Star Wars: Episode 7, 8... and BEYOND!

[X-SOLDIER]

@Clement Rage – You misunderstand my first premise COMPLETELY, but you ARE 100% correct on the second one.

(Just saw @Obsidian Fire 's post as I'm posting this one, but mine is a VERY much more Star Wars-centric version of what you're talking about, but focusing on the properties other than the prequels, so there's not too much overlap luckily).

Spoiler

Anakin was failed by the Jedi first, and he was ALSO lured in by Palpatine’s manipulations. BOTH parties are deeply at fault. Anakin is a warrior of the Light and then he’s a warrior of the Dark. In his time as both, he’s central to exposing the flaws of each, and also bringing about the downfall of both because the Sith AND the Jedi were flawed and corrupt. His legacy is about bringing balance to the Force, and that legacy is still present.

We know from Obi-Wan that, “For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic, before the dark times. Before the Empire.“ We also know that when the Jedi Order was initially founded at the Temple on Ahch-To by the Prime Jedi about 6,000 years before A New Hope takes place where Luke learns that. The Prime Jedi were ORIGINALLY about maintaining a balance in the Force within themselves. It wasn’t about the Light against the Dark at all. They were always about being the guardians of peace and justice, but they were also maintaining that balance.

But that CHANGED.

The Jedi Order that we’re introduced to during the Prequel Era are already LONG split off from what the Prime Jedi had originally founded. They’re so far removed that the Sith are a completely separate order, and have been for centuries. It’s not the Jedi embracing both Light and Dark any more, it’s the Jedi against the Sith. Their teachings of the Jedi have shifted in order to become a representation of the Light AGAINST the Dark, and conflict between them instead of balance. The Jedi Order very rigidly adhering to their dogma of eschewing the Dark means that it’s also still ACTIVELY pitting each side against the other. The Jedi are no longer seeking out ways of maintaining a harmony between both sides of the Force. Those practices have been perpetuating that conflict and keeping both sides split apart, which we see in the Daughter & Son. The rise of conflict and fall of the Jedi and Sith occurs in the same way that we see events transpire in Mortis, because of its nature as an amplifier and magnet for the Force itself, which Qui-Gon explains it to Obi-Wan there. The Father even addresses the concepts of the Balance with his children when speaking to Anakin and saying, “too much Dark OR Light would be the undoing of life as you understand it”

We know that this split between the Light vs. the Dark has been the case since long, LONG before the era of the Clone Wars as well. Darth Plagueis was a Sith Lord present before Sidious. We also know that there were multiple wars between the Jedi and the Sith that had gone on since even before Darth Bane was the sole survivor who created the Sith as a lineage instead of a massive Order like the Jedi with the Rule of Two. These were both explained when Yoda visits Moraband:

https://youtu.be/TjQH8a5jdMY[/MEDIA]

This conflict between Light and Dark is ANCIENT, and has been stuck shifting over potentially thousands of years, and continually breaking the Jedi and Sith into more and more entrenched and extreme versions of each side. That finally comes to a head when building up to what takes place in the Prequels when the Chosen One is born, and he destroys them both. While the Jedi Order were unquestionably being manipulated by the machinations of Darth Sidious, the position of the Jedi even during The Phantom Menace made it clear that this sterilized view of the Force was obviously already a long-entrenched dogma. They didn’t want to train Anakin because he’d grown old enough to have attachments, which make one susceptible to the Dark Side. We see Qui-Gon needing to defy the will of the Jedi Council, and are constantly shown that Qui-Gon knew more about the true nature of the Force than anyone – even being the touchpoint for Yoda & Obi-Wan at the end of Episode III. Ahsoka ends up outright rejecting the Jedi Order over what they’ve continued to become, and she continues to grow into a powerful Force Wielder who’s on the side of good, and decidedly NOT at Jedi – showing that leaving that path still leads to good. In the Mace Windu comic, we see Prosset Dibs’ insistence that the Jedi should be peacekeepers and not generals in war result in him being put on trial & subject to rehabilitation – that action by the Council turns his love and passions for what the Jedi should ACTUALLY be into darkness and he eventually becomes the Tenth Brother among the Inquisitors as a result.

That conflict is, at its core, a result of the fact that the Light and Dark are continually pitted against one another, and that the Jedi Order maintained that by rejecting anything that might draw on the Dark Side of the Force. That’s what lead to their teachings about forbidding attachment, because the Light Side at its core is to always do what is selfless, and the Dark is to do what is selfish (something directly reiterated by Daughter on Mortis). Those teachings of the Jedi are ACTIVELY REJECTING the Dark Side of the Force, not attempting to maintain a Balance. Instead, the Jedi SHOULD have been teaching their students how to Balance both the Selfish and the Selfless, and not become consumed with the pulls of either side.

The issue is that if the version of the Jedi that remains once the Sith were destroyed were the ones already entrenched in the dogmatic views of the Light against the Dark, rather than the Light and the Dark together in oneself – when the Balance comes back, if the Force isn’t embraced as singular a whole, it’ll be redirected back against itself again.


That’s exactly what we see has happened in The Last Jedi.


It’s Luke’s moment of instinct to destroy the rising darkness in Ben ultimately creates Kylo Ren, and pushes the Light and Dark against each other. He says ”Snoke had already turned his heart.” but also, “Leia blamed Snoke, but it was me.” when talking about Ben. This is yet again acknowledging that the Dark Side is also a factor in its influence, but it’s the Light looking at destruction as the option to stop the Dark from rising that’s the tipping point that ignites the conflict between the two directly – EXACTLY like in Mortis.

This is all because Luke’s entire upbringing as a Jedi was always that you can be rescued FROM the Darkness, not that you can maintain a balance of both. As a Jedi Master, Luke ultimately still fears the Dark Side of the Force. Even when he succumbs to moments of it and recovers – they aren’t moments of control in him. THIS is why he came to the first Jedi Temple to isolate himself from the Force and why his teachings to Rey are built from what the Prime Jedi established there, and are different than what the Jedi Order taught and he initially learned from Obi-Wan & Yoda. At the same time, he’s still utterly TERRIFIED of the Dark Side, and can’t openly embrace it the way that Rey does. He’s a product of a flawed ideology, and Rey learns from that failure.

She is Ben’s counterpart in the Force. Darkness rises and Light to meet it. The difference is that she’s also learned that turning Ben to the Light with her isn’t the answer, and he learned the same when trying to bring her to the Dark. They fundamentally CANNOT leave their own paths for the other’s while also keeping the Force in balance. The whole point of The Last Jedi is looking at how to stop this cycle that brought war and destruction throughout the Galaxy over and over and over again. It’s about learning from the mistakes going back to the very ideas of the Jedi and the Sith once they’d split from the Prime Jedi, and learning from their failures – because they BOTH failed and brought about their own destruction. They have to learn the lessons that the Jedi & Sith didn’t – which is that Balance doesn’t mean Light & Dark being equal and opposite. They have to understand and accept the Dark and Light together if that balance is to be maintained AND the cycle is to be broken. The Jedi have to become BOTH again.

In essence: to win, you have to save what you love, not destroy what you hate. In the context of Ben & Rey that answer couldn’t be more clear.

If Ben TRULY wants to fulfill his goal of finishing what Anakin started like he stated in The Force Awakens, he ACTUALLY wants to strike down the Dark Lord who’s manipulating him, become the ruler who can bring peace to the Galaxy, and restore Balance in the Force – he can. Rey wants a place to belong, she wants to save Ben, and also keep all of her friends safe – she can. THEY need to become the Jedi TOGETHER to understand that the Light doesn’t make you weak, and the Dark doesn’t make you evil.

