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A bit confused about the nature of the "dark side"


Khevar

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I hope you'll bear with me, as I've only recently started reading some of the Legends stuff -- many of you old hats have probably discussed this to death already. :o

 

I've gone through some of the "Old Republic" fiction. I started with the Zayne Carrick comics, followed by a replay of KOTOR, then the Tales of the Jedi series.

 

Pretty much every single piece of fiction I've touched seem to imply that the "dark side of the force" is this incredibly corrupting influence. It seems to take very little for a jedi to fall HARD once he or she dabbles in it. Exar Kun goes from insatiable curiosity to willing to take over the galaxy. Malak goes from saving the republic at any cost to wiping out billions of lives in a single afternoon. Even in the canon stuff, Anakin goes from "I have to save my wife" to "let's murder children".

 

But then things like this game (SWTOR) seem to imply that it's simply a gradient scale. Or people on these forums argue that the "dark side" is simply "using one's emotions" as opposed to those silly repressed Jedi. And defend their concept of a "light-sided Sith"

 

Unless I'm missing something, it seems to me that any sort of force user that tries to dabble in both the light and dark side of the force would be quickly corrupted into full-scale depravity. Heck, Kun was unable to even contact the light side of the force at all.

Edited by Khevar
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The nature of the force varies depending on which star wars lore writer. The EU is generally quite different to the movies, where the 'light side' is almost never mentioned (in fact never, in the original trilogy), and the implication is that there is no light side. There's just the force, and a corruption of it (i.e. the dark side).

 

Expanded universe writers take lots and lots of different views to the sides of the force, understandable since the expanded universe is written by lots of different authors. So there's a general understanding that "dark side = bad people doing bad things" and authors go from there.

 

In star wars video games, LS/DS is a grading scale, but that's probably for the benefit of game mechanics. I think it's up to you, the player, to decide how much game mechanics impacts "lore". For example, is your light sided Jedi Knight really a massive wildlife murderer, or is that just gameplay and not part of lore?

 

In terms of stuff that is strictly lore in swtor land (as oppossed to gameplay mechanics. So like dialogue, background events, etc.), I think it's still up to you how you can to interpret things. However regarding your example of a light sided sith - I believe there was an early interview with one of the swtor writers who said that LS/DS were relative scales, and that essentially all sith are dark/evil and all jedi are light/good in the game. He likened a DS jedi in SWTOR as someone like Mace Windu - a bit on the aggressive side for a Jedi, someone who takes war seriously and is a bit unorthodox in their willingness to win, but still very much a LS Jedi and on the Jedi's side. Where as a LS Sith would be more like Darth Plageius (Sidious's master), a canon sith lord who was more of a scholar and a scientist, rather than a raging warrior out murdering babies. He was still a DS sith, and conducting some very morally questionable experiments to learn about the 'true nature' of force sensitivity, but was otherwise a pacifist by sith standards.

 

So you as the player can choose to interpret the grading scales as such, or you can choose to think of a DS Jedi as being more like a DS Sith than a LS Jedi. Honestly a lot of DS/LS rewards in quests are IMO quite inconsistent, so there's a lot of room for interpretation and role play.

 

My personal opinion is that SWTOR definitely has a more subtle take on DS/LS than the rest of the EU. In swtor, your force alignment is more like a set of political and religious beliefs, but do not completely determine whether you are a good or bad person, or whether you do 'good' or 'bad' actions. In other EU works, as you say, DS is like crack cocaine that turns you into a baby murderer.

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Dark side does indeed have a corrupting influence. According to the legends, the level of corruption differs from one individual to the other.

 

In legends, it was implied that one guy can be tier 1 and look like palpatine post lightning and the other can be tier 5 and look like Lana Beniko.

 

Also the sith are taught to weaponise the dark side and use it as thier tool so they are less suspectible to corruption than the average. Jedi on the other hand are different. Unlike the jedi who have means and possible training to use the dark side, they just dive in, take it all with no control. Thats why many jedi in legends were instantly depicted as insta crazy when under the influence of the darkside because they had no power over its corruption.

