Why it' so hard to have credible Star Wars Imperials that are not villains.

[Endus]

The version I know simply creates an order of disciples who should never act at all.

To me, if there's any agenda beyond the Jedi religion, it's not coming from true Jedi.

Or else please explain to me how I've misinterpreted this.

It's not so much that little passage, it's everything else. There's a reason I said "creed" and not "Code". The Jedi Code looks okay, but so does the Sith Code;

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.

That's a Code about personal freedom, individual responsibility unto one's self, and so forth. Not evil concepts at all. The Code isn't the problem. It's how that code's been interpreted and enacted. Hell, you could easily argue that the entire Rebellion follows the Sith Code. They drum up everyone's emotions to keep morale high. That boosts their strength, which brings them victory, which frees them from Imperial oppression.

The evil in the Jedi comes from interpreting passages like "There is no emotion, there is peace" to mean that all emotion is evil and wrong, and in how the Jedi have engaged in thousands of years of slaughtering any and all Force-users who wouldn't join their ranks. If the Force user in question wasn't "bad" and didn't declare themselves Sith, the Jedi might not have actively hunted them, but this is why the Jedi are the only Force-users extant during the canon film era, which given that Force sensitivity is natural and not trained, shouldn't ever happen otherwise. How the Jedi freely engage in what is essentially mind-rape, without caring about the free will of those they've victimized; they don't even consider their freedom to be worth considering.

I struggle to see how they could be portrayed as "the good guys". This mostly comes about from the prequels, because the original three films were smart enough to never dig too deep into history or Jedi/Sith codes, and you considered the characters on their individual actions, not the group's, but the prequels bring that all down.

How many innocent people were on the death star when it exploded?

Given that the Death Star was populated entirely by Imperial soldiers, who were all contributing to the running of a world-destroying superweapon that was already responsible for millions of deaths, I'd venture "none". It's a clear military target.

[Halyon]

I am sort of confused as to why you feel like there should be a "need" to paint the Imperials as sympathetic, or decent or whatever. The empire, as a whole, was modeled off of pretty much the WORST aspects of every kind of Fascist, militaristic, Iron fisted dictatorship tropes you could scrape the bottom of the barrel for. Sure, the average "imperial citizen" was probably a fairly normal person. But you can be pretty much guaranteed that anyone associated with the Imperial military with a rank above "expendable lightsaber fodder" was probably about as sympathetic as your average Waffen SS Officer. It would take very little time at all as an operating member of the Imperial Forces to realize exactly what kind of organization you were working for.

Yeah, the Empire as a whole. Not individuals. There are people who like the more rigid system of the Empire, but don't support the corruption, slavery, etc. Unfortunately it's a very pervasive rot, making it hard as hell for 'sane' Imperials to rise up in the ranks and get some spotlight...there's a big chance that they'll get offed for being a traitor, more ambitious people wanting to remove competition (assuming the individual is competent enough to want to overtake their spot), or both.

Hating groups of people and their ideals is easy enough, hating every individual without merit is not.

[urasim]

https://s1.postimg.org/4fan3mpaan/584a8ee4f3654.jpg

Uhh. why is sarahtasher of all people advocating for sympathetic white supremacy? Why advocate for their enemies to be less sympathetic? Beating Nazis is the ultimate moral good!

Yeah, chancellor Sheev Palpatine(Darth Sidious) is analogous to chancellor Adolf Hitler. Very comparable with the tactics used to gain power.

[Deleted]

good point...im sure there are good nazis around somewhere...

Trump said so himself.

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It's not so much that little passage, it's everything else. There's a reason I said "creed" and not "Code". The Jedi Code looks okay, but so does the Sith Code;

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.

That's a Code about personal freedom, individual responsibility unto one's self, and so forth. Not evil concepts at all. The Code isn't the problem. It's how that code's been interpreted and enacted. Hell, you could easily argue that the entire Rebellion follows the Sith Code. They drum up everyone's emotions to keep morale high. That boosts their strength, which brings them victory, which frees them from Imperial oppression.

