How Jedi turn exactly to the dark side?

How they turn to the dark side?

I know if a Jedi turning to the dark side he gets bilogical changes. His eyes glow yellow and the face looks sick.

Why is that? Are the Midichlorians mutating when beeing used in hatred?

I wonder why Ventress never become a Sith, even if she killed dozens of Clonetroopers and other enemies. Why she did not turn to the dark side?

Did she never kill in hatred and Egoism? Did she only kill in some weird way of self defence?

 

This is probably a question for another part of the forums. Or, Wookieepedia.

 

Remember that the yellow-red Sith eyes are not an immutable must with darksiders. Count Dooku has been a Sith for years and yet his eyes have never been shown to be anything other than their natural brown.

Ventress most assuredly has been on the dark side for years, even before her appearance in the series. However, being a Sith takes more than using the dark side. It requires being instructed with Sith knowledge, being taught Sith lore and combat. Sith isn't synonymous with dark Force-user. They're a unique order with their own specific teachings and codes, just as the Jedi are not the only light-side using order, but one of many.

 

Mia Mesharad they gave him yellow eyes in some scenes of Witches of the Mist, specifically when singeing Savage with lightning.

 

I don't have any of the DVDs, so I can't really go back and see any of the scenes in the highest quality, but I mentioned the lack of Dooku having "Sith eyes" in the EW chat Filoni had during Season 4 and Filoni mentioned that they have given him Sith eyes in certain scenes. He cited Shadow Warrior specifically. I was unaware of Witches of the Mist.

As for the sickly complexion, we really only see that with Palpatine when it comes to the films. Also arguably Anakin on Mustafar when he's on the lava bank (he looks sickly white in some shots, but I don't know if that's lighting or if they wanted to imply a sickly change of complexion).

In TCW Ahsoka gets really vein-y when she's corrupted by Son. But Dooku is never shown to really have that kind of physical transformation.

There doesn't really seem to be one pattern that every dark sider conforms to when it comes to physical appearance.

 

Or maybe Dooku is a fake sith...

 

Sith isn't synonymous with Dark Side. Way more Jedi have simply defected to become Dark Jedi than have been inducted into the ranks of the Sith.

 

Well the Sith are just an organisation that study and practice with the Dark Side, one of many groups. Dark Jedi are usually just Jedi who go rogue and wander the galaxy ****ing **** up for the sake of it or because they can't commit to the strict Jedi way of life. You can delve in the Dark Side without ever coming into contact with a Sith Lord, but (correct me lore junkies if this is wrong btw) your abilities would have to be entirely self-taught.

 

Differentiating between Sith Lords and Dark Jedi doesn't explain the "yellow eyes" thing. There are plenty of real Sith Lords who never had them.

 

The yellow eyes are just something that happens in the moment when you're up to your neck in the Dark Side. As you point out however there are inconsistencies in the lore as to whether this physical change is only temporary (see: Dooku in Witches of the Mist or Anakin on Mustafar in ROTS), or permanent (see: Maul, Savage post-transformation, Sidious post-transformation). Your guess is as good as mine at this point. I would assume you'd have to be really deep in it to get yellow eyes, so a Dark Jedi would be less likely to get them since they haven't spent their lives wallowing in the depths of the Dark Side.

 

Just re-watched the dooku scene i never noticed the eye change before! nice catch

 

You basically just dwell right into the Dark Side, like when Anakin went to Mustafar to slaughter the Separatist Council, and when he turns around, his eyes are yellow because of how much hate he has and again after Obi-Wan beats Anakin, his eyes are yellow cause of his hatred towards Obi-Wan

 

OOU I imagine the extent of the transformation is just entirely a cosmetic decision based on what they want the character to look like with minimal thought given to an in universe explanation. I mean when McDiarmid has spoken about playing Palpatine in the OT, I believe he's mentioned that the character was meant to be well in excess of 100 years old. And he's pretty much just a really old evil sorceror with incredibly saggy skin. Vader was some cyborg space-samurai and beneath the suit he was just some pasty skinned burned individual. Maul pretty much looks satanic and his eyes seem more intense and vibrant than Sidious, even though the latter also has "Sith eyes."

