Anakin's Birth / Prophecy (SPOILER)

[Kryllith]

Before I start this off, let me first say that I've not read any spoilers or any books, reference guides, or any info on Starwars.com relating to the story in Sith. I'm drawing my conclusions based on the movies (and to an extent, Lucas's commetary) and, as such, I'm suggesting my theory on them as well.

 

Anyway, in Sith Yoda indicates that the Prophecy might have been misread, a point I've brought up a few times over the past several years. The Jedi were always under the assumption that the Prophecy meant that Anakin would bring balance to the Force by eliminating the Sith presence in the galaxy. I've always argued that the Force favors a Yin/Yang style balance, and that what the Prophecy meant was that Anakin was destined to make the Light Side and Dark Side powers in the galaxy roughly equal.

 

Given that in Phantom Menace, the Jedi far outnumber the Sith, the shift is heavily on the Light side of the Force, meaning that many many Jedi need to die to make the Prophecy come true. Granted, Anakin did not kill all the Jedi himself, but he played a major role in ensure that the future generations of Jedi didn't reach their full potential. Ultimately at the end of Sith, the only Jedi that we KNOW survived are Yoda and Obiwan, which serve to balance the force against Palpatine and Anakin and pretty much fulfill the Prophecy.

 

Ok, yes, I know that Lucas himself stated that Anakin fulfilled the Prophecy when he killed Palpatine and passed on himself. I'm not disagreeing with him. When Luke faces off against Vader at the end of Jedi, Yoda and Obiwan have died. As such, the balance has shifted again, this time in favor of the Dark Side. Vader destroys Palpatine, and then dies himself, leaving only Luke. We can see from Luke's actions in Empire and Jedi that he's not a bastion of the Light side like the Jedi in the prequals. While Luke may not complete his journey to the Darkside, we do know that he WAS headed in that direction. He may have ultimately chosen against becoming one of the Sith, but he's hardly untainted. In effect, Luke represents a Balance between the two sides, and as such represents the Yin/Yang nature of the Force.

 

That being said, let me focus on something that I feel was unresolved in the movie: the origin of Anakin. Supposedly, Anakin was generated via the will of the midichlorians. The reason I bring this up, is because Palpatine states in the telling of the legend of Plagius that Plagius has so much influence over the midichlorians that he could actually convince them to create life. Could it be then, that Anakin's conception was the result of a Sith's attempt to fulfill the prophecy (the eradication of the Jedi to bring about the initial balance)? Could Plagius (or even Palpatine or some other Sith) be the cause of Anakin's conception? I know some people might have a problem with the rather short time constraints, but Palpatine is known to be a plotter, so who know what all he'd set into motion. To that extent, perhaps the midichlorians has been instructed sometime long before Anakin's birth to produce Anakin as some appointed time...

 

Opinions?

[El Sitherino]

Balance of the force doesn't mean light side and dark side have equal number of practitioners. The jedi and the sith had to be wiped out. The jedi order had to be restarted, but the jedi were to be trained to follow the guide of the living force. The jedi excluded all emotion, the sith embraced it as their drive. The jedi used rationality to drive their decisions. Both sides had perversed the very nature of the force. The jedi are to accept their emotions, but not let them control their actions. Qui-Gon spoke of living by the will of the living force, that is what jedi are supposed to do, that's what Luke does when he sets up the academy. (or so it is implied)

 

And Plageius did not create Anakin, that was merely a false statement made by Palpatine to try and reach Anakin, he noticed it wasn't what Anakin was looking for. He then went on to say "he could even stop those he cared about from dying". That's when we saw the spark in Anakin. "He could actually save people from death?"

[DemonKing]

As for Palpy implying that Darth Plageius creating Anakin I think that Palpy was just fishing for something to strike a chord with Anakin. Since that failed he struck a chord with the stopping people from dying. [/b]

 

So where does "Anakin of the immaculate conception" come from then, if not through the influence of Palgueis/Sideous as inferred by Palpatine?

