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disast3rtransp0rt · 2 years

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religious trauma and star wars discourse: an inside perspective

I see a lot of posts like “You can’t blame the Jedi for Anakin’s downfall! They did everything they could for him and he chose to be fucking stupid!”

And sure, yeah, I see your point. But not everyone has read the novelizations and not everyone will (myself included) for one reason or another, and their opinions are based solely on the text and subtext provided by the films.

So consider this perspective from someone who was raised in a strict Evangelical household and is still working through a lot of religious trauma: Anakin Falls because he feels trapped by the Order and their expectations, which is a nuanced and complicated issue depending on which textual source we decide to pull from.

Anakin Skywalker was a little boy who’d been freed from slavery by a Jedi Knight, a group of warriors and protectors that he looked up to. That same Knight was then threatened with eviction from the Order for helping rescue, just so we don’t forget, a literal child slave. Of course Anakin’s going to feel indebted to Qui-Gon and to the Order for letting them both stay (and then additionally for letting Obi-Wan train him after Qui-Gon’s death).

He sees everything transactionally. That’s how he was raised. No matter how much meditation you do, some of the Council were right: He was too old to let that shit go. And there wasn’t enough time in his teenage years to process it properly before the Clone Wars began.

He has to step up to the plate and become the Hero With No Fear. He’s the Chosen One, the son of the Force. His body isn’t entirely his anymore, because it’s been commodified and claimed by the Jedi Order (whether or not they realize or acknowledge it).

So, as someone who was raised to identify hardcore with the ideology that sex = gender (which I no longer subscribe to at all), I was treated very differently from my brothers as a kid. I was always in the kitchen, always watching the babies, always cleaning the dishes etc.

But high value was placed on my usefulness as a “nurturer”, so I felt validated. This was good work. I was doing something helpful. I was being good in the way the people surrounding me expected. Until I got old enough to understand how exploitative and shitty Evangelicalism is and got the fuck away.

Can you see how I might relate to Anakin, then? How it might be hard to have incredible pressure placed on you to serve serve serve all the time, even though you were supposed to be free from that? No time to breathe, rules that dictate private areas of one’s life... Kinda like his childhood but just a little bit different.

Of course he’s going to want to rebel, but that guilt and that debt is so deep under his skin that he can’t shake it. Can’t let it go. If he’d been able to sit down and process the issues he faced as a child, without fighting a war as a slightly larger child, then maybe... I don’t know. Maybe he wouldn’t have Fallen.

Maybe he simply would have said his thanks, said his goodbyes, and left to raise his children with his wife.

But I was lucky enough to escape to college and outgrow the idea that my body would always be some kind of bargaining chip. I let go of the ideology I’d been raised with because there was space enough to work through my childhood bullshit. Anakin doesn’t have that luxury in canon. He’s got shit to do.

And as someone who still has issues eating dinner before my boyfriend after almost 6 years of therapy and a ton of self-discovery, that guilt-and-debt feeling I mentioned can hit hard. And it’s tough to get rid of. I’m still working on that at age 26.

So yeah, I don’t particularly care for the Jedi Order.

I don’t care that other people do like them, of course. I know it’s all just fiction and these are a bunch of made up dudes in costumes running around a set. It’s just been tough to read a lot of these posts that are so pro-Jedi from a context that I do not have or wish to have (the novels) and feel excluded or invalidated.

Anyway.

Thank you for coming to my literary analysis.

#star wars #star wars disc horse #the jedi order #jedi #the jedi #religious trauma #literary analysis #star wars novelizations #star wars movies #the prequels #star wars prequels #anakin skywalker #anakin skywalker character analysis #personal #perspective #mace windu triggers me so hard y'all i have to skip his scenes or i cry #just cause he reminds me of my pastor #anyway

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artist-issues · 9 months

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also, about Anakin—I distinctly remember realizing when I was first watching Star Wars that part of what makes Anakin’s relationship with Obi-Wan so compelling is that his love for Obi-Wan is as much forbidden as his love for Padme.

I mean, here’s this kid who’s too old to be trained as a Jedi, not because he’ll be prideful or have to catch up or anything, but because he’s old enough to have already learned how to get attached. And the Council was right; he never, ever unlearns that.

But the very first person aside from Padme that Padawan Anakin got attached to was Obi-Wan. And so all through his training, as he’s growing up and Obi-Wan is growing up too, Anakin is thinking “this is my guy. This is my older brother, this is my best friend, this is the only father I’ve ever known” and just recently discovered that someone like that (Qui-Gonn) can be killed and ripped away from you.

All through his training, that fierce attachment is growing, even more steadily than his love for Padme because he’s never separate from Obi-Wan…and the difference is, Obi-Wan shuts it down. It’s obvious that they love one another like brothers, but Obi-Wan never says it until Anakin is lying like chopped-up charred hibachi on the banks of Mustafar.

I mean, imagine having a father or older brother who you know loves you, but who refuses to say so? Except through his actions, almost in spite of himself?

And then imagine yourself as someone who never gets on board and believes in the code that says you can’t attach? So you know that your father-brother-figure is a hypocrite, about, like, the thing you think is the most important and also the stupidest part of the code?

Because he can’t say it! Because he’s supposed to be teaching Anakin not to get attached—what’s he gonna do, tell Anakin “I’m so glad you’re safe” every time they escape an adventure? Tell Anakin he doesn’t know what he’d do if he lost him? Remind Anakin that he cares? And then say “but attachment is bad. Trust the Force.” No, he’s not going to do that. He’s going to keep that aloof-thing going, even though Anakin knows Obi-Wan loves him.

So Anakin, a very dramatic young man who likes his declarations of affection super up-front, never gets that from Obi-Wan. And he’s so sensitive in the Force, and they’re so connected for such a long time—he must be feeling, constantly, that Obi-Wan loves him too. But Obi-Wan never says it. And even though Anakin knows why, it’s a constant source of frustration, because Anakin doesn’t actually respect the code and he doesn’t see why Obi-Wan does.

