1629 Enigmatic.

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I was really pleased with myself over this joke. Maddison gets one over on Reggie in her own way. XD

I was watching some videos about philosophy and ethics and it got me to thinking about the Jedi & Sith, among other things. First of all, really, what’s the point of the Sith? What do they want? Just to be dicks all the time? They’re like the ultimate trolls of the universe. Just fucking with everyone for no obvious reason. Say what you want about Anakin, but he at least had motivation, however misguided, to be evil. He wanted to live in a tightly controlled world, totally safe for his wife and eventual kids. What did Palpatine want? It’s never explained. Does he like to fuck? Is it drugs? What’s the point of his power? What does Palpatine enjoy? Just being a fucking bastard all the time apparently. I guess that’s something…
Then there’s the Jedi. They love everyone but don’t really love anything. They’re like some kind of weird police force that preaches nonviolence while worshiping martial prowess. It’s kind of like when martial artists are like “I learn karate so I never have to use it.” Bullshit. You want to be able to fuck a bitch up if time ever comes to throw down. The Jedi non attachment thing just seems weird to me. Neither the Sith or the Jedi are balanced people. They each live half an existence.
I don’t think the sith are supposed to love, but why not? Attachment clearly causes fear which you can use to fuel your dark side powers. it took one of the galaxy’s greatest heroes and turned him into a fucking murderous dickwad. Anakin’s fear of his own death has to be the only thing that kept him from killing himself after he killed Padame. Is that part of what made him strong after that? Fear, self hatred, jealousy… what made Anakin keep going after he lost everything? It has to be fear of his own mortality. A desire to live forever with no reason to live… You know, when he found out Luke was his son it must have fucked him up for weeks.
anyway, I wonder what philosophies the Jedi and sith are most influenced by.
I think if you sat a Sith down and asked why they hated the Jedi the andswer wouldn’t go any deeper than “CASUSE FUCK THE JEDI, BITCH!”
I know what my own character’s philosophies are to some extent. Thomas is utilitarian. Doing the most good for the most people while doing a little harm to other people as possible. Ed is more like truth, justice, and that sort of thing. I don’t know what the word for it would be. He follows the rules because they are rules without thinking about it too deeply. Reggie is kind of in between Thomas and Edward. Really though, most of the cast is utilitarian in their values to one degree or another. I wish I knew more terminology to be able to explain it.
I heard a story that illustrates utilitarianism and it goes like this: You’re a researcher in some place and you come upon a group of soldiers who are about to execute a group of native people. The leader tells you that if you kill one person he’ll let all the other people live. So a utilitarian would kill one of them to save the others and not consider themselves at fault for having to do so. Because if they fail to act they’re all dead. I think most people would bite the bullet, so to speak, and kill one to save many. You wouldn’t be happy about it, but you’d do it to save the others. Maybe if you believe that killing is always wrong and if you kill anyone you go to hell you’d choose not to do it, but man… that seems like a dick move to me. I mean if you really believe that then fine, but it seems like a waste.

At the same time if a doctor has a neighbor who wouldn’t be missed if he harvested him for organ transplants would do it if he was an absolute utilitarian, because if killing one saves five then that would be the best solution. Except that’s insane. Which is why you want to temper your utilitarianism a bit. I mean nobody wants to live in a world where you can get harvested for organs if you’re perceived as a dick and no one would miss you.

In start trek Spock is like “The good of the many outweighs the good of the one.” then Kirk spends, like, two movies proving that he thinks that’s bullshit and he’ll sacrifice as many people as it takes to get Spock back. It’s kind of fucked up if you think about it. Kirk’s son is killed, some Klingons, they wreck the enterprise, and probably some other stuff I’ve forgotten.

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I’ve really enjoyed this little side arc. If at the very least, I hope Reggie tears into anyone that make a jab at her size (Especially Wes, the worst person).

Wait until he makes Wes a sympathetic character as well. Then you’re really in for it.

