Lit "Light Side" Sith

If you believe Lumiya (a very big if) Darth Vectivus wasn't sociopathic, narcissistic or megalomaniacal - but fairly normal as a person.

We know from the Darth Plagueis novel that Vectivus did indeed exist as one of the "Rule of Two" Sith, as I recall.

 

I'd argue their would be a limit to how light side they could be.

Using the Dark Side is either bad for your body/mind or bad for those near you. If you have light side leanings over the long term you will be more effective it you use the light side as the dark side eats your body. The only real reason to use the Dark Side is if you are green, need something esoteric (Arguable), or are desperate/power hungry.

As a result, in the long term you'd outgrow the Dark Side if you were a good person.

 

Certainly that's how the EU portrayed it. It's not quite so clear that "the dark side eats bodies" in the movies - Dooku is relatively unchanged, and the cause of Palpatine's facial appearance is left somewhat ambiguous (he might have been scarred by his own lightning, or he might have been ancient rather than "eaten away by dark energy").

In the Darth Plagueis novel, there's a reference to a Darth Gravid who sought to imbue the Sith Order with certain virtues, like altruism or compassion - out of a belief that this would improve the Order's chances of achieving it's goals.

He went mad (according to Plagueis) and destroyed the secrets of the Sith (books/scrolls?) and his apprentice was forced to kill him.

 

Pretty much. Boiling them down to basic concepts, the ideals of the Jedi will lead one down a path of selfless service to others and the Force, seeking knowledge and enlightenment, whereas the ideals of the Sith will lead them down the path of domination and a lust for power, causing chaos and destruction. The idea of a Light Side Sith has only ever existed to me as a video game mechanic, just like those Light Side and Dark Side points in Kotor and Kotor 2.

 

Which in themselves are simply perceptions.

 

Darth Gravid was a Sith Lord in the Banite Order of the Sith Lords. This inheritor of the Rule of Two lineage was drawn to the light side of the Force. He sought to incorporate elements of the Jedi philosophy into the Sith's teachings. So, this is an interesting case. He began to value traits such as empathy and altruism. He lost his mind. Lol. I guess if one tries to combine two things that don't mix, that's what happens sometimes. As his sanity declined, he elected to destroy all these Sith artifacts, tomes, and holocrons. His apprentice, Darth Gean, found out what he was doing, and she went in and killed his posterior. Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious viewed Gravid as a traitor who set the Sith Order back. They believed Gravid prevented the Grand Plan from gaining traction sooner.

 

Giving into the dark side of force turns you into not a good person. Anakin started down the path to protect Padme, then after she was dead he kept going pretty much without any goal beyond conquering the galaxy. Dooku became disenchanted with the Jedi Order and the Senate but by the time we meet him in ATOC, he is entirely conciously working for the source of the corruption of the Republic and the Sith Lord that had Qui-Gon killed as well as knowingly leading his Seperatist to their deaths against the clone army he had commisioned for the Republic. That's what the Dark Side does to Jedi, trained to resist the Dark Side. Sith that just use the Dark Side freely without ever having a hint of corruption or moral ambigiouty beyond their loyalty to the Empire where were born are Mary Sues.

 

I think you put it very well. The dark side is like a deadly narcotic. It has an effect on the mind as well as the body. It's not good for one's health. The dark side is an aspect of the Force, and whoever devotes oneself to it loses one's own will without fully realizing it. A Sith Lord's will is no longer solely his or her own. A Sith becomes a part of the will of the dark side. Their self-destructive emotions like anger, fear, hate, and greed also become either the only emotions they can still feel or they at least become their most prominent emotions. It is interesting how powerful hate can be. Hate was what kept Darth Sion alive. His pain and all-consuming rage and hatred practically made him immortal by giving him the dark will to live. But his love for Meetra Surik humbled him and brought him to his death and end. Love gave him the key to letting go of these negative emotions. And that's what I think is fascinating about all this. A lot of the emotions and psychology is accurate to how people actually think. Star Wars just added a supernatural Force with two sides, a spectrum, or none to the mix to make things a bit more interesting.

 

Lol. I sometimes talk that way. I'll sometimes say things like, "I don't take defecation from motherfornicators," and "What the Gehenna are those illegitimate sons doing?" I do cuss sometimes, but since we're on this very public JCF, I decided I should be a bit more humorous and indirect sometimes.

