PT Did Anakin Betray The Force? I Say No.

I'd like to put forward a radical idea and see what you think of it:

A couple of things to keep in mind here. We are, in our culture, so steeped in the ideas of the Abrahamic religions that we tend to forget how different other cosmologies are. Remember that it is the essential nature of the Force that it has both a light side and a dark side. It is not like Judaism/Christianity/Islam, in which the evil spiritual forces in the universe are an abomination that are headed for eventual destruction. The dark side is as much a legitimate, integral, and eternal part of the Force as the light side is, and the Sith are as legitimate as Force users as the Jedi are. This is, of course, what the Jedi forgot when they neglected to question whether "bringing balance to the Force" was really something that they wanted to happen.

So remember, it was the will of the Force that the sclerotic, out of touch Jedi Order be destroyed so that the Jedi could be reborn stronger and better. It was also the will of the Force that the Sith rise again, and that the dark side come out of the shadows and "balance" the power of the Jedi. So the truth is, what happened to Anakin was the will of the Force. Again, it's not like the fall of Lucifer in the Torah/Bible/Koran/Paradise Lost. Anakin betrayed the Jedi (and, in the end, betrayed the Sith, as well), but at no time did he betray the Force. In both falling to the dark side and in coming back to the light side just before his death, he did exactly what the Force willed him to do, and fulfilled the prophecy to the letter.

What do you think of them apples?

 

I don't think it's ever been suggested that Anakin betrayed the force...only that he betrayed the jedi and the Light side of the force...

 

Disagee - according to GL himself, balance was the elimination of the Sith, not the Sith AND the Jedi.

Anakin had his chance to balance the Force when confrontings Sids - but he killed Mace, swore fealty to Sids, and thus Order 66 was executed.

 

They didn't forget that at all. They never say even once that they expect the dark side itself to be eliminated. Putting words in their mouth doesn't make them stupid. The Force is out of balance because of the increasing power of the dark side. Bringing balance to the Force means reining in the dark side, thus it is something they do want to happen, because it is synonymous with a major defeat of evil.

 

This is shaping up to be an entertaining thread.

My answer to the question is that it is not possible to betray the Force, there is nothing to betray.

 

Then what he said contradicts what he wrote in his movie scripts. Everything we've heard about the Force says that the nature of the Force is that it has a light side and a dark side. The dark side is as much a part of the Force as the light side is. The elimination of one at the expense of the other is not balance. It may be an imbalance that we find pleasing, but it's still an imbalance, and is, in terms of the nature of the Force, unnatural.

The thing is, George Lucas in 2011 is not the same person as George Lucas in 1977. As Mohammad Ali once said: "The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.". George Lucas in 2011 may have very different views about the world, human nature, and the nature of good and evil than George Lucas in 1977 did. The problem is that GL2011 is stuck creating within the boundaries of a universe that GL1977 built, and whose rules (in terms both of cosmology and of morality) are ones that GL1977 determined.

Let's not forget that, famously, GL1977 wrote Star Wars such that Han shot first. GL1997 (at the time of the Special Editions) was so horrified by what GL1977 had done with that scene that he spent tens of thousands of dollars in expensive CGI to change it.

I say all this by means of explaining that the answer may just be that Lucas isn't being consistent. Understandably so, perhaps, but there it is.

 

Whatever your own personal views on religion may be, within the fictional world of the Lucasverse, atheism is simply not a supportable position. May I remind you of Darth Vader's rather pointed retort to an unbeliever that we saw in A New Hope? We see manifestations of Force power constantly in Star Wars. If we accept the universe that Lucas created at all, we must accept the Force with it.

 

No it doesn't contradict anything he wrote. Eliminating the Sith does not eliminate the Darkside. A Sith is a Darksider, but a Darksider is not neccessarily a Sith. What you are implying it seems is that destroying th eSith is destroying the Darkside but no where in any form of canon is that actually stated as far as I know. You can't destroy the Darkside by destroying the Sith anymore than one can destroy the Lightside by destroying the Jedi.

