Generations of Star Wars fans -- to say nothing of George Lucas -- believed for the better part of 36 years that Emperor Palpatine met his end in Return of the Jedi, when Darth Vader hurled his master into the reactor shaft of the Death Star II, which was then destroyed by those meddlesome Rebels. Expanded Universe aside, that indeed appeared to be the case, until The Rise of Skywalker revealed he not only survived those event but secretly had been playing the galaxy's puppet master. Unfortunately, however, the film skimps on the details, leaving most of the true revelations to the upcoming novelization.
Leaks from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Expanded Edition, by Rae Carson, have already confirmed the Palpatine in the film was a clone, explained how Rey gave Kylo Ren the lightsaber, and revealed his final words. Now add to the list what actually happened after Palpatine was betrayed by his apprentice in Return of the Jedi's final act.
Posted on reddit, the passage details the Emperor's memories of the moment, which flood into Rey's mind:
Falling ... Falling ... Falling ... down a massive shaft, the betrayal sharp and stinging, a figure high above, black clad and helmeted and shrinking fast. His very own apprentice had turned against him, the way he himself had turned against Plagueis ... whose secret to immortality he had stolen.
Plageuis had not acted fast enough in his own moment of death. But Sidious, sensing the flickering light in his apprentice, had been ready for years. So the falling, dying Emperor called on all the dark power of the Force to thrust his consciousness far, far away, to a secret place he had been preparing. His body was dead, an empty vessel, long before it found the bottom of the shaft, and his mind jolted to a new awareness in a new body -- a painful one, a temporary one.
Although the Emperor had planned on Vader's inevitable betrayal, the moment arrived sooner than expected: "The secret place had not completed its preparations. The transfer was imperfect, and the cloned body wasn't enough. Perhaps Plagueis was having the last laugh after all. Maybe his secret remained secret. Because Palpatine was trapped in a broken, dying form."
That explanation is strikingly similar to the one in Star Wars: Dark Empire, the 1990s Dark Horse comics series now relegated to Legends. There it was revealed Palpatine survived his apparent death in Return of the Jedi by transferring his essence ... into the body of an old, decaying clone. He purportedly had experimented with the process for years, his spirit hopping from one body to another, cheating immortality through a combination of dark power and technology. (It was later clarified the Palpatine depicted in the films wasn't a clone.)
These new details from the novelization flesh out the clone revelation (so to speak), while bolstering the mystique of Plagueis and confirming the Sith Rule of Two makes the apprentice's betrayal of his master inevitable. It's no wonder, then, that Palpatine was likely planning to murder Vader.
At the same time, they will undoubtedly cue another chorus of groans from disappointed fans who wonder why such plot details couldn't have just been included in The Rise of Skywalker. The film, not the novelization.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Expanded Edition goes on sale March 17.