There are some people that wear masks of sociability yet will harvest you for your organs if they are sure they could get away with it. Those are the ones to be wary of. Thanks to anonymity in most online forums their baser selves come out to play. Heck I have seen it pre-www in tabletop RPGs with peoples play style and character concepts. Their inner monster comes out to play.

Wes is dick and may realize it and do something about at some point, but not now. He still has some growing up and maturity to develop. Being a dick is a constant state that cannot be switched off on a whim. Wes may even do something altruistic but dollars to doughnuts he will be a dick about it.

In all things symmetry.

This “anonymity lets people be assholes more” isn’t always true, says recent research. Which makes sense, if you think about it.

Agreed. While it is certainly true that anonymity sometimes drives people to let their beasts run wild, it is also true that the same anonymity lets people feel the freedom to be who they want to be, rather than who they are.

The Sith view, in the pre-movie expanded universe and old republic period, is essentially a sadistic hybrid of Social Darwinism and anarchism. Existence is about achieving freedom from all things, including freeing oneself from systems of morality. And only the strongest deserve such freedom, while the weak should be satisfied with being allowed to live in order to further goals and desires of the strong. So I guess they have a really evil interpretation of Nietzsche. The Jedi are based on a hybrid of Samurai and Tibetan monks, which is why they are in their essence contradictory. They seek enlightenment and zen-like inner peace, while believing that those with power should protect the weak from those who would cause them harm, but the search for enlightenment takes precedence over protection. The result is a lot of rogue Jedi who become space ronin. Which is actually the origin of the current Sith order. Ironically, the Jedi are descended from the Je-dai, who were an order of force users who used both dark and light sides of the force in order to find inner balance as well acting altruistically, without all the Jedi detachment. But then a civil war happened between light-side extremists who saw the dark side as inherently evil and dark-side extremists who saw the light side as inherently weak, instead of being one singular force. The light-side extremists won and reformed the Jedi order into what we eventually came to know.

If someone truly believed that murdering is always wrong (i.e., Christian/Biblical worldview), in the situation you outlined they would think outside the box and possibly offer their own life if it would save all the villagers. Or find out what the lead soldier was really trying to accomplish (he’s obviously not concerned about the villagers staying around to mess up future operations if he’s willing to let them live), then see if there’s something you can do to meet his needs. I mean, if he’s just a terrorist trying to scare the villagers into obeying him, letting them live is only a temporary solution after all: they will eventually lose their fear unless continually re-frightened (is that a word?) by killing another one of them.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that there are often solutions outside the binary choices presented in such situations.

And Kirk’s final line in Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock was: “The needs of the one outweighed the needs of the many.” Spock’s reply, at the beginning of Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home: “Humans make illogical decisions.” “That they do.”

In Jade Empire they had a similar divide of Light and Dark in the Way of the Open Palm and the Way of the Closed Fist. The “Dark Side” was based upon the principle that strength is the only virtue. To me, if you take that to it’s logical extreme, if strength is the only virtue then the most virtuous act is cultivating strength in yourself and in others. In that way I also wonder that if power is the highest goal for the Sith, why must it be individual power? Isn’t synergy a greater power? Is not the role of teacher the most virtuous?

Perhaps teaching others or having strength through others isn’t seen as valuable if darksiders believe you can’t trust anyone besides yourself. (Although of course empirically you can do a lot more if you trust at least some people some of the time.) Certainly it does seem true that darksiders are right not to trust each other. This does beg the question of why Sith lords take apprentices at all, given the propensity for the apprentice to murder the master…

It’s the sith “rule of two”. In order to create a stronger sith, there must be only two in the universe. One to teach, the other to learn. The one learning’s goal is to better him/herself in order to defeat and kill the previous teacher, thus passing knowledge from one generation of sith to the next.

Jade Empire went as far as explaining why neither open hand nor closed fist were evil or good. If a village was in trouble (in the in game example I believe it was with bandits, specifically) and asked for help, a closed fist master would beat the crappy out of them to make them stronger. Good intentions, questionable results.

