“It’s the cape, isn’t it?” – Richard Benjamin, Love At First Bite
I disagree. The dark side is, by human morality, “evil,” but that doesn’t make it any less intrinsic to the Force. Evil is part of the nature of the universe, of the nature of life, and the Force is generated by that life, and by that evil. The dark and light sides of the Force are like sides of a coin, opposite and opposed, but still part of a whole, and each one necessary for the exsistence of the other.
That I agree with. I also think that the dark side is inherently destructive, in fact, it is destruction. It’s the cosmic embodiment of chaos and destruction, and tapping into that aspect of the Force takes a terrible toll on a mortal body. Most dark side practioners are ultimately limited in how powerful they can become because their connection to the dark side limits their life span (although if you follow the EU, there are apparently ways around this). The light side, on the other hand, with its emphasis on growth and healing, provides its practioners with greatly enhanced lifespans. A Sith may amass greater power in a decade than a Jedi, but a Jedi has many, many more decades to work with than most Sith.
Well, starting as a 1st-level Jedi automatically gives you Light Saber proficiency, followed by the Acrobatic and Alertness feats at 2nd level with Resist Fear and Charm Person at 3rd. From that point on, the only class benefit is a steadily increasing Telekinesis, which has limited applications. If you multiclass at 5th level by taking Sith, however, you immediately gain a profane attack bonus and permanent Fearsome Appearance, with Call Lightning and a steadily growing array of offensive spell capabilities from that point on.
So you see, the Dark Side is the natural choice for powergamers.
This is the popular viewpoint online, but I disagree with it. The Dark side is the mere corruption of the Force by human (or whatever) evil. It isn’t part of it. Th Jedi die, but their deaths are not of and do not serve the Dark Side.
In other words, the Dark Side isn’t necessary to anything. You don’t need it. The light side represents, well, enlightenment, and the use of reason. Emotions may serve it or not, but only a few - those inspired or feeding the Dark Side (greed, hate) are truly opposed.
The Jedi of the late Republic had grown too ar away from everyday life, but I don’t think their basic teaching was wrong.
Whether the Light Side is “right” depends on what your ultimate goals are. If you want a relatively peaceful universe where most of the population lives in happiness but where the Jedi are slaves to the galaxy and tasked with keepings its order, then sure, the Light Side is great. But once you realize that you don’t need the worthless galaxy to survive, you can embrace the Dark Side and use your power to the fullest, with the goal of bringing yourself above and beyond all the rest. The Dark Side liberates you.
Sure, it could also be said that you are, in a way, the slave of greed and power, but they are certainly more enjoyable masters than the whiney civilian populations that once controlled you. Just think… would you rather spend your days sitting in some stupid academy, mulling over whatever the latest inconsequential galactic argument happened to be, or would you rather be out there kicking ass and frying planets?
The only dangers, I think, are either 1. getting pwned by the other Dark Jedi (which means you were simply too weak and unworthy of the power to begin with) or 2. becoming so powerful that you consume everything in your path, leaving only emptiness in your wake. Once you have everything, there’s nothing more to do. So I guess the greatest danger to you would simply be boredom. That’s probably why the Jedi have been allowed to stick around for so long. Without them, the game loses its challenge and gets real boring, real fast.
according to Palpatine, Darth Maul should have no problem handling both of the Jedi, and the only reason Obi-Wan won was because Darth Maul was a Care-Leh-Fare (Disposable Character) that was destined to die; the somersault-over-the-opponent move that Obi-Wan did should have ended up with him cut in two instead, aka the dojo simulation in the Matrix.
you can’t balance something without a counter-weight.
i think that’s more a fault of the Jedi Order than the Light Side.
It depends on your definition of good and evil. If you take the western view of ‘good’ vs ‘evil’ where it’s easily quantifiable so you don’t have to think about it much, then Jedi-Good Sith-Evil and you can go home awaiting whatever preview you really liked before the movie.
However, if evil is the side that is causal to the imbalance in the force, then the Jedi hands down are evil, for as Yoda clearly states early on, Annakin is the one who returns ‘balance’ to the force by killing the Jedi and producing an heir that uses both light AND dark.
