Was the Palpatine character always a Sith?

In the old days of SW fandom, the name Darth Vader was frequently appended with the title "Dark Lord of the Sith." What exactly a Sith was was unknown at the time. Tim Zahn, in planning HTTE, originally had the noghri called Sith, which would explain Vader's title. Lucas nixed this. The early drafts of the first film have the Sith as a group of space pirates, and IIRC at some point they are also mentioned to use the Force. In TOTJ, we learned that within the "finalized" universe, the Sith were a group of Force-users, a tradition/religion reaching back at least several thousand years before the film era.

The Sith, in these early depictions, are not vanilla dark-siders ("dark Jedi") but rather have a distinctive culture and specific history.

In the prologue to the original SW novelization, Palpatine is not mentioned as a Force-user, only as an oblivious politician. In ESB and moreso in ROTJ, we learn that he was actually a powerful dark-sider himself.

However, I can't recall any mention of Palpatine specifically as a Sith in the early EU. I could be missing something, but...

This could have created an interesting difference between Vader and Palpatine, with Vader carrying an ancient tradition, at least in name, while Palpatine did not and was more focused on his own individual power (using whatever knowledge/power he could?).

Does Dark Empire Sithify Palpatine, or was it the prequels? What is the earliest source to call Palpatine a Sith?

 

If you want to get pedantic, Palpatine wasn't even named in A New Hope, and in the really early EU Leia's line about the Empire controling "a million worlds" was taken literally to mean that it only controled a tiny part of the Galaxy.

What it boils down to is essentially Schrodinger's Canon; until someone actually explicitly states something in a canon work, it's not canon, but after it's been mentioned, then it's always been that way. Doublethink and fictional canon are like chocolate and peanut butter.

 

Do you refer to the Daley Han Solo novels? I haven't read any of them in a long time; maybe they'd be a good read now (if your interp holds). I also like your term "Schrodinger's Canon."

 

Actually, it was one of those Adventures of Lando Calrissian books. I don't remember the title, but it was the one where the villain was an alien with these wierd mystical powers and commanded a warship for the (Then still unnamed, I think, but don't quote me on that) Emperor. In one scene he was having an internal monologue about his evil plans, and reflected that he'd take over the Empire, but that a million-world empire was only a small part of the Galaxy, so then he'd take over the rest of the Galaxy too...

 

In the early drafts of ANH, and sortta implied in the novelization, the Emperor character later named Palpatine was a non-force user who got elected Chancellor through political wheeling and dealing. Later he grabbed power and declared himself Emperor. He is to be a weak-willed politician who is controlled by advisers and Moffs. More like a puppet ruler than evil Sith.

I highly recommend The Annotated Screenplays for more SW Apocrypha.
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Screenplays-Laurent-Bouzereau/dp/0345409817/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1305243164&sr=8-3

 

WEG's Galaxy Guide 5 (1990), "Return. of the Jedi" describes his mastery over the dark side, but interestingly enough lists him as "Jedi Master." This was retained for its 1995 2nd ed. reprint. This is reasonable, given the book's purpose of addressing the movies (which don't have any Sith on them), and describe Vader merely as the last of "their" [Jedi] religion.

Also Dark Empire (published 1991 but project origin predated HttE) absolutely does not cement him as Sith, rather just a dark side master. It also introduced the epiphany that he was already planning to be a body-switcher early on but that's beside the point. "Sith does not appear in DE -- even in Veitch's writer's notes, including the background history for what would become DLOS.

1993 Dark Empire Sourcebook. Nope. No Sith Palpatine.

We come to WEG's Trilogy Sourcebook special Edition, released in 1997. No Sith, he's s just a dark side master.

My guess is it HAD to be a TPM product that spilled the beans on him -- if not TPM itself.

 

On second thought, I recall a lot of speculation surrounding "Does Palpatine=Sidious" so I suppose at the time even that wasn't 100% conclusive.

Yeah to be technical about it, it was probably whatever source that confirmed Palpatine and Sidious were one in the same. Or perhaps some TPM reference book or action figure. Even TPM Scrapbook keeps Palp and Sid separate prolonging the mystery.

