[DF] Dragonlance

[Anthony]

In general the idea of being specifically "team evil" is problematic; wanting to do something because it is evil isn't completely unheard of, but most evil is just "I want X and I'm indifferent to the suffering I cause acquiring X" with the occasional "I want to cause suffering" (typically only in a limited group of people), and neither of those inherently creates a faction.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

Apprentices are extremely useful to have around. Not even a Sith can be in two places at once, and almost by definition they're constantly at work scheming. Is there a danger? Sure. But as far as they're concerned, either they buy into the plan or they just don't believe their apprentice could ever grow strong enough to defeat them. There are two much bigger weak links in the Rule of Two in my opinion: The possibility of one of them turning to the light, and the possibility of both of them dying at the same time. Obviously, both of these were involved in the final destruction of the Sith.

While it is true a Sith cannot be in two places at once that can be applied to leaders, commanders, and any other high position. That is why if you want get and hold power you get you need to follow The Rules for Rulers:
1) Get Key supporters
2) Control the Treasure (this gets a little wonky when you "treasure" is built enterally on debt )
3) Minimize Key Supporters

Also the Sith canonically (at least before Disney nuked the Extended Universe from orbit) went to the two Sith system because thanks to their power for the sake of power, self-aggrandizement, holding power and coveting power that they kept becoming like the Star Trek Mirror Universe ie so backstab happy you wondered how on earth they got anything done.

As for "final destruction of the Sith" as The Philosophy of Kreia shows the Force will not let the Sith end because there must be "balance" — yin vs yang...forever.

Remember the Force effectively set up the Jedi with a Delphish prophesy that the Chosen one would bring "balance" to the Force. Anyone who stepped back would have said 'wait a minute what exactly does that mean?' but no the Jedi happy go off and set things in motion that effective led to their own destruction never considering this "balance" would cause them to fall as they were the "dominate" group. While The Old Republic || The Force is Conflict is a Sith view it fits better than what the Jedi claim the force is about.

Heck, in the original trilogy Palpatine got thrown into a power core of a Death Star that blew up and yet he shows up as the ultimate big bad in the sequels causing those familiar with the lore going 'what does it take to actually kill this guy?!'

Film Theory: The Uncomfortable Truth about the Jedi Order (Star Wars: Jedi are Evil) and The Jedi are Evil take hard looks at the Jedi and they don't come off as that good.

[Opellulo]

Er...
As much as I understand that Youtube has become a sort of global repository of human (un)knowledge some of your points are way off target:
- That Rulers video is based on an infamous book that tries to apply Kissinger's doctrine to Cuba and, being unable to make sense of it, just spew out nonsense about social healthcare and education (that are sold like a bad thing because again the point of view is the one of 'murikan imperialism: "it must be because of some mysterious Key holder! People are worthless!")

- Star Wars (and especially the extended canon) is not a good example for anything related to politics, ideology or philosophy: it's simply a moral story for 6 years old where protagonists and villains are color coded. Kotor 2 is another bad example because it was a game released with a lot of content cut or underdeveloped. If you want a look beyond the force duality there is something in "Star Wars Rebels" but make your own search since that come out way after i stopped to care about the IP.

I mean it's not difficult to find better examples for discussing believable "Evil Representation", have you read the news lately?

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Opellulo

- Star Wars (and especially the extended canon) is not a good example for anything related to politics, ideology or philosophy: it's simply a moral story for 6 years old where protagonists and villains are color coded.

Except the color coding isn't consistent. Sure Vader wears black but the storm troopers wear white — something Slayers (anime) may have poked fun at when Amelia Wil Tesla Seyruun points to the villain and rambles about how white is the color of heroes — then realizing the villain is decked out in white. Oops.

Originally Posted by Opellulo

Kotor 2 is another bad example because it was a game released with a lot of content cut or underdeveloped.

Video games always have that problem. You can overdevelop characters and content to the point it becomes contradictory and nearly nonsensical — FNAF and WoW both cases in point.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

Apprentices are extremely useful to have around. Not even a Sith can be in two places at once, and almost by definition they're constantly at work scheming. Is there a danger? Sure. But as far as they're concerned, either they buy into the plan or they just don't believe their apprentice could ever grow strong enough to defeat them. There are two much bigger weak links in the Rule of Two in my opinion: The possibility of one of them turning to the light, and the possibility of both of them dying at the same time. Obviously, both of these were involved in the final destruction of the Sith.

No, minions are extremely useful to have around, from the perspective of a Sith Lord who actually behaved as one would reasonably expect someone permeated by the Dark Side to behave. In self-interested terms, one would expect a Sith Lord to train a Force-sensitive with enough skills to be useful, but not enough to be a threat. Probably such a Sith would trains several such, in secret from each other, to keep them from teaming up against him (though if he limited their training enough even that might not be an issue).

But to actually train an apprentice with everything you know, to actually try to make him as strong or stronger than you, goes against self-interest in a very profound way. The only way that makes sense is if the Sith Lord cares more about the continuation of the Sith, or making sure the Sith lineage is as strong as it can be, than he does about his own interests. Which cuts against the essence of the Dark Side.

There is a stage of evil past the absolute self-interested one, a stage only a handful of people ever display, and that's total nihilism, malicious hatred of everyone and everything including oneself. But that, too, doesn't lend itself to training apprentices to replace you the way the Sith supposedly do.

It's somewhat believable that Darth Bane might hate the Jedi so passionately that he's prepared to sacrifice himself through his Rule of Two to prepare the way for the Jedi's destruction down the road. Bane had, after all, tangled with the Jedi. But why would Darth 14th care about destroying the Jedi five centuries or so down the road? What does he get out of it?

