Buy Tales of the Jedi Companion: Sith Powers
3,998 BBY
*So, in this chapter, Ood Bnar decides to teach us about the Sith. To try to keep it a secret would only encourage us, he says, to investigate on our own which could be disastrous.
*So, this is basically an in-universe history of the Sith, from the perspective of the Jedi.
*It is also filled with misinformation. For instance, we are told here that the Sith retained their societal structure until the arrival of ‘a fallen Jedi,’ who then ‘dominated the Sith people . . . turned them into unwilling thralls . . . proclaimed himself the Dark Lord of the Sith.’
*Now, obviously, as most records now indicate, it was actually a group of Dark Jedi that arrived in Sith country after the Hundred Year Darkness. Admittedly, I don’t remember how many; it says in the Sorzus Syn section of Book of the Sith, but I’ve forgotten. I want to say a fairly small number; less than ten maybe?
*So, is this an attempt by Ood Bnar to smooth over the role the Jedi played in unleashing all these Dark Jedi on the Sith? It could play that way. Most likely, just an accident, but it does kind of give Ood some depth if you choose to kind of retcon it into a purposeful distortion of the facts.
*So, there’s this whole section on How Holocrons Work. I still don’t get it.
*So, there’s a whole section about Sith Talismans and all the different powers you can get from them.
*Get this, from the Ensnarement section: “Devices of this nature appear to function exactly as talismans of concentration. This particular version, however, has one added ability: it can immediately turn the wielder to the Dark Side.”
*I ask again why exactly it was so hard for Palpatine to turn Luke to the Dark Side. We’ve already discovered that he could have just injected him with Sith Poison, cut him with Sith Glass, etc. Now we see that if he could have tricked Luke into putting on a Sith Necklace that he would have ‘immediately’ fallen to the Dark Side, no matter what he wanted to do.
*I swear to God, this just infuriates me. I mean, are the people who come up with this crap idiots? They never saw the movies? What? I mean, it’s not like falling to the Dark Side is hard to understand? You give in to your baser emotions and that leads you there. It’s got **** all to do with frigging poisons or necklaces or whatever. I mean, God, this is about as bad as midichlorians when it comes to just cheapening a powerful spiritual concept.
*I actually kind of dig this detail, namely that some of the Sith Amulets are literally indestructible. Some of them, the book says, were created so that the only way to destroy them is by using the Dark Side, so the Jedi are basically unable to destroy them.
*So, then we get the RPG stats on a bunch of Sith powers and the chapter ends.
*As I said, it’s an in-universe text on the Sith, from the perspective of the Jedi. That makes it sound way more awesome than it actually is. Well, whatever.
*CANONICAL STATUS: This work should be considered a piece of propaganda. It is therefore filled with misinformation, factual errors and purposeful distortions. It is NOT RECOMMENDED as a historical resource.
*Distinctly average. Recommended against. 2 stars.
George R. Strayton
*Okay, next time, we’ll wrap up this year with a mad dash through the rest of the companion. Join me next time for Tales of the Jedi Companion: Neutrals – Sites.