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pendell
2012-08-24, 04:04 PM
If luck is the Force, and destiny is the Force, then a Sith should NEVER beat a Jedi, because the Jedi serves the Force while the Sith, by definition, can't.


On the contrary, from the Sith point of view the Sith should always win, if the SW universe works that way.

Because the Jedi serve the Force, but the Force serves the Sith. So when the Jedi serves the Force, they are playing directly into the hands of the Sith manipulating the Force. They are at first unwitting tools, and rush to their own destruction, their own undoing, because they trust the Force, but the Force is controlled by their worst enemy. And so they rush to their doom, like lambs to the slaughter.

In other words, pretty much exactly what happens at the end of Ep. III.

That's the reason -- if you ever play KOTOR -- only the Jedi say "may the Force be with you." The Sith greeting is: "May the Force serve you well."




Of course, if the Force is so benevolent that it's deeply hurt by millions of deaths


The Force isn't benevolent. It has a Dark Side. The Force is the collected life of an entire galaxy, good bits and bad bits. Anger and rage and greed and envy and all the other things make up the Force just as love and kindness and friendship do.

Destroying Alderaan had a definite impact in the Force. If you think of the Force as a web, several million lives disappearing instantly from the web will be felt by everyone on it. That doesn't mean the Force as a whole reacts in horror. Certainly parts of it do, but the Dark Side is no doubt pleased by the sacrifice, seeing the universe as a better place not only for the removal of weaklings but the mere fact of atrocity strengthens the Dark Side.

The point of being the Sith is to reach the point where the words "My will be done" and "The will of the force be done" mean one and the same thing, neither more nor less. To reach a point where you only have to wish that the planet Hoth were not there, and it's sun spontaneously goes nova. To reach a point where the Force obeys your will the way a dog obeys its master, so that all those who follow the Force are merely unwitting pawns in your game.

So that you can say, as the Emperor did in Ep VI "All that has transpired has done so according to MY design". And when you say "all" , you mean EVERYTHING in the galaxy, from the movement of the smallest atom to the continued stars in their courses.

And then you wonder why Dark Side users who pursue this path go stark raving mad. No mortal can wield such powers for long, I suspect, and remain sane.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Reverent-One
2012-08-24, 04:04 PM
And this comes back to the "evil makes people too stupid to work together against a common threat" idea that pervades so many fictional settings.

Not a surprising idea, when it gets to point of treating "evil" as your primary philosophy/religion/freaking power source, you've probably gone too far to act truely rationally.


Palpatine and Vader overthrew the galaxy and seized control in spite of the RoT; not because of it.

*Shrugs* The RoT countered the inherent issues of Sith philosphy, without it, those issues would have caused even more problems for them.

Starbuck_II
2012-08-24, 04:09 PM
I guess I just don't understand why killing your master is a good idea.

Under the same logic killing your henchman is also genius.


But you gain XP when you kill tough challenges. :smallbiggrin:

On a side note:
Does magic exists or just force? Because in Caravan of Courage, Kaink an ewok used magic. She had a magic staff. Is she a force user?
She can shoot a beam of light (that hurt) or hypontize creatures with it.

SmartAlec
2012-08-24, 10:36 PM
The Force isn't benevolent. It has a Dark Side. The Force is the collected life of an entire galaxy, good bits and bad bits. Anger and rage and greed and envy and all the other things make up the Force just as love and kindness and friendship do.

This does sound more like the Warp from Warhammer 40K than the Force.

I think there's definitely more to the Force than simply being created by life and emotion, and even though the Force has a Dark Side, it is still benevolent - on a macroscopic scale, at least. The Jedi try to serve the Force's will, and even those who believe in the Unifying Force (the philosophy that sees the Force and the Dark Side as parts of a single entity) find that the Force tends to promote life, harmony and good vibes.

The Dark Side isn't drawn on by Jedi, but it's still a necessary part of things - a kind of anti-life that both resulted from and represents the decay and cessation of life and peace, the manifestation of the truth that everything ends. Force-sensitive people can draw on it for power, a kind of power suited for destruction, and as a result of that, the proper balance between the Dark Side and the rest of the Force is upset.

Trying to think of a metaphor that describes this, and the best thing I can come up with is a forest. Leaves fall, dead wood is dropped, birds eat bugs, animals eat other animals, but overall, life is perpetuated. The Jedi are like forest rangers, helping keep that perpetuation going. There's still death in the forest, but that's an unavoidable part of things, the Dark Side in balance. The forest, or the galaxy, goes on.

Then someone uses some dead wood to start themselves a fire without being careful, and before you know it, there's a forest fire blazing out of control consuming everything. That's the Dark Side, out of balance.

Scowling Dragon
2012-08-25, 12:05 AM
As I pointed out before:

The Villains in the original trilogy where not clean perfect vilians with deep motivations. But they made sense on a level.

It felt like these where people that just happened to be cruel, spiteful and evil that where willing to harness their darker more destructive feeling. Whilst all sith wen't too far by harnessing darker feelings, it wasn't in the rulebook to be evil! Just aggressive or such.

