ST The Balance of the Force

There is canonical content out there supporting the notion that the Force is inherently balanced. The Last Jedi and The Legends of Luke Skywalker seem to further support this notion, and so I want to suggest that some things which aren't commonly tied together in the eyes of Star Wars fans should be. Here's what those are.

1. Darth Sidious was powerful enough to defeat the entire Jedi Order in the prequels and Darth Vader was able to become so powerful so quickly because they were open to the Dark Side of the force while the Jedi close themselves off to it. The Clone Wars series strongly supports that Anakin is capable of mastering both the dark and the Light, and Sidious is the only true Sith Lord in the prequels while his apprentices are nowhere near ad knowledgeable or powerful.

2. Yoda and Obi Wan passed on from the physical world held together by the Force to become one with it because this had to happen for Luke to defeat Vader and Sidious. Vader and Sidious represented a consolidation of power that could only be matched if Luke represented the consolidation of the power of the Light Side of the Force.

3. Luke Skywalker had to pass on in the same way after Snoke was killed to maintain the balance and keep Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren from becoming as powerful as He and Rey and Leia were combined.

And then we come to the speculation. Here are the players still in the game:

Dark Side: Kylo Ren, The Knights of Ren
Light Side: Leia Organa/Skywalker, Rey

Who knows what the Johnson Trilogy will contain, but it seems likely to me that Leia will come to an end in Episode IX. Will Kylo go with her, or will it be the Knights of Ren that fall? Or is my balance theory going to be thrown away to keep us all from predicting how Episode IX will go?

 

This will be the central theme of IX, I believe, but with the focus on the balance within the individual, rather than cosmic balance - though in truth, these are intrinsically linked.

 

I hope you're right with this, because I love the idea and message involved. But I also feel that the key to achieve balance, the way things have been set up, in IX will involve both Rey and Kylo. It would be interesting to see them both attempt to achieve balance within in order to bring balance on the cosmic level, but I could also see them tackling the theme of balance on a much more macro level.

 

Yeah, definitely. I see balance being key to both Rey and Kylo's stories in IX.

Darth Chiznuk - your post reminded me of this Rick Carter quote:

"When we say the force awakens, it is the dark side and the light."

We know from what Luke says in TLJ that process of balance is cyclical, and yes, it seems likely that Anakin's actions re-set the cycle anew, awakening the dark within Kylo, and the light within Rey. They're drawn to one another, linked, two halves of a whole...the yin / yang theme of light within darkness, and darkness within light. Reconciling that within themelves has to be the end point.

 

Personally, I think the "balance thing" has been a bit misplayed in the movies. I have seen a surprising number of folks on these Boards suggesting the problem with the Jedi was that they were, for a time, too successful in eliminating the Sith - because "balance" means the Universe needs a certain amount of evil, that it is basically a necessary thing to have (to allow?) a certain amount of evil. I am pretty confident this was NOT what was meant by 'balance", but the fact that a fair number of people came away with this idea suggests to me that the movies could have done a lot better job with the concept.

 

A lot of it sounds too much like Highlander. Reducing the population of practicing Jedi or Sith shouldn't increase that sides power or water it down as their numbers grow. I always saw the power of the dark side that the Jedi couldn't see was caused by the mood of the citizens of the galaxy. There was no hope or joy, just greed and sadness and so the vision of the Jedi grew dim and made Palps that much more powerful.

That said, I'd like it if they justified Luke's theories and had Rey embrace both sides to help bring balance. Though I have to admit, I don't like that they had Rey say she saw darkness when she felt that predator killed it's prey while look was giving his first lesson. I don't consider the cycle of nature to be inherently good or bad.

I also predict that the title of this thread may be the title of Episode 9.

 

You know what I found interesting? Snoke was Dark and died. That left the balance uneven with Luke and Rey alive. Now Luke is gone, only shortly after Snoke, but when Rey and Kylo went to fight, they were once again separated by something else.

 

I have to agree with some of the comments above - I don't think "balance" is numeric (I don't think it has to do with the number of practitioners). I also have to say that if the "Dark Side" is defined by natural things like death, the Sith sure get it wrong.in that they embrace anger, hatred, sadism, etc...which may be part of the point. As I understand it, any number or religions and philosophies have expressed the idea that life, the world, seems to always have elements of good and bad running through them , happiness AND sadness, times of plenty and times of want, and so forth - and here has been evil as long as people have been around! However, I am not aware of any that stipulate that less "darkness" would be a bad thing. Is there a belief system, for example, that would say "be careful about trying to achieve a more just, fair and kind world - you don't want to eliminate too much evil!!"? I am not aware of one.

