“You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself
become the villain.”
That is considered one of the greatest cinematic quotes of
all time and it rings of truth. It speaks to how eventually a hero becomes
tiring. Flaws are picked out and skeletons drug out of the closet. If there is
anything that people love more than a hero, it is to see that hero fall. And
perhaps the greatest example of a hero falling from grace into the depths of
darkness is the tale of Anakin Skywalker.
He was first introduced as Darth
Vader, one of the most iconic villains ever, in the original Star Wars movies.
He personified evil and radiated terrible power. His chilling, mechanical
breathing and his penchant for using the Force to choke his underlings made
tremors travel. The deep and powerful voice of James Earl Jones emanated out of
his vocabulator and caught you in its menacing grip.
But within the three movies
there was information that laid the groundwork for a sad and tragic story. It
was revealed that Darth Vader was once Anakin Skywalker, a Jedi Knight who was
seduced by the dark side of the force. Anakin helped to hunt down and
extinguish the Jedi Order. For a long time after the original films there was
always a question of WHY Anakin had turned and done such an evil thing. What
could have caused such a transformation?
In the late 90s George Lucas saw the opportunity to tell the
backstory of Anakin’s fall from grace and in 1999, Star Wars Episode 1: The
Phantom Menace was released. It was the first of a three-movie trilogy, just
like the originals.
However, even though it chronicled the rise and fall of
Anakin, it didn’t really do his story justice. Anakin in the films was
portrayed as more of a whiney brat and it kind of tarnished how many people
viewed the legend of Darth Vader as one of cinemas greatest villains.
There was
plenty of opportunity there to tell one of the most tragic stories ever created
but George Lucas dropped the ball big time. However, there was some material
that bore succulent fruit from this new Star Wars renaissance. The Extended
Universe of books (which has now been discontinued by Disney, those pompous
bastards) was simply amazing.
For many years the books had been continuing the
story of Star Wars after the defeat of the Emperor and the Empire but now we
had copious amounts of books that were being pumped out about the time before
the Empire and well beyond, extending back tens of thousands of years. And it
was here that the story of the fall of Anakin Skywalker was described in
glorious though deeply sad detail.
The movies would have you believe that
Anakin’s fall happened relatively quickly and with few incidents contributing
to it. That is far from the truth and that is why I am going to go into detail.
There is so much more to this story than just Anakin’s fall. There was also the
complicated union of him and Padme.
There was his brotherhood with Obi-Wan
Kenobi that transcended the Jedi Code. There was the scrutiny and distrust that
came from Yoda and Mace Windu. There were the deaths of numerous friends and
acquaintances. There were the enemies he faced like Asajj Ventress and Count
Dooku, who taunted and seduced him with dark side techniques. The death of his
mother was the primary catalyst for his fall because it led to him slaughtering
a whole village of sand people. But ultimately, it is the manipulations and
schemes of the Sith Lord, Darth Sidious, that presided over everything and
helped to orchestrate Anakin’s turn to the Dark side.
To understand what happened with Anakin we must start with
his childhood while also understanding the different philosophies of the Jedi and
Sith orders. In the Jedi Order children are identified with having force
potential by measuring their midi-chlorian count. Normally, parents of a child
would willingly offer them to the Jedi to be tested, knowing that if the child
qualified they would most likely never see or speak to the again.
The Jedi code
requires a release of all emotional attachment and having contact with family
is prevented. The Sith are far different in their philosophy. They do not
discriminate in age. They simply look for someone with force potential,
especially within the Dark side. So, here you have a young Anakin Skywalker. He
encountered Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi at the age of 9, with the former
immediately recognizing him as unique to the point where he had his blood
tested for Force aptitude.
When the results came back that Anakin had the
highest midi-chlorian count ever recorded, Qui-Gon concluded that Anakin might
be the Chosen One of the prophecy to restore balance to the Force and resolved
to have him trained as a Jedi.
Now, this was a crucial moment and decision.
Anakin was far beyond the age of where Jedi normally recruit into their ranks
and for reason. He’d already been exposed to hardships and interactions that
would have given him the full experience of emotions like hate, jealousy, greed
and fear. Those emotions were firmly engrained in him and it would be dangerous
to try and train him as a Jedi from this point.
