#the tragedy of anakin skywalker

[manofbeskar]

yeah, you'll burn in hell for your sins

(4k version)

#insp: take a bow by muse #anakin skywalker #darth vader #star wars #my art #prequels #star wars prequels #the tragedy of anakin skywalker

[marvelstars]

Anakin and Slavers

"His undoing is that he loveth too much"

George Lucas

One thing that I always liked about George´s work in relation to Anakin and slavery is how out of the left field he and Dave Filoni wrote Anakin´s relationship to the people who owned or saw him as a property at one point or another and yet it makes total sense for his character.

For example kid Anakin has no doubt that Slavery is horrible and at 9 he is actually working towards developing technology to help free his Mom, friends and himself from it. He hates with capital H the fact those people have control over the life and death of other people but at the same time he has great compassion and kindness which his mother helped nurture. This along with the fact that Watto was the only adult male figure who was around during his early chilldhood, this complicated his feelings towards slavers in a very tragic way.

Anakin feared Watto´s violence and didn´t for a moment doubt he would have been willing to sell off his mother or him if the customer got to a big enough price but at the same time he listens to his advice when he travels to the dune sea to do his work with the jawas and his pov is almost as important as his Mom´s, in the novelization of TPM Anakin remembers not to talk to strangers or to get close to Tuskens Raiders camps thanks to Watto´s advice.

So in Anakin´s mind, Watto is someone he fears but also someone he takes advice from, respects to a point, sometimes gets sassy to and actually listens to almost as a father figure BUT at the same time he has no doubt he would activate the killing chip if he tried to escape.

Pain/abuse/fear mixed with care/advice(sounds familiar?) Anakin knows slavery is awful but he can´t help but see Watto as a person because of who Anakin is, Annie is a kind and understanding person and to point may justify Watto as a "Man of bussines" and "Not as bad a other masters" "It could be worse" but he definitely doesn´t trust him in the same way he does his mother, she is blood, she is family. He and Mom are a team.They shared their secrets.

The first time Anakin saw Watto again after being freed, he was a Jedi with training, almost a knight and the first thing he does to the guy who beat him and his Mom some years ago is to ask him if he can help with the ship parts Watto is working on because he noticed Watto is struggling and his bussines is falling down compared to how it was when Anakin was a kid. When Watto noticed who Anakin was he didn´t reject him and accepted his congratulations but keep himself appart, hoping to learn about his mother whereabouts.

When Watto told Anakin he sold Shmi, Anakin doesn´t have a reaction, he takes Watto´s justification of "I am sorry Ani but bussines are bussines and anyway the person who bought her freed her and married her" Anakin doubts it´s as good a picture as Watto is talking about but he takes his justification and leaves.

When he meets Owen, Beru and Cliegg he sees they are indeed nice people and the reason for his mothers suffering is something completely different that they were not able to stop so he doesn´t blame them for her fate. When Anakin lost his mother it was only natural for him to seek a family, someone he could share how he really felt and his secrets, he could not be part of the Lars family but Padme was willing to love him so she became his new confirmed family, right along with Obi-Wan and Ahsoka but while he had to show himself different to them, he didn´t had to do that with Padme, just like he did with his mother.

In the clone wars Anakin shows again this complex view of slavers with Queen Miraj Scintel, the cartoon goes out of it´s way to show she looked at him as pretty property and he didn´t let her forget that and actually it was strongly suggested he may have been raped by her at some point to keep safe Obi-Wan, Rex, Ahsoka as well as the people they wanted to save while he got enough soldiers to stage their rescue. Anakin had a plan the whole time just as he did as a kid so he keep his cool even when he saw another slave choose suicide over keep being under the control of Scintel. Yet in the end when the Queen was killed by Count Dooku Anakin felt sorry for her, he could not help it.

So this mix of rejection/anger/hate/disgust towards slavers mixed with pity/understanding which is something that was part of what made Anakin a good person gets used agaisn´t him in his relationship with Palpatine.

He first shows himself as the father figure Anakin thought he could find in Qui-Gon before he died a better father figure than Watto had been, a father figure that didn´t reject this title like ObiWan did, Palpatine did this to get his trust as a young child and later young adult and then he showed himself as the real sith master he actually was, Palpatine knew that Anakin wasn´t a stranger to be treated as property by people who showed themselves as good advicers or somehow not as bad as others despite their actions. So Anakin´s initial compassion, kindness and understanding for people that abused him is played agaisn´t him to make him fall to the darkside and chain himself again to another worse master who didn´t just seek to use his skills and body but who wanted his soul as well.

