Lady, EVOLVED 
why did star wars decide that people should be allowed to choose between jedi and sith
@Lady 'cause the first movie came out and Darth Vader was hot?
And the categories were neatly color-coded for easy association?
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@gaditb for ages star wars media operated on the unstated principle that the empire was bad and the point of the series was to showcase various heroes who stood up to it. then the 2000s happened and suddenly they were like “actually the empire and the republic are functionally equivalent and the difference between the two is mostly aesthetic”
this is not a particularly well-researched take but it sure feels like there was a shift
@Lady Hmm. Okay taking this seriously and not just going "dark mysterious villains are hot" about it, when did The 501st, the cosplay group, start up? or get significant?
I'm not fully convinced that there has been all that much "actually the empire and the republic are equivalent and mostly aesthetically differentiated", and mostly in isolated ways, but The 501st seems like it'd stand a good chance of either being part of or being adjacent to an inflection point, if there was one.