Malak is kind of a weak villain but i think that actually kind of works because of one reason.
he took your place.
Malak is a weak ass brute who stole your position and all your hard work. the fact he is kind of a mustache-twirling idiot kind of works because he took your place. it feels personal that he is doing a worse job than you and stabbed you in the back. are you really going to let this impatient asshole take all your stuff and do it worse. no you do not. there is also the fact you are entirely responsible for his fall to the dark side. he is a brutish bastard but he is your brutish bastard
This is where you are correct only partially and only under the assumption that the player has chosen the Dark Side and the Sith. But only partially, as I will explain, but first on how it is completely wrong from the point of view of the Light Side path.
The character Revan may have been the Dark Lord, which in Star Wars means the leader of many Sith, sometimes up to an entire faction of them, but the player is free to construct a new identity and choose a different path (the path of the Light Side). This is what I have chosen, for example. In my choice, there is putting the past to rest, leaving behind former behaviors and identity, removal of importance of such things like revenge and retribution, as well as things usually close to them like anger, hatred, contempt. The "peace" the Jedi speak of when they say that emotion, any emotion, is fundamentally tainted by the darkness, isn't something tangential to the whole thing. It is
essential. As such, for my character, whom I have refused to acknowledge being called Revan multiple times (but the game of course fails to properly reward or punish me for such things), Darth Malak is simply another Dark Lord who must be stopped for the sake of all life. Malak's betrayal, incompetence, wasteful behavior, brutish and thus often inelegant actions are all things which were of no concern to my character who has, even upon finding out that the Jedi have used him as a tool and a weapon, decided that the path of non-Dark-Side and non-Sith were proper; I say "non-" precisely because, whilst the game only offers a binary path of Light vs Dark, I felt it more proper to try and play a "third position", one which feels neither obliged to server the Jedi nor fight the Sith, not in principle at least. So no, it did not feel personal
at all. In fact, with this perspective in mind, Malak was and felt like just another dangerous foe who must be vanquished, for sooner or later, he'll come for me (that is, my character) to make my life miserable.
As for the "entire responsibility" for Malak falling to the Dark Side, it is true in itself, but this claim is part of a larger truth, that of the path of the Sith. And this path, as one dialogue option acknowledges during the final confrontation with Malak, is wholly a matter of personal choice of each and every one who walks it. To fall is one thing, but to persist - wholly another. The former Dark Lord by the name Revan bears responsibility for dragging Malak to the Dark Side, but the character I played - who was no longer Revan in the absolute sense - has no responsibility
at all for Malak still persisting in his choice.
And now the final and most important perspective on the matter, that of the Sith. Only the strongest and most capable of the Sith ever reach such a station so as to be called a Dark Lord. However, another thing that is equally important is that of the "principle of the two", one who is Master and the other is Apprentice. The Sith master, who is also a Dark Lord, knows very well how and why a new Sith leader is created: by apprentice killing his former master, and in turn assuming the title of the master himself and gaining an apprentice as well. Revan must have known and must have been acutely aware of the precariousness of his position, one with which comes great power and prestige, but also a constant threat in the form of his apprentice. And yet, despite being aware of these things, and he must have known them, Revan continues to have Malak by his side. In a rather ironic way, there really is nothing "truly" personal in apprentice killing his master, as it is done primarily out of the sense of personal superiority, rather than being incredibly irritated by real or perceived flaws of his master, as well as being done due to necessity and adherence to the Sith Code. The character Revan is portrayed as highly intelligent and even wise to a degree, able to work out a deal with inferior aliens through cunning and subterfuge (the Rakata), followed with betrayal but otherwise leaving those aliens be, rather than using brute force to get what he wants. This means that Malak's betrayal was both expected and natural course of things for Revan, which in turn actually works in favor for choosing the Light Side as being "canon", since the opposite path offers, in the end, only vanity and destruction, which sooner or later exhaust themselves into nothingness. A true Sith Lord wouldn't think of his apprentice as being
inferior or "unworthy" of the title of master if the apprentice had actually manged to betray and destroy the master, which Malak in practice did. And if a new confrontation is to occur, only in the moment of victory could the former master again assume superiority, since not leading the Sith, not having prestige, not being part of the overall Sith force implies that the former master really is no longer one, despite still being alive. This is all the more affirmed by KOTOR, on the planet Korriban, where there are still living former masters ousted by their apprentices, but obviously not dead; the leader of the Sith Academy on Korriban is one such master, who was an a apprentice of the still living Sith, but details escape me as I basically didn't care much about that particular aspect of their relationship (how did the former master lose his position?), since in the end I slaughtered nearly everyone in the Academy, including the current master and his current apprentice at the same time.
This took more text than I had thought it would....
