Lit Do you like the young Palpatine in Darth Plagueis?

How about him vs Yoda "I have waited a long time for this, my little green friend!" And cackling as he hurls pods at Yoda.

 

I liked it a lot, although I'll add the caveat that I went in without any sort of expectations one way or another; I had quite honestly never given a thought to Palpatine's youth or origin.

Luceno's Palpatine reminded me a great deal of Robert Harris's depiction of Julius Caesar in Imperium and Lustrum. Maybe the following checklist is common to a great many more characters, but that's what I kept thinking of.

They are both defined by their insatiable, vaulting ambition, although their attempts to cloak it are of variable effectiveness, and they cease trying to hide it entirely on occasion. "If not power, then nothing" might well spring directly from Caesar's (historical) 'better first man here than second in Rome' bit.

Similarly, there is an aura of immense - dangerousness? perilousness? Menace doesn't seem quite right - to them, that occasionally glints through their more genial persona; that although others might be far more powerful than them, they are vastly more dangerous.

Both are hugely, grandly arrogant, and both hold their aristocratic peers in utter contempt, albeit for not quite the same reasons.

Both keenly appreciate the limited time they have to achieve even a fraction of what they would.

Both are naturally adept politicians .

The most obvious points of difference - and these touch on what appear to be this thread's main criticisms - concern their rage and recklessness, both traits extant from their early lives.

Caesar, as well as I can recall, was never depicted losing his rag - he burns cold throughout - whereas, a very few times, we do see Palpatine erupt. Although, even then, I don't think I read any of those scenes as Palpatine actually losing control or going berserk or what have you.

In the matter of recklessness, the character flaws are to some degree inverted. Caesar remains a double-or-nothing gambler throughout. Palpatine is reckless as a youth but under Plagueis's tutelage, offered he largely does away with it.

Obviously, besides all that there's the dark side stuff, but that's less important.

Plagueis and Palpatine's first few conversations were among my favourite parts of the book precisely because of Palpatine's behaviour. I think you greatly overstate the 'arrogance and indifference', although what there was was thoroughly in keeping with the Palpatine of later years. Of couse it's different to the polished actor, he's been polished. Palpatine still ducks and weaves around Plagueis the entire time, as is observed. We get a mixture of frank curiosity, surprising honesty and practiced evasion that ultimately tells us more about his character than pretty well anything else. I'm not entirely sure where the thinly-veiled threats bit is from, though, or, in fact, why Palpatine should wish to ingratiate himself. Palpatine affects disinterest specifically because his ambition is so grossly, embarassingly overblown. To him, Damask is chiefly someone he can have an intelligent, half-honest conversation with.

 

ah yes, that one as well, where the contempt is dripping from his voice when he says "master yoda, you survived...."
that was a great beginning to that fight

 

Nah Jello, that's what he wants you to think!

 

Palpatine's very first encounter with Damask puts his arrogance, elitism, and rudeness on display; these were not the traits that made him so popular with the galactic population and ensured his election. The idea that he would greet a stranger, let alone a powerful and influential figure like Hego Damask, with such impertinence strains credulity past the breaking point. No, Palpatine from the films is the consummate actor, a man who conceals his true nature (and I'm not just talking about the Force, here) beneath a mask of general warmth. The novel, for all its strengths, failed spectacularly to emphasize this; perhaps because Luceno was worried about making Palpatine appear sympathetic. It's a shame he forgot that appearing sympathetic is precisely what allowed Palpatine to triumph.

 

I doubt he really forgot that, since it's emphasized later in the book and more strongly in Cloak of Deception.

 

I'm fairly certain Cloak of Deception was written prior to Plagueis, so I'm not sure how it stands as proof that he didn't forget. As for Palpatine's portrayal later in the book, it makes his demeanor as a teenager all the more jarring.

 

You really expect someone to be the same person at 46 that they are at 16 Sable? People change and acquire skills over time.