The evil in the Jedi comes from interpreting passages like "There is no emotion, there is peace" to mean that all emotion is evil and wrong, and in how the Jedi have engaged in thousands of years of slaughtering any and all Force-users who wouldn't join their ranks. If the Force user in question wasn't "bad" and didn't declare themselves Sith, the Jedi might not have actively hunted them, but this is why the Jedi are the only Force-users extant during the canon film era, which given that Force sensitivity is natural and not trained, shouldn't ever happen otherwise. How the Jedi freely engage in what is essentially mind-rape, without caring about the free will of those they've victimized; they don't even consider their freedom to be worth considering.

I struggle to see how they could be portrayed as "the good guys". This mostly comes about from the prequels, because the original three films were smart enough to never dig too deep into history or Jedi/Sith codes, and you considered the characters on their individual actions, not the group's, but the prequels bring that all down.



Given that the Death Star was populated entirely by Imperial soldiers, who were all contributing to the running of a world-destroying superweapon that was already responsible for millions of deaths, I'd venture "none". It's a clear military target.

What about the families? Have you not seen clerks? (The movie)

[Halyon]

Given that the Death Star was populated entirely by Imperial soldiers, who were all contributing to the running of a world-destroying superweapon that was already responsible for millions of deaths, I'd venture "none". It's a clear military target.

How many were forced under threat of their life to fulfill work there (Rogue 1 is an example of this), thus can be considered innocent? Since it is the Empire we're talking about, and I just gave benefit of doubt in my previous comment, I will also say that surviving is also a pretty common trait for any Imperial, no matter if they're 'comfortable' in the Empire, or forced into either slavery, servitude, or resigned to a life of keeping up a front to not get killed or tortured and then killed.

[urasim]

https://i.imgur.com/tncuiuZ.jpg

"ouch"

Except it wasn't a terrorist attack. Terrorism has a specific definition that says a terrorist attack has to target civilians and be political. Luke was at war and targeting a military base. Whereas the death star fired and killed millions of civilians for political pursuits. They're the real terrorists.

[Direpenguin]

, kinda similar to how the Nazi continue on

They continue on? Please tell me the country(s) they control. Where do they rank, militarily, on the global scale (naval might, air force battle tank and attack helicopter numbers as well)? I mean, I keep hearing idiotic statements talking about *fighting nazis* blah blah blah... but Nazi, now-days, just refers to anyone with beliefs counter to the extreme-Left.

If you are referring to an ideology, then their numbers are too small to even consider significant. Especially if you contrast them with the number of other genocidal ideologies, such as communism or radical Islam.

But yeah... Nazi's are such a problem...

[belfpala]

I struggle to see how they could be portrayed as "the good guys". This mostly comes about from the prequels, because the original three films were smart enough to never dig too deep into history or Jedi/Sith codes, and you considered the characters on their individual actions, not the group's, but the prequels bring that all down.

You're correct here. As films, the original three only have Obi-wan and Yoda as Jedis, and they're more concerned with training Luke to defeat Vader and Palpatine which we consider (as viewers) to be the evil. Yoda, I suppose, gets into code somewhat when Luke goes off to save the rest of his crew.

Of course, Palpatine and Vader are presented as hunting down all other force users, which isn't such a nice thing either. I hadn't considered that since the Jedi did most of the job first, just going after the Jedi was the same goal. We've only seen what, Count Dooku as an established "neutral" force user?

But in the prequels, the Empire didn't exist. We first encounter the term Sith. Is it only in the games and books that the Sith were a civilization the Republic wiped out?

Fascinating, anyway.

[Antiganon]

Imperials are pretty much just the bad guys.

Even the best leadership that the Empire has to offer (Thrawn, Pellaeon) operate under the pretense that the the general population is inherently destructive and stupid, and needs to be controlled.

