The TSL butchering--who is irked and why?
 

Did I miss something? :confused: I know a good idea when I see one:
Yes, I know it's a pet peeves of mods to have their colorful warnings quoted by an underling forumer, but I think I missed something potentially good...or somesuch.

Well, since I'm a bit irked at how much retcon is gong down, I figure why not start a rantfest thread over it? I liked TSL as much as KOTOR 1. The one oddball anomaly and they "kick it to the curb" as they say w.r.t. what's going on here with TSL. Now don't turn venting into mayhem but go ahead and rant, err, as related to the topic as you can of course. :dev9:

Now look, I understand there are people who thought TSL was abominable and that's fine on your own, just let the dissatisfied vent here.

Now this.

Obviously TSL's having been rushed out affected the story development. I actually like the idea that all of life was endangered, and the wound in the force business. Granted it was poorly illustrated and told in the story, and found a mother figure throughout the story bothersome. However, there has to be an anomaly somewhere in a franchise or else it is just flat and static. For being different it is being treated as the red-headded stepchild in a house of monkeys. I tired of the typical hero man type of story and viewed this as a welcome breath of fresh air. The morally gray realism and the highlight that all sides have a unique identity and not just the old heroes vs villains formula is something the SW lacked and truly needed to give it depth, I think. Open-ended philosophical story. Alas, we aren't even allowed to canonize any other lightsaber color except what is in the films.

Anyway, just my rant. I guess there are others who have their sentiments which I welcome here.

I think we'll have to wait until the final product is out and all story points revealed.
I'm not optimistic.

I really, really liked the whole 'death of the Force' storyline and like you am a bit sad they did not make more of it. Granted, I have a whole KOTOR III meta-fanfic building in my head, and have some good ideas for that, and probably therefore no explanation or elaboration would work perfectly, but what the hell. It does make a change from megalomaniacal/recenge-driven Sith attack Republic/Jedi/People/Race/All of the above, and raised questions about how exactly the Force works beyond all the sort of 'binds all life together' pseudo-philosophy and midichlorians pseudo-psysiology. Again, I have a few ideas or theories regarding that myself in the dusty recesses of my brain. One day I'll write all this down. Presumably when the moon turns blue...

I am beyond annoyed for the following reasons:

1) Revan is a not a villain! He is a tragic hero and living proof that one can rise beyond the LS-DS system, proving that is arbitrary and inaccurate.

2) The Jedi were not right! They were wrong about the Mandalorian Wars! They were also a bunch of self-important, hypocritical, discriminatory jerks. Validating the Jedi view of the Revanchists makes no sense.

3) The Sith are not innately evil for being Sith! Indeed, the Sith ideology makes far more sense than that of the Jedi in that it is far more practical. As shown in TSL and BOSSR, there are only two flaws: random cruelty and betrayal. Remove that and the Sith are the good guys.

I could list other things, but those three are pretty high up on my list. TOR is now going to throw us back to the land of fail (or should I say The Force Unleashed?) where being a self-important, discriminatory, hypocritical jerks is somehow desirable and justice is killing guys with red lightsabers and black cloaks simply because of said appearance.

@LoH:

1) Revan was not above good and evil. The quest for power made him go over to the dark side, and he probably thought he could take on the True Sith after uniting the Republic forcibly. I'm not going to say he couldn't, as there's no proof he could or could not, I'm just pointing something out. Heck, Jolee and Kreia are the only ones I consider above good and evil.

2) Yes, the Jedi were pretty short-sighted with the Mando Wars, and yes, that made them look like jerks and hypocrites, but who said the Jedi were perfect?

3) If someone invaded your country, you wouldn't say "We won't fight them because they look different and that would make us discrimatory". The Sith invaded first. The Republic, naturally, had to fight back. And knowing the Sith tendency to kill everything in sight, then I'd consider killing Sith justice. It's the equivalent of giving the death penalty to a person who committed war crimes.

Just to fill you in, the Sith are written in as the villains of the Star Wars universe. Regardless of what you think they are, 90% of the time they are there to be the hero's opponent. You could switch them out for cute bunny rabbits, but as long as they are in that role it doesn't matter what they look like, or think or believe in. Those details are filled in after you establish who's on what team and what team the player is on.

1. True, he might have chosen the dark side, but that is kinda the point. He chose it because he understood that power isn't supposed to just help you, just be there when you need it. Its supposed to exist with you, something that doesn't breathe when you need it, but breathe with you whenever you do.

2. The problem isn't the mere fact that they were short-sighted, or unwilling to act, nor the fact that they are flawed. The problem is that they, as a whole(as in, not just a select few Jedi, such as Kavar), refuse to admit that they are flawed.

3.The "kill-everything-in-sight" thing only truely began when Revan was 'killed', and Malak took his place. Though Revan was without doubt, taking the galaxy for his own, he was trying to keep it strong even as he did so, without leveling every planet in sight. Malak, however, decimated everything that was in the way of his short-term goals. Though Revan might have allowed Telos to be destroyed, it was supposed to be an example, not the begining of actions that would destroy every planet the Jedi would run to.

CHAIRS AVVALON KILED SART WRAS"!!"""21ewoi2222211111 :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

The light side dark side system is not arbitrary. Both sides of the Force are real and tangible in-universe phenomena, as we see in much of the EU, not to mention the freaking movies (it should also be noted that the two sides of the Force have no compatibility issues whatsoever with moral ambiguity of the likes of KotOR II). Furthermore, regardless of the player's desperate need to have an untarnished ego, Revan was a villain as the Sith Lord, though he was later a hero as a Jedi (when he first joined the Mandalorian Wars, he was also a hero, because his motivations there were just and he did not use evil-aligned means to that end. When he started to tap into the dark side and spread it among his followers, he and the Jedi Crusaders became anti-heroes, because while their goals were just, they lost their original allegiance to the light side, the Republic, and its people).

