The Plight of Star Wars Droids

malachiorion writes "Does George Lucas hate metal people? I know, sounds like standard click-bait, but I think I present a relatively troll-free argument in the piece I wrote for Slate. We stuck to the Star Wars canon, pointing out the relatively grim state of affairs for droid rights, and the lack of any real sympathy for their plight from the heroes, or, it would seem, George Lucas. C-3PO is more correct than he might realize, when the says that droids 'seem to be made to suffer.'"

Comments

Characters are created to suffer

[_Sharp'r_]

Characters in stories are created to suffer through most of the plot. Droids are just a little easier to do that with in a serious way than people are, although ultimately, people are more fun.

Re:Characters are created to suffer

[Baloroth]

Droids aren't intelligent beings. You wouldn't feel bad if you dropped and broke a smartphone on the ground, would you? Well, maybe you would, as you'd no longer have a smartphone and would have to pick up a replacement... but you wouldn't feel bad for the phone. Then why would you feel bad for C3-P0? Yes, droids are much much more advanced than a smartphone, but they are no more intelligent beings than a rock is. They don't experience joy or sorrow: they're just programmed to emulate it. Nowhere in Star Wars is it at all implied that they actually are intelligent, rational beings with free will (well, at least not standard droids: there are probably exceptions in some of the fiction).

Droids are quite simply not alive. They're a simulacrum of life (and a particularly good one), but that is not the same as life. It makes absolutely no sense to have any feelings towards them, beyond a kind of affection which one might feel for a particularly useful car or other tool. That's all they are: tools. They show some survival instinct, but that's just because you want your tools to survive if at all possible. They feel "pain", but only as a representation of damage (although I've always found it quite... odd that droids can be "tortured" in the Star Wards universe). They're not sentient beings.

Re:Characters are created to suffer

[postbigbang]

Not slavery. These entities have no soul. They are artificial, and have all the rights of a table setting, forks included.

You can attempt to personify and anthropomorphize robotry, but it will fail each time. These are not humanity. These are artificial creations.

I don't condone waste of materials but that's what these objects are. That you endow them with some perceived and ostensible spirit is your own fallacy. You are not God. Things you make don't have spirit-- except your children. Conflating robotry with humanity is incorrect and maladept. Just as a picture of a fish doesn't cure hunger, a robot designed by humanity is not human.

Re:Know your audience, where they came from

[cervesaebraciator]

To be honest I was surprised when Jedi came out that there wasn't something about the ecology added in just to be trendy.

So, you're unaware of the Endor Holocaust, the ecological disaster caused when the Rebellion blew Death Star II to smithereens?

No, The Whole Arc is about a Droid

[speedlaw]

Really ! R2-D2 is the only character in all the movies. He has a long life. He is proven to be sapient but hides it well. He does NOT follow orders. Except for the fact only C3P0 and other droids (and occasionally Luke) can understand him, he's the most important character in the Trilogy, and those other three movies.

Re:it's just a watering down for increased bottom

[thms]

The fact that they never touch the philosophical issues of "droids rights" makes me classify Star Wars more into the Fantasy than in the Science Fiction genre. It takes place in a universe where apart from some engineering progress towards bigger weapons no scientific progress is made (except maybe the midichlorians lapse), and technology itself is never questioned but is just a plot device. Just like droids.

Re:it's just a watering down for increased bottom

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

The gap between F & SF is superficial; both have plenty of brain candy and works that explore deeper topics, including ones that you'd expect to belong in the other category. That's why the term "speculative fiction" has been gaining steam: it's increasingly difficult to pinpoint which side stories fall on when it comes to both underlying content and window-dressing, especially within subgenres like urban fantasy. For that matter, the window-dressing itself is typically the same items or concepts with different names, including when it comes to science vs. magic -- that's what the popular quote about highly advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic was referring to, IIRC.

Example: a race from another world arrives here through an inter-dimensional portal, carrying items that outperform our best computers or medicine. You can call their species monsters or aliens, describe their method of transport as a native skill or technology or magic (or all three), and deem their objects magical or extremely advanced technology -- they're the same concepts, and the same philosophical questions can arise as a result. (My guess is that others here can name at least a book/series or three that is close to that description; I can't think of specific ones offhand.)

Re:"rights"

[Pfhorrest]

Care to post a link to this revolutionary new research debunking physicalism? I'd have thought it'd have made the news.

If you can't cite such a thing, then GP's point stands: humans are physical things executing certain functions some of which constitute the state we call "feeling", and a sufficiently perfect emulation of such functions would constitute "feeling" just as much if carried out by a physical thing made of metal as they would when carried out by our brains.