#evil palpatine

[darthtarvera]

A Twist in Fate: Chapter 30 Obi-Wan and Satine finally have the talk they should have had about fifteen chapters ago but evil Sith Lords just keep being evil. More assassins, more talking, and finally we get close to the end game.

[spiderbae2319]

When the entire sequel trilogy could’ve been avoided by canon DinLuke

Ben: Wow cool helmet Uncle Din, can I try it on?

Din: Sure kid

Ben: *puts on the force resistant beskar helmet* Wow! I can’t hear the evil voice in my head telling me “I should do murder” anymore!

Luke, Han, and Leia: …the what?

[phoenixyfriend]

I only have twelve options or I'd have added more (like Yoda, and Fives, and Plo, and Quinlan)

Could do a tournament but this'll do for now

[david-talks-sw]

Let's briefly talk about this scene.

It starts with Anakin lamenting how the Clone War corrupted the Jedi and the principles of the Republic.

Now, Padmé thinks she and Anakin are talking about the same thing: this war is corrupting the Jedi and the principles of the Republic and Palpatine doesn't seem to want to put an end to it, instead increasingly amassing power.

She asks Anakin to get Palpatine to cease the fighting and let diplomacy resume. And Anakin. Gets. Triggered.

Why?

Well, firstly... it's because they weren't talking about the same thing.

1. What Anakin really means when talking about "the principles of the Republic".

While Anakin may say that he's concerned for the corruption of the Jedi Code and the principles of the Republic... he isn't really.

Anakin has a track record of saying he supports abstract principles and concepts, then complaining when standing by that hurts him.

Like when he'll preach that wartime forces him to make hard choices, duty over emotion...

... but then gets mad when someone else makes the hard choice in doing their duty, and it hits close to home.

There's this line Matthew Stover wrote in the ROTS novelization, which I think is very relevant:

“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. He will stop at nothing to save me, for example, because he thinks I would do the same for him.”

Anakin isn't about abstractions like "peace", "duty" or "democracy". He'll say he is, because he knows he should be, in theory... but, in practice, he's more loyal to people than to principles.

And right now, he's very loyal to Palpatine. Arguably more than anyone else. No matter how blatantly he acts like a dictator, Anakin stays on his side.

So whenever he uses the words "Senate" and "Republic", what he means is "Palpatine". To him, they're one and the same.

He loves Palpatine very much but the two other people he loves, Padmé and Obi-Wan, are both telling him Palpatine's bad news.

Which brings us to the second reason he gets triggered...

2. He's under an enormous amount of stress.

He's barely had any sleep since his nightmare about Padmé and is now scared at the prospect of losing her like he lost his mother.

He's been on an emotional roller-coaster with the Council, first being put on the Council, but not as a Master, then being given a mission but it's a mission to spy on a mentor and father figure. Now he's not even sure the Jedi trust him and he's not even sure they should, after his outburst.

Also Padmé herself is asking him to tell Palpatine to stop, criticizing the Chancellor just like the Jedi do.

It's understandable that he's on edge. That said... a huge chunk of this stress isn't Padmé or the Council's fault. It has been manufactured by Palpatine.

He appointed Anakin to be his representative on the Council specifically because he knew it would put Anakin under pressure... pressure he can exploit for his own gain.

That's what Palpatine does. He orchestrates pressure then swoops in, in the guise of a savior.

With the Republic, he does this by engineering a war then bringing about order (to the chaos he caused) as an Emperor.

With Anakin, he does this by engineering conflict between him and his family - Padmé, Obi-Wan, the Jedi - then presenting himself before Anakin as the solution to all his problems.

From that point on, he enables the Republic and Anakin to give in to the worse parts of themselves and implode.

The former goes from being a democracy to a dictatorship, the latter goes from being a sweet kid to a bad man.

[chamerionwrites]

Now and then I have a little giggle when I recall that JJ Abrams made Rey Palpatine's grandkid via some sort of nonsensical cloning plot. It's not the worst thing in the ST but I do think it's emblematic of why it's bad. Signifier without substance. Derivative *and* gutless. Tried to rip off ESB without understanding how the Vader reveal works as a narrative beat, gave Sheev spawn, and didn't even have enough courage of their convictions to admit that he fucks.

