Is Palpatine Special?

Strange. I’ve always had a totally different interpretation. To the Emperor, Luke is just a child - a kid swiping with a wooden sword. No real threat as is, but having enormous potential. The fight with Vader is only important as an emotional conflict, rather than a physical one. It’s a deliberate orchestration to get a son to murder his own father.

The Emperor could kill Luke whenever he wanted. The difference in their power is that massive. But he doesn’t want to kill his body. He wants to kill his soul. He wants to corrupt and own him. Vader doesn’t defeat that darkness with power, but with compassion. The Emperor believed his sway over his apprentice was absolute. He didn’t see that betrayal coming. He wasn’t prepared for it. He was overconfident, but he was also oblivious to the potency of the simple love of a parent for their child.

That’s why he loses. It isn’t about prowess. He believed his hate was stronger than anyone’s love. And he was wrong.

 

THIS.

 

Sooo many since then, the OG is still my favorite.

Alan Dean Foster approves of this msg.

 

Agreed, but not because Palpatine is physically strong.

Their difference in power truly is massive. But not in like a Dragon Ball Z kind of way, but a much more real way.

Luke is on a moon-sized space station, filled with armies of the Emperor's soldiers. There's a battle raging outside, and Luke's friends are dying. His father is an unstoppable cyborg, his mind corrupted and poisoned by the dark side and Palpatine's lies. And now, Palpatine is playing with Luke's emotions, tempting him to the dark side as well.

Palpatine holds all the cards, and he knows it. He can taunt Luke, can kick him while he's down. His confidence knows no bounds, and for good reason! He didn't need to do backflips and corkscrew forward with his lightsaber to be intimidating.

 

The OT totally portrayed him as the Boss/King sitting on his throne who had Vader and Stormtroopers to do the heavy lifting. While I like the political backstory of how he worked both sides, had this secret identity and came to be Emporer, there was always something about the PT that I never could deal with. As far back as ANH, we saw Obi-Wan, Vader and even Luke "feel" the presence of each other. Yet Palpatine was on the same planet, same city, often in the same room as the Galaxy's most powerful and Force-tuned Jedi and they never felt anything?

 

I mean, I don’t think he’d be bench pressing anything anytime soon. So not THAT ‘physically strong’, no. But extremely powerful with the Force, yes. The Emperor, in that scene at least, is the representation of the dark side. His power is to inflict suffering on others. That’s where his strength lays. That’s what he does to Luke.

From that lens, yeah, the story needs him to be insurmountably powerful. As powerful with the dark side as his Empire is powerful next to the Rebellion. A seemingly unbeatable foe whose downfall is attached to his inability to appreciate virtue or destroy hope. It’s a conflict of values and the strength is measured in conviction.

There isn’t much strictly ‘real’ about the battles in Star Wars though. They’re heightened, abstract representations of moral and ideological confrontation. The Emperor, with all his vast miserable power to subject people to agony, is undone by the act of unselfishly protecting someone from that agony. That message needlessly loses a lot of its impact if the representation of evil isn’t terrifyingly overwhelming.

I’m not sure who’s suggesting cartwheels and summersaults and such, but absolutely the premise that Palpatine was capable of annihilating Luke at any moment during his whole “I’m defenseless” act is pretty essential. It’s the exact tactic he’s using with the Imperial fleet. Pretending to be weak. Luring in the Rebel forces. But instead of destroying them outright, has to make a point of punishing them.

 

Due to the rule of two he had no other Sith Lords to fight with for power. He rose in a time of prosperity where people only held their self interests in mind --the kind of people who only liked to grab for what's in their immediate vicinity and who couldn't think long term. The Jedi had become lazy due to the fact that they had no real rivals to fight against.
He was also highly ambitious enough and patient enough to play the long game. He also thoroughly enjoyed being a chessmaster/puppet master and having people dance to his tune. And of course he was a psychopath who only saw people as objects.

 

Well, I can offer my head canon explanation at any rate. The way I see it, the Jedi couldn’t sense Palpatine in the PT for the same reason Palpatine couldn’t sense Luke in ROTJ. It isn’t so much about Force folk being able to sniff each other out as it is about connection and perception.

Palps can’t sense Luke at Endor, but Vader can. Vader can, it seems, because of his “feelings” for him. They have a connection and it isn’t a connection made possible by the dark side. It’s the connection between a father and his son. It’s empathy. Palpatine can’t comprehend something like that. He literally can’t even perceive it.

The prequel Jedi, similarly, can’t sense Palpatine for the same reason. His thoughts are steeped in the dark side: malice, greed, consumption, exploitation. The Jedi actively train themselves to abstain from those vices as a course of religious conditioning. They can’t comprehend something like that. They literally can’t even perceive it.

