To be clear, Palpy’s plan for Rey is:
- Order Kylo to kill Rey.
- Anticipate him both trying to mow her down with his ship. But actually not want to kill her after all.
- Secretly lure Rey to him by means of…Ochi’s Dagger?
- Convince her to kill him by telling her it’s what he wants?
- Send his guards to try and kill Rey in the throne room as she’s about to kill him anyway
- Try to kill Rey anyway once the guards fail to do so
- Resurrect himself…some other way, I guess?
- Rule over a galaxy that he’s completely destroyed.
All of this convoluted nonsense could be avoided if his plan can be retooled to “Kill Rey because she is the last great threat to his return.”
I don’t think so?
The plan was, now that Kylo had realized his potential to be a Sith by killing Snoke, to tell Kylo to go kill Rey. If Kylo kills her, then he further deepens himself into the dark side and will eventually kill Palpatine since he killed Snoke. In this scenario, Palpatine just transfers himself into Kylo like he wanted to do with Luke in ROTJ. Palpatine wins.
The alternate plan was the other route: Rey kills Kylo instead. If she did this, she would’ve fallen to the dark side, gone to kill Palpatine to take the throne, and he would’ve transferred into her. Palpatine wins.
However, he didn’t anticipate Leia and Rey helping Ben turn back to the light side, hence why he tells Pryde “The princess of Alderaan has disrupted my plan”. So he has a new plan! Goad Rey into killing him anyway just like he tried with Luke in ROTJ, who was protected/prevented from doing so by Vader.
However, she resists, Ben joins her, so new plan again! He decides to just sap their life Force and kill them. We don’t really know what this was, although it seems to be based on the original Duel of the Fates script in which Tor Valum teaches Kylo how to sap the living Force energy from plants, so maybe he expected to prolong his life with this. But surprise! They’re a dyad, and this power can not only fully rejuvenate him, but amp him up to the most powerful he’s ever been. Final new plan! Sap the dyad energy and kill them both.
I fully understand why people are frustrated with Palpatine in this movie, but I think it’s great how convoluted it is lmao. I think it fits his character perfectly and is very in-line with his numerous convoluted plans in the prequels.