Now I know Star Wars isn’t a book series, since it is mostly movies, tv shows, and comics. However, there are several books that expand upon the Star Wars lore. And I mean the lore before Disney bought the franchise. Yes, I am not going to sugarcoat this, Disney has messed up the franchise from Lucas’s vision in more harmful ways than good ways. There are several youtube videos on how Disney Star wars is bad, so I won’t go every point. Instead I will be talking about one of main aspects they messed up in a writing perspective: the Jedi and Sith.
Let’s start with the vision of morally in Star wars. In the minds of Disney, when it comes to writing villains and heroes, there is no such thing as good or evil. In past posts, I have spoke of how a villain’s motives may be understandable, but not excusable. Thankfully, Lucas and I are on a similar page about this. In one interview he spoke about how the Light side and the Dark Side works. What he basically says is that the Dark Side is supposed to be tempting of power that is plesurable and easy to gain. However that power is temporary, making the user fear loosing that power and would do anything to keep make, making them selfish and angry. The Light Side is supposed to be the exact opposite: compassionate, selfish, and offers a path that requires effort to overcome fear and temptation. No matter how much details, powers, or complexities are added to the force, the basics of the Light and Dark remain the same
Darth Plagueis: Mentor of a Demon
Let me start off by saying that it’s not a good thing to relate to the villain. If one does, then they did to get their moral backgrounds checked. Let alone Emperor Palpatine. He’s not supposed to be relatable. he is supposed to the devil of Star Wars tempting people to be his pawns. In the Revenge of the Sith, when tempting Anakin Skywalker, he indirectly tells him that he killed his own master, Darth Plagueis the Wise, for his secrets. Now one may be wondering, “Wasn’t Plagueis a good Sith? He is called wise?” Yes, he did have some truth in his words, but he was still a user of the Dark Side of the force. In his book, while not as psychotic as other sith, he is still guilty of experimenting on innocent beings for his experiments on gaining immortality. Although he found the idea of evil laughable, that is the mindset villain has when justifying their crimes. Also keep in mind that he taught Palpatine everything he knew.
Darth Bane: Father of the Sith Legacy
This Sith has his own trilogy of books, expanding upon the culture of the Sith. To sum things up, this guy basically started the Rule of Two, which is a rule of only being two sith: one master and one apprentice. Bane has grown up in harsh work environment with an abusive father, however this back story hardly comes into play with what he became, a sith sought lost sith knowledge, torn down the Sith Order and began a new with a new apprentice. He did all this with the mentally a “survival of the fittest” mentality. His whole morality is built off strength and deception. The books were not to make the readers feel sympahty with Bane or side with him, they were only to describe why the Sith think they way they do.
Darth Vader
It’s only fair that I’d talk about the first Sith introduced in the original trilogy. Out of all the Sith in the Star Wars universe, Vader is the only one with redemptive ending. Now technically, when he turned on Palpatine, I would not say he was actually redeemed. If he had lived, he would still have to be put on trial for everything he has done. Instead of being redeemed, I think of it more as he saw a glimpse of a life that could have been if he hadn’t turned to the Dark Side.
Even if it was a redemption, it makes for the story because he has an actual relation with the hero while other sith, including the ones I mentioned, don’t have that. Not to mention he was a hero in the prequels and what the Revenge of the Sith did was shows what happens when one seeks easy power, even if its with the best of intentions. Anakin Skywalker started out wanting to save his wife, but that led to him becoming an empty shell of a man known as Darth Vader.
There are more examples I could bring up, but that would make too long of a post. Although these villains are part of a lore not everyone if familiar with the writing principles apply. When writing a villain, writers should ask them: What are my villains motivations? How does my villain think? What kind of backstory should the villain have and how will it relate to his present actions? How would the villain relate or challenge the hero? How does the hero over come the villain’s philosophy?