ST The Force, the Chosen One, Balance, and the ST

I take from Obi-Wan's words that the balance was upset through this act. But I admit this is a matter of interpretation.

 

Could he have though? Palpatine's real identity was only revealed to him after he started dreaming of Padme's death in child birth. Up until that point I agree, he could have destroyed the threat but it just highlights how powerful Sidious was in his ability to influence even the strongest Jedis and cloud the order's vision until he knew he would win. Another point of view is that with the Sidious in control, much of the galaxy became 'bad'. We see planets being destroyed, wars, slavery and everything else associated with the Empire period. If we see the force as being like mother nature, that much anger and hate must tip it out of balance.

 

So, when the Jedi ruled the Galaxy, were there not people or beings doing bad things? Was every single sentient being in the GFFA only doing good deeds and living selfless lives? If so then the Jedi must've led a pretty uneventful existence for all those millennia? Only force sensitives who can tap in and use the Force have the ability to change its nature. That's the way I see it.

 

In TPM, the Jedi know that The Force is out of balance in spite of them thinking that the Sith are extinct. This implies that the Sith aren't the only ones capable of unbalancing The Force. I always assumed that the Jedi attributed the unbalancing of The Force to the corruption in the Republic.

 

Not once is it stated in the beginning half of the film that the Jedi fear the Force is out of balance. Or why they fear it has been thrown out of balance? Correct me if I'm wrong please.

 

Anakin could have taken out Palpatine, but doesn't because it requires a sacrifice of him. Because of his selfishness, everything goes wrong. So even as bad as things were in ROTS, they could still be salvageable.

The Jedi don't rule the galaxy. They work alongside the Republic to maintain peace. They formed a symbiant circle. They're not forcing their agenda on the galaxy, nor are they setting out to upset the balance of the Force. Not everyone was living sainted lives during the times of peace. There was good (The Jedi and the Planetary Defense Network) and there was evil (The Hutts and the Black Sun). There was even dark side Force users like the Nightsisters as there was the Bardotta, who weren't of the dark side. These sides balanced each other out for the longest time. Then the Sith came along and tried to rule the galaxy, managing to take much of it over before the Jedi defeated them. A thousand years later, the Sith upset that balance by blurring the lines between good and evil. Turning good into evil and evil into good. They conned the people into giving up freedoms for security, born out of people's fears and prejudices. By eliminating the source of that corruption, can the Republic be saved. The same way that you excise cancer cells in order to save the host. The galaxy and the Force are the host. The Jedi were the T-cells. The Sith are the cancer cells. Anakin is the cure that excises the cancer cells, putting the host in remission.

Yoda says that the dark side is hard to see, when Qui-gon states that the Sith are back, while Ki-Adi and Mace say that they would know that the Sith were back. In AOTC, Yoda says that their powers are dwindling and Mace suggests telling the Senate this, but Yoda cautions as the Sith know of their weakness and will find a way to exploit it. Then after the war begins, Yoda says that the shroud of the dark side has fallen.

 

Before Qui Gonn presents Anakin to the Jedi and says he is the Chosen One when is it stated by any Jedi they fear the Force is out of balance?

 

It isn't stated at all until Mace Windu mentions the prophecy. At that point, it's made clear that the idea seems to be something that both Qui-Gon and the Council know about, but it isn't mentioned prior to that point.

 

Isn't it considered a classic?

I thought one of the Conan fan complaints about the Arnie movie is the lack of Crom references - the riddle and a few By Croms and the woman sitting at it's side in Valhalla is pretty much it.

Yes, the deity is Conan's religion, but just how much does an audience get invested in such a concept. In the books, it is quite significant but there is is "debate" as to whether Crom is a being that actually exists or has ever existed.

However, whether it has or not is not important to the story. Only Conan needs to believe, if you follow me. In Star Wars, the audience needs to believe along with Luke. Therefore, the Force is given a "physical" presence in the movies. Conan's vision of the woman is not quite the same.

Yes, and that is fine to the point were only the characters need to "believe".