That's true, because, as Kreia put it, Sith is a title. Rather, they are evil because they murder, betray, wage wars of aggression, and manipulate others for their own gain and amusement. In no cases do they do so for the well-being of others, beyond justifying their crimes to themselves and others with "I did what I had to for the greater good"-type arguments, because civil war-prone totalitarian dictatorships run by an order of Force-using power-hungry warlords are better than more conventional democratic governments (isn't it interesting how no Sith Lords who are vaunted as "tragic heroes who did what they had to" ever have plans that don't involve putting themselves into positions of absolute power, or the mass murder of threats to said position?).

Darth Sidious was one of the the closest any Sith Lord ever came to having no pretenses about caring for other people. Although he did regard himself as a savior for doing away with the Republic and Jedi, he wanted to literally consume all life in the universe into himself (presumably he thought this was a salvation for them, because he was a malignant narcissist, loving basically nothing in existence except himself).

Do I really need to point out the mind-staggering absurdity of citing fan fiction as if it is a legitimate canon source?

What about their tendencies to kill large numbers of other good guys and/or innocents? Besides, your statement about how good they'd be without those two traits is irrelevant, because at no point in the Sith Order's seven thousand year-history of existence and reformation did it ever not have those traits.

What does TFU have to do with any of this?

Blanket statement about all Jedi forever, ignoring everything good they do and emphasizing everything bad (even the things which aren't their ****ing fault, like the Mandalorians). Your insistence on the Jedi not being as noble as most people think would be a lot more convincing if you didn't also try to convince the reader that they are worse than the Sith. Saying that the Jedi are a necessary evil is on its own pretty damn far out there, that's one thing. Saying that the Sith are morally superior is absolutely bogus.

Stupid Good Alignment: Stop picking on those poor defenseless hellspawn!

Is this statement supposed to apply to TFU? If so, then I'm abso-****ing-lutely dying to hear your reasons for believing that the protagonists of that story are actually in the wrong (defending the likes of Darth Sidious would be a new one even for you).

I'm sure the average North Korean would totally agree that totalitarian regimes are infinitely superior to democracy :| quite how practicality wins over as being better, than millions not suffering needless fear, pain and death I don't know - however I'm sure Stalin very much had your approach as he sent millions to the gulags to die as he "reformed" Russia.

I don't see why you wish to cast the Sith as "good guys" when they are patently self serving and their only desire is increase their own power; they think inwardly and only of themselves. Love is the most powerful force in the universe, always has been always will be; since a Sith is by definition incapable of love, I don't see how they can possibly be "good". Note how Vader ceased to be a Sith when is love for his son over-came him having to obey his Master as reference to the power of love within the SW universe.

@LOH on #3)

IIRC, didn't Uthar Wynn in K1 have some sentiment denouncing the concept of love? Isn't this what has more or less proven to be what ultimately separates good from bad--what the difference is between mostly and fully embracing the Dark Side? J7 above got to it before I did.

I'll agree with you being a sith in and of itself isn't what ultimately decided whether folks were bad or good, though.

Dammit jon, enough with your effete, sodomite, socialist un-Amerkin, unconstitutional, un-Christian, European mores to this. Those Koreans are clearly evil, just like poor people. They *deserve* to be killed, maimed and tortured. Don't you bring your "love" here - don't you realise that's just a Satanic, Commie construct designed to corrupt the Youth and Virility of Amerkuh?

Besides, they're not Amerkin - obviously they're untermenschen socialist sodomite scum. :rolleyes:

You tell him Sidious!


Anyways, this whole discussion is getting ridiculous.

I've pretty much stopped classifying and categorizing things like villains and heroes. They're just characters with goals, personalities, flaws, fears, etc...

There's no superfluous explanation behind it all: it's just how I see it.
Revan a villain? At one point, yes.
Revan, a hero? Yes, that too.

No one's perfect, not everyone follows the stereotype. Not all Jedi are righteous, not all Sith are malevolent. Don't you people see?

This is what TSL (and a bit of Kotor1) is about. The reason I like TSL so much is because it got me to actually think about what I was playing, which therefore got me more involved into the game.
I understood and was awed by what was going on and how the story unfolded. For those of you who say that TSL has no story, I do have to laugh.

Anyways, erasing TSL makes me mad mostly because.... that cliffhanger ending deserves something grand and epic to redeem itself.
I don't know how TOR is going to turn out, but if it DOES end up ignoring TSL completely, they basically just left a story half-finished there. That's how I see it anyways.

Well, yeah. Plus another thing is that short sightedness isn't as likely to cost you the LS/DS ending in the first one because it all basically hangs upon your "choice" on Lehon.

Whereas in TSL you had to be more wary. I.E. the secessionist movement on Onderon by Vaklu. Maybe all you wanted to do was help them to keep the ways of their culture but it would end up forcing the duel with Kavar. Though I'll admit you are dropped certain clues along the way.

Yet you could play it out any number of ways on Dantooine and NarShaddah and it wouldn't mean anything about having to kill a Jedi Master until you actually confronted them and got to choose.

Granted Obsidian's games have endings which leave something to be desired, I do agree that it deserves better. A chance and a better ending.

I agree with this. TSL left me a little underwhelmed at the end. Partially b/c it felt like it ended too quickly. Ignoring it like the bastard red-headed stepchild of the SW universe seems unduly harsh, though.

