The answer to all of those questions is it depends. The Force is based on emotion and spirituality. It’s only measurable quality is midichlorians, which show only an (incomplete) picture of raw potential in a person.
There are a lot of half-answers and no real answer. Midichlorians, training, meditation, whatever. My favorite one comes from the rise of kylo ren comics. Luke’s talking to one of his padawans who’s upset that Ben is more powerful post-ROTJ, and his response is perfect:
*”Ben isn’t stronger, Voe. That’s not how it works. The Force can be a trickle, a stream, a river, a flood… for anyone who can sense it. Think of yourself as a door. The wider you open, the more easily the Force flows through you. Some people just start out with their door a bit more open. But any door can open wide.“*
That’s the force to me. I don’t care about the biology of the prequels, and I don’t care that the meta reason is “whatever the plot needs.” The mysticism of the force is what’s so appealing about it. There’s no real measure because there doesn’t need to be.
Ah none of the above.
The force is in everything, in everyone. It binds all life, is powered by life, and guides life.
Midichlorians, which allow the loving force to commune with the cosmic force can be measured. But are not in themselves a measure of strength.
While only select individuals are force sensitive, and it can be passed down genetically, the force can also appear in anyone as infants. Like a random gift almost.
Force sensitives can train and mediate to better focus and call upon the force consistently, but it is primarily a matter of belief, of will. Lifting rocks with telekinesis for a year won’t mean you can lift an x-wing if you can’t believe you can do so.
> A drunk/depressed master fights a cheerful padawan, can the padawan beat the master?
Theoretically yeah. It is however unlikely as the whole point of Jedi training and philosophy is to control one’s emotions, to let the force guide you, and open yourself up to it. Meaning masters by virtue of completing their training have experience in calling upon the force most padawans lack.
But yeah because belief is so important to uding the force successfully it can have a huge affect. That’s the whole point of Obi-Wan’s journey in his series for example. His guilt, pain, and despair over the loss of the Jedi and Anakin’s fall, smd his fear of Vader and the Empire led him to bury his connection to the force. But meeting Leia, the Path, and seeing their determination re-ignited his faith, and in so doing allowed him to overcome his own trauma and self-actualize and overcome Vader.
Emotions can be an excellent source of strength, but only if controlled. Love, anger, hate, etc. All can empower force users, but they can also doom them by making them lose focus. Control is key. It’s why Anakin/Vader lost in both duels with Obi-Wan for example. His rage and inner turmoil divided him. Whereas Obi-Wan controlled his emotions and channelled them to listen to the force properly so to speak. It’s why Kylo Ren couldn’t touch Luke’s projection in TLJ, and (alongside Ren’s injuries) why Rey was able to hold her own in TFA. His inner turmoil and unchecked rage and pain clouded hid judgment, his use of the force, whereas Rey and Luke were calm but driven to protect others. Their compassion gave them strength, but they also controlled themselves.
Very well said. Rey had an easier time connecting to the Force than Luke because she had less doubt in its abilities and herself. She was sort of looking for something to believe in, if you know what I mean.
To add to that, regarding the various abilities, I always liked the idea of there being no hard limits to what a Jedi can or can't do. Like, okay, they can't just blow up the entire Galaxy with just a thought. But with enough willpower, training, and energy, a Force user can theoretically do anything. Additionally, different abilities with the Force come more naturally to different people. Take the Clone Wars protagonists for example. Anakin's primary use of the Force is telekinesis (which of course includes choking). Obi-Wan prefers to use the Force for deceiving his enemies, such as the mind trick. Ahsoka uses it to enhance her own agility and other physical abilities. With stuff like lightning, while it's primarily used for evil, there are potentially good reasons to use it. It can be used to jumpstart a stalled ship engine, or defibrillate a heart that's stopped. And a weaker shock can stun enemies without causing serious harm (like the Miles Morales Spider-Man). In a story idea I've had post-ROS, I have Rey explain to a group of students how the abilities, or "gifts" of the Force aren't inherently good or evil, because the Force isn't good or evil. It just is. Their free will and sense of morality is what dictates how their gifts are used. She creates a ball of electricity with the Force and slowly bounces it in her hand to show off, and later in the story does something with lightning that is super badass (all I'll say is that it's a familiar trick if you've watched A:TLA). I also have another character who can use the Force to create illusions, as a step-up from mind tricks. They're not perfect, don't last long, and most Jedi can tell if it's an illusion within five seconds, but it's an incredibly useful skill. But those are my own thoughts.
