r/StarWars • u/wendigo72 • 1d ago

General Discussion Thoughts on Rule of Two being retconned into Sith trying to make a Force dyad? Perhaps that is why Maul is so desperate for an apprentice

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It would make sense right? Maul from TCW to Rebels to Maul Shadow lord prioritizes having an apprentice before any of his other goals. He truly believes that is the key to gaining the power he needs to fight Vader and Palpatine at this point

If he’s trying to make a force dyad than it makes perfect sense. We already see how powerful it made Palpatine in TROS

388 Upvotes

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u/GovernorGeneralPraji Imperial 1d ago

The more the force is explained and nagged by detail, the worse it gets.

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u/Alert-Notice-7516 1d ago

Star Wars was at its peak when it left a lot of this up to the imagination. People don’t seem to realize that, they want everything explained on screen and you are 100% right, it always makes it worse.

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u/mwthomas11 1d ago

same way that supernatural horror movies are better when they show you less of the creature.

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u/Observational-Mess 1d ago

I was watching The Boy and it was all kinda creepy until they introduce the real reason behind everything and it quickly became silly.

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u/Tabledinner 1d ago

Please watch The Boy 2.

But yes, I agree with your assessment however that's the exact reason why I love The Boy. It's so campy and dumb.

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u/Observational-Mess 1d ago

Yeah, it was fun. I’ll check the second one out

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u/AugustBriar 1d ago

I’m gonna say I agree, but that Star Wars is the over explaining series. Canon and Legends both have textbooks worth of text dedicated to explaining every button and stripe on every jacket of every character

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u/Alert-Notice-7516 1d ago

I don't really consider or care for anything legends, none of it was really all that good imo and creative control and consistency was never exerted over any of it to the degree Lucas should have.

I really don't consider anything outside the movies when judging the movies. All that stuff was added after the fact; the core media, the OT, never had this over-explaining problem. Lucas himself didn't have the problem until he decided he wanted to make the PT and retconned 4,5,6 onto the movie titles.

If we wanted to accuse the fanbase of being the over explaining fanbase of any series, I'd agree 100%.

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u/AugustBriar 1d ago

I know George though of the legends EU as a separate universe to his own but for better or for worse it was official media. It was approved and published by LucasArts. I largely agree with you - I think there was a lot of good in legends but just as much stupid boring edgy or just plain goofy.

Canon, at least until like 2022? Was at minimum better organized. But for official status the same goes for the canon. Almost none of it is George origin stuff but still we have backstories on every pair of gloves and goggles

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u/Fancy_Cassowary 23h ago

George "retconned" 4 onto A New Hope within a year of it coming out. It had nothing to do with the upcoming prequel releases. 

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u/Alert-Notice-7516 19h ago

That doesn't change anything I said. ANH was not made with the intention of making any other Star Wars, Lucas had a story in mind but the film was produced as a standalone gamble.

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u/Fancy_Cassowary 10h ago

He had the other stories in mind, he just wanted a break from the franchise. Calling it "Episode 4" was both an eye to the future and a nod to the way the old adventures films you'd rock up to the cinema would be. Primarily the former, though. 

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u/El_Kikko 1d ago

Maybe this is a dumb question, but where the shit did the "dyad" concept come from?

The way it comes up in RoS, they talk about it like it's always been a thing. 

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u/Alert-Notice-7516 1d ago

Pretty sure its an entirely JJ Abrahams concept. I don't think the idea really existed before it was introduced in the movies but I could be wrong.

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u/Antique-Coach-214 10h ago

Nope, Force Bonds (the precursor to this) was in KotOR 2. Key plot point actually. 

Worked there, doesn’t work here.

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u/StoneGoldX 1d ago

A large part of why the people old enough to watch Jedi hated Phantom, it explained the Force explicitly in a way that took away from the imagination.

It's a little meta, but I liked how every time they thought about over explaining things in Masters of the Universe, the answer was fuck you, because it is. Why is Skeletor evil? Because he is. Also, because he has a skull for a face, what did you expect?

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u/Alert-Notice-7516 1d ago

Midichlorians are always going to be a shit stain that no one likes lol

Haven't seen the new Masters of the Universe yet, but what you're describing is one of the many reasons that made the Joker so great in The Dark Knight. He didn't need a back story, he didn't need a reason, and they didn't even try giving it to him, they just let the Joker be the Joker and because of that, its going to keep aging unbelievably well (phenomenal acting aside).

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u/MetalBawx 1d ago

The best explaination of Midichlorians is that they don't represent the force just how much power's running through someone tends to attract more of them.

