From Lucas' mouth: The Dark Side is stronger!

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"You're overlooking the will of the Force, and it may simply be that Yoda and Obi know the will of the Force well enough to know that it is not their battle to fight, but rather it is for them to train Luke to do it."

So that's why Yoda and Obi-wan hide? They waited around for twenty years believing it was the "will of the force" for someone else to fight their battles.

Then why did Yoda have to be persuaded to train the only guy with the balls to take it to DV and the Emperor? Recall ESB, Yoda did not want to train Luke, and that's no act. That's hardly what I'd consider the actions of a muppet who had spent the past twenty years waiting for the "will of the force" to set things strait.

 

No, they hide so that they are not found and destroyed before they complete their purpose. Don't get all cocky and overconfident, it will cause you to make yourself look like an ass. You obviously don't understand the concept of the light side of the Force or the role of the Jedi with respect to the will of the Force as well as it appears that you think you do. "When you are calm, at peace - passive..." Then you will know.

 

There are no sides to the Force, it is neutral.

To use it for bad things is a stronger temptation.

 

Well, that's a whole other discussion there, Plo.

 

If the Dark Side is stronger, perhaps the Light Side is more powerful.

Another attempt to restring the bow.

 

Big Ben said: "No, they hide so that they are not found and destroyed before they complete their purpose. Don't get all cocky and overconfident, it will cause you to make yourself look like an ass. You obviously don't understand the concept of the light side of the Force or the role of the Jedi with respect to the will of the Force as well as it appears that you think you do. "When you are calm, at peace - passive..." Then you will know."

So you believe Obi-wan and Yoda thought their main purpose was to train Luke--then why would Yoda not want to train Luke?

Why don't you explain to me the role of the Jedi with respect to the will of the force since you seem calm and at peace. If we believe that Yoda was waiting for the will of the force to bring things together, why would he have to be convinced to train Luke? That doesn't make any sense--Luke shows up on Yoda's remote planet ready to be trained--obviously that should be a sign to Yoda that the will of the force brought Luke to him, yet Yoda initially refuses to train Luke--what gives? Where is the error in my logic?

 

Perhaps he was reluctant at first for the same reason he was reluctant with Anakin, especially since this is Anakin's son we're talking about here. Wouldn't you be reluctant to train the son of someone that got trained in spite of your reluctance to train them, then they turned out like Darth Vader? Yoda had to overcome this reluctance, this fear that things might end up worse if he trains Luke, and it takes Obi Wan to help him see past this into the will of the Force.
As humans, we may not recognize the right thing to do at first in a given situation, due to the baggage from the past that we carry. Something in the situation may push those buttons, and we may react defensively instead of thinking it through and realizing what needs to actually be done.
As to the role of the Jedi with respect to the will of the Force, and other related items, I have a whole write-up on that if you're interested.

 

But it's an intruiging thought, isn't it BigBen?


Funny how George and Yoda are contradicting each other.

 

Let me get this strait, at the end of Episode III, Yoda and Obi-wan will realize that it is the will of the force for them to train Luke when he's older, and until then they must hide out until the will of the force brings Luke back to them (I can buy this so far). But, shouldn't Yoda have realized that by letting Luke grow up in a family, thus forming attachments and such, Luke would then possess the same qualities of his father that made Yoda in TPM sense great danger in Anakin's training? Since Yoda allowed Luke to be raised as a non-Jedi, Yoda must not have thought it would be too difficult to overcome these "faults". Then in ESB, you're willing to write Yoda's reluctance to train Luke as last minute gitters on the part of Yoda?

 

george said that the darkside is stronger but it will always be your undoing.

 

That's actually very close to what I'm proposing, MZ. Excellent job mirroring there. I don't pretend to know, however, what exactly Yoda was thinking when he allowed Luke to grow up where and with whom he did. I think it was more important in the beginning to get him hidden from the Emperor and DV. I think that part of what they were doing there though was trusting the will of the Force to guide Luke's destiny back to them, or if not Luke, then Leia. Faith is a funny thing in that sometimes you know in which general direction to go, even though you may not know how things will ultimately play out; you just "know" that whatever is supposed to happen, does. And so you make provision for those eventualities.

 

I like the steriod analogy.

It may be even better to think of the Dark side as a steroid that turns into a deadly cancer.

