Kreia - Dark or Light

[SiZo 1]

Vash was supposed to give hints how that could happen, but she's, you know, dead.

M4-78 will bring resolution, though since it's mostly "made up stuff" a seperate mod, not part of TSLRCM.

Some time ago I checked this issue in the dialog.tlk file and only found that force bonds dissipate, for example, when either the master or the apprentice turns to the dark side, which is nonsense in the case of Kreia and the Exile. It is nonsense because if you play a dark side Exile you are almost halfway towards the bottom of your dark side-o-meter at the beginning of the game, which means, according to what Vash says, that you couldn't have been affected to that degree by Kreia having her hand cut off, because by that point, the bond you shared had already weakened by a large amount. (not to mention the end of the game when Kreia stabs herself with a lightsaber on Dantooine, making the Exile drop, which isn't supposed to happen according to Vash) So now I see why it was cut; because this whole explanation was broken since it didn't work both ways (it does only when you are light side).

[Sith Holocron 2,480]

Kreia is neither dark nor light. She hates the Force, if you forget. . .

[Kerk 12]

She still uses it, though. It's dark, just the more sophisticated kind of dark.

[Sith Holocron 2,480]

It's dark, just the more sophisticated kind of dark.

 

Phooey. I suppose I'll have to prove it with multiple quotes. Spoilers abound.

 

Equating the Jedi to the Sith and vice versa:

"To believe in an ideal is to be willing to betray it. It is something no Sith or Jedi truly learned""

 

She defines who she is:

"Perhaps I am neither and I hold both as what they [the dark and light sides] are - pieces of a whole."

 

She still uses [the Force], though.

 

No doubt about that. She uses it quite well and often but listen closely as to why she uses it. Again, spoilerific quotes to follow:

 

In her early training to the PC:

"Do not use the Force as a crutch. You have survived long enough without it. Do not use it to weaken you."

 

On her own usage of the Force:

"I use it as I would use a poison and in the hopes of understanding it, I will learn the way to kill it."

 

The source of her real issues with the Force:

"It is said the force has a will, it has a destiny for us all."

"I wield it but it uses us all and that is abhorrent to me"

"Because I hate the Force. I hate that it seems to have a will, that it would control us to achieve some measure of balance when countless lives are lost."

"But in you. I see the potential to see the Force die - to turn away from its will and that is some thing that please me."

 

Her goal is merely to gain control - always a big issue with her - over her own destiny by killing the Force. She cares nothing of the Sith or the Jedi as she's been exiled from both. She only wants to eliminate predestination.

[SiZo 1]

Kreia only says the she is neither sith nor jedi, not that she is neither dark nor light. There is a huge difference between the two: being dark side doesn't lead to being sith straight away, because in order to be sith, you have to believe in the sith ideal, first. Seeing as Kreia denied the sith order and was never redeemed from the dark side, she just remained to be dark.

[Kerk 12]

Right, Krea's philosophy is in many ways Nietzschean. That is, "Life is only meaningful when you fight for it alone, and whatever you achieve is yours rightly." It defies any kind of mercy, which by our and Jedi standards is no doubt the dark way of living.

[Sith Holocron 2,480]

Kreia only says the she is neither sith nor jedi, not that she is neither dark nor light. There is a huge difference between the two: being dark side doesn't lead to being sith straight away, because in order to be sith, you have to believe in the sith ideal, first. Seeing as Kreia denied the sith order and was never redeemed from the dark side, she just remained to be dark.

 

Can you back your position with either quotes from the game or the game makers though? Chris Avellone has responded to many interview requests many times over the years and I bet he'd answer the question if you put it out to him.

 

Edit: I've decided to post a thread over at Obsidian to see if anyone that worked on the game had something to say. Let's see if I can lure some folks out.

[bead-v 251]

Some time ago I checked this issue in the dialog.tlk file and only found that force bonds dissipate, for example, when either the master or the apprentice turns to the dark side...

However, Vash is talking about this from the Jedi perspective, meaning that both the master and apprentice are initially light-sided. When one turns to the dark side though, they have a LS vs DS conflict, and that could be the moment when the bond starts to fade. Since Kreia is neither dark nor light according to the Character Screen and what she says, she never really has that kind of conflict with the Exile's alignment, meaning that the bond wouldn't fade. An additional factor to take into account in any case is the ease with which the Exile is able to form bonds, which are stronger than usual.