How do you know that the Republic wasn’t a bloated ineffectual regime propped up by the meddling of the Jedi doomed to failure, waiting for a powerful and charismatic leader to take the reins and turn it around? Maybe you’re just sucked into the propaganda of the republic, or the nostalgia of everyone that had forgotten what a bureaucratic nightmare it was, and couldn’t hack it during the transition period after the revolution. Perhaps Palpatine was preparing the cosmos for some kind of universal communist utopia that could only be brought about by a ruler who is truly enlightened?
To sum it up, during all the Star Wars movies, the cards were stacked against the Jedi in the cosmic rebound that restored balance. The force was against them.
Erek
Why does there have to be a balance, anyway? I understand the concepts of “good” and “evil” would be meaningless without each other, but the underlying things they represent do not cease to exist, do they? Meaning, could they not just dispense with the labels of good and evil and simply behave as the Light Side users do? Why allow (formerly known as) Dark Side practices to continue in the name of balance?
I think you’re right. As Anakin said to the Jedi, “You’re holding me back!” So then what is the Light Side doctrine, if it is distinct from the Jedi one?
mswas: I think the Republic was definitely a bloated, ineffectual regime as seen in the first two movies and the KotoR games. But while it is possible that Palpatine may have been working towards some sort of utopia, is there any evidence to suggest it is probable? Seems like he just wanted to rule the universe, chuckle a lot, and blow up planets.
Dude, seriously, cut your hair. I think it’s distorting your thinking.
i fancy there being no doctrine to either Side. the Light Side is the ‘living force’, with it’s health and regeneration(?) the Dark Side dispenses death, chaos and decay. any association to good and evil are just heaped on through mortal eyes.
This Star Wars not, Star Trek 
Big Brother is not your friend.
I tend to agree with shijinn. The Light Side and the Dark Side are roughly analogous to Order and Chaos. Light Side powers are orderly in nature, and Dark Side powers are chaotic. Any judgements of good and evil are strictly cultural in nature, but since most people think of chaos as bad, the Dark Side tends to be associated with evil.
That’s like asking why is there the Tao. There just is.
That’s not an argument, it’s a slogan. The Light side is balance. The Dark Side is the unbalancing factor.
:rolleyes: Of course the Republic was a bloated ineffectual government. That doesn’t mean that the Dark Side was better. It couldhave been turned around without the Emperor, and probably wouldn’t have been so badly running without him.
That, and, y’know, everyone who uses the Dark Side becomes a megalomaniacal madman hell-bent on enslaving the cosmos to suit his (/her) own whims for causing pain and suffering.
If it were just chaos, it would be a useful force (pun!) channeled and controlled with the Light Side. But it isn’t just that. It actively corrupts those who use it. The essence of the Dark Side isn’t destruction; that’s merely a flashy tool. The essence is domination and rulership; the Dark Side is like Morgoth’s Will. Morgoth destroyed everything that wouldn’t bow to him, but his goal was to rule all, not to destroy it and certainly not to renew it through destruction. The Dark Side rules the dark jedi, and the dark jedi want to rule the galaxy.
The mere fact that EU authors have characters running around using Dark Side powers doesn’t mean much, as the EU has become so god-awful that I’m hoping Palpy and Vade do show up to purge the galaxy of Jedi again.
George Lucas himself has said he cribbed a lot of the “religion” of Star Wars from Hinduism. I think you can also see smatterings of other eastern religions sprinkled in.
Certainly you see a difference in Star Wars religion/philosophy from Western style religions. In Christianity/Judaism/Islam we see the notion that good is separate from evil. God is “good”. There is no evil side to God…just evil forces arrayed against God (ala Satan). Eastern religions take more of the Yin and Yang approach (I know I am drawing with a broad brush here). The idea that good cannot exist without evil. Light without dark. In essence, the notion of “good” is meaningless without its opposite “evil” and more than that they are embedded in each other…just like a magnet needs a positive and negative pole to be a magnet. As such I (think) a practitioner/believer in this notion would want to see both good and evil exist and seek balance between the two. Nothing but “good” is stagnation. Nothing but “evil” is chaos. It is not preferrable for either good or evil to dominate. The two need each other.
