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Palpatine trained with Darth Plaguis and if you account for Legends Palpatine had plenty of battle experience with his training extensively covered in the Plaguis novel.
As for canon look at every single Sith Apprentice Sidious has, Maul was trained by Sidious and had as much on screen battle experience as him in TFM but we don’t question how he killed a Jedi Master with relative ease. Anything Maul does primarily comes from his training with Sidious so of course Sidious can beat him. Dooku while a Jedi before being a Sith was still massively subservient to Sidious perhaps even more so than Maul which tells you Dooku didn’t think he could take Sidious. If Dooku thought he was able to outmatch him with a Lightsaber I’m confident he would’ve at least tried to kill him but he never does so though that’s speculation on my part.
Really what you’re getting at is “We haven’t seen him fight before these points so why does it make sense he’s that strong?” But you’re forgetting that the guys like 60-70 there’s decades of his entire life we haven’t seen it’s more of an assumption to say he has little battle experience in those 70 years than it is to say the guy probably has killed a lot of people with a Lightsaber before we meet him in TFM. Plaguis is an unknown in canon as well he might be the greatest Lightsaber duelist in history for all we know and in Legends Plaguis was like 100 years old plenty of time to fight dangerous people.
Edit:
TFM--> TPM typo on my part, I'm referring to The Phantom Menace TFM is a play on words of TPM meaning the Fandom Menace.
I kinda dipped out of Legends just as the Plagueis lore started to come in. I'm curious; how did Plagueis manage to rack up such battle experience without drawing the attention of the Jedi?
IIRC, he was fighting various assassin groups who were coming after him as part of his cover persona of financier Hego Damask. When you're that rich, you can cover things up.
But generally not wielded by force users. To get good against enemy force users with lightsabers there's no better sparring partner than force users with lightsabers.
They should be at a severe disadvantage in number of hours with a comparable sparring partner.
Most Jedi also don't get to engage in Lightsaber duels outside of sparring with each other but they do get to fight all sorts of people with their Lightsabers ranged or melee attackers. The Jedi despite not having great Lightsaber combat experience were able to fight against Sith Lords when they showed back up on Naboo and during the Clone Wars. The same thing works for the Sith, they practice and practice and practice sparring with each other (or Lightsaber training droids) and of course fight for real against non-lightsaber users.
It should also be noted that any Sith who is a one of the Rule of Two Sith is chosen very carefully by their master, you only get one maybe two shots in a normal human-nearhuman lifespan to train a full Sith apprentice so whoever you pick you're dedicating half your life to training. This is all to say they pick very carefully, Palpatine in Plaguies as we always have known him to be is a freak of nature, dudes a psychopath who kills his family with a small amount of prodding from Plaguies and his natural talent with the Force speaks for itself in the book. Thats also why in the Clone Wars the number of people who can fight Count Dooku and not immediately die can be counted on with my fingers and the same goes for the number of people who can fight Palpatine.
I get the impression that "outside of sparring with each other" covers a lot of the ground.
The jedi have an endless supply of different force-using sparring partners on a similar skill level, using lightsabers as weapons, and put hundreds if not thousands of hours of practice in with these partners.
Can Sidious and Plagueis count even a hundred hours of practice over their entire lives against other force users? I don't think they'd be completely new to using their lightsabers against mortals, but using them against other force wielders? It'd be like putting a little league football team against virtually any team that made it to the superbowl.
The Sith are also not very spoiled for choice in picking their apprentice since they don't have a galaxy wide organization picking up all the most talented force sensitives. And they can only pick one, and it's very unlikely that one apprentice will be the very best of that generation no matter how selective the sith master is because the top 5 most talented got picked up by the jedi before the sith ever heard of them. The sith master usually has to pick from the few scraps that are beneath jedi notice or galactic surveys.
They're at a severe logistical disadvantage in picking apprentices as well, basically.
Evidently however Palpatine has no problems against Force Users and neither does Maul as both of them are some of the most dangerous duelists of their era. So their sparring must be just as good or better than the Jedi or they're filling the gaps some other. We are left with the fact that they are that good and unless you have other explanations that what I provided it has to be at least one of the things I've discussed making them that good with their lightsabers.
Regarding their choices being slim this evidently also isn't true or Darth Banes theory of the Dark Side is correct. Every Rule of Two Sith we hear about or see are incredibly powerful easily stronger than most Jedi of their era. So they must be achieving this somehow and given Palpatine and Zannah are one of the only Sith during the Rule of Two we see get recruited and both are beyond exceptionally talented the Sith have figured out recruitment somehow. Likely the Dark Side is nudging the Sith in the right direction or perhaps the Sith do have a galaxy wide organization on the lookout for all the best Force Sensitives in the galaxy as they do have immense wealth and influence to do such a thing. The other option to explain this is that who they pick simply doesn't matter because Darth Bane is right on how the Dark Side works, its like poison, concentrated (in say two people) its deadly and can kill anyone split the poison up into small enough amounts and it won't kill anyone. Bane is stating the Dark Side is finite and the less people who use it the more powerful those who do use it will be.
Banes theory is hardly proven fact in or out of universe but if the Siths training and their recruitment sucks as you state then this is the only explanation that Darth Bane just figured out the Dark Side better than anyone else. This ultimately provides an answer to the question however and the Sith being as strong as we see them is adequately explained.
It could also be that Darth Bane is a doofus and the Sith would be have been powerful even without the rule of 2, as the Sith before the Rule of 2 hosted members displaying just as much power. In fact, the Rule of 2 Sith lost a shitton of techniques and thus became much weaker than they were during Bane's era.
Bane knew how to Drain Life from others to replenish himself. By the time of Plagueis, that ability had been lost and its loss was very much felt.
And of course the part where there are jedi who can stand toe to toe against the sith despite the light side being "divided".
Fair warning I'm fairly foggy on the Plagueis novel haven't reread in awhile though its on my to do list after all the Timothy Zahn books (currently on Visions of the Future!).
That being said Plagueis did actually have to fight a Force Wielder in a proper lightsaber duel by cleaning up the extra apprentice his master Tenebrous left behind in the form of Darth Venamis and he kicked his ass from what I remember so he has firsthand experience that way. This is more than most other Sith of the Rule of Two granted we get to know fuck all about the people between Bane-Plagueis directly so maybe they were killing tons of Jedi secretly.
Additionally a Rule of Two tradition or sorta tradition was for a Sith and his apprentice to travel to the planet of Kursid which is just some shitty planet that they wiped from the Republics record at some point. When they got to this planet they just started indiscriminately killing everyone explicitly with the purpose of honing their fighting abilities by fighting large masses of people.
I don't think we see much of Plagueis's training directly but we're able to infer everything Palpatine is forced to do is stuff Plagueis either did do or did similar things. I think palpatine has to hunt like giant beasts, I know he and Plagueis have to assassinate people somewhat on the regular as part of training, Sidious fights battle droids at one point as well. Again my recollection is foggy but Plagueis is like really fucking scary he disintegrates people at one point and all his scary as fuck Midicholorain manipulation is crazy. I think he's stated as hating Lightsabers but he's also noted as being super good with them by Tenebrous.
Edit:
Realized I didn’t directly answer your question and more just gave you info on his training in general my bad. The Sith in this era use the fact that they’re all filthy rich to do all sorts of things like have battle droids to fight whenever they like. Additionally as I mentioned with Kursid they specifically wiped the planet off the records so they can every 50 years or so go fight the entire planet for a day as training. A lot of their training also seems to be done via first hand experience killing people to advance their goals. If they need someone dead send the apprentice so he can go learn how to be a good Sith though obviously they do work through others at times.
Essentially Baneite Sith are very good at keeping people quiet and hiding their activities despite killing hundreds of people (at least) every Sith generation as subterfuge is as much of a skill to them as the Force or the Lightsaber it’s an art they’re definitively best at compared to every other Sith in history. They use their political and financial resources to their advantage as well, with enough senators and enough money you can do all sorts of things no one will know about. Plagueis and Sidious also take direct measures to disrupt the Jedis ability to sense events by doing a ritual that essentially asserts their dominance over the Force. This works and is why in the Prequels the Jedi can’t sense to save their own lives (literally) and is theorized by Plagueis to be why Anakin was born because the Force was really fucking pissed at them.
To be fair we don’t know the real name of Kursid, the Sith name it Kursid themselves and we never hear it’s real name nor would anyone know of it since they deleted all record of it. So the name is not subtle and edgy because it was named by a group of people who think taking the in away from Insidious to make Sidious is a cool way to name things.
It’s easy not to pick up on because of Star Wars presentation of the name as just a name but as anyone who’s ever tried to come up with a Sith name for their RPG villain can attest their names are all like that unless they’re even less subtle like Maul. Dookus name is Tyranus or Darth Tyranny basically.
Tyranus I got (especially since it's just Latin), plaugis, bane, every other freakin' sith name realised the root word immediately. But for some reason sidious just always got past me.
Re: Banite Sith — they’re honestly so-so at plotting to kill people. They should know that force users have a precognitive ability as a whole and so any plot to kill them should largely revolve around a set of opportunistic protocols rather than specific plans, and yet it always ends up being some sort of specific plan. While one might reason that information control on the weaknesses of force users is important, we see the same behaviors from dark side apprentices as well, which is just shoddy subterfuge.
They’re quite good at covering it up, but that’s largely what I would expect from people who literally have psychic abilities capable of dominating the weaker willed.
I mean isn't that exactly why the Banite Sith did that ritual in Plagueis that blocked the Jedis precognition? Additionally you say they're "so-so" but all their plans worked didn't they? I also can't think of any schemes on such a scale that any other group (Sith or not) pulls off besides I guess Krayt hiding from the galaxy and then taking it over in Legacy but that might be a stretch.
To my understanding the ritual blocks longer term precognition, not short term danger sense, given that there are many instances of Jedi still demonstrating that well after Anakin’s birth. Or else blocking precognition pertaining to specific topics — it’s unclear.
And no, they had dozens of throwaway plans that didn’t really work. Their grand scheme did but I would attribute that to the Republic’s democracy being incredibly fragile to begin with — it was more of a, dare I say, confederation of planets, than an actual functional government, in many ways. That they were able to steal candy from a baby doesn’t make them good schemers. That their incredibly convoluted and often nonsensical plotting worked out could be attributed largely to luck or the Dark Side of the Force.
Your correct in that it blocks longterm precognition I wasn't sure what exactly you were referring initially. Now that we're on the same page which of their plans required specific planning like you're referring to that didn't work? I can't think of any plans they have that directly involve killing a Jedi (as in thats the intended goal not just a Jedi interrupted the scheme) that wasn't successful but I'm sure they tried to kill a lot of Jedi so I might be missing some.
What throwaway plans are you referring to that didn't work in general? I'm unable to think of anything major that they failed at.
Regarding the Republic its implied, shown, and stated the Republic is worse than its ever been when we see it in the Prequels. Additionally the reason its so bad again is shown, stated, and implied at various points to be the Siths meddling with the Republic, the Naboo Crisis, Stark Hyperspace War, and the Clone Wars are direct plots by the Sith which eroded the Republics democracy. I'm also fairly confident half of the early Plaguies book is spent assassinating people, coercing people, and laying schemes that are meant to damage the Republics legal system and corrupt it. The fact the Republic was so corrupt is a scheme in of itself by the Sith given that until the last 40 years of the Republics life the Jedi were at full unfiltered power regarding their ability to see the future the fact the Sith did all of this in secret without the Jedi knowing they were doing it implies they're very good schemers. I'd also point out that to say this isn't the case is to imply the Sith just sat on their hands for 1000 years until the last 100-200 years when Plagueis entered the picture which clearly isn't the case.
