Does Palpatine get stronger after Order 66?

I'm thinking about the Mace Windu and Yoda duels...first he seems to get owned by Mace, but later he defeats Yoda. So maybe he becomes more powerful after all the Jedi are dead? Like somehow the dark side just gets much stronger once the light side has been defeated. Or perhaps Sidious is somehow drawing power off his apprentice?

 

I've thought about it and I think that there are two possibilities.

Either he isn't any stronger but it just appears that he is given the circumstances (fighting Yoda requires he be faster and being in the senate chamber gives him access to all those pods he couldn't utilize with Mace.

OR

He has gotten stronger, that once he wins Anakin over and he can carry out Order 66 there's no more reason to behave like a conducted gentleman and he allows the dark side to flow through himself freely making him stronger.


I personally favor the latter.

 

He definately gets more confidence.

 

I agree. Sidious acted weak against Mace so that when Anakin came it made it seem like an assasination. But when almost all the Jedi were exterminated and being the Emperor, he clearly went into the depths of the dark sideand defeated the supreme master of the Jedi Order. Sidious owned the galaxy.

 

One of the things that I've noticed throughout the series is that experience in lightsaber duel increases one's ability exponentially. The only exception might be Obi wan defeating Maul and then getting owned by nearly every other opponent except for the Dark one himself. If you look at the way the Maul duel went down......Obi wan was most powerful when he let his feelings for his master guide his lightsaber. Darth Maul STILL out dueled him but was ultimately outsmarted by the young Padawan.
Now to the question......did Palpatine become stronger after Order 66?
I think he became stronger after the Windu duel. He must have unlocked some part of the force he was unaware of before. Maybe due to him not ever facing an opponent like Windu or feding off of Windu's own dark feelings as they were dueling. In any event, Order 66 put him in a POSITION to exercise greater power but I believe his duel with Mace enabled him to become succesful against Yoda.
I think if he didn't gain that experience he might have fallen under Yoda's saber. It is obvious that Sidious has great knowledge of the force but his lightsaber skills were definitely up to part with Yoda's until AFTER Mace's defeat. Without creeping back into the "Mace vs. Sidious" debate, I would say that Order 66 definitely led Sidious toward the DARKEST path to ultimate power but his duel with Mace allowed him to gain just enough experience to compete with Yoda.

 

Yeah I think he got stronger after his duel with Mace. He had to make a pretty quick transition there and I used to think that he feigned defeat though I'm still not quite sure, he didn't seem to hold back even when Anakin was around so I think it could go either way really. (did he really have that much trust in Anakin?) --- (meant for another thread)

Point being, yes I think he got stronger especially if you look at the force in general. This was an extremely dark time for the galaxy and I think the force really swung in favor of the darkside even more than it had in the events leaning up to it (der).

I too believe Sidious had more to work with in the Yoda duel though that's no excuse for the dark lord, shame on him!

 

Well, Yoda still knocks Palpatine's Lightsaber out of his hand. So I don't think he got better with a Lightsaber. And the Lightning is the same, but the circumstances in which it was employed was different. As well as the fight in general. For the Jedi Posse, Palpatine just lunged at them and started killing Jedi left, right and center. What happened with Mace was pure chance. Palpatine's fight with Mace took place in his inner and outer office. Palpatine's fight with Yoda took place in his office and then the Senate chambers. Two different enviroments. Palpatine makes use of the Senate unlike he did with his office. And unlike last time, Palpatine didn't need to try and turn Anakin. Here he just had to fight Yoda and kill the little green freak.

In real life, Ian had to go back and forth with his double Michael Byrne. For the second fight, Byrne was able to hide in the cloak for all the wideshots.

 

I think that by the time the Jedi Posse came to arrest Palpatine, the cloak of the darkside was no longer needed, in that Palpatine eluded the Jedi for a long time without them being able to sense any of the darkside until more recently in this movie, as stated by Mace. Now that he knew he was going to be arrested, there was no need to mask his power. Point being, he no longer needed to concern himself with masking his darkside presence, instead fully embracing the darkside and letting out in a beserker fury. Does this make him stronger after order 66? You could say yes, he does state unlimited power as he throws Mace with the lighting, but i don't think its from something he learned in combat, or a result of fighting Mace. Its the full power of the darkside.

 

Actually, now that I think about it, I'm really starting to like my Sidious-draws-power-from-Anakin theory. It can also help explain why Anakin ended up losing to Obi-Wan...Sidious takes power from Darth Vader so he can defend himself against Yoda, and all the sudden Anakin is at a disadvantage.

 

I like this interpretation.

I disagree. When Kenobi got angry, Kenobi got owned.

