Snoke from the Force Awakens

[Porco Azzurro]

Originally Posted by Roonan

In that assumption, Palpatine didn't kill him. If he didn't kill him, that makes him not only incompetent but careless, which goes against his character.

That’s one way of looking at it. But I disagree. As Luke identified, and was proved correct, his overconfidence was his weakness. He could have wrongly assumed Plagueis was gone. Plagueis was trying to cheat death. That is still one of, if not the, key piece of information we got about Palpatine/Sidious’ master. It doesn’t necessarily make Sidious incompetent or careless if Plagueis managed to stay around in some form and managed to hide from his would-be killer apprentice.

In a way, I think there’d be a beautiful symmetry to Palpatine’s overconfidence as Galactic Emperor if it turned out he had failed due to overconfidence at the inception of his rise to power, just as at its demise.

I think whoever Snoke is, the idea there was this powerful dark sider watching Palpatine’s Empire rise and fall then stepping in to take over is a fascinating one, and I certainly hope there is more to the story revealed in Episode IX. I would personally feel a little disatisfied with Snoke as a character in the sequel trilogy if we don’t learn anything more significant about what his whole deal was by the end of it. They have set up so much, too much I think, to not have some kind of pay-off, even if it is only a scene or two.