The One who will bring balance to the Force

[Dr. Strange]

Okay, I'm calling out the geeks here (DT, Orrex, etc). What's this supposed to mean? How did Anakin bring "balance" to the force?

[JTG of the PRB]

1. Geek powers - activate!

It wasn't until the end of his life that he brought balance to the Force. In Return of the Jedi, when the Emperor was going to kill Luke Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker (or Darth Vader as he was then known) hurled the Emperor to his death. The Emperor died, and Darth Vader died shortly thereafter. The only two Sith in the Galaxy were dead, and that channel to the Dark Side of the Force was closed. Thus, through Anakin Skywalker's (eventual) actions, he brought balance to the Force by destroying the Sith.

Okay. Wow. I suddenly feel like a big dork.

[NightWatcher]

2. we were all thinking it, but waiting for someone else to say it

[JTG of the PRB]

3. Yeah, I know.

I allow myself to really lower my social standing once a month. I guess my allotment for March is used up.

[Dr. Strange]

6. I don't like it.

Why couldn't that have been achieved by giving the chosen one powers to see the Sith forces, without having to become one? (Other than a possible copyright infringement on Frank Herbert's material.) And is the Sith really done for once Palpatine dies?

[JTG of the PRB]

8. The Sith forces at the time when Anakin Skywalker was in training were hidden.

Not even the Jedi masters knew who or where the Sith Lord and his apprentice were. Yoda was fond of saying that the "Dark Side clouds all", so it was nearly impossible for even the greatest Jedi minds to locate the Sith Lord, let alone a moody "Chosen One." If you REALLY want me to try and prove my geekitude, I can answer the second part of that question for you... But I won't do it willingly!

:rofl:

[Dr. Strange]

9. Does the second answer involve comic books?

[JTG of the PRB]

11. Yes - none that I've ever read actually, mind you!

I just like Wookieepedia a little too much.

It's more or less non-canon stuff, though even defining canon is kind of tricky from what I've gathered.

[Cant trust em]

39. Knowledge of Star Wars doesn't make you dorky

it's the lack of social skills that most Star Wars fans show that makes them dorky. When I was in high school and was more interested in TIE fighters than getting girls, that made me dorky. Now that I have an active social life, but still know what an ATAT is, I think I'm balanced.

[DarkTirade]

52. Knowlege of Star Wars doesn't make you dorky...

like wars do not make one great? :P

[Swede]

4. This was discussed in this thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=7582788&mesg_id=7582788

[Dr. Strange]

5. I'm opening up a big can of Ignore.

:rofl: :rofl:

[Swede]

7. What?

:shrug:

[Dr. Strange]

10. Have you been laid recently?

[Swede]

12. A long time ago,in a Galaxy far far away.

[Dr. Strange]

19. Which of these do you feel best descibes that experience:

The Phantom Menace,
Attack of the Clones,
or
A New Hope?

[Swede]

21. Let me think............

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH5oRJKTWuc

[DarkTirade]

13. Darth Vader was the one who destroyed everything.

Anakin set it right at the end of ROTJ by killing the Emperor and paving the way for the jedi to rise again.

It's that whole 'certain point of view' thing.

*edit* Oh yeah, that and Lucas kinda started going crazy by the end there, so you can't take much from the prequels too seriously. :P

Also, there's the possibility that the jedi themselves were getting stagnant and slowly starting to become corrupt. They answered to no one. The small group of jedi masters in the council ran everything, including choosing who would be allowed to join the council. So perhaps a purge is what needed to be done. Also, in some of the extended books it's hinted that the Emperor forsaw the coming of the Vong in years to come, and that was one of the main reasons why he worked so hard to put that part of the galaxy onto a war footing. It's doubtful that the ancient jedi would have been able to repel the Vong, since the tactics the later jedi used would have been considered unacceptable by the older generation of jedi.

[Dr. Strange]

22. Not sure about corrupt...

but stagnant, I like that. I get the impression (based partially on the non-canonical comic books Dark Empire II) that the Jedi were too ignorant of the dark side, which is why Luke went to train under the resurrected Palpatine. (This theory has the added bonus of being at odds with Lucas' ideas.)

