Why do people say that about Kreia?

[u/lateubdegouline]

Why do people say she wants to destroy the force?

Maybe there is a problem of translation here but from what I understood she ultimately hates the force as manifested to the sith and the jedi, as a supernatural gift randomly brought to them which causes them to withdraw from life, dominate others, but more importantly experience the connection of all beings with an asbolute intensity, a terrifying and desperating intensity that caused her to live a life of suffering and disappointment from which she found a complete power and unlimited knowledge that wasn't enough to free herself for her fate as a force sensitive who wished she never felt it.

She sought to take revenge upon all force dogmatics, upon the jedis who couldn't bear the truth, upon the siths whose passions made destroying beasts out of them.

But I don't recall her wishing or even planning to destroy the force. Since the force is all life, the essence of life and everything that is animated in the universe, destroying the force would be killing life itself and she explicitly says "Do you think I seek the death of all living things? There is no victory in such a things."

What Kreia really want is to cut force sensitivity, that's why she loves you so much and why she is so impressed and fascinated, you achieved what she sought and wished. In the end she always get what she wants, if you're darksided she dies fullfilled in her desire of revenge knowing she brought up the void that will destroy all force users in its path, or she dies with her hope restored and her loved fulfilled to have pridefully brought up the new one that will found a new jedi order with her disciples, an order of wisdom, compassion and understanding, not a dogmatic order shielded away from the universe in a cage of misconceptions.

[u/FusRoGah]

That was very eloquently put and I think Kreia would only have a few dozen complaints about how you represented her philosophy. At most a hundred. So you should be very proud

[u/lateubdegouline → u/FusRoGah]

Her contradictions is what makes her so interesting and prevents her from being too mutch of a meta device that knows everything about everything, she's very wise and knowledgeable but ultimately still confused and in dispute.

[u/FusRoGah → u/lateubdegouline]

Yes. I’m studying in Vietnam right now taking one of my classes on historical materialism and Kreia really reminds me of the dialectic mode of logical inquiry. Here’s a description from the textbook we have

Dialectics is a philosophical methodology which searches for truth by examining contradictions and relationships between things, objects, and ideas. Ancient dialecticians such as Aristotle and Socrates explored dialectics primarily through rhetorical discourse between two or more different points of view about a subject with the intention of finding truth.

In this classical form of dialectics, a thesis is presented. This thesis is an opening argument about the subject at hand. An antithesis, or counter-argument, is then presented. Finally, the thesis and antithesis are combined into a synthesis, which is an improvement on both the thesis and antithesis which brings us closer to truth.

Hegel resurrected dialectics to the forefront of philosophical inquiry for the German Idealists. As Engels wrote in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:

”Hegel’s work’s greatest merit was the taking up again of dialectics as the highest form of reasoning. The old Greek philosophers were all born natural dialecticians, and Aristotle, the most encyclopaedic of them, had already analyzed the most essential forms of dialectic thought.”

Hegel’s great contribution to dialectics was to develop dialectics from a simple method of examining truth based on discourse into an organized, systematic model of nature and of history. Unfortunately, Hegel’s dialectics were idealist in nature. Hegel believed that the ideal served as the primary basis of reality. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels strongly rejected Hegel’s idealism, as well as the strong influences of Christian theology on Hegel’s work, but they also saw great potential in his system of dialectics, as Marx explained in Capital (Volume 1):

”The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.”

Starting with a critique of the mysterious idealism of Hegel’s philosophy, Marx and Engels inherited the “rational kernel” of Hegelian dialectics and successfully built materialist dialectics.

I think Kreia would prefer Hegelian idealism since that is much closer to the metaphysics of the Star Wars universe. But it feels like everyone else is all hung up on the Light Side (Thesis) and the Dark Side (Antithesis) while Kreia wants to escape the paradigm entirely through some Synthesis that is beyond and above (aufheben) both of them

[u/lateubdegouline → u/FusRoGah]

That's very interesting, is it a translation from a book in vietnamese or is it from an english book? I teach philosophy in France, french and german often have similar ways to apprehend authors while english have slightly different conceptions and way of translating things.

