So the Messiah in Star Wars is supposed “to bring balance to The Force,” but I never understood what it meant.
Star Wars is extremely dualistic–there is a good side and an evil side, a light side and a dark side, the Jedi and the Sith. Every plotline is based around a manichean struggle where only one side can win by annihilating the other.
The “good side”, the Jedi, are explicitly looking a savior to provide “balance” while at the same time imposing all sorts of restrictions on which force powers are allowed and which aren’t. For an order whose messiah is based on Taoist equilibrium, they are positively Christian in their obsession with purity.
I think there is an implicit subtextual critique of the Jedi Order in the prequels that they incompetent, as you might expect from the leaders of a theocracy, but that’s about as far as it goes.
I think the closest we get to ANY real discussion of balance is Luke’s vision on Degobah, where he must see himself as potentially Darth Vader, which can be interpreted as an attempt towards wholeness OR as a warning to not stray into evil.
Can anyone square this circle?
Edit: It’s funny to me that there are more comments than upvotes. People want to share. I love it.
Oh, there’s a Nickelodeon TV show called Avatar: The Last Airbender where people have telekinetic ability called bending, but limited to a single element (Earth, Air, Fire, Water). There’s an episode where a character is forced to bend the water inside someone’s blood to prevent her from killing people and it’s made out as a step towards evil, like a dark-sided Force power, whereas it’s really just one more way to use bending to force people to your will, just like bending a rock at their heads.
Avatar has some impressive depth to it and the writing is impeccable; definitely and always a kid’s show first, but I discovered it as an adult so it has a lot to offer. Just make sure to watch the original animated series and not the Netflix live-action caricature (and not to be confused with Avatar: Dances with Wolves in Space).
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The way my brain works, unfortunately. You’re not alone. My constant context-switching bothers my gf too.
Edit: Though I guess I’m a little confused (and annoyed) about why you think this is an AI thing. There’s a pretty obvious connection between bending and the Force.