"Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?...It's a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise, he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create...Life. He had such a knowledge of the Dark Side, he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying..."

This moment in Revenge of the Sith was when Anakin Skywalker decided to turn to the dark side of the Force. He had been having visions of Padme's death. To save his wife from certain death, Anakin would join Palpatine in order to learn the dark secrets of the Sith. When we first saw this scene, when Revenge of the Sith first came out in 2005, no one knew the lore of Darth Plagueis the wise. This scene was the first mention of Palpatine’s master in the Star Wars saga. Everyone chalked it up as another one of Palpatine’s cunning manipulations, using this story to lure the Chosen One to the dark side. Knowing his deceitfulness, he could have easily twisted or exaggerated the story to accomplish his goal. In recent developments, it appears that perhaps Palpatine was telling the truth after all. Darth Plagueis may have indeed discovered the secret to defeating death.

We have been getting more details about Marc Sumerak’s new book Secrets of the Sith, which is now available from retailers. The book is written from the point of view of the Sith Lord Darth Sidious/Sheev Palpatine himself, as if he is recording everything he knows about the Sith and the dark side of the Force. Personally, I do not think this book is intended as Palpatine’s way of passing down knowledge to the next generation, as he has no desire to do so. After all, he is planning on living forever.

In addition to Palpatine’s view on the dark side and the Chosen One, the book also talks about how his master, Darth Plagueis, was fascinated with the ancient legends of a Force dyad. Plagueis theorized that this rare and unique Force bond, capable of connecting two Force-sensitive individuals physically and mentally, was the key to keeping someone from death. He believed that his bond would allow the transfer of life force from one individual to the other. After all, the ancient legends said that members of a Force dyad could bring people back from the brink of death. According to Secrets of the Sith, Plagueis even tried to form a Force dyad with his apprentice, Darth Sidious. He also learned to keep someone else from death. However, he was killed by Sidious before he could figure out how to apply this power to himself. Sidious would continue Plagueis’ research, applying his master’s methods as a basis for his process of essence transfer. We would see the successful result of this research on Exegol in Rise of Skywalker. Apparently, Palpatine survived his fall in Return of the Jedi and was able to transfer his life force to a clone body far across the galaxy.

Perhaps we will not be seeing the fruits of Palpatine’s research on immortality in Secrets of the Sith just yet. After all, details of his studies on cloning are still being fleshed out in Star Wars media like The Bad Batch and The Mandalorian.

The fact that Palpatine had been telling the truth about Plagueis’s knowledge adds another layer to Anakin’s tragic fall to the dark side. It appeared that Palpatine held the key to preventing Padme’s death after all, but had no intention of revealing it to Anakin. He was merely using this little tidbit of information to entice Anakin to the dark side. His ultimate goal was simply to prevent someone of Anakin's potential from remaining on the side of the Jedi. This is evident in his treatment of Anakin/Darth Vader after Mustafar. Palpatine kept Darth Vader in a constant state of pain, in a suit of armor which stunted his ability to channel the Force. He also did not pass on any knowledge of the dark side, keeping his so-called apprentice in the dark (no pun intended).

This also shows that Palpatine is a master manipulator. After all, as Benjamin Franklin said, “Half a truth is often a great lie.” Perhaps we should not take his Secrets of the Sith at face value either.

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Source(s): Screen Rant, Wookieepedia

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