There’s a reason that they each represent one half of the legacy of the Chosen One. Anakin’s lightsaber bypassed Ben and went to Rey in TFA. They both used it and fought together with each others’ weapons to overcome Snoke, but after they fought side-by-side, the conflict against each other involved breaking it apart. Anakin’s legacy is still constantly present and pushing both Rey and Ben.

tl;dr – The Jedi Order’s dogma of embracing the Light and rejecting the Dark was as responsible for their own destruction as the machinations of Palpatine and the Sith were. They BOTH needed to be destroyed for the Force to be able to be brought into balance, and for the Jedi to go back to being what they were meant to again – becoming the guardians of peace and justice, and maintaining the balance of the Force.






X

 

[Roger]

I feel the movies have done precious little to prove that embracing the Dark Side and being a guardian of justice are not mutually exclusive. And Anakin was murdering Tusken Raider children before the Jedi had involved him in any war.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I'll gladly disagree with you on that first point, and provide a bit more context for the second.

Spoiler

He's the most powerful Force wielder ever. Despite all of that, and having constant visions from the Force of his mother being in danger – which would have given him plenty of time to find and rescue her – the Jedi code prevents him from acting on those visions. By the time he finally does act, he realizes that if he'd acted sooner and disobeyed the Jedi that he would have been able to have found and saves her in time. Because he's only ever been trained to REJECT the Dark Side and never to CONTROL it, he slaughters everyone. That's when he values attachments over the Jedi code, and chooses to marry Padmé and live with that kept in secret.

"He had such a knowledge of the Dark Side, he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying"

The Dark Side powers Plagueis possessed are benevolent, not evil – but still rejected by the Jedi. That right there is what Anakin wants most, what the Jedi denied him, and ultimately is why he gives up everything to follow Darth Sidious regardless of what that means. He wants to protect the ones he cares about more than anything. That desire is ultimately a selfish one, which is why he's willing to become a monster with the Sith to obtain it. He knowingly slaughters children and is instrumental in annihilating the Jedi in pursuit of that power.

But Padmé still dies.

Neither the Jedi NOR the Sith gave him the ability to save the two people he loved most.

"Young fool, only now at the end do you understand."
"You'll pay the price for your lack of vision."

Those are spoken to Luke, but they mean something to Anakin as well. It's that SAME desire to protect his own son that ultimately turns him against Palpatine. In The Empire Strikes Back, his ambitions towards Luke are still selfish – wanting to destroy the Emperor and rule the galaxy as Father and Son. He eventually accepts that that's impossible, and is forced to choose what matters the most to him when Luke refuses to turn and join the Sidious: his own power in the Dark Side, or the power to ACTUALLY save someone he cares about. He gives up everything again, but this time in a selfless act that destroys the Sith, and also saves Luke.

His failure to save his mother was because of the Jedi.
His failure to save Padmé was because he was because of the Sith.
His success in saving Luke was only after rejecting both paths.

Anakin's want to save the ones he cares for destroyed both the Jedi AND the Sith, because the Jedi rejected the attachment that called out to him in visions, while the Sith rejected the selfless sacrifice that saving someone else might involve. His act of saving Luke is equally selfish and selfless.

That's why understanding the earliest part of the Prequels are imperative to understanding why both the Jedi & Sith were destroyed to bring about the Balance. That's why the most important message on the through-line into The Last Jedi is still that the Jedi need to embrace and CONTROL both the Dark AND Light Sides in themselves – they cannot reject either. That rejection generates the imbalance and conflict in the Force.




X

 

[Clement Rage]

Spoiler

My assumption for the age of training is 7, that being the traditional age knights started training in our world. And yes, the parents do give permission and they can refuse.

While it's hard to make judgements without Force Powers, what Anakin's feeling is more than just homesickness. He left her alone as a slave in perilous situations, obviously he's feeling a lot of fear. Do the Jedi Council know the full circumstances of Schmi? Qui Gonn can be very manipulative when he wants to be, he may not have told the full story and Obi Wan never met her. So as I understand it the JC is thinking 'Wow, that's a lot of fear, it goes beyond normal homesickness' And Anakin doesn't want to admit to the extent of it, he's burying it. So their candidate has a lot of fear that he won't admit to. Potentially not a good sign. Ultimately they were correct about his questionable emotional control.

He lost his mom because no one knew there was a problem, it has nothing to do with not being allowed to follow his attachment. He had a nightmare, which, while unsettling, he assumed was just a nightmare, and Obi Wan also didn't know it was more than a dream. He's only certain when he gets the photo realistic dream on Naboo, and it's not that he's forbidden to follow it, no one else knows about it. The dream doesn't come with a label that says 'this is plot relevant, act immediately'

One snooty librarian does not a corrupt order make. I mean, Obi Wan keeps investigating, he doesn't just take her word for it.

Maybe the Jedi do need a wakeup call. But that doesn't mean the only solution is their annihilation. If Anakin wanted to leave, he could. Dooku is let go, so are several other people. That would be fine. But there's a huge difference between 'need to change' and 'need to be destroyed'

@X: The Prime Jedi wasn't in Legends. The original Jedi Founders in Legends (post prequels) were different, so I'm not sure this is so inherent in the PT so much as injected back into them later.

How did the Jedi fail Anakin?

If they stay peacekeepers, what prevents the droid army from killing them all?

In the PT, the Sith haven't been seen for a thousand years. So this endless cycle that leads to death and destruction over and over has just led to...a thousand years of peace?

If Qui Gonn is so aware of the failings of the Jedi, why does he go to such lengths to have Anakin trained as a Jedi, a code he believes is fatally flawed? Why not just leave him somewhere where he's free to develop attachments?

Anakin was failed by the Jedi first, and he was ALSO lured in by Palpatine’s manipulations. BOTH parties are deeply at fault.

But earlier what you said was this.

The ACTUAL lie is that, "he was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force."

Anakin wasn't seduced by the Dark Side. He was failed by the Jedi.

(emphasis yours)

Highlighting one side over the other seems to imply greater culpability.

Why does Snoke exist? He's a Darksider. He was never a Jedi, or a Sith, and he's been around for centuries. Why is he not relevant to balancing the equation here. He was there all along, in the Unknown Regions, he's not part of the Jedi/Sith, balancing act, so why was he not destroyed? What about the Nightsisters, or the Lothwolves? Why are they not involved in this balancing act? Why does the balance apparently only matter if you call yourself a Jedi or a Sith, and not extend to any other Light or Dark Side Force sensitives?

The idea that the Jedi brought their destruction on themselves due to their dogma is still problematic for me because it seems to be only because the Force decided that they were straying from the true path, and smote them for their insolence. That seems less a problem of dogma than a vengeful Force that destroys those not following it's preferred path.

Despite all of that, and having constant visions from the Force of his mother being in danger – which would have given him plenty of time to find and rescue her – the Jedi code prevents him from acting on those visions. By the time he finally does act, he realizes that if he'd acted sooner and disobeyed the Jedi that he would have been able to have found and saves her in time.

Highly debateable. 'Always in motion is the future'. Hastily jumping to conclusions based on a Force vision has never gone well for anyone. He might have arrived early, found Schmi fine, left again,and then she was kidnapped. And it wasn't the Jedi code that prevented him going to her, it was the fact that no one including Anakin realised that his dream was more than a dream.

