"A prophecy misread"

In ep 3 a conversation between Yoda, Obiwan and Mace occurs talking about whether they trust Anakin or not, or feel if he's ready.

First off, what exactly did the Prophecy say?

Something along the lines that "a Jedi born of the force would become the strongest Jedi ever and bring balance to the force" ?

Mace was already having doubts, even though Obiwan still had faith in Anakin.

Yoda then mentions "A prophecy misread"

If they had possibly misread this, shouldn't they have gone back to check??

However the prophecy couldn't have been misread since Anakin does kill the remaining Sith, both Palpatine and himself!

So was it ever really misread?

 

This is a good question. It really doesn't elaborate on this in the ROTS novelization. I've often wondered if by "misread" that maybe the balance they were talking about was pro Sith instead of Jedi. This is mere speculation on my part.

 

It depends on how you take 'misread', really.

There's obviously two points where Anakin could have killed Palpatine: In the office when Palpatine reveals himself as the Big Bad, and on the Death Star II when Palpatine is murdering his son. Option A is presumably what Yoda and Mace would expect to happen as that's the status quo they've gotten used to: No upheaval of the Jedi or the Republic; more or less a continuation of the norm.

Option B, which is a good deal more calamitous obviously, is what ultimately happened. Whether or not the destruction of the Jedi/Republic is a requirement to balance of the Force (I don't think it necessarily is, but that's really more than I want to type right now) is basically your own opinion.

 

The Prophecy apparently doesn't say the Chosen One has to be a Jedi, but the Jedi assume that's what it means. And it is their Prophecy, so it may as well say it. As I and others have said before, "balance" does not mean "equal numbers"... it means "harmony". The Sith throw the Force out of balance by using the dark side in aggressive, destructive, and self-serving ways. So destroying the Sith removes the element that does that to the Force.

Basically, it comes down to this: first, the Jedi were right when they thought Anakin was the Chosen One; then, they were wrong when they thought he wasn't the Chosen One after all. We see this first in the "misread" quotes, and again when Obi-Wan tells Anakin "you were the Chosen One". So either they think they were wrong all along ("misread") or that they were right initially but that he ceased to be the Chosen One somewhere along the way, presumably when he joined the dark side and became a Sith (it's understandable why the Jedi would think this). But it turns out that they were actually right the first time, and wrong when they thought it wasn't him... because he was the Chosen One all along, and it took Luke believing there was still good in him and pushing Anakin/Vader on the DSII to save Luke, kill Palpatine, and die in the process... thereby redeeming himself and fulfilling the Prophecy.

 

I'm inclined to think that the whole Prophecy of the Chosen One was something pretty ancient that had been passed down & had become inevitably distorted, & it's unlikely the Jedi had an original copy, if you like, of whatever it was taken from.

Unfortunately, there's zero elaboration on it anywhere, all we've got is Qui-Gon saying he believes Anakin is the Chosen One, then Mace replying, "You refer to the prophecy of the one who will bring balance to the Force". Every other mention is just a variation on that.

Considering that it was probably something that originated from a vague Force vision witnessed by an ancient Jedi, who would have put his or her own spin on it to begin with, it's not surprising that it could have been misinterpreted. I think when Yoda says it may have been misread, he's not referring to the literal act of reading from a text, but misinterpretation, such as when you might 'misread' a situation.

 

This is what I've always thought. The whole "balance" thing meant getting the Jedi and Sith down to the same number of individuals. End result: everyone dies but Yoda and Obi-Wan. The Jedi, being a bunch of knuckleheads, misinterpreted it as meaning "get rid of the Sith".

For this interpretation to work, Vader's destruction of Sidious at the end of RotJ would have had to have been separate from the prophecy.

 

IMHO I think one of the things that makes a prophecy a "prophecy" is the very fact that it's ancient, its origins lost in time and a lot of it distorted, omitted or misread over time. It's a bit like the old game "telegraph" where a message is whispered person to person until the original message is near unrecognizable.

Not to mention that some will accept the fragments as "pure truth" and others will scoff, while the vast majority are certainly unconvinced but willing to see if events play out.

From the Jedi perspective, they didn't buy into Qui-Gon's interpretation of what he'd read. They might have been right, only in this case, they weren't.

 

The prophecy is not misread. The chosen one brought balance to the Force...

What was misread, was the way that he would bring this balance...The prophecy would still be fulfilled, even if Anakin remained a Jedi and killed Palpatine in ROTS...That's what the Jedi thought...

 

The prophecy is not misread. The chosen one brought balance to the Force...

True, however Mace Windu was dead long before that happened so he wouldn't have know that now would he?

 

The Council was right and wrong at the same time. The prophecy came back to bite them, but they were correct in the long run. So, it kinda goes both ways.

 

At the time of the Prequels, no one, not even Yoda, knows what the prophecy truly means. All they know is that someone would be born due to huge abundance of midichlorians and since Anakin's was over 20,000 they- Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu, and Yoda, and the rest of the Jedi Council knew that Anakin had to be this chosen one. What they didn't know was that he would balance the Force as a Sith, not a Jedi. So, the prophecy wasn't misread. The Jedi didn't know or understand that Skywalker had to fall to the dark side in order to fulfill the propechy.

