Isn't the point of The Dark Side of The Force that it's "easy" power?

@UndeadPrivateer Yes, a major point being the duel between Obi Wan, Qui Gon and Maul...even though Obi Wan saw his master get killed in front of him, he still kept his cool, no matter how much Maul gloated...this also helped him win their last duel together.

Still my point is that the new logic of the force presented by the Disney movies seems...odd...at best.

Kylo always seems to expel his emotions in childish outbursts, even though the most basic lesson a Dark Side user would learn is to embrace emotion...as you said.

Yet at the same time Rey seems very emotive...Luke doesn't really teach her about emotional control, even though he admittedly taught her very little outside of saying what the force is.

Either way the examples I provided were either Jedi with less training (Luke) or Knights who've been prodded a lot (Anakin) or force sensitives with no training (Leia) while it didn't make them more powerful...well...except Anakin, he became the most feared Dark Side user ever or something...it certainly gave them an advantage at the time.

Luke took Vader off guard and unprepared by his outburst, which won him the duel, then he regained his self control because he realised that he was "A Jedi like my father before me"

@Fangirlsarah1996 I will agree there are lots of inconsistencies in the Disney films, but I don't think they're quite where you're seeing them. The Force still seems to be largely sticking with its prior rules, albeit at a much more exaggerated level which is obviously for money-making reasons.

Kylo's whole character seems to be that he's enamored with the [i]myth[/i] of Darth Vader without actually understanding the real Anakin Skywalker and his motivations. The myth of Darth Vader to the public was that he was a silent, dark force of unstoppable oppression, cruelty and vengeance against all who stood up against the Empire. So Kylo is trying hard to be that, even though he's not. However the emotion is still there raging within him and the one thing that the Dark Side doesn't seem to give two shits about is discipline, so he winds up a strong Dark Side user regardless of his own lack of self-acceptance. Discipline matters for the success of schemes, but it does not matter for the ability to channel the Dark Side of the Force. Again, the Dark Side is not about being evil. It's about emotional intensity.

Rey is very much Luke, through and through. Their primary character traits and even a lot of their character biographies are very, very strongly mirrored. Luke has horrible emotional control, it's a problem he has constantly struggled with and his partial fall to the Dark Side may very well be the only reason he was able to stand up against Vader in a one-on-one duel, despite Vader's aged and terribly maimed state. Yoda takes note of this Dark Side influence during his training on Dagobah. Luke was never trained as a proper Jedi and never had that emotional control they strive for and was never a pure Light Side user no matter how you look at it. (This is not a unique thing in the Jedi, as Mace Windu is portrayed this way as well.) Rey seems to be going down the same path, though more exaggerated as mentioned prior as she is literally seen fighting side by side with an out-and-out Sith. Against other Sith, yes, but her failure to see Kylo as irredeemable is definitely a case of giving into emotion and it's something he even remarks on multiple times, iirc.

Leia, well, honestly that's a whole bunch of bullshit that I have no explanations for. It doesn't make a lot of sense canonically and it doesn't make a lot of sense logically and it doesn't make a lot of sense from a writing perspective. It just kinda reeks of horse shit.

@Fangirlsarah1996 Am I the only one who remembers Obi-Wan screaming, attacking fiercely, and then (supposedly) killing his opponent (Jedi are the ones that kill for revenge, right?). And then proceed to cry over his master's dying body? Sure, totally emotionless. Also, Maul was silent. Like, totally silent.

The force is what the writers say it is. As new movies and other media come out, we learn more about how the force works. It's always been like that. But people didn't complain saying "that's not how the force works" when they saw Force Lightning in Return of the Jedi.

Also, outbursts are a staple of the dark side. Outbursts and overconfidence are the biggest killers of dark side users.

