Thank you, every instance of a "grey jedi" is either a mary sue or eventually fell to the dark side. The force is not horizontal, it's vertical. It can be read as maintaining your health, light side is working out fairly, dark side is using steroids to get the result quickly while destroying your health. Although, I do get people's confusion, George Lucas "balance of the force" implies it can be balance between light and dark, but what he meant is full eradication of the dark side.
PLEASE, you, and EVERYONE, if you haven't already, embrace the One True Only God YHWH Jehovah, Only One Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son and Lord and Savior of our souls and the Only One Holy Spirit. God is good. God is love. Jesus is Lord. Jesus IS coming. Your soul depends on it! I have seen God act in my life. He saved my soul, changed my heart, changed my mind, helped people through me, took care of people in my life, people I hurt before I found God. God is the only reason I was able to reconcile with my dad before he died. God worked through Jesus Christ to save our souls. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Be baptized in The Holy Spirit, and if He wills, water as well. Repent of your sins, accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into your heart, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, that all who believe on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father Jehovah God but through Him. Not long after I got saved I prayed to God for help understanding the Holy Bible, and that same day someone knocked on my door asking me if I wanted to understand the Bible. The Holy Bible says, "love thy enemy", "turn the other cheek", "If your enemy is hungry, feed him", "if he is thirsty, give him a drink", "pray for those who persecute you", "do not repay evil for evil". LORD willing, all humans may commit sin of almost every kind (gay, straight), and that's wrong, and all humans sin, as God tells us through the The Holy Bible, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The Holy Bible also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
I liked the video, and can see your point, even if I don't completely agree. Luke himself refused to kill Vader for the Jedi OR Sith, as they both wanted him to. The sequels just ruined all of that. It is silly to pretend both sides are equally valid at all times, like with politics, but you made a comparison to faith. There is a middle ground there actually. I'm a pescatarian (formerly vegetarian), which I compare to also being an agnostic. I joke that at least I'm not a vegan, or an atheist. I DO agree that fandom gets this wrong a lot though, so I guess, what... you'd consider me more of a Wayseeker than Bendu? 🤔
@@teezy786 There's Only God. I've seen it. PLEASE, you, and EVERYONE, if you haven't already, embrace the One True Only God YHWH Jehovah, Only One Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son and Lord and Savior of our souls and the Only One Holy Spirit. God is good. God is love. Jesus is Lord. Jesus IS coming. Your soul depends on it! I have seen God act in my life. He saved my soul, changed my heart, changed my mind, helped people through me, took care of people in my life, people I hurt before I found God. God is the only reason I was able to reconcile with my dad before he died. God worked through Jesus Christ to save our souls. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Be baptized in The Holy Spirit, and if He wills, water as well. Repent of your sins, accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into your heart, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, that all who believe on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father Jehovah God but through Him. Not long after I got saved I prayed to God for help understanding the Holy Bible, and that same day someone knocked on my door asking me if I wanted to understand the Bible. The Holy Bible says, "love thy enemy", "turn the other cheek", "If your enemy is hungry, feed him", "if he is thirsty, give him a drink", "pray for those who persecute you", "do not repay evil for evil". LORD willing, all humans may commit sin of almost every kind (gay, straight), and that's wrong, and all humans sin, as God tells us through the The Holy Bible, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The Holy Bible also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
Think the idea of "Grey jedi" is popular in online circles because the Jedi are so inconsistent. Their code prioritizes not forming attachments and being removed from the worries of the world. However, we see them form attachments and interfere in world events. In short, Jedi can't decide if they are aesthetic monks or galaxy hopping heroes. And yes, those two roles don't quite mesh. If you only see the Jedi as cold detached monks, there is something appealing in the idea of non-evil Force users that actually form bonds of love, mourn their loved ones, and feel passion.
THIS! People act like the Jedi are complete paragons of morality and only ask that you don't murder people for no reason. In reality they act much like a cult. Making sure that they get their recruits young, keep them away from any and all outside attachments, bombard them with dogma, prohibit LOVE and HAVING KIDS, and proactively protecting the innocent. In short the argument in favor of Grey Jedi is "I don't want to join either cult, I'd rather follow my own path"
I get the desire to have "grey" Jedi. Especially amongst people who grew up with the OT and pre-prequel EU where Jedi weren't the weird, emotionless monks that the prequels gave us. I much prefer how Jedi were presented in the OT than they were in the PT, but Luke was absolutely a complete adherent of the light. That was the whole point of him throwing away his lightsaber and refusing to kill Vader. That was the moment when he "won." After failing his test in the cave in Dagobah by bringing the means to do violence with him, and so finding violence within, and then seeing himself in the decapitated head of force vision Vader, he learns his lesson by gaining victory through fully accepting the light and throwing away his means to do violence in his final confrontation with Vader. Which is why I hate lightsabers in any post-OT media. Luke truly became a Jedi the moment he threw away his lightsaber. A Jedi should not be judged by their ability to exercise their supernatural fighting skills, by their ability to swing around their glowy swords real cool-like, but by their discipline to not do so.
I’ve been a Buddhist most of my life so my understanding of the Force was implied to be life itself and the journey to enlightenment by self development. Jedi seek enlightenment but get bogged down by pride while the Sith fully embrace attachments and negative emotions, becoming demons.
PLEASE, you, and EVERYONE, if you haven't already, embrace the One True Only God YHWH Jehovah, Only One Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son and Lord and Savior of our souls and the Only One Holy Spirit. God is good. God is love. Jesus is Lord. Jesus IS coming. Your soul depends on it! I have seen God act in my life. He saved my soul, changed my heart, changed my mind, helped people through me, took care of people in my life, people I hurt before I found God. God is the only reason I was able to reconcile with my dad before he died. God worked through Jesus Christ to save our souls. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Be baptized in The Holy Spirit, and if He wills, water as well. Repent of your sins, accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into your heart, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, that all who believe on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father Jehovah God but through Him. Not long after I got saved I prayed to God for help understanding the Holy Bible, and that same day someone knocked on my door asking me if I wanted to understand the Bible. The Holy Bible says, "love thy enemy", "turn the other cheek", "If your enemy is hungry, feed him", "if he is thirsty, give him a drink", "pray for those who persecute you", "do not repay evil for evil". LORD willing, all humans may commit sin of almost every kind (gay, straight), and that's wrong, and all humans sin, as God tells us through the The Holy Bible, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The Holy Bible also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
THANK YOU! The people commenting don't seem to get this. It's almost like they've brainwashed themselves into thinking their psychotic prideful behavior is "normal" and to be emulated by others. Also, I've noticed a lot of lazy consumer wannabe-bully types screeching about how anyone fighting back (usually their victims) are "GOING DOWN A DARK PATH", which is awfully convenient and pitiful that they'd lower themselves to such a benign existence.
I think that's one of the best explanations and comparisons I've heard. It sums up the failing of the jedi without making them seem intentionally ignorant or evil.
- the Sith fully embrace attachments Er... No. Quite the opposite, actually. They shun any attachments. More than that - they learn to draw power from the loss of those attachments.
I dont have a problem with exploring a concept like Gray Jedi. After all, with something like the Force, it makes sense that there would be multiple schools of thought beyond light or dark. But like you said, it's important to remember Lucas' definition, and that characters trying to walk the line usually leads to the dark side. The Mortis trilogy and Dawn of the Jedi had characters striking a literal balance between light and dark. Jacen Solo and Cade Skywalker thought light and dark were either tools or a matter of intention. All these stories and arcs were great, but they also show where such thinking inevitably leads. Luke may have rejected certain Jedi practices in Legends, namely emotional detachment, but he didn't believe in the idea of Gray Jedi. He acknowledged that it may work for other Force groups, but not for those who are supposed to defend peace and justice.
He also joined Palpatine for a short time, wanting to learn about the dark side and destroy it from inside. But it almost broke him. He realised that balance exists only in the light.
Yes, but the problem is when incompatable schools are shown to be equally correct. We can't have a "the light side is balance, and the dark side is imbalance" school and a "you need both equally for balance" school, and have both be shown to be right.
@@unigaming9921 Why not? We all disagree and yet all believe ourselves to be right. You can have multiple schools of thought be depicted as right from the perspective of their narrators and their biases. That is the core of discussion that allows the reader to explore their stance on the scales of discipline and hedonism.
@ShadowPhoenix82 no. Contradictory or incompatable beliefs don't tend to both be magically right, regardless of the fact that people may believe different things.
is there anyone who has done all good? or all bad? by your logic, EVERONE is to lazy to be a saint, and to soft to be a sinner. cause everyone is grey.
at the time of the clone wars you could argue the main jadi order lost thier way and became a police force for the republic.so if you disagree with that stuff and left witch is completly alloed be the jedi order but then they woudint be a jedi just a person living thier life
Morality is a fiction, there is only Indifference. Through Anger I gain Dark Side Powers, Through Loopholes I keep Light Side Powers. Through Edginess my mediocrity is Glossed Over. The Force makes me Special.
I am what I like to call a grey heorin addict. I do heroin 24/7 but I'm BALANCED, so I experience none of the downsides of my lifestyle. So cool. This is very logical.
THANK YOU!!! You wouldn’t believe the popular fan theories people are pushing to become canon People keep wanting to reinvent him as some pansexual icon and ship him with Schmi but the truth is that just isn’t who he is. Hell, in terms of disciplines like celibacy Qui Gons ways are actually MORE strict than Yoda’s. Yoda being affiliated the Republic like so makes him the more liberal of the two ultimately, engaging in such a human cause that is
Qui-Gon is allergic to bureaucratic BS, and would prefer to stay away from the more dogmatic elements of the current Jedi Order’s rule. Theres nothing inherently “dark side” or even gray, as far as the force is concerned, about being a bit rebellious.
Videogames like KOTOR and Force Unleashed, while a lot of fun, definitely played into the misconceptions surrounding the Force, treating it like an RPG power system where you can use both with little consequence. A lot of people fail to realize that was done to make the games *fun* not an actual template for how the Force actually works.
"The new game, known by many simply as the Force Unleashed, is the first Star Wars game to be considered by Lucas an actual chapter in the overall story line..." The problem is George Lucas played a heavy part of the Force Unleashed. Even in the novelization, Starkiller was actively using the dark side after he started going down the path of redemption. So it's really on George about how the Gray Jedi started. It's on George for how things turned out. He influenced the mindset of people to follow the Gray Jedi.
@@user-ez7yc4nh6g Maybe people should not treat George as if a god when he deals with newer materials. He follows trends and opinions to the point he is like a reed shaken by the wind. Prequels got hated? He co-directs TCW that was meant to “fix” the Prequels which in turn introduces new issues to the lore. People don’t like the Prequels politics (which is George’s take on the social and political issues in 90s and early 2000’s America)? He watered down the politics so much in TCW and that was picked up in the Sequels with its bad “both sideism” take in TLJ. What to say Force Unleashed is that way because he finds DS fight mechanics is so much more fun than LS mechanics that’s just force push and pull and lightsaber throws? It’s a game more akin to God of War at the time but unlike Star Wars, your alignment had nothing to do with your powers in God of War series. And speaking of Force Unleashed, game started out with you having access to Dark Side powers as Starkiller. Video game design-wise, it would be a bummer if you can’t access it anymore when Starkiller became LS.
@@alexanderchristopher6237 "Maybe people should not treat George as if a god when he deals with newer materials." Kreia: THE ARROGANCE! It's literally what this guy in the video and what you all are doing. If you're going to say I'm treating him like a god, then you have to admit that everyone in this section is treating him like a god one way or another. Invalid half of your arguments. Did you even read my point? I'm not talking about the game. I'm talking about the novelization where Galen tapped both into dark and light on multiple occasions after he began the path to redemption. The novelization, which I remind you, is considered canon to how the actual events occurred, in the EU. Refers to the point above where Galen used both the light and dark in the novelization. Try again.
Kotor adds depth to it at the very least. The dark side is evil and corrupts yes, but you can’t kill it no matter what. Farce unleashed however sucks and ruined the force and is Disney tier
@@orrorsaness5942No. Luke tried to in Dark Empire so that he could beat Sidious, but he almost fully turned before being saved by Leia. And Windu reflected the dark side back at the enemy.
Right at the beginning, I can say that on top of what other comments have put in, "following the will of the force" isn't grey, it's just what a jedi should be. The force has a will, but it generally aligns with the selflessness and benevolence the jedi claim to be all about on paper, and ignoring it and asserting your own will over the force is the defining trait of dark siders. Stripping away any morality, you're left with "I do what the force tells me, and the force tells me to ignore it sometimes"
@@matheuspereira-eu9fxI thought about SW universe for a while and this is my conclusion - it doesn't actually matter. The Force draws heavily from buddhist tradition, which teaches that existence is a constant cycle of rebirth and suffering which we must break from by rejecting earthly passions and attachments. Lucas uses this idea, but inject some christian morality into it, by making the Force not just the state of things or a stage of existence, but rather an objective moral guide ("follow the will of The Force"). As a result, we should look at SW universe not as purely materialistic, but transcendental with clear divine existence at it's core, which explains why jedi don't fight injustice in the galaxy - it doesn't matter at the grand scheme of things, one's journey doesn't end after death, rather they join with The Force and become part of infinite collective life field. But that also means losing what you have now: your possessions, your loves ones, your power - you'll have to give it all up and accept infinite serenity of Nirvana. This is what jedi are trained to do, but it's not easy to just give up your emotions and connections to everything, so here's where siths come into picture. They refuse natural order, they refuse infinite tranquility and afterlife, instead their ultimate goal is immortality (infinite possession) and control over The Force itself. So The Light Side aka Jedi learn to look past mortal limitations and accept natural order of things (including injustice, violence, pain and other terrible things), where's The Dark Side aka Sith desperately clutch to their mortal existence and want to to subvert nature. The Light Side is an incredibly hard part towards enlightenment, The Dark Side misses the point of existence. This is why there's no balance between the two (the latter is in itself an imbalance) and even if you only use "positive" emotions like love or compassion instead of hatred and pain, even if moderately, you're still a sith and still miss the point, you're still stuck halfway on the path towards enlightenment.
@@irmaosmatos4026 He is guilty under law though, for he had the ability to stop all the bads in the world. And would therefore be liable to all damages suffered by the victims...
I thino of it like a body. Getting a cold or even cancer is natural like the dark side but a balanced body isnt half healthy and half cancerous, its a body with all Healthy cells
That doesn't discount grey jedi from being a thing, a light side force user who doesn't follow the jedi code = you can be healthy and not take the specific medicine that has certain side effects. People are getting too hung up on the enlightened centrist meme here, remember there's the other definition too. Jedi is an organisation, so a grey jedi could be someone who believes in God but isn't part of the Christian church, does not believe specific rules like turning the other cheek but that does not inherently make them outright satanist selfish sinners either Really it comes down to the same problem with centrism, people think it means half or midpoint. No it means someone who makes up their own mind and can be found anywhere on the spectrum that doesn't conform exactly to one side e.g. someone who believes abortion is wrong but wants lgbt rights and believes in a weird economic system they made up isn't left wing or right wing, but they're not half cancer or half nazi. They just can't be defined on the dichotomy of the 2 sides, at the end of the day the force is one thing and these 2 codes you see in the meme are man made. So someone could untie themselves from either side and use the force in its raw purest form theoretically, if they had the discipline to not succumb to the dark side. Mace Windu's Vaapad style "channels my own darkness into a weapon of the light" and it's canon, in doing so he sorta abandoned the no emotion only peace bit by enjoying the fight and probably the reason for him not capturing Palpatine but wanting to kill him. Is that a quarter cancer? He is still a jedi but things like this show that it's perhaps possible to use the darker side for good without being unhealthy and the whole idea behind it is proof that it's even healthier that way, to step out of the strict jedi vs sith separation and not having things lead to immediately turning to the dark side like Anakin which was obviously not healthy
@@raulpetrascu2696 "a light side force user who doesn't follow the jedi code [...] so a grey jedi could be someone who believes in God but isn't part of the Christian church" Well, then they aren't gray, are they? They are still light-side. Just not Jedi.
@@JayL- well that's one of the definitions of the gray jedi if you search it up, one of the 2 types. A gray jedi is either a force user who walks the line between light and dark or who is neither a jedi or sith / doesn't follow either codes. They're all gray jedi, that's what I meant when I said remember there's the other definition too. For example when people argue Qui Gon was a gray jedi or not it's referring to his disagreement with the jedi order rather over him not being a light side user yk
Taking the term “balance” too literally has created all sorts of misconceptions. Trying to use the dark side for a noble purpose was the whole cautionary tale behind Dooku and Anakin’s falls. You can’t just use a little dark side here and there; you simply succumb to it once you choose to embrace it.
Two problems with that is that it implies that there is no such thing as willpower, and the fact that Disney Star Wars basically destroyed it by allowing Rey to destroy the emperor in a dark way and yet she doesn't submit to the dark side of the force by simply saying "no".
In Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Omen, Luke Skywalker very clearly tells his son, Ben that there is no gray and that the Force is not a rainbow of different shades and that only light and dark exist. Luke also said that his nephew, Jacen Solo/Darth Caedus would've wanted a gray to exist to justify his actions, but it just didn't. Even Legends didn't have the fanfiction idea of gray. Also, fans like to point out Revan as a Gray Jedi but what they don't understand is that in SWTOR, the dark half of Revan became its own persona that the light half helped stop, trying to balance both sides of the Force literally split him in two.
@@NadwornyBlazen I don’t think this person is a fan, they might be, but that’s not what they stated. I think they’re making fun of the concept of people who call themselves “centrists” or “enlightened centrists” in politics. So as far as we know, until this person clarifies what they’re political positions are, we don’t know what youtuber they’re a fan of, or what their political beliefs even are, other then they think people who call themselves centrists are idiots.
Not a PF Jung fan. Don’t even know who that is. I was more making fun of the fence sitting mindset of a lot of Grey Jedi proponents. “Erm, I wanna shoot lightning and be morally grey. But not THAT morally grey”, type of Grey Jedi fan.
Honestly the biggest crime of the Grey Jedi concept has to be the name. Like seriously we have so many other cool force religions in-universe with badass names like Disciples of the Whills, the Fallanassi, The Sorcerers of Tund and then there's 'Grey Jedi.' Booo what lazy naming. Anyway great vid, can't disagree on a single point here.
I actually don’t mind the imperial knights of the Fel empire ultimately light side users just not following Jedi beliefs more militaries serve the emperor but opposed the dark side if one of there members or emperor fall to it.
I mean that's just how Star Wars works though? Multiple not-Jedi are called Jedi because they are good guy force users(Ahsoka or Jolee), Dark Side force users get labelled Sith even if they don't care at all about the Sith as a concept(Anakin Pre-burning or Nihilus), and Dark Jedi are a thing.
@@Ash-Winchester Not really. Dark Jedi are quite literally Jedi who have fallen to the Dark Side. It’s a transitionary stage if you will. Anakin became a Dark Jedi before he was made a Sith by Palpatine. A Dark Jedi is just a Jedi who has fallen or is falling to the Dark Side. They tend to officially become Sith later on.
@@herrfantastisch7489 Wrong. A dark jedi is a force user that only uses the dark side of the force, but doesn't subscribe to the teachings of the sith. Asajj Ventress after she was betrayed by dooku and left the sith would be a prime example, also maris brood from the force unleashed. It's not a transitionary stage, since there's a clear difference. All sith may be dark jedi, but not all dark jedi are sith.
Also, THANK YOU for bringing up the "Two Jedi Two Sith" argument. It makes absolutely zero sense that balance in THE FORCE is measured in the numbers of Force Users and not the Nature of the Force itself.
It makes zero sense to you. But the theory of relativity made zero sense to a lot of people too. Problem with your theory that the nature of the Force does not change, therefore there is always balance, which we know from the Lucas movies is not the case. Therefore you are wrong. The imbalance occurs when one side manipulating the Force to their adventage is significantly stronger than the other side.
How fans think the force works: There are 2 cosmic batteries, a light force battery and a dark force battery, The jedi use the light force battery, the sith use the dark force battery and grey jedi use both batteries How the force actually works: The force is a lush forest that is everywhere, with all forms of nature within, the dark side is a fire, if you use the dark side the fire spreds and you burn everything, no matter how carful you are there is simply too much wood and plant life to not spred the fire and acidently destroy nearly the whole forest
@@CraftyMiscreant Abstract concepts, let alone metaphysical ones are a little bit confusing to the average person so to help people understand we often use physical things as a metaphor. In the case of my force analogy I compared the force to a lush forest that is everywhere to help readers grasp the concept of the force being literally the energy of anything and everything, and I compared the dark side to a fire to help readers grasp the idea that the dark side isn't some 2ed force but rather something that is both part of the forest, part of the 1 force, but also is too consuming and destructive too not destroy and corrupt, just in a way most people can understand.
@hoaujudaiyubel To the average person? Not at all. Virtues, vices, logic, etc. Are metaphysical concepts the average person grasps. Don't assume people are too stupid to understand these types of concepts. We have stories built around them. It's not a good analogy. Star wars is a simple plot to grasp. A swash bucking adventure with good vs. Evil. The force is a metaphor for good and evil. The bad guys embody vice and sin. The good guys embody virtue. This isnt hard. Youre just complicating it.
@@CraftyMiscreant I wasn't calling anyone stupid, being confused by something is not the same thing as being unable to grasp the concept, just means the person needs to be pointed in the right direction. Besides you telling me when you think of a virus you're not imagining very very tiny bugs or cells? A jigsaw puzzle with logic or the like? Yes, as far as abstract concepts go, good and evil are on the simpler side..........but you do realize this discussion is happening in the comments of a video about why the concept of grey Jedi doesn't make sense from a conceptual perspective. You do realize the reason why the fandom has the concept of grey Jedi at all was because they think the so called light side has evil points and the dark side has good points despite the franchise making it very clear the Jedi are good and the sith are evil in the eyes of the creator. So clearly the fine lines or the details of what is good and what is evil are not universaly agreed upon and do in fact waver, that is, what is good and what is evil will change from person to person. This is because good and evil are purely subjective with no basis in objectively, only basis in the concept of value which in turn is also subjective. And sure, perhaps my metaphor doesn't work for you cause your idea of what is good and evil may already align with the franchise or because you may visualize things in a more direct sense then most or maybe my metaphor doesn't work for you for a reason I'm completely unaware of. Either way, there are very likely star wars fans of whom my metaphor does in fact help, I take the thumbs up of my original comment as a sign that it at least makes sense to the people who gave it a thumbs up.
“The dark side is natural.” So is cancer. So is disease. But no one in their right mind condones using chemical weapons or inflicting disease upon someone, and willingly taking on that disease is a pretty dumb idea.