That said, if the Jedi had the foresight to look into the future to see what transpired on the second DeathStar above Endor, would Anakin still be trained as a Jedi?

 

Something really vague, no doubt.

 

But he didn't balance the Force as a Sith... Anakin returns from the dark side right before he kills Palpatine and saves Luke, being fatally wounded by Palpatine's Force lightning in the process. I see "the Return of the Jedi" as referring to Anakin primarily. And falling to the dark side first was not a requirement to Anakin fulfilling the prophecy... it happened, yes, but that was just him delaying the fulfillment of his own destiny by 20-odd years. He could have fulfilled it by killing Palpatine in ROTS, but he didn't.

 

QFT

Anakin coulda taken care of business in Palpatine's holding office by merely twitching his wrist. He had as the movie and novels show, Palpatine a 'whisker's breadth from the terminal curve' of his lightsaber, it didn't take more than a hard breath to skewer him and end it all, right then and there. Instead, he doubts himself when he sees the Sith Lord as the kindly old Uncle Figure that Palpatine had been cultivating as an image of himself for Anakin.

In the end, 14 years of Palpatine undermining Obi-Wan's training and teachings is what did the Jedi in. Had Obi-Wan done more to limit Skywalker from contacting Palpatine, who knows? I'll not add conjecture here, but likewise I'm not pinning everything on Kenobi, just making a statement.

 

Maybe Luke is the one who brings balance to the force as far as the films are concerned. He's the only Jedi who fought with anger, the only Jedi is seduced by the dark side, who felt it's power and still steps back and does the right thing. Maybe bringing balance to the force has more to do with being able to know both the dark side and light side of the force and have equal control over both.

 

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

The above link has pretty much what we're all talking about for info. While it said he would bring balance, it did not provide a road map for that, nor did it say how or when. Perhaps, if we are to take into account the continuity (the EU) it was through Anakin, and more specifically the later Skywalker line that would bring about the balance and just maybe, we're not there yet?

True, Luke took care of the Vader, Palpatine issue but looking at the whole of continuity, even after the Battle of Endor galatically speaking you can't swing a cat without hitting a rogue dark jedi wreaking death and havoc, pissed off Sith Spirits and now a whole Sith World and the Later Legacy Era Sith Empire which clearly a Skywalker is going to address. So while the scales have tipped to and fro, perhaps we're not at Balance just yet.

 

I may be wrong, but I thought I read somewhere that the prophecy goes like this:

"...and in a time of great despair, there will come a savior. And he will be known as the Son of the Suns."

If that IS right, I love that prophecy.

SO, technically this could refer to either Anakin OR Luke, both having lived on Tattooine...although Anakin was actually conceived by the Force and BORN there (as opposed to Luke who just was brought there). That is the reason I believe the prophecy was about Anakin.

Of course, the part I believe that may have been "misread," is exactly HOW the whole balance-bringing would come about. Obviously it was not the ideal situation (Anakin turning to the Darkside first and all,) but in the end it WAS fulfilled. I suppose one could argue that the prophecy pertained to both Anakin AND Luke-them being family, and both playing such an important part in the fulfilling of the prophecy.

 

That particular form of a "prophecy" is from the second and third script drafts of ANH. (It's the opening text of the film, in the spot where "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." was later placed.) Originally it referred to Luke Skywalker of Tatooine, who would ultimately overthrow the Empire, restore the Republic, and re-establish the Jedi Order.

At that point, Anakin wasn't part of the prophecy at all. (Heck, in the second draft, where the quote first shows up, Luke's father is a good guy and a leader of the Rebellion, as well as an entirely separate character from Darth Vader.)

As for that prophecy being reapplied later to Anakin--I don't think it was ever made actual PT canon. I could be wrong, though....

 

^ Does Lucas saying that Anakin was the Chosen One make it "canon" now? We don't necessarily have to agree with him (I personally do), but it seems that that would make the position canon.

 

I also remember hearing GL saying on more than one occasion that Anakin DID eventually fulfill the prophecy by killing Sidious.

 

Beautifully put.

Regarding the Son of Suns prophecy, that's something from earlier drafts & notes that sneaked through into a semi-canonical work (ANH novelisation), just as ducks & Luke Skywalker's dog did via Alan Dean Foster's artistic license. I think it might also appear in the 1979 Art Of Star Wars, as an introduction to the script.
For all intents & purposes, the prophecy is irrelevant to the Saga proper, although according to Wookieepedia, it's been jammed into the EU in another context, as have so many other tidbits from various early drafts, like Had Abbadon, the Starkiller & so on.

According to Wookieepedia, GL confirmed that Anakin is the Chosen One on the ROTS DVD commentary (there's also a Hyperspace link referenced). I don't have a problem with that, the prophecy of the Chosen One was something created for the PT, although the very notion of having a prophecy originated with the Son of Suns quote much earlier. It was just a concept GL decided to toy with again, the actual prophecies themselves are unrelated.

And no, it's a thoroughly debunked myth that someone chanting "The Son Of Suns!" can be heard during the celebrations at the end of the ROTJ SE, 1997 or 2004 version.

 

Yup.

 

One of the best in-film indications of what the propechy is about is yelled by Obi-Wan as Anakin lay burnt to a crisp on Malastare.

 

You mean Mustafar...

 

Yes. Mustafar