Balancing of the Force?

The debate Ares and I had could not be resolved with mere opinions, and he brought up some points that I needed to consider before I could continue. Something bothered me about the idea that the balance of the Force is only threatened in the PT/OT era and not for thousands upon thousands of years of Light Side versus Dark Side. The entire concept just seemed to defy reason. So here's what I've uncovered in a short time. The following are some arguments presented from other people with GL quotes, and I'd like to discuss them objectively, without a great deal of blind faith or literal interpretation.

Originally posted by Advent
1. George Lucas has stated that he is, in fact, the Chosen One. On numerous occasions actually. And it's obvious that "fulfilling the prophecy" equates to being the Chosen One.

"...which brings us up to films IV, V, and VI where Anakin's offspring redeem him and [b]allow him to fulfill the prophecy where he brings balance to the Force by doing away with the Sith and getting rid of evil in the universe."

-- George Lucas, A New Hope Special Edition, VHS.

As well, on the most recent RotS DVD, there is a second disc that contains documentaries and bonus material. One of them is called the Chosen One. Lucas confirms that Anakin is the Chosen One in that. He says it's because he destroys Sidious in RotJ, and in the process he kills Darth Vader (basically himself). So, the prophecy is fulfilled.

George Lucas has said something similar in a Rolling Stone interview.

"There is a hint in the movie that there was a Sith Lord who had the power to create life. But it's left unsaid: Is Anakin a product of a super-Sith who influenced the Midichlorians to create him, or is he simply created by the Midichlorians to bring forth a prophecy, or was he created by the Force through the Midichlorians? It's left up to the audience to decide. How he was born ultimately has no relationship to how he dies, because in the end, the prophecy is true: Balance comes back to the Force."

-- George Lucas, Rolling Stone Magazine, June 2005.

As well, I believe the TPM novel also plainly outright states it. I'd hope all of this is suitable evidence for you.

2. The NEC confirms that. And while it is written in universe, it's pretty asinine to just throw it away with what all we know. Anakin is the Chosen One. I believe Escape has a quote that states his potential exceeds Sidious' own by double. From that, I really don't see anyone coming close.

However, at the moment I can't find any direct sources that you would take, so I'll continue looking. But, this is pretty obvious in my eyes.

3. Nowhere. Some people purely speculate from a statement made by George Lucas in a Rolling Stone interview. I've debated this numerous times, and nothing [to me] indicates such.

So, basically there has been no confirmation.

And Sexy, while I'd agree that it's ridiculous to assume the NEC is "fallible" (or rather not a source to go on), it is written from an in universe perspective. The narrator is Voren Na'al.

EDIT:

Or for Anakin being the Chosen One, just refer to ESB's post above, lol. [/B]

This post comes from Nov, '06, so it's hardly up to date, but one of the quotes was taken as the truth for some time; that the balance implied the destruction of the Sith (and apparently Anakin along with them, either as a byproduct of the struggle or as a necessity). It seemed reasonable that balance, according to GL and by extension G-canon, was the Sith being vanquished. The problem was, this doesn't sync with EU, where Sith exist continuously before and after the G-canon timeperiod.

--

And here's something from Gideon also back in '06:

Originally posted by Gideon
When did the Prophecy ever state that "balance" would be [B]permenant? The Sith came back because Palpatine's essence fled to a clone body. Lumiya addresses this in LotF. She doesn't consider DE Palpatine to be a true Sith (like Vader and RotJ Palpatine were), but simply a clone with all of Palpatine's Sith teachings and techniques hardwired into it. [/B]

This following viewpoint is newer from July of this year, and is from poster "Beniboybling" at TOR forums. This was chosen because it was easily findable and contained some quotes we could use for examination:

The Clone Wars cartoon you refer to is produced by George Lucas. And these quotes you make reference to only say that destroying the Sith will restore balance, which at that point is the case, just like after the death of the Daughter the Son had to die to restore balance. It also says the dark side is evil, which is also true. But you cannot have good without evil. But George Lucas can explain it better than I can:

"The overriding philosophy in Episode I—and in all the Star Wars movies, for that matter—is the balance between good and evil."

-George Lucas, quoted in L. Bouzereau, Star Wars: The Making of Episode I, 1999

"In each of us we to have balance these emotions, and in the Star Wars saga the most important point is balance, balance between everything."

-George Lucas, Time Magazine article, 2002

"The idea of positive and negative, that there are two sides to an entity, a push and a pull, a yin and a yang, and the struggle between the two sides are issues of nature that I wanted to include in the film."