Making it a RULE that Betrayal must happen, making it a RULE that Sith are that type of evil that gets out of the car to throw kittens over a bridge whilst cackling madly (On a highway) thats just dumb!

Dark is not dumb. Nor is it evil. Its just dangerous. And painful. But wields more power. But its not the EVIL side. Its dark because the powers hurt you. Not because you must be evil to wield it.

Thats my theory anyway.

Starbuck_II
2012-08-25, 12:14 AM
This does sound more like the Warp from Warhammer 40K than the Force.

I think there's definitely more to the Force than simply being created by life and emotion, and even though the Force has a Dark Side, it is still benevolent - on a macroscopic scale, at least. The Jedi try to serve the Force's will, and even those who believe in the Unifying Force (the philosophy that sees the Force and the Dark Side as parts of a single entity) find that the Force tends to promote life, harmony and good vibes.

The Dark Side isn't drawn on by Jedi, but it's still a necessary part of things - a kind of anti-life that both resulted from and represents the decay and cessation of life and peace, the manifestation of the truth that everything ends. Force-sensitive people can draw on it for power, a kind of power suited for destruction, and as a result of that, the proper balance between the Dark Side and the rest of the Force is upset.

Trying to think of a metaphor that describes this, and the best thing I can come up with is a forest. Leaves fall, dead wood is dropped, birds eat bugs, animals eat other animals, but overall, life is perpetuated. The Jedi are like forest rangers, helping keep that perpetuation going. There's still death in the forest, but that's an unavoidable part of things, the Dark Side in balance. The forest, or the galaxy, goes on.

Then someone uses some dead wood to start themselves a fire without being careful, and before you know it, there's a forest fire blazing out of control consuming everything. That's the Dark Side, out of balance.

What about the fact that the first force users were likely dark side?
In KOTOR, you learned about an ancient civilization (Rakata) that used the dark side of the force.

VanBuren
2012-08-25, 12:42 AM
As I pointed out before:

The Villains in the original trilogy where not clean perfect vilians with deep motivations. But they made sense on a level.

It felt like these where people that just happened to be cruel, spiteful and evil that where willing to harness their darker more destructive feeling. Whilst all sith wen't too far by harnessing darker feelings, it wasn't in the rulebook to be evil! Just aggressive or such.

Making it a RULE that Betrayal must happen, making it a RULE that Sith are that type of evil that gets out of the car to throw kittens over a bridge whilst cackling madly (On a highway) thats just dumb!

Dark is not dumb. Nor is it evil. Its just dangerous. And painful. But wields more power. But its not the EVIL side. Its dark because the powers hurt you. Not because you must be evil to wield it.

Thats my theory anyway.

That may be true about dark Jedi in general, but it isn't true about the sith. The sith are a particular philosophy, and while the specifics sometimes change, that's a constant. Although part of the assumptions of Star Wars is that people who use the dark side tend to be evil, if only because that's what the dark side does to you.

Lord Raziere
2012-08-25, 12:55 AM
In all my forty-one years, no one has answered it better than Rob Balder in his erfworld comic (http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F141.jpg).


"Striving for the impossible" doesn't mean "toiling in vain". It means "growth in the direction of your ideals." The fact that you can never actually achieve your ideal doesn't mean that striving in that direction is a bad thing. You may aim at the stars, and never get beyond lunar orbit. But you're still further off the ground than you would be if you just gave it up as hopeless and never so much as climbed a tree.

And the few steps you take blaze a trail that others may use to go still further.

It's a madness, to dream the impossible dream and to fight the unfightable foe. But it's a human thing, and I for one prefer mad hope to rational despair. it is a good thing to dare mad things and bring about tangible benefits. So long as you don't beat yourself too much for not actually reaching perfection, and so long as what you're doing makes life better for other people and not worse.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

rational despair is a contradiction in terms and an oxymoron. neither is hope mad. hope is very rational. I just prefer to hope for said tangible benefits and dream for what can be done. I acknowledge that humanity has got as far as we have daring to do try and fulfill mad dreams, but we also got here because we were rational enough to figure out the rules of the universe and apply them in smart (and not so smart) ways. its only because of rationality you can dream madder dreams than the people of yesterday after all.

Tergon
2012-08-25, 04:45 AM
The Force isn't benevolent. It has a Dark Side. The Force is the collected life of an entire galaxy, good bits and bad bits. Anger and rage and greed and envy and all the other things make up the Force just as love and kindness and friendship do.

While you do make some fine points, as I understand it there's clarification here: There is indeed a Dark Side to the force, but it's not a natural state for it. The Dark Side is the result of free will corrupting the otherwise pure energy of the Force.

Recapping the confusion from the prequel trilogy of films: The Prophecy of the Chosen One who will bring balance to the Force is my reasoning here. The Jedi, the wielders of the Light Side of the Force and the generally accepted "good guys" held clear sway over the Galaxy. To bring balance would, seemingly, mean increasing the level of evil in the Galaxy until the Dark Side held equal power and came into balance. So it makes no sense that the Jedi would actually want this to happen.
The official explanation, and I'm paraphrasing here, is that the existence of evil is, itself, the imbalance. Anakin / Vader fufilled the prophecy by killing Darth Sidious and abandoning his role as apprentice, thus destroying the Rule of Two and breaking the power of the Sith.
The Force itself is the power of life and growth, and to use it as a weapon against others is to bring it out of balance. So it could reasonably be said that the Light Side of the Force is the "natural" side, and the Dark Side is "unnatural". In and of itself, in its natural state, the Force is benevolent.

