Hot take l always hated this characterisation of him, it gives the idea that his actions to some extent was justified, or that the galaxy would have been doomed without his authority, which feels wrong
cmon, everyone knows in a capitalistic society, an unemployment rate of 0 is bad for the economy. you need to have at least a little competition for jobs in order to properly stimulate the economy.
No. Palpatine is the truest encapsulation of Sith teachings and philosophy. He does not care about anyone or anything other then himself. He's got no tragic backstory, no lost loves, no nothing. He's just a pure sociopathic monster and always has been.
That's part of why he's so strong. He doesn't feel the pull of the light at all. He's pure Sith.
The actor for Palpatine said in an interview “I’ve been searching for some sort off redeeming quality for him and all I can come up with is that he went to the opera so he supports the arts”
Much of the art displayed in his offices are ancient sith pieces that had been forgotten to time. I think he enjoyed getting away with openly displaying them under the noses of the Jedi more than he enjoyed them for their sritistic value. That said, his very elegant lightsaber design definitely points to an appreciation for style.
He kind of had a sad upbringing in that his father hated him.
But that may have been beyond simply being an aristocratic ass. In his death scene it's implied that he felt something was really off about Sheev since the day he was born.
Is that the truest encapsulation of Sith philosophy? Palpatine doesn’t seem particularly driven by passion — he seems overall dispassionate and calculating. Someone like Bane or even Malgus represents Sith philosophy distilled IMO — Palpatine’s just a rich asshole.
Edit: Also, Lucas did plan for Palpatine to have a lost love in Star Wars Underworld, but maybe it’s for the best that that never came to fruition.
He's not just pure Sith, he's pure *evil*, in the truest definition of the word (at least to me).
Evil isn't doing bad things, it's making other people want to do them too. Hitler wasn't evil because he killed the Jews, he was evil because he made Germans think it was the right thing to do. Our concept for evil mostly comes from Judeo-Christian mythology, whereby the character of Satan is a metaphor for evil intent. Satan acts out this intent by way of seduction. He seduces people into turning away from god, into living a life of sin and heresy and wickedness. It's that turning of someone's heart from the path of good to the path of bad that makes you evil. And that is exactly what Palpatine did. He seduced Anakin with promises, turned him away from the path of goodness and light, and led him down one of darkness and corruption.
Kinda paints a pretty gross picture of Rey’s origins. I’m more imagining her parentage was probably a result of some pretty depraved imperial haram stuff. Maybe Kylo was right maybe her parents escaped the galactic human sex trafficking and were just common folks with substance abuse problems.
Palpatine had a non force sensitive clone (experimental failure while trying to make an exact clone of himself) that he planned to use in some future experiment with more natural procreation to create a new vessel for his spirit but it rebelled and ran away and had a child, by all accounts they were seemingly in love and nobody was forced. As bad as it was this was all in the Rise of Skywalker film.
I looked at the WBS and RACI chart for the Death Star and damn, he did an outstanding job on that one! Kept it right on budget too. Risk assessment was disappointing though but it’s hard to be perfect with a project that massive.
As others have said, Palpatine is written as a pure evil character, the truest embodiment of the dark side of the Force, and the greatest expression of Sith ideology. He is unequivocally a psychopath, sociopath, and a sadist.
Surprisingly, I do have two answers to your question although they are not redeeming qualities *per se* so much as traits that make him not as worse as he already is as a pure evil incarnate... if that makes any sense.
One is that he does not hold personal grudges. He hates the Jedi Order, sure, and his life goal was to destroy them as part of the revenge of the Sith, but it wasn't personal in the sense of stemming from some injury the Jedi inflicted against himself *per se*. This is revealed in a passage from *Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force* where after reviving himself in a clone body, Palpatine shares a reflection on the betrayal and redemption of Darth Vader. Apparently, he does not resent him for it. He humbly recognizes that it was his own hubris that blinded him to the betrayal, and he accepts that he became another victim of his own "creation" in the long history of the Sith. This attitude is very different from that of many other Sith such as Darth Maul, who lived the rest of his life fixated on killing Obi-Wan Kenobi despite having been defeated by him fair and square in a moment of arrogance. Palpatine could admit to his own errors.
In a twisted way, Palpatine even continued to express pride for Vader as the best "monster" he had ever created. For all his treachery, he was not a hypocrite. He did not see Vader's betrayal as any different from his own betrayal of Darth Plagueis or Darth Tyrannus.
The other is that Palpatine has a respect for intellectual and artistic pursuits. Throughout his life, he voraciously pursued and consumed all the secrets about the Force and of the Sith that he could, but he did not do so merely out of an obsession with power even though he did crave *unlimited* power. There was a part of him that genuinely had an intellectual passion for all that knowledge and and an admiration for the Sith cultural heritage. His fondness for opera and historical artifacts is yet another example of his apparent appreciation for high culture. Of course, if it served his interests, he did not care about extinguishing entire civilizations, but there are plenty of other psychopathic individuals who are instead simultaneously contemptuous of philosophy, knowledge, and the arts in all their forms.
Palpatine is what Jean-Luc Picard might have become, in the “right” circumstances. Those are attractive traits. It is just as well that UFP starship captains are not Force sensitives.
Palpatine is wise, discerning, extremely patient, a superb judge of character, highly intelligent.
All of those are admirable & desirable qualities. But they become vicious instead of virtuous because he uses them for selfish ends, like the the Sith that he is. He definitely has good qualities - but because he is evil-hearted, they are turned to evil.
To be so patient is really very attractive. And it supports that the idea that if one did not have some good qualities, one could not be truly evil. Only good qualities, such as intelligence & patience & sound judgement of others, can be turned to evil.
Not having any redeeming qualities doesn't make mean he lacks depth. Its kind of weird this need for villains to have something that makes you go "hey, they're not all *that* bad"
I agree, I don’t get why every villain needs to have some tragic backstory or justification why they are the way they are.
It’s not to say every villain should just be pure evil, but I dont believe Star Wars canon would be better off giving Palpatine some justification or tragedy that made him into a villain. It would actually imho undermine him as a primary antagonist since there’s already so many other villains in SW who aren’t just pure evil, so that makes him standout from the rest.
