TOPIC: The Rule of Two (TFA Spoilers)

I was thinking earlier today about starting another off-topic thread so more people had more opportunity to get their first 10 approved posts in. I was originally planning to create a "Which movie and EU characters inspire you the most?" question thread, but in the process of thinking how I would personally respond I started thinking.

For EU, my answer would have to be Darth Bane. His story takes him from being what was essentially a slave on a remote mining planet to being an accomplished soldier who would eventually become one of the most accomplished Sith Lords in the now Legends canon. His largest accomplishment was called the Rule of Two.

After living through a period where the Sith matched, if not exceeded, the Jedi Order in numbers, Bane came to the conclusion that their numbers were weakening the Sith as a whole. Since the environment promoted advancement via betrayal, he noticed that the objectively stronger Masters were being taken down by groups of weaker apprentices, who would then squabble for the master's mantle. To prevent this, Bane determined that the Sith would only succeed if it encompassed only a single master and a single apprentice: one to have the power, and one to crave it. The master would teach the apprentice until the point came where the apprentice would be powerful enough to challenge and defeat the master, ensuring that the next generation became stronger. This thinking led Bane to destroy the Sith as they were and take on an apprentice named Zannah, leading a new Sith Order that thrived on subtlety. Eventually his philosophy culminated in Palpatine, a Sith with the power to overthrow nearly the entire Jedi order.

Luke's journey seems to mirror Bane's, in a way. Both begin in the lower-caste on remote planets (Dessel vs Tatooine), only to escape by joining an army (the Brotherhood of Darkness vs the Rebel Alliance) where they eventually gain a leadership role because of their strength in the force. While Bane tricked the Brotherhood into destroying themselves so he could become the remaining Sith Lord, the Jedi order of Luke's time was dead or dying; with Yoda's death, Luke became the Master.

At his point, the two diverge (due to the unique circumstances of their times, Bane's advantage of immersing himself in Sith culture and history in the Brotherhood's library, and the general attitude of the Jedi vs the Sith). Bane implemented his Rule of Two, while Luke believed the best path was to begin training a new generation of Jedi. The differences in results becomes apparent. Bane's lineage nearly accomplishes his goal (though fails due to Palpatine's arrogance, ironically) of eliminating the Jedi as a threat, while Luke is thrown down by his own apprentices who don the mantle of the Knights of Ren. In fact, his own nephew becomes the apprentice of Supreme Leader Snoke. The Knights lacked the focus on the individual that the Old Republic Jedi had, where each Master had a single student, and thus became a threat that the Jedi had never had to handle before.

I believe that Luke did not run away to the weird monastery out of shame or fear at what happened with Kylo Ren. Rather, I believe he decided that, in order to defuse this new threat, he would need to take on the mantle of subtlety. He would train a new apprentice in secret, waiting for the moment the Force brought the most promising student forward. In teaching her alone he could ensure that she receives the full of his knowledge and wisdom, hopefully creating a Jedi who could wind up surpassing him. A weird light-side version of the Rule of Two- not out of worry that the apprentice would 'cheat' and weaken the order as a whole, but out of worry that they might not be strong enough to resist the pull of the dark side.

We see something new in Kylo Ren as well. A struggle with temptation against the lure of the light side. Again, this seems to be something unheard of in the Sith lineage until Vader ended Bane's legacy with the destruction of the Emperor.So what we end up with is a Jedi Order that is taking up traditional Sith tactics and a Dark Jedi organization that seems to be developing classic Jedi struggles. A weird reversal of things.

If a happy ending is to be reached in the series, we need to assume that Rey will succeed in surpassing Luke and defeating/turning Kylo and Snoke. I believe the change in Dark vs Light side mechanics we see in the new movies will be the cause of Rey's victory. History tends to repeat itself: the Rule of Two is a tried and true tactic, and the struggle with morality led to both Vader's fall to the dark and his fall to the light. I'd wager that, by the end, we'll see Rey with Kylo as her apprentice and both Luke and Snoke out of the picture.

Let me know if there are any faults here, I typed this up during lunch and probably didn't think it through completely.

That's a fascinating way to look at it. I've been mulling over the differences in this new trilogy so far to the earlier ones and have been trying to nail down what makes this fresh, and this is a great way to look at it. I don't know how much of it was a conscious decision on JJ and the script writers' parts, but it fits well. Balance in all things, indeed. Thanks for that read.