Basically what we have here is the grand cosmic space-wizard equivalent of "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." The Dark Side is the corruption that brings it out of balance and allows the otherwise benevolent energy to be used for evil.

Yora
2012-08-25, 04:53 AM
Recapping the confusion from the prequel trilogy of films: The Prophecy of the Chosen One who will bring balance to the Force is my reasoning here. The Jedi, the wielders of the Light Side of the Force and the generally accepted "good guys" held clear sway over the Galaxy. To bring balance would, seemingly, mean increasing the level of evil in the Galaxy until the Dark Side held equal power and came into balance. So it makes no sense that the Jedi would actually want this to happen.
George Lucas wrote that. "makes no sense" is not an argument against it in that case. :smallbiggrin:

Coidzor
2012-08-25, 05:19 PM
I'm not an expert on the real world elements that were drawn upon for the belief system of the Jedi vis-a-vis the Force and the conceptualization of the Force in the setting in general, but the idea of imbalance being the source of suffering, strife, and what most of us would call evil is not something that really lacks precedent.

hamishspence
2012-08-25, 05:23 PM
The Force itself is the power of life and growth, and to use it as a weapon against others is to bring it out of balance. So it could reasonably be said that the Light Side of the Force is the "natural" side, and the Dark Side is "unnatural". In and of itself, in its natural state, the Force is benevolent.

The problem being that in the OT the very natural emotions of "anger" and "fear" are characterized as Dark Side:

"Anger, fear, aggression- the Dark Side are they"

Taken literally- The Dark Side's been around as long as life with emotions has.

Infernally Clay
2012-08-25, 05:44 PM
Lucas was pretty clear - the Dark Side was the imbalance and, in the end, Anakin fulfilled the prophecy by destroying it and returning balance to the Force. After Return of the Jedi, as far as Lucas (and anyone else for that matter) is concerned, the Dark Side no longer exists. Indeed, any expanded universe material that says otherwise is simply wrong.

Anyway, I still think the whole reason behind the Rule of Two was to progressively result in stronger Sith every "generation". As in, each apprentice would live only to surpass their master and the only way they'd do that is by killing them - if they failed to, they'd simply get replaced by someone stronger. Certainly, that'd ensure every Sith Lord was indeed stronger than the last. I always figured that was why the Sith always seemed several times more powerful than the Jedi. That it wasn't that the Dark Side was stronger, but that the Sith's connection to the Force was simply stronger. That being chosen as a Sith's apprentice implied innate strength beyond that of the general quality of the Jedi apprentices.

Reverent-One
2012-08-25, 07:22 PM
Lucas was pretty clear - the Dark Side was the imbalance and, in the end, Anakin fulfilled the prophecy by destroying it and returning balance to the Force. After Return of the Jedi, as far as Lucas (and anyone else for that matter) is concerned, the Dark Side no longer exists. Indeed, any expanded universe material that says otherwise is simply wrong.

Well, as far as Lucas is concerned anyway. There's plenty of reasons for people to not share his take on the matter.

Tiki Snakes
2012-08-25, 07:27 PM
The problem being that in the OT the very natural emotions of "anger" and "fear" are characterized as Dark Side:

"Anger, fear, aggression- the Dark Side are they"

Taken literally- The Dark Side's been around as long as life with emotions has.

I thought they were the path to the dark side?

Personally, I choose to conceptualise the "Dark Side" as like a massive, conceptual parasite, a spiderlike abomination infecting the parts of the force that are generally attributed to it. This, in my headcanon, is why Sith and Darksiders in general (regardless of their former personality) tend to increasingly become stupid and driven to the same old acts. Also the probably source of all the trendy Dark-Side Mutations, as it gains subconcious control of those who would tap into it, over time.

Yora
2012-08-26, 07:42 AM
I'm not an expert on the real world elements that were drawn upon for the belief system of the Jedi vis-a-vis the Force and the conceptualization of the Force in the setting in general
Probably just Karma. Negative emotions create a negative attitude, which creates a negative perception of the world and leads to harmful actions. Which in turn create more negative emotions in yourself and the people around you.
The Dark Path, as the Jedi would call it.

Which leads us directly to these three guys.
http://www.japanprobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/san-zaru.jpg
Who are not ignoring the existance of evil, but refuse to let it take control of them.

Wardog
2012-08-27, 03:16 PM
Simple answer:

Palpatine was trying to goad Luke into losing his cool and lashing out, thereby causing him to fall to the dark side.

The EU, being the EU, assumed that:
1) He was being perfectly honest and open, and genuinely wanted Luke to kill him.
2) All Sith everywhere followed the exact same principle.