What well-documented Sith do we know of who were not malevolent?

O cmon your so biased TKA-001. FFFFFail :carms: :dev9:

But these reasons are one set of "expected" opinions of the events in TSL. But not the facts, per se. The events can and were intended to be viewed in multiple ways. But keep in mind that traditionally SW is a mythical story with good and evil characters. The Jedi are intended to be good and the Sith evil. I'm just saying that being annoyed that things don't align perfectly with your set of opinions doesn't really make the story writers wrong in that sense.

True.

But you got to admit: TSL and Kotor left us with some 'Hey..this is cool and different for a change' feeling which is retconned now...
I don't hate these Bioware writers for it, I just think it's a missed chance. We could have some...mystery...in a universe where everything is sourced, explained and made into canon.

When I played both KotOR's I ended up killing guys with red lightsabres and black cloaks no matter what alignment I was, but it was either because they were psycho murderers who killed people unable to shoot lightning from their hands (which is worse discrimination), because they tried to kill me or because I was a psycho murderer who killed people unable to shoot lightning from their hands, not fashion.

Also, in TOR you will be able to play as your role-models, so much for it being a one-sided all-Sith-are-pure-evil-fest.

I give you, Darth Vectivus. Say hello Darth Vectivus. :xp:

I don't view the Sith as good guys (that's like saying the mountain men were "just misunderstood"), but I do think that Revan became a Sith for the sole purpose of protecting the galaxy at large from a greater evil than himself.
If you had the option of adding the strength of your armies and fleets to those of your homeland by systematically taking over, or letting your homeland be enslaved and pillaged, which would you choose? Besides, if Malak hadn't taken over Revan might've actually taken a position more like that of a Chancellor rather than Emperor. Let them keep their freedoms but remain in power to defend when needed.

... Its easier just to think of it in terms of the purpose of the character in the story. Any game you play is a struggle to achieve a goal. Anything/anyone preventing you from accomplishing the goal is the "bad guy", regardless of who they are or why they are stopping you. Therefore, Exile is a "good guy", because he/she's the player. Nihilus is the "bad guy" because he's an obstacle. If you play as someone on Nihilus' side, then the roles are reversed. That's the best way to view things as it pertains to this thread.

We have no reason whatsoever to consider this possibility.

First of all, the Light Side is not equivalent to good and the Dark Side is not equivalent to evil. Notions of good and evil are often subjective (finding true objective morality is possible, but difficult). Further more, there is no true evidence to suggest that there is some omnipotent malevolent impulse out to corrupt all beings.

Second of all, prove to me that Revan was corrupted. According to Kreia, he was true to himself. His tactics were extremely efficient and did not waste life. People were only sacrificed when absolutely necessary, and often resulted in the salvation of many others. This does not sound like someone under the sway of the Dark Side.

Finally, consider for a moment the possibility that life under Revan's Empire was actually preferable to that of the Republic. We know that the latter was hopelessly incompetent and corrupt to the bone, but what about the nation that Revan built? An empire does not mean daily civil rights abuse, and Revan was a persuader...meaning that he would have preferred to win over his subjects that suppress them with fear.
I do need the Jedi to be perfect. If they were remotely any good I would leave them be. But they aren't: They can't even effectively fight the Sith at all!
Sith=/=random cruelty. Sith=living as one with nature. The tendency for the Sith to kill everything in sight is a result of certain leaders in certain time periods. Malak completely shifted the Sith policies. The Sith Triumvirate was not so much a group of Sith as a bunch of vampires, a zombie, and a witch. Darth Sidious most likely did not see the Sith as anything other than the more effective of the two tools available for him to use to satisfy his greed for power. Meanwhile, you had Revan, who was far more efficient and level-headed; Bane, who while he did not erase the corruption of the Sith that occurred over time turned it into a benefit; and VP's example of Darth Vectivus. I could cite other Sith who weren't monsters, but that'd take more time than I'm willing to spend. I would, however, be willing to cite a rather long list of Jedi who were monsters. Indeed, there are some Jedi who make the worst of the Sith look like Gizka.
And what you are touching upon is what is wrong with Star Wars (or one of many things): the Sith are always written in as the villains. In the case of Darth Sidious, it is right to write him as a villain because he is one. On the other hand, you have some Sith who were truly good people, especially when they became Sith.
You misunderstand me. What I am pointing out is that Revan never chose the Dark Side, he pretended to.

