Ventress & Savage canon status

Barriss also force choked a prisoner in TCW. Also, Anakin using his rage and hate in combat seemed to come pretty naturally. I'm not seeing how the use of these techniques is a Sith teaching or trait exclusively.

 

Heck even Luke used the force choke in ROTJ, so yes perhaps not an exclusive Sith trait.

I know its not canon, which is why I raised the thread in the first place, the microseries of clone wars showed Ventress believing she was a sith until dooku brought her back down to earth.

in the canon-verse though, she is force sensitive trained in both sides of the force, but not fully in either I suppose.

The idea that Savage and Maul are a different faction works well. Can a Sith title be removed from someone if they don't want it? If Maul believes he is still a Sith, which I assume he does, and he refers to Sidious as a former master, then as implied his brotherhood faction is a new Sit faction which should be destroyed and promptly is. but why keep Maul alive?

 

I am pretty sure you got everything except for the video games minus the new battlefront which is not canon.

 

An issue I see is people saying what doesn't make a Sith, but not saying what does make a Sith.

And that's not anyone's fault, since what exactly makes a Sith a Sith isn't exactly defined in canon. The closest thing I am aware of is Pablo saying that the Inquisitor is not Sith, because he doesn't get angry. Anger doesn't fuel his power. So if using anger and hatred is what makes a Sith a Sith, then Savage would definitely be one and so would Asajj. Yet, the answer - in universe - also varies from character to character.

Maul sees himself and Savage as Sith lords. Palpatine even acknowledges him as a rival.

Asajj is repeatedly called an Assassin and Dooku taunts her about having to prove herself worthy of being his apprentice. Palpatine orders him to kill her to honor the Rule of Two. Ahsoka refers to her as a Sith.

Savage was considered by Maul to be a Sith, and Dooku definitely had the intention of Savage being his Sith apprentice that would help him usurp Palpatine. But Filoni says that Savage is not a Sith. But Savage definitely does get angry.

Kanan makes a distinction between Inquisitors and Sith Lords.

Palpatine taunts Maul as no longer being Sith since there can only be two and that Maul has been replaced. Interestingly this doesn't indicate that Maul has to die, merely that no longer being Palpatine's apprentice is enough to strip him of any Sith title (though Maul holds to it anyway).

There's no real concrete definition of what makes a Sith a Sith, and from character to character opinions vary. Whether it's Ahsoka referring to Asajj as Sith, or Palpatine telling Maul that he's not a Sith.

I think it is largely what the Sith themselves make of it.

As someone else said, the Sith is basically just the name of an order. If you belong to the Order, then you're Sith. If you don't, then you're not. And who does and does not belong to the Order is really subject to the whims of the Sith master. Maul was apprenticed for years as a Sith, and yet Palpatine tells him "there can only be two, and you are no longer my apprentice; you have been replaced!" and yet, after Mace is killed, Anakin is made a Sith in about two seconds, having received no Sith training up until that point.

Palpatine's the Sith master, he's the most powerful, and whatever he says goes. Anybody that wants to make a claim otherwise pretty much needs the strength to back it up. If Palpatine wanted to give all the Inquisitors Darth titles and proclaim them all to be Sith, then who's going to stop him? If he wants to say there can only be two, then who is to tell him otherwise? If Maul and Savage had killed Palpatine and declared themselves Sith and claimed Dooku to be a pretender, then that's their prerogative on the basis of them possessing the strength to enforce whatever policy (even if it is just semantics) that they want.

It Palpatine wants to say that there is a Rule of Two and that only two individuals carry the Darth title, yet he allows Inquisitors and "assassins" in his employ, then that's his prerogative. If Vader had usurped Palpatine, proclaimed the Sith Order extinct and proclaimed himself to be a founder of an Imperial Order of Knights effectively just changing the name for what he's always been, then history would remember the Sith as having gone extinct on that day.

