In the Star Wars universe, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) was left unscathed by force lightning, but Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) wasn’t so lucky. The evil Sith Lord’s face became heavily scarred when he was a victim of it in Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. Force lightning is a favorite weapon of dark side users, though it was also used by Rey (Daisy Ridley) in Rise of Skywalker.
But the first and most notable character to use force lightning is of course Palpatine, who employed it against Luke in Return of the Jedi. In the movie, Palpatine took pleasure in repeatedly blasting the young Jedi with it. The prequel trilogy later revealed this ability is actually the reason why Palpatine’s face looks the way it does. In Revenge of the Sith, Mace Windu successfully redirected a force lightning blast back at Palpatine, thus damaging his face beyond repair. Palpatine kept this disfigured look up until the end of his Star Wars story.
Palpatine being scarred by it but Luke’s appearance not being affected at all has caused speculation about why only one of them was mutilated by it. Numerous theories have attempted to explain this, among them being the idea the force lightning just exposed what years of succumbing to the dark side had done to Palpatine. Another theory is he purposely allowed the lightning to scar him so that he could appear more sympathetic to Anakin (Hayden Christensen). However, the explanation that makes the most sense is also the most obvious: Palpatine probably used a stronger, more concentrated attack on Mace Windu than he did on Luke.
This scenario seems likely, given what is known about both situations. In Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine was in what could be described as a state of desperation. He was losing to Windu, who had already beaten him in a lightsaber duel. Seeing he was about to die unless he did something to stop it, Palpatine unleashed all the power he could muster at his opponent. That’s in contrast to what happened in Return of the Jedi. He was fully in control of the fight when he was blasting Luke. Instead of trying to outright kill his enemy, Palpatine just used enough force lightning to torture him for his entertainment.
Not only that, but Luke didn’t have to endure it for as long as the Sith Lord. What this means is that Luke not being disfigured in the same way Palpatine was isn’t an inconsistency or a Star Wars plot hole like several fans have argued over the years. Instead, it seems perfectly logical that the evil emperor was only scarred by the attack because he received the full brunt of his own power.
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