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Midichlorians worse than anything in the ST

Discussion in 'General Sequel Trilogy Discussion' started by Lock_S_Foils, Dec 7, 2020.

  1. bferr1972

    bferr1972 Jedi Commander

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    No need to apologize! We're just exchanging ideas.
    I'm intrigued by this. Can you please elaborate on how TFA is both aggressive and passive, two adjectives I'd never considered applying before?
     
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  2. eeprom

    eeprom Prince of Bebers

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    I’ve been seeing this perspective presented since the early aughts. And while I think it’s a fun interpretation, I don’t feel it’s really much more than a rationalization. It’s a cool idea that’s more wishful thinking than actually in the text or reflective of a larger theme of Jedi disillusionment. I mean, it’s not as if they exist as the opposite of Luke switching off his targeting computer – relying on the artificial versus the natural. In the times midis are mentioned, it’s never in the context of overruling intuition, but rather in support of it.

    The first time they’re mentioned, Qui-Gon isn’t using them in lieu of his own instinct, but as confirmation of it.
    _______________________________________
    Qui-Gon: I need a midi-chlorian count.
    Obi-Wan: The reading is off the chart. Over 20,000. Even Master Yoda doesn't have a midi-chlorian count that high.
    Qui-Gon: No Jedi has.
    Obi-Wan: What does that mean?
    Qui-Gon: I'm not sure.
    _______________________________________
    He already innately sensed there was something remarkable about Anakin. The midi count only served to validate his suspicion. What specifically he suspects though is revealed a little later.
    _______________________________________
    Qui-Gon: His cells have the highest concentration of midi-chlorians I have seen in a life-form. It is possible he was conceived by the midi-chlorians.
    Mace: You refer to the prophecy of the one who will bring balance to the Force. You believe it's this boy?
    _______________________________________
    A prophecy. A mystical premonition, long foretold, concerning the fate of the Force and the greater galaxy. Qui-Gon believes in an article of scripture basically. He’s operating on the directive of faith. Again, it’s a motivation rooted in spiritual conviction. The midis are just observable evidence he’s using to prop up his conclusion.

    Then we get the direct definition of where these pesky little germs fit in the bigger equation.
    _______________________________________
    Qui-Gon: Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to us, telling us the will of the Force.
    _______________________________________
    Again, this is presented as a kind of divine communion. Not particularly scientific. Not sterile and quantifiable, but ethereal and religious.

    I absolutely agree that the Jedi we get in the prequels were a deliberate commentary about how organizations can lose sight of their well-intended goals and become a closed system of rigid rules - hampering the very mission they exist for. But I’m not seeing that small bit of midi-chlorians we get as any representation of that. Their function in the narrative seems to be to legitimize preternatural perceptions, not replace them.

    Only one Jedi appears to actually give a crap about these things. And he really only he seems to because they provide some degree of proof for his whacko religious theory . . . that turns out to be right.
     
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  3. RoyleRancor

    RoyleRancor Car'a'Carn

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    With the introduction of midichlorians, I think it recontextualizes it to be about midichlorians as well. The force + biology have a connection because of this. So to me the only way to interpret both lines is essentially to be about midichlorians whether Luke is aware of them or not.
     
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  4. eeprom

    eeprom Prince of Bebers

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    Absolutely. Prodigies and virtuosos definitely exist. Some people, for whatever reason, seem to be born predisposed to excel at certain specialized skills. Mozart, for example, had his first piece of music published when he was seven. That’s not something your average seven year old would be capable of. The kid was undeniably gifted.

    What I remember prickling at two decades ago was the implication that only ‘gifted’ kids could learn the Force. That you needed to be born special. The Jedi are basically all mutants then. If you didn’t have that ‘Force gene’, then you couldn’t play. That rankled for me. You know? In ANH, when OB tells Luke “You must learn the ways of the Force if you’re to come with me to Alderaan”, I wasn’t implicitly adding the mental addendum of “pending the favorable results of your blood test, that is.” I had the notion that Luke could learn as well as anyone else, but not everyone else had a teacher. The Jedi were an ancient order that possessed secret knowledge, not a privileged band of genetic super-men.

    What I didn’t appreciate then that I do now though is the understanding that ‘having the Force’ and ‘being a Jedi’ aren’t the same thing. The Jedi were just an institution. One type of Force user. They were a group that had a severe selection process for who they accepted into their club. Just because they had a narrow view of who was worthy to learn, doesn’t mean that was the extent of who could learn. They were rigid and strict. They came off as elitists and that was by design. The prequel Jedi weren’t the ideal Jedi. They couldn’t be. They were fated to fall, so they had to be flawed in some way. I’d say it jives pretty well to me at this point :)
     
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  5. RoyleRancor

    RoyleRancor Car'a'Carn

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    If only one of the movies explicitly tried to state that the Jedi (and by extension Sith) don't own the force and that thinking they did was a huge part in both of their downfalls only to essentially have this rebuked by the third installment....