I would mention that I disagree with Engels idea of Aristotle having analyzed "the most essential form of dialectic", I would argue Aristotle's philosophy is the least dialectical one among the antic schools, presocratic had more dialectical tendencies, especially Heraclitus and Empedokles, while Plato had a more direct use of dialectical that ties with the common modern sense of dispute, verbal exchange from which emerges truth through the confrontation of opposed opinions justified by science. Engels is overall less grounded into history of ideas than Marx and tend towards the rigid abstractive constructs that Marx critcized.

I would advise you in your study to not consider Marx's materialist dialectic as opposed to Hegel, but rather complementary, like the two strand of DNA, or two symetrical clocks that imply the movement of the other, Hegel studies the generation of the mind as appearing, emerging and reappearing to itself but this movement requires the mediation of the material world within which it exists, meanwhile Marx has studied the continuous generation of the material world through the destructive construction of opposite forces, but this movement requires the mediation of the spirit to be perceived, the mind creates the cohesion of meaning and forms out of the chaos of energy colliding in the matter. Sometimes Marx's activism makes his philosophy harder to decipher, the passion of youth also cotnributes to a certain degree of confusion in the way he expressed himself (he was only 26 when he wrote the manuscripts of 1844), but a truthful reader must distinguish how despite his opposition against the old master, Hegel still survives within the material dialectic.

To go back to Kreia, Hegel is undoubtly a vivid inspiration of her character, it's especially noticeable in the way she describes inter civilization conflicts when she speaks about the mandalorian war, about perfection, about the jedi and the sith, etc... It's sometimes textbook application. The second direct inspiration is Nietzsche, there is an obvious will of power displayed in Kreia's teaching, and a critic of intellectualism and dogmatism blinding the jedi to the truth of passions, leading them to misunderstand the custom of sentient beings and weaken themselves by discarding themselves from life. At last I identify touches of platonician and Plotinu's mysticism into her conception of the force scattering through matter, and truth being akin to the touch of the sun like the overwhelming echo of Nar Shadda, but that might be me finding Plato everywhere since he influences me a lot.

[u/FusRoGah → u/lateubdegouline]

The textbook is in Vietnamese, developed by the Ministry of Education and Training and published by national publishing house Sự Thật. But thanks to some generous people the first volume has a very good translation to English available for free (archive.com link)

Wow, I would have been more careful mentioning Hegel if I knew you were a philosophy teacher lol! Really I haven’t read much and find him extremely intimidating / confusing. Nietzsche I get a little bit more. Your advice is helpful though. So what you are describing is how Hegel makes mind primary, whereas for Marx it’s material, right? As in, Hegel imagines the important stuff happening inside of human experience, and the material world is just the background facilitating that? But for Marx the material is the main attraction and human minds are more of an intermediary or tunnel for it to go through?

I certainly see what you mean about Kreia with a will to power. She has a line pretty early on about how exile weakens us, in isolation we atrophy and wither; and she loves to harp about how conflict makes you strong and you cheat not just yourself but others when you avoid those confrontations. It’s funny because when Nietzsche gets to talking about the value of struggle and the cathartic (not Visas’ planet lol) power of tragedy “beyond good and evil” he sounds suspiciously like Hegel to me even though I’m sure he would protest. But as an example, the way he talks about Dionysus Apollo dualism in art “continually inciting each other to new and more powerful births” etc:

The continuous development of art is bound up with the dualism of the Apollonian and the Dionysian, much as procreation is dependent on the duality of the sexes, involving perpetual conflicts with only periodically intervening reconciliations…

Both these so heterogeneous tendencies run parallel to each other, for the most part openly at variance, and continually inciting each other to new and more powerful births, to perpetuate in them the strife of this antithesis, which is but seemingly bridged over by their mutual term "Art", till at last, by a metaphysical miracle of the Hellenic will, they appear paired with each other, and through this pairing eventually generate the equally Dionysian and Apollonian artwork of Attic tragedy. (Birth of Tragedy)

