Star Wars, Highly Illiogical Captain

[Madner Kami]

If the Force were in balance when the Light Side holds the Dark Side in check, then that means that neither Luke nor Vader brought any balance, they just created different imbalances with their actions. Besides, why would the daughter rebel? She is already on the side that is in control.
And as for Lukas, he contradicts the lore he created himself, his opinion on that matter is sketchy at best.

[GandALF]

If the Force were in balance when the Light Side holds the Dark Side in check, then that means that neither Luke nor Vader brought any balance, they just created different imbalances with their actions. Besides, why would the daughter rebel? She is already on the side that is in control.

Luke's true enemy is his own dark side. So at the critical moment on Death Star II, when he is tempted by the Emperor, Luke tempers his selfish hatred with selfless mercy i.e. he uses his light side to constrain his dark side and achieves balance.

The Emperor is so far into the dark side and so unbalanced that he has dragged the whole galaxy down with him, so when Vader overthrows him it resets things and restores balance and allows for the Jedi to return and protect that balance.

[Riedquat]

Is there any sense anywhere that "balance" includes the Dark Side? A bias towards the Light Side can hardly be described as "balance".

[GandALF]

Is there any sense anywhere that "balance" includes the Dark Side? A bias towards the Light Side can hardly be described as "balance".

If you check the video on page 3 Lucas explains that the dark side is pleasure. So for example, can never get rid of the pleasure of eating chocolate cake, you will always have a dark desire for chocolate cake, all you can do is discipline yourself when eating chocolate cake. However if you become undisciplined and addicted to chocolate cake then you will fear losing your chocolate cake and become angry with those who deny you chocolate cake and hate those who stand in the way of you and your chocolate cake and eventually suffer from the pain of never having enough chocolate cake.

So if balance is neutral then guy who puts the needs of others before chocolate cake is just as unbalanced as the guy who commits genocide and destroys planets to get chocolate cake.

[Madner Kami]

If you check the video on page 3 Lucas explains that the dark side is pleasure.

Oh yeah, Vader had so much pleasure, with all the sand in his burned vagina. Sorry, but this is exactly why Lukas' word on things is sketchy at best. And if I recall right, the Emperor tried to lure Luke to the Dark Side by feeding his hatred, not his pleasure, unless you want to imply that Luke took pleasure in what was happening on Endor or in the fleet-battle, which would put a whole new perspective on the whole conflict.

So if balance is neutral then guy who puts the needs of others before chocolate cake is just as unbalanced as the guy who commits genocide and destroys planets to get chocolate cake.

This doesn't exactly cover what you wrote earlier. Either there's a balance in between Light and Dark or there is a balance (read calm, composed, serene state) when the Light Side reigns and the Dark Side is suppressed. You can't have both.

[GandALF]

Oh yeah, Vader had so much pleasure, with all the sand in his burned vagina. Sorry, but this is exactly why Lukas' word on things is sketchy at best. And if I recall right, the Emperor tried to lure Luke to the Dark Side by feeding his hatred, not his pleasure.

You don't think anger feels good? Have you seen the news recently?

[Madner Kami]

The release of anger maybe, but not being angry.

[Madner Kami]

I had to look for it again in the video I quoted above and didn't really have the time on the weekend, but in regard to the force trying to balance things, influencing people and your interpretation that things are in balance only if the Light Side somehow supresses the Dark Side, the author makes a very poignant observation that is glaringly obvious and, imo, painful to realize in retrospect:

And how did the Force achieve this "balance" with Anakin? By having the entire galaxy fight in a war, controlled on both sides by the Sith, have the entire Jedi Order annihilated, then wait 20 years of Sith-oppression and only when the son of the prophesized Chosen One defeats him in a duel, only then, as Anakin sees his own son being tortured, the Sith are destroyed and balance is achieved. Countless deaths, for "balance", that is what Kreia found abhorent.
And unlike what the word "balance" suggests, this doesn't mean an equality between the Light and the Dark, like some sort of scale, but simply an erradication of all those who use the Dark Side of the Force, as if all Dark Side users must be removed, regardless of the cost of lives. And this brings up the question of whether there is any free will at all in the Star Wars Galaxy, if everything is "balanced" out in the end, by the Force.

Kreia might be insane, but Kreia really strikes me as being the one person not sitting in the Asylum, because she sees what the Asylum is: A prison for all the "sane" people locked inside.

[GandALF]

And how did the Force achieve this "balance" with Anakin? By having the entire galaxy fight in a war, controlled on both sides by the Sith, have the entire Jedi Order annihilated.

It's explicitly stated in "Revenge" that the Clone Wars were contributing to the unbalance precisely because it was engineered by the Sith.

You have to look at the events in monomythic terms: balanced Old Republic = Davidic Israel, unbalancing Sith usurpation = Babylonian Exile (complete with the destruction of a temple), unbalanced Empire = conquered Israel, Vader overthrowing the Emperor = messiah restoring Israel. Or just Eden-Fall-Passion. Just-unjust-restored justice, freedom-tyranny-liberation, balance-unbalance-restored balance.

Besides why would Kreia find the deaths supposedly caused by the Force abhorrent? She tried to wipe out the Jedi!

The release of anger maybe, but not being angry.

Exactly. Luke uses his light side to keep his anger (which is part of his dark side) in check, if he released his anger he would have fed his dark side and become unbalanced.

[ScreamingDoom]

Besides why would Kreia find the deaths supposedly caused by the Force abhorrent? She tried to wipe out the Jedi!

Because they didn't choose. The Force, by its very nature, works against the agency of individuals. With the Force, there is no free will; absolutely everything is predestined. All of that death and suffering wasn't because any individual willed it, but because the Force did. Every living thing in the galaxy is a slave to the Force and that is why Kreia hates it and the loss of life... fundamentally, the Force makes life pointless. Nothing you ever do -- for good or ill -- will truly affect anything. The same events will just replay again and again and again with slightly different variations until the suns themselves burn out. She wanted to wipe out the Jedi not for revenge or the sheer destruction of it, but because the Jedi philosophy is fundamentally flawed, just as much as the Sith. If there was any hope of people to wrench away from the suffocating grasp of the Force, both needed to be destroyed (or, at least, crippled to the point where a different philosophy would have time to take root).

On the other hand, the mere existence of the Exhile means that the control the Force exerts isn't absolute, so Kreia might be wrong about free will. Either that, or the Exhile was also part of the plan manipulated by the Force (since, canonly, she refused to remain at Malachor 5 in order to teach the 'fuck you, Force! I do what I want' path).