Idk bro, you ever caught a cold and been able to blast a lightning bolts into space because of said sickness? Some people would absolutely give themselves a disease if the reward for it was power, and that's the point of the dark side. It can offer you power but takes everything, the light side gives everything, but demands nothing. I guess Grey Jedi would fall in the middle where they understand that you have to both give and take to truly be one with the force
But cancer and disease aren't evil, just like a lightsaber isn't evil. you aren't arguing that cancer is inherently evil you're arguing that evil people using weapons are bad, a lightsaber is a peace keeping tool until it falls into the hands of a sith.
@@themenagerie5247 I can’t tell if your worst crime here is defending chemical warfare, inadvertent or not, or thinking comparing cancer or disease to a weapon is a good equivalent in the least. Yes, cancer and disease are both technically not evil, but inflicting them on others definitely is, and it’s not a good idea to inflict yourself with it unless it’s to vaccinate yourself AGAINST it. And even then, you’re using your own body to fight against it, not the disease itself. You’re using your knowledge OF the disease to combat it, but you aren’t using a disease to fight itself. That just causes more of the disease.
I think the main reason for the popularity of Gray Jedi lies in the restrictiveness of the apparent binary presented by the Force. Either you're a slave to it or you're a jackass, making ironically anybody disconnected from the Force or its binary seem free by comparison. We don't really see a lot of canon examples of Jedi embracing emotions and attachments without being punished for it, which ironically also tends to lead to them becoming secretive, paranoid, and mistrusting of others as they have to hide their feelings. The biggest recruiter for the Sith is the Jedi, after all. So the idea of somebody who refuses to be controlled or restricted by the Jedi while still refusing to become a monster like the Sith becomes appealing, and then people want an organization for that third faction.
I kinda like how it works though. Either there are very strict rules on your superpowers to prevent you hurting people, or you try to set them yourself and end up hurting people. If you want to write a story with superpowers where it doesn't make you definitively cooler or worse, there should be some way to balance it out. "With great power comes great responsibility" remains an amazing guideline for writing.
We see emotional Jedi all the time though? They're only "punished" in that when they're ruled by them, they tend to miss the Force's warnings. And "attachments" are not synonymous with "relationships", it's more about being closed to certain possibilities because you don't want something to change. Like, Anakin's big attachment to Padme in RotS related to his fear of losing her, *not* specifically to her dying. He prioritizes keeping his secrets over securing her safety- eg in his talk with Yoda, he's extremely vague and doesn't give Yoda anything to work with (in contrast to TCW where Ahsoka gets visions of Padme being assassinated, and Yoda helps her figure out how to avert it)
@@o0Evo0o Literally the Jedi are banned from loving, but encouraged to go and be deadbeat dads to as many kids as possible. As long as they never love their children.
“Grey Jedi” is never mentioned in any of the movies. Also, none of the movies ever mention a “Light Side.” You see George Lucas kind of implied that the Force in an of itself is inherently good, and the “Darkside” is like a cancer that corrupts it.
@@billyboleson2830 Now to be fair. What possible reason could lightning exist other than you wanting to torture your opponent? If you needed to permanently end them for the sake of saving lives, you could do so if a fast and humane way. Lightning's only use is to fulfill a desire to inflict pain. And using the Force for your desires is the Dark Side. So lightning and choke make sense as Dark Side powers.
I'm a pescatarian. I don't eat beef or poultry, and I hate pork, but I do eat some fish. If eggs or milk products are in something, I can also eat it. It's really just the dead flesh of land animals I don't like. I used to say I was a vegetarian when I didn't really eat seafood either, and I'd compare it to vegans say "at least I'm not one of those people". Also compared it to atheism if one's agnostic. The world really isn't that black and white.
The problem I have with these comparisons is the idea that eating meat is inherently evil. Guess lions are evil too. Like, if you personally don't want to eat meat because you don't want to benefit from how industrial farms treat animals, then that's fine, but don't go around calling anyone who eats meat an irredeemable monster when humans obviously evolved to eat meat. I say this as a Christian btw.
@@harbour2118 - The time a Jedi remains in that Grey Jedi zone would depend on the individual and their circumstances I guess? But basically, as with Anakin Skywalker, once the Jedi gives in to something like the fear of loss or the self centered hubris of prideful anger at not having his skills recognized by his peers and superiors and becomes more ‘service to self’ than ‘service to others’ it will start the fall from the light sided (and life sided) balance that the Jedi seek to maintain. It wasn’t the love of Padme that caused Anakin to fall through the levels of Grey and then Dark Jedi to become outright Sith Lord. It was his crippling fear of her loss (as with his mother before her) that led him to the eventual fall of seeking power for its own sake and not only betraying his fellow Jedi but also slaying younglings and ironically force choking the very woman he was supposedly trying to save with his forbidden powers? It’s why “the road to hell is always paved with good intentions” and all that. But the ‘Grey Jedi’ can only ever be a temporary state of Jedi in mid fall…or Sith in mid redemption even!?🤔
Daniel from Spacedock also summed up the problem of Grey Jedi existing in Star Wars in a nice little quote. "If there were Grey Jedi, the Force would become a meaningless magic that everyone can use."
The force IS something everyone should be able to use. It's everywhere and in everyone. Is written language meaningless because most people use it? Would it be meaningless if everyone did? Obviously not.
That comparison falls flat and is shortsighted. Language is something we possess in real life but an entity like the Force is fictional. Neither we, the audience nor the people living in the Star Wars universe gets to decide who can use the Force and its raw power. There's a reason why a true Jedi serve the living Force instead of using it as a power or tool for convenience their disposal.
It's funny that in fact he failed as a Jedi because he created emotional attachments to his wife, whom he trained himself, contrary to how Padawans are trained by the Jedi. As a result, when Exar-Kun began his bloody war against the Republic and the Order, his beloved decided to join him, and when Jolee refused to follow the path of darkness, she tried to kill him. He himself admitted that his wife fell to the dark side of the force the moment she tried to kill him. He failed as a teacher and created a monster... But worse, he couldn't kill her in the end and correct his mistake... He formed attachments. This led to her continuing to fight on the side of the Sith, and killing many innocents until she died in battle herself. Jolee Bindo failed as a Jedi, as a guardian of balance, harmony and life... He failed his beloved, just as Obi-Wan failed Anakin. That's why the Jedi train the gifted from childhood and don't take them too old. I understand why fans love him, because he is a more humane and understandable character for ordinary people than the orthodox Jedi. The way they would like the Jedi to be... But Jolee is far from being such a clear-cut character, because if we accepted his path and view as true, we would risk the constant, endless fall of those gifted to the dark side of the force, due to attachments, emotions and the passions they felt. Moreover, when I replayed Kotor1, I realized that his stories and lessons about love and accepting feelings could well have pushed Revan to join Bastila and fall to the dark side of the force... It’s easy for us as players to make the right choice, but everything is inside the universe much more difficult... But I agree, Jolie Bindo is a real gray Jedi.
@@user-ux4pf7bw8w I refuse to allow this sullying of Jolee's character! He did nothing wrong training his wife! You are no different than the indifferent olympian gods keeping fire from mankind. Jolee is like Prometheus spreading it around, he is the tree of knowledge unleashed. What bad can come of that? The fall of mankind itself? So be it, better that than some insipid sterile existence blinded to reality in some kind of innocent stupor. You advocate for the death of life and free will itself. Oh no, some people who gain knowledge will misuse it! ergo, we ought not teach more people and trickle it out as little as possible. No!
Jolee tries to stop you from joining Bastila and you have to kill him. I wonder if someone can come up with a better idea in writing to create a neutral path to that.
Its hilariously ironic with this that the image used on the gray wiki page is the guy from Kotor who eventually returns to the light side in both light and dark routes. He's not even really a grey jedi. He's basically just a libertarian who's been pushed around one too many times by authority and essentially just does his own thing because he's lost trust in others. When you find him, dude is basically just less wise Yoda. If the player goes to the light side, he goes light side because you restore his trust in fighting for others. If the player goes dark side, the players cruelty inspires him to stop being a hermit and take a stand. The guy does go on a rant about how he disagrees with the jedi order being against attachment and relationships. Which is like, fine. But his entire setup is that the dude is incredibly paranoid about others and has no friends lol. The dudes own views put him against relationships. I supposed you 'could' say he's a gray jedi because he's kinda selfish and has dark side powers. But presented in game, this is essentially a dude who's dark side that is too socially anxious to actually have a use for it, and so has only gone a little down that path. By putting others in his life, he is reminded of why one must help others and returns to the light. Basically, he works because he's a well conceived character, and isn't supposed to be an actual reflection on the lore. Also, on the same note, this also applies to the grey jedi woman in Kotor 2. She's not a gray jedi. She is explicitly a sith lord, and an enormously powerful one at that. She just got old and stopped having something to fight for, so she's chilled out. Her entire ideology isn't about achieving balance. It's explicitly about considering your actions and not just blindly flowing things, which people confuse as 'don't follow the light or dark'. A character right at the end of the game actually explicitly calls the player out on this if you go "Oh I didn't know she was dark side" by saying "Dude she talks about nothing but passions and action, of course she's a bloody sith lord". Her lack of primarily dark side power usage isn't because she's being a grey jedi, its because she's trying not to be lost in sauce like she used to be and literally doesn't care about anyone she fights, so she sees no point in causing unnecessary suffering because she sees that as something stupid and immature she used to do, and because all the other Sith lords in Kotor 2 are so far lost in the sauce that she's spooked by em. The second a real threat she cares about shows up, she flicks instantly back to max out dark side alignment and fights causing as much destruction as possible.
Actually from what i remember the only enemy in the game with a max dark side alignment is Nihilus and it makes sense because hes basically an embodiment of it, Darth Traya has a relatively middle of the road dark side alignment probably because both of her goals are ultimately noble in her eyes and for the greater good of the galaxy, it fits your interpretation even better
I believe Kreia can really be considered a gray jedi with all the stuff she represents and does. Of course it may be better not to give her any label at all, she explicitly hates that, and the common definitions of the term that are discussed in the video dont apply either. It's just that she is not a sith nor a jedi, she hates all force equally, is technically a sith lord but if you go dark side she despises the main character despite all her love for what they represent. You are right that she is very far from preaching balance, her ideology is something else entirely, and is mostly a product of the dark side, but perhaps "balance" should not be associated with gray jedi exactly because of reasons in the video here, and the label is better for people like Kreia and Jolee. One is an apathetic preacher of the dark side, and the other is an apathetic preacher of the light side. They did not choose balance, they did not choose a "gray" force to worship, and they were not heroes of their stories fighting for some greater good with all types of powers, they just removed themselves from struggles - to not be anything. And I believe if anything can have a different title to jedi and sith, while still being plausible in the established canon of the force, it's that.
@@alexkarter5854 Its explictly stated in game that Kreia is essentially trying to teach a level headed version of the dark side. Anton late in the game literally calls you out on this if you misunderstand this, by rephrasing everything she says as being firmly dark side. You could see this as kind of a midpoint, as shes taking the patience and thoughtfulness of the jedi and applying it to the dark side. But the basic concepts of what she teaches is directly opposed to the light and only somewhat critical of the dark. Her idea is simple. Make whatever decisions and use your power however you want, just think about what those decisions are and why you are making them.
Man, the whole "gray jedi" thing always sounded to me like bs, thank you for explaining why it makes no sense according to what Lucas had already established
Mace Windu basically shows the absurdity of the Grey Jedi, works well when it’s well executed and sparingly, but trying to make it a faction numbering up to the 10’s let alone hundreds or thousands just shows how dumb it is
@orrorsaness5942 Mace Windeu shows how the Grey Jedi IS the right choice. If what this guy said was true then Mace should have been a full blown dark side user. Yet he doesn't. Why is that? Could it be that he learned you can actually use it a little as long as you keep yourself grounded to selfless beliefs rather then selfish?
@@russianoverkill3715 you clearly don't know what you are talking about, or otherwise you'd know the color of mace's lightsaber is not the issue. mace windu used a self created lightsaber form called vaapad (the final of the 7 officially acknowledged forms), that was all about focusing you inner darkness and harnassing it for battle without succumbing to it. this, more so than anything show that one can use the dark side for good, as long as one keeps a clear and calm mind.
@@thechatteringclown oh I know about vaapad and all that stuff, I just don't care about it, because it contradicts how the force works, and George Lucas didn't intented it to be some middle point between "light" and dark, Samuel L Jackson just wanted a cool lightsaber, that's it.
Qui-Gon, Luke, Ahsoka etc would maybe be better described as Undogmatic Jedi. Emotional connection was something restricted by the dogma and Luke especially managed to serve the Force in the OG trilogy despite leaving Yoda's training to save his friends.
I think part of why so many people gravitate towards grey jedi as a concept is because "jedi suck". For most viewers, they're, well, like monks, emotionally repressed and strict with their members. And the dark side is implied to be at least related to things like love, passion and more base pleasures. Those things can often be important parts of a proper human experience. So from that angle, force users are divided into astetic monks and immoral monsters. So people want to imagine a character that's a middle ground - moral, but still free from the emotional limitations of the Jedi. And, let's be honest, force powers are cool and there's a limit to how cool you can make light powers.
It's not just that they suck, but that their repression directly leads to evil and that makes them evil. People want an actually good side not based in shitty cult values.
Just as I was about to comment about Christianity, a comment point was made. I consider Qui-Gon’s quote one of a good Christian: he doesn’t do good things because he will be rewarded by a superior being, but rather he does good things because it is right. When it comes to the Dark side, Yoda confronted it himself when facing his dark counterpart by accepting that it is a natural part of him he cannot get rid of, but one that he chooses not to submit to. On a more personal note, light and dark is like the human side of things: we experience grief, pain, depression… all those part of our nature which we cannot ignore nor can we truly bottle down, but it is not healthy nor humane to ourselves to adapt it into our lifestyle in the long term, as it prevents us from truly living and experiencing the life around us.
I agree while I do think the Taoist/Buddhist philosophies that were included in the ideas behind the Force were not highlighted in this video. Of course there is the IRL tangling of the religious messages in both is also a part of that lol. For example the 4 noble truths of Buddhism "They are the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering" to quote PBS's basic description. To put it in Star Wars The truth that the Dark Side exists The truth that attachment and attempting to "control" leads to the Dark Side The truth that following the will of the Force ends the draw to the Dark Side The truth that the Jedi code is a path to following the will of the Force I'll post my thoughts on the Jedi order in the main thread bc it's not on topic here :)
PLEASE, you, and EVERYONE, if you haven't already, embrace the One True Only God YHWH Jehovah, Only One Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son and Lord and Savior of our souls and the Only One Holy Spirit. God is good. God is love. Jesus is Lord. Jesus IS coming. Your soul depends on it! I have seen God act in my life. He saved my soul, changed my heart, changed my mind, helped people through me, took care of people in my life, people I hurt before I found God. God is the only reason I was able to reconcile with my dad before he died. God worked through Jesus Christ to save our souls. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Be baptized in The Holy Spirit, and if He wills, water as well. Repent of your sins, accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into your heart, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, that all who believe on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father Jehovah God but through Him. Not long after I got saved I prayed to God for help understanding the Holy Bible, and that same day someone knocked on my door asking me if I wanted to understand the Bible. The Holy Bible says, "love thy enemy", "turn the other cheek", "If your enemy is hungry, feed him", "if he is thirsty, give him a drink", "pray for those who persecute you", "do not repay evil for evil". LORD willing, all humans may commit sin of almost every kind (gay, straight), and that's wrong, and all humans sin, as God tells us through the The Holy Bible, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The Holy Bible also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." You do the right thing because God has told you do it.
@@schitzoflink8612 PLEASE, you, and EVERYONE, if you haven't already, embrace the One True Only God YHWH Jehovah, Only One Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son and Lord and Savior of our souls and the Only One Holy Spirit. God is good. God is love. Jesus is Lord. Jesus IS coming. Your soul depends on it! I have seen God act in my life. He saved my soul, changed my heart, changed my mind, helped people through me, took care of people in my life, people I hurt before I found God. God is the only reason I was able to reconcile with my dad before he died. God worked through Jesus Christ to save our souls. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Be baptized in The Holy Spirit, and if He wills, water as well. Repent of your sins, accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into your heart, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, that all who believe on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father Jehovah God but through Him. Not long after I got saved I prayed to God for help understanding the Holy Bible, and that same day someone knocked on my door asking me if I wanted to understand the Bible. The Holy Bible says, "love thy enemy", "turn the other cheek", "If your enemy is hungry, feed him", "if he is thirsty, give him a drink", "pray for those who persecute you", "do not repay evil for evil". LORD willing, all humans may commit sin of almost every kind (gay, straight), and that's wrong, and all humans sin, as God tells us through the The Holy Bible, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The Holy Bible also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
@@schitzoflink8612 to be fair, these 4 truths of buddism can be taken to speak of other religions, as long as you accept suffering and that there is a way to cure it (which most religions, including the Jedi and christianity, do).
George Lucas himself doesn't even believe in Grey Jedi, he has said in numerous interviews those that use the Dark side in any way will either have to abandon it or will ultimately succumb to it. You cannot have your dark side cake and eat it too. Even Starkiller has to make a final decision of the end of each game, you can remain in the middle.
I know he is a father of Star Wars but something tells me he said that just so he wouldn't explain it or dive deep into the possibilities of using dark side and not being corrupted
Lucas also said: "In each of us we to have balance these emotions, and in the Star Wars saga the most important point is balance, balance between everything." -George Lucas, Time Magazine article, 2002 "The idea of positive and negative, that there are two sides to an entity, a push and a pull, a yin and a yang, and the struggle between the two sides are issues of nature that I wanted to include in the film." -George Lucas, quoted in L. Bouzereau, Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays "I wanted to have this mythological footing because I was basing the films on the idea that the Force has two sides, the good side, the evil side, and they both need to be there. Most religions are built on that, whether it's called yin and yang, God and the devil-everything is built on the push-pull tension created by two sides of the equation. Right from the very beginning, that was the key issue in 'Star Wars.'" -George Lucas, Times Magazine, 2002 He also had Galen Marek used both the light and dark sides of the Force IN the novelization right after he'd started his redemption arc. Yes, he saved his friends, but it could be argued that he still used the dark side at the same time. I love him but the man contradicted himself so many times there's no definite answer aside from interpretations.
@@justaguy9087 There is a definite answer, George has remained mostly consistent on the basis that the Dark Side shouldn’t be used, a few times where he deviated from that, doesn’t change that fact, since he usually went right back to the original mindset. Heck to this day, if one were to ask him, he’d probably still say that the Dark Side shouldn’t be used.
@@nickcalderon2637 George Lucas has went and contradict himself multiple times. Trying to argue against it is futile, because you don't have a definite answer. You have a personal preference. If Lucas wanted to stay grounded in what balance meant, he should have never contradicted himself in the first place. As others have pointed out, it's like with Grievous going from intimidating to a coward, the Jedi, the Clones, Luke and Leia, Vader, (note! not all of these are bad but they are still examples), and pretty much everything else.
@@nickcalderon2637 Also you're off probablys and maybes. Even if he did, George Lucas contridicated himself before, so no one should take his word seriously.
the force doesnt have two sides, that is just the jedi and sith's way of seeing it. the force has raw power (the dark side) aswell as the ability to focus it through a clear mind and meditation. you know why jedi can turn to the "dark side" so easily? it's because it is all the same, they take their power from the same place, and the force is all about manipulation. manipulation of objects, memory, emotion, etc. the force isn't the light and the dark, it is raw power, and if you have a clear mind that power won't corrupt you. that is why sith have yellow eyes, the force is corrupting them. the force doesnt take sides, the force is the definition of neutrality, it is neither light nor dark. if the light and the dark were really two separate parts of the force and not the same thing, it would be immensely harder for jedi to fall to the darkside, because they would be having to tap into an entirely different power rather than losing control of their same power.
While I personally disagree with the specifics of this interpretation, I do totally agree with "Grey Jedi" being a heavily flawed concept. In my personal interpretation of the force (heavily influenced by my limited contact with Jungian psychology) the balanced force user is not a Jedi (as depicted in the prequels). Jedi were afraid of acknowledging emotion, attachment and darkness; not much unlike Sith do with love and compassion. True balance comes from the acceptance and embracing of flaws, emotions and desires. Not by indulging but by accepting their existence and accounting for it. I once watched a video where a psychiatrist explains that when we dont acknowledge our emotions, they take hold of our reason and corrupt our logic. The Jedi where blinded to their darkness by worshipping the light. The Sith stumble through empty darkness. You achive balance at the center. Not by embracing and indulging in light or dark but by staying true to your flawed mortal nature and not giving into either. If you are familiar with this specific idea of Freud's theory: Balance lies not in Id or Super Ego but in Ego.
All of the top comments cost me to lose hope and so I had to switch to the newest comments. Thank goodness I found you. I am not evil like a Sith and I'm not an idiot like the Jedi. So I don't see what's wrong with imagining myself as a "grey Jedi."
Nah, Jedi acknowledge emotion and darkness, they teach to be MINDFUL of your emotions, but don't be ruled by them. Like, Obi-Wan grieving Qui-Gon was fine! The Council traveled to Naboo for his pyre and mourned with him! Obi-Wan raging out at Maul for stabbing Qui-Gon was *not* as fine and nearly got him killed.
The "gray jedi" is just something that people want for their fanfic characters, to have all the cool powers of the sith and the righteousness of the jedi, but aside from videogames, this runs contrary to the way the force was designed.
My second point, the Jedi being dogmatic and closed-minded isn't just a prequels thing. In Legends, the Jedi in the Old Republic killed their padawans sensing the dark side within them, they killed an entire alien race to prevent the sith from comming back, and they'd explicitly ostracize or hunt down members over minor disagreements.
It wasn't just all Jedi wiping out their padawans. It was one particular sub faction of Jedi, that were afraid of giving birth to another Exar Kun, and they were very stubborn with all vague future prediction vision, these eventually became enemy of Jedi Temple on Coruscant and were wiped out by Dark Jedi manipulator. And With species genocide was started by Galactic Republic
@@russianoverkill3715 Incorrect, homie. The Jedi initiated the conflict that ultimately split the J'Dai (the original group that consisted of both sides finding balance. IE if you were too light-sided, you'd be sent on a journey while if you were two dark-sided you'd be sent somewhere to meditate with others, etc.). A group of psychotic and dogmatic Jedi decided "Hey. I don't feel comfortable with you using your abilities for personal interest or even in self-defense. Guess I should just remove you from existence to prevent others from learning from you. HEY. WHY ARE YOU MULTIPLYING?". They kinda forgot that the Dark side is a part of nature and that tormenting or persecuting others creates animosity.
