Possible Discrepency on Naga Sadow's Lineage? (Tales of the Jedi Discrepency)

If you read the Tales of the Jedi comic book series you are familiar with the character of Naga Sadow. I have a question regarding his true lineage.

It appears from the Golden Age of the Sith and from the Fall of the Sith Empire that he is in fact amongst the few Dark Lords of the Sith (Rulers of the Sith Empire worlds beyond the Republic?s space on the galaxy at 5000 Before Yavin) of his time who are purely descendent of the Dark Jedi Lore which first conquered the Sith people after the first great schism.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: (DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE STORY)
Far before 5000 before Yavin, true Jedi fought, defeated, and outcast the fallen Dark Jedi. These went on to search the galaxy for a place where they could exert their power until finally arriving at the worlds inhabited by the Sith people. They regarded the Dark Jedi as Gods and were enslaved and dominated. For ages, the Dark Lords (originally fallen Jedi) and their decedents grew in power consuming the riches and resources of the worlds of their Empire. Different Dark Lords ruled over different areas, but only ONE ruled them all. After the death of the Supreme Dark Lord Marka Ragnos, Naga Sadow and his archrival Ludo Kressh disputed for the right to be the heir of Ragnos.

Sadow had the ambition to attack new territories and expand what he saw as a stagnant Empire. Kressh thought Sadow would bring the Empire terrible times. Ultimately Kressh was defeated by Sadow?s schemes which also included seizing an opportunity created by accidental presence of the two hyperspace explorers, Gav and Jori Daragon, to attack the Republic. But Kressh?s concerns were right since Sadow was utterly defeated thanks to the help of Empress Teta and noble Jedi?s such as Odan-Urr. After sacrificing most of his fleet on war, retreating back to the Sith Empire only to be banished due to his failure and attacked by what was left of the now decadent Sith, and being pursued by Empress Teta?s ships, Sadow sacrifices most of his own ships while using the force to destabilize the double star nova of Denarii to destroy several of Teta?s ships as well as to provide diversion to guarantee his escape. He is presumed dead but in fact went with his surviving forces, a special warrior race, the Massassi, to Yavin IV. (Where they constructed the temples later used as the Jedi Academy during the New Jedi Order Era)

POINT OF DISCUSSION
As Sadow tried to convince the Lords of the Sith that he should be the heir of Ragnos he used his pure Jedi blood as a reason why he was superior in power and right.

During the funeral of Marka Ragnos he duels Ludo Kressh and summons his power by saying: ?I Naga Sadow call upon the power of the Sith... the power of my Jedi blood... the power of the dark side!? (Tales of the Jedi - Golden Age of the Sith - #2 ? Funeral for a Dark Lord ? Page 15)

Later, one of the Sith Lords acknowledges this when voicing his support for Naga Sadow as the new Lord of the Sith: ?The strongest of the Sith Lords! The bloodline is strong in Naga Sadow.? (Tales of the Jedi - Golden Age of the Sith - #3 ? The Fabric on an Empire ? Page 26 ? 1st Section)

However on a flashback description presented by Master Vodo?s holocron being viewed by Exar Kun on the beginning of Dark Lord of the Sith, Naga Sadow story is slightly different. The discrepancy exists not only on the particular description of how he manages to elude Republic forces on Denarri, but especially on the description on Naga himself: ?Naga Sadow was a member of an Elite Priesthood of Pure Sith blood who were in Rebellion against their rulers, the fallen Jedi who wore the title of Dark Lords of the Sith?The Dark Lords of the Sith were powerful Jedi Knights who used the Dark Side of the Force to master the Sith people? (Tales of the Jedi ? Dark Lords of the Sith TPB ? Page 13)

Clearly that description contradicts the installments of Tales of the Jedi set 1000 years before Dark Lords of the Sith. The definition of the original Dark Lords of the Sith is acceptable as it states they were Jedi Kni

 

Dark Lords came way before Golden Age. Sadow was only ever called an alchemist, that he was exiled and death sentenced by the reigning Dark Lord. That was Kressh, for a few minutes. Nothing is really contradicted, just further explained.

