Luke Skywalker Is Confirmed To Be The Main Factor In Palpatine’s Return in ‘The Rise of Skywalker’
“Your overconfidence is your weakness.”
“Your faith in your friends is yours.”
This classic exchange between Luke Skywalker and Darth Sidious in Return of the Jedi seems to be taking on new meaning with the Emperor’s return in the sequel trilogy. In the recently released tie-in book Secrets of the Sith, Sidious himself explains from his point of view how Luke’s choice to go into exile allowed for his unexpected return. The quote in question reads as follows:
“A self-appointed Jedi Master, the great Luke Skywalker wasted his life attempting to rebuild the fallen Jedi Order. That pathetic dream was shattered when Skywalker’s prize pupil - his nephew, Ben Solo - turned against the Order’s teachings and cut down his fellow students. Skywalker wallowed in self-pity, fleeing into seclusion and abandoning the ways of the Force. His exile allowed me to set in motion the plans for my return.”
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While Palpatine’s return remains controversial among fans, the supplementary material has no doubt been working hard at creating and maintaining a level of cohesiveness between the events of the sequel trilogy and the wider universe of Star Wars. Along with making Luke’s decision a vital part of Sheev’s comeback, this detail from the book also calls back to what the Sith says about Luke in the previously mentioned quote from Return of the Jedi.
Palpatine knew that Ben Solo was on his way to the Dark Side and was counting on Luke’s faith in his friends and family to keep him oblivious to that fact. As Sidious predicted, the Jedi’s trust in his nephew prevented him from acting on his indoctrination sooner. So by the time he finally realized the extent of Palpatine’s influence on the boy, it was far too late.
This tragic aspect of Luke’s role in the story also goes back to Obi-Wan Kenobi’s story in the prequel trilogy. His own need to believe in Anakin Skywalker was one of the many things that ultimately allowed Sidious to corrupt his apprentice as well. Going even further, we can apply this to the Jedi Council themselves, who were unwilling to believe that their former member Dooku had also joined the dark side and was conspiring with Sidious to destroy them. Sidious knows the Jedi are too eager to trust and see the best in people. So much like his fellow Sith, he used that naïveté to his advantage.
Since their inception, the Sith have built their entire philosophy around exploiting and drawing out the very worst aspects of people for their own gain, while the Jedi's philosophy has always been the opposite. So having been trained to sense the darkness within those around him, Sidious was able to see what drew all of his apprentices towards their more selfish impulses and corrupted them, while also using the Jedi's tendency to overlook the flaws of themselves and others in order to keep them from disrupting his plans.
Luke’s unwillingness to suspect his friends and family of turning on him is an inherent character flaw of not just himself, but of the Jedi as a whole. With this knowledge, Sidious was able to use his kindhearted nature against him to bring about the end of everything he had hoped to restore, all the while securing a new apprentice and paving the way for his return to power.
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Source: Screen Rant