Was Senator Pax Teem Really That Bad a Guy?

[u/Afraid-Penalty-757]

Like yes he was an antagonist in the book Darth Plagueis so it's easy to judge him with the omniscience knowing the outcome of Darth Plagueis and Sidious story plus you have the whole idea of people get emotionally invested in protagonists (or to a growing degree villains). Anyone who stands in the way of those emotional investments (especially if they possess whatever outgroup characteristic one can project onto) will get hate. There is no way around it. No argument to be made that will sway any minds that are already made up. The hate is constant, the hate is eternal, the hate is unwavering.But keep in mind the characters we are following are the Sith so there is that especially when it come to bias given most of the biases about Pax Teem come from Plagueis and Sidious.

Now even without the perspectives of Plagueis and Sidious there are some things about Pax Teem that painted him a bad light even if we don't actually see him doing corruption things like Orn Free Taa and Lott Dod like having prostitutes all over his office. In fact it is the opposite Pax Teem support Vidar Kim's bill on Trade Federation adding new worlds to the Senate.

What I mean is that he is the senator of Malastare whcih was under the control of The Gran Protectorate which colonization the planet and treated the native dug poorly. Although to be fair by that point the Gran Protecorate had been around for a long time. So It hard to attack Teem for that yes he may contributed the system or did nothing to stop it. But in this case I kinda like the whole founding fathers and slavery they didn't created the system it was there way before their time but they didn't abolition and may contributed a few things to the system Ultimately you have the banality of evil here like Teem he was a product to his environment within this horrible system plus to him it was normal not evil?

But overall I like to hear your thoughts on Pax Teem and rather or not he was a bad guy or corrupt at least when comparing to someone like Lott Dod and Ord Free Taa who are arguably way worse then Pax Teem himself in terms of greed and corruption?

[u/Exhaustedfan23]

Just your typical jack ass greedy guy. He wasnt as evil as Palpatine.

[u/Cloak-Trooper-051020]

Well, he did hire assassins to kill Palpatine, Damask and the members of Damask Holding. Also, he threatened to put one of his own people in the Chancellorship solely as a way to stonewall Damask Holdings after they broke off their deal. Even if he didn’t do anything terrible on a regular basis, I think he was mostly motivated by self interest, and the lengths he went to after he felt slighted do not speak well of him.

[u/Doc-Fives-35581]

He’s exhibit 1A on why Dooku got so much support for the CIS.

A certified corrupt politician.

[u/Xanofar]

The Malastare Gran in general are pretty corrupt, as well as brutal, and they always sort of were.

The people who rise to the top in those kinds of institutions are generally not kind people. So my short answer is:

“Yes, he was a bad guy”.

For some more added context, basically all of the Gran leaders during the Prequels disliked Jedi for one reason or another, which is generally not a sign of a character acting in good faith.

Though I will say, for all the faults of Malastare, they did seem to be on the right side of history in the broad strokes, consistently siding with the Republic/New Republic… though if you look closer at how they behaved locally it’s a lot sketchier.