Evil in plain sight: The hidden sith

At the end of the 1999 Star Wars movie The Phantom Menace, a young Obi-Wan Kenobi slays Darth Maul, a Sith apprentice working for the Dark Side. Yoda and Mace Windu, knowing that two Siths always exist, set out on a hunt for the mysterious Sith Lord who trained Maul.  When Chancellor Palpatine reveals his identity in Revenge of the Sith, it seems as if the question has been answered. Or has it?

Powerful, coolly calculating, and openly evil, Palpatine seems to be the obvious villain, the searched-for manipulator of the Jedi Council. But there is another, darker force lurking in the background of the Star Wars prequels. Someone so clumsy, obnoxious, and foolish that he could never be perceived as a threat; someone present from the very beginning, watching as events unfold exactly as he had foreseen; someone with latent Dark Side abilities that he kept so carefully contained until the time was right. That someone is Jar Jar Binks.

The Rule of Two could be brought up, an argument that only two Siths are supposed to exist in the galaxy at any one time. However, for fans of the TV show The Clone Wars, we know that this is not quite true. Despite being sliced in half by Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Maul survives this encounter and returns to seek his revenge, and Palpatine’s newest apprentice, Count Dooku, trains a young Sith of his own, the deadly Asajj Ventress, as the war progresses.  With these other Dark Side-users in mind, it is not impossible to theorize that another Sith could have also been present, biding his time.

But was it not Palpatine’s ultimate plan that orchestrated the events of Revenge of the Sith? It was his rise to power, his domination of the Senate that led to his planned execution of the Jedi, resulting in their destruction. 

However, how was it that Palpatine gained the role of Emperor? He needed the permission of the Senate to achieve this control—and who was it who convinced the Senate to pass this tyranny over to Palpatine? Jar Jar himself. Clearly, being adept in the art of the Dark Side, Jar Jar could sense Palpatine’s larger plan. He then played his part in the fall of the Jedi, slipping back into the shadows as the Republic burned.

Unlike Palpatine, Jar Jar never has any need for an apprentice, nor is he ever under a master. This makes it quite obvious that his power goes beyond that of the traditional Sith dynamic, making him more powerful than any Dark Side user who has been seen before. With his fate in the prequel trilogy left ambiguous, he is left waiting in the wings with unlimited power.

All that’s left to do is anticipate Jar Jar’s next appearance in the new canon, which will surely be soon. When his true nature is finally revealed, it will be so apparent that we will all wonder why the Jedi did not put the pieces together far, far sooner.