Tavar
2012-08-27, 04:39 PM
Didn't the EU also introduce the clones, so that if Palpatine was struck down, Luke would fall and Palpatine would get back into a prime of his life body? Seems like a decent strategy, if that's an option.

pendell
2012-08-27, 04:41 PM
Recapping the confusion from the prequel trilogy of films: The Prophecy of the Chosen One who will bring balance to the Force is my reasoning here. The Jedi, the wielders of the Light Side of the Force and the generally accepted "good guys" held clear sway over the Galaxy. To bring balance would, seemingly, mean increasing the level of evil in the Galaxy until the Dark Side held equal power and came into balance. So it makes no sense that the Jedi would actually want this to happen.

I don't think that's the way it works. Lemme see if I recall the Ep. III novelization ---

So far as the Jedi are concerned, you can't get rid of things like fear, greed, envy, passion. It's built into the force and into living beings. It's what allows creatures to survive in jungles.

So you can't abolish the dark side and make a galaxy of light.

What you can do is contain the dark side, like a forest fire. Permit ordinary people to do ordinary things, but whenever any particular 'forest fire' gets too large you have Jedi firefighters to step in and put it out. Of course it will spring up again, that's what people are.

That is the force in balance, and that is the Jedi ideal. They can't annihilate darkness or the dark side, but they can contain it, tame it, push it into a cage where it doesn't hurt a lot of people.

At the time of the clone wars the Force was out of balance, because the dark side had escaped from its cage and was threatening to overwhelm the galaxy. That's why the clone wars were a defeat for the Jedi before the first shot was fired -- because the darkness in men's hearts had gone so far out of their control that a galactic war had resulted. The dark side was free and raging like a forest fire, and all the galaxy was upset, in chaos. Unbalanced.

Anakin's prophecy was not that he would annihilate the dark side -- one more time, that's impossible -- but he could put it back in its place and restore order, balance, peace both to the force and to the galaxy.

That's my understanding from the novelization. I don't recall ever seeing that Lucas stated that the Dark Side had been destroyed.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Tergon
2012-08-27, 06:19 PM
Well, in fairness, I wasn't the one who said that Anakin destroyed the Dark Side. I only said that he broke the Sith's power to restore balance, which is basically the same as your point there.

But yeah, I can get what you're saying. The Dark Side is an intrinsic part of the Force itself, and if it ceased to exist, by definition so would the Light Side. And there are plenty of Jedi - most notably Mace Windu, if I recall - whose powers are dangerously close to the Dark Side, but this in turn also makes them much more formidable than their fellow Jedi.

Perhaps a slight edit on my original statement, then. The Force is benevolent if it is kept in balance, with evil restrained and good allowed to spread through the galaxy. I still believe this makes the Force an inherently "good" power; either way you look at it, if at any point the power of the Dark Side is equal to or greater than the Light Side, then it's out of balance. The ideal state of the force is with the Light Side holding sway over the Dark. But it also carries the knowledge that the Dark Side will always be there if a Jedi chooses the wrong path.

MLai
2012-08-27, 08:45 PM
Wait Mace Windu is "dangerously close to the dark side"??? In the movies he's the most straight-laced, boring, and methodical Jedi ever. Shaolin temple popes emote more than this guy. He'd be the last person I'd consider vulnerable.

Asskicking does not equal evil.

The Glyphstone
2012-08-27, 08:57 PM
Wait Mace Windu is "dangerously close to the dark side"??? In the movies he's the most straight-laced, boring, and methodical Jedi ever. Shaolin temple popes emote more than this guy. He'd be the last person I'd consider vulnerable.

Asskicking does not equal evil.

His fighting style is. I can't remember the name, but it involves channeling negative emotions to positive ends or something, basically Dark Side energy on a leash.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Form_VII:_Juyo/Vaapad

VanBuren
2012-08-27, 09:26 PM
His fighting style is. I can't remember the name, but it involves channeling negative emotions to positive ends or something, basically Dark Side energy on a leash.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Form_VII:_Juyo/Vaapad

IIRC, everyone else who utilized his style fell to the Dark Side.

Tergon
2012-08-27, 11:05 PM
Wait Mace Windu is "dangerously close to the dark side"??? In the movies he's the most straight-laced, boring, and methodical Jedi ever. Shaolin temple popes emote more than this guy. He'd be the last person I'd consider vulnerable.

Asskicking does not equal evil.

I'm pretty sure Yoda would claim that asskicking equals exactly that. It leads to awesomeness, which leads to arrogance, which leads to pride, which leads to gluttony, which leds to obesity, which leads to Richard Simmonds, which leads to passion, which leads to anger, which leads to hate, which leads to suffering, which is the path of the Dark Side.

Seriously, though, as I understood it that's basically why Mace Windu is straight-laced and methodical. His fighting style and the way in which he uses the force is very close to crossing over to the Dark Side, and that's exactly the reason why he makes such an effort to be calm and soft-spoken and doing things by the book - he can't risk letting his emotions get the better of him, because he's so dangerously close to slipping over the edge. He's a quiet and stoic man specifically because of how much ass he kicks, because if he wasn't he would become another fallen Jedi.

