DARK SIDE OF THE MIND: STAR WARS PSYCHOLOGY The Good, the Bad, and the Scruffy: Can We Define Good and Evil? | by Travis Langley
For reference, this book is just as much about the original trilogy as it is about the prequels, so when they use “Jedi”, they often mean Luke’s era of post-ROTJ “JedI” and just ANY Force-users.
But the bigger point–and why I think this is an interesting point to make, as something we’ve seen a lot of in canon–is that this is why control of one’s emotions is so important. Not to suppress them or deny them (because the Jedi have explicitly said that’s not what they’re teaching) but to control them.
And we see why–just a couple of examples here!–Ezra’s fear causes the fyrnocks to attack:
A powerful Force-user like Darth Vader is able to straight up KNOCK AHSOKA TANO OUT, who has been trained and is strong in the Force as well:
And there are loads of examples of how we see people leaving their feelings–both good and bad–in the air and world around them. The Force isn’t just something that allows the Jedi to lift rocks or catch glimpses of the future–it’s how they connect to the entire galaxy. It’s how they see the world around them, the people around them, the life around them. It’s how they feel, it’s how they parse things, it’s how they think.
It puts them in psychic connection with those around them (to varying degrees, of course) and this is why you need to have control. This is why getting drunk off the Force and the emotions around you is a genuine danger and could allow you to hurt yourself and others very badly.
Feelings linger–Luke still feels Rey in the stone seat she sat on, thoughts and feelings imprint into the kyber crystals and become part of the blade, Luke can feel the anger roiling off Kylo Ren into the Force around them, this is how a Sith bleeds a kyber crystal–and echo and amplify everything.
If a Jedi were to let themselves run wild, if they stopped having control over themselves, it’s like getting drunk off the Force and thinking you’re still totally in control. And that’s what Depa and Mace and Obi-Wan are all teaching.
Hey guys, can you please, PLEASE stop pretending the clones are actually children? Please? They’re not children, they are MEN, they’ve said it a million times through the show and you still don’t understand.
You say they’re actually ten? Yes it’s true, but remember that they grow up two times faster than a normal human. It’s not like they missed the period of being kids, yes they spent it training and training, but they WERE kids. They didn’t just jumped to be adults, they might be 10, but they have the mind and the body of an adult, so please stop pretending they’re kids.
You know what do remind me of when you say they’re children you have to take care of? You remind me of Spanish conquerors when they arrived to America to colonize it. It was the EXACT same mentality they had towards native americans. How so? They thought the indigenous people were inferior to them because they were considering to be like kids who needed to be taken care of. That’s what you remind me of when you say “omg the clones are children and I need to protect”
You know, with all the language throughout Star Wars about “giving in” to the Dark Side, how the Dark Side makes you more powerful, how the Dark Side makes you age strangely and destroys you, it sure doesn’t sound like an “opposite side of the coin” so much as the “deeper end of the pool,” like it’s actually the true form of the force and being a Jedi is about keeping it tamed so it doesn’t eat you the way it actually wants.
the force is entropy
Eldritch Jedi pls
This is one of the reasons i love the second Knights of the Old Republic game, wherein one of the major characters (who defines herself neither as Jedi nor Sith) actually views the Force this way, saying “I hate the Force. I hate that it seems to have a will, that it would control us to achieve some measure of balance, when countless lives are lost.”
It’s also the game that gave us the two most entropic, eldritch characters in the franchise: Darth Nihilus, whose dark-side-borne ability to feed on the Force and consume life itself has twisted him into a half-living “wound in the Force”, more presence than flesh
and Darth Sion, whose entire body is a ruin, his flesh nothing but ragged scar tissue, every bone and muscle broken and torn, kept animated by will alone as he forces himself, second by agonizing second, to exist
I wish there were more horrifying perspectives on the force like that
This is one of the reasons the term “Light Side” never felt right to me, even before it was used in any official media; The Force always struck me more like an ocean than a binary concept: the deeper you go, the darker and more crushing it gets — at a certain point becoming an effectually consistent darkness — and while light filters down and fades for some distance, if there is a truly light “side” it’d be the surface.