 

So, you continuously disrespect and mock another person’s opinion, and yet the only support you can offer your own point of view is that the idea is never brought up in the movies - never shown or discussed!!!

As you pointed out, the GFFA is a fictional place - therefore if something is not there, then it is not there.

There is no evidence - nothing said or shown - in the story that in any way states or implies the idea that the natural state of Force is an equal balance of “Light Side” and Dark Side.

However, there is evidence that the natural state of the Force is that the “Light Side” is dominant. The “Light” is stronger for “a thousand generations” and there isn’t a Chosen One born to restore balance until the Dark Side starts to get stronger. Therefore, the Force favours it’s ‘’Light Side” being dominant - it’s natural state - and hence why the Jedi, and the Sith, don’t say “Light Side and Dark Side, because the “Light Side” is just the Force.

”The Jedi and the Sith are representations of the two sides of the Force, without them we would not “see” the Force on screen - the dialogue is not sufficient to portray such an important element of the story. With Force users using the Force it would have no more relevance to the story that Boba Fett’s history of disintegrating his prey.

This is a discussion, so please don’t just respond with “Jedi’/Sith are not the Force” or “neither side is dominant” - actually give a counter argument. Don’t just repeat the same unsupported claims.

Because they don’t mean anything.

You still haven’t responded to

It is shown - as I gave evidence of in the rest of my post. Simply saying “it is” and “it isn’t” (which is what you are effectively doing) is not a valid counter argument.

This topic is the same as the first section in this post, so I think we should join them together as it unnecessary for us to be discussing it twice.

Again, just saying so isn’t sufficient. And this is the same point as the first section of this post.

But it is portrayed in that way - the “Light Side” represents good things (life and peace) and the Dark Side represents bad things (greed and selfishness).

Why have you overlooked the rest of the statement?

How is that “straw man”?

I asked you to explain the relevance of these “people” who do not appear in the story.

Try answering the question.

How so? A struggle of opposing forces does not automatically mean those forces are equal in size, strength, etc.

Can you please explain the reason why you editing my posts and have now moved on to to cutting parts out and pasting such extracts apart from the statement in I placed them, as you have with these two below (in green)?

It is very bizarre that you say that that I am “just repeating over and over” and that it “doesn't say anything about the sides of the Force”.

After all, you are the one who who refuses, again and again, to support your arguments about the Force with anything valid - just saying your opinion is not contradicted because the idea behind is never brought up at all is just not a valid counter argument.

The second paragraph is proof that you are simply not reading my posts. I never said the audience or myself didn’t understand - what I’m saying is that it doesn’t matter, it is gobbledygook, unless it is put into practice.

What is it about that that is so difficult to understand?

I didn’t make a “claim”, I stated a fact.

The “claim” was made by you :-

You presumed to know me, and when called on to support your presumption with some kind of evidence, you try to evade the fact that it was you in the first place.

Can you also explain why you have dropped the following points, which you initiated yourself :

- Taoism (continuing that would actually have been productive)
-that I was promoting EU elements at the same time as saying they don’t count
- the sexism accusation
- the importance of DVD chapter titles

There doesn't seem to be any evidence of the the imbalance or the Jedi being particularly concerned.

The first mention of the Force actually being out of balance mentioned seems to be in AotC in the scene between Yoda and Windu, that darth-sinister pointed out above.

Since this is the only mention of this in the movies, and TCW, is it possible that only the Council or a limited number of Jedi are affected or at least aware?

 

Yes. But only by those that understand its greatness. Conan is still unjustly underrated by the majority.

 

QUI-GON: "...my only conclusion can be that it was a Sith Lord."

MACE WINDU: "A Sith Lord?!?"

KI-ADI: "Impossible! The Sith have been extinct for a millenium."

MACE WINDU: "I do not believe they could have returned without us knowing."

YODA: "Hard to see, the dark side is."

MACE WINDU: "We will use all our resources here to unravel this mystery. We will discover the identity of your attacker. May the Force be with you."

