Outstanding Balance: The Chosen Ones

This has been bugging me for a few days. It sorta stems from the Was Anakin Really Necessary? thread, but imagined long before I ever read it.

We've all wrestled with whether or not Anakin actually brought balance to the Force, either directly or indirectly. That's not what I want to discuss here. I want to think about all the other hypothetical Chosen Ones. After all, Yoda's midichlorian count was the highest known (or at least legendarily high) until Anakin appeared on the scene. Would Yoda, at some point in his career, have been championed as a Chosen One? Was there a Chosen One even beyond him, whose actions will eventually (and by that I mean a looooong time) result in a balancing of the Force?

 

Yoda wouldn't be considered the Chosen One because he was presumably conceived by two members of his species not one member of his species and the midichlorians.

 

Many identify Luke Skywalker as the "chosen one".

 

I don't see what is the problem. There is only one Chosen One, and it is not Luke, or Yoda. It is Anakin. Besides that, I don't see how Luke or Yoda could be the Chosen One, seeing as Yoda dies before the Force is brought back into balance, and that Luke would have been toast if Vader had not stepped in, Luke is a major catalyst in the prophecy.

 

Luke's the catalyst. He's not the Chosen One.

As Qui-Gon points out, it's the possibility that Anakin was conceived by midichlorians that makes him a Chosen One candidate. All other Jedi before and after him have a mommy and daddy.

 

That makes me want to see some plant-like Jedi who everyone believes is the Chosen One before they realize asexual reproduction is just natural for that species.

 

As I mentioned in another thread, Anakin does fulfil prophecy from a legistical standpoint, but its highly debatable that he "saved" anyone other than Luke.

 

His status as a savior is certainly debatable, but from what we know of the Chosen One prophecy it never says he will be a savior. It simply says he will destroy the Sith and bring balance to the Force, which he did. He destroyed "Vader" by turning back to the good side and destroyed the Emperor by killing him.

 

It's Chosen One, not Chosen Dozen.

As others have said, it's Anakin's immaculate conception that signifies that he's something other than your normal Jedi candidate.

 

quigon taught us that balance comes when the jedi uses the force to enact the will of the force.

BUT the jedi had a sworn relationship with the senate - they were bound by law to enact the will of the people OVER the will of the force.
even when the will of the people was being corrupted by fear - the Jedi Order refused to follow the will of the force, as Quigon did.

the Jedi followed only the will of the people --> which was under the direct control of the Sith --> which means the Jedi were "using the force" to enact the Will of the Sith
((the ultimate "imbalance"))




THIS caused the Force to spawn the Chosen One to correct the problem.

the role of the chosen one was to wipe out every living force-user who was not listening to the will of the force.

--> the "Jedi Order" needed to be wiped out , in order to restore balance.

Yoda could not have done this. (kill younglings for example.) Neither could any of the Jedi Council.

indeed, they were part of the problem, and needed to be destroyed, along with everybody else.

-=======-

the imbalance in the entire saga came from the fact that the Jedi Order was bound by law to follow the Will of the People, via Democracy. even when it was driven by Fear. the jedi's relationship to the senate was the root of the imbalance in the force. as long as this symbiotic relationship existed at all, then the force would be out of balance BECUASE the Jedi were not free to follow the will of the force; they were bound by law to follow the will of the people OVER the will of the force.

they consciously ignored the will of the living force and instead they brazenly "USED" the force, against its will, to enact a third-party agenda.

and the "living force" was PISSED! so it spawned the chosen one, to correct the problem!

-========-

read this for a better explanation
http://boards.theforce.net/the_star_wars_saga/b10456/29545449/p1/?0
cheers!

 

Qui-Gon was sworn to the Senate as well. I mean, he's on a mission for the Supreme Chancellor for the first third of the movie.

 

quigon was willing to openly defy the council in order to do 'the right thing'.
he was awarded immortality for his efforts.

-==========-

again, read this for a better explanation:
http://boards.theforce.net/the_star_wars_saga/b10456/29545449/p1/?0
cheers!

