Characters / Star Wars – The Sith Order

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The Sith Order

Peace is a lie. There is only Passion.
Through Passion I gain Strength.
Through Strength I gain Power.
Through Power I gain Victory.
Through Victory my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.

— Code of the Sith

An ancient order of Force users who utilize the Dark Side of the Force, opposite to the Jedi Order. The first Sith were Jedi who fell prey to the temptations of the Dark Side, beginning a struggle between the two orders that spanned thousands of years as they sought dominance over the galaxy in the name of the Sith Empire. The Jedi and the Galactic Republic would fight in numerous wars with the Sith, with control over the Galaxy slipping but ultimately returning to the Republic.

Over the centuries, the Sith often betrayed one another, making the prospect of the Sith Order destroying the Jedi impossible. A Sith Lord known as Darth Bane came up with a radical solution to this problem with the Rule of Two: let all but two Sith die, with the remaining survivors serve as a master to wield power, and an apprentice to learn from their teacher and try to claim that power for themselves. In spite of this seemingly counter-intuitive way of thinking, Rule of Two lasted for over an entire millennium as the Jedi became complacent, setting the stage for their own downfall.

Darth Sidious, better known to the Galaxy at large as Sheev Palpatine, took advantage of the growing imbalance in the Force to put himself in a position of power, and he would later successfully overthrow the Jedi Order by framing them as traitors to the Republic, which was then reorganized into the Galactic Empire with him ruling as Emperor of the Galaxy. However, his victory ended up being short-lived, as the Empire he wanted to last for millennia was ultimately undone in the span of a few decades, with the Jedi ultimately surviving — although Sidious's dark legacy still persists, as the Jedi's numbers remain few in the years after his death, and the First Order was organized as a way of carrying out his vision for the Galaxy.

While the Sith and their ideology seemingly died with the Emperor and Darth Vader at the end of Return of the Jedi, other Dark Side users still lived past that point, among them the First Order warlords Supreme Leader Snoke and Kylo Ren — though they nonetheless drew influence from Sith Lords like Vader and Palpatine. And ultimately, it would turn out they too were simply pawns under the influence of a resurgent Sith Order, and that Darth Sidious had been reborn…