EDIT: Some further thoughts. Rey is not one bit fazed by any temptations to the dark side at all, which is strange as SW has always given the impression that the dark side was the "broad path to destruction" so to speak and easy to wander off into, while the light side was like a "straight an narrow" that was perhaps more difficult to walk. They definitely are switching up the game and showing different sides (no pun intended) of the Force's...er...sides. And the characters as well. Tempted by the light side, not fazed by the dark side...it's a different world. And I'm excited to see what develops.

Very interesting perspective. The situation of Bane's Sith and Luke's Jedi both hinge on their precarious positions in terms of numbers. With so few members (for either group), a choice by one can change the course of the group (regardless of outside influences as when Palpatine manipulated Anakin). Anakin's later choice to betray the Emperor carries all the more weight because Palpatine is the last (known) Sith. Ren's choice to betray Luke is the same, because there are so few new Jedi*. At the same time, they've got opposite problems. The Sith are a greater danger to themselves in larger numbers, while the Jedi are more threatened by reduced numbers.

Assuming this is Luke's approach, he's probably doing the smart thing. Train one apprentice into a new Master, then they can each take another apprentice, and so "propagate" the Jedi.


*Total assumption

Yeah, I'm hoping this is the case as well. As long as he is able to keep a ratio of one apprentice to one fully tested master he should be fine (at least for the moment). He learned his lesson the first time he rushed training, so now I'm sure he'll take it all much slower.

I'm wondering if the original Jedi developed this same way, since they still managed to keep the tradition of one Padawan to one teacher. Maybe they started as an 'only Masters get Padawans' system and things only started degrading as they allowed Knights to take them on as well... still so many questions. I'm hoping Disney doesn't neglect the Old Republic era or at least elevates some legends materials to canon. Still hoping the most for those rumors of a canon remaster of or movie based on KotOR, but something about the founding of the Jedi Order would be fantastic as well.

Luke's plan of training of a new generation of Jedi definitely went awry somehow, which would explain partly why he went AWOL as he blamed himself for "doing it wrong". Being the only Jedi left and having the immense responsibility of reviving the Jedi Order and messing up would bring on a tremendous amount of guilt. We'll probably learn more about that next episode and I'm really curious about those developments.

MusicallyInspired wrote:
She definitely has a dark side; if the ground had literally parted and separated her and Kylo, I think she would gone for a killing strike.

That would be very interesting if Kylo ends up teaming with Rey in the end....but what do you guys think about the Knights of Ren? We only got a brief glimpse of them in the film...are they fully trained sith? Will they be? And if they are then that means the "rule of two" is no more. In the end of the movie Kylo tells Rey she needs a teacher, like he's recruiting her...almost like the plan is to build a sith army or something. It would be cool to see them team up against Snoke and the knights of ren.

I don't agree. Intensity, yes. But he offered her training in the Force (on the dark side, obviously) and she didn't even acknowledge him. I suppose you could argue she may have thought she was better than him, but I just don't feel that. According to the old Jedi code, fear and passion are paths to the dark side and she certainly has a lot of pent up feelings, but during that battle she calmed right down. She drew little strength from her passion before that point. When she was at peace that's when she was far more effective against Kylo.

You don't have to be a Sith to be on the dark side. I don't think they're Sith at all.

DK44 wrote: I strongly doubt they're Sith, or related to Sith. As for training, probably not, since Ren is labeled as the Master of the Knights, and his training isn't complete. They may not even be force-sensitive, but I guess we'll see.

There is a theory floating around that Kylo Ren is actually a double agent working towards assassinating Snoke. It assumes Kylo has never actually been close enough to Snoke, perhaps not even in the same room, and is working his way towards gaining enough trust to accomplish this. Some say the massacre of Luke's students was either entirely faked by Luke and Kylo or Kylo has been acting alone and really did murder his fellow students as the most extreme (but perhaps what he perceived to be the only way) to get Snoke's attention. His desperation to avoid the light side could be he's worried Snoke will sense it in him and give him away.

His line to Rey, "You need a teacher" has been interpreted by some as an attempt to build his list of allies before going up against Snoke. His final words with Han are supposed to be a father's understanding according to this theory, that Han had an implicit understanding (but was still worried his son was getting in too deep). Whether or not this means the Knights of Ren are a trojan horse (for Kylo or for Snoke), I don't know.

