Yet another reason why the Jedi should never have been involved in politics or wars.
Why the hate for the Midi-chlorians?
- Thread starter M.A.C.O.
- Start date
I agree with the sentiment that midichlorians cheapened the original concept that the force is as pervasive as the quantum foam and available to anyone, but that talent or sensitivity can factor into it just like in real life. Midichlorians brought an element of inheritance, like royalty or an aristocracy.
I do enjoy the thought of equal access for all with talent. But these objections could be an uncomfortable, politically correct attitude for affirmative action. The universe is not an equal opportunity employer. Nature isn't always fair, and we can't legislate physics (or, I suppose, The Force) through popular vote.
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Another way to look at it is that midichlorians simply allow one greater access to the Force. They themselves are not the Force. So the Force itself remains a mystical energy field. The midichlorians allow beings to hear the Force and find out how to use it. If I recall, Qui-Gon says they are in cells. Anakin has a extremely high count of them so he can hear the Force loud and clear and can call of it easily. Other beings might have a relatively small count of midichlorians and thus can rearly hear the Force.
However, if all living cells have midichlorians, than everyone has at least some potential connection with the Force. What we don't know is what the threshold if have access on demand Force powers. Or what might be just below threshold and thus have Force-like powers, but not be able to train to become a Jedi Knight....at least not within a human timeframe. A much longer lived species might be able to use time and training to get limited Force powers with a much lower concentration of midichlorians. There could also be other ways to use or access these powers other than the Jedi and Sith ways. Magical arts likely have potions, incantations, and rituals that grant access to the Force in other ways or in groups for those with lower concentrations.
However, if all living cells have midichlorians, than everyone has at least some potential connection with the Force. What we don't know is what the threshold if have access on demand Force powers. Or what might be just below threshold and thus have Force-like powers, but not be able to train to become a Jedi Knight....at least not within a human timeframe. A much longer lived species might be able to use time and training to get limited Force powers with a much lower concentration of midichlorians. There could also be other ways to use or access these powers other than the Jedi and Sith ways. Magical arts likely have potions, incantations, and rituals that grant access to the Force in other ways or in groups for those with lower concentrations.
I thought the midichlorians was a sub-plot for later films to clone Jedi, or dark jedi. Because the rule of the sith is there's only a master and an apprentice, but what if jedi could be turned to the dark side by manipulating their cells. A new force of warrior, but I was way off, I had no clue the clone wars was the origins of the Stormtroopers. I give TPM a pass because it was the 1st of the series and Darth Maul was awesome, but the rest were very boring, and I hated Dooku, and Palpatine, and whiny, punk Anikan. They never lived up to my excitement and expectations of Lord Maul of the Sith.
That element of inheritance was already there front and center in ROTJ(1983). It's nothing new.
Mad Jack Wolfe said:
Except those are the same thing. Some are more innately adept than others. What makes someone "innately adept"? Biology.
I suppose what I was looking for is proper consistency in the narrative as to what the Force is or isn't, who gets to rearrange furniture with a thought and who doesn't. Either it's a "religion" as it is referred to a number of times in the original trilogy, or it belongs to a select few with a special hormone imbalance. But even the original trilogy muddies the waters terribly, pushing things squarely the direction of an inherited predisposition rather than strictly something that can be taught. Ultimately, the folly is mine in hoping for narrative consistency when there never was any to begin with.
It's still a religion in the new trilogy and its associated background material.
Uncle Dramatic Death (played by Max Von Sydow) is a member of "The Church of the Force," whose members worship Jedi ideals but don't necessarily have any sensitivity to nor abilities with "The Force" themselves.
Kor
Uncle Dramatic Death (played by Max Von Sydow) is a member of "The Church of the Force," whose members worship Jedi ideals but don't necessarily have any sensitivity to nor abilities with "The Force" themselves.
Kor
Yeah one of the things from the original movies that the old EU never seemed to follow up on was non-force users who were nevertheless "force believers", for lack of a better term. For example, both Dodonna and Ackbar invoked it as a sort of blessing before going into battle. Also, a small detail but Han did say "hokey religions". Plural. I'm glad it's something they're at least thinking about now.