Tyndmyr
2012-08-28, 09:24 AM
Could be that they had to work with the problem of Dark Side producing huge amounts of ambition and a desire to become top of the heap.

The Rule of Two helps keep the Sith in check- forcing them to stay hidden until they've done enough over the generations for their plan to work.

Without a Rule of Two- they'd come to the Jedi's attention pretty rapidly.

This would have made mounds of sense if they separated out two by two and went into hiding. "hey guys, overt resistance isn't working. let's kill a few chumps as a distraction, and each pair goes it's separate way and goes sneaky like."

Selecting only a single pair is the silly bit.

Caewil
2012-08-29, 02:34 AM
This would have made mounds of sense if they separated out two by two and went into hiding. "hey guys, overt resistance isn't working. let's kill a few chumps as a distraction, and each pair goes it's separate way and goes sneaky like."

Selecting only a single pair is the silly bit.
Having multiple Sith scheming at the same time to topple the republic would be counterproductive if their schemes conflicted. Before Palpatine became emperor, he even went to lengths to weaken other covert organizations such as the black sun - they were a threat to his plans. He also Co-opted darth millenial's sith and got them to work for him. There can only be one Sith master at the top of the heap - other Sith who are not under your control are a threat to that.

Tyndmyr
2012-08-29, 11:30 AM
Having multiple Sith scheming at the same time to topple the republic would be counterproductive if their schemes conflicted. Before Palpatine became emperor, he even went to lengths to weaken other covert organizations such as the black sun - they were a threat to his plans. He also Co-opted darth millenial's sith and got them to work for him. There can only be one Sith master at the top of the heap - other Sith who are not under your control are a threat to that.

Focusing on the weakest other threats instead of the strongest is a great way to make sure the strongest wins.

Sure, hunting down other Sith AFTER you topple the republic? Legit. But before, not so much.

Tergon
2012-08-29, 11:35 AM
That assumes that the biggest threat is feeding from the same power source as the lesser threats, and that by removing them, you are inadvertently channeling power toward the biggest threat.

The Rule of Two, on the other hand, removed small threats that the Jedi did not even know existed. It didn't effect the Jedi's level of available power while channeling all of the resources of the Dark Side toward the Master and the Apprentice of the Rule of Two. They weren't feeding from the same pond as the Jedi; they fed in their own little pond to gain enough strength to go over and kick some Jedi butt.

In the context we've got it, that part of the strategy was sound. I still believe that reducing the Sith to only the Rule of Two was a poor decision in the long run, but there is at least some logic behind it.

VanBuren
2012-08-29, 02:16 PM
Focusing on the weakest other threats instead of the strongest is a great way to make sure the strongest wins.

Sure, hunting down other Sith AFTER you topple the republic? Legit. But before, not so much.

Considering that the dark side is pretty much about being short-sighted and selfish, this only seems reasonable.

Scowling Dragon
2012-08-29, 02:19 PM
Oh right. That thing. Cause emotions have a natural line of events and always lead to one thing or another.

How about this:

Kindness leads to helping puppies- Helping puppies leads to you having to work allot- Having to work allot leads to suffering- suffering leads to hate- hate leads to the dark side.

Therefore kindness leads to the dark side.

VanBuren
2012-08-29, 02:59 PM
But the sith aren't just feeling emotions. They're willingly and deliberately tapping into the dark side.

So your argument doesn't really, y'know, work.

Coidzor
2012-08-29, 03:13 PM
My understanding was that the dark side corrupts positive emotions, inserting jealousy and possessiveness into love until the love is destroyed and the like, before making the person emotionally neutered so that they can only feel the emotions the dark side wants them to feel.

Scowling Dragon
2012-08-29, 06:55 PM
But the sith aren't just feeling emotions. They're willingly and deliberately tapping into the dark side.

So your argument doesn't really, y'know, work.

Im just saterizing Yodas briliance:


Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

I just imagine something like this going on:



"Touch the hot stove you must"

"Why?"

"Because you must!"

"But its hot! And Il get burned!"

"AHA! You feel fear! Anxious to go to the darkside are you?

"What! No-"

"Sith-Chop your head off I must! BLAAAAAAAAUGh!"

VanBuren
2012-08-29, 07:03 PM
Im just saterizing Yodas briliance:



I just imagine something like this going on:

You can make anything sound stupid if you take it out of context.

Scowling Dragon
2012-08-30, 02:14 AM
You can make anything sound stupid if you take it out of context.

How is it NOT stupid. Emotions aren't linear you know?

Sometimes I just get scared and then I just get over it. Or sometimes I get angry, but then get sad that Im angry, and then just cool down.

Lord Raziere
2012-08-30, 02:19 AM
well technically Yoda's wisdom does apply to people in general.

much of the hate of the world comes from fearing certain outcomes. and from that hate, suffering happens in the form of inflicting suffering upon something that might cause your fears to come true.

for example- lets say zombies existed and started attacking people. you would naturally start to fear that all the world will get eaten by zombies, then you hate zombies for being stupid monsters that might eat the world. then you go out, and kill the zombies and thus inflicting suffering upon the zombies, because you fear they will devour everyone.

only apply that to everything. and suddenly the actions of many people make a lot more sense.

