Tyranus was Sideous’ apprentice. He had him show down with Anakin in the same way he would later have Vader show down with Luke.
Pretty much this.
I was 18 when RotJ came out (do the math on my screen name here 
), and had been a serious SW junkie since I’d first seen SW. Trying to backtrack to what I knew (or surmised) back then, and eliminating all the EU and Prequel embellishments, here’s (more or less) what I would have known or believed about Palpatine then:
- More powerful than Vader. Vader was a scary dude, and he bowed to Palpatine. And, as has been noted, Vader didn’t believe that he could take Palpatine out by himself.
- User of the Dark Side of the Force. He explicitly mentions being a devotee of the Dark Side. There was no evidence to suggest that he was a practitioner of any other form of “sorcery”, and nothing in SW canon of that time to suggest there was any other form of such powers beyond the Force.
- Presumably a Sith, given Vader’s title.
- Presumably not a fallen / dark Jedi.
- Wasn’t sure if he was a human whose appearance had been twisted by the Dark Side, or some other race / species.
The little bit of info about Palpatine from the novelization of Star Wars, which GuanoLad quoted above, wasn’t congruous with Palpatine’s appearance in TESB or RotJ, and that troubled me, at least a little bit, at the time. ISTR that I figured that either (a) Lucas changed his mind about the character as he developed the second and third movies, or (b) Palpatine had cultivated the appearance of being a figurehead, while he was, in actuality, acting as the puppetmaster behind the scenes.
No, you were correct. Count Dooku was Palpatine’s apprentice, replacing Darth Maul, who got bisected in Phantom Menace.
As to the difference between a “Dark Jedi” and a Sith apprentice… well, there really isn’t one. Thousands and thousands of years ago, when the Jedi order was a recent creation, there was a schism between Jedi who thought the best way to use the force was through tranquility and peaceful stillness, and those who thought the best way was through passion and forceful action. This led to open war, and when the dust settled, the losers were exiled to the depths of space, where they formed what eventually became known as the Sith Empire. So, the Sith really are the “Dark” Jedi, in the sense that they exist as a philosophical counterpoint to the Jedi teachings. This is all from the Expanded Universe, and never really shows up in the movies.
In the movies, we only ever see two kinds of Force users - Jedi, and Sith. There’s never any mention of any other types of Force user, but such things must exist: the Force is a universal energy field, and the galaxy is a big place. Surely, there have been other civilizations that discovered how to manipulate the Force on their own, without being in contact with the larger galactic society. Similarly, we’re told that giving into anger, fear, or hatred will turn you to the Dark Side of the Force. Anger, fear, and hatred are inextricable parts of the human (or whatever) condition. Even if every Sith in the galaxy were dead, there’d still be some number of Force users who gave into these emotions and end up using the Force for evil. So, extrapolating from what the movies tell us, there must be a certain number of people in the galaxy who can use the Force, for good or for evil, without being either Jedi or Sith.
The EU has taken this extrapolation and run with it. What they’ve basically done is said that, sure, there are only ever two Sith at any time - but the Sith emply lots of other evil Force users as pawns, without formally inducting them into the secrets of the Sith order. At least, not until such a time as they manage to either kill the current Sith apprentice and replace him, or help the apprentice over throw the master. There’s a good example of this in the Clone Wars animated miniseries, which you can see here. Unfortunately, it’s in German, but allow me to translate:
Bald Chick: The Dark Side is strong in me, for I am Sith.
Count Dooku: Bitch, please. <Lightning bolts>
Then he gives her fancy red lightsabers, and instructions to go kill Anakin Skywalker. (Spoilers: she loses)
Actually a “Dark Jedi” is just a general term for a Dark Side user. A Sith is a more specific sect. Technically, you can’t be a Dark Jedi, since the Jedi reject the Dark Side.
There are other Force users out there that aren’t Jedi or Sith. (The Witches of Dathomir, or the Fallanassi, for example)
In other words, all Sith are Dark Jedi, but not all Dark Jedi are Sith.
Curious:
In 1983, where would you have gotten the term Sith or the recognition that “Darth” was a title? Had the EU been very developed already at this point?