[DarkTirade]

51. There are different forms of corruption.

I didn't necessarily mean that anyone on the council was TRYING to be evil. :P Just that they were falling apart from the inside out.

[Dr. Strange]

53. Oh I agree.

Not trying to be evil. Just so stagnant and maybe complacent about the goings on of the dark side. Sort of the Ivory tower period of the Jedi.

Carrying on there business, wholly unaware of the evil that rising up around them.

[DarkTirade]

54. The dark side is a mysterious thing.

[Sheets of Easter]

49. Bingo.

That was the ironic aspect of the prophecy. Anakin DID destroy the Sith and brought balance to the Force, not before turning evil himself, though.

[laconicsax]

14. To make a long story short, it's because Lucas wrote so.

The Force has two sides, the light and the dark.  When both sides are being used equally, the Force is obviously out of balance.  If only the dark side is being used, the Force is really out of balance.  It's only when the light side is used exclusively that there is balance.

There's also something about how the prophecy may have been fulfilled by Luke, who turned Vader back from the dark side, causing Vader to kill the Emperor before dying himself, thus eliminating the dark side practitioners (bringing "balance" to the Force).

This may make very little sense to you as it makes little sense to me.  If you can temporarily switch off the part of your brain that says, "that doesn't make sense," then it makes perfect sense.  Another way to suspend your disbelief is to switch on the part of your brain that says, "Oh...George Lucas wrote it and he's a bit of an idiot."  With that little neuron firing, all of the crazy stuff that doesn't make sense if you stop and think about it for five seconds suddenly becomes clear.

In case you're having trouble activating the "Oh...George Lucas wrote it and he's a bit of an idiot" part of your brain, think about this:  Thanks to George Lucas's 'brilliant' mind, a 3-foot tall race with stone-age technology achieved a decisive victory over a space-fairing, technologically advanced, trained army.

[DarkTirade]

15. Hey now, rag on Lucas all you want, but leave the Ewoks out of it.

:P

[laconicsax]

17. Lucas is the one who spoke them into existence, he made them in his image...

From a certain point of view.

:think:

[Lethe]

16. IMO Balance would mean a dead center between dark and light side powers

but in Lucas's world that can't happen, you are either all Jedi or all Sith.

This would be called True Neutral in D&D

so who knows what the hell he was talking about. Unless there were too many Jedi at the time that were becoming stagnant and complacent which ultimately was the downfall of the Jedi, then Vader destroyed all the weak Jedi, and the 2nd coming heralded by Luke and Obi-wan brought forth a new Jedi order from the destruction of the Emperor.

[Kutjara]

20. Only if you assume that any particular point in time is important.

From the Force's perspective, balance may be achieved by constant oscillation between the Dark and Light side over long periods of time. On average, balance is achieved, although at no particular moment are the two manifestations of the Force necessarily balanced. Indeed, "true" (long-term) balance may only be achievable in the absence of conscious agents, since it is the inevitable fate of conscious agents to be pulling in one direction or another, thereby contributing to the oscillation.

If that is the case, true balance will be achieved only when all entities capable of unbalancing the Force are extinct. Presumably, that will be at some point toward the end of the life of the universe.

[Lethe]

23. the neutral force user sees "light" and "dark" as abstractions of the same ilk

two extremes who constantly war with each other

idiots....thats why i like Wookies.

[Kutjara]

25. Ah, but can there ever be any truly neutral force users?

Unless the force user takes no actions whatsoever, everything he/she does will necessarily involve a pull toward either the light or the dark side. The "neutral" individual may comfort themselves with the thought that they try to even out the implications of their actions (perhaps by doing one "good" thing for every "bad" thing they do), but the result is still a net 'force' (pardon the pun) over time that will still contribute to the oscillatory cycle that pulls the Force away from true balance.

