The Strange Case of Chancellor Palpatine and Darth Sidious

I think it's safe to say that most of us knew, or at least guessed, that Palpatine and Sidious were one and the same when we saw The Phantom Menace. Lucas offhandedly confirmed this, but the relationship between the two was never explicitly confirmed until the end of the second chapter Stover's ROTS novelization. The way this "revelation" is written is very cool; the narration and dialogue lead the reader to believe that Dooku and Sidious are holding a conversation in the same room as the captive Palpatine aboard the Invisible Hand, but then, in the last three sentences of the chapter, we realize that Dooku is actually talking to Palpatine, and Palpatine had been Darth Sidious all along. This comes as no surprise to those of us who already knew what the Emperor looks and sounds like in Episodes V and VI, and recognized immediately that Darth Sidious looked and sounded exactly the same, but for someone reading the ROTS novelization without a clue as to what is coming, the revelation would come as quite a shock.

This got me to thinking: If a brand new Star Wars fan, who through some dubious course of events had lived his life without picking up any knowledge of the saga, were to begin reading his way throughout the entire Expanded Universe, would that shock in the ROTS novelization be preserved for him, or were there so many blatant and heavy-handed hints at Palpatine's dual-identity throughout the EU published between 1999 and 2005 that even this ignorant newbie couldn't help but realize the Chancellor was the Dark Lord of the Sith?

Unless I'm mistaken, the earliest chronological appearances for Sidious and Palpatine, excepting flashbacks, were Acts of War and Cloak of Deception, respectively. Following their paths from those two stories until they meet in Revenge of the Sith, there is almost as much foreshadowing for Palpatine being Sidious as there is for Anakin falling to the dark side.

*Cloak of Deception. In a holograph transmission from Sidious to Nute Gunray, Gunray muses how uncharacteristically static-free the image is, almost as if it were originating from the very planet he was on: Eriadu. Of course, Palpatine just happened to be on this same planet as well.

*Shadow Hunter. One of the earliest hints, perhaps the least subtle but also one of the best, this book has Maul planning to meet Sidious on a space station to hand over the holocron he has retrieved that contains information on the impending Naboo invasion. Sidious never shows up, but Palpatine is there, and gratefully takes the holocron from Lord Pavan, promising to ensure it reaches the Jedi Temple. Of course, the Jedi never get it, and Lorn Pavan is killed by Darth Maul.

*The Phantom Menace. "Always two there are. No more, no less. A master, and an apprentice." "But which was destroyed? The master, or the apprentice?" Then the camera pans over to and focuses on Palpatine's face. I missed this the first time I saw the movie, but, really, how obvious can you get?

*The False Peace. I haven't actually read this Jedi Quest book, but apparently it contains a scene in which Obi-Wan touches Palpatine's arm, only to be filled with a dark side-induced nausea. Palpatine quickly steps out of arm's reach.

*Bloodlines. No, not the LOTF book, the issue of Republic which features Jedi Master Ronhar Kim suggesting to Palpatine that every member of the Senate be tested for Sith Lord-class levels of midichlorians. Palpatine argues against this until he realizes he can say no more without incriminating himself, then urges Kim to keep the idea a secret until he can decide what course of action to take. Sidious then apprises Count Dooku of this plot, which he has inexplicably discovered, and has Ronhar Kim and his Padawan, the only people besides the Chancellor to know of this idea, killed.

*Pursuit. The Boba Fett young adult reader series started off pretty well, but around book three it became nothing more than a mess of poor writing, gra

 

I don't think it was ever intended as a mystery to the audience.

A pity really, as the notion of them as seperate, with Sidious later assuming the identity of Palpatine having manipulated him into a war and the destruction of a Jedi - it would make for a double tragedy: Anakin Skywalker, the man who should have saved the Jedi, destroys them whilst a good man's name is forever tarnished and damned.

 

Well, you would probably strongly suspect Palpatine of being evil or corrupt, working for the bad guys, but not necessarily that HE IS Darth Sidious.

 

Fun post! We discussed this briefly awhile back over in Rogue 1.5's Journey Through the EU thread, but it's one of my favorite topics. To answer your question, I think the average reader would be able to figure out that Palpatine and Sidious are the same guy, especially if they read all those sources.

Personally, I maintain that anyone who gives The Phantom Menace some careful thought should be able to figure it out. After all, who's the only person who benefits from the Trade Fed's occupation of Naboo? My favorite part of that entire movie is how subtle that whole aspect of the plot is handled (notwithstanding that blatant "camera pans to Palpatine" shot).

 

*Clone Wars Volume 2. Palpatine calmly sips a cup of tea while the cityscape shakes with explosions. "Ah, Shaak Ti, you've come to rescue me," he remarks expressionlessly, a small smile on his face, as General Grievous holds him in the air by the front of his shirt. No express connections to Sidious, but Palpatine seems bizarrely flippant and nonchalant in this invasion of Coruscant, much more so than he is in LOE's.

Oh, how I like Palpatine's "You wouldn't dare to hurt me, I'm the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. Whatever would your master say?" comment and smile to Grievous. You can just see a Sith Lord truly and honestly enjoying the moment there.

 

I think the average reader, given enough common sense and provided that they read enough of the material would have worked out who Sidious really was. Possibly because the vast majority of fans knew the connection already there wasn't as much effort made to hide his identity as there would have been otherwise, or maybe they just did a poor job of trying to be subtle and clever and ended up overdoing it.

 

Ah, but this actually does make sense. The context that the Jedi know the name Tyranus in is as the person who recruited Jango Fett to be the clone template. If the Jedi knew that Tyranus was Dooku, they would know that Dooku was behind the ordering of the Clone Army, which would thus alert them that the army was likely booby trapped against them, thus averting Order 66.

