Protagonist centered Morality/Reasonability

[Mechalich]

Sidious/Palpatine is the one corrupting the Republic in the first place "I will make it legal" - and Maul and later Dooku, are his minions.

Dooku's "wanting to secede" has nothing to do with moral reasons - it's purely to create the conditions that will lead to the Empire.

Additionally, Palpatine is arguably playing both sides. He engineered a war in which he'd end up in charge of the galaxy regardless of who was victorious. Now, he clearly personally preferred a Republic victory, for aesthetic reasons if nothing else, but if the Separatists had at any point seized overwhelming strategic advantage he would have been happy to rule the galaxy via his domination of the Separatist leadership.

And the Separatist leadership are people like Gunray - the villain of Episode I - who will all be massacred in Episode III. Mostly, the Rebel Alliance was founded by non-Separatists.

The Separatist side did have some legitimate grievances against the Republic, but their leadership was indeed a bunch of primarily corporatist oligarchs like Gunray who were mostly out for their own advantage. Both sides in the Clone Wars were spectacularly corrupt, which was also something Palpatine worked for decades to insure, so that when he ultimately did seize power there would be no honorable holdouts strong enough to object. It was specifically a group of such holdouts, mostly Senators from uptight, moralistic Core Worlds like Alderaan and Chandrila, that founded the Rebel Alliance, but they were essentially no threat to the Empire at all until Luke blew up the Death Star in A New Hope.


Now, it's not like Star Wars doesn't have some cases of protagonist centered morality, it's just that they're mostly in the Expanded Universe. Jacen Solo in particular seemed to walk around with an ethical warp field applied to him at all times starting from Traitor onwards and The Republic Commando novels are so committed to exalting the clones and denigrating the Jedi that Karen Traviss went so far as to directly contradict other sources (for instance by saying the Clones didn't get leave, when there had been clones on leave in the MedStar novels which were published earlier) to push that viewpoint.

[Peelee]

Pelee might be, or know, a member of the 501st. They have extremely detailed and specific requirements on how to make an acceptably accurate suit of Stormtrooper armor, or any of the dozens of other SW costumes.

To be fair, it's really easy to know 501st members when you are one yourself.

[The Glyphstone]

To be fair, it's really easy to know 501st members when you are one yourself.

And/or, then. Either way, I did call it correctly.

[Peelee]

And/or, then. Either way, I did call it correctly.

For any future wagers, I've danced onstage in costume with Weird Al but have not been able to be in any official Star Wars media. Stupid SoCal garrison getting all the epic opportunities....

[The Glyphstone]

For any future wagers, I've danced onstage in costume with Weird Al but have not been able to be in any official Star Wars media. Stupid SoCal garrison getting all the epic opportunities....

Honestly, that's a better opportunity than anything I've ever done. The fact that he taps the local garrison for backup dancers on his tours has always been an awesome bit of trivia about Al.

[Peelee]

Honestly, that's a better opportunity than anything I've ever done. The fact that he taps the local garrison for backup dancers on his tours has always been an awesome bit of trivia about Al.

Oh, don't think I didn't appreciate how awesome it was. Also, he's just delightful. Super nice guy and incredibly quick-witted.

SoCal people got the chance to be in The Mandalorian, so I'm still more than a bit envious of them.

[The Glyphstone]

Oh, don't think I didn't appreciate how awesome it was. Also, he's just delightful. Super nice guy and incredibly quick-witted.

SoCal people got the chance to be in The Mandalorian, so I'm still more than a bit envious of them.

I'd love to meet Weird Al in person - Seen him twice in concert. Very, very jealous.

[Peelee]

I'd love to meet Weird Al in person - Seen him twice in concert. Very, very jealous.

Step 1: Make good friends with a 501st member. The more complicated their costume, the better. Fett, Vader, anything with lots of hard armor. Probably not biker scouts, definitely no Tuskens, you don't want mostly soft parts.

Step 2: Learn to be a handler. This involves helping them get in costume and back out later among other things like making sure kids aren't running out in front of us do we don't accidentally kick them because we by and large can't see **** with helmets on.

Step 3. Handle for a Weird Al show, so you get to be at the backstage hangout with one of the coolest guys alive.