The reason there is no depth to any of the factions in star wars is simply that it was created by a deeply flawed individual. Han shot first.
~ulrich

You lie.
Han did not shoot *first*,
Han shot Greedo dead.
Death throes set off Greedo’s blaster.

Greedo shot first. Han didn’t miss.

Oh, please!

I still fail to see what the controversy is, here. I know that I only saw the movie 5-6 times in the theater when it was originally released, but I own the original version on Laserdisc (and VHS — in both English and Japanese), and the re-made version on VHS and Laserdisc, and have watched them side-by-side. Han shoots first in the original version, and second in the re-made version (how does Greedo miss — especially by that much — from only a meter away?) From what I see in the original version, Greedo never even got a shot off.

When we meet him, Han Solo is a pirate, smuggler, thief and liar. He hangs around in “wretched hive[s] of scum and villainy.” He’s not a good guy. Why WOULDN’T he shoot first? That’s how you survive in places like that. It’s always seemed to me that was a natural, normal piece of character exposition. It shows us how he’s matured and changed, due to his growing love for Luke and Leia, as he comes charging out of the sun to save the day in the end. That’s how stories are told.

“how does Greedo miss — especially by that much — from only a meter away?”
Um, because from a meter away a gun is a horrible weapon? Never bring a gun to a knife fight, you can’t move your hand fast enough and the knife fighter will gut you like a fish.
The pistol in general is a weapon that only works in a narrow niche, and even then only with significant training. Most people who own pistols would not hit anything they aimed at if they actually needed to use it for self defense or to defend others. That is the real reason for the depressing statistic that 50% of deaths by pistols are suicide, and more than half of the remaining deaths are the owner or a member of their family killed by mistake.
At any real range, a longarm is better than a pistol. At any range that a pistol is better than a longarm a knife is better than a pistol. But we don’t want police walking their beats with a shotgun, so they wear pistols, and use a tonfa.
When I was in military training, we had a simulated attack and the ref didn’t even count my gunfire because I was using a pistol at 50 feet, the guy with the m16 50 feet behind me was the one who got the “kill.” Yes, I could have tried to run up on the simulated attacker, but I had cover and knew I had backup, heroes are not actually something anyone in the military wants-at least not in the “stupid fucker got himself killed for no good reason” sense of the word.

I can believe that pistols might not be the best weapon in an actual fight, they are mostly used for intimidation, but Greedo had the pistol resting on the table, and pointed straight at Han.

You also have to remember that the Dark Side is corrupting. The Force is alive, and it has a … sentience? of it’s own. The Light Side encourages life and the protection of life, the Dark Side encourages destruction and entropy. The Sith see the Dark Side as the fastest path to mastering themselves, which corrupts them until they do things that encourage destruction and entropy. All Sith know that eventually, they will crash and burn for relying on such a corrupting force, but some relish it since they are angry, impatience and/or basically already unstable. Palpatine’s primary drive was to bring peace to the galaxy, and the Dark Side twisted it to be his version of peace. One of a cold, iron fist that smothers life and creativity, all facets of the Light Side.

Jedi on the other hand have a strange symbiosis with the Force. They are not exacty 100% Light Side, although they lean towards that because it’s the only way to stay away from corruption. The best Jedi have learned balance in acknowledging and respecting both sides but not really relying on either. Instead in neutrality, they can pull upon power that doesn’t necessarily favor one or the other (such as speed and sensing). Light Side of the Force can heal, for example. No Jedi can really do that, because of forementioned reasons.

The Star Wars universe has a strange middle ground in the Force, too. There are Force users who aren’t Jedi or Sith. They use their abilities most of the time without knowledge of what it is they are doing. Some do know about the Force, but they embrace no philosophy. The interesting thing is that (at least before Disney bought the IP) non-Jedi and Sith Force-wielders tend to be stronger and better at it. Mostly because they don’t let ancient rituals or rites burden their thoughts or their actions. Mara Jade is always a good example of a neutral Force user. She is strong – stronger than Luke when he meets her – because she believes what she’s doing is for the Greater Good. She draws upon her internal strength more than relying solely on the Force, and that makes her way more “pure.” Luke adapts that, which causes another split in the Jedi that he establishes.

