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rynneThis is me getting so into Star Wars that I start writing essays about it. It's sorta rambly, especially as I composed at least half of it while falling asleep this morning (yes, this morning--I think going to bed at five counts as morning), but it should still be mostly coherent. I’m still pretty new to the fandom, so maybe someone else has said this before, but if someone did, I couldn’t find it, so I wrote my own essay about it.
Anyway, without further ado...
Bringing Balance to the Force: Anakin, Destiny, and Choice
First of all, I'd like to preface this with a question--do we get any more detail about the prophecy aside from that there is a Chosen One who is supposed to bring balance to the Force? I couldn't find anything, and while I don't think it will matter to this essay, because it's around the same topic, I was just wondering.
Moving on.
1. What unbalances the Force?
Cheesy Disney songs aside, I've tended to think of the Force as being a circle of life kind of thing, with the cycle of birth, life, death, decay, and new growth/rebirth. The Dark Side throws this out of whack, because it's stuck on the death/decay bit. More than that, it's unnatural death/decay, because it's killing without a good reason (like food, self-defense/defense of others, etc.) and is wasteful, which nature generally tries to keep to a minimum. The Dark Side and the Sith who use it disrupt the life cycle.
So my view is basically that it's not the Force's polarizations of Light and Dark that need to be kept in balance, it's the Force's flow (for lack of a better word). The Sith and the Dark Side interfere with the flow, thus unbalancing the Force.
But I think that the Jedi Order of the Old Republic wasn't exactly in balance with the Force themselves. They were stagnating--stuck in the "decay" part of the life cycle, if you will. Almost completely inflexible, as Anakin's case showed--they almost didn't accept him because of his age and his attachment to his mother, and wouldn't have accepted his marriage to Padme, which I think was just as much about tradition as real concern for how he managed his emotions. They don't allow themselves to act like people rather than ideals of people. Yoda mentions something like this, in the novelization of Revenge of the Sith, that they didn't allow themselves change, and became so inflexible that they broke at the first real pressure. I got it out of the library, so I don't have it anymore, but I remember that Yoda acknowledges that the Jedi Order hadn't changed and that's part of why they fell.
So as of Revenge of the Sith, there are two things that are unbalancing the Force: the Sith, and the stagnant Jedi Order. Which leads me to...
2. Balancing the Force--Anakin's choice
One of the main themes throughout the entire Star Wars saga is choice--Anakin's choice to leave Tatooine, to marry Padme in secret, to become Palpatine's apprentice; Luke's choice to leave Tatooine, to let go and fall instead of taking Vader's hand, to spare his father's life on the second Death Star and then try to turn him back to the Light. Choices define the movies.
But what about the prophecy, then? Anakin's destiny to bring balance to the Force? Fate doesn't imply much choice. But I think it's not so much that Anakin chose whether or not to embrace his destiny as the Chosen One as much as he chose how he would be bringing about that destiny. I think it would have happened no matter what, just by Anakin being who he is.
3. The Dark Side choice
We know what happened here, because that's the story that George Lucas told. Remember the things I said were unbalancing the Force back in section one? By the end of Episode III, he's gotten rid of one of the obstacles to balance, the stagnant Jedi Order. At the end of Episode VI, he's gotten rid of the other obstacle, the Sith, both his master and he himself. And to start the cycle of life again with new growth/rebirth, he's left his son Luke to rebuild a Jedi Order, a new one, without the stagnant practices of the old. The Force is balanced.
But even though that's what happened, that wasn't the only way he could have done it.
4. The Light Side choice
The Jedi talk a lot about the will of the Force, where everything happens for a reason. This means that Anakin was born into slavery and grew up loving his mother before being found and trained as a Jedi for a reason as well--it gave him a human touch (so to speak--I realize the galaxy far, far away is multi-species, but for ease of reference, I'll say human touch) that the other Jedi lacked. Yoda and the Jedi Council were afraid of him because he already had a pattern of emotional responses that the Jedi didn't have control over, but that was necessary, because if he'd chosen the Light, it would have been Anakin's destiny to reform the Order. This reformation couldn't have come from someone who'd been raised in Jedi tradition, because even the Jedi Order's "rebels", like Qui-Gon Jinn, were not able to make a difference in how things were run--Qui-Gon followed the Force more than he did the Jedi Council, but that just got him labelled a maverick, not a reformer.
So it had to be someone from outside the Jedi Order who shook them up and got them to see that they needed to either change or rot from within, hence why the Chosen One grew up in a loving (if single-parent) family. He had to bring the experience of "emotion does not automatically equal Dark Side". Hell, it's not even fear of loss that leads to the Dark Side so much as what that fear leads one to do--if Anakin had been able to channel his fear of losing Padme into making a breakthrough in healing, for instance, that would have been a good thing. Negative emotions can be positive motivators; discontent breeds change, because when people are happy with what they have they see no need to change.
