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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6752295" data-attributes="member: 4937">When I'm asked to define alignment, I usually define it as those most deeply held beliefs that we hold on to whenever we are tested.  Until you are tested, you don't know who you are.  Testing both defines and refines who a person is.  The Jedi/Sith problem however is nearly as bad as the Batman problem.  Whenever someone asks, "What alignment is Batman?", the proper response is to ask, "Which version of Batman do you mean?"  Over time Batman has been presented by different authors in a number of different and sometimes mutually exclusive ways.   In the same fashion, we need to ask, "Do you mean the Jedi/Sith how they were presented by Lucas as a young man in the original trilogy, or do you mean the Jedi/Sith how they were presented by Lucas as an older man with apparently changed feelings and beliefs in the prequels?"  And I suspect that we are about to muddy the waters further, with yet a different take on the Dark Side and the Light in the sequels.   The original trilogy emphasized the conflict in terms of Light/Dark, and very much a contest between good and evil with a "love conquers all" message at the end of the story.  But the prequels emphasized the conflict in terms of Jedi/Sith where the contest was much more in D&D terms law versus chaos, and emotions - including love, compassion, joy, sympathy, and the like - were very much a component of the Dark Side.   The Jedi were presented as unfeeling rationals, both by their own wisest members and by the Sith.   Where as the Sith were presented as aggrieved believers in passionate feelings, not so much inherently evil as simply blindly consumed with a desire for vengeance on their Jedi oppressors.  In the final contest, as to whom is more loving and merciful, Palpatine comes off as rather nicer in some ways than Obi Wan, and one is left thinking that neither the Sith nor the Jedi are particularly a force for good but rather this has descended into a contest between Lawful Nuetral and Chaotic Evil, with the many Jedi being divided over the issue of good and the few Sith having no good representative. As I said, the Jedi after the prequels no longer come off as a force for good, but I don't think you quite capture the nuance of the problem here.  I don't think that the Jedi see ignorance as a defense.  The Jedi seem to see the "rush" itself as being the Dark Side, and the defense against it to be the practice of non-attachment, tranquility, rationality, and to be frank a certain level of indifference.  The Jedi equate all strong emotions, including love, with the Dark Side and so practice self-denial, non-attachment and so forth as a defense against the emotionalism that is the Dark Side.  One open question is whether they are actually right, and all strong emotions come from the Dark Side, or whether they are wrong and the proper protection against the "rush" felt when experiencing the Dark Side is actually strong countering emotions. The two movie trilogies are deeply divided on this.  The original trilogy answers that, yes, strong positive of love, pity, concern, affection are actually the counter to the power of the Dark Side.  The prequels however answer rather that strong positive emotions like love and so forth are actually no defense against but strengthen the power of the dark side.The critical scene in all 6 movies then, in the light of the prequels, is Luke Skywalker correct when leaves training to go save his friends, or is Yoda correct when he tells Luke that he must not do so, and that in doing so he's committing his life to the Dark Side.   I'm hoping (and it's a rather forlorn hope), that the sequels will address this most outstanding problem in the Star Wars canon - were the Jedi actually wise?Now, back to your point, I think it's important to defend yourself by arming yourself against the power of 'the dark side', but I don't actually subscribe to the belief that a little experience of evil makes you stronger to resist it.  I'm not a believer in, "You have to get it out of your system."I fully agree with this as a possible interpretation, and I would say, excellent role playing.   But I'm not convinced that he wasn't self-centered in the first place, and now he's beginning to witness himself being true to that conviction.  It depends on whether or not there really is a big moral crisis going on here, and whether he actually cared that much about justice in the first place.  Justice is not motivated primarily for concern about the criminals.  Justice is motivated primarily for concern about the victims, either as individuals or in terms of the social harm that crime causes.  Actually just wanting to defeat or kill the criminals, because they are criminals and it's fun, isn't a strong lawful motivation.  It's indulging a taste for violence in a socially approved manner, perhaps because you are smart enough to realize in this manner you can get away with doing it.  The actual motivation here might be to vain-gloriously boast to yourself how much stronger and smarter you are than the people you defeat.</blockquote>

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