It is perfectly possible for someone to be above the Dark and Light Sides of the Force. Take Cade Skywalker for example: his shown as using Dark Side abilities with little to no corruption of himself. His Wiki entry remarks that his behavior is definitely not that of a Jedi, but he easily resisted the Dark Side. It seems to me that it merely takes a strong will to use the respective sides of the Force without being influenced in turn. Hell, Dark Side abilities are apparently not Dark Side if you have benign intentions (hint: electric judgment).
That's another problem they have, one of countless.
QFT.
You say this, but provide no proof whatsoever.
You cite the actions of some Sith, which are unfortunately cited as the representation of the whole. Furthermore, empires are not necessarily evil and democracies are not necessarily good. I can make a VERY strong case that it is the exact opposite, but I'm not going to take this thread off topic.
For god's sake, you cite Darth Sidious as the ultimate representation of the Sith, never minding the fact that he broke the Rule of Two and probably several other Sith guidelines on multiple occasions for his benefit alone. The Sith are individualists, but they are also a culture. Darth Sidious was in many ways the greatest enemy of the Sith in that he endangered them by promoting anti-Force user sentiment in the Empire, intended to avoid passing on his teachings to a successor, and gather the Sith teachings together and thus decrease their likelihood that the Jedi would eventually erase them.
You're right, I wasn't thinking when I wrote that particular part.
Again, you cite the actions of certain Sith. This does not mean that all Sith do this. In fact, there is no teaching that says: go kill lots of people and bring pointless amounts of suffering to as many individuals as possible. Meanwhile, the Jedi teachings do promote blind faith towards leaders, inefficiency, emotion dysfunctionality, and the inability to adjust to new circumstances.
It has everything to do with this: dumbed-down plot with overly simplistic morality and pathetically linear sequence of events.
Translation: No matter what consistent points you make, you will always be wrong.
Is this an attempt to be witty? My point that I attempt to make is that while some Sith are indeed hellspawn (such as Darth Sidious), most are not and are rather quite the opposite. Your constant response to every argument I make is that all Sith are hellspawn because of the actions of those that are. I find this very poor logic indeed.
Again, I have no wish to defend Darth Sidious. He is a character that has been proven to be evil in every sense of the word. This does not mean that his existence as a villain makes every other Sith evil!
We have not been shown what life was like in Revan's Sith Empire, so the only indication of its citizen's treatment that we can go by is the nature of Revan, which is efficient. Mass genocide and fear tactics are indeed very inefficient, when an adoring populace is far more likely to support its nation's agenda.
Love may be the greatest form of good, but it is not all of what is good. Also, self-interest does not equal selfishness. The latter is self-interest in the form that harms others. Not all Sith are selfish, but all pursue self-interest. Ironically, the Jedi do as well, but deny it.
Thank you. :thmbup1:

Nope, not wrong, it was entirely deliberate. Especially as it pertains to this thread. TSL was a game, and in video games the character is either preventing you from winning or not. Doesn't matter who or why, just matters that they were designed to do that. Seeing as all the sith characters and minions in TSL are trying to thwart the Exile however and whenever, they are the "bad guys". You realize that this story-telling stuff follows formulas, right? You plan out your characters and dispositions towards each other before you make up their motivations and backgrounds. There is a fairly standard design process for this, and Lucas, Avellone, and pretty much any professional writer/designer out there follows it. Just look at Bioware, their story arcs never change.

@LoH: I'm going to be brutally honest with you here, some of your arguments actually made me do a facepalm on my end.

This argument is impractical and silly. I'm going to cite a real world example: the U.S. can't effectively fight al-Qaeda. Does that make America bad because we aren't perfect? It's a widely accepted fact that if anything in fiction is perfect, then the story wouldn't be good.

Please, I'm absolutely dying to hear which Jedi you're referring to.

I'm going to be even more honest with you here: That is a load of bulls***. He chose the Dark Side. Powers like grip are Dark Sided. I doubt Jedi of that time period would even think of using dark side powers. He followed the teachings of the True Sith. He even left behind a Sith holocron. How can you get darker than that? (I'm exaggerating here, but I hope you see my point.)

I guess I shouldn't be arguing though. I'm beginning to doubt that you know the difference between Revan and the player (in this case, yourself).

Well, I wasn't exactly contesting your point, though I think I didn't say all of what I meant. Rather I mean to say that he used his power over the force whenever he needed, not just the dark side. Though it likely is true that he behaved similar to my Renae character, in that he wasn't completely driven by emotion, but driven by logic and reason along side it. there must've been some point that he elected to use the dark side, and embrace its power, though that doesn't mean that he sought to only use one side of the force.

Bingo! There is the distinct air of fanboyism! The other thing the post contained was lots of conjecture and very little evidence. If LoH is going to pursist in saying he is *right* then he is going to have to start producing evidence, the whole post just came across as a lecture about how he is right, over it being entirely opinion... Which is what it was.

Regardless, I find it silly that the Jedi should be "perfect" - in the films there is no doubt that the Jedi are the goodies, despite the fact they make mistakes. Were the Allies not the "goodies" during WWII because we made a series of bad errors?

I'm afraid it seems to me, given the Sith Code, that being a Sith means you are evil. The Sith Code, basically amounts to the rule of the strong over the weak and the acquisition of power. You are twisting what it means to be a Sith, however if a Sith doesn't follow the Sith Code they are no longer Sith. Changing the meaning of words to suit your argument, just makes words meaningless.

Balls! Quite simply; we see what life is like in the Sith Empire on Korriban with random torturing and murder of people who are "weak". Now this may have been "under Malak" - but really this shows us what it was like under the Sith Empire. As did Taris.

In the "natural selection" society of the Sith - I can only see it mirroring a Nazi state where "undesirables" would be either sterilised or killed. That is the inevitable conclusion of "the Strongest rule" - and the pattern that society would have - anyone who "is weak" or "weakens" society would be killed. You can live in your dream land where you as Revan would have ruled differently, but that would mean you weren't a Sith.

I beg to differ over "Mass Genocide" and fear being ineffective; given that Stalin dragged Russia into the 20th Century turning what was basically a feudal state into the Industrial age, in less than a decade. However that does not mean this was right.

Pro-tip; don't lecture at Philosophers on Philosophy.

Do your really want me to give you a philosophy lesson? Because frankly your total lack of knowledge on the subject shines through with statements like this. Of course, if you really wish me to philosophically hammer you on this point we can begin; define for me how you define "love" and "good" and we can proceed.

Pro-tip; when making statements like this, it would be really good if you actually provided an example to back your point up, opposed to just stringing words together in the hope they mean something. It is not my job as the reader to think what your examples are.