Which isn’t to say “the Force is evil unless you flounder about near the top” — just that it’s a natural force, and as such is something you need to respect and be adequately prepared for. (Take electricity, for example: super awesome and pretty dang useful, but OH HOLY SMOKES don’t try and harness it unless you REALLY know what you’re doing!)
In this sense, being tempted by the Dark Side is less a case of “Hey, I wonder what’s on the other side of this coin it looks pretty cool haha oh whoops I’m Space Walter White now,” and more one of “The deeper into this thing you go, the harder you’ll need to fight to resist the ever-increasing pressure, to remain whole, even to just see whatever the heck you’re actually doing.”
(which is why Jedi training is so important: those padawans gotta build themselves a mental Deepsea Challenger!)
THIS META BLESSED ME
Okay but let’s suppose, for a moment, that the Force is actually malevolent.
That would make a lot of sense.
Consider, for a moment, an eldritch parasite. This ancient being feeds off of the life-force of other creatures. Not that unusual, as most living things also consume other living things, to various degrees. But this one is technically somewhat removed from the usual structures of biology. It is a passive and opportunistic predator, for the most part. Whenever a living being that is connected to it – however weakly – dies, it consumes part of its energy, and gets bigger.
As life in the galaxy flourishes, and time passes, this singular entity gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger. Like a catfish; the only limit to its growth is how much it can consume to fuel it. The larger it gets, the more it is able to sink its invisible claws into other living beings, until eventually there is hardly any life out there which hasn’t been ‘infected’ by it, and slated to become its spiritual dinner as soon as its biological form gives out.
And here we actually come to – of all things – the midichlorians. Which, the Jedi use to measure someone’s sensitivity to the Force, which works because midichlorians are the vehicle for the predatory parasite to infest living beings. The immune systems in some people begin to develop a certain degree of resistance to them, which is why some folks have more, and some have less, and this directly correlates to their Force sensitivity. The more midichlorians you have, the worse your immune system is at fending off the parasite.
The Force counters the risk of being bred out of subsequent generations by developing camouflage, and adapting itself into a more seemingly-symbiotic relationship with its prey.
What the Jedi see as the ‘light side’ of the Force, is a reflective layer that this predator has created via its connection to all living things. This network is the honey trap that encourages the beings still strongly connected to it, to spread that connection, because it affords them advantages while they are still alive. But its elements are comprised mostly of echoes and reflections of their fellow prey organisms. Force Ghosts that resemble the departed. Emotions that are transmitted along this layer and between individuals. Small amounts of power that can be siphoned off to impact the environment, and can also spread the Force to whatever living thing it comes into contact with.
This being is huge now, it needs a lot of juice in order to maintain its existence, let along continue to grow. And like most predators it’s willing to expend a certain amount of energy in order to guarantee a bigger pay-off.
The deeper you go into the Force, the more the Force starts exerting its own will through you. And the less you see of the reflected camouflage of it, and the more apparent it becomes that the Force wants large swaths of death to feed it. Which is why Dark Siders often become so preoccupied with things like Death Stars.
But it’s a balancing act. A large population of relatively peaceful Force sensitives, like the Jedi, cost more than they’re worth, because beyond a point they take too much energy from the Force and don’t kill enough people to pay for it. A single individual abusing their powers for self-gain and murdering left and right, though, accomplishes the goal of feeding it. The Force obviously doesn’t want its food supply to die out completely, but this explains the persistent cycles of the Star Wars universe – as a soon as a group of peaceful Force users becomes prominent, they get wiped out by a few Dark Siders who have tread too deeply past the reflective surface of the Force, and become actual vessels for its will.
