Special thanks go out to ps77 and va2 for the entries that brought all sorts of thoughts to the forefront. To better understand what I'm saying here, check out their entries first if you haven't yet read them. The issue at hand here is why Palpatine appears to be ignorant of Padme's pregnancy. He certainly appears to spend no time or resources verifying that the baby did indeed die with Padme. Why would Palpatine, who has spent so much time and effort into taking over the galaxy, not worry about the possibility of one Jedi offspring who could ruin the whole thing?

I think a line from Disney's Sleeping Beauty best explains my line of answer here. In discussing how to hide Princess Aurora from Maleficent, one of the good fairies worries that they'll be unable to Aurora from Maleficent because she knows everything. Fauna(I think) then points out that Maleficent knows nothing of love, joy, and kindness.

As the Dark Lord of the Sith, Palpatine knows nothing of love, joy, and kindness. Those very notions are incomprehensible to the dark side because all that matters is power. You can delude yourself into thinking you're doing it for some noble cause ala Anakin Skywalker and Jacen Solo, but in the end, you're really doing it because you want power. Selfishness is at the very core of what it means to be a Sith.

Love and kindness are ideas that spring forth from the very heart of the light side, defined as compassion by George Lucas. And herein lies the foundation of Palpatine's blindness. On a logical level, he's aware of where babies come from, but on an emotional level, he cannot understand what brings a husband and wife together. Like Maleficent, he knows nothing of love and kindness. He cannot understand what it is like to love another person more than yourself because he has spent his entire life in building himself up. He uses others to get what he wants.

But love is different. Love means putting your wants and desires aside at times. Hererin, lay Anakin's fateful flaw. He put his own desires to save Padme ahead of simply being there for her. Even after she told him she just wanted his love, he insisted on getting power. I'm thoroughly convinced that if Anakin had given her his love and not run off to get power that she survives.

Palpatine does not and cannot comprehend any of this. Unwilling to love, he does not know the power that love can have. As Matt Stover wrote so eloquently in Revenge of the Sith, love is the answer to the darkness. It makes no sense to him that Luke would throw aside his lightsaber and risk his life. Palpatine thinks that death is the end, so the only way to have eternal life is to keep from dying. With this dark perspective in mind, Palpatine cannot comprehend how Luke would throw his lightsaber away and risk death. He does not know or realize that death is a part of life, and that life continues on the other side.

For Luke, this moment is about staying true to your beliefs. He loves his father, in spite of the things Vader has done. Luke knows that if he strikes his father down, he will betray his very notion that his father could change. In striking his father down, Luke would also destroy the good man that Obi-Wan remembers and that his mother married. Luke would become judge, jury, and excutioner, and he's not about to do that.

Love is about putting someone else's needs in front of your own. The Broadway adpation of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables explains this idea so well. To love another person is to see the face of God. And so Luke will not sacrifice his father in order to gain more power. Palpatine does not realize what it feels like to love, and so he seeks now to destroy the only real threat to his power that's out there. But it's too late. Luke has allowed his father another chance to love again. And this time Vader decides to love. Letting Luke die would have preserved his power for a time, but now he understands that power is fleeting. It's also meaningless when compared to love. He chose power over Padme and learned that he had lost the one thing that he desired most. Love. Now, he chooses love and in so doing, is able to rest in peace. He feels love again, not just from Luke, but from old friends long gone, and his beloved wife, whose son has pulled him from the pit.

But none of this makes any sense to Palpatine. He seeks to conquer fear through accumulating power and in turn being feared. But this accumulation of power does not conquer fear. It merely gives an illusion of control over fear. Love, on the other hand is different, because it gives you the the strength and courage to overcome fear. In Sleeping Beauty, Prince Phillip had the courage to fight Maleficent because he loved Princess Aurora. Her overwhelming powers didn't deter him because he was more concerned about saving her than himself. In Star Wars, Luke triumphed because he was more concerned about saving his father than himself, proving once again that true love and compassion conquer all.

Comments as always are welcome, and in case you care to read more about my thoughts about Sleeping Beauty, you can click here.