Star Wars: Credo of the Grey Jedi . . . I chose something else!

[Erekose]

The reason that there is no 'balance' is because there aren't actually two SIDES.

Look at it like this:

The Light side IS the Force. It isn't good...but it isn't bad, either. Its just the natural state of the Force.

The Dark Side is a CORRUPTION of the natural state. It isn't another side, but instead, much more like a disease of sorts. Its the reason for the unnatural effects it has on life and things around it(including the Force itself).

This sounds like the best explanation so far. Although as I said originally, Luke is a much better illustration of the Force as opposed to the aesthetics in Episodes 1-3. Although it makes sense that their collective "fear" of turning to the Dark side might well be their rationalisation of abandonment of emotion. i.e. if you feel nothing then how can you be tempted/seduced by anger, fear, aggression . . .

 

[kenobi65]

This sounds like the best explanation so far. Although as I said originally, Luke is a much better illustration of the Force as opposed to the aesthetics in Episodes 1-3.

Or "ascetics", even...though I understand that Mace Windu enjoyed interior design in his spare time.

 

[Erekose]

Or "ascetics", even...though I understand that Mace Windu enjoyed interior design in his spare time.

Oops!

Well . . . we all make mistakes . . . as the Dalek said climbing off the dustbin!

[Sorry - old joke]

 

[bluegodjanus]

Is there a middle ground between the Light and the Dark?

What? Did I hear somebody wondering about a more balanced view of the Force? Somebody wishing they didn't have to choose yin or yang, but could be the whole circle? Try the Order of the Grey.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I believe that there is a middle ground that can be maintained for a while, but ultimately the force user must choose light or dark. Mara Jade is the perfect example of one who started gray and ended up light.

 

[Dagger75]

I believe that there is a middle ground that can be maintained for a while, but ultimately the force user must choose light or dark. Mara Jade is the perfect example of one who started gray and ended up light.

She was a Dark Jedi who turned to the light side. She is the WORST example. It is either Light or Dark. I agree people who want to play "grey" jedi are just munchkins wanting to use dark side powers with out the dark side points. If you are looking for a loophole to justify your actions, guess what, thats the dark side.

 

[Dragonhelm]

If memory serves, the Jensaari from I, Jedi (and mentioned in Star Wars Gamer at some point) are good examples of "grey Jedi." I want to say they blended both Jedi and Sith techniques, though it has been a while.

 

[Falkus]

KOTOR 2 spoilers

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turn out to be one of the Sith masterminds in that game?

That's doing the character a disservice, her motivations were much more complex than that. She was neither Sith, nor Jedi, she disavowed both philosophies as being flawed and overly dependant on the force.
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[Plane Sailing]

All the available source material seems to suggest that a balance is impossible to maintain. There's 'something' about the Dark Side of the Force that corrupts. One day you kick a puppy ... normal guy, that's okay. Force user? A week later you're slaughtering kids in a school and helping Darth Dastardly take over the known universe by killing all of your friends. No clue why.

--fje

Excellent analysis, HT! An explanation for the precipitate fall of Anakin in Ep 3 *does* exist after all!

 

[Taraxia]

The Force multiplies everything. It's like being high on drugs. It fills you up with life force and magnifies your ability to perceive the emotional content of everything.

Meditate, and get peaceful, and feel at one with the universe, and you get *really* peaceful and *really* at one with the universe, to the point that you can endure incredible pain and sense split-second motion with sharp clarity and all that crap. Do something good for the right reasons and the feeling of satisfaction of being good is immense and incredibly powerful -- Jedi who lose themselves in this reverie and really let themselves stay in the zone can act on autopilot for days, just following their instinctive "This is the Right Thing to Do" intuition. An ordinary good person has a *bit* of peace and harmony and all that crap and that's why they seem nicer and happier than plain old un-good jerks, but the Jedi have that times ten thousand.

Spin it around in the opposite direction for Sith. Ordinary guy kicks a puppy? He feels a little tiny adrenaline rush, but it fades. Sith kicks a puppy? The sense of overwhelming power and joy at having exercised power against another living thing is enormous. He can feel other people's pain, and if he lets himself he can convert it into pleasure. Ordinary jerk might laugh a little bit to see someone he doesn't like trip and fall -- Dark Jedi *feels* the pain, and where Light Jedi feels the pain and shares it and finds it intolerable and must go help the poor guy, Dark Jedi feels the pain and revels in the fact that it's someone else's and is filled with orgasmic spasmodic twitchiness over it. Before you know it all that twitchiness is manifesting itself as deformed skin and maniacal laughter and blasting shooting lightning bolts coming out the wazoo.

For Jedi, ordinary emotional experiences are like mainlining drugs. You can mainline good, happy drugs that make you peaceful and calm, or bad, nasty drugs that make you scream and smash things. But keep a "balance" between the two? Nuh uh. It's like shooting up meth and then shooting up heroin and hoping that because one's a stimulant and one's a narcotic they'll cancel out and leave you a normal person. Doesn't really work.

(Note that I think the mistake of the Jedi Council wasn't in trying to shut out the Dark Side, but trying to shut out everything that could *lead* to the Dark Side as well. Luke never embraced the Dark Side, but he embraced emotion while not letting the emotion serve as a conduit to the Dark Side. In other words, he was capable of blissing out on shrooms indoors while still going outside once in a while for a jog, without needing to shoot up meth to give himself the energy to do so.)

(I apologize for the non-family-friendliness of this metaphor. I am 100% clean in real life, I swear.)