PT What were Palpatine's backup plans?

And yet he did not understand human nature enough. He did not understand love, could not comprehend the idea of self-sacrifice. All that mattered to him was amassing power and furthering his own existence.

 

I think that one of the fun things about the Prequels is speculating about how much of what happened was orchestrated by Palpatine and how much of it was him getting lucky. As VadersLaMent said, I think he was very good at reading the future, and I like to think that he foresaw most of what happened in the PRequels and orchestrated most of it. There was a couple of times when he seemed genuinely surprised (such as when Amedela allied herself with the Gungans to fight the droid army in TPM) but I wouldn't be surprised if most of what happened was planned by him, with some good cintingency planced if something didn't go quite as he foresaw.

 

Palpatine always nudged, edged, and sometimes manipulated things to go the way he wished.

Though with the power of force visions and the ability to sense the eddies of the future palpatine always sought to ensure "events proceeded as foreseen"

In terms of backup plans palpatine was rarely surprised becuase everything or most everything that happened he had made so it would happen. If things looked like they weren't going to plan palpatine would intervene indirectly or sometimes directly to get things back on track.

 

If anyone is interested I did a kind of script analysis on Palpatine's dialogue a while back.

It's here.

 

Pretty much. He knew Anakin loved Padme deeply even though Palpatine didn’t care for love. He just knew it was something he could exploit. Pain equals anger, thus a stronger Sith.

 

Palpatine understands possessive love, or at least understands it well enough to exploit it, which is why he is able to manipulate Anakin's attachment to Padme. It's also why he is able to manipulate Luke into attacking his father, since Luke initially comes to the Death Star with attachment in his heart. The one thing Palpatine doesn't understand is selfless love, which is why he isn't able to predict that Luke will spare Vader even after failing to turn him back to the good side, and in turn isn't able to predict that Vader will sacrifice himself for his son.

 

But if we go with the PT idea that selfless love = compassion.
And since Palpatine says to Vader that Lukes compassion for him will be his undoing.
Then he does understand it to a point.
He underestimates it to be sure, same as he underestimates Luke's strength of character and he also overestimates the hold of the dark side.
He, along with Yoda and Obi-Wan thought that turning was forever, you could never turn back.
They were wrong.

Also, Palpatine gets Luke angry enough to attack HIM, not Vader.
And he does that by making Luke watch helplessly as his friends are all dying and all he fought for is lost.
Luke only starts to fight Vader because Vader stops him from killing Palpatine.
Luke is angry and keeps fighting but clams down once Palaptine gloats about it.
When he gets really mad, that as due to what Vader said, not Palpatine.
Why he calms down is not because he is not attached any longer, he realizes that he will become his father if he goes down this path. And he refuses to let Palpatine or Vader turn him.
I see it more as strength of will, he still has his attachments and his feelings but he won't let them be used against him. Which is pretty much what Obi-Wan said earlier. That his insight does him credit but he needs to be careful as the emperor could exploit them.

Lastly, to me, Luke's attachment to his father is what caused him to not give up, to keep believing that Vader could be saved. And Vader's attachment to Luke played a big part in him turning back.
And Luke still wanted to save his father after Palpatine's death. He says as much but Anakin says "You already have."
If he was not attached as all, he would not try to save his father and he would instead be totally ok with killing him.

Bye.
Blackboard Monitor

 

Palpatine understands that compassion means that he cares for Vader and thus will leave himself in a vulnerable place in order to try and help him. What he doesn't understand is that someone who has total compassion to not kill his foe, can inspire someone who is supposed to be completely selfish and lacking in compassion, to give up his vices and embrace and express compassion in return.

The attachment is holding on to things and to not give them up. Luke has to be willing to give up his sister and his friends, in order to avoid turning to the dark side. That doesn't mean that he abandons them, but he accepts that he can lose them and that whatever the will of the Force is, then it will be that. He cannot fight it, but he can understand it. That is letting go of your attachments. It isn't so much people as it is your own ego and personal feelings that need to be let go. Luke lets go and in turn, Anakin let's go of his attachment, which is Palpatine and to the dark side. The very things that drove him to the dark side in the first place.

 

Yeah, and his father went down the dark path in order to continue grasping on to his attachments.
Luke went into beast mode on Vader because of his attachment to Leia. But when he saw that he was moving into dark places, he stopped and realized it was his attachments that were driving him there. (in accordance to how the content of the PT completes the picture).
I think Luke knew the galaxy was better off with him dead than as a dark sider (the same reason he jumped in ESB). That the consequences of giving into dark emotions was going to ultimately do more harm than good. Similar to using the One Ring to destroy Sauron.
He had faith that his friends, or some rebellion at some point, could ultimately triumph, at least someday, so he valued that over his attachments. It was not his weakness, as Palpatine taunted.

Dropping attachments to people doesn't mean dropping compassion.

The faith Luke had that there was still good in Anakin, and his compassion for him as his father is why he didn't give up. Mostly (li'l Ani voice)

What you're trying to say is Luke & Anakin showed it's ok for Jedi to have attachments, right? Fair enough, but as the others have said, what is important there is that one must also be in a position where they understand it's better to be able to drop the personal attachments (but not the compassion) if the means of trying to hold on to them (for selfish reasons) includes resorting to the dark side. The mistake Anakin made.
Not to win if winning means desecrating the basics of humanity. Because then you're losing.
Nothing is worth using the dark side for. Even if you lose, at least you lose having hope and faith in humanity. Because really, then you're winning.

