Saga Why does it seem like people fall to the dark side easily?

The first instance we see of this in the films (taking them in story chronology) is Dooku going to the dark side after Phantom Menace. So, he's upset that his former padawan was killed. But he gets mad at the Jedi and leaves the order, then joins the Sith. You know, the group that was actually responsible for killing Qui-Gon. That really doesn't make any sense. If anything, if he was mad at Qui-Gon's death, he should have invested himself fully in finding those responsible and bringing them to justice.

The we have poor little Annie. Everything we see of him in TPM, AOTC, and TCW is about how he's the chosen one and going to bring balance to the force. He loses his arm as a result of the sith. And every time he confronts someone that he suspects of being a sith lord, he says it with such disdain. Then, when Palpatine reveals to him that he's a sith, instead of killing him like would make sense, he ends up joining him. I get that he's trying to save Padme from dying, but joining a group he had such disdain for makes no sense. It's like, these guys killed the only father figure he ever had (Qui-Gon) but he joined them anyway.

Then we have Ben Solo. He didn't join the sith (at least as far as we know right now) but he did fall to the dark side. He's obsessed with Vader, but surely he heard about the tragedy of how Anakin lost the person he loved the most (Padme), lost his brother-figure (Obi-Wan), and ended up a scarred, mechanized shell of a man. He must have also heard how even Vader changed his ways and came back to the light. But after hearing about all the tragedy that Vader faced, he still was like: "sign me up for this stuff! I want some of that dark side!"

It doesn't really make sense to me how people who should hate the sith and the dark side keep falling to it.

 

That idea was a rather old one - but the new EU with TCW and the like has moved away from it - with Dooku being a Sith henchman and arranging things like the murder of Sifo-Dyas, even during the Valorum administration (so before/during TPM, rather than after).

Once Maul was "dead" Dooku went from henchman to Sith Lord.

 

I always thought the dark side was *supposed* to be easy to fall to.

My personal interpretation was that the dark side was freer with power, and less difficult to work with/less training required than with the 'light side.' I can see how people could be drawn to that, for various reasons.

 

No. He left the Order for ideological reasons and before Qui-Gon's death. Not to mention that he was already working for Sidious (although he still wasn't a Sith Lord) before he left.

 

The real "power" of the dark side, at least in a narrative sense, is the power to break your word.

Anakin has sworn to uphold the Jedi code. He's then faced with two choices: keep his word, obey his superior, and let Padme take her chances, or break his word to pursue Palpatine's secrets. Everything — fear, hate, anger, resentment of Obi-Wan, his love for Padme, the Temple massacre — hinges on that broken promise. Betrayal is the "root access" that turns you to the dark side.

We don't see Dooku or Ben turn, so I can't say for sure whether this will hold true. Maybe the writers will go another way. But that's my belief — turning ultimately reflects your choice to break your word.

 

There remains the scary possibility that the natural order of the Force is for it to always lean towards the Dark side. It is certainly more primal, which could also mean it is far older as well. It could even be the pre-exiting state. Perhaps it is only by the will of the Jedi that the light is kept burning at all, and without it everything is naturally sucked back towards the pre-existing chaos in the same way light is sucked into a black hole?

Yeesh. That is a seriously depressing thought.

 

citronaughty wrote

It doesn't really make sense to me how people who should hate the sith and the dark side keep falling to it.

I find it hard not to agree with this observation.

It almost seems as if the dark (hidden) side of an individual, i.e. the Id - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanisms - displaces all other elements of the psyche and makes the dark side look like a drug, i.e. turning Jedi into Sith drug addicts in a manner of speaking.

The case of Anakin remains ambivalent to me.

Assuming that he just pretended to be a Mr. Nice Guy all along but was instead rotten to the core would be a rationalization I could live with.

On the other hand The Clone Wars portrays him as such a cool and decent guy, that it looks inevitable I've got to do a lot of explaining once my children are old enough to be exposed to ROTS.