 

Right.
I don’t even know where that idea came from. Certainly not from Lucas, who always said the unbalance was caused by the Sith, who were a cancerous presence in the Force causing conflict.

But TLJ does give this videogame-y, simplistic impression that 1 dark side + 1 light side = BALANCE! It doesn’t even make any sense, and reduces the complexity of the Force to a kindergarten math exercise. Neither it does any good to resolve conflict – which, again, is caused by the darksiders, even in the ST.

 

As I said in another thread:

 

this is what i keep trying to tell people,there is no "Lightside" there is only the Force.the only Darkside is in the person and and trying to bend the Force to your will and make it do things that are against it's nature.No Greyside,no Lightside,only The Force.

 

I "get" the explanation above, and mostly subscribe to it. I've seen a lot of comparisons of the Jedi to the Stoics (and to elements of other beliefs and religions) and one thing the Stoics, for example, hold to is the idea that Death, Disease, Loss, Impermanence are all things you WILL encounter, they are all to some extent "natural". They hold that if you could say the Universe seems to favor anything, it is Change - and that desperately trying to resist that it is a path to unhappiness (sounds very Sithy, right ... Anakin's terror over what he will feel if he loses Padme, and his willingness to do ANYTHING to spare himself that? The apparent Sith obsession over immortality, while the Jedi accept that they will die at some point [the acceptance of Qui-Gonn and Maul's puzzled expression as Qui-Gonn meditates; Obi-Wan's calm passing, Yoda's, Luke's], which ironically leads to a form of immortality). My point is that the Stoics are NOT saying that these things are "good", or even that you should passively accept them in all cases - allow people to be murdered, don't try to cure disease, etc. They are simply noting that these are all parts of life, predictable, that you WILL encounter them, and so railing against them and dwelling on them negatively is a destructive and self-destructive thing.

Given that, you could argue the Light Side of the Force is about acceptance, submission, going with the natural flow, and the Dark Side is about resistance, anger, defiance, an attempt to control, to make things go "your way" to an unhealthy extreme, more than the Force having a "good" Light Side and a "bad" Dark side. That being said, I do think it is fair to say that in the movies, the Light Side practitioners are generally "Good" and the Dark Side practitioners and their sympathizers are unambiguously Evil. The Dark Side IS a path to a lot of bad stuff.

 

I really like your interpretation of the Force, and I would love for the filmmakers to explore the Force's nature in IX, and if they do, I hope the new understanding the audience gets will be along these lines.

I like your interpretation because I feel like it jives with a lot from the films, books, and even video games. Kreia in KOTOR 2 said she hated the Force for seeming to have a will of its own. She's really captivated fans' because, before The Clone Wars TV show and the sequel trilogy, she was one of the most captivating characters, with some of the most unique ideas about the Force, that fans ever encountered (except for maybe Vergere in the books).

But even though the Force seems to have a subtle will of its own (sort of like the laws of nature), I never liked the idea of it having a dark side. I just liked the idea of dark-side Force users manipulating it for selfish reasons and throwing it off balance. Because why would there be an explicit, inherent evil side to the Force? There's no such thing with nature, and if the Force is just a stand-in for nature, it shouldn't have one.

I think the filmmakers have really muddied the waters regarding what the Force is by never having a character come out and say that there is no "dark side" of the Force, only people who use the Force for evil purposes.

I wish Rian was directing IX because I don't have any reason to believe J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio will explore these matters in the last sequel film.

 

I agree. Saying that - I also believe this narrative would pit Rey and Kylo against their neo-Rebellion and the First Order allies, respectively.

 

When Rey realized that Luke had cut himself off from the Force, I was really hoping they would explore that more and take the discussion of the Force in a direction similar to KOTOR2.

