I feel like you could write a character who was a Sith Lord that did more good than many Jedi. What if your personal drive and passion was helping other people? Even if you became a slave to your more base passions, someone who is driven to help people would end up more like an oathbreaker paladin in D&D rather than a baby slayer.
I agree, this was a problem Legends Canon had thrust upon it by videogame logic, though personally I think this was mainly done because force drain was a new lightning ability obviously more dark locked to Sith(the dark, I use Sith but agree with your rectangle analogy) so suddenly lightning became less locked to the dark side and usable by light side users. Then from there authors presume that since they CAN use it there MUST be a "light" version, but in NJO it must be remembered the 'Vong were wholly outside the force and thus crept in the same kind of political "life" vs "not life" argument of fetus's in current politics, and so the question was if using lightning on a Vong was actually killing "life" as the Force did not recognize that they were living beings and the Jedi at that point experience "life" as a concept of balance within a construct that did not include the Vong.
I feel like electric judgement specifically is supposed to be like a taser. It's not lethal and is defense oriented. I can see that being a jedi power.
@@DBeskar6605Not at all, I see this rather large portion of the fan base who seem to consider the force "magic" but it is not, the term "space wizard" is used for Jedi to denote relative ability scaling but what they wield is not "magic" but natural energies. What this means is your Sith Lord isn't some Nuclear power plant, he is a coal mine, his energy based abilities literally warp and distort and "wound" the force, he creates untold butterfly effects throughout the galaxy at the twist of a finger, Jedi abilities in contrast are used like an H-vac system, in Darth Plagious novel a Sith lord controlled his butterflies to create the typhoon that would be Anakin Skywalker, but in general Jedi are the ones thinking about consequences. Midichlorians support that the force is something of an extradimensional ecosystem, and as such creatures do in fact live there and face consequences for abuse of dark side energies even without noted real world victims.
I like how, in the novel Plaugeis, Palpatine believes that Dooku would never be able to become a full Sith because, unlike Anakin, he was raised by the Jedi and was completely molded by them.
@@Zacvh Not how it works, dooku was molded by them but was open minded enough to acknowledge their flaws, and he began to heavily disagree with some decisions. its like growing up being raised by your parents then later starting to notice their issues and flaws.
@@mitwhitgaming7722 Well revan never really "fell" to the dark side like most jedi did, he did it willingly and decided to turn, all of that light was gone. He only had a spark of light left because he essentially died a sith and was brainwashed and re-molded as a jedi and then slowly started to remember his sith ways which is why he is seen as someone in between the light and dark sides so it's not that he had a spark of light left in him, it was forcefully given back to him after he was brainwashed and no longer knew he was a sith at some point or that he was revan
I can get behind Electric Judgement as a sort of force taser: a nonlethal way of subduing people, quick and mostly painless without long lasting damage or risk of death.
Yeah, that's what I wanted to point out, force taser. There might be situations where Jedi lost his lightsaber and is surrounded by formidable enemies.
I think it doesn’t help that Force Lightning doesn’t leave scorch marks and burns when we see it being used on a person. It looks less like a violent electric flamethrower and more like you’re doing extreme tazing on a dude
The Canon novel Dark Disciple (yeesh) actually has the best and most realistic description of the damage Force lightning can really do. When Dooku electrocutes Ventress with his Force lightning, her described injuries are 100% consistent with real life lightning strike victims (including blood trickling from the nose & ears and Lichtenberg figures).
@@raghuvarv That is absolutely crazy, props on whoever wrote the book in making Force Lightning what should be something brutal and not to be taken lightly.
In the Truce At Bakura, Luke Skywalker was suffering from muscle aches and double vision, plus partial calcification of his skeletal structure. He was hoverchair-bound until he recovered through a lot of rest, meditation and bacta treatments.
A way I could see electric judgement making sense with the Jedi code is if it uses the hate of the recipient instead of the hate of the evoker. This would also fit the name "Judgement" very well. It's not the force user who's harming you, it's your own negative emotions. It would basically use the same principles of generating electricity through negative emotions as force lightning, but the source of these emotions would be different. If used on a decent person, it would have minimal to no effect.
Or, just remember that New Republic jedi are much less dogmatic than pre-empire jedi. They aren't trying to purge themselves of emotions, they harness their emotions for a greater good. Delving into dark side powers when necessary makes more sense for the jedi that Luke trained than for the one Yoda led.
I'm honestly surprised that the Jedi version of Force Lightning wasn't something like nerve-numbing electricity. Like, non lethal, non-painful, but can incapacitate an opponent or disable say, a sword arm, or a leg, or cause unconsciousness if it's used full body or just on the head. Not like a Taser, which still inflicts pain, but almost like a novocaine effect. Mid fight, blast someone's arm, and it goes limp for a while. Makes it harder to fight.
I'm pretty sure a decently skilled jedi can just do most of that already without electric judgment. If they're capable of lifting someone off the ground they've essentially incapacitated them, i don't think individual limb manipulation is off the table either, and I'm pretty sure there's a higher level ability to cause someone to fell nauseated enough that they can't function properly.
I always assumed Force Lightning was like the Cruciatus Curse in Harry Potter, powered by the desire to hurt the person. Like with the dark side, the Unforgivable Curses are powered by the desire to hurt and control others, and there's no real way to use them in a good way. You can be powered by righteous anger, but you're still giving into darkness and that's always bad.
Harry was really tip-toe-ing a fine line when he used the sectumsempra. I would rope that in with the unforgivables because its purpose is to do a similar thing.
That depends on your point of view. The test of every man in a world where anger is just a reality of life is to turn that anger toward doing something productive. And then there's the Doom Slayer. You go tell him he's wrong, I'm not trying that 😆
Plos electric judgment is him being purely hateful towards evil. It would be cool if Yoda had a green version of it. Impossible tho since Yoda has zero emotion
I can think of 2 of the unforgivable curses that can be used in a good way, one of them may not work and there are probably much better ways to put someone out of there misery that the killing curse but the imperious curse can have quite a few good intention uses, 1 I can think of off the top of my head someone is intent on harming you and under normal circumstances they won’t stop unless you put them down hard or they put you down maybe even for ever but (cast spell) “”GO AWAY!”” End of situation and no one got permanently harmed, think of when we have terror attacks (cast spell) “”STOP! THROW YOUR WEAPON AWAY AND SIT DOWN ON THE GROUND WITH YOU HANDS ON YOUR HEAD THEN GO WITH THE POLICES WHEN THEY COME FOR YOU!”” think how meny life’s something like that could save, so yes there are exceptions.
Just as Sith Lightning uses one's will to inflict pain, Electric Judgement uses one's will to do justice. The Sith are torturing you with their own sense of anger and hatred toward you. The Jedi are torturing you with their own sense of moral superiority over you. Even though I think Electric Judgement makes sense for the Jedi of the high and late republic who were blinded by their obnoxious hubris, I agree that a power which essentially stems from pride is not a light side power.
True force lightning is without a doubt a dark side ability as the objective is to cause as much suffering as possible before ultimately causing death, but weaker versions of it ranging from defibrillators to simple incapacitation could be used by Jedi.
@@calebbarnhouse496 Valid but I think one of the coolest things is seeing how Jedi or Sith adapt abilities of the opposite side of the force, or people like Kyle Katarn who don't subscribe to the same philosophy. The face of 'dark' and 'light' side abilities may be true, but the alternative viewpoints always added a nice little bit of depth to the lore
@@neonthunder3261 sure, but that doesn't change the fact that certain abilities require you to draw in dark side emotions, while some require you draw in light side emotions, and characters that make use of the dark side abilities should have to fight against corruption from the dark side
You are wrong about one thing: I don't hate you and almost completely agree! The dark side is seductive even to the writers. Its really interesting to read through the comments here too and see how many different ways people conceptualize the Force. In my mind the dark side is summed up as "exploitive" and damages the force to take advantage of the chaos and energy that results, which is why dark side powers often manifest as violent and seemingly barely under control. The more forceful or damaging a power is the "darker" it is, and channeling the life of the galaxy into pure energy to painfully kill is hard to imagine as being in harmony with the Force. Even if the Force isn't harmed, the fact that it mimics the effects of force lightning still contributes to dark side corruption by giving the user a quick and easy (from their perspective) way to deal with a problem and helps rationalize those kind of dangerous short cuts in the future.
Really great breakdown! You got to the root of how the Force and light/dark sides should operate. The “light side” and “dark side” aren’t two arbitrary forces that can or should be equally utilized. The dark side is inherently a perversion of life itself, and tapping into that will twist you. The Force makes up and binds all life, and it’s inherently at peace and is peaceful, and when a Jedi taps into it it’s for selfless means and ends to help others. Something like force lightening inherently taps into something baser and ugly. Even if it may be more effective in the short run you’re going out of your way to inflict cruel pain. And I like what you said about electric judgement having cruel ends even if it doesn’t have hateful means. That being said from what I’ve heard about the ability it seems less torturous than regular Force lightning, but I’m not too knowledgeable so idk if there is a way to make it work with the Light side under specific circumstances. It may be one of those things where it is the last resort. Narratively it can be pretty interesting, as long as the dangers of it are not underestimated. I think the whole “gray Jedi” philosophy is kinda BS because balance in the force doesn’t mean “light and dark in balance.” That’s not really what George Lucas ever intended. The dark is the imbalance, it’s hate and selfishness and ignorance, and because of its empowering and intoxicating nature it is extremely difficult not to go overboard once you start relying on it. If you’re gonna use a dark side ability it needs to be an absolutely necessary evil never to be used again if possible, not a power trip.
I didn't remember the Vong writhing in pain when hit with it. The power of Electric Judgement was to use a feeling of Righteousness to either Stun or Instantly Kill an enemy without causing pain. Basically a system shut down where a person would not suffer. You couldn't torture someone with it at the end of the day. Where as Normal Lightning, Sith Lightning, Dark Lightning whatever people want to call it was fueled to just cause harm and nothing else, and be the most painful experience it possibly could.
Yoda redirecting force lighting back at the user is a perfect example of jedi philosophy. I would expect such a feat is much more difficult for a dark sider because of how they view the force and how they channel it. Dooku blocked it by meeting the redirected lighting with force. His look of surprise wasn't just that yoda could counter his attack he didn't understand WHAT yoda was doing to accomplish it.
Me personally, I kinda dislike the Electric Judgement idea. When developing the ability and deciding to write it into the lore, it feels like they looked at The Empeor in ROTJ and said "Wow, that's cool! We should give the Jedi a similar ability, but less powerful because it's too violent for 'peace keepers'." I think the idea of being a heavy Lightning user is a sign of a fully emersed Dark Sider who is at the peak of their power. You have to draw upon your rage and hate to intentionally cause harm to someone. This flies in the face of the Jedi teachings, so giving them a watered-down version that can be used with NO rage or hate just cheapens the ability, and also removes the consequences of use, as the the more you use the Dark Side, the more it deteriorates your body and soul. One example that may be a bit niche: Chaos Unison in MegaMan Battle Network 5. While using a Dark Chip outright grants immediate power, it has consequences. Chaos Unison removes the permanent consequences, and lets you use the power of the single Dark Chip you've activated a potential unlimited number of times until th Unison wears off. While there ARE in-game reasons as to why this doesn't corrupt MegaMan, it feels like using it SHOULD cause some side effects during the story, but it doesn't.
While I do think this video does do a good job of explaining why Force Lightning should be an exclusively Dark Side power, I do think Electric Judgment would still make sense if it was a non-lethal power. If the idea behind Electric Judgment was that you would incapacitate your target instead of torturing or killing them, it definitely rides the line but I can see how someone could justify that as a Light Side ability. Sort of like using a taser instead of a gun. The main problem here of course, is that Electric Judgment has been shown to be capable of killing.
I feel like the force lightning Plo Koon used in his story wasn't either of those since it was moreso a taser when he was out of options to save a hostage (if I'm remembering correctly). I was told in the same video that the Jedi did like a dark side power of creating massive storm clouds on planets, which I think we can all agree isn't good if true.
Yeah, in Plo Koon's case, it's the same moral dilemma as tasers - an incredibly painful but not particularly dangerous way of taking someone down, which should not be used when a less violent tool will work, and which is somewhat lacking in effectiveness compared to certain more lethal options (except in specific circumstances). Its use case is fairly limited, but within that use case, it's overall the lesser of two evils. Jaina Solo also suggested using Force Lightning as a makeshift ion cannon to disable an enemy ship without killing anyone, which is another potential use case (though in that particular instance, I think that they were too close to the dark side to be using the Force as a weapon, no matter the reason). As for Force Storm, there are several different abilities that that could be referring to. One is the ability to create wormholes using the Force, theoretically enabling unaided FTL; this is probably dark side because it messes with the fabric of reality in a way that probably has consequences; another is the ability to summon giant storm clouds, which I've never actually seen, but I can imagine that it would be useful in case of drought; and the third is a name for Tier III Force Lightning in certain games, which is almost certainly not what that video was talking about (though if we're thinking of the same video, I don't think we were told anything other than its name and the fact that it's pretty difficult to use).
In addition to it being an inherently dark side power, I think that Force lighting should be exclusive to only the most powerful Force users. There was such mystique around the Emperor in RotJ. This old man who Darth Vader bowed down to. Who seemed to regard a lightsaber as little more than a toy when he looked at Luke's. We knew that he must be especially powerful. Then suddenly we see him completely overpower Luke by casually unleashing a lightning storm from his fingertips! Honestly, since then, the sheer number of characters who have used Force lightning has cheapened it. And yes, I know that all of the people who have used it (or "electric judgement") ARE very powerful Force users, but I still think it became a bit too common.
I’m glad someone else feels this way. I think Sith lightning should be the pinnacle of the dark side. Only the best (Palpatine, Vitiate, maybe someone else) should be able to use it. Honestly, I think it would be even cooler if Palpatine invented the technique. I’m not too happy with someone like Dooku using it, but it is what it is
I hate how trivialized the lightning became. Lucas, EU authors, and Disney have all been guilty of this. In Return of the Jedi the Force had only been an enhancement. You could choke someone or throw things but this was still the user's intentions. Palpatine being able to use the Force purely as to cause suffering characterized how unsalvageably evil he was. That was a level of corruption we never even saw Vader do. It wasn't even an "attack" since Luke was defenseless. But all the other media ended up treating more like any sufficient dark side user gets generic electrical powers unlocked.
Unfortunately having so many cooks can lead to inconsistency. For the most part I agree with you. Certain things that can be done with the Force should (imo) require a specific mindset or emotional state. Something like lightning coming from a thought to specifically cause pain. Not just anger but a desire to pain. Can a Jedi do it? I think what Yoda was trying to explain is that when you do something it's easier to keep doing it. If you allow yourself to react with anger it will forever be harder to not do it because you allowed yourself to do it. If you indulge in causing pain once you'll think about it again and more often. I think the reverse also applies. I think for a Sith there's also a temptation to walk down the light path if you've done it. If you love someone or feel sympathy you'll more easily do it again. Either one can generate a reflexive action, or cause doubt. Being conflicted mentally would obviously have your mind trying to do two different things at the same time sapping energy from both or delaying action. Can a Jedi do it? Probably. But you'd forever be tempted to do it again. You'd be left having to be more mindful you weren't doing it. If you've never punched someone in the face it won't be where your mind first goes to resolve an issue. If you've ever done it and felt satisfied or happy to see someone get what you think they deserve you'll much more easily consider it again. Especially if it's a much faster and personally rewarding option. It's not that I think a Jedi can't be a Jedi after. Vader becomes a force ghost. I think going to the emotional place and expressing it would create a mental tension you'd never be free of.