So constantly, Anakin feels like Obi-Wan is hiding affection for him, or withholding it. Keeping something good for him back. He’s feeling like Obi-Wan is, on some level, a little two-faced. He’s feeling like Obi-Wan’s willing enough to save his life and stick up for him—clearly Obi-Wan is attached—but coming out and saying it? Admitting it: “hey little bro, I know you’re attached to me but you have to stop; it’s not the Jedi way. I know how you feel, I’m attached to you too—we’ll just have to figure that out together?”

No, he never does that. Not until it’s way too late, and Anakin has already conflated Obi-Wan’s refusal to express their bond out loud with how deceitful and two-faced the Jedi are, and they have to be enemies.

which, you know, understandable, considering who Obi-Wan is as a character. but still.

Yeesh. I love this character, I feel like he was when I first started thinking about the tangled web of character motivations and conflicts, but the poor guy.

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phoenixyfriend · 2 years

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Hot take: Qui-Gon's survival would have contributed to keeping Anakin stable and not prone to attachment.

This is not because Qui-Gon would have been a better master than Obi-Wan, but because Qui-Gon's immediate death after playing such a crucial role in Anakin's life contributed majorly to his traumas regarding the loss of people important to him, which was a massive element of his later attachment issues.

Anakin left his mom and immediately experienced the death of the new adult in his life. Not just another separation, but full on death. The books even mention that he used to go sleep in front of Obi-Wan's door or on the floor next to Obi-Wan's bed (which Obi-Wan was unaware of until he woke up) because he was so scared that Someone Else Was Going To Leave Him.

I think it's understandable for the Jedi to underestimate how much Qui-Gon's death affected Anakin, because they did only know each other for like. Three days. And the Jedi probably didn't know just how much Qui-Gon impacted Anakin's life in a personal sense, rather than as just Some Distant Official.

And in the subsequent fallout of Anakin's Many Traumas, he fixated on two people:

Obi-Wan, an older brother slash father figure that was an authority on a personal level, and around him constantly, and basically took the Mom role that Shmi had had.

Palpatine, and elderly grandfather figure that was not a personal authority (telling him when to go to bed, what to eat, etc), that he only saw occasionally and would indulge him, and basically took on the Qui-Gon role.

Like there's this major crack in Anakin's foundation that needed patching up, and because it wasn't competently filled---because Obi-Wan was also grieving and cracked open, and Palpatine was malicious---we end up with a guy who has a whole FUCKTON of attachment issues.

I feel like Qui-Gon's death and its impact on Anakin, not just Obi-Wan, tends to get undersold by fandom at large.

#Anakin Skywalker #Qui Gon Jinn #Obi Wan Kenobi #Shmi Skywalker #sheev palpatine #star wars #phoenix talks #character analysis

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valenteal · 4 months

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Odasaku loves Dazai the same way I love Anakin Skywalker. With curiosity, understanding, and the deep seeded need to make him happy without changing him, no matter how much the rest of the world around him needs to change.

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd dazai #dazai osamu #bsd odasaku #oda sakunosuke #analysis #character analysis #anakin skywalker #look i love anakin everyone even remotely familiar with me should know that by now

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identityflawed · 5 months

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Anakin and Ahsoka Analysis

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Kind of starts when Anakin says, "The Council is asking you back," and then reinforces with "I'm asking you back." He knows how little the Council's opinion means to Ahsoka in that moment, but also knows how much his opinion means to her. He offers out her Padawan braid, and the music swells almost in a dark and eerie manner, as if her decision here will condemn or free Anakin from the chains of the Dark Side--which it will. And when she closes his hand over the very thing that represents her connection to him--Master to Padawan--the music stops. Anakin is horrified, betrayed, and Ahsoka doesn't regret her decision yet, but by God does she feel guilt for abandoning Anakin like this. The music becomes more lighthearted then, though--a better future for Ahsoka, one where she won't die at the hands of clones, one where the Council won't use her and then toss her aside when politics call for it. After all this time considering others, she can finally look out for herself.

The Force theme plays as she leaves the Order, a once-pure pillar of Light now rife with corruption thanks to Palpatine and the Jedi's longstanding arrogance due to the Sith's millenium-old "destruction." Her leaving, plus the theme choice implicates that this really was the best path she could go down. Not for Anakin, but for herself. And when Anakin follows her out, she tries not to engage. She knows that if she speaks to him, she'll want to come back to her big brother. To her friend Rex, to her father Plo, to the old grandfather that Yoda was to her. She steels her nerves and leaves, but Anakin persists. He couldn't bear it if his Padawan walked away from him now, another loved one down the drain of things he couldn't control. First Shmi, now Ahsoka, with Padme soon to follow. And he speaks to her.

He doesn't understand why she's doing this, why she's leaving him and everything he did for her, taught her. He can't see past the veil of selfishness that Palpatine has draped upon him--it is all about you, Anakin. Somehow this is your fault. Should've caught Barriss sooner, should've known from the start, should've fought for Ahsoka more than he had.

Ahsoka knows and sees this--she can't fathom where it comes from, but she knows his intentions are good. Anakin Skywalker is a good man, a trustworthy man who believed in her when no one else did. And that was it. After everything she'd done for the Council, they didn't trust her. After the battles she'd fought hard, won and lost, the blood, the bruises, trauma and worry, all for the sake of an Order who cast her out when the Senators began to question their loyalty. Her loyalty. Was her loyalty to be questioned? If she had turned herself in, could she have come to a better resolution? She was more like Anakin every day, determined to handle every problem on her own, finding it harder and harder to see the logic in simply retreating and cooling your head. One day, that veil of selfishness might fall on her, too. How long until that happened? She needed to calm her nerves and take a step away from the blitz, the action, the war.

