Another fanon myth I’m tired of:
“Palpatine did nothing illegal. Being a Sith isn’t illegal! The Jedi technically committed treason.” (Often paired with “the Jedi deserved to be wiped out.”)
Okay. Let’s pretend for a moment that being a Sith — a philosophy built on domination, cruelty, and the pursuit of power through suffering — somehow isn’t illegal because “freedom of religion.”
Fine. Sure. Let’s play that game.
Because being a Sith Lord in the Revenge of the Sith timeline does not mean Palpatine was quietly practicing some edgy Force spirituality in his spare time.
It means he was the secret architect of the Clone Wars.
It means he was the hidden master of Count Dooku.
It means he was the one orchestrating both sides of a galactic war.
And that is treason (and therefore, y'know, illegal).
The Jedi didn’t discover that Palpatine was a Sith. They discovered he was the Sith.
The script is explicit:
ANAKIN: He won't give up his power. I've just learned a terrible truth. I think Chancellor Palpatine is a Sith Lord. MACE WINDU: A Sith Lord? ANAKIN: Yes. The one we have been looking for. — Revenge of the Sith
THE ONE WE HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR.
The Sith Lord who was Count Dooku’s master. Count Dooku — the public leader of the Separatists. The Separatists — the faction the Republic is at war with.
Communicating with enemy leadership during wartime is treason. Secretly leading the enemy while serving as Supreme Chancellor of the Republic? That’s not protected religious expression. That’s high treason on a galactic scale.
This was not “the Jedi arrested him for having different beliefs.”
They moved against the head of state after discovering he was secretly controlling the opposing military force in a galatic-scale war.
And if someone wants to argue that Palpatine’s emergency powers somehow made him untouchable even after admitting to being the hidden mastermind behind the war he was supposed to be fighting (— as if emergency powers include “immunity for secretly running the enemy.”)?
Congratulations. You’ve created a world where treason is the only moral option left — so don’t blame the Jedi for choosing it.
Authoritarian regimes are often perfectly “legal.” That doesn’t make them just. It doesn’t make them right. And it doesn’t mean opposing them is automatically wrong.
The Jedi were not overthrowing a lawful leader because of religion.
They were attempting to stop the secret war criminal who engineered the conflict, manipulated the Senate, and refused to relinquish emergency powers.
And since we’re talking about legality:
You know who else legally seized power? Hitler in Nazi Germany.
If your argument is “technically it was treason,” then you are also arguing that any German who attempted to overthrow Hitler during WWII was “technically committing treason.”
Legality under an authoritarian regime does not define justice.
And if we really want to stretch the comparison — at least Hitler wasn’t secretly running the Allied powers while posing as Germany’s leader. Palpatine was actively directing both sides of the war he was supposed to be fighting.
So no. This was not religious persecution. It was an attempt to stop the architect of a galactic war.
