Star Wars:The Clone Wars S3......so far

[Booji]

So the Force World family were wrong about Anakin? They were actually waiting for Luke?

yes. in the end, everyone is wrong about Anakin... Qui-Gon, Palps, & the ForceWorld peeps. at least that's how i look at it. seems to make the most sense that way. however, Lucas has actually debunked this and stated Anakin is numero uno. f that. Anakin is the sole cause for the dark side and Sith taking over. Luke is the one who brings around a... reckless, in the words of the li'l Y... version of the Jedi. peeps who are a bit more L...I...V...I...N. yeah.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

We may learn more in time to come, but for now, I dont think it actually fits in with the story as we know it.

The story as we know it is a mass of contradictions, particularly when it comes to the mystical part, so I'm happy if TCW just settles things in favor of something, anything!

I wish I could find that old thread I started about What the Heck is Up with The Force??? but sadly it seems to have been pruned by now...a lot of it was trying to sort out contradictions like what "balancing the Force" means. At least we seem to now have a clear answer to that. Make the Dark and Light sides behave their fool selves!

And yeah, I think the Son and Daughter are personifications of the Dark and Light Sides, manifested in a way that petty mortals can understand. It's tempting to see the Father as God. But this is totally different from the Christian Trinity. It's like a Trinity of God, Jesus and Satan, where God loves Jesus and Satan equally but doesn't really trust either of them to run things on their own.

yes. in the end, everyone is wrong about Anakin... Qui-Gon, Palps, & the ForceWorld peeps. at least that's how i look at it. seems to make the most sense that way. however, Lucas has actually debunked this and stated Anakin is numero uno.

In the PT, Lucas said that balancing the Force means wiping out the Dark Side. In the TCW, balancing the Force is balancing both the Light and Dark Sides. Lucas is still okaying everything in TCW, yet he doesn't see the contradiction?

My take on this is that Lucas doesn't actually care about the particulars of the story. He's also been okaying a wholesale revision of Anakin's portrayal. I think Lucas just cares about selling plastic crap to kids and if his hired guns want to go about rewriting the story, he neither notices nor cares.

And as long as his hired guns are better writers than he is, I'm fine with it. But I'm not hanging onto anything that's come before, such as the idea that Anakin actually does turn out to be the Chosen One in the end, since there's a better case that it's Luke.

Anakin chose to not stay (ie, fulfill his destiny) so, it fell to Luke.

Does that mean that the ultimate end of Luke's story is that he goes to live on Force World and take over the Father's role?

 

[Admiral_Young]

^ Nah Luke's Force Ghost has been nagging Cade Skywalker in the "Star Wars: Legacy" comics.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Anakin chose to not stay (ie, fulfill his destiny) so, it fell to Luke.

Does that mean that the ultimate end of Luke's story is that he goes to live on Force World and take over the Father's role?

Until the meaning of the Prophecy changes again...
... or continuity.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Further thought on Anakin and the Chosen One Prophecy...either Luke is the one the prophecy is actually referring to or the Jedi have completely misinterpreted the prophecy. Perhaps it's Chosen Ones not One.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

THEY KILLED LUKE?!?

...yeah I know it probably happened 20 years ago. It's not like I've been paying attention. So how'd it happen? Did he trip and fall on his lightsaber? I bet that happens every so often.

So Luke is nagging (I assume) his son Cade to go balance the damn Force already? I bet the Skywalker kids and cousins are getting reaaal sick of hearing that.

Further thought on Anakin and the Chosen One Prophecy...either Luke is the one the prophecy is actually referring to or the Jedi have completely misinterpreted the prophecy. Perhaps it's Chosen Ones not One.

Just for the record, what is the prophecy, exactly? Is it written down somewhere or has it been passed by word of mouth? If the latter, all bets are off what it actually says. It could have been some Jedi getting drunk in a tavern 1000 years ago and scribbling down some shit they thought of on a napkin.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

THEY KILLED LUKE?!?

