This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Umptyscope — Oh, come on! How can Willow Rosenberg not be in here? (Later) Whoever dropped her in, thank you. Well written.
Roland: Is the Palpatine example canon?
Earnest: I think so, he's supposed to have been scarred by his own force-lightning, though he certainly gets greener and pastyer later. And yeah, in the Expanded universe he's supposed to hop from clone to clone because he's so EVIL and Dark side attuned it destroys his clone body(ies).
Tulling: In the KOTOR games Dark Side Force users would have grey skin with huge purple veins, making them seem like they were decomposing. Seems funny that these rather obvious outward signs do not get them immediately pegged as Sith by everyone they meet. You'd almost expect that the stronger a character is in the Light Side, the more angelic they would look, but no such luck.
Lale: "Shows no symptoms" implies "doesn't fit the trope."
Morkais Chosen: Going Dark does affect gameplay in Kot OR- DS force powers get easier, LS force powers get harder.
Added by Spectre:
- Beautifully subverted in an issue of Supegirl, of all things, as Supergirl rants to the villain Reactron that for all his near limitless powers, he thinks so small as to rob a bank.
Prfnoff: Removed this natter from the Buffy example:
- This was, of course, completely different from how magic had been depicted in the previous five seasons.
- And yet different again from what happened afterwards. After she passed a certain point, it wasn't that she was addicted to magic, she had become part of it. She could no more not do magic than she could stop breathing.
- Taking magic from outside (magic powder/draining people or things) is compared to drugs. Using your own magic is OK. The problem is, Willow has little of her own magic - but BIG ability to drain...
- What? No, that is utterly wrong. Rack clearly states that Willow is bursting with power. As for the other points, magic is described like a drug as early as Season 2 with Ripper's descriptions of what he and Ethan used to get up to with the Mark of Eyghon, so it's not like they changed their minds completely. And even if they had, magic is often compared to sex, which one can definitely become addicted to.
- Can we just say they were inconsistent and be done with it?
- Sure, why not. Magic isn't real, anyway, and there are many kinds of magic in fiction, so the writers can pretty much do whatever they want with it. I honestly don't see how it is so hard to believe that someone can lose their way under the influence of unlimited power. Just look at Dark Phoenix or Darth Vader. Same principle.