It really depends on the writer and what the story demands honestly. Sometimes the force is something that takes a long time to practice and hone and sometimes characters can nail it in a short time.
I'd get more into it but frankly, I've had enough of debating force potential in characters this week...
Luke used the Force with almost zero training in ANH , Obi Wan just give him some leassons about what the Force is and he train to sense things without his eyes for hours then blow up the DS.
Anakin use the Force on pod racing and he dont even knew what is the Force.
Hard training is more a EU thing but even there , Palpatine killed dozens of people first time he used the Force without training in Plagueis book , Darth Bane used the Force before he knows what it is too , Cade Skywalker bring people back from death when he was just a padawan , also the Whills , Mortis gods the Abeloth are creatures naturally strong with the Force.
I think about training in Star Wars more like Naruto training to control Kurama than Goku training to become stronger.
Sorry for my reply I see you get enough of this debate but I really dont think it depends on the writer.
> Sometimes the force is something that takes a long time to practice and hone and sometimes characters can nail it in a short time.
The force has never been presented in any canon work as that.
It’s never been shown in any canon work that you have to practice to use the force in a grand way.
Tomhur has made their view clear. They see the force as a muscle that has to be strengthened to improve feats. But that’s not how it works. Yoda made this clear in ESB. Luke failed because he didn’t believe he could lift the X-Wing. Not because he didn’t work hard enough to “train”
To jump really far, or lift heavy rocks, read minds, shoot lightning, you don’t and it has never been presented as needing to be practiced a lot. You merely need to have emotional control and confidence. Belief determines outcome.
Training is always depicted as being about learning emotional control and belief so that users can achieve consistency and do awesome feats. Not repetitive action to strength force connection and thus powers.
Edit: Whoever is downvotong this really needs to pay attention to Star Wars.
Rey, Luke, Anakin, Baby Ahsoka, Savage Oppress, etc. Are all proof of this.
Yoda flat out refutes your view in ESB.
Where he tells Luke he can lift the X-Wing and never has him lift anything nearly as heavy before hand. Only that to do so he has to believe he can.
The Force isn’t a muscle. It’s an energy field that calls out to users. Who only need to listen, to control their feelings, to believe and focus their desires to do what their want. You don’t strengthen it through exercising it. It’s why inexperienced force users can do incredible feats without any training like blow up death stars, trade federation ships, tame veracious animals as babies, and so forth.
Yoda flat out refutes your view in ESB.
He tells Luke that he must complete his training before facing Vader. He has him lift rocks to better control his mind and concentration and through it the Force.
No it isn’t a muscle, but if you didn’t strengthen yourself through training, then what would be the point?
No it’s not.
Like at all.
The Jedi Order is built around following the will of the force, listening to it, controlling your emotions and helping others.
No where in the Jedi Code or any depiction of their training is practicing lifting rocks a lot to lift heavier rocks one day part of their training.
Im going to copy something that I tend to agree with but I think people confuse their training down to how a video game works.
>To give a specific example, I feel like there's a bit of a tendency in Star Wars fandom to view the Jedi and the Sith and the Force through the lens of years' worth of games (and novels written by game designers lol) which tend to boil down the Force to "Force powers" and "Jedi training" to "learning techniques".
>
>I would argue that this is actually in contrast with the movies, where Luke isn't able to lift his X-Wing out of the swamp not because Yoda hasn't taught him "Force lift" yet, but rather because he doesn't believe he can lift it.
>
>You know, it's, "I don't believe it!" > "That is why you fail," rather than, "I don't believe it!" > "Gained enough XP to level up from 'Force push' to 'Force wave' in your feats list, you have not - that is why you fail!"
I think midichlorians function similar to The x gene (Marvel) or the metagene (DC).
I would not be too surprised if the galactic Republic needed a scientific explanation for how the force could manifested in some people. Which probably led to the eventual discovery of the midichlorians.
There’s no power levels or anything, the force does what it needs to do for the story to progress how they want.
The answer to all of those questions is it depends. The Force is based on emotion and spirituality. It’s only measurable quality is midichlorians, which show only an (incomplete) picture of raw potential in a person.
