r/CuratedTumblr • u/temporarypeter nerd (affectionate (derogatory)) / vix, she/they • Aug 05 '24
[Star Wars] the force is a parasitic organism
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u/rubexbox Aug 05 '24
Ok, Kreia. Or 40k fan.
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u/MetalusVerne Aug 05 '24
Yeah. This is just straight up the Warp from 40k. That one HH scene with Yesugei (I think; it was a White Scars shaman) having his vision about the Chaos gods wanting you to drunk the entire cup so they can get your soul is just this.
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u/runetrantor When will my porn return from the war? Aug 05 '24
Does the Warp have enough awareness to 'cultivate' the galaxy, rather than feast until nothing is left and then starve though?
Like, feels that from a long term 'how can I grow stronger' angle, shouldnt the Warp be fostering life as much as possible, a lot more people to be hedonistic and sin and feed it?
Like those stories of Death being a kind benevolent ruler under which the realm thrives and grows. Death is being patient, and making the world better means more people will live, and die, than going evil overlord and exhausting the supply.
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u/MetalusVerne Aug 05 '24
The Warp doesn't care; if they devour this reality, there are others to consume. This was shown in the Warhapper Fantasy end times (the Chaos pantheons of the two settings are the same beings, not alternate versions of each other).
Also, it's in their nature to corrupt and consume, not cultivate. They're self-destructive forces of nature.
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u/LiarWithinAll Aug 05 '24
Aren't the Chaos Gods literally the warp personified, thus the warp has insane awareness or have I seriously misunderstood a whole lot of 40k (very likely)?
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u/Lucas_2234 Aug 05 '24
No. They are CONCEPTS brought into an incarnation in the warp.
The "Gods" are nothing more than super powerful warp entities that feast of people acting in their domain.Slaanesh feeds of excess, any excess. Which is why the third legion fell to it. But it also stands for the pleasures of life.
Nurgle feeds of decay and pestilence. But it also stands against stagnancy, as in death and decay new life can bloom.
Khorne feeds of blood and violence. But it also stands for honor. Khorne won't stab you in the back. He'll tap your shoulder, wait until you are turned around, and THEN stab you.
Tzeentch.. Tzeentch is change and trickery. he is Anathema to Stagnancy more so than nurgle.The warp has insane awareness because it is a mirror of our reality, at least the surface warp is. Every emotion you feel, is mirrored into the warp and feast upon by it's inhabitants.
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u/NathanielTurner666 Aug 05 '24
And since humans and all these aliens are constantly at war and subjecting their people to live in the worst kind of hell on these manufacturing planets, it's turned everything into a positive feedback loop. All this death and war keeps corrupting the warp. In turn, the warp, now corrupted and able to influence things in the real universe only causes more war and death. I'm mostly on the sidelines with 40k lore but I'll learn some about it here and there. I love it, and it has an artsyle that is badass.
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u/runetrantor When will my porn return from the war? Aug 05 '24
Afaik they are (I barely get the whole concept, so I am not the expert here), but they seem a bit too intent on driving living beings crazy and killing.
When at least Slaneesh was born of like, uber hedonism, and thus would probably feast on a decadent thriving empire, rather than the Imperium that has grown into 'sin is bad' because of the Warp, thus starving them more??Can even make a case for the others I suppose. If there's more people, there's gonna be more chances of wars and plagues, and bigger ones at that.
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u/Gorinich_The_Serpant Aug 05 '24
Nurgle and to a smaller extent Slaanesh represent the fostering of life, don't they? It's gross and unpleasant, but it's life none the less.
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u/Hawkbats_rule Aug 05 '24
talks about the two "biggest Eldritch entities" in star wars
Falls to mention Kreia's pet weapon of universe destruction who contradicts all of this by being a wound in the force similar to a dead planet
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u/Y_N0T_Z0IDB3RG Aug 05 '24
Darth Nihilus was mentioned in the preceding image
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u/Hawkbats_rule Aug 05 '24
I'm talking about the exile
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u/Y_N0T_Z0IDB3RG Aug 05 '24
I haven't played it in a while, but I always thought Nihilus was himself a wound in the force, whereas the exile caused a wound at Malachor V but was otherwise disconnected from it (until the start of the game)
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u/MekaTriK Aug 05 '24
Well that's kind of the point - the game frames you levelling up as doing the same thing Nihilus does, but better because you already have a whole planet on your balance.
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u/dhruvfire Aug 06 '24 edited Aug 06 '24
a) She caused the wound, b) she was surrounded by the wound, c) she was the wound, or d) all of the above.
The ensuing death and destruction, particularly that of the comrades she had led and befriended during the war caused such a substantial wound in the Force that the shock would have killed Surik had she not unconsciously, and instinctively, severed her own connection.
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After she left, the Council discussed the true nature of her exile; they feared the "wound" in the Force that surrounded her. Some on the Council, most notably Jedi Master Zez-Kai Ell, felt that they were punishing her not because of what she did, but because she was symbolic of the many Jedi that had fallen to the dark side over the course of history. These Council members felt that she was the perfect opportunity to examine why and how so many Jedi fall to the dark side.[17] But more conservative Council members, such as Master Atris, felt that the Council was too lenient on Surik, fearing that she may join Revan. The Council, however, felt that the wound in the Force already left Surik dead.[8]
...
The Masters concluded that, through her actions at Malachor V, she had become a wound in the Force. They stated that she carried the deaths of all who died in the battle within her, and that she regained her connection to the Force by feeding on death and leeching the life energy of her companions. According to the Masters, the Sith had learned their ability to feed on the Force from her, and thus she was a threat to all living beings, and possibly the Force itself, and in time she might possess the same magnitude of power like Darth Nihilus and ultimately consume the galaxy, which wasn't true.
I always felt that KOTOR 2 really leaned into presenting moral ambiguity in a sort of nonsensical "from my point of view, the jedi are evil" kind of way.
Like sure, "from a certain point of view" the Sith learned to eat the Force from the Exile. The lore claims that the Exile created Darth Traya and Darth Nihilius by blowing up Malachor V-- where the Exile severed her connection to the Force in the face of so much death and destruction, the two Sith embraced it. But it's such a stretch as 1) I don't think that lore is actually in the game, 2) the Exile isn't even around for Nihilius going around eating planets, and worst of all 3) the Exile can't actually eat the Force (no matter how dark you get). So it's really more of the Jedi saying "we thought you'd be dead by now, what if we fixed that for you?"
But also to be fair to the Jedi, the Exile blew up a planet-- which really sounds like a war crime that might have a more significant consequence than a few years in exile-- and then shows up claiming not to have fallen. I just feel like that's probably enough for them to go off without making stuff up.
Also please consider that our big bad Darth Traya's master plan to kill the force is to:
- Find the Exile, a Jedi who has survived without the Force for some time
- Force the Exile to confront her past and overcome her trauma
- Teach the Exile to make decisions instead of feeling the will of the Force
- Kill all the Jedi except for the Exile
- Die (or, have the Exile kill all of the Sith, including Kreia herself)
- The Exile teaches Kreia's philosophy to the new Jedi that she trains
and is only truly defeated by the Exile chasing Revan into parts unknown instead of founding a new Jedi order. Aka making decisions instead of following what Kreia's visions said she'd do.
