A Study on Evil Incarnate: The Detailed Journal of Sheev Palpatine & his Ascent to Darth Sidious 

Plagueis: Huh? There's is a new feeling. Pride in someone else. Unfortunately, it is overshadowed by all this unyielding rage

Great video

WOW, you put your AD at the end of the video..... good man

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It is so sad that advertising "no microtransactions" is now groundbreaking and considered a feature instead of how games are supposed to be.

That reminds of the guy who ran over a family in his parebts sportscar and young women across america were all like "he is too cute to go to jail".

@@miniaturejayhawk8702 Got a link, or something to go off of? Never heard of that story till now.

Patrick Bateman is basically Palpatine if he didn't have magic powers

@@TT-pl5iw I am here to make funny comments, not to prove a point to a random stranger whom I will never meet in my life.

@@redjirachi1 no, patrick went mad because his environment was monotone and his life was meaningless.

A very insightful observation.

That's pretty much the Bane-line of sith m.o for the most part. They're excellent when scheming but loose sight when they fully succumb to evil. Even Bane who did some heinous shit still continued to serve the dark side with a goal in mind. Palpy however being Plageuis apprentice would go against the dark side and it bit them in the ass

Satan at least fell from grace.

“When he acts openly as a Sith Lord it usually ends bad to him.” _Usually_ meaning in only one instance, which was his last… in the G-Canon anyway.

The Dark Side is like a drug. Palpatine was an addicted, when he aquired the Sith Holocrons from the Jedi Temple ,he couldn't handle the power and craved even more.

He's not evil. He's just better than the devil.

Evil is a point of view.

@@HinokasArabfan1 He's proof that humans are better at being evil than Satan

​@@redjirachi1 I agree, honestly.

@@redjirachi1 just look at petty little America and Europe.

​​@@wiltblush4136That's something that struck me as pure evil. Much like the Joker, Palpatine does sick twisted shit, but even when he's confronted with it being his actual deadliest failure afterwards, admits that thats what is wrong with him essentially and then continues doing fucked up stuff. Palpatine is genuinely one of the only fictional characters that is so evil that I hate them personally, like Umbridge from Harry Potter and Euron Greyjoy and Tywin Lannister from the Game of Thrones books

@@ChrisVillagomez good references

@@ChrisVillagomez Euron greyjoy wasn't so bad

@@greenthumbstrummer lol.. you must not have read the books if you think Euron Greyjoy isnt all that bad. Come to think of it, Euron is probably the most apt example of a villainous character that so closely compares with sidious

@@greenthumbstrummer Obviously you have not read the books. Euron is utterly twisted in them. The show version is affable compared to him.

I agree, he actually got very bored later in his life as Emperor as he had no one to oppose him, until the Rebellion was formed. He left most of the running of the Empire to governors and used Vader to deal with any small resistance and last remaining Jedi. He became far more introverted and focused on his studies of the dark side, mainly to become immortal.

Yea, only 4 years later.

"And so the Mask becomes the man. I shall miss the face of Palpatine I think.

My head cannon is that Palpatine and Dooku would sit down for drinks and laugh their asses off at the stuff they pulled off in the clone wars.

Not yet

Same difference

But... does he have the high ground?

@@Kurama420 He did when he fought Yoda, which is why Yoda retreated.

What's the difference?

Or, as G. K. Chesterton would put it, he was not “all there.” He was a mad-man, completely consumed by power.

Technically young Palpatine didn't murder anyone. Murder requires intent and what Palpatine did was an accident. It's more man slaughter than murder.

Technically You can only be born a psychopath. A sociopath is a lighter version not genetic learned from the environment and bad parenting ( at least its the latest consensus)

@America Chavez And both types of villains are important if you ask me because of how they mirror real life. Sure some people do evil things because of some twisted worldview or tragic backstory, but some people also do evil things simply because they can, even with a perfectly normal background. We've all known someone like that.

Psychopaths and sociopaths are the same thing

I can't believe your comment has only 34 likes. Sidious's hunger for power was truly all consuming.

XD

Sir this comment is criminally underrated

I had no idea that many, though probably not most, of those well-acquainted with the prequel trilogy, have also missed out on this, and that the joke needs to be explained to them.

He is essentially Frank Underwood from House of Cards but Sci-Fi/Space Wizard Edition.

And Maul, Asajj, Grievous, And Durge were meant to be mere asassins not powerful albeit while long temporary partners like Plagueis And Dooku nor potential successors like Anakin/Vader, Galen/Starkiller, Or Luke yeah.

@@matthewmann8969 you forgot about Cad Bane, the Separatist Council, the CIS droids, the Senate, Jedi Council, the Clones and the Imperial Moffs were being used by Palpatine as well

And arguably the single most significantly much more intelligent than anyone who didn’t get direct help from the only thing that truly dictates anything in the Star Wars universe the force haha

His presence in the force feels like a cold emptiness of a souless being, unlike other Sith like Vader, Maul or even Dooku who's presence feels more chaotic and a storm of negative emotions.

So Palpatine is just Nihilus as a politician?