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In General

• Above Good and Evil: Some Sith would claim that they are not evil, but rather following the only philosophy that makes sense in the galaxy. To them, the Jedi Order are also power-hungry and paranoid of losing what powers they had, only covering with a guise of morality whereas the Sith are honest to themselves about their intentions. Palpatine in particular uses this argument to sway Anakin into the Dark Side, and Anakin deludes himself into thinking that the Sith's ways can bring peace and order to the galaxy.
• Abusive Parents: Most Sith Masters, whether they actually are parents or not to their apprentices, ultimately take this role. Like the Jedi, though to a lesser extent, the Sith pick their apprentices while young and easy to mold, with the exception being that Sith apprentices are tested and trained with what amounts to physical and mental torture, both to ensure they grow as powerful as possible, and so they become as bitter and hateful as possible; all to increase their connection with the Dark Side, and to eventually murder and overthrow their master.
• Adaptational Jerkass: While almost always evil and treacherous to some degree, many Sith in the Legends Expanded Universe had goals and traits that placed them over your typical power-hungry maniac. Some of them were noble lords capable of professing honor or wished the best for their people (in fact, several in Star Wars: The Old Republic such as Lana Beniko or light-sided Sith players even went as far as to be heroic or at least anti-heroic). Others were philosophers driven by a misguided desire to do good (like Darths Traya, Tenebrous, Plagueis and Caedus), while a handful were abominations sadly controlled by their own power (most notably Sion and Nihilus). By contrast, the few Sith original to canon tend to be one-dimensional, cackling psychos or sociopathic killers like Exim Panshard or the Presence. Similarly, Sith imported into the reboot from Legends like Revan or mentioned in the films like Plagueis have their biography, motivations and good sides Adapted Out, reducing them to villains without any explicit redeeming quality.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Also very downplayed, but by contrast, this actually applies to the two main Sith Lords in the prequels, Tyranus and Sidious. The former was a racist sociopath who used all of his servants as tools in Legends, while in canon he is now a slightly more personable character who genuinely cares for Ventress until Sidious orders him to destroy her. For his part, Sidious generally remains as a sadistic, irredeemable self-centered bastard, but his relationship with Vader seems to be now a true if twisted bond between master and apprentice (at least at first), while in Legends he always treated Vader as a living toy which he enjoyed tormenting and holding down.
• Adaptational Wimp: In Legends, there were several Sith Empires, organizations and fleets which could be and were direct military threats to the Republic; the Galactic Empire was absolutely not the first time they had brought the galaxy to its knees one way or another. By contrast, canon works mostly show them during the post-Bane period, when there was always only a handful of Dark Side users at the same time and only being capable to operate from the shadows. There were still multiple Sith Empires just like in Legends, but little is known about them.
• All Take and No Give: Their philosophy is based around this. They take everything they get their hands on and do everything they can to give up very little. This is why bargaining with the Sith will often lead the bargainer to be stabbed in the back once they are no longer necessary for their plans. It's also why they cannot become Force Ghosts as that would require a willingness to give up everything, including their identities, upon death.
• Ambition Is Evil: Sith strive to obtain power, and this desire for greater strength leads them to the Dark Side, and an easier means of obtaining power.
• Animal Theme Naming: A variant. Just as in Legends, the name Sith originates from a species with that very name - a red-skinned humanoid people that were extremely naturally gifted in the Dark Side, and who after coming into contact with some Dark Jedi formed the first real Sith Order. By the time of the Empire however, the Sith species has been extinct for millennia.
• Arch-Enemy: To the Jedi. While Sith have faced numerous enemies that oppose them, none have quite reached the same level enmity as the Jedi. To the Sith, the Jedi are too weak-willed to use the Force at its full potential yet have always been a persistent thorn that have subverted the Sith's bid for galactic domination time and time again. After their last attempt led to the near extinction of their order, the Sith blamed the Jedi for their downfall and secretly plotted the perfect revenge scheme for next thousand years.
• Artifact Title: The Sith, like in Legends, were named after the Sith species. However, since said species seems to be extinct, there technically aren't any actual Sith in the Sith Order, nor has there been for at least a thousand years.
• As Long as There Is Evil: As long as there's someone who embraces the Dark Side of the Force and is willing to devote themselves to their teachings, there will always be Sith in the Galaxy.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Played straight within the ranks of the Sith, where the strongest rule, but somewhat averted in their larger command structure. In the Clone Wars, Sith warriors tend to be independent commandos in charge of small squads of the same. Darth Vader likewise acts as an independent force in command of a relatively small portion of the Imperial Army (with the Grand Moffs and Admirals making up the real command structure). They have authority, but few assigned troops.
• Ax-Crazy: Since the Dark Side is fuelled by negativity such as hate, anger, pain and suffering, it comes as no surprise that Darksiders are mentally unstable, psychotically violent, bloodthirsty and in the case of some individuals, downright sociopathic, and are very eager to express their bloodthirsty worldview in any way they can. This can range from ruling a dictatorship that actively encourages oppression and misery, or going on senseless killing sprees just because. Sometimes both.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Under Palpatine, the Sith actually achieve their goal of wiping out almost all the Jedi and seizing control of the galaxy under THE FIRST GALACTIC EMPIRE!!… for about two decades ^note or three, if you count Palpatine's prior stint as Supreme Chancellor. Return of the Jedi not only sees the Empire fatally crippled by La Résistance, but ends with the Sith Order being completely dismantled when Vader has a Heel–Face Turn and sacrifices himself to take out Palpatine. Even in the New Republic Era, the First Order manages to destroy the New Republic and drive the Resistance to the brink of annihilation, and are revealed to be basically a vanguard for Palpatine's Sith Eternal cult to establish the Final Order, a new empire ruled openly by the Sith. Fortunately, they are all wiped out by the efforts of the Resistance and their allies.
• Being Evil Sucks: Few known Sith can truly say that they came off the better for turning to the dark side; Darth Plagueis suffers the indignity of being murdered in his sleep by his apprentice, Darth Maul's downward spiral starts with him being raised by Darth Sidious and then bisected, and it only gets worse from there. Count Dooku is reduced from a well-intentioned and powerful nobleman into a disposable pawn for his Sith master, and Darth Vader's life becomes a living hell almost from the moment he pledges himself to the Sith. Even Sidious himself ends up resigned to a decaying body and ultimately dies shortly after revealing himself.
• Best Served Cold:
  • The Sith waited and plotted for a millennium for a chance to get revenge against the Jedi for past defeats that nearly drove them to extinction. Take a wild guess as to which movie they finally get their revenge in.
  Darth Maul: (to Darth Sidious) At last, we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last, we will have revenge.
  • Darth Sidious, after finding some way to cling to life via cloning and unnatural knowledge of the Force, spent the next 31 years hooked up to life support on Exegol plotting his revenge against the New Republic and especially the Skywalker family. He ultimately succeeds in a number of his goals, but it's ultimately a hollow victory for him because he's too dead to rule over the galaxy while the First Order is quickly being overwhelmed — by ordinary citizens, no less — without the aid of the Final Order.
• Blood Knight: A cornerstone of the Sith code is that conflict is more desirable than peace and harmony.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Zig-zagged. The Sith would tell you they're this rather than outright evil, but these subtleties don't really come across in the films, where most of them turned to the Dark Side explicitly out of the very mundane desire of obtaining power and domination. However, their true doctrines, especially those of the past (and particularly in the Legends continuity), are certainly rooted on some rather unintuitive philosophies. The Rule of Two is actually a good example of this: their adepts are perfectly willing to train apprentices knowing it will likely end in their own deaths, all purely out of devotion to their "survival of the fittest" outlook, as this betrayal will only result in a stronger Sith being unleashed on the galaxy. In a twisted way, it's sort of selfless.
• Bright Is Not Good: Despite the Sith Order's general aesthetic, their Force Lightning, which can electrocute and kill their enemies, is an extremely vivid blue.
• Canon Immigrant:
  • Sith with the names of Andeddu, Phobos, Desolous, Tenebrous, and Sadow, all of whom existed in the Legends universe, have been mentioned in the current canon, but no details on any of them, including gender, species, and the time periods in which they lived have been revealed.
  • Exar Kun is mentioned in Aurebesh on the stone of Dryden Vos's desk in Solo, apparently looted from some Sith Temple. In the Star Wars Encyclopedia reference books (available only in France and Spain), it's mentioned that Sidious had Maul forge a double-bladed lightsaber in tribute to Kun and that Kun was a former Jedi, matching his original description.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: In their quests for power, the Sith inevitably betray each other out of greed, their ambition preventing them from ever willingly sharing power. Of course, they also aren't above betraying non-Sith who work with or for them.
• Combat Pragmatism: Although an apprentice is normally expected to surpass his master in order to kill him, there's nothing saying this has to be a fair fight. The Sith way is merely that the apprentice proves worthy to replace the master - nothing prevents the apprentice from killing him in his sleep (as Darth Sidious did with Plagueis) or with outside help, as Vader hoped to do with the help of Luke. After all, if the master was foolish enough to be killed this way, under Sith ideology they didn't deserve to be the master.
• Cool Sword: Unlike the Jedi, where standard single-bladed lightsabers are far more common than every other kind of lightsaber, the Sith use more uncommon lightsaber designs that make them stand out more than the Jedi. Dooku's lightsaber has a curved hilt that gives him more precision and finesse, Maul and Savage use double-bladed lightsabers, Momin's lightsabers have knuckle guards, Palpatine's lightsabers have electrum grafted into its hilts, and Vader's lightsaber has a dual phase option that allows him to freely extend the blade's length to catch his opponent's off-guard.
• The Corrupter: It's in the job description. Every single one of them searches for an apprentice to bring to the Dark Side and replace them, while also working to undermine the light and bring the galaxy under their control.
• Create Your Own Villain: The first Sith were originally members of the Jedi order that were banned for their use of the Dark Side. While any Force user can succumb to it, it was the dicipline and knowledge the first Sith gained as Jedi that lay the foundations of the order.
• Dark Action Girl: Any Sith Ladies will likely be this by default.
• Dark Is Evil: They rely on the Dark Side, and are the series' overarching villains. They also favor dark clothing.
• The Dark Side: They revere this aspect of the Force and are the most prominent practitioners of Dark Side techniques, and strive to master every aspect of the Dark Side.
• The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: A few known Sith Lords actually initially joined the Dark Side with good intentions (others are more blatantly amoral and self-absorbed), but they always end up being corrupted and warped by it. Darth Vader is probably the most prominent example of this; he was compelled to join the Sith to bring peace and order to the war-torn and unstable Galactic Republic, as well as gain knowledge of the Force to save his pregnant wife when he received premonitions of her death, but we all know how that turned out...
• Deadly Graduation: A Sith apprentice can never obtain the rank of Master without killing their own master to vacate the position. This is the final test to see if they are worth all the training put by the Sith master.
• Death by Adaptation: Their Legends counterparts survived well over 130 years after the events of Return of the Jedi, thanks to a combination of Palpatine having clones, rogue Force-sensitives learning the ways of the Sith and other Sith lineages such as the Lost Tribe or the One Sith existing, concurrently and in secret. In the Canon, however, Darth Sidious is the only true Sith left alive after the death of Darth Vader, and he and the last known followers of the Sith ideology are dead about 104 years before they were destroyed in that continuity.
• The Empire: They create one of these whenever they have the power to do so. Implicitly it's the kind of government that most embodies their philosophy.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • As vile as the Sith are, even they are repulsed by Darth Momin, considering him a heretic and attempting to erase him from their records. That being said, it's not clear if it's Momin's atrocities that they disapproved of, or the fact that he was more interested in creating his 'art' than conquering the galaxy.
  • While they were beings of the Dark Side themselves, even the Sith thought the Drengir were too dangerous to leave unchecked and had them sealed away on the Amaxine station.
  • Upon investigating the aftermath of one of Savage's first massacres, Obi-Wan notes such a barbaric act is not the work of a Jedi or a Sith Lord but that of a monster. Yes, for how evil the Sith are, they apparently draw the line at wanton violence.
  • Obi-Wan also suggests the Sith are proud enough to not align themselves with the likes of pirates, and that Maul doing so is a supposed sign of how far they've fallen.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: They tend to underestimate things like compassion, altruism and self-sacrifice. This ultimately contributes to their downfall; Palpatine is genuinely surprised and put out when his attempts to corrupt Luke Skywalker fail, with Luke refusing to strike down his own father despite everything he's done and being uninterested in gaining more power. Palpatine also fails to comprehend that Vader's love for his son and underlying desire to do the right thing would compel him to take Palpatine down even at the expense of his own life, rather than stand by and watch Luke die.
• Eviler than Thou: The Sith are unquestionably the most ruthless faction in Star Wars, and other antagonists, including high-end criminals and villainous Force-users outside the order, are often on the receiving end of their wrath. It's also standard procedure for them to pull this on each other while seizing power.
• Evil Evolves: Through the cycle of apprentices overpowering and replacing their masters, the Sith have been continually growing in strength for a millennium.
• Evil Is Easy: The Dark Side of the Force which is used by them is how they tempt new followers, as the exclusive powers of the dark side is easier to attain and more flashier than the ones from the light side of the force.
• Evil Overlord: Most Sith Lords and Masters attempt to gain massive amounts of power for themselves, though Darth Vader (an apprentice) is the first and arguably most definitive Evil Overlord to be introduced. They actually specifically refer to themselves as Sith Lords or Dark Lords of the Sith.
• Evil Sorcerer: The Dark Side of the Force is the pathway to many abilities some consider unnatural. Basically they have powers that are the setting equivalent of Black Magic.
• Evil Makes You Ugly: Most Sith change in appearance due to the toll Dark Side energy takes on living beings, starting with yellow eyes, then the pigment of their skin begins to vanish, and in extreme cases, such as Sidious end up pale white, with sunken, distorted features, rotted teeth and unnaturally deep or scratchy voices.
• Evil Wears Black: The Sith wear black robes, compared to the brown robes of the Jedi.
• Fallen Hero: A few Sith, including the original founder of the order, were once Jedi Knights. Other notable examples include Darth Tyranus and Darth Vader.
• Fantastic Honorifics: Many, but not all Sith, have the title Darth preceding their Sith name. According to George Lucas, he chose it as a variation on "dark", which is pretty self-explanatory.
• Fantastic Naming Convention: Most Sith receive a special Sith moniker different from their birth name. Which one they usually go by varies: for example, Darth Sidious is known publicly by his birth name of Sheev Palpatine, only being called Sidious by the Separatists and his apprentices, which was necessitated by his Playing Both Sides during the Clone Wars and presenting himself as the benevolent Supreme Chancellor to the Republic — it apparently didn't become widely known that Sidious and Palpatine were the same person until decades later. On the other hand, shortly after his fall to the Dark Side, Darth Vader began referring to himself solely by his Sith name, rejecting his old name of Anakin Skywalker and even treating Anakin like a completely separate person. Darth Maul is a bit of an exception here, as Maul actually is his birth name (Mother Talzin apparently has a thing for edgy-sounding names, as she called his brother Savage Opress; incidentally, he too was briefly a member of the Sith for a time).
• Fascist, but Inefficient: The Sith of old were incredibly oppressive, but fell victim to their own greed and ambition, which led to a lot of infighting among their own ranks, which did as much damage to themselves as the Jedi did to them. When Darth Bane was the Sole Survivor of such infighting, he made the Rule of Two to mitigate this. His ideas worked for a few centuries, only for Darth Sidious to repeat the same problems with his own Empire (except this time, the infighting wasn't just among Force users).
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Originally, the Sith as a whole suffered from a self-destructive combination of greed, ambition, and Chronic Backstabbing Disorder that eventually led to the Order collapsing in on itself. Darth Bane, via the Rule of Two, sought to turn these weaknesses into strengths, and succeeded to an extent, but even Bane's "perfected" order is hardly immune to overreaching and infighting.
  • Even those Sith who manage to avoid the pitfalls of treachery and ambition tend to suffer from an overdose of pride, especially when they seem victorious. Such a flaw sees Darth Maul become Half the Man He Used to Be (and his life only goes downhill from there), while Darth Sidious' efforts at galactic conquest are undone when his ego blinds him to flaws in his plans or to how powerful his enemies can be.
  • The flaw that ultimately does them in is selfishness. The Rule of Two was apparently successful in ensuring each generation of Sith was stronger than the last - unfortunately this power eventually went to their heads, and led to later Sith Lords being too egotistical to accept the Rule of Two and attempting to gain immortality and rule the galaxy forever instead.
• Gaia's Lament: Seems to be a recurring theme, whatever planet the Sith claim as their main homeworld tends to end up a charred, deserted wasteland (Ziost, Korriban/Moraband, Malachor, Exegol). Whether this is because of conflict, excess use of the Dark Side or just plain bad luck is unclear (except Malachor, which definitely was ruined by a Sith weapon). Compare that to Ach-To and Tython, which while also abandoned by the Jedi over the years are still lush and inhabitable.
• Galactic Conqueror: The ultimate goal of the Sith is the domination of the galaxy, which Palpatine was able to achieve for a time.
• High-Voltage Death: Quite a few Sith Lords have used Force Lightning to kill their opponents or have had similar attempts made on their life. It's such a common technique among the Dark Side that it's controversial in the Star Wars universe for someone working on the Light Side of the Force to use it.
• History Repeats: A line in one of the ancient Jedi texts, quoted in the junior novelization of The Rise of Skywalker suggests Darth Bane wasn't the first Sith to try burning the whole thing to the ground and starting over with the Rule of Two, just slightly more successful.
• Immortality Seeker: A vast majority of Sith have at the very least been intrigued by the concept of achieving eternal life, some such as Darth Plagueis spending there entire careers researching it. Some achieved flawed versions of this using ancient Sith alchemy, such as Plagueis being able to maintain other individual lifespans almost indefinitely, and Darth Momin was able to preserve his spirit through the use of his mask, but it's always a rather perverse and limited immortality, a far cry to what they truly seek. Sith can even survive as ghosts like Darth Bane, but they are strictly limited beings, mere echoes of their former selves. Ironically, it is the Jedi who find the true form of immortality, a way to become one with the Force while retaining their individuality and being able to manifest themselves almost anywhere in the material realm.
• Invincible Villain: No matter how many times the Jedi (often narrowly) defeat them, they will always return. This neverending conflict between the Light and Dark Sides of the Force has been going on for several thousand years now.
• I Shall Taunt You: The Emperor is an expert at this, but all of the villains do it routinely. This is a canonical Sith tactic, by the way, called Dun Möch.
• It's All About Me: Anakin (prior to his fall) sums up the Sith philosophy as "The Sith rely on their passion for their strength. They think inwards, only about themselves." While it's debatable as to whether the Sith see themselves this way — and indeed a few of them are actually shown or implied to have some degree of care for other beings — all of them have a tendency to be incredibly self-serving, not caring too much about who gets hurt in their quest for power and dismissing compassion for others as a weakness. Overconfidence and an inflated ego have also been the bane of many a Sith Lord.
• It's Personal: It's always personal for the Sith. The whole rage and whatnot thing; they never seem to stop and look at the big picture. Just "me me me". They usually end up becoming obsessed with taking down the good guys.
• Laser Blade: Just like their foes, the Jedi, they have lightsabers, except the blade's red to contrast their enemy's blue, or green, or other colours except black or red. In Legends, this was thanks to their lightsabers' synthetic crystal crafted using the power of the Dark Side of the Force, resulting in a stronger blade which is far easier to augment. In canon, their lightsaber blades were red due to the Sith corrupting kyber crystals with the Power of the Dark Side of the Force through a process called Bleeding.
• Laser-Guided Karma: They seek the total destruction and defilement of the Jedi, including all their knowledge, treasures, temples, and sacred sites. Under Darth Sidious, they nearly succeeded in doing that with a great deal of Jedi lore lost and their sacred places turned into the Sith's personal palaces or weapons of mass destruction. Fast-foward to The Rise of Skywalker, the granddaughter of Darth Sidious ends up saving the last few remaining sacred Jedi texts and Sidious' second death ends up destroying the Sith Eternal and the temple on Exegol, ensuring that the Sith's knowledge and legacy dies with him as well.
• Loophole Abuse: They often take advantage of the phrasing around the Rule of Two to surround themselves with dark side users who aren't 'officially' Sith to do their bidding. So long as they're not formally taking these mooks as Sith apprentices or calling them Sith Lords, then the Rule of Two remains in place. This how Dooku gets away with having Ventress and Savage Opress as his apprentices while he himself is still apprenticed to Palpatine, and how Palpatine can have an entire Inquisition made up of dark side users while simultaneously being Vader's master. They do have to be careful not to let these mooks get too powerful however; when Palpatine feared that Ventress was getting too strong, he ordered Dooku to dispose of her out of concern they would be able to overthrow him.
• Master Swordsman: As part of their war against the Jedi, many Sith have adopted the lightsaber and mastered it in order to make killing Jedi easier. Examples include the elegant Count Dooku, the acrobatic Darth Maul, the relentless Asajj Ventress, and the two greatest duelists of all the Sith, Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Lucas almost certainly made up the word "Sith"^note A quick history of the word "Sith" - it first appears in Alan Dean Foster's novelisation of the original film as Vader's title but at that point it seems Lucas intended the Sith to be a fanatical loyalist order within the Empire, like Hitler's SS, to which Vader was the leader. "Dark Jedi" was used exclusively for Dark Side practitioners until the 90s, before The Phantom Menace, when Lucas decided the Master-Apprentice structure of Vader and the Emperor's relationship was the Sith. Even the first editions of The Thrawn Trilogy use "Dark Jedi" exclusively, but this was corrected in reprints - at one point in the writing of those books, the Noghri - to whom Vader is "lord" - would have been the Sith!, but it does have a pre-existing meaning that ties in thematically with the story. Sìth means "fairy" in Scots Gaelic (though it's pronounced "shee", being the Scottish equivalent of the Irish Sí, usually anglicised Sidhe). Just like The Fair Folk, the Sith are shadowy underground (sometimes literally) beings who cultivate a Blue-and-Orange Morality and are tied by their own strict rules, individually powerful but a Dying Race.
• Motive Decay: The corrupting nature of the Dark Side means those who surrender to the easy power of the Dark Side for worthy reasons always find themselves losing what they wanted and becoming the very thing they hate.
• Never My Fault: Their reasoning for revenge is that the Jedi drove them to near-extinction. However Darth Bane, founder of the modern Sith, admits that the Sith brought about their own demise due to their greed and treachery.
• Named by the Adaptation: Inverted. In Legends, the particular Sith Order operating under Darth Bane's Rule of Two was specifically called the Order of the Sith Lords, but this distinction doesn't yet exist in the current canon.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Palpatine claims this about the Sith and the Jedi, telling Anakin "The Sith and the Jedi are similar in almost every way. Including their quest for greater power." However, considering this is Palpatine we're talking about... From what we see of both organizations throughout the Canon, the Sith are more like foils to the Jedi than anything else, although notably, they are similar in that they're both undone by hubris ^note albeit in somewhat different ways; the Jedi become complacent, stagnate and don't realize how much danger they're in until it's too late; Palpatine gets overconfident in his own abilities to the point of intentionally putting himself in harm's way and underestimates/misreads the good guys and his own apprentice.
• Obviously Evil: Pretty much every Sith aside from Count Dooku and Palpatine pre-disfigurement just looks evil. Examples that come to mind include the freakishly huge cyborg samurai with a skull for a mask that is Vader, Maul, the black clad, horned assassin covered from head to toe in black and red Sith tattoos or Sidious, a deathly pale, almost inhumanly decrepit old man dressed exclusively in black wizard robes, with glowing yellow eyes.
• Oddly Small Organization:
  • It's a part of the code imposed by Darth Bane that the number of Sith must never exceed two, although it wasn't uncommon for both master and apprentice Sith to look for other apprentices to train. It's indicated they used to be more numerous in ancient times, but the constant in-fighting and backstabbing was proving to be detrimental to their cause, prompting Bane to create the Rule of Two.
  • It should also be noted the Sith very often use Insistent Terminology to do a loophole around this rule, they cannot exceed more then two Sith at a time, but they can still swell their ranks with powerful darkside users, that aren't technically Sith, mainly fallen Jedi, to act as Elite Mooks. Ventress being Dooku's assassin, and the Inquisition, a particularly large organisation of force/lightsaber wielding Jedi Hunters, are two primary examples.
  • Over the years, the order evolved into a Religion of Evil to the point that non-force sensitives can join and can maintain the teachings of the Sith as they'd be unable to violate the Rule of Two. By the time of The Rise of Skywalker, Sith Eternal cultists have inserted themselves in various facets of society to advance the order's agenda and prepare for their resurgence.
• Order Versus Chaos: The Sith represent the latter half of this dichotomy, as the Dark Side itself represents entropy, change, and renewal. The Sith believe in the utility of constant struggle to prevent the stagnation that they believe stifles the Jedi Order. While this does make the Sith resilient and adaptable opponents, it also leads to self-defeating internecine conflict that has crippled them more than once.
• The Power of Hate: They strongly believe in this, using their anger as a source of strength, and bring others under their control by fuelling negative emotions.
• Quality over Quantity: Given there can only be two Sith per Bane's Rule of Two, an apprentice is usually handpicked from exceptionally strong candidates, such as Talzin, but not quite strong enough to easily overthrow their would-be master right away. Alternatively, a child candidate is given rigorous training that puts them on par with a Jedi Master upon officially being titled a Sith Lord. As a result, all Sith apprentices seen in the series are lightyears above mosts Padawans or Knights in strength.
• Recycled In Space: In keeping with the idea that Star Wars is a typical fantasy setting in space, the Sith seem to be patterned on a combination of classic fantasy villain archetypes: Black Knights, evil Sorcerous Overlords, and, for those who are particularly unnaturally preserved, The Undead.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: They usually dress in black (or red and black for Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith) and wield red-bladed lightsabers — in fact, Darth Vader is a notable case of a Sith Lord who initially starts out using a blue lightsaber, though he switches to red after losing his old saber to Obi-Wan Kenobi). Darth Maul (who provides the trope image) kicks it up a notch by having red skin, red eyes and black Sith tattoos as well.
• Red Is Violent: Hoo boy, they have red as part of their colour scheme and their lightsabers are red, and worst of all, they're merciless, sadistic, vengeful, violent and brutal overall.
• Renegade Splinter Faction: There aren't many details, but the Sith Order was started by an unidentified Jedi during a period known as the "Hundred-Year Darkness".
• Rule of Two: A guiding principle of their order to prevent them from annihilating each other, and to make use of their inevitable betrayal. Sith apprentices are trained to eventually become stronger than their masters, kill them, then take their place and find an apprentice of their own to continue the order. This is to ensure the strongest is always in control of the order. Sith Lords, however, can employ Dark Side Force-sensitives to serve them without making them Sith apprentices, like Dooku did with Asajj Ventress. Additionally, Darth Sidious commissioned the Inquisitorius as Dark Side servants, but they are purposefully not trained to reach the Sith's power level. By the New Republic Era, the Sith have expanded to include fanatical cultists who aren't Force-Sensitive, which means they wouldn't pose a threat to their masters.
• Self-Disposing Villain: The Sith tend to be this on both an individual and macro level. On a personal level, using the Dark Side is not only physically harmful in the long term, but also leads to many Sith making terrible decisions that ruin their lives and/or get them killed. On a macro scale the Chronic Backstabbing Disorder inherent to Sith almost led to the extinction of the order and necessitated the Rule of Two.
• Shock and Awe: Force Lightning is a technique heavily associated with the Dark Side and commonly used by the Sith.
• Shrouded in Myth: By the time of the Galactic Empire, few people have any idea they even existed, and information about them is scarce. About two decades earlier, the Sith were believed to have gone extinct a millennium ago and the Jedi Council were skeptical they could've returned without them noticing (spoiler alert: they're wrong).
• Soul Jar: Sith cannot become Force ghosts like Jedi can. Keyword being "like Jedi". Unlike the free-roaming Jedi ghosts, Sith ghosts are more like poltergeists bound to a specific location or object, such as a shrine or a Sith artifact. Holocrons also serve as these, ensuring a Sith Lord's power and influence extends beyond their death.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: A common result of Dark Side corruption is their eyes take on this color, either permanently, or sometimes only when utilizing Dark Side techniques.
• Surpassed the Teacher: Played with. The Sith philosophy of the Rule of Two is for the apprentice to eventually surpass and kill his mentor, assuring that the Sith can only grow stronger. Even so an apprentice can end up killing his master dishonestly (like Sidious, who killed his master while he slept).
• Trainee from Hell: Invoked by the order, especially by the Rule of Two: That the apprentice tries to kill the master is expected since an apprentice has to kill the master or to be killed by him at one point. Even when this rule was not enforced by the Sith, their Chronic Backstabbing Disorder meant that Sith apprentices and their mentors were generally enemies and often seeked to harm each other.
• Theme Naming: Sith names generally follow the theme of sounding like or being related to something dark and sinister, fitting with the whole Dark Lord thing. For example: Sidious = insidious, Tyranus = tyrant or tyranny, Plagueis = plague and so on.
• Übermensch: Less so in current canon than in Legends, but still an important part of their philosophy. Almost by definition, Sith replace conventional morality by their own values, which usually entail amassing power over any other thing and feeding a lightsaber blade to all who disagree.
• Uncertain Doom: With both Vader and Palpatine dead, it's possible but unknown if the Sith are truly extinct by the time of The Force Awakens. The First Order is controlled by Dark Side worshippers, but any connection to the Sith is unrevealed. Either way, the Sith aren't the only faction of Dark Side worshippers. Subverted in The Rise of Skywalker, where not only Palpatine is alive, but there is also an entire planet populated by Sith Eternal cultists. Of course, all of them are destroyed by the end.
• The Unfettered: The Sith are generally this as a rule, often dismissing things like virtue and morality as mere hindrances to achieving one's true potential. There's pretty much nothing they won't do to gain power and/or keep it, from constantly stabbing each other in the back to orchestrating a galaxy-wide war.
• Villainous Legacy: In the Sequel Trilogy. Although the Sith are gone, their actions continue to influence or impact upon the galaxy. The First Order seeks to restore the Empire the Sith created, while Dark Side user Kylo Ren emulates Darth Vader and borrows a lot from Sith philosophy (and fashion sense). The Rise of Skywalker reveals the order survived through their cultists, and Palpatine resurrected himself through one of his failed clone bodies and the First Order's purpose was actually to weaken the galaxy so that the Final Order, formed from the Sith Eternal cult and is what Palpatine views as the true embodiment of a Sith Empire, can take over the galaxy and usher in a new empire ruled openly by Palpatine as Darth Sidious.
• Virtue Is Weakness: This is a central value followed by all Sith as part of their "freedom from restraint".