All three steps may be significantly harder than I made them out to be.

ETA: Conversely, you could do it in one step by joining the 501 directly, but I thought you may prefer the easier method.

[DataNinja]

Step 1: Make good friends with a 501st member. The more complicated their costume, the better. Fett, Vader, anything with lots of hard armor. Probably not biker scouts, definitely no Tuskens, you don't want mostly soft parts.

Step 2: Learn to be a handler. This involves helping them get in costume and back out later among other things like making sure kids aren't running out in front of us do we don't accidentally kick them because we by and large can't see **** with helmets on.

Step 3. Handle for a Weird Al show, so you get to be at the backstage hangout with one of the coolest guys alive.

All three steps may be significantly harder than I made them out to be.

ETA: Conversely, you could do it in one step by joining the 501 directly, but I thought you may prefer the easier method.

You say no Tuskens, yet there were two of them at the one show that I went to. So... hey, almost as good odds as regular troopers.

(Also, once again, I'm impressed at how fast threads Star Warsify in this forum.)

[AvatarVecna]

... honestly, I disagree with your assessment of that scene. I didn't view him as being someone to cheer for, but saw it through the eyes of the rebel troops... he's an implacable magical, monster of darkness, slaughtering his way through frightened soldiers desperately trying to do something more important than their own lives.

It's not a hero moment... it is the monster revealing itself to its victims.

A strong, sobering message that reflects precisely 0% of the audience I saw it with.

[Peelee]

You say no Tuskens, yet there were two of them at the one show that I went to. So... hey, almost as good odds as regular troopers.

(Also, once again, I'm impressed at how fast threads Star Warsify in this forum.)

Oh, I didn't say no Tuskens because theyre not in the show. I was in a Tusken when I was there. It's just they need barely any help dressing, if at all.

A strong, sobering message that reflects precisely 0% of the audience I saw it with.

I love Lord of War. Recommend it every chance I get. At no point in the movie did I ever want Yuri to win.

You can enjoy a villain without rooting for them.

[DataNinja]

Oh, I didn't say no Tuskens because theyre not in the show. I was in a Tusken when I was there. It's just they need barely any help dressing, if at all.

Ahhhh. Okay. That makes sense. If you couldn't tell, I have basically zero costuming experience of any regard, let alone full cosplay.

[AvatarVecna]

Oh, I didn't say no Tuskens because theyre not in the show. I was in a Tusken when I was there. It's just they need barely any help dressing, if at all.

I love Lord of War. Recommend it every chance I get. At no point in the movie did I ever want Yuri to win.

You can enjoy a villain without rooting for them.

I'm just saying that the comment I was reacting to made it out like audiences should be reacting to the Vader scene like it's something out of a horror movie, and my experience was....well, they were certainly screaming, but it wasn't terrified screaming, exactly. I'm of a mind to give the audience the benefit of the doubt that they were more cheering "powerful person doing objectively impressive things" rather than "yeah go vader murder those traitorous scum", but it's still not a reaction that gave the vibe Mark described.

Not that the scene is super-relevant to the idea behind the thread, anyway. Vader's not a protagonist except in a very loose, squint-at-the-timeline-as-a-whole kinda way. People didn't react the way Mark said he viewed the scene, but that doesn't mean they were siding with Vader because he was objectively right...it was just a very short, very impactful action scene.

[Peelee]

Ahhhh. Okay. That makes sense. If you couldn't tell, I have basically zero costuming experience of any regard, let alone full cosplay.

That's a remarkably accurate description of me as I started my first 501st costume! And not that far off a description of me currently. Scratch that, you said "experience," not "talent" or "skill."

I'm just saying that the comment I was reacting to made it out like audiences should be reacting to the Vader scene like it's something out of a horror movie, and my experience was....well, they were certainly screaming, but it wasn't terrified screaming, exactly. I'm of a mind to give the audience the benefit of the doubt that they were more cheering "powerful person doing objectively impressive things" rather than "yeah go vader murder those traitorous scum", but it's still not a reaction that gave the vibe Mark described.