@trajancaesar2662 I'm with you 100% and it's a shame these Disney fans are such lazy hyper-consumers. If Disney came out and said Gray Jedi were official, they'd be lapping it up like a dog eating up gravy. They can't think for themselves but hey, big mega-corporations like Disney love self-lobotomized fanbases. They buy re-releases of the same stuff over and over while accepting whatever madeup canon Disney gives them (like the removal of the Gray Paladins that the Jedi Council barely tolerated as a part of the Jedi Temple, out of a debt to their Founder...a Gray Jedi). Imagine if Warner Brothers had gotten Star Wars instead. We could've had a Gray Paladins action flick since the Gray Paladins are basically Blade Runners. Futuristic Jedi Detectives with Blasters (conventional thinkers) instead of just the usual Star Wars flick.
Grey Jedi are essentially, "The Jedi are fucking idiots, we're the Mary Sues that can use the dark side AND the light side, huehuehuehue!" The entire point of the dark side is that it is addictive. Its like shooting yourself with a drug, and you're telling yourself the whole time you're high, that you're in control. Then you start killing folk...and then you're lost. Its why I also dropped the Jedi Survivor games when they suggested it was possible to use the dark side if you just had something to ground you...something told to you by a Nightsister, who uses the dark side to fuel their magic. Totally different way of using the dark side, but definitely not a light sider. The dark side is poison. You can't just go back from it.
There are obvious issues with purist Light and Dark jedi. It makes sense to have a balanced middle option. Also, KOTOR has gray jedi, and its as good a Star Wars story as has ever been created. Lastly, I think its fine to have an opinion on all this, but let's not pretend SW has been written anywhere near consistently or well enough to have certainty on much of anything.
It's surprisingly hard to convince people the best way to solve problems is diplomacy, forgiveness, and compassion when there's a world where they could crush people's throats with a gesture and shoot lightning bolts. And it's extra hard to convince those people who want to do it that they would be the bad guys.
Because people that have actually consumed Legends content will know that the first Je'Daii Order was all about balance. It wasn't till it fell that the Jedi and Sith orders were formed. Plus in the Clone Wars there was The Father who was the physical embodiment of balance between the Daughter and the Son, who were the physical manifestation of the Light and Dark side respectively.
@@teezy786 So what is the balance then? The destruction of the Jedi Order as so many fans theorized? Downsizing the Jedi so there’s two Jedi and two Sith, even if it meant spending 20 years where an oppressive empire have free rein of the galaxy and the Sith free to manipulate the Force as they see fit? Jedi Order have their issues but none of it points to their destruction as if a good thing overall.
@@alexanderchristopher6237 no it's simply not choosing to adhere to a single side of the force. The simple black and white versions of the movies isn't remotely close to actually balanced. When Anakin kills Palapatine and seemingly kills the remaining Sith from the galaxy he didn't bring balance. Balance isn't simply only the light side being present. Yin and Yang tell us this in real life. You can't have dark without light and vice versa. Like in the Clone Wars the Father is the balance between the Light and Dark.
@@teezy786 you can have light without dark. Dark is not a thing, it's the absense of light. You're projecting a confucionist or a relativist view into a saga that isn't.
I'm going to address the elephant in the room: Grey jedi are an inevitable consequence of canon. The moment they gave Vader a force ghost, the series said that people can be redeemed. That opens the door to endlessly abusing this redemption, and lo and behold, grey jedi. The simple reality is that star wars is not flawlessly written. The philosophy is not airtight. Grey jedi are just another awkward consequence of how the story was constructed, same as discussions of whether the force is good or bad for the galaxy.
PLEASE, you, and EVERYONE, if you haven't already, embrace the One True Only God YHWH Jehovah, Only One Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son and Lord and Savior of our souls and the Only One Holy Spirit. God is good. God is love. Jesus is Lord. Jesus IS coming. Your soul depends on it! I have seen God act in my life. He saved my soul, changed my heart, changed my mind, helped people through me, took care of people in my life, people I hurt before I found God. God is the only reason I was able to reconcile with my dad before he died. God worked through Jesus Christ to save our souls. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Be baptized in The Holy Spirit, and if He wills, water as well. Repent of your sins, accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into your heart, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, that all who believe on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father Jehovah God but through Him. Not long after I got saved I prayed to God for help understanding the Holy Bible, and that same day someone knocked on my door asking me if I wanted to understand the Bible. The Holy Bible says, "love thy enemy", "turn the other cheek", "If your enemy is hungry, feed him", "if he is thirsty, give him a drink", "pray for those who persecute you", "do not repay evil for evil". LORD willing, all humans may commit sin of almost every kind (gay, straight), and that's wrong, and all humans sin, as God tells us through the The Holy Bible, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The Holy Bible also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
That's a bad comparison because the force is neither God nor the devil. The force is supposedly both sides at the same time. The fact is that I'm simply not as evil as a sith, and I'm not as much of an idiot as the Jedi were.
@@NostalgicGamerRickOShay I choose to compare the two, because the following: the dark side is like the devil, it's always tempting you, and when you give into the temptation, then it's hard to not give into it again. If you use the dark side instead of fighting it, it will corrupt you without you even noticing.
It is ignorant to believe that only the Jedi and Sith can exist, and nothing in between. It is to imply that there is only white and black, and grey does not exist. Jolee Bindo is an example of a Jedi that resists many of the flawed teachings of the Jedi, and he fully understands that the Jedi and Sith both are not perfect. To imply that nothing can exist in the middle is akin to saying people cannot change. To believe in an ideal is to be willing to betray it, and a world with no grey is a world where one cannot better themself. Not accusing you of saying that nothing can exist in between, I am only saying that to believe nothing can exist between Jedi and Sith is foolish.
I'll be honest when I was a kid I was one of those "I want to use Force Lightning and be a Jedi" people, but as I got older and got more into Star Wars I learned that the Jedi/Light Side can also have unique powers as well. Force Healing, Force Projection, etc. that we really only see characters that are in the Light use. Plus if I do want to have a more unique Light Side Force power, there's always that one group of wizards in the High Republic that use Force Flames. (Like come on, a reptilian Jedi that can breathe fire with the Force would be just as sick as shooting lightning) Also I love the term Wayseeker as well. It sounds way cooler than Gray Jedi anyways. the High Republic just keeps on giving with neat, new concepts for the fans to chew on.
I'm gonna be honest, either the High republic or Luke's Jedi order are the two good ones. and the Light sides always been what I prefer more. the Old republic I think kinda has a few flaws and misinterpretations I, along with basically everyone, don't like, and as for light side abilities.......let me just list a few: Electric Judgment Alter Environment (my absolute favorite, since it lets you cause storms, call down lighting, or make fire, my favorite element, with lighting being one I'll take, but not over pyrokinesis) force healing animal bond force blinding Combustion Force Light Beam of Light Wall of Light etc.
I think Gray Jedi *can* exist, as long as the canon treats them as the flawed and misguided thing they are. There’s value in some of their ideas as the allure is the recognition of how the dark side is *natural* in life, this is why the retcon of the Prequel Jedi being cold and detached (and characters like Qui-Gon being wiser than them) works in the films’ favor, they suppress and escape what’s natural instead of recognizing and learning to control it and live with it-arguably why Luke failed Kylo in TLJ, because he didn’t know how. I think the Kotor games and Jolee Bindo is the best example of how a “Gray Jedi” can work in canon. He makes great points, especially regarding controlling your emotions and your dark side (his view on love also fits with Anakin’s description of it in Attack of the Clones), but ultimately he is a coward who hid in the Shadowlands for decades because “history repeats itself,” and he is called out for that multiple times for that… (which is why his joining the party and fighting the Sith at the end is a powerful contrast in my opinion)
I’m pretty sure if you bring Bastilla with you when you meet Jolee she is able to sense that he is still very much light side aligned despite him stating otherwise
@@reidbishop7965 "When blinded by light one can still make out the silhouette of truth. When blinded by darkness you will see nothing at all. Return to your training Padawan. You still have much to learn."
Many people are saying that a Jedi can't use the Dark Side to any extent without falling... So we're going to ignore Mace Windu and Depa Billaba? Their fighting style, Vapaad, literally relies on their inner anger, passion, the satisfaction they have with the fight and desire to win. They use the Dark Side to an extent, but never give into it.
Admittedly, I don’t know anything about Depa Billaba, but I think using Mace as an example of this kind of weakens your argument, since his attempt to strike down a surrendering opponent was the final nail in the coffin of Anakin turning to the dark side.
People have completed misunderstandings of the force, thinking it like ying and yang when it never been established as such. Light side never been mentioned by the jedi. The terms light side and dark side are in referring to how Force-users call upon the force, light being more nature approch compared to dark side unnartual. Learning about the force is like bodybuilding exercise, the proper way is consistent practice and doing right to building a healthy body for long term while dark side is drug for instant gains but suffer long term negative effect. Free will to choose good and evil exist in Lucas movies. Anakin choses weren't predestined or predetermined. He selfishness lead brought dark time while his selfless act to save his son result losing his life but was given a chance of redemption, and his son became a great jedi in legends. In Anakin final moment, Obi-Wan visits Anakin and offer immortality, Anakin ask why should he receive this gift. That moment mark Anakin truly change for the better. And Obi-Wan answer he was wrong in believing that someone so evil can change. It a very Christian perspective, that the sinners can still be forgiven if he or she truely seeks it, and God would grant it without need of mountains worth of good deeds to make up for evil. "We are saved by the Grace of God, not of works." Kreia view of the force kotor 2 is a Marxist view. That removing the force would easily fix the galaxy problems when criminals' organization, corrupt government, and people who are just selfish will still exist with and without the force. Force-users are a power that can't be monopolies by any previous power structures and can fight against them, it is up to individual if they are good or evil. In the Old republic game, there was a fraction shadow government trying to control Sith and jedi, but they cause as much damage and choas for their own intentions and gains.
I think the reason people seem the force as yin and yang, is because George lucas took from various religions to craft his idea of the force. Taoism was one of them, as well as zoroastrianism. He took a bit of buddahism to top it off. Then combined it with Christianity. It's understandable why people could get confused. In the last jedi we see the form simlar to that of a yin and yang symbol on the floor of the temple. Kreia also scoff at the idea of grey jedi she calls them cowards who refuse to take a side, and just sit on sideline not willing to do anything of meaning. As you said she wanted to get rid of the force, but she also stated the force itself manipulated people into wars as it was a catalyst of power that the good and evil people drew upon to further their own goals. She also saw the council as short sighted believing they had the right to take one ability to use the force away from them. Luke says something similar in the last jedi, about the jedi not owning the force.
I agree with the overall point of the video, that “gray Jedi” don’t make sense within the established universe. I do think, though, that just because George Lucas says something, that doesn’t mean it’s the only valid way to interpret the films. It might have been the intention of George Lucas to portray the Jedi council as paragons of good and Anakin as solely responsible for his own downfall. But the common fan reading of the text, with the Jedi being a deeply flawed organisation and the Republic and Jedi having already lost their way years before Sidious or Anakin entered the picture, is equally valid. I think the difference of perspective between the Silent Generation George Lucas and the mostly Gen Z fan base of the prequels represents a shift in thinking in society in general, not just a shift in thinking about Star Wars. People who grew up during the economically prosperous few decades after World War 2, often believe strongly in individuality. They believe that each individual person makes his or her own destiny. People who grew up in the early 2000s, with inflation growing and wages not keeping pace, with pointless wars in faraway places over nothing in particular, with much more diverse people around them in their places of work: women, LGBT people, people of colour - people who grew up in this time are much more likely to view the world’s successes and failures as systemic and collective, not individual. The idea that an entire galaxy can be ruined or saved by one man is ridiculous to many people of that generation. It must be systemic. Add to that, that younger people are much more touchy about slavery, so that’s seen as a much bigger problem with the Republic and the Jedi than Lucas might have expected it would be seen as. Are the fans right, or is George Lucas right? Yes. These are both valid ways of reading the text. And by contrasting the two readings, we can better understand how the views of people in the real world have evolved, and continue to evolve.
Also, in Christianity, there is a warning towards being lukewarm. It was essentially better to be wholly on one end of the spectrum, good or bad. Then, to walk the line between the two.
I would love a video on how flawed the PT Jedi are meant to be. I've often seen that many fans don't notice the flaws, while an equal amount of viewers seem to think that the flaws were wholly accidental, and a mark against the films.
Thank you for this video. People have to understand that the grey Jedi idea - however attractive it may seem while being 15, being a diehard Star Wars fan and wanting to be as edgy as possible - contradicts the whole Force concept in Star Wars. The Jedi are keeping balance (by ensuring that the power is used to enforce order and the respect for life), and the Sith are trying to break it (by taking all the power for themselves, no matter the cost). That is all. There is no "middle ground", because balance is on the Light Side. Not "in the middle".
The problem with this discussion is that no one will ever be satisfied. Star Wars has been added to by so many people that any source can counter by another source. Grey Jedi seem at least partially possible in legends. I.e electric judgment, imperial knights, Cade Skywalker and Galen Marek. No one’s argument is super solid if they say those don’t count because a corporation declared it so. Plus you could argue Lucas believes in Grey Jedi or at least a morally good dark side because of his involvement in Force Unleashed 1 & 2. If George Lucas believes the prequel Jedi order is correct then he probably doesn’t have moral merit to weigh in on. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that the order that inducts young children without their consent, who can use them as child soldiers, who gives them no practical training should they washout of the temple, who are in ties with a government that seems very aphetic about the slavery going on in its borders, that this order is not above criticism. And just because Karen(Mandalorians are immune to the force) Travis wrote those books does not mean those points don’t have merit. But again I’ve fallen into the trap of thinking that the force is a real actual thing. The force is just the will of the storyteller. It’s why removing someone’s free will with Jedi mind tricks is ok with George Lucas. And why Luke’s order in legends allows marriage. And why electric judgment is allowed. If that’s what the writer needs or thinks that is what it should be then that will be what the force is. In my opinion, that’s what the force is. It’s not gorge Lucas's ideas. It’s a battery that a writer pools their beliefs into to power their story.
Jedi mind trick work on the weak minded because they have weak reslove and just obey with question. They can be easily bribe and such to do what you ask. Compare to strong minds who know what they are and want, can't be influenced like Jabba who run and Watto wanting mind over all. If such mind trick was possible to control everyone around you, Emperor would have brian wash the whole senate instead of going long way around of straging a clone wars to take over the galaxy. And proof that jedi order induct kids. Everyone keep mentioning it could happened but never proved a case of such. Anyone in the jedi order can leave at any time like Count Dooku did. A cult doesn't allow such thing, everyone would be thinking the same thing no matter what. The reason why children is chose is they are more open minded and learn to control their emotions compare to adults who opinions are set in stone like how Luke was being stubborn through his training under Yoda. Grevious cause mulipte war crime but people let it slide or not as harsh because he had a bad past, which is a more twisted moral view then Lucas did. And slavery, the only way to end it outside their borders was by force in which a lot of people in the republic would be piss that they have to go fight or be taxed for someone else benefits when they don't want it either. And if the Jedi around forcing freedom everywhere, such action be view as authoritative. And would slavery remain over after the jedi leave or be start up again? where would line be draw in the name of freedom? As Mara jade told Anakin solo," you can save village from a immediate disaster but would complained when another disaster strike because you were not there to save them."
I came to say what you did so I'll expand on my thoughts. To use the Christian analogy used in the video. The Individual Jedi are more like Catholic Christians who try to live in the way the Bible says. While the Jedi order is more like the large Christian organizations (eg The Catholic Church, but not as bad as that). The actions of the individual can be in line with the philosophy while the organization can end up doing things that are fundamentally opposed to the philosophy they represent. Or to say it a different way my favorite quote about people from Men in Black highlighting the difference between singular and group behavior. "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it" Each individual Jedi can be following Light side philosophy but the organization has compromised it's actions because of the position it is in being aligned with a corrupt system. To bring Zen Buddhism into the mix, both things are true. They are both separate and not separate. Not two but not one. The Jedi are both correctly following the Light side while at the same time they are not bc of the larger actions of the Jedi Order, or more specifically the inaction. I think this quote from Haile Selassie is most accurate, "Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph."
You pointing out that the six movies never mentioned the light side at all makes me realize that's Spaceballs is the first time something even close to the "light side" ever gets mentioned. 🤔 Dark Helmet mentions the "upside" of the "downside", as there are always two sides to the Schwartz.
This video was truly a delight to watch. It actually gave me a new appreciation for George's version of the force. As you summarized, the dark side is temptation, which leads to sin. It is also much like an addiction. "I would never become addicted," many say. But the more you tap into it, the harder it is to pull yourself out. It IS possible to overcome this, but it takes great effort. It takes balance. I am not religious, but George's intentions were clear. You can't give into darker urges AND give to local charities and say you're still a good person. Especially knowingly. That is absurd. Unfortunately, much like Frank Herbert's intended message on heroes, or parts of Allen Moore's Watchmen, the message seems to have been lost to many. Not due to bad writing, but because of subtle subtext and nuance.
In my opinion, the Jedi were right about not having attachments but the misconception fans have comes down to them thinking attachments and relationships are the same thing, they're not. An attachment is only one kind of relationship with there being other types of relationships such as connections. The difference between a connection vs an attachment is that with an attachment your love for a certain person stems from wanting to get something out your relationship with them, such as how they make you feel. These feelings could be calmness, comfort, happiness, and safety. This in turn leads your happiness becoming mostly dependent on them and this normally leaves to a since of possessiveness and entitlement where you want to keep the ones you care about close to you at all cost even if it becomes overbearing for your loved ones. In the case of a connection It's about giving yourself to others where the relationship you have for someone isn't that of self gain but rather unconditional love. You love that person no matter how they make you feel. You accept that things aren't always going to stay the way you want them to. Love is a roller coaster of ups and downs where it can be strong and sodden and even cruel at times, but part having a connection is learning to accept the good with the bad which allows you to be more grateful of the good moments. That's the beauty of a connection. It was Luke having a connection that saved his father not an attachment. When Luke refused to kill Vader he didn't feel entitled for his father Vader to turn back to the light and help him. He knew he'd most likely die by the emperor but he didn't care because he loved his father even after all the pain he put him through. The kind of unconditional love is not something you'd get out of an attachment but rather a genuine connection.
But the Jedi can't get married unless the species depends on it... so.... there's a problem right there. The Jedi treated ANY attachment, unhealthy and healthy attachment/connection (same thing just different connotation) as the same and something to be feared. I would recommend Cinema Therapy's video on the M3GAN movie to understand more on that. If marriage is the most selfless type of love, deciding that, instead of living single and free from having to care for someone else, they decide to put someone else and their needs above themselves. That sounds pretty selfless and if the Jedi don't allow it, do they really have the best understanding on attachments? Also, Luke had a healthy attachment/connection to Han, Leia, Chewie, and C3PO, and yet the Jedi you're praising were telling him to sacrifice his friends to complete his training in ESB, and Luke defied them to do the right thing. Also in your own example, did you forget Obi-Wan told Luke to destroy Darth Vader? It was Yoda, who changed in that year gap between ESB and ROTJ, that told him to confront not destroy. Luke defied the Order's Code both times and leaned into his own life experience instead of the Order's view. I know Anakin and Padme get used as the example as to why the Jedi were right, but why was it unhealthy? Because they had to hide it. The pure stress and the Jedi code made it impossible for it to be healthy, not to mention Anakin being cut off from, using your word choice, his connection with his mother then losing her because the Jedi wouldn't act and because of their code. Luke almost went through the exact same thing in ESB but he had the boldness to go on his own in time to save them.
@@theechoproject899 The Jedi during the prequels can definitely be viewed as taking the “no attachments rule” to the extreme. Given that they’re 10,000 of them it makes since that the point could’ve become misconstrued over time. George Lucas even once said that Jedi can love but it has to be unconditionally. Luke was warned that he needed to trust in his friends and complete his training. When Luke refuses he ends up getting demolished by Vader and losing both his hand and lightsaber. In ROTJ Luke even admits to Master Yoda that he should’ve listened to him and apologizes for not having faith in his friends. Even in ROTJ Luke’s attachments to his friends can negatively impact him, as it was Vader threatening to turn Leia that nearly pushed Luke over the edge. In the end the only reason Luke doesn’t completely give in and strike down his father is because he sees that he to had a cybernetic hand which allowed Luke to come to the epiphany that he was becoming just like him. If it weren’t for that, It’s likely that Luke would in-fact have struck Vader in anger and it would’ve been all because of his attachment to Leia. It’s never really confirmed if Yoda believed Luke would face to kill Vader because him saying Luke must face Vader can be interpreted in a lot of ways. Personally by “face Vader” I think Yoda means confronting and ending him as that was his mindset in ROTS where he believed both Vader and the Emperor had to die. There’s nothing in the original trilogy that suggests that Yoda changed his mind on Anakin. The reason Anakin and Padma’s relationship was toxic was because Anakin chose to be possessive over her and not consider what she would’ve wanted. If Anakin was a good partner then he would’ve known that Padma would never want him murdering innocent people even if it meant it could save her life. Also Anakin was inconsiderate because he just assumed that Padma would follow him in ruling the galaxy with an iron grip but if he actually time to consider what Padma would’ve wanted he would’ve known that she believes in democracy over dictatorship. There’s a difference between an attachment and a connection which is actually a subject many people touch on if you’re to look into it ruclips.net/user/shortscOWUnjVp0Fg?si=KrnRJwG25zI0pcTJ
@@theechoproject899Ki Adi Mundi wife thing was in the comic that came out BEFORE TPM released, authors didn't even knew about the nonsense no attachments rule.
@@alecjackman2655 Yoda definitely meant confrontation Obi-Wan we know sees Vader as "Killing" Anakin so from his point of view Luke saying I can't kill my father he sees as it "I can't bring my father back to the light"
19:50 "that not the reason the jedi fell," my left butt cheek. The Jedi were crippled bytheir own code and loyalty to Republic rather than to the people of the Galaxy. If they had used morality instead of letting a code or government body decide what is just, they wouldn't have fallen.
broke: wow, Jedi Order bad!!!! WOKE: The one time that a gifted child in The Force WASN'T kidnapped into the Order at a young age, the galaxy was ruined.
You know, that idea of the Dark Side of the Force and what it means to bring Balance to the Force reminds me a lot about the concept of Kegare (Impurity/Filth) in Japanese Shintoism, which kinda make sense given the Kurosawa roots in the original movies. Kegare are things that just happens- death, butchering animals, funerals, and others. It's also tied to negative things isn't natural, that goes against natural order of things. You are supposed to always cleanse kegare and ideally get exposed minimally to it. There's a lot in that that kinda matches the idea of Dark Side of the Force and what Balance means in that regards.
100% percent. They want to be unregulated free space warriors but don’t wanna be cartoonishly evil like the sith. It’s just power fantasy schlock which is fine but no one wants to admit this
@@billyboleson2830 Starkiller was the most badass character and he was never a "gray jedi". He was a sith assassin and then a jedi, at least honorable member.
