Question So You Want to Be a Sith, Eh?

[Sevrin]

I've been thinking a lot about villain writing lately, especially Sith and other dark-side characters.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that the dark side should make someone stronger in the moment, but worse over time. Not always in obvious ways, either.

Sometimes the cost might come in paranoia, obsession, hunger for control, emotional dependence on anger, the inability to rest without feeling weak, or the slow loss of tenderness.

I want to write more villainous characters with compelling reasons to be bad, not villains who are evil just because the story needs someone in black robes. I'm interested in how people roleplay the downsides of the dark side in ways that feel interesting, fair, and character-driven.

This is not meant as a "Sith should be written this one correct way" argument. I'm looking for writing tools, examples, and perspectives.

Some questions I'd love to hear thoughts on:

• What does the dark side cost your character over time?
• What weakness does it create, even as it gives them power?
• What bad habit, fear, wound, or desire keeps pulling them back to it?
• How do you show corruption without making the character flat or silly?
• What makes a Sith frightening beyond raw strength?
• What are good examples of dark-side consequences in RP?

For me, I think the most interesting Sith are dangerous because the corruption works. Sure it rewards them and gives them answers to the problem in the moment; And that is exactly why it should leave marks in the future. Please keep this to writing discussion rather than naming specific writers or characters as "good" or "bad" examples. I'm more interested in techniques than criticism.

 

[Koda Fett]

I don't write a Sith, though I've toyed with the idea and a few concepts over the years. I note that what I say below is general thoughts of what I would want to apply, nothing that I'm saying someone else needs to apply to their characters.

I feel as if it should cost your character their humanity, however that may manifest. Give them things that make them feel much more human in the beginning and explore how those things are lost, how their importance fades, or how other things consume them and those more human aspects to them are lost. Broad answer, I know, but I'm speaking generally.

In terms of weaknesses, I imagine it's dependent on the type of Sith that they are and where their focus on the Force lies. Someone that's more of an aggressive duelist would likely lose themselves in their arrogance, with characters like earlier Vader and Maul; there's great boosts in power as a result of their use of the dark side and the fuel that it is, though it essentially gives them a 'high' where they lose that level of self-control and ability to check themselves.

I always liked fear as the largest motivator to remain tethered to the dark side. Fear is such a strong, compelling and irrational emotion that cannot be reasoned with, even if the person can more logically outline a way out of it. It's not so easily conquered, and someone that's losing themselves in the dark side, should do so through the basis of fear. It's a great starting hook by immediately needing to explore vulnerability. This can fade through time, where they overcome their fear and it is instead replaced through anger, whether internal or external, but the root cause linking to an earlier fear is great.

Just a decline in morality, maybe.

Unpredictability.

Unsure, dependent on character and their trajectory. In either case, a Sith should never know 'peace' and find contentedness within themselves and their lives. The constant anguish fuels the corruption and the corruption drives them to do heinous things that either thrive and fuel their fear, anger, etc.

 

[Rik Perris]

What makes a Sith frightening beyond raw strength?

The difference between:
He smiled, and licked his lips.

And

His lips stretched in opposing directions, at once moistened with a slow probing of his tongue.

That is to say, how they're portrayed in writing through their actions, mannerisms, and behaviours. The way they speak, or don't speak as the case may be. Even how they're described physically in some cases.

And if you have a solid sense of the feeling you're trying to evoke in your audience—either from what unsettles, disturbs, frightens, or, gods forbid, fascinates you personally, or inspiration from consuming from the horror genre, or both—then that can help shape your portrayal into something frightening as well.

 

[Arris Windrun]

Obligatory Vestra Tane / Veyla Tass

It's your favorite topic on the board to weigh in on (she usually has good insight into this)

 

[Joy]

What does the dark side cost your character over time?

This, for me, is the most important question when it comes to writing a character in Star Wars who uses and pursues the path of the dark side.

Every "dark side" character that I have ever written used to be somebody before they fell over to the other side. Their backstories have all been different, and uniquely, most of their history (particularly the reason for why they fell to the dark side) comes from things that happened to them in roleplay. I have never started a character who begun as a Sith but they have each gone their for their own reasons which, for me, made sense. But the costs are always the same.

When they fall over to the dark side they have all lost their trust in themselves and others. Almost everything they say sounds like a lie, or that they are trying to get something from someone else. Every interaction sounds like they are trying to trick the other person. Without this trust they become isolated and alone. Things that they found to be the parts of themselves become twisted and turned on their head. Loss becomes an integral part of the character.

