#AND over a decade of grooming by Palpatine

[kyliafanfiction]

Padme didn’t just “lose the Will to Live” because Anakin fell.

She was witness to three years of horrible war, while she constantly and desperately tried to hold a government she loved and had dedicated her life to defending together, in the face of creeping autocracy and systems breakdown. She endured the stress of maintaining a secret relationship, hiding it from friends and family and all the people in her life.

She then not only saw the man she loved turn to fascism, but murder hundreds, thousands of people, including people she knew, and watched the Senate fucking applaud the death of liberty and the rise of the Empire - organized by a man who, whatever their political disagreements, had once been a treasured mentor and even probably a friend once.

She watched her life’s work burn, and then - and THEN her husband, the man she loved, not only turned on her, but tried to fucking choke her to death and nearly succeeded. THEN after all that, she gave birth in what appears to have been a particularly difficult birth (I can’t imagine nearly dying helped), and the compound psychological and physical stresses killed her.

It’s really not fucking hard. 

But no. It’s just ‘George Lucas is baffled by the Uterus’. Because it’s so much easier to say that than to engage your brain for five seconds.

[chemicalreal]

In light of the recent interviews that brought up again the controversial "somehow Palpatine returned"...

Return of the Jedi showed Palpatine's downfall as a consequence of his arrogance. Because even the most strategic player, after achieving significant success, eventually overplays his hand. Believing he could easily undermine a father-son bond in the same way he distrupted and exploited Vader's friendships, marriage and entire systems, is simply the overreach of someone who has started perceiving themselves as omnipotent. Palpatine's expectation of Luke to submit to his will without any proper build up, crucial in grooming his father, is the pinnacle of his delusions of grandeur. This perception is reinforced by Vader's decades of passivity under Palpatine's command, consumed by hatred and lacking any purpose beyond inflicting suffering on others, which makes Palpatine directly attempt to kill Luke in front of him without thinking of consequences.

That said "somehow Palpatine returned" ultimately doesn't fit well with the narrative explained above. Palpatine is fundamentally intended to be the antagonist of Anakin's tragedy, making it customary for his ultimate demise to come at the hands of the individual whose entire existence has been ravaged by his schemes, to preserve the last remaining piece of his family.

Return of the Jedi illustrated this by making Anakin the final decider of everyone's fate in the final twist, not Luke, who was the hero. That was Anakin's demon to defeat. This is why I believe Palpatine should have been omitted from the sequel trilogy. Not only to prevent leaving a bitter taste over the resolution of Episode 6 but also because the sequels needed to establish their own villains.

[autisticsupervillain]

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Stats Equalized!

This Month's Fighters...

Emperor Palpatine vs Her Imperious Condescension!

Conditions:

Dark Empire Palpatine. Legends material only. "Dubiously Canon" Homestuck materials are ignored.

Scenario:

Just when Palpatine returns from the dead and sets out to conquer the galaxy with his new Dark Empire, the Alternian Empire invades, forcing him to direct his new armies at the incoming threat.

Analysis: Sidious

Of all the Dark Lords of the Sith who would come to terrorize the galaxy over the centuries, there is one and only one who could be said to have been born pure evil. He was not a man. Not a monster. But the Dark Side twisted into a barely human form. To the Sith, he is remembered as Palpatine the Great, the last of the Rule of Two who conquered the galaxy and destroyed the Jedi as no one before him ever had. To the Jedi, he is Darth Sidious, a genocidal monster behind the greatest tragedies and wars in galactic history. And to the Galaxy at large, he is just Emperor Palpatine, ruler of the First Galactic Empire.

Palpatine (not Sheev, that's Disney exclusive) always felt that the Naboo royal lineage he'd been born into was beneath him. Even as his family spoiled him rotten, he always felt he was destined for more. So, when Darth Plagueis the Wise, awed by his limitless potential in the Force, offered him secrets of the Dark Side, Palpatine did not hesitate. He murdered his family as a teenager and took the name Darth Sidious.

Sidious would manipulate his way to the top of galactic politics to become the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, before murdering Plagueis in his sleep. Then, under the guise of innocent, kindly Palpatine, he would instigate the Clone Wars, one of the bloodiest conflicts in history, to transition the Republic into a paranoid, fascist police state. Grooming the young Anakin Skywalker into the horrific enforcer Darth Vader, Palpatine would dispose of all his former allies when he took the throne, before purging the Jedi to grasp the galaxy in his iron grip.

Palpatine would reign unchallenged for decades, destroying planets with superweapons, instigating slavery and genocides, creating whole new forms of Dark Force magic, and crushing all resistance to maintain his iron grip on the galaxy. It was not until Anakin's son, Luke, reminded him of the man he was and turned him against his master that his mad reign would finally end. Palpatine would be cast into the reactor of his own Death Star, vaporized and obliterated. And at last, the Galaxy would know peace....

But, even after all that.... somehow, Palpatine returned.

Paranoid and meticulous, Palpatine planned ahead. He transferred his soul to a cloning station he'd prepared, letting the rebellion fight with the remnants of his empire as he rebuilt his armies and bolstered his strength, Palpatine would re-emerge to slaughter them all for failing and defying him. He would return not as a man, but as the embodies of the Dark Side itself. A being of the dark, twisted soul unconstrained by death or mortal morality.

Darth Sidious was a nearly unparalleled master of lightsaber combat, viewing it as little more than a way to mock the Jedi. Having mastered all seven forms, Palpatine would fight against some the greatest Jedi who ever lived, including Grandmaster Yoda, Mace Windu, Darth Maul, Galen Marek, and Luke Skywalker.

Despite their tenacity, the Jedi could not match Palpatine's sheer raw power in the Force. Galen Marek, who was powerful enough to pull starships out of the sky, Yoda, who could annihilate entire armies, and Luke, who had become an equal to his father Darth Vader by the time of Dark Empire. None of them alone could match his raw power on their own.

With Luke, Palpatine would spend months chipping away at his mind, driving him slowly mad to break him into his perfect apprentice, sucking out all his will the first time the young man challenged him. Palpatine could hide his darkness in the Force for years from all the Jedi in the Galaxy, flooding the Galaxy with his darkness so none could sense anything. Palpatine could slow down the Jedi Mace brought with him with a confusion haze, drive people mad with a thought, trap people in entire worlds made of illusions, bolster the willpower of his armies to effectively turn them into a hive mind, and even turn people into mindless drones with just a recording of his voice.

