The Failure of “The Failure of the Grey Jedi”
Before we begin, two things to keep in mind:
- This is a response to the YouTube video “The Failure of the Grey Jedi” uploaded by a user whose name on YouTube is “.” which I have included here for those who have not watched it. Watching the video is not necessary, as my points stand alone, but may help clarify why I touch on some points and not others. As his username might cause grammatical confusion, I will be referring to this YouTuber as “he” through most of this article.
- Once an author releases content into the world, appreciation and interpretation of that work is a joint endeavor between the author and the audience. As such, Lucas’s interpretations of his work that are never explicitly stated or shown in published work must be seen as just that: an interpretation, not Canon (especially as he no longer owns Lucasfilm). While his interpretations are valid contributions to discourse on the topic, he lost the right for his interpretations to be law in Star Wars Canon the moment his films were released in theaters. While members of the Star Wars audience are certainly allowed to consider his interpretations while forming their opinions, “but George Lucas said” is not a refutation of someone else’s interpretation of published media.
My criticisms of the argument presented in this video boil down to a four-part discussion: he fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the light and dark sides, which leads him to (ironically) misunderstand balance in the force; these two major misunderstandings and a flawed concept of “failure” lead to a completely inaccurate characterization of the grey Jedi.
He misunderstands the force: He describes the struggle between the light and dark as akin to Nietzsche’s Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy, which fundamentally mischaracterizes how the light and dark sides work — claiming that to be “light side” is to see the force as an ally, while to be “dark side” is to use the force as a tool. This is a reasonable conclusion if the movies are taken in a vacuum, but critically flawed if you dive into the lore, whether from Canon or Legends material.
The light and dark sides of the force exist outside the users who interact with it. This is clearly illustrated by the fact that planets that are largely uninhabited can be strong in one side or the other (see Dagobah or Ahch-To (Luke’s home as of The Last Jedi) for dark side examples). I’ll redefine the dichotomy so that it’s truer to the lore as a whole.
The light side is tranquility, zen, peace, and the absence of emotion. Performing incredible feats with the light side of the force can only be achieved by reaching a meditative state of pure emptiness. The dark side, on the other hand, is raw emotion and passion; whether fear, anger, despair, pain, or any other powerful emotion (I theorize excessive joy could be used in this way as well, but I’ve never seen it demonstrated, I doubt it could ever be used reliably), dark side users employ emotion as their method of interacting with the force. This is why the dark side is so easy to slip into, and why it’s so easy to grow so quickly within the dark side: giving in to emotion is easy. Achieving the kind of inner peace that a light side master employs, on the other hand, requires years of training and self-exploration. If dark siders must definitionally see the force as a tool, then Lord Momin, a Sith who saw his purpose in life as creating in service to the dark side, could never have been so incredibly powerful as to nearly kill Vader.
As for the Jedi themselves, their principles are not about “pure selflessness” in the way he talks about; it’s not about what’s good for the galaxy, but about being what they believe to be morally “right”; they blatantly ignore the will of the force and see “balance” as all light and no dark. In addition, they no longer follow the will of the force itself anymore, and have long since become the enforcement arm of the galactic senate. The teachings of the Jedi try to say otherwise, but time and time again they illustrate that they’re really only in it for their team. This has resulted in the Jedi becoming blind to the will of the force by the time of the prequels, with Qui-Gon being the only remaining Jedi who still pays it heed and can feel its flow.
He misunderstands balance: Ironically, while he claims people like me misunderstand the concept of balance in the force, his whole discussion of “balance” is fundamentally flawed for two huge reasons: he falls prey to the lies of the Jedi about balance being all light and no dark, and he writes off everything that Anakin does in the prequels.
He starts from the premise that the Jedi are right and that “balance” means destroying the dark and leaving only the light, but in no other realm of fiction or reality does that even make sense. For one thing, the Jedi are not about “pure selflessness” in the way he talks about; as I mentioned before, they have a moral superiority complex while acting as little more than the enforcement arm of the galactic senate. They blatantly ignore the will of the force and see “balance” as all light and no dark. Balance cannot be purely Light.
There’s plenty of lore that discusses balance in Star Wars; when one side grows too strong, upsetting the balance, the force acts to reset the scales. As Sidious points out, the Jedi had kept power for far too long. Their order had grown so stale that they forgot what the force even is, and the force acted through Anakin and wiped them out, acting as the embodiment of the will of the force, as Sidious had hoped. What he did not predict (though his master, Plagueis understood this truth) was that Anakin was an agent of the force, not of the dark side; he was the force’s way of reacting to Sidious and Plagueis attempting to push their own will upon the force decades earlier, and wiped out the Sith as well in the end.
Qui-Gon understood what many Jedi didn’t: that bringing balance to the force would be a reckoning for the Jedi as well as the Sith, and that the balancing would not be a pleasant one. It’s also worth noting that the snippet of the video that features Lucas’s opinion on this topic does not refute this idea; Anakin embracing the dark side was the wrong decision, and destroying the Sith there did bring balance, because the light and dark were not in any way balanced until he did so.
He mischaracterizes the grey Jedi: We’ll approach this one in steps, using 2 direct quotes from the video.
“The true underlying meaning of the grey Jedi is that they are “humane Jedi” that have not become entirely zen, yet have not also fallen to the temptations of the dark side.”
