Time to Reread the Darth Bane Trilogy

 Disclaimers right off the bat:

1. The book series I'm talking about is better for older teens than middle-school teens. 
2. I am not particularly a Star Wars fan. My favorite of the original trilogy is Return of the Jedi. I never finished the prequels. I never finished the sequels. I never finished the Clone Wars animated TV series. I read almost none of the novels that predate or postdate the original trilogy. If I saw someone commenting on Lord of the Rings with this amount of knowledge or experience, I might be rather annoyed. So, if you're a Star Wars fan who's annoyed with my commentary on something I know comparatively little about, I certainly do not blame you. 
3. The books I'm referencing are books I haven't read in at least thirteen years, possibly closer to fifteen. I'm not at home as I write this, and even if I were I'm pretty sure Mom donated those books because I bought them for Karl and he didn't care, so they probably aren't even there. (And school just got out, and I haven't had time to read them again, so here we are.)
4. This idea has stewed in my brain for awhile now, and it's very much based on scattered ideas that have evolved over more than a decade. In other words, my memory is probably a bit off. 

With that out of the way...

When I saw the trailer for the most recent Disney Star Wars show, which seemed to be told from the point of view of the Sith, I was kind of intrigued. The Sith make for interesting villains.

As a child, Mom used to tell me that Star Wars was the return of stories with clear villains and clear heroes--even though there was more than one way to be a hero, you knew who was a hero and who wasn't. Prior to Star Wars, there were a lot of anti-hero stories, a lot of no-hero stories, etc. 

All that said, I remember thinking Mom would be very upset when the Star Wars sequels first came out. You see, there was a trailer played in movie theaters about whether you, the viewer, preferred the light side of the Force or the dark side of the Force. One invisible character said, "Of course I'd choose the light side!" and the other, more knowledgeable invisible character said, "Are you sure? The dark side is about self-actualization, ambition, reaching your full potential, being the best version of yourself." (Not those words exactly, but that was the idea.) The trailer played it off as not evil, exactly, but hyper-individualist and ambitious. Of course, it is evil, but it doesn't advertise itself as evil. 

A few years before the sequels came out, I had read the Darth Bane trilogy, which I didn't love enough to get into Star Wars much at the time but over the years began to have more respect for. Bane spends most of the books talking about using the Dark Side to find strength and power, in order to be rid of his own weakness. This matches with what the trailer said. 

The key thing about the Bane trilogy, though, is that it portrayed the Dark Side as enhancing your power while destroying you--without delivering on the freedom the Sith promise.

Now, when Disney's newest show was announced, I remember a lot of the reviewers I respected bemoaning the fact that it was about the villains, making the villains sympathetic, etc. I wasn't as disheartened as they were, because again, I remember the nuanced take in the Bane trilogy, where the villain was absolutely a charismatic character but still clearly, clearly, clearly a villain. I wouldn't have minded something like that put on a screen. 

I doubted Disney's ability to pull it off (and from what I've heard, I wasn't wrong to doubt them), but the principle itself intrigues me. The thing about some of these new movies is that they seem to think they can't have a real villain, or that they're somehow obligated to make the guys everyone thinks are good actually be bad guys and the villains are actually heroes. Seriously, that's in everything new, it seems (even Rings on Prime!). But the Bane trilogy had you in the perspective of the villains, made them relatable and interesting, and still made it clear they are villains. Honestly, that's what annoyed me so much about this guy's comment--there already is a Star Wars series that lets you see yourself in the villains. 

To quickly summarize the Darth Bane trilogy: the main character starts out as a miner in a highly depressive planet, he leaves and joins the Sith armies to save his own life, he eventually works his way up to a high rank as a Sith lord, he destroys all the other Sith but takes on one apprentice named Zannah, teaches her to be a ruthless Sith sorceress, develops the "One Master, One Apprentice" rule, and spends most of his time teaching Zannah to become strong enough to kill him, which she eventually does, and then she takes on an apprentice who she has to train to kill her, and so on, and so on. (You can see how this culminates in Luke and Vader fighting for the position of "apprentice" in the Return of the Jedi.) Throughout the books, Bane develops a number of relationships, including with his childhood mentor, his fellow soldiers, one of his Sith masters, and a Sith woman, but none of them stand up against the pressures of the powerful, leaving Bane to conclude that power is all that matters and bonds are only there to serve your purpose for a little while. He believes (and Zannah agrees) he has created the strongest order to defeat the Jedi and perfectly embody the Dark Side of the Force. Through this apprentice-kills-the-master plan, each Sith master will become more powerful than the one before, eventually making them strong enough to destroy the Jedi. 

But in their quest for extreme power, the Sith are destroying themselves. There are several key points where this stands out, but the one that really hits home hard is Bane's insane parasite armor: he gets these bugs all over him, which are strong enough to withstand a lightsaber and wildly enhance his Dark Side abilities, but at the same time are leaking toxins into him that mess with his brain and his ability to control his power. Eventually, they come very close to killing him and Zannah has to save him (murdering her cousin in the process), but even though he survives, throughout the third book he is ravaged by the side effects of those parasites and worrying constantly about his own weakness and premature aging. 

Remember that line from that one trailer about how the Dark Side is all about self-actualization? Bane, in his constant attempts to strengthen himself, lost himself. His attempts to improve his power almost killed him. That whole self-actualization part of the Force was actually self-destructive.  

Incidentally, while Bane is laid out with the parasites killing him, Zannah is talking with her cousin, reciting the Sith mantra that ends with "Through victory, I break my chains", and her cousin says something like, "But you haven't broken your chains. You're still scared, you're still vulnerable." I find that line fascinating, because it shows the lie to the Sith code. While that Disney Star Wars trailer talked about reaching your full potential, the true nature of the Dark Side is to lose yourself completely. (Now, does that indicate that Disney doesn't understand the destructive nature of the Dark Side? Probably.) 

Which brings me to my favorite part of the trilogy. In at least the last two books of the trilogy, there's one character meant to serve as a foil to one of the Sith masters: in the second book, it's Zannah's cousin, whom she murders but who previously demonstrated real wisdom developed from his traumas and is not afraid of what his cousin can do to him, and in the third book, it's either Princess Serra who faces death peacefully after nearly falling to the Dark Side, or it's a character who I'm not going to spoil but I will just say faces certain death calmly while still trying to bring out the good in Bane. Even though these characters are antagonists (because the villains are the protagonists), they have freedom that the Sith can't have, even though their code promises it to them. It's a very clever way of letting the reader see why the Sith are wrong without the Sith themselves realizing it. You, the reader, see things the characters absolutely do not, despite the fact that you are inside the characters' heads. 

The Dark Side being self-destructive isn't exclusive to the Bane trilogy, either; it's been a running theme in Star Wars since before Disney took over. Darth Vader is an obvious example--he became more of a machine than a human when the Dark Side possessed him. Also in the prequels and that one Clone Wars TV show, there was General Grievous, and... yes, I had to Google him to make sure I had this right... he lost most of his natural form to become essentially a droid. Does he become more powerful? I guess. But who is he? He's lost himself. 

I was sincerely hoping for that kind of storytelling from the newest Star Wars show. The intense self-actualization leading to self-destruction in the Sith is fascinating and tragic, and it makes for interesting villains. From everything I've heard, that's not what we got from the newest show, so I think that means it's time to reread the Bane trilogy.