PT The flaws of the Sith rule of 2

The apprentice will eventually rise up and kill the master once he has gained enough knowledge from him. Yet, the master fearing this always keeps the apprentice lusting for more knowledge by never revealing all his/her secrets even until the end. This to me would signify a loss in information in Sith's knowledge from each generation, which should be a bad thing.


What's your though

 

I have to agree. A successful sith master in this system would simply hold back knowledge and/or regularly kill and replace the apprentice, assuming the master is acting entirely out of self interest. Either way knowledge would be lost over time. We see an example of this in ROTS where Sideous has lost the knowledge Plageus had about manipulating the midichlorians. Although elsewhere I feel like there is a suggestion that the sith do have a sense of greater loyalty to the legacy of the Sith as a whole- at least in the case of Darth Maul, who seems to have taken personally the way the Sith have been persecuted by the jedi in the past. My assumption is that for most of the time they were in hiding, the Sith acted more cooperatively than what we see in say RotS, if only out of necessity. It's only when they start to amass true power again that their backstabbing natures entirely reassert themselves. In this way it's their very own success in the prequel trilogy that precipitates the downfall of the Sith.

 

it wouldn't matter, you'd both be struggling to control the dark side and you'd see that in each other. all those struggles and desires pushed on to each other and general fear of each other is what leads one to destroy the other. that's why they say you don't ever have to worry about destroying evil; it will destroy itself.

 

The Sith will always fight each other for power, because that is the nature of the Sith.

"One of the themes throughout the films is that the Sith Lords, when they started out thousands of years ago, embraced the dark side. They were greedy and self-centered and they all wanted to take over, so they killed each other. Eventually there was only one left, and that one took on an apprentice. And for thousands of years, the master would teach the apprentice, the master would die, the apprentice would then teach another apprentice, the master, and so on. But there could never be any more than two of them, because if there were, they would try to get rid of the leader, which is exactly what Vader was trying to do, and that's exactly what the Emperor was trying to do. The Emperor was trying to get rid of Vader, and Vader was trying to get rid of the Emperor. And that is the antithesis of a symbiotic relationship, in which if you do that, you become cancer, and you eventually kill the host, and everything dies."

--George Lucas, Time Magazine Interview; 1999.

That is why they were down to two.

 

The biggest flaw of Rule of Two (and Sith philosophy in general) is the idea that a Sith only ever dies if they're "weak" or "not strong enough". If the Apprentice turns against the Master and the Master kills them, or the Apprentice dies on a mission, it's because they were weak. If the Master is killed by the Apprentice, clearly they weren't worthy of being a Master.

. . . So what if the two Sith are traveling in a ship and a previously undetected problem with their engine makes it explode? Or a slight hyperspace miscalculations sends them into a super nova? BOOM, their whole order is gone. Or going back to the idea of losing knowledge over time, even an exceptionally strong Master with lots to teach could be killed by an impatient, "weak" apprentice. What if the apprentice poisons him? The Sith response would be "Well he knew a million different combat maneuvers, force powers, and was even skilled at manipulating people, but despite his massive skill set he didn't know that this one obscure plant from a planet no one's heard of can be made into an undetectable instant death poison, so HE WAS WEAK! HE DESERVED IT!" And all his knowledge is lost.

The Sith have a "survival of the fittest" mindset when its really more "survival of the most adaptable" or even "survival thanks to random chance". They just cannot conceive that random chance or a supposedly weaker foe could wipe out their order in an instant, no matter how "strong" they are.

 

That's why the Sith never traveled together in the films and in the cartoons. Only one time did they do so in the current EU, when Palpatine and Vader were stuck together and had to rely on each other to survive.

That's the point of the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the wise. The Sith are so consumed by their greed and lust for power, that they cannot truly function for long. That is the nature of the dark side. It consumes and feeds their greed. The Jedi can function because they train their Padawans to be cooperative. To not be greedy. They offer knowledge and wisdom, not power. In time the Padawan will learn and understand, thus becoming a Knight and then Master.

