ST How TROS Recontextualizes The Sith

It appears that Robert Meyer Burnett corrects himself at 13:40 in his second video of the DOTF first draft of referring Tor Vallum a Sith Master who was the teacher of Palpatine.

Ren asks Tor if he’s the Sith Master Tor Vallum. Tor says he’s no Master. Then Ren asks him if he taught Darth Plagueis. Tor said that name means nothing to him. He even said to Ren, ‘You call yourself a Sith’. Really. That’s not the Ren we know after having killed Snoke.

I think Tor taught Palpatine Force Vampirism like Talzin taught him some Magicks.

Anyway, if this fad been filmed, we’d have a different recontextualized the Sith differently.

 

I totally feel your frustration here, and it's a weakness of this new and final entry that sith alchemy can seem a little overpowered, to put it mildly. There is also a problem where Rey can call to ALL of the past Jedi and not just the ascended ones who followed Qui-Gon's teachings.

Here are my fan-boy patches to help us all enjoy the sequels if we so desire, without upsetting the beautiful world George gave us.

Firstly, Darth Sidious may or not be telling the whole truth. He may or may not be telling it literally. But we'll go with the notion that everything he's telling us NOW is true, and previous statements involved obfuscations.

We are to believe that Sith lords pass their knowledge and something of their identity to the apprentice when they decide the time is right. This means that Darth Plagueis wasn't simply dispatched in his sleep, but actually transferred everything he knew to Sidious (presumably, if we are right about his later comments being a hint) and allowed himself to be killed. We don't actually have to accept that spirit transfer happens in every generation, but maybe it does.

This means that Dark Lords of the Sith need to pass their spirits down to a willing host, and this is the only kind of afterlife they get, if they get any. Importantly, it means Palpatine has an actual allegiance to the Sith. This allegiance and his belief in their teachings makes him a more interesting character than he had been before Episode I revealed a few secrets of the school.

Cheating death is still important. Sith do not get to live on as Force ghosts, manifesting at will to living Sith. This is why Palpatine had to have his spirit transferred to a new body. I'm fine to build my speculations out of Dark Empire and I think he was inhabiting a decrepit clone body. I'm also down with the notion that there is a huge cult of sith acolytes who are weak in the force but dedicated to the Sith. There are still only two Dark Lords at any given time. Whether Snoke was a Sith Lord in secret, or whatever his status, the rule still seems to apply. Kylo Ren gets no access to Sidious until after he has taken out Snoke.

During the thirty years in which the Empire reigned, we can reasonably assume that darth Sidious and Darth Vader worked on this process of cheating death in a more general sense to replicate Plagueis's achievements. The first result was Snoke himself. The second was a clone body the Emperor could use in extremis, probably unbeknownst to Vader. We do not yet know when Sidious found out about Exegol, but if it is true that he has all of Plagueis' knowledge at his disposal then he must have known early. In any case it is clear between this film and Revenge of the Sith that Palpatine wants the Sith legacy to continue and his game with new apprentices is that they have to learn from him because he is the only source of Sith lore that is passed down orally.

My fix for the past Jedi thing is this. We know Qui-Gon taught ben and Yoda how to ascend after he did it for the first time (he learned it from a Shaman of the Whills) then Yoda and Ben (perhaps with Qui-Gon's assistance) pulled Anakin into the light when he died. If they can assist a living Jedi who is untrained in Qui-Gon's new teaching, maybe they can also reach oout into the netherworld of the Force to bring other past Jedi into consciousness again, if only temporarily.

 

I think this movie tweaks the Rule of Two wherein gaining their power is actually quite literal when the apprentice kills the Master. Like Palpatine seemed like he was basically going to poses Rey which is why he was so cool with it, like the man said "all the Sith" live in him. Also of note Palpatine was doing a whole ritual thing with Rey so he was probably cheating, again, as he often does, the cheater. (I don't think that ritual happened every time, doesn't strike me as something the Sith would be bothered with every single one for 1000 years)

The Sith spirits at the end aren't like Force Ghosts but more of the wicked Sith spirits that can attach themselves to objects, as we've seen before in the comics and when Yoda confronted Darth Bane's spirit.

 

I don't think he was going to "possess" Rey, but that his spirit would commune with hers and he would live on and sort of merge with her. Rey would still be Rey, but she would have regular mental conversations with his shadow from that point on and he would be able to advise and influence her.

 

I share this view. She’ll internalize him. She would be his avatar any more than Snoke is when he said I am ‘Snoke’ and In made ‘Snoke’.