How was he described in the novelization?
Is the difference more or less extreme than the difference between the originally filmed EpIV Jabba the Hutt vs. the final EpVI Jabba the Hutt?
Back when I was a kid the only thing I wasn’t sure of is if he was all twisted and wrinkly because he was really old or if that’s just what happens when you use the dark side too long.
The EU wasn’t particularly well-developed at that point – you had the frequently-goofy Marvel comic book series, and a few novels (Splinter of the Mind’s Eye and Brian Daley’s Han Solo novel trilogy come to mind), but that was about it.
However, the “Dark Lord of the Sith” title was affixed to Vader as early as (IIRC) some background info in the novelization of the original movie. Now, they never told you what that title meant, but it was out there.
But, it wasn’t until the 1990s that we discovered that Darth was a title, not a surname. 
I should clarify; I’m not talking solely about physical appearance. I’m talking about the difference between this “description” in the Star Wars novel (see GuanoLad’s excerpt above):
“Once secure in office he declared himself Emperor, shutting himself away from the populace. Soon he was controlled by the very assistants and boot-lickers he had appointed to high office,”
…and an Emperor in TESB and RotJ who was clearly very much in control of the situation, and did not seem to be being manipulated by **anyone/b].
I am 99% sure one or more of the Topps Star Wars and/or Empire trading cards referred to Darth Vader as Dark Lord of the Sith. That was where I got the term but had no idea who or what a Sith was. I had tons of those cards. Still might somewhere.
Back then, I just assumed it was a title, like Duke of York or Prince of Orange. I never considered the fact that the “Sith” might be some kind of organization.
Sure, these guys are having their succession wars and laser fights and whatnot, but I don’t see it affecting Joe Nerf-Herder’s day-to-day routine. Aside from, y’know, a planet getting smashed now and then, does any ordinary person even notice?
Until the Empire gets around to Imperialization of the nerf herds in the Outer Rim Territories. Then he’s SOL.
No. Han Solo mentions in the original trilogy that he’s never even seen a Force user and he’s flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and seen a lot of strange stuff, but never seen anything to make him believe that there’s one all-powerful Force controlling everything.
And going back to the prequel trilogy, Anakin mentions in The Phantom Menace that he believes Jedi are invincible, admitting he’s not sure what it is they even do.
First they came for the Nabooans,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Nabooan.
Then they came for the Jedi,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jedi.
Then they came for the nerf herders,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a nerf herder.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
If there’s a bright centre* to the universe, and you’re on the planet it’s furthest from, you wouldn’t even know what a Jedi Knight is.
*Or, to use a synonymous term, coruscant
To be fair though Han was what 10? when pretty much all current trained force users got uh purged?
One thing I liked about the OT was how normal people were part of and not inferior to force users, come the PT and its all jedi all the time.:smack:
You are correct. They even trademarked it. I also notice that Tarkin is referred to as “Grand Moff” on many of the cards, but I don’t remember that title being used in any of the movies. I don’t remember “Tusken Raider” in the movies either.
Maybe he WAS being manipulated prior to ep.4. A lot of bigwigs were killed on the Death Star, so maybe he made the most of it.
10 at the most.
But “The Force” isn’t something that flows from the Jedis. If Han is as well-traveled as he says (and it’s possible he’s not), it’s more than likely he would have seen somebody floating a droid for funsies.
I’d say it’s pretty well established that Force users are a tiny tiny minority of the galaxy and that the average person had little knowledge of what they were even capable of before Order 66.
But the Prequel Trilogy was about the fall of the Jedi. It makes sense that aren’t too many regular people involved in that story.
It would be entirely possible to know about the existence of the Jedi as some kind of Police force without having a clue as to their actual abilities.
Like how everybody seems to know about the Illuminati nowadays, but very few understand about the lizards. (Have I said too much?)
As I recall, the (in?)famous Star Wars kids story book which featured Biggs on Tatooine and other scenes cut from the movie had Darth Vader captioned as “Dark Lord of the Sith” in the opening “Dramatis personae” page. What that title meant was left to the imagination.