Once the Star Wars universe was expanded to acknowledge any number of Dark Force users, what distinguished Vader as a Sith other than being inducted into the Rule of Two tradition? What could Vader (or Tyrannus or Maul) do that the wannabes couldn’t?
It’s a direct line of apprentice to master over and over.
Before the prequels, it was not known by anybody outside of George Lucas what a Sith was. So comics and novelists playing in the Star Wars universe created Dark Jedi and variations thereof, which muddied the waters somewhat by the time the Sith and what their deal was were clarified for the rest of us.
I’m not convinced from the movies that it was ever clarified.
But in 1977, it sounded cool, and that was enough.
(that “only two, no more, no less” was stupid.)
Which begs the point. If there are apprentices there have to be candidate apprentices, unless the Dark Side only produces them when a vacancy arises. Expanded canon is that apprentices are constantly tempted to think that with the help of a newly acquired apprentice of their own they might supplant their master (a perilous gamble). So is there some secret knowledge or power in being an actual Sith?
As I’m sure you know, the word “Sith” appears in the novelizations, but was not spoken aloud before 1999.
Unclear. I don’t read the novels or comics so I don’t know if this gets explored, but I suspect the tv series The Acolyte was going to fill in some blanks before it was cancelled.
I would have thought it was spoken, but I’m running the dialog through my head, and it must not have been.
But it must have been in the promotional materials, because I knew he was a Sith before I read the novelization.
Much like there is in being an actual Jedi. One has to be sensitive to the Force, and the rest is being trained by another Sith in how to actually use the Force.
BTW, “Darth” is not a proper name, but a title for Sith Lord. Emperor Palpatine’s Sith Lord name was Darth Sidious.
Are there Dark Lords not of the Sith?
Oh why do I ask silly questions? There’s probably a Wookiepedia page and three novels answering this very question.
In canon, I don’t believe so.
In the various “Legends” books, comics, video games, etc. (which was called the “Expanded Universe” prior to Disney buying Lucasfilm), I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there was. The EU/Legends had a number of Force-using traditions which weren’t the Jedi nor the Sith, but very few, if any, of those have ever made it into canon work – the Nightsisters (a.k.a. the Witches of Dathomir) are a notable exception to that.
There are plenty of “Lords” in the Star Wars canon. Regular Jedi are often called “Lord Jedi”. General Grievous, who wasn’t any kind of Jedi (despite swinging lightsabers around) was also called “Lord”. The “Dark” part I assume just is an acknowledgement that they received their status through mastery of the Dark Side of the Force.
The term “Darth” just means “Dark Lord” in the Sith language. At one point there was a species called “Sith” that were naturally proficient in wielding the Dark Side of the Force, and the Sith Order took on their name and some aspects of their culture as their own. (I guess when you are embracing the Dark Side, cultural appropriation is fine.)
I guess a person could style themselves a “Dark Lord” if they gained power over the Dark Side without being a member of the Sith, but it probably wouldn’t be wise to advertise it as I doubt that the Sith would care for anyone claiming such a title. Dathomir certainly has its share of Dark Side masters who aren’t part of the Sith, most notably the Witches who ride Rancors, but there is also a population of Zabrak that call themselves Dathomiri (to distinguish themselves from those that live on their original of Iridonia, the Iridonians) that are also very proficient in it. Though the most famous one was Maul, who actually was a Sith.
Snoke? Kylo Ren?
Burger King was giving away some promotional glass tumblers as early as 1977 with this verbiage. Here’s a link to one. The verbiage reads:
So it was around in 1977 in promotional materials. Just not mentioned in the screenplay.
It was in the original screenplay and was even filmed, but the scene was cut before release. Here’s the deleted scene:
I seem to recall that in a VERY early conceptualization of Star Wars the Jedi and the Sith were originally going to be two rival schools or orders of the Force vying for influence with a galactic Emperor (sounds rather like Dune in a way.)
Snoke was an actual product of the Sith, so he wouldn’t count.
While Kylo Ren admired his grandfather and wanted to follow in the footsteps of Darth Vader, I don’t know that he had gotten far enough to be a master. He was pretty evenly matched against Rey, who was still learning how to be a Jedi. The Knights of Ren that he led were a band of marauders with some Dark Side powers of the Force, but weren’t on the same level as the Sith. And Kylo, trying to emulate Vader, was actively trying to become a Sith, so if he had continued on that path he would likely have done so as a Sith. He also had the chance to do so, but rejected Palpatine and eventually turned from the Dark Side.
I always heard that “Darth” was a contraction of DARk Lord of the SiTH.
Originally, Lucas meant the name to mean “dark father”, that’s where it came from (per Lucas himself in the interactive CD-ROM from LucasArts, “Star Wars: Behind the Magic”). Though apparently, the word wasn’t even originally a title, but rather was treated like Vader’s first name in the original film (as Obi-Wan calls him “Darth” at one point, as if it’s his name, and not “The Darth” like a title), and he is referred to as “Lord Darth Vader” (which really is redundant; “Lord Dark Lord Vader”). The decision to make it a title was something developed later, between the first and second film. Actually, a lot of things got retconned; Anakin and Vader were originally different people, and Vader really did kill Anakin, so when Lucas decided to make them the same person it made things awkward (leading to the infamous “certain point of view” scene with Kenobi).
I’m dubious about Lucas’s explanation about the origin of the word, considering that Vader wasn’t Luke’s dad when he first conceived of (and named) the character. I think it’s something he made up later that he thought sounded good. Where it actually came from, I have no idea. I’ve also heard theories about it being “Dark+Death”.
The “DARk Lord of the SiTH” idea was a fan theory as far as I know, and never official.
Every theory seems to incorporate the word “Dark” into it in some way, though.
Officially, in canon, it means “Dark Lord” regardless of the real life etymology.
Yeah, so I don’t really get what Episode 9 explained. He was some random clone? Something they made in a test tube?
Kylo Ren’s ability level seemed to be negotiable/varying depending on the situation. He even kind of fought Luke Skywalker in episode 8, but Luke wasn’t really there and did manage to dodge all of Kylo’s swings of the sword. I guess if Luke was there…he’d whomp Kylo Ren.
Did you collect the cards?
