Sith Question

[Alcuin]

No Sith ever survived permanently. Exar Kun managed to hang on as long as any of them, but only imprisoned in his temple; the same would be true of Naga Shadow. Eventually, life in the galaxy would have to terminate for any Sith, and then the result would be an endless agony in the Dark Side of the Force.

So, the question is: why bother? Why be a Sith at all? The end result is going to be worse than if you had ignored the Force altogether. No matter how much you enjoyed your time among the living or managed to hang on among the dead-but-not-yet-departed, you must eventually succumb to the inevitable fate of torture and madness that awaits the servants of evil, and worse, every Sith will be marked for more of it because he was a Sith and concentrated it in himself.

With such an inevitable downside looming, and with no way to ever reasonably expect that this bad outcome can be avoided, why be a Sith? Isn’t it the stupidest choice you can possibly make?

[Eragon]

It probably is.

[Curubethion]

It's the classic "Good-vs-evil" thing. You can trace it in places like Christianity, where Satan chose to imprison himself in eternal torment because he was so stubborn. I think that's part of it all: unwillingness to submit to another's leadership. Sith live for one thing: power. And they don't really want to share that power, either. Remember who killed Darth Pelagus?[sp?]

[me9996]

No one survives "permanently", not even in starwars (If you don't count jedi aperations or R2-D2)

Thus I don't quite get what you're point is, could you ilumanate?

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by me9996

No one survives "permanently", not even in starwars ... Thus I don't quite get what you're point is, could you ilumanate?

Just this. Would you rather be very, very powerful and (possibly) very, very rich for a short period of time, after which you die and fall into the “disembodiment in darkness, perpetual madness as if to always live with an open wound, terror without respite.”

If the bottom falls out for a Sith soul when it loses control of its ability to keep itself intact, which will eventually happen – in other words, it is relegated to a Star Wars version of “hell,” then why be a Sith? The Sith is always condemned to “hell” in the end, no matter what advantages it may gain during life. (The same might be asked of Sauron: did he not recognize that his rebellion against Eru must eventually lead to ruin? Or did he think that his actions were acceptable or even laudable and praiseworthy?) Given that this is the final fate of each and every Sith, I ask again: Why be a Sith?

[me9996]

Originally Posted by Alcuin

Just this. Would you rather be very, very powerful and (possibly) very, very rich for a short period of time, after which you die and fall into the “disembodiment in darkness, perpetual madness as if to always live with an open wound, terror without respite.”

If the bottom falls out for a Sith soul when it loses control of its ability to keep itself intact, which will eventually happen – in other words, it is relegated to a Star Wars version of “hell,” then why be a Sith? The Sith is always condemned to “hell” in the end, no matter what advantages it may gain during life. (The same might be asked of Sauron: did he not recognize that his rebellion against Eru must eventually lead to ruin? Or did he think that his actions were acceptable or even laudable and praiseworthy?) Given that this is the final fate of each and every Sith, I ask again: Why be a Sith?

People are crazy. Otherwise we would have already agreed on who is right in matters of religon... Maybe sith beleave that once they're dead their dead no matter what they did in life... Sorry if this sounds too much like I'm getting after athests and such but the sith do echo of it in this aspect...

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by me9996

Maybe sith beleave that once they're dead their dead no matter what they did in life... Sorry if this sounds too much like I'm getting after athests and such but the sith do echo of it in this aspect...

Ah, but like the rebellious Ainur, the Sith were not agnostic about an afterlife: they knew that there was a life after death, because they spoke to the spirits of other dead Sith not yet disintegrated from their former selves as part of their cult practices. Perhaps they mistakenly believed that they could retain their personal existence forever? If so, it would seem to be an error of monstrous proportions, a “lack of vision” for which each of them would “pay the price”, to paraphrase Sideous.

[hectorberlioz]

Very interesting thread and posts....

I never thought about it myself. But you know what they say, evil is so much more fun .

Of course, IMO, it gets pretty unoriginal and boring after the first three murders... (I'm kidding!)

But really. Evil is love at first sight, but it doesn't get any better. Good, on the other hand, while it is hard and boring at first, is ceaselessly complex and interesting.

[Earniel]

I suppose it also has to do with a limit of fore-sight. Not many people tend to think so far ahead. And I can think of many proverbs that advise that what you get today is better than what you might have tomorrow. It's pretty much human nature to think more in the present and near future than in the far-off one.

