main
side
curve
  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

ST Light/Dark/Grey in TLJ & IX

Discussion in 'Sequel Trilogy' started by Chiaroscuro Side, Apr 14, 2017.

?

Which way do you swing?

  1. Light and Dark with clear demarcation, no Grey for me, thanks

    82 vote(s)
    51.3%
  2. Light, Dark and Grey as three entirely separate polarities

    22 vote(s)
    13.8%
  3. Gimme moral ambiguity!

    56 vote(s)
    35.0%
  1. JoJoPenelli

    JoJoPenelli Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 14, 2000
    It's also ENTIRELY possible for good, decent people to serve an evil cause (FO, Empire, etc). But we don't need everything to be grey and subjective for that to be explored onscreen.
     
  2. Darth Formidious

    Darth Formidious Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 19, 2015
    I was thinking of voting light and dark with clear segregation and rigid boundaries... but then I thought about Kreia and Revan, and voted option 2. ^:)^
     
  3. hana_solo

    hana_solo Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 4, 2016
    I think there's confusion about the balance concept because we don't know what's Rian's position on it in the movie, how he sees it, and also how it'll look in practise. Right now, everyone's, like, so they are going to do both good and bad? But, as Luke says, it's so much bigger.
     
    Lomesa likes this.
  4. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    I have no problem with Jedi who are a bit rogue and unconventional.

    I definitely have a problem with the Voldemort notion that there is no good or evil, only power.

    As far as why the Jedi exist or should--guardians of peace and justice.
     
    Blue 5 and theraphos like this.
  5. oncafar

    oncafar Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 10, 2017
    i think the idea of transcendence and it being "so much bigger" makes the most sense. it's not that one is finding a middle ground between dark and light on the same "spiritual level," but that one is transcending the binary problem of good/light vs. evil/dark (which may be more about how people define these things than what it "actually is"). this can seem "gray" in that it is reconciling/resolving the binary. but it's mainly just transcending how one viewed it before to see it more clearly for what it is.

    an example might be newton's laws vs. the theory of relativity. the latter did not disprove or replace the former, but it greatly expanded upon it in a way that more closely gets to the essence of things like gravity. concepts are better refined. and understanding transcends to a new level. this is what i think the jedi must do in the "resolving of the gray." it isn't that they were wrong, but that there is so much more to it, for instance to concepts of light and dark (what does that really mean in the force?)

    in terms of practical application, the point is trying to resolve extremes (the binary) to prevent or turn people back from going to the extremes of the dark side. and you could say that PT jedi had their code about how to keep away from the dark side, and there's a lot of good stuff in it, but the understanding of it needs to grow (get bigger).

    what if you could view the dark and the light in a completely different way in which it became as easy to come back from the dark as it is to step through a door? what if part of the huge tragedy of the dark side and people who are stuck in it is that it doesn't even need to be so permanent, irreversible, and cause so much suffering and loss of life. perhaps it is "permanent and irreversible" because the problem is already defined as impossible. sometimes the way in which one defines a problem ends up determining how easy that problem is to solve and how long it takes to solve it. and sometimes if one understands something in a deeper way they automatically end up avoiding certain pitfalls.

    so anyway i don't think the jedi need to step away from the light side of the force, but that they need to expand and evolve their concepts and practices regarding the force and adjust their practices accordingly.

    and i still feel like this goes back to the jedi vs. the sith and what polarized them to begin with. now it's as though the force can be "reset" and maybe to something less extreme.
     
    Mister Bones and jujukane like this.
  6. MeBeJedi

    MeBeJedi Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002

    Justice and peace for whom? Not everyone desires the same outcome.


    I don't know if it's the Force, itself, that needs to be reset. The Force is the Force....life creates it....but life includes death.

    Luke and Vader were both capable of the same powers, but one was a "Light-Sider" and one was a "Dark-Sider". It comes down to how one uses those powers, the intent of the user. One could have the best intentions, and still make bad choices....or choices with an unintended outcome.
     
    jujukane likes this.
  7. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    Justice and peace for the good guys. Please don't ask "but how do you know who they are?" That's set up to be pretty obvious in Star Wars, which is the point.
     
    theraphos likes this.
  8. MeBeJedi

    MeBeJedi Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002

    Out-of-universe, yes. In-universe could be a different story. The characters don't know what we know.
     
