Out of Control Yang = Imbalance in the Force

This is my thread and I would just like to go on record to say that any reference to cancer in any of my posts I meant to refer to in the way George Lucas calls the Sith a cancer (in terms of the Force)

Sorry if I offended anybody but I am not talking about cancer in the medical sense (although the post I referenced was by a doctor and it did do so)

I was only trying to compare it to Star Wars terminology

Sorry

 

LOL DarthWolvo23. I think your use of cancer was beyond appropriate. I agree with your overall view to a certain extent, though maybe not necessarily along the lines of yin and yang. I think the correct view would be in tune with the Gaia principle and believe that ultimate was the direction Lucas had strived for. I'm not sure how much harmony and balance has to do with good and evil as much as it has to do with function. Defining imbalance in the Force requires one to define the Force itself. The Living and Unifying Force may merely be the ideal of body and soul, not actually exclusive from one another.

The Gaia principle was an important concept to Joseph Campbell, mother Earth as a living being. I couldn't help watching Cameron's Avatar and thinking the same subject matter. When all living, and even non-living things work together, they create a new entity. It is merely symbiosis, an ideal that Lucas carefully crafts with the midichlorians, that allows this greater entity to happen. Mitochondria were once cells that joined with larger cells and in so doing they worked together and became something more. Our body is a collection of individual cells that work together. If we didn't have neurons, myocardial cells, hepatic cells, etc., could we touch, see, feel, think, dream? Our consciousness is nothing more than the chemical reactions and symbiotic interactions of cells, proteins, ions. And what is the Force? Is it nothing more than the our collective consciousness? Do individual people's interactions, in a harmonic fashion lead to a greater conscious, a greater being?

And what destroys such harmony and balance? Good and evil? Is the lion who kills his prey considered evil? Certainly killing is an evil act, is it not? Or is the killing in accordance with the harmony of nature? Our cells in our bodies and kill and even commit suicide. They do so to protect the body itself. This precise order is what keeps the body alive and thus protects the mind, the consciousness, the soul. Our cells obey the greater consciousness, and we obey them. I speak in terms as if the cells and our consciousness were two separate entities. They are not separate entities, but merely a different aspect of the same entity. And like body and soul, so is the Living and Unifying Force, merely two different aspects of the same entity.

As illustrated by DarthWolvo23, cancers destroy its host from within. Of course like all great societies, destruction from within is a common theme and the Republic was no exception in this matter. With the Gaia principle, Mother Earth exists on the balance of all that exists within its realm. The lack of such harmony can lead to her destruction. As such a cancer within our own bodies can lead to the death of the body itself, and in so doing, the loss of this greater consciousness. Could the Sith, by causing imbalance, destroy the greater consciousness that had been created by the symbiosis of living beings? Could they destroy the Force itself? With the removal of the cancer, balance was restored and salvation of the greater entity was achieved.

 

yodaman_reborn, you make some very good points. I think you brilliantly elaborated upon what the cancer analogy many of us have used.

Simply put, I think the Force is the intertwined entirety of nature. It is everything that is natural. It is life and existence. When this is undisturbed it is what we call ?balance? in the Force. It is the balance of nature.

However what you have said also abides perfectly with the Yin and Yang concept. It is important to remember that the Light and Dark of Yin and Yang does not represent Good and Evil, but it is rather representative that everything is intertwined into a complete whole. Death and killing could be considered as part of Yang and, in a balanced state, exists naturally within the Force. Death, destruction and killing are all natural processes when they are imperatively balanced with their symbolic opposite, yet integrally intertwined, partner.