Except the Gray Paladins were a thing. The Jedi Council just barely tolerated them having a small office/base of operations within the Temple out of a debt they owed the founding Jedi Master who began the small order of Gray Paladins. They used Blasters and other conventional weapons, preferring the Lightsaber as a Ceremonial item. I don't get why some fans want a crappier more limited Star Wars instead of a badass one with Blade Runner-like characters running around in the Star Wars Universe.
100% When people started talking about gray Jedi years ago it was always just a fan fiction excuse to mix some dark side sh*t in with the other powers because they thought it was cool. "I'm good, but I like to force choke fools sometimes" ain't it.
Yeah, I think if you're going to go down that path, it's far more interesting to make a story where the Sith are sympathetic. Rather than make a "grey Jedi," why not just make a Sith anti-hero... like a military leader who achieves good results in a brutal way? You could always simply rework the Jedi into self-righteous religious fanatics who manage to skew the portrayal of everyone who doesn't follow their philosophy perfectly as evil, and thus make it so they are the ones who insist on interpreting the actions of everyone who strays from their way as evil and painting them in the least charitable light... that is actually what real-life religions have done in some cases, taken the "gods" of the faiths of people they conquered and turned them into demons in their own faith with a much more negative and sinister portrayal. Maybe George Lucas is secretly a Jedi evangelist promoting his faith or something... LOL.
@@jeremyandrews3292 I agree with your points about nuance, but that isn't where the whole gray Jedi fan fiction started. I think the Tales of the Jedi about Dooku was exactly that. When Dooku murdered Yaddle, he knew he was making a choice he couldn't come back from. He succumbed to the dark side and gave into evil. He was correct in criticizing the Order in those episodes. How he went about trying to fix it was wrong, but I did sympathize with him before he murdered Yaddle. There aren't anti-hero Sith though, homie. There's nothing anti-hero to root for when someone embraces evil and darkness. They're wallowing in their own misery and lashing out and seeking revenge.
@@JimmyThree-Balls You missed my point. I never said Dooku was a gray Jedi. I'm saying the nuance of his character in Tales of the Jedi and his reasons could have led him to be a force user who left the Order. That show was a compare/contrast between he and Ahsoka. She left the Order and walked the Path more than any Jedi did at that time. She became the embodiment of the light side of the force. Dooku was correct in criticizing the Order, but went about it the wrong way. Gray Jedi are an oxymoron. I'd accept Gray Force user. Someone so luke warm and tepid with no moral fiber doing good and bad as they saw fit when it benefited them. They aren't Jedi though.
The grey Jedi just can not exist because the Light exists for those who accept it and those who don’t easily are consumed by the dark But in actuality it’s always been a funny concept to play around with in my head growing up but as I got older I just see it as a way for someone to self insert them having being labeled a Jedi but using dark side methods
This is one of the reasons that the "Gods Of Mortis" stuff in The Clone Wars has always really bothered me. It personified The Force into three people, with Light and Dark being equivalent and rivals under their father, who acted as the Balance. It seemed to act as thought "The Light Side" was as dangerous as "The Dark Side" and that they both needed to be reined in, which is just...philosophically nonsensical. ...Also, I just didn't like that they personified The Force at all. It makes The Force seem so small and knowable, and giving it a singular voice, face, origin, and body *removes* its universality. In a broad galaxy of all sorts of aliens, why is this Universe's "God" just a humanoid man? I have to wonder if Lucas was involved in the bizarre lore choices presented in that episode.
I'm paraphrasing something I read a while ago, but it basically amounts to "You are what you do, regardless of your reasons for doing it." If you do evil things for a good reason, that doesn't make that thing good, just the lesser evil. And constantly choosing the lesser evil doesn't make you "complicated good", just increasingly evil. Replace "evil" with "dark side" in that, and you basically get how Grey Jedi as the fandom concept doesn't work. "poison is still poison even if you add sugar"
Two minutes in, you have calmly and respectfully stated the topic of the video and your position on the topic. Also including relevant visuals to go with the topic. Already you have made higher quality work than many others when they disagree on a topic. No insults, no mocking, no straw-manning, just stating facts and starting this discussion respectfully. Great work.
Gray Jedi only works in video games for gameplay reasons, but not lore-wise (lore vs gameplay exists for a reason). The only other Star Wars concept I've found confusing are Light Sith in The Old Republic.
LS Sith/Pureblood are fun but yeah there'd no way a Light Sith would ever exist, especially during the Old Republic, the closest thing we have of a good sith is Darth Vectivus
Light Sith in the Old Republic is more akin to reformers or Sith who had a code other than the Sith code or Sith who realized their way is wrong and would have wished to joined the Jedi had not for the hostilities and suspicions of their fellow Sith. Most of the light side choice for Sith there are either pragmatic choices for the Sith Empire (the same slaveholding, xenophobic empire) or a matter of honor or Jedi morals. Basically, be a “good” Empire/Sith character without ever thinking that the best action morally is abandoning the Empire and joining the Jedi Order. LS Sith Warrior is just that: a loyal Empire follower that is either pragmatic or honor bound to something higher than Sith politics or the Sith code. You are still a servant of the Empire that promote slavery and xenophobia and enjoys random violence. You may look like a goodie Light Sider, yet up until Shadow of Revan, you are the personal Wrath of the Emperor who seeks to devour all life. You still play the same games of Sith backstabbings and power plays that other DS Sith plays just to get revenge against your master, like sabotaging a rescue mission to free Darth Ekkage from a Republic super prison or sabotaging Baras’s infiltration of the Republic war effort in Corellia. Only reason the Hand recruits you is because you want revenge against Baras while they want to stop Baras from taking over the Empire from the shadow (and that’s just because they are fanatics for the Emperor). Revenge doesn’t sound like a LS move.
Also, the Zakuul Knights claimed to be of both Light and Dark, yet they literally followed the incarnation of the Sith Emperor and well, did a lot of Dark side behaviors more than Light side anyways. Their leaders after Valkorion like Arcann and Vaylin were definitely more Dark side despite their lightsaber colors.
This video was a breath of fresh air because *HOLY COW* the hype culture around "Star Wars" lore created by fans prior the branding of "Legends" is a real tidal wave that is easy to get caught up in, especially since it has carried over post George selling "Star Wars" in fans who like "Canon" continuity. Like that episode in "Ahsoka", when a visual representation of Anakin shows him switching between Vader and Anakin, people were like, "Wow, Anakin is a master of both the dark side and the light side, since he can switch between both." (I don't think it was actually Anakin's ghost btw, more like a vision in Ahsoka's head as she was unconscious) What is the point of being a Jedi if using the dark side is easy? Should we even care that Anakin was "redeemed" or that Luke "turned him to the good side"? If being a master of both sides leads to balance, why wouldn't Luke strike down the Emperor? After all, saving friends that are part of the Rebel Alliance is definitely something that could be seen as "the greater good". So glad others are still keeping the facts straight within the community.
Another good alternative term for gray Jedi could have been" independent Jedi". They're still Jedi, but they are independent from the council and its decisions
You do realise that the second definition was made popular by KOTOR 2 and the second definition really shouldn't be applied to qui gon. It is stupid people do this, but it doesn't make the CONCEPT of a grey jedi stupid. The fact you didn't even include Kreia in this critique is very strange to me, and you only seem to be analysing the concept through the movies too.
What if force lightning, or "electric judgement" was used not on people but to, for example, over-charge the core of a superweapon so it will blow itself up, would that be just?
Sadly, they exist only in Legends now. Otherwise - true. It's boggling the author didn't mentioned them. On the other hand, understandable. A pretty successful order, they lasted >10k years, of force users channeling both sides is too much for him to handle.
@@poochyenajones1362 What if the sith were completely and utterly unbalanced 100%? I mean, that's not how people work sure, but let's just say the power they draw upon isn't.
Tbh, kinda true. If the jedi are jerks, the sith are omega aholes. They are literally the ones who would see natural dark side users show up and get rid of them because "that means the balance of the force has to favor us to keep the dark side intact! Yes!"
@@theazurefire91 He used the seventh lightsaber form, which was traditionally considered dark (or at least dangerous) by the Jedi council. His vaapad discipline was much more controlled than the older Juyo discipline, but still the only person Windu ever trained in Vaapad eventually fell to the dark side, proving that Mace Windu was simply the goat at resisting the lure of the dark side.
It's worth noting that other Dark Side occurrences, both by natural instinct and by deliberate acts of sentient beings, are still (just plain) The Force. But the Sith specifically are a corruption, a cancer on the Force itself. Eliminating them at the end of RotJ was Anakin restoring balance.
The "Grey Code" is such a cringe piece of fan fiction that more or less read as: "I will have my cake and eat it too" Basically what it comes down to is some kind of bs D&D logic view of the force where it is just a bunch of powers of a spread sheet where you just want your OC to have all the coolest abilities but still remain a somewhat moral person.
The way I always saw it was: the light side is the will of the force. Individuals such as Jedi’s duty is to follow the forces will and its intentions. It’s a gift given for people to go out and make the Galaxy better for everyone. The force is “out of balance” when there are those who misuse its values and take advantage of it. So for example, in the prequels the force is out of balance for two reasons. The first is the Jedi the supposed light side users have conflated their original values and teaching into something it was never supposed to be. The second is obviously, there are sith who manipulate the force for their own evil goals. The force is “in balance” when the majority of people using the force are follow strictly the will of the force and are using it for the good of others.
I love how there is a recent push back against this concept. "I am a gray Jedi. I use bith light and dark! Luckily, the dark side of the force has never been shown to be a corrupting and all-consuming concept!"
If you save 10 people from Grapes, and then commit Grapes against 10 other people, that's grey, but NOBODY would classify it as good. Really, "Grey Jedi" would be worse than the Sith and Jedi. Too hypocritical and cowardly to be "pure evil" like the Sith, but not a person trying to do genuine good like the Jedi.
The Jedi are balance, The sith are evil. George has said this multiple times. Clone wars isnt canonical. Grey jedi are just for the sake of the show writing. Has nothing to do with the movies.
What? Clone wars was literally George expanding the franchise with his lore that he couldn’t fit in the films and so he could retcon legends, of course it’s his view Also of course it’s canon what on earth are you on about
While Lucas definitely intended to both sides not be equal like some yin and yang, and more like “there’s only light, and the dark is the corruption of the light that must be purged for balance to occur”, I really believe that the Grey Jedi concept doesn’t undermine at all this notion. Grey Jedi, to me, speak less about how they perceive the and use the force and more like how they choose to live their lives as force users. Grey Jedi, for me, are Jedi that refused the monk-like almost cultist lifestyle of the Jedi, but still shares their moral code and still oppose the dark side. Which puts them in some kind of middle ground between the two, since, by the Jedi’s POV, the Grey Jedi will share some things with the Sith simply by not abiding by their way of living, and by the Sith’s POV, the Grey Jedi will be someone they think they can reason with, and will ultimately fall by trying to approach them because they still oppose the Sith. That’s how I personally understand this concept, and I think it doesn’t contradicts how Lucas intended both sides to function, just adds more nuance to the world since it allows force users to not be aligned with the Jedi or the Sith.
I like the way Grey Jedi were portrayed in Kotor: Jolee Bindo in 1 and Kreya in 2. Bindo was a cranky old man who isolated himself from society and saw the problems of both Jedi and Sith but did nothing to change it or make something better. Kreya criticised both the Jedi and Sith and preached the ultimate rejection and destruction of the Force, but in the end she fell back to the Sith side as her goals required risking the death of the whole universe. Grey Jedi are a natural and fascinating concept but they shouldn't be the enlightened centrist option, rather the "good men doing nothing" option. TBH Luke in Episode 7 was the same, and his character ark was believing in the Light side again and, for all its faults, I think that was a good idea.
Aa a Christian & casual Star Wars enjoyer Balance always seemed as though it was along the lines of the Dark Side is powerful & tempting. But balance is embracing the light, doing the right things even though it is hard. Additionally if you make a mistake you just try your best going forward. Also I feel as though the Jedi allowed love & whatnot but even letting good things consume you isn't allowed for Jedi. However it's so hard loving somebody just enough that if something happens with them you don't go insane. But that's, JUST A THEORY...
It's just kind of arbitrary which is dark and which isn't. Is mind control really less dark than force lightning? Perhaps it's more how the same effect is achieved. Maybe force lightning itself isn't dark, but the dark side easily produces it through intense emotion. Under that theory, jedi would need some even deeper understanding of the force to produce the same effect, perhaps even at a mechanical level, while the emotion of a sith allows one to just skip through all that and tap directly into the energy without needing to understand it.
This is all true within the realm of Legends as well. The Je'daii order from Dawn Of The Jedi were canonically flawed, they mirrored what happened with Rey and Kylo at the end of TLJ. Hence they ended up breaking apart in the Force Wars and ultimately becomming the Jedi. Imperial Knights from Legacy aren't actually the fanon Gray Jedi. They're lightsiders that served the Emperor (kinda like prequel Jedi served the Republic) and had to remove him from power if he ever fell to the dark side. But of course their shallow relationship with the Force, treating it as a means to an end, exposed them to the risks of falling to the dark, we see it happen with Emperor Fel himself. The fanon concept does exist officially as well, but it's always depicted as flawed and corrupting (Jensarai being the primary example). Now here's the quote from Legends Luke during the Yuuzhan Vong war that confirms everything you explained here: "It's true that the Force is unified; it is one energy, one power. But here's where I think you and Vergere are incorrect: the dark side is real, because evil actions are real. Sentience gave rise to the dark side. Does it exist in nature? No. Left to itself, nature maintains the balance. But we've changed that. We are a new order of consciousness that has an impact on all life. The Force now contains light and dark because of what thinking beings have brought to it"
I have a feeling the Disney fans don't care. They're like Nintendo fans. They only want to follow some canon, almost like it's a religion. Sad and annoying. It's because of "fans" like them that things are so damn slow and limited. We had cool stuff like the J'Dai/Je'Daii but no no, we can't have that as canon until some Mega-Corpo Disney execs decide they can make money off of it.
@@Iklary It lasted so long due to very specific circumstances, mostly that much of that time was spent on very basic studies of the Force and nature of Tython in general. But it was definitely not the roght way to go, as even stated by the author of these comics, John Ostrander. He specifically says the Je'Daii know far less about the true natire of the Force and its balance than the Jedi do.
I love the lesson Luke gives in last jedi about the force. The Jedi balance the light and dark side, they understand one cannot live without the other. The sith are pushed to the extreme and can't see clearly because of it.
I believe the mix and misconception may be due to the words used. As we 'average' fans hear words like harmony and balance - thus inscribe onto them more Eastern belief. Not necessarily embracing a 'donate here and kill there' - but more coming to terms and mastering your anger, instead of ignoring it or bottling it up. Whereas George seemed to have a more Western belief in the dynamic between Light and Dark. Thus Dark should be defeated, to achieve victory for the Force. (It doesn't help either, that there is a constant talk of balance-balance...and nobody openly states: "We have to smother Dark forever to achieve peace" - at least to my knowledge) (Plus Star Wars has changed so much, I doubt even George can recognize what he created 😅)
@@StarWarsCentralized Thanks. I did enjoy your piece, even as I am a fan of the Grey Jedi myself. Granted, in my view - it would be less a Jedi shooting Force Lightning and being 'good', and more like a combination of Mace Windu and Qui-Gonn Jinn. Someone that has an understanding of both Light and Dark, being aware of the strengths and dangers of both. But serving the Force itself, not being tied to a Code or the Senate; as was hinted at in the Prequels. As in my view - the Dark Side in its natural state, feels like the darker side of nature: brutal, vicious, uncompromising yet...natural. Ignoring and dismissing it, would leave oneself just as vulnerable - whenever they encounter such discomfort, that they had been dismissive about.
Superb video. You perfectly summed up what I have been arguing for essentially my entire time in the fandom as an active participant. I remember the forum arguments and the groans every time the same stupid misinterpretations came up. It was honestly maybe the most formative thing for me as a fan, switching from for about 10 seconds thinking the grey jedi are cool when I was 12, to getting older and developing a better understanding. I remember the anxiety leading up to TLJ over whether or not it would pull some grey jedi stuff, it had made the months prior into constant discussion. I cannot believe the film so perfectly understood what Lucas was saying. Another thing I have to praise you for is treating the Jedi Order with more nuance than even a lot of fans I generally agree with. I think people take "flawed" and just run with it, with no clearly discernable solution or consistent critique. This goes for PT fans as well, you'll see people say "oh the point is that the Jedi is flawed cause x,y,z" and then right afterwards say the Jedi's flaws are something completely contradictory. I think media made during the release of the PT has some fascinating portrayals of the Jedi and should be reexamined for that reason. Because they worked from the perspective that this WAS what the Jedi are supposed to be. I am very hyped for the idea of a video about the Jedi in the vein of this one. Keep up the good work
I think the potryal of the Jedi Order in the wider Star Wars Multi-Media project that is just..."The Star Wars Franchise" is always a fascinaing thing. Espeically when the PT come in and you've hade for a decade Luke's Jedi Order and the TOTJ Jedi Order coming in and now the PT comes in and switches things up and the other media is trying to mish and mesh things like Luke gets a council now and moves to Coruscant. They made it work but it's just fascinating watching it evolve.
Grey Jedi cannot exist it would simply be a fallen jedi or a reformed sith. Either way they are in the process of failing their code not upholding another. Ironically people that believe no one should use the force would fit this grey jedi code well hunting both light side and darkside.
Been working on this one for a while, been wanting to make it for even longer. Hope you all enjoy!
Thank you, every instance of a "grey jedi" is either a mary sue or eventually fell to the dark side. The force is not horizontal, it's vertical. It can be read as maintaining your health, light side is working out fairly, dark side is using steroids to get the result quickly while destroying your health. Although, I do get people's confusion, George Lucas "balance of the force" implies it can be balance between light and dark, but what he meant is full eradication of the dark side.
PLEASE, you, and EVERYONE, if you haven't already, embrace the One True Only God YHWH Jehovah, Only One Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son and Lord and Savior of our souls and the Only One Holy Spirit. God is good. God is love. Jesus is Lord. Jesus IS coming. Your soul depends on it!
I have seen God act in my life. He saved my soul, changed my heart, changed my mind, helped people through me, took care of people in my life, people I hurt before I found God. God is the only reason I was able to reconcile with my dad before he died.
God worked through Jesus Christ to save our souls. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Be baptized in The Holy Spirit, and if He wills, water as well. Repent of your sins, accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into your heart, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, that all who believe on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father Jehovah God but through Him.
Not long after I got saved I prayed to God for help understanding the Holy Bible, and that same day someone knocked on my door asking me if I wanted to understand the Bible.
The Holy Bible says, "love thy enemy", "turn the other cheek", "If your enemy is hungry, feed him", "if he is thirsty, give him a drink", "pray for those who persecute you", "do not repay evil for evil".
LORD willing, all humans may commit sin of almost every kind (gay, straight), and that's wrong, and all humans sin, as God tells us through the The Holy Bible, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The Holy Bible also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
@@Dagenspear There's more evidence for Jedi than God.
I liked the video, and can see your point, even if I don't completely agree. Luke himself refused to kill Vader for the Jedi OR Sith, as they both wanted him to. The sequels just ruined all of that. It is silly to pretend both sides are equally valid at all times, like with politics, but you made a comparison to faith. There is a middle ground there actually. I'm a pescatarian (formerly vegetarian), which I compare to also being an agnostic. I joke that at least I'm not a vegan, or an atheist. I DO agree that fandom gets this wrong a lot though, so I guess, what... you'd consider me more of a Wayseeker than Bendu? 🤔
@@teezy786 There's Only God. I've seen it. PLEASE, you, and EVERYONE, if you haven't already, embrace the One True Only God YHWH Jehovah, Only One Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son and Lord and Savior of our souls and the Only One Holy Spirit. God is good. God is love. Jesus is Lord. Jesus IS coming. Your soul depends on it!
I have seen God act in my life. He saved my soul, changed my heart, changed my mind, helped people through me, took care of people in my life, people I hurt before I found God. God is the only reason I was able to reconcile with my dad before he died.
God worked through Jesus Christ to save our souls. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Be baptized in The Holy Spirit, and if He wills, water as well. Repent of your sins, accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into your heart, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, that all who believe on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father Jehovah God but through Him.
Not long after I got saved I prayed to God for help understanding the Holy Bible, and that same day someone knocked on my door asking me if I wanted to understand the Bible.
The Holy Bible says, "love thy enemy", "turn the other cheek", "If your enemy is hungry, feed him", "if he is thirsty, give him a drink", "pray for those who persecute you", "do not repay evil for evil".
LORD willing, all humans may commit sin of almost every kind (gay, straight), and that's wrong, and all humans sin, as God tells us through the The Holy Bible, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The Holy Bible also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
Think the idea of "Grey jedi" is popular in online circles because the Jedi are so inconsistent. Their code prioritizes not forming attachments and being removed from the worries of the world. However, we see them form attachments and interfere in world events. In short, Jedi can't decide if they are aesthetic monks or galaxy hopping heroes. And yes, those two roles don't quite mesh.
If you only see the Jedi as cold detached monks, there is something appealing in the idea of non-evil Force users that actually form bonds of love, mourn their loved ones, and feel passion.
Fair
THIS! People act like the Jedi are complete paragons of morality and only ask that you don't murder people for no reason. In reality they act much like a cult. Making sure that they get their recruits young, keep them away from any and all outside attachments, bombard them with dogma, prohibit LOVE and HAVING KIDS, and proactively protecting the innocent.
In short the argument in favor of Grey Jedi is "I don't want to join either cult, I'd rather follow my own path"
THIS! people act like the Jedi are paragons of morality when in reality they act much like a cult
@@reidbishop7965act? They are. Why do you think they steal kids, er I mean are willingly given kids
I get the desire to have "grey" Jedi. Especially amongst people who grew up with the OT and pre-prequel EU where Jedi weren't the weird, emotionless monks that the prequels gave us.
I much prefer how Jedi were presented in the OT than they were in the PT, but Luke was absolutely a complete adherent of the light. That was the whole point of him throwing away his lightsaber and refusing to kill Vader. That was the moment when he "won." After failing his test in the cave in Dagobah by bringing the means to do violence with him, and so finding violence within, and then seeing himself in the decapitated head of force vision Vader, he learns his lesson by gaining victory through fully accepting the light and throwing away his means to do violence in his final confrontation with Vader.
Which is why I hate lightsabers in any post-OT media. Luke truly became a Jedi the moment he threw away his lightsaber. A Jedi should not be judged by their ability to exercise their supernatural fighting skills, by their ability to swing around their glowy swords real cool-like, but by their discipline to not do so.
I’ve been a Buddhist most of my life so my understanding of the Force was implied to be life itself and the journey to enlightenment by self development. Jedi seek enlightenment but get bogged down by pride while the Sith fully embrace attachments and negative emotions, becoming demons.
