[DF] Dragonlance

[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.