Question about body size and power in the force

Been lurking in here for a while, and a question has been bugging me for some time....so please forgive a newbie if it seems simple.....

So - Since Darth Vader lost a good portion of what body he did have, GL now claims that his power with the force has diminished. Given that we now have a biological reason for the force (midichloreans), that makes sense.

But.....

Per TESB, Yoda, "Size matters not....." when dealing with the force.

Also, Yoda, easily the smallest Jedi, is widely regarded as the most powerful.

Also, should body mass partially determine a persons power with the force, why wouldn't the Jedi all "bulk up?" They all seem very skinny, and also, humanoid. Wouldn't a larger creature be more powerful in the force? Why are all the jedi small humans?

What am I missing here? It's been bugging me for some time now.

Thanks, and back to lurking for me!

 

Moving to SW Saga.

 

TPM has Obi-Wan talking of "concentration of midichlorians", so I take that to mean in relation to body mass. For example, Liam, the youngling, may be physically larger than Yoda, but his concentration may not be as high as Yoda's. When Vader's limbs are cut off suddenly, his number of midchlorians is instantly cut. Thus, the number left is "spread thinner" around what's left of his body. One may wonder, didn't the midicholorian concentration stay the same in the remaining cells? Perhaps not. Maybe the body compensates by re-distributing the midichlorians, thus resulting in diminished force power.

 

Reckless is he! This thread is dangerous and disturbing. Meditate on this I will after I finish my Pilates.

 

Another factor to take into consideration is that vader is in pain and agony early on, but his body does not function normally even years later. He is completely dependent on a machine for life. In many ways he's already dead and sort of clinging to what fragile life he has left. So, not only has a large portion of his connection to the force been lost through the midichlorians lost with each of his limbs, but what's left of him is in no real to impact the force much since so much effort is likely spent staying alive. I always kind of assumed that to some degree, anakin is perpetually using the force as a kind of life support system himself, possibly the reason why he is able to survive in such "good" condition when non-force user grievous is constantly hacking up a lung. The symbiosis that qui-gon spoke of has diminished for anakin for those reasons, thus he is not as strong with the force as he once was.

 

"Thus, the number left is "spread thinner" around what's left of his body."

How can midiclorians spread into robotic limbs?

(Tomkat364, I STRONGLY disagree with you.)

Just to give my 2 cents, I think it's logical that when Anakin loses his limbs he still has the same force power because the concentration of midiclorians is still the same. And as Obi-wan basically says in TPM, that's what counts. And plus the force is done with your mind so as long as you still have the same concentration of midiclorians in your body, you still have the same force power. And as you know when Anakin loses a limb even before that, he doesn't lose any force power. Same with Luke, in fact Luke gets stronger after he loses a limb (well, from practicing.)

That the way I see it.

 

So basically, is the whole midi thing introduced as an exuse as to why Vader in the suit never tries to usurp the Emperor? Because he's much weaker, but still badass as far as jedis go. Which is obviously a bad plot point as a few of you pointed out it's inconsistency.

 

That is incorrect. Midi-chlorians was a way for Lucas to explain why Force-sensitivity is inheritable.

The reason for Vader's relative lack of power is his loss of limbs combined with his need for a life support system. Using the Force demands much of his frail body. It's not all in the mind, you see. You do need to be in good physical(as well as mental and spiritual) condition in order to reach the full extent of your Force potential.



The Force is in the body, the mind and the spirit
/LM

 

"So basically, is the whole midi thing introduced as an exuse as to why Vader in the suit never tries to usurp the Emperor? Because he's much weaker, but still badass as far as jedis go. Which is obviously a bad plot point as a few of you pointed out it's inconsistency."

Yeah, that's the way I see it. Althought this is left for people to interpret, it seems that Vader needs Luke to overthrow the emporer. But as you said, it's inconsistent.

"That is incorrect."

I think it's correct.

"Midi-chlorians was a way for Lucas to explain why Force-sensitivity is inheritable.