Not that the scene is super-relevant to the idea behind the thread, anyway. Vader's not a protagonist except in a very loose, squint-at-the-timeline-as-a-whole kinda way. People didn't react the way Mark said he viewed the scene, but that doesn't mean they were siding with Vader because he was objectively right...it was just a very short, very impactful action scene.

Ahhhh, I getcha now. My theater didnt cheer (thankfully, I hate going to movies in crowded theaters but it's been a tradition for Star Wars movies with my best friend since Episode 1), so I still totally had that visceral fear reaction without others being all loud about it.

[Vinyadan]

You know what would have been cool? If in the Rogue One scene, they had had James Earl Jones singing Les Poissons under his breath.

That's a good point.

Imagine the Rogue One of a parallel universe. Instead of Gunner+Monk dying against the stormtroopers, and Droid dying to hold a chokepoint, then Pilot and Heroine Girl dying after a successful mission...what if they were all killed, one by one, by Vader? The end-goal is still the same, retrieve the Death Star plans and transmit them to the rebels, but it's explicitly choreographed and filmed like a horror movie sequence. The various sidekicks are giving their lives simply to slow Vader down and buy Girl enough time to upload the data.

It can even end the same way - Vader doesn't kill Girl because she finishes the transmission before he reaches her, so he immediately turns around and heads back to orbit knowing Tarkin will be nuking the site shortly.

Right after Vader arrives, he could go to the planet with a complement to take control of the battle. Tarkin shoots while Vader is on the planet. After the blast wave arrives, the transmission still isn't complete, but now it's a post-apocalyptic scenario with very few survivors, and very few systems still running. The sky is so filled with debris, that flight is impossible. Vader obviously survives, and starts hunting them while they look for a way to restart transmissions.

The only problem I see is one of rhythm (the movie would get rather long).

[Brother Oni]

So, I do think you can like the trappings of a fictional media villain and whatnot without feeling much regret. Because it is a cool design.

Real world example - WW2 German military uniforms were designed and made by Hugo Boss. I've had the opportunity to talk to a German Army re-enactor and examine his uniform up close, they are sharp.

I love Lord of War. Recommend it every chance I get. At no point in the movie did I ever want Yuri to win.

You can enjoy a villain without rooting for them.

On the same topic, Hero with Jet Li. The last scene where the King's advisors are demanding that he follow the law and execute Nameless and the internal struggle he's having between sparing the first person he's spoken to that truly understands what he's trying to achieve and following his own installed code of ethics to prevent such abuses of power in the first place... still brings a shiver to my spine.

[Forum Explorer]

Outcast is fairly late - book 8. The Bellmaker (book 7) was the last to really focus on a non-evil "vermin" - Blaggut.



That's a slight overstatement - the only White Deer Park animal really portrayed as "the bad guy" was Scarface the fox. Most of the others aren't.

No, Pearls of Lustria had that Fox captain who protected the Abbot of the time.

There's an anime airing right now called Didn't I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?. It's set in a very D&D-esque world, complete with adventurers picking up quests at a guild hall. The anime hasn't gone into this yet, but in the source novel, adventurers are commonly hired to escort merchants and protect them from bandits. The worst of the bandits will try to capture people alive and unharmed so they can sell them off to illegal slavery rings.

The protagonists take on a number of escort missions in the series. Guess what punishment bandits captured alive face?

They were executed or enslaved I'm guessing. That seems to be more a historic fact then anything doing with the protaganist's morality. Unless they were the ones enslaving/executing them in an illegal manner.



Anyways, I want to second the Sword of Truth series which was just such absolute garbage.

[hamishspence]

No, Pearls of Lustria had that Fox captain who protected the Abbot of the time.

Romsca the ferret corsair? She was mostly unrepentantly bad - but showed signs of not being all bad - including the aforementioned protective behaviour. But she wasn't redeemed the way Blaggut was - nor did the story focus on her goodness the way it did with Blaggut.

[Forum Explorer]

Romsca the ferret corsair? She was mostly unrepentantly bad - but showed signs of not being all bad - including the aforementioned protective behaviour. But she wasn't redeemed the way Blaggut was - nor did the story focus on her goodness the way it did with Blaggut.

