Evil in Star Wars…

I was just reading this months Empire magazine and they did a ‘top 20 movie villains’ article which Darth Vader won (Kylo came 7th). In the article they describe Darth Vader as “pure evil”.

For me, Vader isn’t even close to pure evil. If anything he is ‘lawful evil’, he only ever kills with good reason and seems quite rational. At one point in the carbonite scene when Chewie assaults a Stormtrooper Vader even prevents Boba from shooting the unarmed Wookie.

Vader had The Emperor, who really appeared to take glee and pleasure from being evil, which made Vader appear less evil by contrast. Kylo had Snoke, which did the same. We’ve seen this in Game Of Thrones. Characters like the Hound and Jamie Lannister are not good people, but by contrast to Joffrey and Ramsey they are saints, and so the audience can back them.

Would you say, Kylo is already more evil than Vader? And without Snoke in the next movie will the story necessarily have to present Kylo as more of a pure evil character? He will have to be ‘the big bad’, and so the story might have to abandon the shades of grey and present Kylo as a more hate-worthy villain?