In this part, Yoda discusses that the dark side is difficult to see. This is an acknowledgement that the Sith could be back without their knowing it.

YODA: "Master Qui-Gon more to say have you?"

QUI-GON: "With your permission, my Master. I have encountered a vergence in the Force."

YODA: "A vergence, you say?"

MACE WINDU: "Located around a person?"

QUI-GON: "A boy... his cells have the highest concentration of Midichlorians I have seen in a life form. It is possible he was conceived by the Midichlorians."

MACE WINDU: "You're referring to the prophecy of the one who will bring balance to the Force... you believe it's this boy??"

QUI-GON: "I don't presume..."

YODA: "But you do! Rrevealed your opinion is."

QUI-GON: "I request the boy be tested."

YODA: "Trained as a Jedi, you request for him?"

QUI-GON: "Finding him was the will of the Force... I have no doubt of that."

This is when they discuss Anakin and the balance.

I don't know who said that. That might have been about the Mamoa version, but that was a different story.

Seeing Valeria connects to the fact that Crom exists. People understood that Crom exists and that for Conan and his afterlife, he will have found the answer to the Riddle and thus will be rewarded in the afterlife. Likewise, seeing the Force beyond parlor tricks isn't necessary. Understanding the importance of the balance, that good and evil are back to where they were before the rise of the Sith is enough.

 

Wrong. For one thing, my position is supported by Lucas' statements, out-of-universe sources, TCW, AOTC, etc. But you know all these things because I've mentioned them several times in my posts, you're just ignoring them. But the point was that you alleged that an absence of explicit evidence for the yin-yang model somehow qualifies as "conflict" with the yin-yang model. This is impossible under the commonly accepted English language definition of the word "conflict". An absence of evidence by definition lacks the power to conflict with anything. To prove that the films conflict with the yin-yang model you would have to find something in the films - a thing, not an absence - which is inconsistent with the yin-yang model. But you can't do that, can you?

But "The Light is stronger for a thousand generations" isn't something from the films. The films never say any such thing, anywhere. That's just something you're claiming. How exactly do your own inventions qualify as evidence from the films?

Nope. In its natural state the Force has two sides. We know this from Lucas' own words, and unsurprisingly Lucas' films contain nothing which conflicts with those statements.

That makes no sense whatsoever. The Force is not the same thing as only one side of itself. A side of something is not the same as the totality of that thing. The term "light side" is the name used in the 1990s for what was called "the good side" in the 1980s. As an energy field generated by all life forms, representing the combined vibrations of all living things, the Force is not all "light" because those energies are not uniformly positive in nature. Life forms in general are no more uniformly good or "light" than they are uniformly evil or "dark".

You either accept what the films tell us about the Force or you do not, but throwing out dialogue that gets in your way isn't exactly indicative of a valid argument. Most people accept that the Force is not the same thing as the Jedi and Sith. Thus they cannot legitimately be treated as interchangeable.

Amusingly, it's answered right there in the post you quoted, but of course you ignored it: they have bearing on the relative good and evil of everyone in the SW galaxy. So I did answer the question, but as usual you're playing games.

And thus the Force as a whole can be characterized as neutral.

Wrong. The light side is never shown to be dominant at any point. You merely insist that it is. That's not the films "showing" something, it's you projecting your assumptions onto the films. This is akin to circular logic: the proposition is proved by your insistence that it was proved.

I think you're getting confused here. That quote isn't something I said, even though it has my name on it. It's your quote, as should have been painfully obvious to anyone following the discussion, because that's not my position. You now appear to be arguing with yourself.

If "evil always wants more", then that sounds like it could increase in strength relative to good. Thus, if good was dominant over evil at some point for whatever reason, and evil then increased in strength, then it could theoretically increase to the point where they were in balance.

You imply mutual exclusivity where none exists. You claimed that it was a fact, but it is not necessarily a fact just because you say it is.