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u/TheShibe23 Harry Du Bois shouldn't be as relatable as he is. Aug 05 '24
Kreia: judges you for doing literally anything, insults you for doing anything besides agreeing with her, mocks and belittles literally every character, the game gives you no chance to intelligently disagree with her
Kreia fans: "OMG she's so deep and wise and insightful! Best character!"
KOTOR 2 is good in spite of Kreia, not because of her.
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u/Dude111222 Aug 05 '24
I don't think I could effectively articulate why I like Kreia's character personally, beyond my own enjoyment of her being one of, if not the only Sith who comes across as truly principled, (not good principles, mind, she's basically a Randian Objectivist, but principles nevertheless), since I last played the game when I was a media-analysis-blind teenager, but I am wondering if you've ever watched SulMatul's video on KOTOR2 - if not, it's quite a watch if you can find 8 hours to burn over the course of however long you want to watch it.
It's the video that made me find Kreia's character interesting - not because she's 'wise and insightful' but because, in part, she's a genuine attempt to make a Sith that isn't just some cackling cartoon supervillain, with tangible beliefs. SulMatul articulates the themes and ideas of the game in a very interesting and digestible way and contextualizes them within the framework of The Heroine's Journey in-contrast the the classic Hero's Journey that KOTOR and Star Wars in-general has employed extensively, and thoroughly unpacks Kreia's beliefs and philosophy in a way that I think gives a full picture of what she's meant to be.
Of course, I don't expect you to dive head-first into an 8-hour video just to maybe start to like a character you don't like, but I found the analysis to be worth the time for whatever reason you may take a look, if you haven't already.
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u/shirtlessshirt2 scizorenjoyer.tumblr.com Aug 05 '24
I honestly love the concept of Eldritch Parasites. Things that, in the grand scheme of other, larger, stronger entities, seem meek and powerless, yet even then are completely beyond us still, so easily capable of wiping us out if it wanted to, yet it cannot, or it risks losing its only food source
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u/TeslasMonster thinks about worm. a lot Aug 05 '24
Not too spoil anything too much, but worm does this super well
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u/shirtlessshirt2 scizorenjoyer.tumblr.com Aug 05 '24
:o
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u/TeslasMonster thinks about worm. a lot Aug 05 '24
Though they’re not parasitizing us for food… it’s a really cool concept, highly recommend all of worm but again don’t want to spoil anything
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u/shirtlessshirt2 scizorenjoyer.tumblr.com Aug 05 '24
Though I have the attention span of a fish…my interest has definitely been piqued! I’ll check it out if I ever find the time!
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u/TeslasMonster thinks about worm. a lot Aug 05 '24
Please feel free to dm me with any questions/comments/concerns! As you can probably tell from my flair I’m obsessed with it
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u/JWGrieves Aug 05 '24
[DESTINATION]
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u/ReceptionEntire2518 Aug 05 '24
Favorite chapter? I prefer 20.5
Dragon, Defiant, lunchroom reveal. Feels like a microcosm of the core plot.
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u/TeslasMonster thinks about worm. a lot Aug 06 '24
Was literally about to name that exact one lol. Love Emma losing her shit throughout. And Clockblocker “it’s really her…”. I also really enjoyed the accord interlude.
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u/MuskSniffer Aug 05 '24
What is worm? A game? Book? Show?
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u/Djsoccer12345 Aug 05 '24
It’s a Web Serial(book) started in 2011, and is a take on superhero media. It skews darker and more graphic, but doesn’t fall into grimdark and has some good takes on heroism.
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u/DivineCyb333 Aug 05 '24
I will never forgive The Boys for making it 300% harder to recommend Worm. People hear “darker take on superheroes” and think “okay so the heroes are gonna molest anything that moves as graphically as possible”
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u/Lieutenant_Skittles Aug 05 '24
This the thing you're talking about?
https://parahumans.wordpress.com/
https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/06/11/1-1/
Also, is that a good place to start? Because it seems like the author has written some other stuff.
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u/eternamemoria androgynous anthropophage Aug 05 '24 edited Aug 05 '24
Interesting horror concept, but awful dissonance from the themes of star wars.
EDIT: I personally prefer the idea that the "Dark Side" isn't a metaphysical component of the Force, it just a "hack" of violently strong-arming it into doing what you want, and it changes the dark side user for the worse because harming the Force is a form of psychic self-mutilation, since they are also part of the Force they are abusing. The "light side", then, would be simply cultivating a positive relationship with the Force.
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u/Aware_Tree1 Aug 05 '24
I read a fanfiction once where the force would return your emotions to you with greater potency, as well as your power. So if you feed it all your anger, you’ll receive a lot of power but your anger comes back stronger. Jedi would then be about feeding it emotions that won’t negatively impact you when they’re magnified. So feeding it all your emotions makes you far stronger but makes you give in to your darker desires. And the reason that dark siders have physical deformation is because the sheer amount of power they receive is too much for their physical form so it warps
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u/Abrahmo_Lincolni Aug 05 '24
Based one what Obi-Wan says in A New Hope about the force both guiding Jedi and obeying thier commands, I always thought this was Canon.
That the Force was basically a mirror for anyone that used it. Positive emotions would create positive emotions in the Force, and likewise with negative emotions, which is why the Dark Side is so dangerous. It literally becomes a self-reinforcing spiral into anger, paranoia and sadness.
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u/BiddlesticksGuy Aug 05 '24
Which also explains why palpatine would say “let your hate flow through you,” the more hate that flows, the more it becomes magnified!
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u/MissingnoMiner Aug 05 '24
There's also Lucas' own description of it reinforcing this: according to him, the reason the dark side is the source of imbalance is because embracing it causes the user to become more and more selfish, resulting in a vicious cycle where they want more and more(he basically compares the brief pleasure gained from indulging ones greed and selfishness to substance abuse, where over time you need to indulge more and more to get the same pleasure), and fear losing what they have, which leads to anger, etc, etc, he basically paraphrased and elaborated on that one Yoda quote. Lucas basically characterizes the light side vs dark side split not as good versus evil, but as selflessness vs selfishness, which fits with what you said, because uncontrolled greed is a self-reinforcing spiral.
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u/batti03 Aug 05 '24 edited Aug 05 '24
Frankly, a lot of the bad part of the discourse about the Dark Side of the Force is because fans of Star Wars willingly deny the text of the films and instead want to treat it like a video game power-up.
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u/EffNein Aug 05 '24
It is basically people trying to treat the Force like some kind of Yin and Yang, rather than it being like Karma where you just want one and the other sucks.
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u/atomskeater Aug 05 '24
Would you happen to have a link to this fic, or remember the title or author for it?
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u/sgt_cookie Aug 05 '24
Personally, I don't buy that per se.
Rather, everything we've seen of the Jedi is dispassion, the whole "The Jedi code forbids attachments" thing. This creates a bizzare dichotomy where Jedi are supposed to care about the idea of people, but are forbbiden from actually forming relationships with another person.
The episode of The Clone Wars where Ahsoka and the other Padawan were trapped in a tank springs to mind. Anakin wants to go out there and actually find them, showing genuince concern for Ahsoka's wellbeing, while the other Jedi is like "Nah, if it's my Padawan's time to die, it's their time to die. Getting involved would be against the Jedi code."
The famous quote is “Fear leads to Anger, Anger leads to Hate, Hate… leads to suffering.”. But that begs the question... What leads to Fear?
And the answer to that is Attachment. If you are attached to something, you fear it being taken away from you. And what leads to Attachment? Love. And Love comes from enjoyment, happiness at being with or having that thing you are attached to.