Luke is using the dark side when he uses Lighting in NJO, but as you mentioned it is all about intent, but he can tap into that through Vergere's philosophy, but this is the reason why Luke later drops that philosophy in Dark Nest and dedicates the order entirely to the Light, Luke knows it is wrong
It is absolutely wild hearing someone, let alone a youtuber, take the stance that (to me) seems way closer to how the force was originally presented to us. Don't get me wrong, I also like the options of dark side powers or similar types in games. But that's for gameplay purposes. I'd love to see some stories that more strongly resembled how they were originally shown to us.
I like the theory of Thee Living Force, to explain this. In short, it suggests that The Force has a will of its own. It has a plan, for lack of a better word, for the future, and will attempt to steer events towards that end. Jedi operate by allowing The Force free access, so to speak, providing it with as little impediment as they can, to enable its guidance to take firm root and more or less control their actions. Strong desires and emotions are interference, in this regard. According to this philosophy, the dark side is the opposite, instead of allowing The Force to 'take the wheel', a Force user grabs and pulls on The Force against its will, bending it to their purpose. Both in philosophy and technique, it is radically different. The Sith embody this to it's fullest extent, never allowing The Force to plot their course, going against its currents at every opportunity, in the belief that this will free them from its all-pervasive influence. The theory of The Living Force also explains the nature of the Force Ghost as being the ultimate surrender of the self to its will. By having complete trust in its (again, for lack of a better word) "plan", and providing no resistance to its currents, a Force user may retain agency after death, becoming unmoored from time and space and imbued with phenomenal cosmic power. Power they will never use in any manner contrary to the wishes of The Force, by virtue of that trust. It is this trust, or in their case, the lack of it, that keeps Sith from ever attaining such power. They can only ever wield what power they can forcibly grab, whereas there is, theoretically, no limit on the power that can flow through someone who embraces The Force. Sunrider being an example of a Jedi who manages to become, more or less, a living puppet of The Force in their lifetime. Complete and utter surrender of the self, grants ultimate power, power which is then employed according to the directions of The Force itself. According to this philosophy, The Force is neither good nor evil, and the distinction between the dark side and the light side does not lie in neither actions nor motivations, but in how a user interacts with The Force. They either allow The Force to flow through them as freely as they can manage, or they seize on it against its will.
In my understanding, electric judgement was like a rightous exorcism. The more evil the target was or the darkside the target tapped into, the more it damaged them. Plo Koon was and electric judgement user, and arguably one of the purest jedi ever, but Yoda had forbidden him from teaching it other jedi due to it often being a gateway to darkside for people who took enjoyment in using it as a trigger happy weapon instead of a tool only to be used against the most evil targets. Plo Koon was probably the paragon for what a jedi should be. He was wise, level headed, calm, kind, understanding, open to new ideas, one of the strongest force users and lightsaber duelists, and unrestricted by tradition. He was among the list of specific jedi Darth Sideous needed offworld in order to set his plan into motion. Imagine Mace Windu confronting Sideous with Plo Koon by his side, a fellow jedi who could match Sideous in combat, resist his force scream, and fry him with lightning that grows stronger with the more evil the target is. Darth Sideous is one of the more evil beings of all time, making him the beat target you could ever hit with electric judgement. I think that's why Sideous wanted him offworld. Sideous doesn't fight fairly, so I doubt he would ever be willing fight someone that could kill him in a fair fight.
The end of the New Jedi Order series was so annoying. It completely walked back the idea the Yuuzhan Vong couldn't be touched by the Force. In Traitor, Jacen unleashes Force Lightning and, since the Vong were untouchable, all the Lightning struck Vergere (best NJO character btw). Then in Unifying Force, the Jedi casually Force Push and Lightning the Vong warriors. Infuriating.
I've always seen the concept of Electric Judgement to be less about harming another being than it is about ending a dangerous situation as quickly as possible. I'm pretty sure the passage that coined the term was an account of a Jedi using it to end a hostage situation. It definitely leans towards the dark side, but so does using a lightsaber to cut off someone's arm.
While I agree that Force Lightning is an inherently Darkside ability, I like the Legends comic for saying that you have to master it to learn Force Healing, an inherently Lightside ability. It all depends on your point of view, but I think that understanding both sides of the Force is necessary. The darkness in the light is that you have absolutists, like Yoda, on the Lightside who preach intolerance, while you have manipulators, like Palpatine, on the Darkside who preach understanding (I say "preach understanding" because that dude certainly didn't practice what he preached once he gained power).
I think Force Lightening is inherently different from other attacks because it is Directly using the Force against someone. You are taking how the Universe Binds Together, and Unraveling it. The intermediary of using a lightsaber instead changes things. When I got upset with the prequels, and wrote my own "Star Wars Lore", I also said there were "Jedi Priests", like yoda, that had unparalleled abilities with the Force, but could only maintain this connection by never harming a living thing.
Okay I agree with a lot of what you said but a small counter point. I think there are some cases where channeling the force into electricity (which is all force lightning and electric judgement are) would be perfectly fine in Jedi philosophy. Such cases could be using it to short out a group of droids that can’t be dispatched another way safely or perhaps to short out a control panel or even charge or power some machine like we see in the force unleashed games. I agree that using it as an offensive tool against living beings is dark side for sure, but in these cases I can’t see any ethical argument against it by the Jedi (other than they don’t want to encourage use of it at all in case they then use it on living beings) but other than that there’s no reason why it couldn’t be used for these other reasons.
I think things like Force powers shouldn't be viewed as Powers You Can Do and more as a pure manifestation of personal belief. To summon lightning-a level of power that is so far beyond a taser or circuit-shorter as to be an entirely different, painful thing-you shouldn't just need anger or hate, you should need to hold the belief that it is your right to bring down that kind of punishment on someone. You are chaining the universe to your will and deciding "this is right. Bringing an agonizing, paralyzing death to the person in front of me is how the universe should work." In this, there's no small belief to work as a taser or to short-out Droids without the force to grievously harm someone.
a fan fiction I read, and love, has it used as a type of medicine. the planet the story takes place on has a form of blood-born parasite, practically a separate living being, that was very dangerous. Normally kept under control via kinds of medicine's. Extreme cases like the protagonist (Kenobi) got needed more of a surgical tool than a 'cure'. Death of the parasites, to save the human patient, because he did not have the time left for the other methods.@@agiammarco94
@@nickmalachai2227 I agree that makes sense to a degree if we’re talking about the strength of force lighting we normally see dark siders use, but I don’t see any mechanical or moral reason why there couldn’t just be a lesser version of force lighting that can only stun people with no real damage or only affect machines. Of course the lore explanation would probably be that turning the force into electricity in any capacity is inherently dark side, I just think that that’s incredibly stupid reason that doesn’t really make sense.
I used to play Jedi Academy, and I always thought it was weird that Luke or any other Jedi didn't scold or talk to you about your use of Lightning. Light-Siders accidentally using Force Lightning in moments of anger or other negative emotions, like Jaina and Rey, is okay. When you have a Light-Sider purposefully use Lightning, however, there should be some inner reflection or consequences from other characters. People may disagree with me here, but I think the recent Jedi games kind of fixed the whole game-ification of the Force thing.
I'm pretty sure in KotOR using Force Lightning gets you negative light side points. Granted I think any Jedi master would have some level of being able to use Force Lightning. A Jedi uses the Force for defense and knowledge, but never for attack. On the flip side of that coin Luke Force Choked two of Jabba's guards... that is an attack. So... the Force often just acts however a story-teller needs it. Cop out, yes, but still.
@@nickmalachai2227 I think at some point you either become so Light or Dark that you just can't lose that. Not that I disagree with you, it has just been so many years since I've played KotOR and can't learn it as a Jedi on TOR.
@@AlvorReal That is good, I am glad there are people to correct my bad info lol. Either way it was a pretty darn good game, I'm glad people remember mechanics cause usually plot is what I remember.
I just re-watched ROTJ an hour ago and forgot that scene. I was like "wait a minute... did he just...?" And he never saw Vader or anyone use force choke before then so he had to have taught himself it too.
(A neat touch in that D&D-based tabletop system was how most of the light side force powers required training to use, while all the dark side ones could be used untrained, at the cost of giving in to your darker emotions. Quicker, easier, more seductive indeed.)
I'm so glad you brought up the idea of video game perspective. In the case of someone like Starkiller, force lightning is certainly more fun and a good game element. However, he's torn between the pure way, and corrupted way of using the force, something not worth thinking about in the middle of a war. Kyle Katarn, 'Revan,' the Jedi Exile, all have the potential to be these 'torn between two sides' figures, who enable the player to skid the line.
This issue goes back to the whole "philosophy" of the Force thing that Lucas was never really all that good at communicating. The "Dark Side" of the Force wasn't like some kind separate, evil version of the Force that existed in opposition to the "Light Side." The Force just IS, in a very holistic, universal fashion. The Way of the Sith, and Dark Side by extension, was simply the use of the Force in the pursuit of domination and personal ambition. Using the Force to produce techniques designed to painfully murder people or destroy stars or whatever were "perversions" of the Force, an attempt to use the Force rather than to serve it or be a part of it.
my completely head cannoned explanation for electric judgment being 'ok' my jedi standards is that it does damage proportional to the targets inner darkness, in a similar way to vaapad turning a dark side duellists power against them
I think that mind control like what Obi-Wan uses is supposed to be specifically a "light side" power, somehow, which has always shocked me. I can't really think of much that is more invasive to do to a person than literally force them to think something you want them to. I am not up on a lot of the legends cannon, but where it comes to the mainstream content I don't recall any Sith or Darkside force user actually using the mind trick. I do know that there is at least one comic book that is probably now legends where Darth Vader explains that the mind trick is a "weak tool" used by Jedi, and that the Sith simply get what they want through force. I'm in my 40s and growing up with the franchise, and having played the original Star Wars rpg, way back then the light side and the dark side of the force were almost separate entities that demanded you act in certain ways in order to draw power from them. There was a mechanic in the rpg that when you used a dark side power or told the game master that you wanted to draw on the dark side to improve one of your rolls you then accumulated dark side points. At first it would give you HUGE benefits, but the more dark side points you accumulate, the worse bonuses it would you, and once you gain so many you had to make essentially willpower checks in certain situations or be compelled to call on the dark side, and at a certain level your character simply becomes an NPC and is from that point on lost to the dark side, as if it were overwhelming your own will and contaminating your mind so that you were no longer the person you started out as. Essentially, the dark side is a choice, one with diminishing returns, until you can no longer stop using it of your own free will. That seemed fairly consistent when there were just the first three films. To me, this explained why Luke was able to call on the dark side and overwhelm Vader in their second fight, the dark side was hungry to add another being in its thrall, and the Emperor was more or less so consumed by the dark side that he simply did anything it willed him to do, even though Palpatine himself was so far gone that he didn't realize he was basically just a conduit for the dark side's will. Then later on things got a bit murkier, you start having many inconsistencies and it became popular for characters to start walking a sort of middle or "balanced" path, even though the light side of the force was originally supposed to be what a balanced path looked like.
We see the true light side variant of Force Lightnig in the Kotor games, with the ability Droid Stun, using the force to stop a machine from Doing harm. It just happens that this Power manifest itself as lightning.
It’s funny, to me Force lighting vs Electric Judgement is one of the few times I think the argument about intention mattering in the light vs dark question actually works. Judgement always struck me as being about neutralizing a situation as quickly as possible when necessary, and was not automatically lethal. One of the reasons I believed Jedi saw it as so dangerous was because of how easy it would be to cross that line once you’re shooting lightning of wanting to punish and kill.
By most measures the Dark Side is stronger. I mean you can literally become immortal or swallow whole star systems in Force Storms with the Dark Side. But the Light Side has some metaphysical, borderline plot-contrivance powers like twisting fate so "good always prevails in the end", or becoming a Force Ghost so you achieve some sort of universal oneness.
@@RevanX77 The Dark Side has fast power. You can build an empire with it in a few years... and lose it a couple decades later. Whereas the Jedi built a republic over the course of centuries, and it lasted for millennia, because their methods of influencing people just work better than outright control in the long term. And yes, the Force does have its own version of plot armor, with appropriate patents, that it mostly reserves for Light Siders, only giving it to Dark Siders on very special occasions when it really needs something done. But it's not twisting fate; Dark Siders try to twist fate, and the Light Side just puts it back and doesn't concern itself too much with the details of how. And I am not aware of any Dark Sider who became immortal. Sure, some of them lived for a very long time (though I'm not sure it was really worth it), but as far as I can tell, every single one of them died.
@@samueldimmock694 Essence transfer or Scion/Maul's Force-based sustainment is essentially immortality. The Force does "twist" fate in that it's a conscious actor working towards contrived ends. The Republic, at it's core, is basically a tale of following the path of least resistance, of expansion though coercion rather than force.
On one hand, I can respect being a purist when it comes to force powers, especially where Plagueis, one of best books ever, explains the whole process behind Sith lightning. Still, lightning is cool and seeing more of it would be cool whether it be from Sith or anyone else
@@moffjendob6796 I hated that trilogy. It made the Chiss the "bad guys" against gd *Zerg*! Even gave Luke a High Templar move. How much you want to bet it started out as pitch Denning made to Blizzard that got rejected.
@@justinlast2lastharder749he was never shown to be that weak though, theres no reason he couldn't have gotten that powerful. That being said, any of the other jedi probably would have been even stronger in his position
How I justify force judgement is that it’s not variable in power and is always shot out in its most powerful form to kill quickly. If there’s a large group threatening to overwhelm and kill a Jedi and everyone they are protecting; instead of a barrier or freeze until they get overwhelmed or something like a push or repulse not likely to kill or knockout a strong warrior like a vong; then force judgement can be used as a lethal last resort. It should realistically take a clear mind and immense will, especially to not succumb to the dark from killing people with the force. It should take a toll on the Jedi from realizing they had no other choice and be very powerful to kill as fast as possible unlike force lightning that is purposefully variable to allow sith to torture people.
As someone who never really got into legends content for various reasons, I am not overly familiar with precise justifications given for 'good' uses of Force lightning. However, I also think the concept of Electric Judgement or other light-side use of force lightning to be difficult to justify for many of the same reasons given. I could possibly be persuaded that someone like Mace-Windu, who lives in the gray while still serving the light, might be able to use Force Lightning against droids, or that there could be a light-side ion lightning that only affects electronics, but it would still need to be sold to me as more than just: "Hey why do the bad guys get all the cool abilities? Why don't we clone some of them and give them to the good guys?"
Jacen's usage of Electric Judgment during the NJO books operates by sapping energy, not inflicting pain, FWIW. This is explicit during the Battle of Ebaq 9.
I don't think you need to remove it, Electric Judgement is just Force Lightning but with a pretty name. It's a social thing. And Kyle is an excellent example, he is very much NOT a pure Jedi in Jedi Outcast he starts the game having abandoned the Jedi and the force, and almost kills Tavion in Bespin motivated by revenge. If I'm not mistaken, that's even the section of the game (Bespin) where the game gives you Force Lightning. So although I never had an issue per se with things like Force Judgement (then again the description of it that I heard with Po Kloon is that it was non-lethal by definition working more like a taser) but I actually like this interoperation of it being exclusively dark side since even without the removal of such things yes it does become a point on how easy the dark side is to fall to. Adds to the corruption that the Jedi Order had in the Prequel Era and even shows that not even Luke Skywalker was immune to it's more subtle corruptions.