  9. Gigoran Monk

    Gigoran Monk Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 2, 2016
    Justice and peace for all in the Republic, I believe. For the good, that means protecting them and their rights as citizens. For the bad, that means bringing them to justice.
     
  10. Harbour

    Harbour Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 15, 2015
    What about Grey Sith then, ladies and gentlemen?
    Its rhetorical question of course since Grey Sith and Grey Jedi are oxymoron.
     
  11. oncafar

    oncafar Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 10, 2017
    death is a process of the undoing of life, in which entropy finally has its way. this may not be what you were even talking about, but in general i don't see death exactly as a "part of life" but more reflecting the forces of repulsion in the universe. living things are complex and ordered arrangements of molecules bonded through forces of attraction. but a living thing can't sustain its form forever. things wear away at it, slowly it begins coming apart again, and finally it completely deteriorates/decays. so i see the light as being what grows a living thing, but the dark is what undoes it.

    my thought about the force being reset comes from the idea of it having been stagnant and how the jedi vs. sith chapter has come to its close. since the force binds everything together and life creates it, living creatures connected through the force should be able to influence its nature (especially enmasse) or shape it in a sense. this is similar to what the emperor wanted to do in his dreams of using the dark side to change the rules of reality (though maybe that would be more through manipulation of the cosmic force than the living force).

    i guess a simpler way to try to say this is that i think it goes both ways. not only can the force influence individual beings, but individual beings (if enough of them, or if powerful enough) can influence the nature of the force. the force reflects the lifeforms that it is "comprised" of. so for instance if every sentient being in gffa believed that there are two polar opposites involved in the force (the dark and the light), then it would make sense that not only will conflicts in gffa center around this principle (people tend to manifest into reality what they believe reality to be) but that the force itself will come to reflect this divide, taking on a more binary form. all of reality then becomes more about oppositions. so everything ends up being squeezed into this one extreme vs. the other model, and each extreme takes on the task of destroying the other to end the schism (though this story ends when they both destroy one another - hence the end of the jedi vs. sith chapter).

    but yes, it might not be as fanciful as all of that... a resetting of perspectives rather than literally of the entire force.
     
    Mister Bones and MeBeJedi like this.
  12. Blue 5

    Blue 5 Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Jan 6, 2017
    There is always disparity in everything.

    Heat and Cold. Life and death. And, of course, Light and Dark (Dark Souls intro ftw).

    Just because something is neutral or centrist in no way shape or form prevents the other two extremes from existing. And just because a "Grey" order exists wouldn't mean Sith couldn't exist...the Sith would in fact likely become more radical.
     
  13. The Legions of Lettow

    The Legions of Lettow Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2015
    Isn't the background here gray?

    There are many shades of gray. How much light and dark in you depends over time based on your actions. Realizing this doesn't make one gray. A Sith can realize this and use this to justify his own actions to himself or another, like Palpatine to Anakin or Anakin to himself in ROTS. Yoda can realize this in TCW and not rationalize this to use the Dark Side for expedient means. Relaxing the grayness is things doesn't necessarily lead to Gray Jedi or Gray Post-Jedi.

    Edit: After I posted the first sentence of this post getting off the train I went back to edit to expand on my view. I noticed 4 posts by me with the first sentence and trying to edit is almost impossible. Is it an iPhone glitch or is there sometimes something wrong with posting here?

    I wish we had a delete function.
     
  14. The Legions of Lettow

    The Legions of Lettow Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2015
  15. Alpha-Red

    Alpha-Red Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Apr 25, 2004
    I don't even get what a "Gray Jedi" is supposed to be. Take Jolee Bindo from KotOR for instance. He's got that nice neutral alignment, he says he's not on anyone's side, etc etc. But pretty much everything he says and does suggests a "good" moral alignment. If you choose the dark side path, he'll go "I am a Jedi, and I will never bow before a Sith!" and then you have to fight him. This guy had a moral alignment, and it was with the light side.

    Pretty much every single "gray" character will be forced to make a choice at some point...are they going to do something against the evil, or do nothing? If they take action, then they're basically Jedi. If they really are going to sit back and do nothing...well then okay, I guess they really are "gray" after all. Far more often the supposedly neutral character is someone who has sympathies for the good side, which is why I don't think he's really neutral to begin with
     
  16. oncafar

    oncafar Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 10, 2017
    anakin choking ventress demanding information about who framed ahsoka = our dear gray jedi

    lol
     
  17. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    Anakin also stabbed a guy in one of the Mandalore episodes and told Obi-Wan, "What? He was going to blow up the ship!" And choked Poggle the Lesser to find out how to get rid of the brain worms.

