Are The Old Republic's Sith In the Right?
- Thread starter John Funk
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this is why i side with the Gray Jedi, not "good" not "evil" just people doing what they think is right. like with the force powers.
Is it evil to use Lightning to power a Town when it needs it?
Is it good to mind trick someone just doing there job?
There is not Black and there is no White, there are only shades of Gray, as they say.
Is it evil to use Lightning to power a Town when it needs it?
Is it good to mind trick someone just doing there job?
There is not Black and there is no White, there are only shades of Gray, as they say.
Flying Dagger said:
Your missing one very important piece of the puzzle which I didn't cover in my earlier giga rant because I figured it had become fairly well known.
That is that the Star Wars universe works on a period of cycles. That is to say that it is a universe defined very clearly by the forces of good getting a period to rule, followed by a period of balance as the good guys fall, followed by period of evil's reign, followed by another period of balance as new good guys rise, ad infinium.
This is why for example you have the prophecy in the prequel series about how Anakin has come to "bring balance to the force". The good guys incorrectly interpet this as "stop the Sith", but in reality with good ruling the universe there is nowhere to go but down for them. This is also why the powers of the good guys are waning and "the force is cloudy". Basically the universe/the force is arrayed against them and is forcing it's design. This is incidently why the Sith are so much more powerful than the Jedi in the scope of the prequels, they pretty much have the universe on their side.
Papaltine is simply an insturment of chaos, intended to shake things up. He creates a period of transition which breaks The Republic and established order, which will inevitably end with the rise of a period of darkness. Kind of a grim note about the fate of the "New Republic" and Luke's Jedi when you get down to it, which is one of the reasons why I feel Lucas originally wasn't going to do sequels. It's also a key point as to why a lot of people who understand things don't get into the whole Zahn novel series with "force invisible" aliens and all that junk.
Kreia explains quite clearly that her objective in KoToR2 is to destroy The Force itself. The purpose of this is to give mortals true control over their destiny. How she planned on delivering this death blow once all the force users were dead was never actually explained in detail, probably because the story was never finished. This is one of the things that makes the ending of the game somewhat ambigious, and also depressing becaue by stopping her on a lot of levels you ALSO doomed humanity to be locked within the cycle longer.
For whatever reason the "old Republic" era is defined as an age of evil which is supposed to be coming to an end. Probably because The Sith were so powerful (comparitively speaking) in another area of the galaxy. One of the things to consider here is that the Sith should not be all that "kewl" as they are being presented. Rather the end result of these events are supposed to be the eradication of The Sith to the point where as of the regular Star Wars timeline nobody really knows what a Sith was for sure, this includes Yoda who was like 500+ years old. They were that totally decimated. You should be seeing things like a single Jedi apprentice taking out multiple Sith Masters because the universe pretty much says that is what is supposed to happen. Admittedly that would be hard to balance and make Sith gimp characters so I understand why Bioware isn't going there for the MMO, I would however expect parity at least, and if any side was to be slightly favored (like say The Horde) it should be the Jedi for that reason, especially in PVP.
At any rate I was mostly talking about philsophy and attitudes. In the end it's less about the people, and more about the will of The Force. The Dark Side is evil because that is what the universe decrees, it's the rule of all that is "bad" about humanity and sentinence.
This is pretty dark on some levels, especially in this time frame. Truthfully if they ever did a Star Wars TV series or something I've felt they should set it in a future dominated by The Sith where nobody knows what a Jedi is anymore, and then have the Jedi return from the Shadows, which would explain them being able to do the hollywood "I am unbeatable" type fight scenes.
What I am saying also makes Kreia as messed up and evil as she was, arguably the biggest hero in the Star Wars Canon (and I say this is Canon because again George Lucas allegedly came up with this and Obsidian/Bioware tweaked it).
Incidently this kind of "will of the force" is also how people can have prophecies and see the future.
Interesting thought, it's true I don't think either side can claim the moral high ground here. As for me, if I do play this game, and that's a big 'if' (I'm not a fan of MMOs) I hope I can be a Grey Jedi. Both extremes annoy me.
Sith - Through thunderous applause they steal freedoms in the face of disaster and force others to be a part of their plot through bureaucratic means. They uphold the democratic laws in order to advance their agenda instead of serving their people. They bribe, cheat, lie, and steal their way to victory.
In other words.
Sith - Politicians.
In other words.
Sith - Politicians.
I have imagined, most of the time, that emotions per se isn't bad for the jedis. But rather acting on them as they aren't rational. The problem with emotions is also that some of them tap into the absolute darkness that exists within the Star Wars universe. It isn't as much about "being free" as the fact that you are inviting actual corruption into your soul as a force user when you act upon some of your emotions or use a dark side force power.
The more you tap into this corruption, the worse it gets obviously. Until you one day wake up like a five year old with the power of Zeus. The only thing you care about is yourself and how much power you can amass. Not because you are irrational or crazy, but because you have corrupted yourself by tapping into the dark side.
