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In The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren has this monologue (emphasis mine):

Forgive me. I feel it again. The pull to the light. Supreme Leader senses it. Show me again. The power of the darkness. And I'll let nothing stand in our way. Show me, Grandfather, and I will finish what you started. [Reveals Darth Vader's helmet]

This seemed to be rather silly to me, as in the other movies, the dark side was seen as the seductive side, rather than the other way around. Even Vader, who eventually redeemed himself, didn't say that he felt the draw of the light side. Quite the opposite in fact; he soundly rejected Luke's encouragements saying that "it's too late for me".

Has there ever been another Dark Jedi or Sith (in Disney continuity or Legends) who said that they felt a "pull to the light" or something similar?

To be clear, I'm not talking about anyone who redeemed themselves to the light side (I know that there are plenty of those). Rather, I'm looking for someone who actually described a "pull to the light" or something similar in a struggle to remain dark sided.

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    The "pull to the light" is not so much a seduction (as you rightly attribute to the dark side), but a result of a moral conflict. Kylo Ren's sense of morality is conflicting with his dark side desires. spoilers ahead: Killing his father was what gave him a sense of "no turning back now", abandoning (at least some of) his morality Nov 5, 2016 at 18:49
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    "In Bane’s age a Sith might have had to guard against an attempt at essence transfer by the deceased—a leap into the consciousness of the Sith who survived—but those times were long past and of no relevance; not since the teachings had been sabotaged, the technique lost. The last Sith possessed of the knowledge had been inexplicably drawn to the light side and killed, taking the secret process with him …" - Darth Plagueis
    – Valorum
    Nov 5, 2016 at 22:01
  • @Valorum Is that talking about Darth Gravid, as described in Adamant's answer? Nov 5, 2016 at 22:04
  • @Thunderforge - The line before is "Tenebrous died while Plagueis observed."
    – Valorum
    Nov 5, 2016 at 22:10
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    @Valorum - I actually don’t think that’s talking about Tenebrous. Elsewhere in the novel, Plagueis says: Only once in these past thousand years has a Sith Lord strayed into the light, and one day I will tell you that tale. Presumably that’s Gravid. The relevance of the bit about Tenebrous is that he doesn’t know this secret, so Plagueis doesn’t need to worry about Tenebrous trying to transfer his essence.
    – Adamant
    Nov 5, 2016 at 22:34

2 Answers 2

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Canon

It’s worth noting that the possibility of being tempted by the Light Side does not conflict with the canonical seductiveness of the Dark Side. The Dark Side is still a significantly greater source of temptation than the Light: it’s simply that, for the right person under the right circumstances, the Light Side can present a temptation too. As long as the temptation of the Dark Side is generally greater, people fallen to the Dark Side will tend to stay there.

Though there’s definitely a supernatural element to being tempted by the Dark Side, there’s also a more mundane element. The Dark Side plays upon one’s desires. Anakin, for example, fell because he believed the Dark Side would give him “the power to save Padmé.” For Kylo Ren, the Light Side would represent his family, the New Republic, and everything he lost by turning to Snoke. Unlike Anakin, it’s not clear that Kylo gained anything but power for its own sake when he turned to the Dark Side. It’s natural for him to have some regrets. Also, keep in mind the context of that scene. It’s referencing this earlier one:

SNOKE: There’s something more. The droid we seek is aboard the Millennium Falcon. In the hands of your father, Han Solo.

KYLO REN: He means nothing to me.

The “pull to the light” that Kylo is referencing is his feelings for his father, which are tempting him away from the path of evil that he has chosen. But this is nothing new—on the contrary, this is precisely what enabled Vader’s redemption: his selfless love for his son. Kylo simply has it a whole lot worse than Vader. Selflessness, and selfless love in particular, is certainly affiliated with the Light Side, so it makes a lot of sense for Kylo to describe himself as feeling “the pull of the light” here.

When considered in this broader context, then, other Sith Lords certainly have felt the pull of the Light. Even before his redemption, for example, Darth Vader experienced feelings unbefitting of a Sith Lord, and more charcteristic of the Light. In Lords of the Sith, for example, he prevents the Emperor from killing a young girl under the pretext that she could prove useful:

With preternatural speed the Emperor drew, ignited, and slashed at the girl with his lightsaber, but Vader had sensed his Master’s intent and moved with greater speed, igniting his own blade and intercepting his Master’s blow before it could land.

Lords of the Sith

Later, he seems to admit that he was tempted by his past (i.e., lingering compassionate impulses):

Vader looked from his Master to the dark mouth of the mine inside of which Drua and the rest of the villagers had fled. He felt the Emperor’s eyes on him, the intensity of the gaze, the weight of his expectations, and Vader knew that the day’s events had been only half about depleting a rebel movement before it could grow. They had also, as Vader had suspected, been about testing him, forcing him to face the ghosts of his past and exorcise them forever and fully. He saw that more clearly now; saw, too, that his Master was right to administer the test.

Lords of the Sith

It’s not clear whether even Kylo Ren is being tempted by some supernatural power of the Light Side. But other Sith Lords (such as Darth Vader) have certainly been tempted by Light Side impulses.

Legends

Though the specific wording “pull to the light” is not used, Darth Gravid could be said to have been tempted by the Light Side:

A human Sith Lord whose short reign had elapsed some five centuries earlier, Gravid had been persuaded to believe that total commitment to the dark side would sentence the Sith Order to eventual defeat, and so had sought to introduce Jedi selflessness and compassion into his teachings and practice, forgetting that there can be no return to the light for an adept who has entered the dark wood; that the dark side will not surrender one to whom, by mutual agreement, it has staked a claim. Driven increasingly mad by his attempts to straddle the two realms, Gravid became convinced that the only way to safeguard the future of the Sith was to hide or destroy the lore that had been amassed through the generations—the texts, holocrons, and treatises—so that the Sith could fashion a new beginning for themselves that would guarantee success.

Darth Plagueis

Plagueis also described Gravid as “drawn to the light side,” which is similar to Kylo Ren’s statement about feeling “the pull of the light.”

The last Sith possessed of the knowledge had been inexplicably drawn to the light side and killed, taking the secret process with him ….

Darth Plagueis

It’s interesting to note that, like Kylo Ren in canon, Gravid experienced a great deal of conflict from his flirtations with the Light Side.

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I doubt it, seeing that Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader is the ONLY known Jedi/Sith, who's ever done it. He definitely represents good and evil, but also redeemable, given the right circumstances. Deep down, Luke knew all too well that Anakin wasn't completely gone. It was love and compassion that brought Anakin back.

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    The question is actually about Kylo Ren, not Anakin/Darth Vader. So that makes two Sith/Dark Jedi who've felt the "pull to the light".
    – F1Krazy
    Oct 13, 2019 at 9:35
  • I see. Your point? Mar 27, 2022 at 8:47
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    My point is that your answer states that "Anakin Skywalker is the only known Jedi/Sith who has ever [felt the pull to the light]", but the question clearly states that Kylo Ren has also felt it.
    – F1Krazy
    Mar 27, 2022 at 11:20

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