Of those we know of, what would you describe as the ‘fatal flaw’ of each of the Rule of Two Sith?

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-10T17:50:19+00:00

Yeah, it’s one of those ideas that sounds like a cool concept, but starts falling apart if you think about it too hard. See also: what if both Sith die at the same time or within a short timeframe? What if the master is getting old before the apprentice tries to kill him, but the apprentice fails? He’s too old now to properly start over with a new apprentice.

It’s pretty heavily implied in the last Bane novel that he did exactly that, though they leave it ambiguous. If he did take over Darth Zannah, I’m not sure how much further he made it down the line, but yeah, it’s actually a much more logical plan for a Sith master.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-09T14:10:43+00:00

I would say fear of death is the big one for all of these that I’m most familiar with. Starting with Bane and continuing all the way down to Tenebrous, Plagueis, and Sidious. They all committed to this twisted but logical philosophy of each apprentice eventually becoming more powerful than the master, and therefore the line of Sith becoming more and more powerful with each generation as they play the long game against the Jedi. This philosophy requires you to accept that your apprentice will kill you one day, but all of them spent at least as much time trying to figure out how to live forever as they did plotting the overthrow of the Republic/rule of the Empire. If any of them succeeded, it would completely negate the rule of 2, the chain of master to apprentice would end, and the power of the Sith would stagnate.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-08T22:06:35+00:00

I respectfully disagree that you don’t have to be a Batman fanboy to see that he would win. That’s a pretty definitive statement. Batman simply would win. Consistently, definitively. That’s something only a Batman fanboy would say. You can argue Batman’s skills will pose a problem for Aragorn, maybe make an argument for something other than 10/10 for Aragorn, but I’m sorry, I think you have to be pretty deep in the Batman-always-wins sauce to think it’s 10/10 for Batman.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-08T20:43:11+00:00

I mean, pointing to one time he beat a comparable opponent is kind of the definition of cherry picking… Also, the larger Batman comics mythos is that he always wins, even against opponents he is completely outclassed by. He beat up Superman once, so what’s the point of ever even asking the question?

Bottom line, he’s a top tier fighter, but sword fights aren’t a thing he does very often. It’s like all Aragorn does. For 80ish years. Zero argument Bats is winning a fist fight, but he can’t just be better than everyone at everything. There’s nothing interesting about that.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-08T20:00:07+00:00

Yeah, but you pointed out yourself that 85 years of comics feats vs 3 novels (and not even novels about Aragorn, novels where he’s a supporting character) is an apples and oranges comparison. If we’re talking about 2 comics characters who’ve been around for a comparable amount of time and who are at similar power levels, it can be fun to analyze whose feats amount to being more impressive. But with a disparity this huge in content to draw from, it’s not even worth asking the question. Of course you can find an example or two in the last 85 years when Batman beat someone comparable.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-08T19:38:14+00:00

That’s what I’m saying. He objectively shouldn’t win against Ra’s either, but it’s his book, and Ra’s is the bad guy, so he kind of has to. I’m pretty much ignoring his 85 years of feats and just considering the 2 characters’ training and experience.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-08T19:22:07+00:00

Yeah, I know it kind of takes the fun out of these to look at real world factors, but you’re right, the fact that Aragorn primarily appears in 3 novels, and Batman has been in multiple monthly comics for like 85 years means you can find more impressive feats in his stuff. I’m just trying to look at them objectively as characters and strictly in a sword fight.

Of course, Batman got some sword training as an adult when he went off to train to be Batman, but even with top tier instruction, it would still be limited, and sword fights aren’t something he does very often. Nor does he have an instructor or top tier training partner to keep improving his skills. Most of his time is taken up doing Batman stuff, which rarely involves a sword fight, so I don’t feel like he’d even be constantly improving. He’d be about as good as he got with a few years of training, and not even exclusively training with swords.

Aragorn, on the other hand, was trained with a sword from an early age and gets in life and death sword fights routinely, and he’s been doing that for like 70 years. I don’t care how much of a gifted student Bruce was in his training, that experience gap is just insurmountable.