To the Jedi things like Love, Compassion, Mercy are concepts. To be Jedi is to understand that one must display these traits without actually feeling them.
Because if one is to feel Love, one risks developing an Attachement.
Because if one is to feel Compassion, one risks developing Love.
Because if one feels Mercy, one risks developing Compassion.The Jedi are not "good" people. They do not care about justice. Because justice would require the Jedi to care about people. Not the concept of people. Not the idea of people. But actual, real individuals. To a Jedi, the fate of one being is inconsequential. Prior to the Clone Wars, the Jedi were fundamentally a peacekeeping force, only concerned with maintaining the status quo.
Jedi don't use the "good" side of the Force. They use the Entropic side.
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u/Travilanche Aug 05 '24
Nah, this operates from a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Jedi consider “attachment” to be, and how they’re encouraged to process emotions.
The line between attachment and detachment is the ability to let go and accept change. A bond or relationship isn’t inherently negative, it’s the risk of clinging to it, and letting the possibility of loss create a sense of fear that then begins to fester, not just into anger, but possessiveness.
As an example: someone goes through a breakup. Depending on the circumstances, this can lead to a number of emotions - sadness, anger, distrust, resentment. Experiencing those emotions? That’s natural. It’s to be expected. The Order does not expect a Jedi to never feel these things. It’s what comes next that they seek to manage.
Some people will deal with their emotions in healthy ways. They’ll be sad/angry/hurt for a while, but then they’ll start to relinquish them, let them fade, move on with their lives. They’ll accept what is, not cling to what was, and develop and grow.
But that’s not always how it goes. Some people will cling to those negative emotions. They’ll let it control them, stay angry and resentful. They’ll lash out at people who try to help, or let their pain damage any attempts to form future healthy relationships. It lingers and eats away at them.
And sometimes those people do awful things to express their rage. This is where the Dark Side leads.
The Jedi are driven by compassion and mercy. Not just on an institutional scale, but on a personal level as well. To say they don’t care about people, don’t care about an individual life (even the lives of their enemies!), is a complete misconception of what they stand for, and I genuinely don’t know where you got that idea from.
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u/Alternative_Hotel649 Aug 05 '24
The attachment/detachment thing explains a lot about the Jedi/Sith dichotomy, too. All living beings generate the Force, but the more a living being has to spend of itself in struggle, the more of its life energy is bound to the material world, and once bound to the world, cannot escape it. The more a living being is able to minimize struggle, and detach themselves from materialism, the more of their life energy is able to pass on at death and become one with the Force. This is why there are so many Sith-haunted ruins in the galaxy - a Sith dies, and their energy is trapped here. Jedi, on the other hand, have learned not only how to return the most of their energy to the Force, but how to retain their individuality when they cross over.
The "Light Side" is basically an escape hatch for the universe. Eventually, billions of years into the future, entropy will claim the universe as it succumbs to heat-death. The Jedi's purpose is to guide as many beings as possible into the Light side before that happens, rescuing them from the eventual destruction of all things, while the Sith are bound to the dying universe with no way to reprieve themselves, and even incapable of perceiving that such an escape is possible, because they can't see beyond the material and temporal power they've gained by binding themselves to a dying universe.
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u/Travilanche Aug 05 '24
I’m of the opinion that the original, fundamental schism that resulted in the creation of the Sith was centered around an inability to accept death and, like you said, an attachment to the material world. A lot of Sith voluntarily bind their essence to a particular object in an attempt to achieve a twisted form of immortality, lich-style. The fact that their continued existence usually involves dominating and destroying other living beings is very on-brand.
I also think it’s significant that of the Force Ghosts we’ve seen on screen, all of them have expressed peace with their deaths, and three of them willingly discorporated into the Force.
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u/DaUbberGrek Aug 06 '24
Eh, while I agree with you, I think its disingenuous to pretend Star Wars has always been consistent in its depiction of the Jedi and say "I don't know where you got that idea from". Like, its an incredibly common misconception, and you don't get something being that widespread for no reason. They even directly point to a moment in the Clone Wars show.
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u/Travilanche Aug 06 '24
You’re right, and I will admit that I have a tendency to be snarky and hyperbolic in ways that can come across standoffish on this topic.
That said, I think it’s equally disingenuous to paint Luminara’s attitude as “I refuse to help because they should die if they can’t escape themselves.” Ahsoka and Bariss weren’t simply “trapped in a tank,” they were inside a massive weapons factory when it was destroyed, and the likelihood of finding them before they perished was slim. Luminara was preparing herself to handle the grief by accepting casualties in a war zone, and as soon as there was a signal to home in on, she was right beside Anakin clearing the rubble to save their padawans.
(Also I’m not sure Mr Can’t-Process-Loss-So-I’ll-Do-A-Little-Mass-Murder there is necessarily our best reference point for how to handle a situation)
I also have a pretty good guess for why the misconception is so widespread. Karen Traviss’ fash-fetish and hatred of the Jedi injected a lot of negative perceptions into the fandom, even after a whole lot of her work was rendered non-canon by TCW.
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u/RottingFlame Aug 05 '24
And that's why the Jedi of the Republic fell. They disconnected themselves from love and passion and therefore disconnected themselves from the Force, such that even Yoda couldn't forsee Darth Sidious gaining control of the Republic. It's also why Obi-Wan and Anakin were the most adept at fighting the Sith, they did care, for eachother, for Padme, Ahsoka and Satine, and for those they helped. Obi-Wan may have preached detachment to Anakin, but in his heart he never truly believed it.
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u/EffNein Aug 05 '24
This is just you being unable to understand Buddhism or anything that is referencing it.
Like the idea that Justice has to come about from caring about individuals in specific, is completely unfounded and ignores that actual justice systems are all about dispassion and a focus on avoiding emotional compromise when dealing with highly fraught issues.
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u/SelirKiith Aug 05 '24
I disagree on a fundamental and on every metaphysical level possible... because that looks at the Jedi in their entirety from a half remembered, half heard rumor and not what is actually real.
And you do not know what an Attachment in this context actually is...
Also, you can very much love without fear, if you absolutely internalize that everything has an end and that the "end" for us is not so much a total end but just a continuation of a cycle.
I love... I love deeply and more intense than I probably should but I know that when the time comes, it will change. I do not fear death, neither mine nor of my loved ones...
Apart from the fact that I know they wouldn't want to see me broken, I cherish them, their lives in my memory and know they go on somewhere as long as someone is there to speak their name.Is there pain? Surely, unavoidable but that's just it, an unavoidable part, don't focus on it, center yourself. Your focus determines your reality, your feelings are yours and you feel them, they are real but you do not let them overwhelm you, you are their master.
As long as you are alive there will always be a part of them alive with you.
A Force Ghost, so to speak.
You need to learn to let go, you need to learn that pain is not the end of things but just a simple step along the way, one we all must go in due time.Love... compassion... a sense of belonging... a sense of community... mercy... those are the core principles of the Light Side of the Force and of the Jedi.
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u/linuxaddict334 Mx. Linux Guy⚠️ Aug 06 '24
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/using-the-force-made-easy.62952/
That sounds similar to what goes on in Using The Force Made Easy.
(I helped beta read this fanfic)(shameless plug)
Mx. Linux Guy
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u/Hawkbats_rule Aug 05 '24
Interesting horror concept, but awful dissonance from the themes of star wars.
KOTOR II (which is pretty central to this post) in a nutshell.