Luke used two vital principles known in the East. Yield to overcome, and accomplish by not striving to accomplish.


One other thing: Sure, one can say Anakin's attachment to Luke was the catalyst that saved Luke's life, but it was Anakin' undoing. However it was a loving connection that he was willing to sacrifice himself for, which means I'm not sure it qualifies as an outright attachment per se, but more a selfless love. If he wanted to hold on to his selfish attachment to Luke, he would've tried to think of a way to kill Sidious without killing himself, and failed.
Ultimately, this was the Force's will for him to fulfill his destiny.

 

To me the difference is how far a person will go to hold on to things.
If a husband has a wife that falls ill, taking her to the hospital, maybe pay extra for expensive medicine.
That I don't view as bad or out of the ordinary.
But if they are willing to murder, to let others suffer horribly just so that they can benefit, that is going too far.
But doing nothing and letting her die without lifting a finger to help, that is also out of the ordinary.

Anakin was willing to let the galaxy burn just so he would not suffer a loss. And he did not care what Padme might have thought. He only thought about himself.

Luke had feelings for his friends and he was getting more and more angry as he was seeing all that he and they had fought and suffered for being destroyed.
So he lashed out in anger.
And then he managed to calm down but when Vader threatened Leia, his anger got the better of him.
He calmed down and backed away from the edge because he realized that going down this path would make him another Vader, and he refused to do that.

So he did not abandon his attachments or his feelings, he just managed to control himself so that he would not go too far.

He had his feelings but they did not rule him, he could deal with them.

But how much compassion did Yoda and Obi-Wan have for Vader?
Was Obi-Wan cutting Anakin to pieces and leaving him to burn a sign of compassion?

Yoda and Obi-Wan seemed to have written Vader/Anakin off as lost forever and thus he had to be killed.
Luke did not agree and sought another path.
I think his attachment was key here.

I think it is ok to have attachments and feelings as long as you can deal with them and they don't control you.
Yoda says a Jedi must not grieve or mourn.
I don't agree, grief and mourning is part of letting go and saying your goodbyes.
Letting your grief overwhelm you to the point that you become a slave to it, that is bad.
But refusing to mourn and not dealing with those emotions could also lead to problems.

That is what I think part of Anakin's problems, he had attachments and fear of loss.
But he didn't learn to deal with them, he was told not to have those feelings and thus tried to bury them and pretend like they were not there.
But they were and by not dealing with them, they festered and only got worse.

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The issue to me, as I said above, is that Anakin was very selfish. He did not want to save Padme for her sake, but for his own. He did not want to suffer a loss and so he was willing to do anything to prevent it.
What she might have thought or wanted was unimportant.

When he saved Luke, it was for Luke's sake, not his own. I think he knew he would likely die but he was ok with that.
Anakin had let go of his anger, his fear of death and change and he was at peace with himself and the world and now he acted to save another person, even at the cost to himself.

He finally learned, he finally achieved enlightenment.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

Anakin's compassion for Luke wasn't an attachment in the sense that the Buddhists or the Jedi use the term. He wasn't using Luke as a means to cling to a temporary world. He was using the Emperor and his own ambitions of power for that. But he gave up both the Emperor and his own ambitions and instead gave his own life to save his son. In terms of the temporal world, he chose to sacrifice everything. His actions weren't for himself--they were completely for Luke. They were selfless.

Vader was obsessed with Luke from the moment he learned he was his son, and yet this alone did not sway him from the dark side. He wanted to control and possess Luke and make him into a reflection of his own needs and desires, just as he did with Padme many years before. Vader doesn't realize the error of his ways until Luke demonstrates the Jedi philosophy of non-attachment by sparing and loving Vader even though Vader refuses to be the person Luke wants him to be. That's what non-attachment really means, and it's the ultimate form of compassion.

 

Brb

 

Sorry, I was having technical problems of every kind while on break at work and just wasn't able to get it sorted out in time.

Anyways, I think this concept is somewhat echoed in Han & Leia as well. Starting with Han; his love for Leia had developed into a selfless one, an unconditional, non egocentric one. His love for her had become so pure he could let her be free, as Sting famously suggests. And likewise, by reciprocating Han's love with her own, these two equals in their fiery independence, entered into true love which is the ultimate form of self sacrifice. Though a mutual one in which the sum is greater than the individual parts.

 

In various scenarios, Palpatine would:
1. Become a symbol of "democracy" in the event of being arrested following a Jedi coup
2. Become a much loved statesman who won the Clone Wars and fought corruption in the Republic. Retire from galactic politics and travel the galaxy making speeches
3. Same as (2) but retire to Ryloth, or Pandora and enjoy life
4. Same as (2) but return to Naboo and run for King of Naboo
5. Frame Mas Amedda as the Sith Lord the Jedi were looking for. Stay in power, or else temporarily leave office and appear as the great hero who won the war and who fights corruption. Gradually work to remove the Jedi, citing them interfering in the Republic's affairs. Be requested to return to lead the Republic again.
6. Turn Mace Windu citing similarities in believing the Republic needs to be saved and showing him just how.
7. Use the Separatist Council as a continued "threat" and a reason to continue the war. Commission or hire a new leader for the Droid Army and keep the Jedi busy.
8. Offer perks to Jedi Knights to turn them against their own Council.
9. Let go of his anger, avoid a breakup of the galaxy and work with the Jedi Junta to create a safe and secure society and prevent the emergence of uncivilised factions that emerge owing to everything going pear shaped.