Why did the Jedi think the Sith were extinct.

Because they didn't think they were alive.

 

wasnt it in the Darth Bane books when Darth khan set off a massive bomb killing all the sith except for Darth Bane and his new apprentice and they went into hiding
idk i just started reading the bane books so thats theonly answer i have rn

 

It was (or could have been) part of the "arrogance of dogma" theme that wasn't really expressed much until the Plagueis conversation. Lucas has always been anti-dogma and that was a cool theme of the PT (maybe not expressed very well). But the Jedi were certainly arrogant in their ways - maybe some more interesting conversation from Qui-Gon could have planted that theme from the beginning, with an assist from Dooku's conversation with Obi-Wan in Ep. II (probably the best acted scene in that film....eeek), culminating in Anakin's turn away from the Jedi way in Ep. III. Oh what could have been.....

 

You don't hear from a group of galactic level miscreants and age old enemies for 1,000 years you get a bit lax sometimes.

Add in wilful blindness to the dark side and sole focus on the light and you eventually find yourself in "if it was a snake it would have bit me" type territory.

 

You answered the question.

 

Misguided...and clouded by the Dark side!!! The Jedi even spoke to Palpatine face to face...and didn't realise who he was!!!

 

In Legend there were a bunch of battles in which the last one every single Sith were stuck on one planet and then they committed suicide to kill all Jedi which were also on that planet. Obviously it didn't work but every single Sith died except one. Who trained a Force sensitive. And it had been single Master to single Apprentice for every generation. They hid themselves or didn't do anything until TPM.

In Disney universe, it just is because members of the Jedi Council said so.

 

Anakin wasn't Vader at least until he killed Dooku so the only overlap of the rule of two is Count Dooku/Darth Tyrannus and Darth Maul, but someone correct me if i'm wrong but was Dooku actually sith (i know he had his sith name) or was he a dark jedi?
Anyways, to answer the question i'd say the jedi believed the sith were extinct since iirc they hadn't seen a sith in a long time + the darkside clouded their vision (i believe there was a mention of this in either AotC or TPM)
also i have nothing to back this statement up with but i've always seen the rule of two as more of a guideline than a strict rule.

 

That's how I feel as well. It was little more than a ratings gimmick to take a popular, albeit dead, villain and bring him back for the sake of gaining eyeballs. My own personal internal canon relies on what the producers of E1 intended, and clearly Maul was intended to have been killed.

I am also not a huge fan of Disney's "everything is canon" mentality, which is what Lucas did as well. It creates layer upon layer of silliness.

 

Wonderful question!

I believe the Jedi had a certain preconception of what a Sith was, and over the generations the Jedi stopped looking for actual Sith and just looked for the Sith that fit their preconceptions.

That's why Qui-Gon knew after a 30 second fight with Darth Maul on Tattooine that Maul was a Sith - he was well trained in the Jedi arts, fought with a lightsaber, wore a cloak, and held his own against an experienced Jedi.

It also explains why the Jedi couldn't see Palpatine for what he was. Palpatine didn't look or act how the Jedi expected the Sith to look or act. He rose to power in a way the Jedi didn't think a Sith would try - legally, through democratic elections.

I think Darth Maul's very existence was a trap laid by Palpatine to confuse the Jedi. Maul got all the Jedi expecting brute Force warriors (see what I did there?) and not seeing the real threat to the Republic, which was in the halls of power.

 

For the same reason people in A New Hope thought that the Jedi were extinct (or even a myth). Ignorance and forgetfulness.

 

If you consider DarthBane trilogy canon, it’s because the sith were all wiped out on one planet.. except for bane

 

Exactly, and it's heavily implied that Palpatine blinded the Council to the new rise of the Sith--or at least that they're foresight was somehow impaired.

 

Well for one thing, they were extinct for a long time. The Sith have always been secretive and hidden and the Dark Side is a seductive force, it lures you in, charms you and before you even realize you've fallen to the Dark Side's grip, you soon become it's pawn.

Remember you don't control the force, you only partially control it, the other half of it actually controls you.

Part of the reason the Sith are not discovered is because the Force doesn't want it discovered.

This is why I cringe at the "who is more powerful" debates. You can't quantify the force or the power within it. It's not liquid in a beaker. It's a celestial force that binds the entire galaxy together...and like a ship on a sea, you have some direction and control over it, but also the sea can take you anywhere it chooses and your fate.