Mara : Is she tainted by the Dark Side

First of this isn't a Mara bashing thingamebob. I have no opinion on the subject and I would like to hear everyones opinion on the subject. Mara or Luke claimed that while she was the Emperors Hand she didn't use or tap into the darkside. She is/was a very angry sort of person who must always be open to letting the dark side have a hold on her. What do you all think is she/was she a darkside user?

Kadue Edit: Editted at user's request.

 

I'd say no. It's already been established that she wasn't using her powers for evil, just obedience, and that doesn't qualify as the dark side. It is to some level, but not on Vader's or someone's level.

 

I thought that using the force to kill was of the darkside? Mara must have killed loads of people in her job as Emps' Hand, while using the force....

 

I think she is... I'm reading DarkTide II: Ruin...

In this book Corran said he wanted to strangle Kyp with his own cloak. But then Mara said it would be better to pinch off a partially blocked artery in the brain.

She might just be reacting because of the tension but she always seems angry...in a way...

 

We're talking about a person who, not once, but TWICE used Telekinetic Kill (or attempted to) on someone within the span of 10 seconds.

Granted her powers were weak at that time and nothing was accomplished by it -- but that's two steps towards the Dark Side right there.

Not to mention Force Sensitives operate under a different set of rules than "normals" as they're more attuned to the Force. Killing unarmed people -- Dark Side. Killing not in self-defense -- Dark Side. Initiating aggression -- Dark Side.

Did the Emperor send her out to have crumpets and tea with his British-accented fleet commanders? Are we supposed to believe that she's an innocent bystander when EVERY SINGLE other Hand has shown evil, possibly megalomaniacal tendencies?

I like the character -- but I don't appreciate the retconning.

 

She is as force pure as salt water

 

IMO she is seriously tainted by the Dark Side but the way that the force is being portrayed lately you can probably commit genocide and not turn to the dark Side.

 

I'd say yes she is.

As for it being established that she wasn't, I see that as an authors very cheap attempt at gaining fan support by glorifying a character that has a large fan base.

 

she used to use the force to kill, and shes taken lives by other ways other than self defense. Although she was doing it because it was the will of the Emperor, the Force doesnt recognise this and grant leniency, she was a dark sider.

 

"I see that as an authors very cheap attempt at gaining fan support by glorifying a character that has a large fan base."

To throw out the name of the author you speak, it was Timothy Zahn, in "Mara Jade: By the emperor's hand".

In which Palpatine, says something like, "she is neither light nor dark, but somewhere in between", .

Yes, zahn was one of the earliest to use the "grey" use of the force...

I've seen that term, "Grey force", show up in a couple of other places, like in one of the Republic ongoing comics, IIRC, and some other star wars sourcebook or magazine I was reading in the last month. The only problem with grey use of the force is that it generally leads to following off the fence into the darkside.

So the answer according to zahn is she wasn't light. That would mean she was tainted I guess, but she hadn't been tainted enough to be full blown of the darkside according to him, and the EU .

This inbetween kind of character is also known as "Tainted Jedi", when it comes to Jedi who have accumulated some darkside points but not enough to fall to the darkside, according to POTJ sourcebook.

 

Is there no-one to play the other side? Someone must think Mara's not tainted by the dark side...

 

Has she been taited by the Dark Side? On a very superficial manner, yes. Was she of the Dark Side? No, I don't think so.

I like the 'Grey Side' definition a lot, though. Not everything is black or white in life. There's always grey.


As for it being established that she wasn't, I see that as an authors very cheap attempt at gaining fan support by glorifying a character that has a large fan base.

I don't think it was necessary to 'glorify' her to gain more support from fans. I see Darth Vader fans (myself included) living quite well with the fact he is evil. It's a question of the character as a whole, not of sides, IMHO.

 

"I like the 'Grey Side' definition a lot, though. Not everything is black or white in life. There's always grey."

Oh, the "grey", is never called a "side of the force" actually, as far as I remember, but rather a straddling of the fence between the two sides of the force. It is called "tainting" according to POTJ sourcebook. It is when a character has been corrupted by the darkside to a certain degree but not completely, so that character can't call him/herself of the "Light" but the character hasn't achieved enough corruption to be completely in the darkside, and be called "dark". They are merely "tainted". A tainted character if left to their own devices often do end up going to the darkside. But even darksiders are capable of being redeemed. It is far easier for tainted ones to atone for their deeds as they haven't gone completely dark.