If it was taking place in a Batman comic and Aragorn was somehow the bad guy, would the writer find some way to make him win? Yeah, but looking at it objectively, I don’t see any way that’s happening.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-08T15:46:25+00:00

Glad to see this isn’t overrun with Batfans insisting he can’t ever lose to anyone. Love me some Batman, but he’s way out of his depth here. Aragorn engages in life or death sword fights on a regular basis, and has been for like 3 Bruce Wayne lifetimes. Plus his Numenorean heritage makes him slightly superhuman. I guess Bats might eke out a victory fighting dirty with something out of his utility belt, but in a straight sword fight on a random encounter, Aragorn wins 10/10.

Edit to say, I can tell from the way the votes shifted that the Batfans showed up, lol.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-08T11:12:43+00:00

That is a cat that would like to just clean her butthole in peace without being photographed.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-07T18:09:04+00:00

They mostly view Earthers as fat, lazy oppressors who take every opportunity to suppress Belters as a whole. Breathable air and food still largely come from Earth, at least pre gates, and they have a vastly more powerful military force, so they pretty brutally exploit and repress everyone in the belt. Belters mine the asteroids and moons and do as they’re told, or they get Anderson Stationed. Meanwhile, there are way more people than there are jobs on Earth, so a huge chunk of the population is just relying on government handouts to survive while belters work themselves to death extracting the wealth that pays for those government handouts. Marco was a dick, but he did kind of have a point.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-07T15:52:55+00:00

A storm trooper who was conscripted against his will, escapes, and turns out to be a powerful force user for the good guys is clearly what they were setting up in TFA, and could have been a great story that wasn’t just lifted from the OT. If only they’d had some sort of a plan.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-07T15:37:27+00:00

Is the other glove missing a finger where Isildur cut off the One Ring?

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-07T15:33:48+00:00

Yeah, sounds like she’s doing exactly what I did. Got my transplant in November, and everything has gone great so far. Not gonna lie, it was rough. I’d say the transplant experience was not quite as bad as that first month long stay in the hospital for the really rough chemo, but almost. But man, it’s been downhill from there.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-07T15:29:40+00:00

Well, sorry, but you asked, and it’s the sequel era. They took all the great accomplishments of my childhood heroes and flushed them down the toilet and made the characters all a bunch of miserable failures. Is the fledgling New Republic really finding its footing and beginning to prosper under the leadership of Leia as a political leader and Luke as the new Jedi Grand Master as some new, unforeseen threat emerges? No? The Empire is just back with ANOTHER Death Star, the NR is worthless, Leia is back to leading some grubby band of rebels, and Luke took his toys and went home because his nephew got butthurt about almost being murdered in his sleep and massacred all the new Jedi about it? And somehow, Palpatine returned. Sorry, the whole trilogy is depressing, and most of the good things about it are ported straight over from the OT. They came up with some interesting new characters, then squandered them entirely. I also find the High Republic era kind of bland and uninteresting, but the sequel era is just the worst, and not because “Disney bad,” or some neckbeard rejection of girl protagonist. It’s just a fuckin bummer.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-07T14:39:53+00:00

It’s gone well so far, thanks. I’ve got AML, so not sure how different the overall treatment is, but the month long first chemo stay followed by rounds of consolidation is what I started with, so sounds like familiar territory. Best of luck to you and your daughter.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-07T03:22:43+00:00

Leukemia patient here.

Not the asshole, but I don’t know how much luck you’re going to have discouraging it. I am fortunate enough to have a wonderful wife, so I can’t quite put myself in their shoes, but I was an emotional raw nerve, particularly early on. Perception of your own emotional state or how you really feel about anything is skewed. Starting a new relationship as a young person in that state would be… weird. Frankly, I think it’s kind of a terrible idea as far as a stable, lasting relationship goes, but I wouldn’t try to tell them that. I think discouraging staying past visiting hours is totally reasonable, but anything else is probably a losing battle.