I'm beginning to think that the Dark side isn't stronger, but that it allows you to become stronger more quickly.

For example, check out AOTC. Yoda and Dooku, seem pretty evenly matched, Yoda even seems to be able to manipulate the force lightning. While it took Dooku 10 years to learn this technique, maybe Yoda didn't learn until his 300th birthday.

So while you can become powerful using the Light side, it just takes a long time. Perhaps, the ability to retain your identity after death is the ultimate Force power and only Light side users can do it.

 

Yes, Darth Nubian, you are back on the path to the light side....

 

Yes... Yes, to BIG_BEN and Nubian you listen.

OK folks, the dark side is NOT stronger. GL's quote was not a blanket statement saying the dark side is stronger. He is speaking from Anakin's context. For Anakin to get the power he desires, he will need to tap into the dark side, which is the stronger side for Anakin at this point. Anakin could eventually be a more powerful Jedi pursuing the light side path, but it would take him a very long time to achieve the same power he could have very quickly along the dark path. Yoda laid it all out for us in ESB.

Luke: Is the dark side stronger?

Yoda: No. Quicker, easier, more seductive. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.

 

My opinion lies some where between Tricky and DereeJorcru's opinions. The Dark Side is just as Yoda desribed: quicker and easier. There has never been a battle that has been won by pure light. In the prequels, Maul defetes Qui-Gon and, in a fit of rage for the death of his master, Obi-Wan kills Maul. I know some people say "But it wasn't rage because he used his mind to get Qui-Gon's lightsabre and defeate Maul." This is true but look at HOW he killed Maul. Kenobi took him totally by suprise. He could have killed him in just about anyway he liked, stab, behead, etc. What did he choose? To cut him in half. A very viscious wound to enflict for no apparent reason other than anger. In Episode 2 Dooku easilly defeates both Anakin and Obi-Wan and I will get to the Yoda/Dooku battle later on. In the original trilogy, Vader faces Obi-Wan on the Deathstar. Obi-Wan, being a Form 3 lightsaber master, held his own very well against the feeble, half-man, half -machine Vader. Because of their respective faults, this particular battle could have gone on for awhile. And since Obi-Wan became one with the force instead of being struck down by Vader, there really wasn't any winner in this battle so I'll move on. ESB-Vader/Luke--No contest. Luke had practically zero lightsaber training and Vader had the dark side with him. Vader could have easilly killed luke after dismembering him. Only Vader's suit prevented him from full domination of Luke. ROTJ-Vader/Luke-Emperor/Luke-Vader/Emperor--This one is interesting. The Luke versus Vader battle was actually pretty even, again because of their respective faults. Luke with his lack of experience and Vader with his suit. Only when Vader enticed him enough, did Luke defeat Vader, again in a fit of rage. The Luke versus Emperor battle was no contest. Luke was a dead man, if it wasn't for Vader.

This brings me to the point of emotions. It is quite simple actually. There are two emotions that are stronger than all the rest. Hate and Love. And at that point Vader and Luke's combined Love trumped the Emperor's Hate.

Now, getting back to the Dooku/Yoda battle (one that holds particular intrest to me, and not because of good special effects). This utterly proves something about the darkside/lightside arguement. It's all about time. The dark side, as I, and many others, have said, is quicker and easier. Through the dark side you can reach your peak very easily, and more importantly, quickly. Yoda has had 900 years to become a master of A)the force and B)the lightsabre. More than enough time. Dooku only had about 80 years. Yet in the battle they both held their own against each other. Dooku, powered by the dark side of the force, managed to go toe to toe with a 900 year old jedi master, and lived to tell the tale. Now, since I don't wish to start an unneccessary debate on who would have been the victor, had the battle gone on longer, I will suppress my opinion here (*COUGHDookuCOUGH*). The fact that someone who has had, comparatively, little experience with the force, says something for the dark side. However this does not mean that the dark side is stronger.

My answer to which side is stronger, the light or the dark? Neither. They are two sides of the same coin. If one were more powerful than the other, there could never be true balance.


*WHEW* That took awhile (I think I've got arthritis now). Hope nobody read this and went "....what a waste of time." Feel free to contradict everything I've said and berate me to no end. I'm curious to hear anything you have to say on the topic and I hope I haven't offended any one (too much).