Or is it possible that Palpatine actually used the biggest of mind tricks on an otherwise innocent Jedi? Don't like that either, because I believe in free will and the individual's responsibility for his or her actions ("It wasn't me, the evil Palpatine made me do all these bad things")

 

Lucas did address this.

"It's easier to succumb to evil than it is to be a hero and try to work things through on the good side. Evil is inherently more powerful—it doesn't have the burden of worrying about other people. What Luke sees in Darth Vader at the end of ROTJ is something that I thought was worth understanding: the idea that Darth actually was a very good person. Except he's slightly more powerful than other people and when you get into that situation, your ability to do evil is much easier to come by."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

Anakin was good, but he had problems. Chief among them was his anger and his confusion over greed and selflessness. Palpatine told him that what was considered wrong, was in reality right. He undermines everything Obi-wan taught him about the Jedi Code and about life in general, by using points of view and telling him to do what he feels is right, rather than knowing what is right and what is wrong. That whole conversation in the Galaxies Theater was about blurring the lines of good and evil, right and wrong. Those are the kinds of talks Palpatine had had with Anakin over the years. Only now, Anakin was starting to believe him.

 

I don't believe that when somebody initially turns to the Dark Side that they intend to do evil. I think they are brainwashed into questioning their own belief system, to which a Dark Side master seizes on and offers a solution. And its through that manipulation that evil is carried out. But I wouldn't equate turning to the Dark Side with turning evil.

 

The DS purports to offer control, whereas the light is more about submission. Not hard to see why one's easier to fall for than the other.

Mind you, I guess it depends what you're into...

 

That's a problem of extending the Saga too much. If you want to keep making SW movies and you want to keep the same elements (lightsaber fights, dark side and light side of the force...) you end up repeating yourself.
In the GL Saga (I-VI) there is no such problem. Dooku is an odd case of an old master joining the Dark Side, and he anticipates Anakin's fall, which is the main crux of the whole story.
But if you want to add a ST of course you need a new fallen Jedi... I can bet there will be another one when they make the SST.

 

Well for all that the old order gets a bad rap, they were doing something that worked... 5,000 to 10,000 Jedi in the order and we only see about four of them turn? Or are there supposed to be hundreds of fallen Jedi running around with red lightsabers in that timeframe that we never see or hear about?

Thousands of Jedi, for a thousand years (or was it a thousand generations!?); Anakin's experience must have been a very rare one, or the Old Republic would have just been wall-to-wall saber battles all the time from all the fallen Jedi everywhere.

 

darth-sinister wrote

Anakin was good, but he had problems. Chief among them was his anger and his confusion over greed and selflessness. Palpatine told him that what was considered wrong, was in reality right. He undermines everything Obi-wan taught him about the Jedi Code and about life in general, by using points of view and telling him to do what he feels is right, rather than knowing what is right and what is wrong. That whole conversation in the Galaxies Theater was about blurring the lines of good and evil, right and wrong. Those are the kinds of talks Palpatine had had with Anakin over the years. Only now, Anakin was starting to believe him.

Interestingly, that was the first lesson Ben Kenobi told Luke: "You must do what you feel is right".

I also heard Lucas' statements (e.g. "The Chosen One" ROTS documentary) but frankly I don't buy those.

The mere fact that Anakin (supposedly?) went into the council room and saw to it personally to butcher these unarmed children and wade in their blood is such pure evil that the day I saw that scene I felt that Lucas had murdered Darth Vader.

The Jedi and definitely not these children had ever done anything that could have justified or explained such a reaction.

 

I

I basically agree with this notion. It is easier. But I have some opinions:

It seems like the Sith only try to turn those individuals who are diamonds in the rough. Those with huge potential and power as it were. Remember that Anakin's story is atypical. Sidious was going for broke with Anakin. He was uber-powerful, was supposedly created from the force. As such, it took a lot of planning and manipulation. Dooku was kind of rebellious to begin with and was relatively easy, but it still took a lot of time. Maul was basically a weapon or tool who started as an infant. I don't think he was ever intended to be part of the "big plans."