There are several holes in this theory, not the least of which is scale (in Rey's vision that is a lot of *presumably* Jedi bodies littering the ground) and just the fact that too many small things would be left to chance that could upend the entire plan.

I never subscribed to the idea that Luke sent Kylo to infiltrate Snoke's ranks. He has every reason to take Snoke out- he's leading the First Order (to a degree) and he's a dark force user, but I feel like that's too zealous and aggressive for Luke. I also doubt he would ever put his nephew in harm's way like that. I think it's more reasonable that Kylo had wanderlust while training, and since Luke was kept in tight rein on the homestead on Tatooine he didn't want Kylo to feel the same desire to leave that he had. I don't think he ever expected another Sith-like entity to sweep him up like that, as he had already eliminated what he thought were the last in the galaxy.

I've been assuming that the Knights of Ren are most of Luke's previous students. Since the movie seems to reflect ANH so much, I thought it would be a nice touch if Kylo 'killed' most of Luke's students in the same way that Vader 'killed' Luke's father.

In terms of Kylo trying to pressure Rey into learning from him, I assumed it was him trying to follow in Vader's footsteps of recruiting a powerful apprentice to help overthrow his master; not to redeem himself, but to rule the dark side. Add to that the fact that Rey may be a Skywalker and you've got a nice allusion soup going there. There is also a layer of added irony in that, in trying to convince Rey to give in to his will, he teaches her more about how to be a Jedi than anyone else. She learns how to force persuade people from Kylo's attempts to invade her mind. In Kylo's furious attack in the end, she finally sees Maz Kanata's wisdom in opening herself up tot he force. And if not for her desperation to save Finn in the end she may not have learned how to use Force Pull so soon.

While I'm on the topic, we know that Luke struggled to learn to use the force in between Empire and ANH from the new canon materials that take place between them. It makes comparatively little sense for Rey to do all of the things she does instinctively, in that case. From this perspective, I believe that Rey was at least one of Luke's former students, who either underwent enough psychological trauma or the good ol' Revan treatment to suppress her memories. Luke, wanting to save at least one of his students, sent her to a remote world under the watch of someone he trusts (Max von Sydow's character) until she was ready. In this case he also believed that Rey would eventually be drawn to him, which is also why he placed the map fragment that would lead to his location on Jakku- for Rey to find or be given. This would also be a call back to ANH, since the Jedi Masters know their apprentice is out there, but will not take action until their future padawan is called to action by the force.

The best part about that is that Rey doesn't necessarily need to be a Skywalker for it all to work out, though it does add a layer of depth.

Mind wipes! They solve everything!

I agree, that it's all an elaborate scheme by Kylo Ren and/or Luke doesn't sit right. Too many inconsistencies and weaknesses.

It's interesting to me to think that "(Luke) (n)ever expected another Sith-like entity to sweep him up like that, as (Luke) had already eliminated what he thought were the last in the galaxy" because the very nature of the dark side/light side conflict is cyclical and eternal. All evidence points to the fact that one will never truly disappear and there will always be some factor that equalizes both sides, if not by bringing them to equal strength and true balance, then by at least giving light and dark turns being on top (the Republic versus the Empire).

This is what I was hoping (but realistically not expecting) to see when I read the title "The Force Awakens". In the Knights of the Old Republic II, it posits that the Force is not only intelligent but it is manipulative and on no side but its own, indifferent to those who use it. There is still a chance for Episode VIII to give a more nihilistic view on the Force. One of my favourite force-users all is Kreia because of how fresh her philosophy was, that the Force was something to be shunned and despised for imposing its will on living things (hence her fascination with The Exile, a rarity as a Jedi who effectively severed her connection to the Force). That story had a very strong and interesting theme of free will and perhaps an even stronger one of destiny because of it than the original SW trilogy.

Perhaps Luke will have become more of a nihilist with these repeated tragedies coupled with his isolation, believing that the cycle must repeat and his time of short peace was earned but now over?

I don't buy the double-agent thing at all. Kylo, all alone, speaks to his dead grandfather's deteriorated and burned helmet asking for help because he's being lured by the light side and wants to stay dark. That's no show for anyone because no one is watching. Also don't believe Han knew he was going to die. It's a lot less powerful that way.