Palpatine spent so much of his time studying the Dark Side, he perfected every single power the Dark Side could provide at the time and could even invent brand new ones in a whim. He can vaporize you with lightning, suck the life our of you with Force Drain, crush you to death with telekinesis, fly, absorb energy, and will things to explode. He taunt Dooku how to create an army of zombies, can duplicate himself with hard loght copies, can shoot fire from his hands or freeze you solid, and can create fields of death that instantly kill any life form in their radius. Period. Alongside many.... many others...

Palpatine's being is nothing but a soul now. He doesn't need a physical body to survive. Whenever his current clone body dies or is defeated, he just transfers his soul to the next body or even to your body. He can take over your body and replace your personality, destroying your soul with his if you destroy his body through the power of Essence Transfer. Functionally, he is immortal so long as he has a body on hand.

But his most devastating ability of them all was dreaded Force Storm. This higher dimensional vortex in the fabric of space and time tears apart reality itself, wiping the life off planets and even punching holes in time. He used a Force Storm to teleport Luke across the galaxy and other Jedi such as Revan have tanked naturally occuring Force Storms only to end up getting teleported thousands of years across time. It is a literally apocalyptic power that could destroy the universe, higher dimensions and all, if Palpatine ever losses control of it.

So is this Dark Emperor the invincible god he says he is? ....No.

Firstly, Sidious strongly favors his force abilites. He thinks lightsaber combat is archaic, useful only to mock the Jedi. So, every single major victory against someone his own level came by way of his Force powers, with Mace and Yoda even disarming him outright before Sidious wised up. It says a lot that Palps doesn't even use his own lightsaber anymore. His old one was vaporized with the rest of him after his death, so now he uses a stolen blue Jedi one from a Jedi he killed personally. Probably one of the ones accompanying Mace. The only opponent Palpatine did beat with the blade is Maul who.... frankly, isn't even in the same galaxy as Sidious in any timeline....

Secondly, his own raw power is a detriment to his clone bodies. The more he exerts himself, the faster they rot under the weight of his might. Given that his clones range in age from fifteen to eighty, each body rots at different rates. After Leia freed Luke from Palp's control and gave him the strength boost he needed to overpower the Emperor, Palpatine had to keep transferring to weaker and weaker bodies that break down faster and faster.

Finally, if he fails to overpower the mind of his victim when possessing them, his soul will be wiped from existence, reduced to nothing and chaos. Though, for good measure, the ghost of every Jedi who ever lived did band together to destroy his soul forever and make sure he could never return.

Therein lies Palpatine's greatest achievement. He's bathed the galaxy in so much blood, that every Jedi who ever lived utterly despised him by the end. For as powerful as every Sith that came after him was, none was truly born evil like Palpatine.

Analysis: Her Imperious Condescension

The Alternian Empire. The ultimate terror in the universe, and eventually, the multiverse. A species of planet conquering trolls that has bathed the stars in blood, destroying countless civilizations and rending planets down to ash. What do you imagine when you picture such a fearsome foe? What diabolical mastermind do you see piloting the helm of this mighty empire?

Did you picture Betty Crocker, the baked goods brand? Because that's who it is.

Her Imperious Condescension was the immortal ruler of Alternia and all its colonies, forcing her empire into a bloodthirsty might-makes-right dystopia. Keeping her people in line under threat of being obliterated by an eldritch monstrosity and exterminating any blood caste that threatened her, she was a monsterous tyrant that banished all trolls to space upon reaching adulthood so they could immediately serve her eternal armies.

Until suddenly, her empire died out from under her. The eldritch monstrosity she used to keep her people in line cried out in hunger, signaling the end times of her people as their minds melted across the galaxy. Her people had died in a single cry. And now The Handmaiden, the grim reaper of her species, was staring her down.

The Condescension emerged victorious over the Handmaiden after a pitched battle and, with no one left to conquer, replaced her as Lord English's servant. She would now pave the way for her new master to destroy all reality.

Being second fiddle to the biggest threat Paradox Space has ever seen, The Condescension is monumentally powerful. As the highest of the sea dwelling high bloods, Betty is immortal and unaging, as well as completely immune to all psychic powers. She was conquering worlds for thousands of years before Lord English cursed her with "conditional mortality", keeping her from dying until her master had no further use for her. As a denizen of Paradox Space, she follows video game logic. She can store things in a hammerspace inventory known as a specibus, including objects she couldn't possibly be hiding on her person like her iconic trident, and can level up and grow stronger from any random action she makes.

Really, trolls are very hardy species just by baseline. The Condescension herself can survive the vacuum of space unharmed and several trolls could survive the heat of orbital re-entry as a freshly hatched grub. The fact that Condy stood as the unquestioned queen among them for possibly millions of years just showcases how tough she is.

With nothing but time, she manipulated the media and governments of Earth B until it was under her complete control, masterminding mankind's downfall before reducing the world to a flooded apocalyptic wasteland. In the meantime, she experimented on herself to unlock more of her latent abilities. While she could never quite get her psychic powers to work on humans, forcing her to rely on specialized mind control tiaras to deal with them, they did wonders on animals and half animal hybrids, bending them to her will absolutely. With her advanced telekinetic powers, she could throw around statues and even planets with ease, destroying entire worlds with her might, while her eye beans could blast apart entire planets.

Perhaps more daunting than even that was her power to control life. As a latent Thief of Life she could "steal" life from other people and give it to others or herself. In this way, she could keep the ones she cared about from dying, preserving the Helmsman's lifespan as he served as the battery on her ship, forcing him to live forever as the life was sucked out of him.

However, she couldn't restore the dead. As her competition might say... it was ironic that she could save others from death... but not herself.

Ultimately, the Condescension turned out to be such a formidable foe that even the heroes destined to destroy Lord English failed against her on the first go. She vaporized Kanaya with a single blast, snapped the neck of Aranea Serket, and stomped every God that stood in her way. So won so badly that John Egbert had to use an artifact that removed him from fate and break the laws of time travel just for anyone to have a chance at beating her.

Even then, she put up a very long fight. Going toe to toe with no less than four gods at once, many of whom could control space and time itself, all throughout the final battle. Next to her master, the Condescension was the toughest threat the heroes of Paradox Space had to face. Keep in mind, many of these Gods, such as John and Dave, could fight First Guardians, who could destroy entire multiverses and tank their destruction in turn!

But, eventually, even her bloody reign had to end. Millions of years of bloodshed and conquest were finally brought to an end by the Condescension's death, ending the legacy of the cruel Alternian Empire.

Throwdown Breakdown:

This fight would be a spectacle.

Both characters have plotted the rise and fall of empires through years of careful political manipulation and both are responsible for the destruction of countless worlds and the extinction of countless species. In raw power, both have the range to tear worlds apart and the power to crumble the multiverse if left unchecked. But... there can be only one.

