Of Course the Sith Will Return

The understanding that came in Rise of Skywalker, as many fans might have understood it, is that when Emperor Palpatine said he was all the Sith, this meant that when he fell, so fell the Sith. This definitive statement would have made sense if not for many factors, such as the fact that Palpatine is a master strategist that could return at some point or the fact that any Jedi can fall to the dark side. The Sith ideology is not something that dies easily, and it’s easy to make the statement that one way or another, the Sith will return, whether it’s through the Rule of Two that was created by Darth Bane, or a wide-reaching belief that will emerge as a means of balancing out the Jedi should they experience a resurgence in the years to come. At the moment it feels as though leaving Star Wars as it is while taking steps toward reviving the overall story would be a good idea, but this would also mean that to balance things out, the Sith would have to return along with the Jedi. 

In the Star Wars universe, there is a certain balance that was struck when George Lucas created the initial movie, as the ongoing battle between the Sith and the Jedi hadn’t been fully established yet, but it was obvious that the Jedi Order had been established for a reason. It wasn’t until later on that the Sith/Jedi conflict became a big part of the franchise, but once the struggle was seen in the books, the movies, the comics, and the games, people couldn’t get enough of it, and the Sith/Jedi war that has been going on for so long became a big part of this franchise. While it’s not the only part of Star Wars that’s important, it’s one of the elements that people love to focus on.

The Sith are a curious group since like the Jedi they’re drawn from various species and races and don’t discriminate when it comes to who can join their ranks. The only discrimination that comes occurs when it comes down to how far one is willing to go for either order, and whether or not they can commit themselves completely. But as fans of the franchise already know, the Jedi have been the more strict of the two orders while the Sith have been among the toughest. Weakness isn’t prized among either order, but the Sith despise it so much that many of their acolytes ended up being killed by their fellows rather than be allowed to live or leave the order. The Sith order is one that was at one time many members strong since despite fostering the kind of beliefs that would weed out the weak and build up the strong. Once the Rule of Two was established though, the Sith order became exceedingly rare as the need for a master to hold the power and a student to covet it became the norm. But it would appear that this wasn’t the case since in Rise of Skywalker it was revealed that the Sith order had either been rebuilt with numerous acolytes, or Palpatine had figured out how to bring the spirits of the dead Sith into line. 

In any case, it doesn’t feel as though negating every Sith spirit that could easily be canon would be a good idea, since leaving only the Jedi left in a universe as big as that in which Star Wars takes place would create a horrible imbalance. Many people tend to have a very strong opinion about this, as debates have gone on and on about how the sequel trilogy mucked everything up, the prequels mucked everything up, and so on so forth. It’s tough to debate against this since the fact is that while the sequel trilogy did its own thing it still managed to feel like an alternate universe in which the heroes of the original movies were still around, but they’d made the strangest choices. While George Lucas and many others have gone on to say that the Legends books and tales that have been so popular are not real Star Wars canon, the fact that bits and pieces of those stories that have appeared makes this as close to a blatant lie as possible. The only thing that prevents such a thing from happening is the strange direction that the movies went in.

Had the Legends canon been adopted fully by Disney, there would have been a lot more material to work with that Star Wars fans might have fully enjoyed. But as it stands, the Sith are not gone entirely, and they won’t ever be if the Mouse House is smart, since the Sith order creates a great balance that the franchise needs, and should continue to push in the years to come.