Your average everyday Jedi could be easily seduced, but they were not who the Sith were after. The ones worth a crap took more effort. The best ones were very difficult to seduce, and the superstars ,(Yoda, Windu, Obi-Wan, for example), couldn't be turned.

My two cents.

 

Right, but the thing is that Obi-wan wasn't filling Luke's head with distortions of the truth, when he told him that. Palpatine was manipulating Anakin when he would tell him that.

Why?

The only crimes that they were guilty of was being in his way. Anakin had a choice to make, either they die or his wife dies. He chose Padme over them. And worse, the Jedi would kill him for what he did. And they would kill Palpatine. It is a get them, before they get us scenario. And for Anakin, in order to be free of the delusions of morality as the Sith see it, he must be willing to kill any person who stands in his way.

This is greed. Uncontrolled greed. Anakin became a greedy person and put his own needs ahead of his own.

Maul was part of Palpatine's plans from the beginning. But his failure at Naboo had rendered him ineffective and since Palpatine had already turned Dooku, he just bumped him up, in order to keep things on schedule. Palpatine went after Anakin because of his raw power and because it was a giant middle finger to Obi-wan. Usually, though, the Sith had trained those from a young enough age so that could be easily manipulated and controlled. But because Maul screwed up, Palpatine decided to go a different way which ultimately bit him in the ass in the end.

 

Well - to be fair he had already slaughtered children in AOTC

 

I like this idea. But the Jedi Order (as portrayed in the PT when they were at full strength) seem to be all about maintaining their hold on what seems to be a never ending battle to maintain their tenuous grip on 'Balance'.

Sort of like me when I see a large Huntsman (scary spider de rigueur in Australia for those not knowing what a Huntsman is) running around the living room. I hit it with everything I've got with a massive display of overkill to maintain the balance of zero freaking spiders in my living room!

 

Taking the high road takes patience, hard work, dedication, and discipline. The low road is easier, but to reach the higher levels of the Dark side, it also takes patience, hard work, dedication ,and discipline.

 

True, but **** Tuskens Lol

 

darth-sinister

In his documentary George Lucas explained his belief that nobody was truly evil, but then he "shows" a truly evil Anakin Childkiller butchering small children.
Sorry, but I consider this to be a contradiction.

Darth_Lobot wrote

Well - to be fair he had already slaughtered children in AOTC

Sorry, it's like comparing apples and tomatoes, IMHO.

What we saw in AOTC was manslaughter. Anakin didn't go to this camp to murder Tuskens of all ages and gender. He went there to free his mother. When she died in his arms, he was angered and ended up in a mad rage.

What we saw in ROTS was premeditated murder. Even if he was "ordered" by his new master to kill all Jedi in the temple, Sidious didn't expect him to do that personally (hence the troops). He simply could have ignored the children or leave it to the troopers (which was one of the earlier screenplay versions). Instead he saw personally to it. He had a choice but the choice he made was pure evil. It's as simple as that.

 

"Second degree murder" might qualify, in the case of AOTC.

And "leaving it to the troopers" seems to me no better than actually carrying out the murders himself - if anything, it would make him a hypocrite as well as a murderer.

 

Jedi suppress emotions > Jedi can't control emotions he/she starts to have > dark side waltzes in with it's beautiful seduction > Jedi no more. (let's be honest the tho, the dark side is better, hence British accents)

- OS

 

He's said this about Anakin.

"You learn that Darth Vader isn’t this monster. He’s a pathetic individual who made a pact with the Devil and lost. And he’s trapped. He’s a sad, pathetic character, not a big evil monster. I mean, he’s a monster in that he’s turned to the dark side and he’s serving a bad master and he’s into power and he’s lost a lot of his humanity. In that way, he’s a monster, but beneath that, as Luke says in Return of the Jedi, early on, “I know there’s still good in you, I can sense it.” Only through the love of his children and the compassion of his children, who believe in him, even though he’s a monster, does he redeem himself."