 

I confess to being entirely unaware of this and am appreciative for the words of wisdom.
Of course I don't expect a person to be the same; but I do expect a manipulative genius like Palpatine to be a little more circumspect even in his youth.

 

For me, I'd find that too unbelievable - there's always been psychopathic teenagers, but the ones that actually have their life mapped out and truly expect it to happen way? They're rare and scarier than Palpatine!

 

Well, I thought you meant he "forgot" in the sense that this was an element of the films he consistently overlooked, not that he forgot his own work.

 

Your familiarity with this subject is most... sinister. Am I perhaps speaking to a former one now?

Well, different strokes and all that. We can agree to disagree. For me, I agree that Palpy is meant to be a creature of pure evil, but a man of his intellect and his ambitions would understand very early on that one attracts more flies with sugar than the other thing. Even Voldemort understood that and he was more of a hack cartoon villain than Darth Sidious ever was.

 

Not consistently, only in a critical chapter or two. Luceno's ability to write a great Sidious is not in question and Cloak of Deception is in my top 3 favorite EU works simply because of its complex portrayal of Palpatine.

 

Pretty certain Voldemort didn't have a mentor figure though did he? I think it's quite likely Sidious sized Damask up from the start, much the way a tailor does a man for a suit, and knew honey would not work, that Damask would only respect and even be intrigued by a show of strength, the right approach being fitted to the right target and all that.

As to your other question, it's now 20 years gone, but there were some right bastards at the secondary school I attended!

 

Well when you put it like that, I can buy it. Better than Palpatine being a douche just because.

 

Oh, is that what you meant? In that case, I'd add I think Sidious was always running angles in his head, he might not have known exactly what he wanted to do with his life, but I think he was always running the angles for his own gain.

 

I think some are forgetting how impulsive and irrational teenagers can be. The polished actor we saw in the films had had another 30 years of practice, while the teen version was only beginning to come to terms with his growing power.

The whole arc of the novel, to my mind, is him learning the lesson of keeping his true nature under wraps and Plagueis teaching him to refine his approach and to use the darkness to his advantage. If Palpatine starts out the novel the same as we saw him in the films, or progresses in a straight line from A to B to C without showing us anything new ... what's the point?

Yes, he has both aspects to his character, and by the film era his dissembling was second nature and that's the one he presented to every person but Plagueis (even that's debatable), but in ROTS it's clear that he relished the chance to run amok after so many years restraining his destructive side.

 

True, but as I said, I expect even a young!Palpatine to be smart enough to recognize the merits of an affable disposition. Struggling with burgeoning powers I can believe, but I refuse to believe that this manipulative prodigy would not have some measure of circumspection and restraint.

As GAJ and Havac have also alluded, Palpatine's nature as pure evil and his ability to conceal that truth are not mutually exclusive. The cackling sociopath we see at various points was restrained deliberately for just that reason: it's not going to win anyone over.

 

Yeah, I have no problem with Sidious sizing Plagueis up as one bull[poop]er to another and decided to forgo that cyclical process for a more direct route. But it honestly didn't come off that way to me in the book until you suggested it. It read more like, "Wow, this guy is just a complete ass."

 

Yeah, I don't have a problem with the fact that Palpatine is not yet a perfect manipulator -- he should be unpolished. I'd just like him a little smoother than he was. There was a sort of vibe that he's just some really ambitious kid, and then he has this psychotic break where he slaughters his entire family and the evil sort of comes through, and he goes off and becomes a Sith now. It's a little simplistic, and doesn't give Palpatine quite the veneer of sophistication I'd like. I'd have liked to emphasize the fact that this is a calculating youth -- not a master manipulator, but calculating. I don't want mindless slaughter from this kid -- I want murder. When he snaps, the result of the snap shouldn't be screaming and Force lightning and "I don't know what came over me." It should be, "I just realized . . . I think I ought to kill you." Cold, not hot.

 

I assumed the similarity was intentional - both are pushed into a corner, desperately lash out, and after that they have no choice but to see the thing through to the end.