 

Thanks for the notes on TAS (which I have), the Lando novels (which I'll have to check out), and the WEG books (many of which I don't own). Where did the 13th Sith Lord thing come from? I only have some of the comics...

So Palpatine as a Sith is a relatively new phenomenon. As I expected. Very interesting. The fact that Palpatine was first made a Sith in TPM (end of the 1990s) dovetails with the beginning of the homogenization of the galaxy discussed in other current threads. I suspect it can/will play a role in them, now.

 

The first edition of The Star Wars Encyclopedia is the earliest source (I think) to identify Palpatine as a Sith, but he wasn't originally written as one before that; at the time the title "Dark Lord of the Sith" was only meant to be held by the reigning Sith Lord, and Vader was identified as the Dark Lord, ruling Palps out as anything other than a non-aligned dark side sorceror.

 

Nope. 1st ed. Encyclopedia only refers to Sith in Palp's entry in reference to Vader. Neither Sith nor its subs (Sith War etc) refer to Palo as Sith. It was pub in1998, a year prior to TPM.

 

I'll throw out one possibility: May 2002, WotC's SWRPG Revised Core Rulebook. Explicitly describes the Emperor as Sith. Note, original Rulebook listed only Sidious as Sith, playing coy with 'teh big reveal,' without any reference to the Emperor or Palpatine.

 

I always thought it was TPM as well.

Well, Sidious was established as a Sith, and I always accepted Sidious as being Palpatine (unlike all those theories of Palpatine being a clone or Sidious stealing his body or whatever other bizarre theories continued right up until ROTS ). I suppose since they never confirmed Palpatine was Sidious until ROTS, it may have still been a bit ambiguous but...

Interesting thought though as to when Emperor Palpatine (Sidious clone, possessed by Dooku's ghost, or whatever other warped theories were circulating at the time) was first recognised as one.

 

That's my understanding, as well.

 

The name Palpatine does appear in the novelizations. He's not the Big Bad in the ANH novelization, though; that's Darth Vader.

 

Well, for a very very long time the term "Sith" didn't have an actual meaning. He wasn't always a Sith because, well, Vader was a Jedi gone bad and "Sith" was a funny scifi babble word.

 

Even without the distinct Darth title, it's interesting how smoothly OT Palpatine slides right into his 'new' Sith Lord identity; Vader calls him "my Master" and says about Luke "he will join us or die" and of course Palpatine also has "Now, fulfill your destiny and take your father's place at my side!" Plus of course Yoda and Ben make it pretty clear that Vader fell at least partly because of Palpatine.

In just the context of the OT those lines don't necessarily of course mean that Palpatine is a Sith Lord, but Palpatine being a Sith slides into them very smoothly indeed.

 

The2ndQuest calls my Revised Core Rulebook and raises a CCG Death Star II. I got nothing to beat that. That's very likely the first explicit confirmation


If so they ruined the narrative LFL was apparently trying to keep surrounding the whole Sid/Palp relationship. Was Dooku telling the truth to Obi in AOTC? Only those playing CCG new for sure.

 

You guys have just inspired me to finally start reading the OT novelization "threefer" I bought months ago and have yet to even touch.

 

HA I like that it comes back to the CCG. I collected them, was never very good at actual playing.

Also:

What was the 13th Dark Lord thing from, again?

And:

Does anyone else have a negative reaction to making Palpatine a Sith (and making the Sith what they became in the prequels)? The more I think about it the more it seems to contribute to constricting the universe - it makes Anakin have to have something to do with Palpatine in terms of his fall, when before, this was not necessary. He was seduced by the power he could get from the dark side - he might have joined up with Palpatine later.

And by making the movie dark siders Sith, the whole of galactic history began to turn on the Jedi versus Sith dichotomy, whereas before it was more varied.

 

Not to change the subject to much, but would anyone have rather had Palpatine been a fallen Jedi Master/Dark Jedi Masater instead of a Sith?