evil is only a point of view

i hate how everyone says that the sith are evil
and the jedi are good they are both points of view imagine if the movies was based on the sith not the jedi

 

The movies aren't really based of the Jedi or Sith , it's based on the story of Anakin Skywalker.

 

Though even if they were the main characters it'd be hard to not see the side that kills children as the more evil.

 

However, if the tables were turned and say....Yoda was storming a Sith Temple, what would happen to the younglings? If he left them the strongest of them would have taken up the mantle of Sith Lord and hid till he grew powerful enough to confront the Jedi. I really think that an enemy is an enemy.

Carnage

 

I dunno I really could see the Jedi attempting to take the kids and train the Dark Side out of them, or at least waiting until the children attack first unlike Anakin. There's also the fact that the Sith enslaved multiple species, blew up a planet, etc.

 

History is written by the victors. Always.

 

True, though in a series of fiction this isn't as necessarily true.

 

"Evil is a point of view. God kills indiscriminately. And so shall we."
--Lestat de Lioncourt, Interview with the Vampire

 

i think 'destroy the sith we must' speaks volumes here.

 

Yoda's comment reflects the fact that he knew the Sith threat to "goodness" and "right" as he saw and knew it to be.

He would see himself as a defender of goodness and right.

GL's portrayal of the Sith and the Jedi shows who he wanted to be the 'evil' and who the 'good' characters.

This debate goes to the heart of the abuse/misuse of POV philosophy by anyone who chooses it.

SW saga was written as tale of right and wrong through the central character -Anakin Skywalker.

Anakin allows his thoughts on what he wanted in life and how he would achieve it to be manipulated by someone else,then after being committed to that course of action being more or less 'enslaved' to his choices.

Whoever does not accept that our choices have consequences is kidding themselves and SW saga doesn't hide this at all as I see it.

Anakin does what he does in ROTS that brings in a dictatorial Sith led Govt that dominates and controls anything and everything it sees as it's right to do so with.

The Jedi Order chose certain courses of action that led to it's demise with key players like Yoda,Obi-Wan and Mace Windu doing what they thought to be right and proper at the time.

And for all concerned their choices in reactions to events brings about the events of the saga and the consequences are clearly portrayed.

Interesting how the saga has an approx 20 year interlude in which Yoda,Obi-Wan and Anakin have time to reflect on their choices and how things have panned out.

Also,interesting how Obi-Wan and Yoda wisen up to how to approach the problem 2nd time around whilst Anakin continues to do the same as before until the latter part of ESB and on into ROTJ with Palpatine doing virtually nothing differently.

Whilst it's easy for any of us(and any of the SW characters)to rationalise the whole POV argument for our choices it's the consequences that show us whether we are right or wrong.

Palpatine is not shown as having any regret or sadness for his choices so I think it's fair to say GL is showing him as unredeemable(Ian McDiarmid says similiar)but the rest of the main characters show in various ways their regrets for their mistakes and errors of judgement.

Qui-Gon told Obi-Wan that the truth is dependent on POV to show that subjectivity comes into it as does Palpatine tell Anakin more or less the same in relation to evil.

This being the case and on the basis of the characters as portrayed I doubt very much Qui-Gon and Palpatine could ever have been strong allies if at all.

So,who is evil...? Depends greatly on your POV I guess.

(edit - typing errors,sorry)

 

Point of view? Point of view? In what view is killing children, betraying the trust of everyone, lying about the Jedi and their traitorous ways, and just generally killing or intimidating everyone in the Galaxy a good thing?

 

Good and evil are like day and night, cold and warm, or yin and yang in general: one cannot exist without the other. Absolute good and evil seem easy to recognize, but it's mostly a twilight zone where evil things are done with good intentions and vice versa.

Yes, I believe that evil is a point of view, and from my point of view the Sith are Evil. (the Jedi are no saints either)

 

Good question.
And yet, many still view the Jedi as "good" even though they do this stuff. Go figure.

 

Definitely. We all know to watch those Sith, they can be sneaky. It's obvious that no Jedi trusts a Sith's word. How would he "Desith" them? Train them by day and lock them up as prisoners by night so they don't kill him in his sleep? What happens if one cannot be desithed? What if they trick you into thinking they have no dark side left in them? Option B is to do nothing and let a bunch of force sensitive angry kids out into the world. They would eventually continue their training (Albeit limited) and probably try to avenge the Jedi killing of their Masters. If Anakin had left the Jedi younglings alive, they would have either 1. Trained untill they thought they were strong enough to destroy the Sith that wiped out their "Family" or 2. Become followers of Vader, impressed that he spared their lives. "The Sith didn't kill us, maybe they aren't so bad." Seems to me that once the plans were made to attack the enemy camp, every single one of them had to be killed. "Waiting" for them to attack may have meant waiting 15 years. In that time perhaps they would pose a threat. It was the only way to be sure.

