Darth Vader is more evil in rots than in the entire saga

killing younlings

force choking his wife

he never did anything that hardcore in the ot

 

He was behind the assassination of his stepbrother and sister in law (admittedly, he may not have known that it was them, but it wouldn't have stopped him).

He killed Obi-Wan, who was like both a father and a brother to him.

He helped orchestrate the destruction of an entire planet, and was more than willing to aid in the destruction of another.

He murdered the officers who messed up in cold blood.

He tortured Leia and Han quite thoroughly (Leia in ANH, Han in ESB).

He took over Cloud City, imprisoning countless innocent citizens in the process.

He cut off his son's hand, and was willing to let him die if he would not join the dark side.

... just to name a few.

edits due to typos.

 

Tarkin destroyed Alderaan, not Vader. It is also Tarkin who suggested this alternative form of persuasion. Also, Vader did not outrank Tarkin, so he couldn't stop him even if he wanted to. So, Vader is not responsible for the destruction of Alderaan.

I agree that the ROTS Vader is more evil than the OT Vader. In the OT he executes his subordinates for their failures, and he fights a war against the rebels. In ROTS he kills innocent padawans. He was also more evil in AOTC when he killed Tusken children.

 

Tarkin gave the order, Tarkin had the idea---but Vader did nothing to stop it. If the dark lord didn't want it to happen--he would have stopped Tarkin and given them new orders. He didn't--he had the power to, but he didn't. He is just as guilty as Tarkin.

He isn't more evil at any one point. He is evil all the time. This debate is like asking which year Hitler was most cruel. The fact is he was cruel his whole life (referring to Hitler.) When is Vader most evil? It is a constant--he is always evil.

-Seldon

 

Well let's compare shall we? In the PT, he:

Slaughtered the Tuskens - ATOC (this just a filler)
Slaughtered the younglings - RTOS
Forced choked Padme - RTOS
Destroyed the temple - RTOS
Cuts off Mace's arm - RTOS
Betrayed the jedi and aligned himself with chancellor - RTOS
Dueled with Obi Wan and lost much of his power - RTOS

In the OT, he:
Indirectly kills for stepbrother and sister-in-law - ANH
kills capt. antilles - ANH
Duels with Obi wan and "strikes him down" - ANH
Jabs leia with truth serum or mind probe - ANH
Force chokes that guy that was getting smart with him - ANH
Force chokes and kills 2 admirals - ESB
Duels with Luke and cuts off his hand - ESB
Asks Luke to join him in overthrowing the emperor and rule the galaxy - ESB
tells emperor luke will join with them or die - ESB
Tests the carbonite machine on capt. solo - ESB
Alters the agreement with lando - ESB
Tortures Chewy and Han to give Luke the vision - ESB
Threatens to get leia to turn to the dark side - ROTJ
Engages in a duel with Luke - ROTJ
Takes luke to the emperor to be turned - ROTJ

Vader's deeds in the OT were numerous and evil but not bad as in the PT. Vader's deeds in the PT were more horrific and evil despite the fact that there were few.

However I feel that Vader was more evil in the OT because those events occur 20 years after he crossed over to the darkside. He had spent 20 years without inner conflict as a sith with the emperor which may have been his life support. He regrets no evil deed he does. In the ROTS, he submitted to the emperor and crossed over because he loved his wife. Love is good, not bad. he said he couldn't live without her. So in his eyes, its like he had no choice. His tears on mustafar expressed regret for the things he did and was in the process of doing. Vader had no desire to do what he did, this was something he felt he HAD to do, something he "needed" to do. He said he "needed" the emperor. And that was part of his conflict. he crossed over to the dark side expecting that padme would be his "only link" to the good in him. When he heard she died, he loses himself and fully embraces the darkside. He lost padme and in doing so, he lost himself.

