Why Couldn't Yoda Defeat Palpatine In The Revenge of the Sith?

As Yoda arrived on Coruscant to face Sidious, he was pretty confident that his 900 years of experience would allow him to defeat the Sith Lord. According to the novelization, Yoda realized during the battle that Palpatine was indeed correct in his assertion that Yoda could not defeat him. 1000 years of Sith history had been dedicated to matching the Jedi in terms of force power and lightsaber combat, meaning it was doubtful Yoda could emerge victorious. However, more importantly, Yoda realized that even if he struck the dark lord down, the entire force and organization of the galaxy had shifted to the dark side, meaning the Jedi could no longer be victorious against the Sith, forcing him to retreat.

[aamirrazak]

The Sith spent a thousand years in the shadows getting stronger and forming their plan against the Jedi, who didn’t really take their return seriously until it was too late.

The Sith did their homework and the Jedi got complacent and arrogant, and it cost them big time

[gojo_]

Sidious feared Yoda, and said that Vader will become more powerful than either of them. Sidious tried to flee, but Yoda stopped him.
In the middle of the battle, Sidious’s face suddenly changes and he looks like he’s in trouble and is surprised about Yoda’s dueling and domination.
So then, Sidious gives up on his lightsaber and starts throwing shit at Yoda, forcing him to retreat.
My conclusion😂

[ThatAntonio_]

Yoda: I have 900yrs
Sith: We have 1000

[wesleybatista]

the real reason why yoda didn't kill sidious is because killing him on RTOS will erase the events of the original triology.

[chadcat]

Palpatine spent decades preparing for this fight. Yoda had no idea Palpatine was the sith lord until it was too late so he had no time to prepare

[cobaltprime]

I honestly think he could have won. They were pretty evenly matched until he fell down. If he didn’t retreat he could have formed a counter attack. That’s just my opinion. In reality he only lost because he needed a reason to go into exile for Luke to find him later. The plot demanded he lose. Now we have to have an in universe explanation for it.

[justinanderson]

To be fair, the novelisation makes it clear that Yoda was the better saber combatant. Sidious was either disarmed or chose to throw away his lightsaber because he knew that if he kept trying to out-duel Yoda, the Grand Master would kill him (can't remember which). Yoda was also able to overpower Sidious at the very end when they were having their force duel, forcing all of Sidious own power back out after absorbing as much as he could, its just that in the resulting force wave, his unlucky positioning and smaller size resulted in him taking a fall even though Sidious was actually thrown back further. By the time Yoda gathered himself after this he was more or less out of time. He knew he would get run out of energy soon because of his advanced age (so did Sidious and that's one of the reasons he spent most of the fight running away and dragging out the battle). It was also at this point that the Clones were starting to arrive and Yoda couldn't fight Sidious AND defend himself from an increasing amount of Clones shooting at him as well. Besides, Yoda was smart ebiygh to rralise it was over since Sidious had the high ground... 😏

Instead, he had a vision that showed him the truth of the Sith and that yes, even striking down the Emperor would not guarantee a victory for the Jedi. It was too late. Too much had already been set in motion. Instead, Yoda saw that he HAD to survive so that he could train the next generation (Luke) and THEY would defeat the Sith. He saw all the failings of the Jedi and how the Sith had spent 1000 years evolving snd changing whilw the Jedi had spenr that time preparing to fight another war like those of old - a war that would never come. Thus the Jedi were completely unprepared for the Sith and even worse, had indeed grown complacent and even a bit arrogant which only made it easier for the Sith to manipulate them.

[deathraven]

And yet he still disarmed sidious, what a legend.

[josephle]

Because he literally fell 100 feet to the ground and was unable to continue, while Palp was able to hang on to another pod

[BlueRazor]

In ROTS novel. Yoda has an internal dialouge about how he probably never could have defeated Sidious. Like the video said from Bane all the way to Sidious the Sith's sole purpose was to dominate the Jedi order.
Yoda said he needed a Jedi who was trained in a different way. That was Luke.

[normknapp]

What many of you fail to realize is this …

Yoda didn’t underestimate
Sidious, he understood that win or lose THIS engagement would not stop what was going to happen next! The time of the Jedi was over, and the only option was for Yoda to disengage this fight to make sure he was able to influence the future of the Jedi later!

I’m not a Yoda fanboy by any stretch of the word, but I do think Sidious was worried about Yoda for a reason! At this moment in time Yoda is by far the single greatest force user, but even Yoda has his limits! If nothing else was going on I believe Yoda would have defeated Sidious, however with the accumulation of everything going on even Yoda failed to grasp the finality of the Sith’s plan!

I do believe that if Qui gon had survived his conflict with Maul the entire story line would have changed! I personally believe that the balance the force was looking for was in the grey Jedi not the destruction of the Jedi order! Anikin trained by Qui gon would have forced the council to change in the end!

[ducks_meme_hub]

George Lucas said himself that Yoda would have won if he didn’t lose his lightsaber

[XRyanK]

I dunno... If Sidious was gone, Anakin would have died too.

Zero sith... Just corrupt politicians and factions.
Plus Anakin had merked all the separatists before Obi merked him.
So no more war either.


Yoda my little green friend, you screwed the pooch on this one.

[magnusthevaliant]

Yoda: 900 years of training, I have. five decades, you have at most.
Palpatine: Only 900? My line's got a century over you!

[ainzer]

well, Yoda is way too late. He should listen to Qui-Gon

[GXT_ROGUE]

Good explication, Amazing u narrative, great topic, 👍

[hexchewie]

I remember having a star wars book that set Yoda and Palpatine against each other. I believe the reasoning that Palpatine would win is that while Yoda would be fast, Palpatine's lighting would obliterate yoda

[laydoe]

Palpatine realize he couldn’t match Yoda in lightsaber duel so he took the approach by backing up and shooting him with force. Lightning do to Yoda age he was getting fatigued fast

[paulmkz]

Yoda vs Palpatine was a great dichotomy. Tall vs short, Human vs Alien, Force lightning vs Force Push, Uncontrolled anger vs controled strength, irresistible force vs umovable object, Evil vs Good. Best battle in star wars movies.

[jlmiller]

I think yoda just understood he lost the high ground.