And then when the Dark Siders have finished killing a whole bunch of people, it’s time for them to go, too, so that they don’t wipe out the entire populace and kill off the Force’s food supply beyond its ability to reasonably recover. The peaceful types then see an upswing, as they are more adept at spreading the Force. So the cycle goes – Jedi spread the Force, Sith kill the Jedi and feed the Force, Jedi kill the Sith and resume spreading the Force. It’s a planting and harvest cycle, and the galaxy is populated with the Force’s living spirit crops. Anakin Skywalker, who was arguably one of the beings most closely connected to the Force, and had an extremely high midichlorian count, basically lived this cycle in its entirety as an individual – he spread the Force as a Jedi, he killed people as a Sith, and then he ended it all in order to preserve his progeny for the next round.
tl;dr – the Force wants to eat your soul. The reason the ‘light side’ types always get so up in their own asses is because what they perceive as the Force is basically their own reflections dangling in front of them like an angler fish’s lure. The reason the ‘dark side’ types get so messed up is because they’re basically the equivalent of those grasshoppers who get infected with a parasite that makes them drown themselves.
This point of view would actually explain both No-Attachment rule and the Order’s cradle-robbing – some more self-aware Jedi saw the Force for what it is and pushed for a rule that potentially would cut births of Force-sensitive kids to a bare minimum. And those who were born Force-sensitive thanks to a quirk of the Force are to be taken from the society in the quickest way possible before they mess up, given tools to keep it at bay, and indoctrinated to never want to dabble in the deeper ends of their ability. It would also explain the whole debacle of Unifying vs Living Force and why Jedi seem to prefer the former – all of the description of the Living Force I came across present it as more ever changing, nearly organic entity and Jedi that use is as more responsive to its nudges, so potentially more inclined to being “corrupted” by it.
Sadly, Star
Wars has a serious representation issue so information is sparse. I’ve been
told Disney is trying to improve things but since this is a GL’s blog I’ll focus
on Legends, okay?
I have the feeling that the accceptance (or lack of it) vary from one culture to another and depends a lot on the region in galaxy and era.
Like, Mandalorian warrior culture does not put much (if any) weight on gender roles and thus people born and raised in such society don’t have problems with other people’s sexuality and gender. Those who joined Mandalorians as an adults – with already
shaped concept of sex & gender by their experiences and culture – simply learn very fast that harassing other warrios is not an option. Mainly, because even mandalorian kids are capable of beating the crap of anyone and there are also clan memebers always ready to protect their own. I mean, in Mando society you are either naturally born/raised a tolerant person, or someone most likely will finally beat – or kill – you for good and most warriors are gonna be okay with that solution. What matters is only what kind of person the Mandalorian is, not what is their gender or which whom they share bed.
It’s much difficult to tell for sure about Republic and Outer Rim territory and its laws or
attitude to
LGBT+ groups, but there is so many planets – so many species and cultures, I’m pretty sure there is wide range of approach. I mean, in cultures like of Dathomir, where only women have high social position and were taught they are better and above males, it makes sense for them to seek company of other women, while male slaves population were just for breeding or pleasuring their masters kinda like ancient Grecee just with
reverse social roles . Similar to Dathomir was Hapan society, in which men also were the second class citizens and some felt so trapped by matriarchal society they run away and became pirates. Maybe not the best examples, but for sure human and human-like species aren’t the same and in some the male and female sex is primally for breeding, not of romantic choice, I guess. What opens door for various perceptions of sexuality and gender. Not sure if Legends or New Canon gave much informations about the matter (beside already quoted stuff by Padawnlost) but in star wars universe Hutts were hermaphrodites (which meant they had both male and female reproductive organs and as a result of this, gender was more of a case of a Hutt’s deliberate decision) and
Devaronians have visibly sexual dimorphism
(interesting, some females lack the fur [a femine trait], have skin colors and details more male-like, but their female gender was never questioned by other characters) and I’m pretty sure there are also races that lack dimorphism or don’t care much for romantic feelings or kept their true gender/look in secret and seeing them without the mask/clothes is great offend if one is not their partner (Tusken Raiders/Sand People).
