StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I had an argument the other day with a friend about whether or not Palpatine qualifies as a villainous mastermind. This surprised me because I had almost always assumed that Palpatine is the poster child for masterminds everywhere.

The points I thought proved it was that:

1) Palpatine won and enjoyed roughly 40 years of unchallenged galactic rule.
2) Palpatine, as a great villain, had cool thugs to carry out his will like Grand Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader.
3) Palpatine's mistakes, such as the Endor/Ewok thing, were easily understandable once you understood his position. If I had a legion of my best soldiers on the ground around my shield generator, I wouldn't be overly concerned by Ewoks either.

The argument that emerged was passionate enough to worry me (tempers started to flare) and they had several points:

1) Palpatine was cool during the PT but he did nothing cool in the OT. He just sat around.
2) Tarkin was not a good thug because he refused to listen to the officer who informed him of the danger to the Death Star minutes prior to its destruction.
2a) Tarkin should have paid greater note to the officer because of the Empire's tendency to kill the messenger.
3) Palpatine was defeated by Ewoks.
3a) Endor was a terrible idea.
4) Palpatine's OT plans were stupid.

After the dust settled I began to doubt my position. In your opinion is Palpatine a great mastermind?

I'd say Palpatine was a great mastermind early on but then his own actions led to his undoing.

He did after all succesfully undermine a government which has stood for 25000 years and turned it upon his enemies and ended up as supreme ruler of the most powerful empire the universe had ever seen. One does not accomplish all of that by being incompetent.

In the OT I think that he simply failed to foresee the bigger picture because of his obsession with Vader's offspring. There also the possibility that he was slowly being driven mad by the his immense use of the dark side. Then there also the explanation that he simply was overconfident and arrogant. He simply couldn't foresee that a bunch of ragtag freedom fighters could stand up let alone defeat his mighty Imperial military or that his faithful servant of many years chose his son over his master in the end.

While he a very competent and a master of strategy in his time, I'd say that Palpatine was undone by a combination of the above three.

Everything above is wrong. What about Nute Gunray and Darth Maul the first time around? They royally fucked up. His minions have always been hit and miss. He's just as obsessed with totally dominating and controlling Anakin Skywalker as he later is with Luke Skywalker. The ONLY DIFFERENCE in outcome is that Luke Skywalker was a stronger and better person, and Palpatine could not read him like he did Anakin, and ultimately, screwed up with Anakin too. Even after he came back he made the same mistake again and throught he could predict Skywalker and control him and failed. The idea that PT Palpatine was different is absurd. EVERYTHING HINGED ON PROPERLY PREDICTING ANAKIN WOULD SAVE HIM FROM WINDU. Everything came down to that disarmament. He already controlled the galaxy since before The Phantom Menace, with the Clone War having expanded his war dictatorship his power was basically unlimited, and since the Clone War began he could've unleashed Order 66 and wiped out the Jedi. He risked all of that on Anakin saving him from Windu.

If anything, ROTJ was LESS fucked up, because its outcome required a seemingly PAIR of unlikely events of commission to occur - Luke rejecting the Dark Side and Anakin unexpectedly killing Palpatine. If either had went with the flow, Vader would've been killed and Luke become the new Sith Lord; or Vader would just have watched Luke die. ROTS depended not on omission to save Palpatine's ass like ROTJ, but actual intervention. Windu WOULD have KILLED PALPATINE if Anakin had even hestitated for a second.

This is the whole point of the saga; all the technology, all the planning, all the manipulated masses, all the political movements, all that shit does not matter if the right man makes the right choice. And it all fucked up.

Windu WOULD have KILLED PALPATINE if Anakin had even hestitated for a second.

Well, that's not a certainty given Palpatine's amazingly quick recovery afterwards. But his plans would have been messed up if he suddenly got two powerful Jedi against him. If Windu didn't kill him the first time, he would have now. Either that, or Palpatine would have been arrested and charged with treason.

What about Nute Gunray and Darth Maul the first time around? They royally fucked up. His minions have always been hit and miss.