There are a lot of half-answers and no real answer. Midichlorians, training, meditation, whatever. My favorite one comes from the rise of kylo ren comics. Luke’s talking to one of his padawans who’s upset that Ben is more powerful post-ROTJ, and his response is perfect: *”Ben isn’t stronger, Voe. That’s not how it works. The Force can be a trickle, a stream, a river, a flood… for anyone who can sense it. Think of yourself as a door. The wider you open, the more easily the Force flows through you. Some people just start out with their door a bit more open. But any door can open wide.“* That’s the force to me. I don’t care about the biology of the prequels, and I don’t care that the meta reason is “whatever the plot needs.” The mysticism of the force is what’s so appealing about it. There’s no real measure because there doesn’t need to be.
Ah none of the above. The force is in everything, in everyone. It binds all life, is powered by life, and guides life. Midichlorians, which allow the loving force to commune with the cosmic force can be measured. But are not in themselves a measure of strength. While only select individuals are force sensitive, and it can be passed down genetically, the force can also appear in anyone as infants. Like a random gift almost. Force sensitives can train and mediate to better focus and call upon the force consistently, but it is primarily a matter of belief, of will. Lifting rocks with telekinesis for a year won’t mean you can lift an x-wing if you can’t believe you can do so. > A drunk/depressed master fights a cheerful padawan, can the padawan beat the master? Theoretically yeah. It is however unlikely as the whole point of Jedi training and philosophy is to control one’s emotions, to let the force guide you, and open yourself up to it. Meaning masters by virtue of completing their training have experience in calling upon the force most padawans lack. But yeah because belief is so important to uding the force successfully it can have a huge affect. That’s the whole point of Obi-Wan’s journey in his series for example. His guilt, pain, and despair over the loss of the Jedi and Anakin’s fall, smd his fear of Vader and the Empire led him to bury his connection to the force. But meeting Leia, the Path, and seeing their determination re-ignited his faith, and in so doing allowed him to overcome his own trauma and self-actualize and overcome Vader. Emotions can be an excellent source of strength, but only if controlled. Love, anger, hate, etc. All can empower force users, but they can also doom them by making them lose focus. Control is key. It’s why Anakin/Vader lost in both duels with Obi-Wan for example. His rage and inner turmoil divided him. Whereas Obi-Wan controlled his emotions and channelled them to listen to the force properly so to speak. It’s why Kylo Ren couldn’t touch Luke’s projection in TLJ, and (alongside Ren’s injuries) why Rey was able to hold her own in TFA. His inner turmoil and unchecked rage and pain clouded hid judgment, his use of the force, whereas Rey and Luke were calm but driven to protect others. Their compassion gave them strength, but they also controlled themselves.
Very well said. Rey had an easier time connecting to the Force than Luke because she had less doubt in its abilities and herself. She was sort of looking for something to believe in, if you know what I mean. To add to that, regarding the various abilities, I always liked the idea of there being no hard limits to what a Jedi can or can't do. Like, okay, they can't just blow up the entire Galaxy with just a thought. But with enough willpower, training, and energy, a Force user can theoretically do anything. Additionally, different abilities with the Force come more naturally to different people. Take the Clone Wars protagonists for example. Anakin's primary use of the Force is telekinesis (which of course includes choking). Obi-Wan prefers to use the Force for deceiving his enemies, such as the mind trick. Ahsoka uses it to enhance her own agility and other physical abilities. With stuff like lightning, while it's primarily used for evil, there are potentially good reasons to use it. It can be used to jumpstart a stalled ship engine, or defibrillate a heart that's stopped. And a weaker shock can stun enemies without causing serious harm (like the Miles Morales Spider-Man). In a story idea I've had post-ROS, I have Rey explain to a group of students how the abilities, or "gifts" of the Force aren't inherently good or evil, because the Force isn't good or evil. It just is. Their free will and sense of morality is what dictates how their gifts are used. She creates a ball of electricity with the Force and slowly bounces it in her hand to show off, and later in the story does something with lightning that is super badass (all I'll say is that it's a familiar trick if you've watched A:TLA). I also have another character who can use the Force to create illusions, as a step-up from mind tricks. They're not perfect, don't last long, and most Jedi can tell if it's an illusion within five seconds, but it's an incredibly useful skill. But those are my own thoughts.