That's what she was doing now. She couldn't go back, but Anakin didn't see it. Anakin thought that because he alone had stood by her side, it would be enough to bring her home. She was undyingly grateful for his trust, his love and his loyalty, but she needed to make it unquestionably clear that she couldn't return. Too much had transpired against her; she could never enter those Temple doors again without remembering it.

And Anakin says she's throwing her life away, but that isn't it. The Jedi Order was everything she'd ever known, everything she'd ever stood for. Morals ingrained into her mind from when she was a toddler, techniques and mantras running through her head as she rushed across the battlefield.

She wasn't throwing it away. She couldn't. She would never be able to let go of the Jedi's teachings, and she didn't want to. They had taught her more than just how to block blaster bolts, how to pull objects into your hands or sway people into letting her past locked doors. Corrupt as they had become, they were still good people. And she wanted to remember them as that--remember their teachings and let them guide her through the foreseeable future. All her life she'd been taught and told, and now it was time to teach and tell herself what to do...even if it meant leaving her family behind.

This wasn't what Anakin would do, as much as he had considered it. She saw how he would smile at Padme--the most genuine grin she'd ever see from him. He loved her, and he knew that he couldn't. And she knew that he couldn't. Of course he would want to leave. Anakin wanted a family--that's why he latched onto everyone with a death grip. He didn't know how to let go.

Maybe she could switch the roles just this once...teach him something invaluable, like the many things he'd taught her.

A lesson in letting go.

And the music swells once again as she takes strides away from him, tears welling in her eyes as she feels him watching her. He won't force her back--he understands now, why she needs to go. They understood each other now--their reasonings and their fears, their loves and their resentment. War tore people apart, but it could bring them together.

So as she descends the stairs of the Temple for the last time, she says good-bye to the people this wretched war had given her. Good-bye to Obi-Wan, to Anakin, to Rex and to Plo. But there was a greeting to be given to one person and one alone.

And so, without looking back, she wishes the best to Jedi Padawan Tano, and embraces Ahsoka with open arms.

#rare anakin and ahsoka analysis from me #ahsoka tano #anakin skywalker #the clone wars #star wars #idflawed analyzes #fifteen-year-old me ate with this what the shit #character analysis #disaster lineage #holy shit i peaked in high school...#i'm still IN high school :(#Youtube

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idiosyncraticrednebula · 9 days

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People think Anakin was being creepy towards Padmé in AOTC, but the reality is that bro just couldn't flirt to save his life. He was far too awkward (not his fault given how he was brought up in the Jedi Order) to be out here spitting mad bars at Padmé.

#anakin skywalker #star wars #aotc #meta #sw meta #character analysis #txt #bro was a whole dorky nerd #and instead of padmé judging him she loved him regardless which says a lot about her #honestly contrary to popular belief a lot of girls like awkward goofballs #also the idea of anakin as a “bad boy”... yeah i never bought into that lol

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firefly-fez · 2 years

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i keep seeing that ‘obi wan broke the left half, ahsoka broke the right, but only luke could remove the whole mask’ take everywhere and just no. no no no. i hate it. It is not a virtue of luke’s that he was able to remove the mask and it is not a failing of obi wan and ahsoka that they could not. You cannot help someone who doesn’t want to be helped and you cannot save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. That is a fact of life and it is is unchangeable. Neither Obi Wan nor Ahsoka could save Anakin, separately or together and that is not their fault.

First of all, Obi Wan and Ahsoka do not have equivalent experiences in their fight with Vader.

Obi Wan fights Vader, shatters the mask begins with the torment that Anakin is Vader, but leaves with the belief that Anakin is dead, that there is nothing of Anakin left within Vader.

Ahsoka fights Vader, initially denying that Vader and Anakin are one and the same, but comes to the realisation that Anakin is still within Vader. She goes from “My Master could never be as vile as you” to “I won’t leave you. / Not this time.” Obi Wan goes from “Anakin. I have failed you” to “Then my friend truly is dead.”

They do not go through the same journey when they fight Vader

But more to my original point; IT’S NOT A FAILING ON OBI WAN AND AHSOKA’S PART THAT THEY COULDN’T BRING ANAKIN BACK TO THE LIGHT, EITHER SEPERATELY OR TOGETHER

Anakin, after years of suffering, after years of wallowing in self-hatred, after years of being this monster and hating himself for it, sees

1: There is still someone he loves.

2: For once, it’s not too late

3: It’s about to be too late

And something in him snaps. He just goes No. No more. And he destroys Palpatine, once and for all. (Screw the sequel trilogy)

I love Obi Wan and I love Ahsoka and they both have their faults but you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. If someone insists on pushing you away and surrendering to their worst instincts, there is nothing you can do about it.

It is a credit to Luke that he recognised this goodness was still there, and that he was willing to put himself in the right circumstances to draw it out, but it was Anakin’s own choice that redeemed him in that moment.

He doesn’t have the same sense of failure and shame attached to Luke as he does to Obi Wan and Ahsoka. He loved them both, dearly, but he let them down. He betrayed them and they know it. He failed as Obi Wan’s apprentice and he failed as Ahsoka’s master. That’s why he hates them, hates the sight of them, can’t stand to be around them. He hasn’t got the same sense of internal shame surrounding Luke. It’s because he’s young, because he’s innocent in all of this, because he was uninvolved in the fall of the order and all the failings of the jedi that he is able to represent what Oni Wan and Ahsoka can never be to Vader: A second chance.

I think that, following their encounters with Vader, Ahsoka could accept this and Obi Wan couldn’t. He could not bear to believe that Anakin could be saved, but not by him. Anakin never learned to let go, but I don’t think Obi Wan ever did either. He couldn’t let Anakin go. Accepting that he couldn’t stop Anakin’s fall means also accepting that he can’t bring about Anakin’s salvation. I don’t think Obi Wan could ever do that, but I do believe that Ahsoka reached this point of clarity. She tells Ezra “You can’t save your master. / And I can’t save mine.” She has to let go. And he does find salvation; through his own choices.

Anakin chose to save Luke and in doing so, saved himself.

