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star wars - Why did the Jedi want to bring balance to the Force?


During the Prequel trilogy, the Jedi wanted to bring balance to the Force, in accordance with a prophecy. There seemed to be a general agreement that this was a 'good thing', but a disagreement with the assertion that Anakin was the one to do it.


Why did the Jedi Council believe it was good to bring balance to the Force? The Republic was mighty (in theory), the Council was established as THE source of Force users, the Sith were thought extinct, and the number of Dark Jedi was apparently very, very low.


It seemed, for all intents and purposes, as if the Force was strongly imbalanced in favor of the Light side...so why did the Council want to 'balance' it?



Answer



The simple answer is that the Council knew Anakin was a critical player in the events of the future, but they didn't know how or why. They had no clue what bringing balance to the Force entailed. Looking back, it is obvious, but in the canon, they didn't. In fact, read this quote from the Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith book, by Matthew Stover (p. 213, hardback, first edition):



"Yes. Always in motion, the future is." Yoda lifted his head and his eyes narrowed to thoughtful slits. "And the prophecy, misread it could have been."


Mace looked even grimmer than usual. "Since the fall of Darth Bane more than a millennium ago, there have been hundreds of thousands of Jedi -- hundreds of thousands of Jedi feeding the light with each work of their hands, with each breath, with every beat of their hearts, bringing justice, building civil society, radiating peace, acting out of selfless love for all living things -- and in all these thousand years, there have been only two Sith at any time. Only two. Jedi create light, but the Sith do not create darkness. They use the darkness that is always there. That has always been there. Greed and jealousy, aggression and lust and fear -- these are all natural to sentient beings. The legacy of the jungle. Our inheritance from the dark."



"I'm sorry, Master Windu, but I'm not sure I follow you. Are you saying -- to follow your metaphor -- that the Jedi have cast too much light? From what I have seen these past years, the galaxy has not become all that bright a place." [My note: Obi-Wan speaking here.]


"All I'm saying is that we don't know. We don't even truly understand what it means to bring balance to the Force. We have no way of anticipating what this may involve."



All bold emphasis is mine, but italics were in the original text. I typed this by hand, so there may be typos in there, but the gist is there.


This book is considered G-level canon, so I consider it to be a very valid source. More info on the levels can be found on this Wikipedia page.



On another note, he did indeed bring balance to the Force when he killed Palpatine in the end. It's an interesting twist, given that one would think at the end of Episode III that the prophecy was referring to raising the level of darkness to that of the light -- but not so.


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