They are just names. As far as ideology goes, we don't know what (if anything specific) makes a Sith a Sith, except for the very broad strokes that they give into their anger and hate to fuel their power in the Dark Side, and that like the Jedi, they use lightsabers (while other religious sects like the Dathomir witches do not). Savage uses his anger, he wields a lightsaber, he is a dark sider, yet Filoni and most fans don't regard him as a Sith. Yet Maul does, Dooku did (at least for a brief moment in time).

But again, someone like Anakin becomes a Sith instantly just because Palpatine says so. I mean, if you ask someone when Anakin became Darth Vader, it's pretty much right when he got on his knees and pledged his loyalty to Palpatine and received a new name. The Inquisitors are loyal to Palpatine, yet they aren't regarded as Sith and never received new names.

Basically, as far as I'm concerned, it's a big mess (just as much in universe as out of universe). And the only real definition of a Sith I think applies is pretty much whatever the strongest individual (in this case Palpatine) says. Did Asajj's presence break the Rule of Two? Not when Palpatine allowed it.. But then Palpatine changed his mind.

 

Ventress' shaved head symbolized her loyalty to the Sith philosophy. So that does mean she was indeed a full fledged Sith disciple and borderline actual Sith Apprentice, which that alone made Sidous order her elimination.


“I thought since Ventress had moved away from being a Sith, and her shaved head really represented some kind of following and loyalty to that way that she would let it grow out… They did this beautiful piece of artwork… rendered beautifully and realistically for how she was going to appear in, I guess, Season 7 it would have been, of Clone Wars. "- Filoni

Sidious: I would hate to think you are training your own Sith apprentice to destroy me.

 

Ahsoka calling Ventress a Sith makes sense, because she lacked the knowledge of Palpatine being the true Sith Master. She must know that only two sith exist at a time (most of the time). Of course the Sith Master her and other jedi thought to be was Count Dooku.

 

I think an important difference between Anakin being seen as a Sith at that time, and Inquisitors are still not, is that when Palpatine came him a Darth name, he planned to teach Anakin the ways of the Sith, give him power/knowledge that a Sith Lord would receive that an Inquisitor would not get. So although Anakin had not yet received this training/teaching, it was going to happen in the future, unlike an Inquisitor loyal to the empire.

If an Inquisitor ever goes rouge sometime during Rebels, It would be great for that Inquisitor to be killed by Vader, and in the duel we see the differences of power level compared to an Inquisitor and a Sith Lord.

 

If, the female inquisitor is as many have predicted to be

Spoiler

Barriss

then i can see this character coming back from the dark and into the light, teaming up with Ashoka v Vader.

 

No way.
Nobody, until Vader, can redeemed up to this point.

 

The price of redemption for Cranston was to take up man's struggle against evil.

You have no choice: you will be redeemed. -The Tulku

Rather liked that movie, The Shadow.

Ventress was on her long journey towards redemption and well... Anyway thats really how it would be, a price to pay and a laborious affair. Not just quick and easy and just given redemption. I never really bought Anakin all of a sudden becoming good after ROTS events and the PT. Back in the OT, I always felt it was more Yoda and Kenobi bringing Anakin to heaven or all Jedi were those luminous beings not any sorta special gift or training needed as this would be changed to by PT/TCW. It was made worse when Lucas switched it to the younger Anakin who was committed some of the most heinous crimes and betrayals of not only to others but to himself. So I don't buy Lucas's explanation for the change.

Anyhow, I think they never bothered to give Maul or Savage hooded cloaks cause they had great difficulty animating it and/or was a cut cost effect, as they should've had cloaks. In the CTW comics and spinoffs "Star Wars The Clone Wars The Sith Hunters" and "Star Wars" Darth Maul - Death Sentence" both Savage and Maul do wear cloaks. Even Ventress lost her cloak later on.

Supposedly by Season 7 or 8, Maul would've wore a cloak similar to the one he used on TPM and it looked a bit Darth Sidious-like as well.

 

Ventress? I wouldn't say that she was immediately redeemed though or that he redemption was ever complete. But, it was an on going process.

Ah yes, The Shadow knows. Interesting point you make there, because he made an effort to remain on the good side of things after all the evil deeds he had done in the past but when Shiwan Khan came into the picture he had to absolutely walk the line more closely to actually beat him.

