Lord Lucien
Lets all love Lain
I think you're missing my ultimate sentiment. It's not that Palpatine succeeds, it's not about risks, it's not about Palpatine.
It's about the writing. Look what that guy wrote. Look what you've been arguing. You're explaining why the character succeeds. You're defending what happened. You shouldn't have to. That's the movie's job. They shouldn't be explaining to us everything Sidious is and does, all that he went through--making us care or hate him along the way. But the prequels didn't do this. They didn't show us the evil mastermind's vulnerability, or the risks he's taking. They basically said "He's evil, and he's going to win". And he did. No real struggle (I'm not talking about fights and duels), no real risk. Everything went according to plan. And that's not interesting. That's not entertaining. Palpatine did not make for a compelling villain. I wasn't marvelling at his genius, applauding his skill and power. I knew he would win, but the movies didn't give me a reason to care how.
That was the problem with everything in those films. There is no reason to care. Not about Anakin, not about Obi-Wan, or Padme, not about Yoda, Mace, or Palpatine. We already knew the ultimate fate of most of them, so that the anticipation is off the table. But they still didn't make the character's interesting. Only Palaptine, with his delightful, gleeful evil made for a fun character. Again, not compelling. Not interesting. Just fun.
We have to rationalize everything that happens in the films. We have to come up with the "probablys", and the "most likelys". The films tells us nothing. It shows us even less, in terms of plot and character development. That old axiom in visual media--Show, Don't Tell--doesn't seem to have been considered for the prequels.
Palpatine's ridiculous luck in not getting caught is just one symptom. And like I said earlier, it's not even the most egregious one. It's just the one that concerns our mutual favorite character of these films, so I think we both just zeroed in on him. I can completely forgive the extreme improbability of Palpatine succeeding as he did, it's not that big of a deal. It's the entire collective awfulness of the Prequel Trilogy that shines brightly. And at it's core it consists of three movies worth of bland, dull, boring, semi-retarded, robotic, lifeless, passionless characters advancing an equally boring, semi-retarded, pre-determined, passionless story.
Palpatine's character, I think, is the lone exception. So enjoy that fact. He's still cool.