Re Plageous, this is Palpatine talking. Are we sure we're getting the full story? I mean, he says 'He taught his apprentice everything he knew', but Palpatine doesn't have this power himself.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Let’s go back to address the Jedi Order's history directly.

Spoiler

[/MEDIA]

The Jedi BELIEVED that the Sith had been extinct for a millennium when The Phantom Menace takes place. However, we also know that all the way from Darth Bane up to Darth Sidious, the lineage of succession created by the Rule of Two had never been broken. That lineage was ONLY broken when both Sidious and Vader died & the Sith were destroyed (explicitly the reason that Snoke isn’t a Sith). That means that the Sith had managed to exist continually, unnoticed by the Jedi for A THOUSAND YEARS while the Jedi remained completely blinded to their presence. The fact that they were the guardians of peace and justice is their legacy, but again – like Luke says – look at their DEEDS.

The Jedi Order have been practicing a version of interacting with the Force that rejects the anything utilizing the Dark side of the Force entirely that whole time. In doing so, they became completely blinded to its presence, and to the continued existence of the Sith. On top of that, despite being in power with no opposition, and them believing the Sith to be extinct – the Jedi haven’t gone back to their original practices of controlling the Light and the Dark in balance, they’ve continually pushed away the Darkness.

The teachings of the Jedi Order meant that the Force has been kept out of balance – by the Jedi Order – FOR A THOUSAND YEARS. They never won against the Sith either. They pushed them into obscurity and rigidly practiced dogma that kept the Light and the Dark sides of the Force apart from, and in opposition to one another.

You can’t just ignore the Prime Jedi – especially when looking at the current trajectory of the films’ story – just because they weren’t portrayed exactly the same way in Legends. The Last Jedi is an explicit analysis of the Prequels, so understanding the messages there are important. It’s a pretty bold claim that those themes aren’t inherently in them. It also seems like it's woefully myopic, since I’ve been quite literally been providing PAGES of examples where these concepts have been covered in the films, tv, and comics – one of which is Clone Wars which was written while Legends was still technically in canon. It’s worth reiterating that the prophesy of the Chosen One in the Prequels, and ALSO the whole story laid out for Mortis were the direct creations of George Lucas during the Legends canon as well. The Prime Jedi’s specific depiction in The Last Jedi is result of Rian Johnson watching the Mortis arc (advised by Dave Filoni) early in his writing process, and Dave is George’s protégé, especially when it comes to the themes of the Force, since they worked together on them in Clone Wars, and he’s continued exploring them in Rebels as well.

These are extant themes that have been present both during Legends and after it.

Back to the Jedi Order:

[/MEDIA]

[/MEDIA]

The Code forbids taking on more than one pupil at a time. The Code forbids attachment: including both family and love. Dave Filoni also touches on the concepts of how one of the most important messages in Star Wars is not acting out of fear, but to act out of love. If love is something that the Jedi Code directly forbids, there’s a problem with that. Ezra’s whole characters is an exploration of the concept that having attachments to people, a family, and other things don’t push you to the Dark Side, even when you often embrace powers and darker sides of the Force.

Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. To the Jedi, attachment and love only generate fear of loss, so they forbid it. That’s a fundamentally flawed ideology that NEEDED to be dismantled and destroyed from being the authority over wielding the Force. Again, it's Vader's LOVE for Luke that overcomes his fear of the Emperor, and gives him the power he was always looking for.

[/MEDIA]

“Careful you must be when sensing the future, Anakin. The fear of loss is a path to the Dark Side. Death is a natural path of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them, do not. Miss them, do not. Attachment leads to jealousy – the shadow of greed that is. Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”

Again, that’s the Jedi OUTRIGHT rejecting the concept of attachment, you have to adhere to the Code and avoid falling to the Dark Side… However, let’s not forget that the Jedi are willing to bend the rules of the Code specifically if it comes to hunting and destroying the Dark Side.

Their very nature has them constantly prioritize actions as warriors against the Dark Side above EVERYTHING. If the Jedi Code can only be disobeyed to DESTROY the Dark Side, but it can’t be changed to ACCEPT it, the Jedi Order are fundamentally incompatible with achieving balance in the Force.

That’s not what the Jedi were meant to be.

If the Jedi remained in power, and the Sith were ACTUALLY destroyed, they’d have prevented the Balance from occurring in the Force – just like they did for the last 1000 years while they clung on to that power, completely unopposed by the Sith. They NEEDED to be destroyed first for change to happen. That's why the Chosen One didn't emerge until the Dark Side was in a position to be able to take them out first, and then fall to its own power.

There’s a big reason why Qui-Gon always speaks about following the will of the Force, and it’s continually in opposition to the will of the Jedi Council. If they were aligned, they’d be keeping the Force in balance. They’re not. They’re shaping their views to only fit what keeps only the Light Side of the Force in Power, and as the Father on Mortis said – “too much Light or too much Dark would be the undoing of life as you understand it.” and the Jedi have been pushing the limits of that imbalance for 1000 years by the time they finally fall.







X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

To sum up, for all that the Jedi were supposed to be the guardians of peace, even during their supposed thousand years of it, their teachings were emphasizing conflict within the Force. They had been sewing the seeds of imbalance within the Force since long before Anakin ever showed up -- he would just be the tipping point that served to shift the overabundance of the Light Side to an overabundance of the Dark before leveling the playing field of both.

 

[Roger]

To sum up, for all that the Jedi were supposed to be the guardians of peace, even during their supposed thousand years of it, their teachings were emphasizing conflict within the Force. They had been sewing the seeds of imbalance within the Force since long before Anakin ever showed up -- he would just be the tipping point that served to shift the overabundance of the Light Side to an overabundance of the Dark before leveling the playing field of both.

And a level playing field takes the form of Ben Solo still leading a dictatorship that subjugates the vast majority of the Galaxy.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Well, Luke repeated the mistakes of the past, didn't he?

 

[Roger]

Well, Luke repeated the mistakes of the past, didn't he?

Well, he listened to his fears, the not Jedi thing to do.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Well, he listened to his fears, the not Jedi thing to do.

Mace Windu also listened to his fears when he decided that Palpatine was too dangerous to be left alive.

Luke's fears of the Dark Side exist as a result of his journey being the one that involved destroying the Sith, making him afraid of and opposed to the the Dark Side of the Force, rather than understanding how to embrace it. He's always had moments where he slipped towards the Dark Side out of fear & rage, but recovered at the last second. That's important, because it's the reason when Luke first tells the story - he only looks afraid (Fear), when we see things from Ben's point of view - Luke looks sinister (Anger & Hate), and when we see the truth - Luke looks ashamed (Suffering).

In each one of those, it's Luke representing the core themes of the Dark Side choosing Ben's path. It's the Jedi bringing about the conflict again.

It's the same reason he's terrified when Rey goes straight to the Dark Side cave without any hesitation when he's teaching her about the Balance. She goes just because it wanted to show her something, and even if Luke UNDERSTANDS the balance and nature of the Force, he still FEARS it because of all of the pain it's caused, and how it was supposed to have ended. It's specifically that juxtaposition between his knowledge and fear of the Dark Side against her being nervous but goes right in that shows that she's in a different place mentally about the Force that is already learning the lessons Luke is teaching, while not also taking on his biases.