Ancient Sith

The First Sith

???

A Jedi Knight who studied the Dark Side of the Force during the time of the Old Republic and was expelled by the Jedi Order. Having amassed an army of followers, he sparked the period known as the "Hundred Year Darkness", which resulted in the birth of the Sith Order.

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• Ambiguously Human: His species is currently unidentified, but Ajunta Pall was a human in the Legends continuity.
• Canon Immigrant: He originally hails from the now-Legends video game Knights of the Old Republic.
• Face–Heel Turn: Studied the forbidden arts of the Dark Side, which seemingly led to his expulsion from the Jedi Order of old.
• Fallen Hero: The first known Jedi who was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force.
• Legend Fades to Myth: In-universe, there's not much known about him other than he was a male Jedi that got kicked out of the Order for Dark Side activities, and he decided to start his own order.
• Predecessor Villain: He served as a precursor for the creation of the Sith Order as a whole.
• Schrödinger's Canon:
  • His name is presumably Ajunta Pall, just like his Legends counterpart.
  • What Dark Side arts was he studying that the Jedi Order had forbidden? He was learning how to create life using alchemy, meaning Palpatine wasn't lying to Anakin about how the Sith could control the power of life.
  • After he died, he continued to exist in the physical world as a Force ghost. As the Sith were prone to Chronic Backstabbing Disorder and he used the time he had alone to think about his choices, he came to realize that it wasn't the Jedi's fault that the Sith ended up on such a self-destructive path and he came to regret his life. A mindwiped light-sided Revan later finds him and encourages him to return to the light and let go of his grief, allowing Pall to finally rest in peace with his master. However, new canon dictates that darksiders cannot return as Force ghosts, so unless the First Sith is an exception or his spirit is tethered to an object such as a Sith holocron like the Presence or a mask like Exim Panshard or Darth Momin, he couldn't have expressed his remorse after death.
• Unknown Character: So far, his identity has been left vague and open-ended enough to allow upcoming stories to build on him beyond being just a Canon Immigrant of Ajunta Pall.
• Villainous Legacy: By the time of the Prequel Trilogy, he's already long-dead, but, being the first notorious Dark Side user and the one who eventually led to the creation of the Sith Order, his actions have cast a lasting shadow over the history of the franchise.

The Presence

The Presence

Voiced by: Nika Futterman

Appearances: Rebels

"The power to destroy life is at your command!"

An ancient Sith Lady who was responsible for creating the Malachor temple and devastating both Sith and Jedi forces in the Scourge of Malachor. Her spirit and teachings live on in a Holocron inside the temple she built, which was found during the early days of the Galactic Civil War.