The Jedi Order, more
specifically the Jedi Council including Yoda and Mace Windu, were vehemently
opposed to training Anakin as a Jedi. They could sense the danger in initiating
training in someone who was his age. Keep note, that the biggest fear they
sensed in him was the prospect of losing his mother. From that you can garner
that loss was always Anakin’s biggest fear. We will touch more on that later.
Now to backtrack a little bit, I mentioned that Anakin was
found by the Jedi at age 9, right? So that begs the question how did they not
met him earlier on in life when he obviously had such colossal Force potential.
For one, Anakin was born on Tatooine, which was a planet in the Outer Rim
territories. The Outer Rim is a ring of star systems with “back water” planets
that is far from the Inner Rim, where the galactic capital of Coruscant, the
home of the Jedi Temple, resides.
What this means is that the chance of Anakin
meeting Jedi was astronomical at best and most likely was the will of the
Force. Many people can probably recall Shmi Skywalker, his mother, recanting
that Anakin didn’t have a father. She carried him and gave birth. How? This is
where Darth Sidious aka Emperor Palpatine begins to weave his way into the life
fabric of his future apprentice.
About a decade before Anakin met Quit-Gon and
Obi-Wan, Palpatine and his then Sith master, Darth Plagueis, were conducting
experiments through meditation in the Force. They shifted the Force and tipped
it towards the Dark side after months of intense meditation. Darth Plagueis had
long had a goal of being able to manipulate the midi-chlorians to control life
and death.
Plagueis tried to take his powers even further and reached out to
the midi-chlorians across the galaxy to gain dominance over them, but the Force
resisted his efforts. In response, the midi-chlorians conceived a child within
Shmi Skywalker. Sidious wasn’t aware of Anakin’s existence until many years
later but this goes to show that prior to his Jedi indoctrination, the Sith had
unwittingly contributed to his life.
So, we come back to the present. Anakin has been presented
to the Jedi Council by Qui-Gon for testing and afterwards they deem Anakin is
too old for training. They, particularly Yoda, sense much fear inside of him.
They forbid Qui-Gon from training him as a Jedi. Qui-Gon takes Anakin under his
wing anyway.
During the Battle of Naboo, Qui-Gon is killed by Darth Maul and
makes Obi-Wan promise to train Anakin as a Jedi. This is a CRUCIAL loss.
Obviously, this hurt Anakin emotionally because Qui-Gon freed him and helped
guide him towards the path of the Jedi but Qui-Gon was also possibly the only
Jedi that could have properly trained him and kept him from falling to the Dark
side.
The Jedi are so rigid in their doctrine that they didn’t realize that
someone like Anakin would have to be trained differently due to his prior
experiences instead of being forced to conform to the traditional training.
Qui-Gon, being somewhat of a maverick Jedi Master, would have recognized this.
It is also to be noted that during this time Anakin developed an infatuation
with Queen Amidala (Padme) of Naboo. He told her that one day he was going to
marry her, showing the ability of foresight/premonition that would eventually
help cause his downfall.
The Jedi are forbidden to love as emotional attachment
can be a path to the Dark side. In addition, after the Battle of Naboo was won
and the Trade Federation defeated, Darth Sidious (known as Senator and then
Chancellor Palpatine) took note of Anakin’s abilities and began to suspect his
Force potential. So, heading into his Jedi apprenticeship Anakin was already weighed
down with many different factors that could lead him down the wrong path.
The next major phase of Anakin’s rise and descent was about
10 years later when Obi-Wan and he were tasked by the Jedi Council to protect
Senator Padme (formerly Queen Amidala) from assassination attempts that were
being headed by the deadly Jango Fett.
Several different forces were at play
here. Firstly, it was Palpatine who requested to the Jedi Council that Obi-Wan
and Anakin be placed as bodyguards to Senator Padme. He knew of Anakin’s
affections for Padme since he had adopted the guise of a doting uncle to Anakin
in the years since the Battle of Naboo.
He strategically placed Anakin and
Padme directly on the same path because of the internal strife he knew it would
cause given how Anakin felt about Padme. It was a masterful manipulation by
him. Anakain and Padme end up giving in to their feelings with each other that
results in intimate moments.
