PT Does anakin's chosen one prophecy make sense?

As Lucas said, Anakin is the Chosen One. He brings balance to the Force. How he was created doesn't matter, such much as he fulfills his destiny. His betrayal of the Jedi was the product of his selfish choices, not because it was his destiny to do so.

 

Other Authors may think this issue differently from the main orientation (for example, 'TaradosGon' and 'grd4', in "Anakins Father", Discussion in 'Prequel Trilogy' started by EmperorAjay, Dec 12, 2015).

One may ask whether the current set of contents in the Canon prevents the next episodes to –even radically– 'reverse' the contemporary prespectives about the prophecy mentioned and the so called balance of the Force.

As my knowledge is limited only to the main movies (PT, OT, ST, plus now R1), not including the TV-series (which are in the canon, if I'm right) etc., I cannot answer.


The Force and truth be with you all.

 

I doubt that the prophecy will be undone. Lucasfilm is adhering to the films that Lucas made and aren't deviating from them. They might add more to it as we see with Lor San Tekka stating that the Jedi are necessary to maintaining the balance, but that was a given already.

 

A bit of a clear issue with the prophecy is that in TPM the Jedi believe it is about bringing balance to the Force which (probably?) means destroying the Sith-but they also thought that the Sith had already been destroyed at the time.

If having any Sith at all, let alone them gaining power, pretty much brings the Force out of balance, maybe balance involves the Jedi on one hand and on the other there being people and organizations that are greedy or even morally worse but not able to use the Force (the Trade Federation, Watto, Jabba, even pre-reform Han).

 

It's the Sith. They cause the imbalance. Ordinary people aren't the cause because there is a more clear balance between selfishness and selflessness. But in regards to the time of TPM, the Jedi don't believe in the prophecy prior to Anakin's discovery. They just believe that it was a possible future as the future is always in motion. It is only with the confirmation that the Sith are back and the boy's extraordinary connection to the Force, that they believe it might be true, but express doubt throughout.

 

George explained it perfectly. What more is there to discuss?

 

We could discuss the fact that Balance was only achieved by destroying the Sith and there being only one Jedi. Zero Sith - One Jedi. Any deviation from those numbers must mean the force is out of balance, right? So balance = no more Sith but also no more Jedi.

"No more Jedi" doesn't sound like a nice pill to swallow. If, however, the ST can solve that equation convincingly, it shall have done very well.

 

No, because (for the umpteenth time) "balance of the Force" does not mean "balance of the Force users," and there's no logical reason why it should mean that. The Jedi philosophy is one that actively promotes balance, while the Sith philosophy is one that promotes chaos and disorder.

If the ST somehow decides that the Jedi are bad and need to be done away with, then it will be either a massive betrayal of or a profound misunderstanding of the themes of the series.

 

That makes no sense. They shouldn't perversely call it balance of the Force if it doesn't mean balance. I've never heard balance of light and dark ever being promoted by a Jedi. There's no sensible reason for it meaning whatever you think balance means.

The prophecy names destroying the Sith in connection with balancing the force. But at the same time, the Jedi assumed the Sith extinct while contemplating the out of balance nature of the Force.

Do we presume that Sith are not the only dark side users? And it is rather presumptuous to declare that no Jedi used the dark side ever, no matter how they promote the ideal.

What does chaos have to with it? The Sith kept order in the Empire for twenty years. There was no chaos.

Does destruction of the Sith mean the dark side isn't getting used by anyone in the universe? Utter tosh.

At what point did anyone say that being a Jedi tneeds to be defined as bad?

If the prophecy was correct and came true then those statistics at the end of ROTJ are what the prophecy dictated.

 

Balance of the Force means that the shroud of the dark side which falls in AOTC and is felt by Maul in TCW, needs to be lifted. The balance will be then restored. As to why it is sensible, because as Lucas stated, the balance is the Jedi keeping the Sith in check. So long as the Sith do not take over, then the Force will remain in balance. We're even told this by Lor San Tekka.

LOR SAN TEKKA: "Without the Jedi, there can be no balance in the Force."

And he would know this as he was alive during the Clone Wars and had studied the Force, forming a religion around it. Abrams and Kasdan understood that much of what Lucas was saying, if not coming from him directly.

There were other dark side adepts such as the Nightsisters and Nightbrothers of Dathomir, which is where Darth Maul, Savage Opress and Assaj Ventress are from. All three come from those line of Force users. But they were mainly confined to Dathomir and never made a play to take over like the Sith did. Likewise, there were other Force users besides the Jedi, such as the Dagoyan Masters of Bardotta, who used the Force but did not go around as the Jedi did. They just studied its mystical nature and wanted to learn all there was to learn.

Not since the last time the Sith were defeated. In the times before that, they obviously did use the dark side which is where the Sith came from. Two thousand years ago, one Jedi turned Sith had recruited fifty others to his cause and started up the war. This war lead to the Sith taking over and the Jedi fighting to take back the Republic. Before that, there was a conflict that took place on Malachor V, where many Jedi and Sith died.

The chaos is that the dark side grows stronger over the light, upsetting the balance and bringing about death and destruction. Fear was used to keep systems in line and the Death Star was the ultimate violation of the Force, since it could destroy whole worlds.

No, it just means that the Sith don't have a foothold because they're dead. We know that the Force is in balance while Snoke is running around, as he was alive during the era of Darth Sidious. The Force is still in balance when TFA begins, because Luke still lives and he can train a new Jedi Order.

No, they're the end result of Anakin's choices. He could have chosen to kill Palpatine in ROTS, without turning to the dark side and thus the prophecy would have been fulfilled. But he chooses poorly and ultimately, he makes the right choice when he chooses to save his son.

 

Well the term balance seems at least odd if not contradictory for wiping out one faction, it also seems odd that one or two Sith could be expected to wipe out the much larger faction and take over the galaxy (which is also related to Lucas's inconsistency about whether the Dark Side is more powerful) and also the Dark Side exists (its a part of everyone) even if there aren't Sith.

The idea that the prophecy "was right" also suggests that Anakin's turn to the Dark Side was predestined or that his destroying the Sith makes up for or renders irrelevant that he betrayed the Jedi and made a lot of people suffer.

 

A fair and interesting interpretation that the term means balance in terms of peacefulness, justice and orderliness. Although it feels weird that that pretty much was the case during the long time of the peaceful Republic while Sith were around but planning but not yet in high political power.

 

Said faction is causing the imbalance. There will always be a dark side in the universe. There will always be greed, fear, anger, hate, selfishness, possessiveness, jealousy and obsessiveness. Just as there will always be hope, love, selflessness, compassion and charity. What needs to be balanced is the Force, by keeping those two sides on even ground.

The Sith could do this by creating a false war that ends with the extermination of the Jedi. Many Jedi were killed during the war and then many more during Order 66. Those who had survived, the stragglers, were hunted down by the Empire and its agents. Vader, the Inquisitors, various bounty hunters and assassins helped the Stormtroopers to finish the job.

No, it means that the prophecy was true. He does bring balance to the Force. How it happens and when it happens, doesn't matter. It is that he does it in the end. He cannot make up for his crimes. He doesn't get the chance to do so. He just stops the horror that he helped create. He is redeemed because he becomes the good man that he once was and it falls to Obi-wan, Yoda and Luke to forgive him. Which they do. The rest of the galaxy probably won't ever forgive him, but that is irrelevant.

 

Again. Not in the movies - doesn't count.

The Sith are the only thing that can disturb the use of the Force in a specific way necessary to induce imbalance in it? And yet the number of Jedi using the force for good is irrelevant to maintaining that balance in the absence of the Sith?

Totally hatstand. Demented.

 

^Well it can be assumed that Luke will teach new Jedi, at least Leia and there are and probably will be others, Yoda does tell him to do so.

That seems a rather unclear and potentially disturbing view of destiny and free will though ... Anakin obviously has some free will from going bad earlier but does the prophecy imply that no one else could have defeated and destroyed Sidious/the last Sith and that Anakin necessarily would have defeated him at the end/at some point? Also how significant is the Sith being destroyed if there are other evils (like others in the Empire and Hutt crime lords) and also future Jedi can turn to the Dark Side?