 

I think that TROS portrayed the Sith almost in the same manner as the ancient Sith. They are interested in sorcery and preservation. They don't seem to care about the Rule of Two anymore. Maybe the novelization will tell us more. But if I banish the EU from my head, that's what I see. Palpatine seems to have more in common with Naga Sadow and other ancient Sith insofar as he wants to preserve the Sith, even if they are the rebels, not the rulers. Of course, Palpatine being Sidious, he wants to rule and be on top. That's why there's an argument that Plagueis, Malgus, and other Sith were more humble than him. Humble as far as megalomaniacs go. Wink.

 

so im hearing from all this that JJ is a good movie maker, but a bad story teller.

 

Visually, the movie was gorgeous. Story-wise, not so much.

But I could have taken this movie, even if it was dumb. Let's say the Sith are not the Rule of Two Sith of the Banite style. Let's say that they are like ancient Sith. Let's say they worship the Dark Side as though it's some dark, nihilistic form of pantheism. Yeah. That would be a good idea, and that would have helped improve this story a lot, I think. That's just my perception.

 

That one lippy First Order general does call them fanatics, sorcerers and cultists and Pryde seems to be almost dark side motivated "like I served you in the old wars" so they're definitely seem motivated by the dark side, although I don't think they're actual dark side powered folk, just they believe in the ideology.

 

Certainly. I find Tenebrous and Plagueis very interesting. The former was basically like a physicist, and the latter was like a chemist. I’m sorry if I am misspelling the first one. I’m on my phone, not my computer. Sidious was a talented politician, but his brain is overrated in my view. He owes a lot to his master and his master’s master. I mean, don’t get me wrong. He was crafty and successful. He just was always 14 years old emotionally. Kinda scary.

 

Stupid iPhone and autocorrect. He does owe a lot to Plagueis and Tenebrous, bur not as much as in the novel. That otherwise excellent novel shouldn’t have had Plagueis in the TPM events or even close to these events.

 

I think there was at least a reason for that. At some point Plagueis watches Qui-Gon and Anakin having a conversation (maybe that one about the midichlorians) and then :

Or, if we read this from the 2020's perspective: 'Plagueis should have been killed, to keep Sidious from learning how to cheat death. Plagueis was the key to everything'.

Plagueis and Qui-Gon, pioneers in cheating death, made TROS Palpatine and the jedi FGs possible.

The novel was supervised by Lucas, according to Luceno. You get a sense of the place Lucas' mind was around 2011-12, just before he sold the company. Surely he noticed how his idea of the chosen one (Vader destroying Sidious in ROTJ, the prophecy being fulfilled) and his ideas about the jedi and sith surviving ROTJ (already hinted at in ROTS) clashed. 'What happened to Vader's grandchildren?', Lucas' question to Abrams, is just another way of saying 'what happened to Vader's grandchildren's grandfather?'

 

The Sith are still Banite in TROS insofar as Sidious wants Rey to strike him down. However, he is also yearning to become a god. Sidious in TROS has more in common with Naga Sadow, Exar Kun, and Vitiate than he would prefer to admit. In fact, he's most comparable to Vitiate. He comes off more as a sorcerer in this film. However, the Sidious Palpatine of the old EU was primarily powerful in the Force, not in dark side magic. He does know about it, but it's not his go-to. He became like a dark side demigod in Dark Empire, however. He is the only Sith Lord who was able to transfer his soul involuntarily. He preferred that because it would be automatic.

But Sidious doesn't seem especially talented in TROS at leading a Sith Order..if that's what you want to call the Sith Eternal. That's why I prefer the idea that all those hooded figures were all the Sith who came before him manifesting as apparitions. The Sith in the original EU could manifest as powerful spirits. While their might was limited in comparison to how it was before, they were still dangerous. But this Sidious in TROS has more in common with ancient Sith than medieval and modern Sith. That's what makes him interesting, though. Darth Sidious wanting to become a Force god is nothing new. However, he was not as as brilliant as people thought he was. Why? Well, just look at it. He delegated the running of his Empire to a bunch of people who were trying to undermine each other. Vader and the Imperial hierarchy did not get along. But they all feared Palpatine enough not to betray him. The few who did betray him in the EU suffered greatly.

Anyhow, I do feel that old Palpatine is mostly in character in TROS. If there's anything at the core of his personality, it's this perverse desire to cultivate and manipulate lifeforms for the sole purpose of eventually killing them. That's his life blood. He's a teenager inside of an old man's body, and he loves to torture people's minds. Obviously, some in the fan base love him for that. But I think he's horrifying. He's simplistic in personality, but he's nuanced in his machinations.

