Is the dark side stronger than the light side?

To my count this happens only a few times:

This, oddly, is the answer to your question. If the heroes in a series always win, it's not a story, it's on-going episodic. Dark must have an obvious advantage for the sheer purpose of making one wonder who on the light side will survive. This is why, typically, in stories where "the devil" is present, "god" is not (or the two turn out to be twin brothers). It is because "good wins from the start" does not make a good story. "Does good win? Let's find out." does.

The disparity in observed power must be taken as canon regardless of whether or not it's a plot device.

Well there might be an error in considering the Dark Side and Light side to be two separate things or sides. They both seem to be methods of manipulating the force.
Take force lightning for example. Jedi don't use it, but Yoda absorbs it during his fight with Dooku with ease. He says "Much to learn, you still have," as if he knew of its properties. And he must to be able to manipulate it so as to not cause him harm.

To my understanding, emotion is the catalyst of the force; negative emotion fueling the "dark side" and positive emotion fueling the "light." People fall more easily to the dark side because they can more easily feel anger than its foil.
How I see it, the difficulty in becoming a Jedi is developing yourself to the degree that positive emotion comes easier to you than negative emotion. Thus, it can become a stronger source of power. Sith train their negative emotion, though they too focus on self discipline. If you watch Darth Maul, he is calm and composed in every scene but the fight scenes.

So to answer your question, I think that the Light and Dark side of the force are equally as potent and only depend on the caster, though the Dark side comes easier than the Light.
The Jedi choose not to use it because it leads to corruption and death. Though I believe once you gain mastery over your emotions, you can swing to either side and be equally as powerful.

EDIT: The fight with Yoda and Darth Sidious was a stalemate in my eyes. The only reason Yoda lost was because he fell further than Sidious at the end, and the plot needed to be continued.
He was also 800 years older than Sidious. I think he was well past his prime.

Well there might be an error in considering the Dark Side and Light side to be two separate things or sides. They both seem to be methods of manipulating the force.

I haven't read enough of the expanded universe to know if the force is inherently divided into a light and dark side but a dichotomy certainly exists in the way that the Sith and Jedi apply the force. So if you'd prefer we can recast the argument as Sith vs Jedi. All of my previously stated arguments can then be seen as the Sith dominating the Jedi rather than the dark side dominating the light side.

Take force lightning for example. Jedi don't use it, but Yoda absorbs it during his fight with Dooku with ease. He says "Much to learn, you still have," as if he knew of its properties. And he must to be able to manipulate it so as to not cause him harm.

In the expanded universe it is stated that the Jedi possess an archive of Sith holochrons at the Jedi temple. This would explain why Yoda possesses some knowledge of the dark side, and why he is prepared for Dooku's force lightning.

To my understanding, emotion is the catalyst of the force; negative emotion fueling the "dark side" and positive emotion fueling the "light." People fall more easily to the dark side because they can more easily feel anger than its foil. How I see it, the difficulty in becoming a Jedi is developing yourself to the degree that positive emotion comes easier to you than negative emotion. Thus, it can become a stronger source of power. Sith train their negative emotion, though they too focus on self discipline. If you watch Darth Maul, he is calm and composed in every scene but the fight scenes.

I agree with you about the dark side being fueled by negative emotion, however it seems to me that the Jedi are rather stoic. But I agree with your ultimate point. It's easier to succumb to anger than achieve stoicism.

So to answer your question, I think that the Light and Dark side of the force are equally as potent and only depend on the caster, though the Dark side comes easier than the Light. The Jedi choose not to use it because it leads to corruption and death. Though I believe once you gain mastery over your emotions, you can swing to either side and be equally as powerful.

The idea that both sides of the force have access to the same abilities is a somewhat dubious proposition, especially if we take the expanded universe into account. While you could make the case that in the movies the Jedi simply choose not to use abilities like force lightning, in the novels it flat out says that force lightning is a skill inaccessible to the Jedi. However, even if I grant that you're correct and that the Jedi simply choose not to use Sith abilities, doesn't that make the Sith more powerful at least in practice?

[quote]

The fight with Yoda and Darth Sidious was a stalemate in my eyes. The only reason Yoda lost was because he fell further than Sidious at the end, and the plot needed to be continued. He was also 800 years older than Sidious. I think he was well past his prime.

Fair enough, but physically Sidious seemed past his prime as well.

If we accept the idea that emotion fuels force ability and that anger is easier felt than its opposite, than it follows that the Sith are more powerful. They can more easily draw out this kind of emotion because in war and battle, the prevailing sentiment is negative and murderous. So I believe it is easier for them to fight with power than the Jedi.

However, there are various exceptions that prove my point about individual emotional strength. Take Revan for example. He started off as Jedi, turned Sith (using all the abilities that accompany it), lost his memory and became a Jedi again, then regained it and became something in between. Rather, a true master of himself and the force, able to use both Light and Dark side powers.

In essence, I believe Jedi do not train or use Dark Side powers because they must tap into negative emotion to do so, which would counter or undermine their training with the Light.

So can someone explain why Luke was on par with Darth Vader after what appeared to be two days (one with Obi Wan, one with Yoda) of training?

So can someone explain why Luke was on par with Darth Vader after what appeared to be two days (one with Obi Wan, one with Yoda) of training?

His father went easy on him.