Originally Posted by
Ascended
So that's what I need to read? Cool, thanks. I gave this a google, but the results didn't seem reliable, and the few sites that did cite their sources...well, I'm not sure how those stories fit into canon in the first place. I'm still vague on what a gray Jedi actually is; are they just unorthodox Jedi who don't agree with all the dogma or do they actively explore both sides of the Force? Are they a few weirdo Jedi among the Order, or an actual organization unto themselves with their own philosophies and creed? Are they corrupted to some degree or not? And what little I could find from the actual canon didn't seem clear on this either, it doesn't seem to be a concept that ever got much attention in the first place.
Oh, and if they are canon, is it old canon or new? Both?
Care to elaborate? Is it the idea of someone tapping both sides that you disagree with, or just that fans seem to want it used for emo edgelord Jedi, like Tendrin was saying above?
I was gonna bring this up too. Qui-Gon was supposed to be considered quite the rebel because he didn't agree with the Order's dogma right? Voss is another example. Does that make them gray? Years ago I read somewhere, in something that I think was official canon, that Yoda had studied the dark side (as an academic pursuit only) and that's why he could "catch" Force lightning in the prequels. Does that make him gray? If some random person taught themselves how to use the Force without the guidance of a larger Order, would they be considered gray?
A dark Jedi is someone who forsakes the light side of the Force right, without necessarily belonging to a group like the Sith or Rens? Aren't the gray supposed to handle both sides? So you think there's no way to maintain a balance between the two? Are gray Jedi simply the first step towards full dark side corruption?
I was gonna bring up the larger point you made too. We all were having that conversation about what balancing the Force means, and maybe how the binary absolutes of the light and dark rub up against the motivations of people, who are morally complex. Is the gray Jedi a part of that discussion? Should they be? Did they find a kind of balance that eluded both orthodox Jedi and Sith, who can only maintain a connection to one side or the other? Does that fit within the larger mythos surrounding the Force? At least from a certain point of view?
Yeah, the only "gray" Force user I've seen in the canon is the Bendu. Oh, probably the Father too, from that Cone Wars episode. If the Bendu is an example, the gray Jedi representing neutrality, maybe even pacifism, seems a pretty good role for them, I agree.
Maybe some of these questions are dumb. I stopped reading the novels back when Leia and Han's kids were still little, so there's a ton of stuff I missed. A lot of sites talked about the gray Jedi as if the reader already has a basic idea of what they are, how they become gray, and how they operate, but I'm mostly just making assumptions here.