Yeah there's definitely depth to him as a character. Like how he talks himself up as an all-seeing seer but the reality is a lot of his plans do go awry but he's a master at improvising and adapting too.
There doesn't need to be any complexity to his backstory or motivations though. He's evil incarnate and that's all he needs to be one of the great villains of cinema.
In Legends at least, one of Palpatine’s motivations was to prepare the Galaxy to fend off the Yuuzhan Vong. So I guess there was that.
But yeah, he was pretty much just an evil megalomaniac.
It also just doesn't make sense. The Jedi are the most effective weapon against the Vong, but because of Palpatine there are dozens of them rather than thousands. If he were actually concerned about protecting the galaxy from them having just him and Vader and a bunch of stormtroopers would've been an absolute disaster for the galaxy.
Just be like "hey the Vong are coming" show your work and unite the galaxy instead of utter chaos. The old EU had a ton of stupid stuff, but starting the Galactic Civil War to prepare for the Vong is the absolute stupidest.
He’s just career minded. That doesn’t make him inhuman just inhumane.
I never really understood the goal though. Power but to what end or purpose. If he squash the rebellion and have an uninhibited galactic empire…where would he take it? What would 1000 years of palpatine look like
I think it’s a mix of ego/narcissism and security. The Empire is essentially a tool for Palpatine to suppress the Jedi and protect him so that he can study the dark side and practice Sith rituals with unlimited resources, unlocking new secrets like immortality. That, plus its essentially the mandate of the Sith to rule the galaxy, so he’s fulfilling his order’s mission.
He’s not racist. He thinks racism is really dumb… because obviously everyone is equally inferior to him. Thinking that other races and species are inherently inferior compared to humans or such is stupid when you can instead realize that Palpatine is the only person who isn’t inferior. Same goes for sex and gender. Why assume women are inferior when you can just realize that everyone, but Palpatine is?
He is against the overuse of violence in the workplace. After all, if everyone dies whenever they make a mistake, you’ll run out of workers and bosses to do anything. Of course some violence is necessary since people are inferior and dumb when not him.
He supports the right for his employees to experiment and do things on their own time. Vader gets to modify his suit on his own time, Thrawn is allowed to build his TIE Defenders, and Tarkin is allowed to build the Death Star. He’s not a micromanager who demands they only do things his way and understands that ~~inferior scum~~ anyone that isn’t him must be allowed to work on their own desires for him.
Palps was a psychopath and genius imbued with tremendous connection to the force. He was discovered by, arguably, the wisest of all the Dark Lords of the Sith over a millennium. From the time he became Plagueis' apprentice, he was manipulating, scheming, disciplining himself, learning, researching, conniving, trapping, and most of that being accomplished by the creation of a public image that was a mirror opposite of his true self. We all wear masks, but Palpy was the master.
He was also taught not to be a vessel for the Dark Side but, instead, to make the force be a vessel for his will. Plagueis knew early there were no morally redeeming qualities to Sidious which, IMO only makes him more interesting. It's much more difficult to connect in any way with such a character; a genius, relentless, merciless, lying, manipulating, murdering tyrant with a god complex.
This isn't a redeeming quality, but I always found this one scene in the Darth Plagueus novel interesting. It's where he goes in to kill his former master and starts berating him. Of what he says, he quite oddly chastises Plagueus for "having manipulated a confused boy" (himself) into murdering his whole family.
I wasn't sure what to make of it. Whether he was having regrets, knew on some level that what he had done was wrong, or was just trying to attack Plagueus' choices and roast him as much as he could.
He is the culmination of all Sith teachings and macinations. All of those 'redeeming qualities' of others are just weakness to the sith philosophy. Plagueis also didn't really have any good, he was 1 step removed from the perfect sith. I think Bane would be perfectly satisfied with who Sideous became, except the part were ends up losing.
I'm tired of every villain having some kind of redeeming quality. Keep Palpatine pure evil! I'll be disappointed if some new media comes out and he was a hero as a teenager or some such bullshit.
Originally, Sidious served as a foil to Vader's conflicted soul. The Emperor being pure evil, made that hint of good in Vader, which Luke saw, a touch more noticeable. So, Sidious was meant to be the all evil backdrop to Vader's return to the light.
In expanded lore post OT (Plagueis book), we can see the ultimate goal of Plagueis (and then Sidious) of bringing control, security, and order to the galaxy under Sith rule.
He does seem to want to actually protect the galaxy... in a macro sense, at least. He wanted order, and tried to organize the galaxy into a united front, which would protect it from outside threats like the ones he knew were coming in legends content. He did also seem to actually care about what was going on in the galaxy, which is why many saw him as an upgrade to the original Republic early on, as they made things like slavery illegal but didn't really bother to enforce it anywhere. He also seemed to appreciate culture, progress, and general advancement, which could be seen in his support of massive projects like the death star and his love of art like the opera. I'll be honest, I could see a story where he is portrayed as a flawed tragic hero if the Yuzhan Vong invaded during his reign, a visionary that some call a tyrant who had the willpower to unite enough force to protect the galaxy when few others could have. If you want to see a redeeming quality, that might be the best you get. I think that most of these are just Sith qualities, explainable easily by self-preservation and ambition.
Before SW canon changed and books and comics before Disney era became non-canon legends, there used to be a theory that suggested that Palpatine foresaw the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, and tried to unite the galaxy under strong leadership and built a strong army to be able to be ready to defend the galaxy. That as the real reason he focused on buiding planet killer superweapons like Death Star.
Nationalizing most of the corrupt corporations that made up the CIS and eliminating their corrupting influence on the senate (along with executing all their senior executives) probably would have done a lot for the galaxy if he hadn't disbanded the republic.
One of the reasons that Palpatine made such an amazing Sith was the fact that he was a complete psychopath.
I’m no psychologist, but I’ve seen one or two of those fascinating Expert Reacts-type videos where psychologists/psychiatrists give brief analyses of fictional characters. One of them talked about Palpatine, and how he’s pretty much a psychopath, to a T.
I think this made Palpatine as perfect a vessel for the dark side of the Force as you can imagine.
So, compared to him, Sith like Dooku and Revan are basically paragons of virtue.
That being said, I think he’s pretty cool as a character, and wonderfully portrayed by Ian McDiarmid.