Parra
2012-08-30, 02:23 AM
Sometimes I just get scared and then I just get over it. Or sometimes I get angry, but then get sad that Im angry, and then just cool down.

I think of it more like a drug addiction. The more Dark Side you use the more you want to use it. So that little bit of anger you felt, felt good enough to want to feel it again and maybe a bit more next time. Ditto for the whole range of emotions.
Maybe that's why the Jedi are so detached. They are drug addicts trying to stop the Force Drug dominating their lives so try not to 'indulge' (for lack of a better word) their emotions.

Applicable to force sensitives only ofc

Scowling Dragon
2012-08-30, 04:34 AM
well technically Yoda's wisdom does apply to people in general.


Sometimes. But its so general that its useless. Oh sure we can fear things. And that can lead to hate. But so can vice versa and a million billion different scenarios. Its not as much wisdom as much as wasting air.

I might as well say that fear leads to joy and peace. Cause sometimes it does.

pendell
2012-08-30, 07:41 AM
Oh right. That thing. Cause emotions have a natural line of events and always lead to one thing or another.

How about this:

Kindness leads to helping puppies- Helping puppies leads to you having to work allot- Having to work allot leads to suffering- suffering leads to hate- hate leads to the dark side.

Therefore kindness leads to the dark side.

DING DING DING We have a winnah! I always had a problem with Yoda's attitude and I think you've hit it on the head -- it's the "slippery slope" fallacy applied to mysticism.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Tiki Snakes
2012-08-30, 07:49 AM
How is it NOT stupid. Emotions aren't linear you know?

Sometimes I just get scared and then I just get over it. Or sometimes I get angry, but then get sad that Im angry, and then just cool down.

No, emotions aren't linear.
But Yoda is giving that advice in a universe where cosmic forces will twist you, pervert you into a monster if you feel certain emotions too freely and are sensitive to it.

It's not some general thing, it's very specifically the path to the Dark Side of the Force. Not the path to generally being a bad person.

It's not so much the slippery slope fallacy as a reference to the fact that in that setting, there is literally a cosmic slope and it is slippery.

Tergon
2012-08-30, 08:52 AM
'Zacktly. Yoda isn't saying that love is a bad thing, or that fear is a bad thing, or that even hate is a bad thing. Suffering is, obviously, but you can hate an evil person and that won't make you a bad guy. He's saying that these emotions are extremely dangerous for a Jedi to feel. These are space wizard-ninjas with unbelievable abilities that cover mind control, telekinesis and seeing the future. One of them going rogue could cause a LOT of death and suffering while damaging the image of the Jedi in general. And the Jedi are, by nature of the fact that they're force-wielders, vulnerable to corruption through their emotions.

It's like, nobody is saying that beer is bad. Beer is awesome. But you don't want to let your fighter pilots become alcoholics, do you? So a commanding officer would tell his pilots not to drink.
Yoda is, in this extended metaphor, saying that he requires his Jedi to be emotional teetotaller. Extreme, maybe, but considering the terrible risk posed by the Jedi becoming emotionally compromised, he has a point. Anakin DID develop an emotional attachment, and look how it turned out. Say what you will about the little bastard, but he was right.

mangosta71
2012-08-30, 09:25 AM
Even if we accept the BS slippery slope fallacy, Yoda's "path to the Dark Side" is missing something at the beginning. Fear (almost always) stems from ignorance. You fight fear with education designed to combat the ignorance causing the fear. Perhaps if the Jedi Council had been willing to teach Anakin in the first place, instead of shutting him out and forcing him to be trained by a single Master (and then seek knowledge from other sources when that Master's teachings reached their limit), his fall could have been prevented.

It's like nuclear reactors. People that don't know anything about them are scared out of their minds. People that do know about them respect them, but do not fear them.

Parra
2012-08-30, 10:06 AM
I dunno, knowledge can bring fear too. Knowing lots about Hippos would only make me fear them more if I was face to face with one in the wild.

Fear may stem from ignorance, but sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Scowling Dragon
2012-08-30, 10:07 AM
Which again makes the force looks like this crazy thing that nobody should use.

Because it makes you go crazy unless you never feel fear or anger or anything natural.

The force has caused far more pain and suffering then it has good.

In a general sense yes: Jedi are keepers of the peace. But what does it end up amounting too?

The Dark Side amounts to a bunch of destroyed planets and contant evil tyrannies.

Tergon
2012-08-30, 10:28 AM
Because the Jedi, like most peacekeepers, are a reactionary force. If the galaxy was peaceful and happy and free, there would be no need for the Jedi to exist, and they're aware of that. Once you cut through the religion and philosophy, the fact is that all Jedi are trained as warriors because their purpose is to actively seek out and destroy evil. There are many more beings out there who use the Force to dominate and control others, and to cause destruction, and the purpose of the Jedi order is to oppose them.

