Why The Sith Rule Of Two Was A BAD Idea And Destined To FAIL

The rule of two did have it's successes, most notably of course, the complete overthrow of the Galactic Republic. A few months ago, I released a short video explaining why, despite its apparent success, I believe the rule of two sith to be a fundamentally flawed idea. However, that video received quite a lot of backlash in the comments section, with many claiming the Rule Of Two philosophy to be faultless. This video will explain in detail why I believe the rule of two was largely, a foolish idea.

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First, we must have a look at the strengths of the rule of two sith. As we briefly explored in my last video, the sith of the new sith wars were weak. No longer were the sith ruled by the strongest sith lord, they were now led by a coalition of the weak, leading to defeat after defeat at the hands of the Jedi.

Undoubtedly, change was needed. The instigation of the rule of two by Darth Bane was an understandable reaction to the failures of the Sith of Old. The transformation of the sith from warriors into politicians and bankers was certainly an effective strategy and one that I will not be criticising. In fact, I do not disagree with the essence of much of the rule of two. The Sith needed to do things differently and The integration of a brutal meritocratic system was sorely needed. As the establishment of the Empire exemplifies, the strategy of destroying the Republic from within was very successful.

However, this system also had its faults. Faults so significant that the success of the rule of two cannot be only attributed to its merits, suggesting a great deal of luck must have been present. In fact these fundamental faults are so significant, they eventually led to the complete destruction of the Sith Order.

The first major problem was the lack of adherence to its finer details by many of its followers. Apprentices were only meant to replace their masters once they had become more powerful than their masters. To prove they were more powerful, Sith were meant to challenge and defeat their masters in a fair fight. However, during the latter days of the Rule of Two Sith, this almost never happened. Darth Plagueis killed his master by dropping a cave on his head, while Plageius himself was killed while intoxicated and asleep.

On both occasions, it was unclear whether the more powerful sith had actually won. By killing their masters, both Plageius and Palpatine lost the Sith Order the secret of Immortality, setting the Sith back years in research. Rather than killing them in a fair fight to prove who was more powerful, deceit and betrayal were used instead.

The extent to which this harmed the Sith is of course impossible to prove and requires some level of speculation. However I believe that If Plageius and Palpatine had ruled together as originally planned, the galaxy would have been almost helpless to stop them by the events of a new hope. With Plagiuses power, the sith would have been effectively immortal and it is likely that the Siths knowledge of the dark side would have grown far faster.

The Sith wished to unlock all the secrets of the dark side and By prematurely killing off those who held knowledge of these powers, all it did was hinder the Siths progress.


The loss of knowledge was not the only reason why it took a millennia for them to become powerful enough to destroy the Republic. One of the main reasons why the sith of old became so powerful was because there were so many of them. Just like with any scientific endeavour, many sith worked to perfect the use of the dark side, discovering many dark side abilities that even Sidious was unable to replicate. By limiting themselves only to two, research into the dark side was very slow.

In fact, it would seem as though little progress was made into the dark side across the millennia. While we can never know truely who was more powerful, the force and lightsaber feats of Darth Bane eclipse that of many later rule of two sith. The rule of two system was set up to increase the Siths power over time. However, in one thousand years, almost no progress was made in rediscovering ancient sith abilities such as sith alchemy. It was only through the machinations of truely remarkable sith such as Tenebrous, Plagueis and Palpatine that the sith made any progress in terms of the dark side.

#ruleoftwo #sith #darthbane #darthrevan #palpatine #starwarscomics #starwarslegends #starwarslore #starwarsexplained #starwars #vadersfortress

[primeemperor]

Revan: "Sith lords should only ever take one apprentice."

Bane: Only two Sith. Got it.

[minicle]

The biggest irony about the Sith. Their worst enemy wasn't the Jedi, but rather themselves.

[JordanAndersonExplodes]

“To be united by hatred, is a fragile alliance at best.”
-Kreia

[baseupp]

Sith philosophy as a whole is just doomed to fail, the backstabbing, infighting and just overwhelming ruthlessness were always going to be their downfall.

[InsideAssassin]

The flaw in the rule of two is especially seen in Sidious himself. He never trained any of his apprentices to truly surpass him. He always purposefully kept them weaker and less knowledgeable than he.

[Razcul]

“ If you were to face an ancient Sith Lord in combat, you would learn that we are as children playing with toys compared to the prowess of the old masters”.

[makoman]

I think the rule of two worked only in the sense of keeping the Sith alive until the fall of the Jedi. At that point Palpatine should have started bringing the Sith back, revealing them as a new type of Jedi that will ensure the peace better than what the old Jedi have ever done instead of just having a handful of dark side adept be his inquisitors.

[Bloodragons]

Bruh imagin if the sith order died because you had a heart attack after you killed your master 😂

[jaywill]

Like many things in Star Wars, the rule of two was created by Lucas when TPM came out. It was to explain why there weren’t any other Sith mentioned during the OT.

