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Strike Leader
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Texas
Posts: 2,242
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The Jedi Outlived Their Usefullness--Vader Was Good, Not Evil
Before TPM came out, I was active on the old Jedinet Council boards, and at one point I had started a discussion about Vader's beliefs toward his imperial role, based on spoilers and speculation about why Anakin would turn to the darkside, how Palpatine would rise to power, how the Senate and/or public would turn against the Jedi and willingly follow Palpatine into the New Order. That initial post began one of the best threads I was ever a part of in Jedinet, or Galactic Senate for that matter. The discussion grew very long and quite deep. For a long time I'd wanted to recreate that discussion on GS but I couldn't find the original posting. But now I have. I finally found it.
I am going to repost this topic intro verbatim, exactly as I wrote it in late 1998/early 1999. Some of it prior to ROTS, makes sense and actually played out in the film. Other parts of it, do not pan out. Nevertheless, this is what I speculated about at that time. Read it, and if you desire, comment on it based on what I thought would be that didn’t turn out, and what I got right in advance of the full story being told.
It begins here…
As sick and twisted as he was, Adolph Hitler saw no wrong in his ungodly genocide of the Jewish people. Although he went to great lengths to his the death camps and cover the evidence of his crimes, he believed that his actions were justified. Most instigators of war crime do not see their deeds as evil; they merely hide them to avoid the contempt of more compassionate nations (though some don’t hide them at all)
By the same token, Darth Vader did not consider himself evil. He was an asset to the future while the ways of the past were expendable. The Senate was corrupt, the Jedi were weak; thus the Empire, Palpatine’s New World Order, was the only alternative. Although Anakin had been trained and educated in the morals and ethics of the Jedi, as Vader he lost the ability to distinguish the difference between good and evil. In his mind there was no separation between the two. The Dark side was not a contradiction to the Light side, it as what the Light side was meant to be. It was the completion of what Qui-Gon started in him; it was the fulfillment over Obi-Wan’s failures; it was reality over the Jedi Council’s foolishness; and it was truth over the Senate’s lies.
Vader did not comprehend that he was evil. As far as he was concerned, the needs and desires of the people of the galaxy were of no concern. All that mattered, all that existed as worthy and notable, were the services and sacrifices he and the galaxy must make to the emperor. His job was to serve and ensure that others served the emperor, who exhibited the honor and nobility that the corrupt Senate did not uphold, and the weak Jedi could not enforce. There was nothing evil about that; he was only doing what was right. Therefore, when he told Kenobi, “When I left you I was but a learner, now I am the master,” he did not acknowledge that he had betrayed the Jedi and turned from their path; instead he showed that he had overcome their faults and ascended to become—as a Sith lord—what the Jedi could never achieve.
What they said:
Vader-- “When I left you I was but a learner, now I am the master.”
Kenobi—“Only a master of evil, Darth.”
What they meant:
Vader— “I have not been converted, I have been completed. There is nothing evil in what I have become, for I have excelled in that which my former peers failed to ascend to.
When Kenobi clarified that his former student’s mastery applied only to the Dark side, it was as if he needed to remind him that he was no longer a Jedi; something Vader either did not understand or would not admit.
Another point to consider:
(Remember, I wrote this prior even to Episode II, when by rumors it had been thought that Episode I was not about an isolated conflict on Naboo, but a widespread war with the Trade Federation—which did pan out in Episode II after all. But I had thought that the war would be going on through the 10 years between Episodes I and II.)
Just as Hitler rose to power in the wake of WWI by blaming Germany’s economic and moral woes on the Jewish population, to turn the public opinion against the Jews, I believe that Palpatine will rise to power in much the same way. In Episode II, in the wake of the costly and destructive war with the Trade Federation, Palpatine will blame the galaxy’s shortcomings on the foolish and faltering Senate, and the danger posed by outside enemies on the ineffective and dishonorable Jedi. Public opinion will be swayed to trust Palpatine rather than the current gathering of corrupt Senators, and the tide of anger and loathing will be directed toward the no-longer trustworthy Jedi order. By the time the Jedi purge begins, Palpatine will rely on the disgruntled citizens of the faltering Republic to segregate and reveal the isolated Jedi in hiding.
(ROTS showed that Palpatine only needed to turn the Senate against the Jedi, not the population against the Senate and the Jedi. But of course, the Senate represented the public so that was all that mattered.)
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