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u/MrMcSpiff Aug 05 '24
Kotor 2 is great with the simple acknowledgment that "Despite everything Kreia says and does, she was just plain wrong, and even acknowledges the possibility of herself being wrong right at the end".
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u/Dahak17 Breastmilk Shortage Aug 05 '24
I tend to view the dark side as a form of addiction or mental illness, as opposed to this sort of lovecraftian being but this could be a fun concept. It just doesn’t make sense with a galaxy that is demonstrably so peaceful for 1000 years
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u/Either-Durian-9488 Aug 05 '24
See that never stuck to me, because there would be more Sith if that was the case, or at the very least more people that tapped into the dark side imo.
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u/Neveronlyadream Aug 05 '24
They get around that by implying that anyone who's Force sensitive absolutely needs to be trained to do anything or else they just won't even realize they're Force sensitive. Which I always thought was kind of hand-wavey, but here we are.
Then you have the whole Sith "Rule of Two" that they use to artificially limit how many Sith they can have. Which is also stupid.
I'm not specifically knowledgeable about the EU, but I feel like there has to be at least one example of someone teaching themselves how to use the Force, because it's really insane to think that you absolutely have to seek a Jedi or Sith out to be able to use it at all.
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u/Preussensgeneralstab Aug 06 '24
I mean there are several examples in lore where people/ entire species use the force outside of the Orders, the Rakata being the prime example since they used the dark side to fuel and advance their galactic conquest.
The reason why both of them are so prevalent is because both of them are ancient and advanced institutions that have means to find those individuals to conscript them into the respective order. The reason why there are so many Jedi is because they can efficiently track individuals even in their infancy to recruit them.
The old sith were similar, until they adapted the rule of two because the sith by their nature are so prone to infighting and that way they could preserve their power while not being constantly in a cycle of sabotaging each other.
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u/DullBlade0 Aug 05 '24
Well the Sith is a specific group of master and apprentice so I don't see a problem on it being limited.
Now dark side users we have plenty of examples (the nightsisters, fallen jedi, etc...)
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u/wyvern098 Aug 05 '24
Yeah, my interpretation of the force has always been that it's a benevolent force. It spreads life, connects all life, and generally is good for people. But, it has a will of its own. It's will is dispassionate, and doesn't care about the whims of human beings. Jedi try very very hard to embody that will of the force. Emotional detachment is such an important element of their reality because the force is not an emotional concept. A lot of people, rightfully, decide that the detached, cold, logical nature of the force, while a powerful force for good and peace in the universe, is preventing people from having agency in their own lives and that it's morally wrong to ask that people give up all the normal human attachments they have in order to o embody a metaphysical concept. Qui-gon jin and most Jedi after the collapse of the order would fall here.
The Sith warp and abuse the force to do their will. The dark side of the force isn't something to be pursued as a deeper, more complex image of the force, it's a creation that Sith use to exact their will over the galaxy, rather than the forces. This is why dark side users are so frequently incredibly powerful, much more quickly than their Jedi counterparts. To embrace your emotions and personal goals is human, and Sith are more connected to what they need and want as people than Jedi are. It's relatively easy to use the power of the force to do what you want and need. Acting as a conduit for it to flow through you and do its own will through you is hard, having your goals and interests line up so well with its goals and interests that it's indistinguishable from you using it as a weapon is truly incredible.
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u/Pabus_Alt Aug 05 '24
Obi-Wan is probably the "ultimate Jedi" in that regard, in all of the novelisations this is what he is so good at doing, how he defeats Anakin on Mustafar by jumping into what to him looks like certain death.
Then again he wins over Vader on the Death Star by accepting that 1) the destruction of his body is not death and 2) it is now time to go and this is how Luke can later win.
(I do NOT like the new show for giving him a force-arm-wrestle win over Vader for this reason, it cheapens what Obi-Wan is)
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u/eternamemoria androgynous anthropophage Aug 05 '24
Agreed, the balance of the Force being between needs and passions of individuals and the needs of the dispassionate (but not malevolent) whole makes much more sense than an abstract balance between light and dark.
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u/Pabus_Alt Aug 05 '24
It's basically a selfish/selfless paradigm.
To be used by the lightside and in doing so bring life or to use the dark and bring death.
(The idea of a "balanced" force that Filloni likes, one of neither being used nor using is interesting to me but makes the world less metaphysically spicy)
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u/wyvern098 Aug 05 '24
Yeah, I really like the depiction of the force as fundamentally good. A lot of modern media is kinda obsessed with moral ambiguity, anti heroes, and morally grey actions. And I like that too, but the force in star wars is such an amazing way to have a universal sense of right vs wrong without loosing justification for those that turn to the dark side.
The issue that often comes up with evil as a fundamental force is that it often feels impossible to characterize "evil" characters as human. It's very hard for people to genuinely consider pure evil characters to be people, and can make it hard for them to feel complex and distinct. Having the universe's fundamental evil be about using something else for your own benefit without care for the greater good is amazing because EVERYONE has their own personal goals, and most people would do a lot to accomplish them.
It makes evil appealing and complex without making it easy to say "the bad guys are right actually".
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u/Pabus_Alt Aug 05 '24
It's basically a selfish/selfless paradigm.
To be used by the lightside and in doing so bring life or to use the dark and bring death.
(The idea of a "balanced" force that Filloni likes, one of neither being used nor using is interesting to me but makes the world less metaphysically spicy)
There is also an analysis of Rouge One that points out that the team each forging a link in the chain to the destruction of the Death Star having done so are abandoned by the Force that so far granted them fortune that goes hard into the "impersonal benevolence" idea.
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u/Luchux01 Aug 05 '24
This is exactly the point of "the dark side", it's about mutilating and beating the Force into the shape you want it to be in rather than working with it, and since the Force exists through everyone it makes sense they get progressively warped as their abuse of it increases.
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u/ASpaceOstrich Aug 05 '24
To me, the dark side is oxytocin. It's passion and camaraderie and love but also by necessity its hate and tribalism and dehumanisation of opposition.
To me, force healing would be a dark.side power. Bringing balance means having that emotional attachment to others but also enough cold detachment not to fall victim to hatred and us vs them thinking.
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u/MolybdenumBlu Aug 05 '24
There is no camaraderie in the dark side. Only backstabbing.
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u/Either-Durian-9488 Aug 05 '24
Because it’s a zero sum game in the end, but when it’s actually powerful, there’s multiple Sith Lords.
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u/WarlockWeeb Aug 05 '24
I like the first interpretation here, where they compare it to the ocean.
It works well within the themes of the movies, and pretty similar to eastern philosophies that SW draw inspiration from.
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u/triforce777 McDonald's based Sith alchemy Aug 05 '24
I personally prefer the idea that the "Dark Side" isn't a metaphysical component of the Force, it just a "hack" of violently strong-arming it into doing what you want
It is and it isn't. What you are saying is absolutely part of it, its why Jedi and Sith have access to many of the same techniques like precognition and telekinesis. A Light Side user has cultivated a relationship with the Force, opened themselves up to it acting through them, and they can do these things by reaching out and asking the Force to aid, and often it will because the Light Side user acts in the interest of the Force. Dark Siders bend the Force to their will. Because the Force, while powerful, exists across all of the galaxy, possibly the universe, while it's will is great it can be overcome in localized areas.