So, if it is a "fact" that Lucas put your beliefs on screen, where and in what way did this occur? What trilogy are we talking about? Which films? What dialogue? What are the specifics? If you can't provide any specifics, what does that imply about the credibility of your claim?

You're getting us confused again. Given that Lucas created the Force, how are Lucas' statements about the Force not valid? How are the images used in Lucas' films not valid? How is the Clone Wars series not valid? And as you seem to admit, the Force is unbalanced toward the dark side in AOTC. The dark side is dominant despite the fact that thousands of Jedi are running around while there are only two Sith. How is this evidence against your "Jedi make the light side dominant" position not valid?

 

"The dark side of the force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be, unnatural." -- Palps

There it is. There is no "light side." There is just the force in its natural state, and the dark side which is unnatural and brings it out of balance.

Can we put that part of the argument to bed now?

 

The term "light side" does get used in TCW - in the Mortis Arc I think, and possibly others as well.

The fact that the dark side allows one access to abilities that some consider unnatural, does not mean it is unnatural itself. Or that "some" are right, for that matter.

"Anger, fear, aggression, the Dark Side are they". All three are "natural".

 

Prophecies and Midichlorians should all be forgotten.

 

I have a theory on the nature of the dark side that I think could be used for an ST-plot. This is it:

Many eons ago there was no dark side, only the force. While the universe had its conflicts, the force had none, it was whole and like many people perceive god, a great force that secretly influences everything. Some beings learned to harness the force and they were called the Jedi. But over time, a group of Jedi became selfish and power-hungry. The gifts of the force suddenly didn't suffice for them. And so they set out to change the force so that it gave them even more power. They staged a ritual - and were horribly victorious. The force split and now there suddenly was a dark side, corrupted and twisted, almost unrecognizable from the purity that was the force. The participating Jedi were transformed into the Sith, and forever cursed and bound to the dark side. Because regardless how much they thought to control the dark side, in truth it would control them and curse them to a life of greed and unhappyness. The remaining Jedi were horrified by the deeds of their former brothers and so a never-ending war began.

A war that could only be ended by reuniting the dark side with the force, mending the wound that was dealt by the first Sith. Only then would the Sith be stopped forever. Because as long as there is a dark side and force sensitives, there will always be Sith eventually.

 

As has been mentioned Darth_Sinister. The Jedi don't seem to be particularly bothered about the Force being out of balance. No Jedi ever states they fear the Force is out of balance. It only comes to light when Anakin appears and this prophecy then gets mentioned. None of them has sensed the Force doesn't quite feel right and something could be wrong? No, they were al totally oblivious to this imbalance until Qui Gonn speaks of his sudden confrontation with a being he doesn't even initially recognise as a Sith, and turns up with a kid who has a high count. Rubbish imo

 

The Jedi might have forgotten about what happened millennia ago. But you don't have to like my idea. I just wondered how they could create a finale ending for the saga. Because killing the Sith isn't enough as long as there is a Dark Side and force sensitives.

 

Interesting viewpoint. The way I see things is this. As we know, the force is an energy field created by all living things etc etc. It is a natural, neutral entity. It simply exists, say like magnetism. But it is there to be manipulated. If a conscience exists in a sentient being, as in their mind determines wether their actions are good or bad (determined by the general nature of the society they grow in and how that society has evolved to perceive such actions in its psyche) then they will utilise The Force as they so wish. The Force itself does not distinguish between a perception of what's good and what's bad. It just naturally reacts to the intentions of its user. The fact a 'dark' user can grow to become as equally powerful as a 'light' user indicates The Force has no bias. Obi Wan felt a great disturbance in the Force. The Emperor felt a great disturbance in the Force. That's why the whole balance thing just didn't make sense to me. *hope that makes sense*

 

Hmm, I wonder if the actions of ordinary people dictate which side of the force they 'empower' or whether it just flows into one massive pool kind of thing? If we take what Obi-Wan said about the force being created by all living things, then wouldn't it make sense that bad deeds flow into the dark-side of the force and good deeds flow into the light-side of the force. For example, whilst the galaxy is at peace there are just normal people going about their business doing good things and bad things. The force is in balance, the Jedi have their ability to look into the future and all is well. However, throw in an exceptionally strong user of the dark-side into the mix and things start to go bad. Trouble starts to be stirred up, wars start and generally evil/bad things of a greater magnitude are done. During these periods the dark-side grows stronger, the light-side starts to lose some of strength and this could explain the whole "We've lost our ability to see into the future" stuff.