    *sad trombone noises*
     
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  6. Darth Wardawg

    Darth Wardawg Force Sensitive

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    And I might be wrong, but it feels like the force is just there in the ST. Like I don't know how to say it, but it seems to me that it is just a get out of jail free card. We have Kylo WAY OVER THERE and Rey WAY OVER HERE. But we want them to talk sooooo USE THE FORCE! Wouldn't it be cool to have them do X? Well then, use the force!

    When it was done in things like TCW, Knights of the Old Republic, the old EU books, it felt right. For the most part. It didn't feel like it was just a tool. Anyway, I don't want to start an argument about the failures/lack of failures of the ST as this isn't the time or the place and it's been done and redone again and again.

    Amen! Well, I'd say one Jedi WAS the ideal Jedi, thus he had to be killed. But yeah, I totally agree with this.
    --- Double Post Merged, Dec 10, 2020, Original Post Date: Dec 10, 2020 ---
    Just wondering (not trying to start an argument) but where did this idea that the Jedi think they own the force come from? I seem to see that around a lot in the last few years and I don't get it.
     
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  7. RoyleRancor

    RoyleRancor Car'a'Carn

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    Jedi themselves in the movies acted as the sole arbiters of the force. They saw themselves as the only ones capable of deciding who should or shouldn't be trained in it. If you didn't fit their standards, you weren't able to be trained. That's ownership.
     
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  8. Use the Falchion

    Use the Falchion Jedi Contrarian

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    It's a built-in assumption that only the Jedi could stop a Dark Side and only they could use the Light Side correctly. It's one that's been backed up by the EU and whatnot subconsciously too. How many other Light Side Force groups do we see? Maybe one or two (one from the Jar Jar episode in TCW, and maybe a second one somewhere along the line), but it's almost always Jedi. The Jedi have had this cultural (and in-world) stranglehold on the Light Side, and Luke in TLJ (rightly) is saying that this sort of perspective and thinking is vain and limiting.


    Not unlike a certain group of shawled magic-users based in a white tower! ;) (Moiraine is still the G.O.A.T. though (although I will accept Nynaeve as an alternative)).
     
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  9. MandoChip

    MandoChip Hate me later. Work now.
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    .
     
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  10. RoyleRancor

    RoyleRancor Car'a'Carn

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    It wouldn't shock me if there is some piece of trivia out there that Lucas was a fan of WoT and borrowed the idea of the flawed Tower politics for the Jedi Order. Hubris is the downfall of both. There's a lot to learn between the fall of the tower and fall of the Order about claiming ownership of magical powers and how it allows for evil to rise right under your nose.
     
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  11. Darth Wardawg

    Darth Wardawg Force Sensitive

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    Is that a flaw in their thinking or is that due to a lack of world building on the part of Lucas and the writers? I mean who was gonna stop Darth Sidious? Someone who didn't have any ability with the force? The built in assumption is due to the writers not exploring other force users except the duopoly of the Jedi and the Sith.

    Rancor says "They saw themselves as the only ones capable of deciding who should or shouldn't be trained in it..." Well yeah! Who get's to decide who the Jedi train otherwise? I don't get to tell the University of Texas who it admits. Is it elitist? I guess.

    Personally, and this has been my biggest criticism of the nu-cannon so far, they opened up the idea of other force worshippers/users such as the Guardians of the Whills back in 2016. But then never really explored it further. Same for the dark side. You got the Vader fan boy guys in the "Aftermath" series and then, to the best of my knowledge, nothing. That's a weakness on the part of the writers and leaders over at LFL. Explore this area! Stop giving us retreads of the same old material!

    Anway, I don't want to hijack this thread. Shoot me a private message and we can continue to discuss this. :D
     
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  12. RoyleRancor

    RoyleRancor Car'a'Carn

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    It's a flaw in their thinking. I mean, the whole PT is about how it was a flaw in their thinking.
    The Jedi suck. At least, the Jedi we have on film, suck.
    Their heads are so far up their own collective asses about how great they are and how important they are...they let Palpatine take over the galaxy.

    Could they retroactively go back and say, "Oh there were other ways to learn?" Sure. But that wouldn't change that the Jedi claimed ownership of something they can't actually own.

    (gonna bring this home to tie it into the thread)

    And a vestige of this is midichlorian counting. If someone tested low would they ignore them outright? Would they just put them in "slow" classes?
    Midichlorian counting is one step from Jedi Eugenics!
     