I wholeheartedly agree with your take on force powers. I suppose it is inevitable that "scale creep" happens as you seek to add more and more content to a franchise. Different creators and different media have different ideas and requirements.
For what it's worth, Plo Koon's story for how he first used it was just to knock someone out and save a hostage, it came from his sense of justice, he was conflicted about what happened and reported it to the council. He ends up deciding he should continue to learn about the power and shouldn't just neglect its use wholesale. That said, I wouldn't say this is the norm for how lightning gets used by Jedi. And yes, Kyle uses it one because Dark Forces/Jedi Knight are a video game series (the best Star Wars video game series still), but also because it's part of the plot that he taps into the dark side, straight up (taps into is an understatement, if anything). Then there's the matter of The One's of Mortis. In the past, apparently the Son didn't use his lightning all for bad purposes. Not Jedi or Sith characters, but still.
Addendum on the Plo Koon thing: The purpose was absolutely to save someone else's life, is the major thing there. Not saying it's issue free, but it's about as reasonable as you're going to see lightning being used that way by a Jedi.
The Son is complicated. He was initially described as being the dark, in some unspecified way, and it was implied that this was not evil. It was necessary. But then he was warned not to fall to the dark side, and this warning was given the same way that a Jedi would give it - falling to the dark side is synonymous with becoming evil. This suggests that he was some sort of embodiment/master of the dark side long before he fell to the dark side. Now I"m not saying that mortals could ever be in the same position (though Mace Windu may suggest that they can); but it is an interesting thing to think about. And it's questionable how reliable our sources on the Mortis Gods are (in Legends, anyway) - one source is ancient Killik records, which were explicitly described as factually questionable; the other is the Clone Wars tv show, which had Ahsoka on Mortis, whereas the records of that event that Luke found did not seem to mention her. Maybe both sources are wholly reliable; maybe one is and the other isn't; maybe neither of them are wholly reliable; maybe the whole thing was falsified by the Architects to cover up their true activities.
#AskEck I've had the idea for a little while now that Lucasfilm should pursue adapting George Lucas's sequel treatments in comic form and getting Lucas himself to consult on it. This may sound like an out-there idea but Lucas was clearly unhappy that the story of his sequels was never told, he's had a life long love of comic books as a medium and even though he's retired, he's always been happy to consult on projects whenever Lucasfilm have asked him to (Solo, The Mandalorian, Dial of Destiny, etc). For Lucasfilm's part, they're fine with producing non canonical content like Visions and the rumored 'What if?' series. Marvel Comics has also just announced they'll be publishing 'What if?' Alien comics and Dark Horse recently published a comic adaption of one of James Cameron's old drafts for an Avatar sequel, so I don't see why Lucasfilm can't get either company to give Star Wars the same treatment. It could even be nice way to celebrate the upcoming 10 year anniversary of the beginning of the sequel trilogy, taking a look at what it could have been. So, what are your thoughts on this? Do you think it's an idea Lucasfilm should pursue?
To borrow from another franchise, imagine using the Force to fire electricity as being akin to shooting someone with a phaser. "Electric Judgement" is the stun setting while "Force Lightning", depending on its intensity, ranges from the heat setting, through the wound and kill settings up to maximum setting that can vaporise a person. It's not nice to zap someone whatever setting you use it on, and should not be your go-to method of conflict resolution, but it's better to have a non-lethal option and not need it than to need it and not have it. If memory serves, very few Jedi are ever permitted to learn Electric Judgement because of how difficult it is to keep their emotions in the right place to "stick to the stun setting" once they start channelling the Force in a zappy manner. It supposedly requires a very specific temperament, which in the prequel era was only held my Plo Koon.
What you mean is you decided things were the way you thought they should be in your own headcanon. Don't feel bad about it; we all do it. And often, we all know better than everyone else about what we like anyway. That said, you're also right about this. Force Lightning should just be evil, and so should "Electric Judgement" (what a ridiculous concept; 'good side force lightning'). It also shouldn't be an easy thing to do. I also think that Palpatine should never have been using lightsabers at all. Yes yes, I know they worked his contempt of the Jedi and lightsabers into him being good at using them out of spite, but... c'mon. They only ever threw it in so they could be uncreative and just do yet another CGI flashlight fight. But yes, I think this is what happens when you have people throwing stuff around because it's just "cool". That's fine for video games, but bad for the consistency of the setting. Thank goodness Disney seems wise enough to keep Electric Judgment in the dustbin where it deserves to be alongside all the other nonsense from Legends. You know. Like bringing Palpatine back from the dead! Goodness me, imagine if they did that! That would be horrible... oh. Right. Well at least they won't do it multiple times, like Legends did, right? Right?
I always felt like the multiple instances we see of jedi using darker abilities such as force lightning were really just indicative of the problem with how the jedi order itself was set up. It's so utterly rigid, so intensely strict, and yes for good reason, but it doesn't really take into account the PEOPLE that are supposed to follow all the strictures to the black and white letter, all day, every day, in every situation. The vast majority of folk aren't saints. We try to be good, but we don't always manage it, and that's without us having some great, tempting power at our fingertips. And given that force sensitivity is basically random and you can't choose who gets it, that will mean that a lot of jedi aren't true saints either. Look at real religious orders we've had, and see how many priests end up going... uh, wrong shall we say, when they're bound to even fewer lifestyle restrictions than the jedi are expected to adhere to. Most jedi end up just fine with it overall, maybe with a wobble here and there (And perhaps a few blasts of lightning when they're having a really bad day), but the history of the Star Wars galaxy is a repeating history of that one person or few people who fall, who can't cope with the jedi rules, who then turn batsh*t and go on to ruin EVERYTHING. The jedi preach it, but they have no real sympathy, no leeway, and no real support structure for their people, you follow the rules or you're bad, and the galaxy keeps paying for it when that bad day wobble becomes a full blown Anakin "I HATE YOU".
Personally, my headcanon is that it's like the difference between Iroh and Azula using lightning generation in ATLA. With both abilities being essentially the same. In both cases, it requires a significant degree of skill and focus to do. However, despite their differences in the intent of their bending, and that it does affect the nature of how it's used, lightning generation is something completely independent of those considerations. Azula not being good at lightning generation because she's evil or emotional, but because she can quickly become very cool-headed when she needs to use it. So, in the context of Star Wars, it's just more sought-out by dark side users because it's just naturally more desirable to them, making it more common among them. But it's ultimately an ability whose "side" is defined by how it's used.
I think the abstract idea behind Electric Judgement is that it's like a stun gun, a controlled discharge meant to incapacitate but not kill, while proper Force Lightning is more like natural lightning, an unleashed burst of rage torturing and killing anything in its way. Lightning would be a Dark corruption of Electric Judgement, the same way Force Choke is a corruption of standard telekinesis, etc. Unfortunately in practice it does just get used as "Lightning but it's not evil because it's green" which... is a bit silly, yeah.
Idk, using it to stun, distract, throw an opponent off balance, put some distance between you and the opponent, seems like that would not be dark. IDK if just cause you use it, you have to have deadly intent.
I would concur with you on the ethics of how the force is used, and I would add that it is not just fear and anger that are paths to the dark - in Star Wars or real life. Callousness and unconcern about the suffering of others can be done without the big bad emotions, it can be done in a zen state - and is still unethical and dark acts nonetheless, paths to the dark side.
I really enjoy the idea that there can be Jedi that can use it. The main way that you can make it work is the idea that any Jedi who uses force lightning most be in complete control of their mental faculties or they will fall. In the Vong war and afterwards, I enjoy the idea that one, the Jedi are different than before, but they are still not the pure Jedi that they should be. Kyle Katarn and Mara Jade uses the force more like a tool than say, Luke and Jacen, who are force channelers and also have a more spiritual outlook on the force. But even they use it. I think an argument can also be made that the vong war pushed the Jedi into being far more willing to use certain abilities if it meant survival
During the Vong War, a lot of them kind of decided to stop thinking about light and dark because it was irrelevant - the Vong were outside of the Force, after all. Not that they actually did exist outside of the Force, merely outside of the Jedi's ability to perceive the Force; but that wasn't the only mistake they made. And Luke's order, for all of its good features, really didn't understand the Force very well, and that limited them in so many ways. It's kind of hard to learn if your teacher's honest answer to a lot of important questions is "I haven't really thought about it before" or "I'm as confused as you are." There has been at least one Jedi who used it in a way that was clearly light side. It was a Force taser, and was used as such - a nonlethal way of incapacitating someone who was a very clear and immediate danger to someone else, used when no other nonlethal weapons were available. And the Jedi Council investigated in thoroughly before accepting that it was okay.
Yoda obviously wasn't a regular Force loghtning user, but he had no qualms about shooting it back at Dooku and potentially hurting him if he failed to deflect it (same as Mace Windu and every other Jedi who has deflected it back, as even with a lightsaber it requires special skill). If we count TLJ as canon, Ghost Yoda also has zero issue calling a down an actual lightning bolt right next to Luke. If it was me who had to come up with an explanation, I would say that there's probably a Jedi alternative to Force lightning kept in the same vault as the Vaapad manuals. It does exist and can be used in a non-Dark Side way, but it's discouraged from being learned as it could easily be abused for evil purposes. Logically, it would make sense as every Dark Side/Sith power is just a perversion of a Light Side/Jedi power. Lightning is just focused electricity, and many practical, beneficial uses exist for creating and manipulating electric fields that some of the early Jedi probably used, up until some Sith thought, "Hey, if I tried really hard and and made this bigger, I could really zap some fools." The Jedi probably did use it as a taser, but because the Sith started using it as a lethal weapon en masse they gave it up and it became strictly associated with the Dark Side.
Its not supposed to make sense really (in my opinion), its supposed to look cool and be a nice experience (the movies and all the other media)... they retcon stuff according to their tastes at the moment also.. I think, for an example, that the lore for the lightsaber colors was retconned at least twice... But yeah, if I were a force user and also like a 'special police' I would prefer to use force-lightning just to make the criminal pass out and then take him to the proper authorities... this, compared to loping off limbs or outright killing with a "laser sword", is far less brutal, or, more civilized.
I think the use of lightning for both sides seems useful. But it feels like it would only be truly powerful in the use of a dark side user. But a jedi being able to use lightning to strike a droid or a ship would make some sense. The idea of a Jedi using the force directly to kill/torture or maim a sentient does not though. Although Jedi do seem fond of lobbing limbs of of people, so what is a little electrical damage.
Also rey palpatine is a sith Lord because she has developed ability that manipulates the people around her to sacrifice themselves for her gain. Plus she gains power the quick Way by stealing it using Force bonds and even with the training she had to do for the third movie, she gained too much power way too fast to be a Jedi. The Jedi path is the slow path, while the sith path is the fast route.
IMO the bottom line is INTENT. Any force power used with the intent to kill or harm should be Darkside. In that vein I fully agree with you Ecks; Force Lightning can only really be used to cause harm and pain, and thus can only be a Darkside Power. Light Saber Throw? All about intent behind the action. Force Choke, I can't see a situation where using it is not a Darkside related action. And YES that absolutely means that Mace Windu took a short walk on the Darkside when he used Force Crush to damage General Grievous's chest at the end of the Clone Wars Micro Series. Now admittedly, this line of thinking could result in a slippery slope. After all if intent is the hinging factor over whether an action is light or dark, then where is the line drawn? You could mind trick someone to get information you need to complete a mission for the greater good, but what if that wasn't your best play? What if you could get the information in a way that doesn't infringe upon another beings free will, but you chose this path because it was faster and easier. That could be perceived as a "dark" use of Mind Trick, unless of course time was of the essence, in which case you could say you had little choice, and it's not like there was any lasting harm... or is there?
It's complicated, and there are shades of grey (kind of - even that's a lot more complicated than many people are willing to admit), and the dark side has been noted to be a very slippery slope, with many things that are decidedly not dark side in themselves nevertheless being extremely dangerous.
I feel like the offensiveness of the green lighting isnt really the issue its the self righteousness required to use it to take life. It would be really interesting to see a Jedi use it to say power a ship, overload some electronics, start a fire or destroy an object or weapon in a moment of extrem stress for the user. The Jedi Path lists "Emerald Lighting" under "Forbidden Force Techniques" and it even mentions that it is very closely related to Sith Lighting. Apparently Darth Vader used it in a "Kinetite" form in Splinter of the Mind's Eye which is super interesting to me. I dont hate the use of it by NJO Jedi during a very dark and taxing war while they where at rock bottom and trying to grow out of the dogma (which forbade justice lighting) that destroyed the old Order. No Jedi is perfect and neither the old Jedi Order nor the NJO where ever the ultimate pinicle of morality. The old Order lead a child slave army in the Clone Wars seemingly without much protest within the Order. I think a few small slipups from a few powerful new Jedi makes a lot of sense (e.g. Jacen Solo's fall). I kinda like Emerald Lighting under this framework.
The one thing I always come to about the jedi being the generals is that an extremely massive army was created from nothing with specific brain augmentations to make them into perfect soldiers in regards to following commands... but was it possible to create the perfect leaders of them? You can only go so far up the chain of command before someone has to give all the orders, but at what point would you just be cloning a guy who could do as he pleases and then you risk those clones not liking all their brothers being cannon fodder and taking countless of the command following clones and starting his own army which could end up a domino effect and you lose your entire army to him, possibly even becoming a worse enemy... I'm sure you could add an augmentation to the clones not to let this happen but it still leaves the question of who should actually be in command of the troops? I would say absolutely not the youngerpadawan, maybe they can tag along and observe from safe areas and by their mmasters sides as they get older, and as they are closer to being ready to become knights they could join the ranks as privates and move up from there... as for the moment of creation of the army it seems like they had pretty much nobody to lead, you dont want to be like the Roman's and have the rich senators command their own so it might have been the best choice to have the peace keepers most familiar with wars become the generals, at least the most experienced of them and not be so reckless with it, create computer simulations for training and have only the best proven ones be the highest ranking generals and the rest be in lower commands or even simply just be soldiers until they can prove worthy of command. Anyway other than experienced peacekeepers powerful with the force... who else were they going to give command of a brand new massive army of millions to? Because you need a lot of them for such a massive army...
Yeah. The reasoning for why the Jedi shouldn't have been Generals is mainly that they shouldn't have participated in the war directly in the first place. Negotiating, helping innocent victims, enforcing anti-war crime rules..., but not choosing a side in what was fundamentally a stupid war over whether certain parts of the galaxy would be controlled by a corrupt "democracy" or a corrupt plutocracy. And a little bit of tactical "they could have done more good as commandos than as strategists." Having the Jedi more or less in control of how the war is fought, both on a strategic and a tactical level, was a really good thing - in fact, when the Jedi were removed, the war became so much darker that the two halves of the war are referred to as the "clone wars" instead of the "clone war."
You could debate the morality of mind 'tricks' by comparing their use to that of extraordinarily effective pursuasiveness or charm and arguing that their differences are suffciently negligible, thereby qualifying the former as 'neutral'. The only world in which lightning could be ethically employed is one in which we could ensure the reliability of unlawful interrogation techniques for the greater good. Utilitarianism is relatively unexplored in SW canon, though, even when references to 'grey' Jedi are being made.
The one reference to utilitarianism (or more properly aggregate consequentialism, as good outcomes were not defined in terms of happiness) that I can think of was an example of someone who tried to use evil methods for good ends, but arrogance and sunk costs fallacy defeated him - though he did technically succeed in ending the war, by uniting everyone against a common enemy.
