Skip to main content

star wars - Did Palpatine intentionally lose to Mace Windu?


In Episode III, Mace Windu, a user of Vaapad fighting style, fought and disarmed Palpatine. He was defeated until Anakin turned to the dark side and saved him.


Did Palpatine foresee this? Did Palpatine purposely lose to Mace Windu, to ensure that Anakin would turn against the Jedi and become his new apprentice?



It seems like a very calculated risk to take if so.


I ask because even Yoda failed to defeat Darth Sidious later on. But up until Anakin interfered, Mace really could have ended the reign of the Sith.


Also, I thought that Mace Windu's lightsaber ability was second only to that of Yoda.



Answer



I reread the passage in the novel "The Revenge of the Sith". It's really hard to tell whether Sidious lost on purpose as you suggested or is genuinely defeated by Mace Windu. I will try to elaborate on this a little and you can choose whether you agree with my interpretations or not. For this I will first quote some important passages from the book.


Setting the stage: The chronology of the battle with text passages


Firstly, it is explicitly said that the lightsaber fight reached an impasse. I'd say that Mace and Sidious were equal when it came to lightsaber battle which was mainly due to the Vaapad fighting style and Mace's great skill with the lightsaber in general. This went on until Anakin arrived.


Passage 1:



Vaapad made him an open channel, half of a superconducting loop completed by the shadow; they became a standing wave of battle that expanded into every cubic centimeter of the Chancellor's office. [...] But there was still only the cycle of power, the endless loop, no wound taken on either side, not even the possibility of fatigue. Impasse. Which might have gone on forever, if Vaapad were Mace's only gift. The fighting was effortless for him now; he let his body handle it without the intervention of his mind. While his blade spun [...] his mind slid along the circuit of dark power, tracing it back to its limitless source. Feeling for its shatterpoint. He found a knot of fault lines in the shadow's future; he chose the largest fracture and followed it back to the here and the now— And it led him, astonishingly, to a man standing frozen in the slashed-open doorway. [...] The chosen one was here.




I guess, Mace thinks Anakin (being Sidous' shatterpoint) will help him ending the battle. Mace and Sidious both feel the end of the battle approaching. Then Mace is able to disarm Sidious taking advantage of the fear being radiated by Sidious.


Passage 2:



He could feel the end of this battle approaching, and so could the blur of Sith he faced; in the Force, the shadow had become a pulsar of fear. Easily, almost effortlessly, he turned the shadow's fear into a weapon: he angled the battle to bring them both out onto the window ledge. Out where the shadow's fear made it hesitate. Out where the shadow's fear turned some of its Force-powered speed into a Force-powered grip on the slippery permacrete. Out where Mace could flick his blade in one precise arc and slash the shadow's lightsaber in half.


Mace puts his victory down to Sidious' own fear.



Passage 3:



"You lost for the same reason the Sith always lose: defeated by your own fear."




But then Sidious counter attacks.


Passage 4:



"Fool!" His voice was a shout of thunder. "Do you think the fear you feel is mine?" Lighting blasted the clouds above, and lightning blasted from Palpatine's hands, and Mace didn't have time to comprehend what Palpatine was talking about; he had time only to slip back into Vaapad and angle his blade to catch the forking arcs of pure, dazzling hatred that clawed toward him. Because Vaapad is more than a fighting style. It is a state of mind: a channel for darkness. Power passed into him and out again without touching him. And the circuit completed itself: the lightning reflected back to its source.



Mace was able to hold the lightning at bay with his lightsaber and wants Anakin to help him. But Sidious didn't seem to be frightened of Anakin.


Passage 5:



The key to final victory. Palpatine's shatterpoint. The absolute shatter-point of the Sith. The shatterpoint of the dark side itself. Mace thought, blankly astonished, Palpatine trusts Anakin Skywalker...




Sidious brought Mace Windu on the brink of defeat with his force lightning but then stopped it, apparently because of exhaustion.


Passage 6:



Palpatine still made no move to defend himself from Skywalker; instead he ramped up the lightning bursting from his hands, bending the fountain of Mace's blade back toward the Korun Master's face. [...] This was beyond Vaapad; he had no strength left to fight against his own blade. [...] Mace's blade bent so close to his face that he was choking on ozone. "Anakin, he's too strong for me—" "Ahhh—" Palpatine's roar above above the endless blast of lightning became a fading moan of despair. The lightning swallowed itself, leaving only the night and the rain, and an old man crumpled to his knees on a slippery ledge. "I... can't. I give up. I... I am too weak, in the end. Too old, and too weak. Don't kill me, Master Jedi. Please. I surrender."



