Lit Did Sidious Palpatine truly train three Sith? Or three Dark Jedi?

Here's the new controversial thread. There have been some who have argued that Sidious did not, in actuality, train three Sith Lords. (We're not talking about Maul in TCW. He's a discarded assassin by that point.) Since Maul never truly desired to overthrow his master, he was more like a Dark Jedi Sentinel. He had attachment for his master. While both Tyranus and Vader had the desire to overthrow Sidious, they never made the attempt. Tyranus toyed with it on various occasions, but he did not deem Ventress to be strong enough to help him. His mood regarding that shifted with the weather. He took the Jedi ideology of being a protector to a fascist extreme and wanted to create justice through hate and cold elegance. As for Vader, he is obviously the most Shakespearean of them. Suffering from some mental illness and a previous domestic abuser, Anakin/Vader is often admired for being more powerful than Tyranus and certainly Maul. That's usually because guys and some girls like to imagine having the ability to ignore and kick back certain bullies, I think. Nobody really wants to be borderline like Vader. At least, I hope not. But, anyhow, Vader basically had the genuine intent to overthrow Sidious with the clone of Galen Marek. It was not until Luke came along that he had an actual shot of doing so. Still, he never made a concrete attempt (actual fight).

Don't get me wrong. I personally believe that Lords Maul, Tyranus, and Vader were all Sith. I just heard that argument from a versus series creator while he and his friends were discussing literature. I thought it was interesting food for thought. I imagine that most will reply that they were Sith. I'm talking from an EU perspective. Look at how Lord Zannah and many other Sith apprentices successfully overthrew their masters. I make no secret that my favorite Sith are, in this order, 1) Darth Traya, 2) Darth Zannah, and 3) Lady Lumiya. My fourth favorite is probably Darth Bane for the simple fact that he likes the notion of finding someone who will overthrow him. Darth Plagueis is also interesting for his greyness and complexity despite how grandiose and condescending he could be. I make no secret that Palpatine is my least favorite, and I hate him more than Vitiate simply because he's so, um, well... I'll say he never changed. He just hated Plagueis because Plagueis tricked him into destroying his family. Palpatine would have done it himself, and he merely didn't like that someone had manipulated him into dong it. Yeah, Palpatine is one disturbing guy. Vitiatie is a drama queen. Hell, I even like Lord Kaan better than those two, and Kaan is a fool.

 

He trained three pawns.

 

I think the difference between a Dark Jedi and a Sith is less than the Sith and Jedi would believe.

 

Darth Bane was neither the first nor the most successful Sith, he doesn't get to define what a Sith is all by himself. He made a system that kept them in the shadows and away from hope of conquering the galaxy because the Sith kept killing each other instead of growing, Palpatine brought them back. Darth Maul died young in Phantom Menace when they still had tens of thousands of Jedis to kill between the two of them. That he didn't immediately make plans to kill his master as soon as he came on screen in the movie doesn't make him not a Sith, it makes him not an idiot. Dooku was genuinely just a temporary means to an end. Even then, had the war been won, there's no doubt Palpatine and Dooku would have come to blows next. Vader always had too much Jedi in him.

Palpatine found an apprentice that would genuinely surpass him in Anakin and Obi-Wan destroyed that future, Palpatine doesn't just settle for less and waits for something new to come along.

 

Palpatine never really intended to have anyone succeed him. You can see this in the structure of the Galactic Empire. There was no constitutional method of succession, which is why the Empire collapsed into warlordism. Palpatine just wasn't the sort of guy to ever expect to actually die, and he didn't see himself as WANTING to die either, as some Sith have had self-sacrificial tendencies. I agree with you, I don't think any of his apprentices were actually trained to be Sith.

Maul was a simple assassin, you said it yourself. Palpatine needed someone to take out his enemies, so he trained Maul as the quintessential Sith assassin. Tyranus was the case of Palpatine appealing to a man's want to reform the existing system. Dooku actually never cared for the Sith way himself, he was exploiting Palpatine's training for power, just as he was exploiting the Confederacy to achieve his dream of a reformed Republic, which as we know from the ROTS novelization, is the shtick Palpatine sold to him, that they'd lead a reformed Republic into an Empire that would also include a reformed (Dark) Jedi Order.