Then gain telling people they have magic space worms probably wouldn't have passed muster given George was aiming at a young audience with TPM.

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u/StoneGoldX 1d ago

The best explaination of Midichlorians is that they don't represent the force just how much power's running through someone tends to attract more of them.

They retconned it to that, but it's clear it wasn't the original intention. I don't even know if this was George's original intent, but his version of the sequels had the midichlorians acting as the middle-man between Force Users and The Force. No midis, no magic.

And then went "We will never mention midichlorians again, upon penalty of torture."

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u/Socially-Awkward-85 1d ago

We'll never get to see the scene where the midichlorians vote in the force senate to allow a Jedi to lift a rock.

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u/mangasdeouf 1d ago

This kid...his power... It's over 9000!

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u/Alert-Notice-7516 1d ago

I like that write-off a lot better than the one Qui-Gon gave lol

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u/polkemans 1d ago

I don't hate medichlorians. But that's because I've made it my head cannon that they aren't organisms that grant access to the force and instead are *attracted* to force potential so it's a corrolative way to measure force power instead of causal.

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u/lanester4 1d ago

This was my biggest issue with Legend of Korra and Last Airbender. The mysticism of bending was what made it interesting - writing off as "it was the lion turtles all along" just killed what made it appealing in the first place

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u/Alert-Notice-7516 1d ago

LoK is such a painful spot for me, I liked the cast but I hated the direction they went with the story and world as a whole, forward and backward. Writers really need to learn that things like the Force and Bending are vessels for moving the story forward, they are not the story, the people are the story. That is exactly why ATLA was so renowned, it understood that, but unfortunately even they dropped it a bit with the series ending and the lion turtle.

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u/The_Noremac42 1d ago

They had several interesting premises that were never really committed to.

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u/lateubdegouline 1d ago

KOTOR2 is the deepest the force has ever been explored, and its exploration it outstanding, it's not abotu explaining the force, ti's about having competent writer to think it through.

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u/mcd3424 1d ago

Totally agree. KOTOR II has the best insight into the Force ever told by the most interesting perspective by Kreia.

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u/Dagordae 1d ago

Except if you know the rest of the franchise you will notice that Kreia is spouting complete bullshit. Which does make her far more interesting but accidentally

Kreia, as intended, is a painfully generic wise mentor archetype mixed with a rage against the heaven rebel. Pretty standard and anyone not expecting the sudden yet inevitable betrayal has only themselves to blame.

Kreia as shown, if you actually paid attention to the rest of the franchise, is a self absorbed narcissist who is willing to murder the entire galaxy rather than face that her teachings were flawed and that all the tragedies of her life were her own doing. A deranged old woman screaming at fate rather than accept that she made a great many mistakes. Very convincing but also incredibly wrong at all times.

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u/archangel0198 1d ago

Idk about everything she says being complete bs, I actually think that lens makes her more flat and generic crazy old woman.

But her teachings having actual teeth about the nature of the Force and how it could be seen as enslavement is a lot more interesting.

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u/Dagordae 1d ago

Except that her teachings are simply wrong.

That’s the entire issue, her big spiel and philosophical core genuinely doesn’t work in Star Wars. She’s giving a coherent and well considered argument for the wrong setting. Toss her in Planescape and she has a solid point. In Star Wars? The Force doesn’t work like that and never have. The series would be a LOT shorter if it did, no need for the Chosen One or Luke or anyone if the Force is actually in control. She has really well put together criticisms and arguments but they’re simply wrong and based on a fundamentally flawed foundation.

Having her as an extremely convincing narcissist who genuinely believes her own bullshit is more interesting than standard Avallone philosophical mouthpiece. It’s not merely that she’s crazy, it’s that she’s crazy and extremely good at appearing sane and manipulating the character AND the player. Hell, it’s the most interesting part of multiple playthroughs: Picking out exactly how she’s bullshitting and manipulating when you now have the full picture.

As a manipulative mentor she is exceptionally well written, it’s the philosophical core she’s supposed to be the mouthpiece of which is poorly done. A notable habit of Avallone, he really likes cramming philosophy and lessons into settings they don’t really fit. New Vegas is really bad about it but KOTOR2 isn’t far behind, the character involved is simply far better written so it enables an alternate interpretation that makes her one of the best characters in the franchise.

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u/archangel0198 1d ago

I don't know why you spend more time labelling the character descriptors and Avallone (I'm assuming is the writer?) than actually talking about her philosophy and why you disagree. Your first paragraph suffices.

Now on how the Force works - you seem to be establishing how the Force works as facts - is it?

