When have you Rooted For the Empire?

I think generally a blatant key rule is that the villains winning must be a far crueller outcome than the heroes winning. Even basic cartoony outcomes make clear the villain is the one that wants to kill or eat the protagonist or take over the world and what not.

If the villain is going for an outcome that is technically less brutal than the heroes', it's harder to call it wrong, no matter how cosmetically nasty they act about doing it. Some are clever enough to make this the point, and a serious subject of whether to follow the rules or not for a greater good, but it's not always handled well.

Technically Aladdin's a criminal for example, but because he's stealing a loaf of bread to survive, and the Sultan's guards want to chop off his hands and have him rot in a cell for it, he's the hero and they're not. Same for Tom and Jerry (most of the time).

edited 4th Mar '15 6:06:20 PM by Psi001

That's not always a safe bet, either. I know a lot of people who used to root for Tom, regardless.

Partially because Jerry didn't just win all the time, but he was smug about it, and Tom's plans sometimes failed for no reason.

The question is whether you can condemn the entire Imperial government - directly descending from the Republic, mind you - for the faults of some of its leaders. Given our obviously different concepts of the term, I'd probably be more clear by saying I'd rather have the "evil" Imperial government in charge, than the equally destructively incompetent Republic, the faults of which ultimately lead to the Empire's ascent in the first place.

The movies mostly focus on a few characters, with the actual politics of either side only brushed upon - it's clear the Empire favors limited government and military strength, and that's about it; they're Republicans in space, with a few bad apples currently in charge. Per the old Expanded Universe, you're just factually wrong - the Empire reforms and, occasional road bumps notwithstanding, actually does lead the Galaxy into a relatively peaceful future. And from what is hinted for the new films, it seems the result of the rebels' efforts is a perpetual civil war, which is likely to spur even more support for the remaining bucketheads trying to keep the Galaxy from falling apart.

edited 4th Mar '15 6:43:02 PM by indiana404

That logic still doesn't hold up. The Republic needing improvement doesn't automatically mean it's on the same level as the Empire. The Empire specifically built a planet-destroying superweapon to secure absolute force (and only because conventional genocide was too slow and inefficient). I don't know what kind of bizarrologic you need to accept "I will wipe out entire species and ecosystems if you disobey me" is evil. A "peaceful future" is not an inherent good when smiles are painted on your face at gunpoint.

Whether "The whole Empire" is evil is irrelevant. As I already said, the Empire is full of useful idiots that may disagree with the Empire's policies but are nonetheless helping its efforts. It really doesn't matter if Joe Stormtrooper knows or believes in the Sith leadership. I can't judge the moral character of a nostril hair on the serial killer coming to get me. I need to stop the killer, and if that means the nostril hair dies with him, then so be it.

And I'm not talking about the Expanded Universe—something written by a million different writers with a million different agendas and a million different ideas.

edited 4th Mar '15 7:32:12 PM by KingZeal

That was largely when Disproportionate Retribution came in, hence the 'most of the time'. Granted people tend to overlook Tom sometimes winning unfairly too so it was hardly just a case of Jerry being a Designated Hero (Tom was the bad guy all throughout 'The Bodyguard' but still won).

Even then though, the writers seemed to catch onto this in the later cartoons. Essentially whichever character means the most harm to the other in a non 'self defence' manner is likely gonna lose.

Aside from that I think it's just standard pathos in play. People root for Tom because he's the bigger Butt-Monkey, just like they root for Daffy over Bugs or Wile over the Road Runner. It doesn't mean they necessarily deserve to win. Being sympathetic is different from being heroic.

