Light Side / Dark Side
Apr. 5th, 2016 12:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/1RZmrmD:
millicentthecat:
I feel like a lot of my writing makes more sense if I first explain my sense of how the Force works.
So today’s rant is about that, especially as it relates to my feelings on Kylo. Also something about Poe Dameron and identity, because apparently that’s the theme of the week.
- A Force exists in the universe. It’s created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.
- Some people are sensitive to it. However, it exists whether you’re sensitive to it or not.
- If you’re sensitive, you can draw on certain emotions to access the power to manipulate the Force, or to manipulate people or objects using the Force.
- Some emotions, like fear, anger, and hate, can be used to manipulate the DARK SIDE of the Force. This is not an exhaustive list.
- All people have these emotions at times, whether or not they use them to manipulate the Force.
- Emotions are not the same as motivation.
- For example. Your MOTIVATION to blow up the Death Star can be that you’re ANGRY at the Empire for killing your parents, OR that you have a passionate DESIRE to impress a princess, OR that you’re AFRAID the Empire will hurt you and your new friends. Yet, you can still FEEL calm while executing the attack, and you can draw on those feelings to access the Force.
- You can be ANGRY AS SHIT at someone and still call on calm to access and manipulate the Force. See exhibit A:
- If you chose to manipulate the Force using that sense of calm, you are using the Light Side. If you chose to manipulate the Force using anger, you are using the Dark Side.
- Just as a person can be motivated by anger or hate and still use calm to access the Light Side, a person can be motivated by love or selflessness and use anger to access the Dark Side. It is a tactical choice. This choice can be made in accordance with your instinctual preferences, or with a more ego-brained and political approach, or in accordance with what you believe other people might think is best.
- “Use your aggressive feelings, boy. Let the hate flow through you!” The Emperor urges Luke to use his aggressive feelings. Luke can chose which feelings to use for access to the Force. AGAIN, this is a TACTICAL CHOICE available to Force sensitive persons.
- If you’re naturally an angry person, and you DO NOT wish to use the Dark Side, you may may have to WORK to achieve the calm required in order to access the Light Side. Similarly, if you’re NOT naturally an angry person, the Dark Side may not come easy to you. You may have to WORK yourself up to have these feelings. You may have to chose to ENCOURAGE ANGER IN YOURSELF.
- THIS IS NOT A TEMPER TANTRUM:
- This is a deliberate decision by a Force User to incite his feelings of anger, desperation, aggression, and fear of failure. These feelings are the air in his lungs, the gas in his tank, the bullets in his gun, the charge in his blaster. From the visual dictionary: “he [Kylo Ren] uses the unpleasent emotions that stir within him when reflecting upon his youth to fuel his anger and dark powers.”
- Therefore, a reading of Kylo Ren as an out-of-control mess does not hold up. He has made a controlled, strategic decision to USE HIS AGGRESSIVE FEELINGS to fuel his battle capabilities. It makes sense that he would deliberately ACTIVATE and ESCALATE these feelings. While I don’t believe people can chose what emotions they experience, they can chose which ones to access the Force with, and they can control their environments to stimulate their feelings and resulting powers.
- This strategy is actually quite effective for the first half of the film. Kylo is able to capture and interrogate Poe and Rey with little effort. However, there is a turning point at which the strategy starts to fail. That is during the interrogation of Rey, when she turns Kylo’s intrusion back on him. At that moment, Kylo is feeling FEAR, a common emotion used to access the Dark Side. We know he’s feeling fear because Rey looks in his mind and tells us. Rey, on the other hand, is thinking of the island that she meditates on in order to CALM herself before sleep. She is using calm to access the Force, a Light Side strategy. She is thus able to over-power Kylo.
- It is consistent with Star Wars canon that the Light Side is “stronger” than the Dark Side, i.e. it is a more effective strategy for over-powering an opponent.
- Kylo Ren would have known this when he took an apprenticeship under Snoke. Even as a child, he would have known that the Dark Side did not offer purely superior brute strength and access to the Force. Kylo Ren chooses to use the Dark Side, when doing so requires EXTRA EFFORT, because the Dark Side offers him something that the Light does not.
- It isn’t strength. At least, not in terms of raw power: not the ability to access the Force to defeat an enemy. But he’s always talking about strength.
- “I don’t know if I have the strength. Will you help me?” and “You’ll never be as strong as Darth Vader!” and “Show me again, the power of the darkness…”
- What is this power he’s referring to? This. This is what the Dark Side offers. The strength to be himself, to make his own choices about his own needs, even when others are trying to destroy or influence that identity. This is a quality Ren deems more important and more motivating than brute strength. When he says strength, in a sense, he means the freedom to be who he is.
- The best way I can explain is to use Finn as an example. Finn didn’t chose the name FN 2187, but he did chose to align himself with Poe. Poe chose the name Finn, and Finn accepted it. Finn’s escape from the First Order gave Finn the freedom to chose his own name/identity by choosing who to align himself with. This defection required a lot of strength; Finn had to be VERY confident he didn’t want to be a Stormtrooper any more.
- Leia exhibits that same identity-based strength by demanding to be called a General instead of a Princess. Like Finn, she is reinforced by and validated by her community (Poe) when they (Poe Dameron) acknowledge that identity.
- Kylo is looking to Snoke, to Vader’s ghost, and inside himself for that same acknowledgement. For a message that says: “yes, I accept you as you see yourself. I’m going to call you Kylo Ren.”
- I’m guessing he went to the dark for this because it’s something he couldn’t get from Luke, Leia, or Han.