Look at it from this perspective, perhaps. If you strip away the religion and the symbolism and the moral semantics, you're left with something like this:

Fact #1: The Force exists, and sentient beings throughout the galaxy are able to make use of it for selfish or destructive purposes.
Fact #2: A Force user who allows themselves to become emotionally compromised is highly likely to begin using the Force for selfish or destructive purposes, regardless of how good their intentions might have been.
Fact #3: Should a Force user begin exploiting the power they wield, they could become a near-unstoppable threat, causing destruction on a huge scale.
Fact #4: When fighting a Force user, the most effective tactic is to engage them with other Force users who can attempt to match their power.

So when the Dark Force was used to cause destruction and suffering in the Galaxy, the logical solution is to create an alliance of Light Force users who are capable of combating them. Strong emotions were clearly a big part of Force users falling to the Dark Side, and so in order to combat the Dark Side, those who joined the alliance were encouraged to suppress or break off their emotional attachments in order to better combat the threat. Bam, there's your Jedi. And over time it develops into the policy of training all force sensitives to not form emotional attachments in order to reduce the risk of them falling to the Dark Side.

Was it the right course of action? No, probably not, as the destruction of the Jedi Order would suggest. But you can at least see where they're coming from with this logic, in the face of not having much else they could do.
And in Yoda's defence, let's be clear - he gave his "path to the Dark Side" speech as a reason why Anakin should not have been trained, only ever painting it as the worst case scenario. And he was 100% right to have done so. When nobody listened to him and Anakin was trained anyway, he did what he could, even going so far as to have private meditation sessions with Anakin to try and help him. Yoda did everything he could to try and stop Anakin's fall to the Dark Side, and as dumb as his logic may seem from one perspective, the fact remains that he was right.

lt_murgen
2012-08-30, 11:00 AM
On the topic of love, we forget Anakin's speech to Padme on the subject. It was in Attack of the Clones, as they two eat a meal onboard a refugee ship to Naboo.

"Attachment is forbidden. Possession is forbidden. Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is essential to a Jedi's life. So you might say, that we are encouraged to love."

The Jedi do teach their padawans to distinguish between various nuances of emotions. In doing so, we can infer they attempt to provide a reasonable guide path for operating on a real-world level.

Scowling Dragon
2012-08-30, 11:52 AM
Thats BS as well.

The Jedi have ONE attachment, and all the rest are discouraged: The Jedi Order. :smalleek:

So yeah. Cult mentality. You can't NOT be attached to anything. Otherwise you become apathetic to life. Compassion requires a certain level of attachment as well!

Ugh I need to stop before my brain explodes from the stupid!

hamishspence
2012-08-30, 12:13 PM
So when the Dark Force was used to cause destruction and suffering in the Galaxy, the logical solution is to create an alliance of Light Force users who are capable of combating them. Strong emotions were clearly a big part of Force users falling to the Dark Side, and so in order to combat the Dark Side, those who joined the alliance were encouraged to suppress or break off their emotional attachments in order to better combat the threat. Bam, there's your Jedi. And over time it develops into the policy of training all force sensitives to not form emotional attachments in order to reduce the risk of them falling to the Dark Side.

Thing is- while the Jedi have been warring against "Darksiders" for longer than the Republic's been around (over 25,000 years), the various "non-attachment policies" (no training anyone older than infancy, no marriages, etc) are much newer- being finally formalized wholesale 1000 years before A New Hope. Though they were actually proposed long before then.

mangosta71
2012-08-30, 12:19 PM
If you become angry or afraid, you can fall to the Dark Side; therefore, you shouldn't feel anger or fear. By that logic, if you're a Jedi, you can fall to the Dark Side; therefore, you shouldn't be a Jedi. If there are any Jedi, they should be exterminated before they fall at some hypothetical future point. For the good of the galaxy. The Jedi ideal kinda reminds me of the Miranda experiment in Serenity - take away all the anger, all the passion, and everyone just laid down and let themselves die.

The major failing in Star Wars, as I see it, is wrapping a bunch of pseudophilosophical nonsense around its magic system. And yes, that point bothers me more than the basic, black-and-white, completely unambiguous morality of the films. At least the morality of the films doesn't have to be followed in other stories within the setting.

VanBuren
2012-08-30, 01:18 PM
Thats BS as well.

The Jedi have ONE attachment, and all the rest are discouraged: The Jedi Order. :smalleek:

So yeah. Cult mentality. You can't NOT be attached to anything. Otherwise you become apathetic to life. Compassion requires a certain level of attachment as well!

Ugh I need to stop before my brain explodes from the stupid!

Doesn't Buddhism teach something similar, though? I mean, with that kind of pedigree I feel like a concept like that deserves more than a reflexive dismissal.

Tyndmyr
2012-08-30, 01:20 PM
Doesn't Buddhism teach something similar, though? I mean, with that kind of pedigree I feel like a concept like that deserves more than a reflexive dismissal.

Sort of. Kind of. Treating Star Wars as Buddhism is probably not justified though. The one tangentially inspired the other, so Star Wars is like Buddhism in the same way that WoW is like Lord of the Rings.

Tyndmyr
2012-08-30, 01:24 PM
Doesn't Buddhism teach something similar, though? I mean, with that kind of pedigree I feel like a concept like that deserves more than a reflexive dismissal.

