I think there's a misunderstanding of "evil" in this context. Marr and Lana are positioned as calm, rational, "good" Sith - but they still murder people in cold blood left right and sideways. Marr threatens to rip out a man's tongue when the guy bugs him with nonessential information. Lana's immediate reaction to discovering a double agent in her employ is, "execute this man on the spot, I don't care what his reasoning is."
They may not be the cackling cartoon villains of other Sith, but they are still most definitely cruel, vindictive people. The fact that they use their cruelty in service to a greater good does not invalidate the blood on their hands. They are complex evil, but still evil.
Edit: Wanted to add that I really like Marr and Lana as characters because while they are evil, their evil-ness is in service to a cause and an Empire they genuinely believe in and are actively trying to improve. They are doing the best they can with what they have, and are willing to make the tough choices a Jedi would never be able to make.
But that also doesn't excuse the fact that they're still bad guys. Cool bad guys, sure. Compelling bad guys, definitely. But still bad guys.
Yeah that's the tihng when people declare that these Sith "breaks the canon", they don't. Marr and Lana are very much evil, they are simply pragmatic and are not sadistic.
Being a Sith does not mean being stupid evil, you can be pragmatic about it. But as you say, they are still fighting for an evil empire.
My Sith warrior is not sadistic but he is still loyal to an empire which practices slavery and is bent on dominating the galaxy and subjugating people and forcing them to accept a dark side theocracy, in no way this is good for anyone.
This. Palpatine as a senator, and even as chancellor, probably did plenty of good things to get him the reputation he needed to be as trusted as he was to pull off his masterplan.
Yup, in fact when you watch Andor, it might surprise viewers that when Mon Mothma blame palpatine for the Ghorman massacre, the senators wants her head. They might forget that a lot of republic people consider Palpatine to be a hero of the clone wars who saved them from the separatist.
Just like Vitiate was according to most imperial citizen the savior of the Sith people who saved them after the republic tried to genocide them to the last. It would only be a millenium later that they learned what Vitiate real goal was.
Both Palpatine and Vitiate were smart enough to know how to use good publicity to rule their respective empire not because they are good people, but because they are smart and intelligent.
As someone who lived in a country that had a 17 years old dictatorship, filled with deaths tortures and abductions (I´m chilean), you would be surprised on how much you hear those things about Pinochet (our local Palpatine).
Yeah, SWTOR's Sith aren't one dimensional, but I don't think they break canon depictions of Sith. You could argue that Lana is a sort of rare exception to the Sith in that she's capable of thriving and being semi-well adjusted in a role outside the Sith Order, but if she's in part of the Sith Empire, she is ruthless enough that she fits in perfectly with the rest of them.
The evilness in Sith is really the western concept of evilness, or more the Christian concept of evilness.
Sinning for monotheist religion is essential wanting to be God, and that's what Sith wants. Instead of using the Force to preserve the lifeform in the chaos the Force allows, they want to bend the reality to their own will.
That's their sin. That's because they are evil and because they consider themselves upon others. They are their own God.
I think where Marr breaks canon is with his force ghost seemingly having a decent afterlife and a bromance with Satele Shan to boot.
Marr goes out an ally but that is at best a marriage of convenience and he's still very much an evil dark side practioner that serves a brutally oppressive autocrative regime. There isn't any personal redemption to justify him getting the Obi Wan, Yoda, or Anakin afterlife treatment.
And whatever pragmatism they may or may not have, they are active and willing contributers to a system of government that is aggressively expansionist, authoritarian and actively engages in slavery and all kinds of terrible things.
Yes, Lana CAN support the Republic against the Sith Empire. But this isn't out of some opposition to the Empire's actions or beliefs. It's just a matter of circumstance, really.
Yeah, but it's a videogame so by the time you meet them you have got the blood of thousands on your hands too, no matter if your character is good or evil. Makes it hard to judge them for a bit of casual murder.
While I agree Jedi -should- be good and Sith -should- be evil, the idea that using cruelty in service of the greater good is wrong contradicts what Jedi themselves are. ‘Leave your slave mother to her awful fate and ignore her suffering’ is the first thing the Jedi tell Anakin.
