(no subject)

[lauralh]

for tyrven

Sithwards Induction, or: The Dark Side for Grad Students

"Whatever the aesthetic flaws of the Stars Wars prequels, they do provide what is arguably the most impressive example of backwards induction in fiction. When Palpatine first appears in Episode I, he is a mere Senator from Naboo. When Episode III ends, he is the totalitarian ruler of the galaxy. So how did he do it?"

Comments

[tyrven.livejournal.com]

Also, to seem like more of a geek than I actually am for a minute: in the Knights of the Old Republic video games, they go into much more depth on the philisophical difference between the sith and jedi / light and dark side. It essentially paints the Jedi as ideologists and the Siths as realists (with a survival of the fittest sort of attitude). THe second game in the series, although having some major design flaws, was really interesting in that it didn't provide an obvious judgment call for good v. evil as Joseph Campbell's application of the force read in the original series. The Sith philosophy actually was very consistent with my (theoretical, not always applied) views of the world (very objective, detached, pragmatic).

(Somehow I think I still ended up playing the light path, out of some preestablished expectation of moral pride).

Also, there were things you could do that were selfless but which would grant darkside points because of longterm consequences. FOr instance, stopping a petty thief from robbing a citizen creates a learned helplessness and the citizen is made weaker for it; long-term consequence = negative.

For a video game, it was surprisingly intelligent and insightful. Far more so than the new movies.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

wow, yeah, that does sound rather complex for a game.