It comes down to wo things in my opinion. Intent and application. Regardless of what school of thought you come from(Vergere, old jedi order, sith, etc) it is pretty commonly agreed upon that a lot of actions can be light or dark depending on intent. Striking down a target with a lightsaber isn't an evil/dark side action in many contexts(self defense, defense of another, etc) but can be when done in other circumstances(executing a defenseless prisoner). Similarly Telekinesis isn't inherently a dark side action, but using it to choke someone to death is. Force lightning being used in its form of electric judgement as an attack design to incapacitate or obtain an advantage to kill an otherwise dangerous foe(such as the slayers, who in the context of the fight at the citadel, could not be taken alive) satisfies the application angle(after all, a force push into a lightsaber slice would come under far less scrutiny) Intent is the other half of the coin, using any force power for because you want to *hurt* someone rather than because you want to *stop* them will always be a dark side act. Plo Koons usage of electric judgement satisfies the intent angle, since his usage was to incapacitate a hostage taker and care was taken not to inflict undue harm. I do the Plo Koons usage of Electric Judgement does fail to adhere to the Jedi Philosophy, but just like not all dark siders are sith(and not all dark side actions are inline with sith tenets), not all lightsiders are jedi and not all lightside actions are inline with the jedi code. I do think there are plenty of "light side" uses of force lightning/electric judgement that fail to satisfy these conditions though.
Exclusivity elements in worldbuilding are always problematic. The moment you lay down rules such as "X can never Y" and your franchise gets big enough, inevitably someone will contradict it. For instance the general rule about force ghosts is that only jedi can attain that state, and even then it takes tons of training. Yet vader successfully becoming a force ghost despite not fulfilling either criteria became a plot hole which had to be paved over with "explanations" and "retcon"
Well, technically the thing about tons of training was a retcon, and the thing about only Jedi being able to do it... well, it was always Lucas's intention (I think), but he failed to communicate that to the people writing Star Wars comic books (which he signed off on), so they wrote comic books featuring the ghosts of ancient Sith Lords, and that became canon.
TBH I see zero difference between wielding the force to defend oneself with a lightsaber, and force lightning, in terms of direct morality. Sure, I have to imagine the force wouldn't like it being used for torture, but killing is killing, and if it needs to happen the force doesn't exactly seem to mind. I generally feel like most star wars lore is written from people inside the universe and we don't have to assume that any one side or group has the full picture in front of them, as to some extent the force is intended to be mysterious.
Personally I don't see why force lightning has to be a dark side ability. All it is is just channeling force energy to your fingers and coverting it into electricity. You don't have to use negative emotions to do that. Hell, you don't have to use emotions for any force ability, really.
@@uberness77 No, you don't. You just focus energy to your fingertips and shoot it out in the form of electricity. There's nothing emotional about that. You can do that while being completely emotionless.
So you're saying that torturing people to death is only a dark side ability if you hate the person you're killing? Interesting perspective. I'm not sure I've ever seen the Force defined in quite that way before.
@@samueldimmock694 I'm saying you don't need emotions for it, because there's nothing emotional about turning your life force energy into electricity. You can manipulate life force energy without emotions, that's what I'm saying. You don't need emotions to turn your emotions into electricity, that's why force lightning shouldn't be considered a dark side ability, because you don't need "the dark side" to turn your energy into lightning.
@@Ash-Winchester From the perspective of the force, life is precious in all its forms, it goes through all living things. I feel that a power whose sole purpose is to destroy, corrupt or maim life is a perversion of the force and thus a dark side ability and action, no matter who you're killing or for whatever reason.
8:22 "...I don't see how you can use the Force power 'Electric Judgement' without a basic desire to kill something! That's anti-Jedi; the Jedi seek to preserve life..." So close-minded. I can think of several uses of generating electricity through the Force that are meant to do no harm: defibrillation is specifically meant to save lives, not take them; you could power (or power cycle) a device with it, such as a blast door that is magnetically-sealed; you could generate an electric current in order to heat a material, or a spark to set something alight for similar purposes; apply the right charge to something and you can magnetize it; the list goes on and on. If you can think of a use for electricity, you can probably do it by using the Force to generate Lightning.
Did this guy forget that the Jedi have to kill people sometimes? The dark side isn't about results, it's about negative emotions. Fear, rage, hatred, sadism. I distinctly recall Luke killing someone with Emerald Lightning, but he didn't fuel it with the dark side. He didn't want to cause suffering, he didn't hate the enemy he used it on.
You know, I was literally reading all about the light vs. dark sides of the force, especially concerning lightning for a fanfic I'm working on. Here's the way I like to interpret things: First, as Yoda states, ANY time a force user utilizes the force for offensive use is channeling the dark side. However, as Luke and other "grey Jedi" would find out, the corruption caused by using the dark side depends on the emotions channeled to use it. Force users can, with enough effort and training, minimize (but not completely remove) the corruptive effects of dark side use by controlling their anger and hatred. So I see offensive force powers that Jedi use, such as Electric Judgement, not as light side abilities but as dark side abilities used without giving in to the corruption of the dark side. Personally, I think that every time the Jedi used the force for combat did channel the dark side, though their philosophy helped prevent falling for the allure (for the most part). All in all, I do agree that using such a pure discharge of force energy is always a dark side ability. I do think, however, that certain individuals familiar with both sides of the force can use dark side abilities (to a degree, of course) whilst avoiding "falling to the dark side" so to speak.
making the jedi soldiers (even generals) in the clone wars was a deliberate attempt to turn them to the dark. All part of the plan. Writing wise this was a take on the effects of PTSD and a reference to the old republic/sith war, because good writing, and history loves repetition. The only version of force lightning Ill accept as a non dark side power is destroy droid - because droids are not alive or connected to the force (or are they.... The hypocrisy of the jedi is another discussion for another day)
I could imagine a light side version of Force Lightning that does exhibit a fair level of restraint and doesn’t make the target suffer. My idea is that it would function akin to a taser, a short, strong jolt of electricity used to quickly & humanely render an opponent unconscious. I could also imagine it would be a largely banned technique because of the near surgical level of control needed & the required knowledge of near countless target species it could be ised upon, as even a slight mishap would lead to accidentally injuring, killing, or causing them to suffer.
Most star wars fans look at the force very wrong. Do you know what balance is? Equality in its duality. Light and dark in tandem. Force lightning is not concentrated anger, it's manipulation of mater and energy. That's all the force is. There is no light or dark, only the force. Humans have to personify and anthropomorphize everything.
If we take KotoR mechanics into account, lightning is a dark side power, any Jedi can use it but it's easier the more dark side aligned you are and harder to use the more light side aligned you are
Is “force choke” even considered an ability? It to me is literally just telekinesis closing their throat. Same thing with lightsaber throwing, it’s not an ability, it’s a move.
Nah, Jedi can have their own, but I think it has to be fundamentally different in intent, mindset, basic execution, and damage output. The Jedi using this power can't be specifically intending to kill and can't be in a state of emotional turmoil. The basic execution would be different in that a Jedi would literally be transmuting raw Force energy into bolts of actual electricity, not giving their hate and anger physical form. Obviously, damage output would be severely limited compared to true Force Lightning.
“A Jedi sufficiently strong in the Force can be trained to produce a facsimile, but not true Sith lightning, which, unabated has the power not only to incapacitate or kill, but to physically transform the victim. Force lightning requires strength of a sort only a Sith can command because we accept consequence and reject compassion. To do so requires a thirst for power that is not easily satisfied.” - Darth Plagueis (Darth Plagueis, Chapter 13: Riders on the Storm)
Electric judgment relies on judging others. Pride is just as much an emotion as wrath and if you think you have the right to judge someone this harshly then you have as much emotion as any sith.
Dude, you're right on the money. It's the force equivalent of a flamethrower. You need to defend yourself, fine. You don't need to light them on fire and watch. Same goes for force lightning ⚡
I'm completely with Eck here. Legends has produced some really cool material and sometimes went unbelievably off the rails. And changing the color of force lightning and calling it a "good" version, that's definitly firmly in the latter ballpark. Even if the original "dark" force lightning wasn't simply lightning-colored, but evil-red, it would be silly...
Nah man force lightning is like that scene in the first Dirty Harry movie when Harry's going to meet with the Scorpio Killer to pay a ransom and he's taping a switchblade to his leg in case he gets double crossed and the chief says to him "A police officer shouldn't even know how to use one of those things!". Dirty Harry style jedis would at least know how to use force lightning if they were in a pinch.
I have mixed feelings on the green jedi lighting. Sith lightning (yes, *Sith lightning* it's literally their signature move) is done by focusing hate and sadism. Jedi lightning is just a restrained version of of that, making it an automatic point of corruption or as a sign of corruption in that Jedi. On the other hand they DID need some non lethal was of using the force to deal with problem people...
Electric judgement and force lighting are totaly different from each other. Force lighting damages the target while electric judgement stuns the target, pacifying them
Unless you crank the power setting to max, in which case electric judgment is just recolored force lightning but fueled by pragmatism instead of malice.
As for how electric judgment can be a light side power they talk about it some in excerpts of the novelization of EP 3 in some manner. The fundamental difference between being a Jedi vs being a sith being that a Jedi chooses to be an instrument of the force while a sith or dark side user chooses to use the force and bind it to his/her bidding. Doesn't mean that all Jedi or all sith ever do this perfectly. But it does explain why one could be considered not a dark side power and another a pure channeling of a dark side power despite the end result. Jedi don't strive to kill but if killing is the will of the force they don't go pacifist. The specific excerpts are from the minds of Count Dooku and from excerpts of the mind of Obi Wan. Specifically Obi Wan when he confronts Grievous
Agreed... I aways considered Force lightning as a Dark side ability, because of the way it is used across all the movies. Ray being able to do it served as a hint of Her dark heritage and that's what made it shocking (no pun intended)
Eck, a counter idea that somewhat explains “Electric Judgement.” It also fits some of the thoughts on Sith being calm and Jedi being overly restrained. The Sith are completely okay with their relationship with the force and if it lets them shock someone go ahead. The Jedi on the other hand look at the force as a conscience that shares their own failures of trying to beat peace but being comfortable with killing. The Jedi have to call it something other than force lightning or they have to admit they have more in common with the Sith than they would like.
The spirit of the matter versus the letter. The letter of the matter says that good light side force users can use a dark ability like force lightning, or that there's a light side replica. Deal with it. But the spirit of the matter is really what you're touching on here. Good people don't hurt intentionally hurt others unless they have to, and of course even that exception is dubious. Force lightning is at odds with the message of Star Wars where the actions you take determine the kind of person you are. A son saving his father is a light side action, an emperor torturing an insubordinate is a dark side action. The letter of the matter doesn't apply because there's little room for excuses.
Thing is, your ENTIRE premise hinges upon the idea that the Jedi of the pre-empire era were all knowing on the matter. That THEIR interpretations of the force were correct and objective. We KNOW FOR A FACT that this is not the case in legends canon. It also hinges upon this silly idea that the nature of force lightning is absolute. That it HAS to cause undue pain, that it HAS to be lethal. That it cannot be scaled up or down as the situation demands. Meanwhile, the majority of sources that even begin to touch on such a question, indicate that it can in fact be scaled, and most uses of force lightning don't even bring the question up. Hell, Return of the Jedi: are we really going to argue that Vader, in his electrically sensitive and many times throughout legends specified to be vulnerable to electricity/lightning suit is more resistant to it than Luke? Luke gets knocked down and writhes on the ground pretty much immediately, but Vader manages to eat it with little issue, dying later because of damage it did to his life support. Meanwhile it should have caused far more debilitating effect on Vader precisely because all of his limbs are cybernetic. The simple nature of them being electronically controlled should have caused them to twitch horribly and make him drop Palpatine. Then in lore we also have Vader acknowledging that lighting was used as a punishment by Palpatine on a fairly frequent basis, despite the issues it would cause for Vader's survival. This makes it pretty clear that either lightning is pretty weak overall (which is very contradictory with numerous examples of usage), or that it's power can be scaled for purpose. Preponderance of evidence is that Force Lightning is NOT a purely dark side power of aggression. It is, like electricity in reality, hard to guide and manage, but not inherently torturous, which is the main reason it is argued as a dark side power, is the pain it typically inflicts. Because those who usually use it are Sith who get enjoyment out of pain and thus do not use it full-tilt, so that it can cause pain. Meanwhile other times it's used to instant kill, leaving a twitching corpse, going off of remaining electricity juddering nerve signals. It's even been used to outright VAPORIZE beings before. It's the same thing as the arbitrary distinction between force grip and force choke: It's the force utilized in the same exact way, mechanically speaking, but it is the INTENT that changes how it's viewed. Same goes for things like 'drain life' powers. Which the jedi at various points in the timeline use to transfer energy from themselves (or a willing donor) to another as part of the healing process, which is EXPLICITLY how Fay gets Obi-wan moving in time to deliver an antidote to the republic in Legends canon. Again, the entire premise of this video leans on treating jedi dogma, specifically fall of the republic era jedi dogma, about use of the force as objective truth. Put plainly, that is just not the case. Luke has concerns about his own usage of it, because Luke is finding his mindset around use of the force beginning to shift. He's recognizing that he's sliding on the slippery slope, and adjusts and re-prioritizes to counter that. Force lightning in particular had nothing to do with that, it was Luke's immediate jumping to the force as a solution to conflict that causes these issues. Luke's concern was with moderation, not the abilities themselves, same as most of Luke's order who used dark side abilities. Their concern was balancing things appropriately, and not giving in to the desire to use it without justified cause. It is in no way different than a force push, in that regard. A force push of sufficient power can take chunks out of a mountain, and even weaker pushes are capable of throwing people to their death or just shattering them against hard objects.
The only "good guy" force lightning I could understand would be as part of force healing like a force AED to shock a heart back to life. But using it to kill and torture is definitely dark side.
Everyone laugh at Mar for using the wrong image for the Unifying Force
I feel like you could write a character who was a Sith Lord that did more good than many Jedi. What if your personal drive and passion was helping other people?
Even if you became a slave to your more base passions, someone who is driven to help people would end up more like an oathbreaker paladin in D&D rather than a baby slayer.
I agree, this was a problem Legends Canon had thrust upon it by videogame logic, though personally I think this was mainly done because force drain was a new lightning ability obviously more dark locked to Sith(the dark, I use Sith but agree with your rectangle analogy) so suddenly lightning became less locked to the dark side and usable by light side users.
Then from there authors presume that since they CAN use it there MUST be a "light" version, but in NJO it must be remembered the 'Vong were wholly outside the force and thus crept in the same kind of political "life" vs "not life" argument of fetus's in current politics, and so the question was if using lightning on a Vong was actually killing "life" as the Force did not recognize that they were living beings and the Jedi at that point experience "life" as a concept of balance within a construct that did not include the Vong.
I feel like electric judgement specifically is supposed to be like a taser. It's not lethal and is defense oriented. I can see that being a jedi power.
You talking about Darth Marr?
@@DBeskar6605Not at all, I see this rather large portion of the fan base who seem to consider the force "magic" but it is not, the term "space wizard" is used for Jedi to denote relative ability scaling but what they wield is not "magic" but natural energies.
What this means is your Sith Lord isn't some Nuclear power plant, he is a coal mine, his energy based abilities literally warp and distort and "wound" the force, he creates untold butterfly effects throughout the galaxy at the twist of a finger, Jedi abilities in contrast are used like an H-vac system, in Darth Plagious novel a Sith lord controlled his butterflies to create the typhoon that would be Anakin Skywalker, but in general Jedi are the ones thinking about consequences.
