Star Wars Sith Theory Changes The Entire History Of Villains
Star Wars fans have a deep love for the franchise’s many books, but would you believe that one of those books might completely change everything we know about the Sith? In Drew Karpyshyn’s Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil, the title character is ultimately defeated by his acolyte after he transfers his consciousness into her body, and then she casts him out. However, the novel’s ambiguous ending has led to a Sith Master theory that all these Dark Side users, including Palpatine himself, are secretly Darth Bane’s spirit in a new body.
Darth Bane
In order to properly understand this wild Sith Master theory, it’s important to first know who Darth Bane is. This character lived a millennia before the Original Trilogy, and he created the “Rule of Two” the Sith must abide by (the whole “always two there are…a master and an apprentice”). Bane was mostly fleshed out through a trilogy of Expanded Universe novels from Karpyshyn, but even after Disney de-canonized the EU, the character popped up in The Clone Wars and even got name-checked by Palpatine himself in The Rise of Skywalker.
The Rule of Two
In fact, what Palpatine says toward the end of that movie helps give this Sith Master theory credence. According to the former Emperor, his body contains the spirits of all the Sith who came before him, and if Rey struck him down, those spirits would enter her.
He didn’t exactly elaborate on how all this works, but it certainly sounded like he was echoing a concept introduced in Karpyshyn’s novels: namely, that Sith have the ability to transfer their mind fully into others and that they frequently do so when challenged by their apprentices, as encouraged by the Rule of Two.
It Was Bane All Along
Even though the author later clarified that Darth Bane definitively lost that final duel, the end of Dynasty of Evil implied that the infamous bad guy might secretly still be in his apprentice’s body, as evidenced by the fact that she flexes her left hand, something Bane was previously doing thanks to a tremor.
According to the Sith Master theory, Bane continued to do this over a thousand years, consistently putting his mind in a young apprentice’s body as a way of living forever. This would mean that even Palpatine himself was, in fact, Darth Bane all along.
The Need For A Replacement
If the Sith Master theory is true, it would help explain Palpatine’s fascination with Luke Skywalker and Rey. Darth Vader might have been strong in the Force, but after Revenge of the Sith, he was a broken warrior who, as Obi-Wan memorably declared, was “more machine now than man.” This left Palpatine (or perhaps Bane) with a dilemma: his own apprentice was too weak to take over, and he needed a stronger, younger warrior to carry on the Sith legacy.
Sith Body-Hopping
While it, too, is no longer canonical, this Sith Master theory would also be in line with the classic EU comic Star Wars: Dark Empire. In that story, Palpatine returned as a clone and wanted to pass his consciousness into a new body, threatening to do so to either Luke or even Leia’s unborn child. In other words, Sith body-hopping has been around as a concept for decades, and there’s no reason to think that it couldn’t have been the original body-hopping Darth Bane driving Palpatine all along.
Adds A New Layer To Rey
If nothing else, this Sith master theory retroactively makes The Rise of Skywalker more interesting, with Rey having to summon the spirits of all these previous Jedi to defeat the literal embodiment of the past thousand years of Sith warriors. Does this theory make that movie worth rewatching, though? Sadly, not even the strongest Sith warrior of all time has the ability to improve that unwatchable mess.
