TOPIC: How did Yoda know about the "Rule of Two"?

Something always bothered me about the conversation between Yoda and Mace Windu at Qui-gon-jinns funeral on Naboo at the end of the phantom menace. During that conversation both come to the conclusion that the mysterious assassin(Darth Maul) must have been a sith. Yoda then goes on to say and I quote "Only two there ever are, a master and an apprentice" and Mace Windu finishes by asking, and again I quote, "But which was destroyed? The master or the apprentice?"

Clearly Yoda was familiar with the sith's Rule of Two, and since Mace neither appeared surprised by, or questioned how Yoda knew such a thing, it can be inferred that Yoda was restating something that both already knew to be true. Suggesting both Yoda and Mace, and possibly the entire Jedi council knew about the rule of two.
This contrasts sharply with a scene earlier in the movie in the council chambers where Qui-Gon says he believes the warrior who attacked him on Tatooine to be a sith and Ki-adi-Mundi replies that the sith had been extinct for a millennia.

Now heres where it gets a little hairy. Yoda's knowledge of the rule of two later in the movie is not reconcilable with the councils belief that the sith have been extinct for a millennia. Why? Because the rule of two was created after that event, and in secret. If the council was still under the erroneous belief that the sith were extinct, they should have no knowledge of the rule of the two, and yet somehow Yoda is quite familiar with it.

The origins of the rule of two begin a thousand years before the events of the phantom menace. During this time the Jedi order and the republic were at war with the Brotherhood of Darkness. The brotherhood of darkness were sort of a sith version of the jedi order. A darkside inversion of the jedi order. Im not going to get into the entire story because its not nessecary.
Suffice to say one of the darklords within the brotherhood, Darth Bane comes to believe that the idea of the brotherhood is in opposition to the true ideology of the sith. Bane ends up manipulating the brotherhood into entirely destroying themselves(along with a lot of Jedi) during the Battle of Ruusan. It is this battle that Ki-Adi-Mundi is referring to in the phantom menace when he speaks of the extinction of the sith.
What no one knew(and as far as I know, no one knew at the time of the phantom menace either) is that Darth Bane alone survived. The last Sith, the last of his kind. It was at this point that Darth Bane created the rule of two. There would only ever be two sith, a master, and an apprentice. One to embody the power of the darkside, and the other to crave it.
To that end he took the human girl Darth Zannah as his apprentice, and for the next 30 years they lived in secret as Bane trained Zannah.
Years later Zannah slew Bane and claimed the mantle of Darklord of the sith as her own and took Darth Cognus as her apprentice. And thus began the Siths secret journey down through the centuries from master to apprentice, master to apprentice, always in secret, until a thousand years later when Darth Maul finally revealed the Siths survival and reemergence on Tatooine.

So how did Yoda know there would only ever be two? There seems to me to be no mechanism for him to have known. As far as the jedi knew the sith were eliminated on Ruusan a thousand years ago and had never been heard from since then. Bane, Zannah and all that came after them lived in secret. Their existence and their rule of two unknown to the Jedi. And yet somehow Yoda knew?
Bad script writing on Lucas's part? Or does anyone know a logical reason how Yoda could have known this?

Good post to read.

I think it's probably more "bad script" than anything else.

But that aside, there is nothing logical to suggest Yoda and Council could not have known. They assumed all Siths were killed. Then came the Rule of Two in secret, supposedly. Here's the key assumption: one thousand years is a long time, perhaps long enough for the Jedi to learn about the Rule of Two as "rumors" or suspect it without having verified it themselves, so they conventionally thought all Siths were killed. Now that suspicion is true.

Execute66 wrote:
I suppose that could be the case. But hearing rumors about sith possibly still existing is a long way from knowing about the code they live by and more specifically the rule of two. And Yoda says it so matter of factly at the end of the phantom menace without even a surprised glance from Mace Windu that it seems Jedi knowledge of the rule of two is common knowledge. And neither Mace or Yoda seem like the type to accept wild, unsubstantiated rumors as fact to begin with. If the Jedi had prior knowledge of the sith still existing before the phantom menace, one would think the jedi would have gone after them right then and there instead of waiting for them to appear on their own.

Or maybe it is just bad script writing and im spinning my wheels in mud for no reason lol

Had to dig into it because I was curious, this is what I found.

Kibh Jeen, the person who let the jedi know about the Rule of Two

Solinbeb wrote:
Nice! Now that was what I was looking for! Thank you sir.

I'm not as familiar with the old EU, so someone correct me if I'm wrong, but Darth Bane's first appearance was in The book Path of Destruction, which was published in 2006, 7 years after TPM.

So this is more of a case of retcon.

Jaden Korr wrote:
Actually Darth Bane was created by George Lucas and first mentioned in the novelization of the phantom menace. He later appeared in comic books before finally having his full story told in the Darth Bane trilogy by Drew Karpyshyn.

It isn't so much a retcon as much as it is explaining something that didn't make any sense continuity wise.
Its the missing piece of information I didn't know about.

Things like this make me wonder how much of a better story this could be, going all the way back, if it had been the plan from the start for it to be anything more than the very first movie. The problem started developing not long after the second movie came out, when there were attempts by comics, and books to start telling stories of events not shown on screen, or that happened long ago. Since these were added as they story we knew developed, and there was nobody maintaining the consistency of the whole saga, it went a lot of different directions, taking many different forms, and the flow of events from past to present became a patchwork of what worked.

