#sith philosophy

The Jedi look at attachment and go: this is dangerous because it narrows you. If you love one person so much that you’d put them above everyone else, that’s how your empathy collapses into a single point. That’s how you get someone like Anakin Skywalker making galaxy-scale decisions based on one relationship.

So their solution is: cut it off at the root. No attachments, no possessive love, no “this person matters more than others.” Keep your care broad, impersonal, evenly distributed.

And you can see the logic. They’re trying to protect empathy from turning into favoritism, from becoming exclusionary, from becoming dangerous. But in doing that, they risk sanding down the very thing that makes empathy feel real. It becomes abstract. Distant. Easier to justify inaction because no one person is allowed to matter that much.

Meanwhile, the Sith flip it.

They also reject attachment — but not because it narrows empathy. Because, weirdly, it can expand it.

Attachment means vulnerability. It means recognizing that someone else’s inner life matters so much that it can affect you, change you, destabilize you. And that’s a problem if your whole philosophy is built on control, domination, and the primacy of your own will. Real attachment risks pulling you out of yourself. It risks making you hesitate. It risks making you care.

So the Sith solution is: cut that off too! But in the other direction: no attachments, not because they’re too intense, but because they’re too connecting. You can have obsession, possession, fixation ... but not mutual, humanizing love that might widen your perspective beyond yourself. That kind of attachment is a liability.

So you end up with this weird symmetry:

Jedi fear attachment because it makes you care too narrowly

Sith fear attachment because it might make you care too widely

And both of them respond by … breaking something important.

Remember that the Force is described, fundamentally, as connection — and through that, empathy.

Obi-Wan in A New Hope:

It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.

The Jedi preserve empathy in theory but struggle to ground it in lived, personal connection. The Sith preserve intensity of feeling but strip out any capacity for others to matter beyond their utility. One diffuses love until it loses urgency; the other concentrates it until it becomes control.

And the frustrating, tragic thing is that the story keeps circling around a middle path it never quite stabilizes.

Because the obvious answer — the one the narrative keeps gesturing toward — is:

care deeply about specific people, and let that deepen your care for everyone else, not replace it

Love someone and recognize that they are not the only one who matters. Let attachment be a bridge to empathy, not a funnel that narrows it or a threat that has to be eliminated.

So the prequels end up orbiting this unresolved idea: not no attachment, not total attachment — but something harder, messier, and more human in between.

But you can see the shape of the answer in Luke Skywalker … and then the galaxy just kind of refuses to let it stick.

Because Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi is basically the proof of concept for the middle path.

He doesn’t reject attachment — his love for Vader is 👏👏 the reason he wins 👏👏.

He refuses to give up on him, refuses to reduce him to “enemy,” refuses to collapse his empathy down to “this person doesn’t matter anymore.” But at the same time, he doesn’t let that attachment turn into domination or control. He doesn’t try to force the outcome. He just … holds that connection open.

That’s the balance:

attachment that deepens empathy instead of narrowing it

love that refuses hierarchy instead of enforcing it

connection without possession

And in Legends, you actually see him try to build that into a system!!

His Jedi Order allows attachment, allows relationships, tries to move away from that rigid prequel-era detachment. It’s explicitly grappling with the idea that cutting off connection wasn’t the solution.

… but it doesn’t hold.

Because the recurring tragedy of the Jedi Order isn’t just “Jedi fail sometimes,” it’s that the Jedi are a contemplative, anti-domination tradition that keeps getting pulled into being an arm of galactic power.

They’re monks asked to be generals. They’re peacekeepers operating inside a political system built on compromise, inequality, and force. And then when they inevitably struggle or break under that contradiction they get judged as if they were supposed to function like a political or military institution all along.

So even when Luke points toward a better synthesis, the same structural pressure is still there:

how do you maintain a philosophy centered on empathy, restraint, and non-attachment to power… while being embedded in a system that runs on power?

And in current canon it feels like we don’t even get to see that experiment play out properly. We jump from “Luke might build something new” straight to “it collapses,” without really exploring what that middle path could have looked like in practice.

Which kind of reinforces the meta-tragedy: the balance exists at the level of individuals — Luke proves that — but every attempt to scale it up into an institution gets dragged back into the same gravity well.

So the saga keeps asking the question:

can a philosophy built on empathy and non-domination survive contact with power?

It's neat because this is an idea from legends, individuals like Dooku and Jorus C'boath believed in flavors of it (it also blows a whole in the idea that the Jedi believed themselves above others, as literally the only people who believed that fell or were falling to the dark side, in other words believing you're inherently better than others is fundamentally un-Jedi like), the non Force sensitives needed to be ruled by their betters

But it's also neat because it's shows again how stuck in sith philosophy Maul is, as they believe they are better than everyone by inherent nature and that means they deserve to rule

Writing This Story can Kill You, I finally managed to articulate why I think Dooku seems so surprised to be betrayed by Sidious in ROTS, despite the whole 'betrayal is the way of the Sith thing,' and in the process I wrote a smol essay. Anyway,

So I think Dooku’s understanding of the Sith is incomplete not just because he fails to realize that the apprentice is always a slave never a partner of the master, but because he sees the Sith ways of gaining power—drawing from pain, rage, suffering, humiliation (your own and others)—as a means to an end. To him that pain is to be endured on the path to power.