Secondly, the connection between the Jedi and the
Force had been growing increasingly murky due to the influence of the Sith and
the Dark side. It had caused them to become suspicious of their allies as well
as to monitor the progress of Anakin closely.
While many Jedi believed Anakin
to be the Chosen One, the Jedi Council wasn’t entirely convinced, especially
with him being trained contrary to traditional practices. Mace Windu and Yoda,
in particular, had misgivings about Anakin, more so than the other Masters.
Thirdly, and this is probably the most important point, Palpatine had already
been injecting himself into Anakin’s life for years. Taking the role of a
kindly uncle who provides guidance and insight. This allowed him to directly
challenge the Jedi doctrine that was being taught to Anakin in a subtle way.
The conversations would put seeds into Anakin’s mind that made him question
himself and the Jedi.
Then we have what was probably Anakin’s first major step
towards the Dark side. While guarding Padme on her home planet of Naboo under
Obi-Wan’s orders, Anakin has a premonition of his mother being in trouble. It
resonates within him so powerfully that he heads back to Tatooine along with
Padme to check on his mother.
He tracks down Watto, his old slave master, and
learns that Shmi was sold to a man named Cliegg Lars who freed and married her.
Anakin headed to the moisture farm where Cliegg and his family resided only to
learn that his mother had been attacked and abducted by Tusken Raiders.
The
search efforts had turned up nothing and she was feared dead but that didn’t
deter Anakain. He set out on his own into the Jungland Wastes to find his mom.
Amazingly, he finds her alive in a Tusken Raider camp within
an empty hut. She’s in bad shape, most likely due to food and water
deprivation, but after so many years her joy at seeing her son is overwhelming.
They shared a few precious moments before she tragically passes away. This is
where the hints of Darth Vader truly begin to manifest. Consumed with anger,
rage and pain, he emerges from the tent and slaughters the entire Tusken Raider
camp. During the ordeal a few Jedi, including the Force ghost of Qui-Gon Jinn
and also Master Yoda, sensed the violence of the massacre as well as Anakin’s
presence in the Force which felt powerfully of the Dark side.
Anakin returned with Shmi’s body to the Lars moisture farm,
much to everyone’s dismay at Shmi having died. They gave her a burial and laid
her to rest. Padme later found Anakin stewing, clearly upset. His explanation started
at being frustrated with what he felt was Obi-Wan holding him back in his
training and being jealous of his Force potential.
But the real underlying
issue was the mixed feelings was having about killing the Sand People. In his
grief, he revealed how he slaughtered them all. Men, women and children. This,
my friends, is where we see the face of Darth Vader trying to claw his way out
of Anakin Skywalker for the first time.
In this moment, you can see his anger
towards Obi-Wan due to perceived slights. You can see his hatred towards those
that have done him wrong like the Sand People.
You can see his fear at losing those he loves when he proclaims that he
will one day have the power to stop people from dying. And you can see his
suffering at realizing what he had just done. Fear. Anger. Hatred. Suffering.
The path to the Dark side.
We now fast forward a few years. The Clone Wars are in full
swing with the Confederacy of Independent Systems ceding from the Galactic
Republic under the public leadership of Count Dooku but really with Darth
Sidious calling the shots behind the scenes.
It’s always been so amazing to me
that everything transpiring to this point is a result of Sidious’s legendary
ability to foresee and control events. Him and Darth Plagueis had been planning
a conflict on a galactic level for decades. Even after Plagueis’s death,
Sidious pushed forward. Altering, perfecting and shaping. When Anakin came into
the picture he tailored his plans to include him as well. It’s mind boggling to
think of one person being able to pull that many strings across an entire
galaxy.
So, with the onset of the Clone Wars, Anakin began to build
a legendary reputation as a starfighter pilot and Jedi warrior. He earned the
moniker the “Hero With No Fear” due to his bold and audacious exploits. But
this was merely a half truth, for while he had no fear for his own life, he
feared for those he cared about and loved.