 

I definitely think things must've tipped heavily in favour of the Dark Side and its power with the death of almost all the Jedi. It's like having two sumos on a see-saw and then swapping one for a child.

The real reason is as Sinister outlined, with Ian himself having to do most of the Mace duel but having a stunt double cover for the Yoda fight...but in terms of an in-universe explanation, Sidious' powers increasing thanks to the loss of so many Light Side practitioners sounds pretty plausible to me.

 

It's an interesting thought.

When Mace and Yoda are deciding to tell the senate that their ability to use the force had deminished it's not too big a step to take that as meaning the force was out of balance and favoring the dark side... I don't think Palpatine is ever weak, but he does certainly have a lot more 'power' in RoTS, but it is the only time we really get to see him going full tilt.

 

Palpatine's fight with Yoda took place in his office and then the Senate chambers. Two different enviroments. Palpatine makes use of the Senate unlike he did with his office. And unlike last time, Palpatine didn't need to try and turn Anakin.

Hmmm, interesting thought. I dont think Mace would have withstood the Senate pods as well as Yoda did. He would also have made for a bigger target.

 

As we saw in his later years in ROTJ, when Palpatine virtually orgasmed when Luke tried to take his light saber and strike him down, Palps feeds off of hatred and fear.

Anakin accepted the Sith apprentice mantle, the Jedi became the hunted, the Senate was politically neutered, the Republic began to crumble while the Cloners served mindlessly as pre-programmed enforcers for the Emperor and his regional governors. Chaos, fear and hatred were rampant, fueling Palpatine's dark powers.

Is this how it really was? Was Palps more powerful after Order 66? I ask you this -- define power! I believe Palpatine was just as powerful in a more subtle kind of way in TPM and AOTC. He uses different kinds of powers -- intelligence, planning, pursuasion, influence, loyalty, patriotism and altuism to gain that which he seeks. Each plan seems to have a back-up plan, each tactic launched covers his trail, one ally is unaware of another, one loyal servant is played against the other while pressing steadily, relentlessly forward towards his ultimate goal -- REVENGE! (and total, absolute power)

When Palps is confronting Mace and his posse, we can see him seething, coiling like a snake, licking his chops at the chance to finally show his Sith stuff. And show us he does. All of his immense evil is unleashed physically, proving to us how 'physically' powerful he actually was.

More powerful? I'd have to say no! He just employs different kinds of power as his plan unfolds.

 

I believe Palpatine was just as powerful in a more subtle kind of way in TPM and AOTC. He uses different kinds of powers -- intelligence, planning, pursuasion, influence, loyalty, patriotism and altuism to gain that which he seeks. Each plan seems to have a back-up plan, each tactic launched covers his trail, one ally is unaware of another, one loyal servant is played against the other while pressing steadily, relentlessly forward towards his ultimate goal -- REVENGE! (and total, absolute power)


Since he had achieved his goal, he may have suffered a let down in the weeks and years after ROTS.

 

Well what I mean by power is this: Exar Kun and Darth Revan were all powerful Sith Lords in the physical sense. They had their lightsaber skills, their Force powers, and their huge fleets of ships. However, Palpatine is different...he's a manipulator. He takes a much different approach by infiltrating the Republic, and in doing so, takes an huge risk. Despite his ability to mask his presence in the Force, he's still surrounded by Jedi. If he happened to be discovered, he has no army to protect him, and nowhere to escape to.

And discovered he was. Even had he not revealed himself to Anakin, the Jedi had already uncovered his trail and traced him to Coruscant. They knew Sidious was someone close to Chancellor Palpatine, and with all the emergency powers being thrown around, they knew something sketchy was going on.

So when Mace Windu goes to arrest Palpatine, they fight, and the Sith Lord loses to the Jedi Master. Obviously he isn't quite that great of a physical fighter...not the way Kun and Revan were. However, due to a little twist of fate, we get a very different outcome, and Palpatine rises to become Emperor. He later battles another Jedi Master of similar skill...but this time he wins. The question is why? I personally don't think he faked the Mace Windu duel, so this means that he somehow became physically stronger sometime in between.

 

Well, Exar Kun and Darth Revan did lose as well as win their Lightsaber duels. However, you do have a point that Palpatine was more of a strategic minded person than the other Sith before him. But this is a by-product of Darth Bane's discovering the weakness of the Sith.

With Mace Windu, it was simply a case of underestimating his combat skills. Since you wish to use eu, we know that Mace was not only using Vaapad, but also found Palpatine's Shatterpoint. He followed it to the correct moment where he disarmed Palpatine. The Dark Lord knew about his skills, but he underestimated them and could've paid a steep price for it.