#anakin #anakin skywalker #ahsoka #ahsoka tano #obi wan #obi wan kenobi #star wars #disaster trio #star wars clone wars #star wars character analysis #anakin's fall #darth vader #vader's redemption

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erebus-xvii · 2 months

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Between the Clone Wars and the Prequel Trilogy movies, which one do you think treated Anakin more like a full character?

#star wars #anakin skywalker #the clone wars #star wars prequels #character analysis

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briliantlymad · 4 months

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A lot of the people doing sw analysis are either

"Anakin is the only one wrong"

"Anakin did nothing wrong"

It's funny cus both sides keep taking potshots at the other for not understanding the source material when in fact they're both extreme and wrong. I be scrolling through the tag and I can make out when someone makes a post in response to the other but neither @ each other shsjsjdjdjd

Must be nice. Not being able to understand that characters can be multidimensional and that plot developments can be influenced through multiple factors.

#i feel like. what ever your version of fanon anakin #its ok to write him however ya want in your fanfiction #but if you're pushing your analysis as the only correct interpration and the other side is just stupid #at least bother to see anakin as more than an uwu baby or as evil incarnate #anakin skywalker #star wars #bro contains multitudes #i promise you can acknowledge context and background of a character when you're analysing them

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1ucifersdaughter · 5 months

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i just want a star wars loving loser boyfriend. is that so much to ask? i long for a sci-fi/fantasy obsessed dork that when they fall in love with a specific book series/movie/tv series or whatever, they consume every single piece of media released about said books/movie/series.

i want to watch 45 minute videos about the dragons from GOT and learn about the targaryen dragons family tree, if they had riders and who they were if they had with someone.

i want to someone to sit and listen to me go on and on and on about padme amidala for hours on end because she's my mf girl. i want them to listen and appreciate the queen of naboo with me because it's what she fucking deserves, thank you.

also, where are my wheel of time himbos at?? please this is so embarrassing!! i need to talk about al'lan mandragoran to someone!!! i need a man to tell me they'd be my warder if i was an aes sedai, and then tell me what ajah they think i would be in based off my personality.

don't get me started on lord of the rings. just fucking don't. aragorn or legolas babe? ARAGORN OR LEGOLAS BABE?!?!!

gimme loser lightsaber twirling men nowwwww please. pretty please.

#listen i know i was just talking mad shit about boyfriends but like come on i'm just a girl #also just have to mention how fine perrin aybara from WOT is like where are the perrin edits? where are the perrin character analysis'#god i love padme amidala #fav star wars character ever #i'm not ashamed you'll never make me feel shame for loving her AND the prequels #anakin! you're breaking my heart! you're going down a path i cant follow!#fuck a sexy bitch called anakin skywalker #anakin and the primreaper would be besties fr #ugh #star wars #wheel of time #game of thrones #padme amidala #perrin aybara #lord of the rings #aragorn son of arathorn #legolas #al'lan mandragoran

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artist-issues · 8 months

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I think it’s also one of the best parts of Anakin’s character that he was the most powerful up-and-comer in the Jedi Order, and he could’ve been a much worse force for evil…if he hadn’t been mutilated and lost the fight on Mustafar.

Literally, his pride handicapped him. He thought he could overpower Obi-Wan’s high-ground (morally! And physically!) just by pure force, and it lost him his remaining limbs and lungs.

So then from that point on the previously all-capable warrior is only able to move and breathe and commit monstrosities because he’s literally caged in a dark suit. He can’t even see anything with his own eyes, or breathe the air of the real world. Symbolically, and physically.

He could’ve been way worse a nightmare as Darth Vader without the suit, but the suit is kind of the point.

#Anakin Skywalker #revenge of the sith #Star Wars meta #Anakin #Anakin character analysis #Darth Vader #meta

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phoenixkaptain · 2 years

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I can’t help but find something so fascinating about Legends’ Luke.

He grew up on Tatooine, a place I am still unconvinced has an actual school on it. He grew up somehow being optimistic on the worst planet in the known galaxy. Do you realize how bad Tatooine is? They have a Sarlacc Pit, they have two suns, they have a den of evil and corruption and villainy, and a Hutt lives there! And Luke is still an optimist!

But the way the novels especially portray Luke’s thought process is what fascinates me. Luke isn’t confident in his abilities. Luke doesn’t even fully understand his abilities. He has to figure out how to train Leia when he was barely trained himself. He has to figure out how to teach children when he doesn’t even understand what that would even entail.

He is nervous and he is depressed and he has moments where he thinks about old fights and gets more nervous. He’s also friends with Lando Calrissian, who for all intents and purposes set a trap specifically for Luke! Nobody else trusts Lando as much after that debacle, except for Luke, who apparently talks to him enough for Lando to teach him how to make hot chocolate.

Luke gave his father a second chance. His father who killed countless people and killed Luke’s friends and killed Luke’s family and Luke still believed that he could be good. So of course Luke gives Lando another chance, Luke is the King of Giving Out Second Chances.

There are parts where he just drifts. Where he’s alone and he feels lonely and he doesn’t want to do anything and the weight of everything feels like it’s crushing him. But, he still tries to convince Threepio and Leia that he’s fine. Leia can literally feel his emotions and Luke just tells her he’s fine. Luke tells everyone that he’s fine, when he really just feels lost.

Luke refers to Yoda as his Master and his friend. He considers Obi-Wan his Master and his friend, but more than that even, he loves Obi-Wan and is absolutely crushed when Force Ghost Obi-Wan tells him he’s leaving. Luke went through the most rushed and hurried Jedi training in the history of ever, but he still tries to remember what Yoda and Obi-Wan did. More, he tries to understand why they taught him the way they did. Were they pressed for time or was Luke really just that quick of a learner? Luke has no idea.

