Banites - Does it make sense that they are supposed to slay each other?

First, I have not yet read DoE, but I already realized during the second volume that it seems that Darth Bane wants to be slain by his apprentice. He does not want to be poisoned, killed in his sleep and such stuff, but he wants to be killed in a fight that proves Zannah is stronger than himself in every aspect.

But that actually makes no sense at all to me. The whole thing about being Sith is to become stronger, right, but you are Sith because you want to accomplish something. You want to rule the galaxy, you want to overthrow the Republic, and you want to destroy the Jedi Order.

Bane is supposed to go into hiding because the obvious way (recruiting followers, forging a Sith Empire, and declare war on the Republic and the Jedi) has failed. The Sith Order itself is supposed to be reduced to a master and an apprentice, a measure to prevent the Sith Order from destructing itself.

But that is actually all the Banites seem to be supposed to do. Killing each other, openly, to prove that they are worthy to be Sith. Does that actually makes sense? What if Master and apprentice are killing themselves? All will be lost.

We are supposed to believe that guys who are, in fact, mortal enemies, can work together to design and execute a plan that would finally exact the 'Revenge of the Sith' (and we are supposed to believe that the Sith from Bane to Plagueis prepared Sidious's success, are we not? As Sidious was Senator Palpatine - and we have no idea who Darth Plagueis was in his 'normal' life -, it is possible that he, and he alone, designed the plan to overthrow the Republic)?

I simply cannot imagine that this ideology would survive and flourish for 1,000 years.

And how is it that two most prominent member of the Bane Order, Darth Maul and Darth Tyranus, are supposed to have no intention to overthrow their master at all?

 

Well, Maul and Tyranus weren't intended to be permanent apprentices. I do wonder who came first for Palps, cooking up Anakin or taking on Maul?

As to the rule of two, it really doesn't make sense in any other context but the prequels and the OT. It was what was so thrilling about the Sith in those movies. But no, I don't think it could last a thousand years. Too many things can go wrong in that span.

Didn't the whole rule of two come from Bane's conservative philosophy about the Dark Side? That the DS gets spread too thin with too many Sith? Which also makes no sense to me.

 

The killing is necessary to keep these Sith striving for betterment and to prevent alliances from diluting the strength of the individual Dark Lord. So that makes sense. What doesn't, is how they are supposed to supplant each other in open, fair combat, as opposed to more insidious and plotting ways. An apprentice proving herself that way would show that she had what it took to fight the Republic covertly, as opposed to just show that she is a battlefield juggernaut, which wouldn't be of much help to the Banites at all. So that requirement strikes me as much more glaring.

Yes. A minimum of two centuries before Shadow Hunter.

Possible, yes. The Muun lifespan is similar to that of humans, and with Force longevity potentially doubling that, without knowing how old Plauge was, his life should fit outside two centuries of TPM just fine. Ignoring any potential former lives Plauge may have lived through Transfer Essence, of course.

Makes one start looking for alternate explanations, doesn't it?

Maul was trained as a tool only, because Palp had foreseen Ani's birth. Well, he might have been intended as a successor before this, for some indefinite amount of time, but I am aware of no evidence to support Maul desiring Palp dead, and indeed two separate instances where he claims willingness to die for his Master, both after having ascended to Sith Lord himself.

As for Dooku, per the Clone Wars Campaign Guide, he intended to overthrow Palp all along. As soon as the galaxy was theirs, Dooku intended to reshape the Republic in his own image.

 

I think when it comes to Bane you've basically hit on the answer right there because of how Bane just isn't all that bothered by these things. He's never shown that much desire to rule others but would sooner just kill everyone else to prove why he's better than them; he's never been given any personal reason to really have a deep rooted resentment of the Jedi outside perhaps the cruddy childhood he had. His main interest is far more basal than most Sith: for him, it's about power, and that's it. His drive is to become the embodiment of absolute power. His reasons for becoming a Sith, for "falling" (can it even be called a fall with Bane?), were never for any particularly profound reasons.

Ruling the galaxy, destroying the Jedi, to Bane these are just consequences of his primary motivation and not motivations themselves. To rule the Republic is just another form of control; it is the kick, the high he gets from the sense of power that comes from lording it over others that he truly craves, not any holier than thou belief in wanting to forge a better society. He's Dark Empire, not Galactic Empire. The only drive he's ever shown has simply been to better himself, and to hell with anyone who gets in his way. He wants to pass that legacy of strength onto another, not be cheated out of it in his sleep.