Sadow did have Jedi blood in him, his ancestors 20,000yrs ago bred with the red skinned Sith race and their offspring came out mixed. The Massassi are what the Sith race currently are. Sadow had the purest blood, meaning his leneage bred more within themselves than their scarlet brethren.

The union of the two made them all Sith. That's what Sadow is: a Sith. So, not really an error.

 

Two points - the KotOR comics distinguish between multiple "Sith Lords" and a single "Dark Lord of the Sith"; and I don't think that a text presented within the narrative (which is what the holocron account is) is necessarily meant to be 100% accurate. As someone pointed out recently, the Sith version of their original schism with the Jedi depicts both sides using metal swords, whereas the Jedi version has them using lightsabers...

I suspect that the Jedi have misunderstood Naga Sadow's "pure Sith blood" (in reality, pure Jedi blood, but taken by them to mean the exact opposite), and perhaps overplayed the role of the clash between the dominant faction "the fallen Jedi who wore the title of Dark Lords of the Sith" (in reality interbred from Jedi/Sith stock) and the faction of bloodline purists (in reality pure-blooded humans), which is largely left implicit in KotOR...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Maybe when Kresh took over he decided to rewrite history, altering records and similar to destroy Sadow's image. Calling Sadow a pure sith blood heretic in rebellion sounds like what Sadow would take as a great insult.

 

One reasons I love Star Wars fans is because of the tendency to try to "solve" any contradiction on the Extended Universe. While that is great because it gives us aficionados a sense of continuity and awe, it is not the way things really are. This was a mistake by the authors I believe.

Some pointers:

Dark Lords was published before Golden Age, but Golden Age was written first. If you have Dark Lords TPB, you can confirm that information. The authors started out by writing a black-and-white strip for Dark House Insider. Eventually they had the idea for the Dark Lords which was approved by Lucas Arts. Later on, the first writings were colored and published in the installments which are currently the oldest chronologically.

I appreciate the efforts made to conciliate the series but the truth is it seems that when the authors were writing Dark Lords they forgot what they did in Golden Age, and later published that without checking back with Dark Lords. Seems stupid to me, but I think it is exactly what happened.

According to Golden Age, Kressh was never a THE Dark Lord of the Sith. Indeed as McEwok pointed out ?the KotOR comics distinguish between multiple Sith Lords and a single Dark Lord of the Sith. In Golden Age, Kressh attempts to rise to power after Ragnos, but is defeated by Sadow, which manipulates the situation in his favor. He believes to have destroyed Kressh before his attack on the Republic, but Kressh was using a decoy. However, after Sadow is defeated by the Republic and retreats back to the Sith Empire, Kressh attacks Sadow and ends up really destroyed. Hence, in reality, Kressh never was Dark Lord of the Sith, he was but a Sith Lord who rivaled the Dark Lord of the Sith which brought by doom to the Sith Empire, Naga Sadow.

In Golden Age, Sadow is not an alchemist/sith magician/high priest of pure Sith Blood that was sentenced to death after revolting against the reigning Sith Lord (which could never be Kressh since he was first over maneuvered, then defeated, and then destroyed by Kressh on Golden Age) as described in Dark Lords, he was in fact a Sith Lord of pure Jedi Lore blood who rose to power after the Death of Ragnos by schemes that included a plan to attack the republic, a plan that ultimately failed and lead to the doom of the Sith empire.

Also it is clear from Golden Age, many Dark Jedi interbred with Sith, but Sadow is described to be of a line of pure Jedi blood, that did not interbreed. After the fall of the Sith Empire, the Sith became known as the adepts to the Dark Side of the force, specifically after the Sith revival of Ulic-Qel Rama and Exar Kun.

EduardoBlake point cannot be right since Kressh never rose to power and thus could not have rewritten history. Besides the history in question was not told by a Sith holocron but by Master Vodo?s Jedi Holocron, which would not be interested or subject to Sith Empire political subversion. Not to mention that after Sadow there was no such thing as Sith Empire. It is implied from the text in Dark Lords that the empire was eradicated by the Republic. So no one would be there to change history records. Also Sadow never return to the Sith Empire? the insult Blake referred to would never be known to him.

