Vergere is a Sith...........O RLY?

Recently i finished reading the NJO book titled "Heroes Trial". It is the first book in which Vergere is introduced, and in it she not only saves Mara with her tears, but plays a part in saving Han from Elan's biological weapon by planting the thought "poisoned air" in his head.

Now this does not seem very "Sithy" to me, and although i haven't read all the NJO (which im planning on doing), i do know that this isn't the only thing Vergere says, does, or believes, throughout the NJO, that doesn't seem she is a Sith.

If we are lead to believe in LOTF that Vergere's actions in the NJO were to try to turn Jacen to the darkside and become a Sith, she seems to extremely fail in this matter. How is saving Mara going to help Jacen become evil (one could say that she saw a possible future in which Jacen killed Mara which helped him become more Sith like, and therefore she needed Mara alive to fulfill that vision)? Or Han in that matter? Wouldn't it make more sense to allow Han and Mara to die, which would cause Jacen to grieve severely, and therefore make it easier for him to turn?

This idea that makes Vergere a Sith not only ruins interesting philosophy (im not saying her philosophy isn't wrong, however there are better ways in dealing with this matter then making her a Sith, in fact her being a Sith makes her look even more stupid because the beliefs she spouts doesn't even seem like Sith Philosophy at all), but also seems like she created some sort of Xanatos Gambit (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) which i think is retarded and makes her more like those EVIL SITH which we have enough of, and destroys her uniqueness (she should be left as a grey character, neither sith nor jedi).

I really don't know why the writers post NJO era are trying to ruin the "uniqueness" (making the Sith affect the Vong War through retcons is lame, this should be an era which the Sith are not affecting any wars) of the NJO. There are better ways in contradicting Vergere's theories without resorting to the "sith technique".

In fact it can be argued that their is more evidence that supports that Vergere isn't a Sith then the evidence that says she is. What do you think?

And when i start up reading through the NJO again, im going to do it with the belief that Vergere is not a Sith, because that just makes the NJO more enjoyable to read.

 

http://boards.theforce.net/literature/b10003/31784792/p1/?3

 

I agree that making her a Sith was a bad idea. I think making her a Sith was just for convenience. I guess the idea that Jacen was corrupted by his teacher in the Vong war, and becomes a Sith because of it, sounds good. The problem is that the majority of her actions don't seem much like a Sith. I wouldn't say that she was a Jedi, but she deffinately has more in common with one than she does a Sith.

 

Cross-posted from that other thread:

I have yet to read Legacy of the Force and therefore can't really comment on what the writers of that series posthumously do to Vergere's characterization and how it changes her teaching of/interaction with Jacen during the NJO, but it's pretty clear from the NJO - especially in Destiny's Way, the book I'm currently reading - that she was written as a much different Force-using character than we'd previously encountered, with a philosophy that was so dramatically different from her contemporaries in the Old Jedi Order that it would've made her even more of a maverick than her contemporaries Qui-Gon Jinn and Count Dooku were circumstances to have been different and she had remained amongst her fellow Jedi and attempted to spread her philosophies about the Force.

I also don't necessarily think making her a Sith disciple would ultimately do much to alter that basic characterization, other than to cast her actions during the events of the NJO - particularly her interaction with Jacen - in a slightly darker light, while at the same time making a large majority of those self-same actions strangly make more sense.

 

Amen brother! Vergere was so much more fascinating as a grey character. Also Jacen was better as a grey character but whatever George Lucas likes morality black and white! Which is so simplistic imho!

 

*ahem*

Late to the party, are we?

We need to bring in Matt-Man.

 

I wouldn't say im late, ive known for a while about the retcon which made Vergere a Sith (even though i never read LOTF), and i know this seems to contradict many of her actions throughout NJO, its just that i haven't really voiced my own opinion on this matter on this forum yet.

 

You should read ROGUE PLANET, it's a book set shortly after THE PHANTOM MENACE, where Obi-wan and Anakin go off to find Vergere only to learn she was taken by the "Far Outsiders" aka the Yuuzhan Vong.


On another note, it's amazing this is still discussed, a decade later.

 

That's why I said to summon Matt-Man so he can do his ego dance. Again.

 

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!

 

This is a fallacy. Defined light and dark is not inherently any more or less simplistic than a situational 'shades of gray' moral philosophy. It's just a matter of framing. Saying that there is a clear good and evil doesn't make it any easier to figure out which is the correct path in a given situation. Determining where we stand in God's eyes is at least as complicated as determining where we stand in society's, they are just different ethical puzzles.

Yes, objective morality can be abused and can degenerate into cheesy 12-year tabletop D&D session parodies. However, the same is true of subjective morality, in which a clever author can play amateur philosophy professor and confuse 95% of his audience into justifying just about anything under the sun. It can also degenerate into 'I Force-lightning everyone who gets in my way, but they're okay because it's evil,' which is what I rather suspect is what Lucas was worried about (there's the scene in Dark Nest where Mara is mocked by the dark nest for using Force Lightning).

Post-NJO works have done a poor job of handling the actually very complex interplay of the light side and dark side of the Force, possibly because the authors, especially Denning, are importing the objective morality of D&D into Star Wars. That's a huge error, since the two systems are nothing alike, but it takes a clarity of thought to recognize (I've written in both systems myself, you have to be careful).

BTW: name-dropping Vergere as Sith was simply a way to label the character as 'evil' and thereby disavowing her philosophy without having to write a whole novel that would basically be 'Reverse Traitor.'

