A Few Thoughts on the Force

I realize this blog has primarily been about Star Trek, but I have other interests and so should you.  In the wake of writing a paper (rather hastily, I'll admit) for a religious studies class I'd like to explore some thoughts I have on the nature of the Force from Star Wars.

The Force is changing.  Or rather, the canonical definition of it is changing somewhat.

The Ashla, the Bogan, and the Bendu

Some of this change is manifested in the Disney XD television show Star Wars Rebels which just entered its third season this last weekend.  (Rather triumphantly, I might add).

Star Wars Rebels (and Dave Filoni's other project, The Clone Wars) has done wonders for expanding the canonical Star Wars universe in wonderfully cinematic ways.  What I appreciate more about Rebels than Clone Wars are the episodes that delve into what it means to be a Jedi (or to wield the Force in general).  Clone Wars does have a few good episodes on this topic as well, but Clone Wars' aim was less about exploring the nature of the Force and more about demonstrating how far off the path of light the Jedi had tread.

The three-part story about Mortis was nothing short of epic

Rebels examines a struggle that might have been played out in the Star Wars cinematic saga had Obi-Wan Kenobi more time to train Luke.  Granted, Obi-Wan was a full Jedi when he met Luke, but the downfall of Vader always made it seem like training a new Jedi was more difficult than it appeared.  Ezra Bridger encounters many of the trials that we don't get to see Luke (or Anakin, for that matter) go through on his way to becoming a Jedi Knight.  Kanan Jarrus is someone who never achieved Knight status.  Both master and apprentice are learning how to use the Force.  This opens their minds to new interpretations.

Not the last of the old Jedi, but the first of the new...

The Force is strange, and rightfully beyond an exact definition.  The definition that Obi-Wan gives Luke is our most solid explanation of what the living Force is and where it comes from, and Yoda reinforces this view.  But there is a duality in the Force which comes from the distinction between the cosmic Force and the living Force.

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

The living Force holds within it a connection to all other life forms in the galaxy.  It is very specifically what Yoda and Obi-Wan train Luke to be aware of.  Because life is now, it is the Force of the moment.

Life creates it, makes it grow.

But there are greater powers at play in Star Wars, and this is where the cosmic Force comes into play.  The cosmic Force covers the great galactic currents of time and possibility.  These events vary from the infinitesimally small to the unfathomably large, from the impossibly fast to the epically slow.  The cosmic Force and the living Force are, without a doubt, intertwined.  But it is the cosmic Force that lets a Jedi peer into possible futures or reveal hidden truths from pasts long gone.

In the time of the Grand Galactic Republic, the Jedi believed they were masters of both the living and the cosmic Force.  Darth Sidious came along and proved that they were not.  The Dark side seems to have a peculiar stranglehold on the cosmic Force, and an uncanny ability to blot out visions of the future that would otherwise be readily available to the Jedi.

Difficult to see, the future is.

It is very possible that the reason why the Dark side is so powerful is that, unlike the Light side, the Dark side draws more from the massive wealth of power stored up in the infinite, uncaring cosmos.  So much power, used so readily and channeled through extreme emotions, is certainly enough to spell out one's destruction at the hands of the Force.

This is not to say that the living Force is not its own dearth of power.  Certainly, the Jedi were no trifling opponents in the days of the Grand Galactic Republic.  But, when properly used by a Light-side Force user, it seems to take longer to call upon.  Don't believe me?  Go back and check out how long it took Yoda to pull that X-Wing out of the swamp, and how much effort he put into it.

Judge me by my size, do you?  Well!  You should not!

I believe this is actually because most of what Yoda is doing here is controlling his emotions.  The temptation of the Dark side is always there, and the more you're trying to do with the Force the more the Dark side is likely to tempt you to just use the easy path to get the job done.  For someone like Yoda who believes that "once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny," there's no such thing as quickly and easily moving things around with the Force.

Vader just snags it because he doesn't care

But this just takes forever to happen

Now, I'm not an expert.  I might be way off base here.  But that seems pretty reasonable to me so I'll go on to explain why I am so convinced.

In Rebels, the Force training Ezra receives is very personal.  This lets us join him on his path to becoming a Jedi.  The episodic nature of the show means that the lessons Ezra learns can become episodic and focused.  Usually, by the end of an episode, Ezra has made some progress in learning the lesson about the Force he was taught at the start of an episode.

Learning as a team!

Bite-sized chunks are great for understanding the nature of the Force.  They even get Yoda to step in and help out with Ezra's training.  No, Ezra and Kanan don't go to Dagobah, they hear Yoda speak to them through the Force.