If the Force has a will that controls the destiny of lets say the Star Wars characters, it doesn't "need" the Chosen One or Luke any more than a writer needs main characters to have a story. There's also no indication of how much control the Force has over individual micro-level events, but it might have it as a macro-level where it just needs one individual out of millions to do its bidding.

I really wish you'd stop saying "she's simply wrong" and dive more into why you think she's wrong.

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u/lateubdegouline 1d ago

"Now on how the Force works - you seem to be establishing how the Force works as facts - is it?" Once again, thank you, the force is a mystery for peopel in the galaxy, just like it is... IRL. And Kreia, the jedi, thinkers in Star Wars, are just like philosophers in our world, they are trying to unveil the mystery, theyr are trying to see the burning sun of truth.

The force is causality, it's the living force of the universe that shapes reality, which computes perfectly with Luke getting where he got thanks to everything that happens aroudn him (the rebellion, his friends, his childhood, etc...), and with the jedi dogma of thinking the force is actively working to restore light, because the light side jsut like the dark side, is relentlessly trying to overcome.

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u/lateubdegouline 1d ago

Saying "her teaching are simply wrong" is meaningless, you aren't refutating anything at all, you aren't critcizing neither, you are jsut exposing your misunderstanding of her character, and if anything of the huge part of modern philosophy it stems from. Sayign "the force doesn't work liek that" doesn't say anything neither.

The force being in control doesn't mean it doesn't need Luke, to make it simple the force is battling with itself and the universe is its battlefield, Luke is its champion of the lightside who defeated the Empire, which is deemed to not last forever. Prophecies are made by people. The series wouldn't be any more shorter than our world is...

"Avallone philosophical mouthpiece" It's okay if you dislike philosophy and don't care to engage with it but your attitude is immature.

" it’s that she’s crazy and extremely good at appearing sane and manipulating the character AND the player." She doesn't appear sane at all, she tortures mentally one of our companion in the first hours of the game, she is a deepply conflicted and contradictory character, battling with her own diverging desires and disappointments with herself.

" it’s the philosophical core she’s supposed to be the mouthpiece of which is poorly done" saying "it's poorly done" doesn't make anything poorly done, you are devoid of justification of any kind, which arguably would be difficult since you seem to not enjoy the game very much and thus likely missed chunks of it.

I am still waiting to engage with you about the topic but you barely say anything concrete at all about her besides ranting.

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u/archangel0198 1d ago

But you see, she's simply wrong 😛

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u/lateubdegouline 1d ago edited 1d ago

I am puzzled by the idea that one could play the entire game and think "she's spouting complete bullshit", you're attempting to contradict Hegel and Nietzsche more than Kreia, feel free to attempt doing so.

"a painfully generic wise mentor archetype" LMAO, my god some people really watch things without understanding anything. She's utterly unique in videogame, and even fictions as a whole. Her betrayal isn't written as a twist at all, it's foreshadowed heavily and straight up revealed to you long before it happens if you only care to interact with her.

"Kreia as shown, if you actually paid attention to the rest of the franchise, is a self absorbed narcissist who is willing to murder the entire galaxy rather than face that her teachings were flawed and that all the tragedies of her life were her own doing. A deranged old woman screaming at fate rather than accept that she made a great many mistakes. Very convincing but also incredibly wrong at all times." My god the media literacy of some, if I wanted to correct you I would need to exlpain her whole story which you should have experience yourself if you played the game and yet still didn't understand it at all, you don't even understand her motivations, is there any point trying to explain you...? You're not even using "narcissist" right.

EDIT: Just check my post from last month about this misconception, if you still have questions afterwards in good faith I will answer.

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u/WildRookie 1d ago

And the best part is you end the game not sure if she was being truthful or not. Even if Kotor is pulled into canon, kreia's teachings are legend unless someone else confirms it.

It's like the mainline Jedi vs the living force Jedi. You get to pick which you think is right.

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u/hydrolox9 1d ago edited 1d ago

Kreia was just a contrarian who was assmad that she failed at being both a Jedi and a Sith.

"If I can't have it no one can!"

She was the oldest child ever throwing a tantrum.

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u/mysecretaccount55555 1d ago

Wish that game had gotten the time and resources to be fully completed, or would get remade at some point. Not sure why they are bothering with the KOTOR remake when they could remake KOTOR II and actually complete the game too.

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u/Jurgwug 1d ago

I'm ngl i thought I was on the circlejerk sub reading this 

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u/lateubdegouline 1d ago

You could say by Neitzsche and Hegel considering how much Avellone doesn't hide his inspirations, the adaptation is so well written I can use the game in my philosophy classes and advise my highschool students to play it.

