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Post #1328296

Author
yotsuya
Parent topic
Episode VIII : The Last Jedi - Discussion * SPOILER THREAD *
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1328296/action/topic#1328296
Date created
9-Mar-2020, 6:20 AM

I prefer my take on it. One that came to me from watching the PT several times. The force has grown out of balance by TPM because of the Jedi Sith split (that comes from the EU and may not be the case anymore). The two major user of the force polarized it and it comes to a head in the PT with Palpatine having the power to hide from the Jedi right under their noses. Their power is diminished (so they are not at the height of their power). Anakin comes along and his role in the PT has nothing to do with being the Chosen One. That is why Qui-gon insists on training him, but his actions and his fall have little to do with that. It was not too late to mold him into a proper Jedi when we meet him. But they don’t. Yes, they teach him the powers and skills and diciplines, but they fail to teach him anything about how to avoid the Dark Side. I don’t think they knew how. How does Yoda teach Luke? Constantly reminding him about Vader. Anakin falls because the didn’t teach him how to love and not posses. Why? Because they don’t know how any more. Their philosophy is to avoid anything that could possibly lead to the dark side. If you watch that video it is clear that Anakin falls for the most basic temptation of the dark side - the idea he can get what he wants. And the reason he wants is because his training was incomplete. And this is not a failing of Obi-wan’s training (as he believes) but in the PT era Jedi way of training. Their entire training apparatus is based on taking the very young and raising them in the Jedi order. Basically brain washing them. But even that does not work as we we see with Dooku. They do not teach anything about the dark side other than to avoid it. By Lucas’s own words in that video, a properly trained Jedi should be able to draw upon the force without worrying which side or worrying about the temptations. A properly trained Jedi would not succumb to greed and selfishness. Lucas boiled it down to selflessness and selfishness. The Sith crave power and then fear losing power.

I think the color of the saber is an indicator of where they are in that balance. The Sith only use red, so we know where that one is. It is possible that orange would go with a less polarized dark side user. Blue is on the other end. It is for a very light side focused Jedi. Green is more moderate and closer to balance. Purple is further from balance and it is interesting that Made Windu, the only one with that color, is the most polarizing Jedi we see. While Qui-gon is far more moderate. We don’t see a yellow saber until we see Rey with one, which fits her going back to the oldest Jedi teachings - from before the split. She is in balance after balancing the force. That of course is something that happened gradually. In the outside scenes in Jedi, the blue saber didn’t work as well so they went with green instead. Probably why Qui-gon had that color as well. And Jackson wanted a purple saber. But when you lay it over everything it does make sense.

And if you noticed, the notes from that meeting were from the earliest notes of the PT. And Filoni was there taking it all in and what he did in Clone Wars and Rebels fits exactly with what we hear George saying. His father, daughter, son, and Bendu all fit. The father and bendu as pure and balanced force while the daughter and son are polarized into light and dark. Balance first came up in TPM and has been part of canon ever since.

I do not see Anakin as a Jesus figure. He may or may not be the Chosen One (Qui-gon certainly believed and seems to have convinced the rest), but the issue is never really settled. He does balance the force by taking out Palpatine (and himself in the process) leaving only Luke, but is it in perfect balance or like a spring, momentarily back in the center before tipping over again. The ST never addresses the idea of the chosen one, only balance. And it ends with Rey having the ancient Jedi texts (and presumably how they did things when the force was in balance) the force might stay in balance. Though I think Luke’s lesson (the hard lesson of many failures) was the biggest point.