Lit Do you like the young Palpatine in Darth Plagueis?

While Maul, bless his heart, was probably playing soccer.

 

Some of what he says is backed up by stuff earlier in the book. The rest of it, not so much.

 

Which parts qualify, and which seem more boastful than accurate?

The combination of criticising Plagueis for "manipulating him into murdering his family" and the claim that he was playing Plagueis all the time, before they even met, seems a bit odd.

 

The stuff involving the clone army, certainly:

"An attack of that sort would fail, regardless," Sidious said, as if thinking out loud. "The Jedi are widely scattered, and it's unlikely that we would be able to act quickly enough to kill all of them in the same instant. We would need to assign an individual assassin to each, and there would be no way to still the tongues of that many assassins. Our plan would be revealed. We would be betrayed and become the targeted ones." -p187

Sidious took a moment. "We will have to exploit their vanity and blind obedience to the Republic," he said with greater confidence, and as if the truth of it should be obvious. "They must be made to appear the enemies of peace and justice rather than the guardians."
"The enemies of peace and justice rather than the guardians," Plagueis repeated, in revelation. - p188

For some of them it seems like it's up to the reader to imagine for themselves Palpatine giving Plagueis the idea "off-page" ( or to decide otherwise ) since we aren't specifically shown anything of the sort. The reference to Dooku doesn't seem accurate because from what we get in the book it appears to have been Plagueis' idea. The reference to Maul doesn't even seem to make sense given how Maul fell into Palpatine's lap.

Well, it definitely would be odd if he was playing Plagueis before they even met, but AFAIK he didn't go quite that far.

 

The part the matters to me, him claiming he manipulated Plagueis throughout the relationship seems incredibly false, especially as over the years we're able to see what both players are thinking, and at no time does it come off that way. In fact, i'd say Palpatine's thoughts directly contradict that idea. The Clone Army idea's probably the greatest claim he can make, and even that's up in the air.

 

Good point- it was probably a forum theory that had Palpatine lay the trail that led Plagueis to Naboo in the first place - rather than Palpatine's own words.

 

The fanon theory originated from the revelation in Book of Sith that Sidious had been actively seeking and collecting Sith paraphernalia long before he met Plagueis.