[rut-wa jodar]

another point worth considering is that if the sith did have anything to do with Anakins birth, this could mean a possible conspiracy which Qui-gon Jinn was part of. Afterall he did make obi-wan promise to train the boy, against the will of the council in EP 1.

[Kryllith]

Originally posted by InsaneSith

Balance of the force doesn't mean light side and dark side have equal number of practitioners. The jedi and the sith had to be wiped out. The jedi order had to be restarted, but the jedi were to be trained to follow the guide of the living force. The jedi excluded all emotion, the sith embraced it as their drive. The jedi used rationality to drive their decisions. Both sides had perversed the very nature of the force. The jedi are to accept their emotions, but not let them control their actions. Qui-Gon spoke of living by the will of the living force, that is what jedi are supposed to do, that's what Luke does when he sets up the academy. (or so it is implied)

 

And Plageius did not create Anakin, that was merely a false statement made by Palpatine to try and reach Anakin, he noticed it wasn't what Anakin was looking for. He then went on to say "he could even stop those he cared about from dying". That's when we saw the spark in Anakin. "He could actually save people from death?"

 

I'll agree with the idea that balancing has to do with following the will of the force rather than the dogma of either the Sith or the Jedi. Personally I'm a big supporter of Quigon, since he seemed to be more in tune with what the Force wanted rather than what the Force could be used to achieve. I still believe that the Force follows the Yin/Yang style of balance, though. If the Force is natural (and in saying so, neutral) then it's neither good nor evil and would be better balanced if those applying to their will are ultimately retaining that neutrality.

 

Of course, we agree that whatever the interpretation, the prophecy called for the elimination of the Jedi, which is in the Sith's favor. Perhaps they knew they were also at risk, but given their arrogance felt that they could avoid their own demise. Regardless, I fall back to my original question. It seems rather curious to me that Palpatine would bring up the point of someone being able to use the midichlorians to create life when supposedly Anakin WAS created this way. Perhaps it was a false statement. But then, as you said, it wasn't what Anakin was looking for, so perhaps the statement was true and simply the statement about being able to use the Force to stop someone from dying was false.

[El Sitherino]

Originally posted by DemonKing

So where does "Anakin of the immaculate conception" come from then, if not through the influence of Palgueis/Sideous as inferred by Palpatine?

Anakin was birthed by the force itself. Not that hard a concept.

[Prime]

Originally posted by DemonKing

So where does "Anakin of the immaculate conception" come from then, if not through the influence of Palgueis/Sideous as inferred by Palpatine?

Watch The Phatom Menace for the answer.

[DemonKing]

Originally posted by Prime

Watch The Phatom Menace for the answer.

 

It doesn't say anything...just that there was no father.

 

Why tell us that the Sith can create life unless for a reason?

[Prime]

Originally posted by DemonKing

It doesn't say anything...just that there was no father.

No, it also says that Anakin was likely conceived by the Midichlorians.

 

Originally posted by DemonKing

Why tell us that the Sith can create life unless for a reason?

The whole point was the Emperor manipulating Anakin into thinking that he could learn how to control life, which was his top priority. Whether what the Emperor said about that ability and his master was true or not really doesn't matter. He was using that story for his own ends, i.e. convert Anakin.

 

Having the Sith create Anakin in the context of TPM doesn't work. Why would they create a superbeing using a slave girl on a remote planet and then completely leave her alone and do nothing with the child? Surely they would do so under infinitely more controlled circumstances. There was nothing special about Shmi (she wasn't even force sensative), so why choose her? There is a galaxy full of better candidates.

[El Sitherino]

Originally posted by DemonKing

It doesn't say anything...just that there was no father.

 

Why tell us that the Sith can create life unless for a reason?

Ever hear the line "lies and deceit are their ways". Yeah, it's about the sith.

[Kryllith]

Anyone else getting sick of database errors? Seems to me whenever I try to respond to something Lucasforums decides it that it would be a good time for it to crash. Maybe, it's just me though.