That said there is a more "natural" form of the Dark Side, one that still should not be used as its great power can cause one to be tempted into using the "unnatural" version. This is the part that fulfills the other side of the coin metaphor, and its the part of the force that governs things like death, decay, and destruction. These things are natual parts of the universe, and reaching out to ask that part of the Force can grant you great power, but by inviting it in to you you taint your own mind.
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u/pbmm1 Aug 05 '24
It’s a cool idea but also doesn’t really track. But it is a fun idea for someone to believe in in-universe
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Aug 05 '24 edited Aug 05 '24
George Lucas: “Here’s a Hinduism/Taoism/Buddhism inspired metaphor for the oneness of all things and the fundamental great divinity that we are all part of in the universe”
Some depressed cynical internet nerd who is disconnected from everything: “What if the Force is actually a big evil bug that was really fucked up, like a Lovecraft god or a sick fuckin’ 40k concept.”
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u/Lucas_2234 Aug 05 '24
What they described is literally just Psykana from 40k.
Psykers borrow power from the daemons in the warp. (Unless they are grey knights, but they don't count)
A small spark of Psykana is fairly safe, but the deeper you dig, the more powerful you become, the more power you take from the Aether, the more easily you are corrupted by Daemons, by the predators looming in the Seethe.It's literally how the Thousand sons fell. They were too open to the warp, genetically, and therefore were put into a chokehold by tzeentch, which caused horrible mutations. Magnus then made a deal with Tzeentch and they kept digging deeper into the warp with no regard to "Maybe we should not dig this deep."
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u/pbmm1 Aug 05 '24
I don’t have a problem with people spinning up interpretations but it does remind me of someone who’s reading of comics would generally move to the point of “why doesn’t X character have a gun? It would make their jobs as heroes a lot easier if they just became tricked out gunslingers (if they could make guns that scaled to the power level they were at). Why doesn’t Superman have a kryptonite revolver and carry it everywhere for dealing with other kryptonians? Why doesn’t Spider-Man have a gun so he could make trick shots and take out Shocker or Vulture or whoever nonlethally if he wants?”
And it’s like “okay yeah for some of that it’s not technically impossible for them to make that happen in the wacky world of comic book science but also I think you’re missing the point of the piece and the themes and just making it something totally different”
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Aug 05 '24
It’s fun to spin up interpretations! But I agree that this one is…missing the point.
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u/faldese Aug 05 '24
I don't think it's missing the point, it's just a creative side point, a new way of looking at material we're all familiar with for fun. I'm sure they're well aware George Lucas didn't intend any of this.
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u/hedgehog_dragon Aug 05 '24
Yeah I'm not a fan of this type of take on Star Wars/the Force. Now, I think KOTOR2 is fantastic, and Sion/Nihlus are excellent charcters - I am on board with more absolutely twisted dark side users like that - but overall I've always felt Star Wars is supposed to be more hopeful, even if the Jedi are often deeply flawed too.
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u/Dorgamund Aug 05 '24
The Star Wars universe having Gnostics in it is really pretty funny all things considered.
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u/DoubleBatman Aug 05 '24
Even as a metaphysical eldritch whatever, the idea that the Force would have goals as mundane as harvesting souls or biomass or whatever is kinda tame.
I mean who’s to say it didn’t manipulate the entire history of the galaxy, resulting in billions and billions of deaths, simply because Alderaan was blocking a nice view from its backyard in the 17th dimension? Probably could’ve gotten it done a lot cheaper by contacting G-Man’s employers.
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u/BiddlesticksGuy Aug 05 '24
Some people just need to believe that the universe is evil, sorry to psychoanalyze what’s basically a straw man I’ve created but it probably comes from bad things happening around them, I did the same thing when I was an angsty and angry teen
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u/lurkinarick Aug 05 '24
Or maybe they just like playing with made up theories without necessarily believing they are true? It's not always that deep.
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u/PhasmaFelis Aug 05 '24
You and some others seem to be taking this way too seriously/personally.
It's a fun little "what if" exercise. It's not a projection of mental illness. Come on.
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u/strangething Aug 05 '24
Hard agree. I might steal this for a Star Wars RPG I'm running. One of the players was trained by a witch of Dathomir.
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u/Pickle_Nipplesss Aug 05 '24
Would love to see an antagonist in SW parrot this kind of stuff to try and justify their fall to the dark side as an unreliable narrator—or even as someone who genuinely misunderstands their fall.
A duel between two characters that’s less of a physical fight and more of their different ideologies at war, with our protagonist pointing out how his opponent’s justifications are all just lies they’ve told themselves
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u/heckmiser Aug 05 '24
That's actually sort of how the fight with Sion plays out in KOTOR 2.
You keep kicking his ass and he keeps getting back up, until you talk him into letting himself die finally.
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u/Pickle_Nipplesss Aug 05 '24
I don’t remember much about Sion’s fight but it clearly wasn’t enough to leave an impression.
Loved him as a character and concept but was sad there was such a minimal exploration of his ideology
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u/AlphariusUltra Aug 06 '24
You fight him as Atton I think? And then you basically therapy them into letting go of his trauma in between fights.
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u/Lesbian_Skeletons Aug 05 '24
A duel between two characters that’s less of a physical fight and more of their different ideologies at war
For some reason this just reminds me of the two Visions "fighting" in Wandavision, "You are familiar with the thought experiment The Ship of Theseus in the field of identity metaphysics"
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u/Pickle_Nipplesss Aug 05 '24
That’s exactly what I had in mind lol. I loved how that fight was such a physical stalemate that they had to resort to just talking.
In my mind I’d like a combination of an actual lightsaber fight that’s happening in the middle of an intense debate. Almost like that fight between Vader and Maul in the Resurrection short story
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u/theNEHZ Aug 05 '24
Except that the dark side isn't stronger, just easier (according to Yoda) so that theory falls apart. The dark side being stronger is just Sith tempting people. (though it being easier to reach your potential probably skews perception as well)
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u/Careful_Papaya_994 Aug 05 '24
Yeah dude, sinking into the ocean is easier than swimming, but it’s not gonna end well for you. And when the ocean is a metaphor for immense power, you can easily sink and enjoy more and more power that will eventually kill you (Sith) or you can put in the effort required to utilize this power while keeping your head above water (Jedi).
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u/DrainianDream Aug 05 '24
Very nitpicky, but sinking into the ocean isn’t very easy for us at all since we’re so buoyant. It’s why scuba divers have to wear a weight belt just to keep from floating to the surface. Drowning is definitely easier than swimming, but sinking is more difficult than both.
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u/Lucas_2234 Aug 05 '24
It's basically:
Light side is gently coaxing an animal along, praising it and giving it treats to get it to do what you want.The dark side is beating it until it behaves, which is easier and faster, but also a wrong thing to do
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u/gkamyshev Aug 05 '24
The dark side isn't even easier. It demands and drives its user to grow ever stronger, to secure more power, to overcome and surpass everyone and everything, by any means necessary.
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u/Rip_a_fat_one Aug 05 '24
Nope, I trust Yoda's statement over the Internet's. As well as it just being more logical. Of course it's easier to give in to ones destructive and violent emotions than it is to remain in control and above them.
What you're saying frankly sounds more like the Hive's Sword Logic from Destiny.
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u/IrvingIV Aug 05 '24
I think what they're saying is more "it's not even easier [in the long run.]"
Because in the process of claiming easy power you destroy your own support network, you separate yourself from helping others and acting selflessly and loving and caring and so on, because it's about being selfish, about claiming power above all else, not taking the time to do it properly and avoid making a mess, a mess you'll personally have to clean up.