 

You're putting words in his mouth which he did not say. He said the elimination of the Sith, not the dark side. The Sith are not the dark side. One is a group ( of humans, aliens, whatever ). The other is a side of the Force. Bringing balance by eliminating the Sith in no way contradicts what he wrote in his movie scripts. In fact, what he actually wrote in his scripts says exactly that: Is he not to destroy the Sith and bring balance to the Force? It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them. Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness.

 

I think you guys are seeing a distinction that isn't really there. If you're going to have a group of light side Force users running around the galaxy, you'll also have to accept a group of dark side force users running around the galaxy. If you don't, it's imbalance. Again, it may be an imbalance that you like, but it's an imbalance.

And yes, Arawn, I know what Obi-wan said. But Obi-wan is simply wrong. Like all the other Jedi, he has tragically misinterpereted the prophecy. In fact, Anakin was supposed to join the Sith - it was the will of the Force, and his destiny, that he do so. It wasn't that Anakin was supposed to destroy the Sith instead of joining them, it was that he was supposed to join the Sith, and then destroy them. Which is exactly what he did. There are always two Sith, and at the time of the Battle of Endor, those were Sidious and Vader. Vader threw Sidious down the pit, and then died himself. No more Sith. Prophecy fulfilled.

But of course, after Endor, the Imperial remnant and the New Republic were left to duke it out, and both the Sith and the Jedi were reborn. Both sides of the Force are represented, and thus the Force is in balance. Again, prophecy fulfilled.

 

A side of the Force is not the same thing as a group of people. The distinction is very real.

No, you won't, as the end of ROTJ demonstrates.

The balance of the Force is not a balance of the Force-users. Those are two different things. They don't mean the same thing just because they both have the word "balance" in them. You're taking "the Force" out of the phrase "the balance of the Force" and replacing it with something else. When you do that, you're not talking about the balance of the Force at all any more. You're talking about a form of "balance" that was never mentioned in the films ( or in EU ). Why would it be? The Jedi want to see the Sith destroyed; the Sith want to see the Jedi wiped out. Neither side wants to see parity between the two factions, so such a condition is understandably never mentioned anywhere, including the Jedi prophecy.

No, he isn't, because Lucas confirmed everything he said.

Matt Stover said that Anakin could have fulfilled the prophecy in ROTS if he had chosen differently at that point. In other words, without joining the Sith. Lucas is also said to have made the same point.

 

Arawn pretty much hit the nail on the head on everypoint.

 

Then what he said contradicts what he wrote in his movie scripts. Everything we've heard about the Force says that the nature of the Force is that it has a light side and a dark side. The dark side is as much a part of the Force as the light side is. The elimination of one at the expense of the other is not balance. It may be an imbalance that we find pleasing, but it's still an imbalance, and is, in terms of the nature of the Force, unnatural.

If there is a contradiction, it is the prequels' portrayal of the Force as having a will of its own. The original films always stopped short of that. We are told that all living things contribute to the Force, and only in ROTJ are we told that it runs strong in a particular family, and not until the prequels that A) only certain people can use the Force because they are born with it, B) that the Force conceived a child without benefit of a father, for the sole purpose of fulfilling an ancient prophecy, and C) despite the appearance in ROTJ that the Rebels had something to do with defeating the Empire, it would all have come to naught if Vader hadn't killed the Emperor.

However, we are never told that the Dark Side is on equal footing with the Light Side. Vader and the Emperor are evil beings to be defeated. It's acknowledged that Luke has both possibilities within himself, but that to be successful he must control it. Though the Force draws on many religious beliefs, the idea that balance means equality of both sides is not one of them. Balance is eliminating the violence and destruction that the Dark Side can cause and has caused by being in a position of authority.

If bringing balance in any way involved eliminating the Jedi, then Sidious, not Anakin, would be the Chosen One. He was quite successful at overthrowing the Republic and setting up his Empire well before he got Anakin involved in the process.

 

The prequels do not actually tell us outright that the Force did this by itself. It is implied, through the suggestion of one of the characters that the midichlorians did it, but in another prequel it is suggested that the Sith may have been responsible by influencing the midichlorians. The last "official" word on the subject was that either alternative is viable.

