At the risk of getting into a philosophical debate
In a den of RPers, playing in a written word medium, and especially when dealing with those geeky enough to have wanted to delve into playing Jedi specifically, you are going to find that an invite to philosophical debate is like catnip.
Or at least it is for me! Hence everything that is about to follow (which is possibly waaaaaay more insanely nerdy than what you were looking for as part of this conversation, heh). So I just want to intro it by saying that for me debate is its own reward, and I always appreciate the chance to do it. I hope passionate responses like this one and the others you've gotten don't dissuade you from contributing to more fun discussion of this nature!
You obviously don't have to agree with me, but if you have a few minutes, read this article: https://www.tor.com/2012/09/12/the-qtrue-nature-of-the-force-is-way-more-complicated-than-you-think/ .
It was written about 5 years ago, but it remains one of my favorite articles on Star Wars ideology because it does a fantastic job of exploring the "true nature of the Force".
This is an interesting article, and it presents a common argument that I've seen circulated through the fanon for years. I would argue, however, that the article, and the position it adopts, is an exploration of the
argument itself, as a concept, and
not an analysis of the fullness of the actual canon. I will elaborate on what I mean, occasionally taking quotes from the article itself.
" But you know what? Balance is not good triumphing over evil. Balance is balance. The seesaw doesn’t tip in either direction here, so… what does that mean for Star Wars? Well for one, it may be time to reevaluate everything that we know—or think we know—about the nature of that galaxy far, far away.
While George Lucas may have based the general outline of Star Wars on western mythology, the Force itself resembles faiths and spiritual ideas from all over the world from Zen Buddhism and Taoism to audio fragments from an Arthur Lipsett film in 1963. These inspirations lead to a phrase that we hear often in Star Wars canon—“so-and-so will bring balance to the Force.” Yet we’re not encouraged to actually explore what that might entail."
From one paragraph to the next, we already stumble into a contradiction, and an assertion of personal interpretation as canon. The idea that "balance" as Lucas was using it in Star Wars necessarily means a 50/50 split of anything is not in fact supported by canon; it is, rather, a personal definition of what balance means to the author.
Further, Lucas has been quite explicit in stating that he deliberately incorporated Buddhist, Taoist, and other traditions often considered "Oriental" in origin, so I would argue that it is important to consider those influences
as deliberate rather than coincidental and unexplored add-ons to a Western philosophy. With that in consideration, it's pivotal to note what those traditions consider to
be balance. In none of those traditions is balance considered to be equal parts destructive behavior vs. constructive behavior, nor even equal parts selfishness vs. altruism, an analysis which the author later invites by saying:
"Rather than anger and hate, it would be more correct to say that the dark side is predicated on selfish pursuits, or more interestingly on emotions at large."
Rather, in traditions like Buddhism and Taoism, balance is explicitly defined as a state of being in which one accepts that the nature of the universe is creative or transformative (rather than destructive or motivated by confrontation), and that harmony with the universe means letting go of selfish impulses that would otherwise prevent you from perceiving the true nature of things because you are too much focused inward. They posit that balance is to be found when one ceases to attempt to enforce change in service of one's self-motivated pursuits, and instead seeks to live in harmony with the energies of the universe. By the author's own interpretation of what the Sith position entails, this already disqualifies the "Dark Side" from being one half of any balance equation:
"Sith seek to gain status and control their surroundings, while the Jedi seek to use their powers for the benefit of others and attain peace in place of emotion."
(We'll get to that "in place of emotion" bit later.)
All of the preceding goes to say: the author is beginning their argument on thin ice first by incorrectly asserting that similarities to Buddhism or Taoism were coincidental or unexplored by the author (as Lucas' own testimony asserts they were neither), and second by inaccurately using them as a launching off point to suggest that an interpretation of balance should be equal parts good and evil, or even equal parts selfishness and altruism.
Other portions of the article argue that the canon is not clear in presenting what the "correct" philosophies or interpretations of the Force should be, and additionally brings into the debate the ever-popular question of what the prophecy of the Chosen One was meant to explain or predict. However, I would argue that in fact the canon is fairly clear on these questions and more.
