Darth Bane: Rule of Two, pages 242 – 289

Woo, some stuff happens friends.

On Coruscant, Farfalla gets really peeved that Johun has shown back up ranting and raving about sith lords. Johun is all no no I brought back this guy somewhat forcefully and he’ll tell you I swear! So where does Darovit go to spend his time while waiting for Johun and Farfalla to have a chat? The god damned archives where Zannah is at. And runs into her! Just after she discovers some data on how to remove the orbalisks from Bane’s body.

Darovit feels a momentary change of attitude and decides that instead of leading the jedi to destroy the sith lords, he needs to help Zannah get off planet instead. So Zannah and Darovit lift off of Coruscant and head to Tython to meet up with Bane. Just as they leave, Farfalla and Johun show up at the library, make a huge scene, and then find that Zannah accidently left her disc she was studying at her computer and realize she’s headed to Tython.

Always lock your computer, folks.

On Tython, Bane has discovered the correct procedure to make a holocron and after studying Belia’s holocron for a couple days he goes back to his ship to meet up with Zannah. Oops, there she is in orbit with Darovit. Oops, there’s a bunch of Jedi right behind her.

Then a ridiculously long fight scene takes place between Bane, Zannah and five jedi. Bane and Zannah kill them all, including Johun and Farfalla.

During this fight, Darovit has been hanging out in the closet with the holocron.

And weirdly, that’s about all that happens of worth during this reading. Well, maybe it isn’t that weird.

Worst Moment: How the hell fast do ships go in Star Wars? Bane spends a few days watching a holocron and during that time Zannah has spent three days in the archives and travelling to Tython arriving just as Bane is about to leave? What the hellllllll.

Best Moment: Johun and Farfalla’s demise. See you later suckers! Johun even has his hand chopped off a la Darovit’s earlier encounter. This whole fight scene is intensely boring where Zannah is just twirling her lightsaber the whole time and we have to read the fight from three different perspectives. This is almost like a secondary worst moment.

Darth Bane: Rule of Two, pages 199 – 241

Surrounded by the debris of what was once his camp, Darth Bane finds himself a little bit bored.  And in being bored, waiting on Zannah to come back to camp with more supplies, he does what most tantrum throwing individuals do: throw himself a pity party.  Wah I can’t make a holocron, wah I have a hundred insects biting into my flesh 24/7 draining away my precious dark energies, wah wah wah.  Cut it out Bane.

This boredom is interrupted pretty quickly by Zannah coming back with an elite sith assassin squad and her new apprentice, Hetton.  Just kidding! Darth Bane kills all of them and Zannah pleads innocent, claiming she only told Hetton she would train him to lure him to camp so Bane would kill him.  She didn’t even jump in on the fight.  Darth Bane asks what would have happen if he had died and she tells him that he wouldn’t have deserved to be called Dark Lord of the Sith then.  Truth.

Then we run into Darovit again.  Except now he’s referred to on Ruusan as the hermit healer.  He lives in the woods and doesn’t hang out with anyone but occasionaly helps a person out if they find themselvse in trouble.  He has heard rumor of this jedi memorial and so he stalks out into the night to see if it’s true.  Of course, we know it is because we already read that 40 or so pages ago and when he finds out boy is he ticked off.  He basically puts sugar in the engines of the construction vehicles and then chuckles and makes his way back home.

Except eventually he runs into Johun and the two of them run through the wild woods of Ruusan back to Darovit’s little hut of a home.  Johun asks him what’s up.  I mean why hate on a jedi?  Guy’s just trying to save the galaxy.  Darovit blames the sudden environmental shift Ruusan is going through on the jedi/sith war of 10 years back and then ends up spilling the beans about Darth Bane and Zannah still existing.  Johun uses his little jedi mind tricks to convince him to go back to Coruscant with him and tell the Senate so they can prevent another war.  But really, let’s be honest.  Johun only wants to avenge Hoth’s death.

Zannah tells Bane about all the artifacts Hetton has back at his place and they scour through his stuff.  Bane decides he’s going to go to Tython and find the lost fortress of Belia Darzu, the sith lady who figured out not only how to make a holocron for reals but also how to make techno-organic-cyborgs.  What does that leave Zannah to do?  Pretend she’s a jedi and infiltrate the jedi archives on Coruscant.  Bane wants to know how to get rid of these stupid Orbalisks and he thinks the archives is the place to find out how.