More conjecture, no evidence. Though I very much fail to see how being an egotistic despot somehow doesn't equal being Selfish. For a "Sith" to be good they would want to be doing the "greater good" - i.e. if we take a utilitarian approach; what is best for everyone; which goes against the "Sith Code" - hence the individual is no longer a definition of a Sith and is something else entirely.

More conjecture, no evidence. Give me an example.

Apart from sounding like Anakin on Mustafa (which is never a good thing) you haven't offered anything new, apart from the fact you seem to have fallen for the same clap trap that Anakin did in RotS.

I don't have time to reply to everyone right now but I'm going to say that I made a typo. When I said that "I do need the Jedi to be perfect" I was actually writing "I do not need the Jedi to be perfect". Unfortunately I still have this habit of leaving out words when typing because I am so quick to get my thought down on. I'll edit this post and reply to everyone later.

Nearly all dark side powers are used to harm, debilitate, or kill, and the dark side is fed by negative emotions. Furthermore, use of the dark side has clear effects on the minds and bodies of its users (King Ommin of Onderon, arguably Palpatine himself, and plenty of other Sith have disfigurement or corruption effects from the dark side).

More importantly, the dark side has profound psychological effects and has a disturbingly high tendency to cause sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies among those who use the it regularly. The dark side also enhances the effects of anger, rage, hatred and wrath on its users to the point that even if they don't MEAN to cross the line, they will (Ulic Qel-Droma killing his own brother is a fine example of this).

Kreia herself says that Revan found the dark side's power while fighting in the Mandalorian Wars. Then, of course, there's the more recent unveiling that Revan's turn was cemented by the True Sith, and they were initially working for them when they returned to known space.

So what? Kreia never says anything about Revan that isn't praise. Revan is her star pupil, the reason for her exile and arguably one of the greatest sources of fuel for her revenge against the Jedi Order. Of course she thinks he just "stayed true to himself".

Revan deliberately engineered the slaughter of large numbers of his own troops in order to corrupt the Jedi Crusaders, and he deliberately allowed the Mandalorians to raze a number of planets in order to use those atrocities to rally support for himself.

I'm also waiting for an explanation for your implied belief that Revan's engineered destruction of Malachor V was justified.

Evidence, please? I've given you the above examples before. We know Revan's reason for sacrificing his pawns (the tests before the Star Map on Kashyyyk imply it, and Kreia confirms it on Dantooine in the second game), and I'm tired of you ignoring these examples.

"The ends justify the means." So what? The First Galactic Empire brought civilization to many unorderly worlds, but that does not invalidate its numerous crimes elsewhere. Same deal with Revan.

Corrupt to the bone by the time of The Phantom Menace, four thousand years later, perhaps, but you have time and time again told me that it was always that corrupt without giving any examples.

And, of course, there's your strange belief that if a government is corrupt, then it is just to carry out an unprovoked war against it.

The Sith Empire seemed to encourage abuse of non-human species as we see in KotOR I.

Really? Not even remotely good? Are you paying any bloody attention to anything?

The Jedi seem to be the only group that ever defeats the Sith throughout history. Who killed Exar Kun? The Jedi. Who defeated the Brotherhood of Darkness? The Jedi. Who killed Palpatine? The Jedi.

...or nearly all of their leaders throughout most of history.

Go on, keep denying everything I'm saying without producing evidence of your own claims.

Evidence, please?

Give me a break. Revan is nothing special as far as Dark Lords of the Sith go (Revan came closer to destroying the Republic and Jedi than Palpatine? Don't make me laugh).

I specifically asked for well-documented Sith. Vectivus is not well-documented, and even if he were, he is one example out of dozens of other Sith.

But you won't because you can't. You don't even need to explain their works; just throw me a name and I can do the research myself.

Oh, whoops. My mistake.

Go ahead, I'm dying to learn about Jedi (who I've never heard of before) who are as harmful or malevolent as the likes of Sidious, Bane, Krayt, Malak, or Exar Kun. Who else in this thread is willing to bet that these examples will include a hefty dose of "alternate character interpretation"?

What you think is "wrong" with the franchise is irrelevant to the fact that they are villains for a reason.

No, you don't. You only have people who used the fact that they wanted to do good things as a reason to go to the dark side. The only Sith that anyone pretends is morally ambiguous is Revan (the reason being that he's the player character. Nothing else.).

Revan didn't "pretend to." He uses dark side powers, he has a Sith title, he formed a Sith order, he formed a Sith Empire, he trained Sith apprentices, and he used Sith artifacts and weapons (Star Forge, Trayus Academy). There is nothing in pretense about Revan's use of the dark side (even Kreia doesn't claim that Revan "pretended" to become a dark-sider, she just argues that it was justified, and that it was a turn instead of a fall, like that makes any difference).

Cade is not "above" the dark/light system. You're misrepresenting my position by making it sound like I'm claiming that any and all use of the dark side is invariably and always profoundly corrupting. Using Force grip a few times is hardly that corrupting (Luke did it and he later turned out fine at the end of Episode VI). More importantly, the fact that Cade doesn't behave like a Jedi lends more evidence to the idea of the dark side influencing his actions.

The fact remains that more often than not, the dark side corrupts and is more dangerous than it's worth (and just because some Jedi use some dark powers does not mean they aren't corrupted at all).

We see in the movies in Episodes II, III, and VI that just feeding dark side-aligned emotions brings one closer to the dark side (in the duel of Anakin against Dooku, Anakin's killing of the Tuskens, and Luke's duel with Vader, respectively). Exar Kun in the Tales of the Jedi series is corrupted purely by excessive foolhardy use of the dark side to help himself.

I cite the actions of the majority of the Sith. You can't seem to come up with any examples of "noble" Sith other than Revan.