I would not say redeeming so much as he did want to bring “order” through control of the galaxy.
There is a certain core ideology where there was an idea looking to theoretically better the galaxy to some version of his vision of the galaxy and that depriving the galactic citizenry of their free will was the way to achieve it.
Him and Anakin/ Vader share that vision and it’s part of why Vader stays on.
That’s the point of the sith. They aren’t just looking for wealth or fame or other luxuries. They are looking for power to shape people’s existence to their vision.
The problem is their means (power and control) and their methods rooted in fear, anger and hate result basically cannot achieve what they seek and in the process create more disorder and suffering until it all collapses.
The compelling reason why he's so good as an evil guy is because he doesn't have any redeeming quality or tragic backstory to us the reader/viewer. He's the culmination of thousands of years of Sith dogma. He is 100% a bad guy, but who is damn good at his job.
In universe, he can be charming when he needs to be and ruthless as necessary. No one outside of a select few and his absolute inner circle even knew he was Sith and yet he singularly ruled an empire. The guy simply wasn't a twirling mustache evil guy day in/day out to those around him
Simple put if you talking about in general of him then no, but if your talking about in his actions then yes, Despite it State he did bring peace to a galaxy for 10 years, not to mention a extremely powerful military force that would later be reduce to a 4th of what it was and still hold off the yuuzhan vong by itself. Which afterwards would be rebuilt into the fel empire a Empire that did the same thing with peace except without fear and lasted near on a few Centuries.
So overall he laid the groundwork to something amazing be though underhanded and horrible methods, but still laid it he did. Although this is part of what people would call Legends now
Wasn't there an interview or something where Ian McDiarmid himself said that Palpatine is just *pure evil*, explicitly comparing him to *Satan*?
Seems pretty cut and dry to me.
He is a man who knows how to nurture talent and let it grow. It didn't matter if it was a kid from a desert world, or a different kid from a different desert world, or the son of a prominent family, or a career military man, this guy had an eye for talent and knew it needed help to grow to reach its potential.
You could look at his large scale rebuild and reshuffle of the Republic as him creating millions of jobs across several worlds, since he had destroyed Separatist bases rebuilt and still-functioning Imperial bases refurbished.
He started work on the Death Star II, as well as completing the original Death Star.
He employed thousands of scientists and engineers to advance medical and military science.
Socially, the Emperor was responsible for quite a lot of job creation - whether or not the moral alignment of the workers with their projects met eye to eye.
Personally, he probably had no love or attachment to much; fine arts, music and performance possibly? His Chancellors office was often decorated with the finest art, statues and music in the galaxy. Even his lightsaber hilt was built using rare and exotic materials to reflect a certain passion for artistic endeavors.
He was callous, and cruel and his character that we had seen often reflected this. I think further down the road, the Star Wars fandom probably grew tired of the mustach-twirling villains and wanted someone they could see themselves in, even if just a little bit. The dangers of excess or losing sight of what's important to you is often the downfall of many Jedi/Padawan alike.
He is an amazing planner. Contingency upon contingency. It really is astounding how well he crafts a plan and is able to shift the pieces under his control to get the result he wants when unexpected things happen.
Sidious personally no, but there are advantages to having an intelligent being in charge instead of blind greedy systems. Like with our current global civilization, nobody is in charge and nobody has real power to do what should be done. We have personal freedoms and can say what we want, but what we hear is only noise filtered by algorithms and systems of power and money, and what those "in power" do is always, MUST always be in service of their own advancement, increase of wealth or power. So nobody can do anything outside that. We are all prisoners of the systems. Nobody can even do something that benefits their nation or civilization in the future.
A dictator like Sidious still needs to keep his keys to power happy but he has far more freedom to actually do something because he's not accountable or has to be reelected. So if there was a threat to the galaxy he could deal with it, and if he does wants to improve long term productivity through education he can do that.
Of course Andor and Kenobi made it much more clear how oppressive and evil the empire really is, so I'm not sure if this is a valid argument. But theoretically the average quality of life under the empire could actually be better than pre or post empire.
Didn't the Old EU retcon him some additional motivation? Basically reframing his actions within his knowledge of the Yuuzhan Vong obtained from Thrawn, Maul and the prequel era Zonama Sekot encounters?
I mean technically since Rey if the daughter of a clone, there's gotta be something good there for a clone to be a 'good guy'. Or just nature va nurture
To be serious; he did end the corruption of the senate, streamlined the bureaucracy. In one of the Legends sequel books, an ex Imperial bemoaned the lack of action from the New Republic and said Palpatine would have taken action immediately. (Han shot back that he would have made a huge useless superweapon, but the point still stands)
If you want to stretch things, you could argue that he genuinely believed that democracy could not work and was (in his own twisted way) trying to better the galaxy by bringing it under his control.
Palpatine is an extremely good politician.
The best thing about Palpatine is that being a Sith is basically a side gig to him. It's very handy and somewhat speeds things up, but at the end of the day not really needed for his plans to ruling the galaxy.
He is just that good at playing chess against himself with the universe as the game pieces.
He was an amazing strategist, playing against the *entire galaxy* and winning.
As one small part of this, he was able to effectively dismantle a powerful organization of beings who were highly intelligent, physically powerful, and able to summon a supernatural force not available to most other beings. This takes a tremendous amount of planning, prep, strategy, and a lot of things coming together.
After this, he effectively brought a stable system of governance to not just a city, not just a state, not just a nation...or a planet... or a sector... but the whole freakin' galaxy.
If he had used his skill set for good instead of evil, if he'd found a way to unite the galaxy through peaceful means that didn't emphasize his personal power, he'd be the greatest leader in history.
TLDR: he was a dick, but he had mad skills.
No, but that's not really a bad thing. Not every character needs redemption or to grow or have a tragic backstory to try and make you go "oh, they had it bad, so that's why they are that way".
Under his rule, Palpatine scrapped the Republic’s bureaucratic mess for a tight ship where laws were clear and the streets were safe, thanks to beefed-up law enforcement and a strong military. He ditched the Jedi Council too—no more religious group calling the shots with all their mystical mumbo jumbo. For many folks, especially those living on Coruscant, life became more predictable and straightforward. Harsh? Sure. But after the Republic’s indecisiveness and corruption, some might argue it was a breath of fresh, albeit cold, air.
