First of all, welcome!

The weekends are pretty empty here on the blogs so don't worry about not having a lot of comments.

That's so cool that you can do your paper on Star Wars. Okay, to me, it's all in the motive of the Sith that decides if they're truly evil or not. Anakin seemed to be simply misunderstood and easily led astray. He did what he did for Padme. Then, he let his own selfishness control him. He killed millions as Vader for his own benefit.

Palpatine was true evil. 100% evil! He manupulated practically everyone to help him rise to the top. So, it really depends on thier motive, and on your point of view of evil.

Welcome!

I don't think that whether the Sith are misunderstood or not has any bearing on their evilness. I think it's more appropriate to ask if the Sith simply have a corrupted view of the world. In other words, "Are the Sith Evil, or do they Misunderstand?"

Anakin is a great case study, and Darth Bane is an excellent one, if you're read Path of Destruction. They weren't evil out of malice, they were (or rather, became) malicious as a result of their world view. The end result was still evil, but a differ kind of evil.

It all depends on which Sith...
Anakin Skywalker, sure, he was misunderstood. (Or as JawaJoey might correct me, he just didn't understand.) But Palpatine? He was designed to be pure, total, ultimate evil, which by George Lucas' definition is one who craves unlimited power, and will do anything to get it. The beauty of Palpy is that he even seemed to be aware of his own evilness, and didn't fight against it. All those rationales he provided for his actions were solely for the benefit of Anakin... in private, he didn't seem to care one wit.

I agree with the ones above, but an interesting case is Darth Maul. He was kidnapped by Palpy at an early aged and raised to be what he became, an "evil" fighting machine assasin dude. My point being that he didn't really have a choice. Can Maul be called evil for killing innocents when that is all he knows?

Let me reclarify myself, when I said it depends on "your point of view of evil" I was in no way saying that the Sith weren't evil. I'm just saying that your point of view will come into play as you write your own essay. My point of view is that evil is evil. Listen to the Stooge, he knows what he's talking about.

Depends some sith just like being evil e.g. Malak, Sidious, Past Revan.
Others are misunderstood e.g Anakin/ Vader and i cant think of any other

But what is evil? That is a truely subjective point, there is no way of looking at it any other way. The Sith and Republic are, when it comes down to it, rival nations at war. No side in war is guiltless of crimes that in peace would be unthinkable. Indeed, the whole concept of war breaks one of the fundamental rules of law, not to kill. Is that evil? Is the soldier who fires the fatal shot in battle evil because he kills? Of course not, it comes down to a point of view. As Obi-Wan said, truth is a point of view. In one sense, Anakin was killed by Vadar. That is the truth, not the whole truth though.

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The Sith are trying to win a war, a war they admittedly started but history is full of noble causes, blatent lies and deception. KOTOR paints it from the Republic's point of view, who knows what said nation has done. Perhaps they incited war against the clans to grab land, propaganda against the Sith.

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The Sith do not consider themselves evil, because evil is a term like good, every man has a different opinion of it. Taris was a disaster, evil to some, stupid to others, indeed it is more gross stupidity that evil that caused that.
There is not definative answer. Just an endless pool of grey areas. SW has the advantage of being able to paint one side as good, the other evil. But even then, it is ambiguous, what would Malak do if he had won? We cannot say, what would the Republic do to Revan? We do not know, the redeemed person who saved their cause, is it evil to kill them?

This topic is interesting because it is perception that is being judged and not anything

That is a tough question. I think eventually all Sith have to make a decision, they can walk the line for only so long. Darth Vader made his choice (more than once). Darth Bane made his, and I am sure so did Palpatine.

A great example would be Jacen Solo, aka Darth Ceadus. He set out to become a Sith, not from a desire to conquer, but a desire to bring peace to a warring galaxy. However, his tactics have become increasingly evil, due to his falling to the Dark Side. I suppose in the end, whatever your intentions, the Dark Side will prevail.

Hope you got an "A" on your paper. I've been thinking about this for awhile and I wanted to put my 2 cents in your discussion. "Evil" is a social label, in the sense that we as a society live a certain way, have certain values and believe that this other set of "values" that we equate to being bad are "evil". It's our definition.

This is all about critical thinking and i hope everyone understands that this does NOT give us license to do whatever we want in our society. In order to live peacefully and in an orderly fashion, we accept that there are rules. And by these rules, we make our definitions on "good" and "bad".

Sith: Evil and selfish.

Just looking back on my old blogs, yeah i got an A