Sith Master

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"It is your duty to learn what I know. It is my duty to learn what there is to teach."

―Darth Sidious, to Darth Vader^[src]

A Sith Master was a rank in the Sith Order, reserved for a Sith Lord who instructed a Sith apprentice in the arts of the dark side of the Force. The role of a Sith Master was to pass his knowledge to the student. By tradition, the apprentice had to kill his Sith Master in order to complete his training.

Under the Rule of Two established by Darth Bane, the Order's ranks were limited to two Sith Lords—a Sith Master and an apprentice—at any given time. After a millennium of hiding from the Jedi Order, the Sith returned to power in the galaxy through the rise of Darth Sidious, the Dark Lord of the Sith who killed his Sith Master, Darth Plagueis, and mentored the Sith apprentices Darth Maul, Darth Tyranus, and Darth Vader.

Description[edit | edit source]

"I'm looking forward to completing your training. In time, you will call me master."

―Darth Sidious, to Luke Skywalker^[src]

In the Sith Order, a Sith Master was the title of a Sith Lord who trained a Sith apprentice in the ways of the dark side of the Force.^[4] It was the duty of a Sith Master to learn all that there was to know about the Force, and then to pass this knowledge to his Sith apprentice.^[3]

History[edit | edit source]

"You don't know the power of the dark side. I must obey my master."

―Darth Vader, to Luke Skywalker^[src]

Darth Sidious was the Sith Master who trained several apprentices during his reign as the Dark Lord of the Sith.

Approximately a millennium before the Invasion of Naboo, the Sith nearly went extinct because of their infighting. As a consequence, the last survivor, Darth Bane, established the Rule of Two, which restructured the sect so that there could only be two Sith at a time, a master, and an apprentice.^[4] In the last decades of the Galactic Republic, the Sith Master Darth Plagueis tutored an apprentice in the ways of the Sith. Darth Sidious subsequently managed to reach the highest echelons of democractic power before anointing himself Galactic Emperor.^[5]

Darth Tyranus trained Asajj Ventress as his apprentice during the Clone Wars, though he was still apprenticed to Darth Sidious.^[6] As Ventress grew in power, Sidious grew suspicious of Tyranus' intentions. He ordered his apprentice to kill the Nightsister assassin, and Tyranus complied despite regarding Ventress as his most reliable asset.^[7] Tyranus then sought to replace Ventress with Savage Opress, intending to overthrow his Sith Master after training the Dathomirian Nightbrother in the ways of the dark side.^[8]

Tyranus was ultimately replaced by Darth Vader;^[5] like his predecessor, Vader was an apprentice who mentored Force-sensitive students despite not holding the rank of Sith Master. His apprentices belonged to a cadre of fallen Jedi-turned-Jedi hunters known as the Inquisitorius.^[9] Sidious eventually sought to replace Vader by becoming the Sith Master of his apprentice's son, Luke Skywalker.^[10]

Kylo Ren, the grandson of Vader, was lured to the dark side through the machinations of Sidious and his creation, Supreme Leader Snoke. Although Snoke directly oversaw Ren's training, Sidious considered himself to be Ren's true master. By using Snoke as a proxy mentor for Ren, Sidious managed to circumvent a dark side tradition in which the apprentice completed his training by killing the master who trained him.^[11]