The worst among the Empire's leadership (Isard, Palpatine, Tarkin) are willing to brutally slaughter billions of people, just to make the Rebels look bad.
- Palpatine precipitated the largest conflict in recent galactic history for the sole purpose of casting Chancellor Valorum as incompetent, attaining the chancellorship for himself, consolidating emergency wartime powers, creating a submissive army of clones with supreme loyalty to him personally, eliminating his would-be rivals in the Trade Federation, eliminating the democratic rule of law, and imposing a brutal dictatorship across the entire galaxy.
- Tarkin blew up an entire planet, a planet that literally had no weapons and was an Imperial member state, as an interrogation tactic. The purpose of the interrogation was to identify the planet where the Rebel base was located, so he could blow that one up also. He also created the weapons program that resulted in the Death Star in secret, in an uncharted area of space, after capturing prodigy-level children and training them to build weapons of mass destruction. He used the capture and torture of these children's families as incentive for them to do well. He murdered the children who underperformed.
- Isard, among other things, created the Krytos virus as a false flag to make the Rebels look weak. She also precipitated a vast, intentional shortage in essential life saving medicine, for the entire purpose of making the virus worse. This resulted in incredible pain, suffering, and death for millions of non-humans, and would have resulted in far worse had she not been thwarted by Wedge & Co.

The vast majority of Imperials are "just following orders", which, as Nuremberg showed us, is no excuse for criminal behavior.

This is not to say that the Rebels are entirely blameless - look at the actions of the diplomatic corps in X-Wing: Starfighters of Adumar; they back a despot who is attempting to consolidate his rule over an entire planet rather than engage independently with the various nations that comprise said planet.

[segara82]

Yeah, i remember the discussion on the FFG forums when Age of Rebellion launched and imperial campaigns were debated/demanded.
While a evil villain makes for a good enemy in a movie or short run/adventure, a long running adventure or setting needs a villain that fits into the whole internal setting of his universe.
So not every imperial official/moff/admiral can be a mustache-twirling, evil-for-evils-sake megalomaniacal douchebag without making the whole setting look like a gathering of completely inept idiots both too stupid to free themselves or keep the others under control. Not to mention that it gets dull if there is only one kind of evil guy running the show.

[Antiganon]

Yeah, i remember the discussion on the FFG forums when Age of Rebellion launched and imperial campaigns were debated/demanded.
While a evil villain makes for a good enemy in a movie or short run/adventure, a long running adventure or setting needs a villain that fits into the whole internal setting of his universe.
So not every imperial official/moff/admiral can be a mustache-twirling, evil-for-evils-sake megalomaniacal douchebag without making the whole setting look like a gathering of completely inept idiots both too stupid to free themselves or keep the others under control. Not to mention that it gets dull if there is only one kind of evil guy running the show.

I mean, they aren't. Thrawn and Pellaeon (among others) are more like a Rommel character (for the other poster that asked earlier). They still believe in the basic idea that the Empire needs to forcibly control the lives of the general population, for their own good.

[sarahtasher]

I'm not saying that there are not decent Imperials (they can be counted on one hand, two hands maybe). However, the depiction of the Empire/First Order/Sith Empire (The Old Republic) make them isolated spots of sanity in general ''villainy for the lulz''. For instance, the recent novel and comic Phasma made Littlefinger looks like a noble hero.

What I was saying that attempts at giving some sympathy toward Imperials are not working very well-both Battlefront II and the comics feature special forces teams fighting people they term ''terrorists''. That would be a chance to make Imperials not look like hysterical villains, by using basic but efficient narrative (''they fight terrorists and do horrible things for what they think is a good cause''), but it fails utterly by not providing not much into examples of Rebels doing remotely vilainous stuff.

In a quite face palm moment, the Inferno Squad novel, which is supposed to present a minimally positive view of the Imperials, feature a off-shoot of Gerrera partisans, down to ''subtly'' having kamikaze belt expies. Yet all those ''terrorists'' do is to attack at one time wholesome Imperial citizens like slavers (who are Imperial intelligence assets sacrificed by their handlers to reach the Rebels) and the Imperial special force do the actual terror bombings on their own schools...