Midichlorians support that the force is something of an extradimensional ecosystem, and as such creatures do in fact live there and face consequences for abuse of dark side energies even without noted real world victims.
The Jedi Marketing team was on point: It's not Force Electricution, it's, uhm...Electric Judgement.
I like how, in the novel Plaugeis, Palpatine believes that Dooku would never be able to become a full Sith because, unlike Anakin, he was raised by the Jedi and was completely molded by them.
the same reason palpatine would always tell dooku to shut his mouth whenever he mentioned the potential ally obi-wan could be.
He was not completely molded by them or else he would be a Jedi 😭
@@Zacvh Or heavily molded by them. Even Anakin and Revan had that spark of light after years of being a dark side user.
@@Zacvh Not how it works, dooku was molded by them but was open minded enough to acknowledge their flaws, and he began to heavily disagree with some decisions. its like growing up being raised by your parents then later starting to notice their issues and flaws.
@@mitwhitgaming7722 Well revan never really "fell" to the dark side like most jedi did, he did it willingly and decided to turn, all of that light was gone. He only had a spark of light left because he essentially died a sith and was brainwashed and re-molded as a jedi and then slowly started to remember his sith ways which is why he is seen as someone in between the light and dark sides
so it's not that he had a spark of light left in him, it was forcefully given back to him after he was brainwashed and no longer knew he was a sith at some point or that he was revan
"Just don't be a sith, lol."
-Kyle Katarn
Ah sith spit
I can get behind Electric Judgement as a sort of force taser: a nonlethal way of subduing people, quick and mostly painless without long lasting damage or risk of death.
Yeah, that's what I wanted to point out, force taser. There might be situations where Jedi lost his lightsaber and is surrounded by formidable enemies.
It is I!!!! TASER FACE!!!!!!!!!!
I think it doesn’t help that Force Lightning doesn’t leave scorch marks and burns when we see it being used on a person. It looks less like a violent electric flamethrower and more like you’re doing extreme tazing on a dude
The Canon novel Dark Disciple (yeesh) actually has the best and most realistic description of the damage Force lightning can really do. When Dooku electrocutes Ventress with his Force lightning, her described injuries are 100% consistent with real life lightning strike victims (including blood trickling from the nose & ears and Lichtenberg figures).
@@raghuvarv That is absolutely crazy, props on whoever wrote the book in making Force Lightning what should be something brutal and not to be taken lightly.
When Sidious used Force lightning on someone in the "Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison" comic, he completely burns him up.
In the Truce At Bakura, Luke Skywalker was suffering from muscle aches and double vision, plus partial calcification of his skeletal structure. He was hoverchair-bound until he recovered through a lot of rest, meditation and bacta treatments.
Well, even tasers leave a nasty ass mark.
But, what can I say, seems people don't like the jedi stuff to cause damage on people
A way I could see electric judgement making sense with the Jedi code is if it uses the hate of the recipient instead of the hate of the evoker. This would also fit the name "Judgement" very well. It's not the force user who's harming you, it's your own negative emotions. It would basically use the same principles of generating electricity through negative emotions as force lightning, but the source of these emotions would be different. If used on a decent person, it would have minimal to no effect.
Or, just remember that New Republic jedi are much less dogmatic than pre-empire jedi. They aren't trying to purge themselves of emotions, they harness their emotions for a greater good. Delving into dark side powers when necessary makes more sense for the jedi that Luke trained than for the one Yoda led.
Those sure are some big hoops you are jumping through to make that work lol
I'm honestly surprised that the Jedi version of Force Lightning wasn't something like nerve-numbing electricity. Like, non lethal, non-painful, but can incapacitate an opponent or disable say, a sword arm, or a leg, or cause unconsciousness if it's used full body or just on the head.
Not like a Taser, which still inflicts pain, but almost like a novocaine effect. Mid fight, blast someone's arm, and it goes limp for a while. Makes it harder to fight.
I'm pretty sure a decently skilled jedi can just do most of that already without electric judgment. If they're capable of lifting someone off the ground they've essentially incapacitated them, i don't think individual limb manipulation is off the table either, and I'm pretty sure there's a higher level ability to cause someone to fell nauseated enough that they can't function properly.
Maybe force lightning / electric judgment could be used to repower the hyperdrive engine of a medical frigate.
New that's renewable energy!
I always assumed Force Lightning was like the Cruciatus Curse in Harry Potter, powered by the desire to hurt the person. Like with the dark side, the Unforgivable Curses are powered by the desire to hurt and control others, and there's no real way to use them in a good way. You can be powered by righteous anger, but you're still giving into darkness and that's always bad.
Harry was really tip-toe-ing a fine line when he used the sectumsempra. I would rope that in with the unforgivables because its purpose is to do a similar thing.
The sith version is about half electricity balf direct hate-death radiation
That depends on your point of view. The test of every man in a world where anger is just a reality of life is to turn that anger toward doing something productive.
And then there's the Doom Slayer. You go tell him he's wrong, I'm not trying that 😆
Plos electric judgment is him being purely hateful towards evil. It would be cool if Yoda had a green version of it. Impossible tho since Yoda has zero emotion
I can think of 2 of the unforgivable curses that can be used in a good way, one of them may not work and there are probably much better ways to put someone out of there misery that the killing curse but the imperious curse can have quite a few good intention uses, 1 I can think of off the top of my head someone is intent on harming you and under normal circumstances they won’t stop unless you put them down hard or they put you down maybe even for ever but (cast spell) “”GO AWAY!”” End of situation and no one got permanently harmed, think of when we have terror attacks (cast spell) “”STOP! THROW YOUR WEAPON AWAY AND SIT DOWN ON THE GROUND WITH YOU HANDS ON YOUR HEAD THEN GO WITH THE POLICES WHEN THEY COME FOR YOU!”” think how meny life’s something like that could save, so yes there are exceptions.
Just as Sith Lightning uses one's will to inflict pain, Electric Judgement uses one's will to do justice.
The Sith are torturing you with their own sense of anger and hatred toward you.
The Jedi are torturing you with their own sense of moral superiority over you.
Even though I think Electric Judgement makes sense for the Jedi of the high and late republic who were blinded by their obnoxious hubris, I agree that a power which essentially stems from pride is not a light side power.
True force lightning is without a doubt a dark side ability as the objective is to cause as much suffering as possible before ultimately causing death, but weaker versions of it ranging from defibrillators to simple incapacitation could be used by Jedi.
The ot never stated that force powers or light sabers were light/dark specific some nerd wrote a book that said it.
@@rayswiatek5948why would you think that matters? Sides of the force having powers has been safely considered starwars fact for decades
@@calebbarnhouse496 Valid but I think one of the coolest things is seeing how Jedi or Sith adapt abilities of the opposite side of the force, or people like Kyle Katarn who don't subscribe to the same philosophy. The face of 'dark' and 'light' side abilities may be true, but the alternative viewpoints always added a nice little bit of depth to the lore
@@neonthunder3261 sure, but that doesn't change the fact that certain abilities require you to draw in dark side emotions, while some require you draw in light side emotions, and characters that make use of the dark side abilities should have to fight against corruption from the dark side
@@calebbarnhouse496 yea duh lol
You are wrong about one thing: I don't hate you and almost completely agree! The dark side is seductive even to the writers. Its really interesting to read through the comments here too and see how many different ways people conceptualize the Force. In my mind the dark side is summed up as "exploitive" and damages the force to take advantage of the chaos and energy that results, which is why dark side powers often manifest as violent and seemingly barely under control. The more forceful or damaging a power is the "darker" it is, and channeling the life of the galaxy into pure energy to painfully kill is hard to imagine as being in harmony with the Force. Even if the Force isn't harmed, the fact that it mimics the effects of force lightning still contributes to dark side corruption by giving the user a quick and easy (from their perspective) way to deal with a problem and helps rationalize those kind of dangerous short cuts in the future.
Really great breakdown! You got to the root of how the Force and light/dark sides should operate. The “light side” and “dark side” aren’t two arbitrary forces that can or should be equally utilized. The dark side is inherently a perversion of life itself, and tapping into that will twist you. The Force makes up and binds all life, and it’s inherently at peace and is peaceful, and when a Jedi taps into it it’s for selfless means and ends to help others. Something like force lightening inherently taps into something baser and ugly. Even if it may be more effective in the short run you’re going out of your way to inflict cruel pain. And I like what you said about electric judgement having cruel ends even if it doesn’t have hateful means. That being said from what I’ve heard about the ability it seems less torturous than regular Force lightning, but I’m not too knowledgeable so idk if there is a way to make it work with the Light side under specific circumstances. It may be one of those things where it is the last resort. Narratively it can be pretty interesting, as long as the dangers of it are not underestimated.
I think the whole “gray Jedi” philosophy is kinda BS because balance in the force doesn’t mean “light and dark in balance.” That’s not really what George Lucas ever intended. The dark is the imbalance, it’s hate and selfishness and ignorance, and because of its empowering and intoxicating nature it is extremely difficult not to go overboard once you start relying on it. If you’re gonna use a dark side ability it needs to be an absolutely necessary evil never to be used again if possible, not a power trip.
I didn't remember the Vong writhing in pain when hit with it. The power of Electric Judgement was to use a feeling of Righteousness to either Stun or Instantly Kill an enemy without causing pain. Basically a system shut down where a person would not suffer. You couldn't torture someone with it at the end of the day.
Where as Normal Lightning, Sith Lightning, Dark Lightning whatever people want to call it was fueled to just cause harm and nothing else, and be the most painful experience it possibly could.
Plo btw when he did was in a manner of defending life and it wasn't torturous at all as the guy immediately fell on conscious
Yoda redirecting force lighting back at the user is a perfect example of jedi philosophy. I would expect such a feat is much more difficult for a dark sider because of how they view the force and how they channel it. Dooku blocked it by meeting the redirected lighting with force. His look of surprise wasn't just that yoda could counter his attack he didn't understand WHAT yoda was doing to accomplish it.
I think this is spot on.
“Abilities aren’t inherently good or evil … it’s how you use them” - Kyle Katarn
Me personally, I kinda dislike the Electric Judgement idea. When developing the ability and deciding to write it into the lore, it feels like they looked at The Empeor in ROTJ and said "Wow, that's cool! We should give the Jedi a similar ability, but less powerful because it's too violent for 'peace keepers'." I think the idea of being a heavy Lightning user is a sign of a fully emersed Dark Sider who is at the peak of their power. You have to draw upon your rage and hate to intentionally cause harm to someone. This flies in the face of the Jedi teachings, so giving them a watered-down version that can be used with NO rage or hate just cheapens the ability, and also removes the consequences of use, as the the more you use the Dark Side, the more it deteriorates your body and soul.
One example that may be a bit niche: Chaos Unison in MegaMan Battle Network 5. While using a Dark Chip outright grants immediate power, it has consequences. Chaos Unison removes the permanent consequences, and lets you use the power of the single Dark Chip you've activated a potential unlimited number of times until th Unison wears off. While there ARE in-game reasons as to why this doesn't corrupt MegaMan, it feels like using it SHOULD cause some side effects during the story, but it doesn't.
While I do think this video does do a good job of explaining why Force Lightning should be an exclusively Dark Side power, I do think Electric Judgment would still make sense if it was a non-lethal power. If the idea behind Electric Judgment was that you would incapacitate your target instead of torturing or killing them, it definitely rides the line but I can see how someone could justify that as a Light Side ability. Sort of like using a taser instead of a gun. The main problem here of course, is that Electric Judgment has been shown to be capable of killing.
I feel like the force lightning Plo Koon used in his story wasn't either of those since it was moreso a taser when he was out of options to save a hostage (if I'm remembering correctly). I was told in the same video that the Jedi did like a dark side power of creating massive storm clouds on planets, which I think we can all agree isn't good if true.
Yeah, in Plo Koon's case, it's the same moral dilemma as tasers - an incredibly painful but not particularly dangerous way of taking someone down, which should not be used when a less violent tool will work, and which is somewhat lacking in effectiveness compared to certain more lethal options (except in specific circumstances). Its use case is fairly limited, but within that use case, it's overall the lesser of two evils. Jaina Solo also suggested using Force Lightning as a makeshift ion cannon to disable an enemy ship without killing anyone, which is another potential use case (though in that particular instance, I think that they were too close to the dark side to be using the Force as a weapon, no matter the reason).
As for Force Storm, there are several different abilities that that could be referring to. One is the ability to create wormholes using the Force, theoretically enabling unaided FTL; this is probably dark side because it messes with the fabric of reality in a way that probably has consequences; another is the ability to summon giant storm clouds, which I've never actually seen, but I can imagine that it would be useful in case of drought; and the third is a name for Tier III Force Lightning in certain games, which is almost certainly not what that video was talking about (though if we're thinking of the same video, I don't think we were told anything other than its name and the fact that it's pretty difficult to use).
In addition to it being an inherently dark side power, I think that Force lighting should be exclusive to only the most powerful Force users. There was such mystique around the Emperor in RotJ. This old man who Darth Vader bowed down to. Who seemed to regard a lightsaber as little more than a toy when he looked at Luke's. We knew that he must be especially powerful. Then suddenly we see him completely overpower Luke by casually unleashing a lightning storm from his fingertips! Honestly, since then, the sheer number of characters who have used Force lightning has cheapened it. And yes, I know that all of the people who have used it (or "electric judgement") ARE very powerful Force users, but I still think it became a bit too common.
I’m glad someone else feels this way. I think Sith lightning should be the pinnacle of the dark side. Only the best (Palpatine, Vitiate, maybe someone else) should be able to use it. Honestly, I think it would be even cooler if Palpatine invented the technique. I’m not too happy with someone like Dooku using it, but it is what it is
I hate how trivialized the lightning became. Lucas, EU authors, and Disney have all been guilty of this. In Return of the Jedi the Force had only been an enhancement. You could choke someone or throw things but this was still the user's intentions. Palpatine being able to use the Force purely as to cause suffering characterized how unsalvageably evil he was. That was a level of corruption we never even saw Vader do. It wasn't even an "attack" since Luke was defenseless. But all the other media ended up treating more like any sufficient dark side user gets generic electrical powers unlocked.
Unfortunately having so many cooks can lead to inconsistency. For the most part I agree with you.
Certain things that can be done with the Force should (imo) require a specific mindset or emotional state. Something like lightning coming from a thought to specifically cause pain. Not just anger but a desire to pain.
Can a Jedi do it? I think what Yoda was trying to explain is that when you do something it's easier to keep doing it. If you allow yourself to react with anger it will forever be harder to not do it because you allowed yourself to do it. If you indulge in causing pain once you'll think about it again and more often.
I think the reverse also applies. I think for a Sith there's also a temptation to walk down the light path if you've done it. If you love someone or feel sympathy you'll more easily do it again. Either one can generate a reflexive action, or cause doubt. Being conflicted mentally would obviously have your mind trying to do two different things at the same time sapping energy from both or delaying action.
Can a Jedi do it? Probably. But you'd forever be tempted to do it again. You'd be left having to be more mindful you weren't doing it. If you've never punched someone in the face it won't be where your mind first goes to resolve an issue. If you've ever done it and felt satisfied or happy to see someone get what you think they deserve you'll much more easily consider it again. Especially if it's a much faster and personally rewarding option.
It's not that I think a Jedi can't be a Jedi after. Vader becomes a force ghost. I think going to the emotional place and expressing it would create a mental tension you'd never be free of.
