This tbh. I doubt Sidious wanted to get disarmed, cornered and deformed in the first place. He goes full on with lightning, almost disarming Windu and electrocuting him. It really does not seem like he was just waiting for Anakin to do something at all. And judging by Palpatine's character, I seriously doubt he'd trust his life to Anakin's choice.
That's just how Sheev rolls. He knows about Anakin's resentfulness towards the Order, even helped cultivate it, and he knows he'd be willing to do anything to save Padme. Methinks he knew he had him, just like he knew Vader would block Luke's attack on a defenseless Palpatine in the throne room.
Just my take though.
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"Sometimes, for the dream to live.... the dreamer must die."
I guess this is fair, too, but I don't see it. During the fight, it doesn't seem at all like Palpatine isn't trying to kill Windu, and even when Anakin is there he unleashes powerful lightning that almost disarms him.
1. Sidious lets Anakin tell the Jedi Council about him, why would he let him do that if he wasn't setting him up for a choice?
2. When Anakin is sitting by himself in the council chamber you can hear Sidious in his head telling him the ultimatum "if I die, any chance to save her will be lost" and this is obviously not Anakin just thinking about what Sidious said because it contains completely new information that Palpatine didn't tell Anakin when they were face to face
3. Sidious kills 2 Jedi masters before Mace can even bring his blade into a defensive stance, ergo, Sidious is much faster than Windu.
4. right after he kills Fisto Sidious had Mace at blade point and doesn't thrust into a kill stroke when we know by his initial burst forward engaging the 4 masters that he's capable of doing so, why? because he's not trying to kill Mace, he's stalling for Anakins arrival.
5. when he is disarmed and backed off by Windu into a corner that just so happens to coincide with awakens arrival. In other words, from Anakins POV all he sees is Windu stalking a "helpless" Chancellor with his lightsaber aimed to kill, the Chancellor even says as much to Anakin, "help me, the Jedi are taking over!!"
6. the entire reasoning behind Palpatine unleashing lightning on mace is simple: when Mace had Sid at blade point he was still willing to arrest him, which wouldn't do for Sidious' plan to turn Anakin, he needed him to make a choice right then and there: his wife or the Jedi essentially. So he pushed Mace into wanting to kill him by unleashing Force Lightning on him, he makes it seem as if he's just defending himself from death: "don't let him kill mee" "i can't hold on any longer" "I'm too weak" Notice that its only after the lightning barrage that Mace is resolute on killing the Chancellor, thus provoking Anakin into making a snap decision.
Sidious can forsee the future, this is established throughout the 6 episodes, thats no different here, the Sith need to go through a trial of betrayal in order to become a true Sith Lord; Dooku did it by killing Sifo Dyas, Palpatine did it by killing his family, Anakin did it by killing Mace Windu...It all links up way too perfectly to think anything other than Palpatine orchestrated the entire exchange between himself and Mace Windu for the singular purpose of finally turning Anakin away from the Jedi and into a Sith Lord.
PS his melted face can be looked at in one of two ways: if you believe that is his real face then it getting exposed is no biggie, if you believe that his face really did get mangled then Sidious would still be ok with it as it was physical evidence of the attempted assassination on him by the Jedi. Either way a ****ed up face worked into his plan rather nicely as a bit of "evidence" of Jedi betrayal.
Last edited by relentless1 on Jul 13th, 2016 at 08:48 PM
Sidious can foresee the future but he didn't foresee Vader betraying and killing him. Ridiculous the theories and conjecture someone will postulate in order to give this decrepit Sith Lord a pass.
Lucas' intent on Mace doing so well was that he wanted Mace to go out kicking ass. He didn't want Samuel L Jackson's character to die on his back. Thus, from Lucas' standpoint, I'd say no, Sheev didn't throw the fight. If we take the novel into account, Mace was losing prior to vaapad. Sheev has no reason to push Mace that far if he's just messing around.