Alderaan said:

cyclista said:
I’d say Rowling definitely intends that the Good side is the right one, whereas Lucasfilm seems conflicted

This is a thing that I’m tired of. The prequels should have taken a noble man, Anakin Skywalker, and given him some kind of hamartia, and allowed that to lead to his downfall and ultimate turn to the dark side of the force.

I figure you’re referring to the “Lucasfilm seems conflicted” part of that statement, and I think there is another way I mean 'conflicted". First of all, I am with you 100% about several of the things you say. Kylo Ren: fuck that guy. I don’t care about his redemption. When Han touched his face before falling, it was sad in a pathetic kind of way, the emotional connection of a father to his revolting serial-killer son. The tragedy was there on so many levels. And if Leia tries to “save” her son in the future, I understand, but I will in no way be rooting for her to succeed. I want him gone, like I wanted Geoffrey from GoT gone. He’s a whiny scumbag and I don’t care about what he wants.

I also agree about Anakin’s arc in the prequels. He was also a whiny loser (though not a scumbag) and I don’t see why we should care about his turning to the good; does he get a pass on the millions he’s killed if he does? What?! Hell no.

I’m glad he saw the light before he died, and I think that was a fine turn of events. There’s no Christian-like God or Hell that we know of in Star Wars, and I think in that case even if he is beyond social redemption, cosmically speaking he can be sort of a flipped bit from 0 to 1 (or the reverse, whichever) if his soul is immortal (but not destined for Heaven or Hell), which in the SWU does seem to be the case. But this isn’t the same as the ridiculous suggestion that everything is ok now, and that if Vader had lived he’d be hanging out with the Rebels at their base and shit. Nope.

Thanks for introducing me to he word “hamartia”, by the way.

Yeah, I agree about these characters having personal responsibility required of them, in the final analysis. But leading up to that analysis there does need to be considered the fact that these kids (Kylo and Anakin) are damaged and full of more power than they can handle - think Tetsuo. Great power requires great control and a stable foundation, and this is something Harry Potter has, despite his crappy childhood. Anakin and Kylo are just too fucked up to resist their own power - and they both have cunning opportunistic handlers all too willing to manage it for them. So they have responsibility, and they are accountable, and we are justified in hating them, but they are victims of circumstance (part of which is the sly ambitions of others) as well. In a lot of ways I think Mace Windu’s scorn could have hurt Anakin’s chances of being able to do good, in that Mace could have been one more influence encouraging his wisdom and better judgement rather than just giving him suspicious looks and discouraging comments, though I doubt he could have fixed the problem alltogether.

As for “conflicted”, I simply refer to the “balance to The Force” aspect of the SWU, which I think goes back to ANH and ESB. And also why I invoked The Dark Crystal. I don’t think it refers to it being ok to destroy Alderaan or murder people, more to a presence of passion without corruption, rational thought without sterility, temperance without inertia.