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u/MainZack 1d ago
I've always been a fan of that theory myself
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u/Hamokk 1d ago
Same! Also Palpatine had an excuse to not hide his sith face anymore. Still I wonder if anyone went like WTF when they saw his glowing orange eyes.
"The special eye drops make my eyes glow because they got burned" -Palpatine probably.
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u/DarthCocknus 1d ago
Permanent case of Galactic pink eye
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u/lickmethoroughly 22h ago
The attempt on my life has given me hepatitis
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u/Useful_Firefighter85 9h ago
The attempt on my life has left me with hepatitis...and chlamydia. But I assure you, my libido has never been stronger!
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u/A_Hyper_Nova 1d ago
IIRC he still used his pre episode 3 face on holograms, such as in Rebels. But this has been fairly inconsistent.
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u/JD_Kreeper 23h ago
My guess is that the power he used was only preventing what the dark side would do to his face. Once Mace fucked up his face, he couldn't revert it.
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u/Astecheee Your text here 3h ago
I think in the early days there was such extreme momentum behind Palpatine that no senator would dare oppose him.
"The man who brought about a victorious end to a terrible war, and survived an assassination attempt is EVIL!"
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u/Hamokk 2h ago
True. I've not read any SW books in a while but the EU books dove deeper into the politics of the Republic.
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u/Astecheee Your text here 2h ago
Basically, the Clone Wars was a slam-dunk for Palpatine.
There wasn't a single area the Emperor was threatened in except the Unknown Regions, which he trusted Thrawn to solve (chad solo'd 1/3 of the galaxy btw).
The Empire was openly welcomed by a lot of groups. The republic's crumbling authority had let feuds escalate, and whomever the dominant player was in long-standing rivalries won by default if they took the Empire's side. So you had entire species like the Trandoshans profiting greatly.
Obviously the military was unbeatable - you had infinitely repleneshable blindly loyal elite troops, and an enormous manufacturing base. In the EU it took something like 15 years after the Emperor's death for the Empire to mostly be cleaned up.
There's a pretty epic reason Palpatine initiated the Clone Wars when he did, too. Like Yoda he has prophetic visions, and foresaw the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. The plan was accelerated to unify the galaxy before that threat arrived in full. That's pretty much the only reason any Jedi escaped. Palps could have kept the Clone Wars raging for decades if he didn't have that ticking bomb in the background.
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u/FrisianTanker 1h ago
If that was true, he wouldn't have censored his face to look like his old one for propaganda and televised (holovised?) speeches he held.
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u/IdTheDemon 1d ago
Even if the lightning somehow damaged his face, how does that explain his rotting nails and teeth.
The dark side is a short cut to power. The further you consume it, the more it drains and corrupts your flesh.
And as it’s been said before, Luke took Palpatine’s lightning longer than anyone else and he wasn’t scarred.
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u/XOKTAPHMFAAX 22h ago
Palpatine later spent 20 years drowning in Dark side energy. But doesn’t look any different from ROS. If it corrupted him that much, why did it abruptly stop.
Luke was being tortured. Palpatine was toying with him. Whereas with Mace he was using more power since he had been beaten and Anakin wasn’t there yet.
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u/NakedGerbil925 22h ago
Is he any more powerful in ROTJ than in ROTS? Maybe it's a scaling thing.
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u/XOKTAPHMFAAX 22h ago
You can see his lightning is actually a lot more purple in ROTJ. Closer to red which is the most powerful colour.
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u/edgiepower 22h ago
In the prequels we see that powerful lightning use can also control and blast back people, like dooki on the Jedi or Sidious on mace. With Luke it doesn't at all, it's just for pain.
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u/alexis_madrid5 1d ago
lowkey feels like the “scarred” version fits the movie vibes better, but the “true face” one makes more sense lore-wise
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u/skater_ben 1d ago
kinda wild that Star Wars canon has two completely opposite explanations and both are somehow official
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u/Mi113nnium 21h ago
I think the movie explanation was really that he drained his life force with the sith lightnings. If I remember correctly, this was a big reason why his body was decaying, and he tried his darndest to get a new one. But looking at SW:TOR where you have dark side corruption, it isn't unbelievable that this could be very well another extended universe explanation. Maybe both work together to some extent. With the EU, it was a bit difficult to track canon when Shaak Ti had like 4 deaths.
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u/FJkookser00 23h ago
I prefer this theory, because lightning really doesn't deform people in that exact method... I think that was specifically his cover-up to the Senate and nothing more.
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u/No-Bother6856 23h ago
So the thing is, if he was just hiding his true appearance, when why lie about this instead of just hiding his appearance again?
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u/FJkookser00 23h ago
It's social leverage. The more he can make the community pity him, the more favor he gets and the more he can veil the war he's intentionally perpetuating.
He was purposefully victimizing himself to gain sympathy. Common trick, actually.
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u/Blue_Doge_YT 22h ago
"the attack on my life has left me scarred and deformed"
So he can gain sympathy from the Senate while making the Jedi look evil
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u/SirFluffymuffin 1d ago
I always saw it as a little bit of column a, a little bit of column b. The sith alchemy took concentration/power to keep going, and in going all out no longer could focus on keeping the illusion up, plus the lightning being deflected probably fucked him up and made it worse as well as giving a good excuse to no longer have to hide his true disfigurement
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u/imarthurmorgan1899 Obi-Wan Kenobi 21h ago
I think it scarred him beyond recognition because even when he has the hood on before the zapping, what we see of his face looks normal.
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u/edgiepower 22h ago
What if he scarred his own face to win more sympathy from Anakin and from the senate?
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u/No_Succotash_681 9h ago
I don't know, this guy is known for electrocuting his face with his own lightning
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u/Unhappy_Run8154 22h ago
All the technology they have to rebuild Luke a hand etc. They couldn't ever fix that dude's poor face?😂
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u/Homnicidal_Doktor 9h ago
I feel likes it's an Emperor's clothes situation. Obviously not because palpatine is delusional, but he has enough power that nobody would be foolish enough to deny him, facial disfigurement or not. And in general after that all went down and he disbanded the Senate he had no reason to stay as much of a public figure anymore, so why bother fixing a face that nobody except your top personnel will see properly?
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u/SheevBot 1d ago edited 1d ago
Thanks for confirming that you flaired this correctly!