At I'm original. I don't fangirl over pretty boys- I fangirl over disguting, moraless old men.
So I wrote this long rant about the Sith on Gregory's LJ and my computer froze. So I decided to rewrite it in Notepad and post it in my lj, because honestly, the geeky fangirl in me needs to rant about this.
It seems to me that the biggest subject of debate over the plot of Episode III has to do with Palpatine's two big duels and whether or not Mace Windu/Yoda could have, in fact killed him. This is not solely directed at you, Gregory, since QUITE a few people have ranted about this to me.
So, in all good nature, your local Sith Lord, Darth Sparky, presents a rant in fangirl-ey form on the motivations of the Sith:
Needlessly to say, you probably shouldn't read this if you haven't seen 'Revenge of the Sith' yet.
Any Star Wars fan knows the basic structure of The Sith: there are only ever two, Master and Apprentience. The Master holds all of the knowledge, history, lore and secrets of the Sith and chooses to pass this knowledge on to only to most exceptional student. Eventually, the Apprentience surprasses their Master and kills them in order to succeed as Dark Lord of the Sith. If their Apprentience proves to be incompetent, unsatisfactory or simply never gets around to murdering their mentor (*cough* Darth Vader), the Sith Lord will usually do away with them and choose a new apprentience. The Dark Lord we're most familiar with, Emperor Palpatine, seems to enjoy having his new wards kill his old ones themselves (Anakin - Dooku, EPIII, Luke - Vader, EPVI).
Now, the new trilogy has murkied the waters on this issue a bit by introducing extraveneous Sith such as Dath Maul and that chick from the 'Clone Wars' animation who's name always seems to escape me. However, knowing the dark side of the force =/= Sith. As with the Jedi, there are certain tests and doctrines one must pass in order to become a true Sith. Both Darth Maul and the nameless woman were moderately powerful youngsters with a strong interest in the Dark Side that Palpatine and Dooku took advantage of. They were both used as means to an end- they were promised a chance to become true Sith and then sent to their deaths. Well, I suppose this fact is debatable in Darth Maul's case. We're never really shown much background information on him, but given the fact that Dooku seems pretty comfortable in his position as Palpatine's apprentince (did you see the look on his face when Palpatine told Anakin to kill him?), I'm sure that it was something similar to what happened with the unamed woman in the cartoon. Considering both of these "lesser" Sith were taken out by Padawans (Obi-Wan and Anakin, respectively), there's no way they ever could have expected to surprass Palpatine.
Okay, so what does all of this have to do with whether Mace Windu would have killed Palpatine or not?
Quite simply put: at that point in the movie, PALPATINE HAD NO APPRENTIENCE! When he was fighting Mace Windu, he was the only person in the entire galaxy carrying the Sith Legacy. Whether or not Anakin had shown up, Palpatine would have lived. He would have either fought for his life, or run for his life. To the Sith Lord there is nothing more important than, you know, BEING SITH LORD. If he had died there, the historical Sith would have died with them. Palpatine is a smart guy- there's no way he would have let that happen.
Besides, I thought that it was pretty obvious that he knew Anakin would show up. He has been fucking with that kid's head since he was, like, ten years old. It's almost disgusting watching how Anakin dances to that old man's tune- especially when you realize that he's STILL doing it two decades later in the original trilogy. The Sith are pretty scary that way- Palpatine was seeing into Anakin's dreams, so I don't think it's a stretch to say he more or less expected Anakin to show up in his office. The only tricky part was the question of whether Anakin would defend him or not.
On Mace Windu's part... he had some sticky politics to worry about. If he had killed Palpatine at that moment, there would have been hell to pay. It's implied in EPIII that the general populace of the Republic know absolutely nothing about the Sith. They know about the Dark Side of the Force, sure, but they aren't terribly well educated on the concept of Sith Lords. How would the Jedi have looked if all of a sudden they assassinated the High Chancellor of the Republic, claiming that he was the Dark Lord of the Sith? Even if they had undeniable proof, there would inevitably be some planets who would flat out refuse to believe because they hadn't been able to see it with their own eyes. On the other hand, how the HELL do you detain someone who has absolutely no qualms about using the force for any and everything he pleases? He was morally conflicted and this caused him to hesitate. Even if Anakin HADN'T sown up, this would have given Palpatine the opportunity to kill Windu/flee if he really needed to.