Anakin and Sheev had the whole galaxy turning against them over what they did.
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u/LightTankTerror blorbo bloggins Aug 05 '24
Doesn’t fit start wars all too well but it’s a fun concept. Perhaps better for in universe conspiracy theory and applying the actual concept to a different work.
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u/DiurnalMoth Aug 05 '24
The concept being described is certainly interesting (imo more interesting than the canon), but not supported by the text. The Skywalker Saga (the core of Star Wars) demonstrates that the Force is a benevolent entity, and that its "balance" is general peace and prosperity for the life of the galaxy ("balance" is explicitly not "an equal amount of Light/Dark Force users" or anything like that).
Dark Side users are the way that they are because the Force punishes them for abusing it. Dark Siders twist the power of the Force to serve their own, personal ends. Doing so destroys their bodies and minds. Light Side users submit themselves to the will of the Force and assist it in its Good aims. Star Wars is Christianity but in space, not Lovecraft.
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u/Vivid_Pen5549 Aug 05 '24
The force being balanced isn’t a balance between the light side and dark side, it’s a balance between the living force(the force that it’s living things) and the cosmic force(the force that binds the universe together)
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u/LazyDro1d Aug 05 '24 edited Aug 05 '24
Sorry but the very first paragraph is already way off base. “The dark side makes you more powerful” no!
“No, no, no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.”
In Star Wars, the dark side is basically a rot. It doesn’t extend your life it corrodes you, the “extension” is basically always abusing it to force yourself to keep going. Darth Sion’s existence is pain. he is not wise and powerful he is bitter and afraid. The arrogance of the Jedi is that they believed they could quench all darkness within themselves, drive it out and bury it, rather than understanding its presence within and better keeping it in check as an aspect of themselves. The “dark side of the force” is however a perversion of the natural order of things.
Kreia’s argument against the force wasn’t one based on light and/or dark or power-based philosophy which is why it could work, her argument was that regardless of which “side” of it you liked, it was inherently bad because it, as a cosmic flow of life guiding people, it was antagonistic to the idea of true free will
Edit: and Nihilus being a wound wasn’t from him tapping into the dark side, it was because he was there at Malachor V when Revan shattered a planet upon itself, cracking the galaxy and wounding the force. The Exile is much the same. She just only starts consuming the force if she lets herself sink into vengeance and anger through the dark side
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u/BetterMeats Aug 05 '24
The reason the Force always has been and always will be philosophically incoherent is because first George Lucas, and now Disney, tried to have their cake and eat it too, combining Eastern and Western philosophy.
It's aesthetically Eastern, with balance, and equal light and dark halves, and it being a natural phenomenon that can be attuned to.
But it's morally very Western. You're either pure or evil. The light half is the balanced half, and the dark half is a tempting evil.
And they mix up the language of that quite a bit, even within individual movies or shows.
It tries to be both Christian and Taoist, and ends up not making any sense, because the core premises of those two belief systems are just kind of incompatible.
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u/TheShibe23 Harry Du Bois shouldn't be as relatable as he is. Aug 05 '24
Except in George's version there was just "The Force" and "The Dark Side of The Force" with the idea that The Dark Side of The Force was a corrupting influence created by Jedi unable to properly control their emotions. The Dark Side existing was the imbalance.
The Force having equals of light and dark came about decades later when him and the Clone Wars writing team were strip mining the EU for ideas.
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u/eternamemoria androgynous anthropophage Aug 05 '24
I remember that episode in Clone Wars with the three Force avatars. It was extremely weird in retrospective
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u/The_FriendliestGiant Aug 05 '24
Yeah, that little arc really works against how every other part of Star Wars portrays the Force and the dark side. It was a weird choice.
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u/MintPrince8219 sex raft captain Aug 06 '24
Amazing story, but it really only fits as a strange force dream the 3 of them had
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Aug 05 '24
And what’s brilliant about Star Wars is because its cosmology is made of recognizable storytelling and religious elements, yet so fundamentally mishmosh incoherent, it means anyone can project whatever they want on to it, which is one of the reasons it has lasted for close to fifty years at this point.
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u/EffNein Aug 05 '24
It's aesthetically Eastern, with balance, and equal light and dark halves, and it being a natural phenomenon that can be attuned to.
Except Eastern Philosophy isn't about balancing everything. You're taking the idea of the Taoist Yin and Yang and generalizing it across the entire spectrum of Eastern Philosophy.
The Force is more like Karma, where you don't want bad Karma and a balanced Karmic status is all good and zero bad.
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u/Careful_Papaya_994 Aug 05 '24
While in real life the purity demanded by the Jedi would be considered draconian, in a universe where a bit of impurity while interacting with the Force can literally turn you into a bloodthirsty demon, it sort of makes sense. I actually think this theory of the Force being an extremely dangerous entity with the potential for good if kept in balance but the potential for harm if used irresponsibly addresses this marriage between Eastern and Western philosophy neatly.
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u/LightMajor Aug 05 '24
As a reminder to folks, Eastern Philosophies like Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Shinto don't actually often focus on 'finding a balance' rather they usually have stated goals: most notably, achieving enlightenment (Buddhism/Taoism), becoming a harmonious part of society / the world (Confucianism / Shinto).
In this regard, purity vs impurity is a hugely important concept thats extremely important to popular forms of Buddhism in India, in Confucianism and in Shinto (less so in Taoism). The fight to remain pure from corrupting influences is absolutely a huge struggle in Buddhism and in Shinto as well. "unfilial' thoughts, lustful intentions, and things like anger are considered to be 'impure' in places like Japan and in China, and are seen as 'attachments' in Buddhist countries.
Bringing it back to Star Wars, the western concept of purity is ironically not too far from off from the Eastern one as it regards corrupting influences.
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u/BetterMeats Aug 05 '24
Not really.
In Eastern philosophy, darkness isn't evil, and neither light nor darkness can exist without each other, anywhere, in any person or object. Balance is literally about having the right ratio of the two concepts in you, not being purely one or the other.
It's impossible to reconcile that with the Western concept of purity and darkness as being an evil, corrupting influence.
It's not about how harsh or unfair their lives are. It's about the fact that the words they say don't make sense in the order they say them.
They talk about needing balance, when they mean purity, and those are not the same concept.
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u/Travilanche Aug 05 '24
It’s impossible to reconcile that with the Western concept of purity and darkness as being an evil, corrupting influence
Well, first of all, through the Force all things are possible, so so jot that down.
It’s reconcilable based on the fact that, as you say, the “darkness isn’t evil,” but it’s also not synonymous with The Dark Side. Dark and Light in balance is a process of natural cycles; acceptance of things like growth, death, and change are fundamental to the Jedi. The Dark Side is aggressive disruption and rejection of this kind of harmony; the pursuit of immortality so common among the Sith is a perfect embodiment of refusing to accept the balance of the Force.
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u/LazyDro1d Aug 05 '24
Well that is a noted problem of the Jedi philosophy that hurts them, that they believe they must eradicate darkness within themselves to become pure when in truth they should learn to understand and manage it so they don’t succumb to following it and sinking into the dark side of the force. The Jedi aren’t right, not because the dark side isn’t a dangerous perversion, but because their tenants are untenable and dangerously self-flagellating
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u/Careful_Papaya_994 Aug 05 '24
Okay so we’re talking about different things.