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Okay let me put it this way imagine the dark side its a drug for some people it will corrupt them it will twist them it will bend them it will change them so they can feel the taste of the dark side.

But for others it will do nothing of the sort they do not get addicted to it they do not like it they are resistant to it but they will use it why so they can achieve their objectives like alcohol there plenty of people who do not like the taste or the feel but they drink it so they have a reason to socialize with certain people to mingle with them so they can convince them to invest in what their offering basically a tool. That is with the dark side its used as a tool for some.

It all depends on the person.

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Expanded universe writers take lots and lots of different views to the sides of the force, understandable since the expanded universe is written by lots of different authors. So there's a general understanding that "dark side = bad people doing bad things" and authors go from there.

This makes sense. Other than SWTOR, are there other EU legends materials that have a non-aggressive view of the "corrupting power" of the dark side?

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What I usually see with the people you've mentioned is that they're people of extremes. They're 100% wholesomely good but the moment a temptation sets in, they very easily go to the complete opposite extreme. They're people who in their personality just have no middle ground. You see it a little bit in the game too depending on your class. Take the Jedi Knight story;

 

 

Master Tol Braga is a strong LS Jedi, he's so convinced of the power of the light side that he believes the Sith Emperor can be redeemed and converted if they can just sit down and talk to him basically. Then the Emperor places Braga under his influence and the guy goes to the extreme opposite of the spectrum.

 

 

So I don't necessarily believe the 'dark side' is this poisonous corrupting influence, it just depends on the person.

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So I don't necessarily believe the 'dark side' is this poisonous corrupting influence, it just depends on the person.

For what it's worth, this was my opinion as well until I read the Exar Kun story. Maybe it simply Kevin Anderson's bias, but he really tries to punch up the tangible corruptive influence of the dark side, and only the most enlightened Jedi Masters seem to be able to resist a fall.

 

However, this makes me think of ESB:

If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice.

Of course, Yoda didn't seem to think Anakin could be redeemed, so perhaps he just has a bleaker view.

Edited by Khevar
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Bleaker view, yes but also one led by fear and prejudice which is quite funny considering they're Jedi. To them, anything that falls out of line with their view/opinion of what the Light Side is and should be, is by default the Dark Side. They're against attachments and relationships thus those things are instantly deemed Dark Side corruption. In my personal opinion, the Force is completely neutral and it's use, light or dark, is 100% controlled and defined by the person wielding the Force. By whether they have it in them to make the 'right' choice even when facing hardships and unthinkable situations and so forth. Their intentions for life and the people around them.

 

The trickiest part to it all is that, the Jedi hold definite boundaries whereas it's the nature of the beast so to speak to want for certain things in life. In Anakin's case, the love for his mother and wife and his urge to protect them from harm, something the Order seems to forbid him. The Dark Side however will give him the 'freedom' of doing so which in turn makes the Dark Side far more appealing and once you've had a taste of that freedom you simply don't just go back to the restraint imposed by the Jedi. Now then does the fault there lie with the 'corruptible influence' of the Dark Side, the imposed restraints of the Jedi Order or Anakin himself?

 

The Dark Side wouldn't be half as 'corrupting' if it wasn't for the Jedi Order and their code/rules, in my opinion.

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It depends on the person Anakin and Tol Braga are people that easily fall to corruption and give their all to save it. But other like Galen Marek and Revan use it as a tool more so Marek it depends on the people most of us eat but some of us get addicted we just happened to see a lot of the addicted kind but lets not forget our heroes most ancient sith hell most sith we meet.
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Now then does the fault there lie with the 'corruptible influence' of the Dark Side, the imposed restraints of the Jedi Order or Anakin himself?

It seems to me that restraints of the Jedi Order would not be a factor at all, at least in Anakin's case.

 

Either he's a closet insane psychopathic monster pretending to be a regular person, who is finally given an excuse to act out his base desires (murdering children -- really?), or there may be some truth to this idea of the dark side corrupting.