So as far as Lucas is concerned I think that the Dark and Light sides of the Force are two sides of the same coin. Both are necessary and they need to be in balance for the overall health of…well…everything.
So as per the OP I think you see a weird choice with the Jedi. Some think Anakin is the guy who will bring balance to the Force. Yet at that point it appears as if the “good” side seriously outnumbers the “bad”. The unbalance is towards good so the rebalancing necessarily means the Jedi need an ass kicking. Presumably Yoda and company are no dummies so it is hard for me to see what form they thought the re-balancing would take other than to see the Dark Side reassert itself at their expense.
Yeah. That and fighting Ewok masters with years of rock-throwing experience.
Which leads me to a question bigger Star Wars fans might be able to answer:
I seem to remember either reading or seeing something (possibly KotOR) that mentioned that long ago, when the Jedi Order was first founded, that practicioners of the Light side and Dark side existed together freely, and intermingled, all being considered “Jedi.” Neither was seen as good or evil, neither seen as better or worse, just a personal choice as to what you wanted to study, like majoring in science versus humanities. But, at some point, there was a ‘falling out’ between the two sides. Someone (probably from the Dark side) felt there way was better, and perhaps tried to take over the council. In doing so, he perhaps got angry that he was not in charge and his ideas were dismissed. He then found out that the anger somehow made his powers well…more powerful, and let all his Dark side buddies in on the secret that emotion can make the Dark side more powerful. So, rather than fuel this emotion capacitor with love or happiness, it got filled with anger cause it was popular at the time, and the Dark Jedis (who are just starting to become “evil”) started a revolt against the Light Jedis. The Light side won, and maybe in doing so found out that being cool, calm, and collected enhanced the Light side powers (or they might have already known this and assumed it was true for Dark side as well, when in fact it’s really the opositte.) So, the Council, now all Light side, decreed that because of its destructive nature and anger, no Jedi is to use the Dark Side. Every Jedi who practiced the Dark Side then had to do so by finding an existing Dark Side master, who would be evil, or at the very least very bitter and angry towards the Jedi Order, and so therefore the ability to use the Dark Side without being evil was lost and we are now left with all good Jedis having to pracise the Light side, and only evil Jedi being able to practice the Dark side.
Is this story in any way aprt of Star Wars lore, or did I jsut make it up cause it sounds cool?
(and if I did make it up, then I think a book proposal to George Lucas might bei n order…)
My understanding is that Lucas borrowed chiefly from Taoism, although I know that wasn’t his only source. It is a (fairly superficial) blend of a number of Eastern philosophies, though. Other than that, I agree. The light side of the force cannot, in and of itself, be balance, because there is nothing to balance it against. You can’t have life without death. You can’t have growth without destruction. You can’t have good without evil. You can’t have the light side of the Force with out the dark side. The Force isn’t a deity. It doesn’t judge or forgive. It is not a source of moral authority. “It is an energy field created by all living things.” It does not exsist independent of life, and it’s nature is a reflection of the nature of the life that generates it. The ancient oak tree and the rot that eats at its heart are both part of the Force in equal measure.
Not quite.
The Dark Side was never a topic of “ok” study for the Jedi. The Republic formed about the same time as the Jedi formed ~25,000 years before Star Wars takes place. The Jedi were the peacekeepers of the new republic. They definitely were not into using the Dark Side but as one would guess some of their number secretly studied the Dark Side anyway. Eventually the two came to blows (The Great Schism) which in the end the good Jedi won. They exiled the remaining Dark Side folks to interstellar space figuring they’d just go out, wander a bit and die off of their own accord (thus not sullying the hands of the good Jedi with executions or imprisonment). The Dark Jedi wandered a bit and then stumbled upon the Sith planet. The population of the planet was relatively primitive compared to them but the Dark Jedi noticed they used a kind of dark magic that they thought was a new and interestng way to get at the Dark Side of the Force. They studied it a bit then enslaved the Sith population and built their own Empire. The Republic thought the Dark Jedi long gone and had no clue they were out there. The Dark Jedi also largely relegated the Republic to myth and lore over the millenia. About 5,000 years ago some Republic folks, looking for new trade routes, stumbled into the Sith empire. Long story short this brought the Sith and Republic back into conflict.