Although this may unnecessarily take us off topic there is an analogy which I think works perfectly for this concept. Consider that we humans are the cause of Climate Change (you don?t have to believe it, just believe for the sake of the analogy). In a natural state the Earth is a symbolic entirety where everything is within a symbolic relationship with everything else; in this sense the Earth is the Force. Think of the Jedi as humans within their most natural state... they take from the Earth however they also give back. They are at a stage where they do not overexploit or damage the natural processes of the Force. They allow nature to exist around them and they only take what is necessary. They do not cause an imbalance in the Force. The Sith could be considered humans overexploiting what the Earth provides. They take however they do not have the symbolic relationship which gives back. In this sense we are a cancer to the Earth, slowly shutting it down and decimating it. We are creating too much of certain things and the Earth is thrown into an imbalance... the pollution we create is what is resulted from our overexploitation. The Earth is imbalanced like the Force. It has lost its harmony.

The Chosen One is the natural disaster which eliminates the Sith. Balance is then restored (although it would happen slowly on Earth and immediately for the Force).

So I guess in that sense the Sith may eventually destroy the Force... however this is unlikely as the Force naturally reacts to eliminate the ?cancer? which is destroying it from within...

 

While I'm sure Lucas had something more Eastern in mind when he was thinking of the whole "balance of the Force" issue, I always interpreted it in terms of Western theology: good is inherently balanced, evil is inherently imbalanced. Good is the natural state of things, and evil is an aberration, a corruption of the natural state. Just my two cents.

 

I understand your point, but IMO you're overthinking this as far as SW goes. And yes, the SW movies do suggest that the dark side is "bad" (I'm ignoring the confusion caused by TCW Mortis here).

YODA: Run! Yes. A Jedi's strength flows from the Force. But beware of
the dark side. Anger...fear...aggression. The dark side of the Force
are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you
start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny,
consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice.

LUKE: Vader. Is the dark side stronger?

YODA: No...no...no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.

LUKE: But how am I to know the good side from the bad?

YODA: You will know. When you are calm, at peace. Passive. A Jedi uses
the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.

 

But everything from the OT is much simpler as that quote proves.

Good v evil
Light v dark

However the notion of balance introduced in the PT along with Mortis and the symbolism of the yin Yang in AOTC have led many to readress just what good and evil and light and dark and balance mean.

Are the PT Jedi light or is Luke light because they do not have the same outlooks?

Who is more balanced?

Gets you thinking.

 

I'm not sure there is really a substantial conflict on that point. It is arguable that in Mortis the dark side is still "bad" in the same sense used by the films. The actions taken by Son as instrument or avatar of the dark side seem to speak to this, as does the implied threat in the event that he were to somehow escape into the normal galaxy. There is also Anakin's vision of Sidious as the dark side threat we already knew about, complete with a reminder of Alderaan.

Campbell refers to yin by such adjectives as "dark", "malignant", and "negative", but specifically declines to equate it with evil. There is something analogous going on with the Force, in the sense that the dark side is a natural part of the Force whose focused use by Force-sensitives is of an inherently corruptive nature. For example, it is aligned with fear and anger, which may be classified as negative but are not in themselves evil.

 

In Star Wars it is never specifically stated that the ?dark side? is bad, contrary to what many believe. It can be perceived as bad because if you fall into it, it will lead to bad things. However the ?dark side? itself is never referred to as bad, but rather something which leads to bad things. It is clear that the ?dark side? is an essential part of the Force; the Jedi never specifically seek to destroy the ?dark side?. Would this not suggest it is natural? And what ?natrual? thing can ever be considered as ?bad?.

When Luke says ?how am I know the good side from the bad? he is referring to how he will know which is the side which will lead to good things and which is the side which will lead to bad things.

With Mortis (you must include it as it is now part of the ?concept?) would suggest that the Son himself, in a human definition, may still be bad. However in the wider scheme of things what we perceive as ?bad? is really a natural part of nature. This ?Dark? is an essential and intertwined part of nature which we should remain wary of. For it can corrupt the intelligent mind. However the aspects of the ?dark side? in themselves are a part of nature. Without the ?Dark Side? life would cease to function... animals and nature use ?dark? aspects. You can?t have creation (Light) and have no destruction (Dark). They are part of an intertwined balanced whole.

It is only ?bad? for humans because we know what it will lead to possibly. It itself however is not bad or evil... merely the aspects which can cause an untamed vanity-driven human to evil.

