SW The Old Republic: Sith Warrior

[TheStarWarsTrek]

I find SW writers often overdue it, adding more and more flaws to the Good Guys and more and virtues to the Bad Guys, to the point where they seem like equally valid positions.

In which EU products?

Its Mostly just BW, since they pretty much have the most prolific games

I mean a large chunk of the whole "The Dark side's not THAT dangerous" came about due to video games trying to explain why your Good character can use darkside powers

As a general trend, in Star Wars the Republic/Galactic Alliance is often shown as corrupt and/or ineffectual. (it's a major plot point of TPM, it is powerless against the Yuzhan Vong, in the Legacy of the Force books it turns into a police state, and in the New Canon allows the FO to grow right under it's nose). Then the Imperial Remnant under Pellaeon and the Fel Empire of the Legacy comics are shown as an almost nicer, more heroic dictatorships. (Although the Legacy comics have the good writing on John Ostrander to help them out).

And another part is what Wargriffin said, game mechanics and the popularity of Revan kind of popularized the idea of "gray Jedi" using both the light and dark sides. Which is weird to me because it kind of trivializes Anakin/Vader's story. It's like if after ATLA made such a big deal about the evils of blood bending, that they started showing all the waterbenders using that ability willy nilly.

[Wargriffin]

TPM its kinda the point to show the Republic at the height of its corruption 'BW just makes it to where the Republic is always corrupt'

Before the Vong the New Republic could be atleast be counted on to provide backup and even the token Misguided Senator would change his ways and side with the good guys

The Vong War... Well to be fair EVERBODY got their asses kicked by the Vong, Jedi, Remnant, Republic and Independent

Hell technically the Republic ended with the battle of Coruscant, when the more selfish senators fled

after that its the Galactic Alliance... well those Bozos put Daala in charge

[Madner Kami]

It's like if after ATLA made such a big deal about the evils of blood bending, that they started showing all the waterbenders using that ability willy nilly.

If you can use blood-bending to heal wounds and sicknesses, then why not?

[Karha of Honor]

I find SW writers often overdue it, adding more and more flaws to the Good Guys and more and virtues to the Bad Guys, to the point where they seem like equally valid positions.

In which EU products?

Its Mostly just BW, since they pretty much have the most prolific games

I mean a large chunk of the whole "The Dark side's not THAT dangerous" came about due to video games trying to explain why your Good character can use darkside powers

Those are just game mechanics, like the silly looking energy shields in Kotor 1 and 2.

[hammerofglass]

And yes, there is a reason why that order is Republic first, and yes, it's because the Sith Empire is a moral and ethical abomination that must be destroyed.

Honestly they're both moral and ethical abominations. From what we see of Republic space, especially on Coruscant and in the Trooper storyline (let alone Belsavis), it's pretty much a cyberpunk dystopia. The only real difference is that the Sith revel in it while the Republic tries to keep it's many crimes just baaaarely under the rug where upper class folks like the Jedi don't have to think about them. The man with his boot on your neck says "freedom" a lot in the Republic, but he's still got his boot on your neck.

I think the problem is that the Republic's very size hinders its ability to deal with pressing social issues, allowing for corruption and private actors to employ repression while further undermining the Republic's principles. But it does have those principles, and many in the Republic fight to try and enforce them against those corrupt forces. That's what elevates them above the Sith Empire in my view. Better to have principles that you struggle to uphold and sometimes fail to preserve than to embrace corruption and oppression.

TBH one thing that always irritates me is the attitude that if you're not 100% correct in upholding your values, you're just a corrupt hypocrite and can't criticize people who are openly corrupt and even cruel and oppressive. That attitude, to me, invites one to become morally nihilistic. It says "Don't bother being good because everything you stand for will be destroyed at even the perception of a misstep, while those who are outright evil will have that evil ignored because they don't hide it".

So yeah, the Republic has big flaws and needs a lot of work, but I'll take it over the Sith Empire any day of the week.

Saying they're barely different was meant to be ludicrous hyperbole for the sake of a joke. On re-reading it that is not at all obvious, for which I apologize.

Yes the Sith Empire at it's best is worse than the Republic at it's worst. The Sith at it's best is worse than anything in history and has only a few rivals in fiction. Repeated casual planetary scale genocides and running a slave economy purely for its own sake are a high bar.

The Republic is more on the Norsefire region of the "evil government" scale. Inefficient, casually corrupt, perpetual poverty of entire classes, allows no independent media, locks political dissidents up in a concentration camp and performs horrifying experiments on them (Belsavis as seen in the Imperial planet quests is a seriously messed up place), military answers to no one and considers it's own civilians expendable.

What I suspect happened is that different writers threw in one or two dirty little secrets that were supposed to represent isolated abuses in their own plotlines and didn't realize how it comes off when all strung together. If you only played, say, the Jedi Consular you'd come away with an impression of the Republic as a shining city on a hill fighting for Freedom and Justice for all sapient beings, just as cartoonishly Good as the Sith are cartoonishly Evil.

[hammerofglass]

I find SW writers often overdue it, adding more and more flaws to the Good Guys and more and virtues to the Bad Guys, to the point where they seem like equally valid positions.

In which EU products?

Its Mostly just BW, since they pretty much have the most prolific games

I mean a large chunk of the whole "The Dark side's not THAT dangerous" came about due to video games trying to explain why your Good character can use darkside powers

Those are just game mechanics, like the silly looking energy shields in Kotor 1 and 2.

Luke used the Force Choke in Return of the Jedi to silently take out some of Jabba's guards in his first scene and suffered no repercussions. It's the idea that abilities are limited to Force alignment AT ALL that started with the games. Specifically the West End Games RPG system, which a lot of the early EU writers (including Zahn) shamelessly cribbed off of.

[Mecha82]

Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 on PC was first game were I encountered whole idea of Force abilities being divided to Light Side and Dark Side. While idea is easy to understand it does contradicts that scene in RotJ were Luke who is good guy chokes some Jabba's guards with Force Choke. Then again this is part of what happens when you had people with they own visions about SW that no one monitored. Still I have pretty much excepted whole idea that some Force abilities locked to Light Side while others are locked to Dark Side so I don't mind that.

[SabreMau]

For balance purposes in SWTOR, though, every single ability that a Sith Warrior can use has an equivalent-effect Jedi Knight ability, just with a different name and animation. The Jedi have their own Force Choke, instead it's called Force Stasis and does the exact same thing, but doesn't include a choking sound effect.

[hammerofglass]

Same thing with the Sorcerer and Consular. The Sorcerer shoots lightning, the Consular throws a rock at your head.

[Madner Kami]

Same thing with the Sorcerer and Consular. The Sorcerer shoots lightning, the Consular throws a rock at your head.

"A" rock? The Consular's abilities are basically centered around peppering your opponent with literally every stone, pebble and paper-ball laying about. All the more made funny by that technique actually being introduced by Darth Vader in Empire Strikes Back...