To dig to the kernel of truth in canon, however, we must first contend with the thorny issue of the EU. The new Lucasfilm story group realized the EU's convoluted and frequently outright contradictory contributions from its myriad contributors was an issue (granted they were motivated by concerns other than philosophical debate). When it comes to attempting to understand what the Force was "meant to be" I think it behooves us to go straight back to the source: George Lucas. It is worth noting that before the Disney take-over, the Lucasfilm stance on what should be considered true canon was always that the visual media in which Lucas played a direct part was canon, and anything from the EU that contradicted it was not. (Witness: the furor created when The Clone Wars series invalidated much of what Karen Traviss' books had created about Mandalore and Mandalorians.)
Which brings us to another contribution to any discussion of canon that is too often overlooked, and that is The Clone Wars series itself. George Lucas played a direct hand in The Clone Wars, at nearly every level of its production for its entire run, and that means that in fact we have much more to go on when trying to understand the Force and the Jedi and the Sith, and what the universe's creator meant them to be, than just the six movies he spear-headed. While The Clone Wars was not without its own messiness (some arcs bore the clear stamp of their non-Lucas authors and occasionally strained "canon" into new shapes and territory), it's still important to remember that The Clone Wars gave Lucas the opportunity to explore other aspects of his universe in ways the movies didn't allow him to do.
In an interview about The Clone Wars, regular series writer Christian Taylor said:
"It’s funny, when we came in George said there are three things: “There’s the father, the son and the holy ghost.” He said “There’s the father, who’s me, there’s the son who is through licensing and then there’s the holy ghost.” So when it’s authorized by George Lucas it’s canon. When it’s by “the son” — that’s the whole load of things made by the machine — and there is a lot of creativity there but it’s just not authored by George. The holy ghost is what fans provide and expect. So for us, we really have only one master to answer to. You’re not going to answer to the fans and nor would they want that, really."
In my arguments to follow, I will lean on the movies and The Clone Wars almost exclusively, but there is one source that strays a little into possible EU territory that I will also cite - namely, the books
The Jedi Path and
Book of the Sith. These are (beautifully put together) books that present themselves as in-universe collections of philosophy and history of these two sects. They were published in 2011 and 2013 respectively, and include references to material from the movies
and The Clone wars, and to the EU where the EU doesn't contradict the movies
or The Clone Wars. They are therefore as close to an "authorized" version of the canon view on these philosophies (pre the Disney wipe of canon in 2014) as we are likely to get. And since the author of the article I am arguing against wrote that article in 2012, I think it's fair to discuss in this context.
One of the more interesting aspects of
The Jedi Path and the
Book of the Sith is that they are deliberately written "in character" - meaning they are written with the in-universe biases of the fictional authors fully present. That gives the reader insight into what both the Jedi and the Sith believed
themselves to be, and as a fan attempting to parse them for the "truth" of canon I think one of the most interesting exercises is to compare and contrast what the two books say. When you do that, one of the most interesting tidbits to pop out at you is this bit from the
Book of the Sith, written by one of the universe's first Sith Lords, Sorzus Syn:
"I know the Jedi myth of Mortis, of a Chosen One who will destroy the dark side and bring balance to the Force."
This idea that "balance" was to be restored by defeating the manifestation of the dark side in the form of the Sith is fairly prevalent throughout canon, or at least in what the canon characters in-character believed it to mean. The author of the "True Nature of the Force" article is essentially making the argument that maybe all of these characters' interpretation of the prophecy was incorrect, and that in fact the core principles of the Jedi way and their interpretations of the Force were "wrong" and not true representations of what the Force is supposed to be. But since it's important to talk about the Force as it exists
in the universe of Star Wars, and not in the real world interpretations of the fans, why don't we just turn straight to George Lucas for an answer to that question:
George Lucas on the Force. (It's important to note that he is free-form speaking here, and you need to get all the way through his speech to get the fullness of what he's saying and not be hung up on specific words; for example, he aborts a sentence half-way through in the beginning that makes it sound like he's saying the "core" of the Force is a balance between darkness and light, but when you get to minute 2:25 you get the conclusion to the thought which is his describing what the "core" of the
definitions of dark side and light side are, not the core of what balance is.)
Another very important line from Lucas's talk there is: "You're allowed to
love people, but you're not allowed to possess them." This jives with quotes from Lucas at many other points, where he explains that Jedi aren't required to be celibate, only that they are required to not form attachments. (Also with Anakin's own lines in Attack of the Clones: "Attachment is forbidden. Possession is forbidden. Compassion... is central to a Jedi's life.")
