How do you interpret the prophecy of the chosen one

Indeed. That is my number 1 thought on the matter - that the balance is the balance of the dark and light side in the universe. The Sith tip that balance to the dark and the Jedi restore balance when they destroy the Sith. I huess just listening to some of Lucas' comments recently it sounds like he is saying the idea is that the dark side must be eradicated. The the light side is balance?

 

I think its impossible and not even a good idea. Life had always two parts/sides of the same circle...

 

I think we forget one key factor here. Control of the force. Force sensitive people have a power that others do not. An evil person that isn't force sensitive cannot tap into the dark side of the force. They can still do evil things, but not with the force as their weapon. Dark side users USE the force as a weapon and spread evil like a cancer because of their power!

There will always be good and evil in people. That will never change. But in order for their to be balance in the force, their cannot be dark side users abusing the force. The dark side must stay in remission so to speak or the cancer will spread again.

 

But I would argue that because everything is connected to the Force every evil deed or action has an effect but Sith and Jedi have a 100x times higher output or effect maybe?

 

What I’m getting at is how exactly this model jives with the idea of encountering a group of Dark Siders whose only real crime is just existing. Do the Jedi send in missionaries to convert them? Are they arrested en masse? Are they outright slaughtered? Or can such a thing simply not be in the Lucas-verse?

If there’s zero tolerance for 'dark sidey-ness' as ANY expression of it could unbalance the Force, then how do they enforce that brand of intolerance from a place of benevolence?

Food for thought more than anything else I guess.

 

Yeah my original and overriding view is that the Sith have the strongest influence upon spreading the dark side but anyone can do it. It's just easier for a Sith. The force itself is the energy created by all living things and so if the Sith are spreading evil then this impacts on all living things and thus the energy that comes from these beings and forms the force is largely more dark than light. That's where the imbalance comes in.

 

Hello everyone. I interpret the prophecy of the chosen one as follows.

It was fulfilled by Anakin Skywalker. As of this very moment there are no known Sith. Until that changes (which it could under new management) I think the case is closed.

 

Pretty sure most of the exhaustive back and forth here has to do more with the second half of the prophecy: 'bringing balance to the Force' and what that exactly means.

 

Hi. Yeah I'm new I haven't had time to read through the entire thread. Actually I just read the first post and commented. Didn't Anakin accomplish both in one act? Meaning he brought balance by destroying the Sith? I guess for now that is what I believe.

 

That’s the long and short of it, well, in my mind anyway (and Lucas too I reckon). But to what extent are the Sith directly responsible for this imbalance we’re told about? How does removing them achieve balance? Is it only the Sith specifically that can cause imbalance? Is the Force in TFA also out of balance? Things like that are a little less straight forward in the canon and open to some . . . . speculative reasoning.

 

I agree. Also if the Saga had ended at ROTJ I think everyone could agree that Anakin fulfilled the prophecy completely.

Anakin was believed to be the chosen one, even if Yoda thought it could have been misread, they all 'believed' it to be Anakin. After the conclusion of Lucas' saga it was confirmed by Lucas he was the chosen one as well as us seeing it happen directly on film. THE END.

But now with the purchase from Disney adding new films, history can be rewritten. How they go about it is anyones guess. And yes I believe and agree that EVEN if the Sith are forever gone it causes kind of a problem, like you said, there are still Dark Side users so... how is the force in balance?

If the saga ended at ROTJ we could say Lucas wrapped up the story. But now that the story continues, dialog in the PT combined with visuals from the OT becomes contradicting seemingly no matter what we want to believe.

It could be worse though. Just think if Lucas went back and added a new scene at the end of ROTJ that confirmed the prophecy was fulfilled and there will be forever peace. Then we would be in a serious jam.

I hope the writers are good and demonstrate superior make over skills is all I guess we can hope for?

 

Geroge Lucas was one of the most brilliant filmmaker ever to live on this planet. For the OT I will respect him as long as I live. The PT however....
Im going to say we wouldn't have lost too much without those. And we wouldn't be having this debate over- and over again about 90s Lucas incoherent writing. Here, on other forums, in real life etc. With you and many others who will always try to defent the unwarrantable.

Lucas tried to implement new elements to the lore which 100% contradicts with the already existing story. And not just the blance, midichorians, chosen one but dozens of other major contradiction which sadly proove that Lucas lost his ,,thing" after the 80s.