If any of the new Inquisitors end up being turned towards the common goal of the rebels, the character should not be a mainstay on the show. Rather that character should become more of a wandering rogue that takes up the cause that is both hunted by the Inquisitors as a result of failure to eliminate the rebels but is an outcast of the rebels, so the character really has no home. No reason why the crew can't run across this person through the course of the story. Seeing as how they like to bring in "the will of the force" to explain things like part of the explaining away of the council's decision, they have set a precedent for this explanation.

 

The Dathomirian witches and that other being on Aleen were meant to show that there were other religions or ways of viewing the supernatural side of the universe that didn't describe it in terms of Force, light side, and dark side.

The Jedi and Sith however are two sides of the same coin. They both follow the Force, but one adheres to the light side, the other to the dark side. And what little we know in canon is that the first Sith was a Jedi that followed the Dark Side and got others to follow him. This connection is why the Sith inherited the light saber, "a Jedi's weapon." And they both even dress similarly, though the Jedi wear earth tones, and the Sith wear black.

Then you introduce people like Asajj, the Inquisitors, Savage, etc. And try to sell the idea that they are something else. When really they aren't, except for semantics. They all were given Jedi weapons and taught the Dark Side. The only one of these three that stands out is The Inquisitor, as being a dark side being, but apparently not giving into hate. We were never really shown how that's possible. If anything we are told that fear leads to all these negative emotions that culminate in hate and lead to the dark side. Yet the Inquisitors have fallen, but never went down that path. To me this is utterly silly, but it is what it is. You would think that it would be really difficult to NOT get angry in combat, and would expect The Inquisitors to discover that they can fuel their strength with rage. I can't imagine what kind of training they'd have to go through to keep a mind clear of hate like that (almost a Jedi state of mind). Yet they still have found the Dark Side (hence the yellow eyes).

As for Asajj, Maul and Savage, there's hardly anything separating them from the Sith other than semantics. Basically boiling down to Dooku or Palpatine telling them they're not, just because he says so. Even though they all tap into hate and are trained in the weapon of Jefi, just as the first Sith was. Just because they are deprived of knowledge regarding advanced techniques is a poor criteria at best, since none of the Sith apprentices, nor Palpatine himself knows everything there is about the dark side.

There are other magical beings out there. But The Inquisitors and Asajj etc. Along with Ahsoka still fall within the Jedi-Sith spectrum of religious thought.

 

Nightsisters use the Force, but a different Force philosophy to manipulate, wield and control it. And we know the Sith and Nightsisters once had some sorta alliance.

Likely best to view Sith Lords as like head vampires, those below them are like vampire groupies and the lesser powered that do their bidding but that does not mean they're not powerful in their own right. Filoni would comments the first Inquisitor was powerful but not powerful enough to kill a Jedi like Kenobi or some Jedi Master. But Jedi Masters and knights died often enough in TCW . A Sith Master more powerful than the Sith Apprentice until the apprentice finds a way to destroy the Master, with Sidious it was not being more powerful or dueling but through murdering his master in his sleep, more treacherous backstabbing cunning or opportunity chance. Ventress was a Sith in all but name. Sometimes they like using levels of strength like its some dice game but they haven't really showed a consistent line, its more like whatever they want so it applies then and what their written plot displays but the next day, may not use the same powers or skill level again cause so and so had to win. We see Force beings powers and wax and wane with different episodes. Even Force speed was abandoned after TPM, Lucas would probably claim the Jedi were losing their ability to use the Force, but if thats the case why didn't the Sith move in bullet time, they should be gaining strength and greater powers as the Jedi are losing theirs not both being the same.

 

This..she is kind of like a criminal who has done so many bad things...but sees it is burning her out and walks away from that life. It does not mean she is automatically a wonderful person...but is on the path to redemption.

As far as Sith or not....all Sith use the Darkside...but not all Darkside users are Sith. It is about being trained in Sith philosophy, customs and powers.