"How evil is Darth Vader?" Topic

I brought this up in another thread, and didn't want top take away for that posters topic. I recently saw a video of Darth Vader having a dance battle at Disney. It struck me as odd being how evil Darth is. Just in some strange way it seemed inappropriate. Yes, he is a fictional character, but what he did on screen has real world evils. He destroyed a planet killing billions of Men, women, and children, it could even be considered genocide if people from Alderaan are an individual race. He tortured his daughter, which we are never shown what was done to her (most torture of women is sexual, he did enter with some weird probing droid). He cut off his son's hand. He murdered many "younglings", he committed spousal battery on his wife, which resulted in her eventual death. Not including the many other killings he committed. You can say that Darth Vader is the worst character real or imagined. Yet we let our children play with his toys, create things like Darth tater, and have him do hip hop dance routines at Disney. At what point does a character become so repulsive in their behavior that we want nothing to do with it? What's your take?

Darth Vader did not pull the trigger on Alderaan.

Taking the movies as a whole…Darth Vader is a scared, angry little kid given too much power.
In the end…one brief moment of self sacrifice to save Luke (all is forgiven) and we are supposed to view a tragic character and not a complete monster.

Yea, but he didn't apologize on Oprah. No rehabilitation is complete without that.

"Darth Vader did not pull the trigger on Alderaan."

He was the Emperor's second in command. He could have stopped it and he didn't. In a court, he would have been convicted of it.

He came from an broken home….. it wasn't his fault.

> He was the Emperor's second in command. He could have stopped it and he didn't. In a court, he would have been convicted of it.

Lucas didn't come up with being second in command till after Star Wars – Tarkin was in charge in Star Wars.

Vader – Bad boy in Star Wars, VERY bad boy in Empire, turned into a wimpy snot in Return of the Jedi "Finish the Death Star or my Daddy is gonna spank you!". As for the prequels and that awful scream…

"He was the Emperor's second in command."

Nope

Tarkin was in charge, not Vader.
per Leia:
"I should have known you were holding Vader's leash."

Second, third, forth, fifth in command. He would have been convicted of mass murder. He was complicit in it. He was aware of what was happening and did nothing, especially where he had the power to do so. My thoughts are that Lucas wanted to create a truly evil character, one that would rule moviedom, yet despite all the evil that he did in the original trilogy, no one batted an eye and didn't think he was that evil. So when he wrote the second trilogy, he had him do unspeakable things by today's standards, and now everyone still ignores what he did and thinks he was a spoiled brat. I think that if Luke tried to bring his father to justice instead of saving him from the dark side, we would have a different view of the character. It's an odd thing that Vader just did one good thing and that saved him from all the horrors he created. Maybe Ray Rice has a chance ;)

Alderaan shot first!

The other thing there is (and I am not dismissing his active participation) Anakin and "early Darth" (before his black-armored incarnation) was HEAVILY MANIPULATED on so many levels by the Emperor.

That does not preclude him his choices.

Are we expecting complex thinking from George Lucas ?

I think that most people believe that Vader had a true change of heart, a real moment of clarity.
It's best not to think of Episodes 2&3.

Tarkin was the evil one

Vader was only following orders

"Tarkin was the evil one,Vader was only following orders"

As most of the convicted Nazi's similarly said at Nuremberg.

I'm also wondering if it's do to the poor writing by Lucas that Darth is not seen as so purely evil? Look at how Darth is portrayed in Night at the Museum. He's treated as a joke, in the same league as Oscar the grouch. I'm pretty sure Oscar never mutilated his children or killed his wife. Pretty sure of that. We see characters like Leatherface, Jason, Freddy, Pinhead and we see evil. Darth is just as evil as them, yet we view him almost humorous. You put the Child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang next to Vader and we are more creeped out by the child catcher. All he did was catch children by enforcing the law passed by his ruler. Vader murdered the children, yet we don't view him as evil.

The Case for the Empire
Everything you think you know about Star Wars is wrong.
link

"But the most compelling evidence that the Empire isn't evil comes in "The Empire Strikes Back" when Darth Vader is battling Luke Skywalker. After an exhausting fight, Vader is poised to finish Luke off, but he stays his hand. He tries to convert Luke to the Dark Side with this simple plea: "There is no escape. Don't make me destroy you. . . . Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy." It is here we find the real controlling impulse for the Dark Side and the Empire. The Empire doesn't want slaves or destruction or "evil." It wants order."

