Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine was always one of the most conniving beings in the Star Wars galaxy. The way that he played the long game, set up the perfect plan for revenge and drew Anakin over to the Dark Side was rather impressive. However, his evil machinations may have had a dark twist that no one has taken note of before, and it involves both Anakin’s survival as Darth Vader and Padmé’s death in Revenge of the Sith.
On the volcanic planet of Mustafar, the newly anointed Darth Vader faced off against his former master, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Both master and apprentice were exceptional swordsmen, and years’ worth of combat during the Clone Wars had honed their skills to near-perfection. The fight was fierce, but Anakin’s pride eventually got the better of him, and he failed to heed Obi-Wan’s warning about the high ground. As he flipped through the air, his legs and his sole non-mechanical arm were severed by the blue fire that emitted from the hilt of his master’s lightsaber. Obi-Wan left his former student there, helpless and on the verge of death.
Star Wars fans have come up with multiple theories as to how Vader survived such severe injuries. One is that he used his hate to keep himself alive, similar to what Darth Maul did, and that may have been true for a short period of time. However, the general consensus is that he would have died without the timely approach of Darth Sidious. In fact, many have theorized that Darth Sidious used a type of Force-healing to keep his new apprentice alive long enough for his cybernetics to be installed.
If that’s true, it raises some questions. Recent canon material has shown that Force-healing is a very taxing ability. When Ben Solo brought Rey back to life in The Rise of Skywalker, it actually killed him, and some have theorized that Obi-Wan looks so old in A New Hope because he used the ability to save Luke when the Sand People attacked him. The bottom line is that for Force-healing to work, a Force-user has to give up part of their vitality to save someone else.
With that being said, if Palpatine did, indeed, use Force-healing to keep Vader alive, he didn’t appear to have given enough life force for it to take a toll on him -- and being as close as Vader was to death, Palpatine would have required a lot of energy to keep him alive. That begs the question of where the life force that kept Vader alive did come from, and the answer may help to settle another popular debate about Star Wars' mythology.
So many theories about Padmé’s death have been suggested over the years: a broken heart killed her; childbirth got the best of her; Palpatine killed her to make Vader callous. All of them may have played a part in her death, but Palpatine may have been more involved than was previously thought. Maybe Palpatine found a way to sap Padmé’s life force and give it to Vader. It’s basically Force-healing, but the energy transfer isn’t coming from himself; it’s coming from Vader’s love. If true, this would be a dark twist on a Light Side ability and would fit perfectly into the characterization of the monster that is Darth Sidious.
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