#force philosophy

Because Visions aren’t set in stone. They represent possibilities. The closer you are to the moment you’re seeing the more accurate it’s likely to be. When Anakin was still a kid he had a Vision of coming back to Tatooine as a Jedi and freeing all the slaves. That was a genuine possible future for him, but it was so far off and there were so many variables between the moment he saw and the moment he was in. Conversely, at the same age he had what I think of as smaller visions of the future, just seconds ahead and not taking his full attention. That’s his Podracing and Piloting foresight that Qui-Gon comments on. Neither of these things are prophecies, only visions with very different odds of coming to pass.

Prophecy, on the other hand, is set in stone. It’s much more mysterious to the audience, because we’ve never actually seen one given, but they exist and they do come to pass. These are the things that will happen no matter what anyone does. The true Will of the Force, whether that means an actual entity making decisions or natural reactions within an organized system I don’t pretend to know. Prophecy, and by extension Destiny, are immutable.

A Chosen One shall come, born of no father, and through him will ultimate balance in the Force be restored.

There will come a perfect being who will be free of limits, they will lead the Sith to glory, then destroy them, and resurrect them stronger than ever before.

In the time of greatest despair there will come a savior, and he will be known as the Son of Suns.

These are Prophecies. They are the solidified expression of abstract Destiny. They do not represent all that is certain in the Force, only the things that have been put into words.

Destiny is nebulous. It’s something that can be felt within a person, but not seen or anticipated. It’s the weight of a being in the Force. This is what the Jedi Council senses from Anakin, and what their forbearers felt from Revan. Destiny will come to pass, no matter what form it takes.

Jolee Bindo explains it well with a tale about a man he once knew who was marked by Destiny. The man, Andor Vex, was aware that he was Destined to create great change, and this made him arrogant. When the moment of his Destiny arrived, captured and brought before a nasty war lord, he starts mouthing off at this temperamental war lord. “Release me! Don’t you know who I am!?” So of course the dude picks him up and chokes him, before tossing him into an energy intake shaft. Where he bounced around screaming on his way down to the ship’s reactor core. And something about him being in that shaft or the core caused a cascade of system failure throughout the vessel, killing the war lord and presumably his men. And it changed the political course of the sector for centuries. He was destined to kill that war lord. Didn’t matter how he did it. If he’d made better choices he might’ve done it the way he expected, heroic and noble. But he was an idiot who thought Destiny made him invincible.

As the sky above copies his colours, Maul finally grows into himself and unlocks a secret, unplanned, love for life. Moments later, his vigorous desire to hold on to it develops.

The ungodly determination that allowed Maul to survive bisection was born in this moment.

The imagery here also relates to the cosmic nature of the dark side. It is as we expect, of course, a vision of hell. But there is beauty and majesty; The dark side is not a sickness here, but is joyous, like Maul. Alive and dancing. How interesting for something which is associated only with suffering and death.

@starrypawz tagged me over the weekend - thank you!

I don’t have any actual writing done yet for the next chapter, but I’ve been doing some worldbuilding re: the ancient Je’daii and how I want to adapt their history and philosophy for Reduced to Ash.

So, in canon, the Je’daii began when eight pyramid ships called to Force sensitive beings and ferried them through the galaxy to Tython, where a ninth ship waited. They settled Tython and devoted themselves to keeping a balance between light and dark side, and they were successful for a good 10,000 years. Canon has it that they didn’t really stray from Tython, but I’ve decided to add to the lore. 

I’ve decided there are nine world, including Tython, that have some sort of special resonance with the Force. Two are absolutely seething with the dark or light side (Korriban and Tython, respectively), three with light side “wells” (Tatooine - the warrior visits one while searching for Jaesa - Ossus, and Illum), three with dark side “wells” (Ziost, Nathema, and Honoghr) and one that is sort of a both/none situation: Myrkr. The planet itself seethes with the entire living Force, which is why vornskrs and other native fauna hunt using the Force, and why ysalimir and other prey animals have evolved traits to help hide them from it. For the indigenous life, the planet seethes in the Force. For visiting Force users, it is completely devoid (thanks to the ysalimir).

This is why later Force users gravitated toward certain worlds, even if they weren’t aware of the Force well per se. The Je’daii visited these planets and established enclaves, so there’s more archaeology out there for people to find.

The Kazerath | Poe Dameron 20, Charles Soule, Art Angel Unzueta, Colors Arif Prianto

Force as exhalation may be inspired by the concept of Qi, which literally means breath/air and figuratively means life force.

Ooooh that is an excellent point - well, tbqh, i’m not sure it was inspired by anything per se (if it ever gets developed beyond two sentences, it’ll become clearer), but the subconscious works in mysterious ways, and Chinese philosophy has long been an influence of Star Wars. Well, the, hum, pop version of Chinese philosophy. I can’t remember if Lucas ever confirmed (maybe in the Bill Moyers interview?) but it’s been argued that the Force was pretty much based on (Lucas’ understanding of) ch’i. 

I mean, the concept of ch’i is complex in itself (one of those hard to translate words with multiple meanings, meanings who changed quite a bit over time), but it also belongs to a worldview (the best term for that would be the German weltanschauung, in the modern sense) that is vastly different from the Western one, who inherited the Greek two-worlds view; reality (the world of rules beyond our perceptions) vs.appearances (the shadows on the wall of Plato’s cave).

The Acolyte allows us to see the Jedi as they are instead being in a consistently high pressure environment that forces quick action and therefore decisions that can be easily defended. The show exposes the Jedi for what they are, people, who make choices, who make mistakes, who don’t always agree, who are flawed. The enemies they fight are not pure evil. They don’t seek domination or control over others. They don’t torture innocents. They simply are, and they are in a way that caused the Jedi to deem them a threat. The Jedi started the conflict, Mae, and later Osha, and to an unverified degree maybe Qimir, just respond. Maybe Mae went looking for the conflict again after it had passed, but in a way that was more akin to hunting escaped criminals to make them account for their crimes than just senseless rage. She wanted them to atone, to face what they had done rather than hide from it. Yes she was violent but she only went looking for people she saw as responsible, people who chose to be involved, who chose violence and deception.

The Jedi in The Acolyte are a religious institution with government ties and presumably funding who have unchecked power that they attempt to keep only for themselves. They falsely believe that the only way to use the Force safely is their own and they never question whether or not that’s true, or those that do are expelled or killed for questioning it. In actuality there are many ways to access the Force, just as many as there are minds connected to it. There are numerous examples of different ways to channel it, different disciplines and mindsets, the Je’daii, the Dai Bendu, the Voss, Witches, even the Knights of Zakkul, all used the Force in ways that aligned with neither Light nor Dark philosophies. The Jedi’s refusal to acknowledge that their way isn’t the only way is what led to their downfall. They made enemies where there were none and pushed all the Force sensitives who didn’t become Jedi into the arms of the Sith.

Not to mention the cult tactics that keep their own members reliant on being part of the Order, which The Acolyte was able to subtly showcase with Osha. After leaving the Order she had no transferable skills or money and was forced to take on a job that was both dangerous and illegal. That illustrates the situation all Jedi are in very well. Follow the religious teachings of the Order and the actual orders and assignments given by the Masters or strike out completely on your own, with no money or close friends or marketable skills to help support you, oh and don’t use become a rouge Force User or you’ll end up in prison or dead.

Yes the Jedi mean well, but at the end of the day they are just a collection of people. Powerful people, yes, but still people. They feel and think and have individual personalities and limitations and desires and values. They are people. People. Nothing more and nothing less.