 

You seem to be conflating the term "evil" with "Dark Side". One is a moral judgement, the other is merely an aspect of the Force. Conversely, "good" does not necessarily mean "Light Side"

 

RKR - Maybe not, but hard to see any other interpretation, from the movies. The Dark Side practitioners we see are, in fact, all evil, and they ally themselves with evil people. They tap into the Dark Side through anger and hatred - good qualities? They murder, they oppress, they seek to dominate. They seek to rule, and have no qualms about destroying the population of entire planets to get their way. The Light Side practitioners are good (not the same as being flawless or infallible, mind you), they talk about being at peace, calm, using powers for defense, etc. They struggle to maintain democracy, peace, etc. The movies, at least to me, seem pretty clear cut. I think you'd have a tough time, using the movies, in arguing that Dark Side does NOT equate with evil. IMHO.

 

Read my post above. I think it is unclear that the "Dark Side" is an inherent part of the Force rather than a mere practice of some Force Sensitives.

 

It’s up for debate certainly, but the existence of “Dark Side” nexus’s and vergences (the Sith shrine on Coruscant for example) seems to suggest that there is some sort of energy or collection of energies that can be labelled as part of the “Dark Side”.

 

Are we sure that Snoke's words (about the powers of Rey and Kylo ) on one side
and those of Luke on the other (there was balance for a while, etc...) are the final
words on this matter? Or that they are to be taken as correct?
Maybe they are wrong... maybe they are going to be proven wrong - at least partially - in IX.

Not that they have to... but they can.

That said, I've always been fine with Rey Unrelated, just because I wished for something not obvious.
But that because in all honesty I hoped for something far more compelling and interesting than what we've got.

The way the issue is handled in TLJ is a huge disappointment.

First because the Luke-Rey scene is the epitome - IMO - of bad writing.
Luke's words are put in there not because they meant something to Rey,
but because you have to justify what you are doing to those who remember the PT.

Same with Snoke.

You just need to give at least something...

And that's the most obvious answer in the Rey unraleted scenario.
But it opens more problems than it resolves.

Why Anakin, the Chosen One was the "Chosen One"?
In the sense: why the force needed a chosen one to do what it usually... does?
Why there even was a prophecy?

To make a comparison, it's like saying... yes Jesus - the Messiah the prophets wrote about -
was special. But just for a while, he was "ordinarily" special.

I'm sorry, but this kind of explanation undermines and diminishes everything the ST and OT as a whole were about.

It would have been easer to say - for instance: Kylo's (and Snoke's) read of the prophecy and/or of Balance is another one.
That there must not be Jedi and Sith. Something like this... thus he believes Anakin/Vader failed (and he did that, because of Luke = it's Luke's fault).
Therefore Kylo is trying to finish what - from his pov - his grandfather started (as he says in VII).

Rey - related or not - is there to prove he's wrong.

But if you put in a specific relationship her powers and those of Kylo... all the picture (from 1 to 6) changes.
And not in a better way.

And it opens other specific problems in terms of lore.

Look at the force ghosts.

We know that Quin Gon, Yoda and Obi Wan were "chosen" as well (see Yoda's arc in TCW).

They were chosen, because they were meant to teach one another and ultimately to teach Luke.
Because Luke was instrumental to Vader/Anakin's redemption and to the fulfillment of the prophecy.

And that is the main difference between Obi Wan, Yoda on one side and Luke on the other.

Obi Wan and Yoda, went into exile, sure. They didn't fight the Empire, sure.
But because they knew about Luke and Leia and they were waiting for the right time to come.
Meanwhile Qui Gon was teaching them. And they knew it wasn't by chance.
Perhaps they didn't know what the reason, the purpose, the future (we may say)
But there was something they were up to. They didn't give up.
It was a "strategic" withdrawal based on "faith" in the ways of the Force.

That is not the case of Luke - after Ben/Kylo's fall - at all.

I don't know... the more I think about, the more I see inconsistences.

That said, I think there's room to fix them in IX.
But I'm not sure they care at all about them...

 

Well, in the Expanded Universe the Dark Side nexi are artifical, created by powerful Dark Siders by killing a lot of people using the Dark Side.

 

I guess, but whether they’re “natural” or “artificial”, they still exist as part of the Force, and aren’t something that can be easily removed/purified, as the Jedi attempted on Coruscsnt.

 

The preview of Rebels shows the characters from the Mortis Arc. How could this play in ix? I wonder if Kylo’s attempt to kill the past is because his destiny is to fulfill the role of the son? Truly hoping that Rey and Kylo are able to achieve the sought after elusive balance of the Force.

 

I would love to get my hands on the sacred Jedi texts. They would be page turners to me! I hope we learn more about them as they perhaps include clues to the balance.