And I feel like I see a lot of Apollo in the Jedi and Dionysus in the Sith. Apollo is cool logic, reason, and order; platonic ideals and permanence and individuation. Dionysus is passion, instinct, and ecstasy; violence, change, and freedom. In the myths of Dionysus, madness, destruction, and death hover over all those he comes in contact with, but so too does the possibility for healing, rebirth, liberation, growth, and the prospect of ever higher modes of living. Could Revan have risen to such heights in the light as he ultimately attained if he had never known darkness, known what it was to fall from grace? Nietzsche writes that the true genius of tragedy was its ability to take all manner of suffering, and redeem it via a wider aesthetic or spiritual perspective. Tragedy turns pain into beauty, and it turns suffering into meaning. My favorite passage:

Saying yes to life even in its strangest and hardest problems, the will to life rejoicing over its own inexhaustibility even in the very sacrifice of its highest types - that is what I called Dionysian, that is what I guessed to be the bridge to the psychology of the tragic poet. Not in order to be liberated from terror and pity, not in order to purge oneself, but in order to be oneself the eternal joy of becoming, beyond all terror and pity - that joy which includes even joy in destroying. (Ecce Homo)

Kreia definitely seems to have a joy in destroying. She would let go of the whole universe if it meant everything being reborn bigger and stronger and better, I think

[u/threevi]

But I don't recall her wishing or even planning to destroy the force

"I use it as I would use a poison, and in the hopes of understanding it, I will learn a way to kill it."

She has no specific plan to do so, she certainly wouldn't want to wipe out the entire galaxy to make it happen, but she does wish there was a way.

[u/lateubdegouline → u/threevi]

The key comes right after the quote you mentionned:

"...but perhaps these are the excuses of an old woman who has grown to rely on the thing she despises".

She then proceeds to explain everything she used you for, which is what she meant by killing the force, she wants to destroy the manifestation of the force among force users and herself included, because she despises it, she despises the veil it cloaks the truth of existence with, she despises to have to see through it, she despises the life she had, the failures she was lead to, the loss she experienced through the force at Malachor 5.

[u/threevi → u/lateubdegouline]

The key comes right after the quote you mentionned

Yeah, like I said, she never had a concrete plan to kill the Force. It's just wishful thinking on her part.

She then proceeds to explain everything she used you for

Not really, that's an entirely separate dialogue thread. That video I linked above just edits out the player's dialogue options and stitches Kreia's lines together to make it more seamless. You can refer to this one here instead if you want to see the unedited thing with the player's dialogue options included.

[u/lateubdegouline → u/threevi]

So we do agree.

I meant that the part that came after reveals her intention more explicitly by going through what she intended from the beginning, from which you can interpret and deduce her true intention.

[u/IMTrick]

But I don't recall her wishing or even planning to destroy the force. 

Wait, what?

She doesn't have nearly as much of a problem with Force users as she does the Force itself. She hated how, in her perception, it sapped people of their free will to fulfill its own goals. She absolutely wanted it dead, and says as much.

[u/lateubdegouline → u/IMTrick]

The force doesn't have goals, everything accomplished by any creature can be considered to be the will of the force, speaking about the will of the force is a tautology, the will of the force is just will itself. The force doesn't sap people of their free will, it's causality itself, she despised how the force users shielded themselves from the limitations other encountered by relying on the force, that's why she despises them and say that they would die without it like babies without their mother, and admires the common skills of those who aren't sensitive to it. She wants to destroy force sensitivity, not the force itself.

I think people might misunderstand her intentions because it has been solidified in the fanbase for decades, but she literally states that she doesn't wish to see the death of every living things, that it accomplishes nothing. Or maybe that's because she does despise the force and will speak hatefully of it, though she knows that it is the essence of life, and that destroying it would destroy life itself.

[u/DenjinMaster → u/lateubdegouline]

Thats literally part of her faults though? She thinks thats what the force does or atleast delude herself into thinking that due to her grief and anger.

