Darth Sidious

Darth Sidious, born as Sheev Palpatine and also simply known as The Emperor (born 82 BBY on Naboo; died 35 ABY on Exegol), is the main antagonist of the Star Wars franchise.

He serves as the main antagonist of the Skywalker Saga of the Star Wars films, as the overarching antagonist of the 2008 animated stand-alone film Star Wars: The Clone Wars, its 2008-2020 animated TV series of the same name, and the 2014 animated TV series Star Wars Rebels; the unseen overarching antagonist of both the 2016 stand-alone film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and the 2019 video game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and he also appeared as a Lego Minifigure in Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Family

 * Dathan Palpatine (son)
 * Miramir Palpatine (daughter-in-law)
 * Rey Palpatine/Skywalker (granddaughter)
 * Snoke Palpatine (son)

Why He Has "Unlimited Power?!"

 * 1) He is also one of the most iconic villains in movie history, alongside his final apprentice Darth Vader.
 * 2) His proper debut in Return of the Jedi (although he appeared in The Empire Strikes Back, but as a hologram) is so sinister, yet so intimidating.
 * 3) He's an expert manipulator and chessmaster as he was behind nearly every bad thing the happened within the original and prequel trilogies.
 * 4) * In the prequels, he got a corrupt faction (The Separatists) to blockade/invade his backwater homeworld (Naboo) just to get the old leader (Finis Valorum) kicked out and himself elected. Then gets his apprentice Darth Tyranus to start a war (The clone wars) to increase his authority under "wartime powers". Then gets his sworn antitheses to attempt to thwart him so he can declare them enemies of the state and use his "severely disfigured in an attempt on my life" sob story to get enough sympathy to be named dictator for life and declare the foundation of the empire, or in his own words "First Galactic Empire!". While playing both sides of the board, so as to have a backup plan if something went wrong. And that's not even getting into the birth of Darth Vader. Say what you want about the prequel trilogy, but at least Sidious' arc was handled properly. Speaking of which...
 * 5) While the prequel trilogy (especially the first two films) isn't positively received, Ian McDiarmid (along with Ewan McGregor) plays an outstanding performance.
 * 6) He isn't afraid to reveal himself to the Jedi Council, after they found out that he is a Sith Lord.
 * 7) His lines and dialogue; "Do it.", "Did you ever hear The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the wise?", "I am the Senate." or "POWER! UNNNLIMITED POWEEER!" became internet memes.
 * 8) His zombie design also looked sinister but cool at the same time.
 * 9) "Long have I waited...".
 * 10) The tie-in book of The Rise of Skywalker revealed that depiction is simply a clone of him, rather than the Emperor himself, because he was that pity in losing and was inspired by his teacher's (Darth Plagueis) quest for immortality. This concept of him being cloned multiple times was once used in the Legends (officialy non-canonical) comic book series of Dark Empire.
 * 11) And also, he is a great mentor to Darth Maul.

Weak Qualities

 * 1) His hologram in the original release of Empire Strikes Back looked creepy and is just played by an actress pretending to be a man. But, thankfully, it had been improved in the Special Editions.
 * 2) He was sadly butchered in The Rise of Skywalker, as the plot twist surrounding Darth Sidious coming back from the dead was already a horrible idea to begin with, and it renders both the victory of the Rebels, and Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader's sacrifice pointless.
 * 3) * For an evil dark lord who's managed to manipulate the republic, and turn the chosen one evil, he doesn't even know what his plan is. First, he wants Kylo Ren/Ben Solo to kill Rey and succeed in taking over the galaxy, the next, he wants himself to be killed by Rey so his soul will possess her, and make her the Empress, then lastly, drain the life forces of both Rey and Kylo Ren to make him alive and well again.
 * 4) * It is never explained on how he survived after being thrown into the chamber shaft.
 * 5) * He has laughable dialogue like "I am all the Sith!", which rips off Thanos' "I am inevitable" quote from Avengers: Endgame.
 * 6) * The plot twist of him being Rey's grandfather which was not only out of the blue, but was never tackled or hinted in previous films.

Video
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Trivia

 * Ian McDiarmid thought that someone else was playing Palpatine in the prequel trilogy before getting his role reprised for the prequels.
 * 1) * Ironically, McDiarmid reprises his role as Palpatine in Angry Birds Star Wars II, but not in any of the Clone Wars cartoons.