Destroying the Death Star is not the same thing as destroying Palpatine. We see in ROTJ that the Emperor had an escape shuttle, which he would have gotten to a lot faster than Luke did, because he wouldn't have been dragging an armored Vader.

Actually, it is. This idea is a part of many of the religious/philosophical traditions which SW draws on. This is adequately demonstrated by The Masks of God, a book which Lucas read while creating the saga and which is shown in the Empire of Dreams documentary. Balance means both sides of the Force are present.

Appeal to ignorance. Lucas has not been inconsistent on this topic.

 

No, you won't, as the end of ROTJ demonstrates.

You could say something pretty similar about the Jedi after Order 66. The Jedi were reborn in Luke, who essentially had to rebuild the Order from scratch on his own.

Don't forget that before the Battle of Naboo, the prevailing opinion was that the Sith had been extinct for 1000 years. But of course, they weren't - they had simply been reborn. As they were again after the Battle of Endor.

The thing is, as long as the Force has a light side and a dark side (which is to say, as long as the Force exists), there will be light side and dark side Force users. To have it any other way is to have an imbalance in the Force.

A side of the Force is not the same thing as a group of people. The distinction is very real.

But if there will always be light side and dark side Force users, what difference does it make? They could call themselves the Clowns or the Fish or the Twigs - if they do the same thing that the Sith did, then they're basically the Sith. And as long as they're going to be basically the Sith, why not call themselves the Sith and go with a name with some brand recognition? Which is, in fact, exactly what happens, even after the last Palpatine clone is dead.

The balance of the Force is not a balance of the Force-users. Those are two different things.

But having no force users from one side or the other does create an imbalance in the Force. This isn't Christianity, where God sits on a throne in the Kingdom of Heaven and every couple thousand years comes down and talks to someone on Earth. There is no Kingdom of Heaven in the Lucasverse; no separation of the physical and the spiritual realms. The Force is everywhere, the Force is everything, and the Force is everyone ("An energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together"). If there is an imbalance in Force users, there is an imbalance in the Force.

I do, of course, say that understanding that there has never been an exact balance in numbers of light side and dark side Force users. Certainly not since Darth Bane established the Rule of Two. There were hundreds if not thousands of Jedi, but only two Sith. Then again, as Palpatine demonstrated, an imbalance in the numbers of users is not necessarily an imbalance in the power of users. Love him or hate him, you have to respect the fact that he took on the entire Jedi Order and destroyed it more or less singlehandedly. Think of it as his own version of "Size matters not".

No, he isn't, because Lucas confirmed everything he said.

But obviously Lucas thinks that Anakin was supposed to join the Sith. If he didn't, Anakin wouldn't have joined the Sith in the movie that Lucas wrote. If he didn't, what Lucas wrote Anakin doing after he joined the Sith wouldn't have fulfilled the prophecy that Lucas wrote.

Matt Stover said that Anakin could have fulfilled the prophecy in ROTS if he had chosen differently at that point. In other words, without joining the Sith. Lucas is also said to have made the same point.

Could have? maybe. But if that's the way that Lucas wanted Anakin to fulfill the prophecy, then that's the way he would have written his movies.

The point here is destiny, which is big in the Star Wars series. It was Anakin's destiny to fulfill the prophecy, and thus that's what he was going to do no matter what choices he made. Anakin had no choice about whether he was going to fulfill the prophecy - one way or another, the Force was going to drag him back to his destined path. His only choice was how he was going to fulfill his destiny. Unfortunately for him, and for many other people, he chose badly.

We are told that all living things contribute to the Force, and only in ROTJ are we told that it runs strong in a particular family, and not until the prequels that A) only certain people can use the Force because they are born with it, B) that the Force conceived a child without benefit of a father, for the sole purpose of fulfilling a

 

I don't think anyone here has forgotten that.

But they could have been, if Bane had been killed at a certain time.

If you kill off all the Sith, then at that point you have no Sith, but the Force still has a light side and a dark side. As you said yourself: the light side and the dark side are both parts of the Force's essential nature.

