Discussion To Sith or not to Sith? -NSA Edition

What's the Sith ideology?

 

What is their culture? What are the goals of their order? What information did you use to come to your conclusions?

I have a thread in Saga (cant link right now) that poses the question, using only movies and their novelizations as a basis, of just what it is that makes a Jedi or Sith.

Again, Occam's Razor. What is a simpler task for a writer: building upon an already-familiar group, or coming up with something entirely new, with all the requisite exposition?

Why re-invent the wheel when you dont have to?

 

At the risk of sounding repetitive, Occam's Razor: have a familiar organization evolve; or create an entirely new, but very similar organization, along with the required exposition?

 

Not preference, logic.

 

No, not at all. But what you're suggesting is not just a new character plus exposition, but a new character plus exposition, a new organization plus exposition, and exposition as to the differences between this new organization and an already-familiar organization which it strongly resembles. It violates the K.I.S.S. maxim.

I'll use the PT for a comparison. The story could have gotten further derailed by exposition about what distinguishes a Jedi who leaves the Order to become a well-intentioned extremist and uses powers similar to the Emperor from a Sith. But instead, Count Dooku was a Sith Lord.

Put another way, you could introduce an entirely new sect of darksider saber-wielders, but why?

 

The Rule of Two is, IMHO one of the most brlliant-but -misunderstood pieces of "villain psychology" ever. I'll have to go into this more later...

 

I edited to indicate that I’d go into it when I had a bit more time. Here goes, though:

Sith Lords are all about being the most powerful there is. So long as a Sith Lord has to be subordinate to anyone else, they are not the most powerful. That’s why they seek galactic domination; they wanna be the top of the heap.

Why does a Sith Master seek to have an apprentice with the potential to surpass them in abilities? Well, first off, in addition to having the resources of an entire galaxy at your beck and call, nothing says “I am the baddest [censored] in the galaxy!” louder than having the second-baddest [censored] in the galaxy kneel before you.

Why does a Master condition an apprentice to hate him and want to murder him, and not just “break” the apprentice into an eternal subordinate? To keep himself from going soft. To keep improving. Plus, it’s a giant ego-boost. Think about it: your right-hand man loathes you with every fiber of his being, but does your bidding anyway. How utterly epic is that?

As far as ever-improving and never going soft, in the mind of a supervillain, nothing weeds out complacency and inspires improvement than the certainty that there is an incredibly powerful being always watching you for signs of weakness, and will straight-up murder you if he ever display any.

That’s how a Dark Lord of the Sith can be utterly self-interested while at the same time grooming someone to kill him. It boils down to this:

“I want to be the most powerful being I can be. I never want to rest on my laurels. Ever. How do I make that happen? I want have the most dangerous being to stalk the galaxy at my beck and call. Not just for the lulz (although I ain’t gonna lie, that is pretty awesome), but because he hates me and wants to kill me, otherwise he’s not dangerous. For him to be able to kill me, he has to always be improving himself. How do I not die? By always being that much further ahead of him.”


There’s no sense of self-sacrifice to the greater good (greater evil?) of the order necessary. That the Sith Order constantly improves is a groovy side-effect.

 

No Sith Lord really believes in the Rule of Two! Not really. Like I said earlier:

And that's not counting the "second-stringers" they have in the waiting; the "dogs awaiting scraps" alluded to by Bane in Dark Lord.

 

Nope.

I'd say being a Master isn't about what tricks you can do, though it helps. Being a Master is about having the one who can do all the tricks as your subordinate. Put another way, the Master isn't necessarily the one who wins the arm-wrestling contest; the Master is the one who controls (by whatever means) the one who wins the arm-wrestling contest.



"Steel isn't strong, boy. Flesh is stronger! Look up there...at that beautiful girl...come to me , my child!
*girl walks off catwalk, falls to her death*
That is strength, boy! THAT is power! What is a sword compared to the hand that wields it?"