 

LOL It took me so long to write that post people have said exactly what I said in the meantime.*sigh*

 

("I think I've got arthritis now")

 

Plo: In answer to your second post there, yes, it is an intriguing thought, and I once thought as you do...but I now realize that it is "heresy". I know it's EU, but I actually read in a book a statement from Palpatine/ Sidious to the same effect, that the Jedi were mistaken and there were no "sides" to the Force. This, from the mouth of a Sith Lord...

I actually read in another source that this is one of the common "heresies" among Jedi that leads to the dark side...

 

The Dooku/Yoda lightsaber battle was not a draw. Dooku did not win, or else he would not have had to resort to threatening the lives of Obi-Wan and Anakin with the falling power cell.

A pervasive theme in samurai movies (as well as story telling all over the world) is the pull between loyalty to one's master (and his cause) and to one's family and friends. Even though logic would dictate that it would serve a greater good to get Dooku and end the rise of the Emperor, Yoda, himself torn between duty and friendship, has to make a choice. He, of course, chooses friendship over duty.

The great thing about Yoda's character is that he, too, despite being a Jedi master, is only "human" too; a theme echoed over and over again. At the end of AOTC, Obi-Wan tells Anakin that he should choose his duty over his love for Padme because Padme would do it.

The great contrast is between AOTC and ESB is that while Yoda chooses to save his friends in AOTC, he begs Luke in ESB to choose chose duty and complete his training over leaving to save his friends. The comparison demonstrates a logical hypocrisy in a debate, but from a romantic and story telling point of view, the evolution of an older, wiser person making a different decision later in life is what the human experience is about. In this sense, Yoda, like any other person, matures and makes a different decision without regret but with full knowledge of the implications of his past decisions.

Of course Yoda was hesitant to take on Luke because he knows the negative potential of training. The same for Qui-Gon who knows the negative potential of training Anakin. The very fate of the universe is at stake. An instructor giving a student knowledge which might be used for evil ends is a heavy charge. But the most satisfying thing about education is that there is also the posibility (in fact a probability) that knowledge will be harnessed for the good of society as the instructor had intended it. Neither Luke nor his father Darth Vader not let Yoda down, when, in the end, they come to understand that good is ultimately more powerful than evil.

That's why compassion over selfishness is contantly valued as a social norm in society (unless you're Nietze.)

 

Good thoughts Plurimus.

 

Well, the other thing not being looked at here is the other part of what Lucas had to say during the confession scene. Anakin couldn't save his mother and he complains almost insanely that it was because he wasn't strong enough to "stop people form dying". What was interesting here is that Lucas went on to state that Anakin will have the power to actually do this later, and it sounded to me like he is saying that only by turning to the Dark Side would he be able to do it. This seems to say to me that the Dark Side gives you not just destructive capabilities but control over life and death itself.

This is half of the reason I am saying his commentary turns everything we knew about the force on it's head. It's not just because he's saying the Dark Side is stronger and more powerful, but also because of the nature of the powers you gain. It seems that you have powers both extremely destructive and creative at your disposal in the Dark Side. The price you eventually pay may be terrible, but it would be very hard to ignore if a Jedi knew this..

Perhaps this is why Dooku turned after being loyal to the jedi order for so long?

 

Interesting, Jar Jar. Maybe that's why he was able to save his son in ROTJ. Had he not the power of the Dark side, he may have not been able to shake off Palpy's force lightning long enough to throw him down the shaft (we all saw what force lightning did to Anakin in AOTC).

 

And to think that this whole debate could have been avoided if George had just said "The Dark Side is more powerful IN THE SHORT TERM."

 

It also might help explain this section of ROTJ dialogue:

Vader: "Luke.. Help me take.. This mask off."

Luke: "But you'll die.."

Vader: "Nothing.. Can stop that now."

Perhaps the Dark Side was the reason Anakin could live on after whatever happened to him in Episode 3. Maybe all of that machinery helped him, but in the end his condition was far too grave for him to continue to exist without the aid of it's power. When he turns back to the light, his fate was sealed but he at least killed the emperor in the process.

And to think that George was probably thinking about all of this, he knew all of this, way back when and he didn't share it with us. In a way I wish he hadn't said it in his commentary and we all discovered it together in 2005, but it's so cool it makes me shake just thinking about it.

Lucas is da' man!