Now in the PT things got changed so instead of Sidious being some incredibly old evil sorceror, he's just some guy that had his lightning reflected back upon him and transformed for whatever reason. No other Sith undergoes that kind of transformation on screen.

As to why Dooku doesn't change, I assume it was strictly the OOU necessity of making the character look like he could plausibly be a good guy/have good intentions. The story wouldn't have worked the same had he been some disgusting monstrosity corrupted by the Dark Side. But then IU it's just kind of vague as to why he doesn't suffer any kind of physical corruption. But now in hindsight, it might not be that there is anything abnormal about Dooku, since Maul is uncorrupted in appearance as was Anakin too (prior to a physical injury). Sidious himself looked normal until he had his lightning reflected upon him.

The physical changes to Sidious might be an exception rather than the rule that games like KOTOR implied (that physical changes were just a part of following the Dark Side). Asajj, Savage, Maul, Anakin, Dooku and Sidious himself remained unchanged for the most part with the exception to changes in eye color.

The EU will probably be left to sort that out. I know TOR reflects the same inconsistencies in that even among the NPC Sith there really isn't a pattern of Sith appearance.

One of Vitiate's host bodies pretty much just has pale skin with some dark skin discoloration:



Malgus looks more like Palpatine with some extreme veins:



But then there are some high ranking Sith Lords, such as several on the Sith Council that like Dooku have no outward physical change or a relatively subtle one.

Like Darth Thanaton:



or Darth Ravage:




Whether they explain such things away as vain Sith using alchemy to look more normal or whatever, I don't know. But there doesn't really seem to be any solid rhyme or reason to the physical changes otherwise, even in EU like TOR (some of the lower ranking Sith look more corrupted than the higher ranking ones who would be more powerful in the Dark Side).

And you see a similar spectrum in TCW and the films:

 

Thanks for all of your answers. It turned out a very interesting discussion.

I start to believe that it is just a style/visual element of Storytelling from Lucas to show the audience that the character is fully overwhelmed from the dark side at this particular moment.

 

Sorry BlenderWars but even that generous explanation would lead one to believe that at Darth Maul's calmest moments he's fully overwhelmed by the dark side. Which makes no sense.

This topic always makes me cranky. It really needs to get off my damn lawn.

 

why is that not the explanation? Maul can indeed be fully overwhelmed from the dark side at every time. He is a hot tempered and angry guy naturaly.

 

Ian McDiarmid, whose comments in themselves are no way canon (so take them for what you will), likened Palpatine's transformation to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

There still has been no definitive answer to why Palpatine "transforms." To my knowledge. Some early sources implied a mask, some implied it was scarring. Darth Plagueis was no clearer on the matter as it mentions that Sith Lightning CAN physically transform the victim, but at the same time Palpatine asks if he will turn into a pasty skinned monstrosity and Plagueis tells him that it is difficult to say. The answer wasn't a resounding "yes." He wasn't told that such a transformation was inevitable to one that uses the Dark Side. The answer was pretty much "maybe."

Certain elements of the "transformation" definitely have nothing to do with lightning. Sith eyes have nothing to do with lightning. Also, Palpatine was slipping into his "Emperor voice" multiple times before finally transforming. I think it is fair to say that his voice changed as a result of using the dark side, not as the result of some kind of injury. The pasty skin is a toss up. Vader had it too (but he was also encased in a suit for two decades).

The saggy skin might be scarring from the lightning. Malgus has similar skin which seemed to be the result of scarring (he took a grenade to the face and was Force pushed into the side of a cliff).

He went from:


to



Going back to my initial Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde reference, Sith eyes could work on a similar level. Maul and Palpatine (post-Mace fight), might let their Mr. Hyde side run unleashed. Whereas Dooku and Palpatine (pre-Mace fight) might be more like the Dr. Jekyll side that only lets his Mr. Hyde side show when necessary. Not meaning to imply that Maul is any stronger than Dooku for letting it go unleashed, he just doesn't have the same composure and vanity.