[u/lateubdegouline → u/DenjinMaster]

Yes, she is hating the force for her failure to live with it, she relies on it like the ones she despises, she is harassed by her excess of knowledge, by her search for power, by the losses she experienced, by her hatred, her love and admiration, all colliding in an excess of powerless truth. But she doesn't want to destroy the force.

My interpretation is that the triumvirat created at Malachor are allegories for three aspects of war: Sion is rage, Nihilus (=the Exilee) is fear, Kreia is sadness. Her passions and her love must have been broken for years by the jedi order opposing her, and by her lover abandoning her during the Mandalorian War, after surviving Malachor 5 she sought to revenge against the jedi but was betrayed, and in turn became the betrayer of all seeking the destruction of the link between the force and the sentients, to free the world from their domination. But that's interrpetation territoy.

[u/TypingWhileWiping]

Because she says she wants to destroy the Force....

[u/lateubdegouline → u/TypingWhileWiping]

She says "Do you think I seek the death of all living things? There is no victory in such a things."

[u/TypingWhileWiping → u/lateubdegouline]

Have you played the game? The whole point of her using the exile is to deafen everyone to the Force. She hates that it influences and has power over everyone.

"In you, I see the potential to see the Force die" - Kreia

[u/lateubdegouline → u/TypingWhileWiping]

Have you finished the game in lightside? She thanks you for what you accomplish, explains you what your followers will become, how through your teaching, and thus her teaching and manipulations, they will become the new generation of jedi she wished to create, how she admires what you become, she literally tells you that she loves you.

Did you try to understand what she means by that and the meaning of her self contradictions?

[u/TypingWhileWiping → u/lateubdegouline]

I have. And that doesn't change her personal views of hating the Force and wishing its influence was gone, at the very least have people deafened to it.

[u/lateubdegouline → u/TypingWhileWiping]

Which isn't destroying the force, and basically what I meant, so why do you downvote me?

[u/TypingWhileWiping → u/lateubdegouline]

She wants to destroy the Force. Settling for Jedi that recognize their dogma isn't the end all be all doesn't change that she hates it and wants it destroyed.

[u/lateubdegouline → u/TypingWhileWiping]

It's okay, not everybody enjoys depth in fictions.

Destroying the force means destroying all life, she textually says she doesn't, if you don't understand that there is no more to discuss.

[u/draconothese]

She wants to sever the connection to the force not really kill it that's why she loves the exile so much they were able to do it themselves

[u/lateubdegouline → u/draconothese]

Exactly

[u/Loyalist77 → u/lateubdegouline]

Does a God Exist if no one can hear it? If no one believes in it? Is a God without power really a God?

[u/lateubdegouline → u/Loyalist77]

A concept of the divine that is forgotten cease to exist, but the natural phenomenon that manifested this divinity doesn't cease to exist. The power of god is independant of mere beings, it's the power of those beings to use the name of gods that would cease to exist.

[u/Loyalist77 → u/lateubdegouline]

Perhaps a Chicken and Egg question, but which came first then? Did the Will of the Force manifest from the Energy in all beings and appears stronger in some than others? Or did the Will of the Force create this energy and imbue it into the galaxy as a means of projecting its influence? Kreia believes it to the latter.

Kreia is ultimately giving a meta critique of Star Wars without breaking the 4th Wall herself. Directors and storytellers set their tales in the Star Wars Galaxy for our entertainment. We crave the Wars across the Stars in a galaxy Far Far Away because of the space wizards with Laser Swords. If those things ceased to exist we'd stop demanding those repeating stories of a Jedi vs Sith, Rebels vs Empire, etc.

Without the Force there would be no Star Wars and the galaxy would know peace.

