Why the Jedi Council Deemed it IMPOSSIBLE for Palpatine to be a Sith - Star Wars Explained

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Composer: Whitesand (Martynas Lau)
Year: 2017
Title: Eternity

Released under CC-BY 4.0.

[stretopovermind]

The explanation is simple, of course:

Jedi: "We are looking for the Sith Lord."
Sidious (waving hand): "This is not the Sith Lord you are looking for."
Jedi: "This is not the Sith Lord we are looking for."

[PlagueOfGripes]

"We're looking for someone who is manipulating the war on both sides for control of the galaxy, which can only be done by controlling the galaxy. Thus, it cannot be the one person who controls the galaxy already. Because, uhhh... oh, shi - "

[gregoryanderson]

Love this. It reminded me of the memes mocking Sidious as "just a politician." But isn't that exactly what caught the Jedi Council off guard? Throughout their long history, the Jedi had always faced war-mongering Sith who attacked first. But now, they were faced with a Sith they hadn't see before.

[klaykid]

I think it was honestly just pure Jedi arrogance that stopped him from being discovered as a sith. First, the arrogance in their knowledge of the sith and not even entertaining the possibility that the sith would have evolved while they stayed stagnant to the Jedi order. A sith is someone with yellow eyes whose foaming at the mouth ready for combat like Darth maul.

And here's palpatine, a friendly old patient man who already has the highest position of power in the galaxy and every time there's been an assassination attempt. He's always been a scared blubbering mess. "No way this guy could be a sith they don't have the patience for this"

[aohdan]

Yeah from the jedi pov. The sith when they were last seen were more akin to beasts, slaves to their emotions and with no real plan or strategy past all out war. It was a huge blindside that we struggle to understand because we cannot fully put ourselves in their shoes. Imagine the only enemy you have, who has been dead for 2000+ years, and you only know from books, and boom it turns out they had an elaborate plot which is far beyond their capabilities as you know them, and they just wipe out your whole shit in like a few days.

[leerogish]

If qui gon was still alive he would have taken dooku’s warning VERY seriously and if any jedi would have figured it out it would have been him. Unlike the arrogant council he focused heavily on the moment and what was In front of him NOT just the future.

[ZoeMalDoran]

earlier Clone Wars novels (quite possibly Shatterpoint) had Yoda and Windu discussing Palpatine, and one of them said "A shame he cannot touch the Force. He would have made an admirable Jedi" . Combined with the belief he wasn't Force Sensitive, the idea of "The only reason Palpatine isn't a suspect is because he already rules the galaxy" makes a certain kind of sense. They just lacked the key pieces of information that we the audience had (and though the cop and clone troopers who carried on following the trail while Mace was fighting Grievous' forces did indeed walk in on Palpatine, they were all murdered before they could call it in)

[AustynSN]

Your mention of the fact that Mas Amedda and Palpatine's other advisor looked like traditional sith lords makes me think that if the Jedi had gotten too close too early, he probably would have thrown one or both of them under the bus.

[Knight]

I think it was also Hubris on the Jedi's part, they didn't want to believe they could of missed spotting something so big as the Chancellor of the Galactic Republic being the Dark Lord of the Sith, their ancient enemy.

[forcecalibration]

Can we just appreciate the consistency of this man💯. Hands down best Star Wars channel.

[rocketraccoon]

Would have been funny if the Council suspected Jar Jar of being the Sith Lord. He was around Palpatine a lot.
😁

[PrometheanRising]

It should be noted that in RotS that when Anakin tells Windu that Palp is a Sith that Windu seems more incredulous that there would be a Sith than that it would be Palp.

[jordancourse]

The council failed themselves. They should’ve listened to Dooku.

[Andreduffy]

I think the Jedi never believed Palpatine could be the Sith Lord just because mostly all other Sith's in history wanted to rule and show that they ruled, or scheming in the background just to later take over the Jedi couldn't believe Palpatine was the Sith Lord because he was right there with almost absolute power and yet Palpatine played it off like he was chosen by the Senate and if the Senate would vote him out he would go willingly (allthough he pretty much owned the whole Senate he knew that would never happen)

Palpatine's force cloak, acting and being very political in his moves made him untouchable. besides should the Jedi think Palpatine was the Sith Lord they would be needing proof otherwise the Republic would go against them.

[asterjaden]

Because he's the Senate and he loved the Republic and Democracy.

[qap]

The Audiobook Labyrinth of Evil covers this topic perfectly (edit: investigation of palpatine being sidious), cutting directly into the start of EP3 at the end of its story, it's absolutely worth a listen.
edit 2: it also perfectly ties in with what the novel is stated to say at 04:05

[jiahgl]

reminds me of the scene where yoda and obi are talking and they mention the silhouette of kamino. everything was pointing to the planet being there except the planet itself wasnt in the archives

[manifesteddestiny.]

He never wore his yellow contacts at work

[Petulant_Kragg]

The fact that he was surrounded by the darkside of the force and that didn't immediately give them thought that he was a sith shows how dumb they really were

[yokai]

A calm voice is easier to bend your will than brute force. A serpent is only as honest as its forked tongue