But Sith doctrine properly understood is that the pain has to embraced, and continue to be embraced even when power is achieved. You have to want pain of all kinds to be a part of your being and part of the world. This is the difference between a regular darksider and a sith, the difference between drowning and diving in. A regular darksider falls because they have pain of some kind they can’t escape and can’t deal with, so they reject their experience of that pain so deeply that they project it outward. A Sith has a different relationship with pain. They are not coping with pain by refusing to acknowledge it, but instead by reveling in Pain in all its forms.

‘Passion’ in the Sith Code doesn’t refer to the modern meaning, eg, “I found my passion, and made it into my dream job!” It refers to passion like ‘the suffering and death of <insert your prefered martyr here>.’ They are saying, essentially, Pain is good, Pain is a natural part of the universe, Pain is an end in itself. This is something Dooku fails to understand, and I think it’s what allows him to be surprised that Sidious betrays him: he fundamentally doesn’t understand the paradigm in which Sidious is operating.

Anakin does understand it, and it’s part of what he rejects when he becomes Ekkreth in Shape Changer. I think he absolutely continues to draw on the darkside after that—he really couldn’t get away with not doing so under Sidious’ observation—and his storm-shield is the front of still embracing Pain the way a Sith should, but it has become a lie. In Fialleril's Trophies, Sidious thinks about how it’s disappointing that Vader doesn’t show much spark anymore. He's observing Vader apparently giving in to his depression instead of reveling it, and that’s a disappointment. Just like for Jedi, it’s not really about what the world does to a Sith (eg how much pain you’re in), it’s about how they react to it.

Ekkreth (the spirit) is fundamentally about freedom and an end to suffering. In fashioning himself after Ekkreth, Anakin rejects the Sith relationship to Pain (btw as does cannon Anakin in return of the Jedi by killing Sidious to save Luke, thereby, in George Lucas’ own words, ‘ending the horror’ for the rest of the galaxy). Notably, he also doesn’t embrace the Jedi relationship to Pain, which is that it isn’t an inherent or necessary part of the world and that if you can let go of your attachments, Pain will cease to exist. He says Pain is real, but I am going to end part of it (Sidious). This is the Amavikka relationship to Pain: Pain is always going to exist (Depur always tries again no matter how often Ekkreth frees the people), but it can and should always be fought (Ekkreth) or endured (Leia), not embraced. The Jedi and Sith developed in opposition to each other, while Amavikka culture developed in opposition to slavery.

In SWTOR we are given a Sithly equivalent to the Jedi’s iconic parting well-wish "May the Force be with you" in the form of "May the Force serve you well." This illustrates an obvious contrast in the ways the Jedi and Sith view the Force and their philosophies more generally. The Jedi emphasise the importance of selfless service and hold the Force in religious veneration; the Sith prioritise personal goals and consider the Force as more a neutral aspect of existence rather than intrinsically divine. However, I think there is also a very practical reason for these different modes of engaging with the Force.

When the Jedi say they serve the Force and follow its will, they mean the Light-Side of the Force. Not the Dark-Side. If you asked them about allowing yourself to be guided through the galaxy by the Dark-Side of the Force acting out whatever you believed its will to be, you would be hard pressed to find any Jedi who would tell you that was anything other than a terrible idea. From that perspective, the Jedi’s difference of opinion with the Sith is as much about which aspect of the Force to engage with as how to engage with it, if not more.

The Sith would broadly agree with the Jedi that allowing yourself to be directed by the Dark-Side of the Force is a bad idea, though their explanations as to why it’s a bad idea would probably be quite different. The Sith don’t consider the Dark-Side to be some grand wellspring of Evil (barring the occasional fallen ex-Jedi in possession of Serious Issues). Rather the Dark-Side is, shall we say, wilful. A current that, if you don’t watch and correct for it, will pull you into a riptide and cast you out to sea.

Moving more into headcanon, I think most Sith believe the Force to be a thing of many wills rather than a single unifying one. The Dark-Side in particular is a giant overlapping patchwork; living people, dead people, living planets, dead planets, temples, artefacts, memories, fates, and a host of other things all reaching out through the Force exerting themselves on the universe. Some of these wills may align with your own, some of these powers will be helpful, but others are antagonistic or dangerous. Which ones depends on who you are and what you want – navigating, bargaining, and coercing your way through this landscape is a tricky business. Ultimately, the safest part of the Dark-Side to tap into is nearly always going to be the part connected to yourself, fuelled by your own passions, because the emotion and will are yours.

