, I think you might actually be playing the same song - just with different instruments.

What we do indeed need in society is a BALANCE between passion and reason, logic and emotion. It's that age old struggle. Too much of one and we're nothing but cold secularists and walking calculators - ready and able to miss the finer points in life, to oppress people, to commit attrocities because we have RATIONALISED that they are OK and logic alone is superior. Too much of the other and we're nothing but raging lunatics and rabid animals - ready and able to miss the finer points in life, to oppress people, to commit attrocities because we are acting on INSTINCT and letting our feelings lead the way.

It's very easy to fall back on our feelings because that easier path is always tempting us. And isn't humanity like an electric current? It follows the path of least resistance. On the contrary, it is hard to intellectualise the world but just as easy to FOOL OURSELVES into thinking we've mastered our feelings - with harrowing results. The Phythagoreans are a good example. By all accounts, they were committed to rationality and to leading a good life. They were mathematicians and philosophers, led simple lives with no possessions, had healthy diets, exercised daily, read poetry to keep their "souls enriched" and Pythagoras allowed men and women to learn equally. But one of his followers discovered an IRRATIONAL number. This turned their core belief that the world is rational on its ear. Pythagoras and his followers couldn't cope. They drowned the man who had made the discovery. How barbaric! But it's also a potent example of where too much intellectualism gets you: you either respond so coldly and rationally (in your own mind) that you do something heinous (but don't think it's remotely heinous) or you deny the concept of emotion, and after years of repression, it explodes to the surface in a shocking display of brutality. Of course, in actuality, it's that "unrecognised Dark Side" that Lucas put into Attack of the Clones that was responsible: they FEARED what the discovery itself meant and acted accordingly. The flipside - passion and desire over logic and restraint - is easier to envision. If anyone has ever read Lord of the Flies or seen The Gremlins movies, then they're pretty good examples of how innocence can quickly turn to savagery and carnage. We need checks and balances.

The higher and lower reasoning centres should moderate and reinforce each other. One on its own or too isolated from the other is no good. Qui Gon was clearly advocating a balance - not a reliance on instinct. If Qui Gon was fond of instinct and instinct alone, he wouldn't have been a Jedi - let alone a great one. He had calm, patience, the ability to wait and think things through. If he'd really wanted to, he could have taken out his lightsabre, threatened Wattoo, cut him down if need be and stolen the hyperdrive generator outright - along with Anakin (and his mother). Simple. But that's not the way we should behave and it's not the way Qui Gon behaved. There are OTHER WAYS around things when you defer to higher reasoning and notions of wisdom and compassion. I'm also a believer of "like for like" and "the domino effect". If more people were wise and compassionate, it would have a knock-on effect on other people. Sadly, that's not the way the world is: too many people are ignorant and selfish. This is also where the concept of humanity being like an eletrical current re-enters the frame. It's much easier to be ignorant and selfish than it is to be wise and compassionate. We've got a long way to go.

 

Excellent, excellent post. I hope I haven't come across as advocating for cerebellum alone. . You need that brain stem too. But I think too many people mistake rationality as being cold or calculating - I don't see it that way at all - thinking does not mean not appreciating wonder or beauty or even emotion. Einstein was a wonderful example of a brilliant man who also advocated for imagination, belief and wonder. He was a wonderful - balance.

 

"Imagination is more important than knowledge"

That he was!

(Although... he let his beliefs about God and a constant universe get in the way of accepting what is now considered fact that the universe is expanding; though he later admitted as such and called the cosmological constant his "greatest blunder").

We absolutely need both. Star Wars shows this well - you've got all that spectacle, playful silliness and vicarious enjoyment of conflict and violence paired up with morality, philosophy and a general conscience to the whole thing.

 

Bt the time of TPM, the jedi were out of balance with the Force because they hadn't had to deal with the dark side for so long. They were somewhat arrogant and out of touch, essentally denying the existence of the dark side within their ranks, rather than attempting to acknowledge and address it.

The Sith were obviously out of balance - they were consumed by the dark side.

Anakin brings balance to the Force by eliminating all but Luke, the first of a new breed of jedi, truly in balance. He isn't as powerful as his forbears, but he is a more rounded being, able to acknowledge the existence of the dark side in himself, without being consumed by it.