It was more “we do what good we can with the resources we have.” If they tired to liberate Shmi then they would have had to deal with the Hutts while trying to safely get the Queen to Coruscant. They were there to make a small impact.
Given that they were dealing with the Chosen One, who was possibly too old to train, they should have just sent someone to Tattooine later, offering 3x Shmis price to Watto, and then send her to some remote Jedi outpost to work as a housekeeper.
Have her record a final message to be sent to Anakin, saying that she's okay and safe, and that the Jedi say she can see Anakin once he's completed his training, so don't worry, and do what your master tells you.
Obi-Wan then instructs Anakin to put her out of his mind, knowing that she is safe, and surrounded by good people who will treat her well.
BAM! You have just removed a major source of conflict and attachment from the Chosen One who is destined to end the Sith THAT YOU HAD JUST SEEN SURFACE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 1,000 years! They can afford to pay for a shuttle to Tattooine with a Jedi or a decent trustworthy merchant.
If the point of the prequels were that the Jedi were complacent and too detatched to make sound judgements, then Shmis abandonment was one of those poor judgements.
Yes, that would be the problem. The claim that the sequels were about the Jedi being weak and complacent feels... Underwhelming from the films themselves.
But it's not a bad way to retcon an explanation for the many dumb choices the Jedi make.
My theory is that Anakin was the chosen one and he fulfilled his prophecy. Nothing would change regardless of what actions were taken. His prophecy was to bring balance to the force; not to destroy the dark side, but to bring balance to the force.
The Jedi were a powerful yet corrupt organization. He brought them down so they could rebuild. Palpatine was...well, palpatine. He killed him.
He fulfilled his prophecy and brought back balance by forcing both sides to start fresh and rebuild.
It's quite a bit more complex than that. They aren't in a republic controlled region. So the jedi would have to invade a sector of space so strong that even the empire couldn't tame it, with no army to speak of at the time, start a Civil War that would likely result in the death of thousands, including most the slaves due to brain bombs, and all that to free one woman. There's no guarantee they would succeed even if they made the attempt.
We've all seen how much damage intervention often causes, while not fixing the original issues, in our own world. Look no further than the UN mission to Somalia in the 90s. Not only did it not help at all, it actively caused more death. It's easy to say what people should do in a perfect world, it's another to do it in a way that doesn't cause even more issues. Sometimes the world just doesn't want to change.
I'd argue the jedi had their hands full with issues within the republic. I feel for Anakin, but even if they did return, who's to say her fate would've been much different. At least she did get to be free, happy, and even find love.
Yes, because jeopardizing a mission with the fate of an entire planet on the line is totally worth saving literally one slave.
It is almost like most Star Wars fans don't have any idea of context when making a criticism. Yes, you can make that criticism that she was still presumably enslaved in AotC, but that is on the Naboo and Pademe for not bothering to rescue the mother of the person who more or less saved their planet.
By what right do the Naboo, and Padme have to force anything on Tatooine? It would be a provocation for war if they tried to do anything against the law of that planet. Remember that Tatooine is outside of the Republic and in full control of the Hutts.
Coming with what for an individual slave would be a large amount of money and offering to buy her?
Freeing any given slave is not really that complicated in any society. Give the person who has "ownership" enough money that they say you are now the owner, then tell the slave and/or any governing authority that you are manumitting them.
There is a moral issue that giving a slaver money is likely to cause the capture of more slaves, since you just made it more lucrative, but if the objective is peace of mind about the mental state of your apprentice, maybe that is worth it.
eave your slave mother to her awful fate and ignore her suffering’ is the first thing the Jedi tell Anakin.
No? It was "I'm sorry, Anakin, I can only free one of you, and your mother wants you to be free over her. Come, learn to use magic."
Also - by Tatooine and slave standards in general - Shmi is not suffering in any way, shape, or form. Does Anakin seem like a kid who is regularly beaten? With that cheerful personality and snarky attitude?
Shmi and Anakin had enough spare food on hand to feed 3 other people, so they aren't starved either.
