Saga How did Yoda and the Jedi learn about the Rule of Two?

An educated guess is, centuries ago, a Jedi encountered a Sith and reported their findings back to the Council. The revelations were then kept secret, with only a tight few knowing what happened.

For Yoda to know about Darth Bane, the Rule of Two must mean someone told him or the Jedi.

 

They didn't gang up against their leader because he/she was "so cruel". They ganged up because they sought power. That's the whole premise. That's why they killed the leader and then themselves. Because power is all they crave for.

Under the "rule of two", any attempt by the apprentice to take over the master is much more manageable. Also, there's more merit and less risk of losing knowledge (and by extent, power).

 

It isn't really concretely stated that there are only two. More in the effect that Sith work in pairs. The mystery of the Sith' is never figured out which is partially why the Jedi fall.

 

Duh, Yoda obviously searched Wookieepedia.

 

"Always two there are. A master and an apprentice."

Can't get more concrete than that.

Nowadays, everything is a reason for the Jedi fall. The Jedi fell because they were betrayed and the Sith killed them. Simple as that.

The only mystery of the Sith was their plan, not how their Order operates. The latter was known by the Jedi.

 

there were ancient jedi vs sith wars. this is canon. there were many sith but there was too much in-fighting so darth bane created the rule of two. also canon. the jedi knew this as a part of history.

 

Only Yoda is mistaken as later on he speaks of how the Jedi are too sure of themselves, how he has failed, and that very dialog you bring up is spoken in an absolute which brings fourth a flaw in Yoda himself.

The fall of the Jedi was the result of Palpatine manipulating various situations. He destroyed them from within, their fundamental ideals were shattered. This is shown on screen, particularly through Mace and Palpatine, and later we here how Anakin now percieves the Jedi to be Evil. This also coincides with Yodas dialog in Empire Strikes Back where he states that a jedi uses the force for k owledge and defence...NEVER for attack.

 

No, he isn't.

Yes, some Jedi are too sure of themselves. That has nothing to do with factual knowledge about how the Sith work.

Failed to defeat Sidious. What does that got to do with anything?

What?! It's an absolute claim because it's a fact. And the movies corroborate that. It's not a flaw and I'm not sure how you make that jump to an unrelated false conclusion.

No, Palpatine took advantage of their position within the Republic to put then in a lose-lose situation. There were no "shattered ideals".

So? When did the Jedi use the Force for attack? That's what the Sith do.

 

In context, please.

 

To answer the OP - the old EU/Legends had some explanation about the Jedi coming across someone who'd gone insane (might have actually been one of the two Sith at the time) and spilling the beans. I found it on the Wook - sounded like the usual sort of EU solution to such a question (Wookiepedia has been reorganised since, can't find it on a quick search).
I got the impression that the insanity of the person recounting the tale meant that the Jedi as a whole didn't take it seriously, but Yoda did, and never forgot.

EDIT: oh, durr, Iron_Lord linked it earlier

 

Why? We were never told whether or not there were other Sith or Dark Side users in the OT and it wasn't important. This particular duo went far and that's all that needed to be known for the purposes of the story.

So, why did it have to be addressed? All it did was add unnecessary confusion and foolishness. In the trillions of people in the Star Wars galaxy - there are only 2 Sith? That's just ... silly.

 

Sorry but you seem to be thinking it shouldn't be addressed and that having just two Sith is silly? So that means if it's unaddressed then it makes an aspect of the OT alone story silly?

As I said like many, many things it didn't need to come up in IV-VI the second half of the story but did need to be addressed in I-III the first half of the story so that it's there when the whole story (or now the first two trilogies) were complete. Lucas intentionally left so much out of the OT by design and with purpose. He knew that if he ever did the prequels that would be addressed. It also gave him leeway to examine his overall story and change his mind on aspects of the story as he did in both TESB and ROTJ.

Obviously it needed to be addressed for that very reason. The prophecy is that the Chosen One will bring balance to the Force and destroy the Sith. So who the Sith are needed to be defined. The fact that only two were in existence was already set. In fact it was only in the prequels that we found out that the Sith existed as they were never mentioned in the OT at all.

None of that actually existed until Lucas said so in the movies though people had long assumed that to be the case.

 

Sorry, the prophecy was not needed nor was any kind of rule of two needed based on what the OT showed. Yoda and Obi-Wan wanted Luke to become a Jedi and "conquer Vader and his Emperor."
But for a very simple reason, they were the rulers of a tyrannical empire that had killed billions.
If any kind of freedom would ever to be returned to the galaxy, they had to be defeated or destroyed.

Yoda and Obi-Wan were concerned with Palpatine and Vader because they were the two most prominent Sith out there. Were there others? The OT don't say but nothing suggest it is impossible.
The Jedi are said to have been hunted down, not the Sith.

Lucas had thought of the Sith yes, but in several of the older script versions there were more than two siths.

Lucas didn't really leave stuff out of the OT with some grand plan for later. He started with a script that would eventually become ANH. He took some stuff out and some of that wound up in the sequels and some in the prequels.
But it is a stretch that he took it out for later use given how fluid his overall plan was.
Based on what I've read, before ANH was released, Lucas thought he could, maybe, do two low budget sequels and, very maybe, one prequel. This would detail the younger days of Obi-Wan, Luke's father and Vader. And the battle of Condawn possibly.

