PT Does anakin's chosen one prophecy make sense?

Balance, mental or emotional steadiness. A means of judging or deciding. A life and life essence not driven by caped madmen.

I think it all plays out quite nicely in episodes I-III.

 

Yoda is aware that the Force is starting to go out of balance, in TPM. That's why he says that the dark side is hard to see. In AOTC, Yoda tells Mace that the Sith know of their weaknesses. Dooku also says that the dark side clouds the vision of the Jedi, which is why they're unaware of Palpatine's true nature. In ROTS, the Jedi can finally sense the dark side surrounds Palpatine.

"The overriding philosophy in Episode I—and in all the Star Wars movies, for that matter—is the balance between good and evil."

--George Lucas, Star Wars: The Making of Episode I, 1999.

"I wanted to have this mythological footing because I was basing the films on the idea that the Force has two sides, the good side, the evil side, and they both need to be there. Most religions are built on that, whether it's called yin and yang, God and the devil—everything is built on the push-pull tension created by two sides of the equation. Right from the very beginning, that was the key issue in Star Wars."

--George Lucas, Time Magazine Article 2002.

"If good and evil are mixed things become blurred - there is nothing between good and evil, everything is gray. In each of us we to have balance these emotions, and in the Star Wars saga the most important point is balance, balance between everything. It is dangerous to lose this. In The Phantom Menace one of the Jedi Council already knows the balance of the Force is starting to slip, and will slip further. It is obvious to this person that the Sith are going to destroy this balance. On the other hand a prediction which is referred to states someone will replace the balance in the future. At the right time a balance may again be created, but presently it is being eroded by dark forces."

--George Lucas, Cut Magazine Interview, 1999.

"It's not that they can't see the dark side coming, it's just that the dark side begins to envelop everything. It's like walking into a fog. The Jedi's ability to see lessens as the dark side grows."

--George Lucas, Starlog Magazine Interview.

Except that's not the story. Vader kills Sidious and then dies himself as a good man. The teachings of the Sith are lost now. That leaves Luke, who begins creating a new Jedi Order in the aftermath of the Battle of Endor. And as Lor San Tekka stated, the Jedi are needed to maintain balance.

As Martoto likes to say, "Dignity."

 

Well first it would have probably just been better to, as Martoto suggested, instead use the term harmony.

But second I get that the Jedi don't try to rule the galaxy themselves and force people to be good, that's a good thing, but they kind of come close ... they take in most of their recruits from early/very early childhood and the impression you get is that most are indoctrinated enough that few leave.

That seems at least a little contradictory-they're inevitably both present and need to be balanced but they should be separate and not mixed? If they're both part of us they are mixed to some extent. It seems the balance he thinks is proper is a lopsided balance, the good part being much more and dominant, which is OK but seems to reflects the fear that the dark side is stronger and more powerful.

 

Yes, everything is about quantities. For instance, sometimes a system achieves equilibrium when there is numerically less of one substance and numerically more of another substance. You see this if you study chemistry.

That's kind of orthogonal to what we're talking about, though. What we're talking about is more like a seesaw with equal amounts of weight on either side. There's a guy who stands around and makes sure no one adds an excess of weight to either side. There's also a guy who sits around in a dump truck and keeps trying to pour concrete on one side of the seesaw and one side only. According to you (as far as I understand your argument), it would make no sense to keep the seesaw balanced by making the second guy go away while the first guy stays. Personally, that strikes me as a rather odd and counter-intuitive contention.

Cancer treatment is about combating the unbalancing effect which is causing runaway cell growth in the body. A normal body does not have runaway cell growth because its natural regulatory systems keep the numbers of dying cells and the number of growing cells in balance.

Yes, you can, actually. A body is in balance when a non-balancing factor--in this case, the malfunction of the mechanism which regulates programmed cell death, among other things--is absent.

We're speaking in metaphors. A healthy person is not told that their cells are in balance because they are speaking to a doctor, not a poet. However, it is in fact true that their cells are (more or less) back in balance.

The prequels aren't beyond reproach, my good friend. This argument isn't really about the prequels, though. It's about basic language and concepts. I admit I got a little frustrated trying to talk to you about these things. I shouldn't have. I should have been more understanding and patient with you. I see now that my use of sarcastic mockery was a selfish indulgence which only impeded my efforts to elucidate, and it reflects very poorly on me that I succumbed to the temptation. I should have shown more respect to you as a person, regardless of the degree of respect I hold for your arguments. I'm sorry.

In this context, balance and harmony are synonyms. The equilibrium between good and evil in the Star Wars films is based very heavily on the yin/yang duality found in Taoism, which is, in fact, almost always described as a balance between opposing forces. The fact that Lucas used one completely suitable word instead of some other word that means the same thing does not strike me, personally, as a very great sin.

