How Does Force Healing in the Star Wars Universe Work?

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🎬Video Credits:
Narrators - Cam
Editor - Giorgi,Kai
Writers - Alex
Audio - Lyz

Disclaimer:

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:06 Life to the Dead or Dying
5:25 A Tool of the Dark Side
6:44 Too Many Practitioners?
9:15 Outro

[Allronix]

My introduction to the SW Expanded universe was the West End tabletop. The party of scoundrels (Well, New Republic privateers) needed a medic and I got drafted to roll one. And then the GM overruled me and declared that my medic was Force Sensitive. So, I rolled with it in the sense of blowing off the subconscious Force healing (read: the times I used Force dice to enhance a healing roll) with "That's nonsense - the patient just had a good reaction to the bacta!" or "Don't be silly, the wound wasn't as bad as it looked."

We do see some of the consequences of healing in SWTOR (KOTOR treats it too casually due to game mechanics, and I'll have to note that for my fanfic) in that the Consular's shielding really does knock the stuffing out of them when it's used. It could also be an in game explanation for squishy healer classes. I could also see it having a chance of unintended and unwanted side effects - such as Bastila's force healing on Revan kicking up that Force Bond.

A theory I read (not sure if it was Reddit or Tumblr) that's quite plausible is that the closer the bond between a wielder and the one being healed, the more powerful and effective it could be. So if it's someone you WANT to save, like a close friend, you'd be able to put more power into it. Versus a stranger or even an enemy. The poster questioned if that's why Jedi and Sith alike had disdain for emotional intimacy. For a Sith, it might lead you to mercy or compassion - anathema to them. To a Jedi, it's prizing the individual life over the nebulous collective and alleged "greater good" - which is just as heretical to them (two ends of the horseshoe theory being covered in the same horse manure)

It always made me a little sad and angry that the Force, this thing that is supposed to be about the connection of all life is primarily used for violence and combat - the rabid dog of ideological and religious warfare. (Yeah, dead Sith are a bonus for galactic sanity. It's still rabid dog ideological warfare being prized over light and connection) It was also telling (and feeds into my not so great opinion of Jedi) that the Force healers were considered part of the "failures" (Service Corps) instead of a position of reverence and honor. ESPECIALLY if Force healing does come with such a high price. So not only are you tracked into a dead end job with no representation in the leadership, but your life is probably going to be short and painful on top of it.

[AskMia]

2:14 Oh, is this why Bariss aged so much in tales of the empire? If so, that's a brilliant piece of visual storytelling.

[Ardi]

I wish we could have seen more of this in TCW. For example, Barriss Offee on Drongar, would have been a great story arc to see. It also would have been a great lead up to explain her fall.

[nicktechnubyte]

It could have been very useful in a number of events!

[murderousintent]

The sequels give a really good example of force healing, I really just wish they'd used it better. Basically that can apply to the entire trilogy.

[frostburn]

Force Heal: _mainstream legendary ability that most have, but few arch-mastered it._

[Still_not_saying]

Anakin turned to The Dark Side for this, and didn’t realise his best friend could do it XD

[The_BlueShade]

Darth Nihilus is probably one of the most prominent examples of masters of force drain, though it's more like the power mastered him. After detaching himself from the force to survive having to feel the millions of deaths in the destruction of Malachor V and then essentially becoming a wound in the force, Nihilus would soon enough embrace the dark side and become the sith apprentice of Darth Traya. However, Nihilus mastered force drain so much to the scale of being able to drain entire worlds that the power consumed him, and he essentially became a dead monster focused on nothing but consuming worlds to fill in his void. Of course he was defeated by the player protagonist of KOTOR 2, in the EU known as Meetra Surik, thanks to her being a force wound to, pretty much being immune to Nihilus' powers.

Speaking of which, there was a point in KOTOR 2 where Kreia force heals to save Hanhaar's life, but she does so to exploit his life debt to enslave him for her own plots which doesn't seem to line up with force heal being an exclusive light side ability.

Also I wonder what it means when in some SW games force heal is very common to heal oneself, opposed to healing others since heal requires essentially trading one's life force to another. Maybe this can be translated as using one's energy in the force to accelerate healing instead?