Both Imperials have a devastating variety of powers and abilities, with both having a lot of counters to each other's arsenals. While his telekinesis doesn't quite match the sheer scope of the Condescension's, his Force Storms definitely do, tutaminus allows him to absorb her laser beams, any life force she steals from him can be yanked right back with Force Drain, and his trained immunity to mind control makes her tiaras useless. On the other hand, he can't control her mind either thanks to her natural immunity, Lord English's curse would counter out the Death Fields, and Condy's demonstrated toughness against the elements shows she could withstand Palp's fire, ice, and lightning for a long time before going down. Hard Vacuum is colder than freezing cold ice, while the heat of orbital re-entry and exploding planets can match the heat of fire, lightning, and lightsabers, giving Condy a buffer.

Now, I'm not saying she could just no-sell a lightsaber. Not at all. I'm just saying she'll endure the lightning and stabs a lot better than most people and should be capable of clashing blades with her trident just fine.

In terms of skill and intelligent, both are consummate chessmasters. Palpatine improvises his plans constantly throughout the movies to keeping coming out on top and has fallbacks for when things go wrong. Apprentice dead? Corrupt Dooku, then Anakin as a fallback when Dooku outlives his usefulness. On the Condescension's side, her first approach is usually to open with faux diplomacy before letting her armies swoop in on a helpless planet, a method that served her well when it came time to conquer the Earth. By the time anyone was ready to fight her, it was already much too late.

Sidious fought and defeated Grandmaster Yoda, someone who had been protecting the galaxy for nearly 900 years. But even that life span is a drop in the ocean to Condy, who has been conquering for thousands, if not millions of years. Sidious is a manipulative sorcerer first, warrior second, and he views combat as just a way to mock whoever he's fighting. The Condescension is the top rung of violent warrior race of planet conquers. She has more experience and a greater warrior's mindset than Palpatine. This exasperates the fact that, due to her immortality, Palpatine's win condition in this fight is to cripple the Condescension to the point that she can't fight anymore, which is much tougher to do if he can't chop her up with his lightsaber.

This fight is guaranteed to be an endurance run, and that's ultimately where Betty's victory lies. Lightning and lasers will clash through the vacuum of space, planets will be thrown around and destroyed, stars will explode until a chunk of the galaxy is gone. And through it all, Palpatine's body decays under the weight of his own power. Against an equal in power who surpasses his skill, Sidious will be forced to give everything he has even as his body rots around him, before ditching it to find another clone as it dissolves.

Despite being physically much older than him, Condy's body is stuck in her physical prime, while every clone Palpatine brings out will only grow more decrepit. Palpatine suffers from a snowball effect in this fight where once he starts losing, every action he takes to bounce back will push him down further, require exertion that makes him weaker, while every clone the Condescension kills will push her higher up her echeladder and make her stronger. Force Storms, duplicates, illusions, Palpatine surpasses in variety to be sure, but the Condescension has fought that, beaten that even during Game Over. It will be a long, drawn out batte of equals, and that's part of why Palpatine losses.

Darth Sidious's best shot is to launch the Condescension across time and space with a Force Storm, but I find that unlikely. Beyond Condy fighting Time and Space manipulators before, Force Storms are monumentally difficult to control and take an exponential amount of power, making the snowball issue even worse if it doesn't work.

Taking over the Condescension's body wouldn't work due to her in-built immunity. Interacting with the Horrorterrors does the exact same thing passively and the Condescension was raised by one just fine.

Out of trump cards, Palpatine would beg for his life beneath her heel before the trident spears his chest, the Condescension's laughter echoing through the ruins of his empire.

This Throwdown's Winner is....

Her Imperious Condescension!

[ozarlu-seda]

Been mulling over this line from the Matthew Stover book for a while: "I think," Obi-Wan said carefully, "that abstractions like peace don't mean much to him. He's loyal to people, not to principles. And he expects loyalty in return.

I think it's a little bit more complicated than that. Like, even with Sidious he had to slowly be walked into accepting his arguments, that everything Sidious did was in justifications for the greater good. Like, sure, the entire time he could be walking around with alarm bells in his head at the stuff he's doing, but ultimately he needs a cover to believe what he's doing is right. He's not the type of person who can gleefully enact evil for its own sake.

The entire time we see him as Darth Vader, we never really see him truly happy. Maybe he has brief moments of respite or triumph, but ultimately he's miserable, he's not thriving off of the evil he does, but rather sees it as a chore to ensure the proliferation of his ideals.

What I'm trying to say is, Anakin is not merely loyal to people in disregard to ideals. He's loyal to people above ideals, sure, but his loyalty to a person is also contingent on them acting in accordance with shared ideals (loyalty and integrity in the case of Obi-wan and Padme, or adherence to the jedi code and fundamental principles of justice as with Mace) or at least being able to justify their deviation from it as with Palpatine. When a person deviates from those ideals without what he considers sufficient justification (like Obi-wan's refusal to let him help his mother), that's when he turns face.

I think a person's integrity is particularly important to Anakin. He lives in fear and uncertainty, so the thing most important him about a person is that he needs to know what they are about, through and through. When he gets put into a position where people say one thing but do another, like Mace with the Jedi code but being ok with executing Palpatine on the spot or the Jedi helping the Hutts, that's when he gets conflicted and doubtful. And that's partly been Palpatine's strategy in pulling him away from Obi-wan and Padme, by artificially breaking their appearance of integrity to him. I think that's partly why Luke's strategy was particularly effective with him. Cause Luke was consistent to the point of death in his messaging, it gave Anakin the basis to trust Luke's claims beyond even what's been hammered into his head for the last two decades. Palpatine's an outlier in this of course, but Palpatine's so good with his messaging and manipulation, that ultimately, Vader can't get ahold of the logical footing needed to conclusively call out his bullshit.

So ultimately, I guess what I'm saying is that it's not so much that Anakin doesn’t care about ideals, it's that his understanding of them is so surface level that he ultimately needs them to be rooted in a person to help him navigate the nuances of following them. Thus, he's beholden to people more than ideals because ideals are not tangible and accessible to him without the filter of a person. In turn, he then requires the people who filter these ideas for him to be unwaveringly consistent, or at least able to appear so in a way that does not trip up all his worst anxieties about abandonnent, loss, and indeed, being coerced (the important thing about this last point is that he's needs to not feel coerced because he doesn’t have language and training to spot actual coercion).