A Villain Protagonist vs Hero Antagonist dynamic isn't a flawed one. It can be more tragic because you're forced to like the losing side more, but it's not broken because of that. You can still feel sorry for a character and feel they deserved it at the same time. It's when you start to think their treatment is unjust that it becomes a flawed dynamic.

edited 4th Mar '15 8:09:16 PM by Psi001

Thing is, we actually get to see the Republic collapse from its faults, while, if we are to constrain ourselves to just the movies, the only thing we know is that the Emperor got killed in an Ewok-related accident. We also know that the Republic's incompetence all but allowed slavery and the invasion of one planetary system by another, while if Solo's comments are valid, the Empire runs a much tighter ship. Similarly, its explicitly mentioned federalization would very likely allow it to survive the Emperor's death, while the rebels haven't shown aptitude for anything not consisting of bombing military installations. The rest is just you trying to limit sources to only those supporting or rather not actively refuting your point, as opposed to taking the franchise as an at least somewhat consistent whole.

By the way, for this little tidbit...

I think you'd fit right in the Empire more easily than you'd care to acknowledge. Though like I said, that's the whole point.

And I still enjoy the rather fitting hilarity of arguing about seeing matters From a Certain Point of View, regarding the one franchise where both sides express that sentiment. Lucas may be a poor director and dialog writer, but he has gotten what he wanted across, that's for sure.

edited 5th Mar '15 1:53:35 AM by indiana404

Your logic still doesn't hold upbecause:

1. We are not arguing whether or not the Republic was bad or had faults. We're arguing about whether the Empire was evil and thus worth rooting for. Based on the original movies, as well as (contradictory) testimony from the creators and producers on the project, the Empire was intended to represent pure evil. Bringing up the Republic as a counterpoint is derailing the argument in question (since, at the release of the original films, we knew nothing about the Republic but lots about the Empire) so I'll be ignoring every time you do it from this point forward.

2. The Empire didn't just allow planets to be enslaved or destroyed by a third party due to bureaucratic incompetence—they just cut them middleman and did it themselves. The entire point of the Empire was that the Emperor had the ultimate authority and final say in everything. No bureaucracy, no democracy. Everyone in the Empire is following his orders either directly or indirectly. He is a dictator, so the entire state is embodied in him.

3. Implying that I would be just as bad as the Empire because I'd kill stormtroopers who are Just Following Orders is ridiculous. It's as ridiculous as the Nuremberg Defense which helped name the trope. I didn't say I'd gladly, mockingly, or smugly kill them (something, you know, the Empire does extremely commonly) but I would do it if I had no other choice. I'm calling False Equivalance on the implication that this somehow makes me as bad as the Empire in totality.

4. "From a Certain Point of View" is irrelevant to this this conversation because the same man who said this also clearly believes in black and white good and evil. (He says as much several times.) Obi-Wan wasn't some moral relativist who thought good and evil were in the eye of the beholder. He was a liar who got caught lying and bullshat his way out of it. Believing in good and evil and trying to talk your way out of a lie you told aren't mutually exclusive traits.

edited 5th Mar '15 5:00:14 AM by KingZeal

And from whence came that conclusion exactly? What I'm arguing - or rather, pointing out per sources you deny out of them being inconvenient to your point - is that the Republic had failed as a government, its partial restoration fared no better and was dissolved just as easily, while the Empire endured and reformed, showing that yes, it had merit enough to warrant support, both in-universe and in the fandom. In the old canon, these were the facts, plain and simple. Meanwhile, the movies were explicit that the day-to-day affairs of each planetary government were dictated locally, meaning the Emperor had no interest in ordinary people's lives. The means were extreme, but it does make sense for the Death Star being intended as a deterrent more than anything else, particularly as - as the Star Wars Rebels series confirms - regular Imperial soldiers are also recruited locally as regional defense, meaning they'd hardly be in the mood to oppress their own families.

For that matter, the fact that the Republic ultimately became the Empire, also restates the theme of good people turning bad, and then trying to recover from it. And the movies alone don't even have it as a major antagonist in general, as opposed to the Emperor in particular. The rebels' themselves are mostly shown surviving two attacks, and then manning an offensive explicitly against the Emperor, with only Kenobi being more critical of the Empire as a whole - and he had his own vengeful agenda to pursue.

