ST How TROS Recontextualizes The Sith

Something I noticed:

Spoiler

Exegol is like an opposite of Ahch-To. Unnatural vs Natural.

Palps is dead but kept alive unnaturally but now retaining the power to emit lightning. This time to make a point for destruction of the Rebellion.

However Yoda (a Force ghost ) could summon the natural lightning at Ahch-To. The latter a place teaming with natural life and the its natural end that feeds new life. Yoda teaches Luke that it isn't the books that are important (supposedly destroying them) but the heart of the Jedi to .

MJ

 

I think that Yoda's having a laugh because he knows the books are actually with Rey anyhow and he gets to mess with Luke to make a point. But this scene also shows that for all his talk, Luke deep down still values and treasures the Jedi tradition.

 

It's a scene that ultimately has no real purpose, other than to cameo Yoda. I'm still unsure as to what Luke's motivations are. And if it's the conversation with Yoda that makes Luke see 'sense', then surely Yoda should have appeared earlier and filled him in...

 

That's possible, but given that Yoda can interact with the physical world e.g. force lightening (or whatever it was), one would think he had the power to reach out to Luke regardless... even if it were to scribble a little note in the mud? Do the force ghosts of Obi-Wan, Yoda and Anakin only exist as long as Luke wills it? Is it only Luke that sees Yoda's lightening? Is the tree not really on fire etc? Interesting philosophical points, but it seems a bit problematic (IMHO) if that then becomes in 'in-universe' explanation...

 

I don't see any problem there. Obi Wan clearly didn't exist for Han in ESB, yet Luke saw him. Leia didn't really seem to see Yoda, Obi Wan or Anakin at the end of ROTJ, and she did have a connection to the force. This does seem to suggest that the ghosts can only interact with someone if they have a connection to that person. If Luke has cut himself off from the force, it would seem logical that no one could reach him. The force ghosts may always exist in the force, but that doesn't mean that they can just pop up wherever they want to.

On another note, it seems like impacting the environment is drastically different from impacting any free choice. Interacting with beings impacts them directly, but calling on lightning to emerge from clouds doesn't, because there is no living being in there. Beyond that, there's just the normal inconsistencies you always run into the larger a story grows. There were inconsistencies between the OT-movies, there were inconsistencies between the PT-movies and the OT and PT, and now there are even more. That happens in every fantasy story.

 

It’s not about whether others see ‘them’, as the films imply that other can’t, it’s about wether they exist without Luke, to the extent that him cutting himself off from the force doesn’t allow them to reach out in any way. Given that Yoda (when alive) communes with both Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, and that Obi-Wan is speaking to Rey in TFA (albeit subtlety) suggests that force ghost DO exist outside of Luke’s will to hear/see them. I’d imagine that this is something overlooked in the films because they (the filmmakers)simply overlooked it, or because they didn’t want to get into the micro explanations of the force/force ghosts as a consciousness.

 

It's interesting that Rey hears Ben Kenobi's voice, but later has to try and call out to past Jedi. My preference would have been to let only the ascended Jedi Spirits support her. There would have been five identifiable characters that way. As it is we need fan theories to reconcile the supportive crowd with the prequel trilogy. We'd be talking about their intervention anyway, but as it is we have to figure out why the other voices are present. (In-universe, I mean--it's easy to think of creative or business reasons they'd want to put them there, and of course representation issues; the in-universe issue seems more important to me though)

 

Yeah this resonates with my interpretation---they only visit the material plane, as we might call it, when there is a living Jedi knight or apprentice to whom they have a connection.

 

By the way, Leia knows exactly when to reach Ben, much like Luke knew how and when to be useful in TLJ (Crait).

Sounds like a plan. Lose Rey, we must not. Luke says to Rey 'you will take both sabers to Exogol', and that sounds like a plan too.

Palpatine only sees the surface: 'the princess of Alderaan has disrupted my plan'. 'Her foolish act', he says.

Leia's act (reaching Ben) looked foolish to him, but Leia's act minus context -minus the plan, minus jedi FGs is not really Leia's act, properly understood.

There were other things. The dyad, and he didn't know. That phantom menace talking to Rey before his very throne, and he didn't know.

It's not possible to learn that power if you are a sith - and in any case, if you are a sith, it's not a power the jedi would tell you about.

So, there was an information asymmetry: the jedi could plot against the jedi without being noticed, but the sith couldn't do the same to them.
And Yoda's 'alone, never have you been' is maybe key. 'Never' sounds like 'since the womb', much like Leia's 'since the beginning'. Maybe that's the meaning of the dyad, 'a power like life itself'. Again, conception. A womb. Snoke's 'Skywalker[...]the seed of the jedi order' belongs to the same semantic field.

Maybe the dyad was the way the jedi (Anakin, I'd say) subverted Empress Palpatine: by planting the seed of Rey Skywalker, just at the same time the seed of Kylo ren was being planted in 10 yo Ben Solo (around that time, age 10-11, the force awakened in him and he was sent to Luke and Rey was conceived and born) Maybe -'darkness rises, and light to meet it'- one thing was made to cause the other.

In any case, did someone tell the other jedi after ROTJ, 'since the beginning'? Was it Anakin? How much did Vader know? Did he know Palpatine had a son, and a plan? That son was born 10 years before ANH, I'd guess (assuming he was 25 when he was killed, more or less the actor's age) In TROS, Ben/Kylo knows about the 'dyad', and knows Palpatine doesn't know. Who was his source? Grandfather? Maybe Palpatine wasn't the only one impersonating Vader (in TFA, Kylo says 'shows me'. Nothing about 'talk to me')

 

I like this. On the Clone Wars we are told Qui-Gon Jinn is the very first Jedi in the history of the Jedi to learn this ability, and he only learns it part way. (Which why Yoda goes to Dagobah - it's a special location in the Force where Qui-Gon can communicate.) If that's the case, there aren't any Jedi before the ones we meet in The Phantom Menace who can return as Force Ghosts. I'm a bit surprised to have heard Jedi other Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, Yoda, Anakin, and Luke actually in TROS.

