"Always two there are, no more, no less. A master and an apprentice."

That's what Yoda said about the sith. Palpatine, Dooku, Ventress. Yeah, that's too many. So what's the thing?

 

Ventress isn't a Sith.

Bald n Beautiful

 

Ventress is a Dark Jedi who wants to be a Sith. In the past, before Darth Bane's reformations, there used to be *many* Sith.

 

Darh Bane founded the 'Rule of Two' which is what Yoda was mentioning.

Rule of Two if you want to read more...

Oh and yes Darth Sidious broke this rule alot, by training Darth Maul as an apprentice while still ebing an apprentice himself. Yet this still could be considered careful precautions to ensure the continuation of the Sith, even if they did, technically, violate the Rule in its strictest form.

 

Ventress isn't a Sith, just a dark Jedi.

 

I think Ki-Ad-Mundi was a bit naive if you ask me, which is another sign the jedi were somewhat ignorant. No sith in a thousand years, yeah right. It's plainly obvious that Yoda knew that the sith still existed during all this time, and I'm sure Mace Windu was no exception. Palpatine wanted to change all that sith philosophy, but he wanted to wait for the right time to do it. I mean, it's been hundreds of years since the rule was made. Isn't it about time someone would break that rule by now?

 

Palpatine never broke the rule though. If he did, Dooku would still be alive.

 

Palpatine did break the rule as the had an apprentice in Darh Maul while he was still an apprentice to Darth Plageius

 

Oh, yeah I forgot. I got my dates mixed up.

 

Technically speaking, that's not breaking the rule either; Sidious wasn't the Master until he killed Plagueis. Vader had several pupils while Palpatine was still alive (Galen Marek and Lumiya) and at no time has he ever been referred to as the Sith Master.

 

Besides the Master, the Apprentice, and candidates, the Sith like using regular Dark Jedi as goons. As can be seen in the Empire's many force using Inquisitors, Shadow Guards and Emperor's Hands.

But in the end, these guys are just tools. They don't get to learn secret Sith knowledge and are very disposable.

 

Palpatine adheres to the Rule of Two, since Maul didn't become Sith until after Palpatine killed his master. And the Prophets of the Dark Side, Inquisitors, Emperor's Hands and such, are called "Dark Side Adepts." Palpatine basically uses them to do whatever he wants, but he's probably always looking for an apprentice to take over for Vader should he ever die.

 

This is how I look at it.

I do admit that the Ventress angle has kind of shaken things up quite a bit. I hope they continue to develop her character throughout the series. I hope she fights Dooku for the right to Sidious side. She dies and everything is back in order.

 

Sith culture is all very Darwinian. It is natural and expected that the apprentice will try to find their own apprentice and eventually kill their master. But the master will not just allow this to happen. The master will kill the apprentice if he finds out because this is a sure sign that the apprentice is not strong enough to be Sith Lord.

The ultimate honor for the Sith Master is to be killed by his apprentice and for that apprentice to take the mantle. Killing your Master is the final trial to becoming fully Sith. Sideous was able to kill his master through gained trust by deception, which was obviously his greatest strenth. (e.g., Supreme Chancellor Palpatine)

In the same vein, Vader becaame greater than the Master when he killed Sideous. Anakin/Vader was the chosen one because he was going to unify the the light and dark side of the force. He could not take his chosen apprentice (Luke) with just the Dark Side. He also could not defeat his Master until he combined his light and dark powers. When he combined both sides of his powers he reached the penultimate as both Jedi Master and Sith Lord. In the end, Anakin/Vader achieved the ultimate honor in ROTJ by both defeating his Sith Master and then having his apprentice Luke (a Jedi rather than Sith) defeat him.

This is why Lucas says its over after ROTJ, apologies to the EU.

Sorry if this was off topic.

 

Unfortunately for this theory, there's already an EU story on the endgame for Ventress. She decides she can't take the war anymore and she orders a Separatist pilot to fly her as far away as she can. So she can't really die in the series, unless they want to decimate the EU (which they've already started to do in smaller ways). Besides, Ventress isn't Sith, she's Dark Jedi.

 

There may just be two Sith, but there's a bazillion Dark Jedi and Inquisitors and Hands of the Emperor running around post Clone Wars. So Asajj isn't really screwing anything up.

 

I think the intention was Sidious killed his master, then took an apprentice.

 

Lucas has said that each Sith Lord or apprentice wants to be the big cheese.

Look at the OT: Vader learns about Luke and then spends all of his time trying to track him down....he tells Palpatine he could be valuable, but really he means valuable for him in overthrowing Palpatine. And of course Palps knows this.

 

I was uner the impression Sidous had maul than maul died, than had dooku which already was a jedi master then dooku's training was complete so dooku was able to take on ventress as his apprentice. They all call Sidious master as do Obi wan and the rest of the jedi call Yoda master, as he is the most was thus sidious.

 

The rule of two was just a bad idea by George Lucas, kinda like the lightsaber colors It didn't leave enough space for more interesting "dark" characters, thus these su-classes of Sith have been created, thus we have Sith Acolytes, Inquisitors and Dark Jedi titles to make it all seem like it fits properly.

I think much of the idea Rule of Two revolved around the secrecy aspect of the Sith Order post Ruusan. Having a few dozen Sith in waiting makes the Sith seem not all that secret to me, but it does allow for cool characters the like of Ventress to exist.

Personally I think the statetment from Yoda was him simply talking about something he doesn't know that much about

 

Yeah, this is elaborated upon in the commentary for The Clone Wars film. Dave Filoni says exactly what you have written: that if Sidious found out how far along Ventress was in Sith teachings, he wouldn't be pleased. They also talk about how Ventress has to be completely subservient to Sidious, as in bowing to him and not even looking at him. This shows that she's essentially a nothing to Sidious; just a tool.

 

I disagree. I think the Rule of Two was a really good idea, the problem is that people won't play by that rule, because they insist on having more "Sith", so the Jedi can lightsaber fight more.

 

And once you've already taken over the galaxy, the rule suddenly becomes a lot more bendy.