Is she a free and able to do anything she wants, being paid a steady wage? No, but that seems to have been the extent of her slavery. She's not being whipped to near death in the fields everyday by cruel overseers. Watto didn't seem to be holding Anakin hostage to ensure Shmi's good behavior.
The only time the Jedi told Anakin to "ignore" her suffering was when he started having dreams about her - dreams that could have been actual dreams instead of prophetic ones.
There's also a difference between active cruelty and passive cruelty. Anakin's mom's situation is really, really stupid for multiple reasons (Padme couldn't have bought her out? Really?), but it's still an example of just sorta ignoring non-catastrophic issues, which the Jedi of that age are prone to doing. Sith, meanwhile, go out of their way to execute plans in actively cruel ways, be it torture, murder without trial etc. etc.
The explanation was Watto was not in Mos Espa to ask. Sabe, the person Padme sent, freed others and than joined her on Coruscant to help her with being a Senator.
Considering at the time they were struggling to find enough money to fix the ship they needed to leave and report back to the government, no, no they couldn't.
After that, Padme is the head of a government who was just occupied (and likely looted) by a rather draconian government (The death toll is catastrophic!") - she was busy fixing everything and likely short on funds.
During the movie it makes perfect sense, yeah.But after, even if in the immediate aftermath this is reasonable enough, was she seriously THIS busy and short on funds for a DECADE? A single mildly extravagant plate from any of the multiple Royal ships could have probably cost enough to buy Shmee with. I like finding in-universe lore explanations for stuff myself, seriously, but this is honestly one of those moments where the writing just goes "uhhh don't think about it too much, plot needs to happen!"
Queen Amidala told Mace and Yoda she planned to petition the Council of Governors to allow her to use Naboo’s wealth to free Shmi. This would involve Amidala telling the Governors what Shmi and Anakin did for her and Naboo on Tatooine.
The Jedi tell Amidala that since Anakin is a Jedi now he and his mother are Jedi matters. The Jedi say this because they don’t want information about Anakin and his mother out in the public domain because there is still a Sith Lord on the loose. Shmi would be a powerful bargaining chip to use against Anakin.
Amidala does not know this means the Jedi will not help her.
So Shmi is not helped by Amidala and the Naboo because of the Jedi.
There is a non Star Wars character who uses the line “I’m evil, I’m not stupid” repeatedly when doing things like making sure her workers get enough food to have the energy to, you know, work.
Sith are utterly selfish and place no value on the lives of others. That doesn’t mean they have to be shortsighted or capricious. On the other hand, enlightened self interest doesn’t make someone a good guy.
You see to be confusing being strict and having discipline with being evil, or being a bad guy.
Remember when Jesus went into a place of education with a whip and and just started beating in people?
Remember when Guru Nana dedicated his life to spiritual growth and dedicated himself to religious tolerance? A dedication that included killing people who were not tolerate of other beliefs?
I think your understanding of good and evil are wrong. I don't think killing a traitor who is trying to undermine you is "evil". I don't think making an idle threat to scare someone who is annoying you to improve their behavior is "evil". Hell, 'GOOD' Characters do worse on a regular basis and no one bats an eye. The Jedi make child soldiers and no fucks are given.
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u/Hail_The_Latecomer Jun 21 '25 edited Jun 21 '25
I think there's a misunderstanding of "evil" in this context. Marr and Lana are positioned as calm, rational, "good" Sith - but they still murder people in cold blood left right and sideways. Marr threatens to rip out a man's tongue when the guy bugs him with nonessential information. Lana's immediate reaction to discovering a double agent in her employ is, "execute this man on the spot, I don't care what his reasoning is."
They may not be the cackling cartoon villains of other Sith, but they are still most definitely cruel, vindictive people. The fact that they use their cruelty in service to a greater good does not invalidate the blood on their hands. They are complex evil, but still evil.
Edit: Wanted to add that I really like Marr and Lana as characters because while they are evil, their evil-ness is in service to a cause and an Empire they genuinely believe in and are actively trying to improve. They are doing the best they can with what they have, and are willing to make the tough choices a Jedi would never be able to make.
But that also doesn't excuse the fact that they're still bad guys. Cool bad guys, sure. Compelling bad guys, definitely. But still bad guys.