I'm not wholly satisfied with this explanation and think there's more to pick at here that I will need to come back to, but yeah. This is my take on his apparent flip flopping of ideology. I think, in his head, ultimately he's not. It's just that what those things mean to him and how they translate to real life is heavily dependent on who he's using as a filter. At the heart of it, I think he just doesn’t have enough faith in his own interpretations on his ideals to not be easily swayed by the next most convincing argument. Grooming will do that to you, I guess.

[marvelstars]

Luke, Anakin and Palpatine

On the matter of Palpatine´s grooming of Anakin, I agree completely with @ozarlu-seda

post I will just add some of my thoughts about it here:

So I completely agree about Anakin neededing an equally concerted effort to help him snap out of the Emperor´s grooming and of course the characters themselves recognizing this is what was happening, which wasn´t the case of either in the prequels, Anakin, the Jedi Order, Padmé or Ahsoka never quite call it what it was, with the sole exception of Maul, given all the ways the Emperor used to get ahold of Anakin and later to keep psycological physical control over Vader himself it was almost impossible for him to break out of it without looking for help specifically towards that end and still Anakin/Vader had to recognize he had been groomed, which he didn´t.

The only character in the entire saga who came close to understand what really happened to Anakin and started to undo the effects of the grooming and abuse even if it was decades later was Luke, his dialogue with Vader before and during their duel on the second Death Star is mostly about him trying to get his father to break psycologically free of the Emperor´s control and of the darkside by making him remember his name, the person he used to be and his real intentions, because Luke knew that if it where up to Vader, he would not have lead his Son anywhere close to Palpatine.

At the same time he keept his emotional distance from the Emperor, at no point does he think of him as an ally or a defenseless old man which inspires Palpatine to use Luke´s hate for him to turn him to the darkside.

Palpatine confirmed his possesion of Vader and believed he getting Luke was a matter of time, he tried to use Luke´s hate for him and compassion for his father to turn him but the conditions between Anakin and Luke could not be more different, Luke grew up free of any knowledge about the Sith or the Jedi, in a loving family, outside the Emperor´s influence, he already had his mind, pov, ideals, dreams well formed before Obi-Wan and Yoda started training him in the Jedi ways, this gave Luke a particular oppinion, he wasn´t afraid of confronting his teachers about what they were teaching him while also respecting them deeply for their knowledge and he didn´t think too much about doing something different from what they suggested if he thought it was the right thing to do, like going to rescue his friends on Bespin. Luke also had a circle of friends that loved him unconditionally and he didn´t have any problem with calling them his friends.

Anakin didn´t have that, he grew up a slave, loved by his mother but under the menace of being blown up if he dared doing anything other than his slave master will, yet at this stage Anakin developed a strong mind of his own, a plan to help his mother, his friends and himself to free them from slavery and even a strategy to help Padmé and Qui-Gon Jinn when they came looking for help, this compassionate kid who gave without a thought for himself was tremendously free mentally and emotionally, yet years later he´s so used to follow the dictates of Palpatine, the Jedi Council and even Padmé that he has a hard time deciding for himself what to do, even when the life of his mother is on the line, so what happened to that kid? My guess is that Palpatine´s grooming had a lot to do to attack Anakin´s sense of self, his security on himself, on his ideals, on his values and the Jedi style of organization didn´t help matters, so Anakin´s initial fierce beliefs and emotional and mental freedom took a beating during the 10 years of his padawanship and even more so at the times of the clone wars. He and Padmé became a couple but even there there wasn´t much time or even trust between each other Padmé started hidding things from him and Anakin did the same, he came back to the war only for Palpatine to give the final push forcing him in a direct confrontation between himself, the Order and the Senate, symbolized by Padmé and Obi-Wan, without being able to call Padmé his wife or Obi-Wan his father figure. His support net was in tatters mostly by Palpatine´s design

This is why I am not of the oppinion of thinking of Luke was essentially a "better person" than Anakin, because they have a lot of similarities, Luke has similar compassion and temper to the one Anakin had but their circunstances were extremely different, while Anakin´s sense of self constantly was beaten down by Palpatine´s grooming, Luke´s keep his sense of self by sheer will but also the support of his friends, family and teachers.

This similaritiy between them got in two directions, Vader could understand what affected Luke more to make him fall to the darkside, even better than Palpatine did and Luke discovered what was important for his father and what to tell him to make him start snaping out of the darkside.

Their duel is actually a psycological one and Vader almost actually managed to make Luke fall, the only reason he didn´t was that he had the example, right before his eyes, in Vader, of what would happen to him if he fell, he would destroy himself, this helped him get a hold on himself and break completely free of the darkside temptation.

But Luke does manage to help his father, symply by recognizing him as his father and a jedi, by giving him his dignity as a person back. "I am a Jedi like my father before me" this made clear that from Luke´s pov, what he knew of the Jedi his father have been, it was something good, something worthy of being emulated, something his father should be proud of and not reject as a shameful part of his past, that believing in compassion = unlimited love was an ideal worthy of dying for, because Luke went to the death star ready to die if that was what it took to free his father from the darkside, he trusted the rebellion to destroy the Death Star. Killing the Emperor was secondary to that.

So when the Emperor decided to kill Luke, secure in his absolute control over Vader that it didn´t matter if he killed his Son right in front of him, Vader/Anakin got enough strenght back to become himself once again, to defend his Son because he´s his Son and he needed help and he called for his father so he answered him even if it meant his death, the Emperor´s death and the fall of the Empire.

Vader didn´t break completely from the Emperor´s emotional hold, he still had a lot of mixed feelings towards Palpatine even after all those years, even after Palpatine bassically ordered Luke to kill Vader to take his place, Lucas even says that Vader "loved Palpatine" in his own way and yet he decided to take stand, to stop, to make Palpatine stop, not matter his feelings on the matter, because they had to stop.

Vader/Anakin doesn´t condemn Palpatine ,he recognizes himself as responsible as well for the state of the galaxy and takes on his master last punishment on himself to save Luke and it no longer mattered to him to die if it meant keeping Luke safe and put a stop to their rule.

He even asked Luke to leave him because he was serious about ending the Sith and he recognizes himself as a Sith but he also knew there was no way of scaping death this time and it was fine because it was his time. He let go of everything, even his life and this finally gave him peace, at this point he didn´t even know Obi-Wan and Yoda were going to help him become a force ghost, all he knew was that he was going to die and he was at peace with that, he became once more the person he used to be but also the fierce emotional freedom he used to have and he could not have been more proud of Luke, for growing up into the man he did.

[jebiknights]

No shade but I think it's interesting when people say "oh if Anakin had been dating XYZ character instead of Padmé, he wouldn't have Fallen!" Like? Baby boy was being groomed by a Sith lord for over a decade, Padmé isn't the issue here lol. Palpatine would've used whichever relationship he was in against him in his effort to get him to Fall.