--George Lucas, “Star Wars: The Last Battle,” Vanity Fair, 2005

"...if you start with Star Wars, then Vader’s just the villain, and that’s it. But you don’t realize that he’s a human being, that he’s got problems you don’t realize that he could have been saved, that he was tricked and can be resurrected."

--George Lucas, Empire Magazine 2001.

"What drove me to make these movies is that this is a really interesting story about how people go bad. In this particular case, the premise is: Nobody thinks they're bad. They simply have different points of view. This is about a kid that's really wonderful. He has some flaws - and those flaws ultimately do him in."

--George Lucas, The Making Of ROTS; Page 53.

"There's always this good in you. And the good part is saying 'what am I doing?'. Then the bad part kicks in and says 'I'm doing this for Padme, I'm doing this for the galaxy and so we can have a better life'. But the good part is always saying 'WHAT AM I DOING?!"

--George Lucas to Hayden Christensen, Hyperspace webdoc.

"This is the first time he actually has a chance to think about what it is that’s happened by himself and the tear here shows that he knows what he’s done but he’s not committed himself a path that he may not agree with but he is going to go along anyway.

It’s the one moment that says he’s self aware. He rationalizing all his behavior. He’s doing terrible things. But in the end he really knows the truth. He knows that he’s evil now and there’s nothing he can do about it and that’s the moment where the pathos of him being stuck in that suit is real because if he had to do it over he probably wouldn’t do it but he can't stop it now.

You know where it's going to lead. He knows it will end with a fight with Obi-wan. He knows that Padme not buy into this new reality. He made a pact with the devil and now he’s become the devil.

The sad thing is Padme says there is still good in him and Luke says in Return Of The Jedi there is good in you. Its recurring. There is good in him. And that will bring balance to the force. He needs to get rid of the Sith and bring balance to the Force."

--George Lucas, ROTS DVD Commentary.

And he's said this about Palpatine.

"One of the issues in all of this is the bad guys think they’re good and Lord Sidious thinks he’s bringing peace to the galaxy because there is so much corruption and confusion and chaos going on and now he’s going to be able to straighten everything out which maybe true but the price the galaxy is going to have to pay for it is way too much."

--George Lucas, ROTS DVD Commentary.

But in overall terms, these characters are still evil because they do bad things. And it was important for Lucas to show this with Anakin.

"The thing with the kids is necessary to establish how far down the road he’d come to do something that, this brutal and barbaric and it had to be in there but I definitely didn’t want to show it. It was really in the editorial process that the idea of inter-cutting her with him when he’s at his very worst with her worrying about him. That juxtaposition works quite well cause it reflects as much on the slaughter of the children as it does on her concerns about him even though she doesn’t know the children have been slaughtered. There is a strong emotional connection when those sequences are pushed up against each other."

--George Lucas, ROTS DVD Commentary.

Anakin doing bad things, including killing children, is necessary to show how far he is willing to go to get what he wants. He is no longer discriminating between right and wrong. He's just doing what he needs to do to get what he wants. Ordering the Clonetroopers to kill them won't work, because Palpatine told him to not hesitate. To not show mercy. That means he has to be willing to kill anyone who gets in his way.

He is evil, but there is also good within him. But the evil takes over the good and he suppresses the good deep down until Luke begins to reach him.

 

Ah yes, the old "He's not evil, just misunderstood" trope.

I much prefer to see Vader as obliviously evil, like many of the Imperials. He's duped into believing he's doing the right thing, for the greater good. I think Vader truly believes, from his point of view, that the Jedi are evil, that the Rebellion are traitors, and that everything he's ever done he's doing to make the Galaxy a better place. That's honestly a lot more like how Lucas wrote the character. He doesn't know he's evil, because he doesn't think he's evil.

 

Yes it's strange one. I understand this idea of fans clinging on to a vision of Vader as having good in him (as a result of his final redemption in OT, and from seeing him as young Anakin in the PT). But let's face it, where was he when Alderaan was destroyed? That's right. He was on the bridge of the DS forcing a native of that planet to watch billions die simply to make an "effective demonstration".

Nothing even obliviously evil about that. Completely evil seems more apt.