 

Joseph Campbell was actually somewhat critical of Western theology. Eastern theology was a representation of divinity within nature, whereas Western theology depicted a divinity that was above nature. In Eastern theology, divinity dwelled and intertwined within all living and non-living beings as to opposed to Western theology where God reigned above, man just below, and all else remained subservient. Campbell, like Qui Gon, was a maverick and I thought there was a great deal of Campbell within that particular character. His embodiment of the Living Force was a testament to this divinity within all living things, within nature itself. All others embodied the Forced as an entity that was greater and beyond. Again, it is the distinction between the body and the soul. Without the cells in our bodies, there exists no consciousness. Without consciousness, there exists no purpose to the cells. And so which is greater, the divinity that reigns within these cells, or the greater consciousness it creates? I think that Lucas believes that both Eastern and Western philosophy were merely two ways of seeing the same thing, and he does not take preference of one over the other. It is not surprising for a Westerner to have difficulty seeing an Eastern point of view, and perhaps vice versa.

Lucas seems to weave multiple themes within the entire saga, that including good vs. evil, balance vs. imbalance. One could say that the very theme of the entire saga involved around the ideals of good and evil and the choices between them.

"One of the themes throughout the films is that the Sith Lords, when they started out thousands of years ago, embraced the Dark Side. They were greedy and self-centered and they all wanted to take over, so they killed each other. Eventually there was only one left, and that one took on an apprentice. And for thousands of years, the master would teach the apprentice, the master would die, the apprentice would then teach another apprentice, the master, and so on. But there could never be any more than two of them, because if there were, they would try to get rid of the leader, which is exactly what Vader was trying to do, and that's exactly what the Emperor was trying to do. The Emperor was trying to get rid of Vader, and Vader was trying to get rid of the Emperor. And that is the antithesis of a symbiotic relationship, in which if you do that, you become cancer, and you eventually kill the host, and everything dies." -- George Lucas

It was in the nature of the Sith to destroy, mainly through their greed and selfishness. The dark side is power without restraint or responsibility. One looks at technology itself and how it can be used for power and find abuse.

"The Ewok battle was one of the main inspirations for the whole project when I first started Star Wars and it evolved out of my interest in a project I had

 

Great points again, yodaman_reborn.

Essentially, when it all boils down to it, the Sith have a cancerous relationship with the Force. This relationship, and the Sith?s ability to influence and use the Force creates an imbalance. Thus the Sith must be destroyed for balance to return to the all-encompassing entity that is the Force. Ultimate vanity creates the cancer of life (before anyone says it I am not saying vanity causes cancer...).

The Jedi are have the symbolic relationship. They do not cause imbalance.

I would thus prepose, as others did earlier, that the Sith would have eventually destroyed the Force itself. They would have killed the host. Life in the universe itself would have literally collapsed.

I had never considered the Sith themselves as a cancer to themselves before. They are not only a cancer to the Force but they all devour themselves. I had also not considered the machine encasing of Vader as a metaphor for an imbalance in unnaturalness before (and even corresponds with the Ewok battle as an analogy).

 

The Ewok battle? How so?

Great thread. I also think that the continual loss of limbs in Star Wars is subtle imbalance imagery.

 

The Ewok battle refers to the struggle with technology. Technology has the ability to be powerful, seductive and destructive, though even Vader states that one should not be too proud of technological terrors in comparison with the powers of the Force.

As far as limb losing, Lucas as often said that Luke losing his hand was a symbol of castration.