And the same reasons why Anakin justified Watto at first when he was a young kid also applied to Palpatine, he may be a sith but he ran the Republic better than those corrupt politicians, he isn´t a perfect Emperor but in Padme´s absence he is better than the alternatives. He isn´t as bad as a master and anyway I deserve this because I fell to the darkside and nobody can come back from that, if he abuses me I got this coming because I choose this and he still teaches me the ways of the force, he rescued me from Mustafar when Obi-Wan left me to die and he didn´t have to, he is all I have left.

So once Anakin´s voice died down Vader was left with many reasons to say to Palpatine "What´s your bidding my master?" because in his mind master isn´t a word that contradicts father and Palpatine became his father in all but name, this makes George´s words about Anakin fatal flaw being the fact he loved too much make complete sense and it´s a tragedy.

#anakin skywalker #darth vader #george lucas #shmi skywalker #palpatine #star wars #slavery/rape mention #anakin meta #The tragedy of Anakin Skywalker

[serendipity-by-chance]

reading tpm and it’s heartbreaking to see little anakin helping a tusken raider. he rescued the raider and sat with them through the night until the their people came and found them. his heart was so big and so kind. it’s heartbreaking to see how he ends up murdering a tribe of them in anger. i would have loved to see who anakin would have been if palpatine never twisted him

#anakin skywalker #the tragedy of anakin skywalker #the phantom menace #my reading

[geekinator]

The Star Wars prequels should be renamed the Shakespearean Tragedy of Anakin Skywalker.

#star wars #anakin skywalker #the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker #poor guy never had a chance

[fandumb-thoughts]

This man made of steel and plastic and flesh festering with rage stood before him. He wanted his death and he had already killed so many. This man….he remembered him when he was smaller. When he was nine years old and crept into his room and curled up to sleep on his floor, a floor that was cold to a boy who was used to far warmer climes, waking him up with his chattering teeth. And he had caved and brought the boy up onto his bed and the sense-memory of that small body laying in his arms with his cheek pressed up against his breastbone is seared into his soul. Just as the man he became, screaming vitriol as he burned, is seared just as vividly beside it.

#the tragedy of anakin skywalker #and the love that obi-wan has for him #there’s a trend on TikTok of finding emotional snippets of poems in your notes apps #and I was going through mine and found this one #I think I was intending to throw it in a fic at some point idk #obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #fanfic poetry #my fanfic #my poetry #they are brothers and father and son and best friends and enemies #star wars #sw prequels #obi wan kenobi show

[briliantlymad]

Guess who's crying? its me i am crying

Anakin Skywalker | STAR WARS edit by SWFT

Y'all should check out their other edits!! absolutely phenomenal work!!

#anakin skywalker #star wars #darth vader #padmé amidala #obi wan kenobi #The tragedy of anakin skywalker #there is still good in him!!! #Youtube

[may-the-force-be-gay]

As an adult, and as someone who used to find Padmé annoying, she almost has the most heart achingly sad side in the prequel series. Anakin, her husband, slowly drifting away from her—leaving her lonely, sad, even scared for his well being—at the end. Idk there’s just something so heartbreaking thinking of the things she went through at the end. WHILE PREGNANT, so her emotions were already dialed up, but to put Anakin’s absence on top of that? Gods. Any time I see these scenes I just about burst into tears because this poor, poor woman. Gave her heart and soul to this man, and when he had the chance to take her away from everything evil, to be with her, he was hung up on his power high. 😔😭

#seriously Anakin get your shit together before I come in and steal your wife and treat her like the queen she is #the tragedy of anakin skywalker #more like: #the tragedy of Padmé amidala #anidala #is borderline toxic 😭 #anakin skywalker #is an idiot #and an ass #but we love him anyway #anidala is bittersweet #padmé amidala #only love and respect for the queen #queen padme #all hail the queen

[urgirl415]

Trying to sleep and remembering my poor boy Anakin Skywalker was a slave for the majority of his life :( first as a child, then as Vader, a slave to palpatine/more figuratively to his injuries :(

#anakin skywalker #the prequel trilogy #star wars #the tragedy of anakin skywalker #:(

[gch1995]

How do you feel about Anakin blaming only himself for his fall tot he dark-side? Personally I think self hatred is his own worst enemy….

