Lit Bright Sith - Should we see them outside of the Old Republic?

At the time, it seemed direly important that Vergere be wrong. However, I'm comfortable now with saying the whole thing was handled in the worst manner possible for everyone.

Of course, I think Jedi should be wise enough to have answers for these sorts of things.

Part of my discontent with the Jedi is they come in two flavors in the EU.

1. Stuffy Bureaucrats
2. The Justice League

No real wisdom, which is amazingly easy to write it turns out when you're in charge of making who is "right" that way. Yet, strangely, no one really wants to do this.

 

Except even in game, that's not what happens. Hell, a LS Inquisitor can vow to reform the Empire from with alongside Ashara but when you start up Makeb, your light inquisitor is still going to be conducting a vague dark ritual aboard their ship. Certain things are constant. The point is that their actions might belie a certain predilection towards positive notions in the Force (ie. honorable conduct)...but their understanding and use of the Force is never shown to be fundamentally changed from the Sith around them.

 

I will simply agree to disagree re: this point.

More properly, I will say I'd like to see genuinely good Sith in the setting.

 

Direly important to who? I am tending to agree with what you are saying about the Jedi, but I'm not sure why you would think that it was direly important for Vergere to be wrong, if that is what you believed. But I'm of the mind that Vergere is fundamentally misunderstood by about 99% of people that have read Traitor.

 

At the time I believed Star Wars was more awesome for the fact that the Dark Side mystically made you evil like the One Ring of Sauron and using it turned people into monsters while the Light Side made you a better wiser person. I.e. the idea that Jedi were something "more" than people with magic and wizardry. As I've grown older, I've become less enamored with this view.

Lucas, himself, seems to have gone out of his way to shoot it down at every turn in the Prequels.

 

I really need to emphasize this again: Here is a Sith Lord who, completely independent of the Jedi, rediscovered the Light Side and became one with the force.

 

I don't know if there is an in story explanation for there being three Darth titles for Inquisitor (A light, neutral and dark one). I think there should be, because it makes me wonder if in the Sith Empire, Darths actually gauge how strong in the dark side they are, in other ways than pure power and ranking alone. The regular imperials view the ability to work with others (A light side trait) as a plus in their Sith Lords, which I think proves they completely different values than the Sith do. So, it makes me think non-force sensitives had some weight in the Sith empire, enough to promote 'light side' Sith lords in high ranks, despite them being weak in the Dark Side.

 

I don't think the Sith would tolerate Lightsiders amongst them anymore than the Jedi would the reverse. However, Palpatine was six feet away from the Jedi Knights for most of his career as a Chancellor and they didn't sense anything. I think Jaesa Williams more or less indicates that the skill of seeing whether a Jedi or a Sith is lightsided or darksided is comparatively rare.

It's only after death or long exposure that it becomes easy to sense.

I'm inclined to think the different "Darth" titles are based on the Sith Inquisitor's differing actions that the Council knows of.

 

I don't think the idea of dark side possession or corruption that saps free will is particularly interesting and seeing a story where a character has a single lapse of judgement that dramatically alters their personality as a result is not really relatable or interesting to me. Rather than being about free will, or lack thereof, the dark side is about weak will. Anakin knows that he isn't doing the right thing in joining Palpatine to save Padme, but he wants to do it. He desperately tries to justify it, though, and Palpatine gives him the permission he so craves. It's the same situation with Dooku. He knows he shouldn't, but he wants to kill him. He got his permission, and so does it.

As for Vergere, I don't think she is overly concerned with the dark side, at least in Traitor -- and I think she's honing in on a different point whenever she discusses it with Jacen. In Destiny's Way, she talks a bit about it with Luke, but I don't see her tacitly endorsing the use of Sith lightning or strangling folks with the Force. That happens to be what Luke evidently learned per Denning's Dark Nest trilogy, but that's really a retcon strawman.

 

The "light" title of Imperius is given out of because of "your reputation for serving the Empire".. Occulus is "in light of your inscrutable reputation". It's not really tied to alignment at all.

 

Canonically, I actually don't mind Vergere as a Sith-Jedi philosopher.

There's nothing about Vergere that makes her Sith study under Palpatine evil or that she had evil plans.