I'd argue she was redeemed in her final moments, where she expressed a desire to see and at least visit Redwall peacefully.

She was a much more minor of a character than Blaggut was, I'll agree to that.

[hamishspence]

Some "vermin" come across as very much loyal to whoever bosses them around, with little interest in being malevolent on their own initiative. The river rats in Marlfox, Grubbage in Triss, Globby in The Sable Quean, etc.

On the other side - some woodlanders have actually been painted as villains.

It comes across as "protagonist-centred morality" when behaviour that is painted as villainous when "vermin" do it, is painted as OK when woodlanders do it.

Saro and Bragoon in Loamhedge were one of the worst cases of this IMO.

[Tvtyrant]

I always thought Vader was a magic version of the Agent from Firefly/Serenity. He is an assassin/inquisitor who solves problems for the Emperor, like tracking down data leaks or purging dangerous officers. His taking control of the military in Empire is a sign of how much damage the Rebels are doing.

[Fyraltari]

I always thought Vader was a magic version of the Agent from Firefly/Serenity. He is an assassin/inquisitor who solves problems for the Emperor, like tracking down data leaks or purging dangerous officers. His taking control of the military in Empire is a sign of how much damage the Rebels are doing.

He doesn’t, though. He was always tasked with destroying the Rebellion. He just got a bigger flagship in-between ANH and ESB.

[Tvtyrant]

He doesn’t, though. He was always tasked with destroying the Rebellion. He just got a bigger flagship in-between ANH and ESB.

He got his flag ship because the original captain tried to rebel against the Empire, and he was subordinate to Tarkin in ANH. He isn't a military commander except in Empire.

[Fyraltari]

He got his flag ship because the original captain tried to rebel against the Empire, and he was subordinate to Tarkin in ANH. He isn't a military commander except in Empire.

He’s commanding the Ravager in the very beginning of ANH, and orders officers around.

Canonically he was demoted after ANH and worked his way up again before ESB.

[hamishspence]

Vader's ISD in ANH is the Devastator - the Ravager was the SSD that went down over Jakku.

Vader's subordinacy to Tarkin is mostly a special circumstance - a special privilege that the Emperor has granted Tarkin - under normal circumstances, Vader can command any officer.

After the lost of the Death Star, Vader was subordinated to Tagge as punishment, and Tagge was made supreme military commander - until his failures led to the Emperor promoting Vader over him. Vader promptly killed Tagge. As far as I can tell, Tagge never tried to rebel against the Empire though.

[Tvtyrant]

Ok, looks like I got the story wrong. Carry on everyone.

[Fyraltari]

Vader's ISD in ANH is the Devastator - the Ravager was the SSD that went down over Jakku.

My bad.

Vader's subordinacy to Tarkin is mostly a special circumstance - a special privilege that the Emperor has granted Tarkin - under normal circumstances, Vader can command any officer.

Is Taejon even an officer, though? As a Grand Moff, isn’t he more of a regional governor?
Anyway Vader isn’t subservient to him in ANH, they’re collaborating on equal footing, which is why Vader can take his own wingmen and attack the blockade runners even though Tarkington refused to sent more fighters.

[AvatarVecna]

(Sidenote before I go further afield: I found it a neat coincidence that the "top of the page" quote for Protagonist Centered Morality is from OotS.)

Video games tend to have this kinda backed into most of the properties - its one thing to have characters on screen you're told to root for, it's another to have characters on screen taking actions you personally told them to take. You reason that you're a good person, and you chose the best options available to you at the time, and you can maybe justify them to yourself even when it gets pretty rough territory...and the results can be rough. Protagonist Centered Morality doesn't even have to necessarily be justifying bad behavior, it can be just ascribing motivations to the Blank Mask character of the game because a "good person" is who we'd like to play as, even if our play doesn't always reflect that. Here's...a couple, anyway.