...yeah I know it probably happened 20 years ago. It's not like I've been paying attention. So how'd it happen? Did he trip and fall on his lightsaber? I bet that happens every so often.

So Luke is nagging (I assume) his son Cade to go balance the damn Force already? I bet the Skywalker kids and cousins are getting reaaal sick of hearing that.

Actually Legacy is over 100 years after the OT hence why Luke is dead.

 

[Admiral_Young]

As I mentioned before Dan Wallace DID write down the actual Chosen One Prophecy and intended it to be included in his book, The Jedi Path, Lucas Film made him take it out so in an ingenious move the pages in the book dealt with it are literally torn out.

Yeah I should have stated that Luke's Force Ghost in "Star Wars Legacy" takes place a 135 years after ANH. Cade isn't his son but a descendant. It is theorized that Cade is a great-great grandson of Ben Skywalker who is Luke's son.

 

[Mr Light]

We still don't know how/when Luke dies, just that he's dead 100 years after the movies, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone

 

[P0sitr0nic]

THEY KILLED LUKE?!?

...yeah I know it probably happened 20 years ago. It's not like I've been paying attention. So how'd it happen? Did he trip and fall on his lightsaber? I bet that happens every so often.

So Luke is nagging (I assume) his son Cade to go balance the damn Force already? I bet the Skywalker kids and cousins are getting reaaal sick of hearing that.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Cade_Skywalker

Worth the read.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

So there's no literal text of the Prophecy, just what people tell each other they think it is?

Suspicious.

 

[P0sitr0nic]

So there's no literal text of the Prophecy, just what people tell each other they think it is?

Suspicious.

Considering there was no prophecy before lucas invented one to add tension, ... meh.

 

[Admiral_Young]

^ Again a version of the literal text was written out by Dan Wallace but he was forced to remove it, he speculated at the time it was because Lucas Film intended to touch up on it again and thus they have in the series. To answer your question though Temis right now there is no literal version. Maybe one day we'll get to see what Dan wrote out. The bits of text that remain in the book are ineligible (I've tried reading it lol).


Lucas most likely created the Prophecy not for tension but to give more special status to Anakin as a character...not that he needed it. The prequel trilogies would have been better off without that mumbo jumbo in my opinion.

 

[O'Dib]

So the Chosen One's role is to prevent the son and daughter from escaping and tipping the favor in the direction of any one side of the conflict? I'm inclined to think that if balance really is the destruction of all dark-side users, that any such success in the history of the galaxy should've ended with the dissolution of the Jedi order as well. It is their existence that makes the return of the dark side possible, even necessary, as too much light is an imbalance as well; and new Sith are recruited from the ranks of the Jedi. Wookiepedia states that some considered Qui-Gonn a gray Jedi, which is telling, considering he was the one who discovered and trained Anakin contrary to the wishes of the council. Maybe the Grays have the right idea, and possess the only philosophy which wouldn't constantly bring about destruction on a wide scale.

 

[Set Harth]

Anakin was never meant to be found by the Jedi. If you listen carefully to the story of Darth Plaegus the wise, Palpatine mentions that he had the ability to create life itself.

I believe that Anakin was created within the womb of a lowly slave in the outer rim as a way for Plageus to grow himself a new apprentice, one strong with the force, far outside the Republic, and the meddling eyes of the Jedi, as well as away from an apprentice who was getting too big for his britches.

Palpatine simply killed his master and was unable to either find the boy, or was at the time unaware that Plaegus had begun creation of the new apprentice.

The will of the Force is what brought Qui Gon and Obi Wan to Tattooine.

I agree with all of the above. However, it remains to be seen whether Luceno's next book will confirm this scenario, contradict it, or avoid getting into specifics.

m pretty sure, tho its unlikely anyone else actually agrees, Anakin was NOT the chosen one. Luke was.