And all of this jives with all of the canon interpretations of what the Jedi Code is supposed to mean, specifically the first line: "There is no emotion, there is peace." It's worth noting that even the
wiki entry the author of "The Nature of the Force" article links to cites that an alternate (and Jedi-accepted) version of the Code is "Emotion, yet peace." The book
The Jedi Path (again, written from the point of view of the Jedi themselves) says this line means:
"This principle guides all meditations and interactions with all others. It reaffirms the Jedi ideal to act without recklessness, and to view the actions of others through the pure lens o the Unifying Force." There is in fact no canon-sourced (again, referring to things under Lucas's control) piece of lore that attempts to say that the Jedi prohibit the experiencing of emotions (which is a wild misinterpretation that EU authors like Karen Traviss ran with to an egregious degree in order to demonize the Jedi).
So, coming back to the question of balance and prophecy and the nature of the Force: The author of the "True Nature of the Force" article posits that maybe we should believe it is Luke who was the Chosen One of prophecy, since it is only
because of Luke that Anakin chooses to kill Palpatine, and further that Anakin's role in destroying the old Jedi Order may also disqualify him - but that argument stops short of the ultimate finish line, which is not the day that Order 66 is carried out, but rather the day that Palpatine falls down the shaft. The author also attempts to argue that what comes
after Anakin's choice, namely Luke's building of a reformed/revised Jedi Order,
is the new "balance" that needed to be achieved. Setting aside the dubious canonicity (again using strict Lucas-authored criteria) of anything Luke did in the EU, this argument makes the mistake of disregarding a key piece: that the
destruction of the Sith was required in order to open the way for anything new to be built at all.
And when considering any argument that attempts to undermine Anakin's role as the Chosen One of prophecy it is important to remember that Anakin's choice to kill Palpatine also amounts to a choice to commit suicide. In one move, he eliminates
both Sith -
all Sith. The state of "balance" he achieves for the galaxy thereby is to
eliminate those Force-users who lean on the Dark Side. It's
not the end result of: "
Hey, now it's me and my son, ready to teach the next generation of Force-users that there are two sides to this coin and they need to make sure to include Dark Side 101 and Light Side 101 in their curriculum in order to get their degree." The author of the "True Nature of the Force" article concludes their article with the following lines:
"It’s entirely possible that the light side and the dark side don’t matter as much as we’re led to believe. It’s possible that the galaxy is a little more complicated than that.
And considering that we occupy a pretty complicated world ourselves, it’s nice to see Star Wars reflect that — even if you have to do a little digging to make sense of it all."
Let's start with the last line and work backwards. This last line makes clear the implication that, by the author's own admission, their purpose here is what I stated at the beginning of this post: "...the article, and the position it adopts, is an exploration of the
argument itself, as a concept, and
not an analysis of the fullness of the actual canon." The author admits that in order to arrive at their conclusion "you have to do a little digging." Personally, I don't feel that digging is necessary; I think the canon is pretty clear. And I do wonder if the quote that Iaera linked to isn't indeed very relevant here:
We love them because we are a miserable, godless people so syphilitic with bad consciences that we will no longer permit our heroes to be more righteous than we are. Sadly, “The Last Jedi’s” trailer provides ample evidence that Johnson will spare fans the purity we can no longer appreciate to feed us the cynical storytelling we so tragically desire.
Now working back to the penultimate closing line (of the light side and dark side not mattering as much), I would counter by saying that I feel that George Lucas's position on the universe he created is pretty clearly stated in his own words, and that his position is that the light side and the dark side are absolutely pivotal to what every person does. It is about their
choices. It is about whether or not they act in harmony with the universe, or try to
subvert the harmony
of the universe by acting in selfishness and pursuing destruction.
We have to remember that Star Wars is its own universe, with its own "in-character" version of reality and truth. As such, if the creator of the universe points to the Jedi approach as being more right and true within the context of the universe, then it's important to consider it in
that context, and not in the context of our
own universe. That's not to say that the Jedi are perfect or without flaws, since the
Jedi themselves admit to their own failings and wrong decisions;
Yoda speaks of the flaw of Jedi grown arrogant, and the entire conceit of the Jedi role in the Clone Wars is the prime example of a tragically enormous error in Jedi judgment. Even the book
The Jedi Path, written from the point of view of Jedi prior to the events of the prequels, ends with articulating the Jedi belief of
that time in history that it is not possible for Force spirits to exist after death. Clearly, the Jedi make mistakes. But the fundamental core of their approach to the Force is validated by George Lucas's clearly stated intention for the universe.