I saw in a commercial today, for a LEGO Star Destroyer kit, the excitement and happiness that children were taking in destroying Rebel B-Wings. This struck me as really odd, and I was like "Wait a second, aren't we supposed to root for the Rebellion?"
Whether or not Darth Vader is truly evil, or if he was just being manipulated by Palpatine, whose full extent of power is never really revealed (He is already "old" in Phantom Menace, and then he is insanely OLD in Return of the Jedi), I don't blame him for what happens to Alderaan. They started a rebellion, and their destruction was an appropriate response.
When I think about truly evil characters, Jar Jar Binks pops into my head. Just kidding; Jabba the Hutt, Palpatine, and Joffrey (Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones) are characters I consider WHOLLY EVIL. For me, all of their behavior is repulsive enough for me "to want nothing to do with them." I actually am a big fan of Tarkin, Darth Vader, and even most of the lesser known Imperial Navy officers: like Ozzel, Piet, and Pelleaon.

I think the empire is cool too. Bad guys usually dress better. When I wargame WWII, I almost always take the Germans. That being said, I would be wholly disturbed if my kid was playing with his figures and decided to re-enact Vader killing all the jedi children or strangling Padme. Luckily that hasn't happened, and I think that has more to do with not being as action filled as the pew pew of the guns or the flash of the light sabers. Personally, I think Lucas went over the top with those elements of the movies, but episodes I-III are so bad, that I think he needed them to make it dramatic. I'm not sure how I would react if my kid did re-enact those scenes. I wish Luke had out right killed Vader in the end instead of trying to save him. It's a better lesson that if you do something evil, that you pay the ultimate penalty, even if it's a loved one.

You know, when Tarkin orders Alberaan to be destroyed it seemed to me that Vader wasn't all that crazy about it (body language only – the way he was holding Leia back)

He was a bad guy but did have a sense of purpose

Malificent plots the future murder of an infant because she didn't get a party invite.
The Wicked Queen murders a teenage girl for being prettier than her.
The Big Bad Wolf consumes two innocent homeowners.
Captain Hook kidnaps children, tries to throw a young girl into crocodile-infested waters, and tries to stab a ten-year-old boy.
All of them dance around Disneyland giving autographs.
What's your point?

Question: in the dance battle, who won? Dollars to donuts, the boy did.
And that's the point. We create make-believe evil so that we can defeat make-believe evil, and maybe by doing so embolden our spirits when we face real evil (or even simply adversity) in the real world. The child "defeats" the evil villain and becomes a hero in his own mind, linking himself to what heroism stands for-- goodness, justice, freedom. He is uplifted, but also without his realizing it, those values are reinforced in his mind.

You see, you are concentrating only on part of the story, and missing the whole. It's not that a character is evil that is the key; it is that his or her evil is defeated. In the context of the great story the nature of the evil really isn't the significant point. The significant point is that the hero undergoes sacrifice and effort to stand strong against a seemingly unbeatable foe, and in the end, defeats the evil of that foe. And, yes, redemption can be a part of that tale.

But it is also a tale. The evils that are attributed to the villain are merely the thematic window-dressing to establish that the villain is a villain. The details of what he has done to be villainous aren't the important part. That he is the villain is. He simply is The Adversary, who must be overcome in order for Good to triumph. That's all. You're basically hung up on a bunch of adjectives and adverbs, thematically speaking, when the main things are the noun and the verb. We aren't appalled by Vader's behavior because we know that behavior wasn't real. We know children weren't actually killed, planets weren't actually destroyed, and he never actually cut off anyone's hand. We know it's all make believe, served to us to make the story happen, not to be interpreted as real tragedy.

So Vader isn't celebrated because he is evil; he isn't even really celebrated at all. But he is included in our revels because he represents evil that can be and always will be defeated. It's part of the story. And what we are doing with all this play is inserting ourselves into the story.