Bane arrives at Tython with little to no problems.  He finds the fortress, busts in and finds the main room with a holocron sitting on top of an altar.  Also the room is just filled with techno-beasts.  Some are human, some are cats, some are rancors.  A fight ensues and it takes about an hour (according to the exposition) and afterwards Bane slumps down to the floor and recouperates.  Holocron in hand.

On Coruscant, Zannah has taken on the persona of a Padawan assigned to a jedi master on some distant out rim world.  Karpyshyn makes a point to say that she’s so far away there’s no chance she would run into her alter ego and she spent such a small amount of time on Coruscant that no one there now would recognize her anyway.  So you know one of those two things is going to happen.  So she masks her dark side and changes it to seem like she’s some light side lady and then walks up to the front desk to the library and asks to check out some datafiles.  The attendent says yeah sure go for it hows life on the outer rim oh yeah cool whatever.  And she’s in.  Easy as that.

A couple things to point out from this selection of reading:

So every force user has some sort of special gift to them; as if being able to use the force wasn’t enough.  Remember Shigar?  He could tell the history of an object just by touching it.  Bane, if you’ll recall was once able to predict the future.  Karpyshyn seems to have forgotten that, however because it is never spoken about again.  Zannah’s gift turns out to be actual witchcraft.  She can cast weird spells that turn people’s nightmares into reality or, as we witness in the library scene, cause her alignment to shift in the eyes of others.  I mean let’s be fair, this is some serious D&D spell usage going on here.

And then in one moment Bane actually considers the history of Tython. Something like 25k years ago some philosophers showed up.  Some of them drew on the power of Ashla and some Boga.  Good and bad, respectively. This was some sort of primitive idea of the force.  Ashla won out and even as recently as Fatal Alliance Tython was the home base for the Jedi. Then, 1300 years after Fatal Alliance, Tython becomes a festering pit of dark side energies.

Worst Moment:  Seriously with finding another holocron?  I understand that this is Bane’s entire mission in life (even though I still don’t really get why) but if they’re so rare does he have to find one every 60 pages? It’s a trilogy, man.  Have him find two, find a broken one and it’s disappoint boohoo and then finally in the third book he makes one and is happy.  Really, all I want is Bane to be happy.

Best Moment:  Johun is chasing after Darovit through the woods and Darovit leads him directly to his house.  Darovit has an awww crap moment and then just stops dead in his tracks and is all eh whatever, let’s just have some tea.  Then gets his mind forced into doing all the things he doesn’t want to do.  Jedi morals are so ambiguous it’s amazing!

Darth Bane: Rule of Two, pages 155 – 198

Continuing along on this re-introduction of characters ten years later routine, we run into Johun again.  Johun is spending his time with Valorum still, despite the fact that Valorum hasn’t been Chancellor for a few years now.  At the moment, he is acting as his bodyguard on his visit to, that’s right, Serenno.  Valorum is hoping that he can persuade the wealthy of the planet to stop backing anti-republic separist groups so that the republic will thrive.  And of course, Valorum is just the man Zannah has tricked her small group of rebels to strike out at.

Arriving on Serenno, Valorum and Johun see a small group of people waiting for them that they assume are servants of the merchant they are there to see.  Whoops.  Instead they get attacked and their ship gets blown up.  No big deal.  Johun is a jedi so he just kills all of them.  This is an interesting moment.  Johun, again a jedi remember, supposedly is spending most of his time upholding cultures and is generally considered to be one of the “good” guys.  Except that with absolutely no mercy he kills every single person that attempts to attack him.  There is even a moment where he disarms a person and then stabs them in the chest with his lightsaber. Why not capture them?  Put them on trial?  At least you might get some answers.

After Johun’s man slaughtering act we encounter Darth Bane and Zannah. Zannah goes into a tantrum about not understanding why they sent the insurgents on an obviously doomed mission and Bane points out the same routine about distracting the jedi and the republic and then orders Zannah to get him more supplies because he destroyed their camp in a holocron-rage.  I still don’t understand what Bane’s plan for making the sith some glorious empire again is.  So far all he does is waste his time making a memory machine and getting eaten by insects.

Zannah goes off to the city, lets herself get captured by the two remaining insurgents and is swept off to their leader, Hetton’s place. Things get momentarily interesting.  Hetton has a family crest composed of a 8 pointed gold star and has guards that wear full red cloaks and helmets.  I imagine they are like the guards we see briefly in …what Empire Strikes Back?  Return of the Jedi?  I have no idea.  Anyway, I guess maybe this is a partial origin of them.

