“Live or Die” is what my shirt says. “The rules are simple,” though in that complicated as you “make your choice” in the matter.
Saw is a Franchise I’ve considered quite a bit in the past, and very Darwinistically projecting in some areas. That however doesn’t discredit the general idea at face value… But, John Kramer’s enactment, is solipsistic in viewing himself as this ultimate arbiter for people’s will to live— take for instance in Saw VI the man who had his lungs crushed for the abhorrent sin of smoking; as if it’s the sole person with the horrific life negating vice— through his own form of dispatched, detached retributive punishment.
In accordance with Terror Management Theory, the idea is a simple one: how much does one value their own life?
What’s a Good Nietzschean without Neurotic Nihilism?
What would a person do to survive, even if it meant losing a piece of themself that seems vital. As seen in the films, most people take the path of least resistance—assimilation, every conventional idea has already been preconceived and removed as a flaw in the game— and as a result of doing everything that was expected, wind up dead in scenes of gratuitous gore. Like a moth drawn to a flame, burning oneself out. It’s like the Sith do.
The Dark Side of the Force in Star Wars has much in common with our power philosophy’s here on Earth. Existentially extreme individualism, amassing accumulated power and through said process, personal progress.
Knights Of The Old Republic II is a game wherein it goes further into depth of the pitfalls of the Sith (as well as Jedi) than Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith presents in the climax of the Republic. KOTOR II’s story, in my opinion, gives cass by case example of what in the real world I see and have personally experienced in some regard to what I have heard called the ‘Ant Conundrum’. This idea is based mainly around the pitfalls in Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. Personal appreciation for Rand and her ideas, as well as my own heavy disagreements with Objectivism on some issues currently irrelevant to this.
Imprinted onto the three main Sith antagonists (and at times with one, seeming protagonist) of the story, flaws in the rash fundamentalist pitfalls in said misinterpretations of Egoism. It’s Neurotic. Darth Nihilus, Darth Sion and Darth Treya each emblematic to varying results of the extremes to which such ideas can be taken, and to what end?
Darth Nihilus, the name being blatantly derived from our own word Nihilism and meaning the same thing in essence, is explained in the game as a literal “wound in the force” with the body of a man. Surviving by literally consuming the force of living things, even entire planets. He was a husk consuming but never satisfied. As justification, not unlike Emperor Palpatine’s concept of “unlimited power,” Nihilus gave his reason for doing so as to bring order to the galaxy, when he himself was a mere shell. “Just a man,” in the end.
Darth Sion was the epitome of pain. If you think Darth Vader had it bad, this guy trumps him. Sion lived every second of existence in excruciating pain, which he himself tended to put himself through. And for what? To live up to a Master who he felt abandoned him? Darth Sion was fueled by his pain, it was the only thing keeping him together while also ripping his body apart every second. He had achieved immortality in this, but to what worthwhile degree? In the end, like Wallace Baker he welcomed death serenely.
Darth Treya, the secret manipulator behind the entire plot. Your character in KOTOR II is essentially manipulated by her into doing her dirty work: killing her apprentices, Nihilus and Sion; cleaning up her loose ends. Treya goes beyond them in her Neuroticism however, her end goal is the complete severance of living beings from the force. She hates that it seems to have a direction of its own that she cannot control. She makes her own downfall in the end, like the others.
Interestingly, she distinguishes her concept in that Darth Treya is more of an impersonal entity; “there must always be a Darth Treya.” And in that, while in the main Star Wars series most understand, there is no Darth Treya. Well, there is the Rule of Two. The Sith after time realized their strength was not in numbers, so they made it an ardent tradition that only two Sith existed at once. One Master, one apprentice. As follows, the apprentice would be trained to be stronger than its master for an ensuing culling ritual. Rinse and repeat.
Sith are servant to self-centered suicide. They see their shit intentionally as, “the Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some would consider, unnatural.” It is an imbalance in the force. While some Sith deviated and were more lax in nature with brains and brute, much was simply barbaric.
The Jedi (which I negated to mention, there is a fourth antagonist in the game, who is a Jedi), while having their faults— as an example where the Jedi negate say romantic attachment; Sith do so as well in most kill their loved ones, the Jedi restrict but the Sith wreck— their faults are more broadly collectivistic than I have ever been.
Their end, as seen in their utter blindness to what was actually going on around them and complete counterproductive pride, you can see where the Neurotic Nihilism of it is.
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