No, but so far we haven't seen a just Sith Empire.

I cite Sidious as such because he (1) has accomplished feats of the Force on his own that no other Sith in history has equaled and (2) because he came closer to final victory than any Sith before or since by irrevocably destroying the Republic and Jedi Order of his time and very nearly achieving immortality.

I can only assume your mention of Sidious breaking the Rule of Two refers to him training Maul before becoming the Dark Lord himself (since neither the Emperor's Hands, nor his Inquisitors or other dark-sider minions were Sith). What does it matter that he broke the rule? Bane's apprentice broke the Rule as well. The apprentice is supposed to be treacherous, and it's the master's job as the leader to enforce the Rule of Two.

Bane broke previous Sith philosophy by establishing the Rule of Two. What previous philosophy says doesn't matter if there's something more prudent to do. Also, please give some examples of other Sith guidelines Sidious has broken and why one should think less of him as a Sith for it.

Anti-Force user sentiment is one of the key tools he used to turn the galaxy against the Jedi. Besides, his eventual vision of the Empire was of a Sithian theocratic utopia (before he would take it further up from there).

If Palpatine was going to live forever, he wouldn't need a successor (Palpatine is hardly the first Sith to want immortality, either; Jorak Uln boasts that a true Sith never dies).

But virtually all of them do. Name a documented Sith Order that does not.

But they do it anyway. It pretty much goes hand in hand with the sentiment that only the "strong" deserve to live.

Don't bother giving any examples; only blanket statements.

Your opinion of TFU is as irrelevant to this discussion as your opinion of the Prequels was the last time we debated.

You don't make consistent points. In fact, you seem to go out of your way to avoid citing any specifics from the canon, instead preferring to substitute your own ideas of what it should be.

You know what? I'll bite. I've got time.

Pre-Great Hyperspace War: The predecessors of the Sith Order, the Dark Jedi Exiles, led by one Ajunta Pall, enslaved the Sith species after their arrival on Korriban using their powers in the Force. The Exiles had previously been banished from the Jedi Order for tapping into abuse-prone dark side powers and (what later came to be called) Sith alchemy, and they responded by declaring war and raising armies of dark side abominations to wage said war.

Tulak Hord: Known Dark Lord of the Sith and considered a master swordsman. Insufficient information to draw any further conclusions.

Marka Ragnos: Evidently considered the greatest Dark Lord of his age. About a millennium after his death, his spirit declared Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma to be Sith Lords, making Ragnos instrumental in the escalation of their fates.

Great Hyperspace War: Upon rediscovering the Galactic Republic long after the end of the Hundred-Year Darkness, Naga Sadow's first decision was to declare (unprovoked) war on it.

Freedon Nadd: Former Jedi who eventually turned to the dark side out of spite for not being promoted to the rank of Jedi Knight when he expected himself to be. As a Sith, he made himself the tyrant ruler of Onderon until his death, after which his spirit returned and, among other things (such as seeking to resurrect himself), influenced Exar Kun's turn to the dark side later.

Naddist Revolt: A group of Sith cultists (the Naddists) attempted to overthrow the Onderonian government. The first engagement of this conflict was one in which the Naddists attacked a funeral procession in order to steal the corpse of the Sith Lord Freedon Nadd.

Great Sith War: The young Jedi Exar Kun struck out on his own to learn the secrets of the dark side, in the hopes of using that power for good. With the help of Freedon Nadd's spirit, ended up fully giving into the dark side and eventually becoming a Sith Lord himself. During his time as a dark-sider, he single-handedly enslaved the Massassi race on Yavin 4 and elevated himself to a deity status among them. He then enlisted a group of Mandalorians and Krath, and declared war on the Republic with them. His crimes include corrupting numerous Jedi to the dark side, crashing the trial of Ulic Qel-Droma (Kun's apprentice, who was on trial for war crimes or some ****) and murdering the Republic's Supreme Chancellor and a large portion of the Senate. Several thousand years later, his spirit corrupted the Jedi Kyp Durron and induced him to use an Imperial superweapon to destroy an entire star system.

Mandalorian Wars/Jedi Civil War: Revan and Malak led a group of Jedi to help the Republic defeat the marauding Mandalorians. As they fought in the war, they became corrupted by the dark side, and after learning of the existence of the so-called "true" Sith Empire in the unknown regions, Revan gave into the dark side entirely, believing that he could use it to save the galaxy from this threat. During the war, he cemented a power base for himself by exposing his armies and followers to war atrocities, and therefore to the dark side. He deliberately engineered/allowed the Mandalorian massacre of Republic civilians and troops in order to corrupt his followers, and therefore make them loyal to him, rather than the Republic.

After using a superweapon to destroy the followers which he could not corrupt, along with all life on the planet of Malachor V in the process, Revan led his loyal followers into the unknown regions. There, their turn to the dark side was cemented by the leader of the true Sith Revan had learned about from Trayus Academy, and they were sent back to prepare the way for an invasion by the "true" Sith Empire. With the Star Forge behind him, Revan declared war on the Republic, starting the Jedi Civil War in an unprovoked attack on a strategic Republic military target.

During the Jedi Civil War, Darth Revan seemed to focus on dealing with converting as many Jedi as possible. As such, he assembled a cadre of elite Sith assassins to capture Jedi alive and bring them to the dark side any means necessary, up to and including torture. One of the more notable atrocities of the war was the Battle of Telos IV, in which Darth Malak, Revan's apprentice and second in command, ordered Saul Karath to attack and destroy the surface of the planet, in order to test his loyalty to the Sith. There is no evidence to suggest that Revan disapproved of this atrocity, or that he had Karath or Malak punished for these crimes.