Most of all, I really love that Rey & Ben really represent the idea of selfless & selfish sides of the Force so incredibly well:

• Ben's the grandson of the Force's own Chosen One: the Anakin Skywalker, and those bloodline that passed down all of those incredible prowess with the Force is HIS. Anakin's lightsaber should belong to HIM. The legacy of Vader is HIS birthright. He's trying his utmost to be better and stronger to accomplish things and get things HE wants. HE wants to bring the one to destroy Snoke, and bring peace to the galaxy by ruling it.
• Rey's literally a nobody. She only has those powers awakened in her because the Force decided to use her as a balance to Ben. Anakin's lightsaber calls to her but she doesn't want it. She gives up going back to Jakku, but still doesn't feel like she has a place in all of this, and just wants Luke to come back and take up his role as a legend. She only takes the responsibility because he won't, and she knows that makes it her duty.

When Episode VIII starts, they're also in completely opposite positions for the typical portrayals of Light and Dark:

• Ben knows he's a monster for his actions, but he's at peace, and revealing truths – like a Jedi.
• Rey's full of hatred, conflict, thoughts of revenge, and disappointment – like a Sith.

It's only by spending time together and being connected that they both manage to balance those feelings that normally represent the other sides of the Force, and neither one changes their stance. They maintain a balance. They both also confront things that used to define one side or the other as well. They both care about other people & they both sacrifice things that matter to them, but the way they do those things affects them differently, again, because Ben's are selfish and Rey's are selfless.

• Ben kills Han for power, Ben doesn't kill Leia because killing Han made him weaker, not stronger so he's conflicted because he never hated either of them so he doesn't know what to do. Ben offers Rey a place, because he wants someone by his side and he doesn't want to be alone.
• Rey leaves her safety net and gets caught up in something she doesn't feel like she belongs in. Rey is filled with hate for Ben because of Han's death, and she's overwhelmed with emotions. She gives up the comforting lie about her parents for the truth that she's been unwanted, and she still declines Ben's offer to be somewhere that her destiny is telling her she belongs.

It's SO damn good.



X

 

[Roger]

As Anakin says, killing their foes when they can't defend themselves is not the Jedi way. Yoda says that taking power from the Senate was a dangerous path for Windu to take them down. But Windu ultimately being on the crusp of getting corrupted by the Dark Side in his own right, after a thousand years of peace hardly means that Ben only killing his father and a handful of planet populations worth of strangers implies a net improvement and such all forceusers should give into all temptations of the Dark Side and seek power for power's sake just much as being a servant of the Light.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Oh no, there's a BIG difference between giving in to the temptations of the Dark Side, vs. keeping that side of the Force in balance.

Spoiler

Son & Daughter are inherently the embodiment of selfish and selfless use of the Force. However Father reprimands Son for his vanity getting the better of him and doing, "what is forbidden by choosing the Dark Side and allowing it to feed his anger and desire for power." That's the Dark Side's version of tipping the balance, because it's seeking to amass more power to itself. (Note: the Jedi also amassed power and attempted to destroy the Sith, which is the same kind of issue in terms of disrupting the Balance of the Force).

The reason that conflict arose again is evident in Obi-Wan's speech to Luke. His words are heavily centered around the idea that if Luke can't kill Vader because of his attachment to him that Sidious has already won, and motivating Luke through fear that Leia could be turned and used by the Emperor.

Those are the fears about the Dark Side that Luke never got over, and also defined his victory. Those fears are what caused him to abandon his training with Yoda, it's what almost caused him to become enraged and nearly kill Vader, and it's also what caused him momentarily contemplate striking down Ben. He never learned to deal with his fear when it came to his attachments, and the Jedi never learned how to teach him that. He was the only living Jedi Master and he was a Legend, but he was still functioning on their flawed ideologies.

That's why Luke finally understands that problem lies with the Jedi themselves, when it's not him being able to keep that in balance within himself that causes Ben to fall to the Dark. That's why he cuts himself off from the Force, and isolates himself from responding to things out of fear, because the Jedi don't teach control - just detachment. He understands that it's the Jedi ways that eventually cause the Dark to return, because they're codes that are inherently flawed with respect to keeping the Force in Balance. On the other side, Rey understands that the Jedi can become more than just their deeds and that by being a symbol they're more than just their shortcomings. She can embrace both sides of the Force in a way that Luke has never been able to because she doesn't fear it. That means that she can potentially still have control when calling on the Dark Side of the Force, rather than being overwhelmed by it. The training of the Jedi should be teaching control of both sides. Without that – one side will eventually push to overwhelm the other when gets out of control, and the only other way to attempt balance is through conflict of one side against the other.

Additionally to your other point,

Ben isn't a representation of improvement of the path of the Dark Side, merely that his path along the Dark Side and Rey's path along the Light both include things previously limited only to the Jedi or Sith both showing that those same qualities thought to be extremes of one or the other aren't. It's further showing that those ideals and dogma weren't limited to only good or evil.

Rebels constantly shows Ezra using Dark Side powers and his attachments for good – with the finale showing how he managed to save his homeworld and the family that he had – attachments that were forbidden by the Jedi. Whereas Clone Wars shows many ways that the Jedi perpetuate conflict and strife, with its finale showing the Jedi order failing Ahsoka completely – yet we also see her in Rebels as a force of good specifically because she abandoned and rejected the ways of the Jedi.

Those two shows are really the best examples of the idea that the Dark and Light sides of the Force aren't inherently good or evil, and they can each be used to both ends depending on the motivation of whoever's wielding them.




X

 

[Obsidian Fire]

I'd argue that the Jedi Order was never really at peace. Not that they knew that. True, they weren't at war with the Sith for the millennium before TPM, but that was a result of them not knowing they hadn't killed off the Sith long ago. If the Jedi are to the be the ones keeping the galaxy safe from evil Dark Side users (emphasis on evil), then they failed miserably at that for a very, very long time. The Sith were able to keep themselves going that entire time and were never found out until right at the end.

It's almost like they were an army held in reserve that was missing their intelligence division and never realized they were missing it. Meanwhile, their enemy had an intelligence division and was really good at using it.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

That's an excellent analogy.

I think that being called, "the guardians of peace and justice" gives an impression that those 1000 years where they believed the Sith were gone were more peaceful than they actually were. I also think that the idea of tensions between them being so extreme that the Sith managed to appear extinct that entire time, while continuing to manipulate socio-political events against the Jedi while right under their nose shows just how much the Jedi would never have accepted force wielders who used the Dark Side, and how diametrically opposed each side was to the other.



X

 

[Clement Rage]

Spoiler

The Jedi BELIEVED that the Sith had been extinct for a millennium when The Phantom Menace takes place. However, we also know that all the way from Darth Bane up to Darth Sidious, the lineage of succession created by the Rule of Two had never been broken. That lineage was ONLY broken when both Sidious and Vader died & the Sith were destroyed (explicitly the reason that Snoke isn’t a Sith). That means that the Sith had managed to exist continually, unnoticed by the Jedi for A THOUSAND YEARS while the Jedi remained completely blinded to their presence. The fact that they were the guardians of peace and justice is their legacy, but again – like Luke says – look at their DEEDS.

I am looking at their deeds. They bring down that slave Empire of egyptian cat people. They protect the natives of that Pantoran Moon. At the start of TPM and AOTC, the Jedi are on a mission to mediate disputes and prevent them from escalating into war, with the implication that that is most of what they do. Tracking down darksiders is not the only thing they do. Their actions at Geonosis intended to avert a war. Their actions in ROTS are about ending (not winning) a war as soon as possible.

