In the second book (Day Watch), the story is continued from the point of view of the "bad guys" from the first book, and the reader slowly understands that it's not simple good/evil, all characters have their own complex emotions and motivations.
Warning however - skip the movie, it really really sucked.
Sure, It takes a person called zavulon to defend the bad guys ;)
The Watch series comes highly recommended though. Very fascinating series, interesting concepts, nice writing style. (also, the movies are o.k. as well. They get much better when you watch them a second time, as you see a whole lot more clues)
I thought this was a useful reminder that there are always 2 sides to every coin. It is useful to understand your opponent's motivation as people are rarely motivated by simply "being evil".
"If you seek to aid everyone that suffers in the galaxy, you will only weaken yourself ... and weaken them. It is the internal struggles, when fought and won on their own, that yield the strongest rewards. If you care for others, then dispense with pity and sacrifice and recognize the value in letting them fight their own battles."
―Darth Traya
Sounds like a philosophy I can get behind. It's just unfortunate that behind all that, the Sith will force-choke someone to death for disagreeing with them. But there are many aspects of the Sith philosophy that are appealing, especially to startup founders: particularly that of passion, without which, we wouldn't have too many startups. And Sith are at least allowed to love, unlike Jedi (though, I guess love could be a subset of passion).
You might like Ayn Rand's Objectivism. She wrote The Virtue of Selfishness, among other fiction (most notably, Atlas Shrugged). To your other point - perhaps even among Sith lords there are good ones and bad ones? No need to paint everyone in a faction the same shade.
It's funny that you mention Ayn Rand, because (to be perfectly blunt) she's kind of a watered down Nietzsche. And the Sith in Knights of the Old Republic (the sequel to which chops was quoting) were very Nietzschean.
I'm not sure I'm down with this "explanation" in the article.
I have no problem calling the Sith, or at least their behavior, evil.
The Sith - or at least those we have seen in the movies - are power hungry, and practice behaviors that are inherently chaotic, unsustainable and ruinous: murder, deceit, using people as a means-to-an-end, etc.
They are behaviors we find in sociopaths.
Since (at least in our culture/race) such behavior is generally seen as problematic and bad, we rightly call the Sith/Sith-like behavior "evil".
Actually, while watching Star Wars ... I always thought that there was a mismatch between the Dark Side and pure evil ... are emotions (love, hate, agony, fear) evil?
... well putting aside the Emperor/Darth Vader duo building an empire and a big-ass spherical ship that could destroy planets, which was also a familiar story since at that time I was learning about the Roman empire in school, which went from monarchy to republic which then was subverted :)
I am not a Star Wars guru, but I always took it as allowing your emotions to control you led you to do evil deeds and become evil. After all, a purely emotional being will be selfish, vengeful, and a whole host of other negative things. Love, anger, hate and fear are selected in the movies because they are typically the most powerful emotions, and the most capable of consuming you and causing you to act rashly and out of character.
The Jedi went to the extremes in their personal beliefs (avoiding love and anger etc) to avoid the 'slippery slope' downwards.
Yeah, but isn't the other extreme (cold-blooded, heart of stone) just as dangerous or even more so?
What's stopping us from killing our neighbors even when instincts of self-preservation kick in?
I mean, while watching documentaries on serial-murderers, it's always baffling noticing how disconnected with their victims or other human beings they are or how little regret they have.
I think moral standards are highly interconnected with feelings, and that's why it seemed weird to me.
I don't think there's any deep meaning to it, just that strong emotions will upset one's connection to the Force. There are a lot of emotional, willful heroes in Star Wars--Han and Chewie, for instance--but they aren't Force adept so they can be emotional with no side effects.
But isn't that true for all of us? We are all born wild, and unrestrained, and emotive. And as we grow we're taught to control our urges, to be more responsible, to practice restraint, and patience, and understanding.
And as surely as we're taught to control our carnal selves, so the Jedi are taught to kill ...
(At this point I stop writing because I realize that I'm now attempting to justify genocide).
The Sith Order was a sect of Force-sensitives who utilized the dark side of the Force. The term "Sith" originally referred to a species of alien native to the planets Korriban and Ziost, who were later enslaved and ruled by exiled Dark Jedi from the Galactic Republic...Following centuries of interbreeding and mixing of cultures between the aliens and the exiles, the Sith would no longer be identified by their race, but by their dedication to the ancient Sith philosophy.
Furthermore, before Darth Bane (existing something like 1000 years before the destruction of the Death Star), who instituted the Rule of Two, there were many Sith running around (somewhere around 20,000 and even after the Rule of Two, many Sith Lords took other apprentices in secret). So there weren't always only a Sith Master and a Sith Apprentice.
I intended to write a comment with an explanation of how genocide can't be committed against a group formed by a shared ideology. I was going to illustrate my explanation by pointing to the extermination of Nazism. However, according to the definition on Wikipedia, genocide includes the destruction of, or the attempt to destroy, a national or religious group. The Sith certainly fit within that definition. So it turns out that the Allies committed genocide when they wiped out Nazism.
According to the definition, genocide is not mass murder. It is merely destruction.
Your comment seems to imply that you think that I disapprove of the destruction of Nazism. Let me be clear: I think Nazism is evil and I'm glad it was destroyed. My comment was only pointing out that the destruction of Nazism was genocide by definition.
Well, first of all I'll take offense to The Sith were not a people.
Who gave you the right to decide who is people and who is vermin (or whatever you mean by that statement).
Secondly, who gives you the right to decide who lives and who dies. That is a very slippery slope and similar arguments have been used since as long as humans have been on this planet to prosecute and terminate whoever didn't agree with the majority.
Edit: According to some replies below I seem to have misunderstood the above objection as the claim is that Sith were not "a people" as in were not a group/race/etc. but more like 1-2 persons who were terminated. If that is the case, I formally withdraw my above objection, else it still stands.
No one is saying it IS real. What's wrong with using fiction to explore facets of reality? It's an idea that the entire category of "the arts" is based upon.
In the second book (Day Watch), the story is continued from the point of view of the "bad guys" from the first book, and the reader slowly understands that it's not simple good/evil, all characters have their own complex emotions and motivations.
Warning however - skip the movie, it really really sucked.