And besides, if Yoda couldn't take about Palpatine, there's no way in hell that Mace Windu ever could have managed it.
I'm still a bit cloudy on Yoda's reasons for running away from that fight because he is most certainly NOT a coward. It's been pointed out to me that Yoda is rather like the Dhali Lama- he has strange, zen-like reasoning for the decisions he makes. Reasoning that most other people can't understand.
Well, I certainly can't understand this one. He went to Courscant specifically to kill Palpatine. Did you see the way he stalked into that office? He was on an assassination mission no two ways about it. As far as I could tell, they fought to a stalemate and thus, Yoda decided it was wiser for him to walk away from the fight rather than finish the job. On top of all of this, Yoda sent himself into freaking EXILE afterwards.
It's difficult to say anything about Yoda that runs counterpoint to the general public opinion of: "OMG! YODA KIXXORS ASS!" but he most certainly did NOT win that duel. I'd say he and Palpatine were evenly matched, which only makes sense. That duel could have gone either way, I suppose, but Palpatine really had the advantage with his whole: "I'm evil and fight dirty- plus you're already run ragged from fighting your way off of Kasykk. Ha ha." mentality. Physically, Yoda did not lose the duel, however the fact still stands that his inability to do what he had gone there to do resulted in the galaxy being ruled by the Sith, I'd say that he probably *considered* it a defeat. Hence the whole: "I've failed. Go into exile, I must." deal. He can't have been referring to Anakin, since that was not his failure alone. The Jedi as a whole failed Anakin (and that's another rant entirely); Yoda, on his own, failed to kill Palpatine. Whether it was within his power to do so or not is irrelevent. The point is he didn't. And he was mad at himself. Hell, anyone would be.
The really sad thing about the way EPIII played out is that there was no point in the entire trilogy that Palpatine wasn't holding all the cards. I'm betting that the reason it all played out so smoothly probably had a lot to do with his predecessors as well, however he was the first Sith in a long line who was wily and gutsy enough to actually pull it off. I think the point that Lucas was tyring to make was that it all hinged on Anakin. He was supposed to bring balance to the force- whichever way he ended up swinging would be the victorious side.
(If you want to get technical, Anakin actually DID bring balance to the force. Eventually. In the new trilogy, he helped destroy the Jedi. In the original trilogy, he killed the Emperor. This completely destroyed both historical sides of the conflict and allowed it all to start over again from scratch. It left only Luke- who was a different type of Jedi altogether. He was only sort-of trained, afterall, and while he ended up defeating his dark side eventually he never quite killed his emotions. He's much more balanced than the Jedi of the new trilogy's Republic. If you want to get even more technical, we can talk about Mara Jade- the last lingering "sort of" Sith. She was trained by Palpatine in the force, but wasn't completely evil. Far from it, in fact. She, like Luke, eventually became a more balanced kind of Jedi- one who manages to listen to her emotions without succumbing to the Dark Side. Ahaha, that just makes their relationship sound so... "destined to be". I think I just made myself sick.)
So. My point was this: Palpatine served the Jedi's collective ass to them on a plate. They were all quite distressed about this. The Jedi dropped the ball and were completely blindsided by the Sith. It's hard to accept because, hey, Jedi are totally the coolest thing in the entire Universe! But the movie was called 'Revenge of the Sith' for a reason. The Sith completely cleaned house.
Palpatine's only real fuck up was the whole: "Hey! Let's do force lightning into Mace Windu's lightsaber! Whoo!" thing. But his fashion sense improved HUGELY when he became disfigured, so it's all good. ^___^
AND HOLY CRAP, I THINK THAT BEING A SITH FANGIRL IS JUST DOWNRIGHT UNHEALTHY!
Does the fact that deep down inside I fangirl Obi Wan nearly as much as I fangirl Palpatine count for something? ^__^;;
Why am I such a Star Wars!geek >______>
Anyways, feel free to debate with me. ^___^ I'm sure there's some things I didn't take into consideration.Come on, challenge my encyclopedia-like geek knowledge. I dare you.
