PT Did Sidious weaken the Jedi order’s connection to the Force?

it's nice that Lucas says these things

be nice if the movies did though,

because that's the whole point of seeing movies right?

to...you know explain stuff

because when most people think 'Balance' they think about what it usually means

 

I don't exactly know about that since way back in the OT times Lucas did mention stuff about future movies and how one movie or trilogy (when there was talk of 12) might go deeply into the workings and complexity of the Force.

 

Only if you take a simple reading of balance. What he says fits perfectly with the definition of balance.
And the movies did, they talked about someone bringing balance back to the force by ridding the corruption of the Sith. The films didn't say oh wow this is great, you found Maul a Sith?! Yes, now we have Sith and Jedi so it's all balanced.

 

not really,

I'm sure Hitler used the same 'definition' of balance too, when he pitched genocide.

 

We were told in the films by Yoda and Obi-Wan.

YODA: "Blind we are if creation of this Clone Army... we could not see."

MACE: "I think it is time we informed the Senate that our ability to use the Force has diminished."

YODA: "Only the Dark Lord of the Sith knows of our weakness. If informed the Senate is... multiply our adversaries will."


OBI-WAN: "Is he not to destroy the Sith and bring balance to the Force?"

There is the genocide of the Sith and the Ren.

 

ok, random quotes are random.

and this has been a head-scratcher for many over the years.

it could also be read as an incredibly biased viewpoint from one force sect to the next.

what if the Sith said the same 'the only way to bring balance is to destroy the light'

is that even a thing? the viewpoint of the Sith? etc

I have no doubt at all if that was what Lucas intended, then that is what he intended. He created the thing, he should know.

Just wasn't explained very well in the movies is all I'm saying.

random gifs are random

 

The origin of the prophecy is a mystery since Lucas himself never addressed it. But given that only the Sith are identified by the Jedi as the problem, which Serenity, the Daygoan and the Witches don't dispute, it looks to be valid. It is biased because of all the sects, they (the Sith) are the only ones who started a war to legitimately gain power and eliminate the opposition. Before their return, the other sects are able to coexist.The Sith reveal themselves and in twenty years, have committed mass genocide.

 

I think the movies provide enough information, if not too much. Because the prophecy is given way more attention than it should. It’s a vague prophecy, even the Jedi aren’t sure of its meaning, as they make clear in Episode 3.

The main point of it is that it foreshadows the end of the dark times, which we see happening in Episode 6. It gives a mythical context of Anakin Skywalker’s rise, fall, and redemption—an appropriate detail for a legend.

But what it’s about is precisely the end of the conflict we see in the movies. We see the Sith/Empire rise and plunge the galaxy into war and oppression. It’s their actions that create that conflict, and at the end of the saga we see the Jedi return and stop the Sith. The galaxy begins to heal.

That’s a complete story. Lucas wanted to explore that healing process further, to look at the difficulty of maintaining that balance as a new generation replaces the old one. The sequels explored that in their own way, though they were quite flawed in that respect.

 

Context means everything. Yoda's response to Obi-Wan, and I'm paraphrasing, Misread the prophecy could have been. Meaning no one know what the prophecy truly says, or what it's intent was.

Balance is balance. Like a seesaw, if you have too much one one side, it won't work. Has to be equal on both sides.

 

And Obi-Wan was responding to Mace’s dismissive, ‘So the prophecy says’.

It’s likely they knew Anakin was super special, but were starting to wonder for whom. The Jedi, or the Sith?

 

And I think Anakin was the physical manifestation of that balance in that he drew from both the light and dark sides. He was compassionate and caring about people, so much so that he was willing to use almost any means necessary to protect them. In TCW, he Force-choked Poggle to get him to spill the beans on how to fight the Geonosian brain worms to save Ahsoka, and he almost slaughtered Ventress when he was trying to clear Ahsoka's name. And he beat the crap out of Clovis because he believed that Padme was being deceived and manipulated (and because he was jealous that someone was flirting with his wife lol). So Anakin seemed like a balance between the Jedi's philosophy of detachment and asceticism and the Sith's lust for power and selfishness.

 

The dark side should never be used by any Force user. It is what leads to the imbalance.

 

So is balance defined as all light and no dark as opposed to a balance between light and dark? Or is the Force more just a neutral phenomenon and the Jedi and Sith just attribute these labels to certain uses of it.

