Welcome to the revived “5 on 5” Star Wars Round-table! Our panelists this week will be discussing The Sith. Let’s see what Dave, Blaine, Daniel, Charles, and Darryl have to say!
1) Fact or Fiction: Only the Sith deal in absolutes.
Dave S: Fiction: The statement in itself is an absolute. "ONLY" depicts a singularity in context. If the Jedi are to follow a certain standard of things, a code if you will, then aren't the Jedi dealing in absolutes as well?
Blaine: What kind of question is that?! Fiction!!! Unless an absolute isn't just a guarantee, like, say, "A Jedi's life is devoted to protecting the weak." Hmm? Or "Wars not make one great," or "There is no try." Absolutes galore. I bet we could come up with more from the Jedi in the movies than from the Sith in all of the EU books combined.
Daniel: Fiction. Both the Sith and the Jedi deal in absolutes. The Jedi code itself is full of absolutes. The thing is that the Jedi use absolutes in a positive way like: "Jedi use their powers to defend and protect, never to attack others. Jedi respect all life, in any form."
Charles: Fact. Within the context of what was being said. The Sith are a paranoid lot. If you disagree with what they are doing or what they are saying then you must be against them. (and yes, I know that they would say the same about the Jedi). I guess maybe it’s part of their self-centered, power hungry nature.
Darryl: Fiction. Absolute fiction.
2) True or False: The Rule of Two is a lousy idea.
Dave S: False: If there is a so called "balance" in the Force, the more in numbers that the Jedi (lightside) have the more dissipated the Force is among them. Whereas the Sith (darkside), being lower in numbers, the two would be stronger with the Force then say a hundred Jedi.
Blaine: Quite true. There is power in numbers, you just have to know how to share it. The only problem with the Sith, and even with the Rule of Two, is that they are all working for ultimate, unequivocal power, and only one can ever reach it. But the Rule of One is physically impossible. Two is risky, as the power can never be fully gained, as 99.999999% of the time, the apprentice will kill the master, thus losing knowledge. With more to study the Dark side, though, more knowledge can be gained, and therefore honed further than any Rule of Two ever could.
Daniel: True! It is a broken and outdated system the Sith use.
Officially there are only one Sith Master and one Sith Apprentice but usually the latter breaks the rule in one way or another. Some would defend their actions by saying that the ones they recruit are not "official" Sith but just acolytes. One such example is Count Dooku gathered a group of Force sensitives that all answered to him and him alone.
Charles: True. This is just one more slap in the face to the various writers of the SWEU. Yes it was needed for the "bring balance to the force" bit but it is kinda unrealistic. Only two Sith against an entire society of Jedi?
Darryl: False. Darth Bane was on to something here, I think, as long as all the Sith abided by it. It was a system of checks and balances in a way - it made it so it took more than simply someone's "claim to the throne," so to speak, to attain the leadership position, and it brought a sense of order to the Sith infighting that had existed previously. Of course, on the down side, if someone took BOTH of them out, they were kinda screwed.
3) The Jedi say "There is no emotion, there is peace" and the Sith say "Peace is a lie, there is only passion." Which is it?
Dave S: Peace IS a lie!!! Throughout SW history there has never been true peace. There has always been the struggle between the Jedi and Sith. There is always conflict. Even outside of Force users the is no such thing as total peace. For example, slavery, smuggling, bounty hunting and so forth. A statement such as the Jedi's, to me, is absurd. Assuming that Jedi were meant to have inner peace and not physical peace, that may make sense. The Jedi saying to me, makes me feel like the Jedi should be soulless.
Blaine: Aren't they the same thing, just stated differently? Couldn't you easily have passion without emotion? We all know peace is impossible, why delude ourselves. Whatever. Maybe neither is possible, and both the Jedi and Sith are crazy. I'll go with that.
Daniel: "Peace is a lie, there is only passion." is the right one. The Sith's point of view is the more realistic one. As we have seen from various Star Wars media peace IS a lie. It never lasts for long so it is basically a lie. There is only passion. Everything is done with some degree of passion. Even the Jedi act with passion. Jedi like Anakin Skywalker and Quinlan Vos are examples of that.
Charles: Both and neither.
The idea of no emotion I think is to achieve a meditative state so that you don't have conflicting emotions clouding your judgment. Which kinda makes sense. Unfortunately this may also remove compassion towards those that you’re trying to help.
