ST Light/Dark/Grey in TLJ & IX

"Breathe... Just breathe... Now, reach out. What do you see?"

"Light ... Darkness... The balance."

"It so much bigger. There's grey as well"

 

i've been meaning to reply to this, but it was in the rey's parentage thread and it's been days and i don't think it really belongs in the rey parentage thread, so i moved it here to continue, though i don't think it really belongs here either...

i think star wars in a way is because vader was not as evil as sidious. using a percentage is just another way of trying to say that. i can't treat vader and sidious as peas in a pod because the latter approaches as evil as a person can get, while as evil as vader was, he wasn't as evil as the emperor. and something in him remained of anakin (the good, the light in him) and that fleck of light was enough. anyway i'd put sidious and snoke as about as evil as you can be in this, but it wouldn't be 100% because in the way i've been arranging this, 100% cannot even heal. i think you need the light to regenerate living tissue. (and snoke by contrast seems to be decaying - a deathly look of decay is also something that he and sidious share.)

i was never proposing that jedi can only do "light things" and sith can only do "dark things" or anything of the sort (clearly they do similar things but for different reasons). though i was saying that i think that creative acts require the light and destructive ones require the dark. it might seem that means the same thing, but in my mind it doesn't. or perhaps it does, but not exclusively.

also, creation and destruction are also about intent. there has to be something good in the desire to create (if one is pure undiluted evil, there would be no desire to create anything - one would only have pure undiluted hatred of everything that exists and a single destructive will to wipe it all out... and past a point, the more evil one gets probably the less likely they are to succeed because the desire to destroy so overwhelms the desire to create that one can't be a proper architect even of destruction. this is a paradox of course which is why it's hard to get something that is pure evil, as much as pure evil can be approached it's like a horizon you can keep getting closer to but can never quite reach.

darth sidious builds his machine monster out of vader. he has created something terrible (and was at it well before anakin needed any mechanical um "enhancements"). his intention is broadly evil (all the things he will use vader to do...). but the little micro-intentions such as preserving vader's life, any innovation involved in making the suit, the actual creation of the suit... though these pieces together create something evil, the light has its tiny presence in them all.

percentages can be useful too because to me this is like a difference between something like 98% evil and 100%. in terms of the actions 98% is terrible - and people would look at the sorts of terrible things this person does and basically be like "you are pure evil." but i don't' think a living thing can be pure evil. i think sidious is about as close to pure evil as a living thing can get though. the other 1-2% (or whatever) is just a bit of "connective light" so he can exist and function as a living being.

i do think that using force lightening involves the dark side and is a dark power (healing would be a light power). lightsiders probably don't enjoy using dark powers because they require hate and nasty destructive emotion. this reminds me of maul urging ezra to use the dark side to open the sith temple in sw rebels. the light side wouldn't open the temple. and lightsiders weren't as good at opening/using sith holocrons either. the hate required to muster dark powers is unpalatable at the least and very dangerous at most. ezra's little flirtation with the sith holocron definitely caused him to go darker.

darksiders probably don't enjoy using light power. perhaps if sidious was using the force to preserve vader in ROTS during the trip back to coruscant he found it deeply disgusting lol. fortunately he got his payoff after vader woke up. he created a horror show out of vader.

patience btw requires the light too, imo. and i feel like palpatine/sidous grows less patient over time. i think patience was a quality from when he was a less evil younger man. ROTJ sidious seems to be his most deluded, least patient, and evilest form yet. it's not a huge jump or something (he's been evil likely most of his life), but it's a shift. he didn't seem to even be perceiving the future clearly anymore and that used to be his great gift (though perhaps at this point, from his pov, the light side of the force is getting brighter making it hard for evil dudes to see anything clearly). and the new canon books seem to show he's more insane, chasing the dark he senses in the beyond.

the irony of the dark side is that not only in selfish service of oneself is one left with only oneself after they turn (for they can no longer love anyone - emotional bonds are now meaningless), but in the end they cannot even keep themselves. the dark path consumes everything that was good in them and everything that lived... an empty husk remains in the end. it may still resemble the person. it's gouged out and hollow inside to hold the essence of the dark itself. when it finally dies, no sentient ghost is left. nothing of the person is left aside from evil little echoes (some of which are quite complex and can hold conversations with people). it is true death.

but like i said, even black holes evaporate. and like you said everything is recycled... eventually.

 

No he isn't, and it isn't only him saying it, the Lucasfilm Story Group as a whole "there is no grey" in the Force.


People can be grey. The Force isn't. And if you want to use the force than it has to be on it's terms. The force is the Light. Darkside is a corruption of the Force and not a natural occuring thing. It only happens when people use the Force. It's unnatural.

The Force doesn't have to pass a litmus test, it doesn't have to obey the laws of physics, it doesn't have to feel 'realistic', it's friggen 'Space magic".

Star Wars as a whole doesn't 'make sense' in our world. It's not the same universe that we live in.

But yeah, no they said no grey just like lucas, and they do agree with the idea as being in compatable with Lucas canon which si still canon and will be respected and unchanged.

Don't take my word for it.