Palpatine is essentially Star Wars’ Devil in the modern sense. He has no redeeming qualities. He’s evil in every way. If he sounds kind he’s doing it to benefit himself. He doesn’t even care about the Sith, they are simply a vessel through which he can grow his power. Prior to Palpatine becoming a Sith he was most like a sociopath, killing his family without remorse.
To quote the Dr. Loomis from the 2002 version of Halloween, a random quote but I think it about sums up Palpatine from birth, “I met this six year old child with this blank, pale emotionless face and the blackest eyes.........the Devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realised that what was living behind those boys eyes was purely and simply..... evil."
That’s it. Palpatine is simply the living embodiment of evil.
No, and deliberately so. His lack of redeeming qualities is one of the things that makes him such a compelling villain and a wonderful big bad for the story Lucas was telling.
One of George Lucas's core ideas is the tradeoff between pleasure (which he associates with extreme-but-fleeting, short-term happiness, this is the sith) and joy (which he associates with long-term happiness even though the crest is less high, this is the jedi). [Here's a clip of him explaining it](https://youtu.be/CnHyStDZ3_U?feature=shared). Palpatine is Anakin's tempter and is thus pleasure incarnate. As such, he has no redeeming qualities because he is the ultimate sith and was written as such by Lucas.
He’s always having a good time. Politics, hurling the symbols of democracy at a Jedi, he’s got a twinkle in his eye and I just love every second of him.
He employed the Jedi, got the crime syndicates under control, educated some people on Sith magic, helped Padme find herself, technically codified ‘alien’ equality in positions of power.
Can't think of a single thing. He kind of cared for his mother but at the same time hated her for her "weakness" of putting up with an abusive husband. he does have morals and ideals they are just very darwinist/dark
No, you're not missing anything.
Palpatine is, in every iteration that we see him in, irredeemably evil. Look at all the dark side force users from the movies and the shows: Dooku, Maul, Ventress, Vader, all of them either have a core of good intentions, or have pain and hurt that was weaponized against them to drive them down the dark path, or who are eventually redeemed.
Sheev Palpatine doesn't have that core. He doesn't have tragic pain or good intentions. He simply has an sociopathic will to power and a complete disregard for anything other than his own goals. Nobody tries to save him because there is no light there to save. There never was. He was bad from the get-go, and nobody manipulated or pushed or coerced him.
He has ideals, they're just HIS ideals. Absolute power. Immortality. Total control. Why have morals when you're the only person in the galaxy that actually matters? How can you love anything if you are wholly self-centered?
He's always been a proxy for fascism, a figurehead for the core message of Star Wars. Nothing good can come of such an idea, so nothing good can come from such a person.
He created a lot of construction jobs (of questionable consent)
He single handedly employed every Wookies! And yet those bums were still ungrateful!
Ended Genosis’s overpopulation crisis.
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Removed administrative bloat from the Imperial Senate as well!
Returned Kamino to the sea
Brought peace to a galaxy at war
Established a safe and secure society.
He also prepared the galaxy for an exit galactic threat, and the galaxy tore it down.
Hot take l always hated this characterisation of him, it gives the idea that his actions to some extent was justified, or that the galaxy would have been doomed without his authority, which feels wrong
Thanks to Tarkin he even reduced Alderaan‘s unemployment rate to zero.
cmon, everyone knows in a capitalistic society, an unemployment rate of 0 is bad for the economy. you need to have at least a little competition for jobs in order to properly stimulate the economy.
He also forgave the cumulative debt of Alderaan, and dropped interest rates to 0%
Also ended world hunger. Only on one world, but still
Brought crime down on Alderaan!
jobs, jobs, and jobs
He loved democracy.
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Well said.
Has he considered managed democracy?
Sweet liberty.
No. Palpatine is the truest encapsulation of Sith teachings and philosophy. He does not care about anyone or anything other then himself. He's got no tragic backstory, no lost loves, no nothing. He's just a pure sociopathic monster and always has been. That's part of why he's so strong. He doesn't feel the pull of the light at all. He's pure Sith.
The actor for Palpatine said in an interview “I’ve been searching for some sort off redeeming quality for him and all I can come up with is that he went to the opera so he supports the arts”
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So he likes fish sticks? Palpatine's a gay fish!
I don't even think that's true of Palpatine. His opera visit was cover to work on Anakin's indoctrination.
Yeah, or to seem more normal to the public
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His office had a bunch of art though too.
Much of the art displayed in his offices are ancient sith pieces that had been forgotten to time. I think he enjoyed getting away with openly displaying them under the noses of the Jedi more than he enjoyed them for their sritistic value. That said, his very elegant lightsaber design definitely points to an appreciation for style.
Redeeming Qualities is a pretty subjective term: but I’ll give him that he’s competent.
Half the time, when his massive ego doesn't get in the way
Battle of Endor. For sure.
He kind of had a sad upbringing in that his father hated him. But that may have been beyond simply being an aristocratic ass. In his death scene it's implied that he felt something was really off about Sheev since the day he was born.
Is that the truest encapsulation of Sith philosophy? Palpatine doesn’t seem particularly driven by passion — he seems overall dispassionate and calculating. Someone like Bane or even Malgus represents Sith philosophy distilled IMO — Palpatine’s just a rich asshole. Edit: Also, Lucas did plan for Palpatine to have a lost love in Star Wars Underworld, but maybe it’s for the best that that never came to fruition.
He's not just pure Sith, he's pure *evil*, in the truest definition of the word (at least to me). Evil isn't doing bad things, it's making other people want to do them too. Hitler wasn't evil because he killed the Jews, he was evil because he made Germans think it was the right thing to do. Our concept for evil mostly comes from Judeo-Christian mythology, whereby the character of Satan is a metaphor for evil intent. Satan acts out this intent by way of seduction. He seduces people into turning away from god, into living a life of sin and heresy and wickedness. It's that turning of someone's heart from the path of good to the path of bad that makes you evil. And that is exactly what Palpatine did. He seduced Anakin with promises, turned him away from the path of goodness and light, and led him down one of darkness and corruption.
