Star Words: Episode III, Part 29

[matril]

After his impassioned account of the foiled Jedi coup, Palpatine has the captivated Senate right where he wants them. Amid overwhelming support, he announces the "reorganization" of the Republic into "the first Galactic Empire." He promises security. He promises safety. There is hardly a dissenting voice amid the clamor of approval.

And Padmé grimly observes:

"So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause."

Lucas has said elsewhere that "democracies aren't overthrown; they're given away." The greatest tragedy of the Republic is that its representatives willingly give up their autonomy and freedom to a heartless tyrant. He uses their fear, mistrust and greed to convince them that giving him greater and greater power would be in their best interest. Like the more personal story of Anakin's fall, a good thing is not destroyed by evil -- a good thing becomes evil. Which makes it a much more potent and horrifying evil.

A functioning democracy is predicated on the idea that we are all willing to listen to each other. As Padmé noted earlier that the war represents a failure to listen, so she notes, in this portentous moment, that the voice of freedom has been drowned out by riotous, deafening cheers. There could not have been a more ironic beginning for an evil, oppressive Empire.

Next, a quote that makes you wonder who really originated a certain point of view...

Comments

[krpalmer]

This line seems to have some wider resonance, although for what can seem ominous, unfortunate reasons. Inside the story itself, there does seem plenty to mull over, if perhaps because "the fall of the Republic" is one thread in a story that to me does seem more a matter of "the fate of the main characters encapsulates the fates of everyone else." The focus and blame does seem on the members of the Senate, although sometimes I think that once they've been presented with the extinction of the Jedi (who might have been expected to cut their way to the centre of any problem and deal with the people at the top), they go ahead and surrender whatever responsibility they still have to someone offering to command military force as a blunter instrument. Anyway, so far as "the common people" go, we have the scenes added to the end of Return of the Jedi showing crowds ready to pour into the streets and celebrate the top-down fall of the Empire.

[matril]

Yes, there are all sorts of real-world situations this line makes me think of, but I thought it wiser to refrain from specifics....

Anyway, yes, the apparent betrayal and/or fall the Jedi must have really shaken the foundations of the Republic. There's little doubt, however, that by the time of the Empire's fall there was a lot more ill will among the populace against the Emperor's obvious tyranny.