I just realized that agent kallus makes no sense. In the pilot he is taunting zeb about he removed the bo rifle and how he gave the order to use the disrupotors. That contridicts what kallus says when he and zeb are stranded together.

I just realized that agent kallus makes no sense. In the pilot he is taunting zeb about he removed the bo rifle and how he gave the order to use the disrupotors. That contridicts what kallus says when he and zeb are stranded together.

Unless the taunts were just that...taunts, to get inside Zeb's head and put him off-balance.

If I recall correctly, I thought that when he taunted Zeb he was repeating the commonly told story, and later he was telling him what really happened.

Kallus grows to respect Zeb so he is more honest later and less about mental games like he was in the beginning.

Not directly related to the above situations, but still weird is how he is seemingly made to be a more sympathetic character. Not even a season after overseeing the assassination of minister Tua. Also, in the pilot he sent a stormtrooper falling into a pit. I don't understand how describing what happened to Zeb's people should make him look better, unless his disregard for others' lives is forgotten.

Well, there's always the chance that what he tells Zeb later is an elaborate deception and he really is still a cackling evil villain.

Not directly related to the above situations, but still weird is how he is seemingly made to be a more sympathetic character. Not even a season after overseeing the assassination of minister Tua. Also, in the pilot he sent a stormtrooper falling into a pit. I don't understand how describing what happened to Zeb's people should make him look better, unless his disregard for others' lives is forgotten.

His thinking was altered by what he has seen. He is no longer a true believer in the Empire. The bloom is off that rose. He has not forsaken the Empire. But he is also no longer a zealot about it either.

Pardon my tone, but what has he seen, exactly? There is also nothing to support your claim, as far as my memory of the cartoon goes, sans the 'lonely Kallus' scene at the end of the relevant episode.

Yeah, he killed people without remorse, but when the two officers were beheaded, he was horified.

And, despite that, he did not seem very concerned with Tua's assassination that happened later. I would say that if character development took place, it was neither shown nor addressed.

And, despite that, he did not seem very concerned with Tua's assassination that happened later. I would say that if character development took place, it was neither shown nor addressed.

I always figured he was more afraid of Vader than he was sympathetic to Tua. He probably regarded her as a poor leader, too. I haven't rewatched "Siege of Lothal" recently, but I wonder if he knew she was going to be assassinated? He definitely knew they were using her as bait to lure out the rebels, and he might have thought she was just going to be arrested rather than killed. He'd be an idiot for thinking so, but that might play into his later "fool idealist believer" angle for redemption.

And even when "Droids in Distress" aired, the way that David Oyelowo delivered his lines made me think it was more false bravado than honest evil. If he really cared so little for the Lasat that he would order their extermination using disruptors, I found it unlikely that he'd carry around one of their sacred bo-rifles.

And, despite that, he did not seem very concerned with Tua's assassination that happened later. I would say that if character development took place, it was neither shown nor addressed.

Agreed, and as recently as the episode introducing the B-wing, he was central to preventing the rebels from supplying the starving miners and seemed to enjoy the idea. (That part of the episode made little sense to me, since you have to keep people fed to do the work, but as usual with SW there are a lot of shortcuts.)

Anyway, I'm fine with a transition of character, but it would have been nice to see earlier evidence.

Well, he kept a droid with a cameea nearby, which points towards him knowing what was going on. Even if he was just afraid of Vader, he has already been shown to disregard the lives of everone else, and opening up to an adversary does not make him a sympathetic character in my eyes. I know that somebody may find him so, but I still find the attempt to whitewash the character to be handled somewhat poorly.

Was responding to CaptainRaspberry.

If I recall correctly, I thought that when he taunted Zeb he was repeating the commonly told story, and later he was telling him what really happened.

