Saga Does Everyone Become A Force Ghost?

What the...?! Why are you making (or should I say, keep making) stuff up? Qui-Gon didn't seek immortality. One needs to be selfless and die in order to retain one's identity in the Force.

 

QUI-GON: "There is always hope, my friend, though it often comes in forms not looked for. The key is knowing how to see it and seizing that opportunity. I have been tasked with guiding you forward. There can be many outcomes, but your path is clear, Yoda. You have been chosen, as I was before you."

YODA: "For what chosen, am I?"

QUI-GON: "You will learn to preserve your life force, and so, manifest a consciousness which will allow you to commune with the living after death."

YODA: "How?"

QUI-GON: "Dark times are ahead, and forces of light must remain. This is the path of only a few Jedi."

 

I'm not making anything up that you guys haven't. If Qui Gon lucked into this power then it leaves the possibility for practically anyone to return as a force ghost. If he was teaching himself what turned our to be virtual immortality then it throws up the question of how Anakin became one.

If Anakin's is an example of selfless life followed by "death" then it almost guarantees that just about anyone can become one. Parental instinct to protect a child or even sacrifice oneself for theirchild's sake is not particular to a Jedi (and not what you'd categorise as compassion.) It would seem to be a rather ordinary and cheap way for someone who's career has been defined, by some, as selfish and greedy self-empowerment up till that point, to achieve such a great power.

Also. The fact that Yoda and Ben needed Qui Gon to teach them this power before they died suggests that they had not been living selflessly up till then.

 

I think in that context, "Cheat death" means "stop someone's body from dying."

 

No, it doesn't. It requires training and meeting certain requirements.

Anakin's selfless sacrifice made him able to retain his identity after death, but it still required the help of Yoda and Obi-Wan since Anakin never learned how to do it.

That Luke is Anakin's son is incidental to his sacrifice and selflessness.

?!

No it doesn't. Selflessness is a requirement, not the technique.

 

[/quote]

So if it was just a random person being lightninged to death by his Master, not even a Jedi, Vader would have suddenly disavowed his blind faith in the power of the darkside and would have sacrificed himself purely for their's and the galaxy's sake?

You're just going to have to accept the irony that parental instinct to save a son's life prompted Vader's actions. Not a sudden change of philosophy from selfishness to selflessness. He was not selfless enough moments earlier to try and prevent the torture that Luke was experiencing.

It doesn't chime unambiguously with the code of having no attachments which influence your decisions or ability to manage one's emotions. But that's what makes it interesting. Not disingenuously dismissing it so that you can simply call it Vader suddenly learning that compassion for everyone is the way to go and, handily, his son's imminent death gave him an immediate opportunity to express this newfound faith in.

?!

Also. The fact that Yoda and Ben needed Qui Gon to teach them this power before they died suggests that they had not been living selflessly up till then.[/quote]

No it doesn't. Selflessness is a requirement, not the technique.[/quote]

Who said anything about the technique? This selflessness is nominated, explicitly, in relation to achieving the power Qui Gon discovered or had bestowed on him. Why should Yoda and Obi Wan need reminding of this condition if they hadn't been living selflessly? Weren't all Jedi assumed to be selfless anyway?


Constanty trying to make out that one's actions are determined purely by selfless service in the interest of society, is often the sign of a tyrant. It's a nice idea, which the Jedi are very good at, but impossible in practice.

 

If said person did the same things Luke did, yes.

I don't, because that's not what happened.

Which disproves your argument entirely. In the end, he made a selfless act through compassion and gave up his life doing so. And as such, he met the requirements.

Because it wasn't attachment and emotional reaction. It was compassion. Unconditional love. The Jedi way.

I dismissed nothing. You are the one

Jedi are selfless. Who said they were reminded? Qui-Gon simply explained what's needed. It's exposition, ever heard of that?

What?!?! Where does that even come from? Tyrants are the opposite of selfless.

Says who? The Jedi prove otherwise.

 

What things? Like ask Vader to prove that he's the good father that his son thinks he is because he knows he cannot not kill his own son? Refuse to kill his own father?

I'm not even going to argue this point any more. The strength of the father/son connection being the catalyst for Luke's ascension to Jedi and Vader's turn away from the dark side has been established as the specific motivation for over thirty years now.

Motivated by paternal love and instinct, which are not the altruistic compassion that you are alluding to. The jedi code is designed to pre-empt such motives being given undue prominence over selfless s

Because it wasn't attachment and emotional reaction. It was compassion. Unconditional love. The Jedi way.

"I don't, because that's not what happened." "That Luke is Anakin's son is incidental to his sacrifice and selflessness."

That's right, you did not dismiss the parental attachment between a father and a son in any way.

It's extremely poor exposition, if it is simply exposition, to have to state the obvious about selflessness to a Jedi for the audience's benefit. And if it goes without saying (except for the audience) then it does mean that any devout Jedi already has the requirements. And also anyone else who happens to be selfless but isn't a Jedi.

