Talk:Palpatine/@comment-27525272-20190419175114/@comment-1031724-20190422191738

The original trilogy doesn't go into how much of a dictatorship the Empire is, but the opening sequence says the Empire is evil, and the rebels are freedom fighters, not terrorists or anarchists. The movie mainly just focuses on the war, but lets you know which side is which. Plus the Stormtroopers murdered Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru when they never really did anything directly against the Empire, and the Jawas, implying Palpatine has them trained to do such things. I can't really list destroying Alderaan since that was all Tarkin, but I bet Palpatine wouldn't have disapproved.

Remember how Palpatine came to power. He started the conflict with the Trade Federation and paid the bureaucrats to manipulate Valorum into being unable to handle the situation so that he could become Chancellor. After that, he could have left it as it was, but then he started the Clone Wars by playing both sides again, as a platform to become Emperor, and not caring who has to die in the process. And he lets his loyal apprentices die when they're no longer of use to him. When Anakin defeated Dooku, Palpatine told him to kill him, and when Luke defeated Vader, Palpatine told him the same.

This is just like people who think Gaston is the hero, overlooking the fact that he tried to blackmail Belle into marrying him by threatening to lock Maurice in an insane asylum, boasting that "no one takes cheap shots like Gaston", and that they changed his line "Time to die" to "Belle is mine" to remind us that his motive is purely jealousy for Belle, not what he pretended to the villagers.