Luke didn't show as much compassion as he showed his authority.
He made it clear by acting: "I AM going through here."
He could have tried to have a conversation. Or at least a little mind trick. The point is that there was no rush at the moment. He didn't have a need to act quickly.
Can we say that Luke lacked patience in the beginning of ROTJ?
Obi Wan showed a great amount of compassion while he was in cantina with Luke. Instead of mind tricking or force choking the thug who harassed Luke, he offered to buy him a drink. Only after it became obvious that violence would be unavoidable did he grab his weapon.
Registered: May 2004
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So would a jedi who slays hundreds of people yet be mentally damaged so as to think that he is doing the right thing a 'evil' force user? Or would he be 'tainted' as it is.
Star Wars goes to pains to make it black and white in the use of the force
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First of all, there is nothing that guarantees that a sabre brings a quick death. Secondly, that is still irrelevant to the morality behind the use of a weapon- like I say, a weapon kills, that is what it is for. Justbecause something kills you cannot rule it as evil. Killing is part of the Jedi's job, be he using a gun, a sabre, or the Force. If Lightning can ONLY torture someone before killing hem, then sure, that's harsh, and he wouldn't do it, but not because it is evil, simply because its use is restricted- like stabbing someone to death with a toothpick.
Luke was just being efficient in ROTJ I think. Those guards were not going to let him past so he used a non-lethal method of bypassing them; simple as that.
__________________
"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
OK, well I guess he's doing a "force-sleeper-hold" then.
The scene did give the wrong impression, as I've asked many people about this scene, and they all agreed that it looked as though he killed them in cold blood.
It does create the wrong impression - the pigs struggle and seem in pain, but cannot scream - an idication that they are being choked. Then they slump backwards. They seem pretty dead.
They should have shown a CLEAR cut of the guards snoring, or something if he was just putting them to sleep.
And Force Lightning used against a living person is a dark side trait.
I was always under the impression that Dark Side users could create lightning, but Jedi couldn't, it's too aggressive and raw. Instead I always thought that Jedi ABSORBED energy, which gives them such affinity for life and so on. Sith expel raw energy, life ebs away from them. Jedi absorb calm energy, life tops them up.
IF Luke can choke someone temporarily, I assume he could possibly zap them with lightning if he so chose. If a squad of battle droids were slauthering people and Luke used force lightning to destory them, that wouldn't be evil. It depends on how much control you have over the force, light or darkside.
__________________ "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant, next to the power of the force."
Or ...
maybe that Luke, like his father Anakin, is very sensitive when his friends/familly are in danger (maybe because of the impressive total of Midichlorians his body has ) morever he doesn't have a master jedi next to him all the time to remind him to stay on the Jedi's path...Indeed for me he goes a bit "sithhy" with those gammoreans.
I think that Luke has his dark side demons, and that episodes IV, V, VI were his moment s of glory, wherever Episodes VII, VIII and IX will show his fall !
And the new Master Sith, he will become !
..or not...I don't really know but if he becomes evil, this scene in "The Return of the Jedi" will clearly be a nice move !
Registered: Mar 2013
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i agree that a force-choke is not inherently evil. i also accept that it's possible that luke was just doing a force-sleeper hold.
what i can't accept is the notion of an off-camera unadressed resolution of luke's inner conflicts at some point between ESB & RotJ. when we last saw him in ESB, he is clearly battling the idea of reaching out to his father, while expressing anger at kenobi for not having told him the truth from a more universal point of view.
luke was deliberately depicted as morally ambivalent at the beginning of ROTJ as a continuation of his dilemma at the end of ESB. the deleted scene [where he's still being psychically pursued by vader] would have made it certain that this dark foreboding was very much deliberate.
tl;dr - the force choke is not a specifically dark use of power, but the depiction of it's use by luke clearly presented a dark and foreboding tone.
__________________ Your Lord knows very well what is in your heart. Your soul suffices this day as a reckoner against you. I need no witnesses. You do not listen to your soul, but listen instead to your anger and your rage.
Last edited by Bashar Teg on Oct 17th, 2014 at 05:05 PM
Registered: Mar 2013
Location: in your mind, rent free
it's not just the games that lead to the assumption, though. until that rotj scene, the choke was only performed by vader...and 3 times at that, 4 if you consider that one-arm choke-slam in the beginning of ep 4.
this doesnt prove anything, but the fact remains that until that scene, vader had a monopoly on choke-holds (with exception to chewbacca choking lando....but after all he's only a wookie).
it's the same as with force lightning. nowhere is it established that the technique is specifically dark-sided, but the fact that only the sith have used it leads to the assumption.
__________________ Your Lord knows very well what is in your heart. Your soul suffices this day as a reckoner against you. I need no witnesses. You do not listen to your soul, but listen instead to your anger and your rage.
Last edited by Bashar Teg on Oct 21st, 2014 at 06:37 PM
Well, still a weak argument. We hardly saw any other Jedi fight, other than with a light sabre. We saw Vader choking using the Force, in ROTJ we see Luke doing the same. It might as well indicate Luke is maturing in his Force abilities.
I think it's more in the nature of the Sith to use the Force in a particular way to suit their selfish goals. And I guess Jedi use the Force for knowledge and defence, never for attack...
I don't think they are powers unknown to the Jedi. OB1 certainly wasn't too surprised about Dooku's lightning.
Registered: Mar 2013
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you don't know that obiwan wasn't surprised by dooku's force lightning. that's your interpretation. either way, on two occasions, OT and PT, palpatine names it a darkside ability to throw lightning. sure he's also a proven big fat liar, but it's still an on screen testimonial, so the argument is valid.
__________________ Your Lord knows very well what is in your heart. Your soul suffices this day as a reckoner against you. I need no witnesses. You do not listen to your soul, but listen instead to your anger and your rage.
Registered: Mar 2013
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he clearly suggests it before zapping yoda in ep3 and then luke in ep6. "now you will witness the full power of the darkside" *zap*, "your feeble skills are no match for the power of the dark side" *zap*.
but no queeq, he didnt say "now i will use force lightning, which you know nothing of since it's exclusively a darkside ability.", so i guess thats that.
__________________ Your Lord knows very well what is in your heart. Your soul suffices this day as a reckoner against you. I need no witnesses. You do not listen to your soul, but listen instead to your anger and your rage.
Registered: Mar 2013
Location: in your mind, rent free
in case i was unclear, i'm not asserting that force lightning is an exclusively darkside power.
maybe it's possible for a jedi to learn force lightning in a calm and collected way without letting hate flow through him. is so, it was probably done and deemed useless since it can only be used to torture and eventually kill.
__________________ Your Lord knows very well what is in your heart. Your soul suffices this day as a reckoner against you. I need no witnesses. You do not listen to your soul, but listen instead to your anger and your rage.
Last edited by Bashar Teg on Oct 22nd, 2014 at 11:07 PM