First Jedi Purge: Following the Jedi Civil War, which left the Republic's ability to maintain a military nearly gone, the Sith Triumvirate continued to purge the galaxy of Jedi, led by three Sith Lords. The only supposedly "morally ambiguous" of the three, Darth Traya, preaches survival of the strong, chastises the Exile for helping innocents, uses the Force to steal information from Atton's head to blackmail him with, prolongs Hanharr's agony by saving and enslaving him with another life debt, manipulates and intimidates the rest of the Ebon Hawk's crew into doing what she wants, kills the three Jedi Masters (when she had previously claimed she wanted them alive) when she could have taken them alive, deliberately puts Telos in danger by drawing Nihilus there (sending Tobin essentially to his death in order to do so), uses the Exile to kill her enemies, and all to get revenge on the people she says wronged her.

Great Galactic War: Sith Empire from unknown regions invades Republic, in another unprovoked war (unless the mere existence of the eeeeevil Jedi and corrupt Republic of corruption was an unbearable obstacle to their survival). Notable atrocities include the Battle of Manaan (the Sith attacked a neutral world there, destroying all surface settlements) and the Alderaan Peace Conference, where they used said conference as a distraction while they attacked Coruscant, bombarding the planet to the point that the Republic was forced to surrender and cede large swaths of their territory or face total destruction.

New Sith Wars: A fallen Jedi named Phanius took the title of Darth Ruin, raised an army of Sith cultists and acolytes who remained from the last few wars, and started a thousand-year-long war with the Republic. Ruin was eventually betrayed and killed by his followers.

Dark Underlord: Sith Lord known to be the Dark Lord in the New Sith Wars for a time, and believed by some to be a dark side entity summoned from Chaos. Insufficient information to draw any relevant conclusions.

Darth Rivan: Known to be the Dark Lord elsewhere in the New Sith Wars. Settled on Almas, where he studied the dark side (and was believed to keep slaves there). One of his achievements was the creation of Sith battlelords, which were essentially the result of using Sith alchemy to reduce Sith minions into a mindless drones.

Belia Darzu: Later Dark Lord (Lady) of the Sith. Notable accomplishments included the use of Sith alchemy to create the Technobeast virus, which reduced those who suffered from it to zombie-like organic/machine hybrids.

Kaan: Last leader of the New Sith Empire. Little information about him before his death, aside from basic backstory info..

Darth Bane: Easily one of the more ruthless of the well-documented Dark Lords. Was vehemently opposed to Lord Kaan's ideals of equality in the Sith Order. When Bane was poisoned by Githany on Ambria, Bane killed a random passing-by family, feeding off of their fear and horror in order to temporarily stave off the effects of the poison. He also manipulated Kaan's Sith into using the Thought Bomb, which killed all of the Jedi and Sith present and trapped their souls there for another thousand years.

Darth Zannah: Bane's apprentice. Known for using the Force to drive enemies insane.

Darth Cognus: An amoral assassin known only as "the Huntress" before she became Zannah's apprentice. Cognus described herself as only wanting "power and purpose" in her life.

Darth Millennial: Apprentice to Darth Cognus. Not much is known about him except that, dissatisfied by the Rule of Two, he left the Sith Order and formed a cult of his own called the Prophets of the Dark Side, which existed long enough to be brought into Galactic Emperor Palpatine's service.

Darth Vectivus: Known to be a businessman and not much else. After his death, the Jedi Nelani Dinn encountered what appeared to be a ghost or spectre of Vectivus near his home. Vectivus (or whatever remnant of him the apparition was) tried to tempt Nelani with the dark side.

Darth Ramage: A Sith mentioned in passing in the third Coruscant Nights book. Essentially no information about him.

Darth Plagueis: Master of Darth Sidious. If the Galactic Emperor's recollections of his training are of any indication, Plagueis was a psychologically brutal to his student ("Tell me what you regard as your greatest strength, so I will know how best to undermine you; tell me of your greatest fear, so I will know which I must force you to face; tell me what you cherish most, so I will know what to take from you; and tell me what you crave, so that I might deny you.).

I'm not going to detail Palpatine, Vader, or Maul, because you already seem to think they're evil, for some elusive reason.

Darth Tyranus: Intended to establish a radically (even more so than the First Galactic Empire) human-supremacist Sith Empire with its rule enforced by an order of dark side enforcers, with all Force-sensitives in the galaxy either forced into its membership or killed.

Post-Battle of Endor:

Carnor Jax: A power-hungry man who was formerly a member of the Emperor's Royal Guard. His only real motivation was to seize control of what remained of Palpatine's Empire.

Lumiya: Conspired with Vergere, a former highly unorthodox Jedi and alleged former apprentice of Palpatine, to select the next Dark Lord of the Sith. Both of them played a important roles in manipulating Jacen Solo's views of morality and about ends justifying the means, proving instrumental in his turn to the dark side.

Darth Caedus: Formerly known as the Jedi Jacen Solo. Known actions include interrogating/torturing Ailyn Vel to the point of killing her, attempting to shape Ben Skywalker in order to make him a Sith apprentice by deliberately putting him into situations where he'd have to make self-compromising decisions, murdering Mara Jade, executing at least one officer under him for failure, and bombarding Kashyyyk for having Jedi-sympathetic Wookiees on it.

The One Sith, led by Darth Krayt: Engineered a war between the Galactic Alliance and the Second Galactic Empire and seized control of said Empire. The most notable atrocity of that time period is when Krayt ordered ten percent of the Mon Calamari population to be killed, and survivors sent to prison camps.