[tokruta]

Okay, admittedly I haven't been on Star Wars Tumblr for many a year (maybe around 6-7 years idk) but what is with this idea that Anakin fell because of his suffering? And that others who suffered (specifically Obi-Wan, since that's who I've seen him compared to most) were able to Not Fall so Anakin has no excuse?

He didn't fall because he was suffering sooooo much and he couldn't take it anymore, he fell because he entered into a deal with the devil. He fell because his blinders-on desperation to save Padme led him to Palpatine, who had been grooming him for over a decade for this moment. There were outside forces pushing him to his ultimate decision and their names are Darth and Sidious. Regardless of his own personal traumas and struggles, they were never the catalyst for his fall. It was always Sidious and Anakin's decision to follow him in exchange for "Sith Secrets" to save Padme's life.

His suffering, while an important factor in the development of his personality and lived experiences, was never the motivating factor behind his fall, so why would Obi-Wan's own suffering be treated as his potential push to the dark side? What's in it for him to fall? Anakin was promised a solution to his problem by the very same man he's loved and trusted for over a decade, that's what he thought he was getting. His fall was basically a business transaction, one that he continued to participate in despite not getting what he was initially promised.

It all ultimately comes off as a way to say that X person (again, usually Obi-Wan) is more virtuous, more worthy, and stronger in character than Anakin. The situations/hypotheticals are not comparable. We have no indication that Anakin would have still fallen without Palpatine in the picture (and he's been in the picture since basically the beginning of his Jedi journey) and we have no indication that Obi-Wan wouldn't have fallen himself if he'd attracted the same singular attention of a Sith Lord who wanted to make him his apprentice.

And before anyone says anything, I'm not excusing Anakin's crimes and atrocities, I just don't believe in prefacing any discussion about Anakin and his fall/sithdom/atrocities with reassurances of knowing he did Bad Things and is a Bad Guy. I'm aware, I'm not saying anything he did was warranted or excusable.

[bracketsoffear]

HOW is skeevy sheevy not absolutely Sweeping his poll. Palpatine/Sidious is like. The Web Archetype™ and one of the most well known master manipulators in fiction. He basically played 7-D chess with an entire galaxy over several decades in one of the most convoluted yet wildly successful Grand Plans ever enacted. Played such a compelling role as his kindly, "doing what's best for the Republic" senator alter-ego that he convinced the senate to give him increasing amounts of power so much so that his transition into Emperor was met with wild applause. Every plan, no matter how big or small, had contingencies upon contingencies and often actually relied on the initial plan/s failing/being found out to ultimately succeed (see: his wildly convoluted plan to further sow mistrust between Anakin and Obi Wan (and the jedi in general) starting with him "revealing" that there is a Separatist plot to kidnap him, even though the entire thing is his idea).

His main target, and the one most aware of the terrifying amounts of control and puppeteering he has over the galaxy, are the jedi. Due to visions of Sidious's plans of war, Sifo-Dyas, a high ranking jedi, commissioned the clone army to prepare against this threat. However, Palpatine, upon learning about the army, orchestrated Sifo-Dyas's death and took over the project. This included embedding a behavioural modification chip containing 150 contingency orders that would override each clone's free will to enact whichever one was activated, including Order 66: the immediate execution of all jedi. Once the army was ready, Palpatine essentially forced the jedi to lead the army into war. If they had said no, they would have been painted as traitors, abandoning not only the Republic at their time of greatest need at the beginning of the war, but also the clones since for all intents and purposes, it was the jedi who commissioned them. Therefore, the jedi reluctantly took on the responsibility of the army and lead the fight against the Separatists, going entirely against their more pacifist principles. Despite their best efforts to stick to their principles and end the fighting as quickly and justly as possible, many jedi were lost, either Falling to the dark side, leaving the order and/or killed. The jedi in general suffered as a whole, their entire way of life warped by this horrid war, and the public turning against them with help from Palpatine's machinations. Despite knowing that the origins of the clone army and the war in general are incredibly suspect and most likely due to Darth Sidious, the jedi feel trapped in their new role. Even when they do find out who is behind everything and try to do something about it, they play right into Palpatine's hands, cementing themselves as "traitors" to the Republic and ensuring that their total destruction via Order 66 is met with support from the public.

Thus, Palpatine/Sidious is successful in completing a plan 1000 years since its conception, something no other Sith was even close to accomplishing, especially since said plan involves staying several steps ahead of people who can literally see into the future.

If the above doesn't already scream Web to you, then there's also the fact that Palpatine "uses personal attachments and motivations to manipulate people" on the regular, most notably in his grooming of Anakin Skywalker to become his next apprentice. Palpatine is intimately aware of Anakin's strong personal attachments, using them to sow seeds of doubt and mistrust against the jedi, egging Anakin on to prioritise them over his duties while also making Anakin doubt they care about him in return. This ultimately results in Anakin's Fall, when Palpatine implants visions of Padme dying in childbirth, making him desperate to do anything to prevent it, including Falling to the dark side and massacring the jedi in the hopes that Sidious will give him to knowledge to save Padme. However, he even turns against Padme, choking her in a rage when he believes she'd brought Obi Wan with her to kill him. Sidious uses this to his advantage when, upon Anakin/Vader's awakening from surgery, he informs him of his role in Padme's death, "this final loss sent Vader over the edge of pure wrath and anguish, completing his transition into the apprentice Sidious had spent decades grooming".

And to finish off, here's some excerpts from his Wookiepedia page and some quotes from the master web weaver himself:

"Sidious was, in fact, a skilled manipulator and strategist, having orchestrated countless events in the galaxy, from the Invasion of Naboo to the Clone Wars, while deceiving the Jedi, Senate, Republic, and even the Separatists, with the sole aim of increasing his own power. Even when something occurred that he did not initially plan for, the Sith Lord demonstrated that he was as adept at improvisation as he was at plotting, continuing to play his long game—a smart game—for power." "Among Sidious' most effective traits was his deeply manipulative nature, manipulating and deceiving both the Jedi and Separatists, seducing many parties with promises of power, prize, or even salvation to further his agenda. He enjoyed the rush manipulating others to his will gave him. Even so, he was annoyed by when his pawns, such as Nute Gunray, failed to understand the grand scope of his plans." "Sidious saw his allies as pawns that he could use for his grand plan, and was more than willing to dispose them if they no longer served a purpose. He kept his allies as long as they served his purpose, but cut them loose when their purpose was over." "He considered his manipulation to be a sharp knife that, when stabbed into another, took time for that individual to notice, only realizing they had spread what he deemed to be the infection of his manipulation when it was too late. Even if the way his manipulation spread surpised him, it always gave him joy. Manipulation was ultimately his favorite way to grow his power." "There is only one plan—one great design which shall govern the universe—mine." "As a dark apprentice, I sensed that the Galactic Republic was in disarray. Its delegates held no interest in the common good. They would be easy targets for my influence. Serving as a senator, I manipulated their greed in my favor. With each new act of legislation, I rose through their ranks. Total control of the galaxy's governing body drew ever closer." "Orchestrating a conflict on my homeworld of Naboo, I sowed the seeds of civil unrest. Chaos erupted within the Senate—a chaos I controlled on every front."