I like the idea that at least some in the Rebel Alliance see themselves as (in some sense) doing what the Jedi would be doing if they were still around. Not exactly filling their role so much as honouring their ideals.
I like the idea that at least some in the Rebel Alliance see themselves as (in some sense) doing what the Jedi would be doing if they were still around. Not exactly filling their role so much as honouring their ideals.
What I disliked about midichlorians wasn't so much that they ruined the mysticism of The Force, but by making it a matter of biology, it became something that couldn't be attained by sheer force of will. It's like genetics. You either have the right genes floating around or you didn't. And that's not only boring from a story perspective, it's entirely uninspiring.
A counter to that was that is was stated that midichlorians were in all living cells. Meaning everyone has Force potential, just to different degrees. A low midichlorian count would mean it is unlikely you'd be able to hear the Force, but it would not be impossible. They are how people know of the Force, but are not the Force themselves. And there are other methods of using the Force (magic for instance).
^I'm pretty sure they've said that "magik" in Star Wars is it's own thing and not related to the force.
In regards to midi-chlorians being some limiting factor...well, yeah, they are and that's the point. In order for there to be a set of internal meta rules about what characters can and can't do, you have to impose limitations and requirements. Otherwise anyone with enough determination and an 80's training montage will be able to start swatting moons out of the sky with their brains.
Something must govern how powerful an individual is and since it is a interaction of the physical and the quasi-mystical, there must be a physical component in that interaction. It's like complaining that blind people can't see just because by some random freak of nature they weren't born with functioning rods and cones that can translate waves in a portion of the EM spectrum into electrical impulses that the brain interprets as an image. That just how biology works.
Another thing that people seem to have overlooked in this discussion is that just because a person can't move stuff with their brain or instantly sense mass genocide from hundreds or thousands light years away doesn't mean that person is in anyway cut off from the force. It originates from ALL living things, surrounding and binding the galaxy together.
Having a high midi-chlorian count just makes that connection two-way instead of mostly one-way.
In regards to midi-chlorians being some limiting factor...well, yeah, they are and that's the point. In order for there to be a set of internal meta rules about what characters can and can't do, you have to impose limitations and requirements. Otherwise anyone with enough determination and an 80's training montage will be able to start swatting moons out of the sky with their brains.
Something must govern how powerful an individual is and since it is a interaction of the physical and the quasi-mystical, there must be a physical component in that interaction. It's like complaining that blind people can't see just because by some random freak of nature they weren't born with functioning rods and cones that can translate waves in a portion of the EM spectrum into electrical impulses that the brain interprets as an image. That just how biology works.
Another thing that people seem to have overlooked in this discussion is that just because a person can't move stuff with their brain or instantly sense mass genocide from hundreds or thousands light years away doesn't mean that person is in anyway cut off from the force. It originates from ALL living things, surrounding and binding the galaxy together.
Having a high midi-chlorian count just makes that connection two-way instead of mostly one-way.
But that's absurd. This isn't Indiana Jones.
In the real world, "magic" is trickery, make-believe. ( Or it's technology that only appears magical to some. )
In Star Wars, anything apparently "magical" that happens is going to be in some way due to the Force. Either that, or it's some kind of tech. Or it isn't real.
If we're talking about Nightsister magic, didn't season 6 of the Clone Wars establish that Talzin was using and manipulating stolen Force, just not "using the Force" in the way that adepts such as the Jedi and Sith do?
No, it's Star Wars. What's your point?
The real world you say? Sorry, I don't see the relevance.
Says who?
Talzin specifically said she wasn't a natural force user. She may use her magik to access the force through unnatural means but that just confirms that logically, her magicks *can't* just the force by another name or method. Cart before the horse, chicken/egg and all that.
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Using the magicks to imbue him with the force ability doesn't necessarily follow that the magicks are the force by another name.
All that was probably going on with Savage was that (among other things) the magicks were artificially binding midi-chlorians into his cells. Hence, when he died, he reverted to his natural state; the spell was tied to his life force and when that departed, the midi-chlorians were released.
I can't find the old clip right now, but they've definitely said in the past that "the magicks" are a totally different thing than The Force. I think it was to do that that Threepio/R2 Clone Wars episode with the underground jungle. I forget the title.