 

 

[DeadMan 103]

And one more thing. Vash talks about bond between master and padawan. Exile and Kreia's bond is something different. It's formed very quickly, even before Exile actually became her apprentice.

When you ask Kreia abou the bond, she says: "I confess its nature eludes me as well. But the bond is strong, and its roots run deep."

[SiZo 1]

@Sith Holocron: There is no need for quotes or things like that. If you are more into Star Wars, then you know that this dark side and sith stuff is as I have mentioned. Unless she turned after being cast out by Sion and Nihilus, but it's contradicted by what I'm going to write one paragraph below. Though I'm not sure which part of my post you thought of when you wrote your own.

 

@bead-v: the character screen example is false because at the end of the game Kreia does turn dark, which can be seen not only by using Force Sight before confronting her, but also through Visas on Dantooine (and there are her darkened features as well). That fact that she was grey all along in the game was merely due to the fact that there are certain techniques that can hide your actual self from other force users (for reference, just look at Palpatine). And what Kreia thinks still doesn't have anything to do with her alignment (dark or light). Her convinctions are grey, but her own self is not. It's as simple as that.

 

EDIT: and before we misunderstand each other, I'm not saying that what Vash says is true, on the contrary, it doesn't make a lot of sense (as I have mentioned it in my first post regarding this subject), because it's bleeding from several sources, but no one can deny that Vash's guess was the explanation as to why the Exile didn't die when Kreia did, or felt pain when she or he cut her hand off after confronting her.

[bead-v 251]

Her convinctions are grey, but her own self is not. It's as simple as that.

Yep, you are correct. There is no other way to explain everything about Kreia in the game. I needed to check the definition of a darksider to make sure, and it does fit with what you say. However, now I can't see how most of the dialog choices in the game that give you alignment points are able to alter alignment at all. Since in most of them, you are expressing your own opinion, not acting through the force while drawing power from either "good" or "bad" emotions. Following this trend Kreia would indeed be gray, since she orchestrated the elimination of both the Jedi and the Sith.

 

 

As for what Vash says... if the bond between the Exile and Kreia is considered to be of the same nature as the one between Kaah and Vash, then the only explanation can be that a bond fades when a certain harmony between both people (their alignment being equal) is broken, which never happens with Kreia and the Exile. However, it is way easier to assume either that Vash was simply wrong (but then why did her bond with Kaah break?), or that the bond between the Exile and Kreia is something special.

 

EDIT: Oh, and... if with "through Visas on Dantooine (and there are her darkened features as well)" you meant the scene in TSLRCM during the council confrontation, you should know that that aspect of the scene is not a restoration.

Edited June 8, 2012 by bead-v

[SiZo 1]

Yep, you are correct. There is no other way to explain everything about Kreia in the game. I needed to check the definition of a darksider to make sure, and it does fit with what you say. However, now I can't see how most of the dialog choices in the game that give you alignment points are able to alter alignment at all. Since in most of them, you are expressing your own opinion, not acting through the force while drawing power from either "good" or "bad" emotions. Following this trend Kreia would indeed be gray, since she orchestrated the elimination of both the Jedi and the Sith.

It can be explained by what perspective you examine the dark-grey-light issue from. Almost all the dialoge options reflect something that is unique to one of the three alignments. Some of them display greed, selfishness, arrogance etc., which are the signature signs of the dark side. Some of them exhibit self-sacrifice, care for others, selflessness etc., which are light side qualities. If you are more into Star Wars, then you know that if you keep expressing the thoughts of either of the two types of qualites or keep acting in either of these ways while being force sensitive, you will finally be committed to either the dark side or the light side, depending on which way you've chosen. It is the perspective of the force.

 

If we examine it as outsiders, not being force sensitives, the things written above don't apply. Being 'outsiders', we think that what Kreia represents can't be considered to be evil or good, because she, basically, doesn't adhere to either of the two extremes, she's just rational. On the other hand, what she exhibits are self-reliance, self-sufficiency, distrust, selfishness etc., which ultimately make her a dark side person (of course, from the force perspective).

[bead-v 251]

It can be explained by what perspective you examine the dark-grey-light issue from. Almost all the dialoge options reflect something that is unique to one of the three alignments. Some of them display greed, selfishness, arrogance etc., which are the signature signs of the dark side. Some of them exhibit self-sacrifice, care for others, selflessness etc., which are light side qualities. If you are more into Star Wars, then you know that if you keep expressing the thoughts of either of the two types of qualites or keep acting in either of these ways while being force sensitive, you will finally be committed to either the dark side or the light side, depending on which way you've chosen. It is the perspective of the force.