Same with human x alien relationships. Between human race, most likely is acceptable if alien was humanoid and only had non-human color of skin/hair or other small details that were easy to ignore (Twi’leks, Zeltrons to name few). The more alien creature wouldn’t be that liked. Those mixed relationship for sure were looked down during Empire era, due to the pro-human ideology and racism/speciesism.
I know that Legends weren’t that specific with talking about acceptance of different sexuality or gender, but it put some ground for fans to see that
galaxy is not unified in this matter – some cultures are gonna be more
accepting
than others and a lot
depends on social & cultural conditions
people lived in and considered as norm. And since the various species co-exist, the idea of gender and sexuality is evolving all the time.
From new sources, I’m familiar mainly with Aphra comics series, but it’s hard to judge how society looks upon lesbian/homosexual women since the story is about rogue archaelogist, involved with bounty hunters and imperials, so the society’s opinion does not matter much in Aphra’a adventures.
It wasn’t the about
the hybrids. I went looking for info on them and ended up finding what can only
be described as one of the most blatantly racist and sexist characters in Star Wars. It’s horrifying to read but at the same time it’s so very realistic. It’s a story
about aliens in space but the rationalization behind the racism and sexism is
very human.
It’s a short story by
Barbara Hambly called Nightlily The Lovers’ Tale. To avoid spoilers I won’t get
into plot details, okay? The main character is Gotal called Feltipern Trevagg,
a tax collector from Mos Eisley during the Empire years.
When a female Modbrek
and her two daughters go to him to ask for help to avoid going without water
and subsequently losing their home, this is his reaction:
The Modbrek female’s distress irritated him.
Coming from another of his own species—another Gotal—it might have evoked pity,
though Trevagg had been less ready than many of his compatriots to yield to
emanations of wretchedness and fear. But Modbreks were in Trevagg’s opinion
only semisentient, wispy
ephemeral beings, hairless as slugs save for the grotesque masses of blue mane
that streamed from their undeveloped heads, with huge eyes, and tiny noses and
mouths in pointy pale faces.
He nudged a
toggle on the control board of his desk. A human deputy in a rumpled uniform
came in and showed the three females out. Trevagg could sense the man’s pity
for them, and also, much to Trevagg’s
disgust, the fact that the human found the insubstantial creatures physically
attractive, even sexually interesting.
Later he meets a female called Nightlily and
is immediately attracted to her. YET…here’s what he thinks of her:
Of course
they couldn’t really be cones, thought Trevagg the next moment. She was no Gotal, but someone of the
dull-minded and insentient lesser races … But the imitation was perfect,
and it was enough. He wanted her. He wanted her badly.
He took her
hand in his, loving the satin texture, the smooth eroticism of the way the
knots on its back tightened and swelled at his touch. “Don’t you understand
what I feel for you? What I felt for you the moment I entered the office, the
moment I heard your voice?” The moment I
sensed in you the ultimate prey, the most beautiful of conquests to be
vanquished?
He wasn’t
sure exactly what inner vibrations he should transmit to convince her of his
overwhelming desire for her—she
obviously didn’t have the civilized sensitivity of a Gotal, maybe couldn’t
pick up anything at all and was operating entirely at the face value of his
words. Judging by her conversation, she
was either barely sentient or truly stupid, and in any case, Trevagg had very
little interest in females’ thoughts or desires.
Besides,
once he’d had her he certainly didn’t want her hanging around under the
impression that he was actually going to go through with marrying a semisentient alien bimbo, wondrous
though she might be between the sheets.
The fact
that she couldn’t even detect him in a lie—that she didn’t have that much
sensitivity to the vibrations of his mind—only redoubled his contempt for her. So desirable—so innocent—so stupid … No wonder they don’t let virgins
travel off her planet. She’d told him that, too. They’d never make it home. Not
as virgins, anyway.
They would
be given a choice: renounce their “dark ways” and return to the fold or be
considered lost. If someone was considered beyond “salvation” they would either
be exiled or killed.