The reason for Vader's relative lack of power is his loss of limbs combined with his need for a life support system. Using the Force demands much of his frail body. It's not all in the mind, you see. You do need to be in good physical(as well as mental and spiritual) condition in order to reach the full extent of your Force potential."

I disagree. As Yoda says, we are luminous beings, not our physical body. So you may have a weaker physical body, but that doesn't limit you while using the force. That's my interpretation. But it's not spelled out in the movies, it's left up to fans to interpret.

 

Well, I think it may have something to do with the way the Dark side treats its users.

Palpatine's skin condition seems almost cancerous. Over-growth of the skin. Perhaps the dark side does something TO YOUR CELLS.

THE CELLS, where the midi-chlorian count it taken. It's the amount of midi-chlorians PER CELL that determines connection to the Force.

 

As Yoda says, we are luminous beings, not our physical body.

Allow me to correct you. He says "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter."
I don't believe that what he says is that the body is useless. You need your body to live and to do things. The body is your physical self.
However, the core of you is in the spirit. Without the spirit, you don't exist. You do need the body, though, to be able to do things in the physical world. That's why Vader's physical Force power is severely diminished after the Mustafar incident.
I think that's obvious.



Sick have I become
Old and weak
/LM

 

"Allow me to correct you. He says "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter."
I don't believe that what he says is that the body is useless. You need your body to live and to do things. The body is your physical self.
However, the core of you is in the spirit. Without the spirit, you don't exist. You do need the body, though, to be able to do things in the physical world. That's why Vader's physical Force power is severely diminished after the Mustafar incident.
I think that's obvious."

Allow me to correct you. Yoda says that our ture self is a spirit. Not pysical things like skin and blood. The cells that have the midiclorians REPRESENT our real self. So the representation is partly robotic after Mustafar. It's not accurate, but it doesn't matter. The representation's not what counts.

 

You still need a fully functional physical representation of your true self in order to reach your full potential in the physical realm. In the long run, in the big picture, that doesn't matter, but I believe that's the reason for Vader's relative lack of power within the physical realm.
The Force is, after all, an energy field generated by all living things. It's a physical phenomenon just as much as it is a spiritual phenomenon. All the physical Force manipulation that we see in the movies, all the choking, pushing and levitating, support my view. None of that could've been done if the Force wasn't physical.



Body, mind, spirit
/LM

 

Anakin would have been able to do it if he hadn?t been debilitated and now he?s half machine and half man, so he?s lost a lot of the power of the Force, and he?s lost a lot of his ability to be more powerful then the Emperor. But Luke hasn?t. Luke is Vader?s hope. His motives at this point are purely evil. He simply wants to continue on what he was doing before which is get rid of the Emperor and make himself Emperor. He only sees his son as a mechanism for the ambition. His mad lust of power."

--George Lucas, TESB DVD Commentary.

Straight from lucas, the loss of "life" due to his injuries = his loss in force power.Thanks Darth Sinister for the quote.

 

"Luminous Beings we are,not this crude matter" - Yoda.

I always have and still do see this more as a reference to the Jedi Ghost ability(that Yoda we now know had spent the 20 years previous to his training Luke,perfecting.)

Luke is at this point very much looking for a way to defeat his enemy in a physical way, not seeing fully how he could be defeated in a spiritual way if he makes the wrong choices.

Luke saw skill with the lightsabre and a broad range of Jedi combat techniques as all he needed when in fact the true battle would be one of will,spirit and morals.(see ROTJ throne room duel).

Yoda having the full knowledge and perspective of the past to base his comments on compared to the young Skywalker who could barely see past defeating Vader.

Luke seemed to be oblivious to the Emperor and only thought of "avenging his Fathers' death" at that time.

That wasn't entirely his fault - he was operating on half-truth or "from a certain point of view" - see my sig.

Yoda was trying to impart some wisdom without giving away the game totally IMO.