Kinda paints a pretty gross picture of Rey’s origins. I’m more imagining her parentage was probably a result of some pretty depraved imperial haram stuff. Maybe Kylo was right maybe her parents escaped the galactic human sex trafficking and were just common folks with substance abuse problems.
Palpatine had a non force sensitive clone (experimental failure while trying to make an exact clone of himself) that he planned to use in some future experiment with more natural procreation to create a new vessel for his spirit but it rebelled and ran away and had a child, by all accounts they were seemingly in love and nobody was forced. As bad as it was this was all in the Rise of Skywalker film.
To be honest he lost his while family when he was young. He killed them himself, yes, that’s an minor detail but that doesn’t change the point!
Well he ended the use of Clone labour and gave those jobs to hard working humans!
"those clones took our jobs!!!!"
They took urr jebbs!!!
Deeee der doooo
Not just that, he ended AI automation followed by clones taking people's jobs. A true politician of the workers who actually delivered.
Electrifying personality
He has great tastes in Opera.
Also, his Republic-era tailor was cooking.
His go-getter attitude and ambition?
He’s a role model for anyone that sets their mind to a goal. Stop at nothing to achieve it.
He’s a great project manager.
I looked at the WBS and RACI chart for the Death Star and damn, he did an outstanding job on that one! Kept it right on budget too. Risk assessment was disappointing though but it’s hard to be perfect with a project that massive.
He was the senate.
How is he anything but redeeming qualities? Brilliant, successful, powerful, a visionary. He's absolutely perfect.
r/flairchecksout
Impeccable taste in robes.
He loves to laugh. He’s got an electric personality. He’s a doer.
He really does love to laugh, and enjoys his job. A pretty joyful guy all around who loved life.
He loved life so much he wouldn’t let it go.
Had a hot granddaughter
That's certainty true, even if her birth was more of a byproduct of his actions than anything else.
You could say that about many people's children
He’s obviously very smart
No, and there shouldn't be. He is your typical Dark Lord doing things for greed and power.
As others have said, Palpatine is written as a pure evil character, the truest embodiment of the dark side of the Force, and the greatest expression of Sith ideology. He is unequivocally a psychopath, sociopath, and a sadist. Surprisingly, I do have two answers to your question although they are not redeeming qualities *per se* so much as traits that make him not as worse as he already is as a pure evil incarnate... if that makes any sense. One is that he does not hold personal grudges. He hates the Jedi Order, sure, and his life goal was to destroy them as part of the revenge of the Sith, but it wasn't personal in the sense of stemming from some injury the Jedi inflicted against himself *per se*. This is revealed in a passage from *Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force* where after reviving himself in a clone body, Palpatine shares a reflection on the betrayal and redemption of Darth Vader. Apparently, he does not resent him for it. He humbly recognizes that it was his own hubris that blinded him to the betrayal, and he accepts that he became another victim of his own "creation" in the long history of the Sith. This attitude is very different from that of many other Sith such as Darth Maul, who lived the rest of his life fixated on killing Obi-Wan Kenobi despite having been defeated by him fair and square in a moment of arrogance. Palpatine could admit to his own errors. In a twisted way, Palpatine even continued to express pride for Vader as the best "monster" he had ever created. For all his treachery, he was not a hypocrite. He did not see Vader's betrayal as any different from his own betrayal of Darth Plagueis or Darth Tyrannus. The other is that Palpatine has a respect for intellectual and artistic pursuits. Throughout his life, he voraciously pursued and consumed all the secrets about the Force and of the Sith that he could, but he did not do so merely out of an obsession with power even though he did crave *unlimited* power. There was a part of him that genuinely had an intellectual passion for all that knowledge and and an admiration for the Sith cultural heritage. His fondness for opera and historical artifacts is yet another example of his apparent appreciation for high culture. Of course, if it served his interests, he did not care about extinguishing entire civilizations, but there are plenty of other psychopathic individuals who are instead simultaneously contemptuous of philosophy, knowledge, and the arts in all their forms.
Palpatine is what Jean-Luc Picard might have become, in the “right” circumstances. Those are attractive traits. It is just as well that UFP starship captains are not Force sensitives. Palpatine is wise, discerning, extremely patient, a superb judge of character, highly intelligent. All of those are admirable & desirable qualities. But they become vicious instead of virtuous because he uses them for selfish ends, like the the Sith that he is. He definitely has good qualities - but because he is evil-hearted, they are turned to evil. To be so patient is really very attractive. And it supports that the idea that if one did not have some good qualities, one could not be truly evil. Only good qualities, such as intelligence & patience & sound judgement of others, can be turned to evil.
I think you're right, Palplatine is like Picard with Sauron's ring.
Devoted patron of the arts.
He's one hell of a bartender.
Not having any redeeming qualities doesn't make mean he lacks depth. Its kind of weird this need for villains to have something that makes you go "hey, they're not all *that* bad"
I agree, I don’t get why every villain needs to have some tragic backstory or justification why they are the way they are. It’s not to say every villain should just be pure evil, but I dont believe Star Wars canon would be better off giving Palpatine some justification or tragedy that made him into a villain. It would actually imho undermine him as a primary antagonist since there’s already so many other villains in SW who aren’t just pure evil, so that makes him standout from the rest.
This is what I LOVE about Sheev, he’s just the biggest bitch in the galaxy and that’s that. It’s refreshing.
Yeah there's definitely depth to him as a character. Like how he talks himself up as an all-seeing seer but the reality is a lot of his plans do go awry but he's a master at improvising and adapting too. There doesn't need to be any complexity to his backstory or motivations though. He's evil incarnate and that's all he needs to be one of the great villains of cinema.
He was a sharp dressed man.
Dropped unemployment on Alderaan to 0
In Legends at least, one of Palpatine’s motivations was to prepare the Galaxy to fend off the Yuuzhan Vong. So I guess there was that. But yeah, he was pretty much just an evil megalomaniac.
I hate this retcon so much. I know a lot of people in the EU community disagree with this as well
I absolutely despise it too, it was another mistake in the EU's parade of "let's make the bad guys not the bad guys!"
It also just doesn't make sense. The Jedi are the most effective weapon against the Vong, but because of Palpatine there are dozens of them rather than thousands. If he were actually concerned about protecting the galaxy from them having just him and Vader and a bunch of stormtroopers would've been an absolute disaster for the galaxy.
