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Wookieepedia has this quote on Palpatine.

"I've played along with your Jedi dueling games long enough! Now you will experience my full potency... I live as energy... I am the Dark Side!"
―Palpatine[src]"

I have heard ( I think on this board ) that there is the idea that Palpatine was the Dark Side avatar, but, I want to know how true his statement up there is.

I recall that line from Dark Empire.

Well, there's not much to gain from that line, really.

Was RotS era Palpatine the avatar of the Galactic Senate, as well? While he may well be the avatar of the Dark Side, his one-liners hardly seem like useful evidence for or against this.

I was thinking that too, but, what with that quote in the ROTS (?) novelization that says that Yoda was the strongest warrior the Light Side had ever had, and that he had lost to Palpatine before he was ever born, and Palpatine toppling the Jedi and the Republic, and coming back from the dead, seems to me that he is telling the truth, but he does lie alot.

To say that Dark Empire Palpatine has delusions of grandeur is a galactic understatement.
He was even in the process of writing his memoirs during the whole mess, so convinced was he that he was a living god and that he'd win.
I suppose coming back from the dead will do that to you, especially if you were already an evil galactic emperor.
But that's all it really is, a delusion. Vain blustering.

Return of the Jedi novelization wrote:For his soul was the black center of the Empire.

He contemplated the dense impenetrability of the deep space beyond the window. Densely black as his soul - as if he were, in some real way, this blackness; as if his inner spirit was itself this void over which he reigned. He smiled at the thought: he was the Empire; he was the Universe

Dark Side Sourcebook wrote:[The Emperor] had succeeded where all others failed in taming the Dark Side.

Damn, that sounds fucking badass.

"he was the Empire; he was the Universe"

You know, I was thinking about something.

Revenge of the Sith novelizaton wrote:"This truth; that he, the avatar of light, Supreme Master of the Jedi Order, the fiercest, most implacable, most devestatingly powerful foe the darkness had ever know...
just-
didn't-
have it.

He never had it. He lost before he started. He lost before he was born."

Can this be applied to Palpatine at Endor? He could do nothing to stop Vader from "killing" him?

If so, the, doesnt Palpatine basically cheat the Force by coming back to life later on?

I had always assumed that that quote pertaining to Yoda was because of his mentality throughout his entire life of being the Ultimate source of good in the Galaxy. The novelisation goes on to say that Yoda didn't 'have it' because he had made the Jedi Order too rigid and unchanging, not because Palpatine was unbeatable. I thought that once the Jedi Order was able to change, they would be able to fight the new breed of Sith.

Revan's Fire wrote:I had always assumed that that quote pertaining to Yoda was because of his mentality throughout his entire life of being the Ultimate source of good in the Galaxy. The novelisation goes on to say that Yoda didn't 'have it' because he had made the Jedi Order too rigid and unchanging, not because Palpatine was unbeatable. I thought that once the Jedi Order was able to change, they would be able to fight the new breed of Sith.

Ah, good point. Althought, it says that he had lost before he was born, before he had the chance to make the Order rigid and unchanging.

BTW, where does it says that Yoda thought of himself as the ultimate source of good? As far as I understand, that quote is in third person, the narrator describing Yoda AS the greatest Jedi that had come along, not that Yoda though of himself as that.

Given the Emperor's narcissism and arrogance, it would be difficult to conclude that he "was the dark side" based purely off of his own statements. That said, when one takes into account musings regarding Palpatine throughout the saga (Count Dooku's conclusions based on gazing at Sidious "through the eyes of the Force" or Luke Skywalker's ruminations in the Unifying Force how Palpatine was "more energy than flesh"), it stands to reason that if there is one Sith Lord that personified the dark side in all ways (not just referring to the depth of his evil, which is also peerless), it would be Palpatine.