Turns out!  Hetton has dark side abilities too and is approximately 50 years old.  He and his mother decided to use his abilities to their advantage when he was around 20 and hired out a force wielding mercenary to teach him the dark ways.  Eventually he grew stronger than the mercenary and killed him.  Followed shortly thereafter with the murder of his mother because she wanted him to join the Brotherhood.  He was not interested.  However, Hetton isn’t very strong and when he discovers Zannah is a sith apprentice he drops to his knees and asks her to be his master.  And while the book has the opportunity to move in a much steamier direction at this point, it does not take that opportunity.  Perhaps to the disappointment to many a reader.  Also Hetton has a ton of ancient sith artifacts, and conveniently knows the location of the old jedi homeworld, Tython, which contains the secrets to building a holocron.  All Zannah has to do is agree to take him on as an apprentice and kill Darth Bane.  No big deal.

Then we see Johun again, now in the company of Farfalla.  Johun convinced Valorum to construct a memorial to his old master Hoth as a reward for saving his life on Serenno.  Farfalla thinks this is a pretty bad move but ultimately just acquiesces to it since there’s nothing he can do anyway. One stipulation to this is that Johun has to actually go to Ruusan, which is where the memorial is being built.  I guess he’ll probably run into one-handed Darovit there.  Who knows what will happen!

Best Moment: In Farfalla’s (whose last name is Valenthyne, have we discussed that yet?) office, hanging on the wall, is a gigantic four-piece tapestry depicting his journey from Padawan to Jedi Master.

Worst Moment: Why would Zannah even want to overthrow Bane this early in the game? Does she really think she’s going to become the dark lord of the sith at age 20? Motivations be damned! Let’s do it!

Darth Bane: Rule of Two, pages 118 – 154

Zannah has been saved from her ambush, but during the fight a bunch of Pterodactyls crash into each other and then plummet to the ground. Despite the sound of bones snapping and crunching, Bane walks away largely unscathed.  Going from limping to fine in a matter of seconds.  Zannah finds out this is due to the Orbalisks and for just a moment fears that perhaps one day she too will have to wear the bugs in order to get ahead in life.  Bane basically tells her he doesn’t think she can handle it as a kid or an adult and she sighs with relief.

Johun gets stationed on Coruscant on a long term basis in order to be bodyguard to the chancellor.  Instead of crying about it he just grins and bears it.  Apparently this was a test and Farfalla tells him he’s now a full fledged Knight.  Only, you still have to be bodyguard to this guy you hate.  Have fun.

Darovit shows up for no reason whatsoever in the company of some bouncers on Ruusan.  A bouncer was the type of creature that was Zannah’s pet, then killed, leading her to the path of the dark side.  They communicate telepathically but only through emotions and also can’t read minds.  So while they can communicate “joy” to you, you have to say something out loud for them to know what you’re going to say.  That’s some pretty low rent telepathy if you ask me.  So Darovit is super depressed and the bouncers tell him basically to be a man and Darovit has a light bulb go on over his head.  Oh man, I could be a man!  Thanks, weird alien monster/pets!

Then ten years pass.

Which would be fine.  I get it, you need time to let people train and grow more powerful.  For events to start unfolding that would be too boring to write about.  Except why are there a thousand flashbacks then?  If you need to flashback to things then just don’t bother with skipping ahead! Argh!

Bane and Zannah are back on Serenno.  Well, this is the first time for Zannah.  Bane went there once, before he destroyed the Brotherhood.  This is the same planet/moon where that sith lady corrupted the entire planet with the dark side and that “powerful for no reason we know” guy Caleb hung out.

Bane and Zannah are dealing in small time insurrection at this point. Zannah has seduced some anti-republic twi’lek and is instigating his group to attack the former chancellor (the guy Johun was guarding) and killing him during the anniversary of the disbanding of the Army of Light.

Bane has been spending most of his time and energy trying to figure out how to make a holocron.  This guy is obsessed.  He has invested a bunch of money he has come into via the now defunct Brotherhood into finding word document files on them and has tried to make one about three times at this point.  Each time he messes up and each time he throws a tantrum.