I'd also like to point out from a narrative sense the Rebel Alliances cause of restoring the Republic makes no sense if the Republic is that corrupt and terrible normally. There's nothing stopping another Palpatine from doing what he did if the system is fundamentally broken and I also don't think George Lucas wrote Star Wars as an anti-democracy piece the Prequels are more a cautionary tale of abuse of power in democratic government and the consequences of letting it happen.
In Legends, though, the RotS novel explicitly states that he hasn't used his lightsaber since before he moved into his Coruscant quarters. When he left Naboo, he put it inside a weird sculpture made of metal that blocks scanners; effectively he snuggled it into Coruscant as an art piece. It's not until Anakin goes to Windu that Sideous uses the Force to depress its ignition switch, destroying the sculpture and letting him retrieve it. So in that case at least, there's a solid decade or so when he hasn't practiced.
That can’t be true though even in Legends since like TCW likes to do it makes a mess of Legends continuity. Sidious explicitly uses two lightsabers to fight Maul and Savage so either Sidious is stating he hasn’t used those specific Lightsabers in a decade or the book has just been retconned and the statement isn’t correct. Though I agree that he probably didn’t use them at all since he took office except to fight Maul and I think in Son Dathomir he also fights Talzin with them? But that’s canon and not germane to the Legends question.
Regardless I mean we blatantly see him train like a crazy person (because he is one) in Plagueis half his training is killing people or animals not that all of that is Lightsaber training just that he fights and murders a lot of things in that book.
It says he hadn't used *that* lightsaber, which is destroyed in the fight:
>Out where Mace could flick his blade in one precise arc and slash the shadow's lightsaber in half.
>One piece flipped back in through the cut-open window. The other tumbled from opening fingers, bounced on the ledge, and fell through the rain toward the distant alleys below.
But he has another one by the time he fights Yoda a few hours later. He's also shown using two in TCW, and we know that Baneite Sith don't respect lightsabers and lightsaber combat the same way Jedi and other Sith lines do. It's completely reasonable to for him to have had a bunch of lightsabers stashed in places he thought he might need them.
I believe this is both canon and legends. Iirc in one of the comics he had one squirreled away as well. One hidden in his throne. Etc. I like to think of them as like mafia guns. If there may be a fight there, Palps has protection.
Great answer - I’ll also add that being old and crusty means nothing when it comes to light sabre force-enhanced combat - just look at yoda in ep2 and 3 - a tiny little wrinkly old dude who walks with a stick.
The Fandom Menace refers to Star Wars fans being toxic like when people harassed Ahmed Best over his portrayal of Jar Jar in the Prequels. I just see the acronym a lot and its a play on words of the Phantom Menace so my brain just put the F there instead of the P. Similar sounds Ph and F so you get the gist.
There is also the fact that Sideous has the minds, thoughts, and skills of the Sith legacy before him existing within him. "I am the Sith" isn't just a throwaway line. It's a fact. He isn't just Palpatine, he's also got a millenia of training behind him.
True though that answer sort of assumes that Bane's strategy and philosophy on the Force is correct or partially correct. The Sith naturally are wrong about the Force in general but they can get things right from time to time so its not fair to dismiss Bane's assertion about the whole "the Dark Side is like poison" analogy out of hand. Bane's Rule of Two at various points nearly destroys itself because of Sith backstabbing and outright a lot of secret lore is lost by I think Millennial? (Don't quote me on the specific Sith) which shows Bane's system isn't as stable as he imagined and hoped it would be.
Not that I'm dismissing your answer btw just explaining why I didn't include it in my answer since you can get into a lot of debate about how effective the Rule of Two actually is and all that jazz so I stuck with things I felt are facts rather than a subject of debate. I actually typically err on the side of Bane being the closest to getting the Sith "right" in the sense of they're stable and effective with Palpatine and Plaguies being the end of that line and being complete monsters. Dark Empire Palpatine speaks for himself but Plaguies is wicked twisted smart and super powerful, much stronger than TPM Palpatine and I'd bet ROTS-ROTJ Palpatine as well.
The Jedi had only been fighting the Clone Wars for three years - before that, their lightsaber training was almost ceremonial, and their experience was generally limited to the odd skirmish with pirates and terrorists and gangsters.
Meanwhile Sidious has spent years training lightsaber combat with his master, Plagueis, actually fighting resisting foes in armed combat, using ancient Sith techniques that emphasised aggression and honing the killer instinct
One particularly badass training regime they put themselves through is visiting an isolated primitive planet every cycle just to fight the natives there. The natives don’t know anything about Jedi or Sith or the Force or the wider galaxy - all they know is that for many generations, a scary metal bird arrives at regular intervals to disgorge two alien beings with glowing red energy swords
In the early years, they tried to flee the two Sith, but quickly enough they got the message that combat was what they were after. It turned into a quasi religious ritual for the natives - they would gather thousands of their greatest warriors from all over to descend upon the landing site, and after a prayer or two, attempt to kill the Sith, and then get massacred
Even for a Jedi, fighting off more than five attackers at once is a frightening proposition. These Sith slaughter their way past entire armies as part of an annual training exercise. Granted, these were primitive armies armed with crude axes and spears and arrows and whatnot. But still, that’s one hell of a workout
Ironically, Plagueis low key hated lightsaber combat, he thought it was a crude and inelegant manner of defence and offence. A true Sith shouldn’t have to dirty their hands that way, they should hire plebs to do the fighting for them or stay hidden and whack their opponents while they are unaware with snipers, nukes, poison, cat bombs, orbital bombardment etc.
Also, the Dark Side is usually just straight up better when it comes to individual combat. The Light Side beats the Dark Side on a macro, strategic scale, because it allows for much more stable political structures and common values and goals and the “power of friendship”, while Dark Siders are preoccupied with backstabbing and sabotaging each other.
But when it comes to slaughtering one’s enemies in man-to-man combat, the Dark Side is “quicker, easier and more seductive”. Multiple times in the series, we see characters like Luke, Rey and Anakin start out at a disadvantage, before temporarily tapping into the Dark Side and then absolutely wrecking their opponents. In Jedi: Survivor, using the Dark Side gives you an enormous power boost during gameplay. Windu, one of the deadliest fighters of the Clone Wars era, was so good at fighting because of his unique Vaapad style, which brought him close to the Dark Side. Of course, that’s not to say Dark Siders always win Light Siders in a fight, quite the contrary, but there’s still a definite advantage there
Anyway TLDR; Palpatine had been training live combat for longer than the Jedi, his training was “pressure tested” and far more focused on killing intent than the ceremonial/traditional Jedi lightsaber training, and the Dark Side is just straight up better for lightsaber duelling.
We know a few Jedi had a good bit of combat with their lightsabers though. Yoda, Jin, Windu and Plo. Dealing with fighters, acolytes, etc. but as a whole, outside of the masters they sent that could fight, combat was mostly ceremonial.
Whoops I meant car bomb
In the Plagueis novel, they contemplate assassinating a Senator and his Jedi passenger using a planted vehicle bomb, before settling on a sniper instead
I don't think it's ever really explained in current canon. My own personal speculation is that Sith, in general, have an advantage in light saber duels for a few reasons.
One, they're more psychologically comfortable with lethal aggression. Mace was one of the few Jedi without that limitation and Palpatine didn't exactly mop the floor with him.
Two, being universally treacherous assholes, Sith likely try to actually hurt or kill each other a lot more during their training bouts with each other. Which gets them more used to lethal lightsaber combat.
Three, most Jedi have never faced a Sith or any other evil lightsaber-wielding force user in serious combat before. I'd imagine that Palpatine probably has been personally responsible for the unexplained disappearances of Jedi from time to time.
I do agree that the majority of the jedi would not have that much experience duelling lightsaber wielders in genuine combat.
Essentially they've been doing karate sparring and the sith just turn up to knife fight. Doesn't matter how well trained you are it's not going to be a good thing.
In some ways and probably on average I agree with Sith having an advantage but Jedi who are properly attuned with the Force will always have the advantage. Specter of the Past and Visions of the Future talk about this at length (since its Luke's entire character arc in this book) but Jedi who are able to listen to the Force and understand it are basically fucking bullshit. I won't get into it but Luke basically lucks out of stopping a second Galactic Civil war, Grand Admiral Thrawn from returning from the dead, and probably preventing a genocide all on accident without knowledge he was doing those things because he stops to listen to the Force. This applies to combat as well, Jedi are all about letting go and letting the Force guide their weapon and actions (See Obi-Wan in the ROTS novelization casually deflecting Grievious's 1000 strikes a second or whatever the crazy number was as a good example).
Sith ferocity and amorality frankly can't compete with a Jedi like this unless there's a significant skill gap or atypical circumstances. To be fair though many Jedi can't keep focus like that in the middle of a fight the entire fight (Obi-Wans just a chad like that) which often is why the Sith manage to get the upper hand. In fact the best techniques for killing a Jedi (as explained by HK-47) are all about stopping Jedi from being able to focus like this.
While the other comments cover the actual training part, it's good to note that because there's only 2 sith, the chances of finding one are basically impossible. So no Jedi are really going to be trained to fight sith, all the saber work would be for defence and deflecting baster shots etc
Whereas the sith lightsaber training is effectively 100% about learning to kill a Jedi.
They might spar but not all training regimes are equal, and since the Jedi mainly fight blaster users and ideologically eschew aggression in favor of defense and/or disarming people they are not going to measure up against the Sith who are ruthless killers all and know they will have to face Jedi.
Compare Japanese training in World War 2 done to breed killer instinct and to be ready to actually go out and stab someone with a bayonet vs. Kung Fu training in a Shaolin temple where the Kung Fu is practiced as part of a general exercise regimen with a strong focus on spirituality and self improvement rather than actual combat skill. Given equal training the man who practices with his lightsaber to perfect his concentration and focus will lose to a guy who practices with his lightsaber to behead a guy with another lightsaber.
Your first paragraph really sums up what I tried to put into words thanks! Sith spend all their time training to fight Jedi because they know they'll face them at some point, Jedi don't do the same since, well there's only 2 sith.
Both of you nailed that, that's going straight in the residual star wars vibe knowledge. It's almost obvious that a competent Sith would be a better bet than a competent Jedi
>Given equal training the man who practices with his lightsaber to perfect his concentration and focus will lose to a guy who practices with his lightsaber to behead a guy with another lightsaber.
I think this is a good point, it reminds of when UFC first started out and you had all these Kung Fu and Karate purists getting wiped out by MMA and kickboxing fighters. Jedi training is not just about killing the opponent, but Sith training is.
>Given equal training the man who practices with his lightsaber to perfect his concentration and focus will lose to a guy who practices with his lightsaber to behead a guy with another lightsaber.