Nobody's neutral in this war. ;)

[Lethe]

26. no i disagree

the "light" and "dark" side of the force are both sides of the same coin......the differences are made up by humans and their morals. The force is not inherently good or bad, but humans enact their thoughts and actions as their will dictates. The force is oblivious to any kind of "good" or "bad", it just exists.

[Kutjara]

27. OK. But then...

...isn't the Force always in balance, regardless of what Force users do? In which case, why is it any better to be neutral than to be light or dark? From a "Force balance" perspective, I mean.

[Lethe]

28. yes i agree

in a way....

there is no balance really, there is only the force.

What force users do is a moralistic idea created by sentient beings....not by the force.

neutral force users understand this concept, which transcends both light and dark

[Kutjara]

29. That makes sense. One more question, if you will.

Since, if I remember correctly, certain Force powers are only usable by individuals with the correct "alignment," what does that say about the neutrality of the Force?

OK, I have to make a disclaimer here. My knowledge of the SW universe comes from the movies and the videogames. One thing I learned in, I think it was, the Knights of the Old Republic game, is that certain Force powers are only usable by Light characters, and others by Dark. I seem to remember the game dynamic was set up in such a way that the powers weren't excluded, merely very very expensive in terms of "Force points" to use ir you were of the wrong alignment. So, for example, a "Dark side" character would find it very costly to heal, while a "Light side" character would find it equally expensive to cast "Force lightning."

I'm kind of embarrassed to use a game as a source for my argument, but hell, LucasArts' name is on the box, so I'm going to call it canon. :)

Doesn't this argue against the Force being a non-aligned phenomenon?

[Lethe]

30. i would say yes

my source being in ROTJ when Luke enters Jaba's palace and the Gamorrean guard gets thrown back against the wall and you hear his throat crunching.....which was caused by Luke.

Somebody correct me here, but that was essentially Luke force crushing a sentient being and killing him with force powers. The same thing Vader did to that pissant Imperial officer in A New Hope. That is definitely not something a light side jedi would do.

[Kutjara]

32. Interesting. In the game, that was called "Force Push," and was a...

...Light Side power. The rough division was that lightside offensive powers were of the "disarm/disable/distract" sort, while the darkside ones were more "destroy/dissect/disembowel." By that logic, Luke's power was very definitely Light side, but his use of it was dark. In the games, unfortunately, the player's alignment was determined by their behavior during heavily-scripted conversations and events. There were no consequences to using powers of one alignment or another during normal gameplay, other than the much higher cost in "force points" needed to use the opposite-aligned power.

In the "real" SW Universe, however, there would be consequences to using such powers. Part of the allure of the Dark Side is that it is an easy route to power. Why persuade, cajole, heal, and nudge people around to your way of thinking when you can just bring a lightning storm down on them if they refuse? So there were some very different "real world" outcomes from using one type of power as against another.

And then there's the whole question of the physical changes a Dark Side user goes through. The more one aligns with the dark side, the more sinister one's appearance becomes. Again, this seems to argue against the Force being a neutral power.

[Lethe]

33. man i am becoming too drunk to intelligently post

1. choking a gamorean guard is definitely not light side. That is what Vader does. (choke people)

2. Because you love and care for the people you are acquainted with. This is the light side. Why would you want to lightning storm your friends? The light side doesn't need to use a lightning storm to persuade anyone.

3. Na, this is a bunk. The people associated with the dark side are always getting chopped up. (darth vader, the emperor)

[Kutjara]

34. Hmm. Then Luke actually used "Force Choke" in the game parlance...

...which is very definitely a dark-side power. Don't have a good explanation for that, other than he'd perhaps not finally decided his ultimate alignment at this point, so Dark Side powers were more easily available to him.

2. That's exactly why Force Lightning is a Dark Side power.

3. It's made very clear in the games that the physical changes that accompany alignment with the Dark Side are a direct result of that choice, and not merely battle scars. Look at Palpatine. He didn't fight all that much, yet by the time of his ascension to the throne, he barely looked human. Also, Annekin started sporting glowing red eyes and grey skin by the end of the third movie. All that was a consequence of their decision to be dark.

