Saga The Dark Side - is it evil?

Yes, that's probably more accurate. But on some level, I think we can conflate the "Vader" concept with the "Emperor" concept and agree that we're really saying the same thing. Luke learns that evil can't be defeated by hate and destruction.

 

I think when Luke throws down his sabre he's saying something more than just 'I won't kill my father.'

 

I love how that ties in with Obi-Wan's lessons in the PT that "This weapon is your life". Presumably he taught the same to Luke. So that was Luke symbolically saying that he would rather give up his life than betray his Jedi teachers by using the Dark Side.

That scene, to me, is strongest argument for saying the Dark Side is evil. It is so fundamentally evil that using it is not justified even to kill the ultimate villain, the personification of evil. Flies in the face of the utilitarian approach to Jedi philosophy which the EU is sometimes guilty of.

 

I've never much cared for the "throwing down his saber" thing. This is your only protection against someone with unknown weapons in that chair? And you're gonna willingly give it up? I know it's the drama thing. But, still... really?

 

As I was writing my answer - I realized that it was really hard to separate Sith from the Dark Side. I was almost writing out an answer on why the Sith Order may not be "evil" in the more generic sense of the word.

On the issue of the Dark Side, someone else put it perfectly: the question should be is the Force evil. It's one aspect of the Force, not a separate entity. It's Lucas' Yin and Yang. Duality in harmony. Light with Dark. They co-exist while also being opposites. It's a shame Lucas muddied the waters and added all this confusing stuff about "balance" and Palpatine's death being the end of evil. It really makes no sense in the wider context. For their to be balance, you have to have light and dark. How can balance be only one or the other? That's literally the opposite of balance...

It's also kind of harder to answer because the EU has expanded the Force to incredible proportions. The page on Force powers seems to stretch out forever. Plus, there seems to be Light side equivalents to Dark Side abilities now (even a benign Light side Force Lightening equivalent). So I do wonder is it the power itself that is bad or how you use it? Plus, the applications of the power seem to mix at times. Is the Force Choke a unique ability or is it a concentrated telekinesis (like how Jedi call their lightsabers to their hands)? If it is the latter, then it's not an "evil" power. It's just the application of it. If it is its own unique ability independent of telekinesis, then I guess one could consider it evil...

It is hard to tell what the true nature of the Force really is considering that the point of views on it are always biased. We either have non-Force users who give it deference (And may the Force be with you - Dodanna) or mockery (Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid - Solo) and then we have Force users who give a long litany of explanations on the nature of the Force from their points of views. We never really get a non-biased, objective view on what the Force is.

Is it sentient? Don't you need sentience to be considered good or evil? Otherwise, isn't a tsunami evil when it kills people? The Jedi seem to imply the Force has some type of sentience. That it guides them. That they should trust in it. That it shows them visions. Things like that. Meanwhile, the Sith treat it like a drug that empowers them. Not really sentient, but an unlimited source of cosmic power to tap into for their own gain.

If the Force is simply a blind force of nature (pun intended...) like dark matter, quarks, or neutrons then the answer appears to be "no" to the OP's question. However, all the applications of the Dark Side are things that are always destructive, pain inducing, life draining/ending. Even if you use the Dark Side for "good", as in Force Lightening a group of Stormtroopers about to kill innocent moisture farmers, there is always a "nice" alternative (just Force Push them away for example). There really seems to be no good reason to use it. I love (and agree with) the comparison to the One Ring made in this topic. It really does seem equivalent to that. Before Episode III, the implication was using the Dark Side twisted you both inside and outside as well. It was popularly theorized that was why Palpatine looked the way he did. Also in Knights of the Old Republic, using the Dark Side twisted your physical features as well. It really is akin to a drug. Even when the Sith talk about it, they sound like drug addicts. "You don't know the POWAH of the Dark Side....!!!!" - said in almost euphoric way. Yoda's explanation that it isn't more powerful, just seductive and easier also likens it to a drug. Feels good temporarily which gives the illusion that this is great, superior, and a better path to take. But in the end, like the One Ring and drugs, it destroys you. It's a corrupting influence. It's like tapping into all the worst aspects of the universe in one gulp.

At times, I do feel that the Sith are nothing more than the crack heads of the GFFA.

So what purpose does it serve then? We like to think it is the devil on a person's shoulder, but I think that is from us listening to the Sith explaining things. Their view is a lot like the Shadows in Babylon 5. The universe operates on chaos, strength, power. Those who are on top are worthy and those can't be are at the bottom. Almost like organizing your society in a "the weak perish and the strong survive" way. Which is funny since the Sith always talk about "order". I can only guess that the Dark Side exists so that we can understand the Light Side...