Now, I’m not sure how it works. Although it seems likely that the Force is strongest when you believe in yourself and you don’t want to use it for personal reasons. It favors the confident, the bold and the determined. It weakens the selfish and vain. It corrupts the self-loathing and angry.

I really kinda like these two together haha.
Reggie gets knocked down on the social peg (cause he holds himself too high. He deserves ome of it but he needs a realistic grounding base.
She on the otherhand has a good grounding, but could use a bit of the snobby.
either utter self destruct or pretty amusing

It’s great there can be a place like this for open, rational talk on some very important topics that effect us all w/o the bitterness and name calling. I’d doff my hat ( if I wore one) to everyone for being civil during some heavy discussions here of late.

That sais, it’s times like this I really wish Eric Schwartz hadn’t ended Sabrina Online but 20 years was a hell of a run.

I also wish Eric well, as Sabrina joins all the other fine comics that have gone by the wayside. I already miss the excitement of the monthly update checks…

…I still miss Boxjam and Tile, odd as they were.

There is certainly a dichotomy for martial artists, in terms of why they train. There certainly are many in the more MMA vein that really just want to learn to fight. However I do think that there are many people that will spend their whole lives training and try to learn the most they can… many come to that place of never intending to use it unless forced to.

We had a story back from my old korean style hapkido, one was about a white belt, 3 months in, compound fractured a muggers elbow and possibly caused the other guy to never have kids. The moral was that you’re learning to break people, it only takes a few pounds of pressure in the right directions. We were always told that wasn’t worth it. Give them the wallet, find a payphone (yeah I know maybe not as viable these days ~_^) and cancel the credit cards and call the banks etc. You’re out a few hundred in cash, if that ( I mean really who walks around with thousands in cash?)

We also often cross trained in other related styles. Even if you got pretty good at them you’d still get the sobering moments where you were sparring a whitebelt and using wooden knives and they’d score a solid hit out of the gate. Real fight that’s probably it for you. What good are years of training and honing your body to fight if all you need to do is toss a piece of sharp metal in some idiots hand to undo it? It was moments like those that I think typically get the martial artists that aren’t just bone-heads to pick up those “never use it” thoughts. Put your hands up, give them the wallet, and if they make a move gouge their eyes out… and if they don’t walk away a deal with the lost wallet cause it’s not worth the risk that they’re packing and get lucky (saying nothing for the case that their packing and *trained* in that weapon too). I think it often does come down to fear or I suppose if you wanted to frame it positively a strong desire to always be prepared.

I do get your point as there are a ton of “martial artists” out there that are really just in it for the martial. Sorta like people that do yoga but aren’t really on board with the philosophy. I don’t think the existence of one subset of practitioners necessarily has much of anything to say about the other.

I know this is likely wishful thinking, but it seems to me that Maddison has filled out some. Pretty good if she has, because it could introduce a new(ish) element into this world you’ve created – especially if it’s something she enjoys yet has no name for.

An extreme utilitarian has been portrayed in the Saturday Morning Breakfast Comics named “The greatest possible superhero”

Jar Jar Binks was the true dark lord of the sith all along, until Lucas chickened out. To me, he will always be.

Agreed. Him dropping that ridiculous clown routine would have been a perfect Magnificent Bastard moment.

In an early version of the script, he was supposed to be a sith lord working for Palpatine. This was dropped after all of the CGI was done. Next time you have the misfortune of watching episode 1, keep an eye on Binks whenever he is in the background. Several times, a character will be talking, and you’ll see him saying the same things they are with a subtle hand wave, or he will move his hand and things will happen, most noticeably in the droid battle.

Uh? Anakin killed Padame?
Didn’t she die in childbirth? When Anakin was on mission?

“She lost the will to live.”
(Which, by-the-way, is a great legacy to pass on to Your offspring: ‘Why are we orphans?’ ‘Oh, Your dad tried to kill Your mom, and since You two weren’t worth living for; she died.’)