-George Lucas, quoted in L. Bouzereau, Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays

"The Force has two sides. It is not a malevolent or a benevolent thing. It has a bad side to it, involving hate and fear, and it has a good side, involving love, charity, fairness and hope."

-George Lucas, Times Magazine, 1980

"I wanted to have this mythological footing because I was basing the films on the idea that the Force has two sides, the good side, the evil side, and they both need to be there. Most religions are built on that, whether it's called yin and yang, God and the devil—everything is built on the push-pull tension created by two sides of the equation. Right from the very beginning, that was the key issue in 'Star Wars.'"

-George Lucas, Times Magazine, 2002

"The Light and Dark Side manifest themselves in the way they are used; they are simply different interpretations of a single aspect of nature, and they exist in balance with themselves and the universe. Just as with any aspect of life and death, both the Dark Side and the Light Side are intertwined with each other, are necessary to each other and form a cosmic balance."

-The Dark Empire Sourcebook

And from the recent Mortis arc:

"It is only here that I can control them. A family in balance. The light and the dark. Day with night. Destruction, replaced by creation...Too much light or dark would be the undoing of life as you understand it."

The Father, who keeps control over the Daughter and the Son i.e. maintains balance, seeks the Chosen One to replace him. Proving the Chosen One would restore balance to the Force through balancing the light with the dark, not destroying the dark side.

This is a common misconception based on one quote were Lucas says the Force is a 'cancer', however clearly Lucas no longer holds this to be true, given the Mortis episodes which Lucas himself had a heavy hand in creating i.e. it was his idea. This instead is the belief held by the Jedi, that restoring balance involves destroying the dark side entirely.

But according to Wookieepedia:

George Lucas himself has stated that Anakin is the Chosen One and that the prophecy is true, although it had been misinterpreted by the entire Jedi Order.[12][13]

The idea that balance in the Force is simply the light side and that the dark side is a cancer has since been overridden. Not that that makes any sense as the very word 'balance' implies equality between light and dark, destruction and chaos, light and shadow. One cannot exist without the other.

I'm near my character limit, so please give me a few more minutes to compose a second post for additional info and clarity.

Here's some dialogue from RotS:

[list](after Anakin is assigned by the Jedi to spy on Chancellor Palpatine)
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Anakin did not take to his new assignment with much enthusiasm.
Mace Windu: It's very dangerous, putting them together. I don't think the boy can handle it. I don't trust him.
Obi-Wan Kenobi: With all due respect, Master, is he not the Chosen One? Is he not to destroy the Sith and bring balance to the Force?
Mace Windu: So the prophecy says.
Yoda: A prophecy that misread could have been. [/list]

Wookiepedia explains the theory as this:

The prophecy of the Chosen One was an ancient Jedi legend that foretold the coming of a being who would restore balance to the Force. The idea of balance of the Force, a central tenet of the Jedi Order, referred to the ideal state in which the Force existed in nature, namely as the light side. According to Jedi dogma, the presence of the dark side corrupted and destroyed this natural balance, and the Jedi viewed it as their duty to restore it. The prophecy was one of hundreds of obscure legends maintained by the Jedi Order, though its origins and actual content remain unknown. It was thought to have been created by the earliest Jedi philosophers, after the creation of the Galactic Republic but before the Jedi assumed an active role in it.

It seems that Lucas' earlier statements about the Dark Side being cancerous have been retconned and explained away as the mislead ideas of the Jedi in relation to the prophecy. Things are also vague on whether or not Anakin was created by the Sith, or created in response to the Sith. GL himself even leaves this vague on purpose and for that reason we should give this some considerate thought.

--

Here's my concern:

1. The interpretation of the balance of the Force being solely tied to the Chosen One implies that before and after this time period, things were balanced.

2. This is again in spite of many many vicious wars against the Dark Side and its agents, chiefly in the form of Sith, throughout the ages when billions died and entire planets were stripped of life. In the case of the purge of the Jedi (KotOR II) time, the Jedi were at their lowest numbers since the OT.

3. Ares brought up the Force ritual used by the Sith before Sidious' rise, and the events on Mortis as clear indicators that the Force was tipped in favor of darkness, as well as the impaired ability of the Jedi in sensing danger/the future.

4. Regarding the ritual, it is admittedly the clumsiest part of Luceno's otherwise awesome work and does not explain how Sith can use the Force to.... force the Force to Force itself Forcy Dark Side etc. It just sounds like as Vene said "woo woo magic bullshit".