But, I think of Luke losing time, a lot. Where he’ll be doing something and he’ll blank out the whole memory. And yes, this is mostly referred to when Luke uses the Force, and I like to think it’s the Force letting Luke sit in the backseat while it drives for a few seconds or minutes. The point isn’t that though. The point is that he loses time and he doesn’t remember things and he doesn’t know how he can use the Force, he doesn’t understand why he can use the Force, and he can’t explain it to anyone, because Luke doesn’t really consciously use the Force that much.

I think we’re meant to assume that Luke is sort of always using the Force. I say this because from the very start back in 1976, we know that Luke would drive full tilt at canyon walls to pull away at the last second. We know that he had a somehow impeccable aim with a blaster. We know that he dodges attacks without even really comprehending why he’s moving. Luke is sort of always using the Force, especially as the movies go on to the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. I don’t think Luke knows how not to use the Force, really.

We know that Jedi can hide themselves, even that early on, because Obi-Wan managed to hide his presence from Darth Vader while they were on the Death Star (for a while, at least, and even then, it’s implied that Obi-Wan slipped up for one second. Vader just noticed that slip up because he’s so familiar with Obi-Wan). But hiding himself from Vader is never really an option that Luke considers. He doesn’t know how to hide himself, he doesn’t know how to be anything other than a flashing beacon. Luke uses the Force so casually in Return of the Jedi, and maybe it’s strange, but I really think he can use it so easily because he’s always using it.

Luke dissociates and Luke zones out and Luke thinks about things that have nothing to do with his current dilemma and Luke’s aunt and uncle both died and Obi-Wan (who in the novel is described by Luke as practically being the desert. Luke associates him with Tatooine, because Ben has always been there, and therefore, on some level, Luke associates him with his home) dies and Luke has to shove all of that emotion down to do more action sequences. Luke believes in his father even when Vader is watching him be electrocuted and Luke tried so hard to save Vader by getting him off the ship and Luke burned Anakin in a pyre then went and smiled at Leia to tell her that he was fine.

Luke is a self-sacrificing character on a fundamental level. He does stupid stuff and he doesn’t really expect to live through it. We know this because he’s so excited to live through it. His assumptions were proven wrong, he’s still alive, and he didn’t see that coming.

Luke is also unlike every other Jedi we ever end up seeing. He has attachment because I honestly think that splitting up Force twins would be the equivalent of splitting an atom, so… Luke tries to speak around things, but he always ends up explaining in layman’s terms in the end. His plans are very clear cut, it’s obvious that Leia is the one who comes up with plans because Luke isn’t good at coming up with plans. (All of Luke’s plans are: jump in and hope for the best. Luke should not be allowed to plan anything, I’m hesitant to even let him try and plan lessons, honestly-)

Luke is kind of similar to mavericks like Qui-Gon, but Luke, for the most part, tries to stay in the lines? I cannot stress enough how law-abiding Luke somehow is, despite growing up on fucking Tatooine. Maybe a part of that is that Luke doesn’t have a Council to answer to, but I don’t know. While his actions feel kind of like Qui-Gon, Luke isn’t because Qui-Gon was obsessive and Luke just isn’t. Luke isn’t like Obi-Wan either, because Obi-Wan is one of the most pessimistic optimists in the whole series, and Luke is just an optimist. Anakin is based, later on especially, more on Luke, but Anakin honestly acts more like Leia.

Leia is the one who had a whirlwind romance with an older person, just like her father. Leia is the one who is a War General. Leia is the one who gets angry and irate and hides it beneath a very thin veneer. Leia is the one who talks back to people who want to see her dead. Leia is the one who was still casually chilling in her cell on the Death Star, after being tortured and before her scheduled execution. Leia is the character who chases after escaping figures without really stopping to think. Leia is like Anakin, and I can’t help but think that Anakin’s writing is purposefully based more off of Leia than Luke.

Luke isn’t like the Jedi Council, who answer to a Senate. The New Republic wants him to answer to him, but Luke up and ditches them to go to Dagobah multiple times. In fact, Luke never checks with the New Republic before going somewhere. He might check with Leia, but even then… Luke straight up is like “I’m going to Dagobah. Does anyone know? Of course not. That would be silly.”

Luke is so chaotic, honestly, when portrayed with the New Republic, because they ask him to do or not to do things and he does not listen.

They tell Leia “There’s no time for you to train as a Jedi.”

Luke says: “Dang, I better learn how to becoem a teacher quicker so I can teach you despite the leaders saying no.”

They say: “Luke, the Rebels are going to this rendezvous point, meet us there.”

Luke: “I’ll meet you there in a few months, give or take.”

They say: “Luke, you need to fly in formation.”

Luke: “I am going in, guns blazing, with only fifteen monutes experience driving a ship in outer space, and I am going to go for kills with no back up, and I’m going to encourage my friends to get out of bad situations while I get myself into worse ones, and I’m going to turn off my targetting computer and blow up the Death Star.”

And what can the New Republic even do?? Luke doesn’t have a position, outside of the nebulous “Jedi Master” and Luke doesn’t even have a Jedi Council, so they can’t complain to the Council, like they did in the good ol days and if they treat Luke too poorly or don’t listen to him enough or bother him in any way, Leia Organa Solo will descend upon them with the wrath of ten thousand men. And, to make matters worse, Luke doesn’t let this power go to his head, so they can barely even complain to each other!

The New Republic has literally zero control over Luke and Luke’s actions. They can suggest things and he might do them, but Luke has the power to do whatever he wants whenever he wants. They are lucky he’s loyal, or he would probably dip out mid-mission.

This fact alone makes Luke the strangest Jedi. Luke answers to no one. The Jedi had a Council for thousands of years, but Luke doesn’t. Jedi Masters perform some feat of strength and overcome great trials to reach their station. Luke wasn’t even the one to actually kill the Emperor.