Edits - kept leaving out words

 

Darth Syphus
I was watching ANH with commentary earlier this week. I could have sworn I heard GL say that Vader was the emperor's representative, even though princess leia says tarkin was holding vader's leash. GL gave me the impression that Vader and Tarkin were associates, co-workers, colleagues (whatever) on the same level with each other. He didn't want to stop tarkin. So he is part to blame for alderaan's destruction. Remember Vader was a sith for 20 years. He no longer cares about anything especially alderaan. Heck, I think I care about alderaan. So imagine a sith.

 

i think Vader in the OT is more evil than Vader in Revenge, but not by much. Vaders actions in the OT were based on his hatred for the Jedi and his lust for power. Vaders actions in Revenge were based on love for Padme and his lust for power. People do crazy things for love. Ill give an example. After Vader kills the younglings he is still able to talk to Padme and feel that what he has done is ok, because in the end it is for her. Love has truly blinded him. In the OT, he knows his son is Luke, but feels no love and is content to destroy him if he will not turn.

 

I am confused by the title of this thread. It makes no sense. ROTS is included in the Saga.

Moving on... I would say Vader is "more evil" in the OT because it is arguable that Anakin doesn't fully embrace the dark side until the end of ROTS. Vader does not shed tears after doing evil deeds, Anakin does. I guess by "evil" I take that to mean fully 100% committed to the Sith. Evil deeds on the other hand... he does quite alot but I think it's unfair to try to gauge which acts are "worse" than others.

 

Tarkin gave the order, Tarkin had the idea---but Vader did nothing to stop it. If the dark lord didn't want it to happen--he would have stopped Tarkin and given them new orders. He didn't--he had the power to, but he didn't. He is just as guilty as Tarkin.

No, he couldn't. Vader did not have superior rank to Tarkin who was the commander of the Death Star. Vader could not order the Death Star crew who were under Tarkin's jurisdiction.

 

I was watching ANH with commentary earlier this week. I could have sworn I heard GL say that Vader was the emperor's representative, even though princess leia says tarkin was holding vader's leash. GL gave me the impression that Vader and Tarkin were associates, co-workers, colleagues (whatever) on the same level with each other.

I agree that Vader and Tarkin are on the same level as each other, so Vader could not order Tarkin to do anything. Moreover, Tarkin had jurisdiction in the Death Star which Vader did not.

 

"Tarkin gave the order, Tarkin had the idea---but Vader did nothing to stop it. If the dark lord didn't want it to happen--he would have stopped Tarkin and given them new orders. He didn't--he had the power to, but he didn't. He is just as guilty as Tarkin."

Yep, tarkin could do anything he wanted on the Death Star. Vader couldn't stop him.

 

LovedAnakin, I think you hit the nail right on the head. He was more machine than man in the OT. He couldn't think like a human anymore, and he had lost his soul forever...or so it seemed. Luke was able to bring love back into him, a love that helped him do what was right, not what was wrong. That's my take on it.

 

Ousley was the first to name it all. He was a ruthless son of a gun. Revenge of the Sith was just his rise in anger. It didn't stop there. Not by a long shot.

 

He did not kill Obi-Wan...

And yeah, he's way cooler in ROTS, though the Force Rage scene was cheesy...

 

Obi-Wan was killed physically. Spiritually? No. He's still alive in those respects.

 

He was more machine in the OT. In the PT he still had morals and conflict yet did these things countlessly saying he was wrong after he did them. Besides anytime you kill innocent children that is hard to top.

 

I believe it's relevant to this discussion to point out what GL does indeed say in his commentary during ANH. He says (I am paraphrasing, and not quoting) that in ANH Vader deliberately does not hold a military rank. He is simply a Sith Lord, known to be the closest man to the Emperor, and a person who undoubtedly can influence events. (Lucas points out that, in spite of this, even officers junior to Tarkin treat Vader with disrespect, in spite of his great power. Lucas' point seems to be that no matter how dangerous or powerful you are, if you are someone's lackey you will be treated like a lackey, and will not be respected.)