 

I think people are missing an important point here. The reason Vader loses some of his ability probably comes from the difference in how the Jedi and Sith percieve things. Many people keep saying that Vader's body being ravaged having an effect on his abilty is a contradiction because of Yoda's line "luminous beings we are, not this crude matter". Look at it a little deeper. Why does he tell Luke this? Because of Luke's inability to move the ship. See, he also tells Luke to "unlearn what he has learned", because Luke can't move the ship since he percieves it as being to big for him to move, in other words, he percieves it in a physical sense. So it is with the Sith. They draw thier force strength from their physical self. Thus, if their physical self is damaged, based on what the Sith believe it will have an effect on their abiltity to use the force.
Now that is a technical explanation, but what people must also remember is that it is symbolic. The whole point of the suit was to symbolize Anakin's loss of humanity. His former self is dead and he is a fascelss shell of what he used to be. The why is, in my opinion, more important then the how.

 

With Vader having cyborg limbs severly limits his overall abilities. He can only move as fast as his cyborg limbs will allow, no superhuman force leaps, no lightning etc...

Vader is still really powerful being half cyborg, but not being completly organic stops him from being the powerhouse he could have been and stops him from doing the cool tricks he could have done if he didn't get slashed and burned.

 

[quote="So basically, is the whole midi thing introduced as an exuse as to why Vader in the suit never tries to usurp the Emperor? Because he's much weaker, but still badass as far as jedis go. Which is obviously a bad plot point as a few of you pointed out it's inconsistency." ][/quote]

Palpatine in AOTC told Anakin that he was the most talented JEDI he had ever seen. With the corruption that Anakin goes through, and the wile of Palpatine, he probably did not teach Vader everything he know.

With the Jedi all but whiped out in ROTS, Vader does not need to be better than a Sith Lord and a couple thousand Jedi. He only needs to be better than everyone, except, Palpatine. And the only time that would be challenged would be if they made it through an entire clone arm.

 

metal134, I think you nailed it. Sorry I didn't respond sooner, but better late than never, right?
It is indeed true that the approach of the Sith is vastly different from that of the Jedi. The Sith use the Force mainly to gain awesome physical power, while the main focus of the Jedi lies on gaining insight.
This also strengthens my point. Because Vader's focus lies on physical power, he is much weaker than he thought he would become. What he doesn't see is that he can still become extremely powerful in spirit. That's something Obi-Wan and Yoda will have to teach him after he has died.



And they do
/LM

 

sorry for resurecting the topic first
well I totally agre with you muul
force is an energy field and the bodies of force users are the connection to the phsyical world
it's not really contradicts with Yoda's saying
in order to use phsyical force powers you need living organism
vader can't use or block lightning because he doesn't have his arms
in the first draft of the script (Dooku Ani duel no Obi) Dooku Attacks Ani with lightning Puppy says Ani to cut Dooku's arms to prevent the lightning (so it doesn't have anything about frying circuits or also it doesn't mean that when he loses his arms his force power decreases with the midichlorians lost)
simply you must have original arms to perform the lightning

it can go to other uses you boost your jumping using the force it doesn't have anything to do with your leg muscles but you can't do that with artificial legs you can only jump as high as the mechanisms can..


Yoda simply says to Luke that he can achieve greater power than he belives using the force..
also after death in force spirit form jedi can not make physical contact they can not create sound or touch or be touched
they can only communicate through the force with force users
because they don't have their physical forms

 

Perhaps Vader was "using up" some of his force powers to constantly keep his body from deteriorating. Think of it as force-assisted life support... It's a thought.

 

"Anakin, as Skywalker, as a human being, was going to be extremely powerful, but he ended up losing his arms and a leg and became partly a robot. So a lot of his ability to use the Force, a lot of his powers, are curbed at this point, because, as a living form, there?s not that much of him left. So his ability to be twice as good as the Emperor disappeared, and now he?s maybe 20 percent less than the Emperor. So that isn?t what the Emperor had in mind. He wanted this really super guy, but that got derailed by Obi-Wan. So he finds that, with Luke, he can get a more primo version if he can turn Luke to the Dark Side. You?ll see, as this goes on, Luke is faced with the same issues and practically the same scenes that Anakin is faced with. Anakin says yes and Luke says no."

? George Lucas, ?Star Wars: The Last Battle?, 2005