 

I've read the post, I just disagree with the premise that the Jedi working with the Republic was a bad thing. Luke works with the rebellion in a similar capacity. The old Jedi are still define what's right and what's wrong as being connected to the the Light and Dark Sides of the Force respectively. They work with but aren't bound by the Council

It's also worth pointing out that the Jedi were willing to disobey the Senate as shown by the fact that they never told the Senate about their diminishing powers and the fact that they cooperated with the Chancellor in sending Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan on a secret mission to negotiate an end to the Trade Federation's blockade in the Phantom Menace. If they were essentially slaves to the Senate's will, they would have waited for the bureaucrats to decide what to do.

 

The Jedi working with the Senate wasn't a bad thing. If they weren't working with the Senate, they were essentially vigilantes. The Jedi blindly following the Senate was a bad thing.

 

I don't see any evidence that they ever did blindly follow the Senate. They defy it at least once in every film in the Prequel Trilogy.

 

It's the whole war thing, Master. I just can't get my head around why the Jedi would engage in a war like that, at such a strange and uncertain time.

The Sith reappear, after 1000 years of "extinction"
A boy appears who is claimed to be the Chosen One.
All this weirdness with clone armies, Syfo Dias etc.
The dark side clouds everything. The Jedi concede that their judgment is impaired.
Obiwan is told outright by Dooku that a Sith Lord is in control of the Senate.

Why, in these times, would the Jedi order sign up as Generals in a Republic army?

 

Because when Dooku pops up it gives the Jedi some rock of certainty. They recognize that he's a Sith and that's one thing that they know how to respond to and so they do what they've always done when the Sith try to take power, they fight to stop them. I've also thought for awhile that due to Dooku's advanced age, that at first, the Jedi thought he was Maul's master and that destroying him would have destroyed the Sith. Of course, over the course of the war they learn about Sidious and see that's not the case.

 

Maybe you're right, Master. It's just never sat well with me that between the time that Mace says that the Jedi aren't soldiers and can't fight a war and Yoda declaring that wars not make one great, the Jedi take on the titles of General and lead the Republic into a full-scale war at a time when by their own admission, their judgment has been clouded, and the strangest of circumstances are prevailing.

 

His status as a savior is certainly debatable, but from what we know of the Chosen One prophecy it never says he will be a savior

That's fair enough.

 

I'll argue that Luke killed/destroyed Vader when he saved Anakin. Anakin then killed the Emperor, destroying the last Sith and restoring balance.

Luke "destroying" Vader, the 2nd last Sith, doesn't violate Anakin as Chosen One anymore than Kenobi killing Maul did. In fact, it allows Anakin to fullfill his destiny by killing the only Sith left.

 

I think you're right that there's supposed to be that connection. Lucas does want the viewer to take away that the Jedi entering in the Clone Wars corrupted them, I just think that intent was undermined by making the Separatists clear villains.

True, but Luke couldn't destroy Vader without Anakin's help. Anakin did it, but Luke showed him the way.

 

That's not exactly true. All Luke had to do was strike down with his saber to kill Vader (physically). Sparing his life and showing true compassion, heroism, and idealism saved Anain's soul, and killed Vader spiritually. That was a function of Luke's actions.

 

Good point.

 

Also, while Anakin Skywalker's story shares some similarities with Jesus he clearly isn't concieved as a direct Star Wars correllary with the Christian theological notion of what it means to be "messiah."

Anakin Skywalker as Chosen One is a more universal take on the messianic figures of religions all over the globe. Jewish messiah, Christ, Muslim conception of Jesus as Messiah where he comes at the end of the world to slay the anti-Christ(or, more accurate to what this figure is called in Islam... the Imposter Messiah[Darth Sidious anyone?]) alongside the prophesied Mahdi that revives true religion and fills the world with justice(which Luke matches up to in some ways), the Saoshyant of Zoroastrianism, Hinduism's Kalki Avatar, Buddhism's Maitreya, etc.