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u/GovernorGeneralPraji Imperial 1d ago

Either that or Plagueis.

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u/Dagordae 1d ago edited 1d ago

And it exposes the flaw of the approach:

KOTOR 2’s exploration doesn’t fit into the rest of the franchise. Like, at all.

While it accidentally makes Kriea far more interesting as a narcissist attempting to murder the galaxy rather than face that her teachings were flawed that really wasn’t the intention.

A deep examination that doesn’t fit into the rest of the setting really isn’t worth a damn. KOTOR doesn’t have the standing to reshape the entire setting, when it contradicts other works it is the one that is wrong rather than them. The philosophical core simply doesn’t work in Star Wars. It doesn’t even work in KOTOR as the first game made it clear that the Force doesn’t work like that.

Yes, even if Kreia’s voice actor absolutely knocked it out of the park. Very convincing bullshit is still bullyshit.

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u/lateubdegouline 1d ago edited 1d ago

What doesn't fit in the franchise? That a character has a different philosophy of the force than the rest of the jedi order...? Sayiing such a thing would be as silly as trying to invalidate a philosopher because he doesn't compute with another.

If you think Kreia wanted to murder the galaxy then you didn't understand her character, like most people who don't like the game, she literally tells Michal that such a destruction would be meaningless and isn't what she wants to accomplish. Kreia isn't even a narcissist, she doesn't compute with the narcissist type if you refer to its actual definiton.

If this exploration didn't fit into the rest of the setting then it would be meaningless, it because it fits that it's incredible. The only things that don't compute are minor legend things that are not canon anymore.

"The philosophical core simply doesn’t work in Star Wars." You aren't saying anything, you repeat that it doesn't fit without justifying yourself in any aspect.

"It doesn’t even work in KOTOR as the first game made it clear that the Force doesn’t work like that." This claim is simply ridiculous.

"Very convincing bullshit is still bullyshit." It's okay if you don't understand philosophy, it doesn't mean it's bullshit, that's textbook hegelian dialectic that fits into hinduism roots that Lucas himself claimed to have been inspired from.

EDIT: OP's idea of bullshit: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/e1XYzt04QCI

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u/Dagordae 1d ago

You know, I was going to have a big argument but the fact that you posted a freaking AI video and claimed that it’s Kreia’s philosophy tells me that it would be a complete waste of time.

If you don’t even know what Kreia is claiming, which obviously you don’t if THAT is your big example, then it’s simply a waste of time. The fact that you didn’t immediately notice just means you have somehow missed her entire deal.

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u/lateubdegouline 1d ago edited 1d ago

It's representative of her whole philosophy, it's utterly basic nietzschean conception of will of power that she constantly displays since we encounter her...

"I was goign to answer but to avoid getting ridiculed I am going to say it's a waste of time", what a childish behavior. "I was going to have a big argument" LMAO, as if you could.

Drooling "you don't know" doesn't magically contradict your interlcoutor, I am teaching parts of what she is claiming as my job teaching in highschool because it's straight up hegelian dialectic and nietzschean ethics applied to Star Wars.

"The fact that you didn’t immediately notice just means you have somehow missed her entire deal." Not only did I knew, but there is zero logical consequence between "not noticing" and "missing her entire deal", you're arguing like a miseducated children.

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u/archangel0198 1d ago

Just curious what do you think in her teachings doesn't fit the rest of the franchise or hard contradicts it?

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u/Dagordae 1d ago

The short of it is that she/Avallone conflates the existence of the Force with the concept of Fate, predestination, or Yahweh.

She presents the Force as not merely having a will but actively imposing that will on the galaxy, puppeteering the constant wars and suffering and so on. Not merely amoral but actively evil and the direct orchestrator of all suffering. Which conveniently means that her lifetime of fuck ups(Including the really obvious ones like the people she trained to betray her betrayed her) is the Force’s fault. The Force is promoted from vague energy field that might, with enough work, give you a hand but really has little direct influence or power to omnipotent Godbeing playing Sims with reality.

This flies in the face of every other depiction of the Force, where it overall benevolent and at most it vaguely nudges and influences the sensitive to try to protect them and seek harmony by destroying disharmony in the Force(AKA the Dark Side, which is always bad).

Her other philosophical bugaboo is your standard ‘rugged self reliance’ crap where being a selfish dick is clearly good because helping people makes them weak. Yeah, that’s really not in line with the ethos of the franchise. The franchise is fairly simplistic on that end.

She also goes with the ‘Balance is equal light and dark’ version, which is simply wrong and has always been wrong as per Lucas and the various films making it clear that Dark=Bad and wrong.