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• Anachronism Stew: In-Universe. The timeline is unclear, but based on the myriad of Sith corpses outside her temple, she lived before Darth Bane, yet she still built her temple to accommodate the Rule of Two. One possible explanation is that her teachings inspired Darth Bane to create the rule of two (without strictly adhering to the rule herself), similar to how Revan's holocron did in the Legends continuity. Alternatively she may have based her teachings and her temple on the Force Dyad concept which predated and inspired the Canon version of the Rule of Two of which the latter is a pale imitation of the former.
• The Corrupter: While Maul may have gotten the ball rolling, it's her holocron and teachings that are responsible for Ezra's corruption over the Time Skip.
• Dark Action Girl: The first Sith Lady in the new Canon, and boy does she live up to the title. While we don't see her in combat, obviously, she was the most powerful Sith of her time, and generations later Sidious has to use technology where she used pure Dark Side power.
• Evil Mentor: She designed her temple to accommodate the Rule of Two, suggesting she had an apprentice. She instructed Ezra when he consulted with the Holocron.
• Expy:
  • Of the Legends continuity's Darth Traya — she's a corrupting influence that sought to destroy life on a great scale from a temple on Malachor, and her Holocron is found in a location that looks strikingly similar to the meditation chamber where the Exile fights her in The Sith Lords. The similarities are both strong and vague enough that Word of God had to clarify that she isn't Traya returning as a Canon Immigrant like Thrawn.
  • She also seems to be reference to The Entity, another disembodied spirit of a female Sith from Legends. Ironically, back at its day Word of God hinted The Entity might be a reincarnation of Darth Traya too, even although absolutely nothing on The Entity reminds of Traya at all aside from a vague biography line.
• No Name Given: She's just known as "The Presence", although Dave Filoni has revealed he gave the character a name that he has yet to reveal. However, The Rise of Skywalker Visual Dictionary has mentioned a Sith Lord named Darth Tanis, who was said to have developed the kyber superweapon on Malachor. Whether "The Presence" is Tanis has not been clarified.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Created a Sith pyramid to wipe out life on a massive scale and killed hundreds with it, including herself and her own forces.
• Posthumous Character: By the time of Rebels, she's been dead for thousands of years. Her voice is heard in a holocron, however, and it appears she will continue influencing events that way.
• Walking Spoiler: Her existence spoils some very big reveals about the Season 2 finale of Rebels.

Exim Panshard

Exim Panshard

Appearances: Shadow of the Sith

An ancient Sith Lord who ruled as viceroy of an unidentified planet. Shortly after the fall of the Empire, his mask was discovered by the Acolytes of the Beyond and given to a Force-sensitive member of their cult named Kiza. During the later New Republic era, Panshard's spirit possessed her and went on a search for Exegol in order to regain his power.

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• Ancient Evil: A Sith Lord so old that the name of the planet which he ruled has been long forgotten.
• Big Bad Ensemble: He and Ochi of Bestoon are the main threats of Shadow of the Sith.
• Big Bad Wannabe: For all his cruelty and power, he seems to have ruled only one planet in his lifetime and was killed before he could reach Exegol, never realizing that it had already been taken by Palpatine.
• Cool Mask: In life he crafted a sinister mask from Thunderbolt Iron that held the power of the dark side. After he died, his soul inhabited the mask and can possess anyone who wears it.
• Demonic Possession: His mask can possess people.
• Malevolent Masked Man: He became this after creating his mask, but that's not to say he wasn't malevolent to begin with. Anyone else who wears his mask also becomes this due to his dark influence.
• Odd Name Out: One of the few Sith Lords in the New Canon who doesn’t seem to have the title of Darth.
• Power Crystal: In Shadow of the Sith, he seeks to recover the missing pieces of a large red kyber crystal that he believes will lead him to the hidden world of Exegol. After Luke recovers said missing shards from an archaeological dig site, Exim commands Kiza to build a squad of battle droids containing pieces of his own crystal to hunt down Luke. Later on after Kiza dies while fighting Luke at her hideout, Exim has the remaining battle droids take the shards of the kyber crystal and encrust them onto the surface of the mask, magnifying his power enough to control Kiza's dead body himself.
• Sadist: The Force vision Luke Skywalker receives after connecting with his mask shows him laughing as he has thousands of his slaves butchered.
• Thunderbolt Iron: His signature mask was crafted from the metal of a meteor he witnessed fall from the sky.
• Unknown Rival: Is either this to Palpatine, or the other way around.

Darth Atrius

Darth Atrius

Appearances: Star Wars (Marvel 2015)^note mentioned only

An ancient Sith Lord who built a pair of lightsabers.

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• Dual Wielding: He built and fought with a pair of red lightsabers.
• Evil Weapon: His lightsabers make their wielders incredibly aggressive, and make them fight over the weapons. Enough so that after coming into possession of one of the sabers each, Vader and Luke both individually decide to destroy them.
• Posthumous Character: He's been dead for a very long time when his weapons are recovered.

Darth Momin

Darth Momin

Appearances: Dark Lord of the Sith | Lando

"The dark side does not serve us. We serve the dark side. If we glorify it through our acts and our work and our art, it gives us power. It gives us life. Even life eternal."

A unique Sith who appreciated art above all else. For this, he was considered a heretic among the Sith and his teachings locked away for years until his mask was discovered in the Jedi temple archives during the age of the Empire, after which his spirit told Palpatine and Vader about his past and created the blueprints for Vader's castle.

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• Artifact of Doom: His mask, which preserves his soul long after his death.
• Back from the Dead: Uses the ritual site he built underneath Vader's castle at the Dark Side nexus on Mustafar to rip open a rift, possibly to the World Between Worlds, and bring his body through to place his helmet on.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: He killed and mutilated his rada-cat as a child to create art, and even by Sith standards, this man was a horrible monster.
• Big Damn Heroes: On the receiving end of this by the Jedi, who manage to kill him right as his device is about to destroy a city. The city is still destroyed, but it's done so in real time, preventing Momin from achieving his wish.
• Cool Mask: He wears a really cool, if very unsettling, ancient Sith War Mask, one of the first to be reintroduced into the canon.
• Demonic Possession: His mask has this power, doing so towards two Imperial architects and a Mustafar native. Years later, it does this to members of Lando's crew when they break into one of Palpatine's yachts. He attempts to do this to Vader, but Vader's willpower is on another level entirely.
• Doing It for the Art (In-Universe): Along with For Science!, (see Mad Scientist) his entire reason for living.
• Dual Wielding: He uses two lightsabers, presumably taking after his one-time master Shaa, who also fought with two sabers.
• Enfant Terrible: His interest in making gruesome artwork started off at a young age, his first victim being the family cat.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • The Sith were so repulsed by him they declared him a heretic, and tried to erase him from history.
  • This goes both ways. Momin is repulsed by the Sith after the Rule of Two. He states that the Sith used to glorify the Dark Side, but the Sith Order has been perverted into pure Jedi-hating.
• Evil Gloating: Indulges in this in relating his backstory to Vader, and later after his resurrection, continues to rant about how the Dark Side loves him while dueling the already-injured Vader. Momin actually manages to get Vader on the ropes, but cannot resist taunting the new Sith over his perceived failings until Vader crushes him with a giant stone slab.
• Evil Mask: How he manages to communicate and possess people after hundreds to thousands of years.
• Hate Plague: In Darth Vader, the mask possesses its wearer with Momin's spirit. However in Lando, it manages to corrupt multiple people who are not wearing it, but none claim to be Momin.
• The Heretic: He's considered this by the Sith who came after him due to flouting and disparaging several of their goals and traditions in favor of creating 'artwork', to the point where they tried to erase or at least hide away any record of him.
• Mad Artist: He just oozes this trope. Most of his early work was based around mutilating corpses into art. As he gained a further understanding of the Dark Side, he decided to form a device that would burn down entire cities but do so in slow motion, to allow him to appreciate every detail.
• Mad Scientist: As dedicated to knowing and understanding nature in general, in particular with regards to studying the dark side, as he was in creating artwork. In fact, as shown with his city-destroying super weapon he hybridized the two tropes combining horrific artistic vision with insane science.
• Manipulative Bastard: To be expected from a Sith Lord. While helping Darth Vader construct his fortress on Mustafar, he makes several attempts to play to Vader’s ego while also claiming that he has no access to the Force in his possessed body. The moment the fortress is completed and Vader leaves to deal with an attack, he immediately reveals it was a lie and performs the dark side ritual to bring himself back to life.
• Off with His Head!: All that's left of Momin after his post-resurrection fight with Vader is his head (and mask), after Vader crushes the rest of him with a massive stone slab.
• Royal Rapier: Fitting with his view of himself as enlightened artist, the hilts of his lightsabers are designed like a rapier's.
• Soul Jar: His mask contains his spirit and allows him to posses whoever wears it.
• Time Stands Still: Momin's superweapon was designed to allow him to use the Force to freeze an area the size of a city in time forever at the moment its inhabitants realized their doom, as a monument to the Dark Side of the Force.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives one to Vader (and Sidious indirectly). He is rather disgusted by the fact that the current Sith (in his opinion) no longer serve the Dark Side and instead have devolved into petty Jedi-hating.
  Momin: Do not forget, Vader, that I saw into you as you saw into me. You know my story — but I also know yours. They called you the Chosen One. You believed it. You believe it still. You think the Dark Side serves you. Obeys your every childish whim. But if the greatest power in the galaxy is actually yours to control... why are you a stub of charred meat in a cape? Even more, if you had that power... wouldn't your wife be alive? [...] The Dark Side does not serve us. We serve the Dark Side. If we glorify it through our acts and our work and our art, it gives us power. It even gives us life. Even life eternal. Empires have risen and fallen since my birth, great ages of the galaxy have passed... but here I stand. But if we do not serve... if we fight the will of the Dark Side, try to control it... then... well... just look at you. [...] You have been poorly taught about what the Dark Side is and why we must serve. Your master is either ignorant or hoarding knowledge. It saddens me to see the Sith become such Jedi-obsessed weaklings. It saddens me, and I know it disgusts the Dark Side. You're pathe—
• Villainous Virtues: Momin is one of the few Sith to ever demonstrate real humility on any level. Namely the reverence and acknowledgement of the Dark Side of the force as something far greater than himself. He's also purely focused on his art and doesn't care about showing off how much better he is than anyone else. This probably stems from him being an artist and the never satisfied attitude that comes with it.
  Momin: I would never be so bold as to claim the title of master.
  [...]
  Momin: Never believe any of your creations are perfect. Only believe the next one could be.

Darth Shaa

Darth Shaa

Appearances: Dark Lord of the Sith

A Sith Lady who broke Momin out of prison after he was arrested for a gruesome art display. She trained Momin to be a Sith, but as Momin disliked being referred to as an apprentice, he killed her.

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• Asshole Victim: Given she was a Sith and had killed prison guards to set Momin free, it's hard to feel too sorry for her when Momin killed her.
• Badass Cape: She wore one as part of her outfit.
• Combat Stilettos: Is shown wearing these.
• Dark Action Girl: The first female Sith to actually appear in canon (excluding the Presence, who only appeared as a disembodied voice). She was able to fight her way through an entire prison to get to Momin, though he ultimately defeated her in a duel after she trained him.
• Dual Wielding: She wielded a pair of red lightsabers in battle.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Momin killed her during a duel by stabbing her through the abdomen in mid-air.
• Small Role, Big Impact: She was responsible for breaking Momin out of prison and introducing him to the ways of the Sith and the Dark Side.
• Spikes of Villainy: Her outfit included spikes on her sleeves and leggings.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: She gets little development; all she is shown doing is breaking Momin out of prison, training him, and then being killed.

Darth Caldoth

Darth Caldoth

Species: Duros

Appearances: Myths & Fables | Dark Legends

An ancient Sith Lord who was once one of the most powerful and feared beings in the galaxy. Myths about his dark deeds and powers are still told throughout the galaxy. Caldoth also authored The Bestiary of Darth Caldoth, a text which contained extensive information about Sith warbeasts and creatures that was kept secure by the Jedi Order.