 

Anyway...

 

Originally posted by Prime

No, it also says that Anakin was likely conceived by the Midichlorians.

Sure, but I'd support that argument anyway. Question is, did the Midichlorians conceive him on their own or did someone direct them to conceive him? We can argue one way or the other, but I've yet to see proof of a clear conclusion.

 

The whole point was the Emperor manipulating Anakin into thinking that he could learn how to control life, which was his top priority. Whether what the Emperor said about that ability and his master was true or not really doesn't matter. He was using that story for his own ends, i.e. convert Anakin.

Again, I agree that Palpatine's discussion was used to covert Anakin. And while the truth about Plageius power may not really matter at this stage, it still plausible that the Sith had a hand in Anakin's creation.

 

Having the Sith create Anakin in the context of TPM doesn't work. Why would they create a superbeing using a slave girl on a remote planet and then completely leave her alone and do nothing with the child? Surely they would do so under infinitely more controlled circumstances. There was nothing special about Shmi (she wasn't even force sensative), so why choose her? There is a galaxy full of better candidates.

Whether or not it works depends on how far back you want to go. I agree that impregnating some random slave girl on a remote planet could be counterproductive, although there are elements of control even in that scenario. 1) Shmi's a slave, and thus is more or less bound to her master, so she's not liable to just up and disappear, 2) as a slave, Shmi and Anakin would be afford a bit of protection since slaveowners view them as property and are liable to take steps to protect their property (it may not seem like much, but they were probably better protected than the average lowerclass non-slave) and 3) they were on a remote planet which meant the chances of Jedi involvement were small.

 

So, why not simply place them under direct Sith control? Raise him straight as a Sith? Who's to say that the Sith didn't already try this? Assuming Anakin was created by the Sith, ever consider the idea that Anakin might not have been the first attempt? For all we know there might have been countless attempts to accomplish with another was was accomplished with Anakin. Perhaps someone tried to raise a chosen one as a Sith, and it invariably resulted in someone who had to be "put down" at an early age. We've seen how reckless and power hungry Anakin was as a Padawan. Now imagine the same Anakin only corrupted since birth. Anakin as a Jedi lashed out quite a bit verbally against his Master. Anakin as a Sith Apprentice would probably have taken it further and gotten himself wiped out.

 

Perhaps the "infinitely more controlled circumstances" resulted in failure. Considering that many of the biggest discoveries in history often resulted from an accident, it could be that the Sith tried to produce numerous other "chosen one"s while controlling all the factors and failed miserably because they didn't leave anything to chance. So over time they might have lessened the overall control, in hopes that their doing so would produce the desired results. They'd still want some control, naturally, but they backed off to let nature (or perhaps, the Force) take its course.

 

With that in mind, we can take a look as Shmi. She was a slave on a remote planet, limiting her control over her location and opportunities in life. She isn't Force Sensitive, but is that necessarily a bad thing? It certainly didn't seem to lessen Anakin's power any. Besides, had she been Force Sensitive, the already close bond between her and her son would have been that much closer, and could have produced potential problems in Anakin's conversions. After all, Luke was Anakin's son and he was able to draw Anakin back from Palpatine's control. Perhaps in their earlier failures the Sith found the "chosen" children of Force Sensitives more difficult to control and opted for a mother who wasn't.

 

Despite being on an remote planet, the Jedi did get involved (there's your accident) and Anakin was brought into the Jedi order. However, because he started off as a slave in the outer reaches of space, he had different life experiences than your typical Padawan. He didn't start out at a very young age like most Padawans did. He already had developed very strong ties to his mother, and as such was more suspectible to developing similar ties to other people other than his master. Thus the remote planet served its purpose since it kept the Jedi away long enough to allow Anakin to grow enough emotionally that he couldn't just let go like other Jedi can.