Finding two people in hiding across the breadth of a galaxy of trillions when you don't know they exist and they're exerting considerable efforts to stay in hiding is an impossibly difficult task. This is a galaxy where entire planets can disappear without anyone noticing, finding two people is something of a tall order. Success in that is a highly unfair standard for judgement. There is an enormous middle ground between 'total perfection' and 'worthy of destruction' that isn't being considered here.

Why are the Sith not part of this balance? Whether the Jedi tap into the Dark side or not, the Sith won't tap into the light, so this imbalance is inevitable anyway. See also the other examples in my last post of single sided Force Users that the Force doesn't feel the need to annihilate to restore balance. It singles out the Jedi, even though they're not the only single sided Force Users in play.

It is explicitly untrue that the Code forbids love. Padme asks Anakin in AOTC, he says no. An Inquisitor asks Ahsoka in her novel, she says no. In the Clone Wars, (Season 5, the one with the rebel group, I'll try to dig up the exact quote) they have a conversation where it is clarified that the teachings are 'purpose before feelings', not that people are meant to be passionless.

Obi Wan has obvious attachments to Satine, Anakin, and Qui Gonn, among others, but they are not a problem because he can set them aside as necessary. Threats to Satine won't break him the way threats to Padme broke Anakin, as Maul found out. He deeply loves Anakin, which is explicit
"You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!" without this being treated as this being Darkside influence.

About Mace, notably, he doesn't burst into Palpatine's office all guns blazing. He arrives with the rest of the Council to make an arrest, and gives Palpatine every chance to come quietly. He is NOT defenceless, two seconds after that he's shouting about his UNLIMITED POWAH! So it's not about automatically destroying any Sith at any cost. When he goes for the kill, Palpatine has killed three of the Jedi Council and it's clear that no cell can hold him. But he gives him every chance to surrender before that. He's playing to the crowd, not defeated or defenceless.

Qui Gonn is directly responsible for Anakin being trained in the Jedi path. If he believes this way is fatally flawed, why does he do this?

If the Jedi don't fight the war, what prevents them being killed by the Separatists?

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Again: No one's EVER been arguing that the Jedi weren't protecting people, OR that the Sith aren't also a part of this equation as well. Both of them NEEDED to be destroyed to bring about balance – That means that they were BOTH flawed.

Spoiler

You keep talking about the Jedi Order needing to be, "worthy of destruction" as if the Jedi are just fine keeping the Force out of balance if they can achieve what appears at the surface to be a net good out of attempting to completely eliminate use of half of the Force. Anakin's entire role as the Chosen One is to bring balance to the Force, and destroy the Sith. What the Jedi Order don't realize is that their dogma is also ACTIVELY keeping the Force out of balance, so that means that they're getting eliminated as well.

Ultimately the Jedi NAME will still remain – but they'll be brought back to being practitioners of both side of the Force, like the Prime Jedi where they maintain the balance of the Force. This is why the prophesy would only directly refer to the destruction of the Sith. If the Jedi were capable of that already, they would have survived the prophesy – because they'd have adopted teachings on controlling the Dark Side of the Force – so when the Sith fell, balance would have returned immediately.

They literally had 1000 years of the Sith apparently being extinct to study and learn how to control the Dark Side of the Force on their own. Ten centuries is MORE than enough time for the Jedi to've started to try and bring about balance in the Force, since they have been completely unopposed for a millennium. But they didn't. They kept curating themselves ONLY to the Light Side. They rejected candidates who had any attachments that might make them susceptible from being trained at all, and rigidly maintained their code to cut out anything that used the Dark Side. The Jedi dogma pushed the Sith into hiding and never accepted the Dark Side of the Force as anything but inherently evil for CENTURIES.

I believe in your original post you said that a philosophy of, "'Do things exactly as I say or be destroyed' is an unworthy philosophy that deserves no respect or adherence." You're describing the Jedi's view of the Dark Side of the Force, as well as the Sith's view of the Light Side of the Force. They both needed to be destroyed to attain balance. That's why in Episode I, Qui-Gon following the will of the Force being in opposition to the will of the Jedi Council is inherently a big deal. From the very beginning, it's pointing to the Jedi being deeply flawed and out of touch with the true nature of the Force itself. They're misusing the powers of only ONE SIDE of the Force – just like the Sith do. Those two oppositions continually create each other, and that regenerates the conflict in the Galaxy as a result. As long as they're separated, peace can't happen, because each side creates war to destroy the other – That's why the balance is necessary to begin with.


Also, yes the Jedi finding two people in hiding amongst the entire galaxy of individuals would be difficult... but that's not the situation.

Palpatine is literally in their presence CONSTANTLY. THE Dark Lord of the Sith is walking amongst the Jedi – who are at the absolute height of their power – and they can't even tell he's trained in the Force. On top of that, they only discover things when Sidious reveals each piece, because he's playing both sides. With all of their power combined, the Jedi don't really uncover anything that hasn't been set up for them to find. Palpatine leads them all around by the nose to each and every point. The whole Jedi Code is designed around fighting against the Dark Side, and they are completely and utterly undone by the thing that they're supposed to be most capable at defeating. Everything in the war is a result of them being unable to prevent the actions of basically ONE Sith Lord and a small group of his followers. I don't know how much more apparent it can be that the Jedi Order are objectively failures at everything they were supposed to be capable of.

The tl;dr is – If those who would use the Force for good cannot accept both the Light and the Dark sides of the Force – they need to be replaced with something that will. If the Jedi are the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy, they cannot be creating war by rejecting the Dark Side OR the Light Side. They cannot be generating conflict within the very Force itself – that defeats their very purpose.

That's why the Jedi AND Sith were destroyed.




X

 

[Obsidian Fire]

It's almost like they were an army held in reserve that was missing their intelligence division and never realized they were missing it. Meanwhile, their enemy had an intelligence division and was really good at using it.

Wanted to expand on this a bit.

Spoiler

You can think of the Light Side and Dark Side of the force a bit like the overt forces and the covert forces in a military. The overt force is fairly obvious in how it goes about its business and is (for the most part) honorable. Everyone sees what it is doing and has a hand in managing how it is used. The covert force isn't very noticeable and doesn't care about honor (at least, the type of honor that matters to the public; personal honor is a different matter...). The only people who really know how it's being used are the people who use it. This leads to the covert users being loose canons a lot of the time, and that's when they aren't going evil. The overt users tend to be a lot more "by the book".

Now, there's a place for both types of forces in a military. Have overt forces with no covert forces and the overt forces risk not knowing where they should apply themselves for maximum impact and not having people tell them they aren't going far enough. Have covert forces with no overt forces and the covert forces risk not having enough people to pull off large-scale operations and not having people to let them know when they might be going too far. You need both kinds of forces to have maximum potential and a variety of options to deal with different circumstances.

The Jedi remind me a bit of military leaders who decided they didn't like dealing with the potential messiness of covert operations. So they dumped that entire department and whenever people think that maybe they could do with having a covert operative every once and a while (because some people are cut out for that job), they watch them like a hawk and make sure they never get any promotions to any position they could start a change like that.

The Sith remind me of a covert ops team gone rouge. They didn't like the oversight of their commanding officers so they branched out on their own. Only now they can't trust anyone and have to go it alone because no one is supporting them. They also have to be really sneaky about how they go about doing what they do because if they're ever discovered, they could be wiped out. Fortunately, the military they broke off of doesn't have a covert ops team of their own...

And then in the Last Jedi, the military force finally gets someone interested in and good at covert ops put in charge of the entire thing right when the remaining member of the covert ops team manages to take over an army...