 

I don't think that every Sith master is the same "person" possessing a new body, I think what Sidious says about being all of the Sith is metaphorical as he is the last Sith and has all of their accumulated knowledge. I think it's simply that Palpatine/Sidious found a way to have his essence/spirit survive after death in a way that no prior Sith (that we know of) has managed and his cultists created a new body for him. Whether it was planned or not, the Aftermath series hints at this numerous times and it fits with what we see on screen in TROS.

My assumption here is based on all of the available information we have combine with the fact that it is the only way Palpatine really works in TROS without damaging parts of the other trilogies.

Looking at Aftermath and Battlefront II, it seems clear that they were always going to have the potential for Palpatine to appear in the ST... I just think it was originally going to be a hologram or some holocron magic (like in the DOTF draft) before they (Probably JJ) decided to literally resurrect him.

 

So how do you interpret his wish to have Rey strike him down?
What do you think would happen if she did, regarding her becoming him?

Additionally; how possible is it we are meant to watch ROTJ in a different light now?
When Palpatine says "Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!" did he have something up his sleeve if Vader didn't block Luke's swing.

This seems to me like a pretty likely intended element that you can add watching "one story" 1-9 as JJ said.

 

I very much think that Palpatine has the idea of his spirit possessing her (and perhaps Luke in ROTJ) but I don't think it's the same old Sith that has been body-jumping for millennia; that goes against much of what we have already seen. I think that Palpatine is the first Sith (at least for a LONG time) that figured out how to cheat death. It was something that Plagueis was on the verge of figuring out when he was killed and was knowledge that was either unknown to the Sith entirely or had been lost for thousands of years.

 

Okay, thanks for clarifying.

I think I see it the same.
Palpatine comes across ancient in this film and I think "all Sith" indeed could just be a fancy way of saying he has surpassed them all.

And Snoke I get the feeling was at least at one stage his own being that Palpatine just had a lot of influence over. I hope we find out in coming material.

 

So the way I interpreted it, based off of the ritualistic nature of what Palpatine wanted Rey to do, him grounding it in a history stretching back to the beginning of the Rule of Two, and his "I am all the Sith!" proclamation, here's how I think this works:

• When the apprentice strikes down the master, the master's spirit passes into the apprentice's, and latches onto their spirit like a parasite.
• This imbues the apprentice with all of the knowledge of the master, as well as their essential essence.
• This does not override the personality or state of being of the apprentice; their soul is still the dominant inhibitor of their body and mind.
• This has stretched back to the inception of the Rule of Two with Darth Bane, meaning that Sith spirits have accumulated together over time; this accumulation of spirits is indistinct in and of itself, but distinct from the inhabited body's self. I don't see this as being too dissimilar to the demonic Legion from the Bible, but with the "we" taking a backseat to the present body's original personality as a distinct "I."
• Basically, if this had happened to Rey, the collective spirits of the Sith would essentially be a hivemind living inside of her, feeding her anger and rage and other Dark Side goodness, but Rey's personality and sense of self would be intact. Supposing she trained an apprentice that struck her down in turn, her spirit would merge with the Sith collective and pass into that apprentice, continuing the cycle.
• This is a way for the Sith to parasitically continue through the centuries, desperately clinging to a half-life that leaves them as little more than spiritual leaches with no distinct sense of self or individuality. This contrasts strongly with the Jedi method of becoming one with the Force, which still allows for the preservation of the self as a distinct entity, while still being connected to something greater than the self.

 

There's another possibility.

'Dark spirit waiting for its revenge and biding its time'.

Gandalf: 'Sauron has regained much of his former strength. He cannot yet take physical form, but his spirit has lost none of its potency'. 'The spirit of Sauron endured. His life force is bound to the Ring and the Ring survived. Sauron has returned'.

The one Ring=dark side in this analogy. Sauron wanted to rule again.

This was before the Rule of Two, and Palpatine explicitly talks about the sith ruling the galaxy again.

And there's another element. Rey was special, I think. Different from 'all the sith' and similar to Palpatine in a particular way: 'you will take the throne. It is your birthright, to rule, here. It is in your blood. Our blood'. The spirit transfer, maybe, was possible because of their shared blood. A Palpatine thing.

It is in your blood. Our blood.
Perhaps an idea from Lucas himself. This script was, supposedly, the 2nd draft of VII. Feb/Mar 2013. This is Cosinga Palpatine talking to our Palpatine, his 17 yo son, in the 'Plagueis' novel (2012). Palpatine is about to kill him:

Ruin=Ren? Ruin is mentioned in the TPM novel.