 

It's sort of the same thing with these EU legends stories I've been reading. Either the authors in question are adding their own bias into what "the dark side is", or there's more going on.

 

The Malak you meet in Zayne Carrick's story is presented as a good guy trying to do what he thinks is right in a terrible situation. Later on, when you see him in KOTOR, he's happy to obliterate an entire planet with billions of lives (including members of his own army) without a second thought.

 

Or Ulic, who is presented as a good guy with a simple character flaw of recklessness. But when he tries to infiltrate the Sith and falls to the dark side, he suddenly doesn't find it difficult to commit horrible atrocities.

 

Of course, trying to draw too much logic out of fiction puts one at the mercy of authors. :p

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I haven't been lucky enough to read the works you're referring to so I can't say much to their situations really. It's also just really dependent on how a writer wants you to perceive things and how they themselves feel about it. If you're dealing with a writer who believes the Dark Side is a force so corrupted and strong that it alters someones personality and characteristics then that's how they'll tell the tale of their protagonist. There's also those who believe it's hereditary, based on where you're born and who you're born to. And then there's those who believe that the level of corruption or it's effects depends entirely on the personality of a character rather than blaming the dark side. I guess in the end it all just really comes down to perspective and opinion.
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One of the reasons I love Clone Wars is that they showed Anakin's fall in baby steps, rather than the sudden whiplash-inducing moment you get in RotS. His fall was gradual and took years, something the movies couldn't really convey properly.

 

Yeah, the part where he snaps in AotC was the start, but that was one moment of anger. The series showed all the dozens of little moral compromises he made between movies.

Edited by ZanyaCross
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It does seem to depend on the person and the circumstances too. Like Jaesa's master, Nomen Karr - he's always been proud of his accomplishments but kept it tightly in control until the Sith Warrior tries to win Jaesa over. That's his breaking point. He reaches for any power that could help him win the battle, even the Dark Side.

 

Maybe his fall is harder because of the desperation he feels, the inevitable loss coming closer?

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Any time this comes up I'm struck by parallels with Stephen R Donaldson's First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. That's the first three books. I can't really explain the parallels without giving substantial spoilers, but they aren't spoilers about SWTOR so I'll just leave them in open text.

 

((SPOILERS FOR THE THOMAS COVENANT FIRST CHRONICLES))

Consider yourselves warned.

 

When Thomas Covenant enters the Land, he is taken to see the Lords who govern there. They are powerful in the ways of the magic of that world, but bind their power by binding their emotions in a way similar to what the Jedi do in Star Wars.

 

Prominent among their enemies are the Viles and their chiefs, the Ur-viles, servants one and all of Lord Foul, the head enemy. They, too, are powerful magic-users, and their power is, in a Sith-like way, bound by very little.

 

So, why do the Lords bind up their power in a mesh of repressed emotions? Because an ancient Lord, Kevin, almost destroyed the Land when he was in the midst of his "Despair", letting his emotions run wild and drawing on the power that let him access. He was defeated, and the remaining Lords handed down to their successors an injunction against allowing emotions to intrude into the use of power.

 

Part-way through the third book of the trilogy, as the Lords are steadily losing the battles they are fighting, their head realises that Kevin's Despair happened not because Kevin allowed emotions into his use of power, but because he allowed it to run wild, and sits down with the other Lords, saying, "Let me tell you about a secret of power." Meaning, let me tell you how to access the power locked away in your emotions without losing control of them.

 

Here, of course, the parallel ends, because the implication is that that sort of emotional control cannot bind the Dark Side of the Force.

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The Dark Side corruption issue is a bit complicated and confusing. For a start, we don't know if the physical corruption and the mental/spiritual corruption associated with Dark Side users are strictly the same thing. They're probably related, but the degree to which a person has the physical corruption may not be an indication of how much their mind has been affected. Darth Marr may prove this point: reputedly, the physical corruption made his face horrific, but he's relatively balanced mentally.