 

Which would have been much more effective if the authors responsible for the retcon properly understood her teachings.

 

Well thats why I said imho (in my humble opinion) as in not fact. I agree you can't factually say the light and dark philosophy is simplistic. However I can have an opinion or preference and I liked it a lot better when Vergere's philosophy was grey or not light or dark. Now that its been revealed that it somehow fits in as a sith philosophy it seems in my opinion a simplistic way of viewing her character and her philosophy. People might disagree but once again I am not claiming it as a fact but my opinion.

 

The teachings of lies and pain?

 

And truth, unconditional love & self responsibility.

 

Agreed.

While I have no fundamental problem with Vergere being Sith, since I don't subscribe to the view that being "Sith" inherently makes you instantaneously Evil with a capital E in the most cliché Palpatinian way (see the range of different Sith characterisations in some of the minor Sith in TOR for instance), I fully agree: in LOTF they just gave her the Sith moniker as a way to simply go "WRONG!" without explaining why.

Which, being a Sith fanboy, I always felt did just as much a disservice to the Sith as it did Vergere herself, since it was stereotypical of the way Sith characters have repeatedly been characterised in recent years. For every interesting "Sith" character like Kreia or Haazen, there's a mountain of generic ones - and, sadly, without that much wanted 'Reverse Traitor', Vergere has been left dumped in the latter group.

Really, it's no wonder people like Daala don't understand the difference, when all it seems to come down to is what you're calling yourself.

It's ironic that the game filled with clonetroopers and Star Destroyers will offer a better explanation for the many faces of the Sith.

 

I hate thinking of Vergere as a Sith, as well. I suppose, however, she could fall into the camp of Darth Traya... she's technically considered a "Sith", but couldn't care less for them or the Jedi, and can't truly be considered either.

 

This thread is, like, super depressing.

 

YesvI know. I just hope an author or LFL is able to eventually fix this to something a bit more palatable to their fans.

 

While this is true, I think it should be noted that there is an in-universe explanation. The Jedi order has endowed the term 'Sith' with a considerable amount of public prestige. As a result, your average Dark Jedi, who happens to be highly ambitious, will seize on any excuse to call themselves 'Sith' they possibly can. Likewise, the Sith, being a bunch of overly proud evil entities who like to think the galaxy revolves around them, are extremely quick to label any Dark Jedi they even marginally get their claws into as 'Sith.'

So, from an in-universe perspective the term Sith can apply equally well to true Sith beings in the heritage of the Darth Bane line or various earlier dark lords and just about any Dark Jedi or other dark side user who has managed to absorb any Sith teaching whatsoever or even simply met with some Sith and agreed that they share some goals.

In Vergere's case was a really a 'Sith' Sith, probably not. A more realistic categorization would be as a deeply confused Dark Jedi who was highly involved in building up a philosophical construct to justify her own beliefs on the proper nature of the Force and the path of the Galaxy. unfortunately that's hard to summarize succinctly, and it is necessary for future works, which have to be accessible to people who not only haven't read Traitor but who haven't read any NJO whatsoever, to be able to conceptualize what Vergere was based on a very quick reference. So, while inaccurate, 'Sith' is probably a workable one-word answer.

 

Here's something to think about- What kind of Sith or even dark sider preaches about the importance of unconditional love?

"He didn't even like me" Jacen had told Vergere. "I didn't like him."

Vergere had regarded him from one corner of her bottomless eyes. "You need not like someone to love him. Love is nothing more than the recognition that two are one. That all is one."

Jacen had thought of the dhuryam that had become the World Brain, and he'd nodded.

"Ganner knew that, at the end, more fully than even you do," Vergere said.
"That knowledge is the seed of greatness"

What does it say about the good guys(who are often portrayed as vindictive) when someone painted dark or a sith is talking about unconditional love being of the utmost importance? Furthermore I have to believe this has implications on Vergere's final living lines about her being the last real Jedi.

 

+1. well, +0.5, as i already depressed myself out in SWF91's NJO marathon thread.

+1 for that.

But Haazen wasn't a Sith.

 

If you could define Vergere as anything in D&D morality, it would be Chaotic Neutral. But yeah, Star Wars isn't like that as there aren't things that are evil by definition from their inception. Like Beholders, Kobolds and Ancient Black Dragons. And I saw this as a DM and a SW GM.

They're taken the quick and easy path.

 

She isn't a Sith in my book. She was only made one because of Jacen, and fans are to blame a little here. Sorry, but it's true.

When Jacen started talking unifying force babble, fans who hated the idea, called him a Sith. Already calling his fall way before it was probably ever thought of as story idea. Those with the loudest voices are, most of the time, the one's who are heard. Next came Troy and company and they figured that with Fan hate, not to mention other reasons, it was decided that Jacen turn HEEL.

The only way to do it and have it make any sense was for Vergere to be a Sith, who was teaching him the ways of the Sith all along. Him being to stupid to realise it.

Thus we got one of the more STUPID retcons of all time. One that made many of the ideas created in NJO go straight to the dust bin.


All of that of coures led to some of the greatest story telling in Star Wars, LOTF and FOTJ.

 

Veregre isn't a Sith she's a well I can't really put a direct label on her but I'd probably would have to say Gray Jedi becasue she has alot of views that both the Jedi Order, and the New Jedi Order(After a period of time.) frown upon. In a way she's like a Kreia type charecter only she never was a Sith.