One of the most interesting conversations that happens in Revenge of the Sith is when Yoda and Mace Windu are talking about how much the darkness has clouded their view of what's going on recently. From what we've seen all over the movies, Jedi know where other Jedi are over great distances. I'd be willing to go so far to say then that Light Side users know where other LIght Side users are. Presumably, that works for the Sith and potentially other Dark Side users. Now, this might be getting into headcanon territory, but I really have to wonder what Corosant looks like from the point of view of other non-Sith Dark Side users. Like, I could see non-evil Dark Side force users take one look at the darkness around Corosant and deciding to stay far, far away from there. Not because that's where the Jedi are, but because they know how the Dark Side gone bad could go and that's exactly what Corosant feels like and they know better then to get anywhere near that.

Given that the Jedi obviously don't know what a Sith feels like until one gets into a personal battle with them, I think it's pretty accurate to say that the Jedi are really blind to the ways of the force in certain areas. I have to wonder if the Jedi would have picked up on Sith-style Dark Side force use if there had been other non-Sith Dark Side force users in the Jedi. It's one thing to not know what something is doing when you do have people looking into what the thing is doing. It's another thing to not know what something is doing when no one wants to learn about that thing. And the Jedi are almost proud that they don't know anything about the Dark Side accept that is can be really dangerous to use...

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Why are the Sith not part of this balance? Whether the Jedi tap into the Dark side or not, the Sith won't tap into the light, so this imbalance is inevitable anyway.

If the Jedi Order -- as prevalent and influential in the galaxy as they became -- had still been doing their part as intended, why would the cosmological essence of everything be thrown out of balance by what two Sith do? The Sith don't embody the totality of the Dark Side any more than the Jedi embody (or should have tried to) the totality of the Light Side -- or any more than the Jedi are necessarily incapable of making the wrong choices simply by virtue of being affiliated with the Light and the presumption of goodness.

Those sort of assumptions are pretty much precisely part of the false dichotomy the Jedi Order eventually bought into about themselves.

On a related note, if you're insisting that this imbalance is inevitable, are you predicting that the prophecy behind Anakin ultimately comes to nothing? I'm a little unsure what the overall thrust of your position is.

It is explicitly untrue that the Code forbids love. Padme asks Anakin in AOTC, he says no. An Inquisitor asks Ahsoka in her novel, she says no. In the Clone Wars, (Season 5, the one with the rebel group, I'll try to dig up the exact quote) they have a conversation where it is clarified that the teachings are 'purpose before feelings', not that people are meant to be passionless.

The code -- or at least the interpretations of it we're privy to -- rather expressly forbade romantic love and familial attachments. What it allowed for, demanded even, is compassion; i.e. love for everyone.

It's also worth remembering that interpretations of religious codes and the resultant traditions become conflated with the codes themselves. This even happens to the Jedi Code in the Legends canon in regard to the maximum age for new Padawans and whether Jedi should be able to have children. The code itself specifies no maximum age for beginning training, but the influential interpretations of the Jedi Code (and what their order's rules should be) that were written by Jedi Master Simikarty became canon within the order.

I would even suggest that this sort of dogmatic adherence to misinterpretations of the code is most apparent in the differences between the original version of the Jedi mantra and the more well-known and traditional version:

----
(Original)
Emotion, yet peace.
Ignorance, yet knowledge.
Passion, yet serenity.
Chaos, yet harmony.
Death, yet the Force.

("Refined" version)
There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force.
----

To me, these sound like diametrically opposed statements, but within the Jedi Order, they were treated as the same. For me, this is perhaps the most blatant sign that the Jedi lost their way.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

@Obsidian Fire – That Overt/Covert military forces analogy was fucking beautiful.

Also, insofar as their ability to sense each other in the Force is something that made me wonder a lot, too. We always see Force Sensitives and Jedi being able to sense powerful malevolent forces like Vader, or even benign saturations of the Dark Side on places like Mortis, Dagobah, & Ahch-To. Before the Sith revealed themselves with Darth Maul, the Jedi could definitely have been forgiven for not really knowing what Dark Side Force Users felt like, but after that when Tyrannus, Asajj, Savage, and others are encountered it's really surprising how Sidious manages to give off NOTHING.

Now, whether or not this will get confirmed in the final season of the Clone Wars remains to be seen (since that's for sure covering the Siege of Mandalore), but the arc they designed to take place leading between the Season 5 finale and that arc is called, "Return to the Jedi" and it is REALLY important, especially because (unless there's something released in the future that changes it), this is soft canon.

Much like modern day churches are build over pagan sites as a result of the crusades, at the BASE level of Coruscant, there's an ancient Sith Temple, which is what the Jedi Temple is constructed on top of after they have defeated the Sith. The center of the Jedi Order literally a representation of their subjugation and suppression of the Dark Side. That helps to explain why as the Jedi spend time there, and focus only on repressing the Dark Side rather than learning from it, the more blinded they become to the presence of the Dark Side there – because they aren't keeping the balance in mind. I think that this was supposed to be one of the reasons to how Sidious was able to be right in front of them all the time as Palpatine without them being able to detect him.

And on the Balance side, it provides even more evidence that the Jedi had 1000 years to study how to control the Dark Side and why the Sith fell victim to using it. They had the tools to avoid having the Dark Side dominate their destinies by balancing the selfish urges with their selflessness, rather than attempting to make those urges forbidden. Everything they needed is literally right there for them, but instead, they'd just covered it up and suppressed it, eventually blinding themselves to it, and leading to their own downfall.




X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

tl;dr: You can't see in absolute darkness, but too much light is blinding.

 

[Clement Rage]

Spoiler

Force abilities to sense each other have never been absolute. We see plenty of Force Users sneak up on each other, Yoda can sneak up on Palpatine in his office, which is certainly not due to Palpatine not knowing what he feels like or being unfamiliar with Lightside Force Wielders. To have stayed in hiding a thousand years, the Sith would have to be accomplished at masking whatever others can sense. It's not a light/dark thing either, Dooku can't sense Ventress coming when she doesn't want to be found, Maul can hide fine. There's no reason to assume that they automatically should be able to sense each other. Ahsoka didn't seem to particularly improve her senses when she left the Jedi.

Dooku was trained as both a Jedi and a Sith, but didn't seem to get any particular insight from it. So was Vader.

The Force seems to be very selective about who it smites. Every Jedi...except Obi Wan, Yoda, (both the epitome of Jedi philosophies, but both are spared despite this philosophy being something the Force wishes to stamp out. Despite the philosophy being so dangerous that the Force had to destroy its practitioners, it spared the two people that most strongly embody the fatally flawed Jedi way.)

Every Sith... but not Snoke, even though he's also a powerful Darksider who is around at this time. Palpatine could sense him out in the Unknown Regions while he was still alive, but he still didn't factor into rebalancing the Force...why?

As a balancing Force, this doesn't seem to stand up.

I believe in your original post you said that a philosophy of, "'Do things exactly as I say or be destroyed' is an unworthy philosophy that deserves no respect or adherence." You're describing the Jedi's view of the Dark Side of the Force, as well as the Sith's view of the Light Side of the Force.

Not really. The Jedi are perfectly willing to arrest Palpatine if he comes quietly and Anakin, if he was acting as a Jedi, should have done the same to disarmed Dooku. They tolerate dissent, and if you want to leave the Order, that's fine. You don't even lose any respect, they were still thinking highly of Dooku until they found out he was starting a war. 'If you're not with me, you're my enemy' is an ideal the Jedi explicitly oppose.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Both of those questions are very clearly answered in The Last Jedi, in its two biggest themes of: learning from failure & balance in the Force, and how those two themes are intrinsically interconnected.