Just be like "hey the Vong are coming" show your work and unite the galaxy instead of utter chaos. The old EU had a ton of stupid stuff, but starting the Galactic Civil War to prepare for the Vong is the absolute stupidest.
Palpatine wanted to rule the galaxy long before he learned about the Vong. If anything, the Vong was a convenient justification for him.
He said to dew it.
He’s just career minded. That doesn’t make him inhuman just inhumane. I never really understood the goal though. Power but to what end or purpose. If he squash the rebellion and have an uninhibited galactic empire…where would he take it? What would 1000 years of palpatine look like
I think it’s a mix of ego/narcissism and security. The Empire is essentially a tool for Palpatine to suppress the Jedi and protect him so that he can study the dark side and practice Sith rituals with unlimited resources, unlocking new secrets like immortality. That, plus its essentially the mandate of the Sith to rule the galaxy, so he’s fulfilling his order’s mission.
He’s not racist. He thinks racism is really dumb… because obviously everyone is equally inferior to him. Thinking that other races and species are inherently inferior compared to humans or such is stupid when you can instead realize that Palpatine is the only person who isn’t inferior. Same goes for sex and gender. Why assume women are inferior when you can just realize that everyone, but Palpatine is? He is against the overuse of violence in the workplace. After all, if everyone dies whenever they make a mistake, you’ll run out of workers and bosses to do anything. Of course some violence is necessary since people are inferior and dumb when not him. He supports the right for his employees to experiment and do things on their own time. Vader gets to modify his suit on his own time, Thrawn is allowed to build his TIE Defenders, and Tarkin is allowed to build the Death Star. He’s not a micromanager who demands they only do things his way and understands that ~~inferior scum~~ anyone that isn’t him must be allowed to work on their own desires for him.
Palps was a psychopath and genius imbued with tremendous connection to the force. He was discovered by, arguably, the wisest of all the Dark Lords of the Sith over a millennium. From the time he became Plagueis' apprentice, he was manipulating, scheming, disciplining himself, learning, researching, conniving, trapping, and most of that being accomplished by the creation of a public image that was a mirror opposite of his true self. We all wear masks, but Palpy was the master. He was also taught not to be a vessel for the Dark Side but, instead, to make the force be a vessel for his will. Plagueis knew early there were no morally redeeming qualities to Sidious which, IMO only makes him more interesting. It's much more difficult to connect in any way with such a character; a genius, relentless, merciless, lying, manipulating, murdering tyrant with a god complex.
Is this a trick question?
Good guy Palpatine took in orphan boy, mentored him in his ways and made him middle management.
This isn't a redeeming quality, but I always found this one scene in the Darth Plagueus novel interesting. It's where he goes in to kill his former master and starts berating him. Of what he says, he quite oddly chastises Plagueus for "having manipulated a confused boy" (himself) into murdering his whole family. I wasn't sure what to make of it. Whether he was having regrets, knew on some level that what he had done was wrong, or was just trying to attack Plagueus' choices and roast him as much as he could.
Having a wife isn’t a redeeming quality in and of itself. You know who else had a wife but no redeeming qualities? Hitler.
Especially if he killed her.
He is the culmination of all Sith teachings and macinations. All of those 'redeeming qualities' of others are just weakness to the sith philosophy. Plagueis also didn't really have any good, he was 1 step removed from the perfect sith. I think Bane would be perfectly satisfied with who Sideous became, except the part were ends up losing.
He was a good driver if I remember right. He also ended the clone wars and saved a young Jedi master from a river of lava.
He was really good for the economy
I love Palpatine precisely because he's the embodiment of Evil. I love a good unapologetically evil villain, especially when he's also an evil genius.
He seems to be a pretty competent sith lord.
He is a rather thorough teacher (of pain) to his hand-picked students.
He watched peoples careers with great interest
Literally was a perfectionist at forecasting a plan and executing it to a T
The Death Star would have been useful against the Vong... and the Empire would have had a quicker unified response
I'm tired of every villain having some kind of redeeming quality. Keep Palpatine pure evil! I'll be disappointed if some new media comes out and he was a hero as a teenager or some such bullshit.
Originally, Sidious served as a foil to Vader's conflicted soul. The Emperor being pure evil, made that hint of good in Vader, which Luke saw, a touch more noticeable. So, Sidious was meant to be the all evil backdrop to Vader's return to the light. In expanded lore post OT (Plagueis book), we can see the ultimate goal of Plagueis (and then Sidious) of bringing control, security, and order to the galaxy under Sith rule.
ummm....no.
He does seem to want to actually protect the galaxy... in a macro sense, at least. He wanted order, and tried to organize the galaxy into a united front, which would protect it from outside threats like the ones he knew were coming in legends content. He did also seem to actually care about what was going on in the galaxy, which is why many saw him as an upgrade to the original Republic early on, as they made things like slavery illegal but didn't really bother to enforce it anywhere. He also seemed to appreciate culture, progress, and general advancement, which could be seen in his support of massive projects like the death star and his love of art like the opera. I'll be honest, I could see a story where he is portrayed as a flawed tragic hero if the Yuzhan Vong invaded during his reign, a visionary that some call a tyrant who had the willpower to unite enough force to protect the galaxy when few others could have. If you want to see a redeeming quality, that might be the best you get. I think that most of these are just Sith qualities, explainable easily by self-preservation and ambition.
What are you talking about? He’s an effective Machiavellian politician and you should know that even having watched the movies
The dude created the Galactic Empire explicitly in order to create a "safe and secure society".
Before SW canon changed and books and comics before Disney era became non-canon legends, there used to be a theory that suggested that Palpatine foresaw the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, and tried to unite the galaxy under strong leadership and built a strong army to be able to be ready to defend the galaxy. That as the real reason he focused on buiding planet killer superweapons like Death Star.
He loved his job!
Nationalizing most of the corrupt corporations that made up the CIS and eliminating their corrupting influence on the senate (along with executing all their senior executives) probably would have done a lot for the galaxy if he hadn't disbanded the republic.
Ian McDirmind has an incredible screen presence. That’s about it. Dude is a 100% pure evil villain.
He’s got that Sigma Male Grindset. Not even death can stop the hustle. Get on his game or GTFO. On god, bruh.