In short, Star Wars isn't Transformers, where good guys and bad guys are divided by an easily recognizable catchphrase. No - it's a universe where evil is a physical force, and all kinds of people can be corrupted by it, but can still turn back in the end if they choose to. And I don't mind that you see things differently, but to be honest, in a thread explicitly for people to share when they have found themselves rooting for the villain in a story or the designated bad guys in a fictional universe, it's a bit counter-intuitive to only argue and preach why they shouldn't. As the thread title asks, when have you Rooted for the Empire, and what makes you think the logic behind it was any different from the one in the trope namer?

edited 5th Mar '15 5:16:57 AM by indiana404

I personally don't care if you rooted for the Empire, or Skeletor, or Satan himself. That's not my business, and everyone has their reasons.

However, your stated reasons for it simply don't hold water. The Death Star wasn't just a deterrent—the Empire proved willing to use the thing any time they just wanted to make a point. And even if it were a deterrent, that is still bullshit because I'm pretty sure the billions of flora, fauna and other organisms that comprise a planet aren't exactly complicit in the actions of a rebellion. Yeah, I get that it's something of an allegory for a nuclear deterrent, but there's a reason that the only instance of atomic warfare in real life is still controversial to this very day.

The Republic "failing" and becoming the Empire is irrelevant to the topic, but I'll answer anyway. The "good people coming bad and recovering from it" does NOT apply to the Empire. Because almost everyone who formed the Rebellion against the Empire were against it from the very beginning and the people most directly responsible for it (the Sith and their allies) still controlled the head of the government. That argument still falls apart because the Empire wasn't redeeming itself. For your metaphor to be accurate, this would be like Vader splitting splitting in two halfs with one being the same old Vader and the other being a Good!Anakin determined to stop him. Using the argument you used before, this would mean still rooting for Evil!Vader over Good!Anakin because Anakin became Vader in the first place.

edited 5th Mar '15 6:39:48 AM by KingZeal

Not to you perhaps, but I notice others have been less overtly critical on the matter, leading to more than a few agreements for the duration of the thread. I'm down with that. And no, Vader didn't have to split in two in order for his journey to the dark side and back to make sense. We got to see him start out innocent, get mishandled by a visibly inexperienced teacher and less-than-sensible grandmaster, and then manipulated by both sides enough to not know whether any of them actually cared for him. Add to that his marital problems and the fact he'd already suffered a loss foretold by a non self-fulfilling prophecy, and you get a guy desperate enough to try anything to protect his loved ones, without noticing he's becoming every bit the monster he's trying to protect them from.

The Republic is pretty much the same thing on a large scale. First it is lured into circumventing senate protocol, committees and all. Then it is goaded into being the first to send troops to suppress secession. And finally, the Jedi's myopia and distrust of the government causes them to make a bunch of false moves and get themselves killed, no less by the very agent they ordered to do their dirty work for them. It's plain to see their faults and how a single Sith can exploit them, making the restoration of such a system almost suicidally foolish. Better to just kill the Emperor - which the rebels do - and figure out a long-term diplomatic solution regarding the worlds loyal to the new regime - which in the old books, they also do. I get that the fineries of realpolitik aren't much to your palate, but they look way more internally consistent than the formulaic "evil darksider/superweapon of the week" plots endemic to less thought-out tie-ins.

And again I ask, can you actually offer an example pertaining to the topic, to see what alternate character interpretations you do share and approve of? Otherwise I really can't see the point in conversing with someone simply determined to remain unconvinced, explicitly in a thread designed for others to discuss the opposite.

edited 5th Mar '15 7:31:23 AM by indiana404

It seems my Enemy Without analogy was misunderstood. The point being that the Empire is a divisible state, not a single person. The people who formed the rebellion (Mon Mothma, Bail Organa) are the ones who were against it from the beginning. The Empire was only had solidarity because it flat out killed anyone who disagreed, and the ones who disagreed and wanted to live to do something about it kept quiet until the time was right. For your analogy about falling and redeeming oneself to be accurate, Vader has to be a divisible entity with a good side and a bad side. Otherwise, you're comparing apples to oranges because (once again) the people who started the Rebellion against the Empire were never truly part of it.