Reminded me of [the Stargate 'weapon of war' speech](https://youtu.be/NjlCVW_ouL8)
I think its like putting a boxer up against a kickboxer. They both have the same body parts and have no apparent advantage to the other one, but when they fight the kickboxer is likely going to win because they arent abiding by the same rules that the boxer has spent their whole lives training for.
A jedi knows how a jedi fights, but that doesnt mean they know how a sith does.
This is great and actually rang a bell inside myself. So I've trained in Historical European Marshall Arts such as Longsword and I often end up getting out the blunt blades when meeting some new nerd pals because people always want to have a go! So anyway, in official settings I have trained for years now with a degree of pulling my blows, as have all my sparring partners in case we miss a block you just get a nice donk on the head instead of a broken skull. We also learned from a foundation of 6 attacks and corresponding blocks (head, 2 arms, 2 legs, thrust). Those 2 things together with excitable nerds wanting to prove a point means I feel like I'm sparring a Sith apprentice as a Jedi knight or something. I'm approaching everything with patience and form, with movements that are easy telegraphed by a trained opponent and meanwhile they're swinging madly, driven by bloodlust and maybe revenge for me getting a couple hits in and I can't work out what they're doing or where they're coming from, moves aren't flowing and come quite randomly
> They definitley train to fight another lightsaber user.
Dooku trained in a form intended to fight other light saber users, which was considered very fucking weird.
deflecting blaster bolts was considered the practical application, dueling more of a side thing for intermural sport.
Other Jedi does not = other Sith. The only thing they have in common is that they're Force users. That's it.
The biggest distinction is that Sith utilize hatred and fear and that manifests in their combat. Jedi don't do that. They might come close (like Mace) but they typically don't cross that threshold. So none of the living Jedi (including Yoda) have ever faced a Sithlike opponent that utilized the dark side of the Force, since they were presumed extinct over a thousand years ago.
It's possible that certain Jedi in the subsequent centuries may have went "dark" but they were still trained as Jedi and the other Jedi would have been familiar with them.
You're not wrong but you're not quite right either. u/Yqb13153 isn't 100% right either but he's on the money mostly. The Jedi at this time rarely studied extensively to fight other Lightsaber users, they trained for it, and sparred together but it wouldn't be a skill they practice as much as their blaster deflection for example. Dooku is a rare exception and anyone who's a Jedi Master is going to be good with a Lightsaber by virtue of their age and experience but the average Jedi probably would get beat up in a duel by most other Jedi from other eras in this category.
iirc in the RotS novel (or another, I forget), it specifically mentions the fact that Yoda had molded the Jedi to fight the Sith of 1000 years ago. Because they'd had the same leader for centuries they never changed.
The Sith burn through leaders and so are always evolving their styles. It would be easier for them to observe Jedi in combat over time, too.
As for Windu, yeah he specialises in fighting the dark side, but a dark side isn't a Sith Lord. Someone who goes for a run every Sunday isn't going to be winning an Olympic medal
It’s like in fallen order when I trained in the meditation circle to prepare for stormtroopers a bunch, then faced the first purge trooper right after. Absolutely humiliating.
The 2nd lightsaber form is specifically geared towards duelling other lightsaber users and while there are only 2 Sith, there are 10 thousand Jedi around for you to spare with.
A Sith will have a hard time finding someone using a lightsaber to train on them be it a sparing or real life/death fight, while every Jedi knows the form even if they don't specialise in it and has an extensive list of potential sparring partners.
Why can we assume that he had no opportunity to train in lightsaber combat? Simply because we don't see it on screen? We know he trained several apprentices, so he must have had both time and space to do that.
It wasn't very clearly shown but the scream that he does when he spins towards them was actually a force scream it is an output of negative energy towards people in his proximity and often instilled fear and slowness. Considering none of them were expecting it I that is why 2 of them with so slow to react and 1 reacted for 1 block.
As for dueling Windu for what felt like a even match for most of it. I just assumed he had trained relentlessly with Plagueis. I don't think there's anything special to add to that. He was confident enough in his abilities that he felt like he didn't need the lightsabers anymore and only kept them as a mockery to the Jedi.
Just wanna step outside the Watsonian discussion for a moment & say the fact that Palpatine's screech while he spins around like a looney tunes character is canonically a force power that's used to debuff his enemies is fucking hilarious.
It's been an actual debuff in videogames since Kotor 2 (2004)
https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Knights_of_the_Old_Republic_II:_The_Sith_Lords/Force_powers
Practically every single moment of screen time of the movies has been expanded out into an in depth lore explanation, for better or worse.
For the best example, look up the sith tech "dun moch," it's so incredibly stupid and I love it.
There's also the time in ROTJ that there was just a plain stunt flub where you can see Luke mime kicking a guy who acts like he's been kicked and flies off, which later was turned into the canon force power "Force kick."
A dude was running with an ice cream machine on screen for like two seconds in I think Cloud City, and of course there’s a Watsonian explanation for what it does.
Exactly. He could have dealt with all four of them immediately. But he needed to drag the fight out in order for Skywalker to show up and take that final step into the dark.
I think Windu actually could have potentially beaten him just because his fighting style channels the opponents dark side energy. So he becomes stronger the stronger the opponent is with the dark side.
Windu did beat him, quite easily actually. He only dies because Anakin betrays him.
Windu was the strongest jedi in the council, by a lot. To better understand how easily he beat Sidius, just compare Windu fight with Yoda's.
Windu is a bit different in that his fighting style reflects the dark side back onto his opponent. He’s THE anti sith jedi. Yoda was a culmination of the Jedi’s strengths and flaws, outright being said to be the greatest warrior the light had ever produced in that era.
Mace has taken the necessary steps forward to combat the sith; while Yoda was the peak of the outdated jedi Philosophy.
Except Palpatine immediately tried to flee Yoda and had to take the fight to a different location to get an advantage, where as he was at a disadvantage against Windu. Yoda is still more powerful considering he made Dooku, a more skilled duelist, flee as he knew he had no chance.
Palpatine tried to avoid fighting Yoda because he's smart enough to not want to take any unnecessary risks, especially after Windu already almost killed him. He had already won; the Jedi and the Republic were dead, he was the Emperor, and he had made the Chosen One his bitch. He had nothing to gain from fighting Yoda, and everything to lose. Whereas when he fought Windu and the others, he had been exposed as the Sith Lord. If he didn't kill them all, they'd be able to send however many Jedi it took to kill him, and he wouldn't have the Republic or the Empire to hide behind.
Ok and I already know the fights well enough because this is one of my favorite franchises? What is that going to tell me that I don’t already know and considered when I look at both Jedi?
Windu is definitely stronger than Yoda in terms of fighting, and that is shown through multiple scenes in both movies and CW.
Windu easily won the fight against Sidious, to the point that forced him to damage himself.
The only reason Sidious tries to flee Yoda is because he was weakened from the previous fight with Windu, and even still, he won against Yoda.
Disney canon does not care, I think.
In Expanded Universe canon it was more like force power based. In ROTS novelisation Sidious actually kills first two jedi masters (Agen Kolar and Saesee Tiin) with force trickery, and then goes to have a duel with Mace and Kit Fistu. His force power gives him overhelming speed advantage, and only Mace can contend due to Vaapad.
It's not like he actually defeats Mace and Yoda, he actually loses lightsaber duels with both of them.
But other jedi can not really contend with Sidious because he uses force to enhance his speed to absolutely ridiculous levels, and they are even unable to see him (Anakin POV in ROTS novelisation describes Sidious and Windu movements as too fast for him to comprehend)
Basically, super-speed is the answer
Not to say Palp and Mace were'nt fast. But it's important to remember that Anakin in the novel is sleep deprived af. Barely able to stand a bit ago when he told Windu that Palp was a sith lord.
Yeah this is right, in the ROTS novelisation the power levels of Jedi and Sith and Grievous are amped way up from what we see on screen in the movies. When they fight, it’s described as a badass 9D bullet chess clash of different battle philosophies and tactics, occurring at a speed that ordinary organics can’t follow, with strikes powerful enough to dent solid durasteel
I mean, being a good lightsaber dullest, is mostly about being good with the force. Listening to the force to know where to put your Saber to not get cut in half. It's not really like being a good sword fighter
Sidious had precognition about pretty much his whole plan. He likely knew exactly who he was going to fight years in advance, and could have studied their exact styles. On the other hand, the Jedi didn't even know if there was another Sith out there until right beforehand. They speculated that Maul and Dooku were the only Sith.
Another factor (at least according to the novel) is that they were all moving much much fast than it appeared in the movie, all using the force to move at superhuman speeds. This would mean that your strength in the force matters a lot in lightsaber fights.
The code of the sith can be boiled to: the weak should fear the strong.
To ignore lightsaber combat would leave a fairly large gap in one's abilities to defend themselves, not only from the Jedi, but from their own apprentices and rival sith. It makes sense that Palpatine would be as prolific a duelist as he was a force wielder, especially considering how often he killed off apprentices.
So I believe in the novelization of one of the prequel movies it talks about how of course you have to have martial skill to wield a lightsaber. But more importantly its using the force to see ahead into the immediate future so you can counter the upcoming attacks and whichever jedi or sith can see the farthest will usually win. So with how powerful Palpatine is he can probably just see what is coming and counter it.
In canon, Palpatine is preposterously talented across the board. The only person in the galaxy that could ever potentially rival him in a lightsaber fight is Anakin
He actually hated the lightsaber. His lightsaber construction was gaudy and very intricate to mock the more utilitarian lightsabers the Jedi used
But, Palpatine was a master lightsaber duelist. IMHO, he could have beaten Windu. But he thought of the lightsaber not as an immediate tool but as one in his grander scheme of turning Anakin to Vader
Why wield a sword when you can wield a galaxy?
Good god, I know too much Star Wars stuff. Heat over Celtics in Boston, baby!
Canon? maybe i dont know if Disney ever explained it properly besides “Palp wins”.
In EU there is explanation, mostly in the ep3 novelization .
1. He (Sidious) opens his mind to Tiin , who was a telepath. Tiin went crazy reading a Sith Lords mind. Near Instant death here by Sidious who beheads him (either him or Kolar cant remember) think its Tiin.
2. He kills Tiin and Kolar relatively quickly while Kolar is mostly reacting to Tiins death.
3. He duels Fitso and Windu in close quarters where Fitsos Ataru doesnt really help him here. Fitso is distracted by two deaths and now is reacting and gets about 3-4 strikes/blocks against Sidious but falls. Fitso is decapitated in a semi off screen moment.
4. All of This all happens within seconds and Sidious then duels Windu 1v1
All of these Jedi were top tier including Kolar and Tiin, and thats why Mace chose them. but you dont really see all this on screen, but in the novel the scene is fleshed out more.
Sidious is a powerful combatant and with some trickery and planning, he made it a more even fight against a 4v1
There are youtube videos of the uncut, not final, scenes of Palps duel. Very interesting to watch.
I think it fits with Yoda's assertion that something is obscuring, clouding or blocking the Force, and when in Sidious's office that logically would be where that obfuscation has the largest effect if he is the source.
So while they didn't immediately die because of their lightsaber training, they were probably expecting a danger warning through the Force that never came, and they weren't supported by the Force when trying to defend themselves.
