PT The Rule of Two is a Stupid Idea.

Here were two ways I saw it when I first saw the OT in the early-2000s.

-> Luke joins and they both work for Palps.

-> Luke joins, Vader dies.

 

Personally, I saw it as the first option, given:

1. Both Vader and Palpatine openly talk about cooperating to get him to turn.

2. “You, like your father, are now… mine.”

3. Vader defends Palpatine, which you wouldn’t expect in a coup.

4. Palpatine never tells Luke to kill Vader. Palpatine tells Luke to take Vader’s place, which is what Vader seemed on board with “The Emperor will show you the true nature of the Force; he is your master now.”

5. Vader gets up and rejoins his master’s side after Palpatine just allegedly ordered, rather obliquely, his execution.

6. Vader insists he must obey his master and there is no further attempt to lure Luke with the promise of ruling the Galaxy, Vader is solely concerned with delivering Luke to the Emperor.


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I don't believe for one moment that Vader believed Palpatine wouldn't try and replace him. I don't think Vader trusted Palpatine that much. The point of the rule of 2 isn't about worshipping the master, its about worshipping the power. Its the power the apprentice is hungering for, not the worship of the master.

I think Vader needed Palpatine to turn Luke to the dark side. I think Vader knew Palpatine is the only one who could push Luke to the dark side. Its more about what happens after Luke turns that becomes the question. I mean the whole aspect alone of "I must obey my master" gives off the impression he is controlled when likely what he means is he if driven by his own desire for power that he just can't let go off. Aka the rule of 2, the master has the power and the apprentise desires the power.

And Palpatine does say to like "Now, fulfill your destiny and take your father's place at my side!". So Palpatine was saying that Luke would take Vaders spot and not exactly take his place WITH your father. So whether or not Palpatine was planning on ending Vader before that, he likely had ideas that Vader would go.

 

I always thought the line "Now, fulfill your destiny and take your father's place at my side!" meant kill Vader. It wasn't something I saw coming though (I only read about the rule of 2 after I finished the movies), I was completely shocked.

As for Vader getting up and rejoining Sidious afterwards, Vader doesn't think he has much of a choice. He said he "must" obey his master due to the power of the dark side (ie Sidious's power). Sidious isn't trying to kill Vader anymore now that Luke refused to turn and Sidious still needs someone to work for him. So Vader can either rejoin Sidious and Sidious would kill Luke only, or Vader can make a fuss about the execution order and Sidious would kill them both.

 

In the absence of the PT, I don’t know what indication there is to suggest Vader distrusted Palpatine at all, nor vice versa. Palpatine didn’t show any displeasure with Vader and Vader throughout RotJ showed complete obedience. His behavior really doesn’t make sense unless he trusts Palpatine not to kill him.

And I don’t believe that Palpatine did anything special at all to turn Luke that Vader could not. He was destroying the Rebel ships and goading Luke to anger so as to tempt him to attack, which Vader blocked. Allegedly because “Luke wasn’t ready to fall yet.”

Trying to goad Luke towards anger by threatening his friends was something Vader was entirely capable of. Especially since he had both Han and Leia in possession on Bespin and had tortured Han in order to summon Luke, but then immediately put Leia and Han in Lando and Boba’s possession the moment Luke arrived in favor of freezing Luke and taking him to the Emperor.

When Luke eventually does lash out in anger, it’s due to a threat Vader makes, not Palpatine.

This is an argument I’ve heard before. But you would just think that any loyalty Vader had up to this point would be out the window and he would do everything in his power to kill Palpatine going forward. Nevermind Vader picking up Palpatine and throwing him over the ledge, there was still Luke’s lightsaber within reasonable range. Palpatine clearly trusted Vader enough to turn his back to him after ordering him dead, which is just foolish in itself, regardless of any imminent redemption over Palpatine torturing Luke.

Does he though? Especially when you follow this up by pointing out:

Vader is apparently expendable. What exactly is he bringing to the table? He served no purpose beyond tracking down Luke in ESB and RotJ.


