Late night musings: I think Emperor Palpatine is miserable.
I have usually thought of Darth Sidious as kinda the one “happy” sith, the only one who isn’t just digging himself deeper and deeper into misery. That he truly enjoys his life, because he is just that evil.
But yesterday it struck me that I while I think Palpatine had his own wicked version of fun during the clone wars, pulling off this entire centuries-in-the-making-plot to overthrow the Republic, he is bored as the emperor.
There are some good Lucas quotes on how the dark side of the force is very focused on transient pleasure, contrasted by the joy of the light side:
“The dark side is pleasure, biological and temporary and easy to achieve. The light side is joy, everlasting and difficult to achieve.”
“Pleasure is short lived. It lasts an hour, it lasts a minute, it lasts a month. It peaks and then it goes down–it peaks very high, but the next time you want to get that same peak you have to do it twice as much. It’s like drugs, you have to keep doing it because it insulates itself. No matter what it is, whether you’re shopping or you’re engaged in any other kind of pleasure. It all has the same quality about it.
(…)
“People who get the pleasure they keep saying, ‘Well, if I can just get richer and get more cars–!’ You’ll never relive the moment you got your first car, that’s it, that’s the highest peak. Yes, you could get three Ferraris and a new gulf stream jet and maybe you’ll get close. But you have to keep going and eventually you’ll run out. You just can’t do it, it doesn’t work.”Palpatine hit peak pleasure in establishing his empire and murdering the Jedi. There is just no way to top that. He is bored out of his mind during his time as empreror. Oh, he gets a few more glimpses of amusement out of messing with Vader but that must have grown old quickly, as would inflicting systematic and personal pain on the galaxy (not that he would stop doing either, but that it just wouldn’t give the same satisfaction anymore). He can’t reach those same heights again.
I also think Palpatine enjoyed the entire game of pre-empire, but now that he has won there is no need or space for that.Luke showing up is probably the best thing to have happened for him in up to a decade. It’s a new way of causing Vader pain and he has one last Jedi to pull down into the dark
(attempting to re-live his old victory).All Sith are miserable, and even Sheev Palpatine was no different. It’s just what the dark side of the force does to you.
#i waffle back and forth between this and that sidious isn’t really a character #so much as an almost literal avatar of systemic injustice #oh well on the other hand, #there’s no reason he can’t be both (via @gffa)
I feel much the same way!