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Lit The Prophecy in "Darth Plagueis" & TCW cartoon (SPOILERS)

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Brenapp, Nov 28, 2012.

  1. Brenapp

    Brenapp Jedi Padawan star 2

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    Nov 26, 2012
    Had the Sith since Bane's day been somehow "strangling" the light side, with the wrenching apart of Palpatine's soul and body in ROTJ breaking this stranglehold? But if so, why didn't he attempt to attack the light side again once he had a new body?
     
  2. Grey1

    Grey1 Host: 181st Imperial Discussion Group star 4 VIP

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    Nov 21, 2000
    It's called fable, or allegory. Some people like this kind of story. Seeing how SW is a fable with messages on how to behave right, I don't have a problem with Anakin having a fantastical adventure that tries to help drive some points of the prequels home, like that balance thing that was so confusing for so many people. Only downside is that it didn't work so good, being very codified/mysterious itself, and being taken too literal by EU.

    I have a pretty large theory on that, because the idea always made sense to me. In short, people like Sith manipulate nature to reach their goals. People like Jedi try to let nature flourish. When the Sith people manipulate too much, the life energy Force gets tainted by negative emotions/violent death etc; in the visible universe, eco systems go out of balance because your Death Star killed important insects, or made a lake go stale. In a way, it's not a closed system per se; life energy can be lost. Or even if it can't be lost, it's still manifesting in a way that makes life pretty crappy for a lot of life forms. Jedi want to help the Force achieve balance so you have no destructive eddies in the flow of energy.

    In a manner of speaking, Jedi would be acting like gardeners, then; not doing nothing, but removing elements that destroy the balance of the eco system, removing barriers from the river that is the flow of the Force.

    No, I never had a problem with the idea of a Balance of the Force.
     
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  3. FatSmel

    FatSmel Jedi Knight star 3

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    Sep 23, 2012
    There is nothing to resolve. There is no conflict and they are barely even related . . .
     
  4. Zeta1127

    Zeta1127 Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Sep 2, 2012
    I don't need a fable or allegory to understand the PT, and all I see is something akin to looking behind the curtain and discovering the truth about Oz, in a bad way.
     
  5. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Sep 29, 2005
    The Jedi emphasis on the balance of the Force is based around their knowledge that the Force is drunk off its ass, and needs their help to get home. The Sith desire the Force to become unbalanced, so that it can fall over in an alley and they can roll it for change.
     
  6. Dawud786

    Dawud786 Chosen One star 5

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    Dec 28, 2006
    I kind of see Spirit Palpatine as being like Sauron without the One Ring. Way less powerful, and no true anchor to the corporeal realm. Maybe if he had truly caused Luke to fall to the dark side the Balance could have been tipped again, much like had Sauron gotten the One Ring all would have been lost, but he didn't and that was his undoing. The Saga with DE taken into account sort of makes a Skywalker scion the equivalent of the One Ring. Haha.
     
  7. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

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    Jul 2, 2004
    Or worse.
     
  8. Dawud786

    Dawud786 Chosen One star 5

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    Dec 28, 2006
    Maybe it's not about what you need. Maybe it was for the 7 year olds. Or maybe it was because GL thought it might be cool to play with the idea of demi-god Force beings.
     
  9. Zeta1127

    Zeta1127 Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Sep 2, 2012
    I can't really just ignore it, though I do ignore it, because it is canon that screws with things that mean something to me.
     
  10. Dawud786

    Dawud786 Chosen One star 5

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    Dec 28, 2006
    I don't think it screws with anything, except having Troy Denning take it so literally. Which is beyond stupid, because it contradicts GL's statements on the matter. GL has yet to do anything with Mortis that screws with canon.
     
  11. HEDGESMFG

    HEDGESMFG Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Nov 20, 2010
    Having studied this issue fairly extensively, this is what I've taken from it...

    1. The dark side and the light side naturally existed together, with the jedi themselves helping to perpetuate the light. Plagueis describes their influence as enveloping the galaxy in a sort of light side force bubble, and in the minds of the jedi, this is the natural state of things. The points of light scattered throughout the galaxy shine on the darkness and keep it in check, like the stars.

