Current Events > Was the Force out of Balance, when Anakin fell?

(+) Yeah! (+)

as i understand it, the dark side is an inherently imbalancing factor

so yes it was out of balance

Dungeater posted...

as i understand it, the dark side is an inherently imbalancing factor

so yes it was out of balance

So Anakin just fell and took his time to balance it?

People misunderstand what they meant by balance. Light side is balanced. The dark side is corrupting and unbalances the force.

Their choice to use the word balance was probably a mistake because it often leads to this misunderstanding, but this is what Lucas intended the lore to be.

They only said Anakin would bring balance to the Force. They never said when hed do it.

Hejiru posted...

People misunderstand what they meant by balance. Light side is balanced. The dark side is corrupting and unbalances the force.

Their choice to use the word balance was probably a mistake because it often leads to this misunderstanding, but this is what Lucas intended the lore to be.

This. The dark side is like a cancer that has corrupted the force.

The old rationale was that Anakin brought balance to the force as the prophecy foretold by defeating Sidious at the end of VI. But now that Palpatine somehow returned a little bit later, and had a collection of clones and sith followers secretly building super death star destroyers on the super secret sith planet making him more powerful than ever before, it kinda feels like the prophecy was just bs.

Unless you want to really stretch it and be like "Anakin brought balance to the force by temporarily pacifying the dark side for like a couple decades and being related to people like Kylo, Luke, and Leia who played a significant part in more solidly defeating the dark side later on"

^Or you could just ignore the dog shit Disney SW like most sane people.

wheres the
"who cares jedi are boring af unless wielding a lightsaber, and even then still more boring than the sith"
option

Kuuko posted...

The old rationale was that Anakin brought balance to the force as the prophecy foretold by defeating Sidious at the end of VI. But now that Palpatine somehow returned a little bit later, and had a collection of clones and sith followers secretly building super death star destroyers on the super secret sith planet making him more powerful than ever before, it kinda feels like the prophecy was just bs.

Unless you want to really stretch it and be like "Anakin brought balance to the force by temporarily pacifying the dark side for like a couple decades and being related to people like Kylo, Luke, and Leia who played a significant part in more solidly defeating the dark side later on"

Who says balance is permanent? There was balance presumably for centuries before the prequel series, then it was disrupted by the Rise of Sheev. Balance was once again restored when the Empire was destroyed, but came under threat again by the New Order.

specialkid8 posted...

Who says balance is permanent? There was balance presumably for centuries before the prequel series, then it was disrupted by the Rise of Sheev. Balance was once again restored when the Empire was destroyed, but came under threat again by the New Order.

You're right that is true but in which case it sure is a pretty lame prophecy. Imagine being Yoda and being like 900 years old. You watch as shit's all cool in the galaxy for centuries upon centuries. There slowly starts to be a disturbance in the force. But then the prophecy shows up saying some kid is the super special chosen one who will do amazing things to right the wrongs in the force. Then it turns out the amazing thing is that things were just slightly ok for a handful of years. Before they got super super bad again. And someone else REALLY brought balance to the force.

Rey is obviously more the super special chosen one than Anakin by that perspective. And the only thing Anakin has over her is the virgin mary birth thing. Which seems unnecessary in retrospect since obviously non-jesus-birth people can be extraordinarily strong in the force. I don't think anyone ever liked that plot point anyway. Or the chosen one plot point for that matter.

Hejiru posted...

Their choice to use the word balance was probably a mistake because it often leads to this misunderstanding, but this is what Lucas intended the lore to be.

IIRC it's due to the EU novels and how writers (influenced by fandom) treated the force like the Eastern concept of Yin and Yang by introducing grey jedi.

Lucas rarely dealt with the EU, but when he learned about why grey jedi existed, he forced subsequent writers to retcon the Yin-Yang Force as being wrong. Nearly every grey jedi introduced in the EU has fallen to the Dark Side to drive that point home. It pissed off several EU fans who liked the concept of the Dark Side not being inherently evil.

It's interesting that Disney seems to be going with the Yin-Yang Force idea. It must drive Lucas crazy.

thousands of Jedi and one Sith

then it becomes like 4 Jedi and 2 Sith

then eventually 1 Jedi and 1 Sith

i've seen two basic interpretations
one being Light and Dark, Yin and Yang. both are needed
the other interpreatation is more The Dark Side is a cancer on the Force and inherently un-balancing

i have no idea which is the right one. i'm gonna guess the Yin-Yang was more old Legend and thrown out by now

10,000 Jedi. 2 Sith. Seems imbalanced to me.

Kuuko posted...

You're right that is true but in which case it sure is a pretty lame prophecy. Imagine being Yoda and being like 900 years old. You watch as shit's all cool in the galaxy for centuries upon centuries. There slowly starts to be a disturbance in the force. But then the prophecy shows up saying some kid is the super special chosen one who will do amazing things to right the wrongs in the force. Then it turns out the amazing thing is that things were just slightly ok for a handful of years. Before they got super super bad again. And someone else REALLY brought balance to the force.

Rey is obviously more the super special chosen one than Anakin by that perspective. And the only thing Anakin has over her is the virgin mary birth thing. Which seems unnecessary in retrospect since obviously non-jesus-birth people can be extraordinarily strong in the force. I don't think anyone ever liked that plot point anyway. Or the chosen one plot point for that matter.

When talking about balance, it can only take one little push to completely topple everything. If Anakin was prophesied to be the chosen one it could mean he was the little push at just the right moment of imbalance to turn things back to the right side and set off a cascade of other important people to bring true balance. In the long run, prophecies are notoriously untrustworthy and also George Lucas definitely did not put anywhere near as much thought into his story as internet nerds have since. He just liked prophecies. It's good shorthand for story telling.