- I’m not saying that all the events of TFA could’ve been avoided if they’d sat young Ben down with a young and particularly validating Poe Dameron…but…you know…now that you mention it…
- Abrupt post ending.
millicentthecat:
I feel like a lot of my writing makes more sense if I first explain my sense of how the Force works.
So today’s rant is about that, especially as it relates to my feelings on Kylo. Also something about Poe Dameron and identity, because apparently that’s the theme of the week.
- A Force exists in the universe. It’s created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.
- Some people are sensitive to it. However, it exists whether you’re sensitive to it or not.
- If you’re sensitive, you can draw on certain emotions to access the power to manipulate the Force, or to manipulate people or objects using the Force.
- Some emotions, like fear, anger, and hate, can be used to manipulate the DARK SIDE of the Force. This is not an exhaustive list.
- All people have these emotions at times, whether or not they use them to manipulate the Force.
- Emotions are not the same as motivation.
- For example. Your MOTIVATION to blow up the Death Star can be that you’re ANGRY at the Empire for killing your parents, OR that you have a passionate DESIRE to impress a princess, OR that you’re AFRAID the Empire will hurt you and your new friends. Yet, you can still FEEL calm while executing the attack, and you can draw on those feelings to access the Force.
- You can be ANGRY AS SHIT at someone and still call on calm to access and manipulate the Force. See exhibit A:
- If you chose to manipulate the Force using that sense of calm, you are using the Light Side. If you chose to manipulate the Force using anger, you are using the Dark Side.
- Just as a person can be motivated by anger or hate and still use calm to access the Light Side, a person can be motivated by love or selflessness and use anger to access the Dark Side. It is a tactical choice. This choice can be made in accordance with your instinctual preferences, or with a more ego-brained and political approach, or in accordance with what you believe other people might think is best.
- “Use your aggressive feelings, boy. Let the hate flow through you!” The Emperor urges Luke to use his aggressive feelings. Luke can chose which feelings to use for access to the Force. AGAIN, this is a TACTICAL CHOICE available to Force sensitive persons.
- If you’re naturally an angry person, and you DO NOT wish to use the Dark Side, you may may have to WORK to achieve the calm required in order to access the Light Side. Similarly, if you’re NOT naturally an angry person, the Dark Side may not come easy to you. You may have to WORK yourself up to have these feelings. You may have to chose to ENCOURAGE ANGER IN YOURSELF.
- THIS IS NOT A TEMPER TANTRUM:
- This is a deliberate decision by a Force User to incite his feelings of anger, desperation, aggression, and fear of failure. These feelings are the air in his lungs, the gas in his tank, the bullets in his gun, the charge in his blaster. From the visual dictionary: “he [Kylo Ren] uses the unpleasent emotions that stir within him when reflecting upon his youth to fuel his anger and dark powers.”
- Therefore, a reading of Kylo Ren as an out-of-control mess does not hold up. He has made a controlled, strategic decision to USE HIS AGGRESSIVE FEELINGS to fuel his battle capabilities. It makes sense that he would deliberately ACTIVATE and ESCALATE these feelings. While I don’t believe people can chose what emotions they experience, they can chose which ones to access the Force with, and they can control their environments to stimulate their feelings and resulting powers.
- This strategy is actually quite effective for the first half of the film. Kylo is able to capture and interrogate Poe and Rey with little effort. However, there is a turning point at which the strategy starts to fail. That is during the interrogation of Rey, when she turns Kylo’s intrusion back on him. At that moment, Kylo is feeling FEAR, a common emotion used to access the Dark Side. We know he’s feeling fear because Rey looks in his mind and tells us. Rey, on the other hand, is thinking of the island that she meditates on in order to CALM herself before sleep. She is using calm to access the Force, a Light Side strategy. She is thus able to over-power Kylo.
- It is consistent with Star Wars canon that the Light Side is “stronger” than the Dark Side, i.e. it is a more effective strategy for over-powering an opponent.
- Kylo Ren would have known this when he took an apprenticeship under Snoke. Even as a child, he would have known that the Dark Side did not offer purely superior brute strength and access to the Force. Kylo Ren chooses to use the Dark Side, when doing so requires EXTRA EFFORT, because the Dark Side offers him something that the Light does not.
- It isn’t strength. At least, not in terms of raw power: not the ability to access the Force to defeat an enemy. But he’s always talking about strength.
- “I don’t know if I have the strength. Will you help me?” and “You’ll never be as strong as Darth Vader!” and “Show me again, the power of the darkness…”
- What is this power he’s referring to? This. This is what the Dark Side offers. The strength to be himself, to make his own choices about his own needs, even when others are trying to destroy or influence that identity. This is a quality Ren deems more important and more motivating than brute strength. When he says strength, in a sense, he means the freedom to be who he is.
- The best way I can explain is to use Finn as an example. Finn didn’t chose the name FN 2187, but he did chose to align himself with Poe. Poe chose the name Finn, and Finn accepted it. Finn’s escape from the First Order gave Finn the freedom to chose his own name/identity by choosing who to align himself with. This defection required a lot of strength; Finn had to be VERY confident he didn’t want to be a Stormtrooper any more.
- Leia exhibits that same identity-based strength by demanding to be called a General instead of a Princess. Like Finn, she is reinforced by and validated by her community (Poe) when they (Poe Dameron) acknowledge that identity.
- Kylo is looking to Snoke, to Vader’s ghost, and inside himself for that same acknowledgement. For a message that says: “yes, I accept you as you see yourself. I’m going to call you Kylo Ren.”
- I’m guessing he went to the dark for this because it’s something he couldn’t get from Luke, Leia, or Han.
- I’m not saying that all the events of TFA could’ve been avoided if they’d sat young Ben down with a young and particularly validating Poe Dameron…but…you know…now that you mention it…
- Abrupt post ending.