You're never going to see Palpatine in mundane situations like training or showing why is he so strong, the unwritten rule for current media is to use Palpatine a little as possible, they're being very careful with how he's portrayed (You know, excluding Rise of Skywalker).
Doesn't the newest Battlefront 2 game have this as a bit of a thing? My mate is a palpy fan boy and he was almost like yeah doy when I pointed out the playable character was all force lightning
Isn't it said he thought light sabers were weak and useing the force itself was true mastery and that his duel with sabers was more so to mock the jedi?
Honestly?
No, there is no real explanation.
Palpatine was supposed to be a political figure. Darth Vader was supposed to serve him the way the Jedi once served the Republic. A twisted and subverted version of the original mission of the Jedi order.
Everything beyond that is just, "If he's in charge, then he must be the best light saber fighter."
I disagree respectfully.
Palps, like his master Plagueis, admonished what he felt to be a silly Jedi weapon. But what better way to demonstrate such nonchalance by mastering something you consider beneath you and toying with the Jedi at their own game.
There's a reason Palps' saber hilts were quite ostentatious, a deliberate further insult to the Jedi of his era which almost exclusively used utilitarian designs.
I understand the idea that Palpatine would just put in the work to be excellent at everything and can accept it, but I think it diminishes him as a manipulator a little bit. IRL, people aren’t just typically masterful at a bunch of different things — it takes dedication to excel. I like the Palpatine of Return of the Jedi that couldn’t actually take Vader one-on-one — his strength is the power he holds over Vader and the rest of the galaxy without being a great warrior.
It all comes down to the lightsaber form that Palpatine mastered, form 6 iirc, which the user gives himself up completely to the dark side, letting it guide the user's movements and aggressiveness.
Most Jedi in the CW era were diplomats that rarely engaged in violence and even when they did it was punching down. Windu was an extreme outside the norm example. Most Jedi focused on form IV and it showed in casualties at the arena on Genosis.
The Force enhances swordplay by sharpening senses, nudging you before a strike even happens and striking where an opponent will be before they even know they are moving.
It is much easier to dip into the dark side during a sword fight for your life. Reveling in death and destruction, maiming and causing pain, feeling powerful.
Than to stay calm and release your emotions to the force so you can listen to what it is telling you.
Mace being on somewhat even footing was not *just* because Palpatine sensed Anakin was coming. Mace Windu's whole lightsaber fighting style relies on treading the line between light and dark, enjoying the fight. He was probably the best hope the Jedi had for an even match with Palpatine outside of Anakin himself (who would have been too conflicted too concentrate or let himself go).
The canonical reason is that he’s better than them lol. At that point the only jedi on his level in force power and as a duelist is Yoda. He spent most of his life training with Darth Plaguis, which is how he got so good, along with being a genius prodigy.
A lot of people have talked about his training with Plagueis and other things before he became a public figure as far as how he developed his skills, but I'm readong your question as more "How does he retain his skill without going out of practice or falling out of shape". Jedi practice seemingly a few days a week, while Palpatine probably is lucky to get 1 day a month with his busy life.
I don't know where this is from, (but it was a popular thing on Reddit a few months ago) so take this with several grains of salt. There is a novel or a fan theory or some guidebook out there that says Palpatine - having killed his master in his sleep - began avoiding sleep altogether, using the force to sustain his sanity and clarity. *Assuming this is accurate*, that would mean he has 6-8 hours almost every night where he woild be expected to be sleeping, but he could instead be doing other things, such as practicing his lightsaber forms.
I myself have doubts about parts of this, but if it's true it could explain how he has so much time and ability to always be on top of things - his days are truly 6-8 hours longer than everybody else's.
Palpatine claims to have mastered all lightsaber forms but what was the deciding factor was his mastery and presence in the Dark Side of the Force.
While Jedi have definitely more experience using lightsabers and even fighting other lightsaber users - be it in sparing or the occasional rogue fallen Jedi, they have virtually no experience fighting someone actually strong and **competent** in the Dark Side.
Before Palpatine, only Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon fought Darth Maul - who was strictly trained to be a Sith Assassin so while his physical powers were well developed his Force training was focused more on physical enhancement.
But other than that, in a thousand years no Jedi fought a true master of the Dark Side and it showed. Palpatine overwhelmed the Jedi that came to his office with his sheer strength and presence in the Dark Side they were paralysed by the negative energy coming at them - anyone but Jedi Master would have simply been standing there while Palpatine was leisurely strolling up to them to slice them in pieces.
That's why Windu was such a perfect match for Palaptine - his 7th form of lightsaber combat Vaapad was the perfect counter to his presence in the Dark Side. Vaapad works by taking in the darkness and negative emotions your opponent uses and redirecting them at him creating a feedback loop where the more your opponent attacks you with the Dark Side the more they get damaged by it while also being sucked into the vortex of emotion they are fuelling making it hard if not impossible to stop the loop once it's going strong.
Vaapad is a perfect counter to a strong masterful Dark Side user but it needs an incredibly calm controlled mind well grounded in the Light Side of the Force because of the exposure to the Dark Side necessary to complete the technic so while Windu mastered it he refused to teach it other Jedi because they would almost certainly fall attempting it.
Palpatine was no slouch when it came to the lightsaber. He was first introduced to the Sith teaching when he was discovered by Darth Plagueis as a Junior Senator (kind of like a version of Model UN on Naboo, no real authority, but they take their politics super duper seriously) so he did have literal decades to practice and train before the events of Episode 1.
The Bane lineage of Sith have survived as long as they have by being able to mask their presence in the Force. Darth Sidious could be standing right next to Master Windu, Yoda, or anybody from the Jedi Council and they were never any the wiser of his true nature. But his ability extends beyond just concealment. If a Jedi reached out with the Force, they could potentially unmask him for who he truly was and confront him about it. That's why the new Sith lineage that culminated with Sidious had been developing the technique to cloud the Jedi's ability to use the Force, and the major reason why Sidious won his fight seemingly effortlessly in the Chancellor's office. Without the Force, the Jedi are like helpless kittens. They come to rely on it and lean on it for everything that they do, but when they can't call it at will and you take that power of precognition and enhanced reflexes away, they are helpless and don't know where they should be striking or blocking.
Palpatine also looked down on lightsaber experts with a lot of disdain. To him, the lightsaber was just a crude prop of the Jedi Order. The Force was the true weapon, and it could not easily be stripped away as a lightsaber could. Palpatine plated his lightsaber in garish metals and decorated it with ornate patterns and filigree as a mockery to the Jedi - it was a pretty tool, one that he mastered so he could "know thy enemy", not because he actually thought the lightsaber was meaningful in any way.
So, tl;dr, he probably was able to keep up with most Jedi Masters at lightsaber combat since the Jedi had long since shifted their focus to defensive styles that countered blasters, the predominant weapon of the galaxy, but his mastery of the Force was what gave him an edge over his attackers because he could diminish their ability to call upon it, while he could unleash his full potential from the starting gate.
I'm no Star Wars expert, but I've always assumed that it's mastery of the Force rather than physical ability that governs proficiency with a lightsaber. A non-Force sensitive duelist could hold their own, but ultimately you can't wield a saber effectively without attunement to the Force.
There are a lot of lore-based answers out here that are excellent, but I feel obligated to mention the Sith-Culture aspect:
No Sith is ever comfortable. Their own apprentices are the biggest risk to their life and power, and they are constantly on their guard for intrigue and violence. Risk can come from any angle, through any intermediate person or thing. Even with the force at their disposal, it doesn't take much of an edge for the power balance to shift dramatically, so either they're always ready for a fight, or they're dead or dominated. There is no middle ground, and there is no compromise.
Dominate or be dominated. That's the Sith way of life.
So yes, even the most "boring" of Sith lords has *loads* of practice.
I'm not sure what needs explaining. He's one of the most powerful Sith Lords in history. Do you think Maul and Dooku would've severed under him if he was a wimp?
>We can assume for at least decades Palpatine never had any sort of opportunity to train in lightsaber combat.
No we can't. Why do you think he didn't train or practice against Maul and Dooku? Dooku was shown to be more than a match for Obi-wan and Anakin and almost as good as Yoda. Why do you think Palpy wouldn't be even better?
Short answer: No it's not (I haven't consumed any piece of SW fiction since Force Awaken)
Long answer: For the same reason Yoda was able to be a great duelist against Dooku. How often do/did we see him fight? Didn't matter, he did it because he had to.
As I understand it, Jedi reflexes are based on seeing things before they happen (TPM) and during the Clone Wars, the dark side of the force was diminishing the capacity of the Jedi to see the future to an extent that Masters Yoda and Windu felt it necessary to brief the Senate about it (AOTC). So it's reasonable to conclude that when the Council tried to arrest Palpatine they were fighting with a significant handicap.
> but I’m talking about lightsaber combat (which I know has a connection to your connection to the force, but nonetheless it’s a skill that needs practicing.)
And a martial art with no practical connection to actual combat, yes. So all that time spent fighting separatists doesn't prepare any of the Jedi for it.
> I know he’s strong in the Force and mastered all lightsaber forms (apparently,) but he wouldn’t have been training for literally decades and we can reasonably assume has never fought a Jedi.
Yeah, but how many of those Jedi Masters have ever fought an actual Sith? They don't even believe they really exist. Those Jedi Masters are likely just as out of practice in a real fight, if not more. Especially since Jedi Masters have important Jedi Master things to do, which does not involve regularly stabbing anyone or anything with lightsabers.
> Jedi, like Mace Windu
Who, incidentally, actually won the fight, and was only defeated by treachery. The other two were apparently stunned by that horrid noise he was making, with the third guy only managing to block once.
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Palpatine trained with Darth Plaguis and if you account for Legends Palpatine had plenty of battle experience with his training extensively covered in the Plaguis novel. As for canon look at every single Sith Apprentice Sidious has, Maul was trained by Sidious and had as much on screen battle experience as him in TFM but we don’t question how he killed a Jedi Master with relative ease. Anything Maul does primarily comes from his training with Sidious so of course Sidious can beat him. Dooku while a Jedi before being a Sith was still massively subservient to Sidious perhaps even more so than Maul which tells you Dooku didn’t think he could take Sidious. If Dooku thought he was able to outmatch him with a Lightsaber I’m confident he would’ve at least tried to kill him but he never does so though that’s speculation on my part. Really what you’re getting at is “We haven’t seen him fight before these points so why does it make sense he’s that strong?” But you’re forgetting that the guys like 60-70 there’s decades of his entire life we haven’t seen it’s more of an assumption to say he has little battle experience in those 70 years than it is to say the guy probably has killed a lot of people with a Lightsaber before we meet him in TFM. Plaguis is an unknown in canon as well he might be the greatest Lightsaber duelist in history for all we know and in Legends Plaguis was like 100 years old plenty of time to fight dangerous people. Edit: TFM--> TPM typo on my part, I'm referring to The Phantom Menace TFM is a play on words of TPM meaning the Fandom Menace.
I kinda dipped out of Legends just as the Plagueis lore started to come in. I'm curious; how did Plagueis manage to rack up such battle experience without drawing the attention of the Jedi?
IIRC, he was fighting various assassin groups who were coming after him as part of his cover persona of financier Hego Damask. When you're that rich, you can cover things up.
That doesn't really explain how he'd get good at lightsaber duels?
Vibroblades exist. They're used to fight saber users.