This is correct. He reveals in "The Honorable Ones" that much of the official story is untrue. According to Kallus his original mission was to suppress growing unrest on Lasat, but later they received new orders to eliminate the Lasat (and its pretty evident from his expression that this did not set well with him). Kallus is clearly on a path toward being "redeemed." On the one hand he's fine suppressing unrest, but he gets uncomfortable with some of the more extreme methods used from time to time. Also there are some audio clues that the new "Fulcrum" in the Season 3 trailert may in fact be Kallus. Clearly we don't know the context of that yet, but I am pretty confident his story arc will eventually turn him to a Rebel sympathizer.

Yancy

And, despite that, he did not seem very concerned with Tua's assassination that happened later. I would say that if character development took place, it was neither shown nor addressed.

Agreed, and as recently as the episode introducing the B-wing, he was central to preventing the rebels from supplying the starving miners and seemed to enjoy the idea. (That part of the episode made little sense to me, since you have to keep people fed to do the work, but as usual with SW there are a lot of shortcuts.)

Anyway, I'm fine with a transition of character, but it would have been nice to see earlier evidence.

I think what we saw was just a seed of a potential route the character might take, to joining the Rebels. We see that there is clearly something lacking in his life as an Imperial, and that lack might grow to be intolerable. That he might not be as bad as he has been presented as, but that he was simply someone who genuinely believed the Empire was in the right, but now might be harboring some doubts about that. He hasn't completely made a decision yet, but it could come up later.

Kallus hasn't had his Alderaan (a la Thane Kyrell) yet. I imagine he will soon.

As for Minister Tua and her death/execution, the only time we saw Kallus after that was when he was in Vader's immediate presence, during which it would have been suicide for him to question the Dark Lord's commands or intentions. It had been made very clear to Kallus that his neck was indeed on the chopping block in terms of Tarkin's "no more failures!" directive that cost two Imperial officers their lives by way of decapitation, and he'd seen that Tua was not as competent as her situation required.

If Kallus does do a heel-face turn, hopefully he'll have a moment or two to lament about the Minister's death, and that he was expecting her to be arrested for treason (which she was 100% guilty of), and that the bomb was meant more for the Rebels than to assassinate a government official. It's possible that after seeing the explosion, he ran with it in terms of Vader's orders to deprive the Rebels of as much local support as possible.

I suspect that after his time spent with Zeb and his return to the Imperial forces, Kallus has done a lot of soul-searching about his prior actions and devout loyalty to an Empire that doesn't return the sentiment.

Well, there was that stormtrooper whom Kallus sent falling down a chasm. He is still a disgusting character, and talking to Zeb does not elevate him in my eyes.

Well, considering that the Rebellion can not be as picky as they would like to be with people who want to help them, they will probably be happy to welcome Kallus into their ranks, warts and all.

Well, there was that stormtrooper whom Kallus sent falling down a chasm. He is still a disgusting character, and talking to Zeb does not elevate him in my eyes.

So what are you thoughts on Darth Vader? He was, without question, a more despicable person than Kallus, yet he is allowed to redeem himself over the course of events in the original trilogy. Do you feel it's impossible for someone to have a change of heart about deeply held beliefs, and then try to act in a way that corrects their past mistakes?

I'm more okay with Darth Vader redeeming himself if I ignore the prequels, to be honest.

I feel like Darth Vader is clearly trigger-happy as **** in the original trilogy and murdered people wherever he went, poor Captain Antilles, Captain Needa and Admiral Ozzel, but at least he had his reasons and the mass murder was not on him (that was Tarkin.)

Prequels made Anakin a little too much like that PCs that suddenly just murders an entire village without having a good reason other than messing with the GM. Let's say I'm not a fan of people deciding "Today I'm going to murder my friends" all of a sudden.

And the women. And the children.

I'm more okay with Darth Vader redeeming himself if I ignore the prequels, to be honest.

I feel like Darth Vader is clearly trigger-happy as **** in the original trilogy and murdered people wherever he went, poor Captain Antilles, Captain Needa and Admiral Ozzel, but at least he had his reasons and the mass murder was not on him (that was Tarkin.)

