Obi-Wan, upon hearing this, jumped to his feet. "What do you mean? What dark side?!"
Amir: "...I thought I mentioned it... okay, I didn't."
When Obi-Wan arrived on Floor 101, Amir had already been pushed to his limit by Sidious. All his strength was exhausted. The dark Force had been extinguished by his will before death, receding like a tide.
"What exactly happened?" Obi-Wan pressed.
Amir reluctantly recounted the specific events after encountering Sidious. He had glossed over the combat details in their previous discussion.
After hearing it, Obi-Wan looked at Amir, still shaken. "It's a good thing you resisted, Amir. Otherwise, I can't imagine..."
"It's all thanks to you coming to save me. I still haven't learned how to become a Force Spirit. It would have been a loss to die," Amir joked. He didn't want Obi-Wan to feel any more self-blame over this.
"Alright," Obi-Wan also gave a relieved smile. "I suppose it's my turn as a master to save you for once."
"Are you feeling anything abnormal in your Force perception now?" Obi-Wan asked, still worried.
Qui-Gon also leaned in, concerned. Countless Jedi in history had fallen to the dark side, but those who returned to the light were extremely rare. There were few records of it.
What was the dark side like? They could all make a guess. Based on records, on observations of the Sith, on their masters' teachings, they roughly understood what it was. But none of them could give a concrete answer as to what the dark side truly was.
"In meditation, I can feel the dark Force is hidden within my body. It hasn't completely disappeared," Amir said. This was his biggest worry.
He had started connecting with the Force in meditation as soon as he woke up on Adrian. The Force within him seemed no different than before. But in a deeper probe, he could vaguely sense an impenetrable darkness hidden at the bottom of the light.
Hearing this, both Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon frowned.
Amir continued: "But I don't feel uncomfortable because of it. On the contrary, I can 'see' more."
"'See'? What do you mean?" Qui-Gon asked.
"The knowledge contained within the Force. Before, I could only discover the laws of light and balance in the Force's operation, like the growth of all things, flowering and bearing fruit, or the orbit of stars and planets."
"The death, the separation, the destruction... those areas shrouded by the dark Force... in my perception, they were just a disgusting, cold filth. I would feel uncomfortable, even repulsed. Just getting close felt dangerous."
"But now, I can observe them more calmly, and even discover the laws within them."
Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon were silent. Finally, Qui-Gon returned from his thoughts and said, "I cannot see your future. But from your Force, I can feel stability and balance."
Obi-Wan was still uneasy. He interjected, "Understanding the dark Force... won't it..."
Qui-Gon didn't let him continue. "I've spoken with Master Yoda. Too many of our failures stemmed from our fear and avoidance of the dark side. To avoid falling, we refused to understand it. This made us and our apprentices unable to recognize when we were unknowingly walking toward it."
"When I was young, I was blinded by the death of a good friend. In my anger, I walked the path of revenge. I didn't realize my own state at all. Fortunately, just as I was about to fall, my deceased friend called to me from the Force, bringing me back."
"Driven by emotion, the dark side breeds. Impulsiveness and obsession replace all our reason. But if we had understood the dark side beforehand, perhaps we could have realized our state the moment the darkness sprouted and stopped it in time."
Obi-Wan took this in, but he still had reservations. "The dark side is too dangerous. Under the influence of emotion, even with a warning, it's often impossible to feel the change in oneself. In a short time, one can completely become another person!"
He thought of Anakin Skywalker. Even he, his master, didn't know when the darkness had begun to devour his apprentice.
Without answering Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon looked at Amir. "But you can clearly sense it, can't you?"
Amir listened to their conversation, recalling the process, and nodded silently.
But he still began to carefully judge his own desires and emotions. He had felt fine at the time, but had he truly been affected? He had never checked.
To be honest, compared to Obi-Wan, Amir wasn't an orthodox Jedi. Before, on Coruscant... rest, play, good food... he never deliberately restricted his thoughts. He never deliberately suppressed his happiness, sadness, or anger.
Amir liked these desires, but he wasn't addicted. It was more like a fleeting taste, not an obsession. Power, strength, even eternal life... in Amir's eyes, they weren't that important. The only thing he truly had to do was bring peace to the galaxy. And protect his long-admired Alderaan. He couldn't just fall to the dark side, become a Sith Lord, and then use that "obsession" to destroy the Sith, only to sneak off to Alderaan to farm.
If so, thank you, dark side. Please convert me quickly.
So, in this respect, Amir didn't find any change in himself. He hadn't suddenly developed a strong desire for anything.
The other aspect, the most important for Amir, was emotion.
To Amir, emotions were an expression of feeling. In his eyes, this was precisely the most interesting and beautiful part of life. He couldn't bear to abandon them completely. And because of this, Amir worried the dark side could exploit this.
Almost no one could completely abandon emotion.
Just look at love. Besides Master Yoda, who, after nine hundred years, was (as far as he knew) still single... it was hard to say if Obi-Wan's heart had truly let go of Duchess Satine of Mandalore. Decades ago, Obi-Wan was even willing to leave the Jedi Order for her. The fuse that almost made Qui-Gon fall—the "deceased friend" he mentioned—was a female Jedi, Tahl, whom he loved. After Tahl died on a mission, Qui-Gon was blinded by anger, bent on revenge. The moment he was about to kill his enemy, the deceased Tahl called to him from the Force, stopping him, pulling him back from the dark side.
And Anakin Skywalker... needless to say. His love for Padmé was heartbreaking.
These events, on the surface, did seem to be emotion pulling the Jedi toward the dark side. But was that truly the essence of it?
Amir had thought about this countless times.
Admittedly, a person who had seen through everything, had no desires, was indifferent to emotion, and followed only the Force... he could indeed completely resist the dark side's erosion and become incredibly powerful. Like Master Yoda. He was the epitome of a Jedi. All the excellent qualities of the Jedi were displayed in him. It was no exaggeration to call him one of the greatest.
If all Jedi could have Master Yoda's state of mind, the Jedi Order would be invincible.
But the vast majority of people couldn't. Especially the young Jedi Knights.
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