CT Internal Conflict In Palpatine?

In ROTJ, I sensed in Emperor Palpatine an internal conflict. I felt that there was still good in him, and with the help of maybe Luke, he could be turned from the dark side.

Evidence:

1) He had a warm laugh. His first scene closes with his laughter resonating throughout the hangar of the Death Star.

2) When he said to Luke, "There is no escape, my young apprentice," he had such a sad look on his face. Such a look of pity. His good side was coming through in that scene.

Thoughts?

 

He gave Luke a nice view of the battle as well. He didn't have to do that.

 

I think Palpatine's internal conflicts tend to run along the lines of "should I kill this person by chopping off their head, or with Force Lightning?"

 

1) His laugh sounded pretty evil to me.
2) He's being sarcastic, like his fake sympathy when telling Luke the Alliance fleet was heading into a trap.
The only conflict in Palpatine's mind was which of his apprentices should be killed first.

 

Palpatine's internal conflict is not any consideration of being good, but of being deathly, deathly afraid. Fear is one of the pillars of the dark side, Fear, anger and hate. When Palpatine fights Mace Windu, Kit Fisto, Saesee Tiin and Agen Kolar he is fearful, but that fear fuels his power. His anger and hate focuses that power. His chains are broken in that instance and he cuts them down like they're younglings.
When Vader brings Luke before him, Sidious is fearful. He knows that the last Jedi stands before him, the one person capable of defeating both Vader and him is in the same room. He puts on a face of superiority, but in the end he is only human. He fears. Anger, Hate, Fear, is the way of the dark side. Sidious is the dark side embodied. Therefore Sidious is not a being without fear, and in fact he struggles with it. But rather than be cautious from it, like a jedi would, he becomes arrogant through the power it bestows him. And that's why fledglings like Luke and even Ezra defeat him.

 

Well as someone who considers the Plagueis novel to be my own personal canon, there's really no room for me to believe there was any internal conflict with Palpatine. He was a really bad guy from the start, and that only was inflamed when he became a Sith. By the time of ROTJ, he's reached such a level of evil self righteousness that I doubt he had any internal shame or remorse within him. At least there's no indication of it whatsoever in the films. Maybe when he was screaming as he was going down the shaft, he regretted his choices? But that's about it.

 

People are taking this thread seriously? I thought it was fairly obvious this was some very dry humor.

 

He did look like he was enjoying himself , and that's always a positive thing I feel.

 

I think "he had a warm laugh" gave it away.

 

I think Palpatine's internal conflict was more apparent in the Prequel Trilogy in two specific scenes:

*In "TPM", while trying to convince Padme to declare a vote of no confidence against Vallorum, there seemed to be hints of disgust in both his voice and eyes, while mentioning the corruption in the Senate and the Republic.

*There was that moment in "ROTS" when he stroked the wounded Anakin's forehead, while clone troopers prepared to carry the latter to the Emperor's ship.

Conflict from Palpatine in the Original Trilogy? I don't remember.

 

There is kind've a cute moment between Palps and R2 early on in ROTS when the ship is coming in for a crash landing and they both give each other a look as Kenobi is giving out the status of the ship.

 

He also tries to flee before his duel with Yoda in Revenge of the Sith. He probably knew Yoda, Windu and (later) Luke were the only ones who could beat him.

 

I think Palpatine embodies the classic villain "pure evil" type, that is evil just cos they like to be evil. Kind of the "just like to watch the world burn" type.

 

Now all we need is a prequel movie with Palpatine as a little boy and how the fact his dad beat him left and right justifies his evilness.

“Palps, why are you enslaving the galaxy and killing trillions of innocents?!”
“My daddy was mean to me.”
“Aww, OK, that makes sense. We automatically forgive you and think you’re a good person.”
“Yay!!!”

 

No conflict, he's self driven to achieve!

The ever benelovent Sheev. The creator of mass employment across the galaxy.

There is never any personal gain, he's just all about the job. He's so company centric.

For example, he has an employee, newly promoted, who has a life changing injury, does he cast him aside? No! He provides him with medical aid and assists his recovery. He's even there, on hand, when the employee tries his new prosthetic legs alongside his breathing aid.

He's that concerned for his legacy, he even clones himself, to ensure continuity of his vision.

It all depend on your point of view!

 

Rey: kisses Palpatine

 

Your kidding, right? Palpatine was an omnicidal maniac who cared only about himself and perpetuating the Sith Order.

 

Well someone has to make the difficult decisions.

 

He created a lot of jobs building 2 Death Stars. He was good for the economy. he seemed to be popular in the Senate.

 

Yeah, he loved the Senate and the Senate loved him. It's almost like they were one and the same.

 

He's afraid of mortality. That's something I guess.

 

I think it's almost a bit comical that we never saw him having some real talk. Like how is he after being weird oder evil? Ultimate power, sure, but what comes next? I mean...he even had some kind of humour. Can't be that hard to drink a beer with him. It's difficult to picture a figure not as a comic relief or stereotype when there is nothing but memes, memes and memes. But of course this is also the charming aspect of this character. He is mysterious, he is mighty, he is greedy and always hungry with an ace up his sleeve. I guess we should keep it like that. I by myself don't need a tragic origin story for him which makes us "understanding him a bit".

 

He enjoys opera and philosophy and good conversation. He believes in rule of strength and ultimate power being the best forces for keeping peace in the universe.