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I watched the movies in Machete Order and view the hexalogy as one continuous whole. In the context of the PT, I don't think there was ever a single minute when Vader was genuinely loyal to Sidious. He was only kept in check through fear of Sidious's overwhelming power. Having yet another reason for Vader to hate Sidious doesn't make much difference.

Yeah that was stupid on Sidious's part. The only explanation that I could come up with, which nobody else agrees with, is that Sidious was getting demented in his old age. His plans regarding the Rebels was pretty good though, so maybe it was intermittent dementia. Or maybe the dark side protected his brain function from age-related decline, but when a powerful light side Force user (Luke) got in close proximity to him, that messed the Force field of the room so Sidious's brain rapidly deteriorated.

Sidious does need someone powerful to help him rule the Empire with an iron fist. That "someone" doesn't necessarily have to be Vader, but Vader was Sidious's first choice for decades.
There's 2 options for Vader:
1. Vader rejoins Sidious. With Luke's refusal to turn, Sidious still needs someone to work for him. Sidious was satisfied with Vader until Luke came along, so now with Luke out just continue using Vader as before.
2. Vader turns against Sidious. So Sidious doesn't have the option to continue using Vader anymore. No reason to keep him alive then. Sidious would have to look for and train another apprentice, who most likely won't be as good as Vader. It's not great but what else can he do.

 

Without the PT there is a lack of backstory to really tell whats going on. So you just assume its loyalty. Even though its a bit mixed since Empire suggests Vader wants to overthrow the empower and ROTJ suggests he is loyal to him. So in a sense you could say Vader has shown both sides of wanting to overthrow him and loyalty

But with the PT added, Well surely it hit Vader later on that Palpatine may have lied to Vader about him killing padme since she still gave birth to the kids at some point. But Vader is still loyal anyway to Palpatine. But at the same time, maybe I'm going by a lot of the expanded universe material, but Vader and Palpatine often kept things from each other all the time. And then Vader would call him his master and Palpatine would pretend to care about what Vader wants.

Sure he could have thought of it, But would he have thought of it? Vader and Palpatine are very different. Palpatine is more calculated than Vader is.

I mean Vaders idea was fight luke, reveal he is his father and then ask him to join him. While palpatine is someone who plays mind games to get what he wants.

 

Once again, just because you didn't see it that doesn't mean that is not how the story was written. Lucas wrote Vader realizing that he needs Palpatine to turn Luke. But he also knows that once Luke turns that it would be his responsibility to complete his training and that is when he can bend him to his will.

The Sith will only betray each other if there's a reason to do so. Dooku was convinced that he was too valuable to be killed by Anakin and this is true with Vader.

Palpatine has experience turning Jedi that Vader lacks. And because Luke rejected him and continued to grow stronger, that's why Palpatine takes an interest in turning Luke and pitting the Skywalker men against each other. Luke only lashes out at Vader because of an unexpected surprise, that there was another Skywalker. Luke was able to hide it until he felt Leia's pain from her wound. When he started to think about her that is when they both discovered the truth.

This is what Vader meant when he said that Luke doesn't understand the dark side.

"Luke is therefore urging Stoic wisdom upon Vader when he tells him to let go of his hate. Unfortunately, hatred has had such a viselike hold on Vader for so long that he tells Luke: "It is too late for me son. The Emperor will show you the true nature of the Force. He is your master now." For servants of the dark side, the true nature of the Force is servitude to evil, enslavement to hate. Like virtues, vices tend to control one's behavior. Vader has used fear and hatred to achieve his ends for so long that now the superior hatred and aggression of the Emperor use him. That is how Vader's mastery of the dark side is at the same time servitude to it."

--Star Wars and Philosophy, page 27.

 

Palpatine has a galactic military and extensive bureaucracy that answers to him.

Whether Luke turns or dies, he would be the last Jedi as far as Palpatine is aware.

He doesn’t need a Jedi hunter. The Imperial army should be good enough to mop up the rebels. Etc.

I mean, why couldn’t Palpatine just monopolize the Force for himself and rule his Empire as God-Emperor?