Joking aside;
People have actually died from heartbreak.

@Crave:
I think You did a good job of explaining why You do as You do, in the last post under comic #1628 A Brisk Trot.

Just wanted to let You know that,
And to say thanks.

My favorite theory is that Anakin didn’t just kill Padame when he force choked her, but that he literally used the dark side to save his own life (or that the emperor did). If you watch the third prequel you can actually hear a moment where Anakin’s heartbeat stops while being operated on. Then it starts again about two seconds later. In that same moment, Padame dies.

As far as what the Sith and Jedi are, what they mean to each other, and so on there is plenty of different ideas to this (as there tends to be). The current, and horrible, canon explanation is that they were literal immortal aliens with such immense power that their very existence altered reality. Then Anakin killed them. Not the greatest.

My favorite explanation is the one used in the Kotor and Tor games. (Star wars games set thousands of years in the past). They talk of the creation of the jedi and sith and it amounts too ‘people discovered the force and disagreed on the best way to use it’. Eventually, and perhaps inevitably with sapience, there was fighting.

The Jedi and Sith, in this explanation are two very bad extremes. The Sith revel in all emotion for the sake of power. They may not start out for power or greed or what have you but inevitably the Force, the Dark Side of it, corrupts their thinking. It makes them want more. It changes them. The Jedi fear the Dark Side, so they embrace another extreme. Emptiness. Nothing.

Despite what the new movie would have you believe, the Jedi were not the ‘Light side’ of the force. They were what comes when you fear the Dark Side.

The Light Side is best represented by a few acts in the games and movies. This is the ‘True’ Force, or at least the inherently good side of it. It is found through Love. When Yoda and Ben’s ghosts were telling Luke ‘no you can’t save him’, Luke still kept his love for his father, and it was that love that let him spark that let him reach Anakin. Anakin’s love let him endure the emperors power to slay him.

In the games, Love can redeem one of the characters you deal with, and it is your trust in your friends and loved ones that can make you very powerful.

But it’s not recognize by the Jedi Order for one very simple reason. Because the Jedi fear the Dark Side, and you cannot have Light with shadows. So they suppress. They control. They deny. And in the end you get someone like Anakin struggling to even understand his emotions in some of the films and too afraid to go to his peers and masters for help.

Not all sith are born this way though. Some are born of war. The most famous in the games is Revan, a master Jedi who lead the war effort to protect Civilization against an invading army. Slowly, but surely, Revan faced the horrors of war and instead of keeping true to himself, he continually watched people suffer. But if he were just stronger… just had a bit more power… he could save them. Save them all even. This hunger for power lead him to the dark side.

You also have your monsters. Palpatine is a good example. Some people call it unrealistic but there’s plenty of examples of people like him in history. There are people like that who get power, real power, and do horrible things with it.

There are many ways for a Sith to become what a Sith. Because the Sith exist, the Jedi will exist, because fear of a thing will bring about those who seek to restrain it. And all of them miss the true power of the Force, which is shown rarely, but tends to have more impact on Civilization and the many, many worlds that Star Wars has then either the Jedi or the Sith.

Because the Jedi were born of a peace created by someone using the Light Side, people who saw how good it was and tried to replicate it, but saw the danger that could come of it, the Dark Side, and feared that danger. Because every Empire out there is felled by someone who is a part of this ‘Light Side’, from the games to the movies, and while more monsters may come there is always someone of this kind to face them in the end.

It really is a simple message. There is good, there is evil, there is a grey area for those who fear evil enough to turn from good, and then there are those that recognize or at least end up having the true and strongest power, Love.

To expand on the flaws of the Jedi Order and why so many of them fall to become Sith…

They teach repression, not control, of emotions. Which works great if one lives out their life in an isolated monastery with no attachments and limited interactions with the universe at large, but that goes to shit eventually when you put Jedi back in the normal population…..

Eventually one of them is going to break. Badly.