.

[corruptedforce]

🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

SEND ME A 🚩 AND I’LL SHARE MY UNPOPULAR RPC OPINIONS AND HOT TAKES. BONUS POINTS IF YOU INCLUDE A SPECIFIC TOPIC TO TALK ABOUT, LIKE FOLLOWER COUNT, SOFTBLOCKING, GRAPHICS, ETC. // Accepting // Anon

I'm just going to go random on this one, that's been in my inbox far too long.

🚩Sexualizing Anakin at his worst moment, when he has given up all hope, and sees following Palpatine's ways as the only way is beyond pathetic. It's the result of over a decade of grooming and there is nothing sexual about it. He was put in an impossible situation. He would not have made it out of that office alive, because as powerful as he was, Sidious was more powerful. So when people reduce those moments, which are phenomenally acted, to sexualize them, it makes me really angry.

🚩Vader's mental health is super underrated. He lived like that, pretty close to how long he lived without it. His mental anguish was as bad as his physical anguish. He is mentally unstable. He's just had Jedi and Sith training, so he knows how to hide his emotions, well sometimes, anyway.

🚩Speaking of his training, he really doesn't excel at random sex. He'll say he can handle it. But, he doesn't handle not getting attached, well ever.

🚩Obi-Wan, for being 'The Negotiator' was horrible at it, on Mustafar, and even drew his lightsaber first. Everything from stowing away on her ship to the duel to how he left him, was against who Obi-Wan was. He also got lucky. Vader very easily could have beat him. Him thinking he failed had merit.

🚩Anakin had to forge his own path, even if it meant being Darth Vader. Anakin and Darth Vader are the same person. For Anakin to balance the force, he had to be strong in the light and dark side to balance the force. The Chosen One prophecy was always bigger than who he was as a person, even. It is why it continues, even after death.

🚩For a baseball team to truly be successful, it's a bout more than how you play the game but the personalities too. If you have a team of selfish assholes, you won't win.

[mrsgojosatoru]

i’m just going to say it, if you blame padme for anakin’s fall you hate women. 

[rarepears]

Sith!Obi-wan X Jaster Mereel

Yellow-eyed Obiwan who's technically a Sith but not actually evil evil, just a little dark (and depressed) because who wouldn't Fall after discovering the Force decided to turn him from a Force Ghost overlooking Luke defeat the Sith Empire to a living, breathing human again but decades in the past?

Plus after all that trauma, Obi-wan is very very possessive. Yandere-like, even, with what little he has.

Anyways, I want a Sith!Obi-wan being the Mandalora's husband and the Jedi Order panicking at the Mandalora's consort having yellow eyes but not being able to do anything legally since 1. Being a Sith is not illegal and no laws actually pertain specifically to Siths or non-Jedi force users and 2. Mandalore isn't part of the Republic and to intervene would be to declare war given Mandalore and Jedi's already very poor and tension-filled history.

-

The Mandalorians don't see anything wrong with the Mandalora marrying a Sith - they have been historically allied with the Sith. So they just go on their day like it's normal.

Well, almost normal. Siths aren't exactly normal, but they don't recall Siths being so caring of their health and wellbeing? Or good with kids either...

-

Meanwhile Obi-wan is living his best life of having a loving husband, being surrounded by cute kids, and adopting dozens of kids from Melida/Daan and other planets.

When he first realized he traveled back in time, he had a panic attack upon seeing his face - young with his hair bright red and well groomed. Since then, he's been avoiding mirrors and Jaster has catered to that wish in their bedroom and helps Obi-wan with his grooming, so Obi-wan continues on his life unaware of his yellow eyes (or deeply in denial, thinking it's another hallucinations.)

Sometimes he drops cryptic and short warnings to the Temple.

Pity Obi-wan over estimates his tech skills, so he fails to realize that the Jedi Order, with all the resources and manpower they had, were able to track the warnings from the Mandalore System... Which has a very public and very known Sith ruling.

So the story goes, Obi-wan keeps sending in these "tips". The Jedi Order interprets them as threats and taunts and go out their way to "destroy" the Sith's plans only for the Sith to pop up with a new taunt and new plot.

Oh and the Sith parading in the holo-media doesn't help either - this week it's "visiting the orphanages to adopt" and next week it is "donating food to the displaced Mandalorians from Death Watch's attacks". Clearly the Sith is aiming for something evil under the guise of doing good.

Plus, coming from a background of being a military general and making hard decisions, some of Obi-wan's words and actions are a little concerning for the Jedi's, to say the least. Not just the fact that Obi-wan refers to the time that he was a general or that he had millions of troops to command, but also just how dark and willing to fight he is.

(It only makes the Mandalorians love Obi-wan even more for his battle prowess.)

On and on, the cycle of misunderstanding goes.

-

Okay fine. The alternative is that Obi-wan definitely knows that he fell. But he's not actually a Sith, he insists. Obi-wan can't actually do anything about the fact that he fell - trauma is very difficult and slow to heal even with regular therapy.

So he can't march up to the Jedi Council and warn them of what is to come.

What's the solution?

There's no Cody or Rex to pull Obi-wan from his hairbrained schemes. Jaster doesn't know anything of what Obi-wan is doing other than Obi-wan wants to do it, so...

Obi-wan plays boogeyman for the Jedi Temple. By being a very public eyecandy hanging off of his husband's arm in the media.

The Jedi Order thinks they keep stumbling into Obi-wan's nefarious Sith plots when it's really just Obi-wan tugging them by their nose to unravel Palpatine's schemes. And since it's actually Palpatine who is the culprit, the Jedi Order just thinks that Obi-wan is far too cunning and keeping his hands very very clean of all the illegal stuff.

