Star Wars: 3 reasons Palpatine survival doesn’t undo Anakin’s sacrifice
By Josh Sippie
2. He still “beat” him
Maybe Anakin thought he was completely killing his former master by tossing him down an endless shaft full of lightening bolts. (How naive of him.) But even if it didn’t completely kill him, it still beat him.
We all saw Palpatine in The Rise of Skywalker. He was creepy, decrepit, and attached to a life support system that left him in need of a life source. He could not exist on his own. He existed from the background, waiting for his chance to rise the Final Order, but he wasn’t all the way back to life yet.
So while he didn’t really die, he was definitely defeated, and that defeat took him back several spots on the game board to intergalactic conquest.
Not just that, but a lot of what drove the Resistance to victory was seeing that the Rebellion had done it before them. Without that blueprint of hope, would it have gone as successfully? Without Leia and co. around to guide the rekindled version of the Rebellion, would the Resistance have failed?
Who knows. But we can say for certain that Palpatine was defeated. Even if he didn’t die.
Finally, No. 1.