Vader, IMO, was a vanity project. Palpatine wanted to gloat over not only attaining victory over the Jedi, but also turning their expected Chosen One to his side. I'm not 100% sure, but I also think he knew that Anakin was the result of Plagueis' messing with the Force, so he wanted something like that on his side as a weapon. I don't for a moment think that Palpatine didn't dispatch Anakin to Mustafar with the purpose of getting his body damaged enough so he'd be a useful servant, but never someone that could rise against him. I suspect the original plan was to send Anakin to Utapau so Grievous would do the deed, but Obi-Wan unwittingly served as an adequate replacement for the job.

I think Kaan was a very competent strategist. Let's face it, Kaan was WINNING the war. If it wasn't for Bane's sabotage, Kaan would've brought the Republic to heel completely. Bane was unsatisfied with Kaan not being 'Sith enough', so the result? A loss of the war. Really goes to show how self-destructive the Sith are in that they'd get rid of a winning card just because he didn't do enough backstabbing and saber twirling. And they say the Jedi are the dogmatic ones.

I disagree. A Sith is a particular philosophy, like the Jedi. Dark Jedi are just Force Users who use Dark Side powers, but don't particularly subscribe to any form of ideology or philosophy, or if they do, its not that of the Sith. Imperial Inquisitors as an example don't have the whole backstab thing, and in Dark Forces they actually work pretty well as a team. Jerec is a good contrast to Sith villains, I think, and it goes to show that just because you have a red lightsaber and want power, doesn't mean you're a Sith.

 

Jerec is a Sith Lord.

He even has Sith tattoos.

Hence his plan to betray Palpatine and Vader with the Valley.

 

Jerec was a Sith wannabe. He lacked the anger and discipline to truly amount to anything. The Sith draw power from within, not without. That Jerec had to looking for a power boost from elsewhere is proof enough that he was unfit to be a Sith.

 

Honestly the strangest change Drew made, IMO.

JvS? Kaan is an incompetent lickspittle, very new to "leadership" of a very new "Brotherhood" ("Lord Kaan? Kaan calls himself a Lord?" ... "Is EVERYONE a Lord now!?") and the flaws of many, many Sith are laid bare. The Thought Bomb is his last ditch attempt to take the Jedi down with him and has nothing to do with Bane at all. Bane ends the book being like "lol. Good riddance to bad rubbish" and goes about his new and better way.

PoD? Kaan is a total badass who has been leading his Brotherhood for years, mentally dominating the other Sith Lords into subservience through his immense force of will and kicking the Jedi's ass, but Bane thinks he's weak for "reasons" so -- as you say -- sabotages a battle to bring about a defeat that wouldn't have occurred otherwise and maneuvers him into killing all the Brotherhood Sith so that he and his new breed can twiddle their thumbs for a thousand years before they have a chance of accomplishing what Kaan was already on the cusp of.

 

Problem was the Sith were on the verge of victory a few centuries previous-they'd won some battle or another a few hundred years before Ruusan and the road to Corusant was wide open, and they immediately broke down in infighting over who would rule.

The Banites solved this problem by making succession amongst Sith Lords a clear if necessarily violent process.

As for the OP-in legends maul is more or less an attack dog, a "mauler" if you will, who never really understood Sith philosophy or the more esoteric aspects of the force, and his academic understanding was limited as well.

Tyranus imagined a very different new order than what palpatine had in store, and he did train various apprentices-Ventress being the most noticeable but as talented as she was, he did not deem her worthy of actual Sith hood. And given his advanced age and the role he was in, overthrowing palpatine was always unlikely.

Vader is interesting in that if he had not lost so much of his body, he would have been strong enough to overthrow palpatine, how palpatine planned on dealing with a Vader twice his power is hard to say. Post Mustafar Vader was a broken shadow of himself, and marek wasn't a genuine attempt to overthrow the emperor-but a ploy as marek cruelly learned. Vader probably at least considered being genuine about it. And he had another apprentice or two(in legends who are more obscure) that he may have been serious about. He was serious with Luke for sure. He needed an apprentice that he could rule with, one strong enough that together defeating palpatine would be possible, because Vader could not defeat him by himself. And I think that dissapointed palpatine more than anything-not that palpatine planned on that to happen but he got less than he bargained for.

