PT Aftermath of the Yoda/Sidious fight ...

Sidious is such a sneaky and shadowy characters. It's hard to know if anything we see him do on screen or say is true.

Did Sidious actually stick his neck out in the duel with Mace Windu? Was he in any danger at all? Did Mace really cornered him when Anakin arrived or was that a ruse? Was Sidious ever in any danger? Say Anakin didn't step in, would Sidous have stopped Mace before his lightsaber could strike?

I think if Obi-Wan and Yoda had confronted Sidious together, Obi-Wan would have simply gotten in the way endangering Yoda. Think the Ep2 Yoda duel with Dooku but this time Sidious wouldn't use a threat against Obi-Wan to escape, but to kill Yoda.

 

Or, as the novelization puts it:

"Palpatine faced Mace and Agen and Kit and Saesee - four of the greatest swordsmen our order has ever produced. By himself. Even both of us together wouldn't have a chance.'

'True,' Yoda said, 'But both of us apart, a chance we might create...”

 

Agreed. The difference in power between Yoda and Sidious was large, and the addition of Obi-Wan to the battle would not be enough to make up for the difference.

 

Mhm, didn't really answer to this back then, but since it has been brought up again...

You do realize how physics work, yes?
This is actually one example in which the high-ground is actually meaningful. Palpatine could happily throw these pods around because gravity worked in his favour. As soon as the pods were on their way, they would move on their own. It is much much more difficult to throw something upwards than it is to throw it downwards. And not only that, but it is even more difficult to have something heavy stop in its path and have it move back up again. Throwing a bunch of these pods is nothing compared to what Yoda did with that one pod. Try to get a big bolder to go downhill, as soon as you get it moving it will do the job for you. Now try to stop that bolder while it is moving, followed by pushing it all the way up again. These two things don't require even remotely the same effort.

Beyond that, Palpatine was having the "time of his life" only as long as things were going in his favour. He stopped laughing and tried to run away when Yoda threw him back in his office. He stopped laughing when he realized that Yoda was actually capable of not only stopping a pod put throwing it back towards him. And he was completely shocked when Yoda suddenly turned the table on his lightning. He caught a very lucky break when he managed to hold onto the pod while Yoda fell down. Their direct attacks on each other didn't show anything that would suggest that one was more powerful than the other. He won based on circumstances, not because he was more powerful. Yoda had the misfortune of having lost the high-ground to Palpatine at one point. He also had the misfortune of having just a very narrow time-window to succeed, while Palpatine actually benefitted from drawing things out.

 

For a fight between the two most powerful force users in the galaxy, I think gravity would have a relatively minor impact as compared to the Anakin vs Obi-Wan situation. Sidious and Yoda's fight was quite dynamic, so I wouldn't be surprised if Yoda had a higher ground sometime earlier in their battle. In fact, when Sidious starts to shoot podia at him, Yoda just made a big landing, though it is unclear if he was jumping from a level location or down from a higher location.

At no point in the battle do we see Yoda attempting to gain a high ground. He did have an opportunity (just after throwing back the podium and Sidious just dodged and was frantically looking around for him), but he chose to jump onto Sidious's podium and pull out his lightsaber instead. Likewise, Sidious doesn't seem worried about guarding his high ground. When Yoda was struggling to dodge all those podia, Sidious could have jumped to the highest part of the senate chamber to prevent any possibility of Yoda reaching a higher ground than him. Also, when waiting around for the clones to find Yoda, he seemed pretty comfortable hanging out in the mid-region of the senate chamber.

It seems like neither Yoda nor Sidious cared about a high ground. I'm guessing that even if Yoda did get a high ground, he would not be able to hurl multiple podia at Sidious.

Now regarding the hand to hand combat. I'll break this into two parts.
Part 1: Sidious is clearly winning. He is walking towards Yoda while Yoda takes a tiny step back, Sidious continues to fire at full power, Yoda bends backward while turning his head away, and then Sidious slowly bends forward.

Part 2: With a determined look, Yoda switches to a different tactic. Initially, this pushes Sidious enough to force him to bend backward, while Yoda is bending forward. But in just a few seconds, both are thrown out backwards.