It is absolutely true that all of Anakin’s arrogance and denial is entirely a “mask” to cover up for his own guilt, insecurities, and self-loathing as Darth Vader. It’s not just his fault he ended up where he did, but he also can’t keep letting his past define him either. There is hope to do better, and deep down he knows it. He’s just too afraid and too hopeless to try.

Yes, his agency is compromised under Sidious, even more than it was under Obi-Wan and the Jedi Order, so, yeah, objectively speaking, it’s not just Anakin’s fault alone he’s in this position with no real safe escape opportunities. In and of itself, it’s not even morally wrong to want to connect with his son to escape his abuser. The means he was using to try to reach out to him were abusive, manipulative, selfish, and unfair in regards to Luke until the end of ROTJ, though, and that’s why he gets framed as wrong for it it. He’s not being cowardly or selfish in his desire to seek a healthier connection than Sidious in his son. That’s relatable. The fact that he was endangering, hurting, and threatening Luke to try to pressure his son to become someone he did not want to be for his own ends out of a desire to gain freedom, while simultaneously continuing to live in denial of his own guilt and fear of the unknown, was fucked up.

Anakin’s arrogance, denial, and attempts to manipulate Luke for Sidious and his own personal “greater good” out of fear of the unknown and self-hatred as Darth Vader is actually a lot like Yoda’s and especially Obi-Wan’s attempts to use Luke for their own “greater good.” Yeah, I’m not denying that the Empire was worse than the old Republic and needed to be taken down. I’m not arguing that there aren’t valid reasons for many people to hate Darth Vader and want him dead for personal safety, justice, and protection reasons in A New Hope. I have a lot of sympathy for Anakin. He’s my favorite character along with, but, regardless of the living hell of constant victimization he endured under a series very abusive, arrogant, corrupt, oppressive, and manipulative bastards of authority figures from whom there was no reasonably safe escape, I’m not going to pretend like he didn’t also enable and perpetuate horrendous systematic abuse, crime, oppression, and tyranny for a little over two decades himself.

I think diminished responsibility is a more accurate way to judge Anakin for his crimes, considering the constant living hell of abuse, manipulation, and exploitation his entire life was under these corrupt authority figures in these screwed up state sanctioned military cults that recruited children as soldiers under incredibly dubious and ill-informed consent. However, while Anakin definitely was capable of being an amazingly kind, loyal, empathetic, and self-sacrificing person at his best, he definitely did become a horrifying lawful evil at his worst, and not all of his crimes were ones he committed just because Sidious, Obi-Wan, and the Jedi Council coerced him to. He did develop a personally angry, selfish, and vengeful side, too.

So yeah, I can understand the logic of thinking that the galaxy might be safer without Vader. I can understand why a lot of his victims would feel that way. However, never once do Obi-Wan and Yoda tell Luke to kill the Emperor, too, and they know he’s the “big bad” in charge, not Darth Vader/Anakin, Yet, it’s just Vader, their former student, who they helped fuck up, left to burn when he turned on them, and then continued to hide and run away from after finding out he survived, who they are focused on using Luke to kill, which heavily implies that their motives aren’t nearly as selfless as they keep trying to convince either Luke or themselves. They’re being self-centered and manipulative cowards who are trying to find an easy way to redeem themselves without having to take personal responsibility and living in denial because facing the truth the right way hurts and is risky. It’s quite similar to what Vader was doing to Luke.

It’s easier for Yoda and Obi-Wan to continue to avoid facing the reality of their bad decisions and mistakes, instead of acknowledging how deeply abusive, damaging, self-centered, and toxic they had become in their fear of facing the unknown through their support of a corrupt Republic government, their hypocritical, their problematic methods and lifestyle in regards to Anakin and their other recruits, and the Republic as a whole, That is why they end up going in to hiding after Order 66 and attempt to use Luke to kill off the monster they inadvertently helped influence his father to become in the first place by deceiving him, endangering him, and manipulating him to try to escape their guilt and absolve themselves in regards to their mistakes with Anakin and the Empire without actually having to do the work of admitting they had been wrong and taking full personal ownership. The fact that they want to redeem themselves is a good instinct. The fact that they’re using an innocent Luke to try to do it for them is where it becomes cowardly, manipulative, and selfish.