In other news: expect a halfways serious rant about, you know, my LIFE sometime this week. o__O
It seems to me that the biggest subject of debate over the plot of Episode III has to do with Palpatine's two big duels and whether or not Mace Windu/Yoda could have, in fact killed him. This is not solely directed at you, Gregory, since QUITE a few people have ranted about this to me.
So, in all good nature, your local Sith Lord, Darth Sparky, presents a rant in fangirl-ey form on the motivations of the Sith:
Needlessly to say, you probably shouldn't read this if you haven't seen 'Revenge of the Sith' yet.
Any Star Wars fan knows the basic structure of The Sith: there are only ever two, Master and Apprentience. The Master holds all of the knowledge, history, lore and secrets of the Sith and chooses to pass this knowledge on to only to most exceptional student. Eventually, the Apprentience surprasses their Master and kills them in order to succeed as Dark Lord of the Sith. If their Apprentience proves to be incompetent, unsatisfactory or simply never gets around to murdering their mentor (*cough* Darth Vader), the Sith Lord will usually do away with them and choose a new apprentience. The Dark Lord we're most familiar with, Emperor Palpatine, seems to enjoy having his new wards kill his old ones themselves (Anakin - Dooku, EPIII, Luke - Vader, EPVI).
Now, the new trilogy has murkied the waters on this issue a bit by introducing extraveneous Sith such as Dath Maul and that chick from the 'Clone Wars' animation who's name always seems to escape me. However, knowing the dark side of the force =/= Sith. As with the Jedi, there are certain tests and doctrines one must pass in order to become a true Sith. Both Darth Maul and the nameless woman were moderately powerful youngsters with a strong interest in the Dark Side that Palpatine and Dooku took advantage of. They were both used as means to an end- they were promised a chance to become true Sith and then sent to their deaths. Well, I suppose this fact is debatable in Darth Maul's case. We're never really shown much background information on him, but given the fact that Dooku seems pretty comfortable in his position as Palpatine's apprentince (did you see the look on his face when Palpatine told Anakin to kill him?), I'm sure that it was something similar to what happened with the unamed woman in the cartoon. Considering both of these "lesser" Sith were taken out by Padawans (Obi-Wan and Anakin, respectively), there's no way they ever could have expected to surprass Palpatine.
Okay, so what does all of this have to do with whether Mace Windu would have killed Palpatine or not?
Quite simply put: at that point in the movie, PALPATINE HAD NO APPRENTIENCE! When he was fighting Mace Windu, he was the only person in the entire galaxy carrying the Sith Legacy. Whether or not Anakin had shown up, Palpatine would have lived. He would have either fought for his life, or run for his life. To the Sith Lord there is nothing more important than, you know, BEING SITH LORD. If he had died there, the historical Sith would have died with them. Palpatine is a smart guy- there's no way he would have let that happen.
Besides, I thought that it was pretty obvious that he knew Anakin would show up. He has been fucking with that kid's head since he was, like, ten years old. It's almost disgusting watching how Anakin dances to that old man's tune- especially when you realize that he's STILL doing it two decades later in the original trilogy. The Sith are pretty scary that way- Palpatine was seeing into Anakin's dreams, so I don't think it's a stretch to say he more or less expected Anakin to show up in his office. The only tricky part was the question of whether Anakin would defend him or not.
On Mace Windu's part... he had some sticky politics to worry about. If he had killed Palpatine at that moment, there would have been hell to pay. It's implied in EPIII that the general populace of the Republic know absolutely nothing about the Sith. They know about the Dark Side of the Force, sure, but they aren't terribly well educated on the concept of Sith Lords. How would the Jedi have looked if all of a sudden they assassinated the High Chancellor of the Republic, claiming that he was the Dark Lord of the Sith? Even if they had undeniable proof, there would inevitably be some planets who would flat out refuse to believe because they hadn't been able to see it with their own eyes. On the other hand, how the HELL do you detain someone who has absolutely no qualms about using the force for any and everything he pleases? He was morally conflicted and this caused him to hesitate. Even if Anakin HADN'T sown up, this would have given Palpatine the opportunity to kill Windu/flee if he really needed to.
