The DS never made much sense to me. Just because one is prone to anger and does some bad things, doesn't mean they're able to become murderous, power hungry monsters, at least not by RL standards. When the Emperor was trying to convert Luke, there really didn't seem like any chance of Luke converting to me. Why would he? He's not a murderous asshole and doesn't crave power. Never at any point was I concerned about Luke turning. Meow, this got me to thinking (and seems so obvious as I type this): It seems in the SW universe the DS works exactly like the one ring in LOTR or an addictive drug in RL. It's like heroin or something--some people use and get clean but it's a dangerous game that often leads to one sucking dick for more. Or maybe that's crack or meth. Whatever. Anyway, the more you use it, the more it corrupts you. It's not like RL where people can be varying degrees of bad but still overall be good, it's not a personality thing. The force itself is a substance and the force sensitive is the user; the substance the user imbibes determines their behavior and health outcome. It's the only way that the DS can make sense. In LOTR, Frodo can wear and even use the ring, but it slowly rots him, and it acts faster or slower depending on the user. Eventually everyone becomes a slave to its power, power being a drug. This is exactly the same with the DS. The Sith think they're free because they don't lead the strict, ascetic lifestyle of the Jedi but in fact they're only slaves, slaves to power. They project their flaws onto the Jedi. The Jedi, by contrast, hamstring themselves by not learning more about the DS. They correctly understand the dangers of it and that not having control of one's emotional state can lead to a conversion, but by being so prohibitive about their knowledge and expression they weaken their own ranks and undermine their own cause, as knowledge, particularly in this case, ironically, is power, power over themselves. That, and the bureaucracy and politics of the Jedi Order have shown to be short sighted. The Knights of the Old Republic video games did a fantastic job of deconstructing and exploring the lore. Thoughts? Is the force a substance? If so, what would the Light & Dark sides be? Dark I think would be hard drugs, light would be weed and mushrooms. Of course there's all manner of metaphor, regardless. There's probably some nerds who have figured this out already or maybe Lucas laid it out in an interview, but whatevs, this is my take. Just spitballing here.
Ive always thought addiction was the best analogy for the ring. The dark side is too immature (or basic evil) for the addiction analogy to work imo.
What do you mean when you say too immature? The basic-ness of the DS is what makes me think it's equivalent to drug use, because good people can "fall"
I am going to take a stab and say that the battle between Light vs Dark, Good vs Evil is similar to David Hawkin's Power vs Force.
Some interesting points to go along with the Power vs Force chart: Powerful patterns are associated with health, weak patterns are associated with sickness. Every thought, emotion, word & action has one pattern or the other. Every moment of our day we are either moving towards health or sickness. Collective Consciousness: These experiments reveal that there is a higher power that connects everything and everyone. It reveals that the truth cannot be hidden even if the rational mind isn’t consciously aware of the truth. Through these tests people have come to realize the truth about things that they weren’t consciously aware even existed. Everything calibrates at certain levels from weak to high including books, food, water, clothes, people, animals, buildings, cars, movies, sports, music etc. A lot of music today calibrates at levels below 200. Hence it leads to behavior associated with lower energy levels of consciousness. Most movies will weaken people who watch them by bringing their energy levels down below the 200 level of consciousness. 85% of the human race calibrates below the critical level of 200. The overall average level of human consciousness stands at 207. Human consciousness was dangling at below the 200 level (190) for many centuries before it suddenly rose up to its present level some time in the mid 1980s. Hence Nostradamus’s end of the world predictions may have been avoided (he made his predictions at a time when human consciousness was at below the 200 level). For the world to stay at levels below 200 over a prolonged period of time would cause a great imbalance that would undoubtedly lead to the destruction of all humanity.
Maybe Middle Earth is in the same galaxy as Star Wars and when the one ring melted it released the Dark Side into the universe
I mean the darkside IS evil and the ring was forged in secret using "good" magic by the dark lord. One is evil and one is a magic item.
Ah, I gotcha. That's what I'm getting at though, that the force, in literary and figurative terms, is a magic item like the one ring. Not saying I'm right, just that that's the basis from which I'm proceeding
Seems to me that light and dark are dogmatic sets of beliefs based on the force...you are one or the other. To be a ring bearer is a condition.
That they are and that it is, I think I see better your point and I think meow that the comparison of the DS/force to the one ring is flawed despite the similarities, though it does still strike me as equivalent, an analog even, to drug use. It's more the "falling" to the DS that causes me to arrive at this conclusion, because it just doesn't make sense unless the force is thought of as an object, in this case, a substance. RL isn't so black-and-white, it's mostly shades of gray. Anakin killing children, for example, is just not something a good person could do just because they lose their shit, even if they've killed other people, which leads me to believe the force isn't just something to be wielded by good and bad people, but something that directly changes its user depending on how they use it.
The dark side is just the part of a person that gives into temptation and passion It's not evil inherent