-

Read more: Part II and III

[wamiandayne]

domt know how to word this delicately so lets all take it as the funny joke its supposed to be. palpatine was strong as hell for grooming anakin like that he had to have been the most 'fucked up but still just a kid' kid to EVER fucking exist. could you imagine being like 90 years old and a sith lord trying to have a conversation w like. mr traumatized 10 year old over here. anakins rambling on about pokemon because hes cramming a decade of lore in there "because mr palpatine when i was a slave i wasnt allowed anything fun or for kids so obi- master kenobi i mean keeps introducing me to stuff he liked as a kid!! i like eevee because irs really cute But pikachu is also really cool But i think litten is actually my favorite i just dont like the ev- [continues to rant]" and palpatines just sitting there eye twitching like "wow, anakin! that's so interesting! tell me your opinions on genocide"

[gch1995]

englishlady is bitter, but you’re just sour. Anakin Skywalker isn’t going to fuck you, you desperate incel

Sure, nonny, I’m the incel!

First off, although I love Anakin’s character, and do believe there is good in him, I have to say that I wouldn’t be comfortable dating someone with his twisted morality after he joined the Jedi Order and Sidious, and/or without proper treatment, which he never received. Then again, I also have to say that I feel the exact same way about Obi-Wan, Yoda, Mace Windu, and the entire Jedi Order before Luke. Even Luke kind of disconcerts me with how easily he could get over blowing up the entire Death Star and Jabba’s ship. Sure, everyone on the Death Star was an active threat, who needed to be killed in immediate self-defense, but not everyone on Jabba’s ship was. If more of these characters could realize that both the Jedi and the Sith suck ass, just be their own people, and get good therapy, then I could potentially think of dating them if they were real people. Luke is the one of the few from the Jedi who grew up to be a relatively decent and well-adjusted adult since he had 18 years of a normal and stable childhood raised by good guardians who raised him well before he got involved with them.

I’m the self-deluded asshole who can’t deny that her favorite character did nothing wrong when I constantly point out that I know Anakin was a selfish bastard in his desperation to avoid abandonment and further oppression, who’s not entirely innocent for his crimes against the Order, regardless of the mitigating circumstances of being abused, groomed/manipulated, oppressed, and emotionally neglected his whole life by corrupt authority figures in slavery, the Jedi Order, and Sidious!

You guys are the ones who hypocritically say that Obi-Wan, Yoda, Mace-Windu, Ki-Ad-Al Mundi, the rest of the Jedi Order, and Bo-Katan can’t be held fully accountable for perpetuating abuse, crime, moral hypocrisy, enabling slavery, and neglect because it was for the Greater Good™️, they were groomed, and/or they had limited options for healthy support and escape to something better. However, Anakin who was systematically abused, groomed/manipulated, oppressed, and raised by hypocrites in two space cults and slavery his whole life “is the spawn of Satan who must be held entirely accountable for his crimes.”

They are even “secondary victims” when they openly enable the Chancellor to have unsupervised access a a child under their care after he threatens to ruin their public reputation if they refuse, even though they strongly suspected he was shady before finding out he worked for the Sith, and even though they are a highly respected organization and branch of the government that probably could have more easily recovered from saying no to the Chancellor if they refused to allow him to speak with Anakin alone.

Sure, nonny! I’m the incel. I’m the one who’s so in-denial that Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Jedi Order of adults before Luke had become cowardly, hypocritical, and self-righteous assholes who were too afraid to do the right thing, even though there is consistent canonical evidence that they emotionally/psychologically abused and neglected, deceived, limited their options for escape to make them feel obligated to stay, endangered the lives of, isolated, and manipulated almost every one of their recruits.

I’m the incel for not thinking that Obi-Wan Kenobi was the best mentor/guardian ever who could have saved Anakin when he allowed him to speak to Palpatine alone as a a child under his care, constantly shamed and gaslit him, faked his own death for a mission because he suddenly was “too emotional to be trusted,” victim blamed him for growing close to Palpatine, cut off his limbs, and left his “brother” to burn alive because he was too much of a coward to just kill him when he had the upper hand on Mustafar after he committed crimes against the order, even when that would have been the kind thing to do, and spent nearly two decades on Tattooine in hiding with Yoda, wallowing in self-pity, while their former apprentice helped Sidious terrorize the galaxy as his attack dog/murder slave.

If that wasn’t bad enough, he and Yoda did jack shit all of that time in hiding just so they could attempt to use another Skywalker as a weapon to clean up the mess they helped create with Sidious and his father twenty years earlier. Thank goodness Luke didn’t listen to Obi Wan and Yoda.

No, Anakin’s no saint, but at least the narrative doesn’t try to pretend he is either. At least our side of the fandom doesn’t try to pretend that he was a saint, while also understanding why he became the monster he did without entirely absolving him of it. At least there is character development in Anakin’s arc that’s organically positive, negative, and relatable. Obi Wan Kenobi has none of that.

[izzythehutt]

The best thing about the Star Wars prequels is that it's been twenty years and hundreds of hours of ancillary material, and I still don't understand half of George's motivations in revealing the expository villain information in the manner he chooses.

Like why have Obi-Wan need to "track down" Kamino/stumble across the Clone Army by seeming coincidence following Jango's trail (who was on a mission TOTALLY UNRELATED to the Clone army, the assassination of Padmé was apparently just a favor for Nute Gunray to get the Federation to join the Separatists) and NOT have him make the connection that Jango is in league with Dooku and so the origins of the Clone Army might be uh, a bit sketch? If Obi-Wan hadn't lucked into finding the army, what was the plan for alerting the Republic to its existence, anyway? Did Sidious also want Padmé dead because she's heading the opposition to the army creation act, and he thinks her death would bolster support for it? But if that's the case, why did George have him suggest Obi-Wan and Anakin protect her, when the only possible motivation for that is an obvious and deliberate attempt to throw Anakin (who he presumably knows still has feelings for Padmé since he's an impressionable teenager Palpatine has been grooming for a decade) back in her orbit and gain emotional leverage?

Why does Dooku tell Obi-Wan about Sidious having control over the Senate? What is his motivation for doing this—does he actually want Obi-Wan's help (was this a character thing, an expository device, a dropped plotline—I love this scene but it really has little bearing on anything)? Is the part about Nute Gunray telling him he was in league with a Sith Lord true (since he meets up with Palpatine at the end of the movie it seems like it...isn't...but also why would he make that up?) Why do I now want a Dooku and Obi Wan are civilized Sith Lords AU

What the hell is Sidious's motivation for sending Maul after Queen Amidala to get the treaty signed and take control of Naboo in TPM? Does he think the forced "legal" occupation will get him enough support to call for a Vote of No Confidence himself? Didn't the whole plan rely on the young, sympathetic and charismatic Queen making it to Coruscant and making the appeal directly to the Senate, to avoid drawing attention to his power grab? In which case why didn't he just let them escape (besides the fact that the Tatooine portion of the movie needed an action sequence/some urgency to it)?

