Didn't Qui Gon Jinn actually discover how to "cheat death"

Depending on your point of view, Qui Gon actually discovered "how to stop people from dying", didn't he?

Then Yoda learns this power and passes it on to Obi Wan, who actually uses it before Yoda after Vader waxes him.

Who's to say that this wasn't the death-defying secret that Darth Plageus learned as well? There is really no evidence of this ever occuring, is there?

Thoughts anyone?

 

this is not the same power as Sideous said Plagiues knew.The Sith never learned it, Palp's lied. the sith never can , because they lack compassion . QuiGon was the first to do so, he taught Yoda and ObiWan. The irony is Anakin sold out and the side he joined lied. and he is trapped .

 

Well, actually Obi, Yoda, Qui-Gon were dead; transformed in the force.

They found a way to contact the living through the force.

 

Who's to say that this wasn't the death-defying secret that Darth Plageus learned as well?
i think that story was designed to trick anakin. plageus might be real, but i don't think the story is.

 

Well, actually Obi, Yoda, Qui-Gon were dead; transformed in the force.

They found a way to contact the living through the force.

Not sure what your point is?. (living) Yoda learned it from (dead )Qui gon and he taught (living) ObiWan to learn the teaching in his exile on tatooine..we are talking about retaining your identity, right.

 

No, Qui-gon learned how to retain his identity, thus creating a true immortality. Unlike what the Sith want, the Force ghost is the only way to truly achieve immortality.

222 INT. POLIS MASSA-OBSERVATION DOME-NIGHT

On the isolated asteroid of Polis Massa, YODA meditates.

YODA: "Failed to stop the Sith Lord, I have. Still much to learn, there is ..."

QUI-GON: (V.O.) "Patience. You will have time. I did not. When I became one with the Force I made a great discovery. With my training, you will be able to merge with the Force at will. Your physical self will fade away, but you will still retain your consciousness. You will become more powerful than any Sith."

YODA: "Eternal consciousness."

QUI-GON: (V.O.) "The ability to defy oblivion can be achieved, but only for oneself. It was accomplished by a Shaman of the Whills. It is a state acquired through compassion, not greed."

YODA: ". . . to become one with the Force, and influence still have . . . A power greater than all, it is."

QUI-GON: (V.O.) "You will learn to let go of everything. No attachment, no thought of self. No physical self."

YODA: "A great Jedi Master, you have become, Qui-Gon Jinn. Your apprentice I gratefully become."

To achieve immortality, one must go against the Dark Side totally, before dying. Something that a Sith Lord like Darth Sidious can never do, because it stands against everything that he is. What Sidious tells Anakin is that Plaugeis supposedly learned how to maintain life for anyone who could die. But it's the physical life and not the metaphysical or spirital that the Jedi subscribe to.

 

He embraced death, He completly let go of his physical self and let the force take over. He didn't cling to life.

 

It's ironic, really. Anakin turns to the darkside so he could keep others from dying. But in doing so, he loses the chance to live eternally himself. Until he turns back, that is.

 

Well, seeing as how qui-gon got KILLED and DIED, shows that he didn't cheat death. He came back as a force ghost, not back in the flesh.

 

Yes, although not in the way the Sith wanted.

I think it's one of the great ironies of the story in ROTS. Anakin turns to selfishness to cheat death when the only way to truly do so is to act through selflessness. That Obi-Wan and Yoda discover it (and Anakin, ultimately) is the true reward to doing what's right.

EDIT: Although, technically, only Yoda and Obi-Wan truly discovered this secret while Qui-Gon never achieved their level of identity retention. Qui-Gon discovered it, but he himself was too late to do it.

 

As I understand it, the Sith' "cheating death" means prolonging life for a limited amount of time - which can be very valuable in emergency situations.

The Jedi concept of immortality means letting go of the body but retaining one's spirit.

As to irony: If you go with the novel, the Sith can stave off death only in others, whereas Jedi immortality cannot be accomplished for others, but only for oneself.

 

That's if Palpatine's not feeding Anakin a bunch of poodoo.

 

Jedi Immortality is in the afterlife.

Sith Immortality is extending the physical life.

(the new Databank entries confirm Plagueis and the story were real)

 

It seems a lot of people already understand the concept.