Then Sidious gives up and surrenders, Mace wants to kill him but the Sith Lord's manipulations of Anakin come to fruition and Anakin cuts off Mace's sword-hand.


Passage 7:



"I need him alive!" Skywalker shouted. "I need him to save Padme!" Mace thought blankly, Why? And moved his lightsaber toward the fallen Chancellor. Before he could follow through on his stroke, a sudden arc of blue plasma sheared through his wrist and his hand tumbled away with his lightsaber still in it and Palpatine roared back to his feet and lightning speared from the Sith Lord's hands and without his blade to catch it, the power of Palpatine's hate struck him full-on. He had been so intent on Palpatine's shatterpoint that he'd never thought to look for Anakin's.




Interpretation:


It's been a little bit wordy introduction but I wanted to set the stage properly for my answer. Since I have read the novel "Darth Plagueis" by James Luceno, where Darth Sidious is described as a really powerful, deceitful and foresightful being, I am willing to give him the credit of losing on purpose against Mace Windu only to be saved by Anakin and thus dragging him fully over to the Dark Side.


In my opinion Sidious knew that he couldn't win against Mace Windu in a lightsaber duel (passage 1). So he would have thought of a different way to win the battle either making use of his stronger force talents (e.g. lightning) or trickery. He used Anakin's arrival to fool Mace into thinking he's feared of losing and weakened by his fear and let Mace disarm him (passages 3 and 4). Maybe Sidious drew on Anakin's fear to get the right appearance. Mace felt that Anakin is Sidious's shatter-point (passage 5) which might have further weakened any suspicions he might have had about this sudden victory over the Sith Lord. (Maybe this is foreboding of Darth Vader killing the Emperor in "The Return of the Jedi".) After being disarmed Sidious nearly caught Mace off guard with his force lightning. I'm not sure whether he thought he could kill Mace this way, since a normal Jedi wouldn't have been able to block the lightning only Mace's vaapad technique enabled him to withstand it, or whether he counted on Anakin from the beginning. The last interpretation is supported by passage 5 and by the fact that Sidious brought Mace Windu on the brink of defeat with his force lightning but then stopped it (passage 6) although he had some power left (passage 7) to finish him off after Anakin had intervened. (But maybe he really was exhausted, it's difficult to tell.)


I hope my statement was helpful and convincing. There are of course other interpretations possible.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir

the lord of the rings - Why is Gimli allowed to travel to Valinor?

Gimli was allowed to go to Valinor despite not being a ring bearer. Is this explained in detail or just with the one line "for his love for Galadriel"? Answer There's not much detail about this aside from what's said in Appendix A to Return of the King: We have heard tell that Legolas took Gimli Glóin's son with him because of their great friendship, greater than any that has been between Elf and Dwarf. If this is true, then it is strange indeed: that a Dwarf should be willing to leave Middle-earth for any love, or that the Eldar should receive him, or that the Lords of the West should permit it. But it is said that Gimli went also out of desire to see again the beauty of Galadriel; and it may be that she, being mighty among the Eldar, obtained this grace for him. More cannot be said of this matter. And Appendix B: Then Legolas built a grey ship in Ithilien, and sailed down Anduin and so over Sea; and with him, it is said, went Gimli the Dwarf . And when that sh

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l

What is the etymology of Doctor Who?

I recently decided to watch Doctor Who, and started viewing the 2005 version. I have the first two episodes from the first season, and I can't help but wonder what is the etymology of the name "Doctor Who"? And why does the protagonist call himself "the Doctor" (or is it "the doctor")? Answer In the very first episode of Doctor Who (way back in 1963), the Doctor has a granddaughter going by the name "Susan Foreman", and the junkyard where the TARDIS is has the sign "I.M. Foreman". Barbara, who becomes one of the Doctor's companions, calls him "Doctor Foreman" (probably assuming that is his name given his relationship to Susan), and Ian (another early companion) does the same in the second episode, to which the Doctor says: Eh? Doctor who? What's he talking about? "Foreman" is most likely selected as a convenient surname for Susan to use because it happened to be on display near where the TARDIS landed.