PLEASE, you, and EVERYONE, if you haven't already, embrace the One True Only God YHWH Jehovah, Only One Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son and Lord and Savior of our souls and the Only One Holy Spirit. God is good. God is love. Jesus is Lord. Jesus IS coming. Your soul depends on it!
I have seen God act in my life. He saved my soul, changed my heart, changed my mind, helped people through me, took care of people in my life, people I hurt before I found God. God is the only reason I was able to reconcile with my dad before he died.
God worked through Jesus Christ to save our souls. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Be baptized in The Holy Spirit, and if He wills, water as well. Repent of your sins, accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into your heart, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, that all who believe on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father Jehovah God but through Him.
Not long after I got saved I prayed to God for help understanding the Holy Bible, and that same day someone knocked on my door asking me if I wanted to understand the Bible.
The Holy Bible says, "love thy enemy", "turn the other cheek", "If your enemy is hungry, feed him", "if he is thirsty, give him a drink", "pray for those who persecute you", "do not repay evil for evil".
LORD willing, all humans may commit sin of almost every kind (gay, straight), and that's wrong, and all humans sin, as God tells us through the The Holy Bible, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The Holy Bible also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
THANK YOU! The people commenting don't seem to get this. It's almost like they've brainwashed themselves into thinking their psychotic prideful behavior is "normal" and to be emulated by others. Also, I've noticed a lot of lazy consumer wannabe-bully types screeching about how anyone fighting back (usually their victims) are "GOING DOWN A DARK PATH", which is awfully convenient and pitiful that they'd lower themselves to such a benign existence.
I think that's one of the best explanations and comparisons I've heard.
It sums up the failing of the jedi without making them seem intentionally ignorant or evil.
What kind of Buddhist monk?
- the Sith fully embrace attachments
Er... No. Quite the opposite, actually. They shun any attachments. More than that - they learn to draw power from the loss of those attachments.
I dont have a problem with exploring a concept like Gray Jedi. After all, with something like the Force, it makes sense that there would be multiple schools of thought beyond light or dark.
But like you said, it's important to remember Lucas' definition, and that characters trying to walk the line usually leads to the dark side.
The Mortis trilogy and Dawn of the Jedi had characters striking a literal balance between light and dark. Jacen Solo and Cade Skywalker thought light and dark were either tools or a matter of intention.
All these stories and arcs were great, but they also show where such thinking inevitably leads.
Luke may have rejected certain Jedi practices in Legends, namely emotional detachment, but he didn't believe in the idea of Gray Jedi. He acknowledged that it may work for other Force groups, but not for those who are supposed to defend peace and justice.
He also joined Palpatine for a short time, wanting to learn about the dark side and destroy it from inside. But it almost broke him. He realised that balance exists only in the light.
Yes, but the problem is when incompatable schools are shown to be equally correct. We can't have a "the light side is balance, and the dark side is imbalance" school and a "you need both equally for balance" school, and have both be shown to be right.
@@unigaming9921 Why not? We all disagree and yet all believe ourselves to be right. You can have multiple schools of thought be depicted as right from the perspective of their narrators and their biases. That is the core of discussion that allows the reader to explore their stance on the scales of discipline and hedonism.
@ShadowPhoenix82 no. Contradictory or incompatable beliefs don't tend to both be magically right, regardless of the fact that people may believe different things.
@@unigaming9921 unless the force wills it
‘I’m a grey Jedi’. Oh so you’re not disciplined enough to be a Jedi and you’re too scared to be a sith?
is there anyone who has done all good? or all bad? by your logic, EVERONE is to lazy to be a saint, and to soft to be a sinner. cause everyone is grey.
@@DamienHanma imagine thinking someone calling out corruption in a government is being grey?
Facts
at the time of the clone wars you could argue the main jadi order lost thier way and became a police force for the republic.so if you disagree with that stuff and left witch is completly alloed be the jedi order but then they woudint be a jedi just a person living thier life
@@Chuck_EL where did I say that? Did I say the calling out government corruption is gray yes or no.
Morality is a fiction, there is only Indifference.
Through Anger I gain Dark Side Powers,
Through Loopholes I keep Light Side Powers.
Through Edginess my mediocrity is Glossed Over.
The Force makes me Special.
if you put that on T-shirt one day, ill wear it on the news
I assume it's a parody of some other edgy thing?
@@robertlupa8273 It's a parody of the Sith Code
@Cthfurbhu it's a parody of the gray jedi code.
That nails "Grey Jedi" to a T. I'm gonna steal that.
I am what I like to call a grey heorin addict. I do heroin 24/7 but I'm BALANCED, so I experience none of the downsides of my lifestyle. So cool. This is very logical.
LOL
@@StarWarsCentralizedbanger vid just finished it
Sith are basically junkies, given their physical and mental health.
Thanks @Crusty783 I appreciate it!
@@russianoverkill3715 then explain Darth Marr and Lana Beniko smh
“You must find a way to find balance within yourself.”
“Ok, I’ll rob a liquor store and donate the money to charity.”
“No… what?”
You can have a passion for a drink, but… HICK! Alcoholism should never flourish ☝️
Qui Gon acts like a High Republic Jedi. He couldn't be further from a "Grey Jedi". I'm so glad you made this video.
THANK YOU!!!
You wouldn’t believe the popular fan theories people are pushing to become canon
People keep wanting to reinvent him as some pansexual icon and ship him with Schmi but the truth is that just isn’t who he is.
Hell, in terms of disciplines like celibacy Qui Gons ways are actually MORE strict than Yoda’s. Yoda being affiliated the Republic like so makes him the more liberal of the two ultimately, engaging in such a human cause that is
I haven't seen any fans about this high republic, seems like Disney's sad attempt to do KOTOR
@mysticspace1475 they aren't trying to do KOTOR, it's it's own thing and it's great
I argue Qui gon is a true Jedi even before the high republic was a thing.
Qui-Gon is allergic to bureaucratic BS, and would prefer to stay away from the more dogmatic elements of the current Jedi Order’s rule. Theres nothing inherently “dark side” or even gray, as far as the force is concerned, about being a bit rebellious.
Videogames like KOTOR and Force Unleashed, while a lot of fun, definitely played into the misconceptions surrounding the Force, treating it like an RPG power system where you can use both with little consequence. A lot of people fail to realize that was done to make the games *fun* not an actual template for how the Force actually works.
Agreed!
"The new game, known by many simply as the Force Unleashed, is the first Star Wars game to be considered by Lucas an actual chapter in the overall story line..." The problem is George Lucas played a heavy part of the Force Unleashed. Even in the novelization, Starkiller was actively using the dark side after he started going down the path of redemption. So it's really on George about how the Gray Jedi started. It's on George for how things turned out. He influenced the mindset of people to follow the Gray Jedi.
@@user-ez7yc4nh6g Maybe people should not treat George as if a god when he deals with newer materials. He follows trends and opinions to the point he is like a reed shaken by the wind. Prequels got hated? He co-directs TCW that was meant to “fix” the Prequels which in turn introduces new issues to the lore. People don’t like the Prequels politics (which is George’s take on the social and political issues in 90s and early 2000’s America)? He watered down the politics so much in TCW and that was picked up in the Sequels with its bad “both sideism” take in TLJ. What to say Force Unleashed is that way because he finds DS fight mechanics is so much more fun than LS mechanics that’s just force push and pull and lightsaber throws? It’s a game more akin to God of War at the time but unlike Star Wars, your alignment had nothing to do with your powers in God of War series.
And speaking of Force Unleashed, game started out with you having access to Dark Side powers as Starkiller. Video game design-wise, it would be a bummer if you can’t access it anymore when Starkiller became LS.
@@alexanderchristopher6237 "Maybe people should not treat George as if a god when he deals with newer materials." Kreia: THE ARROGANCE! It's literally what this guy in the video and what you all are doing. If you're going to say I'm treating him like a god, then you have to admit that everyone in this section is treating him like a god one way or another. Invalid half of your arguments. Did you even read my point? I'm not talking about the game. I'm talking about the novelization where Galen tapped both into dark and light on multiple occasions after he began the path to redemption. The novelization, which I remind you, is considered canon to how the actual events occurred, in the EU.
Refers to the point above where Galen used both the light and dark in the novelization. Try again.
Kotor adds depth to it at the very least. The dark side is evil and corrupts yes, but you can’t kill it no matter what.
Farce unleashed however sucks and ruined the force and is Disney tier
"You can use the dark side and not be corrupted," is exactly how every Jedi goes dark.
Unless you are Luke Skywalker
Or Mace Windu
You actually can tho, if we wont take George vision into consideration
@@orrorsaness5942No. Luke tried to in Dark Empire so that he could beat Sidious, but he almost fully turned before being saved by Leia.
And Windu reflected the dark side back at the enemy.
@@rarescevei8268Bro his form is literally based off a super aggressive nearly sith only fighting style and visibly gets angry when in a fight.
Right at the beginning, I can say that on top of what other comments have put in, "following the will of the force" isn't grey, it's just what a jedi should be. The force has a will, but it generally aligns with the selflessness and benevolence the jedi claim to be all about on paper, and ignoring it and asserting your own will over the force is the defining trait of dark siders.
Stripping away any morality, you're left with "I do what the force tells me, and the force tells me to ignore it sometimes"
Prob Jedi should not just follow the will of the force blindly too, after all all the massacres that happened in SW was the force will
@@matheuspereira-eu9fx God gave permission to every good and bad thing to happen in this world, yet He's not evil.
I would like your comment but it's at 69 at this moment
@@matheuspereira-eu9fxI thought about SW universe for a while and this is my conclusion - it doesn't actually matter.
The Force draws heavily from buddhist tradition, which teaches that existence is a constant cycle of rebirth and suffering which we must break from by rejecting earthly passions and attachments. Lucas uses this idea, but inject some christian morality into it, by making the Force not just the state of things or a stage of existence, but rather an objective moral guide ("follow the will of The Force"). As a result, we should look at SW universe not as purely materialistic, but transcendental with clear divine existence at it's core, which explains why jedi don't fight injustice in the galaxy - it doesn't matter at the grand scheme of things, one's journey doesn't end after death, rather they join with The Force and become part of infinite collective life field. But that also means losing what you have now: your possessions, your loves ones, your power - you'll have to give it all up and accept infinite serenity of Nirvana. This is what jedi are trained to do, but it's not easy to just give up your emotions and connections to everything, so here's where siths come into picture. They refuse natural order, they refuse infinite tranquility and afterlife, instead their ultimate goal is immortality (infinite possession) and control over The Force itself. So The Light Side aka Jedi learn to look past mortal limitations and accept natural order of things (including injustice, violence, pain and other terrible things), where's The Dark Side aka Sith desperately clutch to their mortal existence and want to to subvert nature. The Light Side is an incredibly hard part towards enlightenment, The Dark Side misses the point of existence. This is why there's no balance between the two (the latter is in itself an imbalance) and even if you only use "positive" emotions like love or compassion instead of hatred and pain, even if moderately, you're still a sith and still miss the point, you're still stuck halfway on the path towards enlightenment.
@@irmaosmatos4026 He is guilty under law though, for he had the ability to stop all the bads in the world. And would therefore be liable to all damages suffered by the victims...
I thino of it like a body. Getting a cold or even cancer is natural like the dark side but a balanced body isnt half healthy and half cancerous, its a body with all Healthy cells
this is the best explanation of the force i’ve ever seen
That doesn't discount grey jedi from being a thing, a light side force user who doesn't follow the jedi code = you can be healthy and not take the specific medicine that has certain side effects. People are getting too hung up on the enlightened centrist meme here, remember there's the other definition too. Jedi is an organisation, so a grey jedi could be someone who believes in God but isn't part of the Christian church, does not believe specific rules like turning the other cheek but that does not inherently make them outright satanist selfish sinners either
Really it comes down to the same problem with centrism, people think it means half or midpoint. No it means someone who makes up their own mind and can be found anywhere on the spectrum that doesn't conform exactly to one side e.g. someone who believes abortion is wrong but wants lgbt rights and believes in a weird economic system they made up isn't left wing or right wing, but they're not half cancer or half nazi. They just can't be defined on the dichotomy of the 2 sides, at the end of the day the force is one thing and these 2 codes you see in the meme are man made. So someone could untie themselves from either side and use the force in its raw purest form theoretically, if they had the discipline to not succumb to the dark side. Mace Windu's Vaapad style "channels my own darkness into a weapon of the light" and it's canon, in doing so he sorta abandoned the no emotion only peace bit by enjoying the fight and probably the reason for him not capturing Palpatine but wanting to kill him. Is that a quarter cancer? He is still a jedi but things like this show that it's perhaps possible to use the darker side for good without being unhealthy and the whole idea behind it is proof that it's even healthier that way, to step out of the strict jedi vs sith separation and not having things lead to immediately turning to the dark side like Anakin which was obviously not healthy
this is a perfect explanation, especially since the force is alive itself
@@raulpetrascu2696 "a light side force user who doesn't follow the jedi code [...] so a grey jedi could be someone who believes in God but isn't part of the Christian church"
Well, then they aren't gray, are they? They are still light-side. Just not Jedi.
@@JayL- well that's one of the definitions of the gray jedi if you search it up, one of the 2 types. A gray jedi is either a force user who walks the line between light and dark or who is neither a jedi or sith / doesn't follow either codes. They're all gray jedi, that's what I meant when I said remember there's the other definition too. For example when people argue Qui Gon was a gray jedi or not it's referring to his disagreement with the jedi order rather over him not being a light side user yk
Taking the term “balance” too literally has created all sorts of misconceptions. Trying to use the dark side for a noble purpose was the whole cautionary tale behind Dooku and Anakin’s falls. You can’t just use a little dark side here and there; you simply succumb to it once you choose to embrace it.
Agreed!
Dooku a great example for why it don't work out
people took what is essentially a manichaeist series and tried to bring confucionism in it. Doesn't make sense.
And this is why the Vaapad believers are wrong too. The Jedi simply do not allow the use of the Dark Side in any form or amount. It is too dangerous.
Two problems with that is that it implies that there is no such thing as willpower, and the fact that Disney Star Wars basically destroyed it by allowing Rey to destroy the emperor in a dark way and yet she doesn't submit to the dark side of the force by simply saying "no".
In Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Omen, Luke Skywalker very clearly tells his son, Ben that there is no gray and that the Force is not a rainbow of different shades and that only light and dark exist. Luke also said that his nephew, Jacen Solo/Darth Caedus would've wanted a gray to exist to justify his actions, but it just didn't. Even Legends didn't have the fanfiction idea of gray.
Also, fans like to point out Revan as a Gray Jedi but what they don't understand is that in SWTOR, the dark half of Revan became its own persona that the light half helped stop, trying to balance both sides of the Force literally split him in two.
It’s kinda like there is no “gray” jenga tower, it’s either balanced or all over the room
Pretty good analogy actually
This is just the enlightened centrist meme but for Star Wars.
Glad to see fellow PF Jung's fan on this random corner of the internet.
@@NadwornyBlazen I don’t think this person is a fan, they might be, but that’s not what they stated. I think they’re making fun of the concept of people who call themselves “centrists” or “enlightened centrists” in politics. So as far as we know, until this person clarifies what they’re political positions are, we don’t know what youtuber they’re a fan of, or what their political beliefs even are, other then they think people who call themselves centrists are idiots.
@@BlueTyphoon2017 "Enligthened centrism" is like "Valar Morgulis" for PF Jung fans.
Not a PF Jung fan. Don’t even know who that is.
I was more making fun of the fence sitting mindset of a lot of Grey Jedi proponents.
“Erm, I wanna shoot lightning and be morally grey. But not THAT morally grey”, type of Grey Jedi fan.
It genuinely is. Been commenting this for ages. Glad to see other people are catching on to how stupid the concept is.
Honestly the biggest crime of the Grey Jedi concept has to be the name. Like seriously we have so many other cool force religions in-universe with badass names like Disciples of the Whills, the Fallanassi, The Sorcerers of Tund and then there's 'Grey Jedi.' Booo what lazy naming. Anyway great vid, can't disagree on a single point here.
I actually don’t mind the imperial knights of the Fel empire ultimately light side users just not following Jedi beliefs more militaries serve the emperor but opposed the dark side if one of there members or emperor fall to it.
So dark jedi is perfectly fine, but gray jedi is too far? Ok, double standard.
I mean that's just how Star Wars works though?
Multiple not-Jedi are called Jedi because they are good guy force users(Ahsoka or Jolee), Dark Side force users get labelled Sith even if they don't care at all about the Sith as a concept(Anakin Pre-burning or Nihilus), and Dark Jedi are a thing.
@@Ash-Winchester Not really. Dark Jedi are quite literally Jedi who have fallen to the Dark Side. It’s a transitionary stage if you will. Anakin became a Dark Jedi before he was made a Sith by Palpatine. A Dark Jedi is just a Jedi who has fallen or is falling to the Dark Side. They tend to officially become Sith later on.
@@herrfantastisch7489 Wrong. A dark jedi is a force user that only uses the dark side of the force, but doesn't subscribe to the teachings of the sith. Asajj Ventress after she was betrayed by dooku and left the sith would be a prime example, also maris brood from the force unleashed. It's not a transitionary stage, since there's a clear difference. All sith may be dark jedi, but not all dark jedi are sith.
Also, THANK YOU for bringing up the "Two Jedi Two Sith" argument.
It makes absolutely zero sense that balance in THE FORCE is measured in the numbers of Force Users and not the Nature of the Force itself.
It makes zero sense to you. But the theory of relativity made zero sense to a lot of people too.
Problem with your theory that the nature of the Force does not change, therefore there is always balance, which we know from the Lucas movies is not the case.
Therefore you are wrong.
The imbalance occurs when one side manipulating the Force to their adventage is significantly stronger than the other side.
@@fixipszikon6670 not true at all, but ok.
@@ConcordiaJedi
Not true in your bubble.
Whatever LOL
@fixipszikon6670 My bubble? You mean Georges' word on The Force? Yeah, that's a bubble I'm happy to be in.
@@ConcordiaJedi
LOL You managed to misinterpret what Lucas said, to make your life happy in your bubble.
How fans think the force works:
There are 2 cosmic batteries, a light force battery and a dark force battery,
The jedi use the light force battery, the sith use the dark force battery and grey jedi use both batteries
How the force actually works:
The force is a lush forest that is everywhere, with all forms of nature within, the dark side is a fire, if you use the dark side the fire spreds and you burn everything, no matter how carful you are there is simply too much wood and plant life to not spred the fire and acidently destroy nearly the whole forest
No it's metaphysical. Like a metaphor for angels and demons. Good and evil
@@CraftyMiscreant
Abstract concepts, let alone metaphysical ones are a little bit confusing to the average person so to help people understand we often use physical things as a metaphor.
In the case of my force analogy I compared the force to a lush forest that is everywhere to help readers grasp the concept of the force being literally the energy of anything and everything, and I compared the dark side to a fire to help readers grasp the idea that the dark side isn't some 2ed force but rather something that is both part of the forest, part of the 1 force, but also is too consuming and destructive too not destroy and corrupt, just in a way most people can understand.
@hoaujudaiyubel
To the average person? Not at all. Virtues, vices, logic, etc. Are metaphysical concepts the average person grasps. Don't assume people are too stupid to understand these types of concepts. We have stories built around them.
It's not a good analogy. Star wars is a simple plot to grasp. A swash bucking adventure with good vs. Evil.
The force is a metaphor for good and evil. The bad guys embody vice and sin. The good guys embody virtue.
This isnt hard. Youre just complicating it.
@@CraftyMiscreant
I wasn't calling anyone stupid, being confused by something is not the same thing as being unable to grasp the concept, just means the person needs to be pointed in the right direction.
Besides you telling me when you think of a virus you're not imagining very very tiny bugs or cells? A jigsaw puzzle with logic or the like?
Yes, as far as abstract concepts go, good and evil are on the simpler side..........but you do realize this discussion is happening in the comments of a video about why the concept of grey Jedi doesn't make sense from a conceptual perspective.
You do realize the reason why the fandom has the concept of grey Jedi at all was because they think the so called light side has evil points and the dark side has good points despite the franchise making it very clear the Jedi are good and the sith are evil in the eyes of the creator.
So clearly the fine lines or the details of what is good and what is evil are not universaly agreed upon and do in fact waver, that is, what is good and what is evil will change from person to person. This is because good and evil are purely subjective with no basis in objectively, only basis in the concept of value which in turn is also subjective.
And sure, perhaps my metaphor doesn't work for you cause your idea of what is good and evil may already align with the franchise or because you may visualize things in a more direct sense then most or maybe my metaphor doesn't work for you for a reason I'm completely unaware of.
Either way, there are very likely star wars fans of whom my metaphor does in fact help, I take the thumbs up of my original comment as a sign that it at least makes sense to the people who gave it a thumbs up.
@@hoaujudaiyubel
Sorry my man. That's way to much to read. Please just simplify your points. I don't want to read through a novella.
“The dark side is natural.” So is cancer. So is disease. But no one in their right mind condones using chemical weapons or inflicting disease upon someone, and willingly taking on that disease is a pretty dumb idea.
Idk bro, you ever caught a cold and been able to blast a lightning bolts into space because of said sickness? Some people would absolutely give themselves a disease if the reward for it was power, and that's the point of the dark side. It can offer you power but takes everything, the light side gives everything, but demands nothing.
I guess Grey Jedi would fall in the middle where they understand that you have to both give and take to truly be one with the force
I mean that's exactly how vaccines work. You embrace a part of the illness to build resistence. So the disease analogy doesn't really work here.
But cancer and disease aren't evil, just like a lightsaber isn't evil. you aren't arguing that cancer is inherently evil you're arguing that evil people using weapons are bad, a lightsaber is a peace keeping tool until it falls into the hands of a sith.
@@themenagerie5247 I can’t tell if your worst crime here is defending chemical warfare, inadvertent or not, or thinking comparing cancer or disease to a weapon is a good equivalent in the least. Yes, cancer and disease are both technically not evil, but inflicting them on others definitely is, and it’s not a good idea to inflict yourself with it unless it’s to vaccinate yourself AGAINST it. And even then, you’re using your own body to fight against it, not the disease itself. You’re using your knowledge OF the disease to combat it, but you aren’t using a disease to fight itself. That just causes more of the disease.
Nurgle
I think the main reason for the popularity of Gray Jedi lies in the restrictiveness of the apparent binary presented by the Force. Either you're a slave to it or you're a jackass, making ironically anybody disconnected from the Force or its binary seem free by comparison. We don't really see a lot of canon examples of Jedi embracing emotions and attachments without being punished for it, which ironically also tends to lead to them becoming secretive, paranoid, and mistrusting of others as they have to hide their feelings.
The biggest recruiter for the Sith is the Jedi, after all.
So the idea of somebody who refuses to be controlled or restricted by the Jedi while still refusing to become a monster like the Sith becomes appealing, and then people want an organization for that third faction.
