Saga The Darkside and the Light

The_Phantom_Calamari

I think this image suits that idea slightly more;

 

I definitely see you're point on the parallels between how the Dark and Light sides if The Force are used in the narrative and the concept of Yin and Yang, and also why the Gray Jedi philosophy wouldn't fit into that. I guess what I was really trying to say is I would have liked to have the Gray Jedi idea be developed instead of how it is done in the films. The whole Yin and Yang dynamic is a bit...boring, in my opinion. It's too black and white (literally) and really limits where they can go with it. The Jedi's overly strict doctrines on their side of the coin lead to their demise, and the the equal opposite is true of the Sith & other darksiders. It's too predictable. This is why I liked the few instances (or concepts) of Gray Jedi better, as they were always more interesting to me. They have been portrayed a couple ways but I always liked the concept of not avoiding strong emotions like the plague as Jedi do, without the focus on negative emotions and murderous extremism of the Sith/Darksiders. Do you get what I'm trying to say? I'm not doubting that Lucas painted himself into a corner with the portrayal of The Force, and Gray Jedi couldn't really be inserted into the equation at this point....I just wish he had avoided that simplistic portrayal from the start. If he had, there would be a much wider range of possibilities available to them now, when it comes to Force Users. Possibilities that the EU used to capitalize on occasionally.

 

A healthy marriage is something a couple has to learn to build over time. And it's hard work. There is no instant ingredient for a "healthy" marriage. Anakin and Padme were bound to encounter problems in their marriage. If they had spent those three years always saying the right thing and doing the right thing for a "healthy" marriage, then it would have been unrealistic to me.

I don't think Lucas had painted himself into a corner with his portrayal of the Force. In fact, I believe he had portrayed two groups - the Jedi and the Sith - who had approached the Force in extreme (and wrong) ways. He was not saying that the Jedi and the Sith's extreme views on the Force were right.

 

From the TFA Novelization:

" First comes the day
Then comes the night.
After the darkness
Shines through the light.
The difference, they say,
Is only made right
By the resolving of gray
Through refined Jedi sight.
Journal of the Whills, 7:477"

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Journal_of_the_Whills

 

He actually took out very few of the Jedi, percentage-wise. But the larger point is that he wasn't required to. The Jedi may have been ineffectual in preventing catastrophe but they were not the ones unbalancing the Force.

 

This presumes that Lucas thought that he was painting himself in a corner. The only shade of gray in the films is in ROTS, where the Jedi are in conflict with Palpatine. Namely in doing things that go against the Code and the principles that the Jedi swore to uphold, in order to try and end the war. Everything from having Anakin spy on Palpatine right up to when Anakin pledges himself before Palpatine is based on the principle that Palpatine is showing Anakin that the Jedi are no different from the Sith. Especially during the duel between Mace and Palpatine. The Jedi are willing to go far to stop the war, but it is something that Anakin is bothered by given what he was taught for thirteen years.

For the most part they did. Where Anakin gets into trouble were the times when Padme was in danger and Anakin would start losing his cool, such as what happened with the Blue Shadow virus. Here in ROTS, the issue is more that Anakin focuses on the wrong problem, because he is so willing to hold on to her, that he will sell his soul to keep her. That is the part that is unnatural. Padme's weakness was letting herself become overwhelmed by negative feelings and emotions, losing herself in Anakin.

Actually, he was with regards to the Jedi.


"This is obviously a very pivotal scene for Anakin because this is reuniting with his mother and his youth and at the same time dealing with his inability to let go of his emotions and allow himself to accept the inevitable. The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that he can't hold onto things which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn't willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he'd have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn't have this particular connection as strong as it is and he'd have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them. But he has become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of. His fear of losing her turns to anger at losing her, which ultimately turns to revenge in wiping out the village. The scene with the Tusken Raiders is the first scene that ultimately takes him on the road to the dark side. I mean he's been prepping for this, but that's the one where he's sort of doing something that is completely inappropriate."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"The Jedi are trained to let go. They're trained from birth," he continues, "They're not supposed to form attachments. They can love people- in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith. But they can't form attachments. So what all these movies are about is: greed. Greed is a source of pain and suffering for everybody. And the ultimate state of greed is the desire to cheat death."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 213.

"It's about a good boy who was loving and had exceptional powers, but how that eventually corrupted him and how he confused possessive love with compassionate love. That happens in Episode II: Regardless of how his mother died, Jedis are not supposed to take vengeance. And that's why they say he was too old to be a Jedi, because he made his emotional connections. His undoing is that he loveth too much."

--George Lucas, Rolling Stone Magazine Interview; June 2005.

 

Is the idea of balance changing in SW?

view 1: destroy the sith.( "You were suppose to destroy the sith, not join them"-Obi-wan ROTS)
view 2: balance good and evil (mortis triliogy seems to support view, which I hate and is not part of personal canon)

I've read/seen conflicting things in material outside SW movies.

So which direction do you think Saga will take?

I hope it's not view 2. Evil doesn't not need to exist.

In the Saga movies 1-6 I don't see anything to support view 2. Is ST going to change this?
I really hope Disney won't put weight on Mortis trilogy and won't bring it into the Saga.

 

There is no change; these are essentially one and the same. Destroying the Sith restores balance to the Force because the Sith throw off the balance between good and evil.

