They are both very unpleasant governments

[lliira]

This poem has been going through my head for a very long time: ever since I learned what the Republic really is in SW:TOR. (Hint: it starts with "hugely genocidal" and doesn't get better from there.) For Walrus read: Republic. For Carpenter read: Empire.

 'The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright—
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done—
"It's very rude of him," she said,
"To come and spoil the fun!"

The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying over head—
There were no birds to fly.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away,"
They said, "it WOULD be grand!"

"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The Walrus did beseech.
"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each."

The eldest Oyster looked at him.
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head—
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.

But four young oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat—
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn't any feet.

Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more—
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings."

"But wait a bit," the Oysters cried,
"Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!"
"No hurry!" said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.

"A loaf of bread," the Walrus said,
"Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed—
Now if you're ready Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed."

"But not on us!" the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue,
"After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!"
"The night is fine," the Walrus said
"Do you admire the view?

"It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"Cut us another slice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf—
I've had to ask you twice!"

"It seems a shame," the Walrus said,
"To play them such a trick,
After we've brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"The butter's spread too thick!"

"I weep for you," the Walrus said.
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size.
Holding his pocket handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter.
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?"
But answer came there none—
And that was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.'

'I like the Walrus best,' said Alice: 'because you see he was a LITTLE sorry for the poor oysters.'

'He ate more than the Carpenter, though,' said Tweedledee. 'You see he held his handkerchief in front, so that the Carpenter couldn't count how many he took: contrariwise.'

'That was mean!' Alice said indignantly. 'Then I like the Carpenter best—if he didn't eat so many as the Walrus.'

'But he ate as many as he could get,' said Tweedledum.

This was a puzzler. After a pause, Alice began, 'Well! They were BOTH very unpleasant characters—' 

Comments

[lliira]

I thought both choices were equally bad, but the light side one made me feel more ill. There's the damage the guy could do -- but he hasn't done it yet. Maybe he was planning to run off to the best psychiatrists in the galaxy for therapy, or maybe he was planning on stealing a bunch of money and retiring to a resort planet. He was imprisoned through no fault of his own, but for what other people had done to him. And imprisoning someone out of fear for what they might do when they have yet to do anything wrong is, imo, the height of Lawful Evil, heavy on the Evil. Plus, he did help the Agent do what she needed to do. He couldn't help it, but that doesn't erase the fact that he did it, as creepy as he was about it. So you get a choice of personal betrayal of him or betrayal of the Empire, and I don't think one is better than the other. I wished I could have asked him to join my crew.

Jedi are Self Righteous Jerks to the extent of Self-Righteously wanting to kill every force user who is not a Jedi and whom they cannot force to become a Jedi. (Not the Mystics, but they mistrust the Mystics and want nothing to do with them simply because the Mystics are not Jedi. When my Knight pointed out that the galaxy was not divided into Jedi and evil people, Satele Shan said "a Jedi does not compromise." Brrr.) Self Righteous Jerks with power inevitably do drastic amounts of damage. As a certain Ortolan on Hoth says, the Republic is crusading.

The fact that Jedi tear small children away from their families, do not allow the children any contact with said families, and tell the small children they must swear never to get attached to anyone or have sex when they cannot have a clue what they're swearing to give up makes them evil anyway. They force people to live lies: it's pretty clear that pretty much zero Jedi actually follow the "no attachment/no sex" part of the Jedi code. (Except possibly for the Emperor -- whom you find follows the Jedi Code, not the Sith Code, when you meet him as a Knight -- and the "bury me and my unconscious apprentice alive" guy in the Warrior quest. Though actually the second guy is attached to his apprentice, so nvm that.)


There's one line from an Imperial in the Knight quest that I think sums Jedi up pretty well. (This isn't an exact quote). "Typical Jedi: kill people and then apologize for it." Just like the walrus, they'll eat you alive, but they promise to cry afterward.

[smurasaki]

I had the impression that the guy said he was _going_ to go do bad things. (Which he could still change his mind about, granted.) But I could be misremembering. A third option would've been nice there. (One could say that about an awful lot of quests, actually. :\)

I didn't mean to suggest I was doubting that the Jedi are evil. _I_ haven't encountered it in game to the extent you have because I've played different classes. What I meant to communicate was "Hmm, well, that does change things."

(I went through the Foundry today. Holy crap. There's really no getting around that the Jedi, at a bare minimum, if not the leaders of the Republic had to know what Revan was planning. Yikes!)

Edit: It occurs to me that there's something wrong with any choice one has to justify. So I'm revising my opinion of the last choice on Nar Shaddaa - you're right, in that instance LS = LE. I still feel like most of the other LS choices for the Agent are some brand of good (or at least neutral). (And many of them are decidedly not lawful.)

[lliira]

Yes, I agree about the LS choices for the Agent I saw until Nar Shaddaa being more-good. Though I had to think about the Balmorra ones; was doing the right thing going to end up killing the cute good guy? (Kaliyo said he and I belonged together. It was not a compliment :P.) Was it going to compromise my mission to the extent of ruining it, and therefore ending in more deaths? I only took LS every time there because I was the PC and I knew I therefore could neither be killed nor kicked out of Imperial Intelligence. If it had been a tabletop game, I would have chosen differently.

I often think Bioware's writers got their signals crossed. Usually Light Side seems to mean order and Dark Side means chaos. But then sometimes Light Side means good and Dark Side means evil. It feels rushed... which is a central trait of every single Bioware game I have ever played except Icewind Dale. It's too bad this is a MMORPG and therefore not fixable by modders.

[smurasaki]

In what I've seen (which is mostly Smuggler and Agent), I kinda think there was some indecision on the writers' part regarding whether they were using fiction or something more realistic as a guide. (You have the option to be _profoundly_ unwise in a way only a fictional hero can survive on Dromund Kaas as an Agent. Part of why the Agent story seems to me like it's on a different part of the Cynicism/Realism scale than at least some other parts of the game. And maybe -that- more than anything is the odd contrast I felt like there was between the Agent story and the general Imperial story. Well, that and seeming more like the conflict is gray vs gray rather than black vs black.). Part of the time LS seems to line up with "what would a fictional hero do" vs "something more pragmatic", and sometimes it's "order" vs "chaos" or "good" vs "evil", other times it seems more "big picture" vs "little picture" (or, for added confusion, the other way around).

It's too bad the game isn't a little more consistent because parts of it are really amazing. And other parts of it are severely WTF. :\

I do think there are times when the game lets one get away with a little too much. It's not that I'd rather it were more cynical, but...I don't know... I suppose it's that even I'd have characters get into more trouble for some of the things the game just waves away, and I'm a super light and fluffy writer! (And, of course, the game can also fall hard on the cynical end of things and lean toward grimdark at times. One of those missing memos must have been about the seriousness/grimness/cynicalness of the work.)