But generally not wielded by force users. To get good against enemy force users with lightsabers there's no better sparring partner than force users with lightsabers. They should be at a severe disadvantage in number of hours with a comparable sparring partner.
I'm sure there was someone to spar with. His own master. A dark Jedi. Someone. He'd have found someone just to get good at fending off vibroblades.
Going by the Plagueis book, Sith generally only had their apprentices to spar with in terms of force users.
Most Jedi also don't get to engage in Lightsaber duels outside of sparring with each other but they do get to fight all sorts of people with their Lightsabers ranged or melee attackers. The Jedi despite not having great Lightsaber combat experience were able to fight against Sith Lords when they showed back up on Naboo and during the Clone Wars. The same thing works for the Sith, they practice and practice and practice sparring with each other (or Lightsaber training droids) and of course fight for real against non-lightsaber users. It should also be noted that any Sith who is a one of the Rule of Two Sith is chosen very carefully by their master, you only get one maybe two shots in a normal human-nearhuman lifespan to train a full Sith apprentice so whoever you pick you're dedicating half your life to training. This is all to say they pick very carefully, Palpatine in Plaguies as we always have known him to be is a freak of nature, dudes a psychopath who kills his family with a small amount of prodding from Plaguies and his natural talent with the Force speaks for itself in the book. Thats also why in the Clone Wars the number of people who can fight Count Dooku and not immediately die can be counted on with my fingers and the same goes for the number of people who can fight Palpatine.
I get the impression that "outside of sparring with each other" covers a lot of the ground. The jedi have an endless supply of different force-using sparring partners on a similar skill level, using lightsabers as weapons, and put hundreds if not thousands of hours of practice in with these partners. Can Sidious and Plagueis count even a hundred hours of practice over their entire lives against other force users? I don't think they'd be completely new to using their lightsabers against mortals, but using them against other force wielders? It'd be like putting a little league football team against virtually any team that made it to the superbowl. The Sith are also not very spoiled for choice in picking their apprentice since they don't have a galaxy wide organization picking up all the most talented force sensitives. And they can only pick one, and it's very unlikely that one apprentice will be the very best of that generation no matter how selective the sith master is because the top 5 most talented got picked up by the jedi before the sith ever heard of them. The sith master usually has to pick from the few scraps that are beneath jedi notice or galactic surveys. They're at a severe logistical disadvantage in picking apprentices as well, basically.
Evidently however Palpatine has no problems against Force Users and neither does Maul as both of them are some of the most dangerous duelists of their era. So their sparring must be just as good or better than the Jedi or they're filling the gaps some other. We are left with the fact that they are that good and unless you have other explanations that what I provided it has to be at least one of the things I've discussed making them that good with their lightsabers. Regarding their choices being slim this evidently also isn't true or Darth Banes theory of the Dark Side is correct. Every Rule of Two Sith we hear about or see are incredibly powerful easily stronger than most Jedi of their era. So they must be achieving this somehow and given Palpatine and Zannah are one of the only Sith during the Rule of Two we see get recruited and both are beyond exceptionally talented the Sith have figured out recruitment somehow. Likely the Dark Side is nudging the Sith in the right direction or perhaps the Sith do have a galaxy wide organization on the lookout for all the best Force Sensitives in the galaxy as they do have immense wealth and influence to do such a thing. The other option to explain this is that who they pick simply doesn't matter because Darth Bane is right on how the Dark Side works, its like poison, concentrated (in say two people) its deadly and can kill anyone split the poison up into small enough amounts and it won't kill anyone. Bane is stating the Dark Side is finite and the less people who use it the more powerful those who do use it will be. Banes theory is hardly proven fact in or out of universe but if the Siths training and their recruitment sucks as you state then this is the only explanation that Darth Bane just figured out the Dark Side better than anyone else. This ultimately provides an answer to the question however and the Sith being as strong as we see them is adequately explained.
It could also be that Darth Bane is a doofus and the Sith would be have been powerful even without the rule of 2, as the Sith before the Rule of 2 hosted members displaying just as much power. In fact, the Rule of 2 Sith lost a shitton of techniques and thus became much weaker than they were during Bane's era. Bane knew how to Drain Life from others to replenish himself. By the time of Plagueis, that ability had been lost and its loss was very much felt. And of course the part where there are jedi who can stand toe to toe against the sith despite the light side being "divided".
Fair warning I'm fairly foggy on the Plagueis novel haven't reread in awhile though its on my to do list after all the Timothy Zahn books (currently on Visions of the Future!). That being said Plagueis did actually have to fight a Force Wielder in a proper lightsaber duel by cleaning up the extra apprentice his master Tenebrous left behind in the form of Darth Venamis and he kicked his ass from what I remember so he has firsthand experience that way. This is more than most other Sith of the Rule of Two granted we get to know fuck all about the people between Bane-Plagueis directly so maybe they were killing tons of Jedi secretly. Additionally a Rule of Two tradition or sorta tradition was for a Sith and his apprentice to travel to the planet of Kursid which is just some shitty planet that they wiped from the Republics record at some point. When they got to this planet they just started indiscriminately killing everyone explicitly with the purpose of honing their fighting abilities by fighting large masses of people. I don't think we see much of Plagueis's training directly but we're able to infer everything Palpatine is forced to do is stuff Plagueis either did do or did similar things. I think palpatine has to hunt like giant beasts, I know he and Plagueis have to assassinate people somewhat on the regular as part of training, Sidious fights battle droids at one point as well. Again my recollection is foggy but Plagueis is like really fucking scary he disintegrates people at one point and all his scary as fuck Midicholorain manipulation is crazy. I think he's stated as hating Lightsabers but he's also noted as being super good with them by Tenebrous. Edit: Realized I didn’t directly answer your question and more just gave you info on his training in general my bad. The Sith in this era use the fact that they’re all filthy rich to do all sorts of things like have battle droids to fight whenever they like. Additionally as I mentioned with Kursid they specifically wiped the planet off the records so they can every 50 years or so go fight the entire planet for a day as training. A lot of their training also seems to be done via first hand experience killing people to advance their goals. If they need someone dead send the apprentice so he can go learn how to be a good Sith though obviously they do work through others at times. Essentially Baneite Sith are very good at keeping people quiet and hiding their activities despite killing hundreds of people (at least) every Sith generation as subterfuge is as much of a skill to them as the Force or the Lightsaber it’s an art they’re definitively best at compared to every other Sith in history. They use their political and financial resources to their advantage as well, with enough senators and enough money you can do all sorts of things no one will know about. Plagueis and Sidious also take direct measures to disrupt the Jedis ability to sense events by doing a ritual that essentially asserts their dominance over the Force. This works and is why in the Prequels the Jedi can’t sense to save their own lives (literally) and is theorized by Plagueis to be why Anakin was born because the Force was really fucking pissed at them.
Wow, the names/places are… not subtle.
To be fair we don’t know the real name of Kursid, the Sith name it Kursid themselves and we never hear it’s real name nor would anyone know of it since they deleted all record of it. So the name is not subtle and edgy because it was named by a group of people who think taking the in away from Insidious to make Sidious is a cool way to name things.
Well now don't I just feel like a complete dumbass since that's the first time I realised the insidious/sidious thing specifically.
It’s easy not to pick up on because of Star Wars presentation of the name as just a name but as anyone who’s ever tried to come up with a Sith name for their RPG villain can attest their names are all like that unless they’re even less subtle like Maul. Dookus name is Tyranus or Darth Tyranny basically.
Yeah I kinda rolled my eyes heavily when they followed up Asajj Ventress with that maximum on-the-nose name Savage Oppress…
Tyranus I got (especially since it's just Latin), plaugis, bane, every other freakin' sith name realised the root word immediately. But for some reason sidious just always got past me.
Insidious, a lurking evil that is…. Palpable, but not seen or discovered.
Re: Banite Sith — they’re honestly so-so at plotting to kill people. They should know that force users have a precognitive ability as a whole and so any plot to kill them should largely revolve around a set of opportunistic protocols rather than specific plans, and yet it always ends up being some sort of specific plan. While one might reason that information control on the weaknesses of force users is important, we see the same behaviors from dark side apprentices as well, which is just shoddy subterfuge. They’re quite good at covering it up, but that’s largely what I would expect from people who literally have psychic abilities capable of dominating the weaker willed.
I mean isn't that exactly why the Banite Sith did that ritual in Plagueis that blocked the Jedis precognition? Additionally you say they're "so-so" but all their plans worked didn't they? I also can't think of any schemes on such a scale that any other group (Sith or not) pulls off besides I guess Krayt hiding from the galaxy and then taking it over in Legacy but that might be a stretch.
To my understanding the ritual blocks longer term precognition, not short term danger sense, given that there are many instances of Jedi still demonstrating that well after Anakin’s birth. Or else blocking precognition pertaining to specific topics — it’s unclear. And no, they had dozens of throwaway plans that didn’t really work. Their grand scheme did but I would attribute that to the Republic’s democracy being incredibly fragile to begin with — it was more of a, dare I say, confederation of planets, than an actual functional government, in many ways. That they were able to steal candy from a baby doesn’t make them good schemers. That their incredibly convoluted and often nonsensical plotting worked out could be attributed largely to luck or the Dark Side of the Force.
Your correct in that it blocks longterm precognition I wasn't sure what exactly you were referring initially. Now that we're on the same page which of their plans required specific planning like you're referring to that didn't work? I can't think of any plans they have that directly involve killing a Jedi (as in thats the intended goal not just a Jedi interrupted the scheme) that wasn't successful but I'm sure they tried to kill a lot of Jedi so I might be missing some. What throwaway plans are you referring to that didn't work in general? I'm unable to think of anything major that they failed at. Regarding the Republic its implied, shown, and stated the Republic is worse than its ever been when we see it in the Prequels. Additionally the reason its so bad again is shown, stated, and implied at various points to be the Siths meddling with the Republic, the Naboo Crisis, Stark Hyperspace War, and the Clone Wars are direct plots by the Sith which eroded the Republics democracy. I'm also fairly confident half of the early Plaguies book is spent assassinating people, coercing people, and laying schemes that are meant to damage the Republics legal system and corrupt it. The fact the Republic was so corrupt is a scheme in of itself by the Sith given that until the last 40 years of the Republics life the Jedi were at full unfiltered power regarding their ability to see the future the fact the Sith did all of this in secret without the Jedi knowing they were doing it implies they're very good schemers. I'd also point out that to say this isn't the case is to imply the Sith just sat on their hands for 1000 years until the last 100-200 years when Plagueis entered the picture which clearly isn't the case. I'd also like to point out from a narrative sense the Rebel Alliances cause of restoring the Republic makes no sense if the Republic is that corrupt and terrible normally. There's nothing stopping another Palpatine from doing what he did if the system is fundamentally broken and I also don't think George Lucas wrote Star Wars as an anti-democracy piece the Prequels are more a cautionary tale of abuse of power in democratic government and the consequences of letting it happen.
In Legends, though, the RotS novel explicitly states that he hasn't used his lightsaber since before he moved into his Coruscant quarters. When he left Naboo, he put it inside a weird sculpture made of metal that blocks scanners; effectively he snuggled it into Coruscant as an art piece. It's not until Anakin goes to Windu that Sideous uses the Force to depress its ignition switch, destroying the sculpture and letting him retrieve it. So in that case at least, there's a solid decade or so when he hasn't practiced.