Also, I don't see any need to contribute my own examples because it's irrelevant. I already mentioned that I preferred Tom to Jerry, but I don't profess to have any deep reasoning to do so.

I'll take that as a "no" then.

Which he is, as spelled out almost word for word by Luke. The guy is conflicted beyond comprehension, especially if you consider the prequel retcon of him bearing the guilt for killing Luke's mother himself - another reason not to jump for joy once he found out his kid was alive. In general, I know I'm culturally predisposed to being a bit more tolerant of authoritarianism than most, but not seeing the central conflict and arc of the films is plainly pushing belief, bordering on pointless contrarianism. Suffice to say I find the moral underpinnings of the franchise as a bit more complex and flexible than the D&D character alignment scale, and leave it at that.

edited 5th Mar '15 8:48:31 AM by indiana404

That isn't what I said or what I was talking about. I am talking about a literal Enemy Without. The Rebellion is not just the Empire reforming itself. It's an actual separate entity rebelling against the old.

And as I said, feel free to interpret the moral scale however you like, but your reasons presented in this case just don't make sense.

As we do with the Empire if you count the added scenes of celebration at the end. Its authoritarianism and violence is what fueled the rebellion in the first place.

That seems to make no sense. If the worst fault of the Republic was it's descent into the Empire, how can the Empire be the better option?

edited 6th Mar '15 12:43:39 PM by Antiteilchen

There were also celebrations when the Soviet Union was dissolved - and the number of people wanting it back seems to grow by the day, with at least economical substitutes already ratified.

The Empire itself spends most of its reign reducing or eliminating said faults - disbanding the useless Senate, allotting self-staffed defense forces to its constituents, and generally trying to prevent the escalation of another civil war. That aside, it's mostly the same people working the same jobs. And while it occasionally goes to excess in dealing with dissent, and some rebels may have valid reasons for opposing it, I simply don't think they'd do a better job running things should they succeed. And from what is known about both canon continuities, they don't.

edited 6th Mar '15 10:15:33 AM by indiana404

Okay, so some people fall prey to a Nostalgia Filter as well as Better the Devil You Know. That doesn't answer Anti's question.

If the worst thing the Republic did was become the Empire (and again, even that isn't fully true), then why is the Empire a better option than the Rebel Alliance? Especially since the Rebel Alliance is led by people who rejected the Empire from the beginning?

Because these people were by and large Too Incompetent to Operate a Blanket? When Jar Jar Binks was the go-to guy when Amidala needed to go into hiding, it became abundantly clear that indeed, evil prevails in Star Wars chiefly because good is dumb.

Going by that logic, the ultimate culmination of Stupid Good is the Empire. The Empire, based on what you are saying right now, is the final form and logical conclusion of those dumb good guys.

In which case, you're rooting for them because...you want to be on the winning team?

Actually, Palpatine rises to prominence by exploiting these faults rather than repeating them, with his only two losses brought upon by a rather unlikely coincidence, and the most contrived cargo cult in history - the latter showing by the way how the rebels are perfectly fine with setting up neutral native populations as cannon fodder, using their culture for their own ends. If any group really fits the bill for being useful idiots, it's the teddybears.

This particular incident, as well as the Republic idealists immediately bobble-heading Palpatine's decision to suppress secession in the prequels, is perhaps most indicative of how the rebels and their predecessors may not have been so idealistic after all, rather than simply equally callous hard-liners of a different breed. The way both Jedi and Sith keep spouting the exact same lines kinda spells it out, really. It's just that only the Empire appears to have The Trains Run on Time - and in a galaxy reeling from one pointless civil war and thrown into another, that counts as much as anything.

edited 6th Mar '15 4:28:53 PM by indiana404

Still not making sense. Are you siding with Palpatine or the Empire? Because the Empire troops are so incompetent that Ewoks outsmart them, they were the ones to build the weaknesses into the Death Star to begin with, and Vader kills off officers with extreme regularity.

Your comment about the Ewoks being used as fodder further makes no sense, because using people for fodder is an Empire specialty, and the Alliance peacefully accepted the Ewoks into their ranks.