Anakin was also having issues with
following the Jedi doctrine to a T, the most principle instance of which was
his marriage to Padme. Anakin had many incidents during the years of the Clone
Wars that saw him flirt with the Dark side. Each time he slipped further and
further into its embrace. Utilizing it as a tool without even realizing it.
Towards the end of the war Anakin, now a Jedi Knight with
legendary feats and some seriously honed Force capabilities, was considered
arguably the most powerful Jedi in the Order. He is viewed at large as a hero
to the galaxy along with his former Master and best friend, Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Here is when the tragic nosedive begins in truth. The Separatists sense their
imminent defeat and launch a surprise attack on the galactic capital planet of
Coruscant. General Grievous himself leads the campaign which is directed at
capturing Chancellor Palpatine aka Darth Sidious. This plan was born of the
bold genius of Sidious himself.
The only person who knew Palpatine’s true
identity was Dooku but in the prior days the Jedi had been leading an
investigation into the identity and whereabouts of Sidious. They were getting
dangerously close when Sidious had decided it was time to throw a curve ball.
He commanded General Grievous to launch a surprise attack against Coruscant and
to capture the Chancellor (himself).
Obi-Wan and Anakin were on another planet
during the attack but were immediately called back. Once they arrived they
boarded the General’s flagship, the Invisible Hand, and set about a rescue
mission. They came upon Chancellor Palpatine being held captive but Count Dooku
had been lying in wait.
They engaged in a fierce lightsaber battle that, due to
Anakin and Obi-Wan’s prodigious advancement in their lightsaber forms, caught
Dooku completely off guard. However, he separated Obi-Wan from Anakin and
incapacitated him.
While dueling Anakin, Dooku realized that the reason for the
boy’s exponential leap in power was because Anakin was using his anger and
hatred as fuel.
In Dooku’s own thoughts from the novelization for Revenge of
the Sith he said, “There was a thermonuclear furnace where his heart should be,
and it was burning through the firewalls of his Jedi training. He held the
Force in the clench of a white-hot fist.”
Anakin was already utilizing the
Force in the manner that a Sith would without even knowing it. Dooku searched
Anakin’s feelings through the Force and discovered that the catalyst behind
this was a source of uncontrollable fear. He taunted Anakin and distracted him.
He was able to gain some ground until Sidious, masquerading as Palpatine,
decided to unveil the final plan in his abduction that Dooku had not been aware
of.
Sidious began to coach Anakin and tell him to not be afraid of his anger
but to focus and use it to kill Dooku. Dooku’s shock was palpable but a single
thought manifested in his mind. Treachery
is the way of the Sith. Anakin regained his advantage and after a few more
exchanges he disarmed Dooku. Literally. Anakin struggled with the decision to
kill Dooku or take him prisoner. Sidious urged and prodded him to kill Dooku.
And as Dooku looked into Anakin’s eyes he realized that this was the plan all
along. That he was never truly Sidious’s apprentice. He was merely a pawn in
the seduction of Anakin Skywalker. And with that Anakin beheaded him and Dooku
became the first cold-blooded murder for Anakin but not the last.
From there several key points happened that further
exacerbated Anakin’s fall to the dark side:
1.
When he returned to Coruscant after rescuing the
Chancellor, he met with Padme in secret after many months apart. He sensed something
was wrong with her and upon his urging she told him that she was pregnant. He
was excited at first but then realized what the ramifications of this would
mean. If it became known to the public he would be exiled from the Jedi Order
and her reputation in the Senate would be tarnished.
2.
Anakin ended up having a premonition about Padme
dying during child birth. Due to his premonitions having a history of coming
true he became obsessed with finding a way to save her. The first stop in his
quest to save her was seeking advice from Master Yoda. He told him in a
roundabout way that he had a vision of someone he cared for dying. This
honestly might have been the most crucial miscue in how the Jedi Order handled
Anakin. Stuck in the ways of old, Yoda told him that fear of loss is the path
to the dark side and that he should rejoice for those who transform into the
Force (die). That attachment is the shadow of greed and Anakin needed to train
himself to let go of all he feared to lose. A lot of people speak about how
sagacious Yoda was but after over 900 years of life he gave the worst piece of
information possible. Anakin had not been in the Order his whole life and
continuously struggled to completely adhere to Jedi doctrine. So, to tell him
to let go of those he loved was like telling him to remove one of his own
limbs. It further pushed Anakin away from the Order.