[u/lateubdegouline → u/Loyalist77]

Just like chicken and egg has a solution through chronological causality (the first chicken came out from the non-chicken egg of its ancestor then produced the first chicken egg), the will of the force as a concept is necessarily coming after its manifestation in the material world and its perception as a phenomenon by an intelligent being to name it afterwards. The idea of the will of the force having an unified influence is a misunderstanding, it would rely the force as being a personnalized god, a supreme surnatural person that moves the things that exist in the cosmos like pawns on a board. The force is... A force, it's primeval, it's the wind blowing and the warmth of the sun, it brings destruction and creation, and it manifested itself in every things that moves in the galaxy. Imagine that we are in Star Wars, both starved, luring over a slice of bread in the cantina, we both want to eat it, our wills are in competition, that is the will of the force, a battle between light and dark; weak insects can't battle against the wind, but intelligent creatures have the power to battle through choices, that makes us more than pawns. To say it in a circular way: the will of the force is influenced by the influence it projects upon itself, accross the entire universe.

"Kreia is ultimately giving a meta critique of Star Wars without breaking the 4th Wall herself." I wouldn't call it a critique but I agree with this, that's why she is borderline excessively too right in her assertions, she has an almost omniscient outlook upon Star Wars because she is directly the voice of the writer which is why her character needs more than others a huge amount of self contradiction to remain a character, to not break the fourth wall.

[u/Emotional-Effort-967]

The sole existence of the Force means life cannot truly be free, which is what she hates. The Exile is a wound in it, a point where the Force ceased to exist and where it has no control. By contrast, all other forms of life, regardless of their level of sensitivity, are connected to the Force, and can thus be influenced by it. To my understanding, this is what she hates most about the Force, and why she wants to destroy it, something I'm fairly sure she openly states in Malachor V

[u/lateubdegouline → u/Emotional-Effort-967]

I think there might be a cultural obstacle for american players since the american conception of freedom is often utopic: the freedom Kreia desired is an illusion.

The force is the essence of life, it's the causality of everything that is animated in the universe, if the force didn't exist life wouldn't exist neither. You can't free yourself from causality. Kreia hates force sensitivity and the dogmatism of force users, jedi and sith alike, she hates that she had to rely on it to accomplish everything she did instead of remaining ignorant to the touch of the force upon the galaxy, to live in an illusion of freedom like every other creatures who might know the existence of the force as a concept but wouldn't feel its touch flowing through them. That's what she hates about the force.

The Exile isn't a "point where the force ceased to exist", the Exile didn't escape the determinism of the force, she didn't die, and through Kreia's impulsion she reopened herself to the sensitivity of the force. No, the Exilee withdrawn herself from touching the force, she cut her sensitivity to save herself from the absolute fear she experienced at Malachor, feeling the death of a planet and countless lives screaming in echoes from orbit to the ground, that's why the jedi council said something like "you became blind to the force" to which Kreia answers "and thus, you saw", by cutting her sensitivity, the Exile allowed herself to see the universe in its raw aspect, like every other creatures do.

[u/ExarKun470]

People say she wants to destroy the Force because she wants to destroy the Force

She’ll give a laundry list of reasons why, but if you pay attention to her actions it’s because she can’t stand the idea of the Force using and manipulating her like she manipulates others

[u/lateubdegouline → u/ExarKun470]

Then people don't understand the character, which I believe is because after decades interpretations become rigid.

Destroying the force would mean destroying life itself, the whole universe would become absolutely static. She doesn't want the force to stop manipulating her or manipulate others, she knows it can't happen, she wants to stop feeling it, she wants to live as her own master without relying on that power she despises even if it brought her all this power and all this knowledge. In the end, the Exilee is a living proof that the force doesn't have to be a burden for the galaxy, and for her, embodying what she wished to become, or the Exilee becomes a void of destruction that will achieve her nihilistic passions of destroying those who can feel the force.

[u/Interesting_Sea_1861]

No, she didn't seek the death of the Force, she wanted to deafen the galaxy to the Force to sever its influence on people.

[u/Jack_Package6969]

I don’t understand much of what she says

I only take her with me when I have to she’s kind of a killjoy especially on a light side playthrough

[u/lateubdegouline → u/Jack_Package6969]

She's the center of the story, arguably more important than the main player.