Why is the Republic always good?

This is part question, part frustrated rant, so forgive me if I seem a bit emotional.

Now then, why in the hells is the Republic constantly portrayed in TCW as the unambiguous good guys, while the CIS is nothing but pointlessly, stupidly evil all the time? There's a bloody reason so many thousands of planets were so fed up with the Republic that they were willing to jump ship when the Separatist movement came along. Why don't we ever see the bad side of the Republic, or CIS fighters who are genuinely not evil? The Republic is the future Galactic Empire, the clones the future Stormtroopers, and the Jedi future victims of Order 66. So show it! The Republic is headed up by a Sith, every bit as much as the CIS. So where are the people on the Republic's side who are bad, or at least a dark shade of grey? Why don't we see the Republic allying with some nasty folks to expedite the war effort? Why is the CIS always pure evil?

 

Expectations =/= TCW's writing staff.

 

Would it be that much trouble, for example, to portray Yularin, a reoccurring character, as more morally ambiguous? He signs up for the Imperial secret police under Palpatine, and is so good at his job (repression and murder) that he gets assigned to the Death Star.

Perhaps more appearances by Tarkin and like-minded officers will help. Seeing the Jedi get blamed for something in the next arc will certainly make me feel better, if nothing else.

 

I'm too tired to write a full response right now, but the short version is, I agree completely.

 

Well, the Republic's civilian leadership (aka the Senate) is corrupt as hell, slow to react, and hilariously ineffective. The Jedi, who are the knights errant/spiritual leaders of the Republic, are a few centuries behind the curve and doomed to be wiped out in a few years. The Grand Army is tiny and staffed by slave soldiers, and the Navy's ships keep on exploding.

They probably could do to show a Separatist who isn't a cackling villain, but I'd still say that things are less Good versus Bad as they are Bad versus Ugly. I mean, I'm accentuating the negative a lot, but still even taking things at face value the Republic is a pretty lousy polity. The Star Wars universe isn't exactly Warhammer 40k levels of crapsack, but considering how the Forces of Good never seem to be able to go a decade without the government collapsing and reforming again, it's still pretty crapsack.

 

Also, I could do without Tom Kane telling me about "THE EVIL SEPARATISTS!!!" again. Thanks but I can make up my own mind about who's good and who's evil.

 

For what it is worth, regarding future episodes:

Spoiler

The Republic's dark side may be shown in the next arc, wherein Ahsoka becomes a fugitive, hunted by clone troopers. Tarkin is also said to have a prominent role.

 

I hope so. Every dictatorship requires a liberal helping of evil minions in order to function. For a dictatorship on a galactic scale, Palpatine would have had to have been cramming tons of flunkies into the Republic's upper structure, in addition to selecting from the preexisting corrupt. They should get a chance to show their stuff.

 

Choose "it's a kid's show" or "we do political episodes but not the ones that would actually better the series as a whole".

 

I think Palpatine sent Yularen to spy on Anakin.
I agree! We need to see more 'grey' characters.
In war nobody is 'good' or 'bad'. Everyone believes in what he or she is fighting for.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

All those admirals and moffs need to come from somewhere.
I always wanted to see Armand Isard make an appearance in TCW. He is the most 'grey' character I can think of.

I agree that the CIS is a bit too one-sided. We only see bad guys.
We need to see Dooku win the hearts of the normal people. I think he could be an excellent political leader. He has quite some charisma. Well, Christopher Lee has.

 

The CIS needs to be "good" in so far as that it can attract planets to want to join it. But it needs to be an evil threat that the Republic is morbidly fearful of to warrant Palpatine's emergency powers and the fact that he's going to look like savior of the galaxy by the time the war is over.

I think there should be more grey characters that have been clearly duped by Dooku. But in the grand scheme of things, I do think that the CIS needs to be evil. There needs to be the slavery and mass murders to create a huge crisis. In the novelization I believe it was all going to culminate in Grievous being thrown under the bus as the monster responsible for all the war crimes, but it's to Palpatine's advantage to have such a monster to defeat.

It's not to Palpatine's advantage for the Republic to commit war crimes and look like the bad guy.

Now, having said that, I do believe that there interesting stories that could be told with characters such as Tarkin and the Jedi in which there are moral dilemmas and the Republic crosses a line or becomes too ruthless. But that needs to be the exception, not the rule. But with the CIS, the more horrors they can inflict on the galaxy/Republic, the better for Palpatine.

 

While I'm nitpicking you here, the CIS doesn't really need to be an eeeeeeeevil threat to warrant Palpatine's emergency powers, it just needs to be a true threat to actually achieve total victory.

So far the CIS doesn't come off as that competent (and let's face it, never will). If the CIS was legitimately steamrolling the Republic all the way to the Core worlds, that should be sufficient.

 

My take on why the Republic is always good the Separatists are evil is simple cartoon logic... ramblings below. Bad guys don't win and if they do its usually a temp thing in Cartoons.

