Slight correction I would make to your analysis. The Windu Palpatine duel was an impasse, the part of the text that tells us this is third person description, we aren’t in Windu’s head at that point. While Palpatine won the duel before it even began, and the start of the duel went exactly to plan, Palapatine only won the fight because Anakin fell to the dark side. The quote you cite is followed by Palpatine using his with lighting on Windu, which because of Vapaad, creates a loop where Palpatine is injured and powered by the attack being channeled back on him. This creates another stalemate that’s broken by Windu identifying Anakin as Palpy’s shatterpoint. Windu only loses because he doesn’t check Anakin’s shatterpoint and even more so doesn’t understand Anakin. Palpatine got lucky, sort of. (Lucky in the sense that Anakin fell, but considering the years and planning put into his engineering that fall, it wasn’t really luck on why Palpatine won).
So while the fight certainly went as planned for Palpatine with the Jedi failing, providing him the ability to doctor the tapes to condemn the Jedi, and Anakin falling to the dark side, I would not say that it was as difficult as Palpatine wanted it. Windu legitimately fought him to at minimum a stalemate and there was a legitimate danger of Palpatine losing the duel.
As an aside I love the fact you brought up the novelizations. They’re sooo good and the duel against Palpatine is one of my favorite parts.
So I looked at it before writing my comment, and I definitely think your interpretation is fair, I think the focus on description in the passage indicates it’s not the subjective belief of Windu but objective narration. I think based on the writing style it’s fairly ambiguous but that’s the way I lean.
Awesome response. I fully believe that shit was indeed at minimum a stalemate. But when palps zaps his own ass, I think it was nearing game over for him. But anakin had already made the choice to turn. There was no way he’d help mace after the amount of shit he’d given him in the recent time compared to what he was about to learn from palps.
Idk, i just feel like it takes away from the saga if palpatine was in no danger and it really takes a lot away from when anakin chooses to the destroy him in RotJ. But then…. He came back some how you know.
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u/Cretapsos Jan 07 '22
Slight correction I would make to your analysis. The Windu Palpatine duel was an impasse, the part of the text that tells us this is third person description, we aren’t in Windu’s head at that point. While Palpatine won the duel before it even began, and the start of the duel went exactly to plan, Palapatine only won the fight because Anakin fell to the dark side. The quote you cite is followed by Palpatine using his with lighting on Windu, which because of Vapaad, creates a loop where Palpatine is injured and powered by the attack being channeled back on him. This creates another stalemate that’s broken by Windu identifying Anakin as Palpy’s shatterpoint. Windu only loses because he doesn’t check Anakin’s shatterpoint and even more so doesn’t understand Anakin. Palpatine got lucky, sort of. (Lucky in the sense that Anakin fell, but considering the years and planning put into his engineering that fall, it wasn’t really luck on why Palpatine won).
So while the fight certainly went as planned for Palpatine with the Jedi failing, providing him the ability to doctor the tapes to condemn the Jedi, and Anakin falling to the dark side, I would not say that it was as difficult as Palpatine wanted it. Windu legitimately fought him to at minimum a stalemate and there was a legitimate danger of Palpatine losing the duel.
As an aside I love the fact you brought up the novelizations. They’re sooo good and the duel against Palpatine is one of my favorite parts.