A lot of impressive things happened last night. The Golden State Warriors broke the win record with 73 games, Kobe Bryant scored 60 in his final game, I got three Kabooms in one match in Gears of War 3, and even managed to get to bed before 11:30 pm. Truly impressive physical feats last night.
Not as impressive as the Force though. The latest Star Wars movie The Force Awakens made like a trillion dollars and force choked the prequels back into the history books. It has an amazing appeal to people because of many things, but I think one of the most impressive things about the movies is the bitter rivalry between the Light Side and the Dark Side. Whether it is the people that seemingly choose one or the other, or the “universe” somehow balances it, people are fascinated by those two “factions”. But there is a little known third faction that completes the Triangle. There is one more side called the Bitter Side, that no one talks about in the films, books TV shows, or video games. There are people in the universe that are neither light or dark, but just plain bitter.
They live in the cities, and in the catanas, and in the space ships. They work in the impressive high rises and on the farms. They aren’t “chosen ones” that are plucked from farms, or “the best pilots in the galaxy” or defector Storm Troopers. They are just regular dudes and dudettes that are sick and tired of their neighborhoods being blown up, or shrapnel from the next new Death Star ending up on their lawns, or all these boring Senate meetings being blasted on their big screen Space TV’s.
The only Force Awakening they are getting is their alarm clocks that Force Awaken them to take a shower and get to work before they get Force Choked by their dark side boss.
They are not left without powers though. In fact, they have just as impressive of a list as the other two sides. Here’s just a small sampling of the powers that manifest when you are part of The Bitter Side:
Force Chokers- We have the amazing ability to miss a game winning free throw in the Galaxy NBA Finals against the Tatooine Travelers when the game is on the line. The ability to ask a Princess Amidala out on a date right after someone more impressively Dark Side asks her out. Or how to blow your Space Bridge presentation at work on Level 5002 in the Jedi Sword Inc company. How to hit skylane traffic at the optimal time. When it comes to pressure, Bitters always choke under it.
Force Jump – Bitters are amazing at jumping to conclusions. We like to take just one side of a discussion and leap to our own worst case scenarios. If we hear there are layoffs, we assume it’s because our building was destroyed in a dark vs. light skirmish. If we hear someone is late, we assume that it’s because they hate our baked dru’un slices in fish sauce. If the death star goes down, we assume gas prices will go up.
Force push – We have the ability to be pushed around. When we are on the Coruscant Highway, we are continually letting people in. When we go to a restaurant and it gets busy, we always seem to let Jedi’s go first (seems like my mind is always being tricked) and it always seems the Jedi will always get the jobs when it is between us and them at a job interview.
Light sabres – We have light sabres too, but they show up lime green. And they are powerful too. They are strong enough to open a can of soup, and they occasionally help us unlock a door when we accidentally lock ourselves in (when we remember to carry them with us of course). They are really helpful for when we are picking weeds out of our gardens and we need to be really careful with them because one time I got a really bad second degree burn when I dropped in the sink when I was brushing my teeth. I had to wear a band aid for like a week one time.
Jedi mind tricks – We have this amazing ability to manipulate the mind and cause others to do our bidding. Well, mostly we have to yell really loud at our younglings and tell them they have to go to bed when they stay up too many cycles, but when we yell really loud, they tend to listen that one time. Drop the Jedi Mic yo!
Force vanish – I like to use this power at work. When it’s the end of the month and the Light Sabre metric reports are due and I don’t have them finished, I like to Force Vanish call in sick, or if I’m at work, I Force Vanish to the bathroom or Force Vanish and take a long lunch. It works wonders for making Freideldy in accounting have to finish up my reports.
Hopefully, someday they will talk about the Bitter Side as reverently as they do the Light and Dark side, but just kidding, they never will. But just know that without the Bitter Side, who would do all the mundane and unimportant jobs in the Galaxy? Who would fuel all those late Death Star runs to 7-111? Who are the ones building the tall buildings that the Dark and Light side will eventually destroy? Who are ones clogging up traffic, so the Dark and Light sides can have a thrilling chase? Who are the bitter half-wits complaining in the cantanas that can get Jedi Mind tricked for comic effect? That’s right. Without the Bitter Side, there would be no Force Triangle.
ARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH
Bitter Sided Ben
That’s it, I’m joining the bitter side of the force! (Darth never called, the bastard) If you aren’t being appreciated, go where others appreciate that no one appreciates you.