Is exploitation a bad thing to you or not? Is incompetence a bad thing to you or not? If your argument is really that both are equally bad, then not only is that false equivalence but it's a tu quoque fallacy. Again, it just comes down to picking one side because you just want to and not because of any actual moral position. Which is fine, but you keep throwing out odd logic to argue the latter.

edited 6th Mar '15 5:10:22 PM by KingZeal

As in, recruited them after first the Ewoks tried to eat the rebels, and were then awed and scared into religious submission by a lucky coincidence and a display of telekinesis, along with an explicit threat of magical punishment. I could go on regarding the rest of the points you're trying to make, but I'd rather not disturb the more-sugar-coated-than-the-LEGO-version image of the rebels you seem to have. Adding to the lack of other fictional examples you'd support, it just feels about as productive as arguing grey areas with Rorschach.

If I'm not mistaken, @Antiteilchen, didn't you once mention having some sympathy for the CIS, what with them sending droids rather than clones to battle? 'Cause that theme also puzzles me - I know it's more relatable and marketable to have human heroes cut down robotic enemies, but in-universe, using remote-controlled droids seems a lot more humane than cloning armies.

Okay. So since the Rebels saved themselves from being eaten by the Ewoks, and the Ewoks thus came to revere C-3PO as a god, this somehow makes the Rebels wrong for asking them to fight for them. (Remember, C-3PO explained pretty much everything that was happening, complete with awesome sound effects. They weren't merely tricked into it.)

---

And funnily enough (in light of that little jab), I've actually put some thought to this and I have several examples I'd like to share. But if you were hoping to switch to attacking my examples and my reasons, this might prove disappointing because I have no deep reasons for them. These examples are from when I was a kid and had significantly less developed tastes.

• The first example is Scooby-Doo. I hate the protagonists of that series with a passion. I hated how they always made the dumbest decisions and still goofed their way into solving the case. I wanted one villain...just ONE...to come along and outsmart those brats.
• Next example are "PG-rated rivalry" shows like the Power Rangers, He-Man, Voltron, Thundercats, etc. I found myself rooting for the bad guys on occasion, especially when all the bad guys did was attack the good guys. (Thus the "rivalry" thing.) For example, if the bad guys' Plan A to conquering the world was to beat the good guys, I always wanted to see what would happen when they finally got to Plan B. Some shows had Season Finales or two-parters that made this a reality and those were usually my favorite parts of the show (for example, when the Power Rangers got whooped by the Green Ranger or Voltron had a lion destroyed). However, if the villain was doing things truly horrible (like most bad guys on Captain Planet), I didn't mind seeing them lose. That's one of the reasons I never rooted for the bad guys in Anime/Robotech: there were constantly real consequences to the good guys losing. I think another factor was Negative Continuity. I didn't necessarily want to see the status quo change—but I wanted the characters to acknowledge things that had happened before.
• As I mentioned before, Tom and Jerry, for a combination of the two reasons above. Tom sometimes just got screwed over through no fault of his own, and I always wanted to see what would happen if he actually managed to get Jerry out of the house. The ones where he actually wanted to eat or kill Jerry I don't recall rooting for him as much. Maybe somewhat, but I mostly rooted for Tom on the episodes where he was being forced to catch Jerry.

edited 6th Mar '15 6:33:24 PM by KingZeal

Yes, I have sympathies for the CIS. When the "good" guys start using a slave army of 10 year-olds, specifically bred for that single purpose while the "bad" guys don't even use living beings apart from a few volunteers, it becomes a bit hard to root for the "good" guys. Especially since the reason to fight was simply to remain in power. There were no noble ideas on the side of the Republic except for... unity maybe? The Prequels never showed why the CIS are all evil. Because they're Corporations? Mainly Aliens? Did they even mention why they were supposed to be bad? I can't recall anything right now.

