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Clone Wars Gets Deep

I’ve been watching the animated Clone Wars “micro-series” on the Cartoon Network. Each episode is only three minutes, and up to this point, almost every episode has just focussed on one battle scene each. Pretty good fun, but there’d been very little plot or substance, so I didn’t feel compelled to recommend it.

However, I thought tonight’s episode, Chapter Fourteen, was particularly interesting. If you haven’t figured out where Lucas will probably be going in Episode III, you might not want to read this.

It opened with a Jedi Master providing the very last lesson to her Padawan to complete her training. They were in a sacred cave full of crystals, and the Padawan was placing one crystal at the heart of a new lightsaber she was assembling via the Force as her Master intoned:

The crystal is the heart of the blade.
The heart is the crystal of the Jedi.
The Jedi is the crystal of the Force.
The Force is the blade of the heart.

All are intertwined:
The crystal,
The blade,
The Jedi.

You are one.

Which I thought was pretty deep and poetic. And I wonder whether anybody ever gave that lesson to Luke, who seems to have built his lightsaber himself, not in the presence of Yoda or Obi-Wan. Darth Vader seemed to believe this completed his training, but then again, he didn’t know that Yoda wasn’t with Luke when he built it. Note that Obi-Wan and Yoda stressed to Luke that he actually wasn’t a Jedi yet. He had to face Vader again.

It was only when facing Vader that Luke learned the truth. That the Dark Side and the Light Side of the Force are one. Two dependent opposites that need each other and are both necessary for balance. The Yin and the Yang.

Perhaps this is what the prophecy meant when it said Anakin would bring balance to the Force. For example, Jedi completely eschewed all emotions until Luke. One of the movie posters for Episode II says, “A Jedi Shall Not Know Anger. Nor Hatred,” on one side, showing Anakin. Near Amidala, it continues, “Nor Love.” Implying the folly of such a goal. Also note that Luke was able to do so well when he harnessed his anger, not when he repressed it like the Jedis in Episode I & II. And in the end, he was motivated to do everything he did out of love for his friends — and his father. Emotion and reason are both necessary.

This isn’t exactly new to sci-fi. The original Star Trek was pointing out that same thing, with McCoy (all emotion), Spock (all logic), and Kirk (the ideal balance between overacting and badly uneven delivery).

Anyway, that was the main interesting part. It was followed by a typical battle scene, but one where the ending was somewhat of a surprise. The season is over, and there are no plans to rerun them, but maybe they will when before the next season starts in March of 2005. There’s also some additional discussion on Slashdot.