If a Sith did learn this power, it would mean they are no longer a Sith. So even if a Sith was successfully posing as a Jedi and instructed in being a Force Ghost, they still can't learn the power to become a Force Ghost because it requires true selflessness - and to achieve that selflessness would mean the Sith rejecting the Dark Side and ways of the Sith. And then they are no longer a Sith. It's a cool Catch-22.

 

Yeah. And just as the jedi had a plan for Rey, someone else had a plan for them. The jedi are guardians, caretakers, but nothing more.

I mean, that power was originally Qui-Gon's. Those force priestesses taught him. Why? They exist between theliving force and the cosmic force.

Did they perceive the phantom menace? Presumable, Qui-Gon was taught before TPM. Maybe those priestesses knew about Plagueis and his experiments and Anakin, and intervened.

 

If I was telling the story, I'd have Jedi Master Dooku and his apprentice Qui-Gon witness something while on an adventure. Maybe even Jedi Master Dooku and his newly Knighted former Padawan Qui-Gon. Whatever works better for the story. Anyway - Dooku and Qui-Gon have something happen that radically changes their understanding of the Force and shakes their faith in the Jedi Order.

Briefly they follow up on this together, but soon are sent along different individual paths. While carrying out ordered Jedi business they are always finding ways to investigate more on their own. Eventually Dooku's path leads to the Sith and the Dark Side. Qui-Gon's path takes him to the Force priestesses. It's the same event that sends them down these two opposite paths.

Not sure how this would work time wise, but I'd like if taking on Obi-Wan as a Padawan is what send Qui-Gon to eventually find the Force preistess.

Also interesting about Qui-Gon finding Anakin. Where is eyes already open to this possibility because of the Force Priestesses? I love how Qui-Gon meditates in the middle of the Maul fight. Is preparing for what might happen? Does he know what is going to happen?

Why didn't Qui-Gon finish his training? Just not enough time? Or were there things left undone that he could have finished if he'd been able to devote all this time to it?

 

Just not enough time, I think. And he was unlucky. Maul killed him. But his long-term narrative significance (finding Anakin, being capable of teaching other jedi hot to cheat death) was already there. Also:

https://boards.theforce.net/threads/how-tros-recontextualizes-the-sith.50052919/page-8#post-56400625

 

Yes, great points. Qui-Gon is extremely important and central to the Skywalker Saga. We don't find out just how much without the Clone Wars.

I hesitate to say the Jedi 'cheat death'. I'd say it's more like they transcend death... Maybe even transcend life. They Jedi die, but they live on.

Cheating death for Palpatine is being stuck for 30 years in a partial broken body kept going with machines. Then he waits until the time is right to become strong again. It's all about hanging on. It's bug or leech like. And to think there are lots of Sith Souls clinging on within his own soul. It reminds me of Mr.Oogie Boogie from Nightmare Before Christmas. Pull away the fabric and he's a collection of bugs.

 

I’d agree with that. Unfortunately the ST kind of changes that.

Indeed. Basically, only Jedi that die after the events of ROTS (I.e. when Yoda communes with Qui-Gon) can learn to retain their identity. Outside of Yoda, Obi-Wan, Luke and Leia, only Ahsoka and Kanan (in terms of Jedi we’ve seen) could have learnt the skill.

 

I'm not sure Kanan is strong enough, or complete enough in his training. Ahsoka on the other hand. She went through a lot and had a long career with the Force.

 

the Sith Lord dynamic aside, I think showing the Sith Eternal fleet and how there's a lot of non-Sith Lords but still Sith employed folks added some much needed context and visual confirmation to Palpatine's line in episode III "Once more the Sith shall rule the galaxy!" It was with armies like that I get it (previously I just mentally slotted in the Sith Empire from KOTR as an example)

 

One of the reasons why I found the ST so disappointing, is it had the opportunity to do something meaningful with Sith lore, but IMHO and like much of the ST, it added nothing substantial. I really liked the early rumours of Kylo Ren finding the Sith archive etc. but ultimately it ended up as a few darkly lit statues that Ren walked past...

 

'Ren' seems to be some kind of code, 'fire' itself, and also a name. The same kind of flame seems to be operating in SKB and in Kylo Ren's lightsaber, an ancient sith design.

The sith eternal. The return of the sith. 'Once more the sith will rule the galaxy'. The rule of two was 1000 years old but, before that, they ruled the galaxy. 'The oppresion of the sith', as Windu called it. That was 2000 years ago, according to Lucas.

'You will take the throne. It is your birthright, to rule, here. It is in your blood. Our blood'. Maybe an idea from Lucas, too. This is Cosinga Palpatine talking to our Palpatine, his 17 yo son, in the 'Plagueis' novel (2012). Palpatine is about to kill him:

Also:

 

Conceivably Qui-gon could have contacted Mace Windu and others independently of Yoda. Luminara Unduli for example could have been taught from beyond the grave. Additionally there is precedent in Anakin himself for other ascended Jedi spirits "rescuing" someone soon after their departure. At this point I think it is a matter of fan interpretation whether Leia or Ben knew the method, or whether one or both of them were "rescued." Some fans might think one of them rescued the other. It's OK with me that fans can work out their own theories on this point.