It would be one thing if Vader was stronger than the Emperor. If Palpatine needed to turn Vader so that he could destroy the Jedi paving the way for Palpatine’s ascendancy to the imperial title. But instead Dooku and Palpatine already implanted Order 66 into millions of clones before Anakin ever fell.

Palpatine could eliminate the Jedi with or without Vader. And when it comes to individual power, Vader never became Palpatine’s equal.

The apprentices are a bit superfluous. And not only are they that, but they are intentionally trained to hate their master, which IMO is just this little nugget of lore that Star Wars would have been better without.

The idea that this rule needs to exist because the apprentice hates the master and if there were ever a third party, the apprentice would surely kill the master unless the master kills them first

It’s a rule built on the foundational stupidity in how the Sith choose to train their apprentices; increasing their own chances of being killed all for the lackluster returns that the apprentices bring to the table.

Especially if things like the Inquisitiors are allowed to exist without being in violation of the Rule of Two.


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Firstly, are you claiming that the rule of 2 existed for Lucas at the time that ESB and ROTJ were made?

Secondly..."The Sith will only betray each other if there's a reason to do so. Dooku was convinced that he was too valuable to be killed by Anakin and this is true with Vader."...are you then suggesting that there isn't actually a rule of 2? Because that - what you have claimed here, is not compatible/does not compute with a rule of 2. The only way that Dooku and Vader could be fooled into thinking they were to be spared by Palpatine would be if...there was no rule of 2. And that is, essentially, what you are having to argue to explain both Dooku's and Vader's complicit actions in their own downfall. Because both of them would otherwise have to be complete morons to comply otherwise.

But Vader was always intending to take Luke to Palpatine. That's what the carbon freezer was for. Palpatine was interested the moment he knew that the son of Skywalker was around.

 

I basically ignore the rule of 2 in my interpretations because it's stupid and was never stated in the movies (I'm movie-only canon). I think every Sith has their own personality and preferences, and dynamics between Sith can vary as much as any other relationship.

Sidious in both the PT and OT is shown to care a lot about having a powerful apprentice. The reason is debatable. In the PT, I agree Anakin wasn't necessary to establish the Empire, Sidious could have done fine with just keeping Dooku. In the OT, Sidious didn't need Luke to run the Empire for him, Vader was doing the job just fine. But regardless of whether we think it's a rational choice or not, Sidious consistently chooses to put the time and effort into getting a more powerful apprentice. Maybe Sidious thinks a more powerful subordinate can run the Empire more efficiently than a less powerful one, or maybe he's being precautious against the possibility of new powerful Jedi emerging so he needs a powerful warrior to fight them, or maybe he wants a powerful successor to bring glory to the Sith, or maybe it's just a personal hobby to collect powerful apprentices. Whichever it is, Vader can see that Sidious wants a powerful apprentice. So from Vader's perspective, with Luke out, Sidious will want Vader again. Unless Vader himself blows it with disobedience.

 

The sith are power hungry and selfish. They wiped each other out because of that. They dwindled down their own numbers because they couldn't get along. Conspiring against one another for power. The rule of 2 was a way to feed and control the toxic mindset of the sith so they could survive with what was left of them.

In the Clone Wars episode where Palpatine confronts Maul since he was sliced in half, he calls Maul a rival. Maul now has his own apprentice and is now a master.

I think the inquisitors don't really count though. Which is why they are named the inquisitors. They ain't really part of that system. but even then from what we have seen of the inquisitors they don't get along either. But they are expendable. And I think that was the point of them.

 

@Daxon101 you've 'quoted' me in your last post, but they aren't my words. Just saying

 

Palpatine needs someone to help him continue the rule of the Sith if he cannot figure out how to cheat death. Vader or Luke, either one is necessary. The Sith have to be ruthless and cannot be hampered by sentimentality. That's why Anakin killed the Younglings and why Palpatine smiled at Vader's reaction to Padme's death. It's why he tells him that Luke must die if he refuses to turn. It's why Palpatine killed Savage in front of Maul and then tortured him for his weakness. It's why Dooku killed Sifo-Dyas and Yaddle to prove his loyalty. Reva failed to kill Luke and she returned to the light. Luke refuses to kill Vader and he must die. Anakin kills Palpatine out of love for his son instead of letting him die. Ben kills Han and when he hesitates to kill Leia, he has a meltdown over his weakness.