Further, there are a lot of details within the movies themselves that both implicitly (by context and inference) and explicitly (by character statement or plot device) provide supporting evidence for the idea that the Dark Side is
corruption, and not merely one half of the "human nature" coin. Characters who have succumbed to or are actively tapping into the Dark Side show
physical changes to represent their corruption. The most common and obvious example represented by Anakin's eyes as he goes to slaughter the younglings and when he's fully succumbed to hate and pain on Mustafar (and of course "Dark Side eyes" and "Dark Side veins" are prevalent throughout Star Wars material). There is no countering example of physical transformation occurring when a character "strays too far" into the Light Side, if one is attempting to argue that too much in either direction is a bad thing. Character shown as firmly on the "good side" such as Yoda or Obi-Wan are just... themselves. In harmony with who they are and with their physical place in the universe. There's no negative feedback from the Force to work physical change on those people.
Examples of this are present all over the place in The Clone Wars series as well, which again was a piece of canon over which Lucas had considerable influence. But The Clone Wars offered even more than just additional examples of Dark Side eyes or physical corruption; it gave us many examples of Jedi who lost their way and ultimately ended up carrying out acts of destruction and harm, and always these characters ended up in that position when they attempted to
justify adopting a position of "gray" moralism over adherence to those Buddhism/Taoism/etc-based philosophies calling for a person to refrain from attempting to enforce change in service of one's self-motivated pursuits. Look to characters like Krell, or even to the ultimate fate of someone like Barris - they internalized the grim realities of their situation and turned to the idea that compromise between "good" and "evil" was necessary. Within the context of the Star Wars canon, those characters raise important questions that other characters acknowledge need to be considered, but they are not presented as having tapped into a
better truth. They are very clearly heroes who have
fallen from grace.
However, you only need to look to our own game to see examples of Dark side characters making Light side decisions (and vice versa)
The concept and importance of free will and choice is fundamental to how the Force, and indeed the Jedi themselves, are presented in the canon. The Jedi Code and Jedi teachings are meant as a tool to help Jedi
choose how they are going to interact with the universe and use their unique connection to the Force. And a common theme throughout Star Wars is the concept not only of choice, but of redemption, and of second chances. It is, after all, the entirety of Anakin/Vader's story arc, much as it is the crowning moment of Luke's: choice and redemption. Even a darker, grittier, more scoundrel-y focused contribution to the universe like Rogue One (which though not authored by Lucas was one that Lucas himself said he approved of) pivoted on this fundamental concept: That jaded, flawed characters like Cassian Andor could achieve a moment of redemption where he had the power to
choose differently.
You can't have the delicious drama of stories of falls and redemptions without the freedom to have characters choose dark or light, good or evil - and to then either regret that choice and change it, or to follow that choice to the end of their ultimate path, doomed though it might be. That characters
have that freedom to choose doesn't mean that both choices are equal, or that liberally mixing one half of one side with half of the other is the best path. After all, I have the choice of whether or not to murder Person A and of whether or not to murder Person B, but choosing to murder
just Person A and let Person B live doesn't mean I've achieved goodness or balance; I'm still a murderer. The choice of goodness there is:
Don't murder anyone. So... what's my conclusion? Well, all of my preceding incredibly long ramble could probably be summarized, at least in part, by Orell's much more pithy commentary:
It's like the yeast used to make bread, you're adding in a touch to give it flavor and fluffiness, the proper balance isn't half dough, half yeast...
It's why I use the Yeast analogy: In large amounts, it's pretty much awful, but it can make the bread better too, and it doesn't take much of it to be in balance with the dough...
Emotion, yet peace.
The Jedi Order, as an institution, made mistakes both of belief and of action; that is clearly part of the story
of the Order. But when the universe creator points to the core principles of their interpretation of the Force as being in keeping with the core nature of the Force, I feel it's important to, at the very least, take that into consideration in our fan interpretations.
To close, and to bring all of this more closely around to the speculation on
The Last Jedi, I'll just quote Pablo Hidalgo, with whom I have serious bones to pick considering what the Story Group is currently doing after taking over from Lucas, but even he sums up the whole idea of "gray Jedi" the best:
I don't get the 'gray Jedi' thing. You're either a Jedi or you're not. It's like being a 'gray vegetarian' who eats meat. (The great irony here of course will be his having said this if it turns out that
The Last Jedi goes another way.)