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• Crazy-Prepared: Knowing his apprentice was plotting to kill him, Caldoth altered one of the rituals within his study so that if Ry Nymbis attempted to use it on him it would backfire and turn him into stone instead.
• The Dreaded: During his reign he bacme so feared that no one even dared to speak his name for fear of summoning him.
• Evil Overlord: Eventually he began to build his own empire of slaves and loyal subjects from Korriban, but only after centuries of gathering knowledge and power behind the scenes.
• Evil Sorcerer: Very skilled at Sith magic, alchemy, and rituals.
• Long-Lived: According to myth he lived for centuries gathering knowledge and power throughout the galaxy.
• Shrouded in Myth: He ruled so long ago that many of the stories told of him have become warped by time and mythology, making the exact details of his life unclear to the modern galaxy.
• The Starscream: Like any proper Sith he murdered his master and took over their assets and knowledge.
• Would Hurt a Child: His first act upon acquiring Ry Nymbis as his apprentice is to leave him with a slaver camp who force him to fight creatures and other slaves to death for seven years. After returning for him and slaughtering the slavers in a show of power, Caldoth cuts off part of Nymbis' lekku for attempting to assault him.

Darth Krall

Darth Krall (Radaki)

Appearances: The High Republic (2021) (vision only)

One of the Lost Twenty, Radaki left the Jedi Order and became a Sith Lord, Darth Krall.

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• Early-Bird Cameo: He was first mentioned in Dooku Jedi Lost.
• Face–Heel Turn: He used to be a Jedi Master, but out of his belief that Jedi should be allowed to keep their ties to their families as well as their wealth, he left and was seduced by the Sith.
• Foreshadowing: He appears to Keeve in a vision, and both Keeve and Krall were mentioned in Dooku Jedi Lost to have become members of the Lost Twenty.

Darth Revan

Darth Revan

An ancient Sith Lord.

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• Adaptational Villainy:
  • In Legends, Revan was a Jedi war hero who zigzagged between the Dark Side and Light Side before ending on the Light. In stark contrast, from what we've read so far in canon and getting a legion named after them by the Sith Eternal, this version of Revan is so far only known as a Sith lord. Possibly justified, though, because the Sith Eternal might have simply co-opted Revan's Sith legacy for their own agenda; even in Legends, there were Sith that revered him long after his death and either were oblivious to or willfully chose to ignore his redemption (ironically, one of those Sith was Darth Bane, who got the idea for the Rule of Two from him).
  • In a subversion, Revan almost was immortalized as a villain in Legends as well, as a deleted scene of the Mortis arc in Star Wars: The Clone Wars was going to show him as a Sith ghost manipulating the Son along with Bane. As Revan's fate after the Battle of Rakata Prime had not been released by the time the episode was introduced, his appearance in Mortis would have only implied he turned evil again at some point and died as a Sith (unless his Mortis self was meant to be Revan's Dark Side Literal Split Personality, introduced years later in Star Wars: The Old Republic). Also, George Lucas and Dave Filoni didn't like the idea that the Sith could return from death or become Force Spirits like Jedi and other Light Side Force users could due to the implications and contradictions it had with Lucas' view of the Force.
• All There in the Manual: Their name is canon by way of The Rise of Skywalker guidebook.
• Ambiguous Gender: While their gender could be decided by the player in their game of origin (though his gender was fixed due to his NPC status in Star Wars: The Old Republic), he was male in the context of the Legends continuity. In current canon, it has not been revealed.
• Ambiguously Human: They were human in Legends, but their species in canon is currently unknown.
• Canon Immigrant: They originated in the Legends video game Knights of the Old Republic. At the very least, their name is canon again.
• Cool Mask: Revan's most defining feature is his Mandalorian war mask, which concept art for The Rise of Skywalker depicts him wearing on an ancient Sith bas-relief.
• Orphaned Etymology: "Revan" in Legends was derived from the nickname he got during the Mandalorian war, "The Revanchist". Revanchism is a philosophy stating that the noblest purpose of war is to reclaim lost land, which was what Revan attempted to do by joining the war effort. There is no word if this is canon yet, though Revan works perfectly fine as a name without the explanation.
• Schrödinger's Canon:
  • According to Legends, he was a human male who lived a little under 4000 years before the Skywalker Saga, defied the Jedi Council to protect the Republic from the Mandalorians, was driven to the dark side by Sith Emperor Vitiate, waged war on the Republic, was betrayed by his former friend and apprentice Darth Malak, was brainwashed back to the light by the Council, and became the hero who saved the Republic from Malak.
  • He also had a holocron containing a vast amount of knowledge, most notably the Nathema Ritual, arguably the single most lethal use of the Force ever, which was further used to develop the smaller scale, but nonetheless devastating Thought Bomb.
• Shrouded in Myth: So far, the only confirmed details about them is that they existed, and nothing else.

The Rule of Two

Darth Bane

Darth Bane

Voiced by: Mark Hamill

Appearances: The Phantom Menace^note mentioned in the novelization only, which is now non-canon except where it agrees with the movies; it's listed here because George Lucas wrote Darth Bane for the backstory of the Sith, and as such is to be treated as canon regardless of the Legends decision | The Clone Wars

"The Sith killed each other, victims of their own greed. But from the ashes of destruction, I was the last survivor. I chose to pass my knowledge onto only one. I created a legacy so resilient that now you come before me."

Darth Bane was an ancient Sith who founded the Rule of Two a thousand years before the Clone Wars. During the war, Yoda faces a vision of him on Moraband during his quest to learn the secrets of manifesting his identity beyond death.

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• Affably Evil: While definitely imposing in appearance, his spirit was very charismatic toward Yoda, figuring that he could serve as his successor.
• All There in the Manual: Darth Bane was first mentioned in The Phantom Menace novelization, where he is stated to have founded the modern Sith order.
• Ambiguous Situation: Bane's statement that the Sith "killed each other" and were "victims of their own greed" is phrased vaguely enough to make it unclear as to whether he survived by being above such weaknesses (as he implies) or by orchestrating the downfall of his fellow Sith to recreate them under the Rule of Two (as he did in Legends). Besides which, as a Sith Lord, Bane's word may or may not be trustworthy in any case.
• Back from the Dead: Subverted. He appeared to be alive in some form when Yoda encountered him, but the Jedi Master recognized that he was only an illusion.
• Casting Gag: There's a certainy irony that one of the greatest Sith Lords of all time, is played by Luke Skywalker one of the greatest Jedi of all time.
• The Chosen One: Not as explicit as in Legends with the Sith'ari prophecy, but still strongly alluded to. Here, Bane still mentions being the Last of His Kind and rebuilding the Sith through the Rule of Two, a new order that would eventually lead the Sith to glory. Even Yoda recognizes Darth Bane and his legacy.
• Cool Mask: Wears one in his retconned appearance.
• Creepy Monotone: He speaks in a raspy, low-toned voice that never falters.
• Dead All Along: He appears as a spirit in front of Yoda and talks to him as if he achieved immortality. Yoda, however, isn't fooled by Bane's words, knowing that he's just an illusion.
• Enlightened Antagonist: Bane shows great insight that even modern Sith lack by realising that the Sith's power-hungry, ambitious ways are as much a detriment to their order as a strength, to the point that he looked down on the other Sith of his time for falling victim to such flaws. The Rule of Two is his idea of turning this weakness into a strength, an effort that largely succeeds.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Perhaps the biggest flaw behind his Rule of Two philosophy. For it to succeed, not a single one of the Sith that made up the chain could redeem themselves and either break the chain or spill the beans to the Jedi. While the Rule of Two did eventually succeed, it only did so temporarily until Vader returned to the Light and cut it off permanently.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Courtesy of Mark Hamill, who also plays Luke in the main franchise. It's unclear as to whether or not his being a spirit had anything to do with this.
• The Faceless: Bane's unmasked face has yet to be revealed in canon.
• Giggling Villain: He chuckles a few times when he encounters Yoda.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: His eyes are all yellow.
• Kirk Summation: Yoda tells Darth Bane that the Sith Lord has no power over him, given that he's already dead.
• Large Ham: His Evil Gloating is as bombastic and overly-dramatic as one would expect from a villain voiced by Mark Hamill.
• Last of His Kind: Though the circumstances are currently left vague, much like before, Darth Bane was the last Sith standing before establishing the Rule of Two.
• Not Afraid to Die: A unique quality among the Sith; Bane's Rule of Two actually requires that Sith masters such as himself be willing to die to ensure the ascendance of a worthy apprentice and the order's continuation. When Bane's spectre confronts Yoda, he practically dares the Jedi Master to strike him down (although, as Bane is already dead, his lack of fear is justified).
• Only Sane Man: He came up with the Rule of Two specifically to quell the Sith's Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, knowing that it was hurting them more than the Jedi. His point still stands even with Sith that came after him, as many of them fell into the same pitfalls as the old order, only enforced the Rule of Two when it was convenient for them, and often exploited loopholes in the rule.
• Paper Tiger: While little has been revealed of Bane's abilities in life, his spirit was intimidating in appearance, and carried on Bane's charismatic and imposing personality, but, as Yoda points out, it is little more than a ghost and has no power over the material world. The spectre of Bane dissipates after Yoda expresses his lack of fear of the ancient Sith Lord.
• Posthumous Character: He died hundreds of years before the Palpatine became Supreme Chancellor, but he created the Rule of Two and founded a number of principles that subsequent Sith Lords would follow.
• Power Echoes: His voice is distorted and echoic, possibly due to his nature as a disembodied spirit.
• Pragmatic Villainy: He only created and enforced the "Rule of Two" because the Sith were as efficient at killing each other as the Jedi were, even though he wanted the Jedi dead and knew that a greater number of Sith would likely make their destruction easier.
• Predecessor Villain: He's the founder of the line of Sith that spawned Sidious/Palpatine, Maul, Dooku, and eventually ensnared Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, the father of the one who would bring the order down, Luke Skywalker (Bane is ironically played by Luke's actor, Mark Hamill).
• Retcon: A model of Darth Bane resembling his appearance in the Expanded Universe was created for the Mortis arc, but a new model bearing no semblance to prior depictions was created for his ghost. The episode guide makes it clear that the latter is now considered his appearance in the Canon.
• Rule of Two: He created the Trope Namer to govern the Sith and stop their Chronic Backstabbing Disorder from weakening the Order.
• Schrödinger's Canon:
  • His real name is Dessel, and he was originally a mere miner from the planet Apatros.
  • In Legends, Bane didn't simply take advantage of the Sith destroying themselves, he ensured it by manipulating them into using a Dark Side weapon that killed everyone who tried to use it. The canon Bane only says that the Sith "killed each other", but his phrasing is vague enough (and his word dubious enough) to lend some ambiguity to the matter.
• Shadow Archetype: To Luke Skywalker. Bane is a legendary Sith Lord who lived a thousand years before the films, the last of his old order who founded a new Sith Order, while Luke is a Jedi Knight who lived in the (relative) present of the films as the last of the old Jedi, left with the responsibility of building a new Jedi Order after the war against the Empire is won. Bane's Sith Order was a runaway success, while Luke's Jedi Order was destroyed; Bane died in accordance with the Sith doctrine he created, while Luke spent the last days of his life as a broken man in exile. The comparison and contrast between the two is supported by the fact that they're both portrayed by Mark Hamill.
• Sole Survivor: As he explained, he was the single remaining Sith Lord after the last wars over a thousand years prior.
• Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: He invited Yoda to succeed him by killing him. It didn't work out, given that he had already died, and Yoda knew this.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Bane's ghost sports a pair of glowing yellow eyes that emphasise his otherworldly nature.
• Übermensch: After the destruction of the old Sith Order, Bane recreated it in his own image. Bane's comments in his posthumous appearance to Yoda also imply that he considered himself above the other Sith of his era, describing them as "victims of their own greed".
• Villain Has a Point:
  • In describing the Sith of his time as "victims of their own greed", Bane is 100% right about a flaw that continues to occur even in modern day Sith, whose lust for power costs them dearly time and again.
  • Bane is dead on when he describes the resilience of his legacy; Bane's Sith Order endured for a thousand years, and ultimately laid low the Jedi Order.
• Villainous Legacy: Bane created the Sith's Rule of Two and founded the modern Sith Order that appears throughout the Skywalker Saga, giving him a strong influence on the galaxy well over a thousand years after his death. The Clone Wars, the Empire, and the First Order, all come from Bane's Sith. It's no exaggeration to say that without him, the events of the Skywalker Saga (and virtually all of the current Star Wars canon) would never have happened.
• Voice of the Legion: Possibly justified by the supernatural nature of his appearance.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: He believed that Yoda sought his spirit to become his new apprentice. How wrong he was.

