I want to talk about the Force.
Specifically, I want to talk about how neither the Jedi nor the Sith use it correctly. There is no faction that I’ve found in Star Wars canon that uses the Force in what I would consider the “proper” way.
I’m sure that there are other people who have made similar points but I want to just, throw this out into the void.
Let’s start with the Jedi since they’re going to be harder to pick apart. Jedi obviously follow the light, the “good”. They believe that their calling is to spread compassion, to save people, and to redeem as many sentient beings as they can. Now, all of that is wonderful and exactly how I would want the Force to be used, but the Jedi have one large flaw; they expect each other to never have any emotions. Not only is that unrealistic and unattainable, it’s also just straight-up cruel. Sentient beings have emotions. That is just a fact of life. We can’t control them, either, because they exist as purely chemical reactions in our brain. So we can cope through them, we can trigger new emotions, but we cannot control our emotions.
The Jedi Order being forced to repress themselves, thinking it will make them stronger, just opens them up to corruption and vulnerability. Look at Anakin. He was an excellent Jedi, and he was a trauma victim (which I’ll come back to), but he just wanted to be loved and feel connected to someone. If the Jedi Order had allowed him to experience his emotions in an honest way, he would have never had to hide his relationship with Padme. He would have been able to remain a Jedi and save his wife and their children.
And as far as that trauma I mentioned? Well, trauma of any kind, at any point in your life, will literally change the structure of your brain. Many trauma victims have an even harder time controlling their anger than non-traumatized people because their brain chemistry has been altered in such a way that they get hit with a much heavier rush of serotonin and testosterone (the two chemicals in the brain that have been most strongly linked to experiencing anger) than they are equipped to handle all at once. By saying that Jedi are not allowed to feel anger, they are essentially saying that no traumatized person can be a Jedi. (I’m not saying that because I think all people are the same or all trauma is the same; I’m saying that because the Jedi like to be on “the safe side” and so it seems to me that that would be a very likely blanket ban they could lay down.) That in itself is ableism, and it’s also shortsighted. People can use their emotions in very productive ways. If given the right opportunities, trauma victims can channel their anger into making sure others don’t have to experience the same things they did. Anger and trauma could be a very useful tool to serve the Jedi if they weren’t ruled -- subconsciously -- by fear.
The Sith are more clear-cut. Sith, obviously, seek power over everything else. They use the Force as a tool to slice through their enemies and catapult them to new heights of authority and control over others. But at least they’re emotionally free. They are able to draw strength from their passions and use them, access them.
And that’s why Balance is so important in the Star Wars universe. I can’t speak for anyone else, but when I was younger I didn’t understand why there needed to be Balance. I thought ‘but if the dark is bad, why don’t we want to get rid of it?’ But now, as a more mature, more analytical person, I can realize that at least part of the message of Star Wars is that we do need to be clear and level-headed. We do need to focus on helping people, spreading peace and prosperity and compassion in the world. And at the same time, we can’t sacrifice ourselves for that, and I don’t just mean our lives. Our well-being, our mental health, those are valuable resources as well.
So ultimately, we all need to be a little bit Jedi and Sith. We need to be selfless like the Jedi, and we need to be emotional like the Sith. That’s where that balance comes in, and I think that’s a lesson we could all use a little internalizing.