Out of all the major contradiction the conception of Anakin Skywalker as a so called ,,chosen one" is the shiniest.

Every (better) story which involves a chosen one obviously centers a chosen one. For self-explanatory reasons the OT didnt center Anakin Skywalker. He was just a henchmen of Grand Moff Tarkin, an expendable solider. His story mostly ended long before ANH. He only did one remarkable deed in the end of his life. But all that was catalised by the real hero the Empire era, Luke Skywalker. Vader was a forgotten warrior from an old era. He could've easely died in the battle of the first death star or later during the siege of the Rebel base on Hoth.

Lucas tried to make Anakin Skywalker Space Jesus to finish a puzzle which never really existed. Vader was just a solider in a helmet, not Space Jesus, his ass was kicked by both Dooku and Obi-wan (and Later luke aswell only after a couple of years of training).

Lucas wanted to create a prophecy in a world where prophecies cant exist, just for a plot reason to make Anakin important for no real reason at all.
Why cant such things exist? First, one of the most iconic character ever created told us clearly that the future is always in motion and unpredictable. When Luke (the strongest jedi in canon) have foreseen premonitions about a possible future, it immidiately changed.
Second, the jedi are one of the few ficitonal characters ever created who dont need prophecies, as they can see some parts of the future, so they can always verify if such thing is real or unreal.

Just seeing images (and talking about it) from a possible future would cause a butterfly-effect which would alter the future so much it might become the exact opposite.
About the jedi's future seeing abilities: Its just subjective, but I've always interpreted it as something which is tied to their emotions, as Luke foresaw pictures about Han and Leia, his friends. That most likely means the jedi dont see random images from unknown eras, but only about those who they are emotionally connected with.

About the prophecy itself.
It makes very little sense. Who wrote it? When?
If some random jedi foresaw small images about Palpatine getting killed by Vader, than how did he know he has seen the future? That could've been an unknown image from the past aswell. And seeing only that image why did he make the assumption that it was the act of a so called ,,chosen one"? It could've been only a typical inside business of two sith.

If he saw the entire thing than why didnt he warn about Anakin rahther than declaring him as ,,chosen one"?

If you look at what happened in the prequel trilogy, you'll easely notice that Anakin was the one who caused all the trouble he supposedly have to ,,bring balance into". He wiped out the enitre jedi-order, helped a maniac getting in power (and hindered a jedi to kill that maniac), thus cousing great pain to the people of the Republic.
If someone have forseen all those his reaction would be: If there is a guy with tremendious amount of midichlorians, KILL HIM! Kill him as fast as you can because he will cause the greatest trouble int he history of the Republic! In the mirror of Anakin's acts in the prequels his other act (killing Palpatine) is completly irrelevant if you only see picture from the future.

The very execution of the concept of the prophecy is also flawed:
In TPM Windu says: ,,You refer to the prophecy of the one who will bring balance to the force"--> If we follow the regular rules of the grammatical interpretation this sentence means that there is already an imbalance going on (so Palpatine is not the one who caused it) and the jedi couldn't bring any balance into anything because there wasnt any sith to kill. In this case this ,,debate" is completly unnecessary.

If it was only a fck up in the dialogue (so the usual prequel flaw) than the jedi should've been damn worried about the appearance of that kid and a sith, because that means a forcoming catasrophe about the force will come soon. But they were just calmy sitting there and sending only two jedi (one of which is still just an apperentice) to investigate about a thousand years old never-before seen threat.

Anakin couldn't be the chosen one. Everything which lead to the death of the Emperor was the effect of deeds of other character. Vader never had the intention to kill Palpatine. It was never about killing Palpatine. In fact it was all about Luke (if he can resist the dark side or not).
If Luke joins Vader and they kill off Palpatine than they are a lot more therat than Palpatine ever was.

The conception of the ,,chosen one" also contradicts with Palpatine's character.

He would never chose the ,,chosen one" as his apprentice. In fact in every single story which has a chosen one (like Harry Potter) the antagonist tries to kill the chosen one whatever it takes. Why the fck would Palpatine train and give his knowledge to the only guy who can and is propecised to kill him? Makes absolutely no sense.

And lets say he dosen't belive in the propehcy (which is also wrong considering everything in it came true, as Anakin was a never before seen jedi, and the Republic has indeed fallen which lead to the imbalance, accoring to the prequels).
In that case why would Palpatine torture the ,,chosen one" son, the only living thing which reminds Vader to his former self, and the only thing which could lead him back to the light side in the front of the damn ,,chosen one?! Thats like shouting look at him and turn back already!