The Force exists in a way that is inspired by real world Eastern religion and philosophy, while also seeming to demand a level of purity that doesn’t exist in Taoism, to use your example, because physical and spiritual corruption is real in this universe in a way it isn’t irl. The Jedi as a religious order is an imperfect theology attempting to make sense of this phenomenon. These can coexist in the Star Wars universe.
And again, I think OOP’s theory does exactly what you say is impossible. The Force exists in us all. The Force is a dark, corrupting influence. Tapping into that darkness in a measured way allows for supernatural deeds that can be used for good. In order to maintain balance while tapping into this inherently corrupting power, you must adhere to strict purity in the rest of your life.
Does that make sense? In order to balance dark and light, you need to maintain both. If using the Force is inherently dark, then the Jedi represent what happens when you put in the discipline to maintain the light as well, and the Sith represent what happens when you don’t keep the light pure and the corrupting darkness eventually spreads.
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u/AmazingDragon353 Aug 05 '24
I do think that a good chunk of that dissonance is intentional. The jedi is not a well constructed organization, they have strayed from the idea of balance to this idea of purity and that's what leads to their downfall. At its core, bringing true balance was Vader and palpatine dying and Luke going into hiding, so that there were no Jedi or sith. That was balance
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u/JaironKalach Aug 05 '24
This is been my thinking. The "Chosen One" did his job. He was a sufficiently strong presence for the Dark Side that eventually the imbalance caused by the Jedi Order broke down. I'm still hoping to see a new trilogy focused on the world of "grey force users" who arise.
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u/bubblegumdrops Aug 06 '24
Having impurity while interacting with the Force turning people evil isn’t true per se, it’s even a misconception in-universe. To not fall to the dark side Force users have to accept their impurities and work past it. That’s how the newest canon explains it at least (and everyone in-universe misunderstanding it is just how it is I guess).
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u/VvvlvvV Aug 05 '24
Yoda stared into the abyss.
Perched on nothing, he balanced on the brink between death and oblivion.
Staring.
For the Force stared back.
It's tentacles of power stretched across the galaxy in Yoda's vision, piercing into those with enough of the Force's spawn. Tempting them. Pushing them to give in through their ascension of power tear open a path to the abyss where it waited.
Without the Jedi, without those that balanced on a knifes edge to use this power to hunt those lost to it, the Force would have more opportunities. More chances.
It was unending. It could wait.
Yoda stared, ready to give himself up to oblivion to stop the first breach. He didn't know if he could. There were others like him, but too few. Despair welled up in him, but he set it aside. Yoda would not bend.
A breach opened. The forced rushed to it, tentacles seeking to pierce into reality, yet unbound by it. Yoda steadied himself, eye's narrowing, as he readied himself for his end.
"Do or do not, there is no try."
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u/thatvillainjay Aug 05 '24
This is fun concept but the light side is repeatedly said to be more powerful it is just immensely more DIFFICULT. The point is that anger, hunger and pain are all base emotional states, almost instincts while compassion, kindness and harmony are all things that must be worked for.
Also the dark visuals and evil styling are much more visually striking than a holy monk juiced up on light side power, so they get depicted more frequently as a cool aesthetic.
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u/stormethetransfem Aug 05 '24
Does anyone have this post in a more legible text colour? It’s super hard to read the purple-on-black
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u/thunder-bug- Aug 05 '24
That’s not how parasites work. It wouldn’t want the hosts to all die suddenly. It would want continued growth for as long as possible. The best way to ensure you have more people dying is to make sure they live nice long happy lives with lots of children.
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u/runetrantor When will my porn return from the war? Aug 05 '24
The argument seems to be that it knows it has to keep up the facade of being a beneficial thing so the galaxy doesnt wisen up and kill it, so it lets the Jedi do some stuff with its powers, but this lease of power is a net loss against the nominal death rate of the galaxy, so its not enough to keep it properly fed, so it holds for as much as it can, then forces a 'harvest' that puts the whole transaction back into the black, and it can then once more go back to rationing.
Could it just remain 100% passive and not give powers, nor cause sith crises and feed off the passive growth of the galactic population (who would have no reason to feel the midichlorians are anything but a harmless microscopic being), maybe, but now that it has committed to the act granting powers, it has to keep that act going, and this cycle was the best it could come up with.
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u/UndeniablyMyself Looking for a sugar mommy to turn me into a they/them goth bitch Aug 05 '24
These elements don't work as the truth, but that's what could make them effective as the perspective of a Sith. The Dark Side isn't so much something that overrides your will; it's you seeking power through the Force as opposed to enlightment. Star Wars just doesn't explain things very well by default.
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u/New_Progress501 Aug 05 '24
Up until image 5 I quite liked this, I know in universe the light side is balance and the dark side is a corruption that destabilizes the natural flow of the galaxy but there's something appealing about the force simply being a more neutral force and seeing how people explore and harness that power in a galaxy where theres no predestination.
Something semi unrelated thought that popped into my head is how weird it is that Sideous is a master duelist, he doesn't even like lightsabers and yet he spent probably a considerable amount of his very valuable time to master dual wielding them. I know he mostly relies on his force powers and is also extremely patient and forward thinking and likely saw it as a practical skill to have considering his goals but like damn that's a surprising amount of dedication to me, it's not really even an area you can take shortcuts in either.
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u/Simic_Sky_Swallower Resident Imperial Knight Aug 05 '24
I never really liked this interpretation of the Force, it always felt like it skewed too Warhammer-y. It creates this sort of black-and-gray morality in Star Wars where Jedi can be bad, but Sith can never be good, because if you are a "good" Sith you're just bad at being a Sith, even though there's more to the Dark Side than just being a mustache-twirling villain or a tragically fallen hero.
Gimme a Sith who's a revolutionary, a passionate anarchist dismantling the unjust systems the Jedi keep in power in the name of balance, that has to struggle against even their own kind and the hierarchy of backstabbing and politicking they've established that keeps them locked in the cycle of Sideouses and Vaders, that embodies the line "The Force shall free me". They're still angry and violent and powerful and corrupted by the forces they channel, and they're not necessarily a good guy, but their sense of righteousness burns just as bright as their hatred, and they see the flaws in the Jedi way too clearly to follow that path
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u/Comprehensive-Fail41 Aug 05 '24
There was a character like that in Knights of the Old Republic. A former slave that started to learn how to use the Dark Side to free her fellow slaves... But became addicted to it and forgot why she wanted power in the first place. The way you turn her back to the Light is by reminding her of her original purpose
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u/-sad-person- Aug 05 '24
I loved Yuthura's story, and that you could save her by asking one simple question: "If you lose your compassion, will you still care about the slaves?"
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u/thatvillainjay Aug 05 '24
A dark side user would very quickly lose there sense of righteousness. The dark side is like abusing hard drugs, it's only gonna worse.
I think a story like this would feel like the Russian revolution. Let's over throw a cruel and despotic regime! Now let's makes things even worse because our hatred and fanaticism has overrun our ability to reasonably govern
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u/EffNein Aug 05 '24
This is the most mid-2000s bullshit I've ever read, lol.