If I were to liken Luke to anyone, maybe it would be Yaddle. Especially with Tales of the Jedi’s depiction of her basically making her a direct mirror to Luke. Yaddle is young, for her species. Yaddle became a Master (I cannot stress enough that this may not be canon anymore, but it was at one point and good God I want it to be so bad) by meditating in a prison for a hundred years. Yaddle is willing to find a way to forgive Dooku for all of his innumerous crimes and she wants to be there for him because she knows Dooku had a strong attachment to his Padawan. Luke is what I imagine Yaddle would act like without the Council. Or maybe, Yaddle is what I imagine Luke would act like with the Council.

But really, there’s no Jedi that acts the way Luke does. Even when they tried to make Rey into a Luke-type, it just didn’t turn out that way. Luke is self-sacrificing, yes. Luke is reckless, he is dumb, he zones out, and he gets attached. But, Luke wants to help people. And Luke has an undying loyalty. And Luke responds to problems in the same way Anakin did, minus all the wrecked ships.

He’s such a unique character, especially in Legends’, and I think what strikes me is that they clearly wanted Luke to be a small version of his father, in the beginning.

But, somehow, Leia still has more in common with Vader than Luke does. Leia and Vader both are the faces of their respective organizations, despite not technically leading. Leia and Vader are both feared when they’re angry. Leia and Vader are both unimpressed and unintimidated by Tarkin. Leia and Vader have parallels and they act as opposites, the obvious being Leia in white and Vader in black. But, there’s also Vader’s complete faith in the Force, and Leia’s line that force just leads to downfall. Even their heights, with Vader being so tall and Leia being so short. They are clearly narrative foils, but in the way that they are similar depsite their differences. They’re both leaders. They even both act arrogant with fake accent. I cannot stress enough that Leia and Vader are so clearly two sides of the same coin, especially in A New Hope. Even down to them both getting excited when they realize Obi-Wan is aboard (albeit for different reasons…)

Luke just doesn’t have that with Vader. I feel like we as a culture are so aware of the twist in the second movie, that we just know it’s coming and so don’t think about Luke’s similarities. The only similarities they really share are that Luke looks like his dad and Luke pilots like his dad. Oh, and Luke has the Force like his dad. They’re both from Tatooine. I suppose you could call Luke’s unwavering faith in Vader’s goodness a reference to Vader’s unwavering faith in the Force. Luke does wear dark colours too. But those are things that come later!

In the first movie, the similarities are just looks, Tatooine, piloting. Luke is inherently innocent in the first movie in a way Vader or Anakin are never portrayed. It’s hinted in the novel and deleted scenes that the Lars family is poor, but just looking at the first movie and novel for reference, there’s no evidence really there to support the idea that Anakin grew up poor. Anakin went off to train with Jedi and fight in a war. Luke also runs off to train with Jedi and fight in a war, but even their motivations are different. Luke only leaves when there’s nothing left for him on Tatooine. Anakin probably could have returned at any point and Owen and Beru would’ve just shrugged and let him stay.

I just, I know Luke is supposed to be a mini version of his father, but it doesn’t feel like Vader was supposed to be that father, in A New Hope.

But, I’ve gotten sidetracked. Luke is a strange character. He dissociates. He cut off Vader’s hand and went “Yeah. I feel like we’re even now. I’m content.” He wonders how he can teach Leia and then dissociates for twenty minutes while using the training bot. He made Leia a lightsaber. He barely ever listens to any authority figure, but he almost always listens to Leia. He can understand binary and is fond of Artoo and Threepio. His best friend was the Force Ghost version of Obi-Wan. He considers Yoda his friend. He strangled a Gamorrean guard to death. He has a friendship with Lando Calrissian that is apparently very strong, but you almost never see them even stand next to each other. He and Leia are so ridiculously intuned to each other that they respond to each other’s thoughts and they can tell if each other is alive even when Leia’s on planet and Luke’s on the second Death Star. Luke probably would have had a similar bond with Vader, but he tried to keep it closed off. Leia gets pregnant with Force-sensitive twins and Luke’s first thought is “How am I going to train these children when I don’t know how to teach???”

Luke is so weird. He’s so strange. He’s absolutely adorable. He’s unlike any other Jedi in the series, and he found the stew Yoda made to be quite tasty, actually.

(Also, speaking of Yoda. Luke shimmied around Yoda’s little house, careful not to break anything, and he ate some stew and he had a talk and then he goes “Wait a minute, why am I sitting here with you? I was looking for Master Yoda >:/“ He got distracted, he got sidetracked, I occasionally jokingly say that Anakin has ADHD but actually it isn’t a joke and Luke definitely isn’t neurotypical either, Luke was just having a gay old time with the weird green man who introduced himself by stealing Luke’s stuff.)

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sethnakht · 1 year

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darth vader (2020-), #26 (pak/ienco)

it’s a podrace! darth vader pilots a podracer through an artificial sandstorm to save sabé, the former double for queen amidala, who has been lost in its center. vader flies alone through a maelstrom manufactured by the empire; as he steers and slices his way past dark obstacles, his mind dwells on the podrace he won as a child slave to help queen amidala, then represented too by sabé while padmé masked herself as a handmaiden.

before he won that race, vader remembers, he could find his mother even in sandstorms, and promise her he would never leave her. in the subsequent panels, we see the contrasting results of winning: it meant separation from his mother, interrogation by the jedi council over his fear of losing her, his mother’s death, his own subsequent choice to murder the villagers who’d held her hostage, and finally, separation from padmé again because of jedi and sith. specifically, vader remembers how she’d fallen out of their ship into a sand dune, and his jedi master obi-wan ordering him to leave her behind (so they could pursue the sith lord count dooku instead). surrounded by sand with his mother, he was never closer to her; alone in the jedi temple, before his mother’s grave, a smattering of sand kernels was all he had left.