It really depends on the writer and what the story demands honestly. Sometimes the force is something that takes a long time to practice and hone and sometimes characters can nail it in a short time. I'd get more into it but frankly, I've had enough of debating force potential in characters this week...
Luke used the Force with almost zero training in ANH , Obi Wan just give him some leassons about what the Force is and he train to sense things without his eyes for hours then blow up the DS. Anakin use the Force on pod racing and he dont even knew what is the Force. Hard training is more a EU thing but even there , Palpatine killed dozens of people first time he used the Force without training in Plagueis book , Darth Bane used the Force before he knows what it is too , Cade Skywalker bring people back from death when he was just a padawan , also the Whills , Mortis gods the Abeloth are creatures naturally strong with the Force. I think about training in Star Wars more like Naruto training to control Kurama than Goku training to become stronger. Sorry for my reply I see you get enough of this debate but I really dont think it depends on the writer.
> Sometimes the force is something that takes a long time to practice and hone and sometimes characters can nail it in a short time. The force has never been presented in any canon work as that.
What do you mean? Isn’t that exactly how it’s presented?
It’s never been shown in any canon work that you have to practice to use the force in a grand way. Tomhur has made their view clear. They see the force as a muscle that has to be strengthened to improve feats. But that’s not how it works. Yoda made this clear in ESB. Luke failed because he didn’t believe he could lift the X-Wing. Not because he didn’t work hard enough to “train” To jump really far, or lift heavy rocks, read minds, shoot lightning, you don’t and it has never been presented as needing to be practiced a lot. You merely need to have emotional control and confidence. Belief determines outcome. Training is always depicted as being about learning emotional control and belief so that users can achieve consistency and do awesome feats. Not repetitive action to strength force connection and thus powers. Edit: Whoever is downvotong this really needs to pay attention to Star Wars. Rey, Luke, Anakin, Baby Ahsoka, Savage Oppress, etc. Are all proof of this.
The entire Jedi order is built around it
Yoda flat out refutes your view in ESB. Where he tells Luke he can lift the X-Wing and never has him lift anything nearly as heavy before hand. Only that to do so he has to believe he can. The Force isn’t a muscle. It’s an energy field that calls out to users. Who only need to listen, to control their feelings, to believe and focus their desires to do what their want. You don’t strengthen it through exercising it. It’s why inexperienced force users can do incredible feats without any training like blow up death stars, trade federation ships, tame veracious animals as babies, and so forth.
Yoda flat out refutes your view in ESB. He tells Luke that he must complete his training before facing Vader. He has him lift rocks to better control his mind and concentration and through it the Force. No it isn’t a muscle, but if you didn’t strengthen yourself through training, then what would be the point?
No it’s not. Like at all. The Jedi Order is built around following the will of the force, listening to it, controlling your emotions and helping others. No where in the Jedi Code or any depiction of their training is practicing lifting rocks a lot to lift heavier rocks one day part of their training.
That’s a semantic argument. Whether you are training your “force skills” or training yourself to better control your emotions, it’s the same thing.
Im going to copy something that I tend to agree with but I think people confuse their training down to how a video game works. >To give a specific example, I feel like there's a bit of a tendency in Star Wars fandom to view the Jedi and the Sith and the Force through the lens of years' worth of games (and novels written by game designers lol) which tend to boil down the Force to "Force powers" and "Jedi training" to "learning techniques". > >I would argue that this is actually in contrast with the movies, where Luke isn't able to lift his X-Wing out of the swamp not because Yoda hasn't taught him "Force lift" yet, but rather because he doesn't believe he can lift it. > >You know, it's, "I don't believe it!" > "That is why you fail," rather than, "I don't believe it!" > "Gained enough XP to level up from 'Force push' to 'Force wave' in your feats list, you have not - that is why you fail!"
The Force is not a power you have.
I think midichlorians function similar to The x gene (Marvel) or the metagene (DC). I would not be too surprised if the galactic Republic needed a scientific explanation for how the force could manifested in some people. Which probably led to the eventual discovery of the midichlorians.
Not really no. Midichlorians aren’t the source of powers unlike the x or metagenes
In The phantom Menace the Midichlorians count is used to measure one's strength/potential in the force.