I am by no means saying that other Sith acts are not evil, I just think that the one thing that Anakin did that many see as irredeemable is obviously a situation where you have no choice, no matter if the Jedi were attacking A Sith Temple or a Sith was attacking a Jedi temple.

Carnage

 

There's already a discussion going on about this:

http://boards.theforce.net/the_star_wars_saga/b10456/22490176/p1/?49

Nevertheless...

It may interest you to read the following articles:

http://armor.typepad.com/bastardsword/2005/05/we_are_sith_par_1.html

http://armor.typepad.com/bastardsword/2005/05/we_are_sith_par.html (This is, despite what the link suggests, Part II)

 

Indeed the Jedi in the Prequels were no saints. But Luke was a different kind of Jedi, he threw away his saber rather then turn to the dark side. He knew what good and evil were, unlike Mace Windu when he swung his lightsaber to try and kill Palpatine. As justified as he thought he was.

 

There is no right and wrong, only our opinions, which are based on our experiences, our education, and the way we were raised.

 

I do not think evil is a point of veiw. There is fine line seperating each.

The Emporer only wanted to take over the galaxy because of his greed and lust for power. The Rebels wanted to restore peace.

The Empire destroyed Alderaan for the sole purpose of strikig fear into the hearts of the Rebellion, or anyone else who would stand in their way.

Anakin killed innocent younglings.

The empire wouldn't even let a city surrender to them. TThe city tried to surrender, but the Empire just destroyed it.


The Jedi fight for peace, the Sith fight for revenge and power. Even if the Sith say that they are fighting for peace, they are only doing it to deceive you of what is right to turn you to their side. They are relentless killers.


In the Original Trilogy, and some OT-NJO books, they show a very good example of who is good and who is bad. Darth Vader relentlessly kills innocent people, and Luke saves even his worst of enemies from certain death, and gives them a chance for redemtion.

At first, Anakin, or Darth Vader as he was called at the time, was not evil. He was only deceived by the Emporer of what was good and what was bad. Later on, this decemption turned him into one of the most evil beings in the galaxy. Eventually, he realized the truth, and turned back to the light side.

 

Half of writing history is covering up the truth. So we will never know. It has happened and all we can do is wacth it from how it was writen. Never shall we know the truth...

 

Palpatine makes some interesting points about the Sith in the ROTS novel. He says they are not "afraid to feel" emotion from the depths of despair and hatred to the joys of love. This sounds like a good thing. However, it is not because this a recipe for emotions left un-checked. The problem is that the Sith put the self above all else. They value their emotion more than any one else's. That's a unhealthy psychological state of mind, to say the least. Thinking inward as the Sith do is not a bad thing. Nor is thinking outward, like the Jedi do. Life is really about finding a balance between looking in and looking out of oneself. It's not one or the other.

 

I still want to know why this is considered amongst his most abominable acts? What was he SUPPOSED to do with them?

Carnage

 

A person who abuses or murders a child is considered the worst criminal that you can find. If they're in jail, they may be killed by fellow inmates.

I'm certain Vader has done a lot of killing by the time of ANH. He helped the Emperor "hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights." But killing children is low. If Anakin thinks that he can become powerful enough to save Padme by murdering children, I wouldn't dare call that love. That's twisted.

I don't think that Anakin enjoyed killing them. He's not Darth Maul. He doesn't delight in murder. The more he does it, the less he cares, though. That's what Sidious knows. He wants his new apprentice to learn to erase the remorse of murder by killing children. In a sick way, Sidous was teaching Anakin the ways of the Sith. The Jedi only kill when they believe it will be for the greater good. The Sith do it for their own warped view of "good." Sidious taught Darth Maul to have the rage to want to kill his own master. The Sith view untamed rage as a strength.

Of course, Sidious wanted to destroy the all Jedi. He'd been looking forward to doing that for decades. But he also views it is a part of his plan to bring peace, justice, and security to the galaxy in his warped mind. Sidious's has a narrow view of the world. He thinks there are many points of view besides his. He just doesn't care about others. One could think that he hates the dogmatic ways of the Jedi, but he really doesn't care. All he cares about is his own point of view. He wants his point of view to be law and universal.