 

As a social structure it makes little to no sense. Social mobility of one step - apprentice, to Master, and only when the Master dies - is pretty absurd if you think it through. It is unsustainable. The very fact that the sect of the Sith has existed for an age or more suggests it must be sustainable or it would not have survived at all. But that's how it is so it's best to simply accept it.

If the rule of 2 was designed so that no individual Master would ever take on more than one apprentice at a time it would make more sense. That would leave room for a hierarchy (however small) of Sith Lords spread around the Galaxy - each building their knowledge, training their successor, and perhaps plotting to reign supreme over all other Sith Lords.. Then you open the door to a further step in the hierarchy, where the greatest Sith takes precedence - King of the Sith if you like - and that position always taken by force. Many clan structures throughout history functioned in a similar way.

But to have only two Sith Lords in all the known universe at any one moment is what we have to work with - however daft it is.

 

The rule of 2 does get a lot of negative attention, but look what it led to: .

Need I say more.

 

But, from a Legends perspective, Palpatine abandoned the Rule of Two in favour of his Rule of One. Just food for thought.

 

True! But just looking at canon material, the rule of two led to a favourable outcome for the Sith.

 

While I agree with you, "Once more the Sith will rule the galaxy..." It cannot be said how successful, in the new canon, the Rule of Two was compared to their pre-Bane successes and domination of the galaxy.

I'd say the fact the Rule of Two is what killed the entire Sith Order in the movies - the situation in which the Master is killed and so is the apprentice (and worse, redeemed to boot) - also denotes its greatest flaw.

 

Not really. Palpatine was the Emperor, but Vader was still his Apprentice. They employed other dark side adepts to aide them, but they were never powerful enough and plenty enough.

But the Sith from the past were destroyed by infighting which resulted in many Sith turning on each other, overthrowing their Masters and then being betrayed by their own Apprentices. The Jedi exploited this by fostering the notion of betrayal. In the old EU, Naga Sadow and Ludo Kresh fought each other after Marka Ragnos died. Both claimed to be fit to rule and went out of their way to betray the other. Aleemia betrayed her cousin Satal, who was killed by Ulic Qel-Droma. Then she betrayed him, which lead to his betraying her. Ulic then betrayed Exar Kun, leading the Jedi to him. Darth Malak betrayed Darth Revan. Darth Zannah intended to overthrow Darth Bane first with the help of Set Harth and then she got Darth Cognus to join her, after he was recruited to replace her. Darth Krayt was betrayed by Darth Wyyrolk. Darth Maul recruited Savage Opress to overthrow Darth Sidious and Darth Tyranus.

Let's be honest here, the Sith aren't exactly a charitable institution. Whether the Rule of Two was in effect or not, treachery is the way of the Sith.

 

If I were a Master I wouldnt want to be killed by my apprentice so the rule of 2 has always been illogical to me. But it makes sense for the Sith, as they strive to gain more power and they do so by growing stronger with the Dark Side... aka Killing your master to grow stronger than him

 

I would kill my apprentice after the second date...honestly

 

Yet, there was an entire Sith Order that opposed Vader, with which Bataal Bandu was aligned, and then the Sith offshoot that were the Prophets in Palpatine's service, as well as Sith Acolytes in The Force Unleashed. Furthermore, according to Book of Sith, Palpatine did indeed explicitly discard the Rule of Two, and created a Rule of One in its place, something which we also see quite evident in the Dark Empire series.

None of that may hold true in the new canon, though. From the new canon's perspective, the ambiguous pre-Rule of Two domination of the galaxy that Palpatine references, and the Sith Empires and polities referenced in TCW and Tarkin, may not have involved consistent destructive infighting, and we can no longer take the TPM novelisation's statements regarding such into account, only Bane's statements in TCW.

Regardless of how ancient Sith hierarchies worked in the new canon, we know that they at least entailed the survival of the Sith, yet the flaw of the Rule of Two destroyed (as best as we are aware) the Order.

In Legends, we do see much infighting, yes, but one notes the Old Sith Empire survived in stability and prosperity for thousands of years, compared to the Order of the Sith Lords' one thousand in the shadows.

 

Precisely. Palpatine knew everything there was to know and that's why he killed Plagueis. Maul wanted to kill Palpatine because he had been forgotten about and discarded. Vader felt himself growing stronger than Sidious which is why he wanted to kill him.