Yet, in spite of such incompetence, he still won. The simple fact that he succeeded, let alone that he held onto power for at least a generation, is an amazing accomplishment.

EVERYTHING HINGED ON PROPERLY PREDICTING ANAKIN WOULD SAVE HIM FROM WINDU. Everything came down to that disarmament.

Well, woulda, coulda, shoulda, but it happened. I don't think he would have set things up to depend on so seemingly small a detail if he wasn't absolutely sure it would go his way. He's not that stupid, and he is a powerful Force user, so he probably knew it would work out for him.

As for the events in Return of the Jedi, I chalk up Palpatine's screw-up to the same thing Luke did; he was overconfident. After he won, with the Jedi out of the picture, he probably assumed he had everything under control. As a result, he stopped working as hard on his schemes and let things slide that he wouldn't have earlier. He assumed he had a better grasp on Vader than he did, and that Obi-Wan and Yoda were ineffectual as teachers to Luke. It wasn't until it was too late that he found out otherwise.

After the dust settled I began to doubt my position. In your opinion is Palpatine a great mastermind?

I can't believe that this question is truly being considered, but sometimes the obvious must be stated.

Judging from his actions in the saga, Palpatine is at the forefront in terms of popular sci-fi masterminds. He was beset by several goals: a.) destroy the Republic. b.) establish galactic conquest. c.) destroy the Jedi Order.

By objectively looking at what occured, he pretty much managed to accomplish all three. And considering the vast scope of his ambition, even if we can't award him "full accomplishment", he's a mastermind of unparalleled proportions.

On the subject of Palpatine's intellect, the RotJ novelization and the DSSB confirm that Palpatine is "a genius". And his "brilliant manipulation" and intimate knowledge of people and their weaknesses has been referenced by people including Count Dooku and even so far as Jacen Solo.

The man conquered the galaxy, destroyed a twenty-five-thousand year old government, and replaced it with the largest and most powerful military regime in history. No one in the mythos has come close to matching that.


Edit: As to his defeat in RotJ, we can credit that to numerous things. The light side of the Force was beginning to overtake the dark once more, thus dampening Palpatine's senses (confirmed when he was unable to sense Luke) and sheer overconfidence. It's a flaw, but one that does not mitigate or reduce his earlier success.

Remember folks. Palpatine's defeat isn't a question of his intellect. The Rebels fell into his trap.

Illuminatus Primus wrote: Snip

Much of what you've said makes sense. Palpatine has always been a risk taker and a manipulator. I had always assumed that Palpatine's abilities had become dimished over time because of his dark side powers or he just gone senile. But looking back he had always simply alway been acting like a sith lord using manipulation and sheer force to bend others to his will. It had always worked out for him until he was undone when he was faced by a Jedi who happened to successfully reject his manipulation.

Palpatine was an excellent mastermind. Not only is he really adept at manipulating people behind the scenes, but he also shows a great deal of flexibility, particularly in the prequels.

I found it pretty obvious in The Phantom Menace that he was expecting Amidala to fold under pressure, and when she escaped he was expecting her to stay in the safety of Coruscant drumming up sympathy support for him. He didn't anticipate her returning to Naboo, much less defeating the Trade Federation. And Anakin wasn't likely on his radar, either, until he blew up the Droid Control Ship. However, what did he do when met with these turns of events? Modified his strategy to incorporate them into his long-term goals.

His plan would probably have been similar had the events of The Phantom Menace gone as he had expected (get no-confidence on Valorum, use sympathy vote to get elected Chancellor, have apprentice foment discontent among the Commerce Guilds while having clone army secretly built, and all that), but he showed amazing deftness at incorporating Anakin and his emotional foibles to make up for the unexpected death of Maul.