And they also have the cooler and much more diverse toys. As a child/teenager I just found the military arsenal of the CIS more intriguing since it consisted of several different groups and their individual weapons. Droidekas, Spider droids, those wheel-thingies, different looking ships etc. The Republic just had one look and one issue of a given vehicle. And it looked like a cheap rip-off of the Empire's arsenal to boot (even though that is very justified, it was still lame).

In many of those Warner Bros style cartoons, the moral ambiguity between protagonist and antagonist was intentionally made vague. You might not want Wile-E-Coyote to eat the Road Runner, but you have to feel sorry for the poor guy after the umpteenth time he gets blown up by his own traps.

Well, we have to remember that the prequels are considered far worse than the original trilogy in terms of story. The SWEU aside, all we really had to judge the relative morality of Empire and Rebellion for many years was Episodes IV through VI, and the difference there was pretty stark: not much moral ambiguity. One side blows up planets and tortures civilians, and the other side is for Truth and Freedom. It was only when Lucas exposed us to what was going on in the Old Republic that we started to really wonder if wrecking it was such a bad idea.

Then again, if there's one thing history has shown us, it's that tearing down a decadent, yet functional democracy and replacing it with a dictatorship never works well. You may believe that Palpatine ultimately had benevolent intentions if you wish, but he is clearly shown to be in it for personal power, and his rule causes untold amounts of death and suffering. Heck, he engineered the Clone Wars for his own benefit.

You may observe how the Jedi Order had fallen victim to its own hubris and taken the law upon itself in ways that were fundamentally unhealthy, but that doesn't mean that slaughtering all of them was a net benefit to the galaxy.

The fall of the Republic may have been inevitable, but it was not a net good, unless you count the ultimate formation of the New Republic under a slightly wiser bunch of leaders worth the cost.

edited 6th Mar '15 8:22:36 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

This is kinda what put me to questioning the apparent moral compass of the films as a whole. Both trilogies feature virtually the same conflict - a cosmopolitan organization led by alien industrialists and human aristocrats fighting against the established order - yet one is automatically lionized while the other vilified, the only conceptual difference being which side the Jedi are on at the moment. Never mind how secession is usually much easier to justify than revolution. The old expanded universe made this into a rather poignant point, with ex-CIS forces joining the rebels and being very "I told you so" about it, and plenty of Imperial troops wondering what the fuss was about since they've been basically doing the same thing for years already. The new canon so far, however, seems to take child-proofing pains to ensure that no, the CIS and the rebels share no state membership, nor are stormtroopers at least partially comprised of newly-minted clones... even though that makes it look like there are more volunteers to join the Imperial army, than to fight for the Republic earlier on.

Basically, I can see the rebels' motives, but if their actual goal was only to bring back the good old ways, I understand why they don't seem to have much popular support. Meanwhile, Palpatine's way of consolidating power by cutting bureaucracy and allotting locally-staffed armed forces is usually the last thing real-life tyrants do, lending more credence to his self-stated desire for "peace" more than anything else. The fact the Empire still employs bounty hunters - meaning private citizens are allowed to bear arms and move unabated across the galaxy - is also way off the mark for a supposedly fascist state. Conversely, if the point was to have democracy, then neither the Jedi nor the loyalists should have opposed secession earlier on. And the formerly canonical ultimate end to the conflict was to form a fully-functioning Federation under both styles of government, where the Empire kept all its cool starships, along with leaders not contractually obligated to eat babies for lunch. Everybody won.

As for the new canon, well... It's clear the Imperials are still operating, in one way or another, but all bets are off as to how it'll turn out in the end. I'm cautiously optimistic about it.

---

In general, I do find it more intuitive when plain good-on-evil conflicts are drawn along national lines rather than political or philosophical ones, even when- ...especially when I find myself cheering for the antagonistic side. For one, it just allows for going full-on cathartically patriotic about it, kinda like how The Lion King was released under the title "Banzai's Big Score" in hyena-dominated regions. And more importantly, should shades of grey be introduced, it doesn't much murk the waters as to who is "right", since the conflict is on another level entirely.

edited 7th Mar '15 7:13:11 AM by indiana404