Did Mace Windu hate Palpatine deep down?

You can especially tell this when Mace says "The Jedi will decide who will be on the council, not the Chancellor" in that angry tone (that's what I think of it) and his little conversation in Palp's office right before he's about to "arrest" him. You can almost see crystal clear that Mace would rather kill Palpatine than rightfully arrest him. I mean look at Windu's face during their duel, it almost looks evil.

 

Mace was definatly himself flirting with the dark side during his confrontation with Palpatine.

At the point where he says about the Council deciding themselves who serves on the Council, I don't think he hates him there, but he is obviously fed-up with Palpatine interference and he doesn't trust him and feels that something is very wrong.

 

In the Council scene, Mace simply resents Palpatine's attempts to impose himself on the Jedi Council in affairs that don't concern the Republic.

As for the Office, Mace simply sees Palpatine for the Sith that he is and refuses to allow a Sith Lord to maintain control of the Republic once he has been ferreted out, but as is typical of Mace he's intense in his reaction towards it in a way that most Jedi wouldn't be. I'm still not sure he's drawing on anger or hate, but I can see why one would think so.

 

I think that Mace tend to be a little more open about his feelings than the other Jedi. Which is why many fans tend to assume that he always distrusted Anakin and the others didn't. But I also suspect that many of the Jedi leadership felt the same as he in regard to Anakin, the Sith . . . and to Palpatine's earlier influence on the Jedi Council's decisions.

 

In the Novelization of ROTS Mace Windu is pissed off at Palpatine when he and Anakin and Obi-Wan return without Count Dooku alive and Palpatine insists that the Clone Wars will continue as long as General Grievious is still alive, Mace leans in close to him and says that the war has lasted too long already, he also tells another jedi that if Palpatine has any passion that it is gaining more personal power, because that is all that Mace sees Palpatine doing already and all that he seems to care about, and also Mace Windu is very eager to head to Palpatine office when he finds out that Palpatine is really the Sith Lord Darth Sidious that the jedi have been looking for because Mace Windu loves the Republic and Democracy, Mace seems to take it all very personally, and there is the fact that Palpatine staged his own kidnapping and caused the deaths of three good jeid masters for no reason and killed a lot of people in the clone wars on purpose in his bid to control the galaxy, Mace takes it all personally, you have to deal with a lying evil bastard and lets see how much you'll like him.

 

Yeah Mace's weakness was his urge to use the dark side. That's why he created Vapaad, to channel his evil into good. Mace def used the dark side every time he pulled out his lightsaber. When Anakin said it's not the Jedi way to murder, he may have been a hypocrite, but he was right. If Mace didn't hate Palpatine in the Chancellor's Office, then it was quite close. Kind of surprising if you think about it, that Palpatine never thought about trying to convert Mace.

 

Nah, he could bend, but not break. As to hating Palpatine, he didn't hate him fully enough to turn him. But he had despised the man once he knew the truth. Everything that he had done had undone years of peace and propserity. If Mace had killed without Anakin's interference, he might have begun a path that would corrupt him.

 

Mace didn't hate anyone. He was fed up with Palpatine and resented him butting in on everything.

 

I dont think Mace hated him. He was a Jedi and that's not in his charactor.

 

Despised seems like the appropriate word to use...
Jedi can despise someone, no?
Or does that violate the code as well?

"You can spy, you just can't despise."

 

It was no hate. Mace was definitely arrogant, though. In that bad-ass kind of way. "This party's over," "I don't think so," and other snappy retorts. Pretty much a symptom of that arrogant malaise which left the Jedi exposed to being overtaken by Sithy dealings.

Remember, Mace also seemed pretty surprised that the Jedi may not be able to sense the Sith, due to being clouded. He honestly looks taken aback to hear that the Jedi ain't all that.

 

"I have had it with these mother****ing Sith on this mother****ing plane!"

 

"Gungans are filthy animals. I don't eat filthy animals."

 

So what exactly are you suggesting? That we're supposed to accept the novelization's portrayal of Mace, instead of the movie's . . . so that we can accept this picture of Mace being dangerously close to the Dark Side, in compare to the other Jedi?


Mace's feelings toward Palpatine were no different than Yoda's, Obi-Wan's, Ki-Adi's or any other major Jedi knight or master in the Order. Why is it that so many fans insist upon portraying Mace as the only one who dislikes or hates Palpatine, while ignoring the attitudes of the other Jedi? And why do many insist that Mace, other than Anakin, was the only Jedi susceptible to the Dark Side around ROTS? Why?