 

Anyway, I'm sure this may sound like some vast conspiracy theory, but then, we are talking about the Sith, aren't we? I don't have a problem with Anakin being conceived simply by the Midichlorians without Sith involvement, but the fact that Lucas went out of his way to suggest that some Sith could indeed have the ability to coerce the Midichlorians into creating life just stinks of such a conspiracy.

[Sithxace]

welll theories are stupit, u talk as if there is a TRUTH, there is none, its not written nobody knows wha happens until george lucas decides to

[Jeff]

I do not think that Sidious and Plageius had anything to do with Anakin's conception. I think that it was truly the Force that concieved him. I mean, he is the chosen one. But the prophecy was wrong.

[OmegaNothing]

There is no right or wrong answer, its one of those things where Lucas has just left it open for the audience to believe what they want.

[Caraffa]

well sayin that the chosen one-the one who finally brought balance to the force was a "lab" experiment of plagueis and sidious is just ludicrous..If the reason behind his conception was malevolent then i dont think he would bring the balance...Beisdes it was a parthenogenesis sththat only happened in the christian religion and it was a sign that the child who was born was the Chosen One..Now we dont even know if Plagueis was Sidious master...if thats so sidious must have been more than 100 years old for he mentions that the jedi know this legend...I think that the whole Anakin was brought to life by plagueis and sidious issue is not worth discussing for its obvious that anakin was a child of the force who was used to bring it to balance...

[TK-8252]

Plagueis was Sidious's master, and Sidious did kill him, but anything further known about Plagueis cannot be known.

 

Sidious just says that the tale isn't a story the Jedi would tell you, not that the Jedi know it. Sidious is an old guy indeed, but as far as I know he's not ancient.

 

But yeah, Anakin was the Chosen One. If he was really a demon spawn then he wouldn't have killed Sidious.

[Doomie]

The prophecy about the Chosen One was a Jedi prophecy, right? And the Jedi wanted it to happen. So it must've meant something good to the Jedi.

 

Yoda seemed pretty sure that he knew what 'Balance of the Force' meant, because when everything was going to hell, and the Sith were taking control, he said that the prophecy might've been misinterpreted, implying that the more power the dark side has, the less balance there is in the Force.

 

So in conclusion, I'd say Balance in the Force means that the dark side has lost it's power.

 

Afterall, if the Force was Yin/Yang, it would be hard for the Jedi to achieve balance, and they probably wouldn't exist at all.

[Jeff]

Originally posted by Doomie

So in conclusion, I'd say Balance in the Force means that the dark side has lost it's power.

 

Afterall, if the Force was Yin/Yang, it would be hard for the Jedi to achieve balance, and they probably wouldn't exist at all.

I think you are mostly right. To bring balance to the Force, the Jedi must destroy the Sith so there are no more Dark Side Force users. Then there will no longer be a gap between the Light and Dark sides of the Force.

[Kryllith]

Originally posted by Caraffa

well sayin that the chosen one-the one who finally brought balance to the force was a "lab" experiment of plagueis and sidious is just ludicrous..If the reason behind his conception was malevolent then i dont think he would bring the balance...Beisdes it was a parthenogenesis sththat only happened in the christian religion and it was a sign that the child who was born was the Chosen One..Now we dont even know if Plagueis was Sidious master...if thats so sidious must have been more than 100 years old for he mentions that the jedi know this legend...I think that the whole Anakin was brought to life by plagueis and sidious issue is not worth discussing for its obvious that anakin was a child of the force who was used to bring it to balance...

Whether or not his conception was malelovent is a matter of opinion. Assuming that Anakin's conception was the will of the Force, and not some diabolical plan of the Sith, suggests that the prophecy serves the natural order. If that's the case, then Anakin's may very well have been destined to slaughter younglings and betray the Jedi order if it was the will of the Force. Sure, the Jedi might deem such actions as malelovent, but if such actions are what's ordained by nature (or the Force) then perhaps the views of the Jedi are wrong.