[stargrim]

Finally, someone gets it. The sith definitely had some problems to work through, but lowering their numbers to literally two selfish and conceited sith destroys any and all potential merits. It failed, over, and over, and over. They were nearly wiped out time after time, they lost centuries of knowledge and progress at least twice, once because the 'dark lord' just up and decided he wasn't about that life. And when they finally 'succeeded', it was for all of two decades, after a thousand years and a hundred plus generations of planning. Worst of all, when they did it wasn't because their plan worked, and they'd just gotten that powerful. It was because the Jedi's plan didn't, making them grow weak and complacent. They didn't defeat the Jedi, the Jedi hung themselves from their ivory tower, making mistake after mistake. The rule of two sith didn't succeed, they just messed up slightly less than the jedi order.

[nicholashenry]

I've always wondered how Star Wars rule of 2. Would compare to Afro samurai's number one and number 2( Anyone can challenge number 2, only number 2 can challenge number one).

[locoarticwolf]

The problem was there were too few Sith to live on and so much banking on it’s success. If a freak accident happened or they get discovered early then bam it over. Besides it did it job. A modern Sith Order should have been made like it’s older incarnations.

[baseupp]

It gave stability but ultimately was going to fail no matter what.

[aidengray]

I really love the idea of descending power, and in fact wrote a story about a war averted and mages getting weaker because of this beat in star wars.

[AbsurdFalcon]

"Bane was sitting cross-legged on the stone floor of the central chamber on the Rakatan Temple's uppermost floor. He was meditating on Revan's words as he had often done between the Holocron's lessons. Now that the artifact was gone, it was even more important to contemplate what he had learned about the nature of the dark side . . . and the path it would lead him down. By its very nature, the dark side invites rivalry and strife. This is the greatest strength of the Sith: it culls the weak from our order. The constant battling of the Sith since the beginning of recorded history served a necessary purpose: it kept the power of the dark side concentrated in a few powerful individuals. The Brotherhood had changed all that. There were now a hundred or more Dark Lords following Kaan, but most were weak and inferior. The Sith numbers were greater than they had ever been, yet they were still losing the war against the Jedi. The power of the dark side cannot be dispersed among the masses. It must be concentrated in the few who are worthy of the honor. The strength of numbers was a trap . . . one that had snared all the great Sith Lords who had come before. Naga Sadow, Exar Kun, Darth Revan: each had been powerful. Each had drawn disciples in, teaching them the ways of the dark side. Each had assembled an army of followers and unleashed them against the Jedi. Yet in each and every case the servants of light had prevailed. The Jedi would always remain united in their cause. The Sith would always be brought low by infighting and betrayals. The very traits that drove them to individual greatness and glory-the unrelenting ambition, the insatiable hunger for power-would ultimately doom them as a whole. This was the inescapable paradox of the Sith. Kaan had tried to solve the problem by making everyone equal in the Brotherhood. But his solution was flawed. It showed no understanding of the real problem. No understanding of the true nature of the dark side. The Sith must be ruled by a single leader: the very embodiment of the strength and power of the dark side. If all are equal, then none is strong. Yet whoever rose from the swollen and bloated ranks of the Sith to claim the mantle of Dark Lord would never be able to hold it. In time the apprentices will unite their strength and overthrow the Master. It is inevitable. Together the weak would overwhelm the strong in a gross perversion of the natural order. But there was another solution. A way to break the endless cycle dragging the Sith down. Bane understood that now. At first he had thought the answer might be to replace the order of the Sith with a single, all-powerful Dark Lord. No other Masters. No apprentices. Just one vessel to contain all the knowledge and power of the dark side. But he had quickly dismissed the idea. Eventually even a Dark Lord would wither and die; all the knowledge of the Sith would be lost. If the leader grows weak, another must rise to seize the mantle. One alone would never work. But if the Sith numbered exactly two . . Minions and servants could be drawn in to the service of the dark side by the temptation of power. They could be given small tastes of what it offered, as an owner might share morsels from the table with his faithful curs. In the end, however, there could be only one true Sith Master. And to serve this Master, there could be only one true apprentice. Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody the power, the other to crave it. The Rule of Two. This was the knowledge that would lead the dark side into a new age. A revelation that would bring an end to the infighting that had defined the order for a thousand generations. The Sith would be reborn, the new ways would be swept away-and Bane would be the one to do it. " - Darth Bane: Path to Destruction

[vanilla]

It's just a retcon to explain why they were absent from the OT. I find it kinda funny though that some people talk about it like it's the most genius idea ever when its just a patch for a plothole and also failed terribly in universe. Hilarious to think about all the Dark Lords of the Sith that canonically sat around doing absolutely nothing their whole lives because of this

[Mr.Manta]

I really enjoy these longer videos. Gives a lot of space for more detailed intel

[attika]

FINALLY! Someone explaining just how absurd the rule of two was

[mp_Puppy]

I love these longer videos as they can cover more complex topics and go into finer detail in general.

[allknowingfreddybear]

I really believe the Rule of Two is stupid and that the master can never be succeeded by their apprentice. It is almost impossible for an apprentice to become more powerful and knowledgeable than the master that teaches them these things. There is no point when an ever learning master is no longer useful. The only way it can work is if the master grows stale and stuck in their ways, which never happens due to their ambitions. Additionally when this does happen, often times the Master is betrayed instead of challenged which is likely the reason why so much knowledge is lost. It goes to show that an apprentice simply cannot defeat their master in fairness, so they are forced to betray their masters in a lust for themselves power that they are denying themselves by eliminating an asset. If they were to work together to further their goals true power can be obtained!