CT Would it have been impressive if

Yoda, asked by Luke "Is the Dark Side stronger?", had replied "Yes ... " or "It can be ... "? Though he would also then emphasize that it was also costly and could and should be opposed nonetheless.

 

Impressive how?

I feel like, when looking at things in 1980, this was before it was decided that use of the dark side can give you a "temporary strength increase at the cost of damaging your body/spirit" anime power up, so from a Doylist perspective, I don't think the dark side was considered to be stronger from any perspective

However, even from Yoda's pov, if we do take that into account, I don't think he'd define it as true power if it's something that comes with such a cost. At least, it would seem out of character for him imo to say such a thing

As for whether it'd be "impressive"? Well, I suppose it might lend a bit of tension to things? In the sense of "Ooh, Luke is losing this fight, will he use the dark side to try to get stronger despite knowing the costs?" but again, that sounds very anime - though I acknowledge also that that basically is what happens in the climax of ROTJ lol

 

Ultimate victory goes to the Light side. Ergo, the dark side is not stronger.

 

The question is: What is power? What is strength? Yoda and Palpatine would not view these in the same light.

 

The point is to avoid encouraging Luke to use the dark side. If he tells him it is, that defeats the whole purpose of training him. Luke has has to understand the dangers of using negative emotions. Not to mention that Yoda knows it isn't more powerful. That's why he tells Dooku that had more to learn.

 

Behind the scenes Lucas has suggested the Dark Side *is* stronger/more powerful, that also can be the impression you can get from watching the film fights and I think it would have been impressive had Yoda been willing to admit that.

 

It's quicker and easier, I think that's how it can be perceived as "stronger".

Maybe it's like having two guns: one that shoots in super-speed, and one that shoots normal. The bullets are the same, but the speed makes one more impactful than the other.

 

"The key part of this scene ultimately is Anakin saying "I'm not going to let this happen again." We're cementing his determination to become the most powerful Jedi. The only way you can really do that is to go to the dark side because the dark side is more powerful. If you want the ultimate power you really have to go to the stronger side which is the dark side, but ultimately it would be your undoing. But it's that need for power and the need for power in order to satisfy your greed to keep things and to not let go of things and to allow the natural course of life to go on, which is that things come and go, and to be able to accept the changes that happen around you and not want to keep moments forever frozen in time."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"As evil begins to take over, it pushes the Force out of balance. It's easier to succumb to evil than it is to be a hero and try to work things through on the good side. Evil is inherently more powerful—it doesn't have the burden of worrying about other people. What Luke sees in Darth Vader at the end of ROTJ is something that I thought was worth understanding: the idea that Darth actually was a very good person. Except he's slightly more powerful than other people and when you get into that situation, your ability to do evil is much easier to come by."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

What Lucas is saying is that the dark side is stronger, but only because the Force user draws strength from their emotions and that feeds into their power. It's about throwing off the shackles of morality and embracing the darkness within. But a Jedi can grow stronger through knowledge and wisdom. When a Jedi let's go of all emotion and surrenders themselves to the Force, but exercises control, they can be stronger than the Sith.

If Luke thinks for one moment that the dark side is stronger, he'll use it. That is why Anakin did use it, more and more. The Sith encourage the dark side usage. Dooku's taunts were the equivalent of daring Anakin to use the dark side and Palpatine gave him permission to cut loose.

When Kanan fought the Grand Inquisitor the first time, he was no match because of his fears. But when he faces him for the final time, he surrenders to the Force like Obi-Wan and could defeat him.

 

this.

I have to roll my eyes at the inference "Yoda is lying to Luke so he doesn't use the darkside" stuff.
The more these types of posts are made about justifying ****** behavior from the Jedi, and good guys the more unlikeable they are.

It's possible just possible Yoda is telling the truth...at least from his POV that the darkside is not stronger.

 

No. It's more impressive the way it is, to say that evil is not stronger than good. Many people have a very hard time believing it, they have no faith in it, and it can be very hard to see it in real life. One of Lucas' goals was to inspire people during a very cynical era of moviemaking, a very cynical era in American history. He gave people something they desperately needed at the time, and I think his message is timeless.

 

Agree and agree

To expand on what I said before, I'm not refuting that it's established the dark side can grant wielders a "rage power up" like anime or something - in fact, if I recall right, I think it was the commentary or something in ROTS where Lucas outright gives 1-10 "power levels" to characters, and mentions that Anakin giving in to the dark side makes him stronger

But the main point is that a character like Yoda wouldn't see that as true strength - not at the cost of diminishing oneself, physically or spiritually

Hell, one argument you could make is Luke's true victory on the second Death Star. By giving in to the dark side, he was able to overpower Vader in combat. I don't think he'd have stood a chance if he tried to fight Palpatine, dark side or otherwise. But his real defeat of Palpatine came when he rejected the dark side (and physically fighting him altogether), and I wouldn't just call it a moral victory - as SW continues to show, good comes from good. I suppose it's just a good thing Anakin was still strong enough to lift him with one hand

 

That is why Yoda told Ezra that how a Jedi chooses to fight determines how they will win. Luke wins by not killing his father and letting go of his friends. And in the deleted scene where Yoda talks to Qui-Gon, he says becoming a ghost and passing on his knowledge is a far greater power than what the Sith do.

 

This is why I like that scene in AOTC between Dooku and Obi-wan. Dooku shoots Force lightning at Obi-wan, but despite him having this weird exotic power, Obi-wan simply absorbs it with his lightsaber. The dark side didn't confer him any advantage that he didn't have before.