Oh and since we’re in one of those ten years later moments, the Orbalisks have not only covered his entire body (save hands, feet and head) but also have bred themselves into hundreds of Orbalisks.  This does not make sense to me at all.  We’re talking about a large insect that continues to grow over time until it covers the entire body but also breeds?  I mean I get that as a species they probably want to get it on, but where is there even room for a baby Orbalisk to get a feed on?  Are there just random Orbs hanging out on this planet now?  Why haven’t they grabbed on to Zannah?

Best Moment:  When a padawan becomes a jedi knight? Their master uses their lightsaber to cut off their padawan’s braid! We’re talking about a sword with the heat of a thousand nuclear bombs or something and it’s just next to your face! Man, if cell phones don’t give a person cancer, lightsabers must.

Worst Moment: Let’s go back to bouncers for a moment, shall we? The whole reason Zannah is a sith is because some Jedi stumbled upon a pack of bouncers and killed them on instinct. These bouncers happened to be Zannah’s friends and it upset her. Naturally. Now, why would the jedi kill the bouncers automatically? Because they had all (with the exception of Zannah’s two friends) been driven insane by the thoughtbomb. So if Darovit is wandering around with even more bouncers that aren’t insane then what the hell? So there was no reason for the jedi to kill the bouncers after all? The story doesn’t make sense? Dammit, this book has hell of a lot of ignoring things that were said in the last book going on.

Darth Bane: Rule of Two, pages 75 – 117

Bane makes his way from Ruusan to the Onderon’s moon, Dxun. Along the way he is plagued by the ghosts of Kaan and Qordis, eventually becoming so upset by them that he actually tries to use the force to strike at them and ends up blowing up a control panel inside of his ship as it is still in flight. Well. I think I’ve said before that Bane isn’t the smartest guy around. How you become the Dark Lord of the Sith and being a big proponent of subtlety and intrigue while at the same time not being smart enough to not use force powers inside your small ship is beyond me.

He tries to use the force to repair a circuit board and manages it at the very last instant. But unfortunately for him, he still crashes into a group of trees. But luckily it’s on Dxun. Of course, he’s injured from all this but after popping his shoulder back into place and then injecting himself with some medical stimulants he’s more or less fine. Qordis’ ghost shows up, mocks him for a while and then Bane sets off. Only to get attacked by a giant cat with two tails with barbed and venomous tips. Bane kills it with a lightsaber and then follows the ghost of Kaan (I don’t know, maybe ghosts work in shifts) to the tomb of Freedon Nadd.

At the same time, on Coruscant, Farfalla and Johun are having a chat with Chancellor Valorum. See, the Chancellor has heard all about how the sith brotherhood has been destroyed and decides it is time to disband the Army of Light. He says that while the jedi army exists, it will only perpetuate more conflict. This in turn destroys the Republic, so you know, let’s get rid of it. Farfalla agrees, Johun doesn’t. Too bad you’re just a padawan, Johun! Maybe if you cut that stupid braid off someone would give a damn what you think.

Of interest at this point is that for the past four centuries, the Chancellor has always been a jedi. Valorum is the first non-jedi Chancellor.

Bane finds himself in the tomb and then finds a giant stone slab blocking a doorway. He moves it after thinking about his pops being him up as a child to get into a sith-dark-rage. Inside? Oh, look at that, another holocron! There’s a moment where Bane is all omg dudezzz a holocron they are so raaaaare but maybe he forgot how he round that other holocron of Darth Revan not even six months ago? All you have to do is find a guy’s tomb, apparently there’s a good chance he was one vain jerk and left a hologram of himself around to tell you about how cool he was. Hell, even I’m thinking of doing it.

Well, too bad for Bane there are also a million insect creatures in the room guarding the place. They start dropping on him from the ceiling and after trying to lightsaber one of them, it just bounces off. Two of them manage to latch on to him (we’ll get to the at the end of the post) and Bane feels an acidic burn blazing through him. And for just a moment you think Oh no, Bane! but then you find out that the thing is called an Orbalisk and acts as a symbiote. Basically it feeds off the dark side of the force but as the victim uses said force, the Orbs just tunnel it back into them. So essentially Bane has become a Perpetual Force Machine. Here on the downsides: you are forever in acidic pain, they can’t be removed, and they grow larger over time until they cover all of you. Upsides: Again, Perpetual Force Machine, ridiculously increased strength and near instantaneous healing. Oh and Bane also found blueprints for a special helmet that would prevent them from growing over his face during his sleep. I don’t know how this is going to prevent them from just growing over the helmet, but whatever.