Like we all know Vader spent two decades pining gloomily after Padmé. But Palpatine? Sheev Palpatine? The guy whose two modes are smiling smug self-satisfied secret smiles to himself and crowing POWER, UNLIMITED POWER? The guy who cackles with maniacal relish anytime he gets to let his hair down and have a lightsaber fight? That guy is a hedonist. Tell me I'm wrong. That man is at all times enjoying the hell out of being irredeemably evil. He is a literal emperor, the vastly powerful and mostly unchallenged ruler of the galaxy, reveling in a victory he spent many years plotting and scheming for. And they had to invent some half-assed narrative afterthought of a cloning program rather than simply allowing us to assume that at some point in the two+ decades between ROTS and ROTJ, that man got laid? The cowardice. The incompetence. The sheer commitment to taking every conceivable L

[jedi-starbird]

My Feemor proposal

A popular headcanon for Feemor is that he's a Jedi Shadow. Shadows are spies and basically detectives. Feemor's lineage has a reputation for being eccentric, infamous, and finding trouble everywhere they go. So, walk with me here, Feemor's an eccentric, famous, blonde detective.

This is Feemor.

[noramsblog]

The sillies

[galactic-rhea]

[ID: Screenshot of a chat that says "just leave my queen alone, she's already suffered enough. She wanted a life with her malewife murder monk pilot mechanic racer and you should respect her for that!]

It's Padmé defending's hours for me

I have been seeing more negative (with very weird connotations, tbh) posts about Padmé on my dash lately, and while I'm a firm believer of the "scroll past it" rule, it really irks me a lot because MOST of these takes sound a bit mysoginistic to me and also (to me) shows a lack of trying to understand her as a character, not in a "you don't get her" way, but in a "you don't even try to understand the character and her context in the damn story just because you wanna sound holy than thou" way.

I'm all for accepting takes about Padmé's flaws or having a slightly more privileged/closed view (and that makes sense, she's aristocracy) but these people are SO WEIRD whenever they wanna talk about her 🤨

I'll forever mad that George eliminated SO MANY scenes with Padmé in the movies, but I feel like even if we had those scenes, people's complaints would be exactly the same.

But also i think half of the time people fail at understanding Padmé is because they're also failing to understand Anakin's as a character, idk

[jaguarys]

Palpatine was really the villain ever. No one is doing it like him. Come back when you've murdered your family, got into politics literally just to fuck things up, raised a murder child, groomed another child, manipulated a senate, caused a massacre, crumbled a government, created an empire, ruled as a galactic tyrant, electrocuted a shit ton of people, and been killed by a twenty-year-old farmboy. Can't even be mad because who the hell else has the audacity?

[supreme-leader-stoat]

Kidnapper, smugly: "As I'm sure you're aware Mr. Holmes, you need a warrant to search someone's house."

Sherlock: "You know Watson, this gentleman is correct. We really have no legal grounds to be here." pulls out a gun. "Oh, well, I suppose that makes this a robbery!" :)

[cruella1989]

Palpatine’s Thoughts on the Rebellion, the Empire and Power.

Here are some more of Palpatine’s inner thoughts during the Battle of Endor featured in the short story, “Then Fall, Sidious”.

I find the part in the last paragraph where he says “…strength is not a fist, but a burden. I will do what must be done to make this galaxy great because it is what I am called to do,” particularly interesting. It sounds almost like he feels called to “protect” the galaxy.

Anyway, like I’ve said before, I highly recommend this story to any Palpatine fan, who likes to see a more human side of him.

[antianakin]

It's very funny to be a blog that dislikes Anakin but loves Palpatine.

Now I obviously recognize Palpatine is an evil toad who commits genocide after genocide and is, generally, just an absolutely awful person. If he were REAL, I'd hate him.

But he's not, and so his unapologetically evil behavior is just SO IMMENSELY ENJOYABLE. I love that he's not some tragic uwu baby, I love how much enjoyment he gets out of ruining people's lives in the most melodramatic way possible, I love that he cackles as he toys with people like he's just playing with his food.

And maybe that's WHY I feel like I can enjoy Palpatine in a way I just... don't enjoy Anakin, or Kylo, or Maul, or even Dooku. Hardly anybody ever tries to uwu Palpatine. MOST people recognize that Palpatine is intended to be a bad person and that he does bad things and because he's not generally considered super attractive, he doesn't have a ton of fangirls rushing to make excuses for his actions so they can feel better about stanning him. Palpatine can just be enjoyed for the evil asshole that he is, I don't have to deal with tons of fans being WEIRD about him all of the time and it's GREAT. Palpatine is an incredible villain, one of the few who is honestly made worse by adding more nuance to him.