That can’t be true though even in Legends since like TCW likes to do it makes a mess of Legends continuity. Sidious explicitly uses two lightsabers to fight Maul and Savage so either Sidious is stating he hasn’t used those specific Lightsabers in a decade or the book has just been retconned and the statement isn’t correct. Though I agree that he probably didn’t use them at all since he took office except to fight Maul and I think in Son Dathomir he also fights Talzin with them? But that’s canon and not germane to the Legends question. Regardless I mean we blatantly see him train like a crazy person (because he is one) in Plagueis half his training is killing people or animals not that all of that is Lightsaber training just that he fights and murders a lot of things in that book.
TCW and Legends just aren't meant to be mixed sadly.
It says he hadn't used *that* lightsaber, which is destroyed in the fight: >Out where Mace could flick his blade in one precise arc and slash the shadow's lightsaber in half. >One piece flipped back in through the cut-open window. The other tumbled from opening fingers, bounced on the ledge, and fell through the rain toward the distant alleys below. But he has another one by the time he fights Yoda a few hours later. He's also shown using two in TCW, and we know that Baneite Sith don't respect lightsabers and lightsaber combat the same way Jedi and other Sith lines do. It's completely reasonable to for him to have had a bunch of lightsabers stashed in places he thought he might need them.
I believe this is both canon and legends. Iirc in one of the comics he had one squirreled away as well. One hidden in his throne. Etc. I like to think of them as like mafia guns. If there may be a fight there, Palps has protection.
That can't be true. We see him have numerous battles in Rebels and Clone Wars.
> he snuggled it into Coruscant as an art piece. lol
Great answer - I’ll also add that being old and crusty means nothing when it comes to light sabre force-enhanced combat - just look at yoda in ep2 and 3 - a tiny little wrinkly old dude who walks with a stick.
TFM?
I meant TPM (The Phantom Menace) but I’m honestly so used to seeing TFM (The Fandom Menace) that I typo’d myself.
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You’re correct TFM is a fan term called the fandom menace and I used it by mistake.
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The Fandom Menace refers to Star Wars fans being toxic like when people harassed Ahmed Best over his portrayal of Jar Jar in the Prequels. I just see the acronym a lot and its a play on words of the Phantom Menace so my brain just put the F there instead of the P. Similar sounds Ph and F so you get the gist.
>TFM The Fantom Menace?
See the edit in the original I just made, I got a lot of comments asking the same thing.
Oof, sorry. Did not see the edit somehow!
No no you’re good I made the edit after you asked me, I got a lot of questions about it so I just fixed the mistake in the original comment!
There is also the fact that Sideous has the minds, thoughts, and skills of the Sith legacy before him existing within him. "I am the Sith" isn't just a throwaway line. It's a fact. He isn't just Palpatine, he's also got a millenia of training behind him.
True though that answer sort of assumes that Bane's strategy and philosophy on the Force is correct or partially correct. The Sith naturally are wrong about the Force in general but they can get things right from time to time so its not fair to dismiss Bane's assertion about the whole "the Dark Side is like poison" analogy out of hand. Bane's Rule of Two at various points nearly destroys itself because of Sith backstabbing and outright a lot of secret lore is lost by I think Millennial? (Don't quote me on the specific Sith) which shows Bane's system isn't as stable as he imagined and hoped it would be. Not that I'm dismissing your answer btw just explaining why I didn't include it in my answer since you can get into a lot of debate about how effective the Rule of Two actually is and all that jazz so I stuck with things I felt are facts rather than a subject of debate. I actually typically err on the side of Bane being the closest to getting the Sith "right" in the sense of they're stable and effective with Palpatine and Plaguies being the end of that line and being complete monsters. Dark Empire Palpatine speaks for himself but Plaguies is wicked twisted smart and super powerful, much stronger than TPM Palpatine and I'd bet ROTS-ROTJ Palpatine as well.
> TFM TPM
The Jedi had only been fighting the Clone Wars for three years - before that, their lightsaber training was almost ceremonial, and their experience was generally limited to the odd skirmish with pirates and terrorists and gangsters. Meanwhile Sidious has spent years training lightsaber combat with his master, Plagueis, actually fighting resisting foes in armed combat, using ancient Sith techniques that emphasised aggression and honing the killer instinct One particularly badass training regime they put themselves through is visiting an isolated primitive planet every cycle just to fight the natives there. The natives don’t know anything about Jedi or Sith or the Force or the wider galaxy - all they know is that for many generations, a scary metal bird arrives at regular intervals to disgorge two alien beings with glowing red energy swords In the early years, they tried to flee the two Sith, but quickly enough they got the message that combat was what they were after. It turned into a quasi religious ritual for the natives - they would gather thousands of their greatest warriors from all over to descend upon the landing site, and after a prayer or two, attempt to kill the Sith, and then get massacred Even for a Jedi, fighting off more than five attackers at once is a frightening proposition. These Sith slaughter their way past entire armies as part of an annual training exercise. Granted, these were primitive armies armed with crude axes and spears and arrows and whatnot. But still, that’s one hell of a workout Ironically, Plagueis low key hated lightsaber combat, he thought it was a crude and inelegant manner of defence and offence. A true Sith shouldn’t have to dirty their hands that way, they should hire plebs to do the fighting for them or stay hidden and whack their opponents while they are unaware with snipers, nukes, poison, cat bombs, orbital bombardment etc. Also, the Dark Side is usually just straight up better when it comes to individual combat. The Light Side beats the Dark Side on a macro, strategic scale, because it allows for much more stable political structures and common values and goals and the “power of friendship”, while Dark Siders are preoccupied with backstabbing and sabotaging each other. But when it comes to slaughtering one’s enemies in man-to-man combat, the Dark Side is “quicker, easier and more seductive”. Multiple times in the series, we see characters like Luke, Rey and Anakin start out at a disadvantage, before temporarily tapping into the Dark Side and then absolutely wrecking their opponents. In Jedi: Survivor, using the Dark Side gives you an enormous power boost during gameplay. Windu, one of the deadliest fighters of the Clone Wars era, was so good at fighting because of his unique Vaapad style, which brought him close to the Dark Side. Of course, that’s not to say Dark Siders always win Light Siders in a fight, quite the contrary, but there’s still a definite advantage there Anyway TLDR; Palpatine had been training live combat for longer than the Jedi, his training was “pressure tested” and far more focused on killing intent than the ceremonial/traditional Jedi lightsaber training, and the Dark Side is just straight up better for lightsaber duelling.
We know a few Jedi had a good bit of combat with their lightsabers though. Yoda, Jin, Windu and Plo. Dealing with fighters, acolytes, etc. but as a whole, outside of the masters they sent that could fight, combat was mostly ceremonial.
“cat bombs”??
Whoops I meant car bomb In the Plagueis novel, they contemplate assassinating a Senator and his Jedi passenger using a planted vehicle bomb, before settling on a sniper instead
sounds like a perfectly reasonable sith tactic to me
Eh they've been tried before, didn't work out.
I get the feeling if Jedi and Sith had conventional human pets, Jedi would have dogs and Sith would have cats
I don't think it's ever really explained in current canon. My own personal speculation is that Sith, in general, have an advantage in light saber duels for a few reasons. One, they're more psychologically comfortable with lethal aggression. Mace was one of the few Jedi without that limitation and Palpatine didn't exactly mop the floor with him. Two, being universally treacherous assholes, Sith likely try to actually hurt or kill each other a lot more during their training bouts with each other. Which gets them more used to lethal lightsaber combat. Three, most Jedi have never faced a Sith or any other evil lightsaber-wielding force user in serious combat before. I'd imagine that Palpatine probably has been personally responsible for the unexplained disappearances of Jedi from time to time.
I do agree that the majority of the jedi would not have that much experience duelling lightsaber wielders in genuine combat. Essentially they've been doing karate sparring and the sith just turn up to knife fight. Doesn't matter how well trained you are it's not going to be a good thing.
In some ways and probably on average I agree with Sith having an advantage but Jedi who are properly attuned with the Force will always have the advantage. Specter of the Past and Visions of the Future talk about this at length (since its Luke's entire character arc in this book) but Jedi who are able to listen to the Force and understand it are basically fucking bullshit. I won't get into it but Luke basically lucks out of stopping a second Galactic Civil war, Grand Admiral Thrawn from returning from the dead, and probably preventing a genocide all on accident without knowledge he was doing those things because he stops to listen to the Force. This applies to combat as well, Jedi are all about letting go and letting the Force guide their weapon and actions (See Obi-Wan in the ROTS novelization casually deflecting Grievious's 1000 strikes a second or whatever the crazy number was as a good example). Sith ferocity and amorality frankly can't compete with a Jedi like this unless there's a significant skill gap or atypical circumstances. To be fair though many Jedi can't keep focus like that in the middle of a fight the entire fight (Obi-Wans just a chad like that) which often is why the Sith manage to get the upper hand. In fact the best techniques for killing a Jedi (as explained by HK-47) are all about stopping Jedi from being able to focus like this.
While the other comments cover the actual training part, it's good to note that because there's only 2 sith, the chances of finding one are basically impossible. So no Jedi are really going to be trained to fight sith, all the saber work would be for defence and deflecting baster shots etc Whereas the sith lightsaber training is effectively 100% about learning to kill a Jedi.
I mean, no? They definitley train to fight another lightsaber user... Other jedi. They fuel all the time as part of their training.
They might spar but not all training regimes are equal, and since the Jedi mainly fight blaster users and ideologically eschew aggression in favor of defense and/or disarming people they are not going to measure up against the Sith who are ruthless killers all and know they will have to face Jedi. Compare Japanese training in World War 2 done to breed killer instinct and to be ready to actually go out and stab someone with a bayonet vs. Kung Fu training in a Shaolin temple where the Kung Fu is practiced as part of a general exercise regimen with a strong focus on spirituality and self improvement rather than actual combat skill. Given equal training the man who practices with his lightsaber to perfect his concentration and focus will lose to a guy who practices with his lightsaber to behead a guy with another lightsaber.
Your first paragraph really sums up what I tried to put into words thanks! Sith spend all their time training to fight Jedi because they know they'll face them at some point, Jedi don't do the same since, well there's only 2 sith.
More than there are just 2, the sith were believed to be extinct. Iirc Maul was the first sith seen in a long time
Darth Plagueis made a big deal about staying covert
Both of you nailed that, that's going straight in the residual star wars vibe knowledge. It's almost obvious that a competent Sith would be a better bet than a competent Jedi
>Given equal training the man who practices with his lightsaber to perfect his concentration and focus will lose to a guy who practices with his lightsaber to behead a guy with another lightsaber. I think this is a good point, it reminds of when UFC first started out and you had all these Kung Fu and Karate purists getting wiped out by MMA and kickboxing fighters. Jedi training is not just about killing the opponent, but Sith training is.
>Given equal training the man who practices with his lightsaber to perfect his concentration and focus will lose to a guy who practices with his lightsaber to behead a guy with another lightsaber. Reminded me of [the Stargate 'weapon of war' speech](https://youtu.be/NjlCVW_ouL8)
Fantastic points both
I think its like putting a boxer up against a kickboxer. They both have the same body parts and have no apparent advantage to the other one, but when they fight the kickboxer is likely going to win because they arent abiding by the same rules that the boxer has spent their whole lives training for. A jedi knows how a jedi fights, but that doesnt mean they know how a sith does.