From the point of view of a Separatist idealist with no idea there are strings being pulled the war would be a revolution. You'd think it would easy to introduce some heroes that way. You'd also think it'd be simple enough to show the republic truly negatively with all the corruption thats been undercovered in TCW but inspite of all that TCW sticks to portaying a civil war as a simple good vs evil struggle. I have wondered if perhaps there is something politically incorrect about showing more than that in a kids show. Its not all TCW's fault. Its picked up from AOTC.

That's how things come off at the end of AOTC. The C.I.S. is not really much of an analog to the Confederacy in the American Civil War, IMO. The Separatists aren't like South Carolina which wasn't just trying to save the cotton industry. They were trying to protect what they saw as souvenir rights. Far as I tell, the C.I.S. are more like if companies like Microsoft, Apple, Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan Chase, Pfizer got so mad and greedy they decided to talk some states into leaving the union for them to get away from some regulations and somehow managed to make it sound like they were leaving corruption behind for greener pastures for good people like Mina Bonteri. It just so happens that in the GFFA that corporations are more like Xanatos Enterprises, they got capital larger than alot of planets and armies to protect it. Then in the war they are just being portrayed as outright evil or stupid most of the time on TCW and even back in AOTC. Its not an easy task to get past that setup.

I do fault TCW for not growing past this by simply intoducing more characters that fill in gray areas and have sincere beliefs in the Separatist side and the extremists of the Republic side who cause atrocities just as questionable as Grievous does.Honestly if the Separatists are going to be the bad guys then, it would be nice to get some bad guy centric episodes with them.

 

I fail to see why the Republic can't be portrayed as being evil in many ways. I mean, they've got the very same guy who, in a handful of years, will blow up Alderaan, the defining atrocity in Star Wars, on their side. It should be easy to display the Republic being corrupt and evil.

 

It should be easy, your correct in that. It just hasn't happened.

 

Who says that a negative portrayal of the CIS is necessarily cartoonish like what has been shown thus far in TCW? A genuinely villainous CIS does not need to be portrayed as a Galactic Empire that existed a few years earlier. It can be portrayed with more sophistication while still being shown to be a genuinely malignant (overall) entity.

Simultaneously, there has to be a portrayal of a CIS which a rational actor within the setting would eagerly sign up for. This shouldn't be too hard. A bloodthirsty Space British Empire is still prone to attract people with good intentions. Yet another bloodthirsty Space Nazi Germany (eg. Galactic Empire) is not prone to do this. We need to see a Dooku in the "George Washington" (consensus unifying figure, perceived honourable intentions) light that both the self-defined revolutionaries and the rebelling corporate oligarchs can agree to support.

The CIS should still be shown to be genuinely malignant, probably to a greater extent than the Republic. There can be colonisation, settlement, genocide, unencumbered corporate power, war crimes and state terrorism aplenty, but there needs to be enough to make clear that the CIS is not so abhorrent that no-one can reasonably support it. As a heavy-handed central government, riddled with corruption and protected by morally dubious enforcers, the Republic should have the deck stacked against it in the battle over hearts and minds. Not necessarily with an atrocity courtesy of Tarkin to exacerbate this (though it would help), opposition to the Republic that isn't of the malignant variety should be portrayed. It should be strong enough for people to be willing to throw their lot in with the genuinely malignant Separatists if it means breaking free of the Republic.

Most importantly, I'd argue, the CIS needs to be shown to have credibility as a military power. The Separatists are currently fighting a war which they're supposed to be winning by the end ("The Republic is crumbling under attacks from the Sith Lord Count Dooku!"), but TCW has shied away from portraying major CIS victories over the Republic. Over a coven of witches and a pirate den, Grievous has scored some significant victories. Beyond a handful of shredded Republic ships and a few memorable clone/Jedi deaths, there isn't much to show against the Republic. Where are the major Republic planets permanently conquered by the CIS? From Umbara to Onderon to Ryloth, it's almost entirely a story of the Republic conquering or reconquering Separatist planets. Lux Bonteri transitions from an unthinking Separatist to an emotional neutral and ultimately to a Loyalist insurgent. Death Watch, initially a CIS-aligned faction, becomes neutral before it seizes control of Mandalore. Neutrals in general - Maul and Savage included - seem to have more success than the CIS.

 

Cause they are the good guys

 

I'd like to see a few scenes or so (possibly episode) where someone truly believes Dooku is a good leader and has not done some of the stuff he's accused of...believes all the assertions of Republic corruption and villainy.

I'd like to see a FEW "good guys" cross the moral line (please no, not a Krell-type) - Tarkin would serve well in that vein.

There has got to be a ton of information and misinformation out on the Holonet - some of what is true is spun and many don't believe the truth, and some of the false stuff is believed as well. We've got plenty of real world examples around us - arguments based on strawmen and all that.

 

Anakin hasn't been portrayed as a good guy all the time

 

In what way? They are as much led by a Sith as the CIS, and in just a handful of years they'll be the Galactic Empire, blowing up planets just to show that they will. That doesn't come out of nowhere - you need evil people already in place to make that happen.