[image caption: panels from two different pages showing vader’s memories of losing his mother - first when he was taken to the temple, then when she died. anakin’s hand is shown in close-up, stray grains of sand in his palm.]

vader wins this race as well. as he once helped queen amidala and her handmaidens leave tatooine, so too does he now save the queen’s shadow. when he arrives at the site where sabé disappeared, he finds anakin’s childhood friend kitster (more context below), who learned how to build pods from anakin and put together the pod that vader has just raced. kitster shows him that sabé has been buried alive under a toppled cylinder. vader lifts it with the force; as she rises from the shallow grave, he remembers his power from before he won the tatooine race and was taken to the jedi - the power to tell his mother, “don’t worry, we’re going to be fine,” and, “I’m not leaving you.”

[image caption: vader saves sabé with kitster’s help, and remembers finding his mother in a sandstorm.]

but it’s not that easy. generated by an energy-eating machine (I think? again, don’t ask me about the lore), the storm doesn’t respond to vader’s attempts to quell it with the force. he realizes that sabé will be consumed by it - he thinks back to leaving padmé behind, her body half-buried in sand - if he fails to call on machine power.

using the cylinder-gravestone from which he’d just freed sabé as armor for himself, sabé, and kitster, vader directs his orbiting flagship to fire upon his location with maximum incinerating force. the result: all the sand in the storm fuses and flattens into a smooth ground of glass.

the sand still caught in his glove slides down his palm; vader looks at it, looks at it for a long time. this time, it seems, it is not all that he has left: he has saved sabé from death. letting the sand fall from his hand, he lifts sabé and carries her over the glass into the light horizon.

[image caption: vader steps out from an armored shell into a landscape he’s had incinerated; sand has transformed into black glass. some sand that was caught in his glove falls from his hand; he lets it, then takes sabé from kitster and walks towards a sunlit cloud.]

so ... why is kitster here? vader has come to this place because sabé is as haunted by his mother’s death as he is. troubled by the fact that anakin, a child slave, won a podrace to help royalty, and that his mother was nonetheless left behind in slavery, padmé had directed sabé to find shmi on tatooine. never having met shmi before, as queen amidala did not leave her starship on tatooine, sabé failed to locate shmi on that mission. she did manage to free a small number of slaves, however, including anakin’s childhood best friend kitster, and relocate them. the more immediate context is this: these ex-slaves are now under threat from a crimson dawn operative masquerading as an imperial, or something (don’t ask me about the lore-related details of the plot, I can only grasp at relationships between images). and since vader has vowed to end crimson dawn in the name of restoring “order”, sabé was able to convince him to visit this community, and work with people like kitster to destroy the imperial/dawn weapon that caused the sandstorm in the first place.

in summary. we are here because of shared grief over shmi and padmé, over shared grief about the results of that first podrace. we have a second race with a parallel result - vader has helped the former queen, again; helped padmé, in a way, again - and a contrast: there is no jedi betting on vader’s freedom, now. but in some sense this is another parallel. for as winning the race led vader to coruscant and the jedi temple, the comic now cuts to the former temple, now the imperial palace, on coruscant.

[image caption: it is night on coruscant; the former jedi temple, now the emperor’s palace, is shown in dark profile against a sky lit pink-purple from the city lights.]

the emperor is speaking, speaking to himself, ignoring his red-robed guards, who gaze at each other questioningly. vader, the emperor mutters, couldn’t save his mother, nor padmé. but now he thinks he can --

well, the emperor doesn’t finish the sentence. you might say the emperor is betting on failure; he is delighted by what he anticipates, for he closes the issue with his cackles. you can fill in the blanks.

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valenteal · 4 months

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Dazai Osamu and Anakin Skywalker are two of the greatest characters ever written for all the same reasons and their stories and personalities mirror each other. Anakin is a truly good person who turns bad because he was manipulated and lost everything he loved and stayed bad until he had someone to love and protect again. Dazai is a truly bad person who choose to be good because he lost the only person he truly loved and stayed good because he gained more people to care about him that he wanted to be better for. Anakin was manipulated and Dazai is a manipulator, Dazai has trouble connecting with other people while Anakin gets too easily attached. They both make the audience question what makes someone a “good person.” They both remind us how important it is to have a support system. They both have done terrible things, committed atrocities, and yet we can’t help but feel bad for the, want them to have better lives.

After everything Anakin did as Vader can he truly be redeemed? Yes, because he wasn’t in his right mind. He basically had 20 year long psychotic break. I think his situation is much simpler than Dazai’s because at his core Anakin is a kind and selfless person. A lot of people say his love for Padmé was selfish but it wasn’t. The Jedi didn’t provide him with the support he needed, she was quite literally his entire support system because the Jedi code made Anakin’s needs taboo and forbidden. He needed something stable and constant in his life. He needed someone who loved him unconditionally, someone who could get him out of his own head. But the Jedi are unattached, untethered by the mortal plane, at least according to Yoda. He didn’t understand that when Anakin is untethered he isn’t peaceful like other Jedi, he’s just uncontrolled.

Does Dazai deserve his new life in the ADA? He feels no remorse for everything he’s done, and his reasons for choosing to do good are completely selfish. This makes it harder to answer, because when he can get away with it he slips back into old patterns. Personally I believe in redemption, that people can change and deserve the chance to. I think society focuses too much on punishment for punishment’s sake. But punishment is a tool for teaching and is useless when not used in conjunction with rewards. Punishment for its own sake does nothing but give us sadistic satisfaction and a feeling of false righteousness that is easily manipulated and exploited. So, in the end, I would say prevention should be the goal, and I’m not sure if I would say Dazai should be given the chance to do good or be stopped and prevented from doing more bad. It’s a gamble, because he has the potential to do a lot of good given the right opportunities. But containing him, keeping him form hurting anyone else is probably the safer option, though it is admittedly unrealistic as the prison arc clearly demonstrates. So I guess giving him the opportunity to do good is the only viable option even if it is risky. As long as he does more harm than good I can be content with his place in the ADA. As long as he puts in effort I will not view him as a villain or as someone who doesn’t deserve what they have. Because in the end he is going against his very nature, struggling to do good and obtain happiness and that is something I have to respect.

