A trilogy about a Sith Lord? Uh-oh! Thankfully, Darth Bane: Path of Destruction points us toward the movies as we learn the sordid history, and almost destructive end, of the ancient Sith Lords!
“Two there shall be; no more, no less. One to embody the dark side, the other to crave it.”
Darth Bane: Path of Destruction marks Bane’s transformation from a simple miner to the only survivor of a Sith Purge. Path of Destruction starts with Dessel, a miner on Apartos. He mines for cortosis, the Legends answer to lightsabers (the crystal has the power to short out lightsabers). The cortosis mines are probably the Republic’s best defense against the growing Sith Army, even though the Sith Empire seems to have fallen in the distant past. Dessel lives with his abusive father, who blames Dessel for all of his problems. After accidentally killing his father and two Republic soldiers, Dessel leaves his home to evade the Republic. He gets involved with a Sith military group known as The Gloom Walkers, who are planning an assault on Kashyyyk.
Dessel’s incredible connection to the Force allows him to turn the tides of hard fought battles. These executive decisions put him at odds with his field officers, but put him in the sights of the Sith Lords on Korriban. Dessel begins his training on Korriban, the main Academy for Sith warriors. The Sith Lords take some time to explain all of the different academies he could have been sent to. (Reading about these academies, like the Sith assassins trained on Umbara, in other novels or stories would have been quite a treat to see expanded on their own, I imagine.) The Sith Academy on Korriban is a twisted version of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, where a nexus of Dark Side energy attracts the strongest Sith Lords. Here, Dessel takes the name Bane, a nickname that his father used to call him to degrade Dessel. Lords Qordis and Kas’im take interest in Bane, especially after he kills another student.
Update: The Sith Academies are probably those that were formed at least back in the days of Sith Emperor Darth Vititiate. As far as readers know, the Sith Empire has fallen, but we aren’t sure why – no novel really traces the end of the Sith Empire, as the game is still ongoing when this article is being revised in October of 2019. We do know that there were plenty of set-backs that weakened the Empire, though. With the growing number of Sith Lords, there was a lot of in-fighting. Some Sith Lords, even the ones who advised Darth Vitiate directly, began to plot against the Emperor. Even the most ardent Sith supporters, such as Darth Malgus, lost faith in the Empire. While these probably didn’t contribute 100% to the fall of the Empire (clearly, the Jedi Order led by Satele Shan probably had the biggest impact on ending the War), they were definitely problems that plagued the Sith Order, which Bane addresses directly.
Bane’s prestige rises, until he starts doubting his abilities. He challenges the most promising student in school, but is beaten within an inch of his life. As Bane’s training is sidelined due to his recent slipping, he is given additional instruction under a Sith named Kas’im, alongside a new love interest named Githany. Githany is an interesting character: she does fall in love with Bane, but she is allowed a dimension of nuance and agency as she acts as a double-agent. While we’re used to the Sith betraying one another, this relationship feels fresh and it is given well-earned time in the spotlight in Path of Destruction. Githany helps train Bane as a Sith Lord, rather than treating him like an above-average grunt, setting him up for the purification of the Sith Order that he desires.
Most romances fall flat for me: I can’t get into them as they feel more like plot devices rather than true character progression. This is not the case here: I really sensed a growing chemistry between the two characters. Decisions they make together, or separately about their relationship, feel real; nothing feels like it was written merely to advance the plot. For example, Padmé and Anakin’s relationship. We knew it had to happen, and watching it unfold over the course of the movies, it felt like it was more out of compulsion to move the plot. I never really liked their relationship. Bane and Githany though, have a thriving relationship with believable motivations and likable chemistry.
In light of his recent failures and additional training, he starts to study the ancient texts, learning about the ancient Sith Order, before the Empire, before the Dark Times. He learns about the Sith Order under Naga Sadow, learning how he led the Order during the Great Hyperspace War. He starts to trace patterns of decline in the Sith Order as more and more dark side adepts join the Order. Have you noticed that I haven’t used the word Darth in my synopsis yet? That’s because the modern Sith have abandoned the title in favor of a more equitable Order. Bane finds the holocron created by Darth Revan, ravenously devouring its secrets, where he learns about an ability called the “thought bomb”. In a tale of intrigue and deception, we learn how Bane was able to convince the Sith to wipe themselves out during the final Battle of Ruusan.