Lucas had some backstory certainly, most writers do. But Star Wars, as it was back then, was the story, not the second half of a story. As Lucas said back then, "Star Wars is the story of Luke."
He had ideas for more movies and when Star Wars became bigger than he ever thought, he realized he could do many more films. At one time, Star Wars was to be Ep VI, then we had the trilogy of trilogies with Ep 1 to 9 and then it was only to be Ep 1 to 6 etc.

Based on the OT, what the PT "needed" to show was Obi-Wan training Anakin and how the latter fell to the dark side. How the empire came to power and how the Jedi were hunted down. And the birth of Luke and Leia and obviously their mother.
That is pretty much it.

Lucas CHOSE to use other things as well, which is his choice as a filmmaker. He wanted a prophecy there, which is fine but it wasn't "Required" by the OT.
Personally I think the prophecy is underdeveloped and fells tacked on and nothing much interesting is done with the concept.

As to the OP's question.
Based on just the films, the simplest answer is that there have only ever been two Siths. As nothing in the films suggest that there were some time with more than two Siths. So Yoda knows the rule of two as the Sith has always operated under that rule for as long as they have existed.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

Yeah, that seems like the closest answer although there still seems to be a gap in the timeline.

"Kibh Jeen's claims about the Sith were dismissed by the Jedi as the utterances of a madman and few gave them any credence.[3] However, the Jedi eventually came to believe in the Rule of Two, at some point prior to 32 BBY."

 

Obviously Lucas disagreed when he did the first half of the story.

Which doesn't change except that there was far more to it than merely that and it had to do with the Force itself.

This is the bizarre thing. Lucas adds more Force mysticism to the entire context of the story around everything and some fans who supposedly like the mysticism of the Force then don't want it!

That he came up with the "grand plan" later is entirely irrelevant.

The fact of the matter is that he did.

The fact of the matter is that I-III are now the start of the story not IV-VI.

He did leave stuff out because he didn't want to have to answer all the questions and as part of his structure he presented IV-VI as the second half of the story. That you missed them (because he hadn't made them) is kind of the point.

 

You are confusing what a writer CHOOSES to include and what a writer is REQUIRED to include.
Since the PT is the backstory of the OT, Lucas hands was somewhat tied in that he HAD to include some things.
He had to include Anakin Skywalker and his fall to the dark side. Obi-Wan as his teacher, Luke and Leia getting born, the fall of the Jedi/the republic.
If Lucas for ex wanted Anakin to be female, that would be very hard if not impossible to do given the OT.

The prophecy was not REQUIRED by the OT. Lucas CHOOSE to include it, which is his choice as writer.

In the OT there WAS nothing more to it. The OT was about Luke's journey to become a Jedi and the fight between the empire/rebels.
In the process Luke had to confront his evil father and despite the advice of his mentors, he has faith that there is still good in him. He manages to reach it and Vader turns back to the light and kills the emperor.
Luke's triumph was being able to resist his own darkness and become a Jedi and while doing so, he also managed to redeem his father.

And here you are confusing criticism of the EXECUTION of an idea with the INCLUSION of said idea.
The prophecy idea had some potential but as is, to me, it is rather redundant and doesn't add much to the films. It feels added only to make Anakin more special than Luke and make the story seem more epic.

Anakin had enough going on as a character that this wasn't really needed.
The Matrix films did something interesting with a prophecy and a chosen one. The PT did not, at least to me.

It is HIGHLY relevant as you said;

So you argue that Lucas left stuff out of Star Wars thinking, "Oh this will be useful in the prequels I will make 20 years from now."
This is not so.
Lucas cut stuff for various reasons, budget, he felt it didn't work or wasn't needed or he thought of something better.
When it came to writing the PT he went back to some of his discarded ideas and found that he could use them in the PT. Nothing wrong about that but no "Grand Plan" was there.

No the fact of the matter is that I-III is the backstory of IV-VI.
You can start with ep IV and go from there. Which is probably how most SW fans have watched the saga. In time that might change but you can clearly watch SW and NOT start with Ep I.

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No when Lucas wrote Star Wars he had some backstory, as most writers do. He had some vague idea that he could, maybe, do one film about it. But Star Wars wasn't made with the intent of being ep IV. It was called "Saga One" in some scripts. ESB was, at first, called chapter II.
When Star Wars became such a huge hit, Lucas's plan changed drastically. At one point, Star Wars would have been EP VI of twelve films. Later still it was to be the mid point of a trilogy of trilogies. Then it was the second half of the "Tragedy of Darth Vader."

Regardless, Star Wars was made without the PT being required to watch. The story was the OT, what happened before was backstory.
That Lucas did three films of that backstory is quite impressive and they work mostly quite well.
But Lucas didn't leave stuff out of the OT to make some sort of point, he cut it out for various reasons.
The films would be too long, he felt the ideas didn't work, he didn't want to spend to much time on exposition about stuff not really necessary. He might even have some plans for prequels films and didn't want to tie his hands too much.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface