Palpatine Admitted The Jedi He Feared Most, And It May Surprise You
Throughout the Star Wars franchise, we have been introduced to many Jedi. Some were renowned for the skills with a lightsaber, some preferred to rely mostly on the Force, but all had their particular skillset. Whilst we saw some of these characters take on the Dark Lord of the Sith, Palpatine, in one-on-one combat via saber and the Force, it turns out there was really only one in particular he feared, and it's someone very few people would have expected, as most forget the character is actually a Jedi.
This information comes to light form the comic series Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith by Charles Soule and Giuseppe Camuncoli, in particular issue #7. Palpatine admits to Darth Vader that the Jedi he actually feared most was none other than Jocasta Nu. "Who?" I hear a lot of you of ask. Well, I'm sure most will recall hearing the name at some point.
Jocasta makes her first appearance way back in Attack of the Clones. She was the elderly lady who helped Obi-Wan as he searched for the planet Kamino, telling him that if it didn't appear in the archives then it didn't exist. Her screentime is very minimal during the film, but, as with a lot of background characters, her backstory would later be built upon via other forms of media, with her also appearing in The Clone Wars show. For those still unsure, this is her:
Now that you remember her, let's actually explain who she was. Jocasta Nu was the Chief Librarian of the Jedi Archives during the last years of the Galactic Republic, and as such acted as caretaker to thousands of years' worth of Jedi Order knowledge and history. If any fellow Jedi required some sort of information, no matter how obscure, she was the person to go to every time.
Her appearance in Episode II was actually used to highlight a big downfall in the Jedi mind frame based on what she said to Kenobi, mentioned previously. Her brashness in automatically dismissing Kenobi's suggestion of the archives being incomplete, showed an extremely high level of arrogance on her part, something the Jedi in general have been criticized for in the past. It's sad this is how she's remembered, considering there is actually a deleted scene in which she and Obi-Wan discuss Count Dooku, taking place just before the scene used in the film. This helped show her in a different light, as she spoke very fondly of the once Jedi Master before his fall to the dark side and seems much more humble.
So why did Palpatine fear her?
Whilst Jocasta wasn't exactly known for skills with a lightsaber or the Force, she did sit on the Jedi High Council at one point, and Palpatine feared her because of her knowledge. Following the issuing of Order 66, Jocasta fled to an isolated planet and began using her knowledge and time to start building new Jedi Holocrons, in the hopes that someone would be able to use them to build a new and stronger Jedi Order. Holocrons contained information from throughout the history of the Jedi Order and, at a time where all skilled Jedi were either dead or in hiding, this posed the greatest threat to Palpatine's plans. Just one of these in the hands of a Force-sensitive youngling, could have had devastating effects for the newly self-crowned Emperor, and he admitted this to Vader when he found out she survived and what she was doing.
In her quest to continue her work, Jocasta made the decision to come out of hiding and return to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant to retrieve a hidden item which prompts Palpatine to send Vader and his newly formed Inquisitors to capture and bring her before him - alive. Jocasta is successful in her mission, retrieving a Holocron containing a list of recently born Force-sensitive children. However, she was tracked down by Vader, who confronted her in the same place he once murdered other of his fellow Jedi.
During the confrontation, Jocasta was able to scan Vader's bio signature and learned the dark truth, that he was in fact Anakin Skywalker. Knowing she could not take him in an actual fight, she began berating the fallen Jedi and reminded him of the atrocities he committed. This only caused Vader to become furious, and so he ended her life. It's interesting to note, however, that Vader made the decision to also destroy the Holocron, preventing Palpatine from getting the information as well.
Despite what happened, her efforts were not in vain. At the end of the story, we get to see the new archive she created is actually found by Luke Skywalker. Following the events of Return of the Jedi, Luke would use her information as the basis to begin his own Jedi school. So even though Jocasta Nu was deemed nothing more than a mere librarian, her acts of preservation would actually go on to aid a brand new generation of Jedi for years to come, making her, truly, a formidable adversary and worthy of Palpatine's fear.
Source(s): Screen Rant