“As Jedi learn more about the Force, it is not unusual for them to form their own theories about how and why it works. They question how, if the Force creates and sustains life, it can have a dark side. Some arrive at the conclusion that the Force is not divided into dark and light, that its energy is inherently positive, and that there is no “dark side” waiting to corrupt them. Time and again, this conclusion has been proved erroneous, and the Jedi who felt compelled to test the limits of the Force rarely perceived the dangers of their explorations. As they approached the brink of the dark side, some were rescued by other Jedi or came back willingly when they saw the error of their ways. Those who refused to renounce their mistaken beliefs were either exiled to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, or destroyed.” [Ryder’s Windham’s Jedi vs. Sith: The
Essential Guide to the Force]
If exiled they would
probably end up in a prison like the Citadel. But, considering how the PT-era
jedi dealt with dark side users, they would most likely end up dead. Walking a way from the
other was only allowed when the person was not a dark side user. If you went
dark side, living peaceful away from the Order was not an option because the
order would consider them a potential threat to the galaxy. You would either
end up dead, arrested or on the run.
Yes, Jedi can go for a
long time without sleep, food or rest. Most of them can push themselves beyond
the normal limits of the human body but to go without sleep or food for a
really long period (years) was something most Jedi could not achieve.
[Obi-wan] drew himself
into an alert meditative state. For the last couple of years, Obi-Wan had tried to cut down on his need
to sleep. While all of the Jedi he knew slept, he had heard that some did not.
He was certain that meditative alertness performed all the functions of sleep,
and would give him time to examine his own thoughts at their deepest levels, to
maintain vigilance. [Greg Bear. Rogue Planet]
[Anakin] started
crawling again, once more ignoring the hot, quivering protests of strained
muscle and sinew. Refusing to acknowledge his dry mouth and throat, the
headache behind his eyes, the voracious rumbling in his gut. The Force would sustain him a little while
yet. [Karen Miller. Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth]
How many days ago had that been? [Anakin]
couldn’t remember. Not many. When you don’t sleep, days smear together into a
haze of fatigue so deep it becomes a physical pain. The Force could keep him
upright, keep him moving, keep him thinking, but it could not give him rest. Not that he wanted rest. Rest might
bring sleep. What sleep might bring, he could not bear to know. [Matthew
Stover. Revenge of the Sith]
But this force ability
was not without consequences:
To his great relief,
Obi-Wan managed a faint chuckle. “No. It’s all right. Truth be told, I’m
hungry, too. It’s unfortunate but it can’t be helped. We’ll manage.” Of course they would. They’d manage by
drawing on the Force to fuel them. Which it would, but at a steep cost to their
overstretched bodies. And when the inevitable crash came afterward it was going
to be messy. “I can cope with the burnout,” Anakin said. “But what about
you?” [Karen Miller. Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth]
The war made them push
themselves more than usual so we could say most Jedi were sleep-deprived and
eating poorly during that time. but they manage to keep their strength up by
using the Force. In Anakin’s case, this is particularly true as he lost weight
and, by his own admission, hadn’t slept properly in years.
[Anakin] was badly
distracted and full of unease. His
dearly familiar Jedi tunic looked just a little too loose on him, as though
he’d recently lost some weight. The war’s wearing him down. He takes it so
personally. He wants to fix everything that’s broken. He thinks that’s his job.
[Karen Miller. Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth]
“I—no. No, I’m all
right.” Anakin sank gratefully into a dangerously comfortable chair. “I’m
just—a little tired, that’s all.” “Not sleeping well?” “No.” Anakin offered an
exhausted chuckle. “I haven’t been
sleeping well for a few years, now.” [Matthew Stover. Revenge of the Sith]
PS: Despite using the
force to sustain himself, Anakin didn’t enjoy going hungry for a very particular
reason.
If he said hungry,
Obi-Wan would throw something at him. But he was. [Anakin] was ravenous. And he hated, hated, feeling hungry. The sensation
stirred too many memories. Distracted him with the past when he needed his mind
on the present. [Karen Miller. Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth]
ok public poll: is anakin being serious here or is he more like “iT Is noT the jEDI wAY” like that one spongebob meme
Funny answer: Both lol
Serious answer: The Jedi Code was the only thing Anakin had left. Palpatine had been tempting for so many long and had finally revealed himself as the Sith Lord. Anakin didn’t followed him immediately because that wouldn’t have been “the Jedi way”. Then at this moment, Anakin realized, what’s the real difference between the Jedi and the Sith? Both were willing to kill an “unarmed person” (which we know it’s false).