Following the will of the Force in this context is following the siren call of the creepy holocron whispering that you should pick it up, succumbing to the corrupting aura of the Dread Masters, or drowning in the final wishes of the restless dead. If you can’t impose your will on the Force, you run the risk the Force might impose its will on you. You need to have a firm grip on who you are and what you want if you plan on channelling the power of the Dark-Side.

When I was a child, I didn't think further than "The bad guy loved his son so he saved him from the Emperor. That was Good."

As an adult, that moment doesn't cut it anymore to "redeem" Vader to me. It can be Not Your Opinion and that's fair. It's even canon, since he came back as a blue ghost!

But in my opinion, there is none of the components of redemption.

Redemption is to self-reflect on one's actions, to judge them as negative, to give verbal recognition that one's actions were harmful, to learn from it and to resolve to not do it again.

Reparations and forgiveness are welcome, but not necessary. If one truly ackowledge their action caused harm, learn from it and do not repeat them, then the first step of redemption is complete.

So.

What did Vader do?

In that present moment, he kills the Emperor and thus start the destruction of the Empire. But it's impulsive. To the last moment, you're not sure if he's going to stop Palpatine from torturing his son or not. There is no forethought, no reflexion.

And he didn't do it because he though the Empire was wrong and the Dark Side was bad. His intent wasn't motivated by regret of his actions or his choices. He doesn't think what he has done is wrong.

He's not sorry to have become a Sith.

He's not sorry for all he has done, and he did a lot.

He didn't just killed Jedi at the Temple but hunted down any that survived, even if they weren't doing anything but hiding. He taugh all the kidnapped Force Sensitive children how to become inquisitors, twisting them into the evil version of who they should have been. He participated in/provoked the subjugation of planets that didn't fall in line with the Empire. He killed any who tried to oppose him. He killed in rage, in boredom, in irritation, en masse, in precise strikes...

The numbers of his murders is uncalculable.

Uncalculable.

We're that high. And that's just the people he killed directly.

You read the comic, Vader's Fortress in particular, you see that all the rewards he wanted for the atrocities he commited was the opportunity to further his connection to the Dark Side.

More darkness, more power, more, more, more.

He never reflect on or regret any of what he has done. Just -the past with Padme. And even then, just the parts he liked. There's a lot of occulting the full breadth of who she was. And any time she come up, he still think "she betrayed me." The guy strangled his pregnant wife and she's the one who wasn't loyal to their vows.

Once again, it's all about himself, which is the very much point.

This is what Sith Philosophy is.

All about the Self: selfishness, subjectivity, lack of empathy, possessiveness,...

The feelings of the individual are more important than those of any other's. These elevated feelings shape the individual's point of view and thus, this person's skewed view of what reality is. It's their Truth.

How one person perceive their Own Truth matters more than the Actual Truth, for the Sith.

The Actual Truth, aka Reality, is created by all sentients beings. Which is only possible to understand by embracing other's point of view, which is only possible to do by temporarily setting aside your own, which is only possible to do by letting go of your own emotions for a while, to make space for other's.

And like Palpatine said in the comic, Vader let nothing go.

Because Vader is a True Sith.

He didn't reflect on his actions and recognise the harm he caused. He feels no regrets. He doesn't even intend to stop the Empire. He just impulsively saved Luke.

Because it was his son he had with his lost wife and Palpatine didn't have the right to kill that which was his.

Luke only mattered because of who he was in relation to Vader. Not because a young man's death is wrong. Not because the Emperor's actions were wrong, only the target. Not because Vader's actions were wrong and they caused harms to four trillions of people for over twenty years.

At no moment does he says "I am sorry." At no moment does he even feels sorry. There is no recognition or ackowledgment of wrongdoing.

And yes, he dies shortly after, so he can't really prove he won't do it again. But I have re-watch it several times and there is nothing there that showed me that, if he could, he would even try to stop the Empire. For him to stop, he would have to find fault with it in the first place.

Nothing is learned. There is no intention of ceasing the type of actions that caused the situation in the first place. Vader does not recognise his responsability in any of it because, for him, none of it was wrong.

He did what he did because he didn't wanted Palpatine to kill his son. But anyone else's son was fair game. Killing is fine. Because what he feels and what he wants matter more than people's actual lives.

Because he's a Sith.

And that's the kind of people Sith are.

And thus, Darth Vader is not redeem to me.

Yes, yes, I know it's supposed to be a nice family story so everything is supposed to end well and all lose ends get neatly resolved.

But as an adult, I can enjoy it for what is it and still have a critical view on the characters. And my view is that Vader is bad and this one action does not redeem him, even though I'm glad he did or Luke would have been toast.

That Moment where Luke took off Vader's helmlet is not - to me - a metaphor to shows the reedemed man inside the monster, being brought back to life as the monster die.

For me, it show that monsters aren't great, big, hulking, black-wearing people you can tell are evil from miles away.

It says monsters look ordinary. They are your father, your family, your neighbour. They love you and you can even love them.