I get that they’ve been in these messed up space soldier cults and systems for most of their lives with limited options, so their agency to be able to reasonably feel safe doing any better is compromised,l. It’s not entirely their faults they ended up in these positions that allowed them to grow up to be such deeply damaged and dysfunctional adults. They were victims who deserved better. However, they also had consciences that they buried by living in denial and fear of the unknown, which became a seriously fucked up issue of selfishness and toxicity when people who had nothing to do with their issues became “worthy” collateral damage and scapegoats for them to continue to not take personal accountability and risks to self-improve instead.

Still, in the end, Anakin’s the only one of his predecessors left from the old Jedi in the movies who learns to do the right thing.

#I definitely agree that it’s not fair to blame it on JUST Anakin for becoming Vader and remaining with Sidious #same with obi wan and Yoda #but when people who had done nothing to deserve their abuse or crime became collateral damage for their own ends because #it was easier than trying to take a risk to do the right thing and take personal accountability you do have to place blame on them #for knowingly doing wrong to others for worthy ends instead #and that’s the whole thing that does actually make Anakin/Vader obi-wan Yoda and prequel Jedi sympathetic in spite of their deep flaws #like in and of itself it’s not wrong for obi-wan and Yoda to want to redeem themselves #nor is it inherently wrong for Anakin to seek out his son and other relationships to try to escape abusive and corrupt authority figures #to want to protect his family or to want to make the galaxy better than the shithole it so often is in SW #but the means of enabling and perpetuating abuse crime manipulation and oppression against those who don’t deserve it is selfish #obi wan critical #yoda critical #I mean not really. they are flawed characters but just in case #anakin sywalker #the tragedy of anakin skywalker #the tragedy of the old republic and jedi order #cptsd-skywalker

[marvelstars]

Anakin origin

Anakin´s story is one of dissapointment, he expected the Republic and the Jedi to be different to Tatooine but the truth was that the power plays that are obvious and often brutal on Tatooine are the same in the Republic, just covered under a false pretense of politeness and worse than that they are also involved in slavery and support it either by innaction or active action, there are Senators involved in slavery and the Jedi Order don´t involve themselves there because their authority is the Senate and during the clone wars they made the active decision of supporting Jabba´s rule just so they would get acess to his territory and keep the separatist out of that area, recognizing Jabba´s non official authority over Tatooine.

So Anakin was told to do everything in his power to support a power structure that by all intends and purposes was even more corrupt than Tatooine, because they tried to hide it and he was made also an instrument to support it´s existence as a Jedi and later as Vader.

He does exactly that, he protects the republic, he actually becomes loyal to the Republic as a Jedi, the apparent reckleness the Jedi see isn´t about him personally, it´s about him going outside his usual orders to attend something or someone, be it save Ahsoka from being executed, Plo Koon from being left behind after a battle, investigate who wants to kill Padme in AOTC, investigate if Obi-Wan was still alive after the battle of Jabbin, training defendless citizens in self defense so they can protect themselves from bounty hunters and separatists, him freeding a group of slaves, etc the jedi thought he was arrogant but the main reason why he goes besides or outside orders is because is trying to make a difference within the parameters of his role as a Jedi.

Because being a Jedi came at a price for Anakin, being a Jedi cost him his mother, as a Jedi he was asked to forget and leave behind his mother as a slave on Tatooine, cutting all comunications with each other which lead to her kidnapping, torture and death.

The death of the woman who teached him how to have compassion, how to give without expecting recompense, how the biggest problem in the galaxy was that no one helps each other. Anakin learned his compassion from Shmi despite the fact they were both slaves, she gave them both dignity with those principles despite being aware of their situation.

Part of the reason he supported and admired Padmé and Palpatine so much in his early years was because he genuinely thought they could make the changes neccesary for the system to work in the way Anakin thought it worked, it wasn´t just his madness and love for Padmé the thing that drove him to give her the title of Empress, it was also a recognition of her being someone who actually cared about the people even during his biggest emotional break down and dissapointment on Palpatine for what he had shown himself to be.

