Darth Bane: Rule of Two by Drew Karpyshyn

[unspeakablehorror]

I've finished the second Darth Bane novel.

I've written a synopsis with commentary from me (and many spoilers) under the cut:

This was an enjoyable Star Wars story, and I'd compare it very favorably to the Darth Plagueis novel, which I'm quite fond of.  As I mentioned above, I'm going to comment on this story by giving a synopsis with some added commentary from me as I go along.

The story prologue starts out with Darovit, formerly known as Tomcat.  He was not a hugely important character in the previous story, but he plays a pivotal role in this one.  The important thing about this character is that he is Zannah's cousin, and grew up with her.  

Anyway, Darth Bane and tiny Darth Zannah start the story out on Ruusan, after the thought bomb explosion.  The story gives this description for Zannah:

Zannah was only ten, a waif of a girl with short, curly blond hair.  Her clothing was simple and plain to the point of being rustic.  A loose-fitting white shirt and faded blue coveralls, both torn and stained from weeks of continuous wear.  Anyone who saw her scampering after Bane's massive, black-clad form would have been hard-pressed to imagine she was the Sith Master's chosen apprentice.  But looks could be deceiving.

So, here's an observation:  Zannah's ten.  And the Jedi were using her as a child soldier.  She was literally sent to die in their war.  Something I think is a very puzzling aspect of canon is that the Jedi are always described as being so incredibly good, but they're always portrayed as casually doing these absolutely horrific things, like taking child soldiers to die in a war.  It's *details* like this that are why I find Jedi apologism so offputting.      

Anyway, back to the story.  Bane is contemplating how his new apprentice is pretty awesome, given that she had just killed some Jedi for killing her bouncer friend.

Which brings me to...let's talk some more about how the Jedi are not just 'slightly flawed', shall we?  Bane is actually much more magnanimous about these Jedi than I am, thinking of them as simply being 'in the wrong place at the wrong time'.  But then he certainly doesn't care about the bouncers in and of themselves, either.  

But the Jedi should.  The bouncers are both sentient and sapient (and even usually benevolent) beings. The Jedi had been killing them because they were driven mad by the weapons the Sith unleashed and due to their special abilities have thus become a problem for the Jedi.  This shows a blatant disregard for life, that this murder of these beings would be viewed as an acceptable act in order to win their war against the Sith.  The Sith are absolutely culpable in the bouncer genocide, but they were directly aided and abetted by the very Jedi who claim to stand against them. 

Anyway...back to the story.  Bane and Zannah eventually leave Ruusan separately, Bane in his own ship and Zannah via Grand Theft Spaceship in order to satisfy the requirements of her Sith Trial.

I found the scene on Onderon where Zannah is about to hug Bane after completing her Sith trial exceedingly amusing.  She stops short when she notices the parasites called Orbalisks attached to him.  She is incredibly grossed out by these critters, but Bane tells her his hideous armor is permanent. Bane is actually fine with the parasites in fact, because though they are both unsightly and painful, they also make him nigh invincible due to their exceedingly tough shells and healing powers.  At this point the gears in Zannah's head start turning and she asks if the parasites are required Sith fashion. More than anything else, if Bane had pushed her into joining his 'Parasites are Friends' club I think she might have reconsidered the whole thing then and there.  But no, he tells her that parasites are *optional*, so Zannah breathes a sigh of relief and decides that she can still go through with this  Sith thing after all.

There's a timeskip in chapter 10, and we see Zannah ten years later as an adult on Serenno.  She's taken on a lover named Kelad'dan, a red Twi'lek guy who she thinks is pretty hot. She reflects that she will miss him when he dies in her Master's convoluted Sith scheme to keep the Jedi off their trail.

A muun broker appears briefly in this story, and Zannah demands to know why Bane doesn't kill him at the end of their dealings, to which Bane explains that the muun still has value to them.  Zannah objects, saying that he's seen them, but Bane says that the muun has no idea who they really are.  Zannah then recalls a story about a healer named Caleb that her master spared years ago in case he might be useful in the future.  This story ends up being important to Zannah later.