And dont forget that there wasnt balance suddenly just because Palpatine died! There was still a death star to destroy (not done by the ,,chosen one") and there were many surviving impreial who will continue the path of Palpatine, thus the suffering, and there was still a jedi order to restore.
Killing Palpatine alone didnt create suddenly balance. If balance could even be restored it would need dozens, if not hundreds of years in a Galaxy sized society.

MOD EDIT (TREVOR): LANGUAGE

 

To me there isn't any contradicting since the prophecy was simply that the Chosen would destroy the Sith. That happened. Maybe it should have happened 20 years sooner, but it still happened. Balance could have been achieved PRIOR to the destruction of the Jedi. It wasn't. But the Sith are still extinct since ROTJ and we know Snoke and Kylo are not Sith. So the prophecy still holds true. The issue becomes fans seem to interpret the prophecy as being "forever balance". That's not true.

Being that there haven't been many Jedi around since the Clone Wars, there are no new prophecies so everything that's happened since is simply new territory and not effected by the old prophecy.

 

The prophecy was that he would destroy the Sith AND bring balance to the force.

The larger question we have now is does balance mean forever peace? Maybe not but to have Dark Side users just as powerful as a Sith, wouldn't they be able to throw the force off balance just the same - if not more so if they are stronger... thus ending the prophecy?

I mean I don't know. You can stir it how you want to make it taste good, but lets face it... It takes some stirring.

So you are suggesting that the Sith are forever gone and Anakin fulfilled the prophecy. Balance was established for a time being and now we are on to something new that has yet again thrown the force out of balance. Yeah I mean... OK. It works. It gets a passing grade but that is about it. But it's probably the best grade we can get so I'll go with it for now as far as Anakin being the chosen one. However 'the prophecy being misread' would get about the same passing grade and open up more doors to play with.

That is about where I am at. Right smack in the middle of who knowsville.

 

I don’t know if you’d ever get “everyone” to agree. There’s a fairly big contingent of Luke supporters out there.

I certainly don’t know, but sort of doubt we’ll be hearing much mention about that prophecy moving forward. I don’t think the new school is wanting to dwell too much in that era of the saga. At least I hope they don’t. It’s never been an addition I’ve been very fond of.

A lot of fans made the (not so ignorant) logical leap that ‘balancing the Force’ also meant galactic peace. Not everlasting, in perpetuity, from now until the end of time, level peace. But at least something lasting longer than ‘the Simpsons’ I imagine.

Trick of the matter though: nobody ever actually said what ‘restoring balance’ even meant or what that would even look like. You’d think with the subtraction of the Sith and reduction in the Dark Side, that maybe the folks in this galaxy would be entering a new ‘golden age’ of tolerance and enlightenment. But no one ever promised that. The Force just got fixed is all.

 

But at least something lasting longer than ‘the Simpsons’ I imagine.

Yes that is part of the problem too with the balance being restored for a time being camp. Nice way to put it.

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 19, 2016, Original Post Date: Feb 19, 2016 ---

It's a major reason I give that theory only a passing grade.

 

Two choices:

Balance for 10-15 years

OR

Negate the entire PT Anakin as chosen one story. Dismiss it entirely. Render the PT a joke essentially.

I think there is drama and poignancy in the fact that Anakin brought balance but then his other legacy came back to haunt his son who then, along with the new Republic, failed in keeping a lasting piece. Essentially, Anakin brought balance but he didn't prevent the evil from rising again from the ashes of the evil he hand a great hand in making. It's upping the ante with every trilogy.

PT - Stop the balance from being destroyed
OT - Restore balance
ST - Re-restore balance & prevent the ashes of the Sith/Empire/FO/KoR from rising again.

 

Yeah that is the dilemma. Now just think if Snoke is found out to be a Sith. What mess will we have then?

 

Until the next trilogy, when they have to re-re-restore balance

 

My theory is that Snoke's vulnerability and injury kept him out of action. He could call himself whatever he wanted, if he wasn't spreading evil or doing evil then he wouldn't impact on the balance.

I think that after balance is restored this is what pulls Snoke out of exile - because he was living off of the Dark Side to keep himself alive, but when balance was brought the dark side was diminished. He therefore had to emerge to disrupt the balance again - even though, as it says on SW.com, he was not prepared to face Luke.