3.
The Jedi Council had become quite suspicious
with the relationship between Palpatine and Anakin so they tasked Obi-Wan with
telling Anakin that they wanted him to spy on the Chancellor and report back
any findings. This put Obi-Wan in a horrible position because he knew how
fiercely loyal Anakin was as a friend and it also but an even worse taste in
Anakin’s mouth towards the Jedi Council. Things had begun to spiral out of control
at this point.
4.
As a means of causing a further rift between
Anakin and the Jedi Council, Palpatine appointed Anakin as his personal
representative on the Council. It was a bold move and the Jedi Council was
outraged as well as disturbed at such an act. They allowed Anakin on the
council but did not grant him the rank of Master. This made Anakin irate. It
wasn’t so much the rank he cared about but the privileges that the rank
afforded. With the rank, he’d be able to get into the forbidden sections of the
Jedi Archives to research on how to prevent Padme’s death. He took the slight
as the council standing between him and Padme’s life.
5.
And here we have perhaps the most potent push in
Anakin’s path to darkness. Palpatine called him for a private talk. He perceptively
deduced through searching Anakin’s feelings and reading his behavior that the
Jedi Council had asked for Anakin to spy on him. This set up the perfect path
for a philosophical talk about the Jedi’s teachings and methods for him. He
explained to Anakin that those who gain power are afraid to lose it, even the
Jedi, and that the Jedi concept of “good” is not the only valid one. He also
stated that the Sith being “evil” was only a fact from a Jedi’s point of view.
He craftily put Anakin in a position where he had to look at the Jedi from a
different perspective. He then laid the crumbs needed to further entice Anakin
to him by telling Anakin a story he refers to as an old legend called “The
Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise”. He tells Anakin that Darth Plagueis was a
Dark Lord of the Sith who was so powerful that he could influence the midichlorians
to create life and to keep people from dying. This news was too good to be true
for Anakin and he desperately latched on to the thought. Sidious masterfully
deduced what Anakin’s desire was and placed the fruit right in front of him.
When Anakin asked if it was possible to learn this power Sidious responded
with, “Not from a Jedi.”
From there things escalated like falling dominoes. Obi-Wan
went off on a solo mission to capture General Grievous and the remaining
Separatist leadership to end the war, leaving Anakin without his best friend.
Sidious took advantage of this and revealed his true identity to Anakin. Anakin
was torn between killing the Sith Lord due to the knowledge he believed that he
possessed and turning him over to the Council.
He finally resolved to contact
Mace Windu and the other Masters who were still on Coruscant to arrest Sidious.
Mace could sense the conflict within Anakin and told him to stay behind at the
Jedi Temple while Sidious was arrested.
Anakin obeyed at first but thoughts of
Padme sent him over the edge and he followed to where the arrest was happening
at the Chancellor’s office. He arrived to see Mace and Sidious in a furious
lightsaber battle with Mace disarming Sidious and getting the upper hand.
Some
say Sidious deliberately allowed this to happen to give the appearance of
helplessness in front of Anakin. If so, then it worked. While Anakin was
pleaded with Mace to let Sidious live to stand trial, because he secretly
wanted the knowledge he thought Sidious possessed, Mace ignored him and swung
for a killing blow. Anakin countered by slicing off Mace’s blade hand and
Sidious dropped the guise of helplessness to unleash a ferocious torrent of
Force lightning, hurling Mace out of the window and to his death.
Anakin was now at the point of no return and to him saving
the life of Padme was more important than anything. He pledged himself to
Sidious and Sidious proclaimed that he would henceforth be known as Darth…
Vader *cue ominous Imperial March score*.
He declared that all Jedi were a part
of a plot to have him assassinated which revealed them as enemies of the
Republic. He instructed Anakin to head to the Jedi Temple and “sterilize” it.
He was to leave no living being behind.
While Palpatine called on a secret channel
and gave the command to execute “Order 66”, which had been in place since
before the beginning of the war (that sly dog), Anakin went to the Jedi Temple
followed by a battalion of clone troopers and began the slaughter of the people
he had grown up with for over the past decade.