Again, this is contradicted by the fact that balance of the Force is achieved in ROTJ when there are no Sith left.

No, it doesn't. See: ROTJ.

Wrong. Force users are not the Force. The balance of the Force is not a balance of Force-users. The Force is balanced in ROTJ when there is at least one Jedi and no Sith. Also, at the time of TPM or AOTC there are thousands of Jedi and only two Sith, so the imbalance in numbers is heavily on the Jedi side, but the balance of the Force itself is slipping toward the dark. If parity in numbers caused balance then the Force would have been balanced by the end of ROTS, but we were explicitly told that this was not the case.

People don't always do what they're supposed to do. Do you have any source for your amazing insight into what Lucas is allegedly thinking, or is this really just what you think but with Lucas' name attached to it?

Even if he went and hid in the middle of some asteroid somewhere for many years and later died alone or killed himself? What you're talking about here is predestination. Lucas has said that you must make the choice to fulfill your "destiny". It isn't automatic. The reason that Anakin fulfills his destiny in ROTJ is not because it was in any way guaranteed in-universe. It's because fantasy sagas tend to have happy endings. Furthermore, the term "destiny" gets applied differently in these films depending on who's doing the talking. In the PT the only character who uses the term "destiny" in the context of Anakin is Palpatine, and his idea of Anakin's destiny is very different from that of the Jedi.

As far as we know, it did not involve destroying the Jedi at all. When it comes to the balance of the Force, the Jedi are not the ones causing the imbalance. If Anakin had attacked Palpatine instead of Mace during their standoff in ROTS, the prophecy could have been fulfilled in that film. This comes from a credible source.

 

I'll post more tomorrow, but for now:

Again, this is contradicted by the fact that balance of the Force is achieved in ROTJ when there are no Sith left.... No, it doesn't. See: ROTJ.

If you accept no EU whatsoever, then you're right. Or you may be right, or you may not be, because the celebration party on Endor is as far as the movies go. What happened next is a completely blank slate without the EU. But if you accept any EU at all, then Endor was not the end of the Sith. So what happened was that the Jedi were destroyed, and then reborn; and then the Sith were destroyed, and then reborn.

So Anakin destroyed both the Jedi and the Sith, and both were reborn in more of a balance.

If Anakin had attacked Palpatine instead of Mace during their standoff in ROTS, the prophecy could have been fulfilled in that film. This comes from a credible source.

Yep - and if I had wheels, I'd be a wagon. "What-ifs" are nice and all, but in the end, happened was what happened.

 

Why all this fuss about balance, anyway? Either interpretation would have ultimately rubbish outcomes anyway. If one believes balance means equal Jedi and Sith, you have to counterbalance good and evil precisely, which means potentially having thousands of lightning-hurling loons prowling the Galaxy, and doing nothing about it because, hey, the Force is balanced like this. If you take it to mean the end of all Sith forever, the removal of their cancer from the Force, then the Jedi are forever trying to eliminate something in order to reach an unattainable goal - Sith is a philosophy and philosophies never die. But the implications of the Jedi serving balance under the first interpretation means they have to allow lunatic Sith murderers to have their way with the Galaxy because they the Jedi are so good.

 

Anakin never betrayed the Force itself. Being the Chosen One, he was never really a true Jedi, and was never truly a real Sith Lord. It was his destiny to be those things in order for certain events to play out so the Force itself would be balanced.

 

As always Arawn_Fenn summed up the philosophy of Star Wars extremely coherently. I would like to summarize in my own words... I am not going to spend time describing the terms I use.

In Short: The Force is at balance with a harmonious equilibrium between the Light and Dark seen in nature. The Jedi are harmonious with this and don?t cause an imbalance. The Sith are cancerous, cause an excess of darkness (imbalance) and as such for balance to be restored the Sith must be destroyed (but not the Jedi).m

To put it bluntly, your philosophy on this entire ?balance? debate is simply incorrect GTPodcast, and you arguments are typically represented in the Saga as those adhered to by Sidious. A representation of your points as incorrect.

