jewishcomeradebot:

You know, that whole thing about Anakin being a false Messiah made me think. Anakin never did do what the Prophecy of the Chosen One said he would, did he? Even if we take the narrow Jedi interpretation of it.

Like he was supposed to a) destroy the Sith and b) bring balance to the Force. But he only managed part one, dying before he could do anything about part two.

Which makes him the Star Wars equivalent of a false Messiah. He never did fulfill the requirements.

Of course we end up once again with the question, what is “bringing balance to the Force” supposed to mean anyway? To destroy the dark side? Or the ability to use the dark side?

In that case not only did Anakin fall woefully short of accomplishing that, the Jedi were truly blind if they thought just destroying the Sith would do that. While the Sith were the strongest dark side group, they were not alone. Not by a long short. We have the Witches of Dathomir just for a start.

And then there’s Yoda’s words about fear, anger and hate leading to the dark side. Which essentially means that the dark side lives in all of us and cannot be erased.

A balance between light and dark? Except the dark is shown as being pretty constantly evil. Like tyranny and genocide kinda evil. Plus that would never have gone down with the Jedi would it?

So how do we bring balance to the Force? And how do we prevent the galaxy from repeating the same story over and over again? That Finn, Rey, Poe, Rose and all the rest 20, 30 or 40 years down the line will be facing the same struggle all over again, the way Leia, Han and Luke did?

“The only fight, against the dark side. Trough the ages evil has taken many forms. The Sith, The Empire. And now the First Order. We must face them. Fight them. All of us.”

These are Maz’s words to Rey when she asks what fight it is Maz is talking about.

The difference between Judaism and Christianity in the view of bringing about the Messianic age is that Christians – white Christians at the least – sits around passively for it to come when God decides it. For Jewish people it is an active process we’re all a part of, and it won’t arrive until we have done the work and are ready for it. It’s a state we work to achieve, not something arbitrarily bestowed upon us from on high.

In the original Star Wars the universe’s equivalence of the “Messianic age” is bestowed upon the galaxy when Anakin kills Palpatine and dies himself, erasing his own sins and bring “balance”.

In Jewish eyes it’s just not that easy.

As I already pointed out Anakin failed in doing anything to address the “imbalance” of the Force. And the rest of the galaxy seemed content to go on its own fucked up way and continue as it had always been. Perhaps because the fight against evil and “the dark side” was something that resided solely in the hands of the Jedi to their way of thinking.

Maz tells us no. It is on everyone if the fight against evil is to be won, if the dark side is to be defeated and the “Messianic age” arrive.

So where does that leave our heroes?

Well, with a whole lot of work cut out for them that’s for sure. And the ST’s conclusion will not be the Christian fairy tale ending that George gave the OT trio. The fight against the dark side and the balancing of the Force is almost certainly going to reach far beyond the ending of IX.

That doesn’t mean that it won’t be hopeful or optimistic. In our current political climate what better message to send that the idea that we can all make a difference. That a better tomorrow is in our own hands. That we can win this fight, though it will be a long one, but we have to stand together. We have to each do our part. We can’t wait for other to come save us, nor should we passively expect rescue. Doing that leaves only room for evil and oppression to win.

But if we do? Then we can win. We can bring evil, the dark side, to its knees.

So rather than passively waiting for an anointed family or an order of clerics to come save them, or the government for that matter (the clerics were government enforcers in the old Republic era, with all the problems that implies), the peoples of the galaxy must rise up themselves to fight oppression? Works for me, and I think in its bumbling and confusing way TLJ set up that endgame by showing the downfall of the “holy family” and “priestly class.” Rey’s faith in both was cruelly dashed by the very men she pinned her hopes on, and she had to realize that she, not they, were the hope the galaxy was looking for.

The same theme can be seen in a roundabout way through Finn’s story. He was trained to see himself as either helpless to stop the overwhelming force of the FO or, to the extent he had any effect, as an expendable cog in the machine. Therefore he swung from the extreme of wanting to run because he couldn’t hope to do anything except get killed, to the other extreme of accepting his own death as a cost in the fight. Rose’s and then Luke’s intervention flipped the script by showing that no, he was not expendable, in fact it’s one of the “chosen” ones who would sacrifice himself for the ordinary Resistance fighters.

Poe’s story can also be seen as him going from reliance on Leia to being a leader in his own right, again in a terribly executed plot but that seems to be the intention. The comics show this angle more clearly by portraying him respectfully disagreeing with Leia on a matter that concerned the very heart and soul of the Resistance and reaching a compromise, then turning out to be right and saving the day. Because Leia trusts him, for a good reason! Because Poe has, in fact, never been a selfish gloryhound who sacrifices people right and left for the sake of victory! And the Rebellion/Resistance has never been the kind of military where the superior expects to be obeyed because she says so without question or input, which is a terrible way to make decisions anyway!

Salt aside, though, I can see TLJ following up from TFA to set up IX for a giant “fuck you” to the supposed Skywalker legacy and for the fight against evil to be a broad-based one, not just a slugout between superpowered beings.