Lit The Prophets of the Dark Side: an underrated non-Sith order?

I just saw the updated Kadaan/Dark Force articles on Wookiepedia, and I'm impressed that what little new content that's been revealed about them in the EU sort of gels what I always read into the concept:

They kind of connect with my prior idea of "Silver Sith" - that is, Sith who are malevolent or evil, but do it in a way that's loyal to the Dark Side itself, rather than to their own greed/malice/hatred. A more selfless devotion to evil for the sake of it. And in fact, Kadann's approach to the Force seems almost balanced, in an evil way- possibly a Sith equivalent to Potentium?

Though according to Wookiepedia, the only other well known Prophet of the Dark Side, Jedgar, (all of the other people like Cronal, Lumiya, etc. don't count since they're really just random Dark Jedi that Palpatine had Kadann train), is said to be a typical cruel Dark Jedi with impulse control, maybe Kadann is the only Prophet who's truly got a more chill approach to being evil. He's evil so chill as to say, "Don't worry about it, the Dark Side will let us know when to appear and wreak havoc and do Dark Side things, until then don't hurt anyone because the Force is telling me that it's not the time yet." Which is very good discipline for a Dark Sider. In fact, he was so disciplined, he was killed by Azrakel/Lumiya/Carnor Jax in a pique of canon cleanup, instead of ever having the chance to have the Prophets of the Dark Side descend upon the galaxy to do evil things.

In my view, between their novel Dark Force religion, their adoption of Kaan's Rule by the Strong, and Kadaan just being a really interesting guy, the Prophets of the Dark Side were the most interesting- and potentially significant- post-Banite order to exist between Palpatine's defeat and the rise of Darth Krayt. An interesting twist to the bland orthodox Jedi/Sith dichotomy, only broken up during the Legacy era with the appearance of the Imperial Knights (who are basically Jedi who wear armor and follow a different guy).

Rebuttal?

Okay, the Nightsisters were pretty cool, too. Though they fall more under the category of "indigenous cultures that happen to have a dark side approach to the universe."

 

No rebuttal here -- I think you're spot-on. It's one of the most well-developed (even if haphazardly over a period of literal OOU decades) side plots of the old EU. Part of its detailed zaniness comes from the fact that so many different authors kept adding to it over the years, either purposefully or inadvertantly, so the plot sort of grew into a Frankenstein monstrosity.

The new canon stories will probably have other non-Sith (besides Nightsister) Dark Side cults, but I doubt we'll ever see something as insanely cobbled-together as the Prophets background or as unorthodox as Kadann.

 

Agreed. And for further evidence of the Dark Force's selfless devotion to the dark side, I present Cronal, an ex-Rhandite - the Sorcerers of Rhand being even more definitively ascetic Satanist types, worshipping destruction and seeking to perpetuate entropy in the name of service to it, rather than seeing themselves as masters over the Dark as the Sith did. There's that same thread of service to evil in Bane's original characterisation in Jedi vs Sith, one that fell largely by the wayside in the Bane trilogy, unfortunately.

There are shades of it with the Inquisitor, as well. One of the things I was discussing over in the Rebels thread recently was that the Inquisitor is a political ideologue loyal to his cause, and as such is not so selfish as the Sith; he'd die in the service of his Empire, just as Agent Kallus might. There's a difference between him and the Prophets and the Rhandites, which could probably be best summed up by doing something I usually hate doing, and resorting to borrowing the overly simplistic D&D alignment systems, the Prophets and the Rhandites being selfless 'Chaotic Evil,' and the Inquisitor being selfless 'Lawful Evil.' Either way, a definite contrast with the vainglorious Sith, and such a philosophical distinction arising out of the hodgepodge of the Prophets' development over the years is something that impressed me.

 

Isn't being selflessly devoted to the dark side kind of missing the point?

 

If you belive in Sith philosophy, or Jedi's or Tyia's or most other teachings but probobly not if you are a prophet

 

What point, exactly?

I don't see anything incongruous about 'Satanist'-esque devotion to perpetuating destruction (because, in the Rhandites' conception, for instance, that is the way and truth of the universe), nor those Sith who have pursued their lust for power beyond vainglory, to the foolish and addictive self-destructiveness of hunger.

 

Alls I remember is the dude in TIE Fighter saying "Serve the Emperor above all others" and you GET BLASTED WITH FORCE LIGHTNING AND GET A TATTOO!

 

That the dichotomy of the dark side and light side is selfishness and selflessness, respectively.

 

But that's only one dichotomy; the varying definitions and conceptions of the light and dark sides, both within the universe and without, means there are multiple diametric opposites baled into that one duality. One notes that the dark side being equated with selfishness alone is not an interpretation that could be said to organically arise from watching the films - the dark side is nebulously defined, but the dark side = selfishness doesn't parse quite right... "fear is the path to selfishness..." "Anger, fear, aggression; [of] selfishness are they..." The description of the dark side as a malignant and corrupting 'Bogan Paraforce' in the SW scripts speaks somewhat to Lucas' intent, as well.

Regardless of whether the selfishness/selflessness dichotomy has merit when applied to the dark/light duality, there is still the separate dichotomy of an entropic, destructive force in nature (irrespective of how the Forceful draw on it) against light, life, civilisation and the choice to go beyond our jungle instincts and do good, and I think it's this particular dichotomy that can be explored with congruity through the Prophets and the Rhandites and so on. I wouldn't say that they're 'missing the point' in any way that Kar Vastor could be said to be missing the point (even if there is a distinction to be made between succumbing to base nature and becoming an avatar of 'the jungle,' and outright worshipping destruction as the likes of the Rhandite Sorcerers, the Dark Worlds of Atha Prime and the cult of the Five did.)

