Lets look at the 4 onscreen movie sith. Darth Sidious cannot even be looked at as a person, he IS the dark side, so his morality is a non-entity. Maul was raised by Sidious from childhood. Evil is all he knew. Anakin Skywalker was mentally ill, and can be said his fate was chosen for him. That leaves Dooku.... A respected Jedi Master who left the Order, in order to pursue power. He made a choice. Isn't that true evil?
Anakin Skywalker's obsession with control, while having very real causes, would not meet the definition of mental illness.
And Sidious, while full of the dark side, *is* a person who made decisions which lead him to that point and has no master hanging over him and making him act that way.
Maul, you can argue him being a tool and thus most of his actions can be passed on to Sidious rather than his own will, but given the chance to quit (believed dead for about a decade!), where he could've easily made a clean slate, he chose to go back to the fold. It may have been all he was raised to know, but he did pass opportunities to turn away.
Dooku did seem to turn the most freely of the lot to be sure, but it's pretty easy to make the argument all of them are evil.
I'd say that the guy who willfully butchered children and unarmed non-combatants, and who was totally cool standing by and watching while an entire planet was destroyed, is pretty damn evil. The disfigured old guy who condoned and supported such behaviour is pretty bad too.
But the tattooed guy who's biggest crime was dance-fighting, and the old man whose biggest crime was upholding the laws of his host planet and defending himself when a bunch of assholes attacked him... not very evil.
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Sort of. But you need to understand that his entire life was focused around the build-up to the day he'd finally be able to reveal himself to the Jedi and wholesale slaughter as many as he could. He finally got his moment and then, vwoom, Kenobi comes in. He spends twelve years alone in ridiculous conditions with a fractured mind and all he can remember is that Kenobi cut him in half and left him for dead. It's been programmed into him from infancy that what Kenobi did to him should be considered tantamount to the end of the world itself.
Essentially, everything Maul chooses to do is just in his nature now. He knows little else other than what the a Sith would do. It's like making a robot do evil things - the robot isn't evil, its just doing evil acts. Obviously Maul isn't a robot and has free thought and will, but he's along those lines.
At the end of the day I don't think anything is inherently evil, evil is a concept the human race has constructed. Your actions define you, and if your actions are evil you're perceived to be evil, but at the core of it, there is always a reason or series of reasons for someone bringing themselves to commit evil, reasons that are out of their control. Even on the most primitive level, there are "reasons" for why the earth the came to be, for example. It's the same with sentient beings, there's a "reason" for everything we do and how we are and how we end up, a reason which is beyond our control. Decisions that are made by people before we are even born could make the difference between us becoming "good" or "evil" people, like parents deciding to live in one location or another. Choosing one location ensures a normal, healthy life for their child, while choosing another will cause them to come into contact with some horrific event.. like I dunno, both parents being shot in front of the kid, which causes him to go nuts and become a serial killer from the trauma. On a more basic level, he did bad, it's his fault, but looking at it with more depth, that kid might not have turned out the way he had, had another decision been made prior to his own birth.
It's like a cassette tape has been put in and all we can do now is listen.
So yeah... /rant
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It isn't the Dark Side that made Sidious act so evil, it was him acting so evil that made him such a fitting avatar for the Dark Side, IMHO.
Anakin probably takes the number two spot. Though he could ultimately sort of redeem himself, he still willingly did far more onscreen evil deeds and ultimately chose to become a Sith for the most selfish reasons (and when he himself failed his own selfish plans, he was such a shithead he blamed someone else).
Dooku? Fell due to a difference of ideology, and as LL pointed out didn't actually commit much onscreen evil. Comparatively.
No clue on Maul. My opinions are based largely on the films and my interpretations of the characters, so there may be some TCW context I am missing.
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They is some sith with a part of human being... Humanity is great and i's a part of Revan philosophy (I realise than revan never left the light side before 3.0 where light side Revan stay like a stupid passiv Jedi where the true Revan have balls, remember the mandalorian war.... Revan doesn't stand with the other Jedi to watch the republic burn, but he is not an idiot, he know what he is doing not like 3.0 dark Revan. Darth Revan always keep this part of humanity and the revanite where aware of this...)
Dark side of the force and sith philosophy provide more pragmatic and realistic thinking.
Sometimes you know the evil part of us is just a weak part of our humanity, Fear anger passion and love drive Anakin to the dark side, when you really love someone, what are you ready to save him/her?
No matter how eveil it was he was ready... O.K this was not compassion, but just attachement I have to admit...
Sidious is driven by dramatic poésie, that's why he iz insane. Vitiate is also driven by the same thing. Como lo dijo un famosos commonistas : ¡ Somos todos un poco locos ! (Fidel Castro)
Nihilus him can be considered to be evil, a beast driven by anger the same anger than a héroïneholic who don't have his drug. A pervy thirst of force energy (his giga drain his more a force drain than a life drain, Exar Kun use life drain to turn himself into a spirit... This mean that life drain provide a lot of energy where nihilus giga drain barely substain himself if he don't drain anyforce user...
This is a degree of insanity.. Even his ship he is like a dracula....
Darth Revan was a sith lord driven by the dark side --> Revenge on vitiate, accomplishement of the ancient sith lord will, thirst of power knowledge etc. And light side save the galaxy, act for the greater good. Dark side not make you evil (not like Exar Kun or Malak....)
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A better question might be: Which Sith are NOT evil?
The answer being: Anyone in process of redemption.
The biggest example being Vader, naturally. Between choking his own wife out, torturing his daughter, blowing planets up (he was standing there when Tarkin did it and could easily have stopped him), killing younglings in the temple, and chopping his son's hand off, he did many deeds that were pretty damn evil.
...Yet the entire point of his story is that for all the irredeemably evil things Vader did...Anakin Skywalker was not beyond redemption. The love and compassion and forgiveness of his son, with some judiciously applied inverse Dun Moch, brought Anakin back into the light.
He's lucky he died right then...the trial he would've faced would've been considerably more justice oriented then the story Lucas actually wanted to tell was.
Of the sith that were not redeemed, Vestara is least evil, mostly because she ALMOST climbed out of that pit, but didn't quite make it.
Dec 16th, 2014 06:07 AM
