Was Palpatine a king?
Padmé goes from being queen to senator. Likewise, was Palpatine the king of Naboo before he became the senator?
shareNo, Palpatine was Naboo’s Senator before becoming Supreme Chancellor.
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MovieChat Forums > Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) Discussion > Was Palpatine a king?
Padmé had the honor of becoming a Senator to represent Naboo in the Galactic Senate because it was a request made by Queen Jamilia, who became Queen after Padmé's 2 terms (8 years) were up. Padmé actually told Anakin that she had planned on following a quieter career track, but when the Queen requested her for the job, she couldn't refuse. Plus, the job was open after Senator Palpatine won the [no doubt rigged] election to become Supreme Chancellor. Naboo needed a representative, and Padmé was ideal for the job.
It is not a requirement for anyone from Naboo to be elected royalty first before becoming a senator. Palpatine himself started out as a commoner and followed a career in politics from the beginning (as well as secretly studying to become a Sith Lord).
Naboo did have a king once, but the only one mentioned was the guy who came before Padmé was elected: King Varuna. He had ruled Naboo for 13 years before it was discovered he had become corrupted and was doing illegal stuff under the table, forcing the people of Naboo to remove him from office, and change the laws to limit how long an elected king or queen could rule.
If you ignore those shitty books written by E.L. Johnson, an elected king or queen's term on Naboo was 4 years, and they could only run for king or queen twice, meaning they could only rule for 8 years maximum (sound familiar?)
The "Elect a Monarch" thing was one of the weirder/dumber aspects to the prequels' politics. Making the term structure exactly the same as that of the USA puts it into the lazy category, too.
shareIt is kinda dumb, and something of a contradiction, considering monarchs are not the same as presidents.
There could be a historical context we could use for this, though. Naboo's political history is very different from Earth's. For one thing, humans had only lived on that planet for 200 years before the events of Episode I. The Gungans were the original inhabitants, living for thousands of years in small city-states both on land and underwater, indicating that humans immigrated there later on.
I think for a time, they had hereditary kings and queens ruling that planet until they learned how much more practical it was to give the regular people a voice and adopt some aspects of democracy, particularly after joining the Republic. So in a way, electing their kings and queens was a step forward, as well as limiting how long their rule was.
I was never much of a Star Wars novels person, so I didn't know most of that.
Yes, the Naboo might easily have a system where they refer to an elected official as a monarch, but it would be interesting to know more about that. Like, are they basically just voting in a dictator every time? Or is there more to it than that? This is one of the ways I thought the prequels bungled up big time: they'd reference things or do something weird (vote for monarchs, Jedi can't get married, etc.) but then never dive into it at all. There was never any "why" or "how does that work" and as a result the whole thing feels slapdash. Stuff like this is why I've never belonged to the camp that likes the prequels for their "worldbuilding"; it's shoddy worldbuilding.
Even within that backstory about the Naboo and the Gungans: the planet is called "Naboo", not "Gunga". Nobody brings that up. Not one Gungan says anything about it. You'd think Jar-Jar might go, "Dis planet no callin' it 'Naboo', 'tis Gunga!" It'd give more of a backstory and make the political tensions on that planet more interesting. And Heaven forbid that Lucas have tied in the blockade with that! Like, if he made the sanctions against Naboo coming from some "Gungan rights" group. That would have made things morally grey and maybe too interesting. Of course, that could have led to dozens of problems with connecting it to the OT.
All that makes sense about this progression out of monarchy, but the fact that some writer made it line up with US politics is really, really lazy at best. At worst, it could mean that the writer is trying to cram some ham-fisted real world political allegory into Star Wars (imagine how much that would suck, right, Disney?) or that the writer was just completely ignorant of any system other than the USA's.
George Lucas was also into using symbolism in his stories, as well as taking inspiration from the real world. It was also important to know that Leia's real birth mother had royal ties, though they weren't by blood.
I believe there was some cultural friction between the humans and the Gungans that had been going on for those 200 years, though because of the Naboo people's mostly peaceful nature, it was mostly just arguing and ostracizing, no actual conflict with weapons, battles, and casualties. It could be Lucas took inspiration from the white settlers and native Americans in writing the conflict between humans and Gungans on Naboo.
He most certainly took inspiration from our modern politics, as well as historical limited monarchies to describe how rulers were kept in check on Naboo as well. While kings and queens of the planet did have a say in how to do things during their terms, their power was not absolute. They couldn't do anything without approval from the Council and the people of Naboo themselves, nor did they have jurisdiction over the Gungans. If they sucked at their job, they would be removed from office, and an emergency election would be held.
What's interesting about the humans of Naboo, is that they have an unusually high number of child prodigies, which is why they had no problems with teenagers running for office. They got their kids started on very mature, adult jobs early in life because they could psychologically handle it. I'm guessing it's because of this, that they chose to remain a peaceful society, due to the wisdom of more intelligent people in the populace. The trouble is, as we saw with Episode I, more aggressive factions could take advantage of this.