 

I can see a couple of different theories for understanding these different corruptions. The physical corruption may just be a result of the energies associated with the Dark Side (such as Force Lightning and whatever form Dark Side "healing" takes - the discipline in-game is called "corruption) having some kind of harmful effect on living tissue; the lesser symptoms may also have something to do with self-neglect due to emotional stress. The mental corruption may have the character of an addiction or dependency, so that each use of the Dark Side makes its pull harder to resist next time until you lose all self-control, or it may have to do with "poisoning" your connection to the Force, thus losing your fundamental empathic connection with other life.

 

Both of those latter effects would be less pronounced on a person of great willpower, so that someone like Marr could be deeply immersed in the Dark Side but still able to shrug off its addictive pull in most cases and/or assert his own personality even in the face of maddening feedback from the Force. But that would be a very dangerous game for anyone to play, and even the likes of Marr who keep some self-control are clearly not good people. And with one possible (so far ambiguous) exception, dying while in the grip of the Dark Side seems to mean your soul/spirit will remain anchored to the physical world, unable to become one with the Force or achieve any kind of peace unaided.

 

So while there are certain "degrees" of corruption by the Dark Side, that doesn't mean you can just stop and stay at a degree you think you can manage. Whatever it is about the Dark Side that corrupts, it will always try to pull you in deeper unless you reject it entirely. And even if your will holds out, your body may eventually fail from the strain you're putting on it.

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I think it is safe to say there is a definite corrupting influence to the dark side, and there are multiple examples of it in the lore, including the films. Actually I'd go a bit further and say that both sides of the force heavily influence and shape the minds of the user. The most light side Jedi Masters for example are far more zen-like and fearless than any real world person would ever be.

 

That said the force (light or dark) probably impacts people differently. That might explain why some dark sider users are more reasonable / less psycopathic than others.

Edited by Aeneas_Falco
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That might explain why some dark sider users are more reasonable / less psycopathic than others.

Example: Lana Beniko. She's dark side, no doubt about it ("The Force serves me!") but also chillingly calm except when roused by e.g. a pair of Zakuul Knights who keep trying to give your character flying lessons in Chapter III.

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Example: Lana Beniko. She's dark side, no doubt about it ("The Force serves me!") but also chillingly calm except when roused by e.g. a pair of Zakuul Knights who keep trying to give your character flying lessons in Chapter III.

Yeah, she is an interesting example of a "light-sided Sith" from the viewpoint of the SWTOR game rules.

 

if one were to take her personality and story at face value, she doesn't seem to be corrupted by the dark side to any noticeable degree.

 

I'm starting to feel that the Tales of the Jedi representation of the "fall to the dark side" was poorly handled by the authors. Kevin and Tom seem to have taken a short-cut -- flips a switch and suddenly "I'm nao badguyz!" and blames it on the force, rather than giving the reader a more interesting character arc.

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Well because of the back and forth, we really don't have an answer.

 

If you go by the gospel of George Lucas, there is no middle ground. Good, evil, no shades of grey but there is redemption. And being seduced to fall.

 

If you read say "Unifying Force", there is only the force and it's not good or evil, it simply is. But it reflects good in evil in the pera on using it.

 

I mean let's look at it. Force lightning, Considered completely evil by most. But what if a force user used it to jump start a heart in cardiovascular failure? Is that evil?

 

I honestly think and this is my 2 cents it's a combo of what I just said and something Kyle Katarn said in Jedi Knight, Jedi Academy. Force powers are inherently good or evil, it's how you use them that determines good or evil.

 

You can use a force telekinetic throw and snap someone's neck just as easily as you can electrocute them with lightning.