[Lethe]

35. Palpatine got his scars when he fought Mace Windau

Vader got his "scars" when he fought Obi-Wan.

[Kutjara]

37. Then why are light siders never scarred?

They fight just as much. Annekin's appearance change preceded his battle with Obi-Wan. The movie poster itself has him with red eyes and a dark countenance. Palpatine, by the end, had grey skin and glowing eyes. Not the kind of thing you pick up from a sword fight.

I just googled around, and it seems there's a big debate out there about just this thing. Here's a representative thread:

http://boards.theforce.net/prequel_trilogy/b10669/21200036/p10

It seems pretty much agreed that it is the Dark Side itself that causes the physical deformations, not any battle scars or other effects.

[Lethe]

40. well i dunno the official reason

but i thought that palpatine suffered severe burns when he was fighting Windau. The force storm electricity burned him very badly.

[Kutjara]

44. Now you've done it.

I came into this discussion with a clear idea about the SW Universe. Now, after spending several hours wallowing around on various SW boards, I have no effing clue. Half the people (all of whom have impeccable sources) reckon Dark Side folks look demonic because that's what the Dark Side does to its adherents. The other half (all of whom have impeccable sources, too) say that, no, being on the Dark Side doesn't make you repulsive, it's just that the selected individuals we've seen on screen (or in-game) have been ugly because of some unfortunate accident involving, but not directly caused by, the powers they wield.

There's also a spirited side argument going on about whether Palpatine/Sidious changes his appearance because he's actually incredibly old and has been using Dark Side power to make himself look young, an ability that was destroyed during the fight with Windu, or because of the lightning damage done by the fight itself. Things get pretty heated when the argument turns to why, once he's regained his powers, Palpy (as he's known) doesn't regain the power to make himself look nice again.

And I thought the partisan infighting on DU was bad. We could learn a thing or two about dirty pool from the people on the SW boards.

Where this leaves our original discussion about whether the Force is a neutral phenomenon, unaffected by the actions of sentient beings, or whether it can be unbalanced by their actions, I have no idea. It seems the whole argument may hinge on whether Palpatine could have made himself pretty again if he'd wanted to. ;)

[DarkTirade]

59. Wish I'd noticed this subthread earlier, I woulda chipped in then.

'Light' and 'Dark' are human constructs... however the 'light side' users and the 'dark side' users tend to go for extreme opposite styles. The dark side tend to use the Force to do what they want. The light side users tend to use the force for guidance. So the dark siders use more direct energy and the artificial usage of force energy tends to affect their bodies in the long run. Whereas the light siders only use a minimal amount, so they remain largely unaffected.

This is also why some of the more direct attacks are considered 'dark side' powers, because they involve using raw force energy to do things like shoot lightning or choke the life out of someone. These powers are not inherently dark, however. Just as the light siders tend to use the force for defense, although defensive and sensing powers are not inherently light. Luke can still use his telekinetic skills to choke someone if he needs to, and Vader can use his defensive abilities to block a blaster bolt.

Emotion also plays a large role in the difference between light and dark. To act while in the grip of strong emotion is to open oneself up to the dark side. And for someone with the ability to use the force, that can dredge up large amounts of power. The light siders prefer to act while calm and at peace, to make sure their actions are the right ones. They often don't have the sheer strength of a darkside user, but they don't burn themselves out as fast.

[madinmaryland]

18. Ask and yee shall receive...

On January 24th, 2009, in the oval office of the new Democratic president:

The Secretary of Defense is giving the President the daily briefing. He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, three Brazilian soldiers were killed."

"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"

The President's staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands.

Finally, the President looks up and says, "One Brazilian is too many! I am glad that we are beginning to draw down our presence in Iraq and put an end to this long national nightmare."

:evilgrin:

[Dr. Strange]

24. See, that joke right there, that's the dark side.

And it needs to be balanced. By a rickroll or something.

