Turning to the Dark Side of the Force

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The dark side of the Force is not something to be taken lightly. I take a deep dive into what it means to break bad, Star Wars style.

In Star Wars discussions, people often talk about various characters and their relationship with the dark side of the Force. Read enough articles and listen to enough podcasts, and you’ll certainly hear phrases like “flirting with the dark side,” “tapping into the dark side,” “briefly touching the dark side,” and so on. But what does this actually mean? Is any of this canon?

Far too often, reviewers summarily conclude that any character who is angry–about anything, at any time–is invariably connecting with the dark side. Really? This just doesn’t sit right. That would mean that Chewbacca touches the dark side when he roars, and Luke touches the dark side when he yells at Han in the trash compactor. See? Taking this to its logical conclusion, this clearly gets absurd. Are all the good guys in Star Wars intended to walk around as benevolent automatons?

I intend to make a little more sense of the tangled webs surround emotion, intent and the Force. But first, let’s discuss what we know–or what we don’t know.

The Jedi knew next to nothing about the dark side of the Force.

That’s right, I said it. Any why should they? The Jedi are dedicated to the light side of the Force, and for 1,000 generations have dedicated themselves to that pursuit. But in that focus, there isn’t much study into the larger scope of the Force. In fact, by the time of The Phantom Menace, the Jedi have all but ignored the dichotomy of the Living Force and the Cosmic Force, and by the time of Attack of the Clones have realized that their ability to use the Force was diminished. The imbalance of the Force, so clearly tipped in the dark side’s favor, had literally cause the Force to not be “with them.” And yet, even then, they did not understand what was happening.

Yoda’s teachings were meant to exemplify the best qualities in burgeoning Jedi students; they were not absolutes to represent the whole of the (human) experience that follows the light side of the Force.

The Jedi’s only knowledge of the dark side comes from

1. Historical accounts
2. The rare accounts of some of those who left the Jedi order after falling to the dark side
3. Outside reports of shadowy cultures such as the Nightsisters
4. Yoda

Let’s consider the first three circumstantial, because there is not much a Jedi is going to learn from these sources except what the Jedi are NOT. On the other hand, there is Master Yoda, who is incessantly warning about the dark side, and all of the pitfalls and dangers to avoid falling to it.

But how does he know? Centuries of experience, in a time of relative peace where the Sith were believed to be vanquished and extinct? Seriously–what actual experience does Yoda have with the dark side of the Force before the prequel trilogy? I think very little. Yoda studied the dark side as an other–a thing regarded from afar, a divergence to avoid, a negative state to understand if only to know how to ignore at every possible step.

This was the dogma of the Jedi by the time of The Phantom Menace; it was a path put forth by the teachings of Yoda. Yoda’s ignorance of the dark side was the undoing of the Jedi–and he faces this realization in the “Yoda arc” in season 6 of The Clone Wars. During this highly metaphysical storyline, he meets a vision of himself corrupted by the dark side–an entity he can only defeat by absorbing the entity into himself. Symbolically–the message was clear; the duality of all living things exist inside us all, and suppressing the the darkness within all people is not better than letting it conquer them. Yoda was forced to realize that the dark side must be accepted to be defeated. It must be understood and controlled. It cannot be ignored or it will become like a festering malignancy; a cancer that kills the light in a person forever.

After this episode, I must point out that Yoda became much more like the character that is found in The Empire Strikes Back, and focused only on surviving the Clone Wars, not winning them.

So if there’s this character that has been teaching about the dark side only from anecdotes, how much stock is there in his wisdom? There’s plenty. Yoda wasn’t a liar. He analyzed, meditated, and contemplated the path to the dark side, not just trying to characterize those who used it, but to root out the precursors. Yoda wanted to identify and destroy the dark side before it would even emerge in his students. His philosophy was meant to empower and strengthen light side Force users. He looked for (and taught others to look for) the trends that led to becoming a dark side devotee. He saw negativity, selfishness, violence, and impetuousness as qualities of all those who fell to the dark side. He saw the relationships that would seduce people to follow a quick and easy path. He studied the qualities in a person who strove for power.

What Yoda missed in his doctrine was that people cannot choose the right path away from these feelings if they never felt them. They cannot grow. To compound matters, the Jedi order under Yoda actively refrained from teaching those students who were old enough to experience a touch of the negative! Those who needed guidance most were turned away to create a more homogeneous, pliant student body that could only understand one half of life’s emotional experience.

Yoda’s teachings were meant to exemplify the best qualities in burgeoning Jedi students; they were not absolutes to represent the whole of the (human) experience that follows the light side of the Force.

This means that fear, anger, attachment, jealousy–these are part of the path to the dark side–they are not the dark side itself. Feeling these things were not feeling the dark side–allowing oneself to be consumed by them was.

Let’s take a look at a few situations with this perspective in mind.