That doesn't prevent them from making out that their actions are selfless. You seem to think I'm actually making a case for tyrants actually being selfless because they say so. The point is that saying so doesn't make it so, whomever you are. As selfless as the Jedi are or aspire to be, their notions of what that includes are as open to subjectivity as anyone when justifying their motives and actions.

[/quote]

How exactly have they proved that their actions and achievements live up flawlessly to the ideals of selfless service?

Vader's motives before and after he destroys Sidious are exactly the same. He wants his son to live. It's his strategy and his faith in the dark side that changes.

The idea that in the instant he's had enough of watching Luke be tortured he has actually had an epiphany about compassion for all the people in the galaxy which prevents him from allowing his Master to kill his son - is completely and utterly absurd. It means that Vader was anguished about his son's pain but unmoved to take action until compassion for all others kicked in an justified stepping in to save this person.

It also makes a mockery of the reasoning for ROTS Anakin's appearance as a force ghost in ROTJ. That Anakin was, I am constantly told, a selfish, greedy possessive Jedi in secret relationship and seeking the power over their pre-cognised violent death rather than preforming only selfless acts of compassion. It is the Vader that kills the Emperor, that "in the end" satisfies the requirements

 

I don't know if everyone becomes a Force ghost, but I certainly will!

 

Let's put that to the test, shall we?

 

Anakin joining the Sith to find a way to stop Padme from dying and in doing so going against everything she stood for just because he saw a potential future in a vision and misinterpreted it. Anakin had a good heart, the means were less so. The Sith cling to life because they know there's nothing after death for them, only oblivion. When Vader put someone else's life before his own, that is compassion not attachment. Though Anakin's case has probably more to do with him being the Chosen One and receiving help from the other side.

 

Anakin was willing to do what he knew was wrong to save Padme because he couldn't let go of his attachments. Anakin realized he had to do what was right to stop Palpatine, regardless of his attachments - especially his attachment to his own life.

 

*Backs away slowly while maintaining eye contact, then spins around and runs like crazy*

 

Vader was not willing to allow the Emperor to destroy Luke, who refused to turn in order to destroy the Emperor, because of their attachment to each other, not to (very) belatedly recognise what had been the right thing to do all those years ago.

The reason for Luke not turning was his inability to hate his father. And that hate was what Vader clung to for power. Anakin himself turned because he became seduced by the promise that hating one's enemies empowered one. The unwillingness of the Jedi to use this power and the prohibition of this power (along with the awkward situation of having helped kill Mace in a fit of piqued desperation) lead Anakin to agree that the Jedi were his and the galaxy's enemies too, and that he must hate them to overcome them. It was finally letting go of this notion completely that empowered Vader to defy his Master.

It is not simply a case of his relationship to Padme motivating him to do things he knows are wrong, like murdering children. That's a person that is fundamentally dysfunctional and should have been recognised and denied Jedi training way before it became an issue.

 

Uhm, okay...

 

The good man, not the good father.

No, Luke's idealized version of his father is what made him decide to become a Jedi, but once he is a Jedi, his selflessness and compassion is for everyone, not his father alone.

?! The fact is that Anakin made a selfless act out of compassion. That's something that's not up to debate. It wasn't attachment, nor instinct. It was compassion.

It's not attachment. Luke wasn't attached to Vader, that's why he was able to let go. And Vader was not attached to Luke either, that's why he was able to let go too.

The obvious? Since when were the requirements to retain one's identity after death made obvious, ever? Please, provide evidence. I'll wait.

No, it doesn't go without saying because the characters don't know what's needed. Wether they already fulfill some of the requirements it's irrelevant. One needs to know what's required and what isn't.

And yes, anyone who completes the training and is truly selfless can do it. Wether they are meant to do it or not is the question.

There's no making up. There's no cheating. You either are selfless or you aren't.

Wrong. Selflessness is not open to subjectivity. Again, you either are or aren't. There's no 'saying so' or 'pretending to be so'.

Because that's how they've been for thousands of years.

Yes, to live in the dark side. How kind and selfless of him.

If you ignore the fact that there's conflict within him throughout the movies, sure. But that's on you.

Luke's actions restored the compassion in Anakin and in turn he acted compassionately towards Luke. Compassion is compassion.

Newsflash: they are one and the same. His appearance reflect the Jedi that he once was before he fell, and not the charred cyborg that he became.

 

"You either are selfless or you aren't."

Good grief. No wonder.

 

He didn't do it out of attachment. He did it out of compassion. He thought of Luke, rather than himself. His attachment was to himself, to the dark side and to Palpatine. By give those three things up, he finally became a Jedi and was able to retain his identity, with the help of his Master.

He didn't seek it out. He was chosen. In the old EU, he did seek it out, but Lucas was never bound by it which is why when season six came around, Lucas put his stamp on the origin of Force ghosts.

Yes, if he chooses to save someone because it is the right thing to do and chooses to reject the dark side, then yes, he can become one with the Force upon his death if he is helped by Yoda and Obi-wan.

