ST Force Powers In The ST Discussion Thread

All I'm saying is that a force user can have a compelling character journey without linking it directly to their force growth journey. Rey doesn't need to become a Mortis Force God to grow and change as a character.

 

That's not exactly what I'm saying. Her sudden power can absolutely play a role in her journey, but she doesn't need any more force power in order to continue growing as a character.

 

B-b-but she fell in the hole.

 

Not to mention the fact that wasn't the lure of the Dark side always intended to be the "quick, expedient way to power?"
Screw the discipline, give into to your emotions / passions / desires & you get power at an accelerated rate.

Now TLJ seems to say, "Hey, now everybody gets accelerated power, hence IMO making "the lure" of the dark side rather obsolete. Why become a dark sider if you can have accelerated unlimited power anyway. What's the temptation anymore?

 

Nah...its totally zero. The force tells all midichlorian counters and virgences to sit and spin, it needs neither and never has to do its work.

 

Earning powers is not part of her journey. Having powers is part of her journey.

Again, this was also true of Anakin in Ep 1,2,4,5,6. Only in Ep.3 does earning power play a role in his journey. Other than that it is merely his having power that impacts his journey.

Luke is the only force user from the movies who's personal journey and force journey coincide in any meaningful way.

TLJ definitely does not say everybody gets accelerated powers. TFA said Rey gets accelerated powers.

Also should be noted that Rey has, on multiple occasions, dabbled with the dark side.

 

?? I never said anything to the contrary.

 

Or just because burning books is the wrong thing to do, and history deserves preservation, even if it's just so we can see how screwed up it was. I think Yoda was trying to convey something along those lines to Luke.

I've been theorizing about Force use in a few different threads. It is true that Rey is picking up the Force quicker than Luke did, and what people are wondering is why. They seem to assume it's because she is just naturally stronger in the Force than Luke is, which I think is hogwash. Rey is strong in the Force because she has been given a destined role to play, and the Force gave her the raw strength she needs to achieve that role. Exactly the same could be said of Anakin. (I think that role is to be an exact Yin Yang balance to Kylo, so they have equal raw strength. And like I said, it's a problem for both of them. Because Kylo can't surpass her, but she also can't surpass Kylo. But that's just a theory.)

So why is Rey's progress faster than Luke's? Well, I don't know that it's all that much faster. Luke picks it up pretty dang fast: much, much faster than the Prequel-era Jedi did. We only ever see Luke struggle to use the Force on 4 occasions by my count (after his initial lesson with Obi-Wan). At the beginning of ESB, he has to work hard to pull the lightsaber to his hand. Personally, I've always figured that being concussed and in the early stages of hypothermia had a lot to do with that. Once he makes it to Dagobah, we mostly just see Yoda giving Luke exercises and Luke being able to do them. If there's a learning curve there, they didn't bother to put it on screen, like the standard training montage of steady improvement.

We see Luke struggle three times. He fails to lift the X-Wing, and he falls twice while doing a handstand. The falls were both due to him losing focus because of an unexpected distraction, so clearly Luke needed to learn to concentrate. And he failed with the X-Wing because he didn't believe he could do it. My conclusion: if Luke was just more focused and self-confident, he would have breezed through everything Yoda threw at him. He wasn't having difficulty learning techniques, and he certainly didn't lack raw strength. It was his cynicism and scatterbrain-ed-ness that was tripping him up. The reason his training was still incomplete when he left Dagobah was because he had not yet completely overcome those two psychological stumbling blocks.

To the extent that Rey is surpassing Luke in the early stages, I think it's mainly down to Rey not having those same faults. And that makes complete sense. Rey's upbringing was far harsher than Luke's, and she had to learn self-reliance at too young an age. She is, in a nutshell, tougher, more focused and confident than Luke was at her age. Why? Because if she wasn't she'd have been long dead. Look at her life on Jakku. She taught herself to fight, because it was an absolute necessity to survive. Everyone she met would have wanted to take her stuff if they could. She had to be self confident, because there was not a single other person she could rely on. And the demands of day-to-day survival taught her focus. Find something of value, in a husk of a ship already picked over a dozen times, or starve! Then do it again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after.

Luke's greatest daily struggle, on the other hand, was to stop daydreaming long enough to finish his chores so his uncle didn't chew him out and ground him.

Luke needed to grow up and gain maturity. But he knew who he was and what he was about.
He was following in his father's footsteps. Rey doesn't lack maturity. She already has what Luke needed, so of course we don't see her share the same kinds of difficulties using the Force. What Rey needs is what Luke already had, namely, a sense of identity and place in the universe.

 

My impression is that she always had the potential, but what she experienced in TFA made the Force manifest more clearly, like an extension of adrenaline. She may have thought little of it while growing up, but that changed accordingly: reassuring herself about flying the Falcon and being surprised afterward, and telling Finn his rescue from the Rathtar was "lucky." She denied it, as she denied that her parents were "never coming back."

 

You do realize that my entire post was about why Rey's progress was faster, tho, right?

 

So far the ST has implied that Rey might be a vessel for the light side of the Force. Much of the language in the two films hint at this. Such as "something inside of me...has awoken", & Snoke's observation that it was inevitable that "light" would emerge to match Kylo Ren. If that's the case her abilities, & the pace at which she develops them could simply be a necessary response, or the "will" of the Force to counter the Dark Side present in the galaxy. I also wonder if Force spirits such as Yoda & Obi-Wan haven't played a part in guiding her. We heard Obi-Wan whisper to her in her Force-vision in TFA, & in TLJ Yoda intervenes on her behalf with Luke. Force ghosts have only been around for about 60 years in-universe. What's clear is that they're learning, adapting & becoming more powerful. More able to influence the real world. They've gone from Qui-Gon, who was unseen & could only be heard in the PT, to Yoda summoning a lighting bolt from the sky, & hitting Luke in the face with his ghost cane. Whether they're involved or not, it seems likely to me that Rey's prowess isn't entirely down to her own innate ability. There are higher powers that are in her corner significantly helping her along.

 

How is that interesting? How does that make her character worth investing in emotionally?

 

It also makes the inherently virtuous qualities of those well-versed in the Light seem inconsequential.

 

How doesn't it? Luke received guidance from ghost Obi-Wan. If it weren't for that he wouldn't have destroyed the Death Star in ANH. I'm saying that Rey is being guided & aided. Not that she's completely a puppet with others holding the strings. Clearly she's a natural Force prodigy. Another "vergeance" in the Force. It's probably bcs of that potential that the light-side powers are helping her to oppose the darkness. This all fits in with Star Wars. "Luminous beings are we. Not this crude matter".

 

When a character succeeds through divine intervention instead of their own hardships, achievements and traits, they are fundamentally uninteresting. Also, Luke was helped by supplementing an ability he already possessed with the help of an entire squadron and similarly experienced pilots, some being veterans. Massive difference.

 

Is it? We know that the Force is a separate energy field. It's not a "power" the Jedi have, or any other person. Luke used that energy field to make the shot. Without the aid of the Force he would not have that ability. What's more, ghost Ben guided him to use it in that instance. I don't see a great difference at all.

 

There is one thing that they are hinting a lot, which is how Rey has seen the island, has seen the tree... it is not that I like the idea, but I have to admit that it is possible that she is the reincarnation of a deceased force user who managed to discover how to return from the Force in physical form, and during the process is recoving his memories.

 

I sure hope that isn't the case. Otherwise, the new Star Wars protagonist would be an iteration of Moorcock's Eternal Champion concept or the concept of the Avatar from The Last Airbender, only crappier.