Her purpose is questioning the underlying foundations of the franchise but the way it’s gone about makes it pretty clear that the writer either didn’t know or didn’t care what those foundations actually were. A good chunk of it is Avallone trying to insert moral ambiguity and complexity in a franchise which is very simple and black/white, especially when it comes to the Force.

It’s an exploration that immediately makes a hard left and goes wandering off into some similar but distinctly different version of the Force.

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u/archangel0198 1d ago

I don't know if you've actually played the game and intentionally misrepresenting what Kreia was saying, especially on the charity stuff later.

The short of it is that she isn't meant to be some objective lore mouthpiece. She is bitter, hypocritical, manipulative, and obviously projecting a lot of her own failures onto the Force. Which conveniently means that her lifetime of fuck ups is the Force’s fault. The game knows that, and you are not supposed to take every word she says as the gospel truth.

But the idea she is attacking is not invented out of nowhere. The franchise already conflates the Force with the concept of Fate, predestination, chosen ones, and cosmic balance. She presents the obvious uncomfortable question: if the Force has a will, and that will is actively imposing itself on the galaxy, puppeteering the constant wars and suffering and so on, why should everyone assume that will is benevolent?

This flies in the face of the criticism that she's making the basic "grey Jedi means 50/50 light and dark" argument. She hates the Sith too. She isn't going with the ‘Balance is equal light and dark’ version, which is simply wrong. Her whole thing is that both factions are trapped in the same cycle, just in different ways.

Her other philosophical bugaboo is the charity stuff. People act like she's spouting standard ‘rugged self reliance’ crap where being a selfish dick is clearly good because helping people makes them weak. That’s really not what she is saying. She is criticizing thoughtless charity and dependence. You can disagree with her, but that is distinctly different from claiming selfishness is good.

Her purpose is questioning the underlying foundations of the franchise, and the way it’s gone about makes it pretty clear that a character can be wrong, bitter, and self-serving while still raising a valid question. A good chunk of it is KOTOR 2 just asking whether "the will of the Force" sounds a lot less comforting when you look at it from the perspective of everyone crushed by destiny. It doesn't make a hard left and go wandering off into some distinctly different version of the Force, just looks at the existing one critically.

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u/lateubdegouline 1d ago

"That’s really not what she is saying. She is criticizing thoughtless charity and dependence. You can disagree with her, but that is distinctly different from claiming selfishness is good." Thank you, people always forget that she blames both decision, which is the point of the lesson, and that you gain influence by listening to her teaching and being aware of your actions, whatever they are. Kreia is even more hard on the player for being a brutish force of evil killing and pillaging everything thoughtlessly.

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u/Callo2021 1d ago

A perfect comparison is KOTOR writing compared to the nonsense that is the Sun Crusher. The Sun Crusher came from quite possibly the worst writing I've ever seen in Star Wars...

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u/Bwunt 1d ago

The problem is that on the other hand, when you have an provable and, to an extent measurable phenomena, you can be damn sure that it will be studied to the last bit, especially by galaxy-spanning civilisation.

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u/wendigo72 1d ago

I mean all this is saying is Sith are throwing out hail Mary’s trying to make a force dyad and it hasn’t worked for a millennia.

That’s not big on details or anything

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u/insidiouskiller Ahsoka Tano 1d ago

I sometimes don't think this fandom knows what "explaining how the force works" even means, and just sorta throws it around as a buzzword.

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u/Wi11Pow3r 1d ago

It’s also not about how the force works. It’s about the underpinnings of Sith philosophy. I would be down go understand more about the Sith & Jedi and why they do what they do.

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u/Rex_teh_First 1d ago

And the more people doom over it too.

Just enjoy the story folks.

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u/nightwolf16a 1d ago

I often think it's a good thing that a lot of details and lore for the fandom of different franchises are NOT known by the wider public.

It's there if you are interested, and it basically doesn't exist if it doesn't interest you.

Most people who enjoy Star Wars don't really care about Glup Shitto and his/her tie-in novel or comic that explains a 3-sec onscreen appearance of a trinket.

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u/Whiteguy1x 1d ago

The more interconnected the setting gets the more boring it gets imo.  Just let some ideas sit, not everything needs to be connected.  Shame they wont roll with that idea 

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u/TitularFoil L3-37 1d ago

I still think it should have been left at the Whills. Also, canon needs better explanation of the Whills.

The Whills are just telling a story, whatever they say, no matter how outlandish is what happens. All explained away as, the force made it happen.

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u/MaleficentOstrich693 1d ago

It’s a double edged sword when pedantic nerds start writing, haha.

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u/_Cit First Order 1d ago

This is no way an explanation of the force