 

Though it does raise the question of why neither he nor Yoda apparently ever told Luke "If the Emperor ever shoots Force lightning at you, just block it with your lightsaber."

 

Because they knew that the possible key to redeeming Vader was for Luke to not only become a Jedi, but that he had to make a sacrifice in order to motivate him to act.

 

So they decided to let Luke possibly be fried by the Emperor and leave him powerless to save himself so that in that specific scenario Anakin might save him? Anakin, about whom Obi-Wan specifically seems to deny the possibility of his redemption, and says "he's more machine now than man, twisted and evil"? I don't buy it.

I mean, I can understand the theory the maybe he's trying to get Luke to embrace his father via reverse psychology. But A) that doesn't seem like what Obi-Wan is doing on the face of it in the film, since he's the one urging Luke to be ready to kill "twisted and evil" Vader in the face of Luke's own doubts, and B) deliberately under-training your lone Jedi apprentice in what you know could be easily be a fatal manner, when sending him to face the most powerful Sith sorcerer you've ever seen, is such a reckless, desperate, and frankly unbelievable gamble that it would shame Obi-Wan as an unfit mentor far more than anything else he's done.

On the other hand, I can buy that instructing Luke how to defend against Force lightning might have slipped Obi-Wan and Yoda's minds, or might not have been a top priority. Maybe they thought Luke wouldn't rush away from Dagobah, or maybe they knew that it didn't help Yoda fight the Emperor in times past. It also fits the theme of knowledge being lost with the destruction of the Jedi Order. But deliberately sending Luke out to die from Palpatine's lightning unless Anakin saves him? That seems far-fetched even for the long-shot redemption of Anakin that Luke hopes for (and which, as I've mentioned, Obi-Wan tries to talk him out of).

 

Yoda probably did teach Luke that offscreen during Lightsaber practice. It’s not Yoda’s fault Luke threw his lightsaber away

 

No, they didn’t know that. And they weren’t expecting that, they expected Luke to die if he let his guard down. It’s Luke who decides not to fight the Emperor and to appeal to his father, not Yoda’s plan

 

GEORGE LUCAS: "There are already people sending me letters saying Jedi don’t take revenge; it’s not in their nature; it’s just not the way that they are. Also, obviously, a Jedi can’t kill for the sake of killing. The mission isn’t for Luke to go out and kill his father and get rid of him. The issue is, if he confronts his father again, he may, in defending himself, have to kill him, because his father will try to kill him. This is the state of affairs that Yoda should refer to. And then Luke says, 'I don’t think he’ll kill me because he could have killed me last time and he didn’t; I think there is good in him and I can’t kill him.'"

LAWRENCE KASDAN: "In a way, I do think it’s dangerous to tip it this early; it takes all the guts out of it."

LUCAS: "We don’t want it to be a tip off, but we do want it to be a setup."

KASDAN: "An oblique setup."

--ROTJ story meeting transcript, 1981.

PAUL DUNCAN: "Obi-Wan knows more than he lets on."

GEORGE LUCAS: "He knows that, eventually, Darth Vader is going to come looking for them. He knows this whole thing is going to blow up into a big war. He knows a confrontation is brewing between Luke and his father. Ben hopes Luke will either save his father or kill him, because whatever extra powers Luke’s got in his lineage, he is the one person that can probably fight his father and win."

--The "Star Wars Archives", 1977-1983.

"The part I am working on now is mostly about Darth Vader, who he is, where he came from, how he became Luke and Leia's father, what his relationship to Ben is. In Jedi, the film is really about the redemption of this fallen angel. Ben is the fitting good angel, and Vader is the bad angel who started off good. All these years Ben has been waiting for Luke to come of age so that he can become a Jedi and redeem his father. That's what Ben has been doing, but you don't know this in the first film."

--George Lucas, Star Wars-A New Hope: The Annotated Screenplays, 1997.

Once again, the Jedi want him to try and bring him back, but accept that he may have to kill him.

 

Sure but they didn’t avoid teaching him how to fight the Emperor so that he’d be forced to appeal to Vader

 

Luke was training to fight Vader, not Palpatine. It would take years for Luke to reach the level of power to defeat him. That is why they want Vader to turn.

 

Obi-wan and Vader didn't believe Vader could turn.

"If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny."

"I can't kill my own father."
"Then the emperor has already won."

 

I disagree. The former doesn't mean that you cannot turn back from the darkside, just that your destiny will be dominated by it. This actually applies to Anakin, as he did turn back, yet his fate was also dominated by the darkside.

The latter quote isn't about Obi-Wan telling Luke that he must kill his father, but that he must be prepared to do whatever is necessary. His answer is a counter to Luke taking an option off the table because he thinks he cannot do it. It's this mindset that leads to Obi-Wan's reply. He isn't saying that because killing Vader is the only option he sees.

I doubt that Obi-Wan was fully convinced that Anakin could be turned back again, his other statements kind of hint at him thinking it may be too late for that. But I don't think that he believed that it was impossible. He certainly didn't want Luke to entirely bank on such a possibility though, so regardless of what hey may have thought about it, telling Luke that he could turn him would have been a bad idea. Not to mention that - from an out of universe perspective - it would have been a dead give-away if Obi-Wan had said it was possible

Neither Yoda nor Obi-Wan told Luke to face Vader and the Emperor at the same time either. So it's not really their fault if that's what ends up happening.

 

They are not counting on Vader killing the Emperor. They want Luke to kill Vader and the Emperor. They never indicate a belief that Vader will turn back to the good side, and Luke never tells them he intends to try.

“Only a fully trained Jedi Knight, with the Force as his ally can conquer Vader and his Emperor”. - Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back.