By choosing the phrase "balance to the force" Lucas is sending the clear message that the elimination of the dark side isn't what the whole thing is about, but rather the assimilation of it with the light side into a unified force.

 

It's unfortunate that Lucas didn't explain what balancing the Force meant. In doing so he almost paints our heroes as dupes. "I don't know what balancing the Force means but it must be good. Let's do it!" I'm not saying our heroes didn't know what it meant, but that is the conclusion one almost comes to. I'm also not saying balancing the Force is or was bad. I happen to think it was good. Unfortunately, he thought midi-chlorians and minutes of Naboo's undersea food chain were more important.

The least logical theory is that it is a question of simple numbers. There were thousands of Jedi and two Sith. In order to balance the Force, there had to be two Jedi and two Sith, so when the Jedi are killed down to two (Yoda and Obi-Wan), the Force is balanced. Okay, sure, but then within thirty years, there are no Sith and only one Jedi. The Force is supposed to be balanced at enormous cost only for it to be unbalanced well within one lifetime? And even if there need to be two Jedi and two Sith, we're certainly not talking about a balance of power, since that balance so favors the two guys who control the galaxy over the two guys living in earthen hovels that it's laughable.

My theory (and I'll never argue it's the greatest or even Lucas's intent) is that the balance is between the Force and Force users. The Jedi and the Sith both have symbiotic relationships with the Force (George loved his symbiosis in the prequels [midi-chlorions/Jedi, the Naboo/the Gungans]). The Jedi take from the Force and they give to the Force in an example of mutualism where both sides of the symbiosis gain from the other in balance. The Sith take from the Force and give nothing in an example of parasitism where only the Sith gain out of balance. The destruction of the Sith (in which the Jedi were an unfortunate means) was a side effect of the destruction of the Sith, and the loss of their drain on the Force balanced the symbiosis.

I'm bound to get myself in trouble here, because I have only skimmed over the posts on this thread, but I had a couple of thoughts.

First, the statement "The Jedi had to die to balance the Force" can be taken at least two ways. The first describes the destruction of the Jedi as an end, and the second describes that destruction as a means.

If you are among those who think the Jedi and the Sith were both corrupt and both had to be wiped out, you believe the destruction of the Jedi was an end, one of two, part and parcel with the destruction of the Sith.

If you are among those who believe the Jedi were good and the Sith were bad, and only the Sith had to be wiped out, you believe the destruction of the Jedi was an integral means by which destruction of the Sith came about and was an unfortunate side effect of the balancing.

Unfortunately, "The Jedi had to die to balance the Force" can be the rallying cry for both views despite radically different intent. I'll say the Jedi had to die to balance the Force but I certainly mean that it was as a means, not an end.

Jedi_Momma, I'll meet you back in the ring (haha) on our discussion of Qui-Gon when I have more time on my hands to compose my response.

Edit: I deleted a sentence because (as I said, I could get in trouble) I didn't realize it could have been taken as an incendiary, direct answer to a previous post, and that was not my intent.

 

Awesome post, Byronic_Jedi. Welcome to the board.

My own feelings are that George has been very sneaky. Very coy. "Balance to the Force" is really the cornerstone of the entire saga. By his own admission, it is not balanced until the end of Return of the Jedi, when Vader casts Sidious down the shaft. Anakin has fulfilled the prophecy at that point. But Lucas has never expounded on the meaning beyond that point. Nor has he ever commented on whether Luke represents a new kind of Jedi and that "balance" really means Light and Dark sides combined or not. Never mind "the shroud of the Dark Side" - there's a shroud of ambiguity that looms over the entire saga. I think it is probably wise - and wholly intended - that Lucas should leave it this way. Even if one takes his words literally, they don't preclude deeper implications and possibilities. In fact, one must take his words literally in all instances: balance literally CANNOT be achieved until the Sith have been destroyed. But what Lucas doesn't say is just as important - if not much more so - than what he DOES say.