I kinda like how it works though. Either there are very strict rules on your superpowers to prevent you hurting people, or you try to set them yourself and end up hurting people. If you want to write a story with superpowers where it doesn't make you definitively cooler or worse, there should be some way to balance it out. "With great power comes great responsibility" remains an amazing guideline for writing.
@@derpfluidvariant0916anti heroes are still a thing in fiction so even for superheroes thecompletely binary mindset still isn't set in stone.
We see emotional Jedi all the time though? They're only "punished" in that when they're ruled by them, they tend to miss the Force's warnings. And "attachments" are not synonymous with "relationships", it's more about being closed to certain possibilities because you don't want something to change. Like, Anakin's big attachment to Padme in RotS related to his fear of losing her, *not* specifically to her dying. He prioritizes keeping his secrets over securing her safety- eg in his talk with Yoda, he's extremely vague and doesn't give Yoda anything to work with (in contrast to TCW where Ahsoka gets visions of Padme being assassinated, and Yoda helps her figure out how to avert it)
@@o0Evo0o Literally the Jedi are banned from loving, but encouraged to go and be deadbeat dads to as many kids as possible.
As long as they never love their children.
“Grey Jedi” is never mentioned in any of the movies.
Also, none of the movies ever mention a “Light Side.”
You see George Lucas kind of implied that the Force in an of itself is inherently good, and the “Darkside” is like a cancer that corrupts it.
Yep!
Lol which basically makes any video game with distinct light and dark force powers inherently bullshit
@@billyboleson2830 Now to be fair. What possible reason could lightning exist other than you wanting to torture your opponent? If you needed to permanently end them for the sake of saving lives, you could do so if a fast and humane way. Lightning's only use is to fulfill a desire to inflict pain. And using the Force for your desires is the Dark Side. So lightning and choke make sense as Dark Side powers.
Except when he talked about Yin and Yang. Lucas isn't excactely reliable.
@@valeriacaissa4552 He visually leaned into Yin and Yang but his work largely doesn't line up with that on a religious scale
Grey Jedi Code: Its vegan yet meaty.
Basically this 😂
ruclips.net/video/YdVjrDWyi7g/видео.htmlsi=oGMIdeqjXl9CCJrm
I eat vegetables, but I also eat meat.
I'm a pescatarian. I don't eat beef or poultry, and I hate pork, but I do eat some fish. If eggs or milk products are in something, I can also eat it. It's really just the dead flesh of land animals I don't like. I used to say I was a vegetarian when I didn't really eat seafood either, and I'd compare it to vegans say "at least I'm not one of those people". Also compared it to atheism if one's agnostic. The world really isn't that black and white.
More like - Sith: "we only eat meat"; Jedi: "we only eat vegetables"; grey jedi:"i hava a healthy and balanced diet and eat both"
The problem I have with these comparisons is the idea that eating meat is inherently evil. Guess lions are evil too.
Like, if you personally don't want to eat meat because you don't want to benefit from how industrial farms treat animals, then that's fine, but don't go around calling anyone who eats meat an irredeemable monster when humans obviously evolved to eat meat. I say this as a Christian btw.
I’ve always said a Grey Jedi is just a Jedi in mid fall…
Interesting way to put it, I agree
so Grey Jedi do exist, but only for like a couple minutes at-best
@@harbour2118 no they dont and your dumb
I disagree. A grey Jedi is like an atheist. Same basic concept of morality and respect for living things but without all the churchy stuff.
@@harbour2118 - The time a Jedi remains in that Grey Jedi zone would depend on the individual and their circumstances I guess?
But basically, as with Anakin Skywalker, once the Jedi gives in to something like the fear of loss or the self centered hubris of prideful anger at not having his skills recognized by his peers and superiors and becomes more ‘service to self’ than ‘service to others’ it will start the fall from the light sided (and life sided) balance that the Jedi seek to maintain.
It wasn’t the love of Padme that caused Anakin to fall through the levels of Grey and then Dark Jedi to become outright Sith Lord.
It was his crippling fear of her loss (as with his mother before her) that led him to the eventual fall of seeking power for its own sake and not only betraying his fellow Jedi but also slaying younglings and ironically force choking the very woman he was supposedly trying to save with his forbidden powers?
It’s why “the road to hell is always paved with good intentions” and all that.
But the ‘Grey Jedi’ can only ever be a temporary state of Jedi in mid fall…or Sith in mid redemption even!?🤔
Daniel from Spacedock also summed up the problem of Grey Jedi existing in Star Wars in a nice little quote.
"If there were Grey Jedi, the Force would become a meaningless magic that everyone can use."
AGREED
And funny enough that's exactely what the force is and what is made clear again currently in Ahsoka i.e..
The force IS something everyone should be able to use. It's everywhere and in everyone.
Is written language meaningless because most people use it? Would it be meaningless if everyone did? Obviously not.
That comparison falls flat and is shortsighted. Language is something we possess in real life but an entity like the Force is fictional. Neither we, the audience nor the people living in the Star Wars universe gets to decide who can use the Force and its raw power. There's a reason why a true Jedi serve the living Force instead of using it as a power or tool for convenience their disposal.
Jolee Bindo is the best "Grey Jedi" character and he's still very much a Jedi
He is my standard for definition of grey jedi
It's funny that in fact he failed as a Jedi because he created emotional attachments to his wife, whom he trained himself, contrary to how Padawans are trained by the Jedi. As a result, when Exar-Kun began his bloody war against the Republic and the Order, his beloved decided to join him, and when Jolee refused to follow the path of darkness, she tried to kill him. He himself admitted that his wife fell to the dark side of the force the moment she tried to kill him. He failed as a teacher and created a monster... But worse, he couldn't kill her in the end and correct his mistake... He formed attachments. This led to her continuing to fight on the side of the Sith, and killing many innocents until she died in battle herself. Jolee Bindo failed as a Jedi, as a guardian of balance, harmony and life... He failed his beloved, just as Obi-Wan failed Anakin. That's why the Jedi train the gifted from childhood and don't take them too old. I understand why fans love him, because he is a more humane and understandable character for ordinary people than the orthodox Jedi. The way they would like the Jedi to be... But Jolee is far from being such a clear-cut character, because if we accepted his path and view as true, we would risk the constant, endless fall of those gifted to the dark side of the force, due to attachments, emotions and the passions they felt. Moreover, when I replayed Kotor1, I realized that his stories and lessons about love and accepting feelings could well have pushed Revan to join Bastila and fall to the dark side of the force... It’s easy for us as players to make the right choice, but everything is inside the universe much more difficult... But I agree, Jolie Bindo is a real gray Jedi.
Apathy is death.
@@user-ux4pf7bw8w I refuse to allow this sullying of Jolee's character! He did nothing wrong training his wife! You are no different than the indifferent olympian gods keeping fire from mankind. Jolee is like Prometheus spreading it around, he is the tree of knowledge unleashed. What bad can come of that? The fall of mankind itself? So be it, better that than some insipid sterile existence blinded to reality in some kind of innocent stupor. You advocate for the death of life and free will itself. Oh no, some people who gain knowledge will misuse it! ergo, we ought not teach more people and trickle it out as little as possible.
No!
Jolee tries to stop you from joining Bastila and you have to kill him. I wonder if someone can come up with a better idea in writing to create a neutral path to that.
Its hilariously ironic with this that the image used on the gray wiki page is the guy from Kotor who eventually returns to the light side in both light and dark routes. He's not even really a grey jedi. He's basically just a libertarian who's been pushed around one too many times by authority and essentially just does his own thing because he's lost trust in others. When you find him, dude is basically just less wise Yoda.
If the player goes to the light side, he goes light side because you restore his trust in fighting for others. If the player goes dark side, the players cruelty inspires him to stop being a hermit and take a stand.
The guy does go on a rant about how he disagrees with the jedi order being against attachment and relationships. Which is like, fine. But his entire setup is that the dude is incredibly paranoid about others and has no friends lol. The dudes own views put him against relationships.
I supposed you 'could' say he's a gray jedi because he's kinda selfish and has dark side powers. But presented in game, this is essentially a dude who's dark side that is too socially anxious to actually have a use for it, and so has only gone a little down that path. By putting others in his life, he is reminded of why one must help others and returns to the light.
Basically, he works because he's a well conceived character, and isn't supposed to be an actual reflection on the lore.
Also, on the same note, this also applies to the grey jedi woman in Kotor 2. She's not a gray jedi. She is explicitly a sith lord, and an enormously powerful one at that. She just got old and stopped having something to fight for, so she's chilled out. Her entire ideology isn't about achieving balance. It's explicitly about considering your actions and not just blindly flowing things, which people confuse as 'don't follow the light or dark'.
A character right at the end of the game actually explicitly calls the player out on this if you go "Oh I didn't know she was dark side" by saying "Dude she talks about nothing but passions and action, of course she's a bloody sith lord". Her lack of primarily dark side power usage isn't because she's being a grey jedi, its because she's trying not to be lost in sauce like she used to be and literally doesn't care about anyone she fights, so she sees no point in causing unnecessary suffering because she sees that as something stupid and immature she used to do, and because all the other Sith lords in Kotor 2 are so far lost in the sauce that she's spooked by em.
The second a real threat she cares about shows up, she flicks instantly back to max out dark side alignment and fights causing as much destruction as possible.
Actually from what i remember the only enemy in the game with a max dark side alignment is Nihilus and it makes sense because hes basically an embodiment of it, Darth Traya has a relatively middle of the road dark side alignment probably because both of her goals are ultimately noble in her eyes and for the greater good of the galaxy, it fits your interpretation even better
kriea in kotor 2 wants the force to be destroyed because of her own exp and what she has seen from the jedi council
Gray Paladins were still a thing though.
I believe Kreia can really be considered a gray jedi with all the stuff she represents and does. Of course it may be better not to give her any label at all, she explicitly hates that, and the common definitions of the term that are discussed in the video dont apply either. It's just that she is not a sith nor a jedi, she hates all force equally, is technically a sith lord but if you go dark side she despises the main character despite all her love for what they represent. You are right that she is very far from preaching balance, her ideology is something else entirely, and is mostly a product of the dark side, but perhaps "balance" should not be associated with gray jedi exactly because of reasons in the video here, and the label is better for people like Kreia and Jolee. One is an apathetic preacher of the dark side, and the other is an apathetic preacher of the light side. They did not choose balance, they did not choose a "gray" force to worship, and they were not heroes of their stories fighting for some greater good with all types of powers, they just removed themselves from struggles - to not be anything. And I believe if anything can have a different title to jedi and sith, while still being plausible in the established canon of the force, it's that.
@@alexkarter5854 Its explictly stated in game that Kreia is essentially trying to teach a level headed version of the dark side.
Anton late in the game literally calls you out on this if you misunderstand this, by rephrasing everything she says as being firmly dark side.
You could see this as kind of a midpoint, as shes taking the patience and thoughtfulness of the jedi and applying it to the dark side.
But the basic concepts of what she teaches is directly opposed to the light and only somewhat critical of the dark.
Her idea is simple. Make whatever decisions and use your power however you want, just think about what those decisions are and why you are making them.
Man, the whole "gray jedi" thing always sounded to me like bs, thank you for explaining why it makes no sense according to what Lucas had already established
Mace Windu basically shows the absurdity of the Grey Jedi, works well when it’s well executed and sparingly, but trying to make it a faction numbering up to the 10’s let alone hundreds or thousands just shows how dumb it is
@orrorsaness5942 Mace Windeu shows how the Grey Jedi IS the right choice. If what this guy said was true then Mace should have been a full blown dark side user. Yet he doesn't. Why is that? Could it be that he learned you can actually use it a little as long as you keep yourself grounded to selfless beliefs rather then selfish?
@@orrorsaness5942 he just has purple lightsaber😭, he got it because Samuel asked for it, there were no grey jedi
@@russianoverkill3715 you clearly don't know what you are talking about, or otherwise you'd know the color of mace's lightsaber is not the issue. mace windu used a self created lightsaber form called vaapad (the final of the 7 officially acknowledged forms), that was all about focusing you inner darkness and harnassing it for battle without succumbing to it. this, more so than anything show that one can use the dark side for good, as long as one keeps a clear and calm mind.
@@thechatteringclown oh I know about vaapad and all that stuff, I just don't care about it, because it contradicts how the force works, and George Lucas didn't intented it to be some middle point between "light" and dark, Samuel L Jackson just wanted a cool lightsaber, that's it.
Qui-Gon, Luke, Ahsoka etc would maybe be better described as Undogmatic Jedi. Emotional connection was something restricted by the dogma and Luke especially managed to serve the Force in the OG trilogy despite leaving Yoda's training to save his friends.
I like to think of them as true Jedi
I think part of why so many people gravitate towards grey jedi as a concept is because "jedi suck".
For most viewers, they're, well, like monks, emotionally repressed and strict with their members.
And the dark side is implied to be at least related to things like love, passion and more base pleasures. Those things can often be important parts of a proper human experience.
So from that angle, force users are divided into astetic monks and immoral monsters.
So people want to imagine a character that's a middle ground - moral, but still free from the emotional limitations of the Jedi.
And, let's be honest, force powers are cool and there's a limit to how cool you can make light powers.
It's not just that they suck, but that their repression directly leads to evil and that makes them evil. People want an actually good side not based in shitty cult values.
Just as I was about to comment about Christianity, a comment point was made. I consider Qui-Gon’s quote one of a good Christian: he doesn’t do good things because he will be rewarded by a superior being, but rather he does good things because it is right.
When it comes to the Dark side, Yoda confronted it himself when facing his dark counterpart by accepting that it is a natural part of him he cannot get rid of, but one that he chooses not to submit to.
On a more personal note, light and dark is like the human side of things: we experience grief, pain, depression… all those part of our nature which we cannot ignore nor can we truly bottle down, but it is not healthy nor humane to ourselves to adapt it into our lifestyle in the long term, as it prevents us from truly living and experiencing the life around us.
Thank you so much for your comment!!! I really appreciate it!
I agree while I do think the Taoist/Buddhist philosophies that were included in the ideas behind the Force were not highlighted in this video. Of course there is the IRL tangling of the religious messages in both is also a part of that lol.
For example the 4 noble truths of Buddhism
"They are the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering" to quote PBS's basic description.
To put it in Star Wars
The truth that the Dark Side exists
The truth that attachment and attempting to "control" leads to the Dark Side
The truth that following the will of the Force ends the draw to the Dark Side
The truth that the Jedi code is a path to following the will of the Force
I'll post my thoughts on the Jedi order in the main thread bc it's not on topic here :)
PLEASE, you, and EVERYONE, if you haven't already, embrace the One True Only God YHWH Jehovah, Only One Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son and Lord and Savior of our souls and the Only One Holy Spirit. God is good. God is love. Jesus is Lord. Jesus IS coming. Your soul depends on it!
I have seen God act in my life. He saved my soul, changed my heart, changed my mind, helped people through me, took care of people in my life, people I hurt before I found God. God is the only reason I was able to reconcile with my dad before he died.
God worked through Jesus Christ to save our souls. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Be baptized in The Holy Spirit, and if He wills, water as well. Repent of your sins, accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into your heart, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, that all who believe on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father Jehovah God but through Him.
Not long after I got saved I prayed to God for help understanding the Holy Bible, and that same day someone knocked on my door asking me if I wanted to understand the Bible.
The Holy Bible says, "love thy enemy", "turn the other cheek", "If your enemy is hungry, feed him", "if he is thirsty, give him a drink", "pray for those who persecute you", "do not repay evil for evil".
LORD willing, all humans may commit sin of almost every kind (gay, straight), and that's wrong, and all humans sin, as God tells us through the The Holy Bible, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The Holy Bible also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
You do the right thing because God has told you do it.
@@schitzoflink8612 PLEASE, you, and EVERYONE, if you haven't already, embrace the One True Only God YHWH Jehovah, Only One Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son and Lord and Savior of our souls and the Only One Holy Spirit. God is good. God is love. Jesus is Lord. Jesus IS coming. Your soul depends on it!
I have seen God act in my life. He saved my soul, changed my heart, changed my mind, helped people through me, took care of people in my life, people I hurt before I found God. God is the only reason I was able to reconcile with my dad before he died.
God worked through Jesus Christ to save our souls. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Be baptized in The Holy Spirit, and if He wills, water as well. Repent of your sins, accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into your heart, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, that all who believe on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father Jehovah God but through Him.
Not long after I got saved I prayed to God for help understanding the Holy Bible, and that same day someone knocked on my door asking me if I wanted to understand the Bible.
The Holy Bible says, "love thy enemy", "turn the other cheek", "If your enemy is hungry, feed him", "if he is thirsty, give him a drink", "pray for those who persecute you", "do not repay evil for evil".
LORD willing, all humans may commit sin of almost every kind (gay, straight), and that's wrong, and all humans sin, as God tells us through the The Holy Bible, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The Holy Bible also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
@@schitzoflink8612 to be fair, these 4 truths of buddism can be taken to speak of other religions, as long as you accept suffering and that there is a way to cure it (which most religions, including the Jedi and christianity, do).
George Lucas himself doesn't even believe in Grey Jedi, he has said in numerous interviews those that use the Dark side in any way will either have to abandon it or will ultimately succumb to it. You cannot have your dark side cake and eat it too. Even Starkiller has to make a final decision of the end of each game, you can remain in the middle.
I know he is a father of Star Wars but something tells me he said that just so he wouldn't explain it or dive deep into the possibilities of using dark side and not being corrupted
Lucas also said:
"In each of us we to have balance these emotions, and in the Star Wars saga the most important point is balance, balance between everything."
-George Lucas, Time Magazine article, 2002
"The idea of positive and negative, that there are two sides to an entity, a push and a pull, a yin and a yang, and the struggle between the two sides are issues of nature that I wanted to include in the film."
-George Lucas, quoted in L. Bouzereau, Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
"I wanted to have this mythological footing because I was basing the films on the idea that the Force has two sides, the good side, the evil side, and they both need to be there. Most religions are built on that, whether it's called yin and yang, God and the devil-everything is built on the push-pull tension created by two sides of the equation. Right from the very beginning, that was the key issue in 'Star Wars.'"
-George Lucas, Times Magazine, 2002
He also had Galen Marek used both the light and dark sides of the Force IN the novelization right after he'd started his redemption arc. Yes, he saved his friends, but it could be argued that he still used the dark side at the same time. I love him but the man contradicted himself so many times there's no definite answer aside from interpretations.
@@justaguy9087 There is a definite answer, George has remained mostly consistent on the basis that the Dark Side shouldn’t be used, a few times where he deviated from that, doesn’t change that fact, since he usually went right back to the original mindset. Heck to this day, if one were to ask him, he’d probably still say that the Dark Side shouldn’t be used.
@@nickcalderon2637 George Lucas has went and contradict himself multiple times. Trying to argue against it is futile, because you don't have a definite answer. You have a personal preference. If Lucas wanted to stay grounded in what balance meant, he should have never contradicted himself in the first place. As others have pointed out, it's like with Grievous going from intimidating to a coward, the Jedi, the Clones, Luke and Leia, Vader, (note! not all of these are bad but they are still examples), and pretty much everything else.
@@nickcalderon2637 Also you're off probablys and maybes. Even if he did, George Lucas contridicated himself before, so no one should take his word seriously.
Even Revan, who was simply built different, couldn't truly walk the line between controlling and being controlled by The Force
the force doesnt have two sides, that is just the jedi and sith's way of seeing it. the force has raw power (the dark side) aswell as the ability to focus it through a clear mind and meditation. you know why jedi can turn to the "dark side" so easily? it's because it is all the same, they take their power from the same place, and the force is all about manipulation. manipulation of objects, memory, emotion, etc. the force isn't the light and the dark, it is raw power, and if you have a clear mind that power won't corrupt you. that is why sith have yellow eyes, the force is corrupting them. the force doesnt take sides, the force is the definition of neutrality, it is neither light nor dark. if the light and the dark were really two separate parts of the force and not the same thing, it would be immensely harder for jedi to fall to the darkside, because they would be having to tap into an entirely different power rather than losing control of their same power.
the "Gray Jedi" is the ultimate form of trying to have your cake and eat it too
While I personally disagree with the specifics of this interpretation, I do totally agree with "Grey Jedi" being a heavily flawed concept.
In my personal interpretation of the force (heavily influenced by my limited contact with Jungian psychology) the balanced force user is not a Jedi (as depicted in the prequels). Jedi were afraid of acknowledging emotion, attachment and darkness; not much unlike Sith do with love and compassion.
True balance comes from the acceptance and embracing of flaws, emotions and desires. Not by indulging but by accepting their existence and accounting for it. I once watched a video where a psychiatrist explains that when we dont acknowledge our emotions, they take hold of our reason and corrupt our logic.
The Jedi where blinded to their darkness by worshipping the light. The Sith stumble through empty darkness.
You achive balance at the center. Not by embracing and indulging in light or dark but by staying true to your flawed mortal nature and not giving into either.
If you are familiar with this specific idea of Freud's theory: Balance lies not in Id or Super Ego but in Ego.
All of the top comments cost me to lose hope and so I had to switch to the newest comments. Thank goodness I found you.
I am not evil like a Sith and I'm not an idiot like the Jedi. So I don't see what's wrong with imagining myself as a "grey Jedi."
This should be pinned comment
Nah, Jedi acknowledge emotion and darkness, they teach to be MINDFUL of your emotions, but don't be ruled by them.
Like, Obi-Wan grieving Qui-Gon was fine! The Council traveled to Naboo for his pyre and mourned with him! Obi-Wan raging out at Maul for stabbing Qui-Gon was *not* as fine and nearly got him killed.
The "gray jedi" is just something that people want for their fanfic characters, to have all the cool powers of the sith and the righteousness of the jedi, but aside from videogames, this runs contrary to the way the force was designed.
Exactly
My second point, the Jedi being dogmatic and closed-minded isn't just a prequels thing. In Legends, the Jedi in the Old Republic killed their padawans sensing the dark side within them, they killed an entire alien race to prevent the sith from comming back, and they'd explicitly ostracize or hunt down members over minor disagreements.
Old republic came out after prequels, so it has jedi being sinister, and Jedi wiped out sith only after they attacked them first.
It wasn't just all Jedi wiping out their padawans. It was one particular sub faction of Jedi, that were afraid of giving birth to another Exar Kun, and they were very stubborn with all vague future prediction vision, these eventually became enemy of Jedi Temple on Coruscant and were wiped out by Dark Jedi manipulator. And With species genocide was started by Galactic Republic
@@russianoverkill3715 Incorrect, homie. The Jedi initiated the conflict that ultimately split the J'Dai (the original group that consisted of both sides finding balance. IE if you were too light-sided, you'd be sent on a journey while if you were two dark-sided you'd be sent somewhere to meditate with others, etc.). A group of psychotic and dogmatic Jedi decided "Hey. I don't feel comfortable with you using your abilities for personal interest or even in self-defense. Guess I should just remove you from existence to prevent others from learning from you. HEY. WHY ARE YOU MULTIPLYING?". They kinda forgot that the Dark side is a part of nature and that tormenting or persecuting others creates animosity.