The original Half-Life has this problem pretty bad. Gordon Freeman's actions throughout the game are less concerned with making moral judgements about the right thing to do in this situation, and more concerned with puzzling out how to progress - which can often involve an absolutely absurd number of bullets spraying both directions, but sometimes is literally just platforming. Gordon is in a situation where "where he is" isn't safe or secure, and what's behind him isn't either...leaving progressing forward as his only option. NPCs you meet along the way verbally hope that Gordon will send help for them once he's reached safety himself, but as you progress through the game, not only is there no indication that Gordon ever intended to do so, he never really reaches a point where he's able to do so at all. About the only way for your choice to actually cause some kind of change to the story (outside of "Freeman refuses to fight, and dies as a result") is at the very end of the game (and it's simultaneously a non-choice that has no real impact on the story of that one game, and a non-choice in that the next game begins assuming you chose a very particular path. This is even lampshaded in a scene later in the series, a scene that mimics the first non-choice where the same character now remarks "rather than presenting you with the illusion of choice, I have take the liberty of choosing for you".

...of course, by that point in the story - the point where Freeman has "come to" in Half-Life 2, he now most definitely has options. There are possible paths to possible survival that don't involve leaving a bloody trail of cops in his wake. Even at the end of the game, when Freeman has more or less served as the match igniting a revolution, he is offered a choice ("did you not realize your contract was available to the highest bidder?"). Granted, it's a choice that is never available for the player to make, since that's not the story the designer's want to tell, but it's certainly one Gordon was at least theoretically capable of making in the moment. That's at least one moment in HL2 where Gordon can clearly make a self-serving choice that deviates from the story, and (at least in-universe) chooses to reject. In HL2, and beyond, there is implied morality that can be used to attribute intentional heroism to the character of Gordon Freeman. But before Half-Life 2, one could theorize that Gordon Freeman was actually (for example) a raving, paranoid, lazy, sociopathic megalomaniac, and there wouldn't be too much canonical information to objectively prove you wrong.

This is even more clearly on display in the Portal franchise; once more, a silent protagonist is put in a situation where they have the singular goal of survival/freedom, are trapped in a scenario where following that goal leads down a single path with no true deviations, and where interactions with others are even more limited than in Half-Life - between Portal and Portal 2, there are only really two "people" who Chell interacts with in-universe, and both of them are extreme personalities that are more...theoretically capable of reacting to Chell, than actually doing so. It's made explicit at a couple points in Portal 2 that Chell's actually mute in-universe (which could be lampshading, but is still canonical, and far different from most Silent Protagonists), and the closest we get to a trustworthy statement about Chell's character is in a line from Wheatley ("you know what you are? Selfish") who is at least designed to be stupid and wrong about everything. Some semblance of moral fiber is attributed to her by Wheatley early on (in a "the human who beat Glados must've been pretty good person" kinda way), but even ignoring Wheatley's general incorrectness, the actions so praised were actions taken in service of her own survival; she wasn't saving anybody but herself. That's not to say she's not a good person, merely to say that it isn't a sign of her being one. The next closest we come to an objective measure of Chell's personality is a single page in the Lab Rat comic labeling her tenacity as beyond 99th percentile. Tenaciousness isn't inherently moral or immoral or amoral, it's literally just "being stubborn". Unlike most shooter-games, Chell's gun doesn't hurt people, it's merely a mobility tool (yet another thing lampshaded within the text - "you need to find a gun that shoots holes! ...not bullet holes!"). And yet, if you read most any fanfic that involves Chell interacting with other people, she's presented as this remarkably nice person who prefers nonviolent solutions.

[hamishspence]

Anyway Vader isn’t subservient to him in ANH, they’re collaborating on equal footing, which is why Vader can take his own wingmen and attack the blockade runners even though Tarkington refused to sent more fighters.

Obeying Tarkin's "release him" instruction is the closest thing in the movie to evidence of subservience. It was tie-in material that stated outright that Vader was under orders to obey Tarkin. I think this was the case in both Legends and Newcanon.

[Fyraltari]

Obeying Tarkin's "release him" instruction is the closest thing in the movie to evidence of subservience.

It's pretty weak, since Tarkin immediately gives him a reason "You'll kill him" and even Vader has to admit that killing one of the heads of their military for insultingly toeing to the party line is kind of dumb.

It was tie-in material that stated outright that Vader was under orders to obey Tarkin. I think this was the case in both Legends and Newcanon.

Oh well...