It was no hate. Mace was definitely arrogant, though. In that bad-ass kind of way. "This party's over," "I don't think so," and other snappy retorts. Pretty much a symptom of that arrogant malaise which left the Jedi exposed to being overtaken by Sithy dealings.

Oh really? And in what style were Yoda and Obi-Wan arrogant? Because in their own way, they were just as guilty as Mace of being arrogant.

 

I think Mace simply spoke his opinion aloud. He wasn't afraid of telling people what he thought. I think he would have said the same had Palpatine been there - probably even more so. However, that wasn't hate - that was just telling Anakin who decided what, and that Anakin had to know the borders.

In his final moments, I think Mace came as close to hating as a Jedi possibly could. There is no denying that he was emotional at that moment - much more so than Yoda could ever have been (at least explicitly).

Interesting to note though, that those who often claim that the Jedi were over generalizing, are indeed themselves over generalizing the Jedi. "All the Jedi were arrogant." "All the Jedi were in the wrong..." That is pure BS. Many were, yes. Not all!

 

But I believe that the five major Jedi in the story were guilty of arrogance - Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Mace and Ki-Adi. Who knows? Perhaps Qui-Gon was also guilty of arrogance on some level.

 

No doubt that the Jedi weren't arrogant. That doesn't mean that one or two aren't capable of getting mad and possibly be moved towards hate. The reason Mace is being "picked on" is because of the moment which Anakin turns, hinges on whether he believes Mace will go through with it or not. Palpatine has set up this fight with the intention of making the Jedi look bad. Make them no different from the Sith. He is bluring the line between good and evil. Palpatine must make sure that Anakin is convinced that the Jedi are hypocrites That for all of Mace's posturing about the Jed way, he is still human and still subject to human foibles.

We also see that when it comes down to it, a Jedi will not give into hate and will not strike down a helpless person. Real or precieved. Obi-wan spares Vader from being sliced to ribbons, but lets the fire decide his fate. Luke spares Anakin and tells Palpatine that he will not be forced to do something that he doesn't really want to do.

 

But why do you think so? According to the "Concise Oxford Ditionary," arrogance is:
"having an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities."

I think this is a very good description, and I don't think you can generalize all Jedi to fit that category. OBW knew very well that his role was to teach Anakin. OBW believed Anakin to be the Chosen One, and subsequently of great importance. OBW's importance would thus be, according to that, to train and guide him. I don't think that OBW takes claim for himself without justification.
They bear some traits of arrogance, displayed quite explicitly by OBW in TPM - the references to pathetic lifeforms. But that doesn't make him arrogant. This goes for many of the other Jedi also, I think.

 

Anakin believes the Jedi are hypocrites who are no different from the Sith, I agree. He's just wrong.

And Mace wasn't killing a helpless person or giving into hate either.

 

Righteous anger to be sure. Hatred? I would say Mace is too strong willed for that, which is why Palpatine went for Anakin rather than him. I think Mace in a lot of ways is very much aware of the Dark Side that is in everyone, and tries to battle it, such as with his fighting style. He would likely have been a supporter of Luke's theories of the Force.

 

And Mace wasn't killing a helpless person or giving into hate either.

Palpatine certainly wasn't defenseless, and to me it sure looked like Mace caved in to his emotions at the end. Mace prepared to kill someone that was unarmed, that wasn't very Jedi-ish.

 

Mace was certainly giving into Vapaad to a greater extent, but he still wasn't killing a man who was really unarmed. I mean, Palpatine's Force Abilities are more formidable than his saber skills.

 

Mace learned from Yoda how to let his darkside emotions come out without really giving into the darkside fully.

 

I want to tackle a point that has always troubled me...

How do we define "unarmed", in the context of the SW universe? Especially as relates to Jedi or Sith?

Palpatine was capable of hurling "Force Lightning" - no technology needed. He had telekinetic powers - formidable enough to hurl Senate pods around like frisbees. He could move with inhuman speed. Given all this - when is he "subdued"?

I mean, we are not talking about some two bit hood on COPS. Putting aside the whole issue of whether or not Palps was pretending to be weaker than he actually was, when Mace had him down on the floor, he was not saying "I surrender" or "I quit" or "Take me in, I give". He was babbling on about being "too weak", etc.

My point here is that it isn't quite as simple as being able to say "Palps was helpless and Windu was going to kill him regardless". I would grant that Mace probably felt he had the advantage over Sidious, for the moment. He probably did expect that if he struck, he COULD land a fatal blow. I am not so sure he was CERTAIN of it, that he felt Sidious was the equivalent of some helpless prisoner he was about to "execute".

Shadow

 

I'm glad you brought this up. This is an excellent post.