Sadly, since Krayt and Caedus are her disciples--people are unlikely to take her legacy seriously.

 

The irony is that Luke was apprenticed to Palpatine more legitimately than they were able to retcon Vergere -- and their retcon still doesn't make sense. I ignore it more on those grounds than anything else.

 

Actions are what determine the light or dark side. It would make sense that the practice of Sith that work well in groups would have to be abolished for the rule of two in order to strengthen the Sith Lord's connection to the dark side. Because every Sith is nice by comparison to the worst one. I don't think Imperius was a pure-lightsider better than any Jedi. But if they act even once for the greater good instead of selfish motivation (Like helping out the overall empire vs themselves), they should be considered 'using the lightside', just like how a Jedi that does something selfish uses the dark-side.

 

Technically, the following Jedi are all Bright Sith if we're strict about "trained in the ways of the Sith and using them for good."

Luke Skywalker (Sith Lord)
Kyp Durron (Sith Lord)
Starkiller (Sith Lord)
Mara Jade
Kyle Katarn
Bastila Shan
Kam Solusar
Visa Marr (Sith Lady)
The Exile
Revan

 

About the Dark Side and free will, I'm certain that Palpatine altered the Dark Side and not the other way around.

About Darths, I think it gets abused. Nobody except the top two Sith should ever be called Darth.

 

Acting in the name of the Sith Empire's stability might entail light action insofar as it avoids the waste of resources or mistreatment of your enemy but the Empire itself is an evil. Regardless, it matters very little. Even if the Inquisitor was, canonically, Imperius (and I very much consider that to be my personal canon's choice), they fight with lightning, accept the power of dark spirits, and attempt to summon dark beasts so it's very, very much a mixed bag, with a lot of the good motivation and large scale goals still being facilitated through dark powers.

 

Yeah, but we knew the Old Republic would be handing the title out like candy to everyone the game wanted us to take seriously. It's not even limited to the Dark Council I'm sorry to say.

 

I thought Darth should have been unique to the Banite Sith, i.e. Darth Bane was a given name and not an adopted one, and successive Sith Lords took it because Bane had an ego and made his apprentice do it, and it became a thing. Darn you Rivan!

 

It is definitely possible to use the light side to serve a darksider.

 

Mara Jade, Kam Solusar and Star Killer were not recognized as Sith apprentices any more than Ventress was. They were simply Dark Jedi that would do errands for the Sith. Being unfailingly loyal automatically disqualifies someone as being a Sith Lord.

 

Yeah, the question is whether antihero might still qualify as "hero." Nitty-gritty details of what you have to do to accomplish the greater good can be confounding after all.

Luke killed a million people to save trillions.

But no one should argue this wasn't the right call. Darth Imperius had to gather as much power as possible in a short amount of time to protect himself (as well as his friends).

Sith Warrior has to play the role of the Emperor's Wrath even though he has to know the Emperor is a nutbar.

 

Serving Palpatine because you love him isn't being a Sith. Serving Palpatine so that he'll promote you is.

Unfortunately, the TPM novelization says "called himself Darth Bane", not "named Darth Bane". However, I believe that the "Darth" title should be unique to the Banite Sith whether or not "Darth Bane" is Darth Bane's real name.

 

I'm being very loose with the definition.

It's kind of confusing actually as to what to call Palpatine (A Sith Lord)'s horde of Dark Side using acolytes who are NOT-SITH because he said they're not. They're allowed to pledge but they're not part of the frat house despite the fact the frat used to take anybody.



It's ridiculous but Palpatine is head of the Omega Omega Omega Chapter so what he says goes.

 

Starkiller is as much a Sith as Darth Maul IMO. Same exact situation, except Maul was ignorant of Plagueis.

 

Hell, Starkiller wasn't that loyal as he thought Vader wanted him to kill Palpatine. Presumably, he figured he'd overthrow Vader after that as per Sith tradition.

 

I tend to think in general the Rule of Two wasn't followed to the letter because I can imagine a lot of apprentices training their own apprentices in anticipation of overthrowing their master, or even for help in doing so. And then there's situations like Darth Venamis, or, I suppose, Darth Cognus. The Rule of Two isn't sufficient grounds to disqualify someone as a Sith Lord because there are already two, and Vader was training Starkiller to be a Sith apprentice.