Darth Zannah

Darth Zannah

Appearances: The Clone Wars (indirect mention only)

Darth Zannah was the sole apprentice of Darth Bane. Through Bane's new Rule of Two, the legacy of the Sith was passed down through Zannah after they defeated Bane in combat.

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• Adaptational Villainy: Downplayed, and is this only by omission. As noted under Schrödinger's Canon, Zannah was a straight up Tragic Villain in Legends, having lost her best friend and surrogate parent to Jedi who didn't know any better, killed the Jedi in her anger, admitted that killing them felt right at the moment, but only made her feel worse. She was soon after taken in and brainwashed by Bane, becoming a cold-blooded killer under his tutelage. In the current canon, we know nothing about their personality other than they’re as a Sith Lord.
• All There in the Manual: The Star Wars Helmet Collection recanonized the name of Bane's apprentice as Zannah and that they felled Bane on Ambria.
• Canon Immigrant: So far, the only things carried over from Legends is that Zannah was Bane's apprentice and that they killed him on Ambria, both recanonized via the Helmet Collection.
• Schrödinger's Canon:
  • In Legends, Zannah was a human woman, nicknamed Rain before she was found by Bane. (Zannah was actually her original name, as she came from a planet where using birthnames is discouraged.)
  • Zannah's Dark and Troubled Past is that during the New Sith Wars, as a child, she tagged along with her Force-sensitive cousins to join the Jedi (who were desperate for more fighters) in a campaign on Ruusan, despite herself not showing any Force affinity. It was only after she went missing-in-action and meeting an individual from the Force-sensitive natives of the world that her strength in the Force was strong, and though it was prophesied by her new friend that she would fall to the Dark Side, Rain believed that Screw Destiny was possible. When the Jedi began to massacre the natives as a Mercy Kill due to the latter going mad from the local Jedi-Sith conflicts, they mistook Rain's friend as hostile and killed it, causing Rain to snap and kill them in retaliation. Rain then met Bane, threw away her nickname, and history went from there.
  • After defeating Bane, Zannah became the master of Darth Cognus, an Iktotchi assassin that Bane and Zannah had befriended (for lack of a better word).
• Surpassed the Teacher: Zannah eventually slew Bane in a duel on Ambria, fulfilling the tenets of their master's teachings about the Rule of Two.

Darth Tenebrous

Darth Tenebrous

The master of Darth Plagueis.

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• Posthumous Character: Only vaguely discussed, having presumably died decades before The Phantom Menace.
• Schrödinger's Canon: In Legends, Darth Tenebrous - the master of Plagueis was a Bith starship designer known as Rugess Nome, a Sith Lord obsessed with predicting and controlling the future. He notably also broke the Sith's Rule of Two, training a fellow Bith (and possible relative) named Darth Venamis, until Plagueis, fitting of a Sith killed Venamis, and eventually Tenebrous.

Darth Plagueis

Darth Plagueis

Species: Muun

Appearances: Revenge of the Sith^note mentioned only | Tarkin^note mentioned only

"Ironic. He could save others from death, but not himself."

— Palpatine

A dark figure shrouded in mystery. He was able to manipulate midi-chlorians to create life and even stop death. He taught Palpatine, whom he rechristened as Darth Sidious. He died at Palpatine's hands after teaching his student everything he knew — except, apparently, the power to control life and death.

Many aspects of the character were first discussed in the Legends novel Darth Plagueis; the author of that was known to have been in contact with George Lucas when he wrote it, meaning that many initially treated that novel's portrayal of the character as Loose Canon, even though this is not explicitly the case. While the novel is officially in the territory of Canon Discontinuity, key details in Tarkin, such as the inclusion of his personal droid 11-4D, suggest that elements of the story that can be considered Broad Strokes. The sourcebook Ultimate Star Wars also agrees with some information on Darth Plagueis that was first conveyed through the novel, but it notably differs in terms of when his death took place — Darth Plagueis met his end shortly before Darth Sidious took an apprentice of his own instead of after most of the events in The Phantom Menace.

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• All There in the Manual: The Ultimate Star Wars sourcebook sheds a lot of light upon the character. It states that he was a full-blown lich in that he could prevent death completely — not just people that he cared about. It also states that he was killed by Darth Sidious shortly after his student traveled to Dathomir to "adopt" Darth Maul.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • The removal of his Legends background leaves indecisive whether it means him to be either an Adaptational Jerkass or Adaptational Nice Guy in Canon, as all the info we have about Plagueis having "loved ones" is contained in an ambiguous oral tale. On one hand, surprisingly for a Banite Sith, the Legends version of Plagueis did have loved ones, even if they basically amounted to Sidious (the people he saved from death in Palpatine's narration are probably meant to be his forceful experiment subjects) and possibly one droid. On the other hand, the more ambiguous canonical predicament balances two possibilities that differ each one from his Legends version: either Palpatine lied and Plagueis was your typical Sith with love for absolutely nobody but himself, or Palpatine told the truth and Plagueis was a rare Sith who had a significant number of loved ones.
  • The absence of his novel background implies Plagueis is now an Adaptational Badass, although with no certainty about it. With only Sidious' tale to interpret the events, the fact that he capitalized on Plagueis' sleep to kill him implies Sidious knew he could have not defeated Plagueis had the latter been awake, which would put Plagueis in an incredible power level. In the Legends novel, Plagueis might have been effectively stronger than Sidious by that point, but if so, it was not by an enormous margin; Sidious killed him not even while he slept, but while he was shitfaced drunk, as Plagueis breathed through a mechanical mask that could be easily destroyed with a well timed betrayal.
• Anti-Villain: Palpatine described him as being a tragic figure with good intentions. Canon details outside of Revenge of the Sith suggest that this was not the case, although he may have been more noble than Palpatine was (not that this is too difficult, considering Palpatine is one of the most thoroughly and unrepentantly evil characters in Canon).
• Artistic License – Biology: The films establish that midi-chlorians are microorganisms that live inside every living cell, and that they are symbiotic (much like how mitochondria are thought to be microorganisms that fused with other cells to become organelles inside them). It's left completely unclear how it would be possible to create life itself using them though, or if the powers of Plagueis were greatly exaggerated. However Ultimate Star Wars confirms that he could prevent people from dying using his power to manipulate midi-chlorians.
• Bad Powers, Bad People: By the (admittedly somewhat strange) standards of the Jedi. In their eyes, Darth Plagueis is perverting the natural order, forcing his will upon the affairs of life and corrupting it, even if he were legitimately doing so to heal the sick and cure the injured (presuming that Palpatine wasn't making that part up). Even if Darth Sidious' claims he was aiding people he loved were true, he'd still be this in the eyes of the Jedi, since he's not only perverting the fabric of life but doing so out of one of the most deceptive feelings.
• Big Sleep: Died in his bed, thanks to Palpatine.
• Brought Down to Badass: He feared losing power (and thereby this phenomenon), which is part of the reason why he sought out an apprentice in the first place.
• Creating Life Is Bad: Or at least, frowned upon by some, who consider it "unnatural".
• Creating Life Is Unforeseen: If it's true that his experiments really did lead to the birth of Anakin as Palpatine hints, then they had the exact opposite effect of what he intended - he wanted to make the Sith more powerful, but ultimately ended up destroying them for good (see Unwitting Instigator of Doom below). As Palpatine would say, ironic.
• Dark Is Not Evil: According to the tale that Palpatine told Anakin, he was a relatively benevolent Sith Lord. As Tarkin implies, this was a lie.
• Dark Messiah: Palpatine's "he could save others... but not himself" is a chilling parallel to a bit of biblical scripture — while what little canon information there is on the character does not make it clear if he was this or not, it can be inferred that Palpatine saw him as this.
• Death by Adaptation: In the Legends novel named after him, one of the story's big twists was that he was alive around the time of The Phantom Menace and that he wasn't killed until after Palpatine became Supreme Chancellor. As far as canon indicates, Darth Plagueis was killed shortly before Darth Sidious "adopted" Maul, which is exactly the way the story was implied to go in Revenge of the Sith.
• The Dog Bites Back: He once told Palpatine that the Force could apparently strike back in response to being manipulated. Presumably, this referred to Anakin and Luke leading to Palpatine's demise after how he tainted the Force.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Invoked by Palpatine as a way to sway Anakin closer to the Dark Side. He described his master as being a wise, heroic figure that could bring loved ones back to life with his Force powers, and one who would be unfairly shunned by the Jedi had any of them known about his existence. Tarkin makes it clear that he was after power in the same way his student was, and that as such, he likely did not have "loved ones" (with the possible exception of his apprentice).
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He was said to have people that he loved, who he kept alive by manipulating the Force. In his story to Anakin, Palpatine strongly implies that "his apprentice" was one of said people... Not that it stopped Palpatine from killing him. Ultimate Star Wars states that he did not restrict using his powers to those he cared about — if such people even existed.
• Evil Counterpart: He can be considered this to Qui-Gon Jinn, as both considered themselves radical purists for their respective orders; whereas Qui-Gon was the Only Sane Man in an increasingly complacent Jedi Order and believed that pure balance could only be found by embracing one's own wisdom instead of the judgement of commitee, Plagueis was the only Master of the Sith in an order that craved absolute power to discover the ultimate power, via a scientific approach. Both were also proponents of science; in addition to Plagueis's aforementioned obsession with science, Qui-Gon believed Anakin Skywalker was the Chosen One because of his impossibly high midi-chlorian count, seeking scientific evidence of what he was beginning to suspect was a prophecy at work. Last, but not least, both trained the apprentices who would eventually go on to train Anakin Skywalker themselves.
• Fantastic Science/Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Apparently he approached the study of the Force in a scientific way.
• Genre Blind: So you're an evil mastermind who followed the Rule of Two, and you teach your apprentice almost everything without expecting it to be a danger to you without outright abolishing that principle. Biiiiig mistake.
• The Ghost: His canonical appearance has never been described, and every one of his "appearances" is just an account of what Palpatine remembered about him.
• Good Powers, Bad People: Keeping people from dying and conceiving life are good for all intents and purposes, but not when these powers are being wielded by a Sith Lord.
• Greater-Scope Villain: He was responsible, either directly or indirectly, for putting the Force out of balance and training Palpatine, who would take advantage of the imbalance and conquer the Galaxy. However, he died long before he could see the fruits of their labors pay off.
• Idiot Ball: He was said to have been wise — and indeed, was able to show great intellect by learning to control an aspect of the Force that nobody else could — but he didn't count on Palpatine betraying him in spite of the Rule of Two.
• Immortality Seeker: He sought to control death. He was successful on some front in that he was able to keep others from dying — but he failed in that he could not apply this power to himself. He also developed or learned how to transfer his essence into another body (a marked departure from his "Legends" counterpart who refused to learn that ability} but was not able to act fast enough to use it to prevent his demise at his apprentice's as Rey witnesses in Palpatine's memories.
• Ironic Name:
  • In spite of having his name derived from the word "Plague", his powers apparently extended and created life.
  • Palpatine giving him the epithet of "The Wise" could be seen as a rather cruel joke about him being Genre Blind. In Legends, it explicitly was: As Palatine kills his master and rants of his failings, he creates the epithet at the moment to mock him.
• Klingon Promotion: He was killed by Palpatine, who succeeded him as the reigning Sith Lord and took Darth Maul as his apprentice shortly thereafter. He most likely carried this tradition out himself.
• Luke, I Might Be Your Father: It is strongly implied that when he manipulated the Force to create life, he was responsible — be it directly or indirectly — for creating Anakin, who was conceived through the Force. Palpatine seems to particularly relish telling that part of the story to Anakin, suggesting that he may believe that this was the case. Although Darth Vader himself comes to believe that Palpatine was responsible for his origin.
• Mad Scientist: To learn how to manipulate the Force to gain control over life, he needed test subjects to learn from.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Per the norm for Sith Lords, his name is derived from a menacing word — in his case, "Plague".
• The Omniscient: According to Palpatine he knew everything there was to know about the Force, both the light and dark sides. This is no doubt an exaggeration.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: While he had a name in Legends, Hego Damask II, that information has never been revealed in the canon timeline, and thus Darth Plagueis is now only known as Darth Plagueis.
• Our Liches Are Different: He differs from the standard lich archetype in that was alive when he utilized certain necromancy-esque powers, but he fits the role more closely in that he was able to prevent death via his unnatural powers. He filled out the Immortality Seeker role to a tee, though it is not clear if he was able to resurrect any of his subjects.
• Posthumous Character: Palpatine's former master certainly had an influence on the Emperor-to-be, even if we never see him in Revenge Of The Sith. It's also implied that he may have been directly or indirectly responsible for Anakin's conception.
• Pragmatic Villainy: His approach in comparison to Palpatine's For the Evulz mindset. For example, he chides Palpatine whenever the latter indulges in either building up or breaking down Maul's ego, especially when it was unnecessary or under false pretenses, and his torment of Palpatine was no more than necessary to cultivate his growth into an ideal Sith. While teaching Palpatine almost everything he knew and letting the guy in his inner circle in the first place was a suicidal miscalculation on his part, he was at least smart enough to not teach Palpatine the secrets to life and death. At least not the potential immortality part.
• Riddle for the Ages: Since Lucasfilm aren't in a hurry to retell his story, his motivations and personality are a complete mystery to everyone but Palpatine.
• Robot Buddy: A darker example in the form of 11-4D, who Palpatine later inherited.
• Shrouded in Myth: Little is known about him other than what Palpatine tells Anakin, incidentally making him sound like he was a legendary figure who died long ago rather than his own master.
• Slain in Their Sleep: Palpatine tells Anakin that Plagueis' apprentice (who was actually Palpatine himself) eventually murdered him in his sleep, though he doesn't go into specifics about how exactly he was killed.
• Too Dumb to Live: Regardless of whether or not he cared about Palpatine, he should have known better than to teach his student almost everything he knew out of pragmatism.
• Undignified Death: Rather than meeting his end in a duel with his apprentice in accordance with Darth Bane's doctrines, Plagueis is simply murdered in his sleep and used as a cautionary tale by his twisted disciple.
• Unknown Character: Darth Plagueis is one of the most important characters in setting up the Skywalker-centric era of Star Wars, between leading Palpatine to become an Immortality Seeker and potentially being responsible for Anakin's birth (although his apprentice may have handled the latter part, or so Vader thinks). However, he has never been shown or fully described, and is long dead by the time that Palpatine himself is defeated. Lucasfilm have indicated that there are no immediate plans to ever reveal the character, making the villainous figure a magnet for fan speculation.
• Unreliable Expositor: The first things that were ever detailed about the character came from Palpatine, a Consummate Liar if there ever was one. Tarkin paints a slightly clearer picture which suggests that Palpatine was blatantly sugarcoating the story he told Anakin. Ultimate Star Wars also gives a fairly objective — if vague — view on the character.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Played straight and possibly inverted. He is indirectly responsible for Anakin's Face–Heel Turn through Palpatine's story about how he could revive the dead by manipulating the midi-chlorians. However, he was implied to have been responsible for Anakin's conception through said experiments, leading to Palpatine's eventual demise and the balance of the Force being temporarily restored.
  • On the other hand, his teachings are what allowed Palpatine to survive the death of his body in Episode 9 and transfer his essence to his clone body on Exegol as Rey learned.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Once Palpatine learned everything he could from him, he killed him in his sleep.