All of this, however is basically taken straight from God Emperor of Dune. I don’t know if Dxun is supposed to be pronounced like Dune or what, but yeesh.

Of additional point of lore interest, Freedon Nadd was the apprentice to Naga Sadow, who apparently lived for six centuries as emperor.

Bane spends a few days with the Orbs and the holocron before remembering he has to meet up with Zannah on Onderon. His ship is completely broken, but it hardly matters. Why is that, you ask? Oh, because he just hops on a giant Pterodactyl and flies from Dxun, then through space, to Onderon. The explanation is that the moon is so close to Onderon that sometimes those large flying beasts just migrate to the planet anyway. You can read this paragraph as many times as you like, it will never make sense. Seriously, at one point Bane can feel the force of the moon’s gravity trying to pull them back down but he just uses the force to override the lizard-bird’s brain and it just flaps even harder. Oh, cool.

Zannah, on the other hand, is having some guilt trips. She just killed five people for not a lot of reason and drags the corpses off to the hold of the ship so she won’t have to see them. Ehhh, too bad she can still smell them! Solution? Toss half-eaten ration packs towards the hold and eventually the smell of rotting food will compensate for the smell of rotting flesh. Worst. Sith. Ever.

Her ship lands in a forest on Onderon and she gets ambushed by some Pterodactyl riders. And almost gets killed but Bane shows up on his dumb ancient bird and saves the day. Ugh.

Best Moment: Absolutely not. Nothing.

Worst Moment: Drew Karpyshyn, what the hell. Remember when you wrote about Bane’s headaches feeling like a million tiny knives? Did you think writing “Bane felt a tiny thousand teeth burrowing into the thick meat of his back” would go unnoticed? That’s what happened when the Orbalisks fell onto Bane. Personally, I feel a hundred tiny blood vessels popping in my brain all at once.

Darth Bane: Rule of Two, pages 33 – 74

Darovit, worried that just maybe the silver orb filled with the doomed souls of sith and jedi is possibly driving him crazy, decides to get up and out of the cavern. Except he gets lost. He lights up his sith-given lightsaber to light up the cavern but doesn’t make it anywhere, falls over at some point and nearly gives up until he hears a couple voices.

But before we get to the owners of those voices (oooh, can you guess?) let’s consider for a moment. Remember the last book? When Ax uses her lightsaber to cut through metal to break into the auction house on Hutta? I mean, while I admit that maybe Darovit is new to this game, recently exposed to the thoughtbomb orb and half-crazy, but just tunnel up, man! You’re already using your lightsaber as a lantern, is it any more insulting to use it as a shovel?

So the voices are those of Bane and Zannah. Darovit gets excited because Zannah is his cousin and all and runs in to hug her, sees Darth Bane and ignites his lightsaber. Bane is about to kill him but before he gets the chance Zannah makes Darovit’s hand blow up. It just disintegrates. Bane is irritated that she doesn’t just kill him but he also doesn’t want to push her too far too quickly and pats her head and says let’s go.

Meanwhile, Johun is flying about with his republican friends and they run across two of the mercenaries who survived Bane’s earlier routing. They are scared out of their minds, Johun gets excited that there is still a sith about and calls in Farfalla’s ships to come pick them up. Farfalla is not happy. He tells Johun he’s disappointed in him, then takes him on as an apprentice. And convinces him there are no sith anymore, things are cool. Don’t even worry about it.

Earlier in the book, Zannah had found an ancient book left behind at sith camp detailing the location of some sith lord named Freedon Nadd’s tomb. Bane starts salivating but mostly keeping the importance of this information to himself. He decides to tell Zannah she needs to find a way off the planet on her own and he takes off in his ship from last book (remember, the one parked halfway around the planet) to go to the tomb on his own. He’ll meet up with her in 10 standard (Earth?) days.

Zannah doesn’t know what the hell to do and just starts walking in a random direction. Seriously, this is who your apprentice is Bane? When worse comes to worse she’s just going to flip a coin and let gravity and chance decide things for her. I mean I guess that got Harvey Dent pretty far. Obviously this random direction takes her to a ship or this book wouldn’t go anywhere. In fact, the ship is the one that Johun came down to the surface in, but thankfully isn’t in. She plays the innocent war victim and after all the ships inhabitants (2 soldiers and 2 children) leave her in the hold to get herself together, she starts rummaging through their stuff. Then she kills them all after forcing one of them to set the ship on a course towards Onderron (the planet she’s meeting up with Bane on). Okay, maybe I understand your decision a bit more now Bane.