The novel also recounts what's going on with the Jedi.  I find Valenthyne Farfalla a fascinating character, and I confess I was a bit sad when he died.  Described as being incredibly fashionable, he is also incredibly done, especially with the insistence of the more junior Jedi Johun that a Sith still lives.  Johun is less interesting, but he's responsible for inadvertantly causing most of the pivotal events of the story to occur.  Johun is assigned to be a personal guard to Tarsus Valorum, the Chancellor at the beginning of the story, and former Chancellor after the timeskip.

Bane ultimately ends up raiding the stronghold of Sith Lord Belia Darzu, who was known for her terrifying technobeasts.  This stronghold is on Tython, the original homeworld of the Jedi.  Ironically, it becomes the place were the Jedi in this story will ultimately seal their doom.  When Zannah leaves the Jedi Archives with her cousin Darovit in a hurry, she neglects to remove the last datachip she was looking at, which leads the Jedi to her, her Master, and Darovit on Tython.

There is a quite epic battle between the Sith and Jedi, who significantly outnumber them.  The Sith ultimately win the battle, but Bane is mortally wounded by one of the dying Jedi, who turns Bane's own lightning against him.  This fries the Orbalisks, which pump a deadly toxin into Bane on their death.  Zannah tries to get Darovit to heal Bane, but Darovit says he has no ability to remove the toxin from the dying Sith.  Zannah then recalls the story Bane told her about the healer Caleb and takes Bane and Darovit to him.

Caleb initially refuses to heal Bane, and explains to Zannah that since his daughter has long since left and taken on a new name, she will never find her.  Since Bane was only able to get Caleb to heal him the first time by threatening his daughter, Zannah realizes that she has nothing to threaten Caleb with.  At this point, Darovit realizes that she will probably kill Caleb, so he intervenes, convincing Caleb to heal Bane on the condition that Zannah sends a message to the Jedi exposing the existence and current location of the Sith.  Additionally, the ship she arrived on is disabled to prevent her from taking Bane and leaving before the Jedi arrive.  Darovit says that he believes Zannah can come back to the light and be redeemed if she exposes Bane to the Jedi. Zannah, feeling that she does not have adequate training from Bane yet to be a successful Sith Master, agrees to send the message.

When Bane wakes up, Zannah informs him of what she's done, whereupon he immediately insists she kill him so that he doesn't have to deal with the humiliation of being defeated by the Jedi.  Zannah, knowing that Caleb and Darovit are listening in,  cryptically says that there's always hope as long as he's alive.  Bane isn't buying it.  He again insists that she kill him.  She says 'A Sith never surrenders, Master' to which Bane replies that they can't possibly win now and repeats his command that she kill him.  At this point, Bane is furious, but he's also still ridiculously weak, so falls unconscious after trying to rise. 

Zannah, of course, had a plan.  She butchers Caleb, drives her cousin Darovit mad with Sith sorcery, and hides Bane and herself away.  When the Jedi arrive, all they find is Caleb's mangled body, her insane cousin, and the lightsabers of their fallen brethren.  After killing Darovit, they assume that he was the Sith Lord in Zannah's vague message, and thus Zannah puts the Jedi off the trail of the Sith once and for all.

Once Bane regains consciousness, Zannah explains to him what happened and they have a heartwarming Sith bonding exchange where Bane expresses pride in Zannah's twisty plot and Zannah promises that she will continue to study and learn from him until she surpasses and kills him.  

And they lived evilly ever after.  The end (of this book anyway).

What did I think of this book?  Enjoyable characters, lots of action, and plenty of twisty schemes make this a great story for those who enjoy villain protagonists.  This story is very Zannah focused, which I think suits it well, but the secondary characters are still interesting in their own right.  There's a lot more I could say about this novel, but I think I'll leave it at that for now.