Why didn't Luke become disfigured when he was electrocuted by the Emperor?

Question

In Star Wars Episode 3 : Revenge of the Sith

As Mace threatens Palpatine, the Sith unleashes a torrent of Force lightning. However, Mace deflects it with his blade, casting much of the energy back into Palpatine's body. He becomes disfigured and ends his assault.

But, at the end of Star Wars Episode 6 : The Return of the Jedi :

On the Death Star, an enraged Palpatine declares that if Luke will not turn to the dark side, he will be destroyed, and uses Force lightning against the young Jedi. He slowly increases the intensity of the lightning, slowly torturing Luke.

Since Luke had such long exposure to Force lightning, even longer the Emperor's exposure, why he didn't became disfigured as him?

Answer 1

There has been a lot of debate over this, but I've always sided with the 'Mask' theory. 'Mask' is a discipline of Sith Alchemy:

A Sith Alchemist could use the Mask to literally reshape an individual's appearance, altering a body at the molecular level. Very little was beyond this technique, limited only by the craftsmanship of the user. Features, age, disfigurations, even species could be concealed with the Mask (though the latter would require an incredible amount of skill to accomplish convincingly). Owing to its molecular nature, the technique lasted until altered, and even a thorough medical examination would not be likely to reveal anything out of place, unlike the tell-tale scars of surgical alterations.

...

The technique wasn't entirely without risk. The process itself could be incredibly painful, and complications from the procedure could result in serious injury or even death. There was also one rarely-encountered oddity with the Mask technique. As it was a product of the dark side of the Force, on rare occasions it would resonate when exposed to powerful blasts of dark side energy. If the subject was not careful, the Mask would literally melt away, horrifically disfiguring the individual and making further attempts at concealment (even with the Mask) difficult.

Now, this was invented for the Starwars Roleplaying game.... But it seems consistent with Lucas' vision; he was a nasty, evil, much-older-than-he-appeared villain, who hid his appearance under a pleasing facade to facilitate his political actions. One of his own evil tricks, reflected back at him, was able to dismiss his disguise.. But he turned this to his advantage by claiming the Jedi had 'disfigured' him.

(Note: The Role Playing Games story (but not stats) are considered 'C-canon.')

Answer 2

The reason the Emperor becomes ugly is because the Emperor was using his force lightning to kill, as opposed to sparking an emotional response. He really just wanted Mace dead as opposed to Dooku or Luke. I think that the Emperor really wanted to take Luke as his apprentice as opposed to Vader, and used his force lightning as more torture to turn him as opposed to killing him out right.

However, he wasn't opposed to killing him because if he didn't turn he was not worthy.

Answer 3

Mace Windu, one of the few practitioners of the lightsaber form Vaapad, allowed his own dark nature into his fighting. In the novelization of Revenge of the Sith, it is at one time suggested that he allows the dark side to flow through him without embracing it. This intense internal struggle allows for a particularly powerful sword technique, but may have also had unintended consequences on the lightning strike.

When Dooku strikes at Yoda with lightning, we see the the master Jedi catch the power, calm and absorb it rather than let it harm him. It is possible, and my personal hypothesis, that when the lightning strike was aimed at Master Windu, he allowed the dark side power to flow through him and out again through his lightsaber as he normally does in his form. This focused energy could have easily had a magnified effect on the Emperor.

Answer 4

Since these are the only two examples (that I'm aware of) of people taking damage from force lightning, I think it could be theorized that the lightsaber had some sort of an effect on it which resulted in the Emperor's disfigurement. Since the lightning that hit Luke was not affected by a lightsaber, he was not disfigured.

An alternate explanation could be that disfigurement only occurs when one is hit with their own force lightning.

Answer 5

Well, even in real life, some people who are hit by lightning become horribly disfigured, while some don't.

Answer 6

Darth Bane was hit by his own force lighting and did not get disfigured.

Answer 7

Arguably, Mace is a strong enemy: Palpatine has to put his all into the Force lightning if he is to have any hope of overcoming the Jedi. Therefore, he is channeling a lot of Dark side Force which is detrimental to the Force user himself. The same thing happens to Luke in the beginning of the Dark Nest crisis when he creates a powerful illusion using both Dark and Light side. For him the effect was temporary, so arguably Palpatine wanted the effect to last -- maybe for intimidation? -- or he pushed so far that he could not reverse it.

Answer 8

In the Plagueis book, Plagueis and Palpatine are able to hide their dark side corruption even from Jedi and holo-recordings. Palpatine simply let he disguise fade away to make it look like Windu was hurting him, and help sway Anakin to intervene on his behalf, thus isolating him form the Jedi, and allowing him to be manipulated into giving into the darkside of the force.

Answer 9

I agree with KHW. I added this explanation on another question I just answered about "Why did'nt Anaj Ventress use Force lighting". I was talking about how the continued use of the dark side makes you ugly in apperance as Palpatines true form was. His human looking kindly old man appearance in the prequels is realy a mask of dark side energy. Here is what I wrote below;

"As others mentioned too, there is the draining of that persons appearance, soul and life force or chi when using the dark side at all, not to mention when throwing force lightning. In other books, it was taught that any use of the dark side eventually casuses the splotching and bruising seen in the Emperors appearance. But in ROTS we saw that in palpatines case, it was because Mace was using Vapaad to repulse the dark side lightning and, along with his lightsaber, send it back towards Palpatine.

I personally thought that Palpatines entire human like appearance was a force mask, and that the lightning simply revealed his true visage. I'm not sure if I read that in ROTS or in another book, but I definitely remember that being a possible explanantion.

In other words, his current decrepit appearance IS his normal appearance through the decades of use of the dark side, and his human looking one was simply an illusion. Luke was also able to totally mask his appearance where others could not tell at all who he was. Only other high level force users were able to tell that Luke was using the force to hide his true form."

Answer 10

And another thing! Notice the emperor didn't steadily electrocute Luke! He shot some then made small rest periods! Even near the end he did it! Also ROTJ is older and the word 'sith' isn't used, so the emperor was supposed to be something special then.... Like a galactic wizard or something of that nature! Although he used the force to unlock Luke's hand cuffs, it was still not enough evidence at the time! The prequels were a good move by Lucasfilm!

Answer 11

Emperor Palpatine wanted to take Luke on as his apprentice and, therefore, didn't want Luke dead, or words to that effect. But remember this. Luke refused to turn to the dark side. And, in response, Emperor Palpatine said, "If you will not be turned, then you will die." Maybe Luke's strong connection to the Force protected him?

Answer 12

It's quite simple: Mace Windu used a lightsaber to reflect the lightning at Sidious, but Sidious simply electrocuted Luke without a lightsaber reflecto or whatever. That's what I think.

Answer 13

ok there are three degrees of force lightning! Torture, Killing, and disfiguring, palpatine was in a bad situation and probably used it out of will of disfiguring because he was being shocked himself! That's my theory!

Answer 14

Luke was just getting tortured he wasn't actually getting killed. The Emperor was just electrocuting him, so he wouldn't actually die he was just getting hurt terribly so luke could change his mind into joining the dark side.