That would be so good, have it play kind of like The Shining or American Pyscho, where we witness the protagonist descent into madness.

Meh, they don't do any good with established characters at all, it always misses the mark. Only their original stuff is sometimes good or passable.

I want Disney to drop down a black hole!

@@richardscathouse ok…

@@user-yq9im9dk9z I agree. A lot of these legends stories are too dark for Disney to pull off, they'd try too hard to make it family-friendly As much as I'd love to see these old novels adapted, I wouldn't want it done under Disney

Plagueis: "If I wasnt I, Im sure you would kill me..." Sheev: "Yeah, thats definitely it!"

Fair enough!

Except under the rule of 2 its a known fact that the apprentice will eventually surpass their master and strike them down.

​@@youknow9092that's why in the novel when he killed plagueis he said "you where too trusting" "No True Sith can ever care for another being"

@@ghr501able having an apprentice isnt about caring about them. It was about funneling their power to them for when they rise.

Anakin and Luke were from the same planet, and took different paths. They had the same mentor too (Obi-wan).

Padme was hand selected by Palps to become the next Queen of Naboo because he knew he could control her, and it worked out even better than he could have planned.

A classic case of how familial love (or the lack of it) can change someone. Unconditional love may be the biggest lie we tell ourselves, but it is a necessary lie to keep ourselves sane.

Also bit of headcanon-Anakin (and to a lesser extent Padmé) may have in fact been the only remaining chains of humanity that Palpatine had left, especially as one could interpret at least some of the fake benevolence he displayed before revealing himself as in fact genuine, or at least rooted in the remnants of humanity that existed within him. There is a marked difference in him before the events of Episode III (where he cared about power-but pursued it with a level of lucidity and rationality) and after the events of Episode III (where he threw away his victory with needless cruelty).

Too many

God gave us free will. The devil just tempts us to test if we are capable of making that distinction, he doesn’t fool us, he doesn’t lie. He lets us do all that for him, that’s his whole point to the Lord for every soul he covets. We are flawed when we allow ourselves to be weak. Otherwise, he has no power. Palpatine is far worse. He has no point, twisted by envy or otherwise. He simply exists to cause pain, death and hate because he can. The devil is a fool who rebelled cause couldn’t see the bigger picture. Palpatine simply is just evil incarnate, the abyss, the darkness that was there before even Lucifer first fell.

He did the same to Dooku in Legends was grooming him way before Maul failed his mission alive or not and way before he took out Plagueis yeah.

@@matthewmann8969 yes, all of sidious apprentices were just his pawns, none of them were ever meant to replace him since he never saw them as such.

Not just cinema, one can argue that he's also that in tie-in expanded universe fiction.

Agreed.

Indeed. Frollo is Disney’s best animated villain, and Palpatine is, in my opinion, the best villain of any franchise in history with the sole exception of Tolkein’s Melkor (who is, without any doubt, the closest fictional representation of Lucifer himself).

I would agree with Frollo being a man that can easily exist in the real world, but not so Palpatine. Voldemort or Vader feels more likely than Palpatine, because Palpatine is such an evil anomaly with basically no origin story, most real people wouldn't be able to match him even if they tried. Vader was a young man willing to do fucked up shit to save the love of his life, losing said love of his life in the process. The first part is perfectly realistic, the second part is a tragedy that can happen. His passion was also exploited by an old bastard, so there's also that. Voldemort I believe is based off a real man, Adolf H. A racist, obsessive, and paranoid bastard that wields absolute power in his cult. He's based off the most prominent evil person in history, but he's based off a real human. Palpatine though, is as evil as a human villain can theoretically be. He's effective and manipulative when amassing power, but also absolutely sadistic and blatantly evil when he already has absolute power. He's not just egotistical, he's not just cruel and uncaring, he's all of the above and then some more. Even Sauron is more realistically evil than him, and Sauron's an actual fallen angel.

Well put.

Palpatine is actually more evil than the in-universe devil. The Son is the personification of the dark side yet he had angst and cared about his family even if he was bad at showing it. Palpatine isn't the embodiment of the dark side, he's the pitch-black side of the Force

Have to think that there were about 28 Sith Lords before Sidious and that each one was more powerful, wiser than the last, like a container of darkness that becomes more full with each generation. By the time Sidious grew up, the Sith had become a gigantic storm with almost unlimited destructive power.

Let's not pretend that the Disney Star Wars are canon. Anakin Skywalker ended Palpatine.

@@Aivottaja We both know better than that.

Truly mastermind.

Indeed, plain and simple... 😉

Simple but effective.

More like "Barbarian, thief, warrior, king"

Pretty sure the Star Wars version is Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Praji :^)

I couldn’t agree more his manipulation and everything else. Also, he had a lot of help from terrible writing in the sense that Jedi were basically folding bamboozled by arguably the most sketchy man I’ve ever seen in live action that depicts a fictional character.

He’s basically Star Wars Satan, he’s arguably more evil than The Son himself.

@@jamariojackson4289 The Son at least seemed to care about his father and sister in some way Palpatine brutally murdered his entire family and enjoyed it

@@kaitosevski3881 You are right about that, yes I forgot about that scene with the son.

