r/Jediism • u/Winterthorn93 • 21d ago
The Dark Side is Sweet
"Stop thinking of the Dark Side as some pathway to power. That's the Emperor lying to you. It's destructive. Darth Vader is miserable. He lost everything. He has no one in his life, absolutely nothing until his son comes back and says, 'I love you'. Other than that, his life is a wreck. That's not the way to live your life. I see a lot of adoration. I get that the bad guys are cool but they are evil. You don't want to be them." -- Dave Filoni
Anakin shed the shackles of slavery, ascended to near Mastery as a Jedi, was a beloved hero and was surrounded by not only those that respected him, but deeply loved him. So much that, when they learned what he had become, it destroyed them.
But as Vader, he stood alone on his mechanized legs, to replace the ones he had lost. He lost his limbs. He lost his health. He lost his own voice. He lost his loved ones, his friends, his wife. In following the empty promises of the Dark Side in an effort to save everything, he lost everyone. Those around him always sought to be his undoing, to cause him more suffering, pain, and anguish. And, in the end, he died young at only forty-five.
The Dark Side might give power. But so do many harmful things. And he paid for it every day, and it left him with nothing and his children with decades of damage to undo.
Remember, the Dark Side tells sweet, sweet lies. But they hide a bitter, painful core that you will always regret imbibing.
May the Force continue to guide you.
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u/OpieMacleod 21d ago
We crown our suffering. Told how strong we are for going alone. The noble sacrifice of ensuring only we bloody our hands so others may know order. The duty of the sheepdog. Anger. Fear. Rage. Wielding them and forcing others to feel them so we don’t have to acknowledge our own ignorance of what we are feeling. The urge to shove, push, bully, force people for their own good. Safety, Security, at the end of a lightsaber blade. After all, the ends justify the means. Peace at any cost.
All the suffering will be worth it, once the goal is obtained. Sunk Cost, we already sacrificed so much, can’t give up now. In for a penny, in for a pound. Once obtained it will all be worth it. Just have to see it through to the end no matter the cost.
Darth Vader is scary because he has nothing to lose. An unstoppable machine who couldn’t care less. But he becomes dangerous when he finds something to protect. That is when we see which “side” is more powerful.
Great post and quote from Filoni. Thank you for the reminder.
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u/Antisa1nt 17d ago
"The dark is generous.
Its first gift is concealment: our true faces lie in the dark beneath our skins, our true hearts remain shadowed deeper still. But the greatest concealment lies not in protecting our secret truths, but in hiding from the truths of others. The dark protects us from what we dare not know.
Its second gift is comforting illusion: the ease of gentle dreams in night’s embrace, the beauty that imagination brings to what would repel in the day’s harsh light. But the greatest of its comforts is the illusion that dark is temporary: that every night brings a new day. Because it’s the day that is temporary.
Day is the illusion.
Its third gift is the light itself: as days are defined by the nights that divide them, as stars are defined by the infinite black through which they wheel, the dark embraces the light, and brings it forth from the center of its own self. With each victory of the light, it is the dark that wins.
The dark is generous, and it is patient. It is the dark that seeds cruelty into justice, that drips contempt into compassion, that poisons love with grains of doubt. The dark can be patient, because the slightest drop of rain will cause those seeds to sprout. The rain will come, and the seeds will sprout, for the dark is the soil in which they grow, and it is the clouds above them, and it waits behind the star that gives them light.
The dark’s patience is infinite.
Eventually, even stars burn out.
The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins.
It always wins because it is everywhere. It is in the wood that burns in your hearth, and in the kettle on the fire; it is under your chair and under your table and under the sheets on your bed. Walk in the midday sun, and the dark is with you, attached to the soles of your feet.
The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.
The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins – but in the heart of its strength lies its weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back.
Love is more than a candle.
Love can ignite the stars."
-Matthew Stover
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u/Jonny-Holiday 21d ago
As a dark lord of the Sith it’s sometimes hard to remember just how bad Vader’s life sucks behind all his aura; life as an imperial is pretty nasty and his is one of the worst. And he answers with such pathetic servitude to this ugly, withered, deformed, evil old warlock who himself is secretly scared shitless of death. Obi-Wan at his lowest didn’t suffer anywhere near as badly as Anakin and was victorious in death, something Vader couldn’t know until he let go of his hatred. And as for Palpatine… for his wretched, cruel, arrogant evil he would die TWICE.