Here's the breakdown of the last bit:

I'm not really sure how to interpret Part 2. While it initially seems that Yoda has complete control, it quickly changes to both being pushed back equally. What did Yoda do? Did he let out some short lasting burst of energy? The net effect of Yoda's second tactic is ending the fight of Part 1 (in which Yoda was clearly losing) with both sides being thrown out away from each other. So basically, it seems like a defensive strategy of some sort. Or maybe, it wasn't meant to be defensive. Perhaps it was his last trick (could even be his top skill), his only hope left for defeating Sidious, and when even that ended as a draw, he knew any more attempts would be futile.
Overall then, it looks like Sidious has the upper hand; he is on the offensive. Yoda is only capable of defending himself (not sure if there would be a time limit for how long he can defend himself for), and is forced to retreat.

 

As for Point #1- You do have a point, Yoda didn’t try to seek a higher ground where he’d have the advantage.

Point #2- I figured it was simply due to bringing the electricity close to the source that caused the big shock. I’m no electrician so I don’t know the proper terms for it, but Palpatine is basically the source of the electricity. Yoda is the conduit (again, don’t know the term) holding and channeling the electricity into two small balls in his hands. When he brought it closer, the electrical discharge grew and grew until crack, the force blew them both backward.

 

Yoda probably knew he had no time to continue this fight, because the ruckus in the Senate probably didn't go by unnoticed by a battalion of Clone Troopers making it's way towards them.

 

The last lightning exchange is actually a lot about size as well- Palpatine throws his lightning at Yoda and disarms him which catches Yoda off guard and creates the opportunity for Sidious to close the space between them which effectively denies Yoda the chance to try to get himself out of the vulnerable position or to take control of the lightning exchange. Still Palpatine seems to be making little headway in getting past Yoda's tutaminis defense until he begins to elevate his body, even lifting his feet off the ground, and prior and during this action he puts in a huge amount of power/focus into his lightning. If you watch it in ultra slow motion you can see that just before Yoda gets overwhelmed with Palpatine's lightning, he is bringing together the two balls of energy that he gathered from his tutaminis defense together but Palpatine's newly elevated lightning forces his hands apart which does little to help him as the powerful lightning is getting so close to his face and blinding him. Palpatine presses his attack further and gloats over his presumed victory which motivates Yoda to fight back- here is where I think he begins to bring his hands together again(we don't see it on screen unfortunately), quickly combining the two balls of force energy into one and causing Palpatine's lightning to arc back towards him. Palpatine starts to be pushed backwards by Yoda's attack and becomes overwhelmed all while Yoda is absorbing some of the remaining lightning coming out of Palpatine's hands and also causing the bolts to keep rebounding onto Sidious. Before Yoda can defeat Palpatine however the combination of their powers becomes too much to control for either of them and the ball of energy explodes throwing both of them back.

 

Hmm, so maybe Yoda was actually going for something very dangerous then. By forcing himself closer to Sidious, there might be a short circuit or explosion of some sort that could destroy both of them. However, as it turns out, it only resulted in them being blasted away from each other. Upon hearing that Sidious was completely unhurt (he was laughing like a maniac), Yoda felt he had no chance of killing him, thus decided to go into exile.
This hypothesis could also explain why the hand to hand Part 2 began with Yoda seemingly winning but quickly changed to both getting blasted equally. With the electrical discharge growing, discomfort or pain might be felt by both sides. Sidious bent back in response to the pain. Yoda was basically making a suicide attack (hence that determined look on his face during the tactic switch), thus resisted the pain and forced himself forward by sheer willpower.

Wow good observations, I didn't notice some of them. The two balls of energy vs single ball is likely something significant, and it does appear that the single ball is more powerful. I'm not sure if Sidious elevating is significant though, it could be just random fidgeting (I didn't see his feet lifting off the ground, it might just be him standing straighter or going on his toes a bit) during an intense struggle.
This description of the battle does seem like a plausible explanation of the fight scenes themselves. However, I'm not sure if it matches well with the story. For one, Yoda's anger level was probably already at max since the beginning of the fight, so I doubt Sidious gloating over a presumed victory would give Yoda much more motivation, enough to get him from his disadvantaged position into an upper hand. Secondly, by this explanation, it almost seems as if Yoda was more powerful: Sidious's upper hand in Part 1 of the hand to hand combat was only because of his sudden lightning attack taking Yoda by surprise (before Yoda got a chance to do the single energy ball). And despite this initial disadvantage, Yoda still managed to gain the upper hand, and would have won if it wasn't because their combined power was so great that an explosion occurred, blasting both of them. But if this is the case, I don't see why Sidious would be laughing like crazy after the explosion, and why Yoda decided that he had failed.

