Lit Chaotic Evil or Lawful Evil? Or perhaps Chaotic Good? Hypocrisy of the Sith

Early D&D I guess, they took balance of order/law vs chaos, called them good and evil and went on (Fridge Logic hits very hard when the balance goes on the side of good and you see anything but good there, always wanted to kick Paladine to hell). Chaos also means possibilities and creation, not anarchy. For that matter, order can lead to stagnation and intolerance.

Movie sith were Lawful Evil to me, they have a vision of how things should go and impose it. Chaotic evil would be more Joker like, closest I can think of is the DS PC in the KOTOR games, does things for the hell of it.

 

The Sith are all about striving to live through passion. If you die in the process, so be it. That's what makes it glorifying. They don't glorify the death of a slave, they glorify the death of a brave, ambitious Sith who wanted to take power.

 

A Sith does whatever he wants.

That's the POINT of being a Sith.

 

Haven't seen you for a while.

While some Sith are portrayed as very much "The Force shall set me free" others are a bit more "servant of the Dark/Their Master"

"You don't know the power of the dark side. I must obey my master."

And there's Revan's comments about how those who follow the dark side are bound to serve it (and that to understand this is to understand the basic reality of the Sith) in his holocron, in Darth Bane: Path of Destruction.

 

It depends on the Sith. Emperor Palpatine was probably Chaotic evil, but he did believe in some form of law, because he made everyone else in the Empire practice a military command structure, and all the stuff that goes along with it.

Anakin is a hard character to figure out, alignment-wise. When he's a kid, as a Jedi I'd probably say he's Chaotic good... or neutral good. He's definitely not lawful anything. When he slides to the dark side, I'd say he only goes to Chaotic neutral because he's never truly evil. He does some bad things, but in his heart... you know the story.

Interesting thread.

 

"In his heart" doesn't really matter if you're focusing on deeds as the measure of alignment - I'm imagining him as a PC whose DM has dropped him all the way to Evil after a big massacre of innocents.

The Easydamus alignment page writers see Vader as LE:

http://www.easydamus.com/lawfulevil.html

and Palpatine as NE:

http://www.easydamus.com/neutralevil.html

 

I can follow your logic there, Iron. Even though he killed innocents he did so in the name of a cause that he supported. That's very much a code (albeit twisted one) that he's following, like a Lawful evil character would.

However, Anakin in the prequels definitely did rash things that certainly can't be considered to be lawful. Do you agree?

 

Yup. Only by the end of ROTS might he have embraced fully the "bring order to the galaxy" ethos he verbalises in TESB.

TPM (and maybe early AOTC) Anakin seems CG (very altruistic and self-sacrificing at times, but not one for rules) - but the Tusken Massacre would probably cause an alignment shift to CN in at least some games.

 

Yeah, I came back for the Star Wars second trailer.

I have been mostly writing and getting two novels published this year.

By ACTUAL COMPANIES.

Ooooo.

Anyway, I do think Sith culture venerates decisive will to dominate while also emphasizing tradition. It's a paradox.

 

Applying D&D alignment to somewhat complex and diverse characters is pretty hard. It's difficult to define a person in RL as good or evil as it is, let alone define whether they're 'lawful' or 'chaotic'.

 

It is a bit. "Worst 30% of people" "Best 30% of people" would be a rough gauge, and even that would be pretty subjective.

 

I agree, it's not a perfect description, especially of individuals. There are limits to this model. That said, it's a generalization, hopefully to get more insight into a character or group. The model can be discarded or adapted as necessary in this conversation.

I do think it's interesting that the jedi philosophy is more clearly "lawful good" than the sith is any of the "evil" alignments -- at least as I've typically seen it all defined. Although if I had a chance to define the jedi, it would be closer to "neutral good"

 

The thing about Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil is that they're SHORTHAND.

They're to tell a DM, in two letters, how generally people will act.

Piett is Lawful Evil. Vader is Lawful Evil with Neutral tendencies. Palpatine is Sauron.



The fact that both Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil types have demons which embody them who have no redeeming qualities means that neither side is any better than the other. They are just different ways of embodying evil.