The true Jedi way is not so much repression of emotions as understanding them and channeling them in a positive, disciplined way. A good Jedi does have emotions, and is in touch with them, but doesn’t let them govern hir actions.

Sadly, lots of Jedi don’t really get that, or aren’t willing to get to know themselves deeply enough to really achieve that state of equilibrium (it’s a painful process). You know how IRL, lots of religious people mouth the words of their faith but don’t really get its fundamental point(s)? Same idea.

Similarly, the true Sith way is to understand one’s emotions and embrace them, whatever they are. Sadism is not a necessary trait for a Sith; if you happen to be a sadist, then revel in causing pain. If you’re a loving person by nature, then indulge those passions and share that love with those around you. If you value knowledge above all else, then pursue it without reservation. “A Sith is the ultimate individualist” as one of the characters in TOR put it.

Again, most Sith don’t get it. They think they have to be assholes no matter what, or they’re just rebels without a clue.

This is how I see things, anyway. Thoughts?

What you speak of is the truth of their original ideals, but not the truth of either the Sith or the Jedi in stories. Jedi do teach repression. Yoda is constantly spouting nonsense, even in the Clone Wars, about not allowing fear to take root, not allowing hate to exist. Clear your mind of all or it will rule you. Marriage isn’t allowed. Sex isn’t allowed. There are very few exceptions and those are made to force users who are from races where it is a biological necessity.

The Sith may talk about simply being free to embrace their emotions but in practice the Dark Side of the force acts like a drug to them. When they embrace it, they want more. It just so happens this drug also gives them very real and very deadly powers. They might try and convince a Jedi to join them by promising them freedom but you can see in every Sith, no matter the story, that they are ruled by their emotions and their addiction.

It’s not that most Sith or Jedi don’t get it, it’s that they are trained not to get it. One of the most powerful Jedi ever taught repression to his dying breath, even when his system had created the most horrid monster the galaxy had seen in thousands of years. If Luke had done as he had been asked he would have struck Vader down without emotion. Then Palpatine would have won, because as powerful as he was, Palpatine had taken stronger, from Yoda to Vader.

I’d say that the original Je’daii code makes the most sense. There is ‘light’ and ‘dark’ and that none can exist without the other. There must be balance. It could be construed that the Jedi (light), Sith (dark), and New Jedi (balance) all descended from the Je’daii.

The ‘Jedi’ order is not the light side. It never was. It was always about repressing all sides, turning the force into a tool. Balance is the safest path but the problem is that the ‘Jedaii’ order is literally the same order as the Jedi, just after their first big fight with the Sith.

There has never been a ‘Light’ side order in any cannon. Luke came the closest but his respect of Yoda and the Jedi of old shackled him to an imperfect philosophy that did as much harm as good,

My theory (and that is all it is, theory) is that Sith use emotion to draw on the force, Jedi use discipline. I can hear everyone saying “well duh.”
But think about this, most emotion is fleeting, I’m sure there are people you love, are you loving them right now? Are you picturing them and thinking loving thoughts? Or are you reading the comments in a webcomic?
The advantage of using discipline to tap the force is that you always have the ability to tap into it, even if it isn’t as strong. Emotion will give a lot more power, but it is hard to use emotion. Unless…
Hate is a very strong emotion, and it is very easy to bring up, to tap into, when you need it. A love based force user would be largely helpless much of the time. A happiness based force user? A sadness based force user would probably be able to tap their abilities often (orphaned kittens dying in the rain? So sad!), but how powerful would that be? So if you are going to fuel your force powers with emotion, hate is the best choice.
Of course, if you spend all your time hating, and nurturing your hate to make yourself stronger, how long before you become a monster?

The kill one to save many problem is known as the Trolley Problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

You can often walk a utilitarian person through different Trolley Problem examples, asking them what they would do, and they end up advocating a simple kill-one-to-save-many solution that would also allow healthy people to be killed for spare parts. This happens frequently because the set of rules needed to only allow the things most people would agree with is surprisingly complex. It is known as the Principle of Double Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_double_effect

The soldiers case is special because there is no downside: the one person you shoot is dead in any case, it does not make any difference to him/her. The doctor case does not meet the criteria of the Principle of Double Effect.