And Anakin is certainly discontent--that's what made him such easy prey for Palpatine. But he needed to be that way. He was given such a large amount of midichlorians/power in order to defeat the Sith, and he was given emotional experience in order to want to reform the Order. So if he'd chosen not to let Palpatine kill Mace Windu (remember, Anakin, murder is illegal no matter who's committing it, and even if you thought Palpatine should have been given a trial, you didn't give Mace the same option), to instead choose the Light, then that would have led to the destruction of the Sith as well. He probably wouldn't have killed Palpatine right there, but he could have brought Palpatine to trial, and even if being a Sith isn't illegal, I bet propagating invasions (Naboo in TPM) and wars would have been enough to get him executed. But basically, whatever the details, Anakin would have brought about the destruction of the Sith.
Which would just leave the reformation of the Order for the Force to be balanced, which might be a bit harder. But Anakin would at least have a start--he found the Sith and stopped them, and stayed on the Light side. And I'm not going to get bogged down in the details of exactly how he'd reform the Order and how he'd make the Council listen to him (though since he's the Chosen One who got rid of the Sith for them, he might get some clout from that), because I'm not trying to write a fic, just pointing out some possibilities.
This way, Anakin gets rid of the Sith obstacle to balance, and gets rid of the stagnant Jedi Order as well, by pushing it into a different kind of rebirth, but still one that starts the cycle of life again.
5. Conclusion
Either way, Anakin balanced the Force, because it was his destiny as Chosen One to do so. But he was still given free will in how he fulfilled that destiny, and was able to make his own choices.
Now the only question that remains is: why did I write my first Star Wars essay on Anakin when I find his son much more interesting? :p
Anyway, without further ado...
Bringing Balance to the Force: Anakin, Destiny, and Choice
First of all, I'd like to preface this with a question--do we get any more detail about the prophecy aside from that there is a Chosen One who is supposed to bring balance to the Force? I couldn't find anything, and while I don't think it will matter to this essay, because it's around the same topic, I was just wondering.
Moving on.
1. What unbalances the Force?
Cheesy Disney songs aside, I've tended to think of the Force as being a circle of life kind of thing, with the cycle of birth, life, death, decay, and new growth/rebirth. The Dark Side throws this out of whack, because it's stuck on the death/decay bit. More than that, it's unnatural death/decay, because it's killing without a good reason (like food, self-defense/defense of others, etc.) and is wasteful, which nature generally tries to keep to a minimum. The Dark Side and the Sith who use it disrupt the life cycle.
So my view is basically that it's not the Force's polarizations of Light and Dark that need to be kept in balance, it's the Force's flow (for lack of a better word). The Sith and the Dark Side interfere with the flow, thus unbalancing the Force.
But I think that the Jedi Order of the Old Republic wasn't exactly in balance with the Force themselves. They were stagnating--stuck in the "decay" part of the life cycle, if you will. Almost completely inflexible, as Anakin's case showed--they almost didn't accept him because of his age and his attachment to his mother, and wouldn't have accepted his marriage to Padme, which I think was just as much about tradition as real concern for how he managed his emotions. They don't allow themselves to act like people rather than ideals of people. Yoda mentions something like this, in the novelization of Revenge of the Sith, that they didn't allow themselves change, and became so inflexible that they broke at the first real pressure. I got it out of the library, so I don't have it anymore, but I remember that Yoda acknowledges that the Jedi Order hadn't changed and that's part of why they fell.
So as of Revenge of the Sith, there are two things that are unbalancing the Force: the Sith, and the stagnant Jedi Order. Which leads me to...
2. Balancing the Force--Anakin's choice
One of the main themes throughout the entire Star Wars saga is choice--Anakin's choice to leave Tatooine, to marry Padme in secret, to become Palpatine's apprentice; Luke's choice to leave Tatooine, to let go and fall instead of taking Vader's hand, to spare his father's life on the second Death Star and then try to turn him back to the Light. Choices define the movies.
But what about the prophecy, then? Anakin's destiny to bring balance to the Force? Fate doesn't imply much choice. But I think it's not so much that Anakin chose whether or not to embrace his destiny as the Chosen One as much as he chose how he would be bringing about that destiny. I think it would have happened no matter what, just by Anakin being who he is.