The average Jedi or Sith are nowhere near this charismatic.

Imo yes but it is this fact that the sith failed. He only served himself, not the dark side itself.

​@@mitthrawnuruodo1730that's not really true. Remember the line "Darth Vader will become more powerful than either of us" right before the fight with Yoda. That's why I don't agree with this video's claim that palpatine is a psychopath since if he only cares about himself then why the hell would he train someone way more powerful than him who he knew would eventually kill him? He was a true believer in the dark side who was extremely hateful and misanthropic and that overrided whatever sense of guilt he may have had. That's my take on it anyway

What makes Palpatine work as a pure evil villain is that he's a distinctly human evil. Everything he does to make himself emperor are out of the playbook of the corrupt politicians and dictators of real history. Nihilus may embody the dark side, but he was a savage beast driven by instinct. Characters like Aku are evil incarnate yet they are driven by their nature to be evil. Palpatine at the end of the day is still human...he's just everything wrong with humanity

@@redjirachi1 Nihilus was not a savage beast driven by instinct. He had cunning and foresight enough to lay a trap for his enemies, and enough self-restraint not to consume them until they were all there--which may have been his ultimate undoing. He was a demon, not a beast; but you're right about him not being human, and about what that means to his character.

Exactly! The thing that makes him much worse than Darth Nihilus is that the latter’s endless hunger is, as Kreia said, a very primal and basic thing that he cannot really control for long. Palpatine’s hunger is worse in the sense that he is in control of all of it and still chooses to feed it with innumerable acts of megalomania, sadism and mass murder; all of them fully deliberate and calculated.

Sauron and Morgoth are really the only comparable figures to Sidious in terms of how purely malicious and menacing they are.

Pure evil villains are the best when they're not the only villain in the story. Palpatine is the pure evil overlord of the empire, while Vader was his tragic right hand man that regularly has contact with the protagonists, Tarkin is a ruthless admiral, and Tyranus was actually looking to change the galaxy for the better. Sauron, by the third age, is a being of malice, who has been designing his victory for 3000 years, while Saruman is a corrupted/delusional wizard (angel), (movie) Denethor was a steward with a broken mind, the Nazguls, while evil ghouls, were all victims of Sauron. Voldemort was a dark lord through and through, but Lucius was a coward that cares (only) for his family, Snape was a tragic triple agent, and Pettigrew was a cowardly asshole.

Yeah, vitiates death brought Balance to the force and sidious death also brought balance

Except for one crucial detail: Palpatine was utterly bloodthirsty to the core while Vitiate was just like pure coldness and apathy. The first wanted to make the Galaxy a monument to his ego and the second thought he deserved better than the Galaxy so he wanted to erase it to live as many different lives as possible. Both were evil to the core and not a shred of the common good ever crossed their minds.

@@jakobrenner2230 true man vitiate was a evil monster.

Such a good assessment, well done.

That's a rather narrow-minded way of looking at it. Ofc that's how Sidious viewed the Jedi, given his own sense of superiority and the belief that he knew what was best for everyone. However, that wasn't the reality. Obi-Wan says it best in ANH where he tells Luke that the Jedi were _the protectors of peace_ in the galaxy. Working with the government wasn't the same as them serving it. That was just another Sidious lie.

Yes, The Book Of Sith fleshes out the core elements bebind imporhant Dark Lords' ideologies and mohivations, including Palpatine. However, when it comes to the latter, it contains what Palpatine wanted those who'd read it to think, yet while it does mostly represent the ideas he personally followed, his true thoughts are much more complex, than what those notes would suggest. You see, oddly enough Palpatine wasn't JUST about personal eternal growth in power. He actually had a vision beyond himself, at lesst for the Sith. In the essential guide to the Force, there's a quote from his own recording within the Telos holocron that's meant to guide future Sith. There, Palpatine explaines his idea behind the Rule of one, and that indeed no Sith should ever intend for their apprentice to replace them, however the way he describes it there implies his Rule Of One is rather an adjustment to the Ro2, rather than it's replacement. It doesn't dictate that Palpatine specifically must be the eternal Sith master. It says that any Dark Lord Of The Sith at a given time should consider themselves the absolute Sith and protect their position at all costs. That is the way of the Sith after all. They should always seek an apprentice tho and stick to the Rule Of 2. Yet, as the recording points out, Palpatine suspected that the true eternal life is impossible and while he never wanted to give up on his controll, he knew that one day his existance would likely end. And he genuinly cared about his ideology being passed onto future Sith. To quote the recording: "You see, I have chosen to appear before you not as I have come to be, but as I was long ago, when I was young. A vanity, perhaps, but I know from experience that a much older teacher, no matter how gifted, can appear antiquated, or even obsolete, and I would be remiss to encourage you to believe I am or ever was your superior. After all, you are full of life, and I…Well, because the Holocron is now in your hands, I must assume I am but a whisper from the past."

Imo that would absolutly shit on both palpatine as a character and the entire point of star wars as a whole. But we all see things differently ig lol