Books The Darth Bane trilogy

I’m bumping this hella old thread because I just finished listening to this trilogy on audible for the first time and I want to weigh in. I loved it so much. Definitely at the top of my favorite SW books list. I don’t usually enjoy villain protagonists. Even here, in every face off with Jedi or the healer Caleb and his daughter or Zannah’s cousin, I wasn’t rooting for Bane or Zannah. But still, the story as a whole was so immersive and interesting that I remained engaged throughout, and put up with Bane and Zannah being rewarded for heartless brutality.

I think what made it chicken soup for my SW soul, though, was how it didn’t mess around with the idea that the dark side is somehow brainwashing people. I really hate that concept. I don’t view dark siders as victims and I don’t want the canon to start portraying them that way (*cough* Kylo Ren *cough*). The dark side doesn’t remove agency. It just makes the selfish and/or evil choice really hard to reject because the reward is so great. Both Bane and Zannah had trouble causing harm early in their paths. They felt the “pull to the light,” so to speak. They rejected it not because they were manipulated or brainwashed. They rejected it because they wanted power. To reject the dark side, a person would have to have the strength of will to choose not to be a god. Bane and Zannah were not gonna choose to be weak.

These books made the philosophy of the Sith so crystal clear. I even liked how the author used a dark Jedi to distinguish specifically between Sith and generic dark side use. I could actually relate more to him. I wouldn’t care about ruling the galaxy either. I’d just wanna have a comfy fun life. It’s really too bad these types of ideas weren’t explored in the ST.

The other thing I so enjoyed was that this trilogy provided the villain’s journey that I thought JJ was promising with Kylo Ren. Bane starts out as nobody special. He’s sort of pitiful, and an underdog. He rises through the ranks. He get his ass handed to him along the way. He learns lessons. He is a fully developed scary villain kind of character. When confronted by Princess Serra, his philosophy was so simple and cruel and logical. It was exactly the kind of scene that is seriously disturbing because the evil guy almost makes sense. It reminds me of a scene in The Expanse where a villain sounds like that, so a certain rogue hero just straight up kills him in cold blood out of recognition that that dude would be able to influence others in bad ways. Those are really well written villains in my book. I think Bane is at the moment my favorite dark sider in Star Wars. We’ll see how that stands the test of time, because that’s always the ultimate test of quality in my book.

 

Reviving this thread because of a cool video essentially saying that the Rule of Two is a very inherently flawed philosophy with only the ability to gain the Sith short term success but long term failures

And one of my favorite Podcast did a book discussion on it so I'll put it here

 

I read Path of Destruction 8 years ago and I’m finally continuing the trilogy now:

The sort of inherent stupidity of this trilogy is on full display with Darth Zannah going back to Ambria to visit Caleb, an elderly man she hasn’t seen or heard from in ten years, and then like three pages are spent explaining every possible scenario of what could have happened to him in those 10 years just because he didn’t happen to be home at that moment.

“Maybe he moved. MAYBE he died of natural causes. If he did, his body would have decomposed! Maybe he was eaten by a monster! There’s lots of those here! If he was eaten by a monster, his body would have been digested, that’s why there’s no trace of him!”

Then a page later “oh never mind he’s in the cellar LOL”

 

I sort of think Karpyshyn just has this weird thing to overexplain very simple concepts, like “the sith must remain in hiding. It is strategically important to remain in hiding because then that means our enemies cannot find us. When our enemies cannot find us, that means we have the element of surprise, which is why we should stay hidden.”

 

Long Live Darth Bane and Darth Zannah

 

Just finished Dynasty of Evil.

This trilogy was okay. If it was anything but Star Wars, it’d probably be bad. There’s virtually no depth to be found. The characters are one dimensional and stay that way. I thought it started off with a lot of potential. Bane was just an ordinary (well, other than the fact that dude is yoked) blue collar worker. A victim of abuse from his father as a child, and from his employer as an adult. Tired of political hypocrisy from both sides of the warring factions. It was interesting. The way he kills in self defense and then enlists with the Sith to escape imprisonment. I was into it.

And then… he’s just straight up evil? And he wants to be the most powerful Sith and destroy everyone else because two is better than lots, I guess? It’s such a sharp turn with not a lot of believability behind it.

And then Githany. Sheesh. The woman who turns every Dark Lord of the Sith into a horny teenager. Karpyshyn certainly writes like one in all of her scenes. The concept of a Jedi deserter joining forces with the Sith could be an interesting one, but we’re given no reasoning whatsoever. Her motivations are never clear, nor her allegiances. She’s there purely for eye candy. It’s cringe at best.

And then there’s Zannah, who goes from innocent ten year old to “They were weak so they deserved to die!” in the span of… a page. And of course she grows up to become an extremely attractive woman who uses sex to get what she wants. Sounds familiar, Drew.

Anyway, Rule of Two was definitely my favorite of the three thanks to the side characters. Johun and Farfalla provided a nice break from the brooding darkness of the Sith perspective, and Darovit was an interesting side character that provided at least a hint of conflict for Zannah. And the scene where the orbelisks attach themselves to Bane was the most memorable part of the entire trilogy.

Not mad I read them. There’s certainly fun to be had. But hearing people say that they’re some of their favorite books in the EU makes me a little weary. Probably just not what I’m looking for, and following the Thrawn trilogy definitely didn’t do it any favors.

 

I think every review I've ever read of the Darth Bane books has either hailed them as among the best of the EU, or called them juvenile and a bit embarrassing, with no in-between.

I enjoyed the Jedi vs. Sith comic, and this trilogy is a pretty major source, so it's on my list to read someday, but unlike a lot of EU I really don't have any preconception of whether or not I'd like it.

 

Well, the Darth Bane trilogy reads like it’s written by a Youtuber who rewrites The Force Awakens so that it’s about Luke Skywalker using force hadoukens to fight an army of zombie Sith Lords and Mandalorians and has steamy sex with Mara Jade, played by Sydney Sweeney.

It’s incredibly entertaining, but… you know…

There’s the spiritual and innocent aspect of Star Wars, then there’s the side of Star Wars where people just want it to be “badass”, but if you are like me and can embrace both interpretations of the franchise, you will like it. Just don’t expect great prose.

 

For having so many hot Sith Lords whose literal way of life is to indulge in their passions, there’s a shockingly small amount of actual romance in these books. There’s one makeout scene. That’s it. And there’s an ulterior motive at play anyway. It’s rated R for violence and nothing else, because for some reason we never canonized the word **** and so every swear word is “kriff,” which is kind of obnoxious. They’re like books trying to aim for adults but also in a children’s franchise, so it straddles some weird line that makes scenes that should feel adult embarrassingly awkward.

 

It's the other way round - Jedi vs Sith came first then this trilogy.

 

I know - I meant "a major source" in the EU generally, not for the comic.

 

The Dark Jedi Girl from Ahsoka Trailer reminds me of Darth Zannah