Here is the a more in-depth explanation:

The Light Side and Dark Side are natural parts of nature which exist interconnected in an eternal harmonious balance, allowing the continuation of life; these are divisions and aspects of the unifying whole which is, simply, the Force. Neither of which can exist in an unnatural excess over the other, as this would cause an imbalance in the Force, causing the undoing of life as we know it.

The Jedi can tap into this Force. They exist in a symbolic relationship with it and as such do not cause imbalance. They do not overexploit. Although their dogma may cause them as individuals to be imbalanced, the nature of the Light Side does not attempt to eliminate the Dark. As such this imbalance of an individual/organization towards the Light does not cause imbalance, but merely blinds people to the overarching reality of nature making them susceptible and venerable to corruption. The fact the Jedi do not cause imbalance is an established fact from George Lucas. The Jedi do not cause imbalance; don?t even bother arguing the point.

The Sith, like the Jedi, tap into the Force. They however exist in an extreme cancerous relationship with the Force through their fall into the Dark Side causing an absence of Light within them. As such the Sith are imbalance towards the Dark, fuelled by their intelligence and the Vanity created by human beings. The Sith?s existence and exploitation of the Dark causes it to grow to unnatural levels; this is the Dark Shroud which is enveloping the galaxy. In sort it is too much darkness. To put it bluntly it is not the fact the Sith are imbalanced which causes imbalance in the Force, but rather what this imbalance causes them to do - to overexploit and make excessive Darkness. The Sith?s existence, as such, (as established by the films) is the key proponent to the cause of imbalance due to the previously outlined reasons. The destruction of the Sith will likewise bring the Force back into balance.

In regards to the Chosen One Prophecy; it was always intended to be the destruction of the Sith solely, not the Jedi. Arguably the Chosen One is a ?convulsion? in the Force in response to an excess of Darkness (like a body attempting to expel an illness). In Revenge of the Sith Anakin is given his first opportunity to fulfil the Prophecy, just as the Sith are about to move the Force into a ?climatic? imbalance. He destroys Dooku, however because he is unable to find balance, he is unable to destroy Sidious. This causes him to fall to the Dark Side, destroy the Jedi, and nullify the Light within the galaxy (for the most part). So it was the first opportunity which he missed. He is given a second in Return of the Jedi where he finds balance and destroys the Sith, thus fulfilling the prophecy.

Balance is the adherence to the ?Will of the Force? and as such our instincts. It is nature. It is us in nature. We should be neither to Light, so as to not eat other animals and defend ourselves, but we should also not envelop ourselves in the Dark, as this will begin a degenerative cycle of excessive destruction.

Ultimately Anakin?s destiny as the Chosen One was to destroy the cause of imbalance, the Sith. The Jedi Order merely n

 

Arawn_Fenn if you ever come to Houston Texas, drinks are on me...excellent answers you've posted

 

Ultimately your entire argument pivots from this point. A point which has been confirmed to be completely incorrect by both Lucas and Stover. Fact. Anakin didn?t need to destroy the Jedi. Accept the fact.

But again, that's what Lucas wrote in his movies. That's what's actually there on the screen. The Jedi were stubborn, stuck in their ways, blinded by overconfidence and complacency, and all too easily led to their own destruction by Palpatine. Luke came along, and the Jedi were reborn without these faults. Whatever Lucas may have said at a con or in an interview, the fact remains that that's what he put on the screen, especially in the OT. As we all know, Lucas in 1997/1999/2011 has a lot of stuff that he would do differently if he were making the same movies now - that's why he changed stuff in the Special Editions. But he can't change the basic storyline of them - they are what they are.

Death, rebirth, and renewal are huge themes in the OT. Why do you think that in ANH, Obi-Wan stood his lightsaber up and let Vader chop him in half? It wasn't just that he thought he might lose. It was that he knew that it was Luke's destiny - not his - to remake the Jedi Order. If Obi-Wan remade the Jedi, wouldn't truly be renewed - he couldn't help but remake it in the image of the Jedi Order as it was when he was a part of it. Even Yoda both restrained himself from teaching Luke too much about the way the Jedi Order operated, and accepted death at a critical point. He limited himself to teaching Luke only as much as he needed to know in order to not get himself killed while doing the basics like lightsaber combat and using Force powers. But it was, and needed to be, Luke's destiny to rebuild the Jedi as he saw fit. It was going to be very different, and it needed to be.