Luke is using the dark side when he uses Lighting in NJO, but as you mentioned it is all about intent, but he can tap into that through Vergere's philosophy, but this is the reason why Luke later drops that philosophy in Dark Nest and dedicates the order entirely to the Light, Luke knows it is wrong
It is absolutely wild hearing someone, let alone a youtuber, take the stance that (to me) seems way closer to how the force was originally presented to us. Don't get me wrong, I also like the options of dark side powers or similar types in games. But that's for gameplay purposes.
I'd love to see some stories that more strongly resembled how they were originally shown to us.
I like the theory of Thee Living Force, to explain this.
In short, it suggests that The Force has a will of its own. It has a plan, for lack of a better word, for the future, and will attempt to steer events towards that end.
Jedi operate by allowing The Force free access, so to speak, providing it with as little impediment as they can, to enable its guidance to take firm root and more or less control their actions. Strong desires and emotions are interference, in this regard.
According to this philosophy, the dark side is the opposite, instead of allowing The Force to 'take the wheel', a Force user grabs and pulls on The Force against its will, bending it to their purpose. Both in philosophy and technique, it is radically different.
The Sith embody this to it's fullest extent, never allowing The Force to plot their course, going against its currents at every opportunity, in the belief that this will free them from its all-pervasive influence.
The theory of The Living Force also explains the nature of the Force Ghost as being the ultimate surrender of the self to its will. By having complete trust in its (again, for lack of a better word) "plan", and providing no resistance to its currents, a Force user may retain agency after death, becoming unmoored from time and space and imbued with phenomenal cosmic power. Power they will never use in any manner contrary to the wishes of The Force, by virtue of that trust.
It is this trust, or in their case, the lack of it, that keeps Sith from ever attaining such power. They can only ever wield what power they can forcibly grab, whereas there is, theoretically, no limit on the power that can flow through someone who embraces The Force. Sunrider being an example of a Jedi who manages to become, more or less, a living puppet of The Force in their lifetime. Complete and utter surrender of the self, grants ultimate power, power which is then employed according to the directions of The Force itself.
According to this philosophy, The Force is neither good nor evil, and the distinction between the dark side and the light side does not lie in neither actions nor motivations, but in how a user interacts with The Force.
They either allow The Force to flow through them as freely as they can manage, or they seize on it against its will.
In my understanding, electric judgement was like a rightous exorcism. The more evil the target was or the darkside the target tapped into, the more it damaged them.
Plo Koon was and electric judgement user, and arguably one of the purest jedi ever, but Yoda had forbidden him from teaching it other jedi due to it often being a gateway to darkside for people who took enjoyment in using it as a trigger happy weapon instead of a tool only to be used against the most evil targets.
Plo Koon was probably the paragon for what a jedi should be. He was wise, level headed, calm, kind, understanding, open to new ideas, one of the strongest force users and lightsaber duelists, and unrestricted by tradition. He was among the list of specific jedi Darth Sideous needed offworld in order to set his plan into motion.
Imagine Mace Windu confronting Sideous with Plo Koon by his side, a fellow jedi who could match Sideous in combat, resist his force scream, and fry him with lightning that grows stronger with the more evil the target is. Darth Sideous is one of the more evil beings of all time, making him the beat target you could ever hit with electric judgement. I think that's why Sideous wanted him offworld. Sideous doesn't fight fairly, so I doubt he would ever be willing fight someone that could kill him in a fair fight.
The end of the New Jedi Order series was so annoying. It completely walked back the idea the Yuuzhan Vong couldn't be touched by the Force. In Traitor, Jacen unleashes Force Lightning and, since the Vong were untouchable, all the Lightning struck Vergere (best NJO character btw). Then in Unifying Force, the Jedi casually Force Push and Lightning the Vong warriors.
Infuriating.
I've always seen the concept of Electric Judgement to be less about harming another being than it is about ending a dangerous situation as quickly as possible. I'm pretty sure the passage that coined the term was an account of a Jedi using it to end a hostage situation. It definitely leans towards the dark side, but so does using a lightsaber to cut off someone's arm.
While I agree that Force Lightning is an inherently Darkside ability, I like the Legends comic for saying that you have to master it to learn Force Healing, an inherently Lightside ability. It all depends on your point of view, but I think that understanding both sides of the Force is necessary. The darkness in the light is that you have absolutists, like Yoda, on the Lightside who preach intolerance, while you have manipulators, like Palpatine, on the Darkside who preach understanding (I say "preach understanding" because that dude certainly didn't practice what he preached once he gained power).
I think Force Lightening is inherently different from other attacks because it is Directly using the Force against someone.
You are taking how the Universe Binds Together, and Unraveling it. The intermediary of using a lightsaber instead changes things.
When I got upset with the prequels, and wrote my own "Star Wars Lore", I also said there were "Jedi Priests", like yoda, that had unparalleled abilities with the Force, but could only maintain this connection by never harming a living thing.
The community: This is a pyramid. Into which hole does the pyramid go? That's right, it goes in the square hole.
Okay I agree with a lot of what you said but a small counter point. I think there are some cases where channeling the force into electricity (which is all force lightning and electric judgement are) would be perfectly fine in Jedi philosophy. Such cases could be using it to short out a group of droids that can’t be dispatched another way safely or perhaps to short out a control panel or even charge or power some machine like we see in the force unleashed games. I agree that using it as an offensive tool against living beings is dark side for sure, but in these cases I can’t see any ethical argument against it by the Jedi (other than they don’t want to encourage use of it at all in case they then use it on living beings) but other than that there’s no reason why it couldn’t be used for these other reasons.
Maybe even using it as a some form of defibrillation
I think things like Force powers shouldn't be viewed as Powers You Can Do and more as a pure manifestation of personal belief. To summon lightning-a level of power that is so far beyond a taser or circuit-shorter as to be an entirely different, painful thing-you shouldn't just need anger or hate, you should need to hold the belief that it is your right to bring down that kind of punishment on someone. You are chaining the universe to your will and deciding "this is right. Bringing an agonizing, paralyzing death to the person in front of me is how the universe should work." In this, there's no small belief to work as a taser or to short-out Droids without the force to grievously harm someone.
a fan fiction I read, and love, has it used as a type of medicine. the planet the story takes place on has a form of blood-born parasite, practically a separate living being, that was very dangerous. Normally kept under control via kinds of medicine's. Extreme cases like the protagonist (Kenobi) got needed more of a surgical tool than a 'cure'. Death of the parasites, to save the human patient, because he did not have the time left for the other methods.@@agiammarco94
@@nickmalachai2227 I agree that makes sense to a degree if we’re talking about the strength of force lighting we normally see dark siders use, but I don’t see any mechanical or moral reason why there couldn’t just be a lesser version of force lighting that can only stun people with no real damage or only affect machines. Of course the lore explanation would probably be that turning the force into electricity in any capacity is inherently dark side, I just think that that’s incredibly stupid reason that doesn’t really make sense.
Maybe Jedi could summon lightning to recharge their batteries on the field.
I used to play Jedi Academy, and I always thought it was weird that Luke or any other Jedi didn't scold or talk to you about your use of Lightning. Light-Siders accidentally using Force Lightning in moments of anger or other negative emotions, like Jaina and Rey, is okay. When you have a Light-Sider purposefully use Lightning, however, there should be some inner reflection or consequences from other characters. People may disagree with me here, but I think the recent Jedi games kind of fixed the whole game-ification of the Force thing.
I'm pretty sure in KotOR using Force Lightning gets you negative light side points. Granted I think any Jedi master would have some level of being able to use Force Lightning. A Jedi uses the Force for defense and knowledge, but never for attack. On the flip side of that coin Luke Force Choked two of Jabba's guards... that is an attack. So... the Force often just acts however a story-teller needs it. Cop out, yes, but still.
I think investing in it gives you a few dark points, but not using it. Spammed that stuff and still had the highest light side score I could get.
@@nickmalachai2227 I think at some point you either become so Light or Dark that you just can't lose that. Not that I disagree with you, it has just been so many years since I've played KotOR and can't learn it as a Jedi on TOR.
@@AlvorReal That is good, I am glad there are people to correct my bad info lol. Either way it was a pretty darn good game, I'm glad people remember mechanics cause usually plot is what I remember.
I just re-watched ROTJ an hour ago and forgot that scene. I was like "wait a minute... did he just...?" And he never saw Vader or anyone use force choke before then so he had to have taught himself it too.
(A neat touch in that D&D-based tabletop system was how most of the light side force powers required training to use, while all the dark side ones could be used untrained, at the cost of giving in to your darker emotions. Quicker, easier, more seductive indeed.)
I'm so glad you brought up the idea of video game perspective. In the case of someone like Starkiller, force lightning is certainly more fun and a good game element. However, he's torn between the pure way, and corrupted way of using the force, something not worth thinking about in the middle of a war. Kyle Katarn, 'Revan,' the Jedi Exile, all have the potential to be these 'torn between two sides' figures, who enable the player to skid the line.
This issue goes back to the whole "philosophy" of the Force thing that Lucas was never really all that good at communicating. The "Dark Side" of the Force wasn't like some kind separate, evil version of the Force that existed in opposition to the "Light Side." The Force just IS, in a very holistic, universal fashion. The Way of the Sith, and Dark Side by extension, was simply the use of the Force in the pursuit of domination and personal ambition. Using the Force to produce techniques designed to painfully murder people or destroy stars or whatever were "perversions" of the Force, an attempt to use the Force rather than to serve it or be a part of it.
my completely head cannoned explanation for electric judgment being 'ok' my jedi standards is that it does damage proportional to the targets inner darkness, in a similar way to vaapad turning a dark side duellists power against them
I think that mind control like what Obi-Wan uses is supposed to be specifically a "light side" power, somehow, which has always shocked me. I can't really think of much that is more invasive to do to a person than literally force them to think something you want them to. I am not up on a lot of the legends cannon, but where it comes to the mainstream content I don't recall any Sith or Darkside force user actually using the mind trick. I do know that there is at least one comic book that is probably now legends where Darth Vader explains that the mind trick is a "weak tool" used by Jedi, and that the Sith simply get what they want through force.
I'm in my 40s and growing up with the franchise, and having played the original Star Wars rpg, way back then the light side and the dark side of the force were almost separate entities that demanded you act in certain ways in order to draw power from them. There was a mechanic in the rpg that when you used a dark side power or told the game master that you wanted to draw on the dark side to improve one of your rolls you then accumulated dark side points. At first it would give you HUGE benefits, but the more dark side points you accumulate, the worse bonuses it would you, and once you gain so many you had to make essentially willpower checks in certain situations or be compelled to call on the dark side, and at a certain level your character simply becomes an NPC and is from that point on lost to the dark side, as if it were overwhelming your own will and contaminating your mind so that you were no longer the person you started out as. Essentially, the dark side is a choice, one with diminishing returns, until you can no longer stop using it of your own free will. That seemed fairly consistent when there were just the first three films. To me, this explained why Luke was able to call on the dark side and overwhelm Vader in their second fight, the dark side was hungry to add another being in its thrall, and the Emperor was more or less so consumed by the dark side that he simply did anything it willed him to do, even though Palpatine himself was so far gone that he didn't realize he was basically just a conduit for the dark side's will.
Then later on things got a bit murkier, you start having many inconsistencies and it became popular for characters to start walking a sort of middle or "balanced" path, even though the light side of the force was originally supposed to be what a balanced path looked like.
The ability to exercise restraint has been a popular theme since Homer’s Iliad.
We see the true light side variant of Force Lightnig in the Kotor games, with the ability Droid Stun, using the force to stop a machine from Doing harm. It just happens that this Power manifest itself as lightning.
It’s funny, to me Force lighting vs Electric Judgement is one of the few times I think the argument about intention mattering in the light vs dark question actually works. Judgement always struck me as being about neutralizing a situation as quickly as possible when necessary, and was not automatically lethal. One of the reasons I believed Jedi saw it as so dangerous was because of how easy it would be to cross that line once you’re shooting lightning of wanting to punish and kill.
Luke: "Is the dark side stronger?"
Yoda: "No!"
Ergo, the dark side can have no cool unique powers.
By most measures the Dark Side is stronger. I mean you can literally become immortal or swallow whole star systems in Force Storms with the Dark Side. But the Light Side has some metaphysical, borderline plot-contrivance powers like twisting fate so "good always prevails in the end", or becoming a Force Ghost so you achieve some sort of universal oneness.
@@RevanX77 The Dark Side has fast power. You can build an empire with it in a few years... and lose it a couple decades later. Whereas the Jedi built a republic over the course of centuries, and it lasted for millennia, because their methods of influencing people just work better than outright control in the long term. And yes, the Force does have its own version of plot armor, with appropriate patents, that it mostly reserves for Light Siders, only giving it to Dark Siders on very special occasions when it really needs something done. But it's not twisting fate; Dark Siders try to twist fate, and the Light Side just puts it back and doesn't concern itself too much with the details of how.
And I am not aware of any Dark Sider who became immortal. Sure, some of them lived for a very long time (though I'm not sure it was really worth it), but as far as I can tell, every single one of them died.
@@samueldimmock694 Essence transfer or Scion/Maul's Force-based sustainment is essentially immortality.
The Force does "twist" fate in that it's a conscious actor working towards contrived ends. The Republic, at it's core, is basically a tale of following the path of least resistance, of expansion though coercion rather than force.
On one hand, I can respect being a purist when it comes to force powers, especially where Plagueis, one of best books ever, explains the whole process behind Sith lightning. Still, lightning is cool and seeing more of it would be cool whether it be from Sith or anyone else
the problem with a lot of legends material is that a lot of it was written by people that fundamentally don't understand certain things
Oh, I thought this was going to be on the Dark Nest Crisis, not Electric Judgment.
What, you don't like the Jedi take on the Palindrome Zerg? XD
@@moffjendob6796 I hated that trilogy. It made the Chiss the "bad guys" against gd *Zerg*! Even gave Luke a High Templar move. How much you want to bet it started out as pitch Denning made to Blizzard that got rejected.
And they make Crybaby Raynar Thul into a "powerful force user". Dude was always incompetent and weak, yet some Space Bugs made him insanely powerful?
@@justinlast2lastharder749he was never shown to be that weak though, theres no reason he couldn't have gotten that powerful. That being said, any of the other jedi probably would have been even stronger in his position
How I justify force judgement is that it’s not variable in power and is always shot out in its most powerful form to kill quickly.
If there’s a large group threatening to overwhelm and kill a Jedi and everyone they are protecting; instead of a barrier or freeze until they get overwhelmed or something like a push or repulse not likely to kill or knockout a strong warrior like a vong; then force judgement can be used as a lethal last resort.
It should realistically take a clear mind and immense will, especially to not succumb to the dark from killing people with the force. It should take a toll on the Jedi from realizing they had no other choice and be very powerful to kill as fast as possible unlike force lightning that is purposefully variable to allow sith to torture people.
As someone who never really got into legends content for various reasons, I am not overly familiar with precise justifications given for 'good' uses of Force lightning. However, I also think the concept of Electric Judgement or other light-side use of force lightning to be difficult to justify for many of the same reasons given. I could possibly be persuaded that someone like Mace-Windu, who lives in the gray while still serving the light, might be able to use Force Lightning against droids, or that there could be a light-side ion lightning that only affects electronics, but it would still need to be sold to me as more than just:
"Hey why do the bad guys get all the cool abilities? Why don't we clone some of them and give them to the good guys?"