This goes to the other thread in CT but it's possible but not clear that he outright becomes a good man again; that depends on whether he would have saved someone else in the same circumstances or just Luke because of his personal connection to him.

 

It is in the films.

The Jedi do not rule the Republic. The Jedi do not impose their own views on everyone. The Jedi do no kill indiscriminately. They form a symbiont circle with the Republic, working together for the common good. The Senate handles political matters and the Jedi do their best to maintain peace. When Obi-wan tells Boss Nass that they need the Naboo, because they need each other to save themselves, he's not just talking about them, but about the galaxy as a whole.


"I would like to see our society mature, and become more rational and more knowledge-based, less emotion-based. I'd like to see education play a larger role in our daily lives, have people come to a larger understanding—a “bigger picture” understanding—of how we fit into the world, and how we fit into the universe. Not necessarily thinking of ourselves, but thinking of others.

Whether we're going to accomplish this, I'm not sure. Obviously, people have a lot of different dreams of where America should be, and where it should fit into things. Obviously, very few of them are compatible, and very few of them are very compatible with the laws of nature. Human nature means battling constantly between being completely self-absorbed and trying to be a communal creature. Nature makes you a communal creature. The ultimate single-minded, self-centered creature is a cancer cell. And mostly, we're not made up of cancer cells.

If you put that notion on a larger scale, you have to understand that it's a very cooperative world, not only with the environment, with but our fellow human beings. If you do not cooperate, if you do not work together to keep the entire organism going, the whole thing dies, and everybody dies with it. That's a law of nature, and it's existed forever. We're one of the very few creatures that has a choice, and can intellectualize the process.

Most organisms either adapt and become part of the system, or get wiped out. The only thing we have to adapt to the system with is our brain. If we don't use it, and we don't adapt fast enough, we won't survive."

--George Lucas, Academy of Achievement Interview, 1999.


"One of the main themes in the film is having organisms realize that they must live together, and that they must live together for mutual advantage—not just humans but all living things—and everything in the galaxy is part of a greater whole."

--George Lucas, “The Mythology of Star Wars,” Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth DVD, 2001.

The Sith are the cancer that affects the healthy cells that make up the Republic and the Jedi Order.

Luke was doing that until his nephew helped kill the new Jedi that he was training.

Basically, Anakin was the only one who could stop him. Palpatine was far too strong to be destroyed by the Jedi. Mace had the opportunity, but Anakin betrayed him. Yoda was stronger than him and he couldn't do it. Luke wasn't fully trained enough and that's why it fell to Anakin.

None of these other evils did what the Sith did. One year after his death, the Empire signed a treaty and ended hostilities. The Hutts are keeping to themselves in the Outer Rim. The Federation were branded as cowards by Qui-gon, who said that they are only doing what they're doing because someone else was manipulating them. The First Order exists because Snoke is running things, but if he falls, then the First Order will fall as well.

As I've said elsewhere, if Obi-wan or another Jedi like say Kanan Jarrus, had attempted to help him when he needed it, he would most likely have turned back. Luke does try to help him and that is what serves as the difference maker.

 

Nowhere in the films is it stated that the Sith use of the darkside is the only factor and the sole cause of imbalance. If it was then the presumption of Sith extinction and the coexistence of a state of imbalance (maybe, nobody knows or senses it. It's only assumed that it is once the presumed extinct Sith show up), even more nonsensical.

The rest is just vaguely conceptual intent that isn't coherently conveyed by the film, if at all.

The prophecy was "correct". Therefore the statistical conditions at the end of ROTJ of Sith and Jedi = Extinct vs One practicing Jedi = balance. You'd have to pervert the meaning of balance to ignore that.

 

That's utter hogwash, no idea what makes you think this works out in any way.
Balance does not, in any way, shape or form require equal or similar numbers. Equal numbers is one form of balance, but it is by far not the only one. This is even more true, when you consider that an equal number doesn't mean equal capability.
If balance would require equal numbers, it would require as many predators existing as there is prey. That clearly is not the case, predators exist in far smaller numbers. On the contrary, cases where predators get close to the number of prey disrupt the balance, as it quickly errodes the number of prey, which in turn quickly errodes the number of predators, as they have nothing left to eat. Thus, there is a chance for balance to return, once the number of predators has dropped enough that it can sustain itself without threatening its food-supply (= the prey), provided there is enough influx of prey left ro re-establish a proper number again. Stating that balance somehow depended on equal/similar numbers is absurd to say the least.