[Brubear]

You definitly had to suspend some believe for Maul, even in a fantasy setting, the mistake was obviously killing him The Phantom's Menace though. It makes no sense in the who Sith narrative for him to have been just a throw away character if Palpatine bothered making him a Darth. I argued earlier that Dooku was a "fake" but he still had more use than Maul if you're going off the movies alone. Maul sort of returns to "normalcy" after his whole being resurrected thing. I really like (Rebels spoilers) Maul and Obi-Won being sort of the tragic ends of being devote and talent members of their respective orders who saw those orders fall in front of them. Maul saw Palaptine become the embodiment of the Sith before the Rule of Two, Obi-Won witness the Jedi get caught up in their own arrogance which led to their downfall.

What have they done with Boba Fett though (thats canon)? He is a test tube baby with good genes, I don't remember then doing anything out of the ordinary with him. In Clone Wars Boba Fett is a kid Mandalorian doing Mandalorian stuff, theres Mandalorians that do far more ridiculous things than him.

The whole having Fett survive the Sarlacc (was more of a thing in the movie novelizations and EU stuff then Rebels/TCW), is a similar thing to Maul for me. He gets killed off on-screen then brought back later through other media because he was so popular, much like Maul was.

[Endus]

Yeah, i remember the discussion on the FFG forums when Age of Rebellion launched and imperial campaigns were debated/demanded.
While a evil villain makes for a good enemy in a movie or short run/adventure, a long running adventure or setting needs a villain that fits into the whole internal setting of his universe.
So not every imperial official/moff/admiral can be a mustache-twirling, evil-for-evils-sake megalomaniacal douchebag without making the whole setting look like a gathering of completely inept idiots both too stupid to free themselves or keep the others under control. Not to mention that it gets dull if there is only one kind of evil guy running the show.

I mean, the Empire lasted a grand total of 23 years, largely because of how much their strict oppression fomented thoughts of rebellion among their subjects. It's not like Palpatine was sitting on a hundred years of iron-fist rule, or something.

[sarahtasher]

The whole having Fett survive the Sarlacc (was more of a thing in the movie novelizations and EU stuff then Rebels/TCW), is a similar thing to Maul for me. He gets killed off on-screen then brought back later through other media because he was so popular, much like Maul was.

It can be argued that Darth Tyrannus is a desginated vilain in universe. Lore make abundantly clear that for the average citizen in the Galaxy, ''Jedi'' or ''Sith'' are sects of the same thing. Tyrannus is, for the Republic, the vile Jedi turncoat that oppose the virtuous chancellor (See, good citizen, the Jedis are traitorous-looks how like Tyrannus tried to lead a plot to overthrow the republic)

That Tyrannus and Grievous acts like vilains is actually perfectly logical in universe : they are supposed to be the vilains in the play Palpatine is running.

[Gamdwelf]

This thread is the exact discussions we should be having about star wars.

Nobody has discussed lost stars though, it's about 2 kids who grow up on a planet that was ignored by the Republic, but the empire brings prosperity too, at least at first.

The reader follows the journey of the kids into the imperial academy and thrrew events of the original trilogy.

It was an amazing look at "good" imperials.

[eillas]

The closest good imperial in the new canon imo is Eli Vanto.

[Nazrark]

I believe it is because most Imperials that are sympathetic characters just defect. It happens with a lot of interesting officers. Agent Kallus in Rebels defected because he saw more hope and humanity in the Rebels than the Empire.

[Brubear]

It can be argued that Darth Tyrannus is a desginated vilain in universe. Lore make abundantly clear that for the average citizen in the Galaxy, ''Jedi'' or ''Sith'' are sects of the same thing. Tyrannus is, for the Republic, the vile Jedi turncoat that oppose the virtuous chancellor (See, good citizen, the Jedis are traitorous-looks how like Tyrannus tried to lead a plot to overthrow the republic)

That Tyrannus and Grievous acts like vilains is actually perfectly logical in universe : they are supposed to be the vilains in the play Palpatine is running.

Think you quoted the wrong person?

[Super Kami Dende]

Swtor is full of non-villain imperials.

Maybe indulge in a Franchise before making silly threads.

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Star Wars has a very straightforward black and white morality - the Imperials are villains period.

Oh how wrong you are. Star Wars is very much full of Grey areas.

Lana is best girl.