Crom wrote:The argument that emerged was passionate enough to worry me (tempers started to flare) and they had several points:

1) Palpatine was cool during the PT but he did nothing cool in the OT. He just sat around.
2) Tarkin was not a good thug because he refused to listen to the officer who informed him of the danger to the Death Star minutes prior to its destruction.
2a) Tarkin should have paid greater note to the officer because of the Empire's tendency to kill the messenger.
3) Palpatine was defeated by Ewoks.
3a) Endor was a terrible idea.
4) Palpatine's OT plans were stupid.

I'd like to point out that those so-called points are actually distorted ones. If we only accept movies as evidence, of course Palpatine didn't do much - he was only in one movie personally available while appearing in two. However, he still disbanded the Senate and was scheming to corrupt Luke Skywalker and displace Vader with him as a Sith apprentice (that one should be apparent). If we include the Expanded Universe, he was a lot more busy.

And why should Tarkin had to evacuate? He was in the command of the most powerful space station of all time and suddenly he is informed that there is a danger and asked to evacuate. Yes, it was arrogance - or rather confidence, since the entire Rebel attack reeked of desparation.

And no, Palpatine was not defeated by Ewoks. The Ewoks contributed to his downfall but if Luke Skywalker, who had just suffered an immense torture at the hands of the Emperor and dragging Vader with him, had time to escape after the shield generator's destruction, it is certain that Palpatine would have had time to escape. It was Anakin Skywalker's selfless act - self-sacrifice - in order to save his son from the tyrant that defeated Palpatine. Otherwise he would have escaped.

CDiehl wrote:

What about Nute Gunray and Darth Maul the first time around? They royally fucked up. His minions have always been hit and miss.

Yet, in spite of such incompetence, he still won. The simple fact that he succeeded, let alone that he held onto power for at least a generation, is an amazing accomplishment.

Who gives a shit? The point is whether he is an intelligent manipulator. He made no INTRINSICALLY poorer choices in the OT, his behavior was totally consistent. His really risky bets just paid off in the PT, and didn't in the OT.

CDiehl wrote:Well, woulda, coulda, shoulda, but it happened. I don't think he would have set things up to depend on so seemingly small a detail if he wasn't absolutely sure it would go his way. He's not that stupid, and he is a powerful Force user, so he probably knew it would work out for him.

Uh, and how is this any different from the OT, which is the total point? He was just as sure and thought he had a read on the situation, and made a huge risk, and it didn't work. That's the only difference.

CDiehl wrote:As for the events in Return of the Jedi, I chalk up Palpatine's screw-up to the same thing Luke did; he was overconfident. After he won, with the Jedi out of the picture, he probably assumed he had everything under control. As a result, he stopped working as hard on his schemes and let things slide that he wouldn't have earlier. He assumed he had a better grasp on Vader than he did, and that Obi-Wan and Yoda were ineffectual as teachers to Luke. It wasn't until it was too late that he found out otherwise.

The idea that betting on Anakin cutting off Windu's arm before his lightsaber sliced off his head is a more reasonable and less risky bet because of your say-so than just betting on EITHER Luke going through with his anger and killing Vader or betting on TWENTY YEARS OF CONSISTENCY in Vader being loyal and submissive to not kill him is fucking stupid.

Crom wrote:2) Tarkin was not a good thug because he refused to listen to the officer who informed him of the danger to the Death Star minutes prior to its destruction.

Excuse me, but I think that this is simple an understandable sin of overconfidence. If you are in a very armoured battlestation and your enemy is 30 starfighters with a fraction of your firepower, can you imagine that they could destroy you? Tarkin was a good strategist who gained his positions with successes. His problem was simply the inability to seriously consider that the best engineers of the Empire could create a superweapon with that design flaw and that someone could use it. Vader had not a similar problem because he did a similar thing (on lesser scale but with an airshow-police fighter that he was learning how to pilot, not with the heavy attack fighters and expert pilots of the Rebel Alliance) when he was a child.
If Vader was in command he probably launch all his fighters and saved the Death Star with no problem and maybe no losses, but Tarkin was understandable.

Who gives a shit? The point is whether he is an intelligent manipulator.