 

The latter, but the Sith cause imbalance by blurring the lines of good and evil. The Jedi fight to maintain the balance. Good and evil still exist without the Sith. You find good in people like Padme, Jyn, Hera, Sabine, Jar Jar, Chewbacca, Poe, etc. Evil exists in Nute, Jabba, Wat, Cad, Tarkin, etc. In between you have Han, who is good, but was motivated by greed which is of the dark side. He changes during the OT, to become a selfless person. Din becomes attached to Grogu and this brings out the best in him. Andor was a good man who struggled with doing questionable things. Saw was a good man who was consumed by revenge.

 

This all makes me wonder:

Did Sidious and Vader believe they had brought balance to the Force after they destroyed the Jedi Order and turned the Republic into the Empire?

The prophecy is ambiguous, and although it is a Jedi prophecy, it’s likely the Sith did not ignore it. But what balance means to a Sith can be different from what it means to a Jedi.

The Sith are selfish, but they do seem to believe that they are better leaders, that their exercise of power leads to a better galaxy. So, did Sidious believe that his Empire was bringing balance by (in his view) enforcing peace and order throughout the galaxy?

By his own admission, though his comments are always suspect, the Sith gain understanding through power. Which sounds like it means that their way of operating is to get power first and then achieve greater understanding. Of course, it is likely a self-centered understanding, one that may inevitably lead to the conclusion that their strong hand is needed to maintain peace, even if, in truth, it’s that same exercise of power that is causing the destabilizing.

But, in their view, they’re pacifying the galaxy, which can only be truly ordered and balanced under the power of the Sith. They see their empire as a remedy to the chaos that came about from the corruption of the Republic and the weakness of the Jedi.

In other words, do they think the true natural balance of the Force is for the strong to dominate the weak?

 

"One of the issues in all of this is the bad guys think they’re good and Lord Sidious thinks he’s bringing peace to the galaxy because there is so much corruption and confusion and chaos going on. And now he’s going to be able to straighten everything out, which maybe true, but the price the galaxy is going to have to pay for it is way too much."

--George Lucas, ROTS DVD Commentary.

"Now he must confront his friend who wants to bring justice -just like him. So they both want to do the same thing. One is doing it out of strength and power and doing things he knows is wrong and the other one (Kenobi) is doing the inevitable things that he has to do, but he really doesn’t want to have to do which is get rid of his friend."

--George Lucas, ROTS DVD Commentary.

 

The Jedi Temple was built on an ancient Sith shrine, which also supposedly weakened their connection to the Force. Or at least muddied their clairvoyance (e.g. Yoda's "the Dark Side clouds everything", etc.). Sidious knew this, as had all the post-Bane Sith Lords. The Jedi knew of the shrine but apparently thought the Dark Side was capped or sealed.

 

the more I read about the Jedi, the more I think they are the dumbest protagonists in all of fiction.

Three stooges level of stupid.

 

I think they constructed the temple there for the express purpose of sealing the Dark Side; it explains that they did it in Tarkin but idk if there's a comic or book in the Old Republic era where it was originally mentioned why.

As for how they weren't aware it was impairing their own ability to use the Force, I don't know. It could be the shrine's power had only recently leaked out (sometime in the twilight years of the Republic, maybe bc of something Sidious or Plagueis did). I suppose it was like carbon monoxide poisoning.

 

they are obviously not aware of paranormal horror movies from planet Earth then

The Jedi do a lot of assuming

"we thought the Sith were extinct"

"we thought that building a temple on toxic force sludge wouldn't somehow come bck to bite us on the ass"

"we thought we could handle using clones from nowhere"

 

That's all of Star Wars though.

Why did the Empire double down on the DSII when the Rebels had just miraculously blown up their first one? Idk. Guess the Imps were stupid too.

 

thing is, the empire are the villains, we are supposed to laugh at their over-confidence and stupidity,

I don't think that was supposed to be the case with our Wizard guardians with glow sticks and wisdom

 

Most Jedi Temples were built over a nexus. They were aware of dark visions like the Dagobah tree cave. Coursacant, Lothal and Ach To were such locations.

 

I agree !

 

This is my theory, more than it being an active thing done by Sidious.
As the strength of the dark in the galaxy grows the Jedi’s strength and vision wanes.
Sidious’s actions pushing the force further out of balance may also be increasing the dark side shroud.