The movies state very clearly that it is the Sith that cause the force to be out of balance. We know that the Jedi have been the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy for thousand generations. We also know that the Sith haven't been around (though more properly: been in hiding) for 1000 years. For all these years the Jedi were the dominant force users in the galaxy, while the Sith were very much irrelevant as they tried not to get noticed. No chosen one appeared to bring this into balance, because balance was kept just fine. And all that is because Jedi let the force flow through them, and let themselves be guided by it, while Sith try to twist the force to do their own bidding. If that happens to a large degree, the force moves out of balance. Now, Palpatine starts to become more active, setting his move towards power in motion. He twists the force to shroud everything in darkness, causing the Jedi's ability to use the force to be diminished (as Mace Windu confirms in AOTC) while also influencing senators to the point that he controls the senate (as Dooku confirms in AOTC as well). Around the same time as Palpatine makes his first moves, the chosen one appears. If Jedi and Sith being at different levels of power, due to the former being around in larger numbers, had been a problem for the balance of the force, than there most definately wouldn't have been a chosen one popping up right at the time where the Sith were catching up to the Jedi again. On the contrary, it would have been the time were a chosen one would be needed the least.

The chosen one's sole purpose was to rid the galaxy of Palpatine. He was such an outrageously powerful darksider, and using the darkside in such a large manner, that it forced the force out of balance. The mere existence of Jedi or Sith is of no importance, numbers couldn't be less meaningful. A large number of Jedi was perfectly fine, because they didn't disrupt the flow of the force, as they merely let it flow through them without really interfering with it. The Sith being around in hiding also wasn't a problem, because the nature of them trying to remain hidden meant that they weren't trying any overly large experiments with the force. It's only when Palpatine starts to use the darkside to its fullest extend, shrouding the force in darkness and trying to control people to gain control of the galaxy, that this turned into a problem. It's the extend to which the force gets twisted that decides over whether it is in balance or not, not some obscure numbers-game.

The balance of the force is like nature. It keeps going along just fine. Then a Sith comes around who twists and bends in in ways that are not natural, like a huge oil-spill, something that doesn't happen in nature on its own either. This does great harm to the nature and disrupts the normal flow. Nature only returns to proper balance once this damaging influence is removed. In terms of the force, this doesn't require the complete removal of all darksiders, just the removal of those who twisted the force to such an extend that it influenced the whole galaxy and even the force itself. In the same way that a few drops of oil into the ocean don't make much of a difference, but an oil-platform getting damaged to the point that millions of barrel of oil are now entering the ocean over a prolonged period of time sure does.

 

I'm not getting it from anywhere. The terms define themselves.

[quote="Oissan, post: 54429125, member: 338285"Balance does not, in any way, shape or form require equal or similar numbers. Equal numbers is one form of balance,[/QUOTE]

Seriously? "[No] way shape or form...", and then you immediately contradiict yourself?

Balance involves quantities in any context. Quantity is not the only factor, but it is always a factor.

Relative quantities. It is quantifiable. If you have established balance, then the relationship between the observable quantities (and qualities) defines that balance.

If it was not intended for "balance" as a term to be used correctly, then they should have used "harmony" or "resonance/dissonance" or some relatively more esoteric term.

You mention nature. One large, unchallenged predator in an ecosystem can be an example of imbalance in the same way that an absence of predators and and abundance of what would ordinarily be prey. The quantity and quality of the relevant factors IS the definition of balance/imbalance.

Is there ever going to be a thread where people can tolerate an authentically critical view without reacting as if its intended to impune their enjoyment, and prompts them to twist and pervert the the definition of terms in such a bizarro-world fashion and expect or try and shame everyone else into credulously accepting them?

The movie does not state that. The Jedi express a prophecy that they believe in. They also expressed their belief that the Sith were extinct at the same time. So the Jedi's statements on the conditions for balance of the force are rather contradictory and enigmatic.