Or you can just let Kirk have a go at it and he’ll somehow get the trolley off the tracks and flying in the face of the villain.

“Seek freedom and become a slave to your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.” –Frank Herbert

The former is the Sith approach. The latter is the Jedi approach. That’s how I read the two Codes in practice, across all different phases of Star Wars canon.

It took me a bit to get what she meant. I feel kind of dumb.

No need to be down on yourself, you just were adult-ing.
I got a fast chuckle out of it but I do volunteer work with kids.

Not everyone has exposure to thought processes like hers on a regular basis and will be caught off guard. Sometimes our life experiences and maturity blinds us to things obvious and humorous due to their absurdity.
I think this is why humor like that of Python stands the test of time with the younger ones once they get a firm grasp of the language.

Does power have to have a point for everyone? I imagine some people are just addicts, who want more for the sake of being able to get more. That definitely happens with financial power – the world is full of rich people with no idea what to do with their money, except for getting more. If it’s not surprising to find they tend to become richer, it shouldn’t be surprising to find the most powerful have nothing else to them.

Go back and reread the first panel two panels.

“teasing or don’t understand” “it can be both”

Then read the rest in that light without preconceptions, biases, assumed bigotry and just be literal with respect to the dialogue.

I worked with kids from 6 on up as a Scout, and latter in a leadership role, and the younger ones will get you with stuff like this every time.
Their thought processes are being very very literal AND they are very perceptive.

May I suggest a foray into the comic AXE COP for further illumination on this mind set?

Really, just think of the really bad work for people of African ancestry, starts with ” n”, ends in “r”. At least, that is how I interpreted this panel.

I like your blurb today, Jackie.

It reminds me of how the company that made the 1960s Star Trek shows decided to rework the 1960s Klingons, into something else.

In the 1960s, the klingons were written as [ A nation whose goal is being totally, totally bad, and “on the side of evil”].

For the Star Trek next generation show, they changed the klingons into something like
( a nation built on war, and maybe a kind of merciless people), because no group of people is totally evil.

You’re not meant to think very deeply about Star Wars, the Force in particular. Do you want midichlorians? Because that’s how you get midichlorians.

The sith are enlightened egoists, plain and simple. the Jedi are, depending on which one, utilitarians, Respect for persons theorists, or deontologists.

The Jedi Council created Darth Vader.

All the years the kid apprenticed to them, they couldn’t give him a few weeks’ leave, buy him a round-trip ticket, and lend him a few hundred bucks to go get his mom? Bastards.

I love Star Wars, but I’m not into it enough to answer your question as well as the person in one of your comments does, but I’ve always thought of the Sith as necessary. Balance in all things, requires both good and evil. Nothing and no one is inherently or completely evil, just as nothing and no one is inherently good. We are all a mixture of both, the dark and the light, and the world is one of balance and shades of grey. They work together to make the world the way it is. Some have more evil impulses than good ones, and for some it’s easier to do good than it is for others, but all people have the potential for good and for evil. The Jedi and the Sith are examples of what happens when one does not seek that inner balance. One completely good, the other completely evil, neither attaining a proper balance

And power is power. Neither good nor evil, the dark and the light side are both just powers. It’s in the intent of the wielder of that power that good or evil becomes evident. In using the dark side, say the lightning or choking, as random examples of dark Force, to protect an innocent from harm or save another, it becomes good, tho still of the Dark Side, the power was used for good, with noble intent. If you use the Light side of the force to harm an innocent or hurt someone for no reason, you are using the power for evil, so the power can be perceived as evil, when in reality, it is the person using it who is evil

That’s why I liked the post above, towards the top so much. It exemplifies that, The Je’Dai were the last ones truly in balance. Although, I didn’t know about any of that till I read the comment, so thank you, ruk duk

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