 

I think the Prophets of the Dark Side are interesting. Not as much as the Way of the Dark folks, but that's another kettle of fish.

 

I'm slavishly adhering to Lucas here. And taking my cues from Mortis.

I mean, I understand that the Jedi aren't paragons of the light side, in the sense that pure light is ultimately inaction to the dark side's action. Which is why balance is desirable, and I've always taken the interpretation that for the Jedi, personal and cosmic balance is the important "thing," with light and dark being incidental and distracting from that, and "falling to the dark side" or otherwise being one of these evil dark side users is falling for the distraction in this Gnostic, material sense, and not even realizing the deeper sense of enlightenment that can be achieved. Similarly, those Jedi caught up in this conflict between Jedi and Sith are blinded to the deeper sense of purpose.

So keeping with that metaphor of the Jedi not being pure light, I'd say the Fallanassi are pure light, or as close to it as we've seen, and they do absolutely nothing and hide. And the Prophets could be "less dark" than the Order of the Dark Lords of the Sith, insofar as that they selflessly serve this ultimately evil purpose.

But on a personal note, I find it extremely silly in Star Wars when characters devote themselves to an abstraction like the dark side of the Force. I can understand the Jedi devoting themselves to the Force in this panentheistic sense, but the dark side of the Force is, on an intellectual level, not a path to enlightenment, but a path to personal power, so it's ultimately about selfishness no matter which way you slice it. It seems naive to devote yourself to it as though it were a deity that will reward you for your devotion, since that's ultimately the only real reason to selflessly serve it in lieu of using it as a means to a personal end. I mean, even in the Jedi "serving" the Force, that's Space Daoism, and the Force is the Way, and they're following the Way, but the dark side isn't even that. There's nothing you're actually "serving." It's an abstraction. It's like devoting yourself to evil. And that's Saturday morning cartoon storytelling.

 

Well, I can't say much more than I absolutely and strongly agree with this interpretation.

I don't think alien should be conflated with silly. There might not be an Earth analogue to Rhandite service to evil (although I personally would dispute such), but it's easy to see how offshoots of a selfish philosophical movement (the Sith) could turn ideological adherence into naive devotion. To draw real-life parallels, it's rather like how most people who self-identity as objectivists that I've met (who I like to call Randites, funnily enough) bring an almost religious fervor to their particularly extreme interpretetations of Ayn Rand, becoming almost selflessly devoted to the precepts of rational self-interest rather than acting in the ethically egoistic way Atlas Shrugged actually suggests!

Those Sith who devote themselves to the dark side of the Force (e.g. Bane in JvS) tend to see it as the natural, unrestrained form of the Force, so in that sense, even if they are incidentally selfish sociopaths, they do also think they're closer to 'the truth,' and so view their adherence as a path to enlightenment. Furthermore, there are those Sith who treat the Force (dark side or otherwise) as a deity; Darth Traya comes to mind, of course, even if she believed the Force was an evil god rather than one which would reward her for her efforts. Many a Sith might believe in the importance of cosmic balance, only they see their rational selfishness as more in tune with the natural order or the 'jungle mind,' and thus, in the pantheistic sense, the will of the Force.

Even Plagueis, a rather rational and scientifically-minded Sith not easily given over to such mysticism, believes that one must follow the ebb and flow of the dark side on a galactic scale, taking care to accord with the Force's will to some extent (even while believing it must be broken like a "beast of burden") as, rather like a beast that a malicious owner abuses, it cannot be pushed too far lest it "strike back."

As for the Rhandites, they serve the abstractions of entropy and destruction, which may not be mutually exclusive from the dark side, but there is a distinction there. The inevitability of maximum entropy (heat death of the universe and so on) and those same destructive tendencies pervading nature means they may be pantheistic as well, only their observations of what reality is like and what it is fated to become lead them to conclude that destruction, entropy and evil are worth their devotion, as a way of perpetuating their equivalent to the will of the Force - the Way of the Dark. It's essentially a nihilistic death cult, but again, they do care about personal and cosmic balance; the former is horrifically explicit in Cronal raping his daughter so as to correct what he perceived as an imbalance he created through fathering Sariss. I wouldn't say there's anything more inherently illogical, inconsistent or silly about the bases of their philosophical tenets than Jedi conceptions, even if the Rhandites themselves are insane.

 

Just wondering do the prophets have the same understanding of the dark side as the jedi or the sith or any other Force traditon we know of?

 

The Prophets of the Dark Side are really one of the most standout examples of how the old EU was often less than the sum of its parts.

 

How so?

 

Pretty much. There is a great deal more reverence, treating the dark side as more of a deity and they its Chosen, a lot of which just comes from older OOU conceptions of the dark side (back when it was the Dark Side, and so on), but their understanding of its nature doesn't seem to be much different, just their approach to it (devotion and service as opposed to mastery as many Sith, or rejection as the Jedi).

 

Just in that when you read the out-of-universe continuity patching stuff, they sound fascinating, but if you go looking for the original source material it's completely ridiculous. The old EU had a lot of that - interesting stories built after the fact from really terrible stuff. Hence, "less than the sum of its parts".

It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it makes me wish there had been more things like SkyeWalkers, that did continuity stitching while also being good fiction in its own right.

 

There is actually a lot of stuff in the EU like that, but you had to know where to look, and it wasn't generally presented in a narrative.

I think the Prophets being interesting is due mostly to Abel. A Sith word he coined jiaasjen is canon! And it's Jungian!