The Sith in the "Resurrection" storyline were deemed as heretics by Palpatine. Those who tried to usurp both Sith Lords for their own gain. The Prophets were offshoots, yes. But they and the Acolytes were not true Sith. Just as the Inquisitors are not either. Nor were they powerful enough to overthrow the Sith. As to the Rule of One, well, that's where the problem is. That was only created to take into account the various video games with Sith Lords, which went against Lucas's own story. Hence for Lucas, the Rule of Two was still in effect in TESB and ROTJ.

Bane did not count on the idea of a Jedi-turned-Sith turning away from the dark side, nor that said one was destined to destroy the Sith.

But the old empire did fall apart eventually, in part due to in-fighting. The Knight of Ren, which exists now, doesn't have the rule, but it won't be long before Snoke decides to rid himself of Kylo in favor of Rey.

 

i don't think there's a loss of knowledge in most cases because in order to kill the master the apprentice must have grown stronger than him in one way or the other, and in some ways the master knows this to be inevitible thus...


Darth Sidious: "Darth Vader will become more powerful than either of us"

 

The point is that it saved the Sith from total destruction.

There was no other choice.

More than 2 lead to disaster.

 

I would think the rule of 2 is pretty standard in regards
to how a dictatorship works.

 

The Sith, like the Jedi accept that no matter what they are going to die so they just don't care about it too much. Old Eastern warror codes teach that death is a warrior's only true companion who he can look to for comfort. He can look at death who will reply "I will not take yoy today." That no matter if you die in battle today or die of old age many years from now, you are always going to die regardless so a warrior doesn't need to worry about death. This is how I think the Sith idealology works off of, a master wants a strong apprentice to make himself more powerful and accepts the risks from this as he will die from either betrayal or old age. That a Sith masters views the rewards of a strong apprentice to be well worth the risks of early death. Further I believe that Palps was really bad even by Sith standards, that he was a exceptionally evil Sith, perhaps the worst one ever.

 

Here's the thing though: It's silly to assume that the only possible way the Apprentice could beat the Master is if he's "stronger". That's the point I was trying to make in my original post, a Sith Master could have 1,000 different powers and skills, but if he's weak in one area (say, detecting poisons) than an overeager, "weak" apprentice could kill the Master before he's been taught everything.

Or to give an example from the films: Vader vs Sidious. The Emperor regarded Vader as "weak", which is why he wanted Luke to kill him and take his place. And in a straight fight Sidious probably would have won, seeing what his lightening did to Vader's suit. But when the Emperor was distracted, not expecting Vader's redemption, that's when Vader killed him. So if you leave out Vader's redemption, we have a clear example of how Master being "strong" in one area can still be killed by a "weak" Apprentice. And since Vader could never do force lightening, if he lived and convinced Luke to join the dark side with him, Luke would have lost that ability unless he found a scroll or something.

 

well Sidious' guard was down in that case. but even so someone being beaten by subterfuge (killing him in his sleep for instance) still amounts to a power on the part of the apprentice

 

they were both on their last legs, so to speak, vader and sidious. what made the rule so weak in the end in addition to their physical condition in this case is that blood is thicker than any rule. you can't beat blood.

 

Exactly, "a power". There are different types of power, different strengths and weaknesses. The Sith absolute mindset of "If you die you were weak, if I killed you I'm strong" is too simplistic as different situations call for different strengths. And if a Master with a vast store of knowledge and a millions powers slips up in just one area the weak apprentice exploits, all that knowledge is lost.

 

Well, the Sith as a whole is not really sustainable because of their greedy nature.

"The Emperor was trying to get rid of Vader, and Vader was trying to get rid of the Emperor. And that is the antithesis of a symbiotic relationship, in which if you do that, you become cancer, and you eventually kill the host, and everything dies."

--George Lucas, Time Magazine Interview; 1999.

Sometimes the Master would be killed, but other times, the Master would die on his own. Lucas was telling us the nature of the Sith and the story of Darth Plagueis and what Palpatine told Anakin about the knowledge over life and death, is what sets the stage for the PT and ties back into the OT.