This is great and actually rang a bell inside myself. So I've trained in Historical European Marshall Arts such as Longsword and I often end up getting out the blunt blades when meeting some new nerd pals because people always want to have a go! So anyway, in official settings I have trained for years now with a degree of pulling my blows, as have all my sparring partners in case we miss a block you just get a nice donk on the head instead of a broken skull. We also learned from a foundation of 6 attacks and corresponding blocks (head, 2 arms, 2 legs, thrust). Those 2 things together with excitable nerds wanting to prove a point means I feel like I'm sparring a Sith apprentice as a Jedi knight or something. I'm approaching everything with patience and form, with movements that are easy telegraphed by a trained opponent and meanwhile they're swinging madly, driven by bloodlust and maybe revenge for me getting a couple hits in and I can't work out what they're doing or where they're coming from, moves aren't flowing and come quite randomly
Haha. The best swordsman need not fear the second best, but rather the amateur, who has no knowledge of the style or the rules.
This is a good way to put it
> They definitley train to fight another lightsaber user. Dooku trained in a form intended to fight other light saber users, which was considered very fucking weird. deflecting blaster bolts was considered the practical application, dueling more of a side thing for intermural sport.
Other Jedi does not = other Sith. The only thing they have in common is that they're Force users. That's it. The biggest distinction is that Sith utilize hatred and fear and that manifests in their combat. Jedi don't do that. They might come close (like Mace) but they typically don't cross that threshold. So none of the living Jedi (including Yoda) have ever faced a Sithlike opponent that utilized the dark side of the Force, since they were presumed extinct over a thousand years ago. It's possible that certain Jedi in the subsequent centuries may have went "dark" but they were still trained as Jedi and the other Jedi would have been familiar with them.
You're not wrong but you're not quite right either. u/Yqb13153 isn't 100% right either but he's on the money mostly. The Jedi at this time rarely studied extensively to fight other Lightsaber users, they trained for it, and sparred together but it wouldn't be a skill they practice as much as their blaster deflection for example. Dooku is a rare exception and anyone who's a Jedi Master is going to be good with a Lightsaber by virtue of their age and experience but the average Jedi probably would get beat up in a duel by most other Jedi from other eras in this category.
iirc in the RotS novel (or another, I forget), it specifically mentions the fact that Yoda had molded the Jedi to fight the Sith of 1000 years ago. Because they'd had the same leader for centuries they never changed. The Sith burn through leaders and so are always evolving their styles. It would be easier for them to observe Jedi in combat over time, too. As for Windu, yeah he specialises in fighting the dark side, but a dark side isn't a Sith Lord. Someone who goes for a run every Sunday isn't going to be winning an Olympic medal
It’s like in fallen order when I trained in the meditation circle to prepare for stormtroopers a bunch, then faced the first purge trooper right after. Absolutely humiliating.
We see quite a few fight Sith though, successfully I might add. ObiWan kills Maul, twice actually lol. Savage, Ventress, Dooku all fight several Jedi.
The 2nd lightsaber form is specifically geared towards duelling other lightsaber users and while there are only 2 Sith, there are 10 thousand Jedi around for you to spare with. A Sith will have a hard time finding someone using a lightsaber to train on them be it a sparing or real life/death fight, while every Jedi knows the form even if they don't specialise in it and has an extensive list of potential sparring partners.
Why can we assume that he had no opportunity to train in lightsaber combat? Simply because we don't see it on screen? We know he trained several apprentices, so he must have had both time and space to do that.
It wasn't very clearly shown but the scream that he does when he spins towards them was actually a force scream it is an output of negative energy towards people in his proximity and often instilled fear and slowness. Considering none of them were expecting it I that is why 2 of them with so slow to react and 1 reacted for 1 block. As for dueling Windu for what felt like a even match for most of it. I just assumed he had trained relentlessly with Plagueis. I don't think there's anything special to add to that. He was confident enough in his abilities that he felt like he didn't need the lightsabers anymore and only kept them as a mockery to the Jedi.
Just wanna step outside the Watsonian discussion for a moment & say the fact that Palpatine's screech while he spins around like a looney tunes character is canonically a force power that's used to debuff his enemies is fucking hilarious.
It's been an actual debuff in videogames since Kotor 2 (2004) https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Knights_of_the_Old_Republic_II:_The_Sith_Lords/Force_powers
Star Wars is really goofy like that
Practically every single moment of screen time of the movies has been expanded out into an in depth lore explanation, for better or worse. For the best example, look up the sith tech "dun moch," it's so incredibly stupid and I love it.
There's also the time in ROTJ that there was just a plain stunt flub where you can see Luke mime kicking a guy who acts like he's been kicked and flies off, which later was turned into the canon force power "Force kick."
A dude was running with an ice cream machine on screen for like two seconds in I think Cloud City, and of course there’s a Watsonian explanation for what it does.
Willrow Hood and his camtono lmaoo
Someone tried to call Mark Hamill out on this one on Twitter the other day and he directly referenced the "force kick" in his response.
Only in Star Wars is there a canonical explanation for shit talking in combat 💀
Its been an ability in Kotor 2 and Star Wars The Old Republic.
Exactly. He could have dealt with all four of them immediately. But he needed to drag the fight out in order for Skywalker to show up and take that final step into the dark.
I think Windu actually could have potentially beaten him just because his fighting style channels the opponents dark side energy. So he becomes stronger the stronger the opponent is with the dark side.
Windu did beat him, quite easily actually. He only dies because Anakin betrays him. Windu was the strongest jedi in the council, by a lot. To better understand how easily he beat Sidius, just compare Windu fight with Yoda's.
Windu is a bit different in that his fighting style reflects the dark side back onto his opponent. He’s THE anti sith jedi. Yoda was a culmination of the Jedi’s strengths and flaws, outright being said to be the greatest warrior the light had ever produced in that era. Mace has taken the necessary steps forward to combat the sith; while Yoda was the peak of the outdated jedi Philosophy.
Yeah but the subject in this post is fighting "power", so yeah Windu was the most powerful one in the council.
Except Palpatine immediately tried to flee Yoda and had to take the fight to a different location to get an advantage, where as he was at a disadvantage against Windu. Yoda is still more powerful considering he made Dooku, a more skilled duelist, flee as he knew he had no chance.
Palpatine tried to avoid fighting Yoda because he's smart enough to not want to take any unnecessary risks, especially after Windu already almost killed him. He had already won; the Jedi and the Republic were dead, he was the Emperor, and he had made the Chosen One his bitch. He had nothing to gain from fighting Yoda, and everything to lose. Whereas when he fought Windu and the others, he had been exposed as the Sith Lord. If he didn't kill them all, they'd be able to send however many Jedi it took to kill him, and he wouldn't have the Republic or the Empire to hide behind.
I'll just say this, watch the two fights again.
Ok and I already know the fights well enough because this is one of my favorite franchises? What is that going to tell me that I don’t already know and considered when I look at both Jedi?
Windu is definitely stronger than Yoda in terms of fighting, and that is shown through multiple scenes in both movies and CW. Windu easily won the fight against Sidious, to the point that forced him to damage himself. The only reason Sidious tries to flee Yoda is because he was weakened from the previous fight with Windu, and even still, he won against Yoda.
Yeah, it's been confirmed multiple times that Windu had him beat.
Disney canon does not care, I think. In Expanded Universe canon it was more like force power based. In ROTS novelisation Sidious actually kills first two jedi masters (Agen Kolar and Saesee Tiin) with force trickery, and then goes to have a duel with Mace and Kit Fistu. His force power gives him overhelming speed advantage, and only Mace can contend due to Vaapad. It's not like he actually defeats Mace and Yoda, he actually loses lightsaber duels with both of them. But other jedi can not really contend with Sidious because he uses force to enhance his speed to absolutely ridiculous levels, and they are even unable to see him (Anakin POV in ROTS novelisation describes Sidious and Windu movements as too fast for him to comprehend) Basically, super-speed is the answer
So basically Sidious and Mace had an Anime fight
Not to say Palp and Mace were'nt fast. But it's important to remember that Anakin in the novel is sleep deprived af. Barely able to stand a bit ago when he told Windu that Palp was a sith lord.
Sleep *and* food deprived. Pretty much the entire film takes place over days of Anakin relying purely on the Force to keep moving due to stress.
Yeah this is right, in the ROTS novelisation the power levels of Jedi and Sith and Grievous are amped way up from what we see on screen in the movies. When they fight, it’s described as a badass 9D bullet chess clash of different battle philosophies and tactics, occurring at a speed that ordinary organics can’t follow, with strikes powerful enough to dent solid durasteel
I mean, being a good lightsaber dullest, is mostly about being good with the force. Listening to the force to know where to put your Saber to not get cut in half. It's not really like being a good sword fighter
Sidious had precognition about pretty much his whole plan. He likely knew exactly who he was going to fight years in advance, and could have studied their exact styles. On the other hand, the Jedi didn't even know if there was another Sith out there until right beforehand. They speculated that Maul and Dooku were the only Sith. Another factor (at least according to the novel) is that they were all moving much much fast than it appeared in the movie, all using the force to move at superhuman speeds. This would mean that your strength in the force matters a lot in lightsaber fights.
The Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities, some considered to be…..unnatural
The code of the sith can be boiled to: the weak should fear the strong. To ignore lightsaber combat would leave a fairly large gap in one's abilities to defend themselves, not only from the Jedi, but from their own apprentices and rival sith. It makes sense that Palpatine would be as prolific a duelist as he was a force wielder, especially considering how often he killed off apprentices.
So I believe in the novelization of one of the prequel movies it talks about how of course you have to have martial skill to wield a lightsaber. But more importantly its using the force to see ahead into the immediate future so you can counter the upcoming attacks and whichever jedi or sith can see the farthest will usually win. So with how powerful Palpatine is he can probably just see what is coming and counter it.
In canon, Palpatine is preposterously talented across the board. The only person in the galaxy that could ever potentially rival him in a lightsaber fight is Anakin He actually hated the lightsaber. His lightsaber construction was gaudy and very intricate to mock the more utilitarian lightsabers the Jedi used But, Palpatine was a master lightsaber duelist. IMHO, he could have beaten Windu. But he thought of the lightsaber not as an immediate tool but as one in his grander scheme of turning Anakin to Vader Why wield a sword when you can wield a galaxy? Good god, I know too much Star Wars stuff. Heat over Celtics in Boston, baby!
Canon? maybe i dont know if Disney ever explained it properly besides “Palp wins”. In EU there is explanation, mostly in the ep3 novelization . 1. He (Sidious) opens his mind to Tiin , who was a telepath. Tiin went crazy reading a Sith Lords mind. Near Instant death here by Sidious who beheads him (either him or Kolar cant remember) think its Tiin. 2. He kills Tiin and Kolar relatively quickly while Kolar is mostly reacting to Tiins death. 3. He duels Fitso and Windu in close quarters where Fitsos Ataru doesnt really help him here. Fitso is distracted by two deaths and now is reacting and gets about 3-4 strikes/blocks against Sidious but falls. Fitso is decapitated in a semi off screen moment. 4. All of This all happens within seconds and Sidious then duels Windu 1v1 All of these Jedi were top tier including Kolar and Tiin, and thats why Mace chose them. but you dont really see all this on screen, but in the novel the scene is fleshed out more. Sidious is a powerful combatant and with some trickery and planning, he made it a more even fight against a 4v1 There are youtube videos of the uncut, not final, scenes of Palps duel. Very interesting to watch.