Well, yes, Lucas did allude to things directly or indirectly. He did this a heckofa lot better in Star Wars, though, than he did in the prequel films. And there's a big difference between an allusion and just copy-pasting US governmental policy into a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
I love stuff like the medieval knight symbolism that Lucas used. Star Wars is a medieval Romance complete with a Black Knight (Lord Vader) and a dragon (the Death Star). He plays with it (the damsel isn't in that much distress, since she's the one who actually blasts their way out of the detention area), but he also leans into it. That's what makes Star Wars so great, in my opinion, is that it resurrects ancient myths and retells them beautifully.
If Lucas took inspiration from settlers and Native Americans, then things certainly couldn't be bloodless. And, again, none of this is in the film. We know that there are tensions between the two peoples, but we don't know much more than that. In fact, Obi-Wan says that they form a symbiont circle. We're basically told they can't survive one without the other, yet Boss Nass doesn't tell Obi-Wan to crack a history book and learn that the Naboo are new to the planet and can screw off any time without the Gungans giving a fig about it.
It doesn't matter if Lucas, or any expanded universe writers, carefully crafted this huge backstory full of complexity and socio-political manoeuvring - none of it is in the film, and is in fact, apparently contradictory.
I know he took inspiration from modern politics, but its the terminology blend that makes it weird and begs for further clarification. "You don't vote for kings," as Arthur once said to an anarcho-syndicate commune living peasant. If Amidala was a queen with a council, I'd go, "Okay, that's a Monarchy". If she was a queen with an elected group co-ruling, I'd go, "Okay, it's a Constitutional Monarchy," like in the UK. But when I find out they voted for the queen, that's a contradiction and I want to know (a lot) more.
All that about the Naboo having unusually high numbers of prodigies is interesting, but they don't speak of it in the film. The teenage queen Amidala just looks like any other young ruler until we find out they voted her in. None of her council members are young. They all look like standard-issue councillors.
As to the peacefulness, that's interesting until they've got enough fighters to take out the droid control ship (with a little help from Anakin), so we're told one thing (they're peaceful, they can't fight back) and shown another (they can fight back just fine).
Keep in mind that there's only so much information you can fit into a 2-hour movie. If they included info on all the planets and introspection, Episode I would have been 5 hours long.
Much of what I've written was added through books and expanded lore that was written about the different planets and cultures in that galaxy. There are also computer games that expanded on this as well. These books and computer games were originally approved by Lucasfilm, and were considered canon until Disney took over. Many Star Wars fans still consider the "Legends" stuff to be true SW canon and the Disney crap is completely ignored.
I get that, but some films manage to get a tonne of information out through action and character in such a way that they never have to slow down to give us a sense of the worlds. The Phantom Menace doesn't feel like that to me. I'd point to the original Star Wars, or the films of Hayao Miyazaki, where we often get very little information about these worlds in terms of dialogue, but we get such a sense of a rich, deep place with its history and rules and environs, usually communicated through gesture, circumstance, and plot as much as with dialogue.
With TPM, there's usually enough given to float the plot (there's a trade dispute) but not enough for it to make sense (details are withheld that we might like to know to get a sense of what's going on). Red Letter Media pointed this out when they talked about Naboo being a lush, bountiful planet full of peaceful harmony despite the blockade. We don't see the effects of the blockade, really. That's a wasted opportunity to show us what's going on. They also talk about Coruscant remaining basically unchanged throughout the years-long, galaxy-spanning war. If we don't see the effects of the politics and cultures, we never get a good sense of the world.
I don't need every detail, but I'd like enough to have a full picture and a sense of the world beneath. With TPM, I just get a sense that it was slapped together and made up as Lucas went along. Now, that might not be true, but that's the sense I get. Whenever I reread Lord of the Rings, I always feel like the lore in the book hints to even greater histories, and it all feels like travelling through a real world. TPM has contradictions within itself that, because we aren't shown why they're there, wind up feeling odd. We never see the symbiosis of the Gungans and the Naboo. We're told, not shown. We're shown an elected monarch (although, do they say she's elected here or in Attack of the Clones? Can't remember), but that's not expanded on in such a way where it makes sense.
Padme was a queen before a senator, therefore Palpatine must have been the same.
Are you an adult? Like really? This is how you form opinions?
He was more than a King, he was a Palpatato !
No, Palpatine was Naboo's senator, its representative to the galactic government. He reported to the 14-year-old queen, and what the hell kind of a brilliant adult politician wouldn't have a problem with that? What a ridiculous system of government that was - electing little kids into ultimate office!
No wonder he decided to use any means necessary to change things.
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Banishing Jar Jar almost makes him a good guy.
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