Or like Savage (who has Sith eyes non-stop upon being affected by Talzin's magic), perhaps Maul is similar. I don't know.

Also not to be overlooked is the possibility that some variations could be due to species differences. I mean, what would a Rodian Sith look like? Yellow irises with a red ring? They have giant bug eyes, so how would that work?

Ahsoka's eyes turn yellow, but she doesn't have the same red ring that Maul, Anakin, and Palpatine have around their irises, plus she also gets some noticeable veins while Maul, Dooku, anakin and Palpatine do not. Could be part of being a Togruta.

 

Read the article in the TOR encyclopedia about Sith.

 

That's because he's a Sith "pretender", according to Darth Maul. Dooku has been a jedi throughout the 80 years of his life which is much longer than the amount of time he's been a Sith. When Qui-Gon was killed, Dooku became angry with the way the Jedi Order responded to the Sith's return and the corruption in the senate. He may be using the dark side but he isn't letting it consume him like the other Sith do because he has nobody to hate. Hate is the key factor in the Sith getting the whole "yellow eyes/mutated face" but Dooku is too immersed in the Jedi teachings to allow the Dark Side to consume him.

 

Sdiious is not a "pretender" yet his eyes are not constantly yellow either. He has some way to "turn them off" when he needs to go before the senate, etc.

Really, of the Sith we see on screen, Maul is the only one that we see that only has Sith eyes all of the time.

With Anakin they are conditional to his rage, with Dooku they are conditional to his rage, with Sidious they are conditional to his rage (he has them in Lawless but then doesn't have them again until ROTS).

Savage has them permanently, but only via magical enhancement. Asajj doesn't have them at all. And so on.

The sample size is too small on screen to really draw any concrete conclusion. Only after his fight with Mace did Sidious' eyes become "permanent," and by that time he could drop the charade since he immediately issued Order 66 (and expected all Jedi to die), and the transition to the Empire was firmly in his grasp at which point he would become ruler for life, plus he had the means to scapegoat the Jedi for his appearance and nobody would be the wiser. But prior to this Palpatine couldn't just walk around with Sith eyes channeling the Dark Side 24/7. The Jedi would notice.

Dooku couldn't either. The man, like Sidious, was in the public eye and probably couldn't afford to walk around looking like a monster. Perhaps he could have channeled the Dark Side to maintain his "Sith eyes" like Maul and Palpatine could, but that probably wasn't in his best interest.

The EU generally follows the lead of the films, so when KOTOR came out, I think the assumption was that Palpatine looked the way he does because of Dark Side use over a long period of time. And so in KOTOR, when you are dark side, you pretty much begin to look like Palpatine (minus the saggy skin). You turn a chalky white color, get yellow eyes, and have some other skin discoloration.

But then in the films we just find out that Palpatine gets hit by his own lightning and transforms, something the Plagueis novel says Force lightning has the capacity to do. So now I don't know if the EU knows exactly how to explain it. General Immodet implied that there may be an answer in the TOR Encyclopedia, but as I have not read it, I cannot say.

But in TOR itself, there is great variety in appearance. Some look like monsters similar to Palpatine, others look perfectly normal like Dooku. To my knowledge this is never addressed in the game itself. The fact that some of the Dark Council members looks perfectly normal is conspicuous. I would like to think that Emperor Vitiate did not have the oversight to appoint light sided Sith to his Council.

 

Since you've found something I assume to be pertinent, could you share it with the thread contributors who don't have the TOR encyclopedia?

 

In terms of KOTOR and TOR, the player character looking corrupted when they go dark side is likely just for gameplay purposes, which last I checked isn't necessarily considered canon, like the plot and the characters. I mean the Jedi Council on Dathomir don't notice when you walk in with a double-bladed red lightsaber, and scars on your face.