5. Regarding Mortis, I am less familiar with the events here, so I reserve judgment.

6. Regarding the impaired ability of the Force, Yoda says explicitly in ESB that the future is "always in motion" and is difficult to see. Nowhere in the mythos are Jedi shown to be accurate fortune tellers as a whole, and the Jedi Council is normally the last party to be aware of danger. Monumental failures to sense anything include the failure to sense Sadow's mass-illusion army, failure to sense the Sith Emperor behind the Mandalorian Wars, failure to sense the Sith Triumvirate, failure to figure out Malgus was going to pull an Avon Calling at their doorstep, and failure to notice Sith for a thousand years before Sidious was even spawned.

On this point, the Jedi Council is about as accurate as the weather channel.

My point is that the balance of the Force implies some kind of equilibrium. It's not the genocide of the red Sith post Great Hyperspace Wars, or the slaying of Sidious and Vader and their ilk. Nor is it the obliteration of the Jedi as per the Purge of TSL era. It seems logical enough that any time one side threatens the other greatly, or becomes too dominant in terms of power over the other, that balance is threatened, and therefore the Chosen One theory, while still valid within the context of G-canon and the movie era, does not adequately explain the rest of EU. Indeed, it may even be the case that other figures are saviors of their own eras of upheaval, such as Ulic Qel-Droma, Revan redeemed, Gav (a long shot, I agree), and the Hero of Tython to name a few.

What are your arguments? What are your thoughts?

Arawn_Fenn explained it pretty well at RoK: the dark side itself isn't the problem; the Sith are. More specifically, the Banite Sith. Most specifically, Sidious and Plagueis.

The Jedi didn't sense a change in the Force until approximately 200 years before Yavin (Labyrinth of Evil), a change which became further aggravated by Sidious & Plagueis's ritual in Plagueis, and exacerbated further still by Palpatine's actions post-Plagueis.

BTW, have you read Plagueis yet?

So then I have to ask:

1. How are the Bainite Sith worse to the balance of the Force than say, Nihilus being a wound and killing Force users en masse, and leaving planets barren in his wake?

2. How are the Bainite Sith worse to the balance of the Force than Vitiate's attempt to drain the cosmos?

3. How are the Bainite Sith worse to the balance of the Force than Kun corrupting and mass murdering Jedi, building the Dark Reaper, and creating vast corruptions of life using the Dark Side?

I have not read Plagueis yet, because I am going to reread some of my other EU books. It's been awhile for most of them. And I never did finish Maul's book.

It's a shame your fascination for poorly written, unpopular KOTOR/TOR-era books clouds your judgment. You're missing out on superior EU.

As to your questions, I'm not sure what you mean: The Banite Sith were responsible for far more Jedi deaths than either Nihilus or Kun and Vitiate's attempt to drain the cosmos failed miserably.

1. I was going to reread Clone War era books. You fail at assumptions.

2. LOLWUT? Nihilus and Sion drove the Jedi to the verge of extinction. Like, besides the Exile there's three Jedi Masters left and pretty much no one else. Most of the council was murderred at Katarr when Nihilus nom'd the entire planet, and Sion and his assassins routinely murdered those Nihilus didn't devour. When was the last time you played the game, bro?

3. So you're saying it's based on the quantity of those who die that determines balance? Ares said that was incorrect.

Originally posted by Stealth Moose
1. I was going to reread Clone War era books. You fail at assumptions.

Plagueis must be read first.

Originally posted by Stealth Moose
2. LOLWUT? Nihilus and Sion drove the Jedi to the verge of extinction. Like, besides the Exile there's three Jedi Masters left and pretty much no one else. Most of the council was murderred at Katarr when Nihilus nom'd the entire planet, and Sion and his assassins routinely murdered those Nihilus didn't devour. When was the last time you played the game, bro?

Sounds like you really ought to reread the Clone Wars books, son.

...Nihilus and Sion were merely mopping up the remnants of the Jedi not claimed by the wars against Revan, Malak, and the Mandalorians. Between the Clone Wars and Order 66, the Banite Sith slaughtered far more.

Originally posted by The_Tempest
Plagueis must be read first.

Sounds like you really ought to reread the Clone Wars books, son.

...Nihilus and Sion were merely mopping up the remnants of the Jedi not claimed by the wars against Revan, Malak, and the Mandalorians. Between the Clone Wars and Order 66, the Banite Sith slaughtered far more.

Except that TSW indicates explicitly that there are ten thousand Jedi in the Order, which is comparable to the PT Order in numbers. And yes, Revan owes some responsibility for their purge, but the fact remains that by the time Nihilus and Sion are defeated, the Jedi could all comfortably fit in a Volkswagen Golf.