Yes, and based on what he did, he absolutely is an intelligent manipulator. He manipulated the entire galaxy, controlled both sides in a galactic war, and so completely buffaloed the Jedi that he had to tell one of them what he was before they figured it out. He did all of this for one reason, to end up with absolute power over the galaxy. If doing that doesn't make him a mastermind, what does it take?

His really risky bets just paid off in the PT, and didn't in the OT.

No, they didn't "just pay off." He made them pay off. Palpatine didn't leave anything to chance. He knew what was going to happen because he was a Sith Lord, and he had the intelligence to make that result serve his purposes.

The idea that betting on Anakin cutting off Windu's arm before his lightsaber sliced off his head is a more reasonable and less risky bet because of your say-so than just betting on EITHER Luke going through with his anger and killing Vader or betting on TWENTY YEARS OF CONSISTENCY in Vader being loyal and submissive to not kill him is fucking stupid.

There was no "bet" concerning Anakin saving him. Do you seriously believe he put himself in that sort of situation without knowing, not guessing, not thinking, but fucking Knowing it would go the way he expected? So why didn't he display the same amazing amount of skill and intuition later against Luke? Decades of absolute power over the galaxy, plus the knowledge that he'd managed to maneuver everyone around him so easily before, led him to think he could get away with a lot less effort. It's true he was stupid and lazy, and he was defeated for it, but it doesn't diminish the immense accomplishment of having defeated both the Republic and the Jedi.

One thing to remember Palpatine spent 10 years playing grandpa to Anakin to the point that he could read Anakin like a book. He purposely and carefully tossed out carrot after carrot til he was practicaly sure that he knew just what Anakin would do when he needed him to do it.

In the case of Luke he never knew luke personally at all never talked to him until that day on the Death Star yet he still assumed that things would go right his way. All this was based on what he had forseen wather then his seting up and pulling the strings he knew would go his way.

Palpatine in the Clone Wars had direct control over both sides. In the Rebellion he did not. With anakin He had 10 years to build up and learn just how to press all his buttons, yet with Luke he did not and he expected the same tricks to work with Luke.

He was a mastermind but he let his success get to his head and he assumed that he was going to succeed again. That does not change the fact that he was a master manipulator and a mastermind in every definition of the work.

If he's so smart, how come he's dead

I'm sure even those who feed off the darkside of the Force end up growing old and senile. I mean, look at Yoda in ESB!

Shroom Man 777 wrote:If he's so smart, how come he's dead

I'm sure even those who feed off the darkside of the Force end up growing old and senile. I mean, look at Yoda in ESB!

A Bank Robber that was called Robin the Hood was very good at robbing banks without getting caught yet he still got tracked down and lock away for life.

Does that make him any less of a mastermind? A Mastermind does not have to succeed 100% of the time in order to be one.

The men who robbed the Brink Center in New York were the same way but they to eventually got caught and put away and that was called a perfect crime.

CDiehl wrote:Yes, and based on what he did, he absolutely is an intelligent manipulator. He manipulated the entire galaxy, controlled both sides in a galactic war, and so completely buffaloed the Jedi that he had to tell one of them what he was before they figured it out. He did all of this for one reason, to end up with absolute power over the galaxy. If doing that doesn't make him a mastermind, what does it take?

I never said it didn't. But one can't hold the PT and OT to meaningfully different standards of risk and say that the risks of the OT were obviously stupid and unnecessary if the ones in the PT were not. He's a mastermind in both trilogies, if you ask me.

CDiehl wrote:No, they didn't "just pay off." He made them pay off. Palpatine didn't leave anything to chance. He knew what was going to happen because he was a Sith Lord, and he had the intelligence to make that result serve his purposes.

Psychologically reading Anakin in order to "know" he would save him just in time is no better than trying to do the same with Luke. I'm saying if the standards applied to his gambles in the PT make him a mastermind, than they also do in the OT. Just sometimes your gamble does not pay off.