 

I know that Mara spared the officer's life during that trial at Tarkin's estate in Mara Jade: By the Emperor's Hand. I know that she tried to use telekinetic kill on Thrawn in Dark Force Rising. Was she a full Dark Jedi, like Vader, Sedriss, and Jerec? No. Was she tainted? As of her first encounter with Luke, yes. I think in giving up her hatred for Luke she began the climb to escape becoming enthralled by the dark side. By the time of the NJO, she's a full Jedi of the Light Side.

 

I don't care who the author was. I think thats why he did it.

Gray may exist in real life but in the movies it was Dark/Light and the books should follow.

But really, isn't saying someone is gray just admiting they are tainted?

 

"But really, isn't saying someone is gray just admiting they are tainted?"

That's what I've been saying all along, grey characters are characters that can no longer be called, light, but they haven't done enough darkside things to be called dark, they are also called "tainted characters" according to sourcebooks. Once a character does enough darkside things they then become dark Characters, and are beyond being merely tainted.

 

Gray may exist in real life but in the movies it was Dark/Light and the books should follow.

Anakin Skywalker as of the end of Episode II is certainly a character tainted by the Dark Side. He's not a dark Jedi but, oh, well, I don't think that Tusken Slaying is part of the Jedi Code.

Mara has been tainted by the dark side but I suppose she's been redeemed thanks t Luke's love and blah, blah, blah.

 

Ever since seeing TPM I have come to believe we all have been tainted by the dark atleast once in our lives.

OWLC

 

I go with Valiento and DarkWoman. "Gray side"/"sitting one the fence" between Light and Dark/somewhat tainted by the Dark Side, but not fallen to the Dark Side. If you want to get technical, in her RPG stats, Mara has 4 Dark Side points (pre-Last Command (or was it pre-DFR?) Mara has 5 DSP IIRC, NJO-era Mara has none), which is less than half her Wisdom points; and she has none of the Force abilities that are reserved solely for Darksiders (such as Force Lightning or Inhabite Object). (For those who don't know, a character is considered "fallen to the Dark Side" when his/her number of DSP equals or exceeds his/her number of Wisdom points.)

That's for Mara up to The Last Command. By the end of Last Command, she wanted to rather die than turn to the Dark Side (she asked Luke to promise to rather kill her then allow C'baoth to get her alive and turn her to the Dark Side). And in MOTS, she was willing to lay down her life if necessary to help Kyle Katarn break away from the Dark Side. That's not exactly what someone who's a Darksider herself would do, is it?

Nice post, JediAlly. As for her using Telekinetic Kill on Thrawn - Force choking (which is what she did) can be performed by non-Dark Jedi. Luke used it on a Gamorrean guard in ROTJ. He might have been slightly tainted by the Dark Side during that period of his life (we know that he escaped the Dark Side by a hair's breath during the Throne Room scene), but I don' t think anyone would say that he was a Dark Jedi. We've never seen Mara use Force lightning, or any other "Darksiders only" Force ability. (No, Dark Redemption doesn't count, it was only a fan movie. )

(Quiwan Gray may exist in real life but in the movies it was Dark/Light and the books should follow.

Think of Dark and Light as opposite poles of a spectrum. The fact that the poles do exist doesn't mean that there can't be a "gray scale" in between the poles. As JoinTheSchwarz said, Anakin in AOTC is clearly tainted by the Dark Side, but he hasn't become a Darksider/Sith yet, he still strives to be a (good/Lightside) Jedi. So he's in between. Tainted, but not fallen.

 

Of course she is and she knows it. All the NJO Jedi are.

I don't care what Timothy (I'm a revisionist historian!) Zahn says. He is full of it.

She killed for self-promotion, and because she wanted to. For status. When she lost everything, she bemoaned her lost status, NOT the fact that she was a professional hitman, committing immoral acts. No matter what she says, these people she killed did nothing to her, and since she served evil (her words), it stands to reason that the people she killed were not bad.

 

One should never make too many assumptions T_F. It tends to be the persons downfall.

OWLC

 

Yes, I would think she was. Whether or not she still is, I dunno. Probably not.

But then, quite a lot of Jedi have flirted with the Dark Side and then redeemed themselves.

 

i am suprised shelly has not found this thread yet.

 

I think the point is that what she did, she did out of ignorence, if your taught to do something from being a very young child, then how do you know better???

As for what she tried to do to thrawn, that just proves my point, she was trying to defend her friends against Thrawn in the best way that she was trained to.

 

But then, quite a lot of Jedi have flirted with the Dark Side and then redeemed themselves.

Yeah, but that's a whole OTHER can o' worms...