 

I think Palpatine assumed that Yoda was dead- he knew he fell as you can see him looking down at the ground as he is crawling back up- I'm assuming he heard him fall. Even if the fight was a close one and Palpatine got lucky his cheaply won victory was still something for him to celebrate about.

I meant he was standing on his toes lol. If you watch their vision fight from the Clone Wars you can see the comparisons between the two lightning exchanges- Yoda is able to close in on Palpatine instead who tries to force the lighting/tutaminis defense lock onto to Yoda(he doesn't stand on his toes though lol) which obscures Yoda's vision but then Yoda starts to push back more which causes Palpatine to slowly be driven backwards. Then the explosion happens but Yoda is the lucky one while Palpatine gets thrown off although he obviously recovers quickly.

 

Palpatine still had a search made, and after the absence of the body was noted, Mas Amedda pointed out Yoda must not be dead:

208 INT. CORUSCANT-SENATE CHAMBER-MAIN ARENA-NIGHT

A Senate pod with COMMANDER THIRE (4477) and SEVERAL OTHER CLONE TROOPERS climb up to where MAS AMEDDA and PALPATINE are waiting. Beneath the Main Podium, TWENTY CLONE TROOPERS search for Yoda 's body.
CLONE COMMANDER THIRE: There is no sign of his body, sir.
MAS AMEDDA: Then he is not dead.
PALPATINE: Double your search.
CLONE COMMANDER THIRE: Yes sir. Right away, sir.
PALPATINE: (to Mas Amedda) Tell Captain Kagi to prepare my shuttle for immediate takeoff.
MAS AMEDDA: Yes, Master.
PALPATINE: I sense Lord Vader is in danger.

Maybe lack of "sensing Yoda dying" was what prompted the search in the first place?

 

Palpatine is smart enough to know that unless he knows FOR A FACT that Yoda is 100%, incontrovertibly, certifiably dead... He's probably not dead. You don't get as far as Palpatine did by assuming that "eh, he's probably toast, what the heck."
He took the risk of killing his own master personally and directly after all when he could arrange an assassination.

 

Yeah I know what you mean but in that specific moment I think he was gloating in triumph- I think he must have searched for Yoda's body in the pod(this is stated in the script and the novelization) and when the Clone Troopers arrived he ordered them to conduct a search and clean the Senate room up. I also think he summoned his disarmed lightsaber from the floor of the Senate Chamber using the Force at least in my head canon.

 

It wasn't close at all. Palpatine was more powerful, that's why Yoda escaped.

 

I feel that if Sidious only had a cheaply won victory (thus non-repeatable on a second try), and there was no evidence on Yoda being dead, there isn't really much worth celebrating.
Personally, I'm leaning towards the suicide attack hypothesis. Yoda was getting overwhelmed during Part 1, so he switched to a different tactic. The key to this tactic maybe isn't so much shortening the physical distance between them but the single energy ball, which is probably a whole different technique (from the two energy balls), one much more destructive. It could potentially kill either one or both of them, but as it turns out, both sides were unhurt.

So to sum up my thoughts on the battle:
1. Saber fight: Stalemate (This section is really just a warm up... Sidious can blast away Yoda's lightsaber with force lightning. For the two most powerful force users in the galaxy, the lightsaber as a weapon seems almost obsolete.)
2. Hurling objects: Sidious upper hand
3. Hand to hand Part 1 (two energy balls vs force lightning): Sidious upper hand
4. Hand to hand Part 2 (single energy ball vs force lightning): Both sides blasted equally
So overall, Sidious is more powerful. This matches with the reaction of both Yoda (deciding that he failed) and Sidious (laughing like a maniac) at the end of their battle.

 

Question: In the aftermath of the aforementioned fight, who went on to rule the galaxy and who went into hiding on a total sh-thole?

 

Not to mention that there likely was a battalion of clone troopers nearby who would be enroute to investigate all the commotion.

 

I think Palpatine is still a bit wary Yoda is lurking around ready to strike. Those clone troopers guarding the landing platform at the medical center when he brings Vader back from Mustafar could be a contingency against Yoda or some other leftover Jedi.