I choose to buy into those "deeper implications and possibilities". In the words of Obi Wan, "there's too much at stake" not to. The saga is dotted with signs that suggest the Order is outmoded and out of touch. And a Jedi Order that is outmoded and out of touch is also an Order that is unbalancing the Force. For a true Jedi and his brethren would be in complete harmony with the Force at all times. It is clear the Jedi of the PT, Qui Gon excluded, are not. In Attack of the Clones, Yoda is the only one who senses Anakin's actions and the voice of Qui Gon from "the netherworld" of the Force. Meanwhile, Mace Windu, second most powerful Jedi and Yoda's "right hand man" stands on vacantly by; he senses nothing. In all three films, the Jedi Council is housed in a white tower; an ivory tower. Their defeat is visually signalled. In Return of the Jedi, Sidious is housed in a black tower; another ivory tower. His defeat is visually signalled. The colour has changed but the mentality has not. Lucas seems to abhor too much power and authority going to the same body - be it Jedi, Sith or Senate. The intentions of the person are almost irrelevant; it's the end result that matters (because that result is always one of complaceny and ineffectiveness). He may not be a staunch academic like Joseph Campbell, but Lucas has studied social sciences and human history; he knows about the "Dark Side" of human nature and why our fate is cyclical.

Qui Gon Jinn also stands in marked contrast to the Jedi in the opening installment. He's also the one that passes along crucial knowledge to Yoda and Obi Wan which the two will use to bring down the Sith. In Attack of the Clones, Obi Wan tells Anakin that his lightsabre is "your life". In Return of the Jedi, Luke casts his sabre aside and asserts his Jedi-ship. Again, in Attack of the Clones, Yoda presciently notes that arrogance is "a flaw more and more common amongst Jedi, even the older, more experienced ones". When Yoda enters the office of the Emperor in Revenge of the Sith, he promptly tells Sidious that his "rule is at an end and not short enough it was" - only for Sidious to tell him his arrogance blinds him. In Return of the Jedi, we're familiar with Sidious being cocky and too sure of himself, but in Revenge of the Sith, he's right: he sends Yoda flying through the air with a blast of lightning (look at the shock of Yoda's face) and ultimately "casts him out" of the Senate, of opulence, of politics, of the land of ivory towers. Yoda has to crawl away - lightsabre-less and cape-less - on all fours. He has been expelled and humbled. Now he's ready to return "to the Earth" (i.e. Dagobah) and commune with the Force on ground level. His life on Coruscant ultimately ended in failure: Anakin turned to the Dark Side and allowed Sidious to destroy everything he held dear. His life on Dagobah will ultimately end in triumph: Luke will conquer the Dark Side and those who were stifling freedom and justice for all. Are you going to sit there

 

That thing about "this weapon being your life" - there must be a deeper message behind it. "This weapon is your life", Obi-Wan states. The Jedi are "keepers of the peace." All the time during the Prequels Obi-Wan and Anakin lose their lightsaber. In the end Yoda loses his lightsaber. Although that weapon is supposed to be their life, they, who were shown to lose their weapons, are the only three of the old Jedi order who survive.

In the OT, Yoda tells Luke he won't need his weapon. Luke surrenders his weapon to the Imperial Officer and when he's swayed by Sidious to take it back, he finally throws his weapon away.

So what does that mean? Obviously what Obi-Wan told Anakin in AOTC, and what probably was part of the PT Jedi teachings, was dead wrong - the lightsaber is NOT a Jedi's life.

EDIT: I'm quoting you, Cryo, and you're editing it out!

 

EDIT: Sorry! It's all still there - all and more!

In the same scene, Obi Wan also said: "Use the Force. Think!" People have cited his command of "think!" to be antithetical to Qui Gon's instruction to Anakin of "feel, don't think". But there's more going on than that; the other part of his instruction is just as revealing. USE the Force? Wait a minute... didn't Qui Gon say the Force had a "will" and used you? Obi Wan seemed to have forgotten this entirely. Moreover, commanding one to "use the Force" implies a disconnect between entities - i.e. one entity "uses" and the other entity exists to be "used". This is in complete contradiction to Qui Gon's belief that the midi-chlorians and the person they lived within were symbionts. Now, if the midi-chlorians are a bridge between a person and the Force, then it suggests that both the person and the Force are permanently entwined and "dipping" into each other the whole time. Obi Wan, like the Order itself, pushed this harmonious view to one side. Since a pupil can only be as good as his teacher and his instincts, and since both were telling him to USE the Force to get what he wanted, is it any wonder Anakin took the path he did? The prequels are about the folly of man; the originals (or I suppose "sequels" now) are about ammending and atoning for that folly.