Prequels made Anakin a little too much like that PCs that suddenly just murders an entire village without having a good reason other than messing with the GM. Let's say I'm not a fan of people deciding "Today I'm going to murder my friends" all of a sudden.

And the women. And the children.

Eh, if you are specifically referring to the Sand People incident, I actually don't have a problem with his reaction to that. His mother, the one person in the world that he loved aside from Padme, was showing up in his mind as being in danger. He shows up, only to find her already dead, at the hands of a group of people that he probably considers sub-human. "They're not people, they're savages!" Considering we've never seen the Sand People do anything other than be hostile to anyone they encounter, it's safe to bet that your average Tatooinian, would have a negative view of them as a group. So then, feeling guilt at not getting there fast enough, and anger at the people right outside that directly lead to her death. Yeah, he lost it. Considering I've seen actual world footage of grief stricken family members inciting a city to riot (specifically telling everyone to burn the city down) over the death of their loved one, I don't find it at all hard to believe that a Jedi, with the powers and abilities at his disposal, would just forgoe a middle manager about that kind of thing, and just get straight to the killing.

As to the thing about the Younglings in Revenge. Eh, I think honestly, it was chosen to make it really **** clear to the audience, "This is when he goes over to the Dark Side. No if's and's or but's about it." Was it heavy handed? Yes, but considering how many thousands, if not tens of thousands he killed afterwards, To me it's a drop in the bucket honestly. But, again, Star Wars works in a mystical, narrative reality. Where there is literally an all encompassing magical field that urges people to do good/bad things. And considering it operates on Narrative Logic, it's totally viable for a really terrible character to redeem themselves, by doing something epic, when it's dramatically appropriate.

Does this logic work in the real world? No. At least not for me. I wouldn't say that Hitler's right hand man was suddenly a good person, because at the height of the war, he put a bullet in Hitler's head, before he too died from a previous wound. I'd appreciate what he did, for stopping a terrible person, but he was still a tool. In reality, the same would apply for Vader. But this isn't reality. It's a galaxy far far away. And it's a story, and Dramatic Redemptions are a staple of human storytelling from the dawn of time. We like tales of really terrible people suddenly saving the day, (usually at the cost of their lives, but not always). It's just something we enjoy hearing and watching. Does it match how we operate in reality? Nope, at least not all of us. But it's fun to watch, and makes for good drama and narrative.

"That Hitler guy gets a lot of bad rep, but at least he killed Hitler."

Well, there was that stormtrooper whom Kallus sent falling down a chasm. He is still a disgusting character, and talking to Zeb does not elevate him in my eyes.

So what are you thoughts on Darth Vader? He was, without question, a more despicable person than Kallus, yet he is allowed to redeem himself over the course of events in the original trilogy. Do you feel it's impossible for someone to have a change of heart about deeply held beliefs, and then try to act in a way that corrects their past mistakes?

I don't think that people can't change. I do think, however, that talking in the case of Kallus and saving a relative in the case of Vader don't make up for murdering people. Does not mean that they didn't have a change of hearts, but it does seem like the characters are easily forgiven.

Well, there was that stormtrooper whom Kallus sent falling down a chasm. He is still a disgusting character, and talking to Zeb does not elevate him in my eyes.

So what are you thoughts on Darth Vader? He was, without question, a more despicable person than Kallus, yet he is allowed to redeem himself over the course of events in the original trilogy. Do you feel it's impossible for someone to have a change of heart about deeply held beliefs, and then try to act in a way that corrects their past mistakes?

I don't think that people can't change. I do think, however, that talking in the case of Kallus and saving a relative in the case of Vader don't make up for murdering people. Does not mean that they didn't have a change of hearts, but it does seem like the characters are easily forgiven.

Forgiven in what way? Because he gets all glowy at the end? I wouldn't call that "forgiveness", simply a symbolic representation of his own awareness and relinquishment of hate. He still had to die.

Anyway, these are fables in the truest sense, best not to be taken literally.