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  13. Porco Azzurro

    Porco Azzurro Jedi General

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    I love the concept of midi-chlorians. I have never seen them as an attempt at a ‘scientific explanation of The Force’, but I can see why people who interpreted them that way would not like it.
     
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  14. Darth Wardawg

    Darth Wardawg Force Sensitive

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    You sound like a Sith. ;)

    I saw their problem as being allied with/subservient to the political authorities. Seeing themselves as an arm of the Senate. Drew K even mentions this in the Darth Bane novels. There was certainly some arrogance, it's even mentioned by Yoda. But the bigger problem, at least for me, was represented (sadly as he's always been my favorite character) Obi-Wan. You see his strict adherence to "the rules", especially in Episode II as a juxtaposition to his own master, Qui Gonn who was all about going with it. Anakin is too old? So what. Rules are meant to be broken.
     
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  15. oldbert

    oldbert Guardian of Coffee Breaks

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    The Sith vs Jedi plot is a blueprint for the typical "human" weakness, starting to make a holy grail of just one tiny aspect of the whole picture. Always the same game. A crisis followed by self declared gurus/dictators as a consequence of people who love to get rid of their own responsibilities during that crisis. The gurus get surrounded by apostle like followers who say yes and Amen to every decision of their gurus. At the very end they sit in their own, self constructed cage of rules and dogma.
    The Jedi, monk like order, ignored their emotions the Sith ignored their humanity.
    It was not a great deal for the GFFA that they get as powerful with the help of the force. Both used their power for creating a galaxy wide war. Even if it's fair to admit, that Palps started the war game. The PT did a great job to show how people tend to scream for some "wise" rulership. Therefore we also have to blame the sheeps to vote for the wolve.
    The story about the Force and it's "vessels" just adds a "mystic skin" to an all-human story about quite ordinary "Standard-failures" within a society, that is not aware of it's own mechanism that finally has to lead to self destruction.

    But it feels so good, because we now hope is on it's way, no matter how we call it. And if it has this special extra layer with all the mystic stuff - it feels even better.

    With the Midiclorians GL tried to tie biology and religion of the GFFA. That's brave, even if the execution is not the best - especially for grown-ups. :D
     
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  16. Castillo Arlok

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    i get it, but it is nice to have some science to everything not to mention wasnt midichlorian manipulation the reason for ani's creation? what alternate story to his conception would have been better?
     
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  17. Martoto

    Martoto Force Sensitive

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    I think it would have been more interesting if Anakin did NOT have a high M-count, as the Jedi were accustomed to measuring it. And that his acceptance as the "chosen one" was further undermined and compromised right from the start. In the Phantom Menace, their logic for rejecting then admitting Anakin is confusing. But not in the good way.
     
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  18. eeprom

    eeprom Prince of Bebers

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    “I had a real problem because I was afraid that science-fiction buffs and everybody would say things like, ‘You know there’s no sound in outer space’. I just wanted to forget science.” – George Lucas, RollingStone, 1977 source

    Star Wars was never about ‘science’. It’s a fantasy that happens to be set in space because space embodies the ultimate ‘unknown’. A rational explanation for the totally irrational is a largely self-defeating concept.
    You could just say it was “the Force”. Same idea, just way the hell simpler.
     
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  19. Use the Falchion

    Use the Falchion Jedi Contrarian

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    First off, welcome to the Cantina!

    Secondly, there isn't a good canonical explanation for now. In the non-canon Darth Plagueis book - which has been hinted at having canonical parts in the Tarkin book* by the same author James Luceno - Anakin's creation was sort of a backlash to Plagueis and Palpatine's experiment. They wanted to control the Force to create life, and the experiment failed, killing all test subjects. The Force also enacted a sort of vengeance, creating the The Chosen One. Plagueis and Palpatine more or less took credit for this event, with the logic of "well, it wouldn't have happened if we didn't do our experiment, so the credit should go to us!"

    The Vader comic's "hints" are based on the titular character's theories and fears, as confirmed by the story-group member and the comic writer himself.

    https://screenrant.com/star-wars-emperor-palpatine-not-create-anakin-skywalker/

    So ultimately, as @eeprom said, you could just say it was The Force. Heck, you could also relate it to Jurassic Park in a way - science tried to push one way, and nature (or in this case The Force) pushed back. Which one really won out in the end?


    *Maul's origin is one of those semi-canonical things. The books says one thing, but that thing is retconned and clarified in the Son of Dathomir comic book I believe.
     
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  20. Luke556

    Luke556 Clone

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    I agree, the force doesn't need a biological explanation. Sometimes I wonder if this was pushed further by liberals involved in the making at the time. The force does imply some sort of faith. Maybe they didn't want to turn away atheist and agnostic people.
     
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