 

Well, yeah, he's saying that he will not fight the evil anymore. He knows that he has darkness within him and he's rejecting it by tossing his saber down. By showing compassion for his father and a willingness to sacrifice everything.

That's the point.

"The key issue in these movies is for a Jedi not to use anger when he’s fighting. So the final confrontation here is primarily about trying to make Luke become angry, so that when he fights his father he’s fighting in anger, therefore begins to use the dark side of the Force, and therefore sort of succumbs to the dark side of the Force. In The Empire Strikes Back we had them confront each other and fight together. But in this film Luke has become more mature so that now he knows he shouldn’t be fighting him—that is the path to the dark side. So it’s basically a confrontation between two people and one of them doesn’t want to fight, and the other one keeps trying to push him into it. And then in the end when he gives up and they really do fight, what’s happening there is that ultimately Luke is turning to the dark side, and all is going to be lost."

--George Lucas, ROTJ DVD Commentary, 2004

"It will be about how young Anakin Skywalker became evil and then was redeemed by his son. But it's also about the transformation of how his son came to find the call and then ultimately realize what it was. Because Luke works intuitively through most of the original trilogy until he gets to the very end. And it’s only in the last act—when he throws his sword down and says, “I’m not going to fight this”—that he makes a more conscious, rational decision. And he does it at the risk of his life because the Emperor is going to kill him. It’s only that way that he is able to redeem his father."

--George Lucas, Star Wars Trilogy VHS Boxset 2000

 

The Dark Side isn't inherently evil in of itself. How it is used, is though. In it's essence, the Dark Side is aggressive, negative emotions. Plenty of Jedi have used the Dark Side of the Force without succumbing to it's more evil acts.

 

Is anti-matter evil? No, but I wouldn't touch any with a 10,000 ft pole.

 

Only four Jedi in PT have used the dark side and all four turned. Obi-wan was starting to use his emotions, before he stopped and refocused. So who used the dark side and stopped?

 

Well, considering this is the Saga forum, I assumed we could use EU. So, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Mace Windu (particularly in respect to his creation of Vaapad), Luke Skywalker gave into his hate a few times. Quinlan Vos also went rogue for a while. That's just to name some of the notables.

 

Palpatine's death isn't the end of evil, it's the end of the Sith, and more generally the end of the major or dominant evil represented by the Sith and the Empire being in control. It wouldn't be possible to literally remove evil from the universe, not without some kind of universal mind control, and since we have no reason to believe any such thing is happening we know that Lucas' statement must be parsed in a way that makes more sense. For there to be balance, you have to have light and dark: the light and dark sides, the aforementioned yin and yang of the living Force. The dark side of the Force is still there after Palpatine gets the shaft.

 

Unfortunately we have Lucas saying things like this. However I think this says more about the merits of taking everything he says at face value than it does about what actually happened.

 

So it would seem...

True. I think Lucas has a habit of viewing his saga in a really simplistic way. He probably was viewing it in a "the good guy beat the bad guy, now all is good" kind of way by that quote.

Another factor to the Dark Side discussion:

Don't Grey Jedi (admittedly an EU concept) negate the notion that the Dark Side is a corrupting influence? That even tapping it for good or tapping into it for brief moments show that the Dark Side can be used without any ill effects?

 

That's probably why it's an EU concept.

 

There are a couple ways in which this can be false.

1. The dark side by its nature is an unbalancing force. Balance implies an order or a rhythm. The dark side though is a chaotic and disruptive force. It destroys order and rhythm wherever it is able to take hold.

2. If one unit of light side has a mass of one, and one unit of dark side has a mass of two. In order to be in balance you need half as many units of dark side as you have light side.

While in many cases balance does imply equivalence, it does not always mean both sides are equal.

 

True. Unfortunately, we don't really know if the Dark Side is something that is a corrupting force against the Light Side itself. At times, it does seem like there is an equilibrium between the two. Other times.... The PT seems to imply that the Dark Side is something that completely throws off the Force. But that is peculiar because the Dark Side doesn't seem like something that really goes away. That it is a natural part of the Force. If it is natural, you can kill all the Sith in the universe and the Dark Side is still there. So balance, if that is the meaning of it, can never truly be achieved. And the Force would always be in a state of disorder.

Or was it Palpatine himself that was throwing the Force out of balance and not necessarily the Dark Side by itself?

