The Jedi were wrong

Wakandan's just high on metachlorians.

The Edge_sl said:

Supreme Chancellor: Remember back to your early teachings. "All who gain power are afraid to lose it." Even the Jedi.
Anakin Skywalker: The Jedi use their power for good.
Supreme Chancellor: Good is a point of view, Anakin. The Sith and the Jedi are similar in almost every way, including their quest for greater power.
Anakin Skywalker: The Sith rely on their passion for their strength. They think inward, only about themselves.
Supreme Chancellor: And the Jedi don't?
Anakin Skywalker: The Jedi are selfless... they only care about others.

It is not possible to be truly selfless. Therefore the Jedi are living a lie.

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It is not possible to be truly selfish. Therefore the Sith are living a lie.

Suppressing emotions, love or even the need to reproduce could be said to be an act of evil when taken to an extreme. The Jedi certainly took these fundamental aspects of humanity to extremes to suppress them.

Zhaun_sl said:

So it is better to be a dick and succeed, than try to help people and sometimes fail?

You are buying into an argument that worked on a retard like Anakin Skywalker, congrats.

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Remember Luke knew the things that corrupted his father were preventable. That's why his Jedi Order was essentially "be a good person, then go home and love your wife and kids". He blended both sides and recognized the needs for family and love.

Salshun_sl said:

Remember Luke knew the things that corrupted his father were preventable. That's why his Jedi Order was essentially "be a good person, then go home and love your wife and kids". He blended both sides and recognized the needs for family and love.

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Nah, never read those.

Didn't all Luke's kids fall to the Dark Side though?

Zhaun_sl said:

Nah, never read those.

Didn't all Luke's kids fall to the Dark Side though?

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I thought only one did, but every family needs a bad seed.

IIRC it was due to the stress from trying to hunt down the Voxyn that the Yuuzhan Vong had engineered to kill Jedi. Or just the pressure of so many Jedi being killed during the Yuuzhan Vong invasion or something. I remember browsing through one of the PnP game sourcebooks.

The Edge_sl said:

The Jedi did not teach all the facts, only the parts that suited their cause. The Sith were about freedom and passion.

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from my own humble opinion.. i've just finished reading the Old Republic Series, re-reading Heir to the Empire, Darth Plagueis, and the Fate of the Jedi series... and you're absolutely right. both sides are missing the final piece of the full picture, but the Sith are actually philosophically closer to it. Darth Plagueis was just amazing... for anyone that's interested and hasn't read it, do it.

About the prophecy bringing balance: it was Luke who brought balance, not Anakin. They just thought it was going to be Anakin. While I do understand that the universe with Jedi in power is "balanced" by bringing the Sith to power that's not what balanced it, the Sith were always there. Luke used his emotions and gave in to both the dark and the light at times without being fully swayed by either. He gives in to light more with all the training and everything but still rejects all of it when he leaves Dagobah and leaves his training against the Jedi master's dogma because of his emotional ties to his friends on Bespin. He gives in to the dark with his actions in the Dagobah cave (ESB) and in his fight against Vader (RotJ). He proves that neither side are correct and shows that a mix of both is superior. Prophecy fulfilled.

Salshun_sl said:

Remember Luke knew the things that corrupted his father were preventable. That's why his Jedi Order was essentially "be a good person, then go home and love your wife and kids". He blended both sides and recognized the needs for family and love.

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This.

How I interpreted all the events of the movies, since apparently you can't take the eu as cannon (god damn it Lucas) is that the prophecy of "one who would bring balance to the Force" was fulfilled by Luke and Anakin. More by Luke in my opinion.

The Jedi moved away from passion and love out of fear of how emotion can take control of a person. The Sith were always fucktards that went psycho with power but had a more convincing argument by claiming to be more middle of the spectrum... but that wasn't really the case since they all go mad with power. They focus on hate and anger, and the claim to value passion is a half truth. You never see a Sith focus on love or joy to strengthen himself in combat... it's always hate and rage.

Anakin wiped all the midichlorian, chastity, cold jedi nonsense off the table. Luke had to rediscover the force and in so doing truths that had been forgotten. Yoda in his final days with Luke, warns him of anger, hate, fear... but not of love... I think in those many years of solitude he realized the ideological flaws and what caused the ultimate downfall of the Jedi in his time. You never hear Obiwan or Yoda say that Luke is forbidden from Love.

Luke as a Jedi Master will be teaching things with a fresh mindset unchained from the ideology of the old Jedi Order and - BOOM - the light side of the force is balanced.

As a side note, what I would love to see in the new trilogy:
Luke searching for the origins of the Jedi with his new Jedi Order. What they find though is the origins of the Sith, and awaken an ancient evil that is beyond any of them. They have to uncover secrets of the Force lost to the Jedi, or face annihilation.
Basically someone needs to learn how to go SSJ5.
What you'll have at the end is finality, the true nature/path of the Force rediscovered.