    2. By performing the ritual, a shroud of darkness began to envelop the galaxy. One which influenced the force abilities of the jedi, at the very least "diminishing" their ability to sense and seek out dark side users, and perhaps even corrupting people in many more specific ways. Sidious and Plagueis were extremely powerful Sith. The dark side itself channels directly through their entire being. Their very existence was unnatural, and after years of meditation, they untipped the natural balance, and shifted the state of the force bubble, leading to the metaphorical clouded dark side shroud yoda often mentions in his vision, and eventually even to the clone wars and empire themselves. As long as the Sith live, their literal existence and influence itself corrupts balance.

    3. As a result, perhaps in a sort of ironic revenge, the galaxy twisted Plagueis' plans to birth a new life form and instead merged it into the most powerful force user the galaxy had known at that point, meant to be aligned (at the time) with the light side to eventually destroy the Sith and counter the imbalance.

    4. Previously, it was rumored that members of the Celestials were responsible for influencing the force and helping to maintain the balance. The exact nature of this relationship is unclear, like all things Celestial, but this was realized in the form of the Ones, now determined to be highly evolved celestials. We don't know how much the ones actually influence in the galactic scheme of things. The father himself keeps his children from going to war with each other, being the agent of balance. Perhaps if the children go to war, the galaxy itself falls into chaos? Who knows. Perhaps if one member dies, the other grows in strength to the point where the other aspect of the force ceases to exist entirely? And when both die, the galaxy's own force users are then left to determine its fate? I suspect that ultimately, the influence of the Son and Daughter probably determine just how much power individual force users may be able to possess, and how nature itself behaves, just like how one saw massive growth of life where the daughter resided, and death, storms, and chaos where the son presided. Without the avatars, jedi and sith fend for themselves, and since the dark side flows more easily (and since the daughter dies first), dark side users are the first to gain power until Anakin and his son turn the tide and defeat the corruption through their own great power. Also, performing the ritual probably greatly taxed the father's influence, perhaps, as some suggested, even leading directly to him "dying" at the start of Mortis. In the father's mind, Anakin, the chosen one, may have been the only one strong enough to counter this by taking his place, but even he himself did not know exactly how the prophesy would be fulfilled. Heck, even if the father was somehow the 'creator' of the prophesy, that doesn't mean he knew exactly what he meant when it was first passed down to the jedi (and maybe even the Sith if this somehow also influenced the Sithari).

    5. By killing Sidious when he was at his most powerful, and returning to the light side without a true apprentice, Vader/Anakin cut off the line of succession and the influence of the most powerful sith ever known was cut off. Yes, Palpatine was revived, but perhaps his clone bodies could not live long enough to perform a new ritual, even if they still had great potential for power. Just because you clone an individual in genetics and mind does not mean that their mark in the force remains the same in a new body. In short, whatever infleunce Palpatine's existence had was cut off when he died the first time, fulfilling the prophesy.

    That's my lengthy point by point take on all of this. Mortis is the oddball in everything, but if one goes by just the films? Luceno's Plagueis actually makes a whole lot of sense. Mortis itself adds an extra depth to things, but the ultimate result is the same.
     
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  12. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

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    Jul 2, 2004
    Denning's take on things ( I haven't actually read it, so I'm not certain ) seems to be a problem not just because of contradiction of Lucas. After all, as the Internet constantly reminds us, "Lucas changes his mind all the time":rolleyes: - and thus the operative theory would be that Lucas changed his mind about Anakin bringing balance. I'm not going to buy that until the hypothetical point when it's irrevocably set in stone, but there it is. However, the "Anakin didn't fulfill his destiny" angle also conflicts with the way the Mortis arc ended. It's not even consistent with the arc. It only seems to work if one squints in such a way that one sees Overlords but does not see Ghosts of Mortis.
     