If you cannot kill your Master or Apprentice, much less anyone, then you are not a Sith.

Again, Lucas went from hundreds of Sith to one. Then he wrote that Vader wants to kill Palpatine and take control with Luke, but he doesn't know that Palpatine wants to replace him with Luke. Until 2011, the story ended with the Sith eliminated.

Again, two Sith Lords with one or more allies. Sifo-Dyas and Dooku were assets to Palpatine and Maul, the actual Sith. Sifo-Dyas is killed and Maul is believed dead. Dooku is made a full Sith. Ventress becomes the asset and so does Savage. But Palpatine was planning to replace Dooku with Anakin and had the others eliminated. Vader wants to kill Palpatine until he is injured and then waits until he finds the right candidate to help him.

Vader was not certain about Luke's power until he proves himself.

VADER: "All too easy. Perhaps you are not as powerful as the Emperor has foreseen. Impressive. Most Impressive. You have have learned to control your fear. Good. Now release your anger, only your hatred can destroy me."

Vader only decides to make his pitch because of how well trained he is. He still needs to train him before they can tackle Palpatine.

 

Why does he care?

I mean he is only ever depicted as being concerned with his own rule, not some long standing legacy.

Yoda tells Luke that when he’s gone, Luke will be the last Jedi.

With the Jedi there’s a sense of impermanence passing on a legacy that outlives the individual.

There was no indication of this for Palpatine. There was no “after Palpatine.” So long as he lived, he was in absolute control and his apprentices were tools to do his bidding and discard when they were no longer useful. Not something he invested heavily in to carry on any kind of legacy. His appearance alone in the OT conveys the image of a man who looks unnaturally old clinging to life.

So why train a tool that wants to kill you? If Palpatine’s number one goal is never dying, why seek out the most powerful individuals and then make them hate you.

This is a Star Wars-ism that doesn’t make sense out of Star Wars.

When a populist politician wants to use anger to mobilize their supporters, they direct that hatred outward to their opponents. That the old regime is responsible for everything that’s going wrong in your life.

Palpatine can motivate Vader’s anger against the Jedi, and then against the Rebellion. And so long as Palpatine has enemies and there’s someone that stands in the way of his goals, Palpatine can manipulate his apprentices to direct their anger in the same direction.

No leader runs on a platform of “You really hate me right now? Good.”

But that’s how George wrote the Sith and it’s silly.

If you’re a leader, you want the best people under you. If you’re fighting a war, you want the best military hardware, you want the best military leadership. If you are trying to develop new technologies, you want the sharpest technical minds. If you’re wanting to hunt down Jedi, you want the strongest Jedi hunters available.

Which devolves into the ridiculousness of having Inquisitors to hunt Jedi but restricting their training so that they never get too strong.

But in the case of Luke, he is not comparable to Sifo-Dyas or Dooku, IMO. Palpatine outright states that he has foreseen that Luke could destroy the Sith.

And by the time of RotJ in particular, Palpatine states that only through the combined efforts of himself and Vader can Luke be successfully turned.

Not to mention, Vader is now entirely aware that Palpatine lied to him about Padme, and that his son destroyed the Death Star and is powerful in the Force. And surely Vader is cognizant that he himself never lived up to his potential.

And after throwing the idea out there that Luke would be a powerful asset, Vader’s first instinct is to freeze Luke and deliver him so that Palpatine can personally train this would-be Sith destroyer?

That shows a level of trust towards Palpatine that you wouldn’t expect to exist under a Rule of Two.

I think that it’s a given, with a Rule of Two, that Palpatine personally training a new apprentice requires the death of the former apprentice.

Palpatine tells Luke, “in time you will call me Master” right in front of Vader; with Vader telling Luke that Palpatine was to be his master before ever entering the throne room.

When was that ever going to happen, if Vader handed Luke over to Palpatine for training?