Jacen's usage of Electric Judgment during the NJO books operates by sapping energy, not inflicting pain, FWIW. This is explicit during the Battle of Ebaq 9.
I don't think you need to remove it, Electric Judgement is just Force Lightning but with a pretty name. It's a social thing. And Kyle is an excellent example, he is very much NOT a pure Jedi in Jedi Outcast he starts the game having abandoned the Jedi and the force, and almost kills Tavion in Bespin motivated by revenge. If I'm not mistaken, that's even the section of the game (Bespin) where the game gives you Force Lightning.
So although I never had an issue per se with things like Force Judgement (then again the description of it that I heard with Po Kloon is that it was non-lethal by definition working more like a taser) but I actually like this interoperation of it being exclusively dark side since even without the removal of such things yes it does become a point on how easy the dark side is to fall to.
Adds to the corruption that the Jedi Order had in the Prequel Era and even shows that not even Luke Skywalker was immune to it's more subtle corruptions.
I wholeheartedly agree with your take on force powers. I suppose it is inevitable that "scale creep" happens as you seek to add more and more content to a franchise. Different creators and different media have different ideas and requirements.
For what it's worth, Plo Koon's story for how he first used it was just to knock someone out and save a hostage, it came from his sense of justice, he was conflicted about what happened and reported it to the council. He ends up deciding he should continue to learn about the power and shouldn't just neglect its use wholesale. That said, I wouldn't say this is the norm for how lightning gets used by Jedi. And yes, Kyle uses it one because Dark Forces/Jedi Knight are a video game series (the best Star Wars video game series still), but also because it's part of the plot that he taps into the dark side, straight up (taps into is an understatement, if anything).
Then there's the matter of The One's of Mortis. In the past, apparently the Son didn't use his lightning all for bad purposes. Not Jedi or Sith characters, but still.
Addendum on the Plo Koon thing: The purpose was absolutely to save someone else's life, is the major thing there. Not saying it's issue free, but it's about as reasonable as you're going to see lightning being used that way by a Jedi.
The Son is complicated. He was initially described as being the dark, in some unspecified way, and it was implied that this was not evil. It was necessary. But then he was warned not to fall to the dark side, and this warning was given the same way that a Jedi would give it - falling to the dark side is synonymous with becoming evil. This suggests that he was some sort of embodiment/master of the dark side long before he fell to the dark side. Now I"m not saying that mortals could ever be in the same position (though Mace Windu may suggest that they can); but it is an interesting thing to think about.
And it's questionable how reliable our sources on the Mortis Gods are (in Legends, anyway) - one source is ancient Killik records, which were explicitly described as factually questionable; the other is the Clone Wars tv show, which had Ahsoka on Mortis, whereas the records of that event that Luke found did not seem to mention her. Maybe both sources are wholly reliable; maybe one is and the other isn't; maybe neither of them are wholly reliable; maybe the whole thing was falsified by the Architects to cover up their true activities.
#AskEck I've had the idea for a little while now that Lucasfilm should pursue adapting George Lucas's sequel treatments in comic form and getting Lucas himself to consult on it. This may sound like an out-there idea but Lucas was clearly unhappy that the story of his sequels was never told, he's had a life long love of comic books as a medium and even though he's retired, he's always been happy to consult on projects whenever Lucasfilm have asked him to (Solo, The Mandalorian, Dial of Destiny, etc). For Lucasfilm's part, they're fine with producing non canonical content like Visions and the rumored 'What if?' series. Marvel Comics has also just announced they'll be publishing 'What if?' Alien comics and Dark Horse recently published a comic adaption of one of James Cameron's old drafts for an Avatar sequel, so I don't see why Lucasfilm can't get either company to give Star Wars the same treatment. It could even be nice way to celebrate the upcoming 10 year anniversary of the beginning of the sequel trilogy, taking a look at what it could have been. So, what are your thoughts on this? Do you think it's an idea Lucasfilm should pursue?
To borrow from another franchise, imagine using the Force to fire electricity as being akin to shooting someone with a phaser. "Electric Judgement" is the stun setting while "Force Lightning", depending on its intensity, ranges from the heat setting, through the wound and kill settings up to maximum setting that can vaporise a person. It's not nice to zap someone whatever setting you use it on, and should not be your go-to method of conflict resolution, but it's better to have a non-lethal option and not need it than to need it and not have it.
If memory serves, very few Jedi are ever permitted to learn Electric Judgement because of how difficult it is to keep their emotions in the right place to "stick to the stun setting" once they start channelling the Force in a zappy manner. It supposedly requires a very specific temperament, which in the prequel era was only held my Plo Koon.
What you mean is you decided things were the way you thought they should be in your own headcanon. Don't feel bad about it; we all do it. And often, we all know better than everyone else about what we like anyway.
That said, you're also right about this. Force Lightning should just be evil, and so should "Electric Judgement" (what a ridiculous concept; 'good side force lightning'). It also shouldn't be an easy thing to do. I also think that Palpatine should never have been using lightsabers at all. Yes yes, I know they worked his contempt of the Jedi and lightsabers into him being good at using them out of spite, but... c'mon. They only ever threw it in so they could be uncreative and just do yet another CGI flashlight fight.
But yes, I think this is what happens when you have people throwing stuff around because it's just "cool". That's fine for video games, but bad for the consistency of the setting. Thank goodness Disney seems wise enough to keep Electric Judgment in the dustbin where it deserves to be alongside all the other nonsense from Legends. You know. Like bringing Palpatine back from the dead! Goodness me, imagine if they did that! That would be horrible... oh. Right. Well at least they won't do it multiple times, like Legends did, right?
Right?
I always felt like the multiple instances we see of jedi using darker abilities such as force lightning were really just indicative of the problem with how the jedi order itself was set up. It's so utterly rigid, so intensely strict, and yes for good reason, but it doesn't really take into account the PEOPLE that are supposed to follow all the strictures to the black and white letter, all day, every day, in every situation. The vast majority of folk aren't saints. We try to be good, but we don't always manage it, and that's without us having some great, tempting power at our fingertips. And given that force sensitivity is basically random and you can't choose who gets it, that will mean that a lot of jedi aren't true saints either. Look at real religious orders we've had, and see how many priests end up going... uh, wrong shall we say, when they're bound to even fewer lifestyle restrictions than the jedi are expected to adhere to.
Most jedi end up just fine with it overall, maybe with a wobble here and there (And perhaps a few blasts of lightning when they're having a really bad day), but the history of the Star Wars galaxy is a repeating history of that one person or few people who fall, who can't cope with the jedi rules, who then turn batsh*t and go on to ruin EVERYTHING. The jedi preach it, but they have no real sympathy, no leeway, and no real support structure for their people, you follow the rules or you're bad, and the galaxy keeps paying for it when that bad day wobble becomes a full blown Anakin "I HATE YOU".
Personally, my headcanon is that it's like the difference between Iroh and Azula using lightning generation in ATLA. With both abilities being essentially the same.
In both cases, it requires a significant degree of skill and focus to do. However, despite their differences in the intent of their bending, and that it does affect the nature of how it's used, lightning generation is something completely independent of those considerations. Azula not being good at lightning generation because she's evil or emotional, but because she can quickly become very cool-headed when she needs to use it.
So, in the context of Star Wars, it's just more sought-out by dark side users because it's just naturally more desirable to them, making it more common among them. But it's ultimately an ability whose "side" is defined by how it's used.
I think the abstract idea behind Electric Judgement is that it's like a stun gun, a controlled discharge meant to incapacitate but not kill, while proper Force Lightning is more like natural lightning, an unleashed burst of rage torturing and killing anything in its way.
Lightning would be a Dark corruption of Electric Judgement, the same way Force Choke is a corruption of standard telekinesis, etc.
Unfortunately in practice it does just get used as "Lightning but it's not evil because it's green" which... is a bit silly, yeah.
Idk, using it to stun, distract, throw an opponent off balance, put some distance between you and the opponent, seems like that would not be dark. IDK if just cause you use it, you have to have deadly intent.
I would concur with you on the ethics of how the force is used, and I would add that it is not just fear and anger that are paths to the dark - in Star Wars or real life. Callousness and unconcern about the suffering of others can be done without the big bad emotions, it can be done in a zen state - and is still unethical and dark acts nonetheless, paths to the dark side.
I really enjoy the idea that there can be Jedi that can use it. The main way that you can make it work is the idea that any Jedi who uses force lightning most be in complete control of their mental faculties or they will fall. In the Vong war and afterwards, I enjoy the idea that one, the Jedi are different than before, but they are still not the pure Jedi that they should be. Kyle Katarn and Mara Jade uses the force more like a tool than say, Luke and Jacen, who are force channelers and also have a more spiritual outlook on the force. But even they use it. I think an argument can also be made that the vong war pushed the Jedi into being far more willing to use certain abilities if it meant survival
During the Vong War, a lot of them kind of decided to stop thinking about light and dark because it was irrelevant - the Vong were outside of the Force, after all. Not that they actually did exist outside of the Force, merely outside of the Jedi's ability to perceive the Force; but that wasn't the only mistake they made. And Luke's order, for all of its good features, really didn't understand the Force very well, and that limited them in so many ways. It's kind of hard to learn if your teacher's honest answer to a lot of important questions is "I haven't really thought about it before" or "I'm as confused as you are."
There has been at least one Jedi who used it in a way that was clearly light side. It was a Force taser, and was used as such - a nonlethal way of incapacitating someone who was a very clear and immediate danger to someone else, used when no other nonlethal weapons were available. And the Jedi Council investigated in thoroughly before accepting that it was okay.
Yoda obviously wasn't a regular Force loghtning user, but he had no qualms about shooting it back at Dooku and potentially hurting him if he failed to deflect it (same as Mace Windu and every other Jedi who has deflected it back, as even with a lightsaber it requires special skill). If we count TLJ as canon, Ghost Yoda also has zero issue calling a down an actual lightning bolt right next to Luke.
If it was me who had to come up with an explanation, I would say that there's probably a Jedi alternative to Force lightning kept in the same vault as the Vaapad manuals. It does exist and can be used in a non-Dark Side way, but it's discouraged from being learned as it could easily be abused for evil purposes.
Logically, it would make sense as every Dark Side/Sith power is just a perversion of a Light Side/Jedi power. Lightning is just focused electricity, and many practical, beneficial uses exist for creating and manipulating electric fields that some of the early Jedi probably used, up until some Sith thought, "Hey, if I tried really hard and and made this bigger, I could really zap some fools." The Jedi probably did use it as a taser, but because the Sith started using it as a lethal weapon en masse they gave it up and it became strictly associated with the Dark Side.
Its not supposed to make sense really (in my opinion), its supposed to look cool and be a nice experience (the movies and all the other media)... they retcon stuff according to their tastes at the moment also.. I think, for an example, that the lore for the lightsaber colors was retconned at least twice... But yeah, if I were a force user and also like a 'special police' I would prefer to use force-lightning just to make the criminal pass out and then take him to the proper authorities... this, compared to loping off limbs or outright killing with a "laser sword", is far less brutal, or, more civilized.
I think the use of lightning for both sides seems useful. But it feels like it would only be truly powerful in the use of a dark side user. But a jedi being able to use lightning to strike a droid or a ship would make some sense. The idea of a Jedi using the force directly to kill/torture or maim a sentient does not though. Although Jedi do seem fond of lobbing limbs of of people, so what is a little electrical damage.
Also rey palpatine is a sith Lord because she has developed ability that manipulates the people around her to sacrifice themselves for her gain.
Plus she gains power the quick Way by stealing it using Force bonds and even with the training she had to do for the third movie, she gained too much power way too fast to be a Jedi.
The Jedi path is the slow path, while the sith path is the fast route.
I for one completely agree with everything you said. Force lightning requires you to channel your anger and I can't see that being done by a jedi
IMO the bottom line is INTENT. Any force power used with the intent to kill or harm should be Darkside. In that vein I fully agree with you Ecks; Force Lightning can only really be used to cause harm and pain, and thus can only be a Darkside Power.
Light Saber Throw? All about intent behind the action. Force Choke, I can't see a situation where using it is not a Darkside related action. And YES that absolutely means that Mace Windu took a short walk on the Darkside when he used Force Crush to damage General Grievous's chest at the end of the Clone Wars Micro Series.
Now admittedly, this line of thinking could result in a slippery slope. After all if intent is the hinging factor over whether an action is light or dark, then where is the line drawn? You could mind trick someone to get information you need to complete a mission for the greater good, but what if that wasn't your best play? What if you could get the information in a way that doesn't infringe upon another beings free will, but you chose this path because it was faster and easier. That could be perceived as a "dark" use of Mind Trick, unless of course time was of the essence, in which case you could say you had little choice, and it's not like there was any lasting harm... or is there?
It's complicated, and there are shades of grey (kind of - even that's a lot more complicated than many people are willing to admit), and the dark side has been noted to be a very slippery slope, with many things that are decidedly not dark side in themselves nevertheless being extremely dangerous.
I feel like the offensiveness of the green lighting isnt really the issue its the self righteousness required to use it to take life. It would be really interesting to see a Jedi use it to say power a ship, overload some electronics, start a fire or destroy an object or weapon in a moment of extrem stress for the user. The Jedi Path lists "Emerald Lighting" under "Forbidden Force Techniques" and it even mentions that it is very closely related to Sith Lighting. Apparently Darth Vader used it in a "Kinetite" form in Splinter of the Mind's Eye which is super interesting to me. I dont hate the use of it by NJO Jedi during a very dark and taxing war while they where at rock bottom and trying to grow out of the dogma (which forbade justice lighting) that destroyed the old Order. No Jedi is perfect and neither the old Jedi Order nor the NJO where ever the ultimate pinicle of morality. The old Order lead a child slave army in the Clone Wars seemingly without much protest within the Order. I think a few small slipups from a few powerful new Jedi makes a lot of sense (e.g. Jacen Solo's fall). I kinda like Emerald Lighting under this framework.
The one thing I always come to about the jedi being the generals is that an extremely massive army was created from nothing with specific brain augmentations to make them into perfect soldiers in regards to following commands... but was it possible to create the perfect leaders of them? You can only go so far up the chain of command before someone has to give all the orders, but at what point would you just be cloning a guy who could do as he pleases and then you risk those clones not liking all their brothers being cannon fodder and taking countless of the command following clones and starting his own army which could end up a domino effect and you lose your entire army to him, possibly even becoming a worse enemy... I'm sure you could add an augmentation to the clones not to let this happen but it still leaves the question of who should actually be in command of the troops? I would say absolutely not the youngerpadawan, maybe they can tag along and observe from safe areas and by their mmasters sides as they get older, and as they are closer to being ready to become knights they could join the ranks as privates and move up from there... as for the moment of creation of the army it seems like they had pretty much nobody to lead, you dont want to be like the Roman's and have the rich senators command their own so it might have been the best choice to have the peace keepers most familiar with wars become the generals, at least the most experienced of them and not be so reckless with it, create computer simulations for training and have only the best proven ones be the highest ranking generals and the rest be in lower commands or even simply just be soldiers until they can prove worthy of command. Anyway other than experienced peacekeepers powerful with the force... who else were they going to give command of a brand new massive army of millions to? Because you need a lot of them for such a massive army...
