Star Wars: Every Character Raised By Palpatine (In Canon & Legends)

Palpatine, aka Darth Sidious, was the ultimate villain in the Star Wars franchise, and in addition to ruling the galaxy for a time, he also raised several notable characters in canon and Legends. Palpatine embodied the malice and power of the Sith Order, training numerous apprentices throughout his Sith Lordship. In many cases, Palpatine raised such apprentices, taking them from their families during their early childhood, not unlike the old Jedi Order. In each of the two continuities, Palpatine had at least one literal child who he didn’t necessarily train as a Sith apprentice but left a significant impact on, as he did for his adopted children. Palpatine is, unsurprisingly, a cruel person, both as a father and leader, but most of the characters he raised ended up leaving the Sith, choosing to be kind and altruistic.

Palpatine’s full origin was explored in Expanded Universe non-movie material before Lucasfilm rebranded it as Legends and made the once-official continuity into an alternate timeline. The 2012 novel, Darth Plagueis, explores Palpatine’s upbringing on Naboo, including his animosity towards the rest of his family that eventually resulted in him murdering them all as part of his initiation into the Sith Order. Needless to say, the novel depicts Palpatine as extremely dangerous and violent, even at a young age. Whether or not his Legends-era origin is, in the broad strokes, part of the post-2014 canon timeline, Palpatine’s children all ended up turning against him in both continuities, unsurprisingly.

While Palpatine was undoubtedly an extremely powerful dark side practitioner, his strength alone wasn’t what made him the galaxy’s most lethal Sith Lord. Palpatine was a shrewd manipulator, shaping galactic history with his machinations and serving as the brains behind other brilliant beings, such as Count Dooku. As much as Palpatine passed his knowledge of the dark side and lethal fighting skills on to his children, he also imparted his wisdom. Some of Palpatine’s children went on to regularly demonstrate a keen intellect and a dangerously callous penchant for treachery and Machiavellian tactics. Whether they used their skills for the good of others or more malicious goals, each character who Palpatine raised was imparted with his wisdom and power in some form.

Darth Maul (Canon & Legends)

Once an ordinary Zabrak from Iridonia, the Force-sensitive boy who would become Darth Maul was taken from his family by Palpatine and raised as a member of the Sith Order. Maul’s upbringing under Palpatine was extremely cruel, with the elder Sith indoctrinating him in the draconian Sith philosophy, regularly traumatizing him. As a result, Maul grew up to become a ruthless and coldly focused assassin who relished in bloodshed, focusing on the martial aspects of Sith Lordship above all else. Maul also inherited his adopted father’s ultimate weakness: his overconfidence. Maul underestimated the padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi during the Invasion of Naboo, a mistake that proved fatal when Obi-Wan bisected the Sith Lord.

Canon retconned Maul into surviving his duel with Obi-Wan, along with his origin. Canon’s Maul was a Dathomirian Nightbrother who resurfaced during the Clone Wars to menace both warring factions. In canon, Maul is characterized far more similarly to Palpatine taking over various underworld organizations and orchestrating chaos within only a few short years, becoming a crime kingpin with far-reaching influence. Like his adopted father, Maul felt no remorse in betraying his allies for the sake of his survival or ascension, as demonstrated during the Siege of Mandalore. Maul also worked alongside his brother, Savage Opress, following the way of the Sith and the Rule of Two, despite no longer being an official member of the order.

Mara Jade (Legends)

Similar to Darth Maul, the fan-favorite Legends-era character, Mara Jade, was taken from her family by Palpatine due to her incredible Force-using potential being trained and raised as a Sith, despite breaking the Rule of Two. Mara never received a Darth title, since she wasn’t an official part of the Sith Order like Maul, being known as an Emperor’s Hand. Mara served as Palpatine’s assassin, but most beings (aside from Vader and her adopted father) believed she was simply an Imperial aristocrat. Upon Palpatine’s first death, the Empire fractured into various sub-factions, each led by an Imperial Warlord. The secrecy of Mara’s true nature rendered her an enemy of Ysanne Isard’s Imperial faction and the Dark Lady Lumiya’s renewed Sith Order.

After leaving the Empire and working as a smuggler for Talon Karrde, Mara eventually rejected the dark side and became a Knight in Luke’s New Jedi Order, having become disillusioned with her father upon learning that there were other Emperor’s Hands. In addition to having lethal fighting skills, Mara was also and pragmatic problem-solver whose keen intellect was cultivated by Palpatine. Mara navigated through the deadly puzzle-laden Sith Temple on Dromund Kaas and defeated a corrupted Kyle Katarn by forcing him into a situation where he’d reject the dark side’s influence. Perhaps Mara’s greatest feat was overcoming a suggestion her father planted in her mind during the Thrawn Crisis. Struggling with a subconscious command to kill Luke Skywalker, Mara followed the suggestion without harming the real Luke, killing a mindless clone of him instead.

Triclops (Legends)

Triclops is Palpatine’s biological son in the Legends continuity, appearing in three of the Jedi Prince novels. Few concrete details are known about Triclops, but he was the son of Palpatine and Sly Moore, an Umbaran woman and Palpatine’s only known romantic partner. Possibly born on his mother’s homeworld of Umbara, Moore died giving birth to Triclops, and the human-Umbaran hybrid was raised among the Prophets of the Dark Side (a Sith splinter religion), where Palpatine intended his son to become an Emperor’s Eye with refined dark side powers of divination. Despite his parentage, Triclops lacked strength in the Force and was discarded by his father, becoming a slave in the Spice Mines of Kessel. During this time, Triclops met and fell in love with a former Jedi, and their son would grow up to join Luke Skywalker’s New Jedi Order, a fitting retaliation for Palpatine’s unbridled cruelty.

Rey’s Father (Canon)

Palpatine had no genuine biological children in canon, but he did create a strand-cast on the Unknown Regions world of Exegol sometime after his first death. His unnamed strand-cast son was intended to be both Palpatine’s legacy and a potential host for his spirit, but the boy had no connection to the Force and was deemed a failure, similar to the Legends timeline’s Triclops. This similarly backfired, as Palpatine’s son escaped Exegol, leaving his father and the Sith behind in favor of normal life and a family. The strand-cast’s daughter, Rey, was extremely strong in the Force and was instrumental in both the revival of the Jedi Order and the ultimate defeat of Palpatine at the end of the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

About The Author

David Miller
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David Miller is a staff writer for Screen Rant, indie comic writer, and life-long lover of all things Star Wars, Marvel, and DC. He was born and raised in New York and has a degree in English from Rider University. He relates to Peter Parker maybe a little too much.

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