 

Some people would get it, some people wouldn't. I mean, look at how many people were denying that Jacen was going Sith back in Dark Nest. It was obvious to me and many others, but for me, a surprising number of people either couldn't see it or were unwilling to accept it. Same thing would probably happen here, since Palpatine is initially itroduced as the good, freedom-loving senator from poor little Naboo.

And this is to say nothing of the counter examples in the literature that were there mostly so that folks in the know (i.e. everyone) could have a little laugh. I'm specifically thinking of when Mace said that it was a shame Palpatine wasn't Force-sensitive, because he would have made a good Jedi.

 

The funny thing to me was always how the "secret" was instantly spoiled for anyone who had ever read one of the novelizations of the OT or practically any reference on Star Wars for that matter. As soon as you knew that The Emperor in the OT, was called Palpatine, it was perfectly obvious that Senator Palpatine in TPM was the same dude. Of course, the average moviegoer is unlikely to have ever seen the name Palpatine and so would be left to interpret at will. But many if not most major SW fans would have found it quite obvious.

 

Which is what led me to develop that theory I posted above, it'd work as a 'gotcha' for the fans in the sense of: You thought you knew it all but...

I wouldn't have put it past Lucas either.

JB

 

You'd be surprised. I remember back before (and after) AotC came out, on these forums, there were people who acknowledged that Senator Palpatine and Emperor Palpatine were the same person, but would not accept at face value that Palpatine and Sidious were the same. They kept expecting Lucas to throw a curveball at them, citing the surprise of Vader being Luke's father in ESB.

 

i mean really, they had the same nose! how could people not put 2 and 2 together?

 

Oh, they all knew it was the same actor (or at least, most of them did). But theories I heard at the time ranged from evil twins (not very likely) to clones (more likely, when we knew the Clone Wars were going to be addressed in Episode II).

 

The fact that some people thought that it was too obvious?

 

yeah, i heard the "Palpatine is a clone being controlled by Sidious, who will take over his identity" and other similar theories alot back in the months leading up to LoE/RotS.

 

I know a guy who asked me if Palpatine and Sidious were going to fight in Episode III. Though he'd never read any of the EU, it seems not everyone knew they were the same guy.

 

I think it was obvious in that there was no cast credit listing, ever, for Darth Sidious. Oh, and that Sidious's cloak clasp was also Palpatine's. Talk about blatant. Darth Sidious looked exactly like Emperor Palpatine. I would think one would be unable to miss it going from that alone, though I know someone who absolutely insisted that Sidious and Palpatine were two separate people.

As for the books, I don't know, as I've only read "Rogue Planet" and "Cloak Of Deception", a scattering of the Jedi Apprentice books, and the TPM and AOTC novels.


Dana

 

I actually have a few cases of people "Shielded" from Star Wars.

The first was my brother in law. Somehow Star Wars simply wasn't cool for his class. He was 16 when RoTS came out and my wife and I subjected him to all Star Wars movies starting at Episode I on. He's a really bright, observant kid. He enjoyed the movies and paid pretty good attention to him. He didn't start catching on until the IH.....he started to say something about Palpatine and had a confused look but admitted later that he didn't want to sound stupid by asking if the Supreme Chancellor was a bad guy. There was a noticeable gasp from him during the reveal scene.

I get another shot at it, too. All of my friends save one are really geeky (Well, the last one is geeky but just not in the same way but anyway...) and the non-geeky friend has managed to avoid learning anything about Star Wars LATE into his 20's. He only knows that Luke Skywalker is one of the main characters and word for word "Dude is dude's father or something". I finally got him to watch TPM two days ago and he thought it was pretty cool. After the movies, I could tell something was eating at him. He said "I don't get it......does Anakin have a brother or does he get his name changed to Luke or something? I thought all of the Star Wars movies were about Luke Skywalker." Obviously he doesn't understand that the movies span 30 or so years of time and really is clueless and should be well blindsided by Palps.

I think the big thing with someone that is not only following the movies but the EU too is going to be pretty knowlegable about Star Wars in general and not likely to be faked out. I can't think of any HUGE scenes in books or comics that would shed a lot of suspicion except for Labyrinth of Evil. Some of the comics do have Palpatine really patronizing the Jedi and praising Anakin...but you might just get the idea he really believes that Anakin is this "Chosen One" that will eventually become so powerful that he can end the war single handedly.

 

how i mean, they also had the same Voice, although the voice of sidious was more Sinister. and you won't believe the rumors that i'm sure you were all aware of before ROTS came out, even thou the ROTS Novel and incredible Cross Sections Book and Episode 3 Dictionary stated that the 2 were the same person.

 

It would be easy to miss to the untrained eye, but Clone Wars Volume 2 had a great moment when Grievous is killing Palpatine's Jedi protectors in the safehouse, and Palpatine takes a step back so a shadow falls across his face a la Sidious, and an evil expression crosses his face.

 

back when tpm first came out, i had a theory that big poppa palps was a clone of darth sidious that lacked force sensitivity so that he would show up on jedi radar. it made sense to me. use the clone as a puppet until everything that was in motion came to a point where he would be powerful enough with the jedi unable to properly react to slay the clone and step into its place.

 

Well, one thing about it that I like: the idea that a clone would lack Force-sensitivity.

AOTC novel aside, this is a pretty good explanation of why the concept of cloning Jedi is never mentioned in the films.

 

Oh yes, that was a great moment. Another great moment: when he sees Shaak Ti use the Force to attach Grievous' cloak to the train, and raises an eyebrow.

 

Haha, I remember all those ridiculous Palpatine =/= Sidious theories over on the movie boards.