The true underlying meaning of the grey Jedi is that they put the force first, rather than seeking to impose an ideology upon it. This is exemplified by the Grey Code, the only code of the three to start with a discussion of what the force is, rather than ending with the force after discussing an ideology. This is illustrated through individuals like Qui-Gon, who was far more interested in the will of the force than the will of the council, and Jolee, who essentially obtained enlightenment on the floor of Kashyyyk after recognizing that the council of his time was not interested in meting out justice.
“The middle is not a third source of power from the force, but apathy.”
This conclusion is just stupid (I expand on this more in the next section). Who in the Order is more empathetic than Qui-Gon? However, the premise is not incorrect; the middle is not a third source, but a third path, seeking to embrace both sides to treat the force as a whole entity. Some things are only possible through the dark side (abilities like Force Drain come to mind), and some only possible through the light (like Force Heal, a light side ability seen for a long time in Legends, and more recently in The Rise of Skywalker), but to reject one side is to reject the idea of the force as a whole entity, taking from it only that which you believe empowers your morality. This is why the Grey Code starts from the force and explores morality and its dichotomous nature, and the other two codes start from morality and justify it through the force.
It’s time now to return to a discussion of what makes these Jedi “grey” in the first place, in opposition to their light-side counterparts (spoiler: it’s not “falling to temptation” or anything so dramatic). The core of the difference in ideologies between the Jedi and the grey Jedi can be represented best by exploring Buddhism vs Taoism. The Jedi are, at core, Buddhists; they seek to separate themselves from the world to achieve inner peace and enlightenment, believing this to be their path to becoming one with the force. This, however, ignores the fundamental core of what the force is; as Obi-Wan so eloquently puts it, “It’s an energy field created by all living beings. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the universe together.” The idea of pulling away from the galaxy (the source of the force) to become one with the force is utterly farcical (you might achieve inner peace, but you can’t perfectly join with a thing by rejecting what generates it).
The grey Jedi, on the other hand, embody the philosophy of Taoism: by connecting to the world and being at peace with what is, one can achieve enlightenment and peace, but also truly become one with the force; it’s no accident that Qui-Gon was the first force user we know in recent galactic history of to become (at least partially) a force ghost. In a similar vein, it’s somewhat amusing to examine the way Obi-Wan and Yoda lived under the empire: both of them lived the same way that grey Jedi tend to, living at peace with the world and nature, but they never fully grasped what they were actually doing, still trying to pass on the flawed ideology of the Jedi to Luke. You could even call the fact they each found a nexus of dark side energy to live near (Tatooine and Dagobah) “embracing the dark” like the grey Jedi do, even if they don’t admit it.
He misunderstands failure: Perhaps the most fundamental part of my refutation is this: failure is impermanent, and apathy is rarely absolute. First, we can explore exactly why his (Jedi) principle of the permanence of falling is wrong, and then we can look at why the grey Jedi shouldn’t be considered failures in the first place.
He points to Luke as an example of grey principles of attachment leading to the dark side, but this is a perfect example of why he’s wrong. Luke absolutely gives in to the dark; but just as Obi-Wan and Yoda seemed to believe was impossible, he succumbed… and then returned. He embraced his passions, fell to the dark, and then mastered himself once again, tossing away his weapon and standing up to darkness. It was his example that proved to Vader that this was even possible, as — in their conversation on the surface of Endor — he claimed that returning to the light was impossible for him, and that it was “too late.” (It was actually Luke’s example that led to the destruction of the Sith at all, so points to the philosophy of the grey Jedi there).
He points to the origins of several grey Jedi and claims that withdrawing from the world was driven by the grey principles. This is incorrect. What we see time and time again is Jedi who grow disgusted with the Order, leave, come to the tenants of the Grey Code (or similar), and then return to the galaxy at large when the force commands. Jolee was heart-sick and full of bitter regret, and he felt that the order he had trusted was incapable of justice; he sought solitude to heal, and when the force called upon him to step up and take part in the galaxy once more, he answered the call (though, granted, he grumbled like an old man the whole way). The Bendu was never a part of the galaxy at large, and simply lived in isolation, but when the time came to act, he did so, bringing doom to all who brought war to his world and threatening Thrawn by foretelling his defeat in the process. Ahsoka, yet another who left the Jedi in disgust, retreated to heal her shattered heart; but just as Jolee did, when the force called upon her to stand and meet the darkness, she did so, eyes wide open and damn the consequences. In fact, in EU lore, Qui-Gon almost left the order because the Jedi he loved was killed, which led him more fully to the Grey Code. This is not apathy, and ultimately, is not true failure. Kreia is therefore not unique in her beliefs, but instead a paragon of what the grey Jedi should strive to be. Not all Jedi were Yoda, and not all grey Jedi are Qui-Gon or Kreia. That doesn’t mean the philosophies themselves are failures by definition.
Finally, we should discuss the best way to approach training grey Jedi. I have never advocated that force-sensitives should train themselves, or be taught dark powers from the start; I believe the best approach is to begin their training in similar way as the Jedi, teaching them to master themselves. However, you cannot simply ignore half of the force and expect to live in balance with the galaxy: when trainees are strong enough to master their emotions and embrace the dark without falling to it, they must be taught to feel and sense it at a minimum. However, you must also teach the philosophy of the Grey Code from the start, being open about why younglings must begin with the light, and grow to understand the dark. That, in my opinion, has the highest probability of success. Any ideology that blinds itself to half of its most potent pillar is doomed to failure, but balance must start from serenity for the sake of caution. His point of Luke training adults to be grey and having many of them fall is immaterial; to truly embrace the tenants of the grey Jedi requires mastering the self, something many of them probably never had a chance to do.
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