 

LOL, I don't think even you're taking your own arguments seriously anymore. Oissan's whole point is that balance in nature is usually achieved by a smaller number of predators compared to a larger number of prey. His point is that he definition of balance changes based on what you're talking about. You're talking about a balance of simple numbers. Nature itself almost never works that way, though. What is being talked about in the Star Wars movies is a balance of nature. That means evil can't overwhelm good, but at the same time good can't completely overpower the choice of free beings to commit evil. The Jedi's mission isn't to make people's choices for them; it's only to limit the damage from evil choices so that they don't spread like a cancer and consume everything else that is good in the universe. The Sith, on the other hand, are on a mission to take control of everything and assert their evil will on the entire universe. That's why you can have a bunch of Jedi without throwing the Force out of balance; because their actions are directed towards the purpose of maintaining that balance between good and evil. But if you have just a couple Sith, the balance is disrupted; because their actions are directed towards the purpose of ensuring that evil dominates completely over good.

Is any of this getting through? If you have one group whose job it is to maintain balance, and one group whose job it is to disrupt the balance, then obviously the dominance of the former group and the complete absence of the latter group will be conducive to a balanced state. Obviously. This is as basic as it gets, Martoto77.

e: The universe is like a human body. In its balanced state, it's healthy and thriving; even though some number of cells inevitably suffer potentially harmful genetic transcription errors during mitosis, in a properly functioning organism these cells are eliminated through a carefully-regulated process of programmed cell death (called apoptosis) and are just as quickly replaced by new, healthy cells. This is like the universe in its natural, balanced state; even as some individuals spread evil, they're counterbalanced by individuals who spread good, with the Jedi acting to regulate the process to ensure that a proper balance is maintained. But a cancer cell is not a part of the human body's natural, balanced state; in a breakdown of the natural process of regulated cell death, cancer cells spread throughout the body, infecting everything and turning other cells malignant just like themselves, eventually killing the very body which hosts them. The Sith are like a cancer of the universe, allowed to spread out of control as a result of a breakdown in the regulatory system represented by the Jedi; the universe is better off without them, just as a human body is better off without a single cancer cell. Would you describe a human body which is made up of equal amounts healthy cells and equal amounts cancer cells as "balanced"?

(Disclaimer: I am not a biologist, and so apologies to any if I have misstated anything too egregiously. However, I think you get the general gist of what I'm saying.)

 

Basic? Balance is an observable phenomenon. Not an abstract concept of what people's motivation is.

It is defined by quantities and qualities - not too much or too little, and in the right proportion to each other.

It's as basic as the word "balance" needing to mean balance or it's not balance that you are talking about. It's just a made up load of psychobabble misappropriating the word balance.

 

Would you not describe a human body--a tightly regulated system wherein cells die off at exactly the same rate as new cells are formed--as "balanced"? Would that really be a misappropriated and incoherent use of the term? Would it really not be something you would understand and agree with intuitively?

Would you not agree that a human body which has been overwhelmed with malignant cancer cells to the point of failure is, in comparison, "unbalanced"? Really? Is this the hill you're going to die on in your desperate quest to slag on the prequels in every capacity conceivable?

Really?

I mean, no one says you have to like the movies, man. But come on.

 

That is a definition using a relationship between quantities of living and dying normal cells.

Oncology and cancer treatment is not about maintaining a balance of cancerous and not cancerous cells. It is about cells not functioning but harming and multiplying, and harming and multiplying, due to them being cancerous. Therefore all those cells must be removed.

You do not define a balance of something when one of the factors is non-existent.

That's why a healthy person, without cancer or in remission, is not told that their cells are in balance.

You are in danger of letting go of dignity in the same way as Darth-sinister.

No one says I have to abandon basic critical faculties, like using correct vocabulary, in order to like the movies. I like them well enough to take a good long look at them and conclude, as I have done repeatedly, that they don't deserve the reputation that is hung on them from some sections of the SW fans.

I don't need to pretend that they are beyond reproach in order to placate the fanatic though.

 

Actually, a healthy body is in balance.
Ask any Chinese doctor.

 

I'll ask the next time I'm in to get scorpions shoved up my nose while I hold a cows tongue between my knees. You know, for balance?