 

However, the expression of these thoughts is not tied to the results of your acts, since it basically reflects your feelings at the time, your reasons really. This means that if you feel giving towards Saquesh when you get rid of Geriel for example, you should get LS points. This is comparable to when Kreia in a way rid the universe of Nihilus and the Sith indirectly, by which she did the republic/galaxy a favor, but since she did it out of revenge, she got DS points.

 

If we examine it as outsiders, not being force sensitives, the things written above don't apply. Being 'outsiders', we think that what Kreia represents can't be considered to be evil or good, because she, basically, doesn't adhere to either of the two extremes, she's just rational. On the other hand, what she exhibits are self-reliance, self-sufficiency, distrust, selfishness etc., which ultimately make her a dark side person (of course, from the force perspective).

Meaning it just depends on whether said qualities were stamped with "good" and "bad". I understand.

 

This is getting off-topic though, so we should stop here. If you are interested in continuing this, SiZo, send me a private message please.

 

EDIT: *Saquesh*, not Visquis...

Edited June 8, 2012 by bead-v

[SiZo 1]

This is my last comment on the subject (not wanting to off the topic apart).

 

You've got a point, but we can agree that if these choices didn't alter your alignment, there would be no other way in the game's scope for you to change alignments at all. This is how the developers could solve this thing, and that's all. They had to do it in some way and that was the simplest (I guess they hadn't even think about it the way we did)

[bead-v 251]

Well, yeah, of course they had to put it in somehow. The problem was just that I got a "wrong" idea about how this system worked from the kotor games. I'm glad to have cleared this up though.

 

By the way, I never really heard a good explanation on why the bond between Kreia and the Exile doesn't exist anymore, aside from Kreia cutting it (as she did in an unrestored/unrestorable version of the DS council meeting). I was wondering if maybe you had any ideas on that, SiZo?

[105491689125 3]

Some time ago I checked this issue in the dialog.tlk file and only found that force bonds dissipate, for example, when either the master or the apprentice turns to the dark side, which is nonsense in the case of Kreia and the Exile. It is nonsense because if you play a dark side Exile you are almost halfway towards the bottom of your dark side-o-meter at the beginning of the game, which means, according to what Vash says, that you couldn't have been affected to that degree by Kreia having her hand cut off, because by that point, the bond you shared had already weakened by a large amount. (not to mention the end of the game when Kreia stabs herself with a lightsaber on Dantooine, making the Exile drop, which isn't supposed to happen according to Vash) So now I see why it was cut; because this whole explanation was broken since it didn't work both ways (it does only when you are light side).

 

Hold on a second. You forgot to actually quote what you reference, which means that you lose the context. That is how someone reaches a misinterpretation like you do here. Here's the actual quote:

 

Vash: "The bond can be broken in many ways. If one falls to the Dark Side, the bond may fade and eventually break. This is why, when gripped with fear, Kaah was unable to feel our bond. He assumed I was dead."

 

What Vash was to supposed to explain was what happened between her and her own apprentice, which is what would happen for the usual force bond between a master and padawan. This does not adequately describe the bond between the Exile and Kreia, however, because an unusually strong affity for making force bonds is precisely the Exile's unique strength.

 

Or to quote what Vash also was to tell you, if you ask her about the Exile's own force bond with Kreia...

 

Vash: "That is most unnatural. This bond you share with Kreia is not like any I've ever heard of. How did it come to be?" (\StreamVoice\802\vash01\802vash01016)

 

Since the force bond between the Exile and Kreia is unusual to Vash, it obviously does not bear comparison to the force bond between Vash and her padawan.

 

Besides, Vash also says about her own force bond...

 

Vash: "Kaah was pulled to the Dark Side through his fear. He could no longer feel our bond."

 

Note that she doesn't say (here or in the quote above) that the bond between her and Kaah was broken, just that he could no longer feel her and therefore thought she was dead.

 

Ooh, and I didn't even need to get into whether Kreia is light, dark, or grey...

[SiZo 1]

By the way, I never really heard a good explanation on why the bond between Kreia and the Exile doesn't exist anymore, aside from Kreia cutting it (as she did in an unrestored/unrestorable version of the DS council meeting). I was wondering if maybe you had any ideas on that, SiZo?

I don't know. But my 'guess' is that it wasn't broken at all and the Exile didn't die because if they are harmed by one another, the side-effects of the bond don't apply. But it's a complete nonsense.