So unlike Luke and Leia, Vader doesn´t see much of a difference between the Empire and the Old Republic, he simply sees a more honest version of what happened behind curtains on the republic in the brutality of the Empire, that ressembles Tatooine and at that point in his life, he lost hope of making any substantial changes to the system, his hope died with Padme, his role is bassically to be the "Jedi Order" to the Emperor´s Empire and he has decided that maybe justice is not possible but Order is enough for the galaxy to work better than it did when he was young and certainly a lot better than a civil war like the clone wars, you know, he isn´t a friend of "destructive conflict" as he told Luke. This is how a good person becomes evil, when the ends justify the means.

But Luke gave Vader his hope back, for himself as the good person he used to be, that the dark side and his master didn´t need to have the last word but also hope that maybe, just maybe, things can actually change for the better if the rebellion counts with people like Luke and Leia.

This is one of the reasons why I love Anakin´s/Vader character so much, he brings the complexity of reality to the fairly tale that is star wars with his tragedy, because he truly was a great, wonderful person who lost his hope and sanity, became the instrument of evil but he redeems himself in the end thanks to his Son giving him hope again, Luke was Anakin´s New Hope and it works when you see his complete story.

#anakin skywalker #darth vader #luke skywalker #padme amidala #palpatine #jedi order #star wars quotes #star wars #the tragedy of anakin skywalker

[serendipity-by-chance]

just remembered that one soldier from naboo that vader killed and his dying words were for padme and anakin and the closeup of vader’s face and the pause after that.

and then sabe meeting him and also mentioning anakin as the boy who protected padme before and helped naboo and how dedicated he was to padme…

i almost started crying in public shit💀💀

the fact that so many people believed anakin died saving people at the Temple. so many people trusted him. it breaks my heart to see what he became

#anakin skywalker #sabé #handmaiden sabé #star wars #the tragedy of anakin skywalker

[pumpkinrootbeer]

Maybe the most devastating element of the prequels

#:v #star wars #Obi-Wan Kenobi #Anakin Skywalker #liiiike. just how desperately Obi-Wan loves and cares for Anakin #and how Anakin is blind to all of it #THE TRAGEDY #book is revenge of the sith by matthew Stover

[keelifallen]

#Star Wars #Star Wars is a tragedy #star wars kenobi #sw kenobi #kenobi series #the clone wars #clone wars season 7 #Ahsoka #ahsoka tano #anakin skywalker #darth #Vader #rots #swtcw #illustration #art #artists on tumblr #keelidraws

[hopeworth]

obi-wan & anakin: you are cain and he is abel and this is how it always ends

[star wars: episode iii - revenge of the sith novelisation // star wars: episode i - the phantom menace (1999) // john darnielle // star wars: episode ii - attack of the clones (2002) // dante émile, 'after abel' // star wars: episode iii - revenge of the sith (2005) // rosanna warren, gods and mortals: modern poems on classical myths, 'turnus' // obi-wan kenobi (2022) 1x06 // richard siken, 'planet of love' // star wars: episode iv - a new hope (1977) // richard siken, 'war of the foxes']

#tragedy #the narrative #doomed by the narrative #brothers #anakin skywalker #obi-wan kenobi #poetry #star wars #prequels #kenobi series #web weave #web weaving #webweaving #my stuff #obi-wan & anakin #sibling dynamics make me insane go figure #thicker than water

[intermundia]

one fun prequels fix-it: anakin's dissociative rage at discovering the truth ends with sheev's head on the floor before he had a chance to snap back to self awareness. it's the only case where anakin should have been a little bit more murderous actually lol

#alas #anakin skywalker #he never would ofc #but that's the tragedy #i'm talking genre hop into a comedy please thanks #perhaps even a romcom #sw

[may-the-force-be-gay]

“A small growl left Anakin’s throat as he inhaled the strong smell of warm tea, old paper, and honey. It was growing in potency and his own scent was permeating the room. Those strong hands were careful not to rub too hard on his left wing, something that made Obi-Wan fall just a little more for him.

Anakin smelled like an oncoming storm; humidity, electricity, damp dirt, and wet stones, every one of his favorite scents enveloped into one being. Together they smelled like a quiet study indoors away from the rain, distant thunderstorms rumbling closer.”

#I stg I reread my own fanfic again and I’m sobbing all over again #could that count as pride or am I just super saiyan sensitive? #divorced space gays #me on my obikin bullshit again #obikin #anakin angel skywalker #obi the hair kenobi #obi wan kenobi #obi wan is a cinnamon roll #just a little guy #the tragedy of anakin skywalker #ewanfuckinmcgregor