For the Sith, to go by the idea that there is no peace is self-destructive. If you just follow your passions you will let your emotions control you and end up destroying those around you. Say your a Sith in a relationship and you have a fight with your significant other. If you live directly by the Sith code, then during your fight, your significant other becomes your enemy. (he or she has supposedly betrayed you).
Darryl: The Jedi say "There is no emotion, there is peace" and the Sith say
"Peace is a lie, there is only passion." Which is it?
None of the above. Emotion and peace are not mutually exclusive, and neither are peace and passion. You can have any combination of all of them without negating the others. It's nothing more than Sith/Jedi dogma and rhetoric…lol.
4) Anakin led the Great Jedi Purge. The Sith rampaged through the galaxy. Coruscant was sacked more than once. However, Yoda insists the Dark Side is not stronger. Are the Sith stronger than the Jedi?
Dave S: This to me simply breaks down into a point of view. The Jedi were always stronger in numbers. So. in this aspect, what Yoda said is true. But when It comes down to it I go back to the 'balance' idea and say that it is not true due to lower numbers increasing ones powers through the Force, ultimately making them stronger.
Blaine: No. Simply, no. Both are powerful in their own right. A Jedi gains power through understanding. A Sith gains understanding through power. Therefore, both need power, and have the same amount, because for whatever the reason, neither can outsmart the other, ever.
Daniel: Yoda has proven time and time again that he is shortsighted and wrong about many things.
The Sith have shown that they are stonger one way or another. Eighter directly in combat with Jedi or in indirect way by manipulations, machinations and schemes.
The Jedi like Yoda just tell themselves that so they could not go insane and join the Sith.
Darryl: An individual Sith may be stronger than an individual Jedi, but on the whole, I don't think there's really a question - or even a need to ask - which is stronger. It all comes back to GL's ill-advised "balance to the Force" nonsense. I would have to go way over the word limit to fully express myself completely, but in brief, MY understanding is that the Force is an energy field…and energy is neither good nor evil. What makes it one or the other is how it is used.
Charles: See Answer #5, trust me.
5) With minor exceptions, the Sith couldn't sustain themselves like the Jedi could. Why is that?
Dave S: I think this has to do with the rule of two. If there can only be one master and one apprentice then how can the apprentice ever move forward. The apprentice will almost always want to have the title of master and therefore I'd assume they would try to claim that title via a test against their masters. Where the Jedi only need certain prerequisites to be met in order to be granted the title of master.
Blaine: Darn. A question I have to think about.........I refer back to question two. All grappling for the highest peak, playing King of the Hill with a mountain of power. There is never a winner for any extended amount of time.
Daniel: The difference is that the Jedi cherish life. Their teaching alone allow them to sustain themselves better.
The Sith have trials that only the strongest survive, the others die.
If the trials do not kill them, their way of thinking will. All Sith's quests for power usually lead to their individual deaths one way or another.
I think the Jedi don't even need to fight the Sith, the Sith would eventually kill each other off.
Charles: To answer this one, I'm gonna take a quote from I, Jedi. The spirit of Exar Kun tries to seduce Corran to the darkside during his time at the Jedi Academy on Yavin 4:
Corran: No.
Exar Kun: No?
Corran: No. You don't get it, do you? You've already lost and you're continuing down that losing path. Haven't the last four thousand years taught you anything?
Exar Kun: I know more than you could ever hope to learn in four thousand years or forty thousand years.
Corran: That may be. but I know the one thing you don't. You're never going to win. You destroy those who oppose you, and what does that leave you?
Exar Kun: The faithful.
Corran: From among whom arises a rival. You have a schism.
Exar Kun: And I destroy the heretics.
Corran: Yes, you do. And again and again that cycle repeats itself and you let it go on because you've forgotten the most fundamental truth of reality: Life creates the Force. When Kyp destroyed Carida, he diminished your power. When you destroyed Gantoris, you diminished your power. You're a predator over-grazing your prey, but you can't stop because the dark side fills you with this aching hunger that will never be satisfied.
Darryl: I'm not sure I entirely understand the question, but inso far as i do, I'd have to say that the Jedi principles of Patience were a big factor. Sith are often (but not always) after immediate results…jumping in head first, pursuing their passion at the expense of all else. In a survival of the fittest kind of galaxy, that's probably not the best approach in the long run.
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