Either that or the fact that only Luke was left to fight against two Sith Lords meant the force was out of balance because their dark-side mastery eclipsed the light-side mastery Luke had. We do not know exactly when the force was knocked out of balance, do we? It could be that after the Jedi were wiped out the force fell out of balance. Not because of sheer numbers, but because of the strength that each side possess.

Both theories would leave the door open to future force wielding bad guys, whilst also making sure that the actions of Anakin bringing balance to the force do not become irrelevant if someone else rose up.

If the force can be knocked out of balance because of the dark-side, why could it not be equally knocked out of balance because of the light-side unless we assume that the force being in balance means the light-side is the greater.

 

The unnatural is the use of the dark side to cheat death and create life, by mortal beings rather than the Force working through it's own power.

"It's not that they can't see the dark side coming, it's just that the dark side begins to envelop everything. It's like walking into a fog. The Jedi's ability to see lessens as the dark side grows."

--George Lucas.

"In The Phantom Menace one of the Jedi Council already knows the balance of the Force is starting to slip, and will slip further. It is obvious to this person that the Sith are going to destroy this balance."

--George Lucas, Time Magazine article, 2002

Yoda, who is the one who realizes this, vocalizes his feelings upon learning of the return of the Sith and the possibility that this boy could be the Chosen One, though he has grave doubts about that part. Prior to then, he doesn't really know what he is feeling and the Council is too arrogant and full of itself to consider the danger. Qui-gon doesn't suspect Maul is a Sith at first because the Sith were wiped out a thousand years ago and he didn't sense his presence, when he attacked. He only knew of the danger because A) he destroyed that Sith probe that had been following him as they were leaving town and B), Anakin yelled for Qui-gon to slow down which resulted in his turning in time to see Maul bearing down on them. He only makes the connection and the assumption, based on his having time to meditate on the issue en-route to Coruscant. Given that Qui-gon is aware of would be Jedi that are running around the galaxy and that there are other Force sensitives out there, an attack by a Sith Lord is the last thing on his mind.

Qui-gon: "Whoever he was, he was well trained in the Jedi Arts."

This means that he realizes that only someone trained like that, could possibly take him on and give him hell.

Except it might have if the Force created Anakin and not the Sith.

 

Ok, going with the balance thing. Exactly how long had Palpatine been practicing the Dark Arts? Plagueis was around when he took Palpatine as his apprentice so the Darkside was always there. Going by that notion, it was Plagueis that tipped the force into a state of imbalance. Or his master before him? Yoda said, 'hard to see the dark side is'. What, for all those years Yoda? Really?? Nothing was sensed AT ALL??? Mace Windu said, 'You refer to the one who is said to bring balance to the Force'. Hang on a minute Mace, just hang on. Do you feel the force is out of balance? If not, then why don't you say something? Something along the lines of, 'The Force doesn't feel out of balance Qui Gonn. Are you sensing something me and Yoda cannot? Turning up with this boy and proclaiming he is the Chosen One just doesn't make sense. What's going on?' Am I the only one who can see the logic in that?

 

Its Qui Gon who was very much in touch with the Living Force though. After all, he is the first Jedi to be able to ghost, no? Maybe that's why he could sense what the other Masters could not.

 

I think it's to do with how arrogant the Jedi had become. The Sith had disappeared for millennia and the Jedi must just assumed they were wiped out and thus they had no reasons to conduct searches for the Sith. They obviously knew this and operated in ways which wouldn't draw needless attention to themselves. The Jedi had become so complacent that they didn't even realise the Sith had returned until it was too late.