Palpatine never intended to die, and I think making the rules of succession as complex as he did was just a source of amusement for him. However in the abstract palpatine did seem to at least contemplate that the possibility existed. In his Holocron in the essential guide to the force he says something to the effect that if you(the person accessing the Holocron) I must be dead, and then he elaborates on how the old must pass away for the new, etc...

So at least abstractly palpatine knew he might fail in his quest for immortality, but he never intended to die. And ultimately I think he never intended to have an apprentice long term.

DE palpatine and a palpatine stronger still would probably have disposed of an apprentice or simply made them "an extension of his will"

 

So, where does Vergere fit in to this whole thing?
If Lumiya is to be believed anyway?

 

My opinion is the Sith aren't actually all that. They talk a good game but assuming we're going with Pre-Banite Sith (and even some of the Banite Sith) the simple fact is they're mostly a bunch of self-deluded psychopaths with delusions of grandeur. Since Jerec is a Legends Sith, I should point out he's a corrupted Jedi Master and has mastered many Sith magical techniques that briefly becomes a Force God.

He's every bit as deserving as the title as the Darths of Krayt or the idiots running around during the Old Republic even if he's not Palpatine or Vader's level.

Both of whom are among the most powerful/effective Sith of all time.

 

This is just my headcanon but I believe Vergere is a LS Sith and unfortunately ran into the problem of Nietzsche in that a lot of people had no idea what she was talking about and grossly misunderstood what she was trying to teach them.

I.e. Krayt and Jacen Solo.

Obviously, what she learned from Palpatine she took in a different way.

 

I can believe that Lumiya is trying the association fallacy -

"you trust Vergere, I am associated with Vergere, therefore you must trust me".

 

Sidious specifically trained Maul to be a Sith Lord, and to be his successor.

And he is trained perfectly in all the type of Sith ways.

''A test against his own Master, that Darth Maul opens himself up to the Dark Side and becomes a true Sith Lord.''

--- Source: Star Wars: The Ultimate Visual Guide


''The man who had taken the young Maul from a backwater planet and raised him to be his successor. He owed Darth Sidious everything.''

--- Source: Star Wars: Shadow Hunter


''For all Darth Sidious’s talk of his role as his apprentice and eventual successor, Maul still felt precious little connection to the Sith grand plan for the galaxy and his place within it.''

--- Source: Maul: Lockdown

Sidious : ''Any my apprentices ? Darth Maul was a loss, but Darth Tyranus. He was a proton torpedo.''

--- Source: Darth Vader #20: End of Games, Part I


''A deadly, agile Sith Lord trained by the evil Darth Sidious, Darth Maul was a formidable warrior and scheming mastermind.''

--- Source: Starwars.com/Databank/darth-maul


Filoni : ''Maul is a super dangerous threat. Because he has been trained for years. He’s really adept. So he’s kind of in the Vader realm. He’s well trained by Sidious in all types of Sith ways. Not the least of which is manipulation.''

--- Source: Rebel Force Radio Interview


Dave Filoni : ''He was a well trained apprentice and that he would start to do the things that he trained to do, to build armies, to deceive people, create a power base for himself. So George came up with the idea of teaming up Maul with the Mandalorians.''

''But all parts are showing that Maul isn't just a brute force, but he is also being smart, he is building a power base, he is doing kind of Sidious did with the senate.''

--- Source: StarWars.com / Shadows of the Sith

I don't know where this wrong assumption is coming from.
Maul wasn't an assassin, he was a true Sith Lord, and trained in that way. You can see the source above.

Amazing. Every word of what you just said.. was wrong.

 

My take on Vader and Marek is that Vader didn't intend for Marek to help him overthrow Sidious once Sidious found out about him.

However, when Marek defeated Vader (perhaps because the Dark Lord severely underestimated his apprentice as well as how much he'd grown) then the latter arranged for him to be revived with Sith alchemy.

(Yes, this means Vader can RAISE THE DEAD but so can Sidious as we saw with Bevel Lemisk)

I think Vader fully intended to use Marek and his clones to overthrow Sidious at that point but by then Marek was an LS Sith who utterly despised his mentor. Darth Vader had lost control over the narrative and would find out about Luke soon anyway.