CDiehl wrote:There was no "bet" concerning Anakin saving him. Do you seriously believe he put himself in that sort of situation without knowing, not guessing, not thinking, but fucking Knowing it would go the way he expected? So why didn't he display the same amazing amount of skill and intuition later against Luke?

He did, idiot. He foresaw in the Force that Luke would kill Vader and become his new Sith Apprentice. Just Luke and the Force he did not conform to his reading as well.

CDiehl wrote:Decades of absolute power over the galaxy, plus the knowledge that he'd managed to maneuver everyone around him so easily before, led him to think he could get away with a lot less effort. It's true he was stupid and lazy, and he was defeated for it, but it doesn't diminish the immense accomplishment of having defeated both the Republic and the Jedi.

The idea that the Anakin gamble is so much less intrinsically risky and foolhardy compared to the Luke gamble is completely stupid. Especially considering that he had equal certainty in the Luke case, and put himself at less direct personal danger. You trying to say that not only Luke not turning, but Vader betraying him was an equally likely outcome to Windu succeeding in chopping his head off? Vader had stood by his side for twenty years and killed everyone he personally knew and cared about. There was no reason to suspect he'd kill him. Whereas in the ROTS case, he depended not only on Anakin choosing him over Windu, but not even momentarily hesitating to do so in order to not die.

Besides, if this is not a purist discussion, in the ROTJ case he knew death could not claim him, so he had much less to fear than in the ROTS example.

Palpy's not so much a mastermind as he is extremely charastmatic and persuasive/manipulative (he's good at getting people to do his bidding, knowingly or unknowingly) and an uncanny knack for turning any situation to his advantage to some degree. He's also quite adaptable and meticulous in what planning he does do (he appears to at least trry to cover for evey eventuality he can conceive of.)

Over the scope and timeframe he operated in, even in the prequel era (save for around the TESB-Endor era), things were simply too huge and complex for him to mastermind or control - he still fails (or as IP notes, his minions fail) but the failures rarely are crippling (or if they are, they aren't for very long.) Indeed, its more likely he plans very broadly and then only changes his plans to fit immediate circumstances (IE his turning of Anakin in ROTS.)

What really undoes Palpatine is that ultimately, he is growing more and more insane (until you get to the DE-era Palpy, whois a total nutjob) - by then he's essentially lost that caution and self-preservation that served him so well in the prequel era.

Nitpick: Where do you get this "40 years" from? From the time he declared himself Emperor to the time Luke hands Vader his ass and then Vader kills Palpatine is about 23 years.

At the most it's 33 years9if you include his time as Chanceller)

Isolder74 wrote:At the most it's 33 years9if you include his time as Chanceller)

36 years of uninterrupted rule actually. From the end of TPM to AOTC is 10 years. Then three years between AOTC and ROTS, and 23 years until Palpatine's death. If you count the time until his final death at Onderon, it is indeed ~40 years of rule, albeit interrupted.

Connor MacLeod wrote:Palpy's not so much a mastermind as he is extremely charastmatic and persuasive/manipulative (he's good at getting people to do his bidding, knowingly or unknowingly) and an uncanny knack for turning any situation to his advantage to some degree. He's also quite adaptable and meticulous in what planning he does do (he appears to at least trry to cover for evey eventuality he can conceive of.)

Over the scope and timeframe he operated in, even in the prequel era (save for around the TESB-Endor era), things were simply too huge and complex for him to mastermind or control - he still fails (or as IP notes, his minions fail) but the failures rarely are crippling (or if they are, they aren't for very long.) Indeed, its more likely he plans very broadly and then only changes his plans to fit immediate circumstances (IE his turning of Anakin in ROTS.)

The manipulations and preparations in order to correctly trigger Operation Shadow Hand and reverse the entire course of the war (even before the deployment of the Galaxy Gun weapon) I think qualify as masterminding. Furthermore, its canonical that he had effective control of the galaxy through his political cliques, secret alliances, and corporate pacts by TPM.

Connor MacLeod wrote:What really undoes Palpatine is that ultimately, he is growing more and more insane (until you get to the DE-era Palpy, whois a total nutjob) - by then he's essentially lost that caution and self-preservation that served him so well in the prequel era.