The above list includes every single prominent documented Sith Lord in canon history that I could think of (focusing on the Dark Lords), and then some. You don't even need to bother quoting the rest of my post; just tell me which of these are morally superior to the entirety of the Jedi, and how.

From the Sith Empire with love!

Not that good English speaker, so pardon me for my mistakes

Actually just regged to get involved into this discussion. It was really amusing to watch such a debates about the nature of good and bad guys of Star Wars Universe gradually transforming into polemics with North Corea, Stalin and Al Qaeda involved. Now let the true Sith speak!

Being "good" or "bad" is just a matter of which side you are on. Good guys=our guys, bad guys - vice versa. From Palpatin's point of view he was simply (dunno how to say) organizing society based on Sith beliefs, morals, etc. Was he doing good thing? For him and those who shares his vision - yes. From the Jedi point of view - of course not.

But Star Wars saga is a story obviously written by Jedi side of the conflict, so there is no doubt left for its "readers" which side is "good" (again!) and which is "evil". That is why TSL seemed and felt somewhat odd in that line.

I'd like to tell more but speaking language that is not my native is really tiresomely. However I can understand you very clearly, so big brother is watching you!

Never mind, I am not even bothering to respond at all. It's pointless because now with the direction of TOR the Sith are being rewritten completely into villains.

And frankly, TKA, I am especially not going to get into another debate with you because the material of that last post can be summarized as, "No, you're wrong!" I am perfectly capable of going through the list of every character in Star Wars and making a legitimate claim that they are not necessarily what they are made out to be on the surface hype.

In fact, I am done with debating anything Star Wars at this point. There is no reason to debate the morality of this story any more because it has been simplified to the point of mere childishness. "The Sith MUST be evil, the Jedi MUST be good." That's what I was protesting, but frankly there's no point because that's all we are headed towards.

I will post one more reply though:
Okay, so I have a sort of amateur interest in philosophy myself, so somehow this remark speaks to me as: "In real life I am an expert philosopher so there!" I was not lecturing you at all, I really don't understand why you think that. Obviously me debating in any of these circles is just not worth my time and will be treated as some sort of hostile or ignorant act.

Maybe that's because the Sith are villains? Your entire view of the sith is based off your own interpretation, and then you seem to "sulk" when Cannon, no less disagree's with you.

Then, why not respond to his point? He's taken the time to present his case, why don't you present yours?

Perhaps the fact the whole majority of us are in agreement should tell you something? Give us a single Sith apart from "Revan" who wasn't evil!

Produce for us 1 other Sith (apart from "your" Revan) who isn't evil, and you may have a point. It's a bit like saying a member of the SS isn't "evil" - can you produce a member of the SS who isn't evil?

Do you ever consider that perhaps the way you come across in posts comes across as entirely condescending, and that you know much more than everyone else? Perhaps that's why I maybe somewhat irked when people start lecturing me on Philosophy?

Unfortunately that's my writing style. I've done my best to try to mitigate it (trust me, my posts here take forever as a result), but usually my writing comes across as that of an elitist jerk (which I was for quite awhile).

You're beaten, kiddo. Admit it and give up the pretense that you know what you're talking about it. It's for your own good.

What did you expect from a rebuttal? At least he actually made reference to the evidence and formulated an argument besides vague claims that the Sith "live as one with nature" that run contrary to almost everything ever written about them.

Lawl. You mean, you're quite happy to run through reading in your own conception of the Sith and manipulating the evidence to try and make it look like it's true.

~snipped~

Given that you've been by turns hostile and ~snipped~

I suspect that is probably why you irked jon so with your banal witterings.

You really like to provoke people into making angry replies don't you?

Well, that is his style. ;)

Anyways, I'm very irritated that you refuse to accept you're defeated in an argument. You seem to think that everyone has to agree with you. When something doesn't agree with you, and you know that it never will, you seem to sulk that you can't be proven right.

Am I sounding like a psychologist?

:yodac:
"Rewritten into villains?"
Since when where the Sith not power-hungry, self-centered, selfish SOB villains?

...Yet you won't, because you cannot be bothered to come up with one single solitary example?

And no, damn it, it is not me shouting that you're wrong over and over. I am going to the trouble of actually doing research for this debate - name virtually any fact that I claim, and I can cite a source for it - in the process formulating posts of obscene proportions, posts of such absolutely gigantic size that no mortal being has any legitimate business making them. I went to the trouble to actually spend a ****ing hour of my time going through virtually every prominent Sith mentioned on Wookieepedia (including a number which were not prominent), taking note of each, and condensing them into my post. Your argument, in which you absolutely refused to to cite anything from the canon to support your claims, forced me to spell out for you almost every single possible example.

How is your view, which claims that all Jedi are evil, that the Republic was always corrupt to the point that it was at least as bad as the Empire, and that the Sith more often than not are good guys, any less "simplified" or "childish"? The position and view of the Star Wars canon which you propose and defend is just as black and white as the one that you protest, except a mirror image.

I posted this earlier.
I apologize for this part of my post. I posted it under the influence of sleep deprivation. Considering that you went out of the trouble to reply to me earlier, I should have been considerate and replied back. However, I'll post my reply to you in PM because

a) This discussion has gone way off topic.
b) I don't want to have to reply to the entire Forum. Although I visit this site a lot there is only such much time I have and it is quite exhausting.
c) I've already discussed a lot of these points in other threads, and also made stronger versions of my arguments then.
d) Replies like this:
And his previous post before Jae edited it.

So again, sorry. Expect my reply in your PM box in the next two days.