"The Grail becomes the -- what can we call it? -- that which is attained and realized by people who have lived their own lives. The Grail represents the fulfillment of
the highest spiritual potentialities of the human consciousness. The Grail King, for example, was a lovely young man, but he had not earned the position of Grail King. He rode forth from his castle with the war cry "Amor!" Well, that's proper for youth, but it doesn't belong to the guardianship of the Grail. And as he's riding forth, a Muslim, a pagan knight, comes out of the woods. They both level their lances at each other, and they drive at each other. The lance of the Grail King kills the pagan, but the pagan's lance castrates the Grail King. What that means is that the Christian separation of matter and spirit, of the dynamism of life and the realm of the spirit, of natural grace and supernatural grace, has really castrated nature. And the European mind, the European life, has been, as it were, emasculated by this separation. The true spirituality, which would have come from the union of matter and spirit, has been killed. And then what did the pagan represent? He was a person from the suburbs of Eden. He was regarded as a nature man, and on the head of his lance was written the word "Grail." That is to say, nature intends the Grail. Spiritual life is the bouquet, the perfume, the flowering and fulfillment of a human life, not a supernatural virtue imposed upon it. And so the impulses of nature are what give authenticity to life, not the rules coming from a supernatural authority -- that's the sense of the Grail." -- Joseph Campbell

Here one can see Campbell's critical eye towards Western theology. He proposes a union of matter and spirit, more along the lines of the Living Force philosophy, rather than a "supernatural authority" which is more in tuned with the Unifying Force. By the second trilogy Yoda becomes more in tune with the Living Force. Luke in the swamps of Dagobah has difficulty adapting to such an environment, so close to nature, away from his comfort of technology. His descent into the cave, into the belly of the whale, is made more threatening by the presence of the land and lizards. His castration by Vader who had been castrated himself symbolizes his separation of spirit from his body. By the time of ROTJ after he has castrated Vader himself, he sees Vader's robotic hand. He looks to his own hand and sees his own robotic hand. He sees the emperor laughing. He sees how the spirit has become more separated from the body, and how he is becoming a more mechanical being. He throws his lightsabre and becomes in tune with the union of body and soul.

 

True, but he also started writing Star Wars after suffering an injury to one of his legs IIRC. Things like that tend to force you think about balance, left and right. I think there's a bit of that in the limb-loss of heroes too.

 

About the Sith causing the Force to be unbalanced. If this is so the Force has been unbalanced for many 1000's of years and would again be unbalanced if another Jedi fell to the Dark Side. So it does beg the question why the Force waited so long to create Anakin.
It would be like knowing you have cancer and then waiting 70 years before seeing a doctor.

Also a chosen one whose only function is to kill people a) strikes me as being less interesting and b) not really fitting with a life-embracing Force.

My own take and yes I am aware of what Lucas says and all.
If Anakin is the chosen one and he does bring balance then the act that does that is his turning BACK from the dark side. Think about it, before Anakin, turning to the dark side was always a one-way street, once you turned, there was NO going back.
So how is that balance? You can turn one way but not the other.

So when Anakin DID turn back he opened a door BACK from the dark side. So in the future if there where other siths, they had the option to turn back and reject their evil ways, they need not all die. Redemption is now possible.

Regards
Nordom

 

We don't really know for certain that all Sith always unbalanced the Force in the same way that Palpatine does, and we don't know that a dark Jedi would necessarily have the same effect as a true Sith.

It is possible that Anakin was created by a Sith rather than by the Force acting alone.

That kind of makes Anakin into Jesus. It's a little bit too much IMO. Bringing balance to the Force does not necessarily equate to bringing any other kind of balance, including "the balance of turning to the dark side".

 

Yeah I agree with Arawn.

Firstly we don?t know how long the Sith have been causing imbalance. In my personal opinion I believed they always caused it through there existence. However at the same time I don?t believe Dark Jedi or even post-ROTJ Sith would have the same effect on the Force. It seems there is something about the Sith which makes them specifically cause imbalance.

Regarding the Chosen One, I believe the reason he was only created when he did was because the Sith got to the point where they got too much power. I believe the ?signal? was the Sith creation of Anakin which, in a way, created the Chosen One. It is kind of difficult to explain however my theory is that the Sith creation of Anakin ? as it was a ?pinnacle? of unbalancing acts ? was actually the moment where the Chosen One was created as a ?repulsion?. As if it is all interconnected. The Sith create Anakin however they are inadvertedly creating the Chosen One? kind of like a ?convulsion? of the Force in response. As I said it is difficult to explain.