[TZ]

31. BTW speaking of RR

A certain poster with all caps in his name has changed his sigline..but umm its still a you know what. Just a general fyi.

[Dr. Strange]

46. I saw that.

I haven't made a comment to him about it, though. But I knew it had to be a RR. I searched my feelings and knew it to be true.

[Akoto]

36. My convoluted, geekly opinion ...

Anakin brought balance to the Force in the course of wiping out both the Jedi and the Sith.

Prior to the Emperor's genocide, the Jedi Order was not exactly healthy. They'd been the top Force Users in the neighborhood for a thousand years. The Force was tilted quite heavily in their favor. This made them complacent, and dogmatic. It never occurred to them that the malevolent intentions of someone close by, like Palpatine, could possibly escape their notice. They didn't even believe the Sith had returned until one of them killed Qui-Gon Jinn, the one Jedi who was beginning to get things right.

What's more, the Jedi didn't even have balance within themselves. They had plenty of time for contemplation and meditation, but attachment and emotion were entirely unwelcome.

Anakin became Darth Vader, and spent a number of years doing terrible things in the service of the Dark Side. Ultimately, though, his son turned him back with the very things the Jedi had rejected: attachment, love. He destroyed the Emperor, and then died himself, taking the Sith legacy with him.

In the end, the old Jedi Order was gone, and so were the Sith. Only one trained Force User remained, and that was Luke. He had the patience and wisdom taught to him by Obi-Wan/Yoda, yet also the love and passion that might once have been attributed to the Dark Side. Luke, with his more balanced and human views, might then go on to train others.

[Lethe]

41. good ideas here

but you are saying Luke, not Anakin, brought balance to the force....like the OP questioned.

[Dr. Strange]

47. That sounds pretty good.

I really have to question the whole attachment thing that the old school Jedis pushed. I think you're right: maybe Luke will go on to teach Jedis to understand their feelings and passions, rather than ignore them.

[Random_Australian]

38. Well, since it was shown that the integral over a closed surface of the magnetic field was

identically zero (At least, for a smooth and orientable surface), the divergence of a magnetic field had to be zero over all space, as the Divergence Theorem states that the integral over the volume of the divergence of a vector field is equal to the integral of the flux across the surface that is the boundary of that volume.

In other words, there could never be a 'start' or 'end' point to magnetic fields, so every magnetic pole had to have a counterpole.

And that is why there is a north and south pole, empirically.

What's this about an Anakin?

:)

[TZ]

45. Another surprise!

Your true nerd creds are shining through. Here we are on a Star Wars geek thread and you are posting real "hard" science. Once again you show up in an unexpected place....
I have to ask though...You have actually watched at least one Star Wars movie right?
If you haven't we are going to take nerd points away from you....:hi:

[Dr. Strange]

48. Nice post, Gauss.

I really didn't expect to read about the Divergence Theorem in the Lounge. In fact, I really don't think that the Divergence Theorem is an appropriate Lounge topic. I think it belongs in the Astrology, Spirituality & Alternative Healing Group.

:P

[Random_Australian]

50. Damn Gauss.

And the Bernoulli's, and Cauchy, Euler, and so on.

Invented so much cool stuff that if you use their name (eg. Gauss' Theorem) it could mean lots of things.

(Well, actually, we've taken to renaming things after other people to prevent confusion)

[Orsino]

42. He destroyed the corrupt, complacent Jedi...

...and helped his son along the way toward a kinder, gentler Jedi order. And he tossed that asshole Palpatine down a shaft while he was at it.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

43. In the same way Bush brought "balance" to the mid-east ...

Shock.

Awe.

Repeat until ... well, we don't know "until when". Hopefully, "repeat until Democratic".

[Bake]

55. I have no idea what you people are talking about.

:rofl:

Bake

[DarkTirade]

56. Join us on the dork side, Bake!

[Dr. Strange]

57. Now you're just being Sithy.

[Bake]

58. I did see the first three movies.

But I just can't get into the prequels.

I just can't. Can't do it. Nope. Not a dork.

Bake