CJS4715 said:
Even still, the fact that this is so unclear for those of us who have watched these movies quite a bit reveals there is a problem with the story and mythology.
So I actually don't agree with this, but this is going to maybe get a little weird.
It being a "problem" presupposes that we're supposed to understand it, yet we don't understand the guiding force of our own universe. There are different religions, sciences, theories, etc to how life is formed, evolved, etc, but there's not one "definitively right" theory that connects everything together.
For all of our scientific advances, there are fundamental parts of our own universe that we don't understand.
In the same way, the people of Star Wars have various theories and interpretations of how/why/etc "the force" works, but none of them really know for sure. Some of them can even wield it's power, but not completely.
So as much as I give Ep. 8 a lot of crap for various things, the lack of clarity of the nature of the force doesn't bother me all that much.