3. The Dark Side choice
We know what happened here, because that's the story that George Lucas told. Remember the things I said were unbalancing the Force back in section one? By the end of Episode III, he's gotten rid of one of the obstacles to balance, the stagnant Jedi Order. At the end of Episode VI, he's gotten rid of the other obstacle, the Sith, both his master and he himself. And to start the cycle of life again with new growth/rebirth, he's left his son Luke to rebuild a Jedi Order, a new one, without the stagnant practices of the old. The Force is balanced.
But even though that's what happened, that wasn't the only way he could have done it.
4. The Light Side choice
The Jedi talk a lot about the will of the Force, where everything happens for a reason. This means that Anakin was born into slavery and grew up loving his mother before being found and trained as a Jedi for a reason as well--it gave him a human touch (so to speak--I realize the galaxy far, far away is multi-species, but for ease of reference, I'll say human touch) that the other Jedi lacked. Yoda and the Jedi Council were afraid of him because he already had a pattern of emotional responses that the Jedi didn't have control over, but that was necessary, because if he'd chosen the Light, it would have been Anakin's destiny to reform the Order. This reformation couldn't have come from someone who'd been raised in Jedi tradition, because even the Jedi Order's "rebels", like Qui-Gon Jinn, were not able to make a difference in how things were run--Qui-Gon followed the Force more than he did the Jedi Council, but that just got him labelled a maverick, not a reformer.
So it had to be someone from outside the Jedi Order who shook them up and got them to see that they needed to either change or rot from within, hence why the Chosen One grew up in a loving (if single-parent) family. He had to bring the experience of "emotion does not automatically equal Dark Side". Hell, it's not even fear of loss that leads to the Dark Side so much as what that fear leads one to do--if Anakin had been able to channel his fear of losing Padme into making a breakthrough in healing, for instance, that would have been a good thing. Negative emotions can be positive motivators; discontent breeds change, because when people are happy with what they have they see no need to change.
And Anakin is certainly discontent--that's what made him such easy prey for Palpatine. But he needed to be that way. He was given such a large amount of midichlorians/power in order to defeat the Sith, and he was given emotional experience in order to want to reform the Order. So if he'd chosen not to let Palpatine kill Mace Windu (remember, Anakin, murder is illegal no matter who's committing it, and even if you thought Palpatine should have been given a trial, you didn't give Mace the same option), to instead choose the Light, then that would have led to the destruction of the Sith as well. He probably wouldn't have killed Palpatine right there, but he could have brought Palpatine to trial, and even if being a Sith isn't illegal, I bet propagating invasions (Naboo in TPM) and wars would have been enough to get him executed. But basically, whatever the details, Anakin would have brought about the destruction of the Sith.
Which would just leave the reformation of the Order for the Force to be balanced, which might be a bit harder. But Anakin would at least have a start--he found the Sith and stopped them, and stayed on the Light side. And I'm not going to get bogged down in the details of exactly how he'd reform the Order and how he'd make the Council listen to him (though since he's the Chosen One who got rid of the Sith for them, he might get some clout from that), because I'm not trying to write a fic, just pointing out some possibilities.
This way, Anakin gets rid of the Sith obstacle to balance, and gets rid of the stagnant Jedi Order as well, by pushing it into a different kind of rebirth, but still one that starts the cycle of life again.
5. Conclusion
Either way, Anakin balanced the Force, because it was his destiny as Chosen One to do so. But he was still given free will in how he fulfilled that destiny, and was able to make his own choices.
Now the only question that remains is: why did I write my first Star Wars essay on Anakin when I find his son much more interesting? :p
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-16 07:23 am (UTC)Anyway, I loved reading this essay. You make many good points, especially about the nature of the Force, and I found myself nodding thoughtfully many times while reading. Thanks for this!
no subject
Date: 2005-11-18 06:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-17 07:55 am (UTC)I think that different moralities conceptualize and perceive the Force in different ways, kind of "creating" the Light and Dark Side as perceptive qualities, that while true aspects of the Force, are also tools of understanding imposed by Force users, and not absolute properties of the Force wholly outside of sentients' perceptions of it. I also tend to think of the Light Side as the classic Jedi conceptualized it as representing "order", so when the Jedi advocate following the "Will of the Force" it's the Light Side that exerts its Will via the Jedi to counter and balance the chaos aspects associated with the Dark Side, which probably will be sufficiently furthered by merely empowering all the Dark Side disciples to follow their individual passions, which will result in chaos and strife in a natural progression. So for the Dark Side there is no need for it to exert a will beyond being seductive with promises of licentious indulgence in their passions. Kind of like the Vorlon vs Shadow philosophical conflict in Babylon 5.
So if Anakin's destiny is determined by the whole Force, that chose him as a tool, it still allows for free will and moral choices within that framework of his destiny.
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Date: 2005-11-18 06:14 am (UTC)