No, what he's saying is that both sides have to be there, but we have to be able to recognize which side is which. Look at a yin/yang symbol. Do you see any gray there? No. The two opposing forces flow into each other, and each one contains the other in some measure, but each opposing force is discretely recognizable as what it is. Day becomes night, and night becomes day. Day contains night, in the sense that the shining sun can cast a shadow; and night contains day, in the sense that the moon reflects the sun's light. But you would never mistake daytime for nighttime, or vice versa. If you did, it would be an indication that something is seriously wrong.

It's not contradictory. It's Taoist philosophy.

 

That's no different from our parents choosing what we wear, what our religious beliefs are, where we go to school, what we eat, if we're bigoted or not, etc.

In each of us, we must find balance between good and evil. Right and wrong. Passiveness and aggressiveness. Selflessness and selfishness. There needs to be a balance in order to live. In the Saga, balance is about the role of good and evil in society. There's plenty of good and evil without Force users. But with the Jedi, they try to keep balance against the dark side and the Sith in particular. Unfortunately, the Sith are the worst and they have to be eliminated, or else it all falls apart. Likewise, the Sith must eliminate the Jedi in order to achieve their goals.

 

Darth Plagueis tought to his apprentice, Darth Sidious, everything he knew, including his power to create life! After killing his master, Sidious created what he thought to be the perfect force user, a kid with great potential for both dark and light side.But Anakin happens to be the Chosen One. I believe Sidious didn't know of this prophecy or just didn't thought it was for real.

The prophecy says this Chosen One will bring balance to the Force. But what is the balance? There are different interpretations:

1. Balance is the same number of Sith and the same number of Jedi co existing. At the beginning of ANH (which is after ROTS), there are two jedi and two sith (Obiwan Kenobi and Yoda). After Kenobi's death, there were again two of each (this new jedi being our hero Luke). So we can say Anakin brought balance to the Force by killing all remaining jedi and padawan.

2. Balance is the extinction of the sith. So at the end of ROTJ, Anakin sacrifices himself to kill Sidious, bringing an end to this dark order.

 

There is only one interpretation. The destruction of the Sith restores balance.

 

RE: the idea that Sith causes the imbalance and killing them restores it.

So, we know that the sith used to rule the galaxy, probably around 1000 year before TPM.
So then there were Sith and they had a lot of power.
Was the Force unbalanced then?
If the Sith cause imbalance and even more so when they are powerful, it would seem yes.
If so, was balance restored when the Sith lost their power?
We know they didn't all die out but they lost much of their power.
If balance was restored, was there a chosen one around back then?

If balance was restored but without a chosen one, why would the Jedi think that only a chosen one could do it now?
If balance wasn't restored at all, how come the Jedi haven't noticed this for 1000 years?

If there was no imbalance at all during the last sith empire, why is there one now?
And if this is the first time there has ever been an imbalance then clearly the sith don't cause an imbalance by just existing and they don't even cause it if they are powerful, Palpatine causes it, somehow.
So why would the Jedi connect the sith with imbalance if it has never happened before?

I've said it before but the original Son of the Suns prophecy made better sense. "In time of the greatest Darkness shall come a savoir and he shall be known as the Son of the Suns."
No need to get tied up with numbers of Force users or the like.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

Frankly, prophecies and most other aspects of religions generally don't make that much sense to me. So this is the part of the saga I have always paid least attention to. But that's just me. I still enjoy the story anyway. It's just that other aspects always seemed more interesting. I managed to mostly ignore the religious elements of SW, have always been more attracted to the cool technology, effects, weapons etc. I guess I'm not really the spiritual type... Therefore I don't think I have ever given much thought to the "chosen one" theme of the PT. Now the forbidden love element I can somehow relate to, as I have been there myself. The prophecy thing on the other hand is too distant from my own life for me to be able to relate much to. I don't think I'm shallow, just not particularly spiritual or religious. Make sense?

 

Agreed.

However, the Mortis TCW arc is very cryptic about the Prophecy of the Chosen One and Dave Filoni is very unwilling to give the true meaning of the episodes.

 

The sith are only destroyed once the Jedi have been virtually exctinct for over a generation, democracy has been substituted with dictatorship and totalitarianism has come into fashion around the galaxy. The fulfillment of this prophecy still leaves the galaxy divided following a five year civil war that resulted in regime change, partial reformation of the senate, but an uneasy peace with the remnants of Imperial ideology that fought on after Endor.

I couldn't care less that the prophecy is supposed to have been fulfilled, in that context. I haven't much cared for it since it was introduced given how the saga and the prophecy was supposedly concluded with Episode VI.

 

An interesting interpretation of the themes.

Choosing what a child wears, eats or where to go to school seem minor compared to assigning them to preparation for a lifetime job. I feel it is, though their right, questionable parenting to be too restrictive about clothes or to too often and forcefully indoctrinate a child into a religion (especially one that really rejects other views and considerations).

