It doesn’t matter. He was a Sith and a force user, and after the Jedi were purged, he didn’t have to hide it anymore. He would, at least from the general public, but he was served by Vader, who was openly a Sith. Well, not openly Sith, Vader likely never used the word Sith, but he would use the force to choke a bitch.
But prequels are often hamfisted in their treatment of character growth over a time skip. As in, they can’t have any growth or change at all from the end of the prequel to the start of the first movie, even if there’s 20+ years in between the two.
As far as i am aware, outside of a handful of jedi and some of his inner council, nobody knows palpatine is a force user, let alone a sith
It doesn’t matter. He was a Sith and a force user, and after the Jedi were purged, he didn’t have to hide it anymore. He would, at least from the general public, but he was served by Vader, who was openly a Sith. Well, not openly Sith, Vader likely never used the word Sith, but he would use the force to choke a bitch.
But prequels are often hamfisted in their treatment of character growth over a time skip. As in, they can’t have any growth or change at all from the end of the prequel to the start of the first movie, even if there’s 20+ years in between the two.