Discussions Should the Sith stop being villains?

I realize the title of the discussion may sound strange to a lot of you. The Sith Lords have always been the main villains of most Star Wars stories, practically all the Star Wars settings revolve around some form of Sith evil scheme to conquer the galaxy. Most characters associated with the Sith have always been portrayed as quintessentially evil, they may have gone through a corruption process with more or less understandable motivations (Darth Vader, Revan, Darth Krayt, etc...) or they were just "drawn" that way, being evil for the sake of being evil (Darth Sideous, at least as long as you stick to the movies, Darth Malgus, etc...). But with the Kinghts of the Old Republic storyline and the Old Republic MMO plots, the question can be raised whether the Sith teachings themselves are quintessentially evil or not.
Starting from the very core of the Sith creed, their code:

"Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me."

This words don't necessarily say "go around and be evil...and stuff", in fact, the analysis given in KOTOR 1 by Yuthura Ban in the Sith academy is all but quintessentially evil, its actually more logical, born from rational observation of the world rather than hate or anger. Even the character saying those words comments them with:

"Conflict forces one to better oneself. It forces change, growth, adaption, evolution… or death."

This is actually a very reasoned and accurate analysis of nature, something this elaborate cannot come from the evil, mindless conquerors the franchise kept portraying over and over. In fact, many characters like Kreia or Lord Scourge cannot fully qualify as villains, they often help or even guide the good-aligned main character to reach his or her goal (well, in Scourges case the affirmation is debatable but I wanted to keep this as spoiler-free as possible).
Now, I'm not going to analyse the rest of the code (it would take a while) but once you get to the core concept of the code, it is actually a pretty good message. It's basically saying "Hey, you! Stop being pushed around and letting everyone tell you what to do! Use your own head, pursue your own goals, that's how progress is made!". Ok, there is more to it but this is just a roughly put together abstract, again, going into every little detail of it would take eight pages (give all the existing awards to whoever wrote it)!
The point is, should Disney take advantage of this and show a different face of the Sith creed in future storylines? What if instead of keeping the good vs evil plots going on they updated everything to a good intentions vs good intentions plot? With no absolute villain, no absolute hero, just a misunderstanding between two sides both with genuinely good intentions. It would not only make everything more tragic but the audience could relate more with the characters, the plot would be far more dramatic and thrilling because unlike in the first trilogy you would not know which side to pick, they'd both have their pros and cons and since there would be no obvious villain even the ending would be less predictable. We've already seen Jedis being jerks, I mean, no spoilers but in KOTOR 2 you end up hating those guys, they just drive you crazy and they are not corrupted, they still follow the Jedi code, they just fail to accept certain realities, certain limits of their ways and that causes them to make mistakes, it shows them as incapable of adapting to a world that is changing, it basically shows the truth behind something apparently dark as the Sith code. I mean, that's deep!
So, in conclusion, do you think the Sith should just remain villains for the sake of being villains or do you think the new Star Wars stories should follow the road opened by Knights of the Old Republic and work on a more elaborate plot with no absolute good or evil?

 

Unless Sith through the ages have totally misunderstood (or altered) the third precept of their code, that is the reason for them turning to evil; IMO.

"All power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" and "power tends to attract those capable of being corrupted by it" are axioms that should warn a would-be Sith that seeking more and more power isn't a good thing for them to be about.

 

Its an interesting idea, but I don`t see Disney using them in as anything other than outright villains. The Sith haven`t been fleshed out too well in the films up to this point. Most of the interesting stuff involving them is in the EU. If Disney do use the Sith instead of some new big bad, It`ll probably be in the black hat panto evil fashion everyone knows and loves.

On a side note. If they did use them in a morally grey fashion and not as the outright villians. Who would replace them? The new villains would have to be even more over the top Evil than the Sith which would be difficult.

I`d like to see it done though. Maybe there`s room in a spin off for it? It`d at least be as interesting as a Boba Fett spinoff.

 

Jedi can do evil without being Sith. Sith can exist in a grey moral state without going completely evil. It's an interesting idea but I think it would work better in the novels which can be more deep and complex.

 

"villains" with good/evil sides and grey in between is more interesting than absolute evil. I'd like Rakata to be villains like that for some new SW stories instead of always Sith but so far in DOTJ they mostly just act like Sith being always evil, so same problem.

also the "good vs bad" aspect of the force should be challenged---why is it always darkside= evil and lightside = good? I think a character in EU said something about the Force not having dark/light sides; it depends how you use it. Vergere, maybe?

And as you mentioned, KOTOR has Jedi being jerks. So would be nice to have a decent villain (Sith or not) that is not full-blown stereotypically evil. Maybe one with good intentions?

 

Well, I don't think villains are actually a necessary component of every story, there are many successful movies which didn't really have a true villain figure. The only problem is those movies are stuff like Jurassic Park, Toy Story, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and a lot of movies based on real facts like Apollo 13, this movies either revolve around their characters going through changes and learning to deal with them and/or around facing something bigger than yourself, showing how nature and the universe con be both marvelous and dangerous. Star Wars has a different kind of setting, a different kind of spirit, true, personal changes and dealing with things greater than yourself has played an important part in the storyline and I hope they keep it that way (what really attracted me to the Star Wars Expanded Universe was the amazing psychological journey many characters like Revan, the Exile or Cade Skywalker go through) but lets face it, its epic, it will always need that epic feeling we all associate with Star Wars in order to work and creating an epic plot without an all-the-way evil villain figure is difficult, even for Disney, not impossible but difficult.

I believe that was Luke Skywalker saying "The Force may not have a Dark Side but we do." but I'm not sure, I'll need to get some confirmation of that, all I can say is I hope they did make him say that, it's deep. Anyway, it is actually a concept elaborated in many EU storylines, even in the Clone Wars comic book series Asajj Ventress says that there is no Dark Side and many grey-aligned force users here and there who believe in that same concept.

 

"So would be nice to have a decent villain (Sith or not) that is not full-blown stereotypically evil. Maybe one with good intentions? "

A well done Darth Caedus is exactly this IMHO gizkaspice

 

I believe Dooku's intentions also began well as did Jacen's.

 

Agreed DD. There are definte parallels between the two of them.

 

You may start with good intentions... I would think that many Sith did.​

But a lot of the story with the Sith is that they're lured by power (power over others, or simply the power to accomplish something they want to). There aren't many other incentives to become one. However, it's not to say the Sith are inherently evil. To combat temptation, one must have a strong will. It takes strength to resist. To become a Sith, is to succumb to temptation. Eventually, corruption, however good you were in the beginning, will take over. In my opinion, not many of the strongest force users have the strength to turn around.​

Concerning the Sith code:
"Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me." When I look at the Sith code, I really can't imagine anything other than forwarding personal interests. Its purely for those seeking a way to get what they want. For them to grow. Only someone selfish would adopt such a code.

 

They should take a somewhat smaller part, but I still enjoy them more than many of the other quasi-villians that are in some EU books.

 

Is not that a oxymoron?

 

Yes.

But only for a small group.

 

He says that in the Dark Nest Trilogy - as a reason to cease using anger to boost his powers in emergency situations - because, he feels that dark side or not dark side it's just too dangerous.

Not too long afterward, the same author portrayed Vergere (the one who introduced the phrase - There is no Dark Side- the only dark side you need fear is the one in your own heart) as a Sith - seeing to subtly corrupt the character she taught that.