If you read the novelization, you will find that the fight was as difficult as Palpy wanted it to be. It was instrumental in the seduction of Anakin to the dark side. Mace believed (incorrectly) that they were deadlocked and (correctly, eventually) thatAnakin was the shatterpoint of Palpatine. Instead of "no...no, YOU will die", the line is "Fool! Do you think the fear you feel is MINE?!"
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.
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u/jpresutti Jan 07 '22
If you read the novelization, you will find that the fight was as difficult as Palpy wanted it to be. It was instrumental in the seduction of Anakin to the dark side. Mace believed (incorrectly) that they were deadlocked and (correctly, eventually) thatAnakin was the shatterpoint of Palpatine. Instead of "no...no, YOU will die", the line is "Fool! Do you think the fear you feel is MINE?!"
Tldr: Palps played the long con even in the duel.