 

These aren't Ordinary children. They have probably been training to be a Jedi for 8 years. They could probably beat the crap out of me or you in a fistfight. They probably didn't know their families. Where would they go? Probably somewhere all together so they could continue to train to the best of their abilities so they could come back and Kill Darth Vader to avenge the slaying of Jedi. It's not like he ran into random apartments on Coruscant and killed random infants. The temple was basically a War Room and a Target at that point, and the younglings had already started to learn basic battle techniques. If the Younglings were so helpless they shouldn't have been there. In 21st century America it is not legal to take an 8 year old, show him how to fire an M-16, how to toss a grenade, how to fly an attack helicopter, toss some fatigues on them and put them on a military base in the middle of wartime.

What is the age cutoff for Vader doing this not become such a moral atrocity? 10? 12? 14? 16? All these ages are "Children" but I gaurentee some 12 year old Padawans came out a swinging. Perhaps Vader should have decided beforehand at what age an enemy wasn't a threat and carded them before attacking to make sure they were "Of age". When you yourself, with NO jedi training managed to blow up a droid command ship at age 8 you have to wonder what these kids could do.

Again, I'm not saying Vader isn't Evil, but I don't buy this part being his most dreadful act. He just killed some soldiers that were not fully trained yet.

Carnage

 

What is with this whole notion lately where some people see the Jedi and Sith on the same page?

"Are the Sith really evil? Are the Jedi really good?"

Yes the Sith are evil. I want some of what the naysayers are smoking because I don't see how Lucas could have possibly made it more apparent. Lets look at all the tell-tale signs of Sith purity.

-Palpatine's skin is rotting away
-Everyone's eyes, save Dooku, turn yellow for some (possibly evil) reason
-Darth Maul is a maniac who twice attacked the same Jedi, unprovoked.
-Anakin's killing of the younglings. I understand the not-yet fully trained soldiers idea, but ahhh no, it was a slaughter.
-Dooku's willingness to let the acklay have its way with Obi-wan after he refused Dooku's offer.
-"Good news, the war has begun"

I could go on and on. Now I'm not saying that the Jedi do everything right and should have seen this coming. They had some problems of their own. But they weren't evil. Point of view...look this is fantasy story. Not the rise and fall of some controversial historic leader, like Ceaser or Alexander. Lucas has made it clear who the bad guys are.

 

First of all, the Jedi are neither good or evil. The Sith are neither good or evil. The term "Jedi" categorizes those that are generally "good." The term "Sith" categorizes those that are generally "bad." In truth, it is the internal and external implementation of the force that truly distinguishes between an individual that is "good" and an individual that is "bad." For example, one that has the gift of the force makes deliberate choices every single day, some are bigger than others, to use their gift to serve their own ambitions and desires, or to selflessly serve the galaxy with the intent of creating a lasting harmony between every sentient at every level of this galaxy.

Secondly, when the force is used by an individual to inflict cruelty or death upon any sentient or non-sentient, meaning droids, planets, plants, etc., it is the path to the darkside, not the darkside, but ultimately will send the spirit of the individual to darkness. For example: Ben Kenobi did not use the force to destroy the death-star because he would have caused the death of many innocents, and his spirit, ultimately, ended up in the light of the force. Another example Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker used the force for his personal gain, and inflicted great suffering upon others during his life-time, but his spirit ends up basking in the light of the force because he ultimately made the right choice for the galaxy and repented for his past crimes. It is then obvious that any individual who inflicts cruelty or death upon sentient or non-sentient beings, and who does not repent, and takes pleasure from it, will, ultimately bask in darkness for all eternity.

Thirdly, evil cannot be used as a means to justify a "good/favorable" outcome. There is always an alternative to say, for example, (pg-13 warning) intercourse between two beings. Also, using the force to create and take advantage of that kind of situation also leads to the darkside. There is always a way to avoid that kind of situation. Another example is monetary profit: If a force user kills a being for monetary profit, it is a choice that will lead the individual to embrace the darkside. A further example: An individual uses their power to influence others for personal gain, or outright steals from them, it is a choice that ultimately leads to the darkside. The darkside is not a side of the force, for example, an individual can pick a side, it is rather likened to the choices that an individual makes that leads them to use the force for the furtherance of themselves and of evil. No power of the force is inherently evil unless it is used to bring about evil/suffering, etc. So, the furtherance of "good" that is brought about by evil choices is of the darkside, because they, or it, ultimately leads the wielder to the depths of the darkside.

Accordingly hitherto, The Jedi, The Sith, are neither good nor evil. It is the individual that will ultimately make the final decision determining whether they will live to sow discord, or to spread harmony.