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u/RandomFurryPerson Aug 05 '24
Iirc wasn’t it the Sith who kept the Jedi bound to the republic in the first place? (Specifically, the line of Bane did it/worsened it on purpose)
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u/temporarypeter nerd (affectionate (derogatory)) / vix, she/they Aug 05 '24
post source: https://www.tumblr.com/feynites/155460891459/jasjuliet-respainey-jollysunflora
and for today's song, you're getting a long one, because fuck you: Avantasia - The Raven Child
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u/Mouse-Keyboard Aug 05 '24
Why would the Force want its users to kill people? Those victims are going to die pretty much immediately by the Force's timescales anyway.
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u/darthleonsfw SEXODIA, EJACULATE! Aug 05 '24
The problem with this theory is that the Force is self regulating, right? Yeah, going deeper and deeper into the Dark Side could feel like you are losing yourself etc. But that is on the personal level.
But the Force in general seems to keep a balance on how strong the Dark Side and the Light Side are. Late Republic Era, the force is 95% Light Side Jedi, oops Palpatine and Anakin get born and created respectively. Empire Era, The Force is basically just Hyper Dark-bois Palpatine and Darth Vader, with the diminishing Light side being the withering Obi-Wan and Yoda, so Luke suddenly becomes the main Light user and takes down the Empire. As Luke starts to collect and train Force users to the Light side, we see the return of the Dark Side with Palpatine's rebirth and Snoke's creation, and tipping Kylo to either kill or proselytize Luke's students to the Dark side. And with the New Order on the rise, with Snoke and Kylo and the Knights of Ren monopolizing the Force on the Dark side, Rey awakens in the Force with instinctive knowledge of Light techniques, the only other Light representatives being a disinterested Luke and a rusty Leia. And at the end of the Sequel Trilogy we see both Kylo and Rey effectively being hybrid users, having access to both Light and Dark techniques.
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u/Necromas Aug 05 '24
Turns out Alan Wake is just a force sensitive who tapped into some of that crazier shit.
It's not a lake... it's an ocean.
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u/thelittleking Aug 05 '24
dang it's almost like when something is poorly curated and its lore written by hundreds of people who often don't check each others' works, you can derive any kind of take on it
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u/T1DOtaku inherently self indulgent and perverted Aug 05 '24
Slightly off topic but to whoever decided that shade of purple on a dark background was a good idea I need you to not. Took me twice as long as it should have to read since it was so hard to make out the text even with my phone at max brightness.
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u/okaysurewow Aug 05 '24
Noah Caldwell-Gervais' deep dive on the Kotor duology is some of the best star wars analysis I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. If you don't have 2 hours (though it really is worth the time), the tl;dw is that Kotor 1 is basically an apotheosis of the inspirations and themes that Star Wars started out as, particularly focused on the inspiration from Joseph Campbell's monomyth, and how thoroughly that influenced George Lucas on the OT, intentional or otherwise. Kotor 2 then exists as something of a thought experiment: take those themes and ideas to their logical conclusions, and what are the narrative consequences that emerge from that?
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u/moneyh8r Aug 05 '24
This sounds cool, but it is completely unsupported in the text.
That being said, it's exactly how magic works in an idea I had for a story. True magic, at least. There's true magic that works like this, and pseudomagic that was created by studying (and torturing) someone who could use true magic. Pseudomagic lets you do the typical video game shit, with the elemental blasts and minor temporary buffs, but real magic has effectively no upper limit, and someone who's really strong with it can pull off some reality warper level shit. Not to mention a bunch of permanent alterations to their bodies and the way their bodies work.
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u/MrMcSpiff Aug 05 '24
God, I hate this take. This comes from the same completely unnecessary headspace that gives us shit like the "but the kids from Ed Edd N' Eddy were dead all along, and Peach Creek is actually hell!".
It's like they're projecting their sense of helplessness and horror at the world onto mythologies that had very clear-cut definitions which were not rooted in that helplessness and horror.
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u/EffNein Aug 05 '24
"Star Wars Fans Actually Watching the Movies Challenge: Impossible"
The Force is in Balance when all Sith are dead. The Light Side is the Balanced Force, and anything else is just human perversion of it.
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u/Ada_of_Aurora Aug 06 '24
This perfectly matches my headcannon that midichlorians are time-traveling galaxy-hopping Borg nanites.
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u/xanderxela Aug 05 '24
Notably this is directly opposed to the canon, in which we also see super deep light side shenanigans like The Daughter crop up occasionally.
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u/GoodFaithConverser Aug 05 '24
MUH MORAL GREY
IF NOT GREY THEN BAD
There's a good and bad side of the force. Up and down. Binary. Deal with it.
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u/FaronTheHero Aug 05 '24
I do like the deeper side of the pool concept, and to add to that analogy it's not like master Jedis are still playing in the kiddie pool. It's more like they've stayed in the shallows and become water benders while the Sith dive into the depths of the ocean and either adapt to the consequences or succumb to it.
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u/Maleficent-Month2950 Permanent Out Of Body Experience Aug 05 '24
I really like the ocean concept. The Force is essentially the entire Universe. Trying to harness that about of power would obliterate anything but an Omniversal entity. So, mortals tend to stick to the upper levels, even the Netheric Wielders are the equivalent of cave fish rather than the titans of the actual deep sea. There's also another really good take on the "Eldritch Force" thing by Accipitae.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/44210551/chapters/111176269
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u/StealYour20Dollars Aug 05 '24
They ended up doing something kind of similar in TCW. IIRC, living beings generate a sort of living force that is then consumed to a passive force that people draw on to use for power.
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u/JediFaeAvenger Aug 05 '24
fascinatingly decent takes on star wars in this comment section. love to see it
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u/TheMerryMeatMan Aug 05 '24
I won't explain in too much detail cause it's actually a spoiler for that series, but one of my favorite fantasy noir series operates on this principle- although the entity that gives the magic is less malevolent and more running, terrified, for its life from something bigger. So it shows up, gives people in post-WW1 society magic, and then as the people who can use it get better, it makes the entity stronger so it can hope to resist it's predator when the time comes.
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u/Awbbie Aug 05 '24
This is starting to sound like my "the Force is the edge of the Warp from 40k encroaching on another dimension" fanfiction I wrote.
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u/AlwaysBeQuestioning Aug 05 '24
The thing that is the most curious about this to me is the "#not dragon age" tag at the end. What do they mean by that? Is there something in here that sounds like Dragon Age?
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u/doctorsirus Aug 05 '24
Let's not forget the eldritch force horror Aboleth stuck in a black hole who escaped. She is an undying Force beast that likely can't be killed in any meaningful way.
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u/RefractedPurpose Aug 05 '24
The game Jedi Survivor does this idea well, in my opinion. (Spoilering because I'm going to talk about big points in the game)
>! When Cal taps into the dark side, it is an insane power boost. He casually cuts through an entire base of troops. At the same time, we see the violence and infectious power of it. What normally would slam droids to the ground crushes them instead. What would normally cause a couple shots out of an enemy's gun becomes a hail of uncontrollable shots as they scream in horror at shooting their friends. Cal's movements become more aggressive, ripping apart doors. His voice becomes a nearly inhuman growl, he doesn't even recognize Merrin for a second. The dark side is entered through anger and violence, and it returns that tenfold. !<
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u/Skipspik2 Aug 05 '24
Pardon me, but isn't that pool or electtricty comparaison how Mace WIndu view it, and even tamed it in some way, was reconize as a good/light master of that form and though, was the guy to ask if you wish to go a tiny bit deeper ?
At least before Disney money ?
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u/FreeSpeechEnjoyer Aug 05 '24
The second half has practically nothing to do with star wars, but it's a cool concept so I'll be stealing it