I think that nobody in the Star Wars universe actually knows what the fuck the force even is, and they're all just trying to make sense of it in slightly different ways, but because it's too complicated a thing for people to really understand, it sometimes doesn't make sense... but that's okay. xD

@RoboChloe Obi-Wan wasn't a flawless Jedi either, he constantly admonishes himself for giving into emotion. You see him basically waxing philosophical about it when he makes a veiled reference to his history with Darth Vader to Luke. I never saw Maul as being portrayed as a particularly [i]powerful[/i] Sith in any way either, just a Sith. And one can certainly silently seethe about something without devolving into a literal berserk rage.

You know, I want to agree with you on the thing about outbursts but I really can't. Overconfidence yes, but I could say that about Jedi too. I'm having trouble thinking of any Dark Side users in the movies that were slain as the direct result of an outburst. I would say instability is a better way to pin the major fault for Dark Side users. Their instability is most often their downfall. Darth Plagueis is killed by his apprentice because he was so obsessed with his own work he didn't realize what his apprentice was planning. Darth Sidious goes on to make a Dark Side baby(Anakin) which he then manipulates through said baby's entire life but is then killed when it turns on him. Darth Vader is emotionally manipulated throughout his life into slaughtering people he loved and cared for but eventually breaks when posed with killing his own son, leading to him killing both Sidious and himself in the process.

However the point about writing is true, it is what it is for the writer and not all writers have the same things in mind. It's not entirely consistent, but the bringing up of The Old Republic opens the door to the Expanded Universe which is uh... a lot deeper than the movies. Lots to draw upon that really does dig into hard mechanics of how the Force works and has a lot more to cross-reference for consistency.

@RoboChloe Obi Wan kept his cool as much as he could for a padawan learner. As for killing for revenge? He killed Maul because he would've killed him...in that situation he really didn't have time for negotiation...besides, he didn't kill Maul. As for Maul's silence? That's called seething...a trait that continues throughout his character (Whenever he's portrayed as "sane") Vader is usually silent as well...yet both are filled with rage.

Yes, though stories have to follow certain rules...much like in Star Trek, ships MUST have certain criteria, like warp nacelles, buzzard collectors and at least one deflector dish. The Force is much the same...while you can say it's whatever they want it to be, it cannot break certain rules...though to be fair as we've seen it, they haven't written The Force in a way that has broken it's set of rules yet.

I haven't seen a single Dark Side user have an outburts of rage in the Star Wars movies except for Ren. Vader has killed a couple of officers, but that's mostly because he's an asshole.

@Fangirlsarah1996 Sidious, arguably, has had a few. Most notably with the showdown with Windu in his apartment. And Anakin during the duel with Obi-Wan, but that's all that comes to mind for me, none of which ended in Sith dying. Worst off was Anakin's maiming, which was arguably more overconfidence than outburst.

@UndeadPrivateer
Obi-Wan certainly wasn't flawless, yes. If he were, he would have been an exceedingly boring character to watch. He dealt with the pull of the dark side, and in The Clone Wars, even dealt with love.

It's fair enough to say that the movies don't see Sith killed as a result of outbursts, but then there are so few Sith in the movies. I guess to get a proper feeling for Dark side users, you have to look outside the movies, at the (surprisingly competent) animated shows, and the books. And also the EU (Legends 🙄) I guess, but that's not so relevant anymore.

@Fangirlsarah1996
Question: Does it matter, in terms of evaluating your actions and character, if the person you actively try to kill happens to survive? I don't really think so. Also, he could have cut the guy's arms off, rendering him unable to fight, rather than cutting him in half and letting him fall down a very large hole.

[quote]I haven't seen a single Dark Side user have an outburts of rage in the Star Wars movies except for Ren[/quote]

There was that one time Anakin almost killed his wife.

@UndeadPrivateer I think Sidious less has outbursts...but is more...open with his emotions.

Vader just gets really angry...Sidious laughs and mocks at the petty mortals.

As for Anakin...I doubt he'd count as a full Sith...he was barely what Vader was...he was more of a fallen Jedi, full of emotion with no way of keeping them under control.

Though I will argue The Sith (Perhaps all Dark Side users) suffer from over-confidence.