Doesn't matter how long it takes, just that he does it. He's struggling the whole time between the light and the dark, as Luke senses. He just finally summoned up the courage to act.

As Lucas stated, being a parent should bring out the best in you. Meaning that you should stop thinking of yourself and your desires and think of those of your children. Lucas chose to stop making "Star Wars" films in the 80's, because he wanted to spend more time with his daughter, which he couldn't do as well when he was making ROTJ. So he spent his time raising his first daughter, then his second. Then he adopted his son. He put their needs ahead of his own and when he felt that he could achieve a balance, he went back to work.

Vader is faced with a similar, though different choice. He can either choose to be selfish and stay on the dark side, with his son twisted and evil as he is, or he can choose to give up his quest for greater power and join his son in the light. He didn't do it just because of parental instinct, but because it was the right thing to do. Parental instinct is something you either have or don't have. My father did not have it, which is why he behaved the way that he did when he was married to my mother and why he never fought for custody, when they divorced. He's chosen to be more selfish than selfless. My mother, on the other hand, had a strong parental instinct, which is why she raised us. My stepfather had to learn to be more selfless when it came to be part of our family and developed a parental instinct as he went along. He had no children of his own before us.

SERENITY: "At death, in order for you to preserve your identity, you must know yourself, your true self, and then let go."

What Serenity meant is that when you face death, you must know who you really are, in order to transcend. That means that you must look inside of yourself and see who you truly are as a person. Will you accept that death when it comes? Do you have fear in your heart as you are dying? Anger? Hate? A sense of self. All of these things must be let go of, in order to retain your identity. Qui-gon shuts down his Lightsaber, gets down on one knee and begins to meditate, purging himself of his negative emotions before resuming the fight. Obi-wan sees Luke, smiles and then raises his saber up in a salute, as he closes his eyes and prepares to become one with the Force. When Anakin dies, he has accepted that he is a good man after all. He no longer cares about power. He is no longer afraid of death and accepts whatever may come next.

YODA: "Try not. Do or do not, there is no try."

You cannot just pretend to be one or the other.

 

Facts are facts. You don't get to trick the Force by faking selflessness.

 

That'd be too darned funny if you could. Then what would happen if the Force finds out later, lol!

 

Yes, because the Force can prevent a user from misusing its powers, like it did to the Sith.....

.....oh, wait...

 

"You're either with me or your my enemy - You either are selfless or you aren't."

You need to stop this. Vader saved his son because he was his son. His son chose death rather than the darkside. That's what's important. That is why Lucas made Vader Luke's father. If what you are saying is true then Lucas needn't have bothered with what turned out to be the most compelling thing about the whole saga.

 

Seriously, you're twisting arguments into something they're not. The path to immortality that Qui-Gon, Yoda, Obi-Wan and ultimately Anakin learn requires inner balance. That's a fact. Yoda learns to acknowledge and control his dark side because it's required. There's no getting around it. In-universe, this is a law of nature. You can't fool nature. If you're truly balanced and ready to let go of your material existence, you can learn the path to immortality. If you're not, you can't.

Anakin found inner balance through compassion for his son. Then, he let go of his physical self and was taught/helped to retain his identity in the afterlife.

 

"fact"

None of those "laws" are in the films.

Selflessness is supposedly a basic requirement of being a Jedi, which makes the conditions for Qui Gon's "discovery" less extraordinary than the film is trying to impress upon us.

In spite of having seemingly few qualms about billions perishing in a gratuitous demonstration of technological power and torturing people, Vader made the exception in Luke's case because he was his son and he could not hate him in the way that he hated anyone who he thought opposed him, since he believed this sustained his power.

Through their attachment, Vader was able to make an uncharacteristically compassionate gesture (the acknowledged feelings of his lifelong friend Obi Wan failed to induce Anakin to embrace compassionate selflessness, quite the opposite in fact). This gesture was ultimately, though not knowingly, selfless, since it took Vader's life as collateral damage.

Vader's acceptance of this in the end shows that he'd let go of unreasonable ambitions of power over death. To say that this was a recent discovery of Anakin's though is false since he was prepared to die rather than sacrifice Obi Wan. This is during the period where Anakin's fall to darkness is supposedly inevitable due to his selfishness.

Vader doesn't suddenly receive a broad epiphany about compassion in general which includes saving Luke in order to justify his actions. It was letting go of the notion that he is empowered by the darkside - this was the thing which was holding him back from authentically loving his son.

If it wasn't because Luke was his son, there's no reason Vader would not have been as unmoved at his death than he was at every other person crushed in the name of the security of the Galaxy and the Empire.

To say that their relationship is incidental to Vader's motivation is totally perverse.

 

Non sequitur. We are talking about selflessness, a requirement to retain one's spirit in the Force.

The conditions for Qui-Gon's ability are not meant to be extraordinary. It's meant to establish that not everyone can learn such ability. The Sith being an example since they aren't selfless but selfish.