The fact the Jedi do not cause imbalance is an established fact from George Lucas. The Jedi do not cause imbalance; don?t even bother arguing the point.

Again, whatever the man may say now about what he wrote then, the fact remains that what he put in his movies is what he put in his movies. He wouldn't be the first or the last author to alter, retcon, or try to explain away something he'd written earlier in his life that he later came to regret, hate, disagree with, or wish he'd done differently. In fact, it's pretty common. Anthony Burgess came to hate A Clockwork Orange, and even said he wished he'd never written it. Charles Dickens published a new version of Oliver Twist that he'd rewritten to remove any references to Fagin being a Jew, after coming to realize how antisemitic and unfair his book had been. Tommy Wiseau now says he meant The Room to be a comedy.

All this is what led to the rise of New Criticism as a literary movement. Look at the art - it is what it is.

They however exist in an extreme cancerous relationship with the Force through their fall into the Dark Side causing an absence of Light within them.

But isn't an absence of dark within the Jedi just as much of an imbalance? And isn't this, in fact, a major factor in their downfall? See below.

The Jedi are harmonious with this and don?t cause an imbalance.

No, they're not. The Jedi are not in harmony with the dark side, and as a matter of policy, they don't even get close to it. Especially at the time of TPM - and in fact, that's one of the faults that leads to their downfall. The Jedi became too out of touch; too "ivory tower". Part of this is that they're so afraid of, and so out of touch with, the dark side, that they never see it coming even when it's right under their noses. They don't even allow Vaapad to be generally taught - only one Master (Mace) taught it, and he only taught it to his own hand-picked padawan. Notice, by the way, that the only Jedi who did get close to the dark side (again, Mace), was not only the only one among them with enough vision to be deeply suspicious of both Palpatine and Anakin from beginning to end, he was also the only one who was able to defeat Palpatine in combat (which he did, until Anakin came in with the screwjob).

 

They are harmonious with the Force, not through their own personal balance, but rather through the way they act in conjunction with it. Unlike the Sith the Jedi allow the Force to ?flow through them?, making themselves wary of its different aspects, however never the less allowing these aspects to exist harmoniously. The Jedi do not seek to destroy the dark side, but rather they are wary of its seductiveness, and as such they allow it to exist in its natural state. The Sith however build darkness to unparalleled levels through their exploitation, thus nullifying Light.

You misinterpret what a symbolic relationship is with the Force. It means that you take, and in response, you give equal back. This is mutually beneficial for both the being and the Force meaning that you do not alter the Force?s balanced state. The Sith do not have a symbolic relationship with the Force. They take from it in a cancerous sense in that they give nothing back but rather create an imbalance. Symbolic is living at one with the Force (Jedi), whilst non-symbolic is using the Force for your own selfish ends (Sith).

 

It doesn't matter. I'm talking about the fact that balance was supposed to have been established at that specific point, however temporarily ( though it should be noted that so far the EU has not actually said that the future Sith unbalanced the Force ). An imbalance of Force users does not cause imbalance in the Force if the Force was balanced at that point.

He didn't put "the Jedi imbalance the Force" in his movies.

The situation in TPM is not one of "excessive light". Just as Force users are not the Force, and the Sith are not the dark side, the Jedi are not the light side. Even with the vast disparity in numbers between the Jedi and the Sith, the balance of the Force as a whole is tending toward the dark at that point. The Jedi look forward to balance because it would mean a reversal of this condition. Thus the Force being in a condition of excessive light wouldn't work with the prophecy. According to the EU the power of the dark side had been gaining strength for the last few centuries. As to the question of what "excessive light" would really look like, I don't have a good answer for that. It is not the same thing as an abundance of Jedi; we can see this from the PT. I tend to think the different natures of the sides of the Force come into play here.

 

I have no problems with your idea. It pretty much matches with mine. I'm aware of Lucas' view regarding the balance of the Force. I just don't completely agree with it.