He even showed no hesitation in
killing younglings with his own lightsaber. He had truly embraced the dark side
and the little boy from Tatooine was gone.
Obi-Wan and Yoda discovered Order 66 was a command from
Sidious for all clone regiments to kill the Jedi they were assigned to.
Fortunately, the two masters survived the attempts on their lives and were able
to meet up with Senator Bail Organa, a staunch ally of the Jedi Order. He
smuggled them on to Coruscant and into the Jedi Temple where they learned of
the fate of the Order and also who the culprit was behind the attack.
It
destroyed Obi-Wan to see the boy he trained, and who had grown in to his best
friend, butchering Jedi comrades and kneeling before Sidious in reverence. Though
Obi-Wan was overcome with emotion, Yoda calmly explained to him that he needed
to focus for the future of the galaxy was at stake. Yoda would be going to
confront Sidious and Obi-Wan needed to confront Anakin.
Obi-Wan went to Padme
first to see if she knew Anakin’s whereabouts. He told her everything that had
happened and that he knew Anakin was the father of her unborn child. It was an
emotional and heartbreaking moment for them. Both having to come to terms that
the person they loved the most was no longer in existence. Padme needed more
proof and she went to Anakin, with Obi-Wan secretly stowing away on her ship.
Once she landed on Mustafar, which is where Anakin went to
get rid of the Separatist leadership on Sidious’s orders, she went to him and
told him what she’d heard. He brushed it off, drunk on power and greed, and
told her that they were no in the position for the galaxy to be theirs. She
recognized that Obi-Wan had been right. Anakin had completely changed and was
gone.
This angered Anakin and he accused her of turning against him. It was
then that Obi-Wan appeared and Anakin took that has a betrayal on Padme’s part.
He used what would become his signature technique, the Force choke, in a blind
rage against her. She passed out and his rage turned from her to Obi-Wan,
accusing him of turning her against Anakin. Obi-Wan countered that Anakin’s
anger and his lust for power had done that while he allowed Sidious to twist
his mind until he had become the very thing he was sworn to fight against.
They
commenced one of the greatest lightsaber battles of all time, which culminated
in Anakin arrogantly trying to flip over Obi-Wan while the latter held a high
ground position and Obi-Wan cut off Anakin’s legs along with one of his arms. He
left him there on the slopes of the lava bank, burning from the intense heat.
After his battle with Yoda, Darth Sidious had sensed that
Vader was in danger and came to his aid. He found him as Obi-Wan had left him.
Burned and mutilated. He took him to a special medical facility on Coruscant and
quickly set about trying to save his life.
At the same time Obi-Wan had taken
Padme with him to Yoda and Bail, where she went into labor. The medical droid
urgently told them that they had to get the babies out quickly because Padme
was dying, apparently from having lost the will live.
An amazing fan theory is
that Padme was dying because Sidious was using the Force to siphon her life in
order to sustain Vader during his own surgery. Luke and Leia were born followed
Padme’s last words to Obi-Wan. “There is still good in him. I know there is
still…”
Sidious had moved quickly and the surgery to transfer Vader
into his protective shell was a success. Below are some excerpts from the
Revenge of the Sith novelization that show Darth Vader’s thoughts upon waking
to his new life and his final realization of everything that had occurred.
And here you can see the final tragedy of Anakin Skywalker.
In the end, he realized that it was not Sidious, Obi-Wan, Padme or even the
Jedi that was at fault for everything. It was him. His anger, greed, and fear
were the catalyst for his downfall.
The cruel irony was that in trying to
prevent Padme’s death he was the direct cause of it. He killed the person that
he loved more than anything because he couldn’t come to grips with the fact
that not everyone can be saved. Nothing lasts forever. Eventually even the
stars burn out.
His tale is one that has resonated with me because I think it’s
been shown throughout human history. People getting in their own way and
hurting their loved ones because of their selfish greed and lust for power.
Ambition without balance can turn even the mildest creature into a monster.
Follow me on Twitter at @DarkSideScribe and subscribe to my Patreon
No comments:
Post a Comment