SPECULATION Imbalance and Awakening in the Force

It's not about numbers of Force users on both sides. It's about the natural balance of good and evil in the galaxy. The Sith spread evil across the galaxy. The Jedi destroy the Sith and preserve the balance of good and evil.

 

Yeah you don't HAVE to be a Jedi and/or a Sith Lord in order to be good vs evil .

 

Perhaps "Balance" is just a propaganda term used by an ideology that views it's own particular form of domination and control as the way things should be.

I can only recall one faction that uses the term and their use of bringing "Balance" could be synonymous with what another faction calls bringing "Order".

 

I think it's all a grey area but I do agree with youth at it makes it seem like it's trying to be black and white but with more complications ...

 

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Really Mr Mech?

Take a moment to mull over what this thread is called/about and I'm sure sure you could draw some relevance from my mash of Rey as Lady Justice wielding scales to balance in one hand and a sword in the other...

 

AHHHH THAT'S what the scales are ... I failed my philosophy class in College ... ...

 

Yes. But this happens after ROTJ - after balance was restored. That's the point. It's then he emerges, does all this stuff and it goes out of balance again prior to TFA.

 

I wholeheartedly agree. That is what they do...unless they are incapacitated.
My theory on Snoke is that he, as we see, is badly injured. He is vulnerable. This is why he has been idle for decades.
Then, when Sidious is destroyed and the Empire crumbles, that changes.
Snoke comes out of hiding. For me this has two potential reasons:

1. He sees a power vacuum and with the Sith (a threat to him as he is vulnerable) out of the way he decides now is the best opportunity for him to take over.
2. Snoke was so badly injured he relies on the Dark Side to keep him alive. When balance was restored, the Dark Side was diminished and this was a threat to Snoke's very existence. He therefore has to come out into the open and actively spread evil/the Dark Side to unbalance the Force again. This empowers the Dark Side and thus his own well-being.

Or both reasons coincide.

My greater theory is that Snoke is indeed Plagueis. Although he survived Sidious assassination attempt, he was badly injured and had to fake his death so Sidious wouldn't finish him off. He hid in the shadows for decades, watching as the Empire rose and then fell. He waited patiently, as the Sith had done for a millennia before and then saw his chance to actively use the Dark Side again. He forms the KoR, turns Ben Solo, takes over the FO and then looks to wipe out his remaining threat - Luke Skywalker.

Wondered this myself. Then I realised that Sidious himself lead the Rebels to the Death Star 2.0. But it would be good if Snoke has been working behind the scenes, undermining Sidious - maybe even befriending certain Rebels so that he could betray them as well....

 

I got that impression as well. I hope these lines weren't due to lazy script writing. Especially since the awakening took place before Rey ever used the force.

 

The Sith remained hidden for a thousand years, just causing little problems here and there. It wasn't until Palatine came out of the shadows and started implementing his plan to take over the galaxy that Anakin was created to stop him. Bad guys wielding planet-destroying weapons can wreak a lot of damage, even if there's only two of them.

 

Regarding the longer history and galactic views of the Force, be it strictly canonical or to include Legends as we consider it, the Force has always been either on the verge of being imbalanced or out of balanced: potential or kinetic, as in physics.

What sets this off is as much as a valid question as to how does one come to perceive and therefore attempt to preserve such balance.

Look, for a moment, at our own world: our past leaders, the past movements and efforts across history, those potential and kinetic endeavors and understandings of how things should be, how elusive greater wisdom has been in light of limited knowledge -- people believing and doing what they think is right, largely because they have been indoctrinated to maintain certain truths.

This has lead to much potential -- for peace or for suffering -- from solitary individuals to larger societies and continents. Star Wars extrapolates this situation across entire star systems and the galaxy itself, a macrocosm of our very real shares of imbalances here on Earth.

Consider our own world's contemporary debates on how things should be run, be it in terms of politics, environmental practices, spiritual beliefs, philosophical stances, historical perspectives, and personal biases.

The Force is, as the rest of this, open to interpretation, not something to be dealt with in terms of absolutes (as Sith might prefer, for example), and this means there will be various individuals and groups at different times and places who maintain different views concerning the Force.

The Church of the Force is one of the latest iterations of this phenomenon, although they are referencing the Jedi Order for their understandings of the Balance.

Perhaps Snoke and the Knights of Ren are on the opposite side, where imbalance is something to strive for since dark-side Force practitioners seem to draw power from that.

Another saga -- The Matrix -- addresses the larger state of balance and imbalance in a potentially relevant and appreciable way, specifically in Revolutions, where Neo and the Oracle discuss the Architect's drive to balance the equation. When Neo asks what is her (the Oracle's) purpose, she says, "To unbalance it."