I think his problem is basically due to this entire life view. His attitude is "If you kill me in my sleep, what is the point of your life? What do you even achieve from it? What do you become the Master of?" He's clearly a got a serious psychological need to prove why he's the top dog in the entire galaxy. His attitude seems to be that if the apprentice can't top the Master in direct combat, then they're just kidding themselves, they're just becoming Masters of an empty and meaningless order that no longer means what it means to him. His childhood abuse from his father, his own inferiority complex, the whole thing just seems to be a case of overcompensation to convince himself of his own self esteem problems.

If he dies in his sleep, his apprentice may succeed him--they can't not, there's no one else to--but what does it mean? To Bane: nothing. It may well make him a hypocrite in many ways, but it's not as if the guy is meant to be seen as the font of truth and reason. His entire life has been about him, his entire doctrine has been about him, and his entire order has been about him. To him, so must it be with his successor: when he is out of the picture, his view is that the entire order should then be about his apprentice, should revolve around them the way it did him. For Bane, I don't see it as being about toppling the Republic or the Jedi; I see it about making the Master the centre of the universe.

Clearly, as the Order evolves, it ceases to be "all about Bane" and grows to be about proving the Sith are the top togs of the galaxy by actually taking over the galaxy, and the way to do that is to take over the Republic, and the way to do that is to remove the existing "Guardians" of the Republic, which means taking the Jedi out of the equation. I don't doubt that Bane may well have one day wanted to go the next step and achieve all this, but he just strikes me as not being motivated by these things directly, but primarily just by his lust for power. What we think of the Rule of Two is what a sane man thinks. But Darth Bane is not a sane man. He is a complete and total narcissist. Much like Darth Solipsis...I mean, Ruin before him, I can't say it'll be a surprise if one day Bane finds his apprentice-of-the-day turns on him and rewrites the rule their way to make it more about a particular end goal than just about becoming the galactic centre.

 

I like the point you make about Bane not having any real motivation for Jedi destruction and Republic conquest, as I've been thinking much of the same myself.

But his lack of care doesn't mesh with how he lives his life. Living like a rat on Ambria, obsessing over how to pass his wisdom on, establishing a vast spy network, plotting and planning. For a man intent on personal power and proving he is the top dog, these actions don't make much sense. If anything, he seems obsessed with the long-term goals, willing to sacrifice everything for them, yet without a lot of preceding reason to. A guy with a superiority complex, who cared only about power, would surely have done like Nadd, and found some remote world to conquer and rule with an iron fist in stead. And as demonstrated by RoT, he has amended his philosophy from "power for its own sake" to "power as a means to an end".

Though, as you say, it could just be explained by insanity. But that is too big of a cop-out for me. I like to think even the insane operate by a twisted internal logic.

 

Personally, I think not caring about material wealth only adds to his utterly fanatical obsession with becoming the raw embodiment of the dark side. He doesn't care about women, about the mundane Force deaf that fill the galaxy, about starships or about palaces. He seeks nothing beyond pure, unadulterated, mythic power. To me, he's like witches who just live in smelly old caves, coveting their dark mysteries and arcane magics. They might live in a swamp, but they're in it for the sheer magical power they wield.

I agree though that the spy network has always struck me as the one thing he has done that suggests he at least partially has his mind set on the bigger picture. Though, here, now, in the immediate present of his lifetime he seems to have only cared about harbouring his own strength. I get the basic feeling he never wanted to take the Republic over discretely the way Palpatine did, but probably just wanted to skip the Galactic Empire stage and go straight to obliterating entire worlds with Force Storms.

"I am the Dark Lord. Fear me and despair."

I've always felt he's only really trained apprentices because he's had to face facts and accept his own mortality. The only way to realise his dream was if he stumbled across the missing link that taught him how to become a god. He's got enough sanity to at least recognise that probably would never happen and is an impossible dream, but if that were no longer the case? If he truly did stumble across that ultimate mystery? It then comes down to why I've always felt Palpatine went power crazy after his resurrection. If there's one power that Bane surely craves most, it's the power to live forever; to not only train the most powerful man in history, but to become that man.

I suppose to put it in a nutshell, he strikes me as someone who would sell his soul to become like Nihilus if he knew how.

 

Banites?! Seriously! Hahaha nice what happened to The Rule of 2


I thought Bane laid out a perfect example of WHY.