So the Messiah in Star Wars is supposed “to bring balance to The Force,” but I never understood what it meant.

Star Wars is extremely dualistic–there is a good side and an evil side, a light side and a dark side, the Jedi and the Sith. Every plotline is based around a manichean struggle where only one side can win by annihilating the other.

The “good side”, the Jedi, are explicitly looking a savior to provide “balance” while at the same time imposing all sorts of restrictions on which force powers are allowed and which aren’t. For an order whose messiah is based on Taoist equilibrium, they are positively Christian in their obsession with purity.

I think there is an implicit subtextual critique of the Jedi Order in the prequels that they incompetent, as you might expect from the leaders of a theocracy, but that’s about as far as it goes.

I think the closest we get to ANY real discussion of balance is Luke’s vision on Degobah, where he must see himself as potentially Darth Vader, which can be interpreted as an attempt towards wholeness OR as a warning to not stray into evil.

Can anyone square this circle?

Edit: It’s funny to me that there are more comments than upvotes. People want to share. I love it.

  • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOP
    3·
    1 day ago

    Saw an interesting video about why Jesus had to die. Originally, he was supposed to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven, maybe without dying. Then, he said something “lol brb” and his disciples waited. But as his original disciples started dying off, people started to think, “Well, maybe he ain´t coming back right away, so what did he die for?” and that’s where we get the concept of him dying for our sins, which has gone through many different permutations over the century.

    I find it interesting because really what happened is people fell in love with the STORY of Jesus, of a God who became man (this was sorted much later) and died in the worst way possible; they wanted to keep the story, so they´d ad hoc rationlizations after the fact.

    I feel like it’s the same way with Star Wars. We love the world and SFX and the editing and it’s all very cool, but it’s really a Flash Gordon adventure with a patina of Eastern Mysticism, so fans have to do quite a bit of work.