I know it would have been impossible for the story to have been conceived at that depth, in that kind of detail at the start. But, sometimes I do long for that version of the saga that maintains the integrity down through the ages, without casting aside anything, or portraying it badly, for the sake of explaining something. I take 3-PO's origin as a perfect example. No reason he had to be created by Anakin, but they went that way to demonstrate how handy he was, even as a kid. Building his own speeder would have sufficed to demonstrate that point. That is only one of many such instances.

Don't get me wrong. I love Star Wars...warts and all.

Brax wrote:
Haha, well lets face it, Jake Lloyd needed a lot of propping up to make it believable(sort of lol) Making his own podracer must not have been enough, he had to make threepio to.

PS- Interesting side note. Last month Jake Lloyd was commited to a psychiatric hospital. He apparently suffers from bad schizophrenia.

Just as an aside to what weve been talking about, how awesome would it be if something like this ever got made? It would never happen of course, would be way to brutal for Disney.

Gorobulus wrote: Gotcha. Like I said, not that knowledgeable about the old EU, just remembered hearing about Bane after the movie. For better or worse, a lot of information about the events surrounding the Star Wars films has to be explained in other media, since the films don't take the time to. It stems from Lucas' love of the old Saturday morning serials; if you didn't see last week's, you might not understand everything that's happening this week.

And while it's nice that we aren't always bogged down with details (ROTS and ANH have my favorite opening sequences, because you're just dropped in the middle of a battle, stuff has happened and there's no time to explain), sometimes it does hurt them a bit for those who aren't up to date on everything.

Some people left ROTS thinking Grievous was purely a droid (despite Obi-Wan opening up his organ compartment), and I know a lot of people left TFA wondering why the hell Leia's resistance was so underfunded/unsupported by the Republic, until you read the backstory in the movie's Visual Dictionary.

In any case, good catch on this. Without the Kibh Jeen info that is a big plot hole.

Jaden Korr wrote:
Come to think of it, why is the resistance so underfunded? I mean they're still using x wings from 30 years ago. I only have an amazon digital copy of TFA so no visual dictionary for me.

The resistance is basically operating illegally, either within neutral space, or First Order territory, not sure which. The Resistance and First Order are each essentially violating the terms of the treaty that ended the Civil War, the First Order being motivated by their "rightful place" ideals, and the Resistance being motivated by the Republic's unwillingness to react to the dangers of the First Order. But they do use slightly newer X-wings, if not the newest X-wings. Military technology just tends not to evolve/advance as much during times of peace.

The newest SW novel Bloodline also explains indepth the breakdown between Leia and the Senate:



It's a great novel that answers many questions not addressed in TFA.

Borommakot wrote:
Yep. after the fall of the Empire the New Republic demilitarized, dropped the "Supreme" from the title of Chancellor, and had the Senate rotate where it was based. In their effort to keep the peace, Leia's warnings about the First Order's progress fell on deaf ears and branded her a trouble maker. Leia basically said "If you won't do something about the First Order, I will." The woman the camera focuses on as the Senate gets blown up by Starkiller Base is who Leia trusted to represent her interests.

Yoda had knowledge of Bane as was evidenced from that CW episode where he interacts with a Bane illusion on Moraband (aka Korriban). Somehow, the Jedi Order was aware of his existence and this knowledge was privy to Yoda.



Kibh Jeen is an Ye Olde EU character so his contribution to the knowledge of the Rule of Two is kinda whiffy at this point.

h2soy wrote:
Yes but this is from the clone wars cartoon. By definition this would have been at least a decade after the phantom menace. The sith had already been revealed in the phantom menace, so this really doesn't answer the question. The Kibh Jeen explanation is the best Ive heard so far. Disney cant simply decide what is and isn't cannon by which copyrights they own(which is what theyre doing) Because that makes things messy continuity wise.
In my view all the EU that takes place after ROTJ has to no longer be cannon because Disney is actively changing everything with their new trilogy.
Everything EU before TPM in my opinion is set in stone and Disney can F%^& off if they think they can change it "just cuz"
Erasing the pre-TPM EU causes way more problems in continuity.

EDIT: And since Bane does appear in the clone wars and the clone wars is considered cannon, it goes without saying Bane must also be considered cannon. Therefore his story must be considered cannon. Therefore we arrive back at my original problem with the phantom menace, which leads to Kibh Jeen. If Kibh Jeen is not cannon and never happened then you are still left with the problem I outlined in the first post.
See why it isn't a good idea to sweep aside huge swathes of your backstory? Things get real messy then.

It's not that big of a deal. In the same way that the new trilogy by necessity renders post RotJ EU non-canon, they can produce new material that answers questions like this about pre-TPM content.

Borommakot wrote:
Agreed. And once they do Il happily set aside pre-TPM EU. But until they do, they cant just simply erase it and put nothing in its place. That's just dumb.

However, Yoda's knowledge clearly predated the TPM as he didn't find out the existence of the Sith in TPM, he recognized Maul as Sith. This insinuates some prior experiences either first hand or otherwise. The CW episodes further indicates Yoda has a depth of knowledge of the Sith including their founder.

Anyways, like Bormommakot points out, it's all a bit of a moot point at this point.
It's more like Schroedinger's Boba Fett. The Pre-TPM EU exists in a quantum state both alive and dead in the Sarlacc.