@trajancaesar2662 I'm with you 100% and it's a shame these Disney fans are such lazy hyper-consumers. If Disney came out and said Gray Jedi were official, they'd be lapping it up like a dog eating up gravy. They can't think for themselves but hey, big mega-corporations like Disney love self-lobotomized fanbases. They buy re-releases of the same stuff over and over while accepting whatever madeup canon Disney gives them (like the removal of the Gray Paladins that the Jedi Council barely tolerated as a part of the Jedi Temple, out of a debt to their Founder...a Gray Jedi).
Imagine if Warner Brothers had gotten Star Wars instead. We could've had a Gray Paladins action flick since the Gray Paladins are basically Blade Runners. Futuristic Jedi Detectives with Blasters (conventional thinkers) instead of just the usual Star Wars flick.
@@gowgearhead whatever, jedi are still the good guys.
Grey Jedi are essentially, "The Jedi are fucking idiots, we're the Mary Sues that can use the dark side AND the light side, huehuehuehue!"
The entire point of the dark side is that it is addictive. Its like shooting yourself with a drug, and you're telling yourself the whole time you're high, that you're in control. Then you start killing folk...and then you're lost. Its why I also dropped the Jedi Survivor games when they suggested it was possible to use the dark side if you just had something to ground you...something told to you by a Nightsister, who uses the dark side to fuel their magic. Totally different way of using the dark side, but definitely not a light sider. The dark side is poison. You can't just go back from it.
There are obvious issues with purist Light and Dark jedi. It makes sense to have a balanced middle option.
Also, KOTOR has gray jedi, and its as good a Star Wars story as has ever been created.
Lastly, I think its fine to have an opinion on all this, but let's not pretend SW has been written anywhere near consistently or well enough to have certainty on much of anything.
I definitely agree with you there.
i dont know why people keep trying to make force centrism a thing
It's surprisingly hard to convince people the best way to solve problems is diplomacy, forgiveness, and compassion when there's a world where they could crush people's throats with a gesture and shoot lightning bolts. And it's extra hard to convince those people who want to do it that they would be the bad guys.
Because people that have actually consumed Legends content will know that the first Je'Daii Order was all about balance. It wasn't till it fell that the Jedi and Sith orders were formed. Plus in the Clone Wars there was The Father who was the physical embodiment of balance between the Daughter and the Son, who were the physical manifestation of the Light and Dark side respectively.
@@teezy786 So what is the balance then? The destruction of the Jedi Order as so many fans theorized? Downsizing the Jedi so there’s two Jedi and two Sith, even if it meant spending 20 years where an oppressive empire have free rein of the galaxy and the Sith free to manipulate the Force as they see fit?
Jedi Order have their issues but none of it points to their destruction as if a good thing overall.
@@alexanderchristopher6237 no it's simply not choosing to adhere to a single side of the force. The simple black and white versions of the movies isn't remotely close to actually balanced.
When Anakin kills Palapatine and seemingly kills the remaining Sith from the galaxy he didn't bring balance. Balance isn't simply only the light side being present. Yin and Yang tell us this in real life. You can't have dark without light and vice versa.
Like in the Clone Wars the Father is the balance between the Light and Dark.
@@teezy786 you can have light without dark. Dark is not a thing, it's the absense of light. You're projecting a confucionist or a relativist view into a saga that isn't.
I figured a gray Jedi is just a Jedi who doesn't follow the Jedi code but doesn't use the dark side either, thus still keeping the title of a Jedi
I'm going to address the elephant in the room:
Grey jedi are an inevitable consequence of canon.
The moment they gave Vader a force ghost, the series said that people can be redeemed. That opens the door to endlessly abusing this redemption, and lo and behold, grey jedi.
The simple reality is that star wars is not flawlessly written. The philosophy is not airtight. Grey jedi are just another awkward consequence of how the story was constructed, same as discussions of whether the force is good or bad for the galaxy.
Good point!!
Being a grey jedi is like saying "Yeah, I pray both to God and the devil, what's wrong with that?"
PLEASE, you, and EVERYONE, if you haven't already, embrace the One True Only God YHWH Jehovah, Only One Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son and Lord and Savior of our souls and the Only One Holy Spirit. God is good. God is love. Jesus is Lord. Jesus IS coming. Your soul depends on it!
I have seen God act in my life. He saved my soul, changed my heart, changed my mind, helped people through me, took care of people in my life, people I hurt before I found God. God is the only reason I was able to reconcile with my dad before he died.
God worked through Jesus Christ to save our souls. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Be baptized in The Holy Spirit, and if He wills, water as well. Repent of your sins, accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into your heart, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, that all who believe on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father Jehovah God but through Him.
Not long after I got saved I prayed to God for help understanding the Holy Bible, and that same day someone knocked on my door asking me if I wanted to understand the Bible.
The Holy Bible says, "love thy enemy", "turn the other cheek", "If your enemy is hungry, feed him", "if he is thirsty, give him a drink", "pray for those who persecute you", "do not repay evil for evil".
LORD willing, all humans may commit sin of almost every kind (gay, straight), and that's wrong, and all humans sin, as God tells us through the The Holy Bible, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The Holy Bible also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
g0d damn y0u c0uldnt have n0t p0sted s0mething t0 make it m0re clear y0u pe0ple are just christian m0ralists
That's a bad comparison because the force is neither God nor the devil.
The force is supposedly both sides at the same time.
The fact is that I'm simply not as evil as a sith, and I'm not as much of an idiot as the Jedi were.
@@NostalgicGamerRickOShay I choose to compare the two, because the following: the dark side is like the devil, it's always tempting you, and when you give into the temptation, then it's hard to not give into it again. If you use the dark side instead of fighting it, it will corrupt you without you even noticing.
@@aapocalypseArisenbr0, chill 0ut
Grey Jedi are only fictional head canon. Which insane people keep talking about it
It is ignorant to believe that only the Jedi and Sith can exist, and nothing in between. It is to imply that there is only white and black, and grey does not exist. Jolee Bindo is an example of a Jedi that resists many of the flawed teachings of the Jedi, and he fully understands that the Jedi and Sith both are not perfect.
To imply that nothing can exist in the middle is akin to saying people cannot change. To believe in an ideal is to be willing to betray it, and a world with no grey is a world where one cannot better themself.
Not accusing you of saying that nothing can exist in between, I am only saying that to believe nothing can exist between Jedi and Sith is foolish.
I'll be honest when I was a kid I was one of those "I want to use Force Lightning and be a Jedi" people, but as I got older and got more into Star Wars I learned that the Jedi/Light Side can also have unique powers as well. Force Healing, Force Projection, etc. that we really only see characters that are in the Light use. Plus if I do want to have a more unique Light Side Force power, there's always that one group of wizards in the High Republic that use Force Flames. (Like come on, a reptilian Jedi that can breathe fire with the Force would be just as sick as shooting lightning)
Also I love the term Wayseeker as well. It sounds way cooler than Gray Jedi anyways. the High Republic just keeps on giving with neat, new concepts for the fans to chew on.
Homie, Electric Judgment aka Emerald Judgment is a light-side lightning ability.
I'm gonna be honest, either the High republic or Luke's Jedi order are the two good ones. and the Light sides always been what I prefer more. the Old republic I think kinda has a few flaws and misinterpretations I, along with basically everyone, don't like, and as for light side abilities.......let me just list a few:
Electric Judgment
Alter Environment (my absolute favorite, since it lets you cause storms, call down lighting, or make fire, my favorite element, with lighting being one I'll take, but not over pyrokinesis)
force healing
animal bond
force blinding
Combustion
Force Light
Beam of Light
Wall of Light
etc.
Fire powers are inherently dark side as it causes enemies immense pain
I think Gray Jedi *can* exist, as long as the canon treats them as the flawed and misguided thing they are. There’s value in some of their ideas as the allure is the recognition of how the dark side is *natural* in life, this is why the retcon of the Prequel Jedi being cold and detached (and characters like Qui-Gon being wiser than them) works in the films’ favor, they suppress and escape what’s natural instead of recognizing and learning to control it and live with it-arguably why Luke failed Kylo in TLJ, because he didn’t know how.
I think the Kotor games and Jolee Bindo is the best example of how a “Gray Jedi” can work in canon. He makes great points, especially regarding controlling your emotions and your dark side (his view on love also fits with Anakin’s description of it in Attack of the Clones), but ultimately he is a coward who hid in the Shadowlands for decades because “history repeats itself,” and he is called out for that multiple times for that… (which is why his joining the party and fighting the Sith at the end is a powerful contrast in my opinion)
I’m pretty sure if you bring Bastilla with you when you meet Jolee she is able to sense that he is still very much light side aligned despite him stating otherwise
Grey Jedi only make sense as an in-universe insult: you're supposed to be a bright shining beacon of pure light, but instead you're just grey.
I would respond with "Because nobody can see the truth when their vision is blinded by light"
@@reidbishop7965 so edgy
@@reidbishop7965 "When blinded by light one can still make out the silhouette of truth. When blinded by darkness you will see nothing at all. Return to your training Padawan. You still have much to learn."
@@rishnix Go stare at the Sun for a few hours and tell me how much you can see
@@reidbishop7965 You thought that was a witty comeback? Sad.
Many people are saying that a Jedi can't use the Dark Side to any extent without falling... So we're going to ignore Mace Windu and Depa Billaba? Their fighting style, Vapaad, literally relies on their inner anger, passion, the satisfaction they have with the fight and desire to win. They use the Dark Side to an extent, but never give into it.
Admittedly, I don’t know anything about Depa Billaba, but I think using Mace as an example of this kind of weakens your argument, since his attempt to strike down a surrendering opponent was the final nail in the coffin of Anakin turning to the dark side.
A Sith named Darth Gravid tried using both sides and it drove him mad
People have completed misunderstandings of the force, thinking it like ying and yang when it never been established as such.
Light side never been mentioned by the jedi. The terms light side and dark side are in referring to how Force-users call upon the force, light being more nature approch compared to dark side unnartual. Learning about the force is like bodybuilding exercise, the proper way is consistent practice and doing right to building a healthy body for long term while dark side is drug for instant gains but suffer long term negative effect.
Free will to choose good and evil exist in Lucas movies. Anakin choses weren't predestined or predetermined. He selfishness lead brought dark time while his selfless act to save his son result losing his life but was given a chance of redemption, and his son became a great jedi in legends. In Anakin final moment, Obi-Wan visits Anakin and offer immortality, Anakin ask why should he receive this gift. That moment mark Anakin truly change for the better. And Obi-Wan answer he was wrong in believing that someone so evil can change. It a very Christian perspective, that the sinners can still be forgiven if he or she truely seeks it, and God would grant it without need of mountains worth of good deeds to make up for evil. "We are saved by the Grace of God, not of works."
Kreia view of the force kotor 2 is a Marxist view. That removing the force would easily fix the galaxy problems when criminals' organization, corrupt government, and people who are just selfish will still exist with and without the force. Force-users are a power that can't be monopolies by any previous power structures and can fight against them, it is up to individual if they are good or evil. In the Old republic game, there was a fraction shadow government trying to control Sith and jedi, but they cause as much damage and choas for their own intentions and gains.
I think the reason people seem the force as yin and yang, is because George lucas took from various religions to craft his idea of the force. Taoism was one of them, as well as zoroastrianism. He took a bit of buddahism to top it off. Then combined it with Christianity. It's understandable why people could get confused. In the last jedi we see the form simlar to that of a yin and yang symbol on the floor of the temple. Kreia also scoff at the idea of grey jedi she calls them cowards who refuse to take a side, and just sit on sideline not willing to do anything of meaning. As you said she wanted to get rid of the force, but she also stated the force itself manipulated people into wars as it was a catalyst of power that the good and evil people drew upon to further their own goals. She also saw the council as short sighted believing they had the right to take one ability to use the force away from them. Luke says something similar in the last jedi, about the jedi not owning the force.
I agree with the overall point of the video, that “gray Jedi” don’t make sense within the established universe.
I do think, though, that just because George Lucas says something, that doesn’t mean it’s the only valid way to interpret the films. It might have been the intention of George Lucas to portray the Jedi council as paragons of good and Anakin as solely responsible for his own downfall. But the common fan reading of the text, with the Jedi being a deeply flawed organisation and the Republic and Jedi having already lost their way years before Sidious or Anakin entered the picture, is equally valid.
I think the difference of perspective between the Silent Generation George Lucas and the mostly Gen Z fan base of the prequels represents a shift in thinking in society in general, not just a shift in thinking about Star Wars. People who grew up during the economically prosperous few decades after World War 2, often believe strongly in individuality. They believe that each individual person makes his or her own destiny. People who grew up in the early 2000s, with inflation growing and wages not keeping pace, with pointless wars in faraway places over nothing in particular, with much more diverse people around them in their places of work: women, LGBT people, people of colour - people who grew up in this time are much more likely to view the world’s successes and failures as systemic and collective, not individual. The idea that an entire galaxy can be ruined or saved by one man is ridiculous to many people of that generation. It must be systemic. Add to that, that younger people are much more touchy about slavery, so that’s seen as a much bigger problem with the Republic and the Jedi than Lucas might have expected it would be seen as.
Are the fans right, or is George Lucas right? Yes. These are both valid ways of reading the text. And by contrasting the two readings, we can better understand how the views of people in the real world have evolved, and continue to evolve.
Special delivery, it's a like
I also have a major gripe of like, NO ONE WHO IS NOT A PART OF THE JEDI ORDER WOULD CALL THEMSELF A JEDI.
We know for sure that if Star Wars was real, there would be people left and right larping as jedi despite not being part of the order. (lol)
Yay someone makes a video about Grey Jedi being dumb and basically a clutch to have all the cool powers.
Also, in Christianity, there is a warning towards being lukewarm. It was essentially better to be wholly on one end of the spectrum, good or bad. Then, to walk the line between the two.
I would love a video on how flawed the PT Jedi are meant to be. I've often seen that many fans don't notice the flaws, while an equal amount of viewers seem to think that the flaws were wholly accidental, and a mark against the films.
Thank you for this video. People have to understand that the grey Jedi idea - however attractive it may seem while being 15, being a diehard Star Wars fan and wanting to be as edgy as possible - contradicts the whole Force concept in Star Wars. The Jedi are keeping balance (by ensuring that the power is used to enforce order and the respect for life), and the Sith are trying to break it (by taking all the power for themselves, no matter the cost). That is all. There is no "middle ground", because balance is on the Light Side. Not "in the middle".
The problem with this discussion is that no one will ever be satisfied. Star Wars has been added to by so many people that any source can counter by another source. Grey Jedi seem at least partially possible in legends. I.e electric judgment, imperial knights, Cade Skywalker and Galen Marek. No one’s argument is super solid if they say those don’t count because a corporation declared it so.
Plus you could argue Lucas believes in Grey Jedi or at least a morally good dark side because of his involvement in Force Unleashed 1 & 2.
If George Lucas believes the prequel Jedi order is correct then he probably doesn’t have moral merit to weigh in on. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that the order that inducts young children without their consent, who can use them as child soldiers, who gives them no practical training should they washout of the temple, who are in ties with a government that seems very aphetic about the slavery going on in its borders, that this order is not above criticism. And just because Karen(Mandalorians are immune to the force) Travis wrote those books does not mean those points don’t have merit.
But again I’ve fallen into the trap of thinking that the force is a real actual thing. The force is just the will of the storyteller. It’s why removing someone’s free will with Jedi mind tricks is ok with George Lucas. And why Luke’s order in legends allows marriage. And why electric judgment is allowed. If that’s what the writer needs or thinks that is what it should be then that will be what the force is.
In my opinion, that’s what the force is. It’s not gorge Lucas's ideas. It’s a battery that a writer pools their beliefs into to power their story.
Jedi mind trick work on the weak minded because they have weak reslove and just obey with question. They can be easily bribe and such to do what you ask.
Compare to strong minds who know what they are and want, can't be influenced like Jabba who run and Watto wanting mind over all.
If such mind trick was possible to control everyone around you, Emperor would have brian wash the whole senate instead of going long way around of straging a clone wars to take over the galaxy.
And proof that jedi order induct kids. Everyone keep mentioning it could happened but never proved a case of such. Anyone in the jedi order can leave at any time like Count Dooku did. A cult doesn't allow such thing, everyone would be thinking the same thing no matter what. The reason why children is chose is they are more open minded and learn to control their emotions compare to adults who opinions are set in stone like how Luke was being stubborn through his training under Yoda.
Grevious cause mulipte war crime but people let it slide or not as harsh because he had a bad past, which is a more twisted moral view then Lucas did.
And slavery, the only way to end it outside their borders was by force in which a lot of people in the republic would be piss that they have to go fight or be taxed for someone else benefits when they don't want it either. And if the Jedi around forcing freedom everywhere, such action be view as authoritative. And would slavery remain over after the jedi leave or be start up again? where would line be draw in the name of freedom? As Mara jade told Anakin solo," you can save village from a immediate disaster but would complained when another disaster strike because you were not there to save them."
lets not forget that people like revan exist in legends while you also have the bendu for canon
I don’t mind Galen Marek,Cade skywalker or Revan because ultimately they chose the light side at end of there stories.
It's easy, 90% Star Wars media sides with Jedi good Sith bad, and 10% is some fanfic сrap.
I came to say what you did so I'll expand on my thoughts. To use the Christian analogy used in the video. The Individual Jedi are more like Catholic Christians who try to live in the way the Bible says. While the Jedi order is more like the large Christian organizations (eg The Catholic Church, but not as bad as that). The actions of the individual can be in line with the philosophy while the organization can end up doing things that are fundamentally opposed to the philosophy they represent.
Or to say it a different way my favorite quote about people from Men in Black highlighting the difference between singular and group behavior.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it"
Each individual Jedi can be following Light side philosophy but the organization has compromised it's actions because of the position it is in being aligned with a corrupt system.
To bring Zen Buddhism into the mix, both things are true. They are both separate and not separate. Not two but not one. The Jedi are both correctly following the Light side while at the same time they are not bc of the larger actions of the Jedi Order, or more specifically the inaction. I think this quote from Haile Selassie is most accurate,
"Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph."
Yeah, I always thought it was kind of lame. It’s like a Mary Sue Jedi/Sith with all the strengths of both and the weaknesses of neither.
You pointing out that the six movies never mentioned the light side at all makes me realize that's Spaceballs is the first time something even close to the "light side" ever gets mentioned. 🤔
Dark Helmet mentions the "upside" of the "downside", as there are always two sides to the Schwartz.
This video was truly a delight to watch. It actually gave me a new appreciation for George's version of the force.
As you summarized, the dark side is temptation, which leads to sin. It is also much like an addiction. "I would never become addicted," many say. But the more you tap into it, the harder it is to pull yourself out. It IS possible to overcome this, but it takes great effort. It takes balance. I am not religious, but George's intentions were clear.
You can't give into darker urges AND give to local charities and say you're still a good person. Especially knowingly. That is absurd.
Unfortunately, much like Frank Herbert's intended message on heroes, or parts of Allen Moore's Watchmen, the message seems to have been lost to many. Not due to bad writing, but because of subtle subtext and nuance.
In my opinion, the Jedi were right about not having attachments but the misconception fans have comes down to them thinking attachments and relationships are the same thing, they're not. An attachment is only one kind of relationship with there being other types of relationships such as connections. The difference between a connection vs an attachment is that with an attachment your love for a certain person stems from wanting to get something out your relationship with them, such as how they make you feel. These feelings could be calmness, comfort, happiness, and safety. This in turn leads your happiness becoming mostly dependent on them and this normally leaves to a since of possessiveness and entitlement where you want to keep the ones you care about close to you at all cost even if it becomes overbearing for your loved ones.
In the case of a connection It's about giving yourself to others where the relationship you have for someone isn't that of self gain but rather unconditional love. You love that person no matter how they make you feel. You accept that things aren't always going to stay the way you want them to. Love is a roller coaster of ups and downs where it can be strong and sodden and even cruel at times, but part having a connection is learning to accept the good with the bad which allows you to be more grateful of the good moments. That's the beauty of a connection.
It was Luke having a connection that saved his father not an attachment. When Luke refused to kill Vader he didn't feel entitled for his father Vader to turn back to the light and help him. He knew he'd most likely die by the emperor but he didn't care because he loved his father even after all the pain he put him through. The kind of unconditional love is not something you'd get out of an attachment but rather a genuine connection.
But the Jedi can't get married unless the species depends on it... so.... there's a problem right there. The Jedi treated ANY attachment, unhealthy and healthy attachment/connection (same thing just different connotation) as the same and something to be feared. I would recommend Cinema Therapy's video on the M3GAN movie to understand more on that. If marriage is the most selfless type of love, deciding that, instead of living single and free from having to care for someone else, they decide to put someone else and their needs above themselves. That sounds pretty selfless and if the Jedi don't allow it, do they really have the best understanding on attachments? Also, Luke had a healthy attachment/connection to Han, Leia, Chewie, and C3PO, and yet the Jedi you're praising were telling him to sacrifice his friends to complete his training in ESB, and Luke defied them to do the right thing. Also in your own example, did you forget Obi-Wan told Luke to destroy Darth Vader? It was Yoda, who changed in that year gap between ESB and ROTJ, that told him to confront not destroy. Luke defied the Order's Code both times and leaned into his own life experience instead of the Order's view. I know Anakin and Padme get used as the example as to why the Jedi were right, but why was it unhealthy? Because they had to hide it. The pure stress and the Jedi code made it impossible for it to be healthy, not to mention Anakin being cut off from, using your word choice, his connection with his mother then losing her because the Jedi wouldn't act and because of their code. Luke almost went through the exact same thing in ESB but he had the boldness to go on his own in time to save them.
@@theechoproject899 The Jedi during the prequels can definitely be viewed as taking the “no attachments rule” to the extreme. Given that they’re 10,000 of them it makes since that the point could’ve become misconstrued over time. George Lucas even once said that Jedi can love but it has to be unconditionally.
Luke was warned that he needed to trust in his friends and complete his training. When Luke refuses he ends up getting demolished by Vader and losing both his hand and lightsaber. In ROTJ Luke even admits to Master Yoda that he should’ve listened to him and apologizes for not having faith in his friends. Even in ROTJ Luke’s attachments to his friends can negatively impact him, as it was Vader threatening to turn Leia that nearly pushed Luke over the edge. In the end the only reason Luke doesn’t completely give in and strike down his father is because he sees that he to had a cybernetic hand which allowed Luke to come to the epiphany that he was becoming just like him. If it weren’t for that, It’s likely that Luke would in-fact have struck Vader in anger and it would’ve been all because of his attachment to Leia.