 

Darth Caedus, Lumiya, Vergere, and Darth Revan attempted to use Sith teachings and tactics for the greater good. But they weren't able to do so, since the dark side affected their overall personalities. Similarly, Darth Traya and Darth Tyranus wanted to use the Sith way for alternate purposes, but they are different cases. As I stated earlier, Tyranus remained the political idealist that had been when he was Dooku. He just was further radicalized and became a more brutal, sadistic, arrogant, and rationalizing individual as Tyranus. Traya/Kreia was another case entirely. She believed the Force was insidious and she sought to destroy it. She had some serious mental illness issues, I think, and I say that in spite of the fact that I regard her as a wise and very interesting. I do think that she was not well. Now, Sith in general seek self-aggrandizement and self-deification, whether they realize this or not. Sidious/Palpatine viewed himself as a savior and believed what he was doing was the best option for the galaxy, but he was also about as dark and cruel as sentient beings can come. I don't think most Sith would want to use the light side, just as most would not want to do things for the greater good. These are Sith Lords we're talking about. It's against their doctrines and traditions to think and feel about things like the Jedi would.

 

they should write a book about Vergere using the dark side

 

You can have a good individual who uses the Dark Side and succeeds at it, believing in the Unifying Force and/or Potentium beliefs, but said individual wouldn't really be considered as apart of the Sith doctrine. Remember Vectivus, as smart as he was for himself, was still thought of as a joke by the mainstream Sith like Krayt. So sure, technically you could but he'd have to be trained outside of the usual Sith doctrine and if that were the case I'm not sure why he would even call himself a Sith. Even if the Sith teachings originally weren't all that bad and were just looking for alternatives into the Force, I can't see anyone who wants to be seen as a 'good guy' calling himself a Sith Lord post-Episode 6, which was one of my gripes with the Caedus character.

That said, a dark sider outlined above could be more in line with the Sith Code as it was originally intended. The Sith Code's heavily individualistic, and most Sith, even the Banite ones (though less so than the open Sith Orders, much less so) have been following doctrines and traditions and indirectly see everything outside of them as a heresy to their way. Ironically, it seems that the Sith have become done full-circle revolution where while they tend to change the type of orders they're in as well as they're method of operation, they generally stay under the same overall dogma.

 

I would be interested in reading that

 

Doesn't the Darth Plagueis novel reference Vectivus as a Baneite Sith? Maybe Krayt's Sith misjudged him based on the Holocron they found?

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Holocron_of_Darth_Vectivus

Which could even have been faked up by Lumiya.

 

It is likely that continuous use of the dark side is inherently corruptive on some level.

Also, despite what the Jedi Academy Training Manual and consequently Wookieepedia have to say about it, the term "Unifying Force" does not mean a belief that the Force does not have sides. As originally coined the term referred not to a viewpoint or belief but to a complementary aspect of the Force which coexists with the Living Force and its sides. Nowadays the term Cosmic Force is used to describe the aspect of the Force which fills this niche.

 

The problem with Light Sith is it looks like its supposed to be the counterpart to Dark Jedi and yet Dark Jedi don't even fight for the Jedi order (In fact you get many Dark Jedi fighting under Sith) or hold any part of the Jedi Philosophy. The Light Sith on the other hand still hold the same Sith Philosophy, fight for their side and use the dark side. I think they only differ from regular Sith in their individual characteristics. They may be less cruel, or less dogmatic in their Sith Philosophy, but in the end still fight for their people.

 

This is where we get into the notion that the Force has more of a spectrum than two sides. The alternate views of the Force are interesting. They include the Way of the Dark, the insidious Force, the Aing-Tii beliefs, the White Current, and those of the Sorcerers of Tund, and those of the Killiks and the Ones.

 

Yes, it would. Vergere was a Sith, of course, but she was still morally ambiguous at times.

 

The Wookieepedia article and whatever RPG sourcebooks or whatever it gets its whole Unifying Force "philosophy" info from is, like, 100% wrong.

But I guess someone already pointed that out.

 

I agree with you, DigitalMessiah. It would be interesting to hear what a Gray Jedi like Jolee Bindo would say about this topic.

 

mfw

 

In The Wrath of Darth Maul, Sidious implies to Maul that "giving the Force characteristics of good and evil" is a big error on the Jedi's part:

"rather than embrace the full spectrum of the Force, the Jedi ignored the infinite shades of gray that stretched between light and darkness. They declared the light side good and the dark side evil. To them there could be no in-between, no middle ground."

"It's one thing to examine an energy field that permeates the galaxy. But to give an energy field characteristics of good and evil? One might as well say "This cloud wants to protect us from solar radiation, but that other cloud wants to strike us dead with lightning."

And in Darth Maul, Shadow Hunter, Palpatine privately muses to himself that The Force is above such distinctions as Good and Evil.

 

I imagine the dark side is called by Jedi such for the inadvertent effect it has on the people that make use of it, rather then a belief that the dark side itself is conciously malevolent. Why would every part of the Force by completely suitable for use?

 

The fact that numerous darksiders show signs of physical corruption and degeneration of their bodies, along with having warped moral views, philosophies, and causing excessive destruction probably went a long way towards the Jedi starting to see the Dark Side as evil. Just saying.