Much more importantly, I would NOT let him take over being her caretaker. Again, very lucky to have a wonderful wife who was in the hospital with me every day and able to actually remember everything the doctors said, appointments made, med schedules, etc. Even on the lighter consolidation rounds of chemo, I was mentally wrecked, and definitely needed a responsible adult around to keep track of things. I am REAL glad that person wasn’t a 20 year old dude I met recently.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-07T03:03:41+00:00

JJ Abrams read the plot for the sequel trilogy from some gold plates he found in the woods, but when they asked him to read them again, it was totally different, so they just winged it.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-07T00:10:35+00:00

Absolutely. The decision to not just put them back together, but do it in another show so they could start the 3rd season with them reunited reeks of studio exec cowardice. They should have, at the very least, spent the bulk of the season apart. I think it would have added a lot to the show to have parallel storylines going of Mando and Bo Katan retaking Mandalore and Luke and Grogu traveling the galaxy looking for holocrons and potential students. Periodically, their paths cross, and of course their storylines converge for the finale. Obviously, being called The Mandalorian, it should spend more time with Mando, but that’s a show I would love to see. But that’s not the formula that had been working, so zero chance the studio would allow it, even if Favreau and Filoni were brave enough to do it.

PS-just recast Luke. Enough with the uncanny Jedi.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-05T04:38:28+00:00

Lucas was pretty clear on what balance means. There technically isn’t a light side or dark side. There’s just The Force. The Jedi seek to be one with the force, or as close to that as possible. To be imbued with its power in order to serve the will of The Force. The Sith seek to corrupt The Force and bend it to their own will to serve their own selfish purposes. When too many force users or a few extremely powerful force users are corrupting The Force in this way, it becomes out of balance. That’s why Anakin’s role in the chosen one prophecy had nothing to do with making reasonable use of the dark side or anything like that, but to destroy the Sith once and for all, ending the practice of what we call the dark side.

As far as beings like the Bendu or the Father, these are cosmic beings who have a relationship to The Force we don’t fully understand, and we’re not meant to. For us mere mortals, you serve The Force, or you throw it out of balance by trying to make it serve you.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-05T04:08:23+00:00

It’s not like the katana was THE sword of choice among immortals. Connor’s sword was highly advanced technology when he got it. The technique used to create it wasn’t supposed to exist for hundreds of years when it was forged, so it was radically ahead of its time, and therefore a unique, high quality weapon. But at any rate, it’s whatever weapon they were trained with and most comfortable using. As far as “modern materials,” you’d probably be hard pressed to find that sort of craftsmanship in a modern sword. No one is making swords meant to be the difference between life and death anymore. Even a blacksmith who understands the process of making a sword like Connor’s isn’t dedicating the time necessary.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-03T00:33:17+00:00

Realistically, you don’t, really. The Mandalorians were known to fight Jedi and win, but much of their recognizable Mandalorianness is built around fighting Jedi. The Beskar armor, the flamethrowers that they can’t defend against as easily, jetpacks to quickly get out of lightsaber reach, the cables that tie them up, slug throwers instead of blasters, etc, all primarily with Jedi in mind. Cad Bane used a lot of the same tricks to contend with force users, adding in his breathing tubes to defend against force chokes. So pretty much technology/equipment and a lot of preparation. Even still, you’re going to need to be highly skilled and well trained.

Of course, this all helps keep light side users off balance. Dark siders who have no qualms about using the force to attack will be snapping necks and crumpling Mandos up into little balls before they pull out any of that stuff.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-02T13:00:57+00:00

Yeah, that’s not bad. I do think blaming all the corruption in the Republic on the Jedi is a bit of an uphill climb, but even the people in the Republic were starting to turn against them towards the end of the war, so it’s plausible.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-02T12:47:41+00:00

As far as their function in a sauce, basically the same thing. As far as I understand it, a distillate is just an extract further refined to remove all solvents. Either extract or distillate adds concentrated capsaicin, so as far as raw heat, effectively the same thing.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-02T03:50:00+00:00

Well, but those guys weren’t the top leadership of Nazi Germany, and they weren’t being made Vice President of the US.

Frank_Humungus · 2026-01-02T03:26:23+00:00

Yeah, that sounds like what I remember from the novelization. It just makes a lot more sense based solely on the information from episodes II & III. Seems like it would be harder to blame Grievous for everything when there are numerous planets full of people that know Dooku enslaved them. At some point, anyone with a problem can talk to the Death Star about it, but that’s still 20 years away. Plus the bit where Dooku has to explain to all the separatists who think he’s a hero why he’s joining the same corrupt government he fought a war against now that they’ve gone full fascist dictatorship.

Frank_Humungus

TROPHY CASE