Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (spoilers obviously)

I like to joke that Yoda primarily lost to Palpatine because he was short and Palpatine was tall. The novelization iirc depicts it as Palpatine overpowering Yoda, but in the film Yoda is visibly winning the fight, but can't get a handhold in a situation where Palpatine could and falls the length of a building.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 25th 2020 at 9:14:43 AM

TBF, in the novelization it's more like Yoda psyched himself out during the fight. He realized that the Jedi had already lost the moment they started fighting in the war the Sith started.

Novelization is firmly on the Sith side of the argument

The novelization simply makes the point that the Sith won by getting creative and playing politics. The Jedi Order wasn't brought down by Darth Sidious the Sith Lord but rather by Palpatine the Supreme Chancellor.

The novelization also makes the point that while darkness is powerful and all-encompassing, it can be driven back by a light as small as a candle.

Edited by M84 on Oct 26th 2020 at 12:34:34 AM

The lesson here is never become complacent.

That and don’t ignore politics.

Turns out politics are very important.

You should always be involved.

You're all fools. The real lesson is don't fight Palpatine on vertical places.

Rey: It over Granddaddy! I have the Flat Ground!

Palpy: You underestimate My power!

Rey: I was The Unchosen One! It was said that I would subvert expectations not follow them!

Edited by windleopard on Oct 25th 2020 at 9:51:12 AM

One things' for sure, if you fight Palpatine in a place with vertical real estate, somebody's falling down a shaft.

It could be you. It could be him. But it ain't ending with both people with feet on solid ground.

Lets fight close to the Sarlacc pit!

How bout NO

I was going to say Palpatine avoided it in TROS. I just remembered that there was convenient cliff for Kylo to get dropped down during the fight.

I keep forgetting Kylo was in that fight, tbh.

I recall an interesting conversation in the novelization of ROTS where they debate on the best person to face down and defeat General Grievous, and they said despite Windu and Yoda being the superior warriors overall their fighting styles had innate weaknesses relative to their own weaknesses (this was when Grievous was still hyped as a merciless Jedi Killer with a mechanical brain that could adapt to everything and not the Combat Pragmatist he became). Yoda's was specifically that he HAD to be a master of Ataru because he needed to match his enemy on their level. It's said too that Ataru being an acrobatic heavy style was the reason Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon were unable to handle Maul.

IIRC there was some source that said Palpatine was ruled out as a suspect for the identity of the second Sith because the way of the Sith is to scheme and manipulate from the shadows, ergo, being already the most powerful and visible person in the Galaxy would be out of character for a Sith.

Oops.

Edited by HamburgerTime on Oct 25th 2020 at 12:19:48 PM

In the ROTS he seemed to be too obvious a suspect. He was hiding in plain sight.

There was also a bit of them not wanting to believe this was the case, because Palpatine being the Sith would mean the Jedi had already lost and that the Republic was doomed. That's why Mace Windu took the knowledge that Palpatine is the Sith Lord so badly.

The most worst situation in all of existence possible has happened.

Mace Windu's inner monologue in the novelization makes it clear that he knows just how screwed the Jedi and the Republic are.

Edited by M84 on Oct 26th 2020 at 1:34:53 AM

I've said this before, but I feel that even if Mace had successfully offed The Sheev, he'd still get the propaganda victory, and the Jedi would still be hunted down by an only-slightly-less-bad Empire ruled by Amedda or Pestage.

They underestimated the extent to which the Sith will go for revenge. Who expects the most powerful and influential person in existence to be a cover for something bigger?

The mistake was in assuming that becoming the most powerful person in the Galaxy was the goal.

It was just step one.

As said before don’t get complacent.

He didn't "kick Anakin's ass" - the fight was fairly even, due to them being intimately familiar with each other's fighting style.

Obi-Wan won due to Anakin trying to pull a "Obi-Wan vs Maul" move and Obi-Wan knowing exactly what the latter was trying to do.

In a way they weren't. The problem was that they were preparing for the wrong kind of war. They expected the Sith to fight like the Sith of old back when Jedi and Sith fought in the open.

They expected a war with the Sith. They didn't expect that the Sith would make war itself their weapon.

They assumed that the Sith were running the Separatists (which was actually true) and that the Sith planned to take over the Galaxy using the Separatists (which was not true). Thus, the Jedi needed to fight the Separatists to defeat the Sith (though they also had to fight the Separatists to protect the Republic). The Jedi didn't realize until it was too late that the Sith were juggling both sides of the war and that the real goal of the war wasn't to take over the Republic. It was to set up the Jedi for the slaughter.

Edited by M84 on Oct 26th 2020 at 1:47:58 AM

Truth be told, the Jedi didn't really make any big mistakes, they just sort of got outplayed. Palpatine's plan is...pretty good once it gets going, but it's also pretty hard to set up (ludicrous, even).

It essentially requires your enemy to become the leader of your organization, put you into a conflict with their army, and then make it so your means to fight that war are easily disabled.

Really, the Jedi's big weakness was actually the Clone Trooper's mind control chips, so really the lesson to learn from The Clone Wars is "do not let people put mind control chips in your buddies". It's pretty good advice in general, I'm not letting anyone get mind control chips anywhere near my buddies, but I can see how they'd forget to check. It doesn't come up very often, but when it does, it's a major bummer.