 

I'm not sure that follows. I think it's possible that one type (say, chaotic evil) is more "evil" than another type (say, lawful evil).* I'm not prepared to back that up with "proof," but I don't think the alternative has been defended adequately, either. And understandably so, because to come to an absolute conclusion, we'd have to be sure of the true nature of "evil." But it is quite possible, and in my opinion probable, that certain orientations have greater potential for good or evil.

(*That's not necessarily my belief, by the way. Just giving an example.)

 

Well, there's a spectrum either way.

Grand Moff Tarkin murdered billions of pacifists on Alderaan with as much interest as squashing a bug and would murder billions more in the name of "Galactic Peace."

However, a COMPNOR guy who abuses his power and beats suspects is also Lawful Evil even if he'd balk at murdering billions.

Ditto a guy who is a murderous brigand and a thug, who kills people and rampages.

Versus, instead, someone who wants to destroy all life in the cosmos because he's insane and worships Chaos.

Likewise, Neutral Good and Neutral Evil are both "purer" forms of good and evil in some texts but I go with the idea that Chaotic and Lawful Good types simply disagree and think Freedom and Order are better ways of ACHIEVING good.

To use another example, Jack Kirby created Darkseid as the embodiment of evil and chose that his ideal world is one where every soul is enslaved, body and soul, to his will forever. Which is a fate worse than death. He is also the embodiment of Order and Law and Tyranny.

Whereas the Joker is the embodiment of Chaos and Evil.

I'd say Darkseid is much-much worse.

 

You make a good case, although is Darkseid really the embodiment of order?
Even if so, I imagine we could create a chaotic evil character who has the potential to trump him, if there isn't one already.

I appreciate your insight. Reading your blog right now.

 

Thanks, I appreciate any and all new fans.

:-D

I guess what I'm saying is the D&D alignments can say whether a person is bad but not HOW bad or how good a villain they are. Also, more complicated descriptions of a character's motivations trump alignments.

Say: Darth Vader is a fallen Jedi Knight riddled with guilt who believes in order but has become enslaved to the Emperor's will due to self-hatred as well as pride.

Vs.

"Darth Vader is Lawful Evil."

 

Well I agree with you there.

 

I've always found the Jedi to be more hypocritical than the Sith.

 

I think the Sith are deeply hypocritical about a lot of things and that's a feature not a bug. A Sith is a person out for themselves and themselves alone but most of them are miserable and hate-filled as well as self-destructive.

They claim to have no chains but are deeply fascist, controlling, and tradition bound.

The best ones are those who throw the rules out and make their own.

Palpatine was the greatest Sith of the Banite line because he decided the Rule of Two was less important than the rule of Him.

 

To each their own.

 

Eh, I am an ADMIRER of the Sith.

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-nature-of-sith-can-they-be-good.html

 

That's fine, I simply mean our views on them differ.

 

For the purposes of debate, I will take the other side.

You are correct when you say that the Sith are out for themselves and nobody else. They exist solely for their own passion.

The third verse in the Sith code: "Through strength, I gain power": this means that by embracing their passion they gain strength and are able to subjugate others.

The Sith are literally the best example of social darwinism out there. The best survive, and the weak suffer and are subjugated, only to die a miserable death later on. The reason the Sith factions are so fascist and tradition bound is simply because that is a great way of maintaining power of people. The DLotS have no intention of actually giving these wannabe-DLotS power, they are just stringing them along.

Most of the Sith are miserable because they are not at the top. They don't have the power that the DLotS do.

Darth Bane made the rule of two later on, so only two Sith existed at the time. The master was definitely enjoying his power, and the apprentice definitely craved that power.

Now the part about Palpatine throwing out the Rule of Two in favor of the Rule of Himself (so to speak)...all I can say is that I'm not sure Darth Bane knew about immortality at the time. Palpatine did. And the fact that Palpatine thought that he was the epitome of the Sith shows how delusional he really was; Bane knew that in order for the Sith to continue to progress, there always had to be a succession of the next-most-powerful Sith, otherwise it grows stagnant. That's the entire purpose of taking an apprentice.

 

I don't think that Sith are 'only out for themselves' on the whole, only some individuals by which most paint the whole so.