The Shadows of Darth, and the Evils Within

        I am trying to get at something here. I think I have the ideas, or the idea, but I need to flesh them out.

        Here goes. The idea of good versus bad, good versus evil.

        Figuring out the Good and the Bad

    Fact and fiction, reality and fantasy, coalesce and intermingle, leaving us in wonder and contemplation, and leading us to truth, or understanding. Some call it enlightenment. Light versus dark, symbolize and epitomize good and bad. Good and evil.

    We seek light, we generally eschew the darkness. We, at least most of us, most of the time, seek the good over evil. We can all be conflicted and tempted by that which is not good. This is how we are built.

    As a child I loved Santa, we love the notion of Santa Claus.

    I thought or learned, I concluded by the age of five or so that he, this generous and ubiquitous elf of the North, was not real. It smacked of too much fiction, or fantasy. But it was a nice tradition. Jesus Christ, on the other hand, was a more compelling notion. This was in 1975 and 1976.

    Then came 1977. A new symbol of evil arrived on the scene; his name was Darth Vader.

    He was fictional, on the big screen, a bit like the Wicked Witch of the West, or the Wizard of Oz, but terrifying, nonetheless.

    Darth embodied evil. He did bad things, like threaten the beautiful and noble Princess Leia Organa. He went after his own leaders, men who also were dark and bad, bad not as horrific, powerful, and loathsome as Darth. Darth was sheer terror.

    He struck down the virtuous and wise Obi Wan Kenobi. He flew across the planets in his Tie Fighter, or strode upon the platforms and main decks of the Imperial Star Fighters, or the Death Star, a massive instrument of destruction, destroying whole planets and peoples.

    Back on Earth, with our (my) expanding comprehension of our planet and galaxy, a world where we have libraries full of knowledge and facts, (before the Internet grabbed all the claims on known reality and truth), I grew to know of successive embodiments of evil, in the persons of Adolph Hitler, or George Custer, or, Joseph Stalin, or Pol Pot, or Idi Amin, or the unending lists of those killers of the Bible: Cain of the first parents, Pharoah killed the babies which brought out the hero Moses, other bad men of the past, and then Herod who killed more babies, and later those who slayed Jesus of Nazareth.

    Americans were bad, in parts. Learning of the native Americans, most seemed good to me, like Jedi of the world of George Lucas. Custer and many white men seemed blood thirsty and evil. The slave government of the South and the U.S. Civil War were bad to me, too. We as a nation were conflicted, we always had inner turmoil. We were good and bad, especially by the era of Vietnam, followed by the fallen hero of Richard Nixon, who proclaimed "I am not a crook!"

    But he was.

    The Ayatollah of Iran was another embodiment of the bad. Some pointed to Yassir Arafat, and then there was Moamar Khadafy, and then Saddam Hussein, and Osama Bin Laden.

    Going back in time, there were always evil men and empires, and even some bad women. Not as many, but there were bad ones like Salome who requested the head of John the Baptist. 

    So Goerge Lucas was on to something. He was tapping into many real things, emotions, and realities, through his fiction.

    At age 26 I read Dune, and I realized Lucas must have stolen and borrowed from Frank Herbert.

    All art and fiction connect and co-mingle, and so do the ideas of fiction and reality.

    At age 8 or so I got the Darth Vader tie fighter for Christmas. Juxtaposition of dark and light? Yes. My young friend Ian had an X-Wing, He had Luke, the good one, and I did not want to have the same thing. I was happy to get this vehicle from the toy store for Christmas. Before the Empire Stikes Back came out, the second movie that gets deeper into the story and saga of the fathers and sons, the daughters and warriors, choosing between good and evil. Deep subjects, never ending. (I saw Episode VII again last night, the last month of 2022. Who are Rey's parents? I want to know. Still, of course.)

    A dark toy in the Season of Lights, in the darkest time of the year, when we try to celebrate the lightest, or brightest, or purest symbol of good. Even those who did not accept Him, the Jewish, have a proximate Festival of Lights in Channukah. 

    I did not celebrate Darth Vader. No, I could not understand people that liked him, I was always surprised by those that liked him. But I liked having his vehicle. I kept it.

    I have it still. Decades of reality and fiction, books and reports, movies and concepts later, I have the Vader Tie Fighter toy in a visible part of my house. Most do not see it. I pass long periods without seeing it or thinking about it. It is there, and has been on its ledge partially visible for years. I sometimes can bring it down and scrutinized it.

    The plastic glass of the cockpit has yellowed with age. Appropriate, perhaps.

    The yellowing or aging plastic symbolizes things to me.

    Symbols of light and dark, true and good versus the dark and evil, perpetuate and persist.

    In high school I read Wuthering Heights, where Heathcliffe was a symbol and type of darkness and the wrong. I think that I understood it then, but ever since the stories and the characters have been become hazy and murky.

    Like life. 

    What is good and evil? Was Ronald Reagan? Was Barach Obama? Was George Bush? Has Donald Trump been that man? Is it Vladimir Putin today? Was Mao Ze Dong the worst? Or is he a hero of the people?

    Where are the worst evils?

    Where is Darth Vader?

    Where are the champions of light?

    They are all close by and not too far away. But they hide and can be forgotten.

    But I still see them all, fact and fiction.

    Like the Dark Lord Sith's personal vehicle. It is still there.