danaan said:
Oh, ok. Sorry, my bad. I read it very quickly. Yes, he might indeed have thought himself to be the good guy. The way the scene is set up, though, the movie is pretty much telling us that if Luke kills the bad guys, the end result will be that he'll either become the Emperor's new apprentice, or the new Emperor (if he has the power to kill the Emperor, which the movie tells us is very unlikely). Either way, the good guys lose.
I'm not sure the movie is telling us that. Palpatine is telling Luke that. Palpatine also says it's Luke's destiny, he says that his place is at his side, he says that the Rebels won't win, he says that Luke has misplaced his faith in his friends. All of these things are proven untrue, why should the nature of Dark Side conversion be any different.
Yoda says there's a path to the Dark Side. Not a switch.
Besides, Luke used the Dark Side to beat Vader down and he didn't instantly become a Dark Side junkie. Yes, going all the way and murdering Vader would have been a more serious offense/commitment to the Dark Side. But I think Palpatine was really just playing head games with Luke.
xhonzi said:
Edit: Also,- whaddaya mean "short"? Working himself up to the level of rage so that he KILLS HIS OWN FATHER! How is that short?
I mean one action taken in a 10 minute fit of rage would not immediately overthrow his sense of right and wrong once he calmed down. How many people do you know completely change their personalities in a single day?
I'm saying Luke would have taken his first step down the path of the Dark Side. And that there would have been many more. But he wouldn't have already arrived.
But that's not what the movie says. 10 minutes of rage might not be consequential to you or me....even if those 10 minutes end with us killing someone, though I would think that such a situation would still be profoundly traumatic for someone who started those 10 minutes as someone with a great deal of ethical integrity.
Agreed.
But then, this is SW, and Luke isn't anyone. He's a Force user, and a Force user of great power, and when *he* lets loose he invites the Dark side. Indeed, he "gives himself" to the Dark side. The Dark side has agency, and a power of its own. Note how everyone is talking about how the Dark side is "seductive", and how Vader is an emotional slave of the Emperor. The Dark side is, clearly, kinda like crack for a Jedi. Once you get that powerful first rush - when you kill someone in rage, fuelling yourself with the Dark side...you're stuck and you're a junkie. And Luke, in that moment, is but a saberthrust away from crossing that point of no return and becoming a servant of evil.
I understand that that is one interpretation of how the Dark Side could work. But it's a very "I was possessed by the devil- I'm not responsible for my actions" kind of thing. Which greatly disinterests me. That's not seductive at all.
I think you'll find that fiction is full of a lot of that. Not an actual fall from grace, more like a snap of the fingers and somebody is evil. Or they're possessed, or they're controlled, or they're replaced by an evil twin. That's fine and it has its place... but I would rather see an evil actually corrupt a guy, not just control him.
I just can't buy that Luke would swear fealty to the Emperor after striking down Vader. If anything, his Dark Side rage would lead him to attack the Emperor. Maybe that battle would go on for a long time, The Emperor toying with Luke, and maybe Luke would continue to tap into more and more of the Dark Side and maybe then he would be ready to commit to it. But I think Luke's first reaction after the revenge/anger killing of his father would be strong amounts of both relief and regret. That's not the kind of emotion that would lead to immediately siding with your enemy.