Sort of. Kind of. Treating Star Wars as Buddhism is probably not justified though. The one tangentially inspired the other, so Star Wars is like Buddhism in the same way that WoW is like Lord of the Rings.

Water_Bear
2012-08-30, 01:29 PM
Doesn't Buddhism teach something similar, though? I mean, with that kind of pedigree I feel like a concept like that deserves more than a reflexive dismissal.

Well, I guess the difference is that most forms of Buddhism don't stress hierarchy and blind adherence to authority to the degree the Jedi do. As for Buddhist monasteries, it's less icky because they usually only accept adults who volunteer to become Monks; the Jedi would only accept candidates who have been indoctrinated since childhood and attempted to get every force-sensitive child they could find.

The problem is that the Jedi ideology is actually really vague and somewhat sinister. They talk about freedom and the importance of democracy, but are an authoritarian religious order who act outside of the law. Nonsensical dogmas like "only a Sith deals in absolutes" and "there is no try, only do or do not" seem to be employed as thought-terminating cliches. They never really explain what it is they ultimately value; defining themselves completely in opposition to the Dark Side, and until Episode One the Jedi Council didn't even think the Sith had existed for centuries.

VanBuren
2012-08-30, 01:31 PM
Sort of. Kind of. Treating Star Wars as Buddhism is probably not justified though. The one tangentially inspired the other, so Star Wars is like Buddhism in the same way that WoW is like Lord of the Rings.

I get that. I'm specifically asking about the whole "no attachment" concept, though. AFAIK, wasn't that lifted pretty much entirely?

hamishspence
2012-08-30, 03:15 PM
They never really explain what it is they ultimately value; defining themselves completely in opposition to the Dark Side, and until Episode One the Jedi Council didn't even think the Sith had existed for centuries.

You get a lot more about "Jedi ideology" n the EU than then movies. Though, in ANH, you do have Obi-Wan's "They were the guardians of truth and justice in the Old Republic"

pendell
2012-08-30, 03:49 PM
Sort of. Kind of. Treating Star Wars as Buddhism is probably not justified though. The one tangentially inspired the other, so Star Wars is like Buddhism in the same way that WoW is like Lord of the Rings.

Take one part buddhism, one part Catholicism, one part Knights Templar and who knows what else. Stir until you have a Campbell Hero of A Thousand Faces analog which doesn't tie closely with any real-world religion but hits the same mythological place in the psyche.

To my mind, "Jedi Creed" equates to "good guy belief system" with enough bits taken from real world system to assist in making the myth. IMO Lucas begged , borrowed, and stole from all kinds of sources because, again, he was looking for something that was universal, something that Americans and Japanese and Germans and Russians and Zulu could all watch and appreciate, because it touches those universal ur-myths.

Lucas wanted a Hero With a Thousand Faces. The result, in Luke Skywalker, is someone who has shades of American gunfighter and Japanese Samurai and Russian cossack and whatever else. And this hero of a thousand faces has a creed of a thousand faces, which again has a passing resemblance to a number of real-world systems without actually being any of them.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Water_Bear
2012-08-30, 04:52 PM
You get a lot more about "Jedi ideology" n the EU than then movies. Though, in ANH, you do have Obi-Wan's "They were the guardians of truth and justice in the Old Republic"

Yeah, I gave up on reading the EU novels when I saw how far I would have to go just to get to the Thrawn books. Even Tolkien isn't that brutal with the sheer amount of background.

And is it even possible to have beliefs more generic than supporting "truth and justice?" What does that even mean?

Philistine
2012-08-30, 07:13 PM
Yeah, I gave up on reading the EU novels when I saw how far I would have to go just to get to the Thrawn books. Even Tolkien isn't that brutal with the sheer amount of background.

And is it even possible to have beliefs more generic than supporting "truth and justice?" What does that even mean?

Yeah.... Best just to go straight to the Zahn stuff - maybe hit up the Stackpole on the way through. You can pretty much skip everything else, and spare yourself a lot of Bad.

hamishspence
2012-09-07, 07:25 PM
Lucas was pretty clear - the Dark Side was the imbalance and, in the end, Anakin fulfilled the prophecy by destroying it and returning balance to the Force. After Return of the Jedi, as far as Lucas (and anyone else for that matter) is concerned, the Dark Side no longer exists. Indeed, any expanded universe material that says otherwise is simply wrong.


Some of Lucas's own quotes would suggest otherwise:


"The idea of positive and negative, that there are two sides to an entity, a push and a pull, a yin and a yang, and the struggle between the two sides are issues of nature that I wanted to include in the film." - Annotated Screenplays

"The Force has two sides. It is not a malevolent or a benevolent thing. It has a bad side to it, involving hate and fear, and it has a good side, involving love, charity, fairness and hope." - Time magazine 1980

"I wanted to have this mythological footing because I was basing the films on the idea that the Force has two sides, the good side, the evil side, and they both need to be there. Most religions are built on that, whether it's called yin and yang, God and the devil — everything is built on the push-pull tension created by two sides of the equation. Right from the very beginning, that was the key issue in Star Wars." - Time magazine 2002