The Imperal Ewok makes the most sense in attempting reconciliation by stating the Jedi misunderstood the politics of the Sith Empire and lineage aspects of the Sadow legend. Maybe after 1000 years the story of Sadow told by the Jedi of the time of Master Vodo was not as accurate as the tales coming from the Jedi Holocron out of which Golden Age and Fall of the Sith empire are told, since those were supposedly written at the time.

But if that is the case? much of the stories in the Star Wars EU is not reliable at all. So I don?t like seeing it that way.

Here is how I see it. Authors should be more careful, especially when its their own work. If we cannot hope to have continuity in same author work, conciliating the whole of the EU is impossible!!!

 

I'm not sure you got all the facts straight...

Kressh was Dark Lord, after Sadow left to invade the Republic he managed to convince the council of his treachery and redo the election. Not that he remained very long at the post, Sadow killed him together with his fleet just before he departed for Yavin.
The Sith Empire were quickly reduced by the Republic fleet. But they never succeeded completely in destroying the Sith alltogether. Remains of the great empire survived at least a thousand years, according to KotoR II.

 

Nope. The reference in the DLOTS TPB is that the first issue of Ulic & the Beast Wars of Onderon from the original TOTJ was first published as a black and white serial in Dark Horse Insider 15-20. Same thing with the third issue with Nomi Sunrider, it was first serialized in Dark Horse Comics 7-9. Both stories were expansions of the text features in Dark Empire.

 

Hummm you guys are right... (especially about the black and white reference)

Kressh did assume the tittle I guess while Sadow was at War with the Republic. He could have rewritten things then as well as sentenced him to death. But Ludo died instead...by Naga's forces. So he was Dark Lord briefly and Naga had to run anyhow. It is a semi-reconciliaton however because to a Jedi holocron Naga was still not rebellious or of pure Sith blood. Even if Kressh was sith lord for 15 min, even if he did re-write the Sith version of events, even if he did sentence Sadow to death, the descripitions of both series do not match still. It was a Jedi holocron, not a Sith one, Naga was not of pure sith blood, or a high priest of the sith, he was a Sith Lord of pure Jedi Blood.

Then you have to fall on Blake's idea of Jedi confusion on the story. But the way i see it thats just a patch on a continuity hole.

 

There's no real discrepency.

Of course Naga Sadow was "in rebellion" against the Sith rulers - the Lords of the Sith. While it began as a mere difference of philosophy with respect to which direction the Sith Empire ought to be heading, Sadow escalated the situation into open civil warfare at the same time he was drawing everyone into a larger galactic war of expansion. This was in complete opposition to what the conventional wisdom of the Sith Lord collective was at the time - stagnation and status quo.

Certainly, one can write history to spin various aspects in various ways, and the historical record viewed by Exar Kun is no different. It fundamentally all occurred as explained. We know some of the situations in fuller detail as a result of the GAotS and FotSE series.

 

Besides Pure Sith blood is what's pure to a Sith.

The "Jedi" descent are Sith to the Jedi not Jedi.

It's like Nazi Aryan vs. Indian

 

Yes, like I said, I recon the Sith Empire Civil war could be seen as a Rebellion and that Ludo Kressh could be interpreted as the Lord of the Sith for 15 min, but it still stands that he was not a member of the "Sith blooded people", a priest, that rebelled against the rullers. He was one of the rullers and was chosen as THE ruler, which laster till his catastrophe...The key thing here is choice.. he was chosen as the ruller!!! How is that Rebellion?

Yes hopefully we will understand more as the series progresses. In fact they could try to patch this up.

Furthermore, as to the Jedi way of seing pure sith blood, we could argue that to the Jedi anyone from the Sith Empire was of sith blood as oposed to a fallen Jedi going to the dark side. But if you read the text it is not what it seems to say at all. Like I said accepting the Jedi interpreted things differntly is a patch to teh hole the authors created.

While I admire our persistance in patch continuity holes, after all, thats what good fan want. And I am pleased with the results of the discussion. (His Civil war = rebellion. His Sith Blood = Jedi view. Ludo Krassh lord for 15 min which had a opposite view)... But I presented this topic to lift one of many question on the EU that show lack of care with continuity. And I still think these arguments while valid enough to solve the problem are patches and that the authors did make a mistake