    I don't know that I would call him a grey Jedi though, more like a rogue Jedi.
     
  18. oncafar

    oncafar Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 10, 2017
    i think he's gray in that he has less compassion. ventress for example is a criminal, a sith, a killer, evil. he only has to consider her these things, and then what such a person deserves: choking such a person is perfectly fine, and her life isn't really worth anything anyway because she is scum. on the other hand, anakin is a loyal friend to those who are friends (as long as they are on the right side of "justice"). so he's gray and he belongs to the jedi order (and is technically a jedi). so he can be our oxymoron. gray was really though only a stop along the way to the dark side.
     
  19. ObidioJuan

    ObidioJuan Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 1, 2002


    I don't think so. Even soldiers following orders are subject to war tribunals and are guilty. Your argument was the defensive argument that many Nazis used at the end of WW2.

    What you are saying is that there's no good and bad but it depends on POV then you can justify any bad actions. I will stop here as this can lead to many dark places. But hopefully you understand the point.

    E.G. Cassian was not "good" just because he was fighting for the "good" side. When Jyn came he realized that his actions were not good just because the cause was good. And he says so in his speech before Scarif. Anakin was not "good" when he murdered the sand-people in revenge for his mother, and he even acknowledges this. Padme even tries to make the argument that he was mad with grief and he says that he should be better. There are many other examples.
     
  20. JoJoPenelli

    JoJoPenelli Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 14, 2000
    Being a good, decent person is not the equivalent of being not guilty of a crime. Nor does being a good, decent person make one undeserving of punishment for wrongdoing.

    (Fictional) Exhibit A: Kylo Ren, as he's being set up in the ST
     
  21. oncafar

    oncafar Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 10, 2017
    that question is fascinating to me because i honestly can't answer the question of whether or not anakin is a "good person" after he slaughters the sand people. i guess i'd settled for "has good in him" but that avoids answering the question sort of.
     
  22. ObidioJuan

    ObidioJuan Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 1, 2002
    Being a good, decent person is not the equivalent of being not guilty of a crime.
    - Are you saying there are criminals that are "good decent persons"?, I would think that if you are a criminal you are, by definition, found to be a not "good and decent person" because you broke the law.

    Nor does being a good, decent person make one undeserving of punishment for wrongdoing.
    - Yes, agree. You can spend 99.99% of your life being a good and decent person, then you do a criminal act. The fact that for the rest of your life you did not commit any crimes does not make up for the crime (it may lessen the punishment but that's a different legal issue).

    (Fictional) Exhibit A: Kylo Ren, as he's being set up in the ST
    In some other threads I've explained how yes Kylo may be set up as Anakin is now. But Anakin's redemption in the OT changed after the PT. If you only take the OT, Vader seems pretty redeemable. After the PT actions of younger Vader, it's not so palatable.
     
  23. Gigoran Monk

    Gigoran Monk Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 2, 2016
    Really? Depends on the law. Is a North Korean not a "good, decent person" if they break North Korean law and try to flee the country? Was Nelson Mandela a bad person for breaking apartheid law? How about Luke Skywalker for defying Imperial law? The law is not always just. So yes, one can be a criminal and also be a good, decent person.

    I'm a little surprised that this would need to be explained, to be honest.
     
    Mungo Baobab likes this.
  24. oncafar

    oncafar Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 10, 2017
    i think a criminal can be a good person. i don't believe in strict adherence to the law just because it's a law. to me it's not about if it's a crime as far as society is concerned, or the justice system or whatever. most people for instance don't kill other people because they can't bear to, not because it's illegal. and psychopathic murderers kill because they are sick or abnormal (something in the brain is not working) and the law really can't prevent this because it can't fix what's wrong with their brains.
     
  25. The Legions of Lettow

    The Legions of Lettow Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2015
    Han Solo would probably the central governments of Republican and New Republican eras as well as by many systems in each era. Certainly the Imperial government and its member systems would have considered him a criminal.

    Come to think of it Jyn Erso was a criminal in the eyes of both the Imperials and Rebels, as was probably Saw Gerrera. Doubtless the Rebels were criminals in he eyes of the Imperials.

    SW has been gray from Day 1--even in the original SWANH with Vader as the rebellious student of Kenobi and murderer of Skywalker. Not to mention a pirate who may have shot first, killing in cold blood.