Update: The Jedi Order also rebuilds itself after the vicious attack from the Sith Order. After Darth Malgus rammed a Sith gunship into the side of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, the Sith Lords stormed the temple, killing Jedi left and right. This came as the Sith pretended to attend a peace conference on Alderaan. The Jedi seemed crippled by this response, but Jedi Master Satele Shan deftly leads the Order into the future.
As the Jedi rebuild themselves after the Civil War with the Sith Empire, we see that splinter cells form in the Jedi Order. For instance, in this , we are introduced to the Army of Light, led by Lord Hoth. The Army of Light is, as you might expect, an explicit military force made up mostly of Jedi. These Jedi aren’t given a lot of time, but I enjoyed seeing the friction between Hoth and his centaurian-Jedi friend Lord Valenthyne. It was cool to see Jedi who didn’t get along, and maybe get more of a glimpse what it is like to be a Jedi in wartime. This may not be as in-depth of a look on this subject as, say, The Clone Wars, but it brings up a lot of questions about what it means to be a hero in wartime. I really liked seeing this particular aspect of the ancient Jedi, in more of a grey area than anything else. Whereas the series shows a different view on the Sith, we didn’t really see anything truly different in the Jedi. Sure, we saw them in a gray area, an aspect I liked a lot, but that wasn’t enough to differentiate the Old Republic Jedi from the PT Jedi. This may be the trilogy’s only major weak point.
I’ve been a little overloaded with villains. How many times can I beat this point home? But the great thing about the trilogy is that it didn’t just show us the Sith, it changed the Sith up a bit. Some of the Old Republic stories seemed to ask: “How many Sith can we shove into a single story when we’re not encumbered by the Rule of Two?” The meta-textual answer for far too many of these novels was: you can fit a lot of Sith Lords, but you can’t make them compelling characters! In Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, the characters are given time to breathe, and they have something new to offer the mythos. When Sith discuss power in most of the stories we’re familiar with, we hear grandiose discussions about how to kill Masters or gain an army. In the Bane trilogy, the Sith are concerned with holding their power by making everybody equal! This would both save their lives from potential usurpation and, allegedly, give them a much grander army than they would have if everyone was killing each other. I really appreciated this new look at the Sith, and wished more Legends novels would have explored Sith philosophy in new ways like this one.
One of the interesting things that this book can accomplish is how much lore it can explore in a single setting, focusing even on tertiary characters. Even though Knights of the Old Republic covered a lot of interesting material on Revan, this Path of Destruction adds a lot more, such as his final resting place and the existence of his holocron. All of the information on Revan becomes especially interesting considering I have just finished The Old Republic: Revan not too much earlier. I loved seeing Darth Bane learn from Darth Revan, despite knowing Revan returned to the Jedi and fought against the Sith Empire. For some reason, this made me all giddy and was one of the biggest motivators to continue reading in the Legendary Adventures.
I’ll put this out there: Darth Bane is one of the most nuanced and well-handled Sith characters in Legends lore. Spoiler alert, but this trilogy may have pushed Darth Bane into my top five Legends characters list (Other candidates? Mara Jade, Thrawn, of course!). It is hard to not compare most Legends stories to the movies, so I will admit that Bane brings a lot to the table that reminds me of Anakin. The difference is Bane wants to be a Sith, but struggles with his power and ability, whereas Anakin was the opposite.
You probably noticed that I spent more time here on the plot than I do with most novels. Most of the time, the novels that I don’t recount the plot of have either too much going on, or not enough. Bane sits right in the middle of being both plot- and character-driven. Few characters stay flat in Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, and the plot is able to move along without sidelining the characters. This is pretty remarkable, and not a lot of authors can handle this. That adds a lot to this book, and it makes the trilogy indispensable!
Chris Wermeskerch is Mynock Manor’s Sous Chef. You can follow him on Twitter @ChrisWerms. You can follow the site at @MynockManor.
The Old Republic Era: Dawn of the Jedi: Into The Void | Lost Tribe of the Sith | The Old Republic: Revan | Red Harvest | The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance | The Old Republic: Annihilation | Knight Errant | Darth Bane: Path of Destruction | Darth Bane: Rule of Two | Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil | The Old Republic Milestone