Yeah. The reasoning for why the Jedi shouldn't have been Generals is mainly that they shouldn't have participated in the war directly in the first place. Negotiating, helping innocent victims, enforcing anti-war crime rules..., but not choosing a side in what was fundamentally a stupid war over whether certain parts of the galaxy would be controlled by a corrupt "democracy" or a corrupt plutocracy. And a little bit of tactical "they could have done more good as commandos than as strategists." Having the Jedi more or less in control of how the war is fought, both on a strategic and a tactical level, was a really good thing - in fact, when the Jedi were removed, the war became so much darker that the two halves of the war are referred to as the "clone wars" instead of the "clone war."
You could debate the morality of mind 'tricks' by comparing their use to that of extraordinarily effective pursuasiveness or charm and arguing that their differences are suffciently negligible, thereby qualifying the former as 'neutral'. The only world in which lightning could be ethically employed is one in which we could ensure the reliability of unlawful interrogation techniques for the greater good. Utilitarianism is relatively unexplored in SW canon, though, even when references to 'grey' Jedi are being made.
The one reference to utilitarianism (or more properly aggregate consequentialism, as good outcomes were not defined in terms of happiness) that I can think of was an example of someone who tried to use evil methods for good ends, but arrogance and sunk costs fallacy defeated him - though he did technically succeed in ending the war, by uniting everyone against a common enemy.
It comes down to wo things in my opinion. Intent and application.
Regardless of what school of thought you come from(Vergere, old jedi order, sith, etc) it is pretty commonly agreed upon that a lot of actions can be light or dark depending on intent. Striking down a target with a lightsaber isn't an evil/dark side action in many contexts(self defense, defense of another, etc) but can be when done in other circumstances(executing a defenseless prisoner). Similarly Telekinesis isn't inherently a dark side action, but using it to choke someone to death is. Force lightning being used in its form of electric judgement as an attack design to incapacitate or obtain an advantage to kill an otherwise dangerous foe(such as the slayers, who in the context of the fight at the citadel, could not be taken alive) satisfies the application angle(after all, a force push into a lightsaber slice would come under far less scrutiny)
Intent is the other half of the coin, using any force power for because you want to *hurt* someone rather than because you want to *stop* them will always be a dark side act. Plo Koons usage of electric judgement satisfies the intent angle, since his usage was to incapacitate a hostage taker and care was taken not to inflict undue harm.
I do the Plo Koons usage of Electric Judgement does fail to adhere to the Jedi Philosophy, but just like not all dark siders are sith(and not all dark side actions are inline with sith tenets), not all lightsiders are jedi and not all lightside actions are inline with the jedi code.
I do think there are plenty of "light side" uses of force lightning/electric judgement that fail to satisfy these conditions though.
Exclusivity elements in worldbuilding are always problematic. The moment you lay down rules such as "X can never Y" and your franchise gets big enough, inevitably someone will contradict it.
For instance the general rule about force ghosts is that only jedi can attain that state, and even then it takes tons of training. Yet vader successfully becoming a force ghost despite not fulfilling either criteria became a plot hole which had to be paved over with "explanations" and "retcon"
Well, technically the thing about tons of training was a retcon, and the thing about only Jedi being able to do it... well, it was always Lucas's intention (I think), but he failed to communicate that to the people writing Star Wars comic books (which he signed off on), so they wrote comic books featuring the ghosts of ancient Sith Lords, and that became canon.
TBH I see zero difference between wielding the force to defend oneself with a lightsaber, and force lightning, in terms of direct morality. Sure, I have to imagine the force wouldn't like it being used for torture, but killing is killing, and if it needs to happen the force doesn't exactly seem to mind. I generally feel like most star wars lore is written from people inside the universe and we don't have to assume that any one side or group has the full picture in front of them, as to some extent the force is intended to be mysterious.
Personally I don't see why force lightning has to be a dark side ability. All it is is just channeling force energy to your fingers and coverting it into electricity. You don't have to use negative emotions to do that. Hell, you don't have to use emotions for any force ability, really.
You literally do though. That's the whole point of it. It's pure malice
@@uberness77 No, you don't. You just focus energy to your fingertips and shoot it out in the form of electricity. There's nothing emotional about that. You can do that while being completely emotionless.
So you're saying that torturing people to death is only a dark side ability if you hate the person you're killing? Interesting perspective. I'm not sure I've ever seen the Force defined in quite that way before.
@@samueldimmock694 I'm saying you don't need emotions for it, because there's nothing emotional about turning your life force energy into electricity. You can manipulate life force energy without emotions, that's what I'm saying. You don't need emotions to turn your emotions into electricity, that's why force lightning shouldn't be considered a dark side ability, because you don't need "the dark side" to turn your energy into lightning.
@@Ash-Winchester From the perspective of the force, life is precious in all its forms, it goes through all living things. I feel that a power whose sole purpose is to destroy, corrupt or maim life is a perversion of the force and thus a dark side ability and action, no matter who you're killing or for whatever reason.
8:22 "...I don't see how you can use the Force power 'Electric Judgement' without a basic desire to kill something! That's anti-Jedi; the Jedi seek to preserve life..." So close-minded. I can think of several uses of generating electricity through the Force that are meant to do no harm: defibrillation is specifically meant to save lives, not take them; you could power (or power cycle) a device with it, such as a blast door that is magnetically-sealed; you could generate an electric current in order to heat a material, or a spark to set something alight for similar purposes; apply the right charge to something and you can magnetize it; the list goes on and on. If you can think of a use for electricity, you can probably do it by using the Force to generate Lightning.
Did this guy forget that the Jedi have to kill people sometimes?
The dark side isn't about results, it's about negative emotions. Fear, rage, hatred, sadism.
I distinctly recall Luke killing someone with Emerald Lightning, but he didn't fuel it with the dark side. He didn't want to cause suffering, he didn't hate the enemy he used it on.
What about 'Destroy Droid' where a Jedi basically creates a massive static shock to short out a droid, how does that figure in?
You know, I was literally reading all about the light vs. dark sides of the force, especially concerning lightning for a fanfic I'm working on. Here's the way I like to interpret things:
First, as Yoda states, ANY time a force user utilizes the force for offensive use is channeling the dark side.
However, as Luke and other "grey Jedi" would find out, the corruption caused by using the dark side depends on the emotions channeled to use it.
Force users can, with enough effort and training, minimize (but not completely remove) the corruptive effects of dark side use by controlling their anger and hatred.
So I see offensive force powers that Jedi use, such as Electric Judgement, not as light side abilities but as dark side abilities used without giving in to the corruption of the dark side. Personally, I think that every time the Jedi used the force for combat did channel the dark side, though their philosophy helped prevent falling for the allure (for the most part).
All in all, I do agree that using such a pure discharge of force energy is always a dark side ability. I do think, however, that certain individuals familiar with both sides of the force can use dark side abilities (to a degree, of course) whilst avoiding "falling to the dark side" so to speak.
making the jedi soldiers (even generals) in the clone wars was a deliberate attempt to turn them to the dark. All part of the plan. Writing wise this was a take on the effects of PTSD and a reference to the old republic/sith war, because good writing, and history loves repetition.
The only version of force lightning Ill accept as a non dark side power is destroy droid - because droids are not alive or connected to the force (or are they.... The hypocrisy of the jedi is another discussion for another day)
Is the dark side more powerful? No, cooler, flashier, more fun.
I could imagine a light side version of Force Lightning that does exhibit a fair level of restraint and doesn’t make the target suffer. My idea is that it would function akin to a taser, a short, strong jolt of electricity used to quickly & humanely render an opponent unconscious. I could also imagine it would be a largely banned technique because of the near surgical level of control needed & the required knowledge of near countless target species it could be ised upon, as even a slight mishap would lead to accidentally injuring, killing, or causing them to suffer.
Most star wars fans look at the force very wrong. Do you know what balance is? Equality in its duality. Light and dark in tandem. Force lightning is not concentrated anger, it's manipulation of mater and energy. That's all the force is. There is no light or dark, only the force. Humans have to personify and anthropomorphize everything.
If we take KotoR mechanics into account, lightning is a dark side power, any Jedi can use it but it's easier the more dark side aligned you are and harder to use the more light side aligned you are
Is “force choke” even considered an ability? It to me is literally just telekinesis closing their throat. Same thing with lightsaber throwing, it’s not an ability, it’s a move.
Nah, Jedi can have their own, but I think it has to be fundamentally different in intent, mindset, basic execution, and damage output. The Jedi using this power can't be specifically intending to kill and can't be in a state of emotional turmoil. The basic execution would be different in that a Jedi would literally be transmuting raw Force energy into bolts of actual electricity, not giving their hate and anger physical form. Obviously, damage output would be severely limited compared to true Force Lightning.
“A Jedi sufficiently strong in the Force can be trained to produce a facsimile, but not true Sith lightning, which, unabated has the power not only to incapacitate or kill, but to physically transform the victim. Force lightning requires strength of a sort only a Sith can command because we accept consequence and reject compassion. To do so requires a thirst for power that is not easily satisfied.”
- Darth Plagueis (Darth Plagueis, Chapter 13: Riders on the Storm)
Electric judgment relies on judging others. Pride is just as much an emotion as wrath and if you think you have the right to judge someone this harshly then you have as much emotion as any sith.
So using force lighting to jump start my car would be greatly frowned upon by the jedi order
Dude, you're right on the money. It's the force equivalent of a flamethrower. You need to defend yourself, fine. You don't need to light them on fire and watch.
Same goes for force lightning ⚡
Thats assuming that having force lightning at your disposal would never make you win a battle, which is just wrong
I'm completely with Eck here. Legends has produced some really cool material and sometimes went unbelievably off the rails. And changing the color of force lightning and calling it a "good" version, that's definitly firmly in the latter ballpark. Even if the original "dark" force lightning wasn't simply lightning-colored, but evil-red, it would be silly...
Nah man force lightning is like that scene in the first Dirty Harry movie when Harry's going to meet with the Scorpio Killer to pay a ransom and he's taping a switchblade to his leg in case he gets double crossed and the chief says to him "A police officer shouldn't even know how to use one of those things!". Dirty Harry style jedis would at least know how to use force lightning if they were in a pinch.
I have mixed feelings on the green jedi lighting.
Sith lightning (yes, *Sith lightning* it's literally their signature move) is done by focusing hate and sadism.
Jedi lightning is just a restrained version of of that, making it an automatic point of corruption or as a sign of corruption in that Jedi.
On the other hand they DID need some non lethal was of using the force to deal with problem people...
Electric judgement and force lighting are totaly different from each other. Force lighting damages the target while electric judgement stuns the target, pacifying them
So it's just lower voltage Force lightning?
@jayb8934 pretty much yeah. You can kill someone with a taser. But that is not its purpose.
Unless you crank the power setting to max, in which case electric judgment is just recolored force lightning but fueled by pragmatism instead of malice.
As for how electric judgment can be a light side power they talk about it some in excerpts of the novelization of EP 3 in some manner. The fundamental difference between being a Jedi vs being a sith being that a Jedi chooses to be an instrument of the force while a sith or dark side user chooses to use the force and bind it to his/her bidding. Doesn't mean that all Jedi or all sith ever do this perfectly. But it does explain why one could be considered not a dark side power and another a pure channeling of a dark side power despite the end result. Jedi don't strive to kill but if killing is the will of the force they don't go pacifist.
The specific excerpts are from the minds of Count Dooku and from excerpts of the mind of Obi Wan. Specifically Obi Wan when he confronts Grievous
The dark side has force lightning, the force has force healing
Agreed... I aways considered Force lightning as a Dark side ability, because of the way it is used across all the movies. Ray being able to do it served as a hint of Her dark heritage and that's what made it shocking (no pun intended)
Eck, a counter idea that somewhat explains “Electric Judgement.” It also fits some of the thoughts on Sith being calm and Jedi being overly restrained. The Sith are completely okay with their relationship with the force and if it lets them shock someone go ahead. The Jedi on the other hand look at the force as a conscience that shares their own failures of trying to beat peace but being comfortable with killing. The Jedi have to call it something other than force lightning or they have to admit they have more in common with the Sith than they would like.
The spirit of the matter versus the letter. The letter of the matter says that good light side force users can use a dark ability like force lightning, or that there's a light side replica. Deal with it.
But the spirit of the matter is really what you're touching on here. Good people don't hurt intentionally hurt others unless they have to, and of course even that exception is dubious. Force lightning is at odds with the message of Star Wars where the actions you take determine the kind of person you are. A son saving his father is a light side action, an emperor torturing an insubordinate is a dark side action. The letter of the matter doesn't apply because there's little room for excuses.
Thing is, your ENTIRE premise hinges upon the idea that the Jedi of the pre-empire era were all knowing on the matter. That THEIR interpretations of the force were correct and objective. We KNOW FOR A FACT that this is not the case in legends canon.
It also hinges upon this silly idea that the nature of force lightning is absolute. That it HAS to cause undue pain, that it HAS to be lethal. That it cannot be scaled up or down as the situation demands. Meanwhile, the majority of sources that even begin to touch on such a question, indicate that it can in fact be scaled, and most uses of force lightning don't even bring the question up. Hell, Return of the Jedi: are we really going to argue that Vader, in his electrically sensitive and many times throughout legends specified to be vulnerable to electricity/lightning suit is more resistant to it than Luke? Luke gets knocked down and writhes on the ground pretty much immediately, but Vader manages to eat it with little issue, dying later because of damage it did to his life support. Meanwhile it should have caused far more debilitating effect on Vader precisely because all of his limbs are cybernetic. The simple nature of them being electronically controlled should have caused them to twitch horribly and make him drop Palpatine. Then in lore we also have Vader acknowledging that lighting was used as a punishment by Palpatine on a fairly frequent basis, despite the issues it would cause for Vader's survival. This makes it pretty clear that either lightning is pretty weak overall (which is very contradictory with numerous examples of usage), or that it's power can be scaled for purpose.
Preponderance of evidence is that Force Lightning is NOT a purely dark side power of aggression. It is, like electricity in reality, hard to guide and manage, but not inherently torturous, which is the main reason it is argued as a dark side power, is the pain it typically inflicts. Because those who usually use it are Sith who get enjoyment out of pain and thus do not use it full-tilt, so that it can cause pain. Meanwhile other times it's used to instant kill, leaving a twitching corpse, going off of remaining electricity juddering nerve signals. It's even been used to outright VAPORIZE beings before. It's the same thing as the arbitrary distinction between force grip and force choke: It's the force utilized in the same exact way, mechanically speaking, but it is the INTENT that changes how it's viewed. Same goes for things like 'drain life' powers. Which the jedi at various points in the timeline use to transfer energy from themselves (or a willing donor) to another as part of the healing process, which is EXPLICITLY how Fay gets Obi-wan moving in time to deliver an antidote to the republic in Legends canon.
Again, the entire premise of this video leans on treating jedi dogma, specifically fall of the republic era jedi dogma, about use of the force as objective truth. Put plainly, that is just not the case.
Luke has concerns about his own usage of it, because Luke is finding his mindset around use of the force beginning to shift. He's recognizing that he's sliding on the slippery slope, and adjusts and re-prioritizes to counter that. Force lightning in particular had nothing to do with that, it was Luke's immediate jumping to the force as a solution to conflict that causes these issues. Luke's concern was with moderation, not the abilities themselves, same as most of Luke's order who used dark side abilities. Their concern was balancing things appropriately, and not giving in to the desire to use it without justified cause. It is in no way different than a force push, in that regard. A force push of sufficient power can take chunks out of a mountain, and even weaker pushes are capable of throwing people to their death or just shattering them against hard objects.
The only "good guy" force lightning I could understand would be as part of force healing like a force AED to shock a heart back to life. But using it to kill and torture is definitely dark side.