Now if this seems weird and nonsensical to you in the context of what I explained about the Dark side's connection to the cosmic Force, that's okay.  You're on the right track, except that Yoda isn't using the cosmic Force to watch over and communicate with these aspiring Jedi.  Instead, Yoda is using the living Force.  Why the living Force?  Because he's seeing things as they happen, which is what the living Force is good at.

Yoda is nothing if not a master at using the living Force.  That's part of why he chose exile on Dagobah.  Everything on that swampy planet is alive, and it has its own Dark side cave that he can watch over as well.

This is the reason why Yoda is able to make a claim like, "long have I watched this one," about Luke and then turn around a day later and tell Luke that "difficult to see, the future is; clouded by the Dark side."

In Star Wars, the present and the future are two distinct domains.  Where the past falls into this is unclear just yet.

But, as I said at the start of this blog, the nature of the Force is changing.

There has been an Awakening...

Star Wars The Clone Wars reintroduced the magic of the Night Sisters of Dathomir, whose powers were previously de-canonized following the made-for-TV movie Ewoks: Battle for Endor.  The Night Sisters of the Clone Wars have a wide array of powers some consider to be... unnatural.  Well, the Night Sisters are distinctly Dark side Force users, so this should come as no surprise.

No, I'm not even going to cover this.

Star Wars Rebels took this one step further in their second season with the introduction of a concept called Ashla.  Ashla was first referenced by an elderly female Lasat named Chava, and she used it as a power to guide the crew of the Ghost to the lost world of Lira San.  Ezra remarks that Ashla sounds an awful lot like the Force.

Well, the Force can go by many names.  Why can't it?  If it's such a ubiquitous power in the galaxy, surely cultures everywhere will have different names for it.

The name Ashla comes from the Expanded Universe world of Tython, where it was one of two moons that helped influence the apocalyptic Force storms that wracked the Jedi home planet.  Its other moon?  Bogan.

Bogan is mentioned in passing by a new character in Star Wars Rebels season three.  The character is known as Bendu, but even this seems to be a bit of a misnomer because he identifies the Light side of the Force as Ashla, the Dark side as Bogan, and himself in between: Bendu.

This... is not a thing.  Not yet, anyway.

Now, the choice of word is interesting because the original title for the Jedi was the Jedi Bendu.  The post-Clone Wars Jedi in the movies seem more concerned about balance than they do specifically about light versus dark.  I'll qualify that last statement in a moment.

But what's most interesting about the character Bendu is that he talks about sight.  Now, Kanan has been blinded and must learn to see using the Force (no, he's not a de facto Miraluka).  But Bendu has a very specific way of phrasing the way he perceives the Force.  He is very clear that the different sides of the Force are as irrelevant and natural as night and day.  To see, one must simply be willing to let go and trust the Force.

No! Do.  Or do not.  There is no try.

Why is this a change?  Because the Sith and Jedi have relied on the cosmic and living Force as individual domains to accomplish their goals previously.  According to Bendu, sight has no bearing on light or darkness when one uses the Force.  Potentially, if Yoda could get past his dogma (he can't) he would be able to see the future that the Dark is trying to hide from him.

Now back to my assertion that Yoda and Obi-Wan are more interested in balance than the actual Light-side: the only Force users in the known galaxy during the Rebellion era are Darth Vader, the Emperor, and Luke.  Since Darth Vader and the Emperor were both decidedly evil, Yoda and Obi-Wan are convinced that Luke needs to be twice as good to make up for all the evil.

No pressure, right?  (Yeah, well Luke said fuck that, if I'm good and I can get my dad to be at least half good we'll be set.)

This, to me, really supports the assertion that the cosmic Force is kind of big and powerful and ambivalent to the living Force.  According to Bendu, the Force itself cannot be good or evil, it can only be used for good or evil.  Easy peasy and we didn't need some nonsensical code that looks like it was written by a middle school kid trying to make a cool Star Wars thing canon.  (I'm looking at you, Grey Jedi).

Serenity and peace are the same thing, dumbshits.

This also fits in well with why Rey was suddenly capable of using the Force the way she did.  If she was able to tap into the cosmic Force better than those around her, she'd be particularly potent in her implementation of the Force.  Since her awakening happened through a vision of the past and possibly the future, it is very reasonable that this made her a conduit for the cosmic Force.  Although she might well have used all that power for the Dark side (Snoke sure wants all that power for himself) she chose not to follow that path.

Dis mah mad face

But, like Bendu, Rey maintained a strong link with the cosmic Force.  Truly the first of the New Jedi, Rey brandishes the Force with all the emotion she earned by being tortured then watching Han and Finn get cut down.  And at the end of the day, she still walks the good path.

What Rey teaches us, what the old Jedi fail to teach us, is that emotions aren't bad.  They just need to be understood and directed.