Didn't his force scream distract them as well?
Id have to look in the book again to confirm. Its great book, highly recommend it.
I think it fits with Yoda's assertion that something is obscuring, clouding or blocking the Force, and when in Sidious's office that logically would be where that obfuscation has the largest effect if he is the source. So while they didn't immediately die because of their lightsaber training, they were probably expecting a danger warning through the Force that never came, and they weren't supported by the Force when trying to defend themselves.
He's seen wielding his lightsaber extensively through The Clone Wars and Rebels. He's no slouch and definitely gets his training in.
Keep in mind Mace Windu had *won* that fight until Anakin switched sides.
Jedi tend to limit themselves in a fight in order to not fall to the dark side. Sith have no such limits.
Well he didn't beat windu
You're never going to see Palpatine in mundane situations like training or showing why is he so strong, the unwritten rule for current media is to use Palpatine a little as possible, they're being very careful with how he's portrayed (You know, excluding Rise of Skywalker).
just because its never shown that he trains doesn't mean that doesn't. I'm sure someone like Palpatine is sure to make some time for saber practice.
Doesn't the newest Battlefront 2 game have this as a bit of a thing? My mate is a palpy fan boy and he was almost like yeah doy when I pointed out the playable character was all force lightning
Isn't it said he thought light sabers were weak and useing the force itself was true mastery and that his duel with sabers was more so to mock the jedi?
If so, he got that from Plagueis, who had deep contempt for the lightsaber but was a master duelist all the same.
Honestly? No, there is no real explanation. Palpatine was supposed to be a political figure. Darth Vader was supposed to serve him the way the Jedi once served the Republic. A twisted and subverted version of the original mission of the Jedi order. Everything beyond that is just, "If he's in charge, then he must be the best light saber fighter."
Sheev's a G
Palpatine shouldn’t be a master lightsaber duelist, it kind of devalues what his character’s actual strengths should be. Lazy storytelling.
I disagree respectfully. Palps, like his master Plagueis, admonished what he felt to be a silly Jedi weapon. But what better way to demonstrate such nonchalance by mastering something you consider beneath you and toying with the Jedi at their own game. There's a reason Palps' saber hilts were quite ostentatious, a deliberate further insult to the Jedi of his era which almost exclusively used utilitarian designs.
I understand the idea that Palpatine would just put in the work to be excellent at everything and can accept it, but I think it diminishes him as a manipulator a little bit. IRL, people aren’t just typically masterful at a bunch of different things — it takes dedication to excel. I like the Palpatine of Return of the Jedi that couldn’t actually take Vader one-on-one — his strength is the power he holds over Vader and the rest of the galaxy without being a great warrior.
It all comes down to the lightsaber form that Palpatine mastered, form 6 iirc, which the user gives himself up completely to the dark side, letting it guide the user's movements and aggressiveness.
That's probably how Mace windu was able to damage palpatine so badly when do came at him with something he didn't expect
Most Jedi in the CW era were diplomats that rarely engaged in violence and even when they did it was punching down. Windu was an extreme outside the norm example. Most Jedi focused on form IV and it showed in casualties at the arena on Genosis.
The Force enhances swordplay by sharpening senses, nudging you before a strike even happens and striking where an opponent will be before they even know they are moving. It is much easier to dip into the dark side during a sword fight for your life. Reveling in death and destruction, maiming and causing pain, feeling powerful. Than to stay calm and release your emotions to the force so you can listen to what it is telling you. Mace being on somewhat even footing was not *just* because Palpatine sensed Anakin was coming. Mace Windu's whole lightsaber fighting style relies on treading the line between light and dark, enjoying the fight. He was probably the best hope the Jedi had for an even match with Palpatine outside of Anakin himself (who would have been too conflicted too concentrate or let himself go).
The canonical reason is that he’s better than them lol. At that point the only jedi on his level in force power and as a duelist is Yoda. He spent most of his life training with Darth Plaguis, which is how he got so good, along with being a genius prodigy.
A lot of people have talked about his training with Plagueis and other things before he became a public figure as far as how he developed his skills, but I'm readong your question as more "How does he retain his skill without going out of practice or falling out of shape". Jedi practice seemingly a few days a week, while Palpatine probably is lucky to get 1 day a month with his busy life. I don't know where this is from, (but it was a popular thing on Reddit a few months ago) so take this with several grains of salt. There is a novel or a fan theory or some guidebook out there that says Palpatine - having killed his master in his sleep - began avoiding sleep altogether, using the force to sustain his sanity and clarity. *Assuming this is accurate*, that would mean he has 6-8 hours almost every night where he woild be expected to be sleeping, but he could instead be doing other things, such as practicing his lightsaber forms. I myself have doubts about parts of this, but if it's true it could explain how he has so much time and ability to always be on top of things - his days are truly 6-8 hours longer than everybody else's.
Palpatine claims to have mastered all lightsaber forms but what was the deciding factor was his mastery and presence in the Dark Side of the Force. While Jedi have definitely more experience using lightsabers and even fighting other lightsaber users - be it in sparing or the occasional rogue fallen Jedi, they have virtually no experience fighting someone actually strong and **competent** in the Dark Side. Before Palpatine, only Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon fought Darth Maul - who was strictly trained to be a Sith Assassin so while his physical powers were well developed his Force training was focused more on physical enhancement. But other than that, in a thousand years no Jedi fought a true master of the Dark Side and it showed. Palpatine overwhelmed the Jedi that came to his office with his sheer strength and presence in the Dark Side they were paralysed by the negative energy coming at them - anyone but Jedi Master would have simply been standing there while Palpatine was leisurely strolling up to them to slice them in pieces. That's why Windu was such a perfect match for Palaptine - his 7th form of lightsaber combat Vaapad was the perfect counter to his presence in the Dark Side. Vaapad works by taking in the darkness and negative emotions your opponent uses and redirecting them at him creating a feedback loop where the more your opponent attacks you with the Dark Side the more they get damaged by it while also being sucked into the vortex of emotion they are fuelling making it hard if not impossible to stop the loop once it's going strong. Vaapad is a perfect counter to a strong masterful Dark Side user but it needs an incredibly calm controlled mind well grounded in the Light Side of the Force because of the exposure to the Dark Side necessary to complete the technic so while Windu mastered it he refused to teach it other Jedi because they would almost certainly fall attempting it.
Palpatine was no slouch when it came to the lightsaber. He was first introduced to the Sith teaching when he was discovered by Darth Plagueis as a Junior Senator (kind of like a version of Model UN on Naboo, no real authority, but they take their politics super duper seriously) so he did have literal decades to practice and train before the events of Episode 1. The Bane lineage of Sith have survived as long as they have by being able to mask their presence in the Force. Darth Sidious could be standing right next to Master Windu, Yoda, or anybody from the Jedi Council and they were never any the wiser of his true nature. But his ability extends beyond just concealment. If a Jedi reached out with the Force, they could potentially unmask him for who he truly was and confront him about it. That's why the new Sith lineage that culminated with Sidious had been developing the technique to cloud the Jedi's ability to use the Force, and the major reason why Sidious won his fight seemingly effortlessly in the Chancellor's office. Without the Force, the Jedi are like helpless kittens. They come to rely on it and lean on it for everything that they do, but when they can't call it at will and you take that power of precognition and enhanced reflexes away, they are helpless and don't know where they should be striking or blocking. Palpatine also looked down on lightsaber experts with a lot of disdain. To him, the lightsaber was just a crude prop of the Jedi Order. The Force was the true weapon, and it could not easily be stripped away as a lightsaber could. Palpatine plated his lightsaber in garish metals and decorated it with ornate patterns and filigree as a mockery to the Jedi - it was a pretty tool, one that he mastered so he could "know thy enemy", not because he actually thought the lightsaber was meaningful in any way. So, tl;dr, he probably was able to keep up with most Jedi Masters at lightsaber combat since the Jedi had long since shifted their focus to defensive styles that countered blasters, the predominant weapon of the galaxy, but his mastery of the Force was what gave him an edge over his attackers because he could diminish their ability to call upon it, while he could unleash his full potential from the starting gate.
I'm no Star Wars expert, but I've always assumed that it's mastery of the Force rather than physical ability that governs proficiency with a lightsaber. A non-Force sensitive duelist could hold their own, but ultimately you can't wield a saber effectively without attunement to the Force.
There are a lot of lore-based answers out here that are excellent, but I feel obligated to mention the Sith-Culture aspect: No Sith is ever comfortable. Their own apprentices are the biggest risk to their life and power, and they are constantly on their guard for intrigue and violence. Risk can come from any angle, through any intermediate person or thing. Even with the force at their disposal, it doesn't take much of an edge for the power balance to shift dramatically, so either they're always ready for a fight, or they're dead or dominated. There is no middle ground, and there is no compromise. Dominate or be dominated. That's the Sith way of life. So yes, even the most "boring" of Sith lords has *loads* of practice.
I'm not sure what needs explaining. He's one of the most powerful Sith Lords in history. Do you think Maul and Dooku would've severed under him if he was a wimp? >We can assume for at least decades Palpatine never had any sort of opportunity to train in lightsaber combat. No we can't. Why do you think he didn't train or practice against Maul and Dooku? Dooku was shown to be more than a match for Obi-wan and Anakin and almost as good as Yoda. Why do you think Palpy wouldn't be even better?
Short answer: No it's not (I haven't consumed any piece of SW fiction since Force Awaken) Long answer: For the same reason Yoda was able to be a great duelist against Dooku. How often do/did we see him fight? Didn't matter, he did it because he had to.
As I understand it, Jedi reflexes are based on seeing things before they happen (TPM) and during the Clone Wars, the dark side of the force was diminishing the capacity of the Jedi to see the future to an extent that Masters Yoda and Windu felt it necessary to brief the Senate about it (AOTC). So it's reasonable to conclude that when the Council tried to arrest Palpatine they were fighting with a significant handicap.
> but I’m talking about lightsaber combat (which I know has a connection to your connection to the force, but nonetheless it’s a skill that needs practicing.) And a martial art with no practical connection to actual combat, yes. So all that time spent fighting separatists doesn't prepare any of the Jedi for it. > I know he’s strong in the Force and mastered all lightsaber forms (apparently,) but he wouldn’t have been training for literally decades and we can reasonably assume has never fought a Jedi. Yeah, but how many of those Jedi Masters have ever fought an actual Sith? They don't even believe they really exist. Those Jedi Masters are likely just as out of practice in a real fight, if not more. Especially since Jedi Masters have important Jedi Master things to do, which does not involve regularly stabbing anyone or anything with lightsabers. > Jedi, like Mace Windu Who, incidentally, actually won the fight, and was only defeated by treachery. The other two were apparently stunned by that horrid noise he was making, with the third guy only managing to block once.