Finally, you also forget that children (and adults) are attracted to the dangerous and the powerful. Children love tyrannosaurs, sharks, lions, venomous snakes and spiders, giant war-like robots, and monsters of all description… and Vader. But that doesn't mean that children want to encounter any of these creatures in reality. They just like the thought of being powerful, because in so much of their lives they are powerless. That doesn't mean they want to eat people or blow up planets or anything of the sort. They just want to pretend in some way that they have the power they in reality lack. It's neither evil nor disturbing, and certainly isn't unhealthy. It's just normal childhood behavior.

The irony of all this is that we're getting hung up on a make-believe character and make-believe deaths on a site that routinely celebrates the imaginary recreation of actual battles and wars in which millions of very real deaths occurred. If there is nothing wrong with the latter, and I assert that there is not, then there is nothing wrong with the former.

He work black. Bad guys wear black.

You make Johnny Cash sad…

"Bad guys wear black."

try telling that to Chuck Norris
imdb.com/title/tt0079227

Chuck Norris vs Darth Vader
YouTube link

Vader was a toady and nothing more. This video tells it all.

YouTube link

Parzival, well said sir!

He was only obeying orders

What Parzival said is correct and pretty obvious, Not understanding the who cares part and yet feeling to contribute to the thread, but, OK. The question still hasn't been answered. At what point does a character become so repulsive in their behavior that we want nothing to do with it? Darth Vader ranks in the top 5 most evil movie character in many polls ( I looked last night) In almost every poll the top 10 evil people, you would not buy a toy of and give to your children, yet we do with Vader. At what point does a fictional evil character become too evil? I also have to add, that Vader never was penalized for his evil. He was rewarded via killing again (the Emperor) by coming back as a younger force entity. I bring all of this up, as it really never dawned on me until I saw Vader in the dance battle. I kind of ignored it all. When I saw him do the dance battle at Disney, the light went off as this being inappropriate. Lucas created a character that did pretty much every evil thing except have sex with children or commit cannibalism and as a society we put toys of him in our kids hands and take them to see hip hop dance routines. I've done many wargames and played in groups where we created bad guys. I've yet seen anyone create a bad guy with the pedigree of Vader or remotely close to him. Has anyone here created Billy bad guy and said, he abuses his children, beats his wife, kills women and children for fun. OK who wants to play this character. I have a cool figure to represent him. I doubt it. I'm just curious why our society gives Vader a pass.

Parzival, how are we to have a proper fanboy discussion if you're going to keep making insightful statements?

Of course Darth Vader is evil; it's on his character sheet.

Ron

Darth's the baddy in a Neo-Pulp (Pulp-nouveau?) movie series. His Evilness is measured against the hero's Goodness. The more Evil he is, the more glory to the hero and Goodness when he is finally defeated.

Would the story have been the same if Darth was a two-bit hoodlum in Anchorhead? Would Luke have been as much a capital-H, Savior-of-the-Galaxy Hero?

Not nearly as evil as my ex-boss.

Roderick, I think you have nailed it. I think Lucas created Darth as a nasty villain, but at the time the things he did weren't as nasty as today's standard (If you smacked your wife and kids around in the 70's-80's it wasn't as bad as it is in 2014). Now when he made the prequels he needed to make Anakin nasty, so he had to come up with other ways to push the character over the top. Now the Darth as we know had a 20 year start over the Anakin character and his evilness has softened with time. The prequels aren't seen as good as the originals and Anakin is seen as a lousy character. I think also that Darth being behind a mask is a faceless villain. More machine than man. I find it a fascinating study over how he is presented over how evil the character was. Time to dig out the figures and have a big battle with them!

He's not. The Empire itself, is not.
Vader never changes, he's the same all the way through the films. The galaxy, and the attitudes of the people, change around him.
(While very cool, I give George no credit for this. He wrote a good story in spite of himself not because of him).
The only "bad" things we see anyone do, are committed by the rebels or jedi.

Alderaan is a debate, akin to the US dropping the A-bomb. It is not, in and of itself, evil.

The only problem here is the travesty of having Darth Vader, one of the great cinema villains of all time, dancing on a stage. Seriously, show some respect. Does everything have to be reduced to lowest-common denominator slapstick?

I think even small children understand that it is Science Fiction……..

Of a bit more concern, are the drug-dealer dolls for sale at Toys R Us, that come with little bags of blue meth crystals, and stacks of cash.

Not sure those are wise……..

This little girl likes what the Sith have to offer: YouTube link