Spoiler

Yoda says that failure is the most important thing to pass on. Yoda and Obi-Wan are the best Jedi to pass on lessons from what the failures of the Jedi Order were to Luke: Yoda was the head of the Jedi Council and Obi-Wan trained Vader. On top of that, the two of them had the most contextual exposure to the undoing of the Jedi and the rise of the Sith because of their proximity to Anakin. They saw everything in the context of the prophesy of the Chosen One more directly than any other Jedi in the Galaxy. On top of that, Yoda and Obi-Wan were the two who were able to continue to speak with Qui-Gon once he'd become one with the Force – and Qui-Gon's connection to following the will of the Force has always been representative of the path that the Jedi should be on but had fallen from.

They had all of the tools to help set Luke and the future of the Jedi on the right path – and they DID set Luke on the right path, but they didn't do it perfectly, and that's why there's still a reason to tell the story, because there are still failures to learn from to achieve that stable balance.

Snoke was a Dark Side Force User, who wasn't a Sith, and was also removed from the goings on in the galaxy at large and the conflict between the Jedi and Sith due to being in the Unknown Regions. Since Luke was a key force in overcoming the Sith, his connections to the Force were more emphasized towards the Light side of the Force, which means that his own balance in the Force, Snoke, would be shifted more towards the Dark. All signs point to Luke knowing that Snoke existed and not attempting to destroy him. Snoke and Ben were interacting while Luke was starting his Jedi Temple. The two of them had the potential to learn from one another even though they embraced different sides of the Force: Luke's goals being selfless and Snoke's being selfish. The two of them being a balance to one another is also confirmed by the fact that Luke and Snoke both pass away in The Last Jedi. When speaking about the point in time before Kylo Ren to Rey, Luke even said, "For many years there WAS balance."

The only thing that actually tipped that balance out of sync again was Ben becoming Kylo Ren. That happens because of Luke's fear of the Dark Side of the Force being something he could never get rid of. Listen carefully to how he phrases it when he first recounts the scenario to Rey, "By the time I realized I was no match for the darkness rising in him, it was too late." The tension between Luke and Snoke was because each felt evenly matched against the other, but they still had an adversarial view towards Ben. Ben was in the middle of that as both Light AND Dark.
Even though it's from a piece of the novelization that wasn't in the film, it's clear that this dichotomy in Ben was always the core intent of the sequel trilogy, even during The Force Awakens when Snoke talks about him:

It is far more than that. It is where you are from. What you are made of. The Dark Side—and the Light. The finest sculptor cannot fashion a masterpiece from poor materials. He must have something pure, something strong, something unbreakable, with which to work.

When Ben turns and destroys the temple and half of the students, it's because he believes that Luke was afraid of his power and wanted to destroy him. Again: Snoke influenced Ben's perspective, but it was Luke's action out of FEAR that was the reason he turned.

That's why we see the same sorts of mixes of both Light and Dark in Rey. As his balance in the Force, she experiences emotions (most notably anger & hatred) often associated with the Dark Side. The core of their ambitions remain on following the Force selfishly and selflessly. What's also important is looking at how the deaths of Luke and Snoke set things up differently than Luke and Vader destroying the Sith:

Luke turning Vader to the Light and that overcoming Sidious is essentially always seen as a victory of the Light OVER the Dark. Ben teaming up with Rey to murder Snoke isn't that at all, because Ben doesn't turn. It's their combined force that allowed the opportunity for him to strike down the person using his powers to manipulate Ben. Then Luke passes on, selflessly confronting Ben to allow the resistance to escape. Snoke is selfishly controlling Ben and Ben overcomes him to take his place. Luke selflessly holds off the First Order, allowing Rey to take his place with a message of selflessness.

Now it's all about how the two of them utilize their places. Neither will turn towards the others' side, but they might be able to work together if they both truly want to bring about maintaining peace and justice in the galaxy.

X

 

[Roger]

That's why Luke finally understands that problem lies with the Jedi themselves, when it's not him being able to keep that in balance within himself that causes Ben to fall to the Dark. That's why he cuts himself off from the Force, and isolates himself from responding to things out of fear, because the Jedi don't teach control - just detachment. He understands that it's the Jedi ways that eventually cause the Dark to return, because they're codes that are inherently flawed with respect to keeping the Force in Balance. On the other side, Rey understands that the Jedi can become more than just their deeds and that by being a symbol they're more than just their shortcomings. She can embrace both sides of the Force in a way that Luke has never been able to because she doesn't fear it. That means that she can potentially still have control when calling on the Dark Side of the Force, rather than being overwhelmed by it. The training of the Jedi should be teaching control of both sides. Without that – one side will eventually push to overwhelm the other when gets out of control, and the only other way to attempt balance is through conflict of one side against the other.

Additionally to your other point,

Ben isn't a representation of improvement of the path of the Dark Side, merely that his path along the Dark Side and Rey's path along the Light both include things previously limited only to the Jedi or Sith both showing that those same qualities thought to be extremes of one or the other aren't. It's further showing that those ideals and dogma weren't limited to only good or evil.

The Jedi ways cause the Dark to return, yeah, because the Dark Side continues to exist and the Sith were removed, those Sith were trying or succeeding to subjugate the galaxy. In absence of the Jedi ways, users of the Dark Side would've dominated the galaxy completely.

And how does Ben show that the ideals and dogma of the Sith aren't limited to evil? Even if he's not evil (I'm not convinced of this BTW) He's not a Sith. The Sith as per the prophecy were destroyed, his actions don't inform them.

I think that being called, "the guardians of peace and justice" gives an impression that those 1000 years where they believed the Sith were gone were more peaceful than they actually were. I also think that the idea of tensions between them being so extreme that the Sith managed to appear extinct that entire time, while continuing to manipulate socio-political events against the Jedi while right under their nose shows just how much the Jedi would never have accepted force wielders who used the Dark Side, and how diametrically opposed each side was to the other.

They accept Anakin, despite his committing genocide out of anger, hate and revenge, they just continued to instruct in a fashion they feel would prevent him from doing those kinds of things again.

They literally had 1000 years of the Sith apparently being extinct to study and learn how to control the Dark Side of the Force on their own. Ten centuries is MORE than enough time for the Jedi to've started to try and bring about balance in the Force, since they have been completely unopposed for a millennium. But they didn't. They kept curating themselves ONLY to the Light Side. They rejected candidates who had any attachments that might make them susceptible from being trained at all, and rigidly maintained their code to cut out anything that used the Dark Side.

Because using great power in anger or fear or hate or to selfishly achieve ones own ends alone is an inheritely bad idea and it's not a model by which justice and peace is achieved.

The Jedi dogma pushed the Sith into hiding and never accepted the Dark Side of the Force as anything but inherently evil for CENTURIES.

There's a difference between inheritely evil and inheritely not safe to be use by people.

As long as they're separated, peace can't happen, because each side creates war to destroy the other – That's why the balance is necessary to begin with.

The Light Side didn't create war to destroy the Dark Side. The Jedi entered a war to oppose Dooku's attack on the Republic. There are Force Sects out there that don't seek dominion of the galaxy or exclusively use the Light Side of the Force and the Jedi leaves them be. Until Palpatine involves them because Sith is definitely both all about tthe Dark Side and dominion of the galaxy including all other force sects. Episode I makes that clear, Maul being a force user they don't know is one thing, being a Sith Lord quite another.