Darth Sidious

Darth Sidious (Sheev Palpatine)

See his separate page.

Darth Maul

(Darth) Maul

See his separate page.

Darth Tyranus

Darth Tyranus (Dooku)

See his separate page.

Darth Vader

Darth Vader (Anakin Skywalker)

See his separate page.

Sith Eternal

Sith Eternal

Sith Eternal

Appearances: Darth Vader (2020) | Shadow of the Sith | The Rise of Skywalker

"At last the work of generations is complete. The great error is corrected. The day of victory is at hand. The day of revenge. The day of the Sith!"

— Palpatine's message to the galaxy

A secret cult dedicated to preserving the traditions of the Sith and worshipping the Dark Side of the Force. They are led by the resurrected Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious.

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• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Some of the Sith Eternal cultists are executives of major corporations. This allowed them to use their resources to build up Palpatine's Sith Fleet.
• Cult: They are a secretive religious order worshipping the Sith and seeking to preserve it by establishing a new Sith Empire ruled by Palpatine.
• Galactic Conqueror: Their ultimate goal is to help Palpatine establish a new Sith Empire, the Final Order, which he will rule openly as the Sith Lord Darth Sidious across the galaxy for all eternity.
• Like a God to Me: It's clear they worship Palpatine as some sort of Sith god, and given that he claims to have "all the Sith" within him, he may be powerful enough to count as one. Luckily, he can still be killed by having his own Force lightning reflected onto him.
• The Man Behind the Man: Essentially behind the actions of the First Order, as they helped facilitate Palpatine's resurrection and presumably assisted in his creation and manipulation of Snoke (and Kylo Ren by extension).
• More than Mind Control: It is mentioned in the Visual Dictionary that the children of established members are indoctrinated from birth to advance the interests of the cult and serve aboard the Sith Fleet without question.
• Religion of Evil: They are a cult dedicated to worshipping the Dark Side and the Sith, seeking to assist the restoration of Palpatine's rule to the galaxy, except he will openly rule as a Sith Lord.
• Shadow Government: They have integrated themselves even within the First Order to maintain their influence over the Junta.

Ochi

Ochi of Bestoon

Species: Unidentified humanoid

Homeworld: Bestoon

Appearances: Darth Vader (2020) | War of the Bounty Hunters | Crimson Reign | Shadow of the Sith | The Rise of Skywalker^note deceased, only in flashback

A Sith loyalist and assassin, Ochi was the former owner of the droid D-O, and was tasked by Darth Sidious himself with retrieving the Sith Lord's granddaughter Rey, from her mother and father, who hid her away on Jakku to protect her. When her parents refused to reveal her location to him, Ochi murdered them in cold blood with his dagger. Sometime later, Ochi found himself fleeing from Luke Skywalker and Lando Calrissian, who wanted information regarding a key to Exegol, and ended up on the planet of Pasaana where he fell through the sinking sands in the underground caverns and died of an unknown cause, with his lifeless body being stripped to the bone by hungry gouge beetles.

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• Abusive Parent: He treated his droid D-O rather poorly, to the point where he was timid after being revived out of fear of being harmed by his new owners.
• The Alcoholic: Ochi already has a serious drinking problem in his (chronological) first appearance. Then he gets ahold of an ancient Sith dagger that starts screwing with his head, and his drinking just gets worse and worse in response, leading to…
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Practically his Fatal Flaw later on, as his alcoholism and addiction issues regularly come back to bite him, and it only gets worse as his Sanity Slippage worsens:
  • The tip that led to Luke and Lando seeking him out was the result of Ochi having loose lips after a night of hard drinking and compromising his own position while Lando just so happened to be in earshot.
  • His impulsive killing of Rey's parents and failure to search Jakku first are partly caused by Sith dagger screwing with his head but also by the fact Ochi is severely hungover at the time of the interrogation and not really thinking straight.
  • Ultimately leads to his death; with his stress and anxiety at an all-time high, the first thing Ochi does upon landing on Pasaana is brew up and chug a self-made Gargle Blaster. Naturally, this means when he drunkenly drives out to the Forbidden Valley in search of his quarry he doesn't get very far before fatally crashing into a sinkhole.
• All There in the Manual: Much information regarding his backstory comes from the movie's Visual Dictionary, which reveals that Ochi was a close associate of Yupe Tashu and later tried to escape from Luke and Lando themselves, who sought him believing he might have had information regarding a key to the planet Exegol, which led to Ochi's demise.
• Asshole Victim: He arrived on Pasaana trying to flee from Luke and Lando and was engulfed by the planet's sinking sands, which took him to the planet's underground caverns where he most likely perished of starvation and thirst before his corpse was eventually scavenged by gouge beetles, but considering the guy was a remorseless assassin who viciously killed the loving parents of a young girl, was an abusive droid owner, and was a faithful cultist worshipping the Sith Order, he definitely deserves no sympathy whatsoever.
• Ax-Crazy: Not at first, but the longer he uses the cursed Sith dagger, drinks himself to near-death, carries out his master's orders, and generally suffers, the more unhinged he gets.
• Bad Boss: Judging from D-O recoiling when Rey tries to touch him, Ochi was most certainly a dreadful droid owner who likely mistreated the poor thing physically and psychologically.
  • Even the Droid Crusher Pirate Captain and Stiper aren't safe from him, after their attempts to kill Ochi went south. This also extends to Bosvarga and Cerensco, who are stabbed by the Sith dagger, just for suggesting to look for Rey on Jakku.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Ochi's emotionless, cybernetic Black Bead Eyes perfectly match his cold, homicidal demeanor.
• Butt-Monkey: He's prone to suffering humiliation after humiliation under the service of the Sith, even before his Undignified Death.
• Canon Immigrant:
  • Not Ochi himself, but his profession marks the first instance of a Sith assassin (who originally made their physical debut on the now Legends video game Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords) seen in the new canon.
  • The poisons he uses to assassinate the Imperial Royal Guard including Erstin Deez, Ziroxin-12 and Yurfloo, were from the now Legends video game The Old Republic and the gamebook Gamemaster Screen for Star Wars: the Roleplaying Game.
• Cool Helmet: Together with his field/battle getup, Ochi's appearance during his mission with Darth Vader makes him look like a stripped-down space Batman—which admittedly oversells his level of capability. Ought-Six, captain of the Droid Crush Pirates even mentions wanting the helmet before trying to kill Ochi.
• Double Agent: War of the Bounty Hunters reveals he is a Crimson Dawn operative. This does not mean he is disloyal to the Sith, quite the opposite; Ochi seems to serve all his masters with equal loyalty, no matter how conflicting their goals.
• Eye Scream: His eyes were burned out by a burst of energy from a massive kyber crystal being tortured in Palpatine's Exogol citadel, which led to them being replaced by cybernetics.
• Evil Weapon: Later in life, he receives a fancy Sith dagger… one that's slightly alive, wants to be fed blood, and tells Ochi to kill people. A lot. Needles to say, Ochi's mental state declines badly from that point on.
• Failed a Spot Check: It didn't occur to him that Miramir's Suspiciously Specific Denial about her daughter Rey not being on Jakku was a lead that he should investigate. Justified, as Ochi's judgement by this point is severely compromised by his worsening alcoholism and Sanity Slippage, prompting him to miss the obvious implication and instead investigate a false lead on Pasaana — which leads to his demise — before double-checking Jakku.
• Guns Akimbo: Used both his blaster pistol and A280-CFE rifle to kill several Crimson Dawn assassins.
• Humanoid Alien: Like many other species in the galaxy, he too has a basic humanoid body shape.
• Humiliation Conga: In the 2020 Darth Vader comic series, he is sent to test Vader on Mustafar, who is forbidden from using the Force on Palpatine's orders. He has a good start fighting Vader but soon spends the next six issues being defeated, tortured, taken prisoner, mocked by Palpatine's other servants and the assistance from the Droid Crush Pirates of Bestoon he himself hired, and screaming in absolute terror in the presence of Eldritch Abominations before finally getting his eyes burned out. Things don't get much better for him after that.
• I Fight for the Strongest Side!: Shows seemingly Undying Loyalty to three masters simultaneously, even when all of them are opposed to each other:
  • Emperor Palpatine, the supreme Sith Master and ruler of the Empire.
  • Darth Vader, after experiencing firsthand how powerful he is.
  • Qi'ra, the leader of the Crimson Dawn Syndicate.
• I See Dead People: After murdering Dathan and Miramir, the increasingly unhinged Ochi starts seeing Miramir everywhere. It's not clear if it's because of the Sith knife affecting his thoughts, his own dwindling sanity, or simple drunkenness causing it.
• Kick The Son Of A Bitch: Ochi murders Zargo Anaximander for his droids defending himself and his city from his Droid Crush Pirate minions despite assuring the Sith assassin that he had a tracker on his yacht, the Goldstone, but considering he was a shady person towards Rey and her family despite aiding the Rebel Alliance during the Galactic Civil War, it was probably well deserved since he was also unaware that the family stole his yacht with Lando and R2’s help.
• Large Ham Title: He likes to say his whole title; Ochi of Bestoon. Bestoon being his homeworld, not that most people know that.
• Last Disrespects: He's not obliged to give a dignified burial to those he kills on Sith orders, as demonstrated by callously dumping Dathan and Miramir's corpses into space after killing them.
• Laughably Evil: Starts out this way, but his behavior and the indignities he suffers both get less and less funny as the story progresses and he goes increasingly Ax-Crazy.
• Long-Range Fighter: Ochi is shown to be an excellent shot with a sniper rifle as he once he killed Erstin Deez from over a distance. Another time he killed 10 Crimson Dawn assassins with his rifle at close range and killed more with his pistol. Ochi is not a competent Close-Range Combatant, as he desperately tries to be, ending up loosing to Mace Windu, Luke Skywalker, and Darth Vader.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: As much of an unlucky Butt-Monkey wracked with alcoholism as he is, he is also a deadly Sith assassin with a sizable body count, and people who underestimate him tend to end up rather dead.
• Posthumous Character: He's dead by the time the film takes place, but his dagger plays an important role as the characters try to find a way to translate the Sith inscriptions on it which contain the coordinates to find Emperor Palpatine's Sith wayfinder. He gets a lot of characterization in later published works.
• Sanity Slippage: The longer his service to the Sith goes on, the more Ochi's mental and physical state declines, and it only gets worse when he starts use a Sith dagger that whispers at him to do things. By the time of his death, he's a total delusional mess and would've probably drank himself into an early grave if he hadn't died on Pasaana first.
• Servile Snarker: He's an absolute toady around those he serves (probably a wise move, considering who he works for) but with the cockroach's ability to survive, while snarking out loud nonstop.
• Small Name, Big Ego: See Large Ham Title above.
• Stripped to the Bone: After his death, Ochi's remains were consumed by gouge beetles, leaving only his skeleton behind.
• The Snark Knight: The Darth Vader comics shows Ochi is all snark at everyone and everything at all times.
• Taught by Experience: The first time he works with the Droid Crush Pirates, they end up turning on him and trying to kill him. When he's forced to employ them again years later, he's clearly learned his lesson and makes sure to destroy them first before they can turn.
• Third-Person Person: As his sanity goes increasingly south, Ochi of Bestoon starts doing this more and more.
• Villain Decay: Zigzagged. During the Clone Wars, the Jedi Purge, and the Galactic Civil War, he was one of the galaxy's most skilled Jedi Hunters. In the Present Day, between his alcoholism and sanity slippage-by-Sith Blade, he's not in his prime. That said, he is still dangerous.