Anakin was in desperate need of help. He had asked the Jedi for help when he talked with Yoda and the only thing he got was basically a “let that person die, there’s nothing you can do about it, if you’re afraid of losing them, then you’re taking the path of the dark side, you’re greedy for not wanting to let them go” (paraphrased, but that’s almost the same thing Yoda told him). And then Palpatine comes and tell him “Hey! There’s a way to stop people from dying! The Jedi won’t teach you, but I can”. Anakin realizes Palpatine is the Sith and goes to the Jedi and then this happens.
Anakin chose to follow Palpatine because he didn’t had any hope left in the Jedi.
Same. Fortunately,
the old EU rectified that mistake and now the 3 millions clones were only the
first “batch”. Adding to what you already mentioned, It makes no sense to have
only 3 millions clone to fight billions of droids for 3 years. That’s just bad
math. Even I know this will end badly lol
The first two hundred
thousand Grand Army clones were collected from Kamino by the Jedi Grand Master
Yoda, who raced to Geonosis to confront Dooku and the leaders of the newborn
Confederacy of Independent Systems. Another
wave of a million clones was ready soon after that, part of Sifo-Dyas’s initial
order of three million. [Star Wars: The Essential Guide To Warfare by
Jason Fry]
[…] created
a number of droid models designed to wage war against the Republic. B1 battle
droids, droidekas, and starfighters known as vulture droids first saw action in
the invasion of Naboo in 32 BBY; a decade later, the Clone Wars would see billions upon billions of droids battle the
Republic’s armies from one side of the galaxy to the other. [Star Wars:
The Essential Guide To Warfare by Jason Fry]
I mean, I’m with the
fans who believe the real number was somewhere between 11 billions and 1
trillion.
People are
still debating over how many clones were create during the clones. We have
conflicting sources and the numbers can be anywhere between 200.000 and one
billion. The guides says initially 3 millions clones were created but that is a
controversial number.
And how many clones a single Jedi General could
have?
Depends on
the Jedi and their units.
Squad (9 troopers): The
smallest unit in the Grand Army is the squad, led by a clone sergeant.
Platoon (36 troopers):
A platoon consists of four squads, led by a clone lieutenant.
Company (144 troopers plus
support personnel): A comany consists of four platoons, led by a
clone captain.
Battalion (576 troopers
plus support personnel): A battalion consists of four companies, led
by a clone battalion commander.
Regiment (2,304 troopers
plus support personnel): A regiment consists of four battalions, led
by a clone regimental commander and a Jedi commander, often a Padawan serving a
Jedi general.
Brigade (9,216 troopers
plus support personnel): A brigade consists of four regiments, led
by a clone senior commander and a Jedi general. Some brigades were called
“legions.”
Corps (36,864 troopers
plus support personnel): A corps consists of four brigades, led by a
clone marshal commander and a Jedi general.
Sector Army (147,456
troopers plus support personnel): A Sector Army consists of four
corps, commanded by a highly experienced Jedi general.
Systems Army (294,912
troopers plus support personnel): A Systems Army consists of two
Sector Armies, commanded by a Jedi general, a role filled at this level by
members of the Jedi High Council.
Grand Army (3,000,000+ troopers plus
support personnel): The Grand Army as originally constituted
consisted of all ten Systems Armies, led by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine as
Commander in Chief. [The Essential Guide to Warfare: Star Wars by Jason Fry]
Were there
enough Jedi to command the whole clone army or were there clones that didn’t
had a Jedi as a general?
No, the GAR
didn’t have the resources to protect the entire galaxy and the Jeid didn’t have
the manpower to overseer everything so some non-Jedi were eventually given military
positions (including general).
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