Chuck's thoughts on KOTOR 2, review, & Kreia?

[Jonathan101]

Well, he WAS working against the Sith Empire. He rebelled against the Sith Emperor and tried to conquer the galaxy to prepare it for a Sith invasion...which happened 300 years later (thank you Old Republic MMO).

I don't think that's the case. There's no sign Revan planned to rebel against the Sith Emperor except in Kreia's opinion and she has a very skewed view of her apprentice.

Mind you, the game made it clear the Sith Emperor had decided the Sith Empire was an enormous failure by that time. I like that element of the story that the person most disgusted by the Sith Emperor aside from the LS Sith Warrior and Sith Inquisitor is the Emperor.

The signs were that he tried to keep the Republic infrastructure relatively in-tact and was surgical in his conquests, in contrast to Malak who just wanted to smash stuff by the end. There is also the fact that neither he nor Malak ever announced themselves as agents of the Sith Empire to the Republic so far as I am aware, and that opposing the Sith was something he had form with since he defeated the Mandalorians and then went to hunt down their Sith puppetmasters.

Kreia might have a skewed viewed of Revan, but nothing she says about this matter is contradicted by what we know.

[CharlesPhipps]

The signs were that he tried to keep the Republic infrastructure relatively in-tact and was surgical in his conquests, in contrast to Malak who just wanted to smash stuff by the end. There is also the fact that neither he nor Malak ever announced themselves as agents of the Sith Empire to the Republic so far as I am aware, and that opposing the Sith was something he had form with since he defeated the Mandalorians and then went to hunt down their Sith puppetmasters.

Kreia might have a skewed viewed of Revan, but nothing she says about this matter is contradicted by what we know.

Well the fact we knew Revan and Malak were named as Dark Lords by Vitiate as opposed to having self-granted titles. Also, the fact they kept Republic infrastructure intact may just be a sign they wanted to have a functioning Empire to add to their own powers. Mind you, the biggest thing is the fact we never hear Revan wanted to oppose Vitiate before his redemption in Revan the novel. His memories are being one of Vitiate's servants.

Of course, that novel was ass too.

[AllanO]

Well, if the Force is a collective energy, created by living beings, all forms of life, then it has no guide or direction. This, however, is contradicted by Lucas himself. It wasn't until the prequels that it was specifically stated the Force had a will. It wants things to happen. I'd honestly have preferred if the Force was not a self-aware entity, but just a byproduct of living creatures.

First at most if the Force as a byproduct of living things implies perhaps it has no preset guide or direction but would presumably such direction could arise from the context of what life is out there (just as the human mind arises from the jumbled firing of our neurons and our life history as someone else suggested). Second it might have a preset thing depending what sort of properties all life necessarily has, say if all life has a will to survive than the force might embody or reflect that in someway always and everywhere since all life would share that property, so it might indeed have a will from the start even on the byproduct account of the Force.

Finally "will" does not imply self-awareness, it implies some kind of goal or end (something being willed), but not necessarily an awareness that you have a goal. It does not even imply to me a really definite goal, a vague intention or tendency can be called willful.

Also starting at the beginning with of Star Wars (the first movie) we have lines like:

Obi-Wan: Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him.
Luke: You mean it controls your actions?
Obi-Wan: Partially, but it also obeys your commands.

Maybe not a will but definitely a sense that the Force provides guidance and direction, right from the start.

I suspect one could also apply a Taoist lens to all this. There is an old Taoist proverb: The more you talk about the Tao the less you know about it. Some truths (it is claimed) defy being written down or spoken. Presumably the Force is at least as complicated as the combined total of all the untold number of beings in the galaxy it binds together, therefore it may defy easy categorization. As a Ashoka once said "Just when you think you understand the Force, you find out how little you actually know" and Ezra responded “I don’t think I ever understood the Force to begin with" Of course that is just a massive dodge and does not really help us reconcile different portrayals of Force users and Force powers in different stories, media etc. Still I think its worth keeping in mind that its hardly required (by the laws of storytelling or whatever) that we be able to sum up the Force in a few sentences, some things in real life or fiction defy easy explanation.

Just on the Sith versus Jedi, I see the Sith ideal being achieved as meaning self-aggrandizement, exerting power over others, etc. Whereas on my understanding, if the Jedi ideal is achieved then everyone can benefit, we can be better connected and more loving etc. The thing is the Sith ideals are easy to achieve (it is the quick and easy path after all) whereas the Jedi ideals are perhaps impossible to achieve (so the end up using stop gaps to achieve one part of their ideal which undermine another as with the whole no attachments thing). Still better to try for a better world and fail, then just embrace creating a worse world.

[Wargriffin]

"Will" and "Balance" are clearly being used in different senses of the word or at least not the FIRST definition people think of
____


One of The scenes that best sums the Jedi and Sith is...

Rebels... Maul and Obiwan

Two men who have lost EVERYTHING, Power, prestige, loved ones you name it they've lost it.
and yet The two couldn't be more different in their emotional states.

[SabreMau]

One of the busiest active threads in the subforum, and yet the one thing it's still missing is Chuck's thoughts on those.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

He provides a frell-ton of his thoughts to us free, and even more for Patreon patrons. He has no obligation to way in on a given thread.

[SabreMau]

Not saying that he needs to or should drop by and expound his thoughts. Just noting that the thread title seems to emphasize them, although there's likely no KOTOR 2 video review coming anytime soon, since game requests closed a long time ago and they're so time-intensive anyway that the current Inquisitor videos are causing schedule shuffling.

[Madner Kami]

He provides a frell-ton of his thoughts to us free, and even more for Patreon patrons. He has no obligation to way in on a given thread.

You know, for someone who thinks that Kreia was wrong, you jump to conclusions and argue needlessly agressive a lot.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

When did I say anything about my position on Kreia?

[GandALF]

You can infer what he would say based on the other reviews. He would take into account her actions throughout the game which show her to be manipulative, treacherous and cruel regardless of how eloquent she is.

As for the edgy anti-Jedi stuff, in his review of "Monster" he defends Yoda on attachments and points out the "unpleasant reality". In his analysis of the flaws of the Jedi in Kotor 1 he states "that isn't a sign that the philosophy itself is flawed, merely that it sets a standard that is difficult to live up to -doing the right thing often is".

Remember one of his pet peeves with Star Trek is when it provides quick and easy moral solutions that don't demand any sacrifices on the part of the heroes.