Chesille Sabrond

Captain Chesille Sabrond

Appearances: The Rise of Skywalker

A Sith Eternal officer serving in the Final Order who commands the Star Destroyer Derriphan.

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• All There in the Manual: Almost everything we know about Sabrond comes from the Visual Dictionary and the Novelization.
• Ambition Is Evil: She backstabbed, lied, cheated and murdered her way to the captaincy of the Derriphan and is quite proud of her success.
• Card-Carrying Villain: According to the Novelization, she is not even an idealist who believes she's bringing order to a disorderly galaxy. She just wants to work her way up through the Sith military ranks and achieve more and more power and influence.
• Character Death: Dies when her Star Destroyer goes kaboom over Exegol.
• Child Soldier: Like many members of the Sith Eternal, she was born on Exegol and raised to serve as a warrior in the reborn Sith's military. At the time of her death, she was a mere 39 years old.
• Hero-Worshipper: Despite her ruthlessness, she admires Palpatine deeply and even begins taking a strong liking to Pryde once he arrives on Exegol to command the Final Order. She becomes obsessed with with impressing him. It's entirely one-sided, as Pryde doesn't care about Sabrond, her ship and barely even notices when she dies.
• We Have Reserves: Despite her making history by being the first captain of a Final Order Star Destroyer to leave Exegol and the fact she and her crew successfully completed her mission, General Pryde dismisses them as expendable after the Derriphan gets blown up.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In the movie, both she and the Derriphan just sorta disappear from the story as presented in the film. The novelization has the ship return to Exegol and participate in the final battle, whereupon it gets destroyed, killing everyone aboard, including Sabrond.

Milon Lenwith

Lieutenant Milon Lenwith

Appearances: The Rise of Skywalker

A Sith Eternal officer serving in the Final Order. He serves as Captain Sabrond's X.O. aboard the Star Destroyer Derriphan.

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• All There in the Manual: Almost everything we know about Lenwith, including his name, comes from the Visual Dictionary.
• Mook Lieutenant: To Captain Sabrond. He's even an actual lieutenant!
• Satellite Character: He lacks any agency of his own with the story and is never seen anywhere but alongside Sabrond on the bridge.
• We Have Reserves: Despite he and his superior Captain Sabrond making history by being the first captain of a Final Order Star Destroyer to leave Exegol and the fact, his captain and their crew successfully completed their mission, General Pryde dismisses them as expendable after the Derriphan gets blown up.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In the movie, he, Sabrond and the Derriphan just sorta disappear from the story as presented in the film. The novelization has the ship return to Exegol and participate in the final battle, whereupon it gets destroyed, killing everyone aboard, including Lenwith and Sabrond.

Sith Troopers

Sith Stormtroopers

Appearances: The Rise of Skywalker

The next evolution of stormtrooper who served the Final Order during its war against the Resistance in their ultimate push towards galactic conquest. The Sith troopers, also known as Sith stormtroopers, drew power and inspiration from the Sith Order and their dark legacy.

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• Advertised Extra: They were heavily advertised as being elite and powerful Stormtroopers, only for them to barely appear in the final film. At the least, that last part seems to be justified by the fact that, aside from the Star Destroyer that obliterated Kijimi, none of the Sith Eternal fleet left Exegol, and presumably all of their legions were there. That, and the people didn't want the Sith Troopers to help out their First Order counterparts.
• Airborne Mook: There's a variant equipped with a Jet Pack who are used for aerial combat.
• All There in the Manual: Most information about them are in the supplementary materials.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: The Sith Eternal use flash-imprinting techniques to make sure the Sith Troopers are totally loyal to the cause, with no chance of any qualms or hesitation.
• Canon Immigrant: Previous incarnations of the Sith Empire would use their own Sith Troopers in Legends, albeit with different, more unique designs. Except for a Force-sensitive variant used by Darth Krayt, they served the same role as these ones.
• Child Soldiers: Like with the First Order, the troopers are children who were found and smuggled away by Sith Eternal agents and raised to be unthinking soldiers.
• Church Militant: For the Sith Order and the Sith Eternal cultists. Unlike the other Stormtroopers from either the Empire and the First Order, who were mostly unaware of the Sith, Sith Troopers are explicitly based on Sith legacy.
• Cool Helmet: The faceplate on their helmet appears to be based on both the First Order stormtroopers and the Phase II clone trooper helmet.
• Cryptic Background Reference: The legions of the Sith Eternal were named after the Sith Lords Revan, Andeddu, Tenebrous, Phobos, Desolous, and Tanis. Each of them, except for Tanis (who may originate from Rebels), is a Canon Immigrant from Legends. Apparently, their history was hidden from the rest of the Galaxy and only the Sith Eternal cultists know the significance of these names.
• Elite Mooks: Though mostly are Informed Ability due to them being Advertised Extra.
• Evil Is Angular: Their armor is far more angular looking than the smoother features of the First Order's troopers, and even those of the Empire's stormtroopers.
• Faceless Goons: As usual, none of them are ever seen without their helmets.
• Jet Pack: Sith Jet Troopers are equipped with NJP-900 integrated jetpacks.
• Non-Indicative Name: Downplayed. They are not Force-sensitive, or have anything to do with being Sith other than being grunts for their new empire and being named after previous Sith Lords. But they are nonetheless loyal to the Sith and just as bloodthirsty. Palpatine himself lampshades this in Secrets of the Sith.
  Palpatine: Though they have come to be known as Sith troopers, these soldiers bear no connection to the Force. They are Sith in name only. But the brutality of their wrath may soon suggest otherwise.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: They wear black and red armor, and serve the reborn Sith Empire.

Sovereign Protectors

Sith Sovereign Protectors

Appearances: The Rise of Skywalker

Emperor Palpatine's elite personal bodyguards during his decades-long exile on Exegol. Similar to their predecessors, the Imperial Royal Guard and First Order Praetorian Guard, they're clad in red armor with long red cloaks, though with helmets much closer in appearance to that of Stormtroopers.

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• Armor Is Useless: Somewhat averted; while fighting Rey, who uses the Force to deflect their blasters shots back at them, one of them takes a direct hit to the chest and is only briefly staggered, while others drop to the ground after being shot but are back up again several seconds later. It takes at least a few direct hits or being smashed with the Force to put them down permanently.
• Elite Mooks: They're comprised of the most skilled members of the Sith Troopers, who are themselves supposedly Elite Mooks. Their helmets also resemble a red version of the Death Troopers', and their armor seems to be of comparable quality as well.
• Fake Ultimate Mook: Despite being supposedly elite warriors, they are unceremoniously defeated by Rey, who was a Padawan. They don't put up nearly as much of a fight as Snoke's own Praetorian Guards, however while they never give our hero any real trouble, they at least manage to last somewhat longer against her than the basic Stormtroopers or Sith Troopers do. They actually last longer than the Knights of Ren do against Ben Solo, seeing as how a couple of them were still standing by the time Ben took out all the Knights and made his way to the throne room.
• Long-Range Fighter: Unlike their predecessors, who were armed primarily with ceremonial melee weapons, their primary weapons are custom blaster rifles. This puts them at a major disadvantage when their opponent is a Jedi.
• Mythology Gag: In the Legends comic series Crimson Empire, Imperial Sovereign Protectors were elite members of the Royal Guard. Their ranks included the series Big Bad, a former guardsman and aspiring Sith Lord named Carnor Jax.

Other Sith Lords and Affiliates

Savage Opress

Savage Opress

See the Dathomir character page.

DRK-1 probe droids

DRK-1 probe droids, Sith probe droids, Sith seeker, repair droid

Appearances: Darth Maul | The Phantom Menace | Probe Droid Problem | Commander

A type of probe droid traditionally used by the Sith. Darth Maul had at least three of them that he used during his hunt for Jedi Padawan Eldra Kaitis, and later during his hunt for Queen Amidala on Tatooine during the Invasion of Naboo, though one of these probes was left behind on Tatooine. During the Galactic Civil War, the series was used as field repair units by the Imperial Navy.

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• Glowing Mechanical Eyes: If they get extremely annoyed, their eye turns bright.
• Punny Name: "Dark One", get it?

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