Obsession over "the thing" that made them go bad takes over. It blinds them to everything else. Every chance for redemption, or to be saved, is put aside in favour of chasing the person, the people, or an act that would absolve them of their loss, pain, vengeance. In the end they lose all the good parts which make them a Human being. There is nothing there anymore. They are a husk of the person that they used to be. Like a ghost that hasn't passed on yet.

Truly the first part of the Sith code, "peace is a lie," summarizes the person that they have become. There is no comfort, no tranquillity, no enjoyment in life. Even in the little moments where they are alone to rest and recover they torture themselves with the past. Delusions of grandeur lead them to excusing every bad act that they commit like they have become the inverse of the protagonist. To them everything that they have ever done has to be for good reasons and to everyone else the truth is that they are as bad as they come.

 

[Veyla Tass]

Hi, yeah, this is my jam. I love writing Dark Siders.

First off: agree with a lot of this, I have a personal disinterest in writing flatly cartoonish villains (even if that is a star wars classic). People, generally speaking, have reasons for doing things, even bad things, even if that reason is sometimes as simple and crass as "It's profitable."

Anyway, on to the questions.

• What does the dark side cost your character over time?
• What weakness does it create, even as it gives them power?
• What bad habit, fear, wound, or desire keeps pulling them back to it?

These're all kind of interconnected, imo, so we'll answer these as a batch, and by way of example I'll answer with two of my characters in mind:

Veyla Tass is feral. She's deeply emotionally dysregulated. She self-soothes by harming herself or, in conflicts, others. As she grows in power and cunning, these flaws of hers will either worsen or warp into something worse. It will likely never occur to her to change, because being like this has kept her alive.

Vestra Tane was an adrenaline junkie. She was always kind of an nerf herder, but when she gave in to the dark side, she began to lose her ability to connect to people through anything except violence. As she grew in power, it increasingly became her only way to communicate her feelings effectively. This killed her, eventually. She could've changed. She had the opportunity to; people in her life who showed her the damage her ideology and her actions had on the Galaxy. She didn't, because that violence she inflicted was the only thing that made her hurting stop.

• How do you show corruption without making the character flat or silly?

The important thing here is that a worsening mental state does not make a person less complex, less multifaceted than they were before, generally speaking. Connections are, in my experience, a good way to keep a character from feeling flat. Sure, your Sith sorceress is an egomaniacal villain...but she has a soft spot for her apprentice, and there's some weird, toxic romantic tension going on with one of her fellow evil-doers. The Dark Side is unlikely to leave these connections untainted, of course, but that's part of the fun!

• What makes a Sith frightening beyond raw strength?

This'll depend on the Sith, of course, but for a few examples; a willingness to hurt people in excessive, cruel ways is pretty standard, with or without accompanying enjoyment of the act. Sith ideology itself is frightening. It's hypocritical, often fascist or supremacist in some way, obsessed with power and cunning and the capacity to do harm to the world around you (because, despite what they might tell you, that's what Sith mean when they talk about "Freedom:" their ability to hurt you as much as they want to). Anyone who can subscribe to that ideology is kind of innately frightening, and playing up whatever aspect of Sith ideology they've fallen for can be an effective way to unsettle other characters. Of course, sometimes you might want to go in the opposite direction, act distinctly unlike what people assume a Sith is. What do you feel when someone buys you a round at a bar, and it's the evil-space-wizard-freak who murdered your family incidentally two months ago?

• What are good examples of dark-side consequences in RP?

Make mistakes. Act in ways which are irrational, and maybe that your character knows are irrational, because the Dark Side drives you mad. Indulge in whatever toxic impulses they have without regard for whether it's a good idea. Put strain on their relationships with others, while refusing to let them go, because being alone is terrifying, or keep everyone at arm's length out of misplaced paranoia. Be willing, more than anything else, to be kind of pathetic, to be a loser sometimes, to let your corruption win one over on you.

 

[Anet Raine]

Make mistakes. Act in ways which are irrational, and maybe that your character knows are irrational, because the Dark Side drives you mad. Indulge in whatever toxic impulses they have without regard for whether it's a good idea. Put strain on their relationships with others, while refusing to let them go, because being alone is terrifying, or keep everyone at arm's length out of misplaced paranoia. Be willing, more than anything else, to be kind of pathetic, to be a loser sometimes, to let your corruption win one over on you.