"Balance" when talking about the Force.

First off, let me preface this by saying the best explanations I've seen about the concept of Balance of the Force are the below two:

What follows is simply my way of explaining "the Prophecy of the Chosen One who will bring Balance to the Force"... with diagrams!

(Quotes I used as sources can be found at the bottom of the post.)

On that note: let's get cosmic!

I. The Living Force's natural state.

The Force has two aspects.

The term “Balance of the Force” refers to the Living Force’s natural state... balanced. As seen below:

On one side, you have one BIG cog. That’s the Dark Side.

On the other side, you have a lot of small cogs. That’s the Light Side.

You need a lot of good cogs to balance out that one bad cog. Why? Because being an asshole is easier, and more people choose the easy way over the hard way, in the galaxy. It takes many good deeds to make a difference and one bad one to make it all go up in flames.

Neither Side is either benevolent or malevolent. The Dark and Light Sides are non-sentient metaphysical aspects of the Living Force, they're not good or evil, they just are. And, for better or for worse, they're both essential to have Balance.

So where's the issue?

II. The Force at the start of the Prequels.

The issue is that the Dark Side has been growing more and more. This is causing the Force to gradually become unbalanced.

The Republic has grown corrupt, the Jedi haven't but they've become its lapdogs. More and more senators and bureaucrats take bribes, the crime lords and slavers grow more ruthless, corporations become increasingly power-hungry... and a phantom menace seems to be speeding up the clock for when this will all go to hell.

That phantom menace is the Sith. More specifically, Darth Sidious.

The Sith are literally the galaxy's only order of Force-sensitives who constantly use the Dark Side to make the Force submit to their will, rather than following the Will of the Force. Their endgame is to be to control everything, Balance be damned.

And they're winning. The Force's few remaining champions, chiefly the Jedi, are completely unprepared in the face of this threat.

So the Force retaliates and creates a Chosen One, destined to destroy the Sith: Anakin Skywalker.

That’s it, that’s his destiny, as dictated by the Cosmic Force: destroying the Sith, thus bringing Balance.

Just one problem... at the end of Episode I, Sidious gets elected Chancellor and essentially is put in charge of the whole galaxy.

The Sith have as good as won.

III. The Force at the end of the Prequels.

i should make this into a proper meta someday but i'm writing it down so I won't forget...

as much as the Mortis story may seem weirdly out of place with the rest of the Force lore, it can work as an illustration. sure, in the movies "balance" means "no more Sith" and the less dark side around, the better (balance in the movies is absolutely NOT 50% light, 50% darkness like it seems to be on Mortis) but hear me out. on Mortis, the Father (balance) says he has to keep his children from tearing each other - and the fabric of the universe - apart, but....... that's not what's actually happening.

The Son (the Dark Side) wants to kill Balance. The Son does actually kill the Daughter, aka the Light. The Dark Side is always, always the aggressor, and the Light only ever defends herself, defends the innocent bystanders, and defends Balance.

The Light protects Balance against the Dark's attacks on both Balance and Light. That's the conflict here, it's not that both Light and Darkness need to be kept in check. The Father never has to worry about the Daughter's actions.

And you know what else? The Father - the one in the middle, the representation of balance - makes a ton of mistakes and fuels the problem by bringing Anakin to the planet (since the Mortis Gods are heavily influenced by the presence of anyone around them, and the Son very clearly begins to mirror and embody some of Anakin's darker parts). Balance is only restored when the Father follows the Daughter's example of self-sacrifice and, very importantly, allows the Son to be killed.

If the Son had been killed first and not the Daughter, do you think the planet would have gone haywire? There's no real evidence of this.

Anyway, all of this to say, the Light is not and has never been the problem, the Light actively defends Balance even to the cost of itself, and the Dark is a poisonous destructive Force that threatens everything and even goes against its own interests and Mortis doesn't contradict that.

The Jedi - and other 'light' Force users - weren't "dogmatic" or "going against balance" for completely rejecting the Dark. They were defending balance and rightly siding with good.