[Orchunter X]

Every Sith is different. Many believe that if they can become the most powerful of the group they can become immortal, defeating death itself (like Palpatine in the Dark Empire series). Others became Sith because they believed they saw no other option (Anakin in Ep. 3, Revan in the Knights of the Old Republic games). Others from various reasons turned to this path while others knew no different (there was a civilization of them, an Empire in fact), while others fell from the straight-and-narrow (fallen Jedi). Each is story unique, all are after power.

[orithil]

Its also based on yin and yang there can never be good without evil and thats true even these days there can never be good without evil and never evil without good so i think that it was just natural no matter how good people are they always still have there demons.

[orithil]

oh and one other thing sauron didnt rebel against Eru melkor did.

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by orithil

oh and one other thing sauron didnt rebel against Eru melkor did.

Sauron most certainly did rebel against Eru. He was not the beginning of the rebellion – that was Morgoth – but he was a rebel against Eru all the same. At one point in Morgoth’s Ring, “Myths Transformed”, in his discussion of orcs (p 410 in the hardback), Tolkien says that Sauron was “‘damned’”. In the essay “Notes on motives in the Silmarillion”, he writes

Sauron had not served Morgoth, even in his last stages, without becoming infected with his lust for destruction, and his hatred of God (which must end in nihilism). Sauron could not, of course, be a ‘sincere’ atheist. Though one of the minor spirits created before the world, he knew Eru, according to his measure. … he had already become evil, and therefore stupid, enough to imagine that [Gandalf’s] different behaviour was due simply to weaker intelligence and lack of firm masterful purpose. …

Sauron was not a ‘sincere’ atheist, but he preached atheism, because it weakened resistance to himself (and he had ceased to fear God’s action in Arda).

And Sauron “had ceased to fear God’s action in Arda” even after the Downfall of Númenor!

In Letter 156 to Father Robert Murray, SJ, Tolkien describes the “rebellion and evil of Morgoth and his satellite Sauron” as “absolute[ly] Satanic”, and later in the same letter, he calls Sauron a “satanic demon”. Finally in this letter, he calls Sauron’s deluding Ar-Pharazôn and the Númenóreans with the idea that they could “go up with war against the Blessed Realm itself, and wrest it and its ‘immortality’ into [their] own hands” “a Satanic lie.”

Returning to “Notes on motives in the Silmarillion”, Tolkien writes of Sauron’s seductioning Ar-Pharazôn and the Númenóreans into the worship of Melkor,

His cunning motive is probably best explained thus. To wean one of the God-fearing from their allegiance it is best to propound another unseen object of allegiance and another hope of benefits; propound to him a Lord who will sanction what he desires and not forbid it.

It is no defense of him when Gandalf says to Frodo, “nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so.” (FotR, “The Council of Elrond”) It is still condemnation: Sauron is evil, and that he did not begin in evil, but chose to be by rebelling against Eru, whom he knew personally and was absolutely certain had created him, makes Sauron all the more evil: he is rebelling against his very being, and against its source and essence. Nor it is any defense to say that “Sauron was not a ‘sincere’ atheist,” but rather all the more damning: he knew the Truth, but he chose to deny it anyway and did his utmost to prevent others from knowing it and pervert those who did.

Sauron was evil, and the reason he was evil was his rebellion against Eru.

[orithil]

ahhh

[Tig]

This is my answer to the Sith question, if I understood what was being asked. To "Why?" I say this: The Sith figured they could become stronger than any other before them, or of their time, or of the future. And with power like that, though none of them were as powerful as they thought they were, why would they have to ever even face death? That is just a guess at their logic, of course, but all the more reason for them to struggle and kill over power. Seems only one Sith could live forever, so they spent time killing each other while trying to find out if they were that one Sith or not -- I believe they all found the answer was that they were not. Make sense? An endless chain of hateful elimination, in which nobody is left at the end, and more are always joining.

[Curubethion]

That's an interesting take on the subject. I like it.

[orithil]

as george lucas says the advantage the sith had was that they planned and schemed before they acted.

[Tig]

This might all be a conclusion of some twisted wishful thinking ("Oh, wouldn't it be cool if we could just be invincible, and then enslave the universe?!"), and then they acted on it, or their plan might have been more thought out than it seems. Maybe they agreed that they would kill each other if that's what it took to find the "All-powerful Sith Lord of Evily Goodness," and it's just nobody has been able to meet the requirements yet. If it was the later, then the Sith certainly got a lot more twisted along the way...

[XRogue]

Perhaps the Sith think that if they can become powerful enough, they can avoid being condemned to dissipation/outer darkness/whatever.

[hectorberlioz]

Bad guys...they always think they can get away with being naughty...