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cassi-llusion · 1 year

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Pure rambling, sorry if this doesn't make sense I wrote it at like 2 in the morning. But silly little Anakin character analysis (used lightly)

I've decided I am the only person allowed to talk about Anakin(/j). People either only make him a poor suffering soul who didn't know what he was doing, or a man who was truly born evil. Technically neither is wrong but they aren't mutually exclusive. You can't have one without the other.

I think to fully understand this, we would have to focus on the relationship between the Jedi, the Republic, and Palpatine. The Jedi, over the course of the Clone Wars, became pawns in the Rebpulic’s game. They lost so much of their own freedom, trying to fight for others. They also had to deal with Palpatine constantly interfering with Jedi affairs and vetoing their wanted means of tackling the war. They became so involved with this, they were oblivious to just how serious Anakin and Palpatine’s friendship had become.

With the Jedi aside, Palpatine began to capitalise on Anakin’s fears and wants. Anakin wanted nothing more than for his mother to be free, and for himself to be free. That could happen if he turned to the dark side. Anakin didn’t want to lose more people he loved, he wanted to be fast enough, he needed to be enough. He can bend the forces of life and death with the dark side. There Palpatine was, whispering in Anakin’s ear, fueling his furnace heart, and pushing more fear into the dragon that had scared Anakin for so long.

If Anyone was to blame for Anakin’s failure, for his fall to the dark side, it would be Palpatine. So many people blame the Jedi, blame Obi-Wan, blame Ahsoka for leaving, but that’s missing the point. In Matt Stover's “Revenge of the Sith” novelization, Palpatine speaks “You are the chosen one.” Palpatine leans toward you, eyes clear. Steady. Utterly honest. “Chose by me.” This is insanely important because it shows how Palpatine had been manipulating Anakin, grooming him since he was a child. In the comic series “Obi-Wan & Anakin”, we the reader, see Palpatine oversee Anakin’s training as he takes an interest in him. People talk a lot about how if "Ahsoka didn't leave Anakin wouldn't have fallen", "if Padme was more open", "If Obi-Wan was more understanding", and "if the Jedi were good people". But the person who coaxed him over to the dark side was Palpatine.

Then we have the topic of Padme, Ahsoka, and Obi-Wan. Why didn’t they do anything? First off, I stand by the fact that Ahsoka not leaving the order wouldn’t have fixed anything. Anakin and Ahsoka’s conversation before she ended up leaving, was more so him talking to himself. Anakin had contemplated leaving the order since he was twelve. In the comic “Obi-Wan & Anakin”, they travel to a planet that has been destroyed by war. Within the first issue, Anakin expresses disdain over the fact that neither the Jedi nor the Republic stepped in to help and left the planet to participate in endless war. Anakin mentions leaving the order, and Obi-Wan vocalizes how he would support it.

However, I think Anakin realized, leaving the order would mean returning to life as a slave on Tatooine. His overall goal was to return home and be able to free his mother, but we will touch on that later. Anyways, that being said, I think Ahsoka leaving only added to his abandonment issues, as he viewed her leaving the order as her leaving him. This plays into so many of the interactions he had with other characters.

With Padme, it’s a whole other topic. Was their relationship actually a healthy one? I think most people would be inclined to say yes, they are! They love each other and that’s true but also you have to look at them outside of their love. They didn’t necessarily understand each other. Padme in the later seasons of “The Clone Wars” was becoming more aligned with the separatist ideology. She began to see the flaws and corruption that ran deep into the Republic that Anakin couldn’t see. But they were so obsessed with each other that they chose to ignore these differences. I think one of the main examples of this was probably in “Attack of the Clones”. Padme rather than being concerned over Anakin’s outburst with the Tuskens supported him and “understood” why he did it. She loved him too much to let this get to her. It was why she was fully ready to give up her position as a senator just to be happy with him. In the “Revenge of the Sith” novelization, Matthew Stover writes about their relationship in a different light. It reads much more uncomfortably than it does in the movies. He writes “Anakin couldn’t breath. She wasn’t here, hadn’t come to meet him, over some debate? The Senate. He hated the Senate.”(156-157). Padme is written the same way, on page 161, “For Padme Amidala, saying I am Anakin Skywalker’s wife is saying neither more nor less than I am alive.”. I think this is extremely important in showing the fact that they loved each other so much, that they were each other's downfall. This happens again on Mustafar when they meet their tragic end. Padme was saving him by not joining him, and Anakin was saving her by joining the dark side.

We move on to Obi-Wan and Anakin now. They are two sides of the same coin, they were brothers and Anakin’s most notable betrayal. One of the most notable things about their relationship is two passages from the “Revenge of the Sith” novel. The first reads, “Anakin and Obi-Wan would never fight each other. They couldn’t. They’re a team. They’re the team. And both of them are sure they always will be.”(40). This one is important because it shows that, Obi-Wan and Anakin are important to each other. In their mind they are brothers, they are best friends. They couldn’t hurt each other, they are comfortable with that fact. Now the second passage comes from page 402 and reads, “This was not Sith against Jedi. This was not light against dark or good against evil; it had nothing to do with duty or philosophy, religion or morals. It was Anakin against Obi-Wan. Personally. Just the two of them, and the damage they had done to each other.”. Now, this quote is the total opposite of the first and happens a whole 362 pages later, and it's just as important. It shows Obi-Wan couldn't have said anything to change Anakin’s mind, no matter how hard you wish he could’ve.

In conclusion, so many factors went into why Anakin fell to the dark side and there was genuinely nothing that could’ve been done to stop it. Not only was it the way he interacted with other people but also just his environment. While Anakin may have been a boy who longed to be free and defeat the “dragon” that plagued his nightmares, he was still a man who made his own decisions, selfish or not.

#i am so normal about him #anakin skywalker #actually autistic #austism #star wars #character analysis #star wars the clone wars #star wars prequels #ahsoka and anakin #obi wan kenobi #obi wan and anakin #anidala #anakin and padme

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