My point has been that starting the path to the dark side at fear is inaccurate.
No. If you leave your fear unchecked, eventually you’ll get angry at it. Then you’ll hate it. And once you let that hate consume you, it’ll lead to suffering.
Basic example: a kid has abusive parents. This leads him to fear them. If he doesn’t confront this fear and get out of the situation somehow, then he starts to get angry at them because of this. He gets angry because of his powerlessness and the fact that he has to keep dealing with it. He then hates them, and if he lets his hate consume him, it leads to suffering.
This is literally shown step by step in the prequels. You know all those cheesy edits that show Anakin at different stages of his life with the words “Fear. Anger. Hate. Suffering”? Yeah.
The path may begin at fear, but through proper teaching that path can be trod without falling to the dark side.
It’s almost like that’s the point. You can overcome fear. You can overcome anger. You can overcome hate. But if you let yourself get consumed by any of them, you’re on the path to the dark side.