Pure evil becomes self-destructive or at least self-obsessed. It's almost definitional.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by maximara

Except the color coding isn't consistent. Sure Vader wears black but the storm troopers wear white — something Slayers (anime) may have poked fun at when Amelia Wil Tesla Seyruun points to the villain and rambles about how white is the color of heroes — then realizing the villain is decked out in white. Oops.

If you think of black vs. white, the color coding doesn't work. But if you go by the grayscale empire, the earth tone rebels, and the blue/green independents... it's still inconsistent, but less so.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

But to actually train an apprentice with everything you know, to actually try to make him as strong or stronger than you, goes against self-interest in a very profound way. The only way that makes sense is if the Sith Lord cares more about the continuation of the Sith, or making sure the Sith lineage is as strong as it can be, than he does about his own interests. Which cuts against the essence of the Dark Side.

So, I'm not entirely up on all the lore (Legends or Canon... or even which is which), but... did any Sith actually do this? It seems like every instance I've read about, both master and apprentice bend the Rule of Two (masters tend to have another, hidden apprentice in the wings - like Palpatine grooming Anakin - while apprentices tend to have hidden apprentices of their own), the master invariably withholds some knowledge from the apprentice, and the master is surprised when the apprentice gets the upper hand and overthrows them. And of course every Sith ever wants to figure out immortality. Maybe some of the early Sith after Bane were willing to sacrifice themselves for the cause, but if feels like each of the others thought they were themselves the pinnacle of "Being a Sith," and their apprentices were simply useful tools... right up until the apprentice kills them and takes their place.

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

It's somewhat believable that Darth Bane might hate the Jedi so passionately that he's prepared to sacrifice himself through his Rule of Two to prepare the way for the Jedi's destruction down the road. Bane had, after all, tangled with the Jedi. But why would Darth 14th care about destroying the Jedi five centuries or so down the road? What does he get out of it?

I realize I'm essentially arguing with my above statement, but one possibility would be if each master specifically goes after apprentices who are willing to sacrifice themselves for the eventual destruction of the Jedi... or apprentices who the master can groom to become willing to do so. I don't know what Maul's issue with the Jedi was (although he was certainly eager to fight them in The Phantom Menace, and it seemed like there was some personal beef there), but Dooku had largely severed ties with them*, and Anakin was impressionable enough - and chaffed enough against the Order's restrictions - to be readily groomed into someone who absolutely despised the Jedi.

*From what I've read, Dooku was obsessed with finding and defeating the Sith, and he left the Order on account of their unwillingness to entertain the thought the Sith were anything but extinct. It's never made any sense to me why, if he were so obsessed with defeating the Sith, he would opt to join them. But I digress...

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Varyon

*From what I've read, Dooku was obsessed with finding and defeating the Sith, and he left the Order on account of their unwillingness to entertain the thought the Sith were anything but extinct. It's never made any sense to me why, if he were so obsessed with defeating the Sith, he would opt to join them. But I digress...

Some kind of 'destroy them from within' idea, and then he got in too deep, maybe?

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Varyon

So, I'm not entirely up on all the lore (Legends or Canon... or even which is which), but... did any Sith actually do this?

They did enough for the Sith lineage to keep going, which is quite a bit. Yeah, a lot of 'em tried to bend the rules or get around them, but they all trained up an apprentice who was dangerous enough to take them down. That's the part that kind of self-contradicts.

Palpatine was an exception on that, he kept Vader (he thought) inferior to him in power as a policy. But the others more or less did it. Not always exactly along the lines of the Rule, but close enough for it to work. Some of them were disappointed that their apprentices seemed weak or indecisive.

Which feeds back toward the original theme of the discussion. Trying to portray 'evil for evil's sake' as a philosophy almost never works believably.

Tolkien knew that, for ex. Even his portrayal of the greatest evil of them all, Melkor, isn't a champion of Evil for Evil's sake. He's a champion of Melkor. Melkor fundamentally resents the fact that God is God, and Melkor is not. He is motivated by his own hatreds and lust, but he doesn't follow a philosophy of evil. He is evil, and originates evil into the universe, but not for its own sake. As his primal rebellion proceeds, he reaches a point where he wants to unmake everything, but there again, it's not evil for evil's sake that motivates him, but his own personal hatreds.

Sauron, even more so, is not motivated by 'for the evuls' as such. He wants power and control, Sauron wants to rule the world. Sauron is a champion of Sauron. Along the way, the natural effects of corruption have made him sadistic and lustful and destructive, but he doesn't strive to do eveil for the sake of evil. He strives to make himself King of the World.

Likewise, Sauron's allies ally with Mordor for familiar diplomatic and nationalistic, cultural, and economic reasons. The Haradrim don't stand with Sauron because they believe in being Evil, they ally with Sauron because they share a historic and pragmatic hostility to Gondor. Ditto the Dunlendings' alliance with Saruman against the Rohirrim, the Dunlendings allied with Isengard because they have warred with the Rohirrim in the past, and want to conquer the lands of Rohan. Perfectly conventional motives.

And of course some of the people fighting for Sauron were mercenaries being paid. Again, not Evil for Evil's sake.

There are various ways to play 'chaotic evil'. 'Evil for evil's sake' produces weird results.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

=There are various ways to play 'chaotic evil'. 'Evil for evil's sake' produces weird results.

Trope Talk: Pure Evil looks at such versions of Evil. Too often chaotic evil comes off as a Grimdark "hero" ie someone who "behaves like a 13 year old sociopath on a power trip."

As I mentioned using King and Country and other articles as references alignments work best in simplistic games where world building is borderline nonexistent with NPCs little more than info/rumor/quest dumps for the heroes.

The more complex the setting is the less functional alignment becomes with special pleading needed to make the chosen alignment even make sense. It also dodges the key question - where exactly are the boundaries between the alignments?