 

It's the Plagueis novel, in which Sidious remains an apprentice all the way until Ep.1, and Maul is stated to be nothing but a tool to be discarded by the true Sith Lords, Sidious and Plagueis. It's probably the only element of the book I really dislike, as it explicitly downgrades Maul, making him be deceived into believing to be a Sith.

As to the original post, the line between "Dark Jedi" (which has always been a bad term) and Sith becomes blurred at certain points. Ultimately, I think it simple depends on whether or not someone claims the title and is recognized by other Sith as part of the order. It's common practice for the Sith to have dark side-users as disciples who can be elivated to full Sith status should a vacancy open up, so to speak. In canon, Sidious had Dooku, Anakin, the Inquisitors, Cylo's creations, and eventually tried to recruit Luke into this position.

As to the larger point about the Sith Master-apprentice relationship: A Sith doesn't take on an apprentice waiting to be defeated. A Sith apprentice exists both as a weapon to be used by the master, as well as a check to keep the Master from getting weaker. The more powerful the apprentice, the more powerful the master has to be to stay in control. They are a kind of gratification mechanism for the Master: "If my apprentice is the most powerful person I know, then I must be the most powerful person in the galaxy." (BTW, this is the big difference between the Sith and Snoke, who aims to use and then destroy everything that could be a threat to him rather keep it around to proof his own power)

 

The question isn't whether he's deserving, but if he WANTS to even take up the title of Sith. My guess is, he isn't. Like I said, Dark Side Powers alone don't make you a Sith. It's a religious/ideological identity that some simply don't take up, even if they use all the powers that were made by Sith. Vitiate/Valkorion is one instance of an extremely powerful Sith who abandoned the title and even frequently derided his old allegiance.

Both involved use of cloning tech more than Sith alchemy.

 

Precisely. I don't think he wanted a successor, no matter what he said. The new canon has messed with that concept. While Vader is portrayed quite well in Disney canon comics, Palpatine is not. The old EU portrayed Sidious more effectively as a childish, egocentric, brilliant Sith Lord.

Havoc took the words out of my mouth vis-a-vis everything else.

 

I agree with you on everything besides;
"While Vader is portrayed quite well in Disney canon comics"
He's portrayed as an edgelord that kills his men, while in Legends he was respected by the rank and file of the Imperial military. The thing with Vader is if you look deeply, you can see things of his old self in his personality. His love for flying means you could potentially see an element of enjoyment as he rode down on his TIE Advanced during the Battle of Yavin. His respect for the Clone Troopers carrying on to the Imperial Army, while his disdain for politicians and bureaucrats making him not a fan of the Coruscant-Corulag-Anaxes Good Old Boys they gave to him.

 

In the earliest issues of the Soule run, yeah. I don't think the clones were his men but it was still felt wildly inappropriate even for an early days Vader.

That being said, he turned it around by the end and had an "Imperial Superman" take of Vader on page, which was pretty cool and more in keeping with how the rank and file view him in Lords of the Sith.

 

Good point. I just meant his overall personality was consistent with Legends/films. But I do recall that one time he killed one of his own men who could not tell him if Palpatine had a secret order to kill Vader or not. It seems like the Legends material tried to make mature as we see him in TESB, and some stories, like the one where he kills Tarkin's son and the one where he helps Imperials take back the Empire after Palpatine is struck with a virus, show a more mature Anakin beneath the suit. The Disney EU wants to sprinkle prequel Anakin's personality throughout Vader even up into the Galactic Civil War. I'll admit I haven't read enough of it to see if they put any of immature Anakin in there. As you can discern, I prefer original Legends.

I am overall disgusted with Disney EU for its sequel era stuff, but the Vader stuff was interesting in terms of his power. I will say that I prefer the original timeline and his relationship with Tarkin in Legends. Legends Tarkin most likely knew that Vader was Anakin. Disney Tarkin suspects, but doesn't care. I also prefer Legends Thrawn to Disney Thrawn, but that's another topic.

I think Disney ruins Palpatine on so many levels. He's a character that I personally despise, but they make him want a successor genuinely, and it doesn't make any sense. To me, we learn a lot about Sidious from the Plagueis novel and Dark Empire. It's a messed up psychology, but it's unique. He's not unique in Disney EU. He's less bad than Stalin and Hitler, and he's supposed to be worse than them.