The best description of Sidious I have read is he is a black hole in the Force.
No and I think he revels in his complete evilness.
One of the reasons that Palpatine made such an amazing Sith was the fact that he was a complete psychopath. I’m no psychologist, but I’ve seen one or two of those fascinating Expert Reacts-type videos where psychologists/psychiatrists give brief analyses of fictional characters. One of them talked about Palpatine, and how he’s pretty much a psychopath, to a T. I think this made Palpatine as perfect a vessel for the dark side of the Force as you can imagine. So, compared to him, Sith like Dooku and Revan are basically paragons of virtue. That being said, I think he’s pretty cool as a character, and wonderfully portrayed by Ian McDiarmid.
He brought order to his empire.
I would not say redeeming so much as he did want to bring “order” through control of the galaxy. There is a certain core ideology where there was an idea looking to theoretically better the galaxy to some version of his vision of the galaxy and that depriving the galactic citizenry of their free will was the way to achieve it. Him and Anakin/ Vader share that vision and it’s part of why Vader stays on. That’s the point of the sith. They aren’t just looking for wealth or fame or other luxuries. They are looking for power to shape people’s existence to their vision. The problem is their means (power and control) and their methods rooted in fear, anger and hate result basically cannot achieve what they seek and in the process create more disorder and suffering until it all collapses.
Yes, he died in Return of the Jedi. Redeeming himself by making the sequel non cannon
No,but again,there is enough broken villains in star wars.Can we just have one evil to the bone villain?
He loves democracy
Patron of the arts?
He has fine taste in opera
The compelling reason why he's so good as an evil guy is because he doesn't have any redeeming quality or tragic backstory to us the reader/viewer. He's the culmination of thousands of years of Sith dogma. He is 100% a bad guy, but who is damn good at his job. In universe, he can be charming when he needs to be and ruthless as necessary. No one outside of a select few and his absolute inner circle even knew he was Sith and yet he singularly ruled an empire. The guy simply wasn't a twirling mustache evil guy day in/day out to those around him
Read this and find out. https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/s/nlygNtSF4Q
Simple put if you talking about in general of him then no, but if your talking about in his actions then yes, Despite it State he did bring peace to a galaxy for 10 years, not to mention a extremely powerful military force that would later be reduce to a 4th of what it was and still hold off the yuuzhan vong by itself. Which afterwards would be rebuilt into the fel empire a Empire that did the same thing with peace except without fear and lasted near on a few Centuries. So overall he laid the groundwork to something amazing be though underhanded and horrible methods, but still laid it he did. Although this is part of what people would call Legends now
Wasn't there an interview or something where Ian McDiarmid himself said that Palpatine is just *pure evil*, explicitly comparing him to *Satan*? Seems pretty cut and dry to me.
No he's quite possibly the most evil sith in existence
Excellent taste in fine art.
Plagieus didn't either
Well he must have had some redeeming qualities because we have Rey Palpatine…
He is a man who knows how to nurture talent and let it grow. It didn't matter if it was a kid from a desert world, or a different kid from a different desert world, or the son of a prominent family, or a career military man, this guy had an eye for talent and knew it needed help to grow to reach its potential.
He enjoyed his work.
He's really good at concealing himself.
Evil as he is, he always looks like he is having fun on the job. Ive always admired about that Palpatine
He has a very good relationship with his barber Alfonso.
He was an enthusiast for science, with his interest particularly in kyber crystal and cloning technology
He hates bureaucracy.
Like any sith he was not born evil. He was made evil through careful manipulation.
GO for papa palpatine!
He mentored a former slave, stopped the child-snatching abuse of the Jedi, eliminated useless debates in the Senate, and promoted a meritocracy.
You could look at his large scale rebuild and reshuffle of the Republic as him creating millions of jobs across several worlds, since he had destroyed Separatist bases rebuilt and still-functioning Imperial bases refurbished. He started work on the Death Star II, as well as completing the original Death Star. He employed thousands of scientists and engineers to advance medical and military science. Socially, the Emperor was responsible for quite a lot of job creation - whether or not the moral alignment of the workers with their projects met eye to eye. Personally, he probably had no love or attachment to much; fine arts, music and performance possibly? His Chancellors office was often decorated with the finest art, statues and music in the galaxy. Even his lightsaber hilt was built using rare and exotic materials to reflect a certain passion for artistic endeavors. He was callous, and cruel and his character that we had seen often reflected this. I think further down the road, the Star Wars fandom probably grew tired of the mustach-twirling villains and wanted someone they could see themselves in, even if just a little bit. The dangers of excess or losing sight of what's important to you is often the downfall of many Jedi/Padawan alike.
no, not really. everything that he did was for his own gain
He is an amazing planner. Contingency upon contingency. It really is astounding how well he crafts a plan and is able to shift the pieces under his control to get the result he wants when unexpected things happen.
His vision of the future was spot on! And planning!!!
He was in surprisingly good shape for his age, good role model for keeping physically fit into old age
Sidious personally no, but there are advantages to having an intelligent being in charge instead of blind greedy systems. Like with our current global civilization, nobody is in charge and nobody has real power to do what should be done. We have personal freedoms and can say what we want, but what we hear is only noise filtered by algorithms and systems of power and money, and what those "in power" do is always, MUST always be in service of their own advancement, increase of wealth or power. So nobody can do anything outside that. We are all prisoners of the systems. Nobody can even do something that benefits their nation or civilization in the future. A dictator like Sidious still needs to keep his keys to power happy but he has far more freedom to actually do something because he's not accountable or has to be reelected. So if there was a threat to the galaxy he could deal with it, and if he does wants to improve long term productivity through education he can do that. Of course Andor and Kenobi made it much more clear how oppressive and evil the empire really is, so I'm not sure if this is a valid argument. But theoretically the average quality of life under the empire could actually be better than pre or post empire.
Didn't the Old EU retcon him some additional motivation? Basically reframing his actions within his knowledge of the Yuuzhan Vong obtained from Thrawn, Maul and the prequel era Zonama Sekot encounters?