Worst Moment: Once again Drew Karpyshyn uses the phrase “dark recesses of the mind.” God dammit, man. That’s twice in less than 50 pages.

Best Moment: Zannah blows up her cousins hand! I mean what if John Lithgow had done that to Harry when he was trying to get him to leave them alone? “Why won’t you understand, Harry! Just go!” BOOM. Meaning delivered.

Darth Bane: Rule of Two, pages 1 – 31

Welcome back, Darth Bane, how we missed you.

Now reading the second in the Darth Bane trilogy: Rule of Two (or, as I like to think of it: Darth Bane: Sith and a half).

We begin by meeting Darovit, a young man from a planet far away who was once known as Tomcat. He came with his brother, Bug and his cousin, Zannah to Ruusan to fight against the Brotherhood of Darkness. Only, if you’ll recall, the Brotherhood of Darkness set off a thoughtbomb, killing 100 jedi and every sith save Darth Bane. Oh, and except Zannah (Bane’s new apprentice) and Darovit. Darovit thinks Zannah is dead, however. Also at some point he apparently betrayed the jedi in the midst of fighting but that isn’t really explained too well. Oh and also the thoughtbomb apparently only affected people that were attuned to the Force.

Wait. What?

What what what? What was the point, Drew Karpyshyn! What was the damn point! Wasn’t General Hoth’s entire reason for sacrificing 100 elite jedi to prevent Kaan from going to Coruscant, hanging out in some cult-gross-apartment and setting it off there, thus destroying everyone nearby? Who cares?! Just get all the jedi off of Coruscant! Well, apparently I hate this book within the first five pages. But forget it, willful suspensions of disbelief will be plentiful in this blog. After all, this is all just “myth” so why bother paying attention to your own rules?

Darovit, being suddenly indoctrinated into the world of adults by witnessing a few deaths, decides he needs to go into the cavern that everyone cult-suicided in and see things for himself. He does and it drives him nearly mad.

Then we get to see Darth Bane and Zannah do a little bit of running. And whining. So… Darth Bane, who has just eradicated all of the dark lords, has chosen a new apprentice. A ten year old girl. Who is mostly angry because a couple jedi killed her animal friend. And complains because Darth Bane is moving “too fast”. Not that kind of fast. It isn’t that kind of book. Probably. She seriously goes on to say that her legs are too short and she can’t keep up with him. Darth Bane, spare us all and just force lightning her. I don’t care how potentially powerful she is. In the last book Bane goes on and on about how important it is for him to find the perfect apprentice (since dumb old Githany betrayed him umpteen times and all) and then he just picks the first ten year old with curly blonde hair he sees. This is doomed to fail.

Back in space we meet Hoth’s former Padawan, Johun. Johun is a complete jerk and despite Farfalla (remember, the Oscar Wilde of the jedi) advising him he shouldn’t go back onto Ruusan because you know, it has a chemical fallout, he force mind tricks some Republic soldiers into taking him down there. Unlike Sean Williams, we’ve seen Drew Karpyshn have a willingness to kill characters. This one’s to you, Johun.

Bane and Zannah end up back at the old sith camp, only to see that some of the mercenaries hired earlier by the sith are now plundering the camp for valuables. Bane kills all but a couple of them, explaining to Zannah that it’s best to keep a few alive in order to perpetuate the myth that the sith are still live which IN TURN will confuse the jedi so much they won’t know where to look. Exhale. Then Bane tells Zannah there is one more thing she has to learn before they leave Ruusan and he takes her to the cave where Kaan and everyone offed themselves.

Best Moment: Drew Karpyshyn actually writes the phrase “like a million tiny knives stabbing at the dark recesses of his mind.” Now that’s writing.

Worst Moment: So, at the sith camp, Bane starts seeing ghosts of Kaan. This whole while he’s had pains (see above best moment) as an after effect of the thoughtbomb. At some point Bane decides that the ghost is “just a trick of the mind.” And that “it [is] the only explanation that [makes] sense.” I’m sorry, what? Don’t you believe in and use the force? Which is a crazy mystical hoodoo that allows you not only to levitate things with your MIND but also change other people’s minds? Let’s just give this a moments consideration, Bane. Not to mention you just last book were all Whatever Brotherhood, I’m just going to trap your souls for all eternity in this thoughtbomb, suckers. Ha, souls. Only explanation, right.