So yeah, IF the number of Jedi slain is indicative of Force imbalance, THEN it seems reasonable the Force was out of balance then.

Slaughtered more than Revan and his empire? Debatable.

What are the figures for the Jedi just prior to Revan's war and after?

Originally posted by Stealth Moose
Except that TSW indicates explicitly that there are ten thousand Jedi in the Order, which is comparable to the PT Order in numbers.

How many were left after Kun and Qel-droma were defeated?

Originally posted by Stealth Moose
And yes, Revan owes some responsibility for their purge, but the fact remains that by the time Nihilus and Sion are defeated, the Jedi could all comfortably fit in a Volkswagen Golf.

That's not a fact in dispute and Revan is responsible for far more than just 'some' of the Triumvirate's purge. The Banite Sith (specifically Palpatine and his apprentices) were responsible for the deaths of thousands of Jedi Knights; didn't the Triumvirate only kill less than a hundred?

Originally posted by Stealth Moose
So yeah, IF the number of Jedi slain is indicative of Force imbalance, THEN it seems reasonable the Force was out of balance then.

Not at all. You merely asked me how could the Banite Sith's efforts be worse than the actions of Kun, Nihilus, and Vitiate in the context of casualties and rituals. It's simple: The Banite Sith killed more and their rituals succeeded.

Vitiate is surely responsible for far more dead Jedi than Sidious.

Originally posted by Nephthys
Vitiate is surely responsible for far more dead Jedi than Sidious.

I should hope so, given that he had 14 centuries and an empire of Sith to achieve something meritorious.

Me
The Banite Sith were responsible for far more Jedi deaths than either Nihilus or Kun and Vitiate's attempt to drain the cosmos failed miserably.

What I meant is that the Banites killed more than Nihilus or Kun and their ritual succeeded, unlike Vitiate.

Tempest, ten thousand Jedi unite above Yavin IV to use the Wall of Light against Exar Kun. Forty years later, KotOR occurs. So unless thousands died of influenza in the interim, it's reasonable to assume that number remained stable until the Jedi Civil War and subsequent purge.

Originally posted by Stealth Moose
Tempest, ten thousand Jedi unite above Yavin IV to use the Wall of Light against Exar Kun. Forty years later, KotOR occurs. So unless thousands died of influenza in the interim, it's reasonable to assume that number remained stable until the Jedi Civil War and subsequent purge.

You're forgetting about the Mandalorian wars in between, bro.

NOW WHO DIDNT PLAY THE GAME?

You mean, the Mandalorian wars that barely any Jedi fought in? As in, just the ones who followed Revan? Who then turned into Sith afterwards?

Originally posted by Nephthys
You mean, the Mandalorian wars that barely any Jedi fought in? As in, just the ones who followed Revan?

Coulda been a lot.

Not to mention that Jedi apostates flocked to Revan in droves after the war, meaning that the order Revan attacked was already wracked with desertion and dereliction.

Revan's purge was as effective as Sidious'.

Originally posted by The_Tempest
Coulda been a lot.

Not to mention that Jedi apostates flocked to Revan in droves after the war, meaning that the order Revan attacked was already wracked with desertion and dereliction.

Yeah, and all those Jedi turned into Sith and died anyway, which I imagine would be a lot worse for the balance than just killing them.

Originally posted by The_Tempest
What are the figures for the Jedi just prior to Revan's war and after?

Originally posted by The_Tempest
That's not a fact in dispute and Revan is responsible for far more than just 'some' of the Triumvirate's purge. The Banite Sith (specifically Palpatine and his apprentices) were responsible for the deaths of thousands of Jedi Knights; didn't the Triumvirate only kill less than a hundred?

Originally posted by The_Tempest
Not at all. You merely asked me how could the Banite Sith's efforts be worse than the actions of Kun, Nihilus, and Vitiate in the context of casualties and rituals. It's simple: The Banite Sith killed more and their rituals succeeded.

In addition, Vitiate's first (super) ritual was success, creating a massive disturbance in the Force and leaving a planet a void. His second (super) ritual was stopped (it did not failed).

Nephthys
Yeah, and all those Jedi turned into Sith and died anyway, which I imagine would be a lot worse for the balance than just killing them.

Originally posted by psmith81992
Revan's purge was as effective as Sidious'.

[Beefy]Wow... I guess repeating shit over and over again without proof constitutes a logical argument. Check your crippling bias at the door you liberal hippie sumbitch and make me a sammich.[/Beefy]