In regards to the nature of the Chosen One? the Sith are unnatural. As such, if anything, he is acting for nature in the highest. After all destruction is an integral part of nature.

And Anakin bringing balance involved destroying the Sith. Lucas has confirmed this.

 

Several people in this thread have refered to the Sith as a "cancer" and how they use the Force causes an imbalance. So my question is, if this is indeed the case, the Force has not been balanced for as long as there have been sith around and it would be unbalanced again if another jedi fell to the dark side. The other question is why the Force, who has had this nasty Sith "Cancer" for millenias, only now decides to act. And according to Lucas there is no such thing as dark Jedi, Jedi and Siths, no inbetween.
Also it comes what "bring balance" mean. According to Obi-Wan and probably the rest of the Jedi, bring balance = kill all Sith. If this is so then since ther have been Sith around for a very long time then the Force have not been balanced for all that time.
And if new siths would arise, the unbalance would return.

Anakin is already pretty much made into Jesus by the PT, having no mortal father, having the greatest conc. of Midis ever and so on. Also Sith can be killed, we saw Obi-Wan kill a sith without being some kind of chosen one. So why would it require some special person to kill a Sith? A clone trooper could have brought balance by aiming a little differently in RotS. If Luke had played hide and seek a little longer then Lando would have brought balance. My point is that killing sith is not unique, others have done that. But what is unique to Anakin is that NOONE had been able to turn FROM the dark side before.
I just find it to be a more uplifting idea than Anakin essentially being a Force Terminator, created just to kill Siths.

Regards
Nordom

 

And Darth Vader himself, during conception, stumbles forward, struggling to gain his footing/balance, when he first breaks free of the operating table.

One recent thing I saw in Vader's armour is the concept of encrustation. Vader's hard shell is a visual manifestation of the hard dogma the individual of Anakin Skywalker has placed over himself, and practically been swallowed up by. Yet, ironically, it is that authoritarian rigidity that animates and sustains him, even as it consumes and controls him.

Well, just a few of my thoughts, tangential or otherwise.

 

Not nessisarily. We don?t know exactly what causes the Sith specifically to cause imbalance. We know it is their overexploitation of the Dark Side (causing it grow unnaturally) however we don?t know what overexploitation is needed to cause imbalance. That means it is unlikely a ?Dark Jedi? (like Asajj Ventress possibly) would cause imbalance. It is something the Sith specifically do.

Because the Sith got to an intolerable stage. A height of imbalance which caused the Force to convulse. Only when the Sith reached a certain stage of power (or were about to) did the Force ?move? to eliminate them.

Yes there are. George Lucas uses Asajj Ventress within his universe as well as Savage Opress (he uses the Dark Side I guess) and perhaps even the Nightsisters. The Sith are unique in how they are a cause of imbalance.

It is possible the Force has been out of balance for a long time... there is no consensus on that topic. However at the same time if new Sith arrived imbalance would not necessarily return. We don?t know specifically why the Sith cause imbalance whilst Dark Jedi and other ?Darksiders? don?t seem to be the same problem for the Jedi. It is possible only the pre-ROTJ ?true? Sith have the ?ability? to cause imbalance.

Something about the Chosen One makes him a unique case. Only his power can destroy both of the Sith. It is prophesised that is his fate. Why him specifically? Because he is the Chosen One. He has been chosen for the task. Anyone can theoretically bring balance... however only the Chosen One is destined to.

 

The idea is that "the Sith unbalance the Force" may not necessarily refer to all Sith ever, but may be specifically about the "present-day" Sith of the film era. Also, we do not know for certain that the Force itself "decided to act". It is possible that Darth Plagueis was the one who decided to act.

Jesus had the greatest concentration of midis ever? As Lucas has said, mythology is full of children fathered by the "gods", it isn't just Jesus. Anakin literally making redemption possible for the fallen would convert him into Jesus in a big way.