Anyway, the emphasis of the commentary leads me to believe that Vader could influence events if he wished to, and the evidence from his rampages against Imperial Officers in ESB suggests he could have stopped Tarken if he wanted to. There is also no evidence that Vader was against the destruction of Alderan. He simply seemed a little surprised by it.

The question then becomes whether it is "more" evil to destroy a planet, killing (probably) billions of people, or personally walking into a building and killing children with a lightsaber while they screamed for mercy. Obviously the easiest answer is to say that he was equally evil the whole time he was Darth Vader, but there are interesting aspects to the debate on both sides. Personally, I suspect audiences reacted much more strongly to the scenes in ROTS when Vader killed the kids (there were audible gasps in the theatre each time I saw the movie) then when Alderan was destroyed. I wonder how the hard-core fans on this board reacted.

 

I would say killing the entire populace of an entire planet would be horrific but he never looked themin the face as he was making the decision. It makes it easier to live with the cruelty if you can remove it in your mind as reality by not being there to help you deal with it. There is no denying to himself what he did to the jedi and young kids. He saw it with his own eyes.

 

Tarkin gave the order, Tarkin had the idea---but Vader did nothing to stop it. If the dark lord didn't want it to happen--he would have stopped Tarkin and given them new orders. He didn't--he had the power to, but he didn't. He is just as guilty as Tarkin.

As a note, I do believe in the radio drama, Vader disagreed with Tarking about destroying Alderaan, and dialogue in the actual film actually seems to insinuate that ("I told you she would never consciously betray the rebellion"), and as it is not in his general nature to make such overwhelming shows of power, I don't really think Vader was entirely gun-ho about the DS plan. The DS is also Tarkin's baby, which Vader - though powerful in his own right - has very little rank or say in matters relating to it. He's more there as a representative of the Emperor to make sure everything's running okay. However, I'll certainly concur that he could have physically tried to stop Tarkin, though how well that could have gone once the order went through the system is up in the air. The control station for firing is quite a ways from the command deck.

I wouldn't say Vader isn't less evil in the OT. It's just that ROTS is when he's out of control, at the peak of his game, and really showing us what he's famous for - killing Jedi. The Vader of ROTS is a neophyte Sith, high on power, and out for blood. The Vader of the OT is more refined, having slowly made his place in the Imperial hierarchy as a figure of immense iconic prestige. His shows of power are more restrained, lingering on making fewer suffer in order to scare the majority into behaving.

 

I thought Vader was more evil because Sidious led him to believe he needed to be that evil to become powerful enough in the dark side of the force in order to gain the ability of preventing death....

 

I don't know if this is too off-topic for this conversation, but do you define Tarkin as "Evil" or was he just doing his job? Are Captain Needa and Veers "Evil"?

If Tarkin is considered evil and is comitting an evil act (A la blowing up a planet), standing by doing nothing when you have the power to stop it is also evil.

Carnage

 

choked his wife almost to death
killed all the younglings
had the will to fight the person that was the closest thing to a father for him

 

From what I remember Vader was present to further ensure loyalty to the Emperor.

Palpatine knew that Vader was 99% certain to stick to his dogmatic loyalty for the Sith whereas Imperial Officers wouldn't necessarily be so loyal.

I doubt if Tarkin or any other Imperial Officer - no matter what rank attempted to do something against the interests of the Empire and Vader stopped them that the Emperor would punish Vader in any way.

The officers would be hard pressed to stop Vader and the Stormtroopers would ackowledge Vader in a heartbeat as their leader,so Vader had more power to act if needed than it may seem at a glance.

Disdain for Vader by Imperial Officers surely means little to Vader when he knows he is the Sith Apprentice and right hand man able to speak intimately with the Emperor.

What can a Imperial Officer say or do that would diminish Vaders' position in the Emperors eyes?

Vader comments that the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the power of the force and this is IMO his way of letting them know that other "forces" no pun intended were at work.

Tarkin did not doubt the nature of Vaders' powers and would have to been somewhat aware of the Emperors' dark powers.

Tarkin and Vader were exercising evil, just doing so through different avenues available to them.