All that was probably going on with Savage was that (among other things) the magicks were artificially binding midi-chlorians into his cells. Hence, when he died, he reverted to his natural state; the spell was tied to his life force and when that departed, the midi-chlorians were released.
I can't find the old clip right now, but they've definitely said in the past that "the magicks" are a totally different thing than The Force. I think it was to do that that Threepio/R2 Clone Wars episode with the underground jungle. I forget the title.
I know, I specifically mentioned that. ( It's a good thing, too, because she sometimes comes off as more powerful than Palpatine, which wouldn't be cool at all if she were a natural Force user. )
Well, for whatever it's worth, the official site says this:
The Nightsisters drew on the Force for their powers, but the witches were neither Sith nor Jedi, and spurned allegiances with both.
As a relative of Maul, it is not unlikely that Savage already had a sufficient midichlorian count. It looked like he was imbued with the same kind of raw Force energy that was stolen from the Dagoyan Masters.
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Yeah, they're a bit inconsistent on this point since I'm sure I've seem either Filoni or Hidalgo say quite the opposite.
Was Savage actually another child of Talzin? I always thought it was ambiguous as the Dathomiri tended to throw around familial terms (brother, sister, child, mother etc.) fairly loosely. Either way, he *couldn't* have had much of a midi-chlorian count as he wasn't a force user prior to his transformation. The two a mutually exclusive. Indeed, his last words to Maul were "I'm not like you. I never was..."
Besides, being related to a force user doesn't guarantee a person having the same ability. Skywalkers aside, just about ever Sith and Jedi we know of came from non-force using parents. Even in a society like the Nightsisters where you'd think they'd actively breed the trait in if they could, Asajj's abilities seem to be an unusual exception rather than the rule. Did was ever see any of the other sisters using the force? Or was it only more magick?
I agree the method was probably similar, but I don't see the method itself (i.e. magick) as being a direct manipulation of the force. More of a manipulation by-proxy. Clearly there's some overlap between magick and the force but the two do appear to be separate. The way I look at it, The Force is like a fundamental force of the cosmos, like gravity, dark energy and electromagnetism, while magick is...something else. More elusive (and illusive) that operates more at the fringes of reality rather than at it's core.
Feral and Savage seem to be intended to have been actual brothers: "I am your kin". It is said of Maul that "a few still remain in his bloodline". These things make it look like the term "brother" in this context actually connotes a biological familial relationship in a way that the use of "sister" ( as a term connoting only membership in a group calling themselves Nightsisters ) and "Mother" ( as an honorific to refer to Talzin's title as leader of the group ) do not.
The question is whether or not he was a Force sensitive prior to his transformation. And I don't think we have enough evidence to say that he was not. Absence of evidence and all that...
There is arguably more than one way to interpret that.
If that's true, when the subject of Anakin's apparent Force strength comes up in TPM, why does Qui-Gon immediately ask who his father was?
In fact, we really know very little about the parents of the vast majority of the Sith and Jedi that we know of. We assume much.
Filoni talks out of both sides of his mouth on the issue. ( This should not surprise us too much; after all, this is the guy who claimed that Han can't understand Chewbacca. )
When asked if Orphne is a Force user, he replies "absolutely not".
But then...
"...I mean, in a different way of looking at it, Yoda would seem magical to R2 and 3PO also. Now you say, 'Aha, that's because he's a Force user'. But Orphne is not the same as Yoda. She's probably very in touch with the Force, but she's not as like a Jedi. She's more into the, kind of from the realm of the Mother Talzin, it's the magic users, there's ways to use the Force other than Sith and Jedi but you're not really a Force wielder, you're just really in tune with nature and things come naturally. So some of her abilities that you see, moving very quickly, that Orphne does is just based on her physicality and the type of alien she is, and the way that she can turn seemingly into little magic fairy balls - that's a little bit more of the kind of magic we see the Nightsisters using, but Orphne's more on the good side of it than the bad side of it."
^ This is basically saying the same thing I've been saying. Orphne's not using the Force, but, on the other hand, she is using the Force. If you put together the OS saying the Nightsisters use the Force with the above, including Filoni's linking of Orphne with Talzin, you get Orphne using the Force. You can try to introduce an unrelated system of "magic" that somehow sits in the same setting together with the Force, but in the end it all comes back to the Force.
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