Here’s the outline as I see it of how things were supposed to go down from the viewpoint of the Sith

1. Vader brings Luke to Palpatine and tells Luke Palpatine is to be his master (later reiterated by Palpatine).

2. Luke succumbs and turns

3. Now what? If Palpatine takes on Luke as an apprentice, Vader isn’t going to survive another day. He would have to be able to convince Luke to aid his coup right then and there and hope they are strong enough to overpower Palpatine.

Problem is, going back to how the Sith like to get their apprentices to hate them rather than directing anger outward, Vader provokes Luke’s anger towards himself rather than towards Palpatine and is unable to defend against it. Whereas when Palpatine got Luke to strike out at him, Vader defended him. There again seems to be a level of trust there that despite Vader making himself the target of Luke's anger, while defending Palpatine from Luke's anger, Palpatine is entirely safe while Vader is taking all the risk, and presumably trusts Palpatine not to kill him, which under the Rule of Two that trust shouldn't exist at all when a third powerful Force user is in the room.


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Double post

 

Palpatine cares because he does. The Empire and the Sith must survive beyond him. He was indoctrinated the same way that Plagueis and the others were. They would want the Sith and the Empire to go on beyond them. If he dies without an heir, the Sith are extinct and the Imperial officers will wind up screwing up.

Vader is meant to be the strongest and the others are just his personal guard. We saw what happened when Reva became ambitious and tried to kill her way to the top. Palpatine would not abide by the Inqusitors ganging up on Vader or himself.

As Lucas said, Vader believes that he is still important to Palpatine and he believes that he can turn Luke to his side. Dooku knew that Anakin was going to be trained by Palpatine and call him Master. And even despite his own failures, he believes himself invaluable.

Dooku and Sifo-Dyas called Palpatine Master at the same time Maul did. Vader would work on turning Luke against him after the training was done and they were on Mustafar and the Executor, doing various things. He would use their relationship to forge a bond and that would be the trigger.

Right, but your are forgetting that when treachery occurs, it comes when the Sith are in agreement. Vader wants Luke to help him. In the past, this is the kind of treachery that occurs. Other types are like what happened with Dooku, Ventress and the Grand Inqusitor. Then there's the death of Plagueis where Palpatine did it on his own and without fighting him. Typically when the Sith betrayed each other, it's because the two Apprentices turned on the Master. The Master would pit the Apprentices against each other.

 

Of course. So did everyone else. The rule of 2 wasn't established until 1999 in TPM. At the time of the OT, I'm pretty sure even Lucas didn't know about it.

 

• The Inquisitors are not Siths, they’re Dark Jedi, or Force Users trained in the Dark Side. Honestly, it’s pretty smart to have them around. Think of them like a specialized unit to tackle a very specific problem. Why send a legion of Stormtroopers that can’t hit the broad side of a space barn, when you can send in two Inquisitor agents who can mop up errant Jedi like nothing? Plus, aren’t Force Users immune to mind tricks? As Kenobi demonstrated in A New Hope, the Stormtroopers can be tricked into not pursuing them. Have you seen Rebels? Kenobi? Stormtroopers are basically warm-up practice runs. Another Force User who had been trained specifically to kill you, who can’t be manipulated into letting you go? Yeah, you run.

• I do agree, the Rule of Two is a tad silly. “I want our lineage to live on, so let me teach my apprentice how to hate me and want to kill me.” I get power through the Force and all, but the fact that the apprentice has to kill the master to keep the Sith way going… Makes no sense.

 

Sith itself is not strongly defined. In the films, Sith was pretty synonymous with “Force Users trained in the Dark Side” since there weren’t any non-Sith Dark Side users in the films until TFA.

Pre-1999 Darth Vader was, to me, a “Dark Jedi” because “Sith” didn’t exist on screen and other than coming across the word “Sith” one time on Darth Vader’s card in Decipher’s Customizable Card Game, I had never encountered the word before.

When I played Dar Forces 2: Jedi Knight and there was Jerec and his team of Dark Jedi, I didn’t see them as being any different than Vader. And also since the word “canon” had no meaning to me back then and I had no reason to think that the books and games were occupying some unofficial continuity, I felt that Jerec and the other Dark Jedi were legitimate characters.