You mean by hitting Anakin? That would still leave Palpatine.

I think Palpatine would have been able to sense the danger in that scenario, just as he was able to sense danger in ROTS.

 

The Sith may be the cause of the imbalance to the Force but that doesn't necessarily preclude that their mere existence is a cause for this loss of harmony. In order to understand how the Sith interfere with the harmonious, symbiotic workings of the universe itself, one has to understand what it means to have harmony. The cancer analogy is just that, an analogy, but it is used because it remarkably mirrors the process that is occurring on a macro scale while defined in micro. It's quite amazing to think about all the processes that occur for a living creature to be. All the cells in your body have to work together in a fashion that allows each other to thrive, and in the end, for the greater organism to live. What is more important, one small individual cell, or the larger creature that is alive, sentient, thinking, breathing, dreaming? What if this individual cell were a living, thinking creature on its own? What would it think about its place within that greater creature? Do you think it would want to work with the other cells and allow the greater creature to be? How do we look upon the individual cells in our bodies? Do we think about them? Do we choose to take care of our body in a responsible fashion? Without our cells, our body and the harmony that exists between them, we would no longer be. There would be no thought, no dream, no love. There are those with who have suffered terminal brain injury and have lost their cognitive self, and yet their body lives on as well as the cells within. If these cells are no longer functioning for a thinking, sentient being, do they still have a purpose? Can we separate body from mind? Are we defined by our body, or is our mind, our consciousness something that is a completely separate entity?

Excerpt from the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell:

MOYERS: Scientists are beginning to talk quite openly about the Gaia principle.

CAMPBELL: There you are, the whole planet as an organism.

MOYERS: Mother Earth. Will new myths come from this image?

CAMPBELL: Well, something might. You can't predict what a myth is going to be any more than you can predict what you're going to dream tonight. Myths and dreams come from
the same place. They come from realizations of some kind that have then to find expression in symbolic form. And the only myth that is going to be worth thinking about in the immediate future is one that is talking about the planet, not the city, not these people, but the planet, and everybody on it. That's my main thought for what the future myth is going to be. And what it will have to deal with will be exactly what all myths have dealt with -- the maturation of the individual, from dependency through adulthood, through maturity, and then to the exit; and then how to relate to this society and how to relate this society to the world of nature and the cosmos. That's what the myths have all talked about, and what this one's got to talk about. But the society that it's got to talk about is the society of the planet. And until that gets going, you don't have anything.

Lucas certainly took it to heart and seemingly has shaped his "new myth" around this Gaia principle. Here we something similar, but

 

DP now we are on the same page

I have been saying for years that the ultimate act that pushed the scales of the Force towards an imbalance of darkness was the Sith creating life.

The most unnatural act.

How Star Wars that the very thing that someone tries to prevent ends up being caused by them

Anakin joins the Sith to prevent Padme dying and contributes to her death
The Sith use their power to create the ultimate Sith and bring about their own end

P.S. Contrast this with Luke who will prove the ultimate hero of the Saga - created through the love of Anakin and Padme

Other unnatural creations = Boba Fett and the Clones

 

Yes, there's no real evidence of an overall shift. The PT still seems consistent with the original intent.

 

I was refering to the opening battle when Griev's ship came under fire, if a clone trooper had aimed better, the ship would have blown up and Anakin, Dooku, Palpatine and Griev would all be dead. So would Obi-Wan unfortunantely.
With their leaders gone the seps would not know what to do, the republic would be minus it's chancellor but could probably manage. So the war over and all sith dead, balance restored.

I could be misremembering but I recall Lucas saying that the term "Dark Jedi" was an oxymoron and that there where only two kind of Force users, Jedi and Sith.
Also I think Lucas said that the Sith knights were created from fallen jedis.
So again if a jedi falls then you would have new siths.

Look at it this way, either a "divine" chosen one is created to do something that has been done many times before, kill a sith. Or this chosen one does something that has NEVER been done before, turn FROM the dark side.

Regards
Nordom