 

He THOUGHT Yoda was probably dead in that one small moment and he had just gained the upper hand after nearly losing- then of course he checked to see if Yoda was really dead or not and the clone troopers confirmed that he wasn't.

I feel like the force of throwing the one ball of Force energy directly at Palpatine could cause Yoda to be blasted backwards but this wasn't exactly what happened- Yoda is slowly pushing Sidious back and absorbing the lightning into that one energy ball and I think he was not ready to throw it at Sidious quite yet before the combination of their powers was simply too much to control(I personally feel that the explosion was the will of the Force as neither of them were destined to defeat the other) and the energy ball exploded upon both of them which only threw them away from each other without hurting either of them.

 

The big "what if" is that BOTH were blown off their feet but Palpatine managed to catch himself before falling. If they had both fallen, would the fight have continued? The novelisation is clear Yoda couldn't win (and he knew it) but it's an interesting thought.

 

There are at least two more reasons for Yoda and Obi Wan to go separately. First is practically mentioned in the movie: Your arrogance blinds you, Master Yoda. Palpatine is a manipulator, yes, but here he is not far from the truth. The Jedi underestimated Palpatine, even when they went to arrest him. I think in the beginning Yoda was more sure that he has chance to succeed than he was in the end of the fight. As we can see the things turned to be rather different: both Yoda and Obi Wan failed but as was mentioned above they at least survived to have the chance to continue the fight.
The other reason is connected again with chances. Yes, Yoda and Obi Wan possibly could stand against Palpatine, maybe they consider that they even could beat him but it doesn't mean that they could escape and survive (they won against the clone guards in the Temple but the soldiers weren't so many). And if they die in the process the Sith would still be there as Darth Vader is alive. Remember, they think at that point that Anakin couldn't be saved. So from Yoda's point of view, splitting up is the best strategy (at least they survived that way).

 

Oh I see what you mean now. It is a possible explanation for Sidious's laughter then.

Personally, I feel like Yoda realized that Sidious was significantly more powerful overall (despite the blasting part being equal), that's why after the blast he immediately decided to leave. And not just temporary escape, but permanent exile. He didn't give another try together with Obi-Wan despite seeing Obi-Wan alive and unhurt and thinking that Vader already burned to death. Even after many years and with the resistance fighting against the empire, he didn't look for any opportunities to ambush Sidious.

 

I agree that Windu underestimated Sidious, but I believe Yoda was prepared for anything (that's why he arranged for Bail Organa to help him escape if he loses) and was just willing to take a risk.
I wouldn't exactly say Obi Wan failed... yes he did fail to kill Vader, but he managed to permanently cripple him, and take away his kids, and not get himself injured in the process... that's quite an accomplishment.

If Yoda and Obi Wan do manage to kill Sidious, I don't think the clones would be much trouble anymore. They're genetically engineered to be docile, not loyal.

Btw, this thread is talking about the aftermath of the Yoda/Sidious fight, i.e. why Yoda and Obi Wan didn't team up against Sidious after the duels, not why they initially decided to go separately lol. If you still have a lot more to say regarding their initial decision, maybe we can move this discussion to a new thread?

 

I don't feel Sidious is significantly more powerful- I think Yoda realized how much Sidious had played the Jedi and yes how powerful he was. Beforehand I feel that Yoda knew Palpatine was powerful but given his age and abilities as well as the time sensitive task ahead of him he did not have any reason to believe that he couldn't beat him and arguably he was right. It wasn't until he saw Palpatine in action that he realized just how powerful he was. However he came very close to defeating him but in my opinion the Force intervened before either of them could conquer the other. Yoda decides to cut his losses as trying to kill Sidious again when the latter has an opening to call for assistance isn't a smart move in addition to being fatigued from the fight which made another stamina testing attempt to get at Sidious from below too risky of a move. Palpatine recovered faster as he didn't fall and had the upper hand. Yoda ultimately failed in his goal to defeat Palpatine but I think the duel was simply a full wakeup call/slap in the face that the Jedi Order had been arrogant beyond arrogant and that Yoda had failed to correct this problem which wasn't going to be solved by killing Palpatine anyway.

 

Ok I see your reasoning. I'm still going to hold my original interpretation (Sidious significantly more powerful, Yoda realizing that any more attempts would be futile), but your interpretation makes sense in itself too.