Luke brought about this taoist "balance", not Anakin.

You can call Luke a "catalyst" for the event if you want, but Anakin killed Palpatine. According to Lucas Anakin was the Chosen One ( which was arguably already clear in TPM ). It's odd that Luke is still being alleged to be the Chosen One given that TCW's latest episode was all about Anakin's status as Chosen One.

Anakin chose to not stay (ie, fulfill his destiny) so, it fell to Luke.

Anakin did actually fulfill his destiny ( 23 or so years late, but better late than
never ). This happened in ROTJ. I don't see how hanging around on Mortis would have prevented Order 66 and the rise of the Empire.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

The fact that the prophecy 'bring balance' refers to Anakin either killing the jedi in ROTS, 'leaving the force in darkness' or killing the sith in ROTJ, leaving the force in 'light'.
In either case, if one considers the force taoist, Anakin leaves the force imbalanced - NOT balanced.

Destroying the Sith in ROTJ leaves the Force balanced according to Lucas. This is not inconsistent with the "taoist" depiction because the Force is still dualistic. The Sith are what is destroyed, not the dark side itself. As this episode goes to the trouble of showing, the dark side is a fundamental part of the Force which the Sith seek to exploit.

In the PT trilogy, Yoda kept saying how the mere existence of the sith led to the dark side clouding the force - to unbalance.
Kill the jedi in ROTS, leaving the sith in control - the force's 'dark' side increases even more, overwhelming the 'light' side.

Kill all the sith in ROTJ, leaving the jedi - the force doesn't lose its 'dark' side; this 'dark' side is merely decreased to equilibrium with the 'light' side.


So - if sith as much as exist, the dark side clouds, overwhelms the light side of the force.

Equilibrium means the jedi are dominant - only then is the force 'in balance', with dark and light sides in equilibrium - like at the end of ROTJ.

'Balance' of the force means the good guys are overwhelmingly dominant?
That's not very taoist - taoism means dark/light - opposites - equilibrium in every respect, on every plane.
In 'star wars', the balance claimed to exist on the metaphysical plane between the 'dark' and 'light' sides of the force does NOT translate to the physical realm, with only 'good' guys present.

Yes, it was like this since before this episode; the episode merely evidentiates how the candidates for fulfilling the prophecy (ROTS, ROTJ) are incompatible with a taoist force by, ironically, presenting us a taoist variant of the fulfillment of the prophecy and how different it would be.

It certainly makes the characters, both good guys and bad guys, look like foolish little critters, scampering around the galaxy and desperately trying to achieve goals they think are "correct" yet are just perpetuating imbalance. Everyone is getting nowhere fast.

However, as long as the good guys are likable, we can still root for them. Even if they understood that the Force wants the continual maintenance of balance between good and evil, a decent person is going to have a hard time accepting such a thing. I'm supposed to let the bad guys win, even if that results in injustice and suffering, because for every bit of justice in the galaxy, there must be an equal bit of injustice? I can see why the Jedi would simply reject that notion out of hand. It's cruel and horrible.

Even if the force would want balance between 'good' and 'evil' on the physical plane (and, appatently, it doesn't, if the end of ROTJ, with jedi ascendant and 'good' triumphant, means the force is in balance on the metaphysical plane) - this balance would hardly be achieved by jedi sitting passively and letting the sith kill everyone's puppy - which would leave the universe unbalanced toward 'evil'; or by the sith just watching the jedi bringing love and rainbows - also leaving the universe imbalanced.

The balance is achieved by both the jedi and the sith fighting for their side; the 'balance' is the resultant status - an amalgam of 'good' and 'evil'.
Both the jedi and the sith must want imbalance towards their side and fight for it; but, due to the other side, all that will ever be achieved is 'equilibrium'.

If either the jedi or the sith were to only seek balance, their defeatist attitude would only cause unbalance, by giving the other, active side an advantage.
Unless there would be an accord of sorts between the jedi and the sith, both agreeing not to antagonise the other side; in essence, both agreeing to seek only 'balance'.