Here’s an analogy: If you spend all your time living in the darkness, then the bright light of day is blinding to you. Your eyes aren’t adapted to it. You can’t see what’s happening out there and what anyone is doing. The reverse is also true. If you spend all you time living in the light, then the mirky darkness of the shadows is equally blinding to you and equally incomprehensible.

That’s how I’ve made sense of it anyway

 

Ok. I can digest that reasoning better than some BS about 'he used his super-duper mega Sith power to mask himself'.

I still have a slight issue with your analogy in that, if you live in the darkness, it takes very little light for you to notice. Likewise, if you're in the sun all day, when that cloud dims the sun for even a minute, you feel the cool.

However, your explanation dealing with the Jedis' inability to comprehend was definitely exhibited throughout. Even after Qui Gon and Obi Wan encountered Maul on Tattooine, the council denied the possibility that he was a Sith because they thought them to be extinct. Another word for that is Arrogance.

I have other issues that I'm sure have been covered somewhere, I just haven't been there yet, such as- weren't Sith usually fallen Jedi? Was Palpatine not trained as a Jedi? Was he a Senator that became corrupted by the Dark Side? Or was he a Sith who became a Senator? Did he ever pull a Mrs. Doubtfire and go to the Senate dressed in his Sith suit, or transmit a Sith hologram message in his Senator suit by mistake? So many questions...

 

Cosinga's son was never Jedi.​

 

Why does Wookeeepedia - both Canon and Legends - claim that Anakin was created by the Force? And why is it so important to many that Sith Lords were responsible for Anakin's birth?

 

TL;DW - Ric McCallum: "Here we have Palpatine discussing the ways of the dark side & Anakin's origins."

(from my TFN post in July 2007)

From a Q & A on the OS:

screen-name: Tasty Taste
name: Leland Chee
country: United States
occupation/company: Database Content Administrator, Lucas Licensing
biography: Keeper of the Holocron (Lucas Licensing). Former LucasArts tester.

Date Posted: May 20, 2005 08:35 AM

In previous scripts there is little doubt that the early versions are of almost no value as far as canon goes...

TT:Not true, especially with regards to the EU. Sometimes the early scripts are all that we have to go by in terms of getting a better understanding of George's thoughts on the Star Wars universe. Sure, things are jettisoned that don't fit continuity, but George often jettisons some points because he feels they aren't important to the story he is trying to tell in the films. We're more than happy to explore these points in the EU whenever we can.

Are these points that may be taken up in the future or have they been totally jettisoned by GL?
- Palpatine tells Anakin that he manipulated the midichlorians to create him;

TT: Episode III still hints that this is a possibility, though what really happened may be something that forever remains a mystery.

Palpatine tells Anakin that Dooku set up the Tusken kidnapping of his mother (both on page 42).

 

Yep.

And I like to think that ol Sheev messed around with the Muun's remains to create SNOKE, because why not.

 

For me, I like the idea that the Sith were the architects of their own destruction. If their goal is to tip the balance toward the dark side, then creating Anakin would have been a part of that. But, in the end, it was Anakin who restored that balance by destroying the Sith.

They thought they were doing something unnatural for their own benefit, but really they were fulfilling a destiny that resulted in their demise. They wanted to control everything, even life itself. But life gets to decide on its own what it is. I think that’s lovely.

 

IIRC, in the (non-canon but alluded to within canon) Plagueis book, Plagueis tried to manipulate the Force to create life, but the experiment failed. At the same time, Anakin was conceived. My takeaway - after believing the approach you have for years - was that Plagueis's experiment failed, and the Force in retaliation created Anakin. The Sith, being all smarmy and arrogant either took Anakin's creation as "all part of the plan" or took it as "well, my actions did create this counteraction, so I'm responsible for it anyways." Aka, Correlation doesn't imply Causation. At least that's what I believe.

 

Palpatine is and was more powerful than we have even seen to date. Shroud of the Dark side Yoda called it, Palpatine body no longer exists but he and the other Sith are in Rey. Time will tell. Palpatine was the combined Sith and could see many forms of the future and he lays plans for all outcomes. They are the Sith. They are immensely more Powerful than Yoda’s Jedi.

they are not gone, only waiting for Rey. It took all the Jedi Ghosts aid for Rey to even stand there but the Jedi still lost because Rey let the Dark side in to kill Palpatine and the Sith used that moment to take her.

 

Palpatine is definitely special, an iconic villain for all times, but his return put a damper to the ending of ROTJ IMHOP. Snoke was a homoglyph of Palpatine for me, once killed off, Abrams could have chosen anyone, or rather someone new, but for whatever reason he chose Palpatine. Star Wars directors should familiarize themselves with the Old Republic era or seek knowledge from the LFL story-group.

 

"Apparently; the way George created & shrouded the Muun in mystery.... wasn't special enough."

 

Most unique of all?
Palpatine is indestructible. How many bets he'll be back somewhere in the future.