[zexalbrony]

Yes a short Geetsly video that gets to the good stuff, cool Force powers.
Also, if your looking for other Force Powers to discuss, how about Battle Meditation? That's always been cool. The user can basically talk to their entire army telepathically to guide them and keep them all in the loop without fear of enemies finding out like they can by hacking comlinks. To say nothing of being able to talk to the troops and inspire and bring out their inner strength to make them more effective on the battle field. Of course, the down side of all this greatness is, it takes so much concentration and energy that a Force user using Battle Meditation basically can't do anything else they have to stay perfectly still to keep the technique going, meaning their vulnerable to being sneak attacked and killed, thus breaking the Battle Meditation and when it breaks so suddenly all the troops will be confused on what happened to their telepathic communication and be in disarry. Sure a skilled enough Force user could probably sense the sneak attack coming and be able to defend themselves, but that too would force them to break the Battle Mediation. That is why when one uses Battle Mediation, they must either do it in a secret hidden place or do it with several people around to guard them, like how Yoda had Chewbacca, Tarrful, Gree, and Jek to guard him during the Battle of Kashyyyk.

[BennyLlama]

Cam: "...And, in extreme cases, bring the dead back to life."
Me: Then doesn't that mean they were just mostly dead instead of completely dead? 🤔 I mean, if someone flatlines there's a defibrillator; if someone's braindead, that's it. Game over.

[AskMia]

Is the audio skipping for anyone else or is it just me?
Edit: it's just me, it happened in another video too

[quantemwensday]

it's real simple
it forces the healing process to happen faster

[RayHardman]

I always understood it as one of those things where you had to have an aptitude for it, and not just anyone can do it.
As for the healing process itself, it was explained to me that the user used the force and their energy, don't know which one, to encourage the natural healing process to accelerate on the molecular level.
Most Jedi can use the most basic of healing techniques, like healing a small bruise or superficial cut.
Don't know if it was canon or legends, but Kenobi used a variant during his meditation to stay awake for extended periods of time.

[DoublesOK]

I'd like to see a video on transporting powers. I’ve read that Force teleport is a thing. I think Force Faze lets people move through matter like things but not energy fields like shields. Also portals with the Force exist too or at least gateways between points in the galaxy. It seems like more people, lightside or darkside, should use those powers more.

[lerneanlion]

I don't think we needed to dive deep into why Darth Sidious never taught Darth Vader how to use Force Drain, even before he got into that cybernetic armor, right?

[venkelos]

It does seem to have a decent number of practitioners, but I do also remember when Clighal first got introduced, and her ability to use Healing was considered almost unknown in her own time. Of course, that was the same era when Tionne got set up as amazing because she could mske holocrons, but then everyone and their acklay were later making their own, or at least being able to leave entries in them, in the Temple, prior to the Dark Times. It's too bad Cade didn't get a mention here, considering how important this Dark Transfer power seemed to be, at least in the beginning of Legacy. Krayt was powerful, and had numerous capable other Sith at his disposal, yet neither he, nor any of them, could simply use the Dark Side to rend life force from others, and tack it onto his; he seemed to need Cade, and Cade seemed to have been able to practically raise the dead.

I blame this on things like the prevalence of video games, and their mechanics, as well as the number of diverse authors writing into Lucas' shared verse, but considering how Yoda would say practically anything was possible through the Force, I did sometimes wonder how many unique Force abilities were intended to be universally available, and what ones were meant to be more rare, and seen as something of an individual's "special power", that set them as important to a story we met them in? I know that Clighal could heal others, where most seemed to lack the skill. Anya Kuro could pass through material objects but I never saw Vader, or Luke, for all their might, walk through walls. Some people had special benefits, or impairments, like Palpatine was particularly good at Force Lightning, but Tenebrous had red. Corran Horn seemed to actually struggle to move things, needing to absorb outward energy, first, and "charge up" his telekinesis. Sometimes, it felt like rules for a game, as Jedi became more and more like space wizards, since WotC also had the rights to make Star Wars RPG, alongside Dungeons & Dragons, but I was never sure how many Jedi were intended to have unique abilities, or preternatural skill with specific powers, and what was just training that any Jedi could have done, given focus?

[tarotreadingsbysteven]

I'd love to see a video about the parallels between the legend of Koshchei The Deathless and Darth Sideous

[darknessoftruth]

I'm not against this being a thing, it's actually quite interesting. What I am against is the lazy way it was implemented in IX, where it once again felt like a cop out given to the character with no insight into how she got the ability. Again, if they had just showed her training for more than a few scenes, maybe we wouldn't be as willing to complain about it.

[theprodigalson]

Gotta stay angry even as you’re getting everything you’d ever hoped for poor Vader

[asturias]

If you haven't already then you should do a video on Darth Traya's force telekinesis lightsaber form.