Not that the totality of the Force could be quantified in terms of a mathematical equation, but there are variables at play here, different functions and different intentions at work that cause there to be positives and negatives.

Neo, like Luke, Rey, and Anakin, is the designated anomaly, something the Architect cannot rid despite all his efforts.

And Neo discovers he was not the first One: there were others before him, and yet he succeeds where his predecessors did not.

The same is true of Anakin, Luke, and potentially Rey: they, like Neo, can be considered as iterations of the function of the Force, each generating new values that are fed back into the overall system.

For every Neo there is a Smith. When Neo asks the Oracle what is Smith, her reply is: "He is you, your opposite, your negative, the result of the equation trying to balance itself out."

Perhaps the Force -- the will of the unified Force -- both the Living and the Cosmic aspects of the Force -- seek balance, but the sheer dynamics of the universe and the existence of Force-enabled entities makes such a long-term stasis impossible to sustain.

The Jedi and Sith and others each interpret the Force from their perspectives and use it as they see fit. Perspectives can change and lead to wild consequences: Anakin's "point of view" of the "evilness" of Jedi in Revenge of the Sith, for example, and then Vader's later (and final) regarding of the Emperor.

One of the great things we learn from the Prequel Trilogy is the Jedi's strict interpretation of the Force, while effective for many generations, has lead to a certain sense of complacency and the establishment of rules and lifestyles that slowly but ultimately endanger and overturn the very things they hold precious and try to preserve.

Palpatine's insertion, his influence over Anakin, is echoed in Snoke's apparent influence over Ren, and once again we see the impact of misinformed perspectives taking characters down tragic paths where destinies, as Yoda warned, would be dominated by darkness.

With regards to The Force Awakens and Luke's disappearance, the only hope in returning to a more natural state of the Force is to go back, as Luke seems to have done, to the very beginning: the first Jedi temple.

Perhaps the answers are simple and were always there but rendered unseen because actions and intentions and things we failed to unlearn got in the way of a more direct connection with that foundational truth.

Interestingly enough, Taoist philosophy speaks volumes about these matters and relates nicely to discussions of the Force: http://people.howstuffworks.com/taoist-philosophy.htm/printable

Quote: "an expression of the profound unity of the universe and of the path human beings must take to join, rather than disturb, that unity."

That is one way to regard it, but there are many others, and not one is exclusively and absolutely "right" about the Force.

JediMasterRobert

 

I think "unity" is an excellent explanation for what balance is, in a word.
The Sith or any Dark Side Order, is a destructive force. Eventually, it will destroy everything - including itself.
When the Sith are about, they spread darkness across the galaxy. The fine balance between good and evil is corrupted. Evil is everywhere.
This evil brings with it fear, anger, hate, aggression, greed - and this in turn corrupts the very life that creates the Force.
In corrupting and destroying life, this of course breaks that unity among all life.
This then connects strongly into the will of the Force, especially in regard to the living Force.

The living Force is the energy that connects everyone. Connects life. And so when that connection or unity is being eroded, the will of the Force or collective consciousness of the galaxy, speaks to those who will listen (the Jedi) and helps them understand how to correct it.

You could say this is where the PT Jedi went wrong or weren't good enough in stopping the Sith. They had lost touch with the living Force somewhat and in doing so, didn't instruct Anakin as well as they could (or Qui Gon Jinn could've). Only when Yoda is trained by Qui Gon and the Jedi go into exile do they reconnect with the living Force. And in doing so enable Luke to do what they didn't - listen to the living Force, see the light in Vader and redeem him so he brings balance to the Force.

 

Yes, I agree with this and actually expressed something along these lines in another thread earlier today, especially since it would certainly appear the Jedi had grown so self-assured and content with having (they thought) vanquished the Sith that they placed themselves and the galaxy in a precarious position of unpreparedness. This lapse in judgement and awareness enabled the Sith to step back in, unchallenged almost up to the end, right in front of the Jedi, and send the galaxy into a tailspin from which it is still reeling as of The Force Awakens.

The cycle of the master and student trading roles -- as Yoda and Qui-Gon Jinn did -- is another great yet forgotten aspect of the Prequel storyline. Qui-Gon Jinn, in following his own sensibilities concerning the Force, proved to be a "better" Jedi than any given council member in that era in terms of his bold acknowledgement of and firm commitment to the Living Force.

Obi-Wan, as he existed in the Original Trilogy, is therefore, in retrospect, quite indebted to Qui-Gon Jinn for his additional training, which would prove fatefully useful in Obi-Wan's final encounter with Darth Vader, enabling Obi-Wan to understand sacrifice as a path leading to the protection of Luke and the eventual survival and resurrection of the Jedi way.

JediMasterRobert

 

The Star Wars fan base has a number of great minds. Yoda approves this one.