 

Just because the Dark Side will always be present to some degree, and is "natural" in that sense, doesn't mean it's not a bad thing. The (capacity for) evil is a "natural" corollary of human free will, which is desirable and "good", but that doesn't mean the inevitable evil choices made by individuals aren't bad. Conversely, true Balance may be unattainable, but that doesn't mean it's not a goal we should strive for.

In any case, I don't think we're supposed to think Anakin destroyed all evil in a historical or factual sense. It's not meant to be that literal even in-universe, I think.

 

I see it as being a case of certain things having to exist for survival and sanity (fear, anger etc) and those things, not evil in and of themselves, having a distinct propensity to leading to evil.

 

If true balance is unattainable then what purpose does the prophecy has?

 

While I'm far from one of those who hate the introduction of the prophecy (I think it's a brilliant device that opens up questions of free will vs fate), I don't think the literal terms of the prophecy should be taken as an indication of the framework in which things would pan out. What I mean is: what Anakin actually did in the end did not, on my interpretation, render the prophecy "true", but neither did anything he did make it "false". I don't think it was meant to be a factual prediction, like a scientific hypothesis. Rather, it sets out the parameters of the ideal which a messianic hero might achieve (and which every individual should ideally achieve for themselves).

To be clear, I'm not slighting Anakin's achievement. I think he did bring balance (and not because he was fated or prophesied to do so, but because of his and Luke's free actions), just not in a literal/factual sense of eliminating all evil or disorder that might ever exist in the GFFA, but more like in the cosmological, OOU sense. As though his overcoming of his servitude to fear and anger rippled, mythopoeically, the fabric of the universe's moral reality.

I'm aware that's probably a controversial interpretation, and likely to be ridiculed as being a cop-out or theological fluff, but I think George does deliberately mix storytelling languages on a number of levels, so you can't get a satisfying coherent interpretation of all the different elements of the story within a single "level". That's okay with me, and in fact I find it enriches my appreciation of the Saga, but YMMV

 

The old EU no longer counts. As far as TCW is concerned, Vos never went to the dark side. We don't know how much his old bio will carry over into the upcoming novel which is part of the new EU canon. Luke skirted the edge in ROTJ, but stopped himself. Qui-gon never did. Obi-wan was like Luke. Vaapad is mentioned in the ROTS novelization, but whether or not Lucas considered Mace to be going bad or not, is unknown.

As I've said before, the whole gray Jedi thing came about because the designers of the "Dark Forces" series wanted to justify Kyle Kataran using Sith lightning as an offensive Force attack. This would later lead into the group of Force users that Keiran Halcyon and his grandson Corran Horn ran into, used the dark side but in the service of good in "I, Jedi" and ultimately to what was done to defeat the Yuzzhan Vong in NJO. It totally misses the point about the Force that Lucas was trying to make. Especially during the making of the PT. That's why a lot of the new ideology that appeared in NJO was retconned in "The Swarm War". The idea that the Imperial Knights weren't evil, because the served in a cause they believed in, but used their emotions to fight, also flew in the face of that and is part of the reason that a lot of the old EU was abandoned. Whatever carries over into the new, will undoubtedly be altered significantly.

As to balance, Lucas says that the dark side starts to grow stronger and envelope the universe during the time period of the films. Within AOTC, Yoda and Mace both stated that their powers are weakening and that the dark side shroud has fallen. So what you have is that the dark side is growing stronger over the light. That's imbalance. It's just like the scale diagram. What causes the imbalance is the war. Not war in general, but this war. A war fueled by greed, fear, anger and selfishness. The Jedi were trying to stem the tide, but could because they were overwhelmed and manipulated.

 

Not really. The PT doesn't really say all that much about the dark side.

 

Yeah, the PT never implied that the dark side is what throws off the Force. It is implied that the Sith(through the movies, TCW and later GL's comments) are the ones whom are throwing off the Force out of balance by abusing the dark side.

 

Part of me wants to jump into the EU discussion here (as in, 'the Force model used in the EU is part of why it was all subsumed into "Legends" - really? I think the reasoning is probably more to do with the basic idea of 'unifying' the stories - not necessarily paying any attention to what does or doesn't differ, plus how the actual procedure of what they plan to do doesn't seem much different than what they have done before, it's just that there's more stuff to trample on in the ST period, compared to the PT period)... and part of me wants to point out that the Saga forum doesn't typically focus on the EU. The differences between the OT + Intertrilogy EU extrapolations vs. what Lucas preferred, as expanded in the PT, does interest me and does seem like it's probably a valid topic.