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Darth Bane and Luke Skywalker have always been my favorite Sith and Jedi respectively, in large part because they both transformed their orders to better embody and reflect the nature of their respective sides of the Force, and transcend the weaknesses of their past orders, but recently I've come to appreciate their philosophies on a deeper level.
The greatest weakness of the Sith has always been infighting, and Darth Bane took that weakness, and built a Sith Order around it where that that weakness would be used as a mechanism for cyclical evolution, drawing strength and improvement from conflict. To establish this principal, Bane in a sense had to look beyond himself and transcend evidence to hold the importance of the dark side and truth of its principals above even his own life, creating a system that was almost certain to kill him because he truly believed the principals of the Dark Side and strength were what should rule the Galaxy. This cyclical evolution eventually lead to the rise of Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious, who managed to unbalance the Force in favor of the Dark Side.
This clearly effected the power struggle on Mortis, with the Father starting to die and weaken as the Balance of the Force was disturbed and lose control over the Son. On top of this, it lead to the birth of Anakin, and between the Son being less constrained by the Father and Anakin's own actions, the Ones ended up dying. Ultimately, Anakin also ended up ending the Banite line.
Then Luke was there after the fact, to rebuild the Jedi Order, to give stability to a Galaxy reeling from war and tyranny. The Jedi Order's greatest weakness had always been its complacency, its strive for emotional detachment that ultimately made the Jedi fear their own emotions and become somewhat detached from the Galaxy they were supposed to protect, and between fearing the essence of who they were as beings and detachment, they became somewhat prideful. This lead to the general cockiness of the Old Jedi Order council, and some pretty twisted things that stemmed from that belief like the Jedi kidnapping children, viewing themselves as above problems rather than dealing with them (like when Yoda gave Anakin the most inhuman, cold, and unhelpful advice regarding how to deal with his premonitions of Padme's death), and the belief that nobody could topple them and that the Sith were truly defeated (lol nope). Luke saw past this hubris and built the philosophy of the new Jedi Order on love rather than emotional detachment, which ended up leading to him acting in the best interests of the Galaxy, and creating an Order that could function on the moral judgement of each of its members, less reliant on centralized power. When he ran into Abeloth he was willing to team up with Sith for the greater good, which allowed them to defeat her before she got too powerful. Afterwards, He decided that with the Ones death, the Sith and Jedi must take their place in maintaining the balance of the Galaxy, and sent a team of Jedi to hunt for the Dagger of Mortis to kill Abeloth if she ever returned. Unlike the Old Jedi Order, Luke was willing to do whatever it took to protect the Galaxy, and even after victory Luke was willing to admit that very real threats still existed and threatened the entire Galaxy. He was also tempted with the Font of Power and saw his own sacrifices in the Pool of Knowledge, ultimately realizing and trusting the Jedi Order he had created to continue in their mission, because he had created an Order more able to function on individual moral judgement, and less dependent on dogmatic preaching from some central figure or council.
After realizing this, I now have a deeper appreciation for Banite and Lukean philosophy than I did before, as well as just the philosophy of SW in general. The Banite principal of developing strength through hardship and conflict by transforming that negativity into a process for improvement and the Lukean understanding that even if some emotions can be misleading love is a guiding force that can give you meaning and purpose, both of which are philosophies I've come to truly understand and embrace in the past week, and both of which Luke and Bane embraced by not falling into traps of arrogance and looking and valuing things beyond themselves. In doing so, the Sith and Jedi were able to have a tangible influence even with beings like the Ones and Abeloth in the playing field.
The greatest weakness of the Sith has always been infighting, and Darth Bane took that weakness, and built a Sith Order around it where that that weakness would be used as a mechanism for cyclical evolution, drawing strength and improvement from conflict. To establish this principal, Bane in a sense had to look beyond himself and transcend evidence to hold the importance of the dark side and truth of its principals above even his own life, creating a system that was almost certain to kill him because he truly believed the principals of the Dark Side and strength were what should rule the Galaxy. This cyclical evolution eventually lead to the rise of Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious, who managed to unbalance the Force in favor of the Dark Side.
This clearly effected the power struggle on Mortis, with the Father starting to die and weaken as the Balance of the Force was disturbed and lose control over the Son. On top of this, it lead to the birth of Anakin, and between the Son being less constrained by the Father and Anakin's own actions, the Ones ended up dying. Ultimately, Anakin also ended up ending the Banite line.
Then Luke was there after the fact, to rebuild the Jedi Order, to give stability to a Galaxy reeling from war and tyranny. The Jedi Order's greatest weakness had always been its complacency, its strive for emotional detachment that ultimately made the Jedi fear their own emotions and become somewhat detached from the Galaxy they were supposed to protect, and between fearing the essence of who they were as beings and detachment, they became somewhat prideful. This lead to the general cockiness of the Old Jedi Order council, and some pretty twisted things that stemmed from that belief like the Jedi kidnapping children, viewing themselves as above problems rather than dealing with them (like when Yoda gave Anakin the most inhuman, cold, and unhelpful advice regarding how to deal with his premonitions of Padme's death), and the belief that nobody could topple them and that the Sith were truly defeated (lol nope). Luke saw past this hubris and built the philosophy of the new Jedi Order on love rather than emotional detachment, which ended up leading to him acting in the best interests of the Galaxy, and creating an Order that could function on the moral judgement of each of its members, less reliant on centralized power. When he ran into Abeloth he was willing to team up with Sith for the greater good, which allowed them to defeat her before she got too powerful. Afterwards, He decided that with the Ones death, the Sith and Jedi must take their place in maintaining the balance of the Galaxy, and sent a team of Jedi to hunt for the Dagger of Mortis to kill Abeloth if she ever returned. Unlike the Old Jedi Order, Luke was willing to do whatever it took to protect the Galaxy, and even after victory Luke was willing to admit that very real threats still existed and threatened the entire Galaxy. He was also tempted with the Font of Power and saw his own sacrifices in the Pool of Knowledge, ultimately realizing and trusting the Jedi Order he had created to continue in their mission, because he had created an Order more able to function on individual moral judgement, and less dependent on dogmatic preaching from some central figure or council.
After realizing this, I now have a deeper appreciation for Banite and Lukean philosophy than I did before, as well as just the philosophy of SW in general. The Banite principal of developing strength through hardship and conflict by transforming that negativity into a process for improvement and the Lukean understanding that even if some emotions can be misleading love is a guiding force that can give you meaning and purpose, both of which are philosophies I've come to truly understand and embrace in the past week, and both of which Luke and Bane embraced by not falling into traps of arrogance and looking and valuing things beyond themselves. In doing so, the Sith and Jedi were able to have a tangible influence even with beings like the Ones and Abeloth in the playing field.