If you base your views on the Jedi as they are represented in E1-3 I suppose not only are they obviously wrong in ways that attending a critical thinking lecture at your local community college would reveal to a person, they're completely fucking retarded as well as being utter frauds. If you look at 4-6 there were only a few Jedi. Vader, Yoda, Obi-Wan, and (kinda) Luke. In 4-6 the Jedi was a pretty ambiguous concept. Vader was obviously tyrannical, sure... but Obi-Wan was not as obviously "good" as Vader was "bad". Yoda did nothing except for hide in a swamp and masturbate, and whatever ethical training Luke was subject to was left mostly offscreen.

1-3/4-6 presented really different concepts of the order of the Jedi. 4-6 actually did it much more artfully and coherently, while 1-3 devolved into the worst sort of science fiction writing. At the end of 6 I really did understand what a Jedi was, and how a Jedi gone wrong could go real real wrong even though very little had been directly explained about the philosophy. You understand that Yoda hiding in his swamp jerking his little green dick wasn't an act of cowardice, it was ethical action. You understand that Obi-Wan's defeat at the end of New Hope was not suicide or noble sacrifice, it was also ethical action. Their "goodness" is self contained. At the end of 3 I was just convinced that the Jedi Order, entire Senate, and the people of the republic who must be responsible for knowing what in the fuck is going on all eat a a full bowl of Leady-Nut Cheerios as part of their well balanced breakfast, and Lucas didn't really catch the nuance of lightside vs. darkside he'd established.

Damnit guys, I thought we agreed to pretend the prequels don't exist.

Enob_sl said:

About the prophecy bringing balance: it was Luke who brought balance, not Anakin.

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Really? Answer this. Who killed the Emperor?

Anakin "brought balance" by killing the Sith Lord, not Luke. This was one of the FEW good things in the whole set of movies--that Anakin was, indeed, the "chosen one" but the problem with vague "prophecies" is that they are VAGUE. It was a pretty subtle commentary on the perils of religious faith. I'm sure it was a mistake on Lucas' part, but it was a good one.

While I do understand that the universe with Jedi in power is "balanced" by bringing the Sith to power that's not what balanced it, the Sith were always there. Luke used his emotions and gave in to both the dark and the light at times without being fully swayed by either. He gives in to light more with all the training and everything but still rejects all of it when he leaves Dagobah and leaves his training against the Jedi master's dogma because of his emotional ties to his friends on Bespin.

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The whole "balance" thing was an subtle, but very obtuse plot line. Had Anakin NOT been born, the Emperor would have taken over anyway. He would have wiped out the Jedi, anyway. This was the "imbalance" the prophecy was talking about. That's why the Jedi were all willing to take a chance, remember all those comments about how "blind" they were? So even without Anakin, the Jedi all die and the universe is plunged into darkness, a supreme imbalance. At least with the Jedi, some evil is tolerated--like slavery, smuggling, drugs. The Jedi upheld the balance even when they were in power. The Emperor though was fine with ultimate acts of evil, genocide ect.

So, whether Anakin was there or not, Emperor wins. And imbalance is had.

However, had Darth Vader not existed, no one would have killed the Emperor. Without Vader "reigning" in the Emperor and asking him to try and turn Luke, he would have been killed back in New Hope. Or surely after that (Vader's the only reason the Star Destroy doesn't blow the Millenium falcon up at the end of Strikes Back, for example.)--half the time when Luke survives it's because his father stopping him from being killed in his futile quest to "turn him to the dark side".

And just to put a massive and ultimately symbolic cherry on top of this philosophical train ride--Vader ACTUALLY physically throws darkness back down into the pit it came from. So, he is the "chose one."--the problem was the prophecy never spoke about when he'd save everyone, who even what save was. Like I said, I'm sure this subtle element was a completely mistake on Lucas' part. After seeing the prequels, I know he has an idea of the thematic/symbolic elements he wants in his stories, but he's SO bad at implementing them.

Hatorade_sl said:

Wow you guys are fucking nerds.

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^

The Edge_sl said:

In fact, he did indeed balance it. The Jedi had a monopoly. Anakin brought their numbers down to a number equal to the Sith. Obi-Wan and Yoda/Anakin and Palpatine.

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That's not exactly true either.

There we other Jedi the story did not mention who lived in solitude etc, sort of Yoda post Emperor Palpatine's power rise.

The only thing I can conclude is there is enough wood in Lucas' dialogue to build a house + an outhouse and maybe a 4000 BC Egyptian boat.

Soygen_sl said:

Threads like this remind me that I'm only a casual geek. I don't have the dedication to hold a real conversation about Jedis.

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Story telling is all about conveying ideas. How can you watch a movie and not think about the concepts behind it, and characters motivations?