 

This is an odd statement anyway - "use the Force! Think!" I mean, Qui-Gon said "if you learn to quiet your mind you will hear them speaking to you." And every single form of meditation training I know about tells you to quit thinking, to quiet your mind and to not let the conscious mind interfere.

 

Obi Wan was right in some respects - he was, of course, speaking to a person who lived too much by passion and feelings ("Being rational is something I know I cannot do..."). But his instruction comes across as lecturesome and shockingly misguided.

 

It's really interesting to follow this feeling/thinking issue.

In TPM, Qui-Gon tells Anakin: " Remember,concentrate on the moment. Feel. Don't think. Trust your instincts."

In AOTC, Obi-Wan tells Anakin: "Use the Force. Think!"

At the end of ROTS Yoda tells Obi-Wan: "Search your feelings, Obi-Wan, and find him you will."

And in ANH Obi-Wan tells Luke: "This time, let go your conscious self and act on instinct."

And people are telling me that nothing had changed?

It is also interesting that Sidious keeps telling Anakin to trust his feelings.

"In time you will learn to trust your feelings."
"You must sense what I've come to suspect."
"Anakin, search your feelings. You know, don't you?" (unbelievable that from these lines alone Anakin didn't suspect anything Force sensitive about Palpatine, isnt it?)
"Search your feelings, Lord Vader."

I suspect that this contrast between Obi-Wan and Palpatine, talking about the importance of thinking versus feeling, might in part be responsible for Anakin accepting Palpatine as a mentor - Palpatine talking to Anakin and really treating Anakin reminds me a lot of the way Qui-Gon talked and treated him. Whereas there were notable differences between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, at least up to AOTC. For Anakin, at least subconsciously, instead of Obi-Wan at least in part Palpatine is replacing Qui-Gon, in a sense.

 

I don't consider it shockingly misguided at all. But then I have never belived Jinn to be infallible. Anakin's failure to think throughout ROTS - (EDIT) his suspending of reason - is shockingly misguided, in my opinion.

 

Then perhaps it is the CONFLICTING nature of the mentorship that Anakin received in his life that caused him, in part, to the turn to the Dark Side. However, I feel it is confined to informing his inner character and doesn't actually cloud his more outward distinction of right and wrong. Watch him at the opera house. He's very firm that the Jedi are "selfless and only care about others". When he says it, he looks straight ahead and Palpatine can't get to him. Again, when Palpatine is pinned by Mace, Anakin looks at him apathetically when he says, "the Jedi are taking over!" Anakin doesn't ever buy it. If he's being totally honest with himself later on - and perhaps he is, overlooking Mustafar in the famous tear shot - he should see this.

 

All the different theories and such are fun but in the end understanding the prophecy really depends on the one who wrote it or dreamed it up.

Who wrote the prophecy? Who actually penned it? Someone back in the day wrote it down and it passed on through history. We will never know who wrote it most likely but consider that it is the Jedi who support and believe in it. Obi Wan even states what that basis of belief is; that the chosen one would destroy the Sith. He then even alludes futher that that implies, that in joining the sith Anakin has not balanced the force but left it in darkness.

Earlier in the tale, Yoda states that the Jedi may have misread the prophecy and so this could imply a general misunderstanding of what it means. But consider the context of the conversation; it's centered on the idea that Anakin is the chosen one.

Still though there is a level of ambiguity in the script that warrants debate on what the purpose of the chosen one is. In the end though we can deduce that the prophecy was penned by a Jedi or one who supported the Jedi way because the passing of that knowledge has endured within the Jedi order. it's a Jedi prophecy and therefore something that supports their ways; which is goodwill and harmony in the galaxy, not the destruction of life or enslavement of the masses to the will of a dictator.

The Romans didn't take much of the Old Hebrew prophesies to heart because they didn't endorse anything the Roman Empire was doing at the time. The same can be said of the Sith concerning Jedi prophecy. The only exception would be if the Jedi at one time persecuted those who wrote the prophecy and then over time came to adopt it in place of those who no longer existed. But we have no indication that anything like that ever occured.