The "eternal conciousness" the Jedi understand is a power no Sith could have. The Sith just don't see power that way, thus blinding them to such an ability.

In ROTJ, when Luke throws down his light saber, refusing to finish Vader, is one of his most powerful moments; something the Emperor couldn't understand. The different understanding of the force between a Sith and a Jedi give different powers from it, powers that the opposing side could not understand. So I'm willing to bet what Qui Gon did, was not what Palpatine was thinking when he told Anakin about cheating death.

 

"Plageuis, the wise, was an adept of some of the most arcane and unnatural applications of the Force. As Sidious described, Plageuis had uncovered a path to immortality through the manipulation of the dark side of the Force. Plageuis could, it was said, coax the midi-chlorians present in all living cells to create life from nothingness."

That doesn't sound like confirmation to me. Whoever wrote that refused to confirm Plageuis' alleged power.

 

I do believe that the Sith' power to "prevent death", in the sense of prolonging life, is real.

I'm a teacher of Chinese Qigong meditation and healing techniques and I also have some background in Japanese Reiki, and this ability to prolong life reminds me of the way healing is exercised in these far eastern disciplines of healing.

I was under the impression that in the Mustafar scene Palps at least tried to use this knowledge to prevent death to extend Anakin's life until the med facilities arrived. The novelization also seems to suggest that ("Lord Vader, .... live ...."). Somehow it resembled eastern healing techniques like Reiki, which heal by enhancing life force. I got the idea that Palps was trying to use this ability from the novelization rather than the movie - it's stated there that he touched Anakin's forehead and concentrated on "Live, Lord Vader ... Live". This is just how these far Eastern healing techniques work.
Transferring life force through willpower and concentration. Considering how much research Lucas has done in far Eastern philosophy, martial arts, meditation techniques, and the like, the idea that this "staving off death in others" works similarly doesn't seem to far fetched for me.

I'd like to add that the Jedi Force ghost immortality that can be acquired through certain meditation techniques is a concept that can be found exactly the same way, including the vanishing dead body, in very high level Taoist exercises in so-called "inner alchemy".

 

Do force ghost have any powers other than to appear in front of someone and offering advice?

 

In a way, either Plageious or Sidious did discover the way to cheat death. Clones! in the EU, Palpy is resurrected into a clone body...his consciousness is able to transfer, and he picks up where he left off.

 

i sometimes wonder how much real danger sidious ever was in with anakin skywalker and then mace windu, even though sidious looked like he was in danger.

(ive got to get a real sig sometime)

 

Its not the same power Plagueis knew. The one plagueis knew just 'keeps people from dying'. The one QuiGonn Knew was obviously for force users

 

Perhaps this power that Qui Gon discovered was the actual power that DP claimed to have uncovered, or was at least close to achieving. After all, if he was as wise as Sidious said he was, then he could have been on to something.

Sidious doesn't know for sure what power this is, other than it will prevent death. Perhaps he assumed or was lead to believe by DP that this was the nature of the power. According to the EU stuff, this power is reserved for Jedi only, or something along those lines.

The ways of the Sith are deceitful. There is no proof that DP ever used this power or had this power to begin with. Sidious obviously wants this power for himself and believes that Anakin can help him figure it out.

Yeah I know its only a movie, but I do believe this power to stop death is nothing more than the ability to exist within the Force, hence never really "dying".

Qui Gon deserves the credit in my book.

 

So dead bodies can really vanish?

 

I think that the other dead Jedi could learn this too, cause during the clone wars, Ulic Qel Drooma was a spirit in the clone wars game as anakin went to him to ask for help on how to destroy the sepratists weapon.

I think GL might insert alot of jedi spirits in episode 6 re screaning in 2007, and we might see alot of spirits of jedi's joining the celebrations through out the galaxy like anakin obi-wan and yoda did, cause every Jedi can do what qui-gon did.

 

Qui Gon did learn to cheat death. Which is why the line in ANH when Ben says "If you strikeme down...." is so much more resonant now. All the time Anakin was seeking evil to learn the pwoer to transcend death, and hence "missed the boat." It is irony writ large.

 

I think the sith way of cheating death was the melding of machine and man to prolong/save life. It's never stated but I think it's implied.