  13. Dawud786

    Dawud786 Chosen One star 5

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    Dec 28, 2006
    Basically. The truth of the matter, IMO, is that Mortis itself and the Ones really only had something to do with the Balance of the Force symbolically. Now, that's not to say there wasn't necessarily something potentially game changing going on there. I believe that had the Son escaped the Tho Yor(yeah, that's what I think it was) it would have been devastating to the galaxy and tipped the Balance much further than the fall of the Chosen One to the dark side did. However, that doesn't mean those beings were doing anything to keep the Balance cosmically. Just that they were keeping their power from contributing to the problem. If anything they might be relevant to containing Abeloth and may have been instrumental in imprisoning her with Sinkhole Station... but I really don't think the Mortis arc makes the case that The Father, Son and Daughter are embodiments of the Force or keepers of the Balance on the cosmic scale.
     
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  14. HEDGESMFG

    HEDGESMFG Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Nov 20, 2010
    I agree that it's ambiguous enough that you can consider Mortis irrelevant to all but Abeloth if you choose to, though I wouldn't be surprised if there was at least some very, very subtle influence should the son or daughter manage to supremely overpower the other. Maybe they themselves influenced which degree "mortal" force users could use and grow their own personal power? Who knows. Even the father himself may have only assumed Anakin's destiny was to take his place when in fact it was something entirely different, perhaps the force even gave him a partial vision of him opposing the son and daughter and he assumed this was his destiny, when reality showed he "balanced" mortis in a far different way. Note that the father was also right, Anakin DID balance mortis in the end... by killing all the ones. Oops.

    Granted, I'd like to know whatever else about their nature George/Filoni decide to divulge in the show's future, and I wouldn't be shocked it it completely messes with Denning/Luceno's take on things. But whatever, I just want to see what they were thinking when they made this whole arc. How literally did George want us to take it? Irregardless of how the EU did?
     
  15. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

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    Sep 30, 2012
    Darth Plagueis never says that Mortis is literal. Rather, it says that some people think it's literal.
     
  16. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

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    Jul 2, 2004
    Technically, he only killed the Son, but I guess you could say that his coming led to their deaths.
     
  17. Zorrixor

    Zorrixor Chosen One star 6

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    Sep 8, 2004
    When you put it like that, that actually highlights an interesting metaphor, with a place named after death being about killing everyone to reset everything back to zero.

    Shame FOTJ had to go and take it all so literal. [face_sigh]
     
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  18. HEDGESMFG

    HEDGESMFG Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Nov 20, 2010
    I don't think Mortis being taken literally is entirely bad, I am only shocked that FoTJ took it so literally so 'soon' after the arc aired. While Denning DID consult with Filoni on this, we don't even know if TCW won't throw in more revelations on the nature of mortis before the show ends, revelations that could greatly contradict things in the long run.

    Still, even if mortis is taken literally, the true extent of the ones impact is entirely up to the viewer. Becoming light or dark side avatars as the son and daughter did may in fact have very little impact on galactic events in the long run. While I know many of you do not feel this way, I am very interested to see where this goes in future years. Assuming the ST doesn't render it all moot.
     
  19. Brenapp

    Brenapp Jedi Padawan star 2

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    Nov 26, 2012
    I take it you refer to the notion in FotJ that Anakin's destiny as the Chosen One was to take the Father's place in Mortis?
     
  20. Brenapp

    Brenapp Jedi Padawan star 2

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    Nov 26, 2012
    And may I ask, when do Plagueis and Sidious perform this ritual to boost the dark side? I only ask because in the PT, it seemed as though the prophecy of the Chosen One restoring balance had already been around and well known by the Jedi for quite a while before Anakin's discovery.
     
  21. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

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    Jul 2, 2004
    Around 42 BBY...
     
  22. FatSmel

    FatSmel Jedi Knight star 3

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    Sep 23, 2012
    They are 2 mostly unrelated things.
     
  23. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

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    Jul 2, 2004
    Other than in the suggestion that the creation of the Chosen One resulted from what Plagueis and Sidious did.
     
  24. Sable_Hart

    Sable_Hart Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Nov 28, 2009
    Honestly, Plagueis & Sidious tipping the balance of the Force through meditation is simultaneously the most powerful, if not destructive, expression of the Force in the mythos while also being completely ridiculous. It always seemed to me that the imbalance was a progressive thing, especially between TPM & AOTC.
     
  25. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

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    Jul 2, 2004
    Oh, I think it could still work that way, if we assume that Palpatine made his own efforts to further the imbalance during that period.
     
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