But Lucas seems to side pretty heavily for passiveness rather than aggressiveness, with Luke's moment of triumph being giving up his lightsaber even though that leads to the Emperor attacking him and even though eliminating the Sith is such the most important goal (aside from not becoming evil yourself). It's an interesting idea that fighting the Sith poses the danger of making you become more like them but then Luke outright refusing to fight them seems like too extreme a reaction to the dilemma.

 

Luke's mission was to bring Vader back from the darkside, not fighting the emperor. The only reason he attacked was because of his attachment to his friends and sister which nearly pushed him toward the darkside, only when he saw what he was starting to become by looking at Vader's severed mechanical hand was he reminded of his failure at the cave and throw away his weapon and refusing to become an agent of evil.

 

I wouldn't say it was his mission. It was his decision.

Turning someone back from the darkside is entirely uncharted territory for any living or recently deceased Jedi. I cannot see Yoda and Ben really forseeing that outcome. They just had to put faith in Luke. But the only variable that Luke seems to have which could possiby be an advantage is that Vader is his father.

 

There is this time because the Sith blur the lines between good and evil, whereas they didn't last time. They get the Republic to give them control, whereas they took it last time. And this time, they wipe out the Jedi at the end of the war.

Not really cryptic. He was showing us what Anakin needed to do, in order to restore the balance.

The prophecy wasn't about what the people did in the aftermath of the war. It was about a specific moment in time with regards to the Force. People still had to make their own choices about what would come from the treaty being signed and the destruction of the Sith. It was never about uniting the galaxy.

Yet, that is life. Many parents choose what they want for their children until they're old enough to decide for themselves. Some do and some don't.

 

So it was about the Jedi bring virtually destroyed by two Sith then them destroying each other. Hooray!

Like I said. The prophecy is the least interesting thing added to Star Wars except that it's ironic that predicting the future is what lands both the Jedi and Anakin into disaster.

 

No, the tragedy is that the Jedi didn't have to be wiped out. Their destruction was the result of Anakin's greed and selfishness. Anakin had two opportunities to end the horror before he actually does. In the end, the balance is restored to the Force. The Sith are destroyed and Luke will train a new group of Jedi to carry on the legacy of the old. What the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant did following the war was not dependent on the balance being restored, other than the Sith were no longer a factor in the war continuing.

That's why Lucas said that Qui-gon was both right and wrong to take Anakin away from Tatooine. The disaster was always going to come, but it was down to Anakin to decide what he had to do.

 

But this again highlights the issue I mentioned.
If the Force has never been unbalanced in the entire history of the Jedi Order, then why would the Jedi think something like this could even happen?
And why would they connect the Sith with this, when as far as they know, the Sith don't cause this.
They know that the sith have been around before and been very powerful but at no point have that caused the Force to be unbalanced.

And if the solution is just to kill the Sith.
Killing a sith is something any Jedi can do.
Obi-Wan killed a Sith and he wasn't even a Jedi Knight at the time.
And in the past, I am sure that Jedi have been able to kill Siths.
So why would the Jedi think that Anakin is now the only one to do it?

If you say "The prophecy says so." Again the issue, does this make sense?
So the Jedi have a prophecy that says that something will happen that has never happened before, it will be caused by people that has never caused this in the past and the solution is to kill them and unlike before, now only one person can do this.
Makes sense?

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

The Sith would have been destroyed and balance would have been restored by Mace if Anakin wasn't there to intervene. The reason that Anakin agrees to massacre the Jedi in the temple is so that the remaining Jedi don't kill Palpatine. Anakin turning to the darkside and then helping massacre the Jedi was therefore necessary for the prophecy to come true.

Because, otherwise, the Jedi order would have dealt with Palpatine, leaving the Sith destroyed and the force in balance.

The prophecy needs Anakin to turn to the darkside so no other person but the chosen one destroys the Sith.

Oh well if George says that it's right for Qui Gon to make the right wrong decisions so that the prophecy comes true then that's perfectly fine.

Anakin didn't decide leave Tatooine so he could be denied the Jedi training that Lucas says was necessary to overcome any fear about letting go of attachments.

 

That is exactly why I have a problem with the 'Chosen One' thing, Samuel Vimes. Presumably, the Jedi have been able to kill Siths before -- hell we SEE Obi-Wan killing Darth Maul, and Mace very nearly killed Darth Sidious. Yet according to the 'Chosen One Prophecy', only Anakin can do it? Only Anakin can bring balance back to the Force? So why was Obi-Wan able to kill Maul?

And if the Force apparently willed that Anakin turns to the Dark Side and kill the Jedi, then the Jedi were the butt of a very cruel joke for almost a thousand years. The very thing they so treasured was actually against them.