In TROS, one stormtrooper calls the KoR 'ghouls'. They don't seem to be, but Terrio's 'entity known as Palpatine in this version' looks like some kind of ghoul. Ghouls eat corpses, and maybe that's what happened to the rule of two 'lineage'. The lineage survived and feed this other thing at the same time. They were killed and eaten for a thousand years and their power lived on as part of someone -or something- else. Then a Palpatine sith (Sidious) appeared and was eaten alive.

 

I definitely think that Palpatine and Sauron are a good comparison... But Palpatine is still Palpatine, he's not Palpatine inhibited by an ancient evil spirit; he is Palpatine and he is the evil spirit. We don't know how old Palpatine himself is but I don't think he's the same spirit passing through the Sith over a thousand years.

 

The idea came from TPM - the founder of the Sith 2000 years ago - but the name first appeared in other material:


The Sith had come into being almost two thousand years ago. They were a cult given over to the dark side of the Force, embracing fully the concept that power denied was power wasted. A rogue Jedi Knight had founded the Sith, a singular dissident in an order of harmonious followers, a rebel who understood from the beginning that the real power of the Force lay not in the light, but in the dark. Failing to gain approval for his beliefs from the Council, he had broken with the order, departing with his knowledge and his skills, swearing in secret that he would bring down those who had dismissed him.
He was alone at first, but others from the Jedi order who believed as he did and who had followed him in his study of the dark side soon came over. Others were recruited, and soon the ranks of the Sith swelled to more than fifty in number. Disdaining the concepts of cooperation and consensus, relying on the belief that acquisition of power in any form lends control, the Sith began to build their cult in opposition to the Jedi. Theirs was not an order created to serve; theirs was an order created to dominate.
Their war with the Jedi was vengeful and furious and ultimately doomed. The rogue Jedi who had founded the Sith order was its nominal leader, but his ambition excluded any sharing of power. His disciples began to conspire against him and each other almost from the beginning, so that the war they instigated was as much with each other as with the Jedi.
In the end, the Sith destroyed themselves. They destroyed their leader first, then each other. What few survived the initial bloodbath were quickly dispatched by watchful Jedi. In a matter of only weeks, all of them died.
All but one.
Darth Maul shifted impatiently. The younger Sith had not yet learned his Master's patience; that would come with time and training. It was patience that had saved the Sith order in the end. It was patience that would give them their victory now over the Jedi.
The Sith who had survived when all of his fellows had died had understood that. He had adopted patience as a virtue when the others had forsaken it. He had adopted cunning, stealth, and subterfuge as the foundation of his way- old Jedi virtues the others had disdained. He stood aside while the Sith tore at each other like kriks and were destroyed. When the carnage was complete, he went into hiding, biding his time, waiting for his chance.
When it was believed all of the Sith were destroyed, he emerged from his concealment. At first he worked alone, but he was growing old and he was the last of his kind. Eventually, he went out in search of an apprentice. Finding one, he trained him to be a Master in his turn, then to find his own apprentice, and so to carry on their work. But there would only be two at any one time. There would be no repetition of the mistakes of the old order, no struggle between Siths warring for power within the cult. Their common enemy was the Jedi, not each other. It was for their war with the Jedi they must save themselves.
The Sith who reinvented the order called himself Darth Bane.
A thousand years had passed since the Sith were believed destroyed, and the time they had waited for had come at last.


The newcanon also makes the Sith somewhat older - with the Tarkin novel saying there's been a Sith shrine under the Jedi temple for 5000-odd years.

 

The spirit's individuality would be something up to debate. Maybe it has no face until it wears a mask.

Some kind of passive evil, with the actual individual embodying and fueling it - and being fueled by it in return.

Like the domain of evil in Dagobah. You will find there only what you take with you.(Apparently, the sith shrine under the jedi temple in Coruscant was to be used in IX. Another domain of evil, I guess. Maybe this ancestor of Palpatine, this Ruin/Ren, knew about it too)

 

I like this post and agree.

I think Palpatine is still Palpatine, who also has in him the evil collective spirits of the past Sith Masters. His spirit and the evil spirt are one. They advise him and push him, but Palpatine is in control. He's extremely powerful to keep those spirits inline. I think the longer the Sith lasted the more powerful the Sith Lords became and the rate of succession slowed down. And each Sith Lord's personality is different, with the living Sith's personality dominate. The other Sith form sort of a consensus voice. We get glimpses of the larger linage of spirts coming to the surface, especially in the lust of having the current Sith Lord killed and replaced by a new more powerful Sith. I also wonder if the voice and way The Emperor speaks is more influenced by the Sith Spirits.

We only ever know Palpatine as the Sith Master with the Sith Spirits inside him. One thing we haven't seen in Star Wars yet is a new Sith succeed to Sith Master.