Am I thinking too hard about all this shit? Yes.

[oflgtfol]

this post is LONG it is a wall of words and it is very disjointed because im just typing as i think. and i would rewrite it to be more comprehensible but, again, it's a wall of words, i certainly don't want to put more effort into rewriting it, lol

now that i've been reminded of ringing bell, honestly, i feel like that's my ideal sith master&apprentice dynamic.

like, at least anything involving palpatine really, annoys me so badly because it's like. the whole teacher and student dynamic is on the backburner when focusing entirely on the sheer abuse of it all and it's just like. there's nothing but hatred and violence like why even bother with the teacher student stuff then. like what is going on. if you just want to take this person and squeeze the life and light out of them to make them a hatred-fueled monster, then like, why even bother teaching them literally anything along the way? i mean, i guess the point for palpatine, is to teach them enough to become a tool and extension of your own power, without teachign them enough to eventually overthrow you, but like. the whole point of the rule of two is that the apprentice WILL eventually overthrow the master and it's just like. what is the point, then, of ever teaching them at all, if you understand that in taking this person as your fucking up student, they're going to eventually kill you over it. like it's just so weird and pointless. like the unhealthy violence of it all is just SO extreme to where it renders the teacher aspect of it irrelevant

but, say, take a dynamic like in ringing bell. forgive me i havent seen this movie in at least 5 years. but like, the wolf kills the sheep's mom, and thus sends the kid into a revenge-bent spiral, where he then goes to the wolf to learn how to fight in order to one day kill the wolf, and the wolf for some reason agrees. and it's like, a horrific experience for the sheep kid, and he grows into this thing that barely even resembles a sheep anymore, and he eventually kills the wolf. like it's a fucked up cycle of violence but underlying that is some sort of twisted version of affection that had the wolf proud of the sheep for becoming someone capable of killing, and had the sheep still hesitant to kill the wolf in the end until it was inevitable, despite the killing of his mom and the years of violence under his tutelage. like it was a fucked up dynamic with a cycle of violence but with some version of affection to it anyway.

now like, take that type of dynamic, apply it to the sith? the sith, doing evil deeds in order to get their hands on their new apprentice? the new apprentice falls and joins them but only in order to enact their revenge on their master one day? both of them knowing that one day the apprentice will usurp the master, but still having their own fucked up version of affection despite that. like idk. i just think that's way more compelling than palpatine's 'YIPPIE I CARE ABOUT LITERALLY NO ONE OTHER THAN MYSELF DESPITE EVERYTHING I HAVE POURED INTO RAISING THIS SINGLE APPRENTICE." like whats so fucked up about anakin and palpatine in particular is how paternal palpatine had been to anakin in order to get him to fall in the first place and then just turns on a dime? like there's zero paternal stuff going on later? imagine if they had the fucked up dynamic of vader & palpatine but still with that barest element of a paternal relationship. imagine seeing this twisted version of what they had prior to the fall - like obviously even in the beginning it was twisted bc it was palpatine grooming + manipulating anakin since he was 9 years old - but at least at the beginning it was a hidden motive, and anakin believed it to be genuine. i just find it hard to believe that you spend over a decade grooming this young kid into becoming your fascist heir and you dont feel even the SLIGHTEST OUNCE of genuine affection for him? even if the affection is entirely born of malice and evilness, like, you cannot tell me that all he feels is coldhearted detached "i'm using you as a tool for my future use, you are an investment" energy ???? not even some grim, twisted satisfaction over taking over obi-wan's place in anakin's life / winning anakin over to his side and turning him against obi-wan? like, nothing at all? nothing but using anakin as an investment?? despite the fact anakin had been his longest term investment with the highest stakes, he feels NOTHING? like im just so. AGH

so like idk i just think it'd be more compelling if they did have some elements of sincere emotion to it, with those emotions being very fucked up but still better than the absolute coldhearted "you're my tool to power" and "im gonna kill you one day." isnt it more compelling to have a fucked up evil shadow of the grandfatherly mentor + lonely kid dynamic they had originally, where they're now Sith Master & Apprentice but like with an emphasis on the fucked up evil version of being teacher and student. like just turning it into torture porn with nothing but malice and detached violence is so boring. screams

tl;dr palpatine is boring as all fucking hell. god damn i wish he experienced a single human emotion beyond greed or whatever his motivation is because it gets so boring so fast. you cannot tell me this man hasnt felt a single sincere ounce of affection for literally ANYTHING ???? like is there anything or anyone he genuinely sincerely likes, enjoys? without an ulterior motive of using it to manipulate someone else or gain more power? apparently not, so!!! just imagine how much more compelling he could be as a villain if he did, in fact, feel an ounce of sincere affection for his fucked up little apprentice, especially because that sincere affection, while sincere, would still be utterly evil in motive and origin, and would only be used to further tighten his hold on anakin/vader

[marvelstars]

I find so fitting the fact ROTS starts with Anakin wanting to save Padmé at any cost because he can´t stand to see her die just like his mother died so he aks Palpatine for his help, to teach him how to save her, which is a lie he uses to turn Anakin to the darkside, Palpatine doesn´t have control over life and death, only for Palpatine to use his resources, power and tecnology to keep Anakin alive on Mustafar and decades after at any cost, because he can´t let go of him and this one mercy from Palpatine is the one thing that assures the end of his Empire.

Many fans correctly write off Palpatine as an evil character who only wants to do evil and yes that´s the role he´s playing but I find this moment between Anakin and him on Mustafar really compelling,because it would have been so easy for the Sith Master to just change apprentices and let Vader die but he could not do it, he could not bring himself to and I wonder if between grooming schemes he started to feel something real for Anakin, some old need to have around a person he knew that truly cared about him at some point and he wanted to keep that even if that relationship, like everything else in his life, was poisoned by the darkside after he killed his family so in this instance he poisoned Anakin with the darkside so he would stay with him.

The fact Vader, even after putting Luke to safety from his Master still feel the need to try to follow him to the same death down the reactor shaft, at the point Luke had to physically take him away from the edge of falling, because he had this twisted care for Palpatine as well, for the person who has been with him the last two decades even if that care came with a lot of abuse, physical,mental, psycological, makes me think that in another world Anakin would have been so willing to be for Palpatine what Luke was for him but Palpatine, unlike him, would never have allowed it. Anakin/Vader knew this so the only thing he could do for him, when he could no longer justify his support for Palpatine´s Empire, was to follow him to both their deaths and give way to Luke and Leia life for the victory of the rebellion, for a new opportunity to the Galaxy.