 

Lucas once said that just the existence of Sith throws the force out of balance because they are like addicts. They become addicted to the negative emotions of the darkside and keep abusing it more and more, and keep throwing the force out of balance into the dark. The force is only in balance when the darkside isn't being used.

 

I really do doubt Palpatine has even the smallest spec of Light side within him. He was a symphony of darkness and even if feelings light side came to him, I imagine he would simply reject it or perhaps not even notice its presence amongst the dark side.

 

I would amend this to suggest that the dark side is always being used on some level, but that whatever the Sith have the potential to do is of a different magnitude.

 

That's some point of view, because others believe that the Jedi are evil, and there is no light or dark.

 

Lucas has the view that the force has light and dark sides, while some EU, writers have the view that the force is neutral that can be used for either good or bad. Personally I side with Lucas version of the force which is what is present in the films. When Anakin helped to destroy the Jedi he helped to further unbalance the force into darkness out of his free will and Palpatine ' s influence.

 

frankly they show the best aptitude for teaching critical thinking (something indoctrination rarely involves in any real way) and creativity better than any other blockbuster depictions of teaching. Maybe it isn't the best way, and maybe attachment is necessary to human growth, but I fail to see how averaging current parents would result better than Jedi if everyone had the force.

 

Even Sidious has a speck of goodness within him:



According to Ian McDiarmid, that's real compassion on Sidious's face right there. It's fleeting, and I wouldn't be surprised if this was the only time in his life that it ever surfaced, but it's there.

 

All I can say is: May 2017 is too far away!

 

When you say 'gray Jedi' and 'gray Jedi philosophy' what do you mean?

 

Those people would be wrong.

Basically that it is okay to be a bit selfish and angry, when using the Force. That it is okay to use lighting, so long as you do it in the service of good. That was first hinted at in "I, Jedi", when Luke and Corran Horn met a group of Force users that used the dark side, but for good. They both expressed doubt about it. Then during "New Jedi Order: Traitor", Jacen meets Vergere who was a Jedi who wound up living among the Yuzzhan Vong and while with them, she learned about the Potentum which viewed the Force as dark and light equally and used it to survive. She teaches Jacen to use it and he in turn is able to fight the Vong more evenly. He convinces Luke and the other Jedi to rely on it to win the war. But in "The Swarm War", after seeing what happened to his father when he turned, Luke decided that it was better to go back to the way the Jedi had used the Force before. But Jacen kept learning all there was to learn until he met Lumyia who revealed that Vergere had fallen to the dark side and tried to become a Sith, but Dooku and Sidious nearly killed her. This lead Jacen to start to use the dark side teachings of the Sith and become Darth Cadeus.

Lucas himself wasn't fond of the idea of that, which is why he never went that route in the films and would have continued if he had done the ST.

 

I always assumed Sidious had seen Anakin as a possession, I thought Sidious was genuinely caring at that moment in time. But caring for his 'possession', his tool for bringing him great power which has been broken.

But that fact you mentioned Ian McDiarmid himself said it, then I am in agreement. Is there any evidence of him saying this?

Thanks for the reply, it was greatly insightful.

 

That's not the specific instance I was thinking of with Jacen when I said Gray Jedi, more of someone who walks the line between Light and Dark. Neutral. I've already admitted it would not fit very well with the fierce dichotomy we get between Light and Dark in the films, where there really is no gray area. I wasn't referring to it being okay to be selfish and angry sometimes like with Jacen. More like someone without the strict dogmatic adherence to 'the code' that doesn't shy away from emotions like love, or things like excitement, or making emotional connections with others without all the selfish, hateful, sociopathic murder. Granted I'm basing this off non-canon stuff but the idea has been around for a while. Even you're choices in KOTOR along with love interests and the idea of 'neutrality' are the same basic concept. I'm just saying I like the idea, not that it's incredibly likely they will go there in the films. The 'corruption factor' of the Dark Side makes it impossible in the films. A perfectly reasonable positive feeling of falling in love? Nope! Next thing ya know you're chopping off innocent children's heads remorselessly. Not a lotta' walking the reasonable middle ground in the current canon. Kinda why I at least liked the idea of that father-son compassion being what brings Anakin back from the darkness, rather than emotional attachment being the sure-fire path to the Dark Side as the Jedi Code implies. ROTJ Luke is really the closest it really comes in the films.

 

Surely it's not the first time for him.

 

DaveyWanKenobi if your post above had your answer to my question on what you meant you say 'gray Jedi' and 'gray Jedi philosophy' so can I not follow it, can you try to explain it again?

 

I simply meant what I said. Someone who 'walks the line' between the Light and Dark Sides of the Force. I didn't mean like a specific philosophy like an equivelent of the Jedi Code or anything. But since you mention it, there are a lot of strictly fan-made 'Gray Jedi Codes' out there. Look on Wookieepedia or just google them if your interested. I saw one circulating Facebook just last week.

 

And what do you mean with "Someone who 'walks the line' between the Light and Dark Sides of the Force"?

 

As Lucas said, it isn't that falling in love is a bad thing. The problem is that a Jedi can become attached to people and a negative consequence is that they will make selfish choices over selfless ones. Anakin did what he did because he was afraid to be alone. He becomes good again because of the love for his son. When a Jedi lets go of their fears, anger and hate, they can find great strength in the Force. When he turned, he did so for selfish reasons and those reasons were motivated by fear and power. When he turns back, he is not motivated by those things anymore. He has finally found the balance in himself that Obi-wan said eluded him twenty five years ago.