Thread:Jester of chaos/@comment-1672596-20161008195800/@comment-1672596-20161008213315

Jester of chaos wrote: The Visual Dictionary isn't a great thing as nothing in ROTS nor the previous films indicate he cares for anything other than himself or power. He uses the stories of his master to manipulate Anakain so he can gain power, he broke the rules of the sith by having his own apprentice while his master lived and in clone wars tortures Darth Maul after killing his brother all seemingly for his own amusement. Like EvilLamp said not all people who don't see themselves as evil go as far as to delude themselves into thinking they are good. Palpatine might take pride in what the empire did but thats because he achieved most his goals and it helped satisfy his ego. Well, he DID go out of his way to save Vader, even when he could have easily just gotten another apprentice and left him to die, not to mention he actually went as far as to imply he looked forward to the day Vader actually might surpass himself in terms of power, which going by the Rule of Two and the implications behind what would happen to the master if the apprentice grew more powerful than him or her is saying quite a lot (when dueling Yoda, he said, and I quote, "You cannot stop me: Darth Vader will become more powerful than either of us!", and he said this with quite a bit of pride in terms of intonation). Even Ian McDiarmid admitted that was a redeemable aspect to Palpatine's character (well, that and his being a patron of the arts). This is especially unusual considering this was the same guy who had the Jedi slaughtered to ensure they didn't rise up against him, and was more likely to kill his apprentices and keep them in the dark to ensure he remained number one as stated by his Rule of One.

As far as the whole Rule of Two thing, technically, Darth Plagueis disbanded that rule beforehand when he took Palpatine in, so Palpatine didn't even break the rule since it no longer existed (if anything, when Palpatine killed Plagueis, he implied that getting rid of that rule was a mistake). How can you break a rule that no longer exists? Besides, there were plenty of Sith that broke that rule anyways. Vader did that, as did Darth Tenebrous, so that's nothing new under Palpatine.

@EvilLamp: I know, but the point is, for the category's definition, it was meant to be the opposite of an Outright Villain, ie, a Card-Carrying villain. And I agree with your point regarding how even psychopaths need to frame themselves as good people who have people's best interests at heart to gain power (after all, they're vulnerable human beings otherwise, they don't have any supernatural powers, and in the case of Palpatine, even if he DID, he can't afford to let the Jedi find out about his Sith identity lest he be exposed and killed). The only ones who actually COULD afford to not even need to hide their sheer malice are people like Kefka, who was so powerful he probably didn't even NEED to fake being a decent person, making it open that he was a monster from the get go, or Volgin, who basically could zap anyone who could stand up to him without fear of retribution.). In fact, one of the reasons I utterly hated the Gaston reprise in Beauty and the Beast was because the entire scene as it was depicted was just stupid due to Gaston doing EXACTLY the opposite of what most people try to do as you described (it's about as much bad writing as most of the Prequel Trilogy and to some extent Return of the Jedi. Oh, and Force Awakens as well, which is arguably even worse than the Prequel Trilogy because they just rehashed A New Hope. As bad as the Prequel Trilogy was, at least Lucas actually attempted to do something different there. Newsflash, Linda Woolverton or whoever wrote that song is: People like Gaston would not loudly gloat their plans in a public place and get away with it. Actually, they can't afford that especially if they are to lose any loyalty from the villagers, especially when Gaston's not even mayor of the village nor holds any apparent political power.).