In Star Wars, the Sith didn't take any children for apprentices after the fall of the Sith Empire. Instead, they found it was much more advantageous to find an apprentice who had already been corrupted and threatened through the traumas and hardships of life.
Sith power is built on anger and suffering, which are both paths to the Dark Side. Thus, the perfect Sith apprentice is someone who already hates everyone and everything. This explains why so many Sith are former Jedi who have experienced a craving for more power, a need for revenge or a fear of loss.
After the Battle of Ruusan, Darth Bane initiated the Sith Rule of Two and the Sith began to grow their power in secret for the next thousand years. During that time, there was only ever a single Sith master and an apprentice who eventually killed the master to take that power. Then, in accordance with Bane’s philosophy, the new Sith lord had to find their own apprentice to continue the process.
Finding a new apprentice to study the Dark Side of the Force was a great responsibility and a delicate task. One crucial element in the search was that the potential apprentice was not an infant. The Legends book Darth Plagueis by James Luceno explains, “For the past five hundred years, the Sith of the Bane line had eschewed selecting children as apprentices, finding it more advantageous to discover beings who had already been hardened or scarred by life.” Besides the practicality of not having to raise a Force-sensitive child while hiding from the Jedi, there were advantages in finding someone who had independently started down the dark path of anger, hate or pride.
The galaxy was a cruel place, and Jedi wanted to train their younglings before evil could take hold of them, but the Sith wanted the exact opposite. The Sith wanted apprentices that the galaxy had cast aside and threatened to destroy or neglect so that they could be easily tempted with the desire for power and revenge. It was even better if those apprentices had found the Dark Side on their own.
Before he became Darth Tyrannus, Count Dooku was one of the most powerful and successful Jedi of his time. Over time, however, he became disillusioned with the Jedi. He believed that a focus on the political state of the Republic had overtaken the Jedi’s commitment to follow the Force. So, he became one of the Lost Twenty and relinquished his role as a Jedi Master. He returned to his homeworld where he fought to reclaim his family fortune and the power that came with his title as Count of Serenno. Additionally, Dooku had a secret fascination with the Dark Side even when he was still a Jedi.
Darth Sidious saw great potential for Dooku as a Sith apprentice. His disillusionment with the Jedi and fascination with the Dark Side made for the perfect starting place for a recruit. In Dooku’s eyes, the Jedi and the Republic were both failing the galaxy, so there had to be another way to bring order, control and peace to all. Darth Sidious offered him that opportunity for control and a way to access the powers of darkness.
Dooku’s control of the Force was notable even as a Jedi, and the Dark Side only added to his power. He easily bested Obi-Wan and Anakin in Attack of the Clones, and he even held his own against Yoda, his former Jedi Master. After that, he was the figurehead for the Separatist movement that ravaged the galaxy for years during the Clone Wars. Notably, though, Dooku was already on a dark path before becoming a Sith apprentice.
Asajj Ventress was not raised at the Jedi Temple, but she was trained as a Jedi. As an infant, Ventress was traded by her Nightsister clan to a criminal in exchange for protection. Shortly thereafter, she was rescued by a Jedi named Ky Narec who raised her on the planet Rattatak and trained her in the ways of the Force. They worked together to protect the planet from pirate raiders, but her master was killed when Ventress was still quite young. As a child, she avenged her master and embraced the Dark Side as she began a reign of terror on the planet.
Her actions caught the attention of Count Dooku, and she became his apprentice and assassin. At ten years old, she had been exposed to slavery and murder, and her rage after her master's murder propelled her down the path of darkness. Her limited Jedi training offered a foundation in the ways of the Force, but the trauma that she had experienced made her a perfect fit as a Sith apprentice.
Her power was notable among the Jedi as she fought against them during the Clone Wars. She became so powerful that Darth Sidious decided she was too much of a threat and ordered Count Dooku to kill her. Dooku was obliged to obey his master, and he did eventually kill her. Interestingly, Ventress learned the Force from a Jedi, but she found the Dark Side on her own without any Sith training.
Anakin Skywalker was born on the desert planet of Tatooine, where he was discovered by Qui-Gon Jinn and taken back to the Jedi Temple to be trained as a Jedi. From the very beginning, Sidious knew that he wanted Anakin to be his apprentice, but Darth Plagueis explains that Sidious decided to wait and “let Skywalker grow embittered over the next decade as his mother aged in slavery, the galaxy deteriorated around him, and his fellow Jedi fell to inextricable conflicts.”
Even after being identified as the Chosen One, Anakin struggled to fully embrace Jedi philosophies. He longed for his mother, who he saw die at the hands of the Tusken Raiders, and he married Senator Padme Amidala. When he saw visions of his wife dying, he was forced to choose between admitting his sins to the Jedi or accepting the power to control the future that Darth Sidious offered. However, even before Sidious tempted him with saving Padme, Anakin had already used the Dark Side multiple times, most notably when he killed the Sand People and when he killed Count Dooku.
Anakin’s natural power and prior training attracted Sidious, but Anakin’s lack of faith in the Jedi Council combined with his fear of loss and his natural use of the Dark Side made him an easy target for Sidious’ plot. Despite his good intentions, his quest for power and control ultimately ruined his life.
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