What are your thoughts on the je'daii? Do they even work, like I find myself irritated by the concept because people often use them to validate/prove the notion that "balance = both sides of the Force"
If you stick to what George Lucas said, in Star Wars a person being "balanced" is someone who accepts their inner darkness and resists its pull nonetheless.
When fans mention the Je'daii, it's usually in the context of:
"The Jedi downgraded from the Je'daii, limited their studies of the Force, refusing to study the Dark Side was a mistake. It was an original sin that caused them to create an imbalance within them."
Which is weird, to me, because the whole point of the comic's narrative is that:
the Je’daii Order’s way was doomed to fail.
Introduced in the Legends comic series Dawn of the Jedi (2012), the Je'daii are the predecessors of the Jedi. They are an order of Force users who studied and practiced both the Light Side and the Dark Side in hopes of finding Balance.
The reasoning is simple: everyone has a bit of good and bad in them, you learn to master the good and the bad sides inside of you, indulging them equally. But while this method seems sound on paper… it didn't work.
Consider that they’re already dabbling with the Dark Side...
... but hey, at least they’re aware of its dangers, they’re trying to be responsible about it.
There's a support system where they all warn each other when they're about to cross a line. But even then, there's many who've fallen and been exiled to a moon, to be rehabilitated.
Suddenly, circumstances compel all of them to use the Forcesaber, a weapon that only activates when you draw on the Dark Side.
And that does something to them. Over the course of a year, they all become increasingly aggressive.
Soon, a faction breaks off because they no longer want to stop using the Forcesaber. They’re addicted to the Dark Side.
A war ensues, at the end of which the Jedi Order is born, a group of Force users who:
acknowledge and accept their inner darkness,
while also striving to overcome it rather than give it power.
So that’s the moral of the whole Je’daii story.
Their idea of "Balance by wielding both" was actually so fragile and difficult to maintain that all it took was a little push for them to become vulnerable to the Dark Side's temptation.
Hell, even after the Jedi Order was established, one of its founders, Master Rajivari - who in Dawn of the Jedi (2012) is framed as a wise ex-general who, albeit strict, spends his days meditating and philosophizing - he goes to the Dark Side too!
Because that's how the Dark Side works.
The Dark Side isn’t just "negative feelings" or a "bad guy superpower" that you can mix with a "good guy superpower" to unleash the ultimate 'Force blast'. This isn’t an anime.
The Dark Side is a drugs/smoking/drinking addiction.
It's selfish, temporary pleasure. The more you consume it...
... the more you get addicted...
... and the more it consumes you right back...
... until nothing remains.
Jon Ostrander, who wrote Dawn of the Jedi (2012), echoed this sentiment multiple times:
“As I see it, those working on the light side work with the Force, channeling it, open and sensitive to what it tells them. They serve it. Those on the dark side try to impose their will on the Force, to make it do their will, to make it serve them. The Je’daii believe in a balance between the light and the dark side and so attempt to use both. Problem is, a balance is hard to maintain and the dark side is so very seductive.” - John Ostrander, LA Times, 2012
“The Je'daii aren't light side or dark side, although they know and are aware of both. Instead they seek a balance in the Force between light and dark. Balance, however, is a difficult thing to maintain and there is always the danger of falling wholly to the dark side — and some Je'daii have done so.” - John Ostrander, Newsarama, 2012
And this is a recurring theme throughout all of Ostrander’s comics, by the way. Be it with the Je’daii, but also with Quinlan Vos or Cade Skywalker, the point remains the same:
"Yes, wielding the Dark Side gives you great power, and you get to show off some badass new tricks...
… but it ultimately destroys you and everyone around you."
Remember: if it weren’t for Cade or Quin’s loved ones, neither of them would have come back from the Dark Side. They aren't badasses because they can use Force Lightning, they're badasses because they found the strength to give that up.
So if you genuinely think the Jedi "downgraded" by refusing to give the Dark Side more power than it already has on them... you're missing the point.
“It’s not about ripping things out of the sky using the Force or Force Lightning. A lot of people, they think “oh look how powerful Vader is, look how powerful the Emperor is, I want to play be the bad guy because I get these powers”. It’s an empty feeling, at the end of the day, after the moment. [...] The Dark Side is a spiral downward that you’re trapped in.” - Dave Filoni, “Force of Rebellion”, 2018
It was an upgrade.
Framing "balance" as "equal Dark and Light Side" is like consuming one (1) salad a day and one (1) whole bottle of vodka and calling that "balanced". No, buddy, that'll kill you. Because:
The vodka is better at being destructive than the salad is at making you healthy.
It's won't stay just one bottle per day. It'll eventually become two, three, etc.
Because as George Lucas stated time and again, resisting the Dark Side is a constant struggle.
(Dark Yoda asset in the first pic sculpted by Sedat Açıklar) "Everyone has the dark side within, so there's a constant struggle to do the r
So that's my two cents.
You've probably already heard about the recent announcement of a Dawn of the Jedi feature film, a biblical epic that will be directed by James Mangold.
And truth be told... it scares me SO much that we came THIS close to an Episode IX: Duel of the Fates that framed "balance" as - you guessed it - giving equal power to your light and darkness.
Like, how did this ⬆️ get as far as it did? Did nobody think to sit Colin Trevorrow down and explain to him that he fundamentally misunderstands how the Force works?
So all I can do is cross my fingers and hope James Mangold has a better grasp of - if not the lore (I wouldn't be surprised if the words "Je'daii" or "Tython" aren't uttered once in the film) - at least the message.