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My Opinion Is The Same As Darth Plagueis's Opinion And That Of His Master Darth Tenebrous,The Force From My Point Of View Is A Mere Energy Conduict,Just Like If You Take More Energy Than You Can Get At That Time Your Body Suffer From It The Dark Side Works That Way,If You're Not Ready "Let Your Hate Flow"But Not Let It DOMINATE You Then The Dark Side Will Affect Your Mind And Even Your Body(Darth Sidious And Darth Zash Are Perfect Examples Of This)Now If You Are Ready To Control It And Not Let It Dominate You You Will Use A Very Poweful Energy Conduit While Not Allowing To Be Used Against You,A Good Example Of Sith Who Aren't Dominated By Their Emotions But Rather ARE Rulers Of Them Are:King Adas The Sith'ari,Maybe Tulak Hord And Marka Ragnos,Valkorion The Immortal Emperor AKA The Sith Emperor,Freedon Nadd,Exar Kun(Yes He Coudn't Draw To The Light Side After His Fall But I Think That Had Something To Do With His Master,Freedon Nadd),Darth Revan(Yes Revan Always Commited Atrocities,Even Going As Far As Genocide With The Mandalorians),Darth Traya,Darth Malgus,Darth Marr,Darth Jadus,Darth Bane,Darth Plagueis,Dark Lady Lumiya And Darth Krayt.
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FlameYOL, I've seen other people ask you to not post in italics and capitalization. Why must you persist in doing it? It actually makes your posts harder to read.

 

I took the liberty of rendering your comment below, in a way that doesn't give me a headache.

 

Please consider posting this way in the future. If not for consideration of others, perhaps because you want people to actually read what you have to say?

My opinion is the same as Darth Plagueis' and that of his master Darth Tenebrous. The force from my point of view is a mere energy conduit, just like if you take more energy than you can get at that time your body suffer from it the dark side works that way.

 

If you're not ready "let your hate flow" but not let it dominate you then the dark side will affect your mind and even your body (Darth Sidious and Darth Zash are perfect examples of this).

 

Now, if you are ready to control it and not let it dominate you, you will use a very poweful energy conduit while not allowing to be used against you. A good example of Sith who aren't dominated by their emotions but rather are rulers of them are:

 

1. King Adas the Sith'ari

2. Maybe Tulak Hord and Marka Ragnos

3. Valkorion the immortal emperor aka the Sith Emperor

4. Freedon Nadd

5. Exar Kun (Yes he coudn't draw to the light side after his fall, but I think that had something to do with his master, Freedon Dadd)

6. Darth Revan (Yes, Revan always commited atrocities, even going as far as genocide with the Mandalorians)

7. Darth Traya

8. Darth Malgus

9. Darth Marr

10. Darth Jadus

11. Darth Bane

12. Darth Plagueis

13. Dark lady Lumiya, and

14. Darth Krayt.

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FlameYOL, I've seen other people ask you to not post in italics and capitalization. Why must you persist in doing it? It actually makes your posts harder to read.

 

I took the liberty of rendering your comment below, in a way that doesn't give me a headache.

 

Please consider posting this way in the future. If not for consideration of others, perhaps because you want people to actually read what you have to say?

 

So i should follow that tip because:rak_02: Oh yes i will pretend to care about others now,so be it leave this body OTD in the name of the sith'ari!

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Oh yes i will pretend to care about others now

Don't do it because you "care about others". Do it simply because you want people to read what you have to say.

 

You made some interesting points in your post, and I feel it brought value to the discussion, but it was only apparent once I untangled it, stripped out the excessive capitalization and reformatted it into paragraphs.

 

Feel free to do what you want, nobody is the boss of you. Just recognize that if you do the Capitalize / Italic / Smooshed-Paragraph thing, people are less likely to listen to what you have to say.

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I have always preferred one other interpratation of the two sides, that there ARE no sides. no one side is "evil" or "good". yeah, The Dark side can techncially corrupt, but so can the light, look how many Jedi became so extreme in their beliefs that they were going to extreme lengths or getting to a point where they stopped caring about everyone.

 

in the Legends/EU there are plenty of Jedi, including Luke himself, who use Force lightning and are perfectly fine, even Plo Koon had his own version of it (though he called it something else because the Jedi Council did not want to admit they were wrong)

 

IMO, It is not the power itself that is bad, only the user who uses it for evil is.

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