As an aside, the Star Wars RPGs all have systems for "dark side deterioration" that is basically justified on the basis of the fact that the Dark Side is a corruptive and insidious force that promises quick rewards but has long term drawbacks. So I am not so sure that making the Sith more Gray and less Black is a good move. It goes against the core principles of Star Wars for me.
The more you tap into this corruption, the worse it gets obviously. Until you one day wake up like a five year old with the power of Zeus. The only thing you care about is yourself and how much power you can amass. Not because you are irrational or crazy, but because you have corrupted yourself by tapping into the dark side.
As an aside, the Star Wars RPGs all have systems for "dark side deterioration" that is basically justified on the basis of the fact that the Dark Side is a corruptive and insidious force that promises quick rewards but has long term drawbacks. So I am not so sure that making the Sith more Gray and less Black is a good move. It goes against the core principles of Star Wars for me.
Perhaps this will allow for a DnD type morals and ethics system.
The Jedi Order's ideal seems to be Lawful-Good.
The Sith empire is Chaotic-(and most are)Evil(but our topic here is that they don't have to be)
Odd that Obi-wan says: "Only a Sith deals in absolutes." first because it is one, but mainly that seems like something that would only apply to a 'Lawful' group like the Jedi.
OT: Obi-wan is contradicting the above statement when he says that: "...the Sith are evil!"
The Jedi Order's ideal seems to be Lawful-Good.
The Sith empire is Chaotic-(and most are)Evil(but our topic here is that they don't have to be)
Odd that Obi-wan says: "Only a Sith deals in absolutes." first because it is one, but mainly that seems like something that would only apply to a 'Lawful' group like the Jedi.
OT: Obi-wan is contradicting the above statement when he says that: "...the Sith are evil!"
That's exactly why I never really liked Yoda and the Jedi in general, they're so incredibly dogmatic. Their teachings are useful of course, since with them you can prevent letting anger lead to hate, but hell they just want to eliminate emotion altogether. Can't say I like that, I thought only Sith dealt in absolutes. Yoda sounds pretty absolute to me though.Khell_Sennet said:
And the fact that BioWare seems to agree with that, or at least agree with the importance of the shades of grey, will hopefully mean that SW:TOR will be a lot more interesting.
Still, of course, my Sith Inquisitor might not be that bad, but I'm still going to torture people with Force Lightning. That's just fun.
not really the horde were hardly evil in warcraftfelixader said:
OT: sounds good, i might play sith, now that it does not mean you have to be super evil
ThisMr Wednesday said:
Seriously, I think it's interesting, but I hope they're very, very careful with it. It could turn out to be an interesting moral exploration of individuality vs altruism, but it could also turn out to be a ridiculous attempt to try and make good guys out of caricature villains.
Because come ON, sith are cool, yes, but throughout most of the star wars canon they've also been obviously, often even ridiculously evil. And that wasn't always a bad thing. It meant you could indulge in petty cruelty while playing as one or feel thoroughly justified when fighting them.
Now, the dark side does have the potential to be less about evil and more about certain more abstract principles, but they'd really have to give the sith's moral compass a makeover if they wanted to do that.
Whining about how the jedi are genocidal towards your poor misunderstood religion feels a bit hypocritical if you're willing to exterminate whole planets because it's convenient.
I don't know that any of these arguments for whether the Sith are in the 'right' are really convincing, but I applaud them nonetheless for making them more tangible characters. Lawful evil is always more interesting than chaotic evil. Still, I have a feeling that the Star Wars universe is beginning to buckle at the seams with all the additional fiction it has to incorporate, and a lot of this prequel lore is really destroying the symbolism of the original trilogy.
No, not really. Not in any way other than in the sense of the Sith being the "evil" faction of the game.felixader said:
This I like. I've always digged the "feel" of the Sith above those of the Jedi, and many Sith lords have had good intentions. Also, force-choke kicks ass.
The horde was hardly evil in warcraft III.Captain Ninja said:
In warcraft I & II, they where the soldiers of the burning legion, willingly corrupted genocidal maniacs bend on destroying Azeroth for no other reason that Kil'Jaeden and Sargeras pointing them in that direction.
In warcraft III Thrall pops up to show them the old ways and redeem them.
In wow.. yeah I'm to going to open that can of worms.
While the Chaos, Tyranids and Necrons are unambiguously evil forces it is worth noting that the empire of man, elders and other "good guys" are xenophobic tyrants and oppressors.GloatingSwine said:
Warhammer be it fantasy or 40k is not good vs evil. It is Evil vs Greater Evil.
On topic : I suppose I have always been seen the Jedi as (in lack of better way to explain it) Freuds "super ego", and the sith as the "id". And this doesn´t really seem to that a whole lot.