 

Sith candidacy, or some sort of potential option. We have to assume the "relationship" developed far enough that Vergere got wind of sidious' true nature.

 

I think an argument that Palpatine only trained two Sith could easily be made. However, I'd argue the two were Maul and Vader. Neither canon gives us much on Maul, his training, and Palpatine's plan for him. However, he trained Maul before he knew of Anakin which suggests Maul was the best he found. Or at least the one he chose. While Palpatine never intended to be surpassed, he did need a powerful apprentice to accomplish his goals. He probably figured he could manipulate them so they never tried to betray him. It is true the Plaguis novel mentioned Maul just being a tool, but context is important. Palpatine's master was still alive, so he couldn't openly train an apprentice. Plaguis and Maul died around the same time, so we can't see how Maul's role would have changed. Then TCW shows a more manipulative strategic side of Maul further suggesting he was fully trained. This is emphasized when Maul mentions he knew of and expected a role in the upcoming war. The influence of TCW explains the difference between Maul's portrayal in the two canons. I think the NEU material emphasizes his role as a true apprentice. However, what we see in Legends fits the role as well. When the Sith are covert, the master makes the plans and the apprentice works as an assassin, or spy.

By the time Dooku was selected, Palpatine already knew of and selected Anakin as his apprentice. Dooku was just a place holder until Anakin fell. And tbh it's a surprise Dooku didn't realize it and could be deceived. It speaks to his pride and arrogance. I know in the ROTS novel Dooku had an idea how everything would work. But I don't think it's realistic to believe the leader of a brutal treasonous regime would suddenly have a high rank in the Empire. Dooku was the public face of the Separatists, the enemy of Republic propaganda, and while he'd try to blame the atrocities on Grievous he was clearly guilty of some as well. There's no way the Republic would accept him back in anything but prison. Palpatine knew this and so selected a placeholder apprentice who could be killed as a scapegoat. I doubt he really taught Dooku much of being a Sith. There was no need, Dooku was meant to be killed for a better apprentice. True, Dooku thought of betraying Palpatine. However, I think this is more a result of him being a prideful aristocrat playing at being Stih than a sign of true apprenticeship. Dooku probably got just enough training to fool people into thinking he was Sith. He was already one of the most powerful Jedi, so he was always going to be a credible threat. Dooku was fully trained in the force; all he needed was some knowledge of the dark side.

I don't think Palpatine wanted Vader to betray him. But even with the suit he was the most powerful apprentice Palpatine would find. He was likely to be the apprentice for the rest of Palpatine's life. So he'd need to be fully trained as a Sith. I can see some knowledge being held back to keep him at a disadvantage, but he was still the chosen apprentice. So he'd be trained like one.

 

It's funny how true that is. Because Jacen isn't heeding a word of Lumiya's deceptions on The Home until she drops this line.

"Everything I tell you is a lie."

As soon as she says that, Jacen makes the connection to Vergere and then he starts to really buy what Shira was selling. That Vergere always meant for him to become a Sith Lord. That to follow in Vader's footsteps was his destiny as seen by Vergere.

Once Lumiya played that card, Darth Caedus was conceived. It just took a few months for him to truly be born.

Because Jacen was never satisfied with being a Jedi. He always wanted more, but like his grandfather, he never knew exactly what that was. Lumiya preyed on this dissatisfaction and offered him another path that appealed to his desire for knowledge and power.

Her leverage of Vergere's name was the key she needed to overcome Jacen's inherent distrust of the Sith. Quite masterfully done.

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk

 

Yeah, he was portrayed in that way in the Legends Plagueis Novel, and as you say, the context is important because Sidious couldn't openly train him when Plagueis was around.

The concept of the Episode I ; ''Always two there are, no more no less, a master and an apprentice'' , and the Jedi wasn't even sure if Maul was the Sith apprentice or the Master. To say that there was a third Sith during the time of Naboo Invasion, is just wrong. And I hope they won't make Plagueis alive in the new canon during the Naboo Invasion.

The new canon makes it clear that pre-TPM Maul's training was a true Sith training,



Maul wonders that if he failed Sidious for being disloyal to him, and Sidious says that the Sith were born in defiance and Maul has embraced the true nature of the Sith order.