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Exactly. We have a mutual distaste for both the dark and the light side, and their complete ignorage of the bitter side.
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At the end of The Force Awakens, when we finally see Luke, he looked bitter. He must have embraced the Bitter Side of the Force.
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I think he was pretty happy being on his own out there on that island, playing Jedi video games, but then became bitter because Daisy came and interrupted his solitude.
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Whoops not Daisy, Rey.
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We are the bitter backbone of the universe. The force needs us. Collectively. But you and me as individuals are, of course, expendable.
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Yes, we maintain the balance of the force, but no one ever mentions us, leading us to be even more bitter.
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I don’t know, with all these supposed “Star Wars Stories,” there may be a bitter side movie someday.
Eh, who am I kidding. That’s never happening. Yet another thing to be bitter about.
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That’s the life of a bitter person. Huge expectations, and always a let down when they don’t make the movie from the bitter person’s perspective.
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Bitter he is. Are you related to Lobot, who was Lando’s security guy at Cloud City? You look like him, and he always had a bitter look on his face. I suppose he was on the Bitter Side.
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That guy is my cousin and he’s bitter, but a lot less bitter than me.
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I’m feeling the bitterness, I stayed up to watch the Heat and the Celtics. grrr.
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I can see why you are bitter. Watching those two play must be very boring.
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Oh, you have dissed my Heat, I am bitter!
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Maybe I was dissing the Celtics. You never know with me. But I’m glad you are bitter regardless.
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Thank you for helping to assure my very bitter weekend coming up. You are good and bitter.
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The NBA playoffs always produce bitterness for me. Since I’m a Spurs fan, your Heat produced my most bitter moment ever losing that Game 6 and Game 7 in Miami 3 years ago. Uggghh….
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suddenly I feel better. I am evil as well as bitter. 😀
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I’m so glad my bitterness can fuel your betterness.
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I can force vanish some wine, yo, while force vanishing some dirty dishes in the sink.
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Hopefully, you’ve force vanished the kids to their beds.
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I wish I could equip my primitive push lawn mower with a light saber attachment to cauterize this grass. AND force vanish some alcohol of some sort while I force the younglings do the mowing. Alas, tonight, mow the grass. Without light saber. Redeemed by force vanishing alcohol when my journey to the mowed side is complete.
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arrrgggghhh, the bitterness!! it’s not letting me individually “like” the comments in the thread.
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That makes both of us then. ARRRGGGHH!
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The Bitter Side is great in this one.
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The Bitter Side is definitely strong in me. I will never appear in the movies though because they like to Force push us to the side.
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It’s a sad life.
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Especially when the pizza isn’t delivered.
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Or it’s late.
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If pizza is late, the force choke is used.
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I thought that was if pizza went down the wrong way…
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Then I would have to use force get the pizza out of my windpipe.
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Even Luke has trouble with that one!
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That’s cause he used the light side of the force. The bitter side allows for me to dislodge pizza from my mouth and move it to the stomach.
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That’s amazing!
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The bitter side helps with stupid things that don’t matter like choking on food.
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I now a guy who Force Vanish’s in order to smoke. It’s an amazing trick I have not yet perfected.
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People of all kinds have Force Vanish. Some use it to smoke all the time, so disappear whenever a big project is looming, other’s are really good at turning them into sick days and vacation.
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Creative and bitter! With “spaced” out ideas and illustrations. When will you see the light?
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If I ever see the light, I will put the shades back down, because they hurt my eyes and make it hard for me to sleep…through work.
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So when Yoda said “There is another.” He really meant another side of the force–the bitter side–not Leia? Now that’s a plot twist I never saw coming. Brilliant! I mean, uh, booooooo!
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Bitterness is always the forgotten part. Whether it is in the emotions (IE Inside Out. No bitterness emotion?), or on the spectrum of food (how many bitter foods do people actually like?) to the Bitter Side of the Force.
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That’s brilliant. Perhaps there’s a whole circle of alignments, dark, light, bitter, sweet (ew), and then add in the spectrum of staying neutral, favoring chaos or favoring order, a bit like the character alignments” in the old Dungeons & Dragons. Uh Oh! My inner geek is showing. ::Disappears in a puff of bitter-dark chaos::
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Yeah, if the light side has it’s opposite, then I guess bitterness has it’s opposite, sweet. I mean I do have to have some sweet people to be bitter about and they are the worst for me.
BTW, let you inner nerd out as much as you want, because you have Force Vanish to disappear anytime you need to.
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