[butts-art]

what's your sign?

high res:

[this-acuteneurosis]

So Im all here for the Pretty Ladies who dress nicely doing all the politics, wonderful court intrigue right here, are we gonna talk about in the back ground the majority known Male characters are in War killing dying thing? this story IS about the back room deals and others as main setting, (although we should tease you about dodging the wars in Star Wars sometimes just as a little poke.) curious cause the 4 main Male politco 2 are enemies in Rush and Palps. Kamino had a fem evil Senator! use??

Who wants to talk about ✨🌈Palpatine🌈✨!

There haven't been a lot of opportunities to talk about the structure and the influence of our main villain textually in the story, because Leia is kinda blind to her own bias, and also a lot of stuff that I have as part of his character just...doesn't come up.

So, keep two things in mind as I talk about DLB Chancellor Sheev Palpatine and pull back the curtain just a little.

His character is coming pretty exclusively from the OT and PT movies (with minor exceptions).

I'm taking advantage of a lot of silences and time period circumstances to draw conclusions about his character, so don't be surprised if I say something that isn't said out loud at some point.

Ready? Let's go!!

The OT features an overabundance of male humans in positions of power in Palpatine's government. This may have been balanced out slightly by novels that I haven't read or newer shows that I haven't watched, but the people Palps promoted to his special seats of power (Moffs, military leaders) are overwhelming human men. If we stretch canon to include the two Clone Wars cartoon series, the only women brought into Palpatine's plots are brought in by Dooku or other associates, not Palpatine himself. Of the three apprentices Palpatine has, two are human and one is humanoid.

I don't think I'm breaking anyone's brain to assert that Palpatine is sexist and racist. I know I'm not the first person to suggest or write this sort of character.

What I'm going to assert, beyond those points, is that Palpatine is only really impressed with himself, and assumes that anyone lacking qualities that he has is progressively less useful and important than him. So he's also, for lack of a better word, Force-ist.

(Ugh, nope. I still don't like it, but I don't have anything else.)

Palpatine absolutely has loyalists and panderers that are women. But as far as DLB is concerned, he's not promoting them, searching them out, or impressed by them. So women are going to be antagonists in this story more incidentally. On a small scale. Major antagonists are going to end up frequently being male and human. And I'm not going to try and change that.

Only tangentially related, but a little important because Leia comes into the Senate through Padmé's office, because of the prejudices listed above, I will pretty much die on the hill that Palpatine loathes Padmé. And he really loathes that he loathes her. That he has to have any feelings about her at all.

She's young. She's a girl. She isn't Force sensitive. He plucked her out and carefully curated her early political experience and was probably violently influential in her success in getting elected the first time. He had a tiny, fragile, 14 year old stumbling under the weight of the crown, ready to start his civil war and initiate the end of the Republic. She gets him elected. His plan is flawless.

Until it turns out that she has a spine, and humility. She has the courage to face danger and the grace to bow to another sovereign power. She trusts Jar Jar Binks when he suggests that the gungans have an army. Like this is somehow a viable plan for taking back her people, when Jar Jar isn't even slightly popular or powerful.

And she wins. Palpatine loses Maul, he loses Naboo, and he loses the opportunity to start a war. She sets him back a solid decade, at 14. On a hope and a the thinnest apology.

DLB isn't so much about creating a perfectly equitable Star Wars universe. I'm not equipped for that, and it wasn't the goal. This story is about a bunch of ladies doing politics and kicking Palpatine's plans to the curb because he was always vulnerable to the people he dismissed the most.

Palpatine's plans had the Jedi and the Senate in a steel trap of lose-lose situations. But he loses, over and over, to kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and diplomacy. He's stymied by it. He literally can't plan for it. I've had all sorts of fun having Leia and Padmé do "mother-daughter" politics together, but I love that in RotJ Luke Skywalker looked the Emperor dead in the eyes and said, "No. No you can't make me do this." Like his mother would have. It had to drive Palpatine completely nuts. And it worked.

Anyway, all that to say, there's a lot of story left, and I'm not going to give away all of Palpatine's plans and plots. But part of how Leia got this far without any resistance was that Palpatine saw a short, unconnected woman from the outer rim, had no idea she could use the Force, and went, "Not important."

And he was very, very, very wrong. :D

[izunias-meme-hole]

Emperor Palpatine Appreciation Post

Happy Revenge of The Fifth