 

[Christopher]

So there's no literal text of the Prophecy, just what people tell each other they think it is?

Suspicious.

How is that different from any other prophecy? Even those that are specifically written down somewhere are traditionally cryptic enough to be interpreted many ways -- fictional ones so that the writers can surprise us and the characters with the real meaning, "real" ones because they're just made-up BS that's deliberately vague enough to be interpreted to fit whatever actually happens later on.

 

[fett51]

I'd caution anyone against reading too much into this episode. We still have two to go. Now, excuse me while I read too much into this episode

SW.com posted an interview with Sam Witwer (The Son, Starkiller from TFU and Crashdown from BSG) that has something that I think warrants some consideration.

My character has a lack of patience. You can feel that. He has sort of a youthful arrogance and a lack of patience and you see that with how he behaves toward his sister. The dark side isn't necessarily just this malicious Force, it is the jagged destructive impulses that you sometimes need. But if you take them too far, they could destroy everything in your life. You can't eliminate it, though, because if you remove it, the universe becomes a very stagnant place. You need that destructive impulse having some form of influence. But if you lose the balance between the two, well then the Empire happens and the universe goes to hell. The dark side, while it is the destructive impulse, also creates a lot of action.

This sounds like roughly the same point that Joss Whedon made in Serenity. Expanding it to reflect nature as a whole, every form of animal life out there feeds on the death of other living things, and evolution works by extermination of competitors. The issue with representing the dark side like this is, since the force is generated by all living things, as the dark side users inflict more suffering and death, they're weakening the force as a whole. If the dark side started "winning" it would weaken itself more and more, possibly to the point that the force itself dies.

Watching the ep again, I think I can answer my earlier question about the point of the chosen one. The father said they all used to live in the real world where they were a family of amazingly powerful force users. He also had a 2000 year old jedi homing beacon and said "few" still knew of their existence and some of them like the Sith wanted to exploit their power. So, transdimensional embodiments as they are, they are still basically force users. This would imply that the Sith at least are essentially pitting their will and power against these guys, and unbalancing the force would require overpowering the sister and the father. Without the father, the force is far more unstable. It also means numbers of force users on either side are not entirely relevant, it would boil down to overall calculations about power and will when it comes to throwing the force out of whack.

Given Palpatine has already managed to unbalance the force and diminish the power of the entire Jedi order he's got to be on the scale of one of these guys. In theory, then, Anakin would be the only one who could take him. Course Obi-wan was able to beat Anakin and Yoda put up a hell of a fight against Palpatine, but both Yoda and Obi-wan I would say had more skill than their opposites. Given that, I think the question of Anakin's birth becomes even more critical - if Palps had had 900 years of skill behind him, no way in hell could Anakin have been expected to beat him.

 

[Christopher]

This sounds like roughly the same point that Joss Whedon made in Serenity.

Or that Richard Matheson made in Star Trek: "The Enemy Within."

 

[Set Harth]

'Balance' of the force means the good guys are overwhelmingly dominant?

Only in Force-user circles under certain conditions.

That's not very taoist - taoism means dark/light - opposites - equilibrium in every respect, on every plane. In 'star wars', the balance claimed to exist on the metaphysical plane between the 'dark' and 'light' sides of the force does NOT translate to the physical realm, with only 'good' guys present.

That's a misrepresentation of what would be going on in the physical realm as a whole.

Both the jedi and the sith must want imbalance towards their side and fight for it; but, due to the other side, all that will ever be achieved is 'equilibrium'.

No, the Jedi want the Force to be balanced, and the Force is balanced at a point when the Sith are destroyed and the Jedi order lives on. This is all just the usual attempt to rewrite the balance of the Force as "Jedi/Sith head count". But it never meant that, in TPM ( when it was first introduced ) or at any other time.