Darth Plagueis

Through Darth Plagueis’s quasi-scientific experiments to manipulate midi-chlorians and achieve immortality, Darth Plagueis critiques the hubris of attempting to dominate the natural order. Although Plagueis obtains the knowledge of immortality he craves, his death acts as a narrative punishment for his attempts to escape the natural order.

Hubris is defined as excessive pride or self-confidence. In literature, it draws on its original Classical Greek meaning of arrogance that defies the authority of the gods, leading to personal retribution and destruction. In the novel—and the wider Star Wars mythology—the Force takes the place of the divine, as a mysterious natural power that supports the physical universe and biological life.

Plagueis’s attempts to escape death reveal his profound arrogance and his fundamental misunderstanding of the Force. In his secret laboratories on Aborah and Sojourn, he conducts cruel experiments on living creatures, viewing them as mere subjects in his quest for knowledge. He treats midi-chlorians, which the Jedi view as symbiotic partners, as “interlopers” (19) to be commanded and controlled. By reducing the Force to a biological process that can be scientifically manipulated, Plagueis seeks to impose his will upon a power that transcends such constraints.