And besides, if Yoda couldn't take about Palpatine, there's no way in hell that Mace Windu ever could have managed it.
I'm still a bit cloudy on Yoda's reasons for running away from that fight because he is most certainly NOT a coward. It's been pointed out to me that Yoda is rather like the Dhali Lama- he has strange, zen-like reasoning for the decisions he makes. Reasoning that most other people can't understand.
Well, I certainly can't understand this one. He went to Courscant specifically to kill Palpatine. Did you see the way he stalked into that office? He was on an assassination mission no two ways about it. As far as I could tell, they fought to a stalemate and thus, Yoda decided it was wiser for him to walk away from the fight rather than finish the job. On top of all of this, Yoda sent himself into freaking EXILE afterwards.
It's difficult to say anything about Yoda that runs counterpoint to the general public opinion of: "OMG! YODA KIXXORS ASS!" but he most certainly did NOT win that duel. I'd say he and Palpatine were evenly matched, which only makes sense. That duel could have gone either way, I suppose, but Palpatine really had the advantage with his whole: "I'm evil and fight dirty- plus you're already run ragged from fighting your way off of Kasykk. Ha ha." mentality. Physically, Yoda did not lose the duel, however the fact still stands that his inability to do what he had gone there to do resulted in the galaxy being ruled by the Sith, I'd say that he probably *considered* it a defeat. Hence the whole: "I've failed. Go into exile, I must." deal. He can't have been referring to Anakin, since that was not his failure alone. The Jedi as a whole failed Anakin (and that's another rant entirely); Yoda, on his own, failed to kill Palpatine. Whether it was within his power to do so or not is irrelevent. The point is he didn't. And he was mad at himself. Hell, anyone would be.
The really sad thing about the way EPIII played out is that there was no point in the entire trilogy that Palpatine wasn't holding all the cards. I'm betting that the reason it all played out so smoothly probably had a lot to do with his predecessors as well, however he was the first Sith in a long line who was wily and gutsy enough to actually pull it off. I think the point that Lucas was tyring to make was that it all hinged on Anakin. He was supposed to bring balance to the force- whichever way he ended up swinging would be the victorious side.
(If you want to get technical, Anakin actually DID bring balance to the force. Eventually. In the new trilogy, he helped destroy the Jedi. In the original trilogy, he killed the Emperor. This completely destroyed both historical sides of the conflict and allowed it all to start over again from scratch. It left only Luke- who was a different type of Jedi altogether. He was only sort-of trained, afterall, and while he ended up defeating his dark side eventually he never quite killed his emotions. He's much more balanced than the Jedi of the new trilogy's Republic. If you want to get even more technical, we can talk about Mara Jade- the last lingering "sort of" Sith. She was trained by Palpatine in the force, but wasn't completely evil. Far from it, in fact. She, like Luke, eventually became a more balanced kind of Jedi- one who manages to listen to her emotions without succumbing to the Dark Side. Ahaha, that just makes their relationship sound so... "destined to be". I think I just made myself sick.)
So. My point was this: Palpatine served the Jedi's collective ass to them on a plate. They were all quite distressed about this. The Jedi dropped the ball and were completely blindsided by the Sith. It's hard to accept because, hey, Jedi are totally the coolest thing in the entire Universe! But the movie was called 'Revenge of the Sith' for a reason. The Sith completely cleaned house.
Palpatine's only real fuck up was the whole: "Hey! Let's do force lightning into Mace Windu's lightsaber! Whoo!" thing. But his fashion sense improved HUGELY when he became disfigured, so it's all good. ^___^
AND HOLY CRAP, I THINK THAT BEING A SITH FANGIRL IS JUST DOWNRIGHT UNHEALTHY!
Does the fact that deep down inside I fangirl Obi Wan nearly as much as I fangirl Palpatine count for something? ^__^;;
Anyways, feel free to debate with me. ^___^ I'm sure there's some things I didn't take into consideration.
In other news: expect a halfways serious rant about, you know, my LIFE sometime this week. o__O