What things does he do in the OT which are any more insane, hubristic, or unrealistic compared to runnning the Clone War from both sides, and risking by a second's margin getting his head chopped clean off by Windu based on his psychological reading of Anakin Skywalker? And what is so crazy about his behavior in DE1 (nevermind DE2 and EE, where I'd agree he's at least shaken or unstable) compared to the OT and PT? If anything, the risks in ROTS and the possible margins of failure are much more ridiculous than his behavior in the OT or ROTJ. Quite frankly Palpatine's only true, irrecovable failing was to keep trying to convert Luke Skywalker. Without that, he almost certainly would have won Operation Shadow Hand and restored his Empire.

Personally, I think most of the false dichotomies and double standards in judging Palpatine's character and motivations and ability responds to the analysts' personal preferences in sources. People who don't like Dark Empire try to make Palpatine "less real" in one way or another. It used to be they claimed that the clone in Dark Empire and its sequels were merely clones. Thereafter, it became fashionable to imply that even if it was Palpatine, he had become something less or lost something in the process.

The Original Nex wrote:

Isolder74 wrote:At the most it's 33 years9if you include his time as Chanceller)

36 years of uninterrupted rule actually. From the end of TPM to AOTC is 10 years. Then three years between AOTC and ROTS, and 23 years until Palpatine's death. If you count the time until his final death at Onderon, it is indeed ~40 years of rule, albeit interrupted.

Well he said unchallenged rule, not uninterrupted rule. His rule certainly was challenged MOST of the time he was in power, but as for being in complete control of the Empire, it is only 23 years. He barley could control his own cronies after his resurrection.

How was the PT-OT period any different from the DE era? There were repeated attempted coups during the Empire proper. Harkov, Zaarin, Trachta. Forgot the prospective or planned coups by Vader, Tarkin/Motti, etc. Need I go on?

Illuminatus Primus wrote:How was the PT-OT period any different from the DE era? There were repeated attempted coups during the Empire proper. Harkov, Zaarin, Trachta. Forgot the prospective or planned coups by Vader, Tarkin/Motti, etc. Need I go on?

Nope. Fine by me. The Emperor NEVER had unchallenged rule. I was just bein' nice.

Connor MacLeod wrote:Palpy's not so much a mastermind as he is extremely charastmatic and persuasive/manipulative (he's good at getting people to do his bidding, knowingly or unknowingly) and an uncanny knack for turning any situation to his advantage to some degree. He's also quite adaptable and meticulous in what planning he does do (he appears to at least trry to cover for evey eventuality he can conceive of.)

You know, I've always thought about Palpatine being a grand politician, "able to follow the passions of the senators", but I've also always wondered how much of this charisma and persuasive ability come from his mastery of the Force rather than just only brute personality. That he has a powerful personality and likewise a keen mind, there can be no doubt, but he he can always fall back on his dark side knowledge when personality doesn't work. That he understands the political system better than most is also somewhat of a given.

With the Shroud of the Dark Side clouding Jedi vision, he can predict most of what his enemies intend to do while the other side virtually remains blind. That's not to say that he can accurately predict everything that might happen, as such power is beyond even the most powerful Jedi or Sith, but he still possesses a massive advantage over his opponents in anticipating future events. Certainly some of his conviction in taking his bolder steps must have come from such advantage.

And what of his persuasive abilities? It's no secret that Force users can read minds and sense emotion. But it's also a whole other realm of possibility in being able to meddle with them. While he can't outright mind control his opponents like puppets, he can readily influence their emotions in certain situations and even outright give them commands to do whatever he pleases (Jar Jar coming to mind in AOTC, e.g.). How many politicians in real life or even in SW have such abilities, besides the Jedi who tended not to travel in such civic affairs? Anyhow that's just my take on the subject--Palpatine's an excellent strategist--but much of what he does is fixed by what his abilities in the Force tell him.