 

^^^ That's why it's ironic that that Anakin's pre-occupation with what he can pre-empt via the force is considered abhorrent to the Jedi while their own pre-occupation with pre-empting the future with that prophecy leads them to destruction at the same time.

 

As I recall Yoda and Mace are interested in the prophecy but don't think its clear that Anakin is the chosen one or that the meaning and end results are necessarily clear or that Anakin should get special treatment.

Presumably it's one thing to kill a Sith apprentice but the master is probably more powerful and seductive so it's hard, especially for someone who did what was necessary against the apprentice and feels the possibility of darkness and power, to not then join the Sith and continue the group.

 

They know that the Sith will try to disrupt the balance of the Force by destroying the Jedi and take over the galaxy. They've tried it for years and the Jedi have always managed to keep it from happening. As Lor San Tekka told Poe, as long as the Jedi exist, then the Force is in balance. Without them, there can be no balance.

As we see, the Jedi cannot take out Palpatine. He was too much for them, more than Maul and Tyranus. The Jedi don't entirely believe in the prophecy, but they also cannot deny that things are moving in a way that gives them pause. The Sith returned without their knowing it. Yoda can sense that there is a growing shift in the balance. Anakin was born without a father and has a high concentration of Midichlorians. The Jedi's powers are diminishing. Yoda states that the shroud of the dark side has fallen when the war begins. Maul later confirms that the Force feels out of balance. So all these things together is what sets the stage.

No, that's not how it works. Anakin had a choice. He could choose to let Palpatine die or save him. He chooses to turn on the Jedi because of his greed. Mace wasn't there to kill Palpatine. He was there to arrest him.

The Jedi Master is winning when Anakin arrives, but Palpatine, as the scene has been rethought, now seizes the occasion to exaggerate his weakness.

--The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; Page 204.


"(Palpatine is now laying down) But this part where he pretends to lose his power and become weak is something that I added later. Cause this moved the point where Anakin turned to this moment right here."

--George Lucas, ROTS DVD Commentary.


"Mace was going to do the right thing by arresting him, but after Palpatine does the lightning, he changes his mind."

--George Lucas, The Making Of ROTS; Page 204.


"Okay, well this sequence always started out with Mace, uh overpowering Palpatine and then Palpatine using his powers to try to destroy Mace and Mace deflecting his rays with his Lightsaber. It always was that Anakin cut the Lightsaber out of his hand. But this part where he pretends to lose his power and be weak was something that I added later cause it moved the point where Anakin turns down to this moment right here and you can see that he’s now that its very clear that he’s, he wants him to go on trial so he can pump him for information about how to get these powers."

--George Lucas, ROTS DVD Commentary.

Mace was going to arrest Palpatine and he could have done so with Anakin's presence, so long as he doesn't choose to be selfish. But he has chosen to be selfish and Palpatine knows it, which is why he goads Mace into trying to kill him, so that he can force Anakin's hand.

Maul was not as powerful as Palpatine was.

It didn't will Anakin to turn to the dark side. He had a choice. He always had a choice. He could still bring balance right up to when he chooses to turn on Mace. What was foreseen was a point where Anakin will bring balance. In Palpatine's office, if he had let Mace kill him and actually succeed, then the Force will go back to being in balance. If he had killed Palpatine then, the Force would be in balance. But he chooses to not do the right thing. Then he does years later.

"The sad thing is Padme says there is still good in him and Luke says in ROTJ there is good in you. It's recurring. There is good in him. And that will bring balance to the force. He needs to get rid of the Sith and bring balance to the Force."

--George Lucas, ROTS DVD Commentary.

"I think it is obvious that [Qui-Gon] was wrong in Episode I and made a dangerous decision, but ultimately this decision may be correct. The “phantom menace” refers to the force of the dark side of the universe. Anakin will be taken over by dark forces which in turn destroy the balance of the galaxy, but the individual who kills the Emperor is Darth Vader—also Anakin. The tale meanders and both the prediction and Qui-Gon are correct—Anakin is the Chosen One, and he did bring peace at last with his own sacrifice. Luke couldn't kill the Emperor himself, but he could make Anakin reflect on his life and kill the Emperor."

--George Lucas, Cut Magazine interview, 1999.

 

I couldn't give a hoot what Windu was supposed to do. He was going to kill Palpatine and bring balance to the force in that moment until he was killed by Anakin because he'd been seduced by the darkside. That's the movie.

Therfore the prophecy could not come true without Anakin being seduced by the darkside, which resulted in the inevitable slaughter of the Jedi because there was no going back, as you pointed out in another thread.

 

The "no going back" refers to his choosing to go ahead with betraying the Jedi, since he cannot justify what he has done and hope that they forgive him for betraying Mace. The prophecy could come true without his betraying the Jedi. That's the part you ignore. Just it wouldn't come true if he let Luke die and he and Palpatine escaped from the Death Star. That's the point of choice.