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Obi-Wan Kenobi

Obi-Wan Kenobi never once used the dark side. He is a shining white Jedi knight. But did he know attachment? Yes, he loved Satine, and turned away from that attachment. Did he know anger? Yes, he was filled with rage towards Darth Maul after the murder of Qui-Gon Jinn. But these are natural feelings, and this is a character who kept these feelings in check. He understood himself, understood the right path, and chose the right way. Hell, Kenobi wasn’t perfect! He was a consistent liar, and intensely sarcastic. Did that mean he was “touching the dark side?” No. Kenobi was selfless and decent, albeit flawed in the same ways anyone else can be. The dark side of the force is something much larger and deeper than a single feeling.

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Luke Skywalker

People often theorize that Luke used the dark side on the second Death Star in his final attack on Darth Vader. He was scared for his sister, he was angry at his father for threatening her, and he hated Palpatine deeply for all the evil he did.

Luke stopped just short of the dark side of the Force. He was being manipulated into this fit of rage, but he did not choose to use his anger for power or selfish means. He subdued his opponent–Vader–in a furious attack that some believe could have only been achieved through using the dark side. But this is reductive. Luke’s grandfather was the Force. he is young, he is strong, and he is experienced by this time. To discredit Luke’s power in the Force at this moment is to discredit his hero’s journey. He didn’t need the dark side to defeat Vader, he just needed to remember the love for his friends and family–the same love that brought him to throw his lightsaber away and leave his fate to his father. If Luke used the dark side to subdue Vader, he would have used the dark side to continue the attack. It just doesn’t hold up.

Don’t forget, Luke murders dozens of people at the beginning of Return of the Jedi, and his light-side standing afterwards is not in dispute.

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Rey

There’s a lot of talk about whether Rey uses the dark side in The Force Awakens. She kills stormtroopers, she grits her teeth in anger, she beats Kylo Ren in combat. So? So didn’t Yoda in Revenge of the Sith. Rey is in the intensity of battle, her fury and focus are all for the survival or her friends and herself. There is no dark side involved in her actions, and even as she hears its lure in her mind–manifesting as voice compelling her to kill–the battle ends as the planet is torn asunder. Rey did not use the dark side of the Force, and was not given the chance to be drawn towards it, luckily. It would be an injustice for someone so new to their power to be corrupted so quickly.

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Anakin Skywalker

This is rather different, because this is a person who did fall to the dark side of the Force. Like Quinlan Vos, he chose to understand and use the dark side out of love and attachment. But exactly when did Anakin fall?

Anakin’s seduction was slow. In Attack of the Clones, Anakin had a moment with the dark side of the Force where he clearly used it. Anakin used the grief, anger, and hate following the death of his mother to channel the dark side into a slaughter of an entire village of Sandpeople. Even though this moment was likely staged by Palpatine (another story for another time) his rage opened the door fully for a different kind of power than he had ever used. And in the aftermath, he was clearly affected. he was withdrawn, tempestuous, and inconsolable–feelings of grief exacerbated by using the dark side.

Years later, it seems like Anakin has recovered, in a way. He was collected, cool, and fully dedicated to the light side of the Force–even if his clashes with the Jedi were growing larger. So when did he use the dark side again? Was it when he killed Count Dooku? I don’t think so–he was acting on orders from the leader of the Republic. Was it when he cut off Mace Windu’s hands? No, I don’t think even then. He was remorseful and desperate, not angry. He had resigned himself to know the dark side by leaving the council chambers, but that is a far stretch from being able to use it.

Even when Anakin killed numerous Jedi and younglings, he did not use the dark side. This was a person who was motivated and twisted, open to let the dark side in and resigned to “do what must be done.” However, this was a turning point for the character. This atrocity swung the door wide open, and from that moment on the dark side was with him. He had to do something as horrible as the murder of children to let the dark side in. When Anakin is next on screen, he is fury, anger, tears, and yellow eyes.

This is the massive commitment it takes to know the power of the dark side. For more into this process of initiation, read Dark Disciple–there are several passages detailing the nature of dark side initiation.

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Ezra Bridger

Ok, Ezra touched the dark side. Kanan confirms this, and Ezra details how it feels–corroborating what Luke Skywalker described in The Empire Strikes Back. Ezra used rage to compel creatures to do his will, an act of ruthless power. Ezra felt intense cold inside himself (rather than Luke feeling it environmentally), and was physically sickened. He hated the feeling, and Kanan has thus far done a great job teaching that the capability exists in all beings to do evil and to be claimed by the dark side. The fact that Ezra was able to choose the light has made all the difference, thus far.

There’s something important here. Ezra was so affected as to be sickened by his use of the dark side. Anakin was left in tears. Using the dark side, especially for the first time, affects people profoundly. There isn’t much ambiguity about this in all of Star Wars–something fans should take to heart before theorizing about the dark side.

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Don’t allow yourself to make the same pitfalls as Yoda did for all those years. Don’t assume that the path to the dark side of the Force is the same this as using the dark side itself–it is radically different. Watch the movies. Watch the shows. Pay attention to the audible and visual cues that are there, and know the power of the dark side is a power that some believe to be unnatural–not just a feeling of anger, a feeling that is all too natural in life.

*I could have written three times more on this, and may still; the opinions in this article come from a close review of canon Star Wars material only.