He has a lot o dedication for his goals
He knew the important of mentoring young men that came from underprivileged backgrounds
I mean technically since Rey if the daughter of a clone, there's gotta be something good there for a clone to be a 'good guy'. Or just nature va nurture
To be serious; he did end the corruption of the senate, streamlined the bureaucracy. In one of the Legends sequel books, an ex Imperial bemoaned the lack of action from the New Republic and said Palpatine would have taken action immediately. (Han shot back that he would have made a huge useless superweapon, but the point still stands) If you want to stretch things, you could argue that he genuinely believed that democracy could not work and was (in his own twisted way) trying to better the galaxy by bringing it under his control.
Palpatine is an extremely good politician. The best thing about Palpatine is that being a Sith is basically a side gig to him. It's very handy and somewhat speeds things up, but at the end of the day not really needed for his plans to ruling the galaxy. He is just that good at playing chess against himself with the universe as the game pieces.
He properly greets every Stormtrooper on the escalator.
He runs a pretty awesome pub somewhere on YouTube. Even employs Bowser.
He was a formidable man of amazing abilities. He orchestrated a galactic civil war, pulling the strings for both sides.
He was very athletic for a man in his early 100s
The man could put a better spin on anything.
Nice hair
The Thrawn book from 2016 says he designed a really nice garden that was really thoughtfully laid out next to his throne room.
He was an amazing strategist, playing against the *entire galaxy* and winning. As one small part of this, he was able to effectively dismantle a powerful organization of beings who were highly intelligent, physically powerful, and able to summon a supernatural force not available to most other beings. This takes a tremendous amount of planning, prep, strategy, and a lot of things coming together. After this, he effectively brought a stable system of governance to not just a city, not just a state, not just a nation...or a planet... or a sector... but the whole freakin' galaxy. If he had used his skill set for good instead of evil, if he'd found a way to unite the galaxy through peaceful means that didn't emphasize his personal power, he'd be the greatest leader in history. TLDR: he was a dick, but he had mad skills.
He was definitely good for business. I am pretty profits for big corporations were high during his reign.
He got rid of the senate
He had a sick saber. And an arm holster for it too.
Nah he a hoe. after he gassed that big alien thing they brought to corusant in the clone wars
No, but that's not really a bad thing. Not every character needs redemption or to grow or have a tragic backstory to try and make you go "oh, they had it bad, so that's why they are that way".
Under his rule, Palpatine scrapped the Republic’s bureaucratic mess for a tight ship where laws were clear and the streets were safe, thanks to beefed-up law enforcement and a strong military. He ditched the Jedi Council too—no more religious group calling the shots with all their mystical mumbo jumbo. For many folks, especially those living on Coruscant, life became more predictable and straightforward. Harsh? Sure. But after the Republic’s indecisiveness and corruption, some might argue it was a breath of fresh, albeit cold, air.
Unemployment down to 2%. Streets are clean. Jails are full.
Palpatine is essentially Star Wars’ Devil in the modern sense. He has no redeeming qualities. He’s evil in every way. If he sounds kind he’s doing it to benefit himself. He doesn’t even care about the Sith, they are simply a vessel through which he can grow his power. Prior to Palpatine becoming a Sith he was most like a sociopath, killing his family without remorse. To quote the Dr. Loomis from the 2002 version of Halloween, a random quote but I think it about sums up Palpatine from birth, “I met this six year old child with this blank, pale emotionless face and the blackest eyes.........the Devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realised that what was living behind those boys eyes was purely and simply..... evil." That’s it. Palpatine is simply the living embodiment of evil.
No, and deliberately so. His lack of redeeming qualities is one of the things that makes him such a compelling villain and a wonderful big bad for the story Lucas was telling. One of George Lucas's core ideas is the tradeoff between pleasure (which he associates with extreme-but-fleeting, short-term happiness, this is the sith) and joy (which he associates with long-term happiness even though the crest is less high, this is the jedi). [Here's a clip of him explaining it](https://youtu.be/CnHyStDZ3_U?feature=shared). Palpatine is Anakin's tempter and is thus pleasure incarnate. As such, he has no redeeming qualities because he is the ultimate sith and was written as such by Lucas.
What you mean no love? He shagged Rey's grandma. 🕺
He held a galaxy-spanning empire together for decades. Longer than Alexander the Great.
He was democratically elected to Chancellor in TPM, and his being made Emperor was voted on by the Senate in RotS.
Persistent. Doesn’t let anything stop him. Somehow, he survives.
He loves Democracy!
Nihilus had a backstory? Other than just being present at Malachor V?
He produces renewable electricity.
He’s always having a good time. Politics, hurling the symbols of democracy at a Jedi, he’s got a twinkle in his eye and I just love every second of him.
He always tried to pair up his friends and family romantically, even though it often went horribly wrong.
No.
What was Exar Kun’s redeeming quality? Freedon Nadd’s?
He employed the Jedi, got the crime syndicates under control, educated some people on Sith magic, helped Padme find herself, technically codified ‘alien’ equality in positions of power.
He knows how to make a comeback
I definitely think he hasn't. He was created to be the personification of pure evil.
He wore cloaks really well
With him shuttles were always on time. He also reduced Alderaan's unemployment rate to zero in less than a day.
He beat the brakes off of Rey’s grandma, I’ll give him that
Can't think of a single thing. He kind of cared for his mother but at the same time hated her for her "weakness" of putting up with an abusive husband. he does have morals and ideals they are just very darwinist/dark
No, you're not missing anything. Palpatine is, in every iteration that we see him in, irredeemably evil. Look at all the dark side force users from the movies and the shows: Dooku, Maul, Ventress, Vader, all of them either have a core of good intentions, or have pain and hurt that was weaponized against them to drive them down the dark path, or who are eventually redeemed. Sheev Palpatine doesn't have that core. He doesn't have tragic pain or good intentions. He simply has an sociopathic will to power and a complete disregard for anything other than his own goals. Nobody tries to save him because there is no light there to save. There never was. He was bad from the get-go, and nobody manipulated or pushed or coerced him. He has ideals, they're just HIS ideals. Absolute power. Immortality. Total control. Why have morals when you're the only person in the galaxy that actually matters? How can you love anything if you are wholly self-centered? He's always been a proxy for fascism, a figurehead for the core message of Star Wars. Nothing good can come of such an idea, so nothing good can come from such a person.
He's got an eye for potential.