The whole Jedi Code is designed around fighting against the Dark Side, and they are completely and utterly undone by the thing that they're supposed to be most capable at defeating. Everything in the war is a result of them being unable to prevent the actions of basically ONE Sith Lord and a small group of his followers. I don't know how much more apparent it can be that the Jedi Order are objectively failures at everything they were supposed to be capable of.

All fighting forces and organisations in the galaxy were founded to protect this and that interest. And they all failed when matched against Palpatine's ambitions. The Republic was an objective failure in this regard as well. Does not mean it should not exist, nor that practitioners of the Light Side who guard it and attempt to achieve peace and justice should not exist.

The tl;dr is – If those who would use the Force for good cannot accept both the Light and the Dark sides of the Force – they need to be replaced with something that will. If the Jedi are the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy, they cannot be creating war by rejecting the Dark Side OR the Light Side. They cannot be generating conflict within the very Force itself – that defeats their very purpose.

That's why the Jedi AND Sith were destroyed.

The Jedi didn't create war, they didn't force Palpatine and Snoke into being. And whether or not choosing not be a personal user of it creates conflict within the Force or not, use of the Dark Side (using the Force in anger or aggression or otherwise letting your emotions guide it's use) in inself is not perfect way to achieve either peace or justice. Justice certainly doesn't enter into it. If you thought your actions were just, you wouldn't need emotions to guide your actions to doing them.

Ezra loves his homeplanet, his homeplanet also happened to genuinely be in an unjust occuption by a foreign aggressor his entire life, good for him. But your loved ones aren't always a flawless compass towards the path to justice and peace and sooner or later letting the Dark Side influence your actions will put you at odds.

 

[Clement Rage]

Spoiler

TTM asked for clarity on my position earlier, so first of all, here they are.

1. There are extremely unfortunate implications attached to the idea 'you're practising your religion incorrectly, therefore genocide is a necessary and justified response. The victims are at fault for their doctrine's failings, and the survivors need to redeem themselves for their own annihilation.'

2. The idea of the Force needing to rebalance itself through mutual annihilation is not supported by events in the films.

Yoda says that failure is the most important thing to pass on. Yoda and Obi-Wan are the best Jedi to pass on lessons from what the failures of the Jedi Order were to Luke: Yoda was the head of the Jedi Council and Obi-Wan trained Vader. On top of that, the two of them had the most contextual exposure to the undoing of the Jedi and the rise of the Sith because of their proximity to Anakin. They saw everything in the context of the prophesy of the Chosen One more directly than any other Jedi in the Galaxy. On top of that, Yoda and Obi-Wan were the two who were able to continue to speak with Qui-Gon once he'd become one with the Force – and Qui-Gon's connection to following the will of the Force has always been representative of the path that the Jedi should be on but had fallen from.

They are the most likely two Jedi to pass on the old Jedi way. If the Living Force's intent is to have Luke trained differently, then it shot itself in the foot there. Wouldn't Ahsoka or Kanan, who understand the value of attachments, be far better teachers of those principles? Yoda and Obi did ultimately teach him to fear the Dark Side, after all, they thing above all else they weren't supposed to do.

Your core premise is that the elimination of the Jedi by the Sith is the will of the Force rebalancing itself by eradicating the flawed Jedi Code. Why then is Qui Gonn Jinn, who you believe is on the right path, their first victim? If you believe that that specific death wasn't the will of the Force, why believe that any of the others are?

If the Living Force's intent is to rebalance the Force by removing the Jedi Code, what it ends up doing is killing its greatest allies and ensuring its chosen one perpetuates the thing he exists to destroy.

Snoke was a Dark Side Force User, who wasn't a Sith, and was also removed from the goings on in the galaxy at large and the conflict between the Jedi and Sith due to being in the Unknown Regions.

He wasn't a Sith, but he's an exclusive Dark Side user. Your previous argument was that rejecting one side of the Force leads to imbalance, why would this change because he didn't call himself a Sith or was far away? The Force is meant to be inside every living thing, it doesn't have a jurisdiction outside which it doesn't operate. When it was two Jedi v two Sith, they both still needed to be annihilated, that wasn't how balance was achieved.

That interpretation requires Balance to suddenly change its meaning based on whether someone calls themselves a Sith or not, not whether they reject one side of the Force or not. Either it's an inconsistent interpretation or the Force is playing favourites.

Also, Obi Wan trained Anakin, not Vader. Big difference.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

1. There are extremely unfortunate implications attached to the idea 'you're practising your religion incorrectly, therefore genocide is a necessary and justified response. The victims are at fault for their doctrine's failings, and the survivors need to redeem themselves for their own annihilation.'

I think you're confusing the matter at hand when you keep repeating this question of "deserving genocide." I don't imagine any such notion enters into the equation from The Force's perspective, it being -- as best we have reason to understand it -- a largely indifferent, demiurgic maybe-but-probably-not-really-human-like-entity.

The question may as well be whether a doctor who travels to another country to help sick people deserves to be trampled by a hippo or eaten by lions from Mother Nature's perspective.

Obviously by any objective measure the Jedi didn't deserve being murdered. The Force probably didn't orchestrate details to that fine a detail, though, and just wanted (needed?) things sorted.

As far as a question of "practicing your religion wrong" goes, do you have any reservations about applying that to the Sith? The Sith were an offshoot of the Jedi Order.

It's really easy to imagine the passage of time, misinterpretations, and conflation of misinterpretations with canon resulting in "practicing your religion wrong." It's part of our daily reality in the real world.

Speaking of such misinterpretations, Yoda even acknowledged in Episode III that the prophecy may have been misinterpreted. I'd say it's also definitive that it was.

When we first hear of the prophecy in Episode I, the only description given of the Chosen One is that they will bring balance back to the Force. When we hear them talking about it in Episode III, they keep also applying the presumption of destroying the Sith in order to restore balance to the Force.

This is clearly something they interpreted the prophecy to mean yet not something it said. The Jedi Order had believed the Sith already extinct for a millennium by the time of Episode I (they say as much in the discussion in which the prophecy first comes up). They didn't think the prophecy had anything to do with the Sith until they learned that the Sith still existed.

For that matter, even had the prophecy spoken of the Sith, the end of the Sith doesn't mean the end of the Dark Side. The Jedi Order was just plain oblivious.

2. The idea of the Force needing to rebalance itself through mutual annihilation is not supported by events in the films.

Whether it be through mutual annihilation or somehow otherwise being mutually neutralized, this theme that the Light and the Dark need to be in balance in order for the Force to be in balance has been hammered home again and again and again. Lucas himself began this, and it has carried most blatantly through "Clone Wars," "Rebels" and now "The Last Jedi."

It's literally the core thematic conceit of the mythos. It's so blatant, I can't see any way to miss it. It's outright stated even in the "Altar of Mortis" episode of "The Clone Wars":

"There are some who would like to exploit our power. The Sith are but one. Too much dark or light would be the undoing of life as you understand it."

And not for nothing: the test given to Anakin on Mortis to determine whether he was truly the Chosen One culminates in the mutual deaths of Daughter and Son, the siblings who embody the Light and the Dark. After Daughter has died, Father -- who embodies the balance between Light and Dark -- even has to mortally wound himself in order to strip Son of his immortality and make him vulnerable.

The Ones only had to take up residence outside the normal flow of space-time in the first place to protect the rest of the galaxy from the astral conflagration that conflicts between Daughter and Son would have inevitably caused.

It's all about as subtle as a sledgehammer.