"
Are 'Grey Jedi' canon or just a fan fic thing?"

Matt Martin [Lucasfilm story group] - 'Yeah its basically a fan thing. It doesn't really make sence with the way the Force works'
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There really is no such thing as 'gray Jedi' in our stories.

-Pablo Hidalgo [Lucasfilm Story Group]
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Question - "I find it hard to believe that anyone could be purely light. Everyone has some darkness in them."

Matt Martin [Lucasfilm Story Group] - "Sure. But by that logic everyone is grey. In Star Wars terms, dark and light are pretty clear cut and it's safe to say Ahsoka is light."
--------------------------------------------------------------
Question - "I’d say Ahsoka is grey, not light. Because the comic shows Anakins missing limbs as a light blue that seem to signify the light side of the force."

Matt Martin Reponse [Lucasfilm Story Group] - "Ahsoka is a pure good soul. There's no grey there."
--------------------------------------------------------------

"Idk I think throughout the clone wars Ahsoka Let her anger get the best of her sometimes"

There was that time she force choked a trandoshan. Though it was only for a brief moment before she threw him aside." -2018

Matt Martin [Lucasfilm Story Group] - "I think there's a big difference between being perfect and being grey. Nobody is perfect, even Jedi. Constantly making dark choices pushes one into the dark side. Occasionally letting emotions get the better of them then recovering from it is just life."


? 20 Dec 2018
Matt Martin [Lucasfilm Story Group] - "Out side of the story world, you just have to think that if every SW hero was always making perfect choices and never had any sort of internal conflict, SW would be pretty boring. It's how the heroes react in those moments that keep them heroes... or not."
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"

 

The EU, the video games, the comics, none of that was ever canon for one single second.
The EU existed as a alternate dimension of Star Wars. Somehow people missed that detail and that's why there is so much disagreement because people think the EU was canon at some point and it wasn't Here's G. Lucas saying it.

"
In August 2005, Lucas said of the Expanded Universe:

"I don't read that stuff. I haven't read any of the novels. I don't know anything about that world. That's a different world than my world. But I do try to keep it consistent. The way I do it now is they have a Star Wars Encyclopedia. So if I come up with a name or something else, I look it up and see if it has already been used. When I said [other people] could make their own Star Wars stories, we decided that, like Star Trek, we would have two universes: My universe and then this other one. They try to make their universe as consistent with mine as possible, but obviously they get enthusiastic and want to go off in other directions.



http://www.furiousfanboys.com/what-did-george-lucas-think-of-the-old-star-wars-eu/

"There's my world, which is the movies, and there's this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe—the licensing world of the books, games and comic books. "

"I don't read that stuff. I haven't read any of the novels. I don't know anything about that world. That's a different world than my world."

"And now there have been novels about the events after Episode VI, which isn't at all what I would have done with it."

"Once Vader dies, the Emperor doesn't get cloned and Luke doesn't get married..."


Even as a concept, 'grey' is stupid as ****.

Star Wars is black and white and that wasn't on accident, that was the intention.

You're either a Star Wars fan or your not. Fans don't want to change things that made them fans in the first friggen place.

In canon, 'grey' [using both dark and light and being special snow flakes and mary sues] is not a thing and it never was.

 

You forgot 'Mass Murder'

Apparently these grey jedi 'heros' attain balance by flying off the handle when someone calls you a 'coward' which results in a Force Storm and seeks to kill everything that's living because of being called a coward.

When an entity shows up and the first thing it says is "I bring Death".
That should be a warning light.

Not exactly my definition of 'neutral'. When you're neutral, you don't get involved and you don't start killing everyone you see who didn't even know you existed.

The only emotion you ever see from Bendu is abject anger. The only force usage you see from him is using the Force to kill people running for their lives.

I think the Bendu would have LOVED the Emperor and Vader considering how much they have in common.

That's not grey. That's evil.

Unless of course someone would like to refute that by siting some source that's says mass murder isn't always evil.

What Bendu did when he attacked, that was nothing but the Darkside, Anger, Hatred, and using the force while in a murderous rage.

How very Heroic and trust worthy. How brave and selfless. How balanced and fair.

Great concept you got there,guys.

In the words of the great 'grey' paragon himself, the Bendu -

"Perhaps it is the will of the Force to have me kill 'all your kind" [for calling him a coward]

 

George Lucas saying how the force works.



George Lucas on balance and the chosen one -



George Lucas on the bottom line of Star Wars - YouTube

 

No way. You can't take the Jedi out of the Star Wars. Life long fans would never be okay with that. I certainly wouldn't.

 

I like Jedi, ya know, as in canon.

 

I've kinda come back recently.

Lightning is unnatural? Even in AGFFA, one could say reading minds is unnatural, too. Same for Force pulls, seeing the future, guiding a proton torpedo to its target, etc.

"You have a power I--I don't understand" - Leia

 

@GrimOnTheDarkside I disagree with your characterization of the Bendu. I don't think that the Bendu is aligned dark side as you seem to be suggesting, but that he is actually "gray" more or less like he says.

 

Your forgot melts brains with hair dryer, hails from the planet Vulcan.

​

 

Wow! That was great!