Sidious never thought Vader would ever turn on him.

Anakin thought The High Ground meant fuck-all.

Even Darth Revan, The Revenchrist, The Butcher, The Prodigal Knight... (You get the idea) never dreamed that Malek, his apprentice would kill him, or attempt to at least.

@RoboChloe To be fair again, he had a split second to act (After jumping over him, something Maul should've easily took advantage of)

He could've tried to back away but he didn't, he chose to strike when he had the upper hand.

In a fight to the death these kinds of actions happen.

@Fangirlsarah1996 Lana Beniko from SWTOR isn't canon, but an amazing example of a Sith that isn't overconfident.

@RoboChloe Because she's an intelligence operative.

Spies have no time for overconfidence.

@Fangirlsarah1996 Hahaha, open with his emotions. I like that phrasing. I can see what you mean though, it's not really 'out of control' because he doesn't impose control on it in the first place. I suppose one could say that makes him a true Sith Master.

Agree on Anakin never quite reaching the same level of Sith-ness as Sidious, but I think he still fell beyond Fallen Jedi into being a Sith. He did seem to espouse the belief of might makes right for quite some time before finally coming back to his senses in the end.

I mean, who wouldn't be overconfident when you're the strongest big-dick-G in the galaxy? Fight me, bro.

Though seriously, it's quite understandable why overconfidence is such a common thing for Sith when they are very literally able to brute force their way through almost anything.

@RoboChloe Are there any big name Dark Side users that died purely because of outbursts? I don't really doubt there is, the EU is gargantuan, but I'm just not having any names immediately pop into my mind. Just minion types.

@Fangirlsarah1996 Yes, but she is first and foremost a Sith.

@UndeadPrivateer Presumably the Sith that couldn't control themselves died long before they could become feared or famous. 🤷

Hence why only minor characters die that way.

Unless you have a chosen one situation, everyone's a nobody until they become a somebody.

@RoboChloe Well how do we know that Jedi-in-training don't die from outbursts all the time as well then? There must be a reason there's all those cautionary tales about falling to the Dark Side. Shaky grounds for an argument.

@UndeadPrivateer Yeah, everytime we see Sidious in any kind of fight he's laughing his ass off.

At the beginning of the duel I'd easily class him as a Fallen Jedi...but he does seem to show more control as the duel progresses...he becomes more like Vader.
Until he got his arms and legs chopped off then got lit on fire then got mugged and left for dead by his old buddy.

True, the power breeds overconfidence, it's undisciplined raw power, it's why you rarely see overconfident Jedi.

@Fangirlsarah1996 Precisely, we're on the same page. 😁

@UndeadPrivateer And when we did see overconfident Jedi (In the EU) they were either low skilled, or were close to falling to the dark side (Such as in the Sith Warrior storyline, when you get the Jedi follower)

@UndeadPrivateer There's just so much we don't know. You're right though, I don't have anything concrete right now.

@Fangirlsarah1996 I think the Jedi were incredibly overconfident leading up to the fall of the Republic. They couldn't comprehend the idea that they might fall.

@Fangirlsarah1996 Yes, very much so, which I honestly find an interesting character arc. Where they have to learn to let go of their confidence to achieve their full potential. I wish we would see those types in the movies, honestly.

@RoboChloe Not overconfident, they were ignorant.

They refused to learn about the Dark Side, thus letting themselves get blindsided.

@RoboChloe You know, I do agree on the fall of the Republic. But I think that was more the leadership than the rank and file.

@Fangirlsarah1996 Is that not a degree of overconfidence in regards to their own ability to defend against threats, though? Surely they'd have to deal with occasional fallen padawans.

@UndeadPrivateer Nah, they just didn't ever teach them about The Dark Side.

They probably told them lies saying that their dicks would fall off if they turned to The Dark Side...that kind of stuff.

@Fangirlsarah1996 But you don't need to learn about it to channel the Dark Side in the heat of the moment. I always remember that being dangled over people's heads in the EU. 🤔