Sith is just an artificial box. Once there were many Sith and the infighting weakened them allowing the Jedi to exploit their disunity.

Darth Bane emerges and establishes the Rule of Two where there can only be two Sith and the apprentice has to kill the master to ascend. And Darth Bane himself is killed by his apprentice. A curious policy for rulers that fear death.

At some point during TCW’s run, it was stated (I think by Dave) that it was George’s view that the Sith believed there was no existence after death. That death was the ultimate form of losing one’s power. So why Darth Bane would have this genius idea of taking on an apprentice and encouraging her to become stronger until she could one day kill him is idiotic.

And if the Rule of Two was ostensibly to prevent infighting, such a delusion is immediately contradicted by the apprentice’s relationship to the master.

And then you get characters like Asajj. She’s trained by a Sith but isn’t a Sith. Why? Because the Sith say so. They draw an artificial line and say she’s on the other side of it from the Sith. Not due to any fundamental difference in training, as far as we know, but because she’s not strong enough.

Sidious and Dooku are stronger, and Asajj isn’t a Sith because they say she’s not.

Same with the Inquisitors.

It’s a violation of the Rule of Two in every way except name only.

Vader gets these ex-Jedi to train in the Dark Side to create a body of Dark Side individuals that answer to him. They are ambitious, they betray each other, they were trained by a Sith. But that artificial box doesn’t extend around them, because Vader says it doesn’t; if he ever did, then Sidious would likely kill him or destroy the Inquisitors and punish Vader severely. Over a name change.

It’s silly loopholes and breaking rules but in name only.

How would that have been fundamentally different than 1,000 years ago the strongest Sith lord and his apprentice declaring that all other Sith are no longer Sith? It’s the same situation. You are not a Sith because someone stronger than you says you aren’t, and if you insist that you are, you risk a fight that you’ll likely lose.

Imagine when Qui-Gon asks to train Anakin, Yoda says no because he can only have one apprentice, and Qui-Gon says, “we just won’t call him a Jedi, it’s fine.”


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No I mean after the whole hexalogy. TPM just had a vague mention from Yoda and Mace. It was never stated in the movies that an ancient Sith invented an explicit rule to reduce infighting, nor was it ever mentioned that the apprentice is supposed to kill the master. In ROTS when Sidious explained Plagueis's death, I think I gasped. But I felt it was a horrifying aspect of Sidious and Sidious only. I never thought it was a tradition/law of the Sith Order as a whole.

 

Except when he wrote the films that only had two Sith Lords and that was that.

One that ensures that only the strongest and most ruthless will survive.

Because they cannot cheat death yet. A Jedi strives to be the best they can be. The same is true for the Sith.

It was done to prevent what Maul and Savage were attempting to do and what Vader wanted Luke to do. The betrayal always happens whether the rule exists or not. The rule at least controls the narrative.

By that logic, I could be a Catholic even though I am not baptized and confirmed like my mom. I mean I am only stopped because the Catholic church draws an artificial line in the sand that prevents me from being one on paper.

 

The rule of two makes no sense but I love it. It’s one of those extremely weird George Lucas ideas that I admire because of its lunacy.

 

Because the Sith as an ideology is about using the Force in the most selfish way possible. Backstabbing and paranoia is a feature, not a bug in the system. To understand what the Sith would be like in multiple numbers, look at the Galactic Empire and the First Order they created. Selfish Imperials and bureaucrats throwing each other under the bus for their own gain. Tarkin vs Krennic. Hux vs Kylo Ren.

Now imagine if they all have Force powers and trained like Sith. Not only would there be civil war everywhere, but many Sith would be more than happy to see their rivals lose even if they don't win. In the words of Hux:

"I don't care if you win, I need [insert Sith Lord] to lose."

The only way for the Sith to even function with numbers would be to have one big Sith Lord on the top and a bunch of mini weak Sith Lords serving the bigger Sith Lord. But since the Sith haven't discovered physical immortality, they need a proper apprentice to succeed them and continue their work and legacy.

And thus, you end up back to the Rule of Two.

 

Wait I just read OP and now I think I lost braincells unless the OP is being sarcastic.