It’s never really confirmed if Yoda believed Luke would face to kill Vader because him saying Luke must face Vader can be interpreted in a lot of ways. Personally by “face Vader” I think Yoda means confronting and ending him as that was his mindset in ROTS where he believed both Vader and the Emperor had to die. There’s nothing in the original trilogy that suggests that Yoda changed his mind on Anakin.
The reason Anakin and Padma’s relationship was toxic was because Anakin chose to be possessive over her and not consider what she would’ve wanted. If Anakin was a good partner then he would’ve known that Padma would never want him murdering innocent people even if it meant it could save her life. Also Anakin was inconsiderate because he just assumed that Padma would follow him in ruling the galaxy with an iron grip but if he actually time to consider what Padma would’ve wanted he would’ve known that she believes in democracy over dictatorship.
There’s a difference between an attachment and a connection which is actually a subject many people touch on if you’re to look into it
ruclips.net/user/shortscOWUnjVp0Fg?si=KrnRJwG25zI0pcTJ
@@theechoproject899Ki Adi Mundi wife thing was in the comic that came out BEFORE TPM released, authors didn't even knew about the nonsense no attachments rule.
@@russianoverkill3715 Considering attachments are both how Luke was antagonized and Anakin was manipulated, I don't think it's a nonsense rule.
@@alecjackman2655 Yoda definitely meant confrontation
Obi-Wan we know sees Vader as "Killing" Anakin so from his point of view Luke saying I can't kill my father he sees as it "I can't bring my father back to the light"
19:50 "that not the reason the jedi fell," my left butt cheek. The Jedi were crippled bytheir own code and loyalty to Republic rather than to the people of the Galaxy. If they had used morality instead of letting a code or government body decide what is just, they wouldn't have fallen.
broke: wow, Jedi Order bad!!!!
WOKE: The one time that a gifted child in The Force WASN'T kidnapped into the Order at a young age, the galaxy was ruined.
You know, that idea of the Dark Side of the Force and what it means to bring Balance to the Force reminds me a lot about the concept of Kegare (Impurity/Filth) in Japanese Shintoism, which kinda make sense given the Kurosawa roots in the original movies.
Kegare are things that just happens- death, butchering animals, funerals, and others. It's also tied to negative things isn't natural, that goes against natural order of things. You are supposed to always cleanse kegare and ideally get exposed minimally to it. There's a lot in that that kinda matches the idea of Dark Side of the Force and what Balance means in that regards.
I think it's understood that "Gray Jedi" is just an excuse for people to roleplay some edgy badass Jedi.
100% percent. They want to be unregulated free space warriors but don’t wanna be cartoonishly evil like the sith. It’s just power fantasy schlock which is fine but no one wants to admit this
@@billyboleson2830 Starkiller was the most badass character and he was never a "gray jedi". He was a sith assassin and then a jedi, at least honorable member.
Except the Gray Paladins were a thing. The Jedi Council just barely tolerated them having a small office/base of operations within the Temple out of a debt they owed the founding Jedi Master who began the small order of Gray Paladins. They used Blasters and other conventional weapons, preferring the Lightsaber as a Ceremonial item. I don't get why some fans want a crappier more limited Star Wars instead of a badass one with Blade Runner-like characters running around in the Star Wars Universe.
"Yeah, I'm not a sith but I'm not a goodie two-shoes fundamentalist zealot either! I'm a COOL and NUANCED anti-hero! 😎"
100% When people started talking about gray Jedi years ago it was always just a fan fiction excuse to mix some dark side sh*t in with the other powers because they thought it was cool.
"I'm good, but I like to force choke fools sometimes" ain't it.
"I'm leading a healthy life style, but I ocassionaly smoke."
Yeah, I think if you're going to go down that path, it's far more interesting to make a story where the Sith are sympathetic. Rather than make a "grey Jedi," why not just make a Sith anti-hero... like a military leader who achieves good results in a brutal way? You could always simply rework the Jedi into self-righteous religious fanatics who manage to skew the portrayal of everyone who doesn't follow their philosophy perfectly as evil, and thus make it so they are the ones who insist on interpreting the actions of everyone who strays from their way as evil and painting them in the least charitable light... that is actually what real-life religions have done in some cases, taken the "gods" of the faiths of people they conquered and turned them into demons in their own faith with a much more negative and sinister portrayal. Maybe George Lucas is secretly a Jedi evangelist promoting his faith or something... LOL.
@@jeremyandrews3292 I agree with your points about nuance, but that isn't where the whole gray Jedi fan fiction started.
I think the Tales of the Jedi about Dooku was exactly that. When Dooku murdered Yaddle, he knew he was making a choice he couldn't come back from. He succumbed to the dark side and gave into evil. He was correct in criticizing the Order in those episodes. How he went about trying to fix it was wrong, but I did sympathize with him before he murdered Yaddle.
There aren't anti-hero Sith though, homie. There's nothing anti-hero to root for when someone embraces evil and darkness. They're wallowing in their own misery and lashing out and seeking revenge.
@@DaringDanthey were a thing way before that. Dooku was a Sith not a grey jedi
@@JimmyThree-Balls You missed my point. I never said Dooku was a gray Jedi. I'm saying the nuance of his character in Tales of the Jedi and his reasons could have led him to be a force user who left the Order.
That show was a compare/contrast between he and Ahsoka. She left the Order and walked the Path more than any Jedi did at that time. She became the embodiment of the light side of the force. Dooku was correct in criticizing the Order, but went about it the wrong way.
Gray Jedi are an oxymoron. I'd accept Gray Force user. Someone so luke warm and tepid with no moral fiber doing good and bad as they saw fit when it benefited them. They aren't Jedi though.
The grey Jedi just can not exist because the Light exists for those who accept it and those who don’t easily are consumed by the dark
But in actuality it’s always been a funny concept to play around with in my head growing up but as I got older I just see it as a way for someone to self insert them having being labeled a Jedi but using dark side methods
this is a problem with the idea of the force itself
This is one of the reasons that the "Gods Of Mortis" stuff in The Clone Wars has always really bothered me. It personified The Force into three people, with Light and Dark being equivalent and rivals under their father, who acted as the Balance. It seemed to act as thought "The Light Side" was as dangerous as "The Dark Side" and that they both needed to be reined in, which is just...philosophically nonsensical.
...Also, I just didn't like that they personified The Force at all. It makes The Force seem so small and knowable, and giving it a singular voice, face, origin, and body *removes* its universality. In a broad galaxy of all sorts of aliens, why is this Universe's "God" just a humanoid man?
I have to wonder if Lucas was involved in the bizarre lore choices presented in that episode.
I'm paraphrasing something I read a while ago, but it basically amounts to "You are what you do, regardless of your reasons for doing it." If you do evil things for a good reason, that doesn't make that thing good, just the lesser evil. And constantly choosing the lesser evil doesn't make you "complicated good", just increasingly evil.
Replace "evil" with "dark side" in that, and you basically get how Grey Jedi as the fandom concept doesn't work.
"poison is still poison even if you add sugar"
Two minutes in, you have calmly and respectfully stated the topic of the video and your position on the topic. Also including relevant visuals to go with the topic. Already you have made higher quality work than many others when they disagree on a topic. No insults, no mocking, no straw-manning, just stating facts and starting this discussion respectfully. Great work.
Gray Jedi only works in video games for gameplay reasons, but not lore-wise (lore vs gameplay exists for a reason). The only other Star Wars concept I've found confusing are Light Sith in The Old Republic.
LS Sith/Pureblood are fun but yeah there'd no way a Light Sith would ever exist, especially during the Old Republic, the closest thing we have of a good sith is Darth Vectivus
Light Sith in the Old Republic is more akin to reformers or Sith who had a code other than the Sith code or Sith who realized their way is wrong and would have wished to joined the Jedi had not for the hostilities and suspicions of their fellow Sith. Most of the light side choice for Sith there are either pragmatic choices for the Sith Empire (the same slaveholding, xenophobic empire) or a matter of honor or Jedi morals. Basically, be a “good” Empire/Sith character without ever thinking that the best action morally is abandoning the Empire and joining the Jedi Order.
LS Sith Warrior is just that: a loyal Empire follower that is either pragmatic or honor bound to something higher than Sith politics or the Sith code. You are still a servant of the Empire that promote slavery and xenophobia and enjoys random violence. You may look like a goodie Light Sider, yet up until Shadow of Revan, you are the personal Wrath of the Emperor who seeks to devour all life. You still play the same games of Sith backstabbings and power plays that other DS Sith plays just to get revenge against your master, like sabotaging a rescue mission to free Darth Ekkage from a Republic super prison or sabotaging Baras’s infiltration of the Republic war effort in Corellia. Only reason the Hand recruits you is because you want revenge against Baras while they want to stop Baras from taking over the Empire from the shadow (and that’s just because they are fanatics for the Emperor). Revenge doesn’t sound like a LS move.
Also, the Zakuul Knights claimed to be of both Light and Dark, yet they literally followed the incarnation of the Sith Emperor and well, did a lot of Dark side behaviors more than Light side anyways. Their leaders after Valkorion like Arcann and Vaylin were definitely more Dark side despite their lightsaber colors.
They only make sense lore-wise when they're sticking to themselves like the Gray Paladins did.
Tython, the Je'daii Order, Revan, and Kreia - there's solid EU canon for this, so it works lorewise.
This video was a breath of fresh air because *HOLY COW* the hype culture around "Star Wars" lore created by fans prior the branding of "Legends" is a real tidal wave that is easy to get caught up in, especially since it has carried over post George selling "Star Wars" in fans who like "Canon" continuity.
Like that episode in "Ahsoka", when a visual representation of Anakin shows him switching between Vader and Anakin, people were like, "Wow, Anakin is a master of both the dark side and the light side, since he can switch between both." (I don't think it was actually Anakin's ghost btw, more like a vision in Ahsoka's head as she was unconscious)
What is the point of being a Jedi if using the dark side is easy? Should we even care that Anakin was "redeemed" or that Luke "turned him to the good side"?
If being a master of both sides leads to balance, why wouldn't Luke strike down the Emperor? After all, saving friends that are part of the Rebel Alliance is definitely something that could be seen as "the greater good".
So glad others are still keeping the facts straight within the community.
I’m really glad you liked the video!!! Thank you for the thoughtful comment!
Another good alternative term for gray Jedi could have been" independent Jedi". They're still Jedi, but they are independent from the council and its decisions
I mean there is already the term Rogue Jedi which is basically as you described, light oriented but completely out of the Jedi Council bullshit
Me when someone calls themself a Gray Jedi
"That's not how the force works"
You do realise that the second definition was made popular by KOTOR 2 and the second definition really shouldn't be applied to qui gon. It is stupid people do this, but it doesn't make the CONCEPT of a grey jedi stupid. The fact you didn't even include Kreia in this critique is very strange to me, and you only seem to be analysing the concept through the movies too.
What if force lightning, or "electric judgement" was used not on people but to, for example, over-charge the core of a superweapon so it will blow itself up, would that be just?
In itself it appears to be manipulation of kinetic energy for your own uses, so idk
KOTOR had destroy droid as a light side power
You can adjust the intensity. Plo Koon used it to knock a criminal out without physically harming him.
I think the closest canon has to Gray Jedi are the ancient Je'Daii
Yes
Sadly, they exist only in Legends now.
Otherwise - true. It's boggling the author didn't mentioned them. On the other hand, understandable. A pretty successful order, they lasted >10k years, of force users channeling both sides is too much for him to handle.
The way of the Jedi was "balance". To "bring balance to the Force" was to eliminate the unbalanced side, the Sith.
That doesn't sound like balance to me.
@@poochyenajones1362 What if the sith were completely and utterly unbalanced 100%?
I mean, that's not how people work sure, but let's just say the power they draw upon isn't.
Tbh, kinda true. If the jedi are jerks, the sith are omega aholes. They are literally the ones who would see natural dark side users show up and get rid of them because "that means the balance of the force has to favor us to keep the dark side intact! Yes!"
True. The only way the Gray Jedi works is if the Gray Jedi is in mid fall stage and stays in said stage before they die, like Mace Windu for example
Mace was not "mid fall" idk where people get this idea that having emotions is inheritly dark
Yeah, I've read Shatterpoint and it confirmed two things about Windu. One: he's a hardass. Two: he's 100% a light side Jedi.
@@theazurefire91 He used the seventh lightsaber form, which was traditionally considered dark (or at least dangerous) by the Jedi council. His vaapad discipline was much more controlled than the older Juyo discipline, but still the only person Windu ever trained in Vaapad eventually fell to the dark side, proving that Mace Windu was simply the goat at resisting the lure of the dark side.
@@davidsandrock7826 that doesn’t make him a grey Jedi. It makes him a Light Jedi who can channel his ferocity in a healthy way.
It's worth noting that other Dark Side occurrences, both by natural instinct and by deliberate acts of sentient beings, are still (just plain) The Force. But the Sith specifically are a corruption, a cancer on the Force itself. Eliminating them at the end of RotJ was Anakin restoring balance.
any word with 2 definitions is bound to cause a ton of confusion
The "Grey Code" is such a cringe piece of fan fiction that more or less read as:
"I will have my cake and eat it too"
Basically what it comes down to is some kind of bs D&D logic view of the force where it is just a bunch of powers of a spread sheet where you just want your OC to have all the coolest abilities but still remain a somewhat moral person.
The way I always saw it was: the light side is the will of the force. Individuals such as Jedi’s duty is to follow the forces will and its intentions. It’s a gift given for people to go out and make the Galaxy better for everyone. The force is “out of balance” when there are those who misuse its values and take advantage of it. So for example, in the prequels the force is out of balance for two reasons. The first is the Jedi the supposed light side users have conflated their original values and teaching into something it was never supposed to be. The second is obviously, there are sith who manipulate the force for their own evil goals. The force is “in balance” when the majority of people using the force are follow strictly the will of the force and are using it for the good of others.
I love how there is a recent push back against this concept. "I am a gray Jedi. I use bith light and dark! Luckily, the dark side of the force has never been shown to be a corrupting and all-consuming concept!"
If you save 10 people from Grapes, and then commit Grapes against 10 other people, that's grey, but NOBODY would classify it as good.
Really, "Grey Jedi" would be worse than the Sith and Jedi. Too hypocritical and cowardly to be "pure evil" like the Sith, but not a person trying to do genuine good like the Jedi.
That would be a pretty interesting concept for a villain.
Good thing they don’t exist outside of bad fanfiction then.
Unless you are Mace Windu
@@orrorsaness5942No
Laughs in Kotor
I was expecting to disagree completely, but you actually convinced me.
Wow that means a lot!
Always great to see another person cured of their enlightened centrist syndrome
Another absolute banger! We love to see it
Thank you!
The Jedi are balance, The sith are evil. George has said this multiple times. Clone wars isnt canonical. Grey jedi are just for the sake of the show writing. Has nothing to do with the movies.
What? Clone wars was literally George expanding the franchise with his lore that he couldn’t fit in the films and so he could retcon legends, of course it’s his view
Also of course it’s canon what on earth are you on about
While Lucas definitely intended to both sides not be equal like some yin and yang, and more like “there’s only light, and the dark is the corruption of the light that must be purged for balance to occur”, I really believe that the Grey Jedi concept doesn’t undermine at all this notion.
Grey Jedi, to me, speak less about how they perceive the and use the force and more like how they choose to live their lives as force users. Grey Jedi, for me, are Jedi that refused the monk-like almost cultist lifestyle of the Jedi, but still shares their moral code and still oppose the dark side. Which puts them in some kind of middle ground between the two, since, by the Jedi’s POV, the Grey Jedi will share some things with the Sith simply by not abiding by their way of living, and by the Sith’s POV, the Grey Jedi will be someone they think they can reason with, and will ultimately fall by trying to approach them because they still oppose the Sith.
That’s how I personally understand this concept, and I think it doesn’t contradicts how Lucas intended both sides to function, just adds more nuance to the world since it allows force users to not be aligned with the Jedi or the Sith.
I think people who can use both light and dark side of the force really only works for games or really powerful characters
I like the way Grey Jedi were portrayed in Kotor: Jolee Bindo in 1 and Kreya in 2.
Bindo was a cranky old man who isolated himself from society and saw the problems of both Jedi and Sith but did nothing to change it or make something better.
Kreya criticised both the Jedi and Sith and preached the ultimate rejection and destruction of the Force, but in the end she fell back to the Sith side as her goals required risking the death of the whole universe.
Grey Jedi are a natural and fascinating concept but they shouldn't be the enlightened centrist option, rather the "good men doing nothing" option. TBH Luke in Episode 7 was the same, and his character ark was believing in the Light side again and, for all its faults, I think that was a good idea.
Really great comment and point
Aa a Christian & casual Star Wars enjoyer Balance always seemed as though it was along the lines of the Dark Side is powerful & tempting. But balance is embracing the light, doing the right things even though it is hard. Additionally if you make a mistake you just try your best going forward. Also I feel as though the Jedi allowed love & whatnot but even letting good things consume you isn't allowed for Jedi. However it's so hard loving somebody just enough that if something happens with them you don't go insane. But that's, JUST A THEORY...
It's just kind of arbitrary which is dark and which isn't. Is mind control really less dark than force lightning?
Perhaps it's more how the same effect is achieved. Maybe force lightning itself isn't dark, but the dark side easily produces it through intense emotion. Under that theory, jedi would need some even deeper understanding of the force to produce the same effect, perhaps even at a mechanical level, while the emotion of a sith allows one to just skip through all that and tap directly into the energy without needing to understand it.
This is all true within the realm of Legends as well. The Je'daii order from Dawn Of The Jedi were canonically flawed, they mirrored what happened with Rey and Kylo at the end of TLJ. Hence they ended up breaking apart in the Force Wars and ultimately becomming the Jedi. Imperial Knights from Legacy aren't actually the fanon Gray Jedi. They're lightsiders that served the Emperor (kinda like prequel Jedi served the Republic) and had to remove him from power if he ever fell to the dark side. But of course their shallow relationship with the Force, treating it as a means to an end, exposed them to the risks of falling to the dark, we see it happen with Emperor Fel himself. The fanon concept does exist officially as well, but it's always depicted as flawed and corrupting (Jensarai being the primary example).
Now here's the quote from Legends Luke during the Yuuzhan Vong war that confirms everything you explained here:
"It's true that the Force is unified; it is one energy, one power. But here's where I think you and Vergere are incorrect: the dark side is real, because evil actions are real. Sentience gave rise to the dark side. Does it exist in nature? No. Left to itself, nature maintains the balance. But we've changed that. We are a new order of consciousness that has an impact on all life. The Force now contains light and dark because of what thinking beings have brought to it"
I have a feeling the Disney fans don't care. They're like Nintendo fans. They only want to follow some canon, almost like it's a religion. Sad and annoying. It's because of "fans" like them that things are so damn slow and limited. We had cool stuff like the J'Dai/Je'Daii but no no, we can't have that as canon until some Mega-Corpo Disney execs decide they can make money off of it.
You forgot that the Je'daii Order lasted for more than 10 thousand years. It proves the concept is more than viable.
@@Iklary It lasted so long due to very specific circumstances, mostly that much of that time was spent on very basic studies of the Force and nature of Tython in general. But it was definitely not the roght way to go, as even stated by the author of these comics, John Ostrander. He specifically says the Je'Daii know far less about the true natire of the Force and its balance than the Jedi do.
I love the lesson Luke gives in last jedi about the force. The Jedi balance the light and dark side, they understand one cannot live without the other. The sith are pushed to the extreme and can't see clearly because of it.
I believe the mix and misconception may be due to the words used.
As we 'average' fans hear words like harmony and balance - thus inscribe onto them more Eastern belief. Not necessarily embracing a 'donate here and kill there' - but more coming to terms and mastering your anger, instead of ignoring it or bottling it up.
Whereas George seemed to have a more Western belief in the dynamic between Light and Dark. Thus Dark should be defeated, to achieve victory for the Force.
(It doesn't help either, that there is a constant talk of balance-balance...and nobody openly states: "We have to smother Dark forever to achieve peace" - at least to my knowledge)
(Plus Star Wars has changed so much, I doubt even George can recognize what he created 😅)
Thanks for the insightful comment! I definitely agree on the Eastern and Western philosophies point
@@StarWarsCentralized
Thanks. I did enjoy your piece, even as I am a fan of the Grey Jedi myself.
Granted, in my view - it would be less a Jedi shooting Force Lightning and being 'good', and more like a combination of Mace Windu and Qui-Gonn Jinn. Someone that has an understanding of both Light and Dark, being aware of the strengths and dangers of both.
But serving the Force itself, not being tied to a Code or the Senate; as was hinted at in the Prequels. As in my view - the Dark Side in its natural state, feels like the darker side of nature: brutal, vicious, uncompromising yet...natural. Ignoring and dismissing it, would leave oneself just as vulnerable - whenever they encounter such discomfort, that they had been dismissive about.
Superb video. You perfectly summed up what I have been arguing for essentially my entire time in the fandom as an active participant. I remember the forum arguments and the groans every time the same stupid misinterpretations came up. It was honestly maybe the most formative thing for me as a fan, switching from for about 10 seconds thinking the grey jedi are cool when I was 12, to getting older and developing a better understanding.
I remember the anxiety leading up to TLJ over whether or not it would pull some grey jedi stuff, it had made the months prior into constant discussion. I cannot believe the film so perfectly understood what Lucas was saying.
Another thing I have to praise you for is treating the Jedi Order with more nuance than even a lot of fans I generally agree with. I think people take "flawed" and just run with it, with no clearly discernable solution or consistent critique. This goes for PT fans as well, you'll see people say "oh the point is that the Jedi is flawed cause x,y,z" and then right afterwards say the Jedi's flaws are something completely contradictory. I think media made during the release of the PT has some fascinating portrayals of the Jedi and should be reexamined for that reason. Because they worked from the perspective that this WAS what the Jedi are supposed to be.
I am very hyped for the idea of a video about the Jedi in the vein of this one. Keep up the good work
Thank you very much! I’m so glad you enjoyed this video!
I think the potryal of the Jedi Order in the wider Star Wars Multi-Media project that is just..."The Star Wars Franchise" is always a fascinaing thing. Espeically when the PT come in and you've hade for a decade Luke's Jedi Order and the TOTJ Jedi Order coming in and now the PT comes in and switches things up and the other media is trying to mish and mesh things like Luke gets a council now and moves to Coruscant.
They made it work but it's just fascinating watching it evolve.
Grey Jedi cannot exist it would simply be a fallen jedi or a reformed sith. Either way they are in the process of failing their code not upholding another. Ironically people that believe no one should use the force would fit this grey jedi code well hunting both light side and darkside.
Look for the Je'daii Order.