 

Besides, what's to say that the whole prophecy of the Chosen One wasn't instigated by the Sith. We already know that the Sith have the means and the methods of manipulating numerous factors behind the scenes. For all we know they Sith could have presented the prophecy into Jedi lore eons ago as an attempt to destroy the Jedi order from the inside. It could simply be that until Anakin, everything required for the fall of the Jedi never quite fell into place.

 

Originally posted by Caraffa

Yoda seemed pretty sure that he knew what 'Balance of the Force' meant, because when everything was going to hell, and the Sith were taking control, he said that the prophecy might've been misinterpreted, implying that the more power the dark side has, the less balance there is in the Force.

 

So in conclusion, I'd say Balance in the Force means that the dark side has lost it's power.

 

Afterall, if the Force was Yin/Yang, it would be hard for the Jedi to achieve balance, and they probably wouldn't exist at all.

That's the point though. The Jedi wouldn't be able to achieve balance because they're placing their own strictures on what they believe is good and proper use of the Force. Quigon spoke of the Living Force as an entity which guides all life provided that life is willing to listen. While he was a Jedi, he had problems with the code, as indicated in The Phantom Menace when Obiwan tells him, "If you would just follow the code you would be on the council." It appears to me that one of the reasons Quigon was so strident in getting Anakin trained is because he was actively following the Living Force rather than the code, and apparentely the Force wanted Anakin to be trained. It just turns out that perhaps it wanted him trained so he could eliminate the legions of Jedi whose very adherence to the code may have been detrimental to the entrophic laws of nature. Heck, even the name of the Jedi has the word "order" in it.

 

As for Yoda misinterpreting the prophecy, well the Jedi apparently interpreted the balance as eliminating the Sith and their dark influence. As such, Yoda's indication that there might be a misinterpretation of the prophecy suggests that he was beginning to believe that bringing balance to the Force meant destroying the Jedi Order.

[Kurgan]

According to Lucas on the Star Wars DVD commentaries, the Force is out of balance because of the Sith.

 

HOWEVER, Lucas could always back down and change his mind, claiming he was only "interpreting the Prophecy from the Jedi's point of view for the audience."

 

The whole "yin/yang" thing is a common interpretation, but apparently not what Lucas had in mind.

 

In TPM the Jedi Council talks about the prophecy before they learn of Darth Maul's identity (Ki Adi Mundi scoffs at the idea of the Sith returning after a thousand years). So did they notice the Force was "out of balance" before that? Or were they just spouting the prophecy line and grasping at straws? If everything was just fine, why bother trying to follow this crazy old prophecy? Don't the Jedi have the ability to see the future anyway? ChefElf says on his site "If broken it is not, fix it do you not"

 

If Sideous was dampening out their powers and screwing with the Force all his life, then the Force must have been out of balance for a long time. Heck, it may have been out of balance for thousands of years if the Sith were always this powerful in hiding. Who knows!

 

The whole "The Jedi were too complacent and had to be wiped out to break the galaxy out of its lethargy" is very Dune-esque and could be cool, but so far that hasn't been confirmed or denied.

 

We'll see what Lucas says about it on the ROTS DVD in November...

 

 

As to Plagueis, he's "officially" (C-Level canon) Palpatine's Master per the novelisation and Visual Dictionary. As to his creating Anakin, that's pure conjecture. In early Script Drafts though apparently it was in fact true (or at least was what Palpatine SAID really happened.. in the movie he just kind of hints at it, in either case he could still be lying, as he was lying about the "apprentice" knowing everything.. since if he himself was the apprentice, he later admitted not having "achieved" that power).

[Astrotoy7]

Interesting that a character mentioned in the movies gets C level canon But of course, sidious never fully clarifies it does he...

 

There is a recent Rolling Stone interview where the interviewer directly asks GL something along the lines of "Did the Sith create anakin"

 

His response was that he kept is ambigious quite deliberately. As it heightened the mystery around anakins creation. Whether it was actually true or not did not matter as a result, as it became a tidbit palaptine threw to anakin to lure him towards the dark side...