 

I do call the CIS in TCW cartoonish QuangoFett but ok I'll give you a live action one. The CIS is not portrayed anything like the galactic empire. Its portrayed with all the complexity of Lord Zedd and his underlings, the United Alliance of Evil in Power Rangers. I can slot Sids, Dooku, Grievous, the generals, and battle droids all into respective roles. There has been barely any study on the CIS outside of that. Then up until season 4 the Jedi characters and sometimes the clones pretty much vanquished them a circular monster of the day formula. It doesn't get more Saturday morning cartoonish than that. That's the problem, even as recent as in Onderon.TCW needs to break from that mold of villainy. I don't think we ever see the CIS win because cartoon villains don't win, its only temporary. This is the area where TCW need to do the most growing up. That's not the way to portray a revolutionary front (bad guys can be revolutionaries). Clearly the CIS can attract people, it attracted Mina Bonteri to lead some sort of uprisal the resulted on Onderon joining the Separatist, unfortunately only to find out they are evil bastards and she was some kind of moron at the end of the day.

 

Seerow

That illustrates the point. The Onderon arc messed up by showing the Onderonians - Lux included - fall in line with the Republic like good little Loyalists. Obviously, they had some grievance against the Republic that allowed Mina Bonteri to bring them into the CIS, but we don't see much exploration of what aggrieved them. There are no negotiations between the Onderonian rebels and the Republic to get over this issue.

You've suggested before that there should be an episode or arc that primarily follows a CIS character in one of the many Republic-versus-CIS confrontations portrayed. I support this. Even if the CIS character is a genuine villain (or even an anti-villain) rather than a literary hero on the other side, this new perspective would still be valuable. It would allow the CIS to grow out of that old cartoon hierarchy you mention.

The CIS has to be winning many of the confrontations by the time of ROTS.

 

I diagnosed the problem, that's all. I'm not quite sure why your coming after me. The CIS isn't going to be winning anything until TCW decided to stop treating them like Saturday morning villains. That's what I've suggested numerous time.

Really, what the CIS needs when we are on the ground with them is a Roy Mustang. A guy who genuinely believes in his country, does not agree with his leaders' methods but follows them anyways, with ambition to take power thinking he can fix things and atone for the stuff he's done (clearly won't succeed but would make for great drama). What you think of that LordMortis315?

 

Not really addressing anyone in particular here, just adding to the topic.

The Separatists are not a foreign state. It's a civil war, and as Padme points out in Heroes on Both Sides, many of the Senators in the CIS were her peers in the Republic Senate before the outbreak of the Clone Wars. Palpatine isn't an Alexander the Great that conquers the galaxy as a general leading his troops. He instead manipulates things so that people voluntarily turn to him for security, and especially in the beginning he puts up the act that he's reluctant to accept such powers but is only complying with what the Senators have demanded from him. Anakin even states that the Senate demanded that he stay in office.

There's an interesting exchange in the film The Patriot (it's actually common sense) in which Colonel Tavington of the British army is talking to General Cornwallis. Cornwallis is criticizing Tavington's brutality toward American colonists because the colonists once shared their allegiance to the same crown and they would again (in his view) and so they needed to be treated fairly. I think that same sentiment also has to apply to Palpatine. The CIS is comprised of former members of the Republic that are supposed to be brought back into the fold. The Republic therefore probably shouldn't be indiscriminately killing Separatists or razing their worlds, etc.

Sure you can tell a story of a Republic officer doing such things and how the Republic/Jedi react to that, and maybe on some level that kind of ruthlessness will appeal to Palpatine when his Empire is up and running, but under the Republic it just doesn't seem like it's in Palpatine's best interest to get so many CIS senators, that he intends to bring back into the Republic, to hate him. Ideally they would love him too.

I figure that's why the novelization puts forth the idea of Grievous being thrown under the bus. If it's supposed to be something like the Nazi concentration camps being exposed as the war was ending with many Germans claiming to be ignorant of what was going on.

There might be Separatists fiercely loyal to the CIS, but it would make sense to me if Palpatine stages things so that as the Clone Wars ends he can expose the CIS' crimes to the CIS members themselves, make them disillusioned in their government and that they had been involved in something heinous the entire time, and then Palpatine could be the forgiving leader to pardon all the CIS senators and bring them back into the Republic.

The novelization's take on that kind of strategy makes sense to me and I hope TCW sticks with it or at the very least doesn't contradict it. Which would depend on whether the show runs concurrently with ROTS or moves beyond it. I would very much like to see exactly what the CIS senators think is going on, how they view Dooku, do they know of Grievous, how does Palpatine intend to resolve the war and what does Dooku think is going to happen to him once the war is over? I liked the novelization's explanation and even if they pretty much just repeat the exact same concept in TCW, I think they should. And if they chose to go with a different idea completely, then I still think they should articulate exactly what the end game is for Sidious and how Dooku fits into it (or how Dooku THINKS he's going to fit into it).

 

Obviously, the show doesn't completely ignore the Republic's shortcomings. It was portrayed as the "bad guy" in the Zillo Beast duology and Duchess of Mandalore to name just a few instances. However, I agree that the show can go overboard on the "Republic good, Seppies bad" ideal. I'd love to see an episode where Dooku offers legitimate aid to a planet that has justified grievances against the Republic.