 

It will be cool to hear the DVD commentary in November. That conversation is a long scene so GL can lay it out straight ( I hope they dont spend that whole time talking about the MonCal water ballet damnit)

 

mtfbwya

[Doomie]

In TPM the Jedi Council talks about the prophecy before they learn of Darth Maul's identity (Ki Adi Mundi scoffs at the idea of the Sith returning after a thousand years). So did they notice the Force was "out of balance" before that? Or were they just spouting the prophecy line and grasping at straws? If everything was just fine, why bother trying to follow this crazy old prophecy? Don't the Jedi have the ability to see the future anyway? ChefElf says on his site "If broken it is not, fix it do you not"

 

You raise an interesting point. I think that Unbalance can probably be sensed, since you can sense distrubances in the Force. Perhaps Unbalance in the Force isn't necissarily caused by the Sith, which is why they would know about it, but not about the Sith.

[Kurgan]

Originally posted by Astrotoy7

Interesting that a character mentioned in the movies gets C level canon But of course, sidious never fully clarifies it does he...

 

Not the character of Darth Plagueis (though Palpy is extremely vague... I guess all that's G-Level canon is that Palpy tells a story about a character by that name, claiming it as a Sith Legend, which it may or may not really be) is C-Level... only that Plagueis really is Palpatine's master, and the same character being referred to in his "story."

 

It's like the Outrider appearing in ANH:SE. Just because we see the ship flying by in the background doesn't make everything in the Shadows of the Empire game/comic/novel all G-Level, just that one detail, that a ship of the same make & model exists at that time. It all "Fits together" but it's categorized that way.

 

There is a recent Rolling Stone interview where the interviewer directly asks GL something along the lines of "Did the Sith create anakin"

 

His response was that he kept is ambigious quite deliberately. As it heightened the mystery around anakins creation. Whether it was actually true or not did not matter as a result, as it became a tidbit palaptine threw to anakin to lure him towards the dark side...

 

Well that's certainly a far cry from all the fans who on their first viewing said it was "obvious."

 

I mean using your imagination, best case scenario, assuming any possibility is true, boom, you've got it. But without the supporting official statements there's plenty of room for doubting such a claim, especially given Palpy's tendancy to spout lies or half truths for his own benefit. Very interesting though.

 

It will be cool to hear the DVD commentary in November. That conversation is a long scene so GL can lay it out straight ( I hope they dont spend that whole time talking about the MonCal water ballet damnit)

 

Or have Ben Burt (?) talking about how he made all the sound effects in that scene. Arrggh, you did a great job Mr. Sound Effects Man, but can't we get some story commentary during the important scenes? It's like he bribed the Lowry Digital guys to give him more air time for the OT DVD's... heh

 

Anyway, yeah.. something like that.

[Kurgan]

Originally posted by Doomie

You raise an interesting point. I think that Unbalance can probably be sensed, since you can sense distrubances in the Force. Perhaps Unbalance in the Force isn't necissarily caused by the Sith, which is why they would know about it, but not about the Sith.

 

Also, if the Force was (for the sake of argument) "out of balance" for 1,000 years (while the Sith were hiding) and maybe even 2,000 years if we go from the time of the Sith emergance (according to the TPM novelisation, forgetting any ancient Sith Empires from the TOTJ comics for example)... wouldn't the Jedi be "used" to the Force feeling like this? Wouldn't they be used to it since this is all they've ever known?

 

However, the ROTS novel disagrees with this idea since it gives the impression (from Obi-Wan's point of view) that Kenobi remembers a time from his youth when the the Force felt more real and didn't have this "shrouded" sense to it. So apparently it's only been like this for less than 35 years (if Obi-Wan is in his late 30's by the time of ROTS). So how did Palpatine hide from everyone all this time? Then again we can ask how the Sith hid all this time... but most of the Sith I bet weren't Senators...

[Boxah]

There is no answer, it's been left to the audience. It's interesting to read the theories but battling it out is never going to provide proof enough to have a definitive answer.