Setting aside that Anakin's first child massacre came in Attack of the Clones when he butchered a Tusken village, it's a very Protestant conceit that defines damnation and redemption essentially as a state of mind. It's not like Vader does anything in Return of the Jedi to "make up" for the now-billions of dead on his ticket; by the time he offs Palpatine, the second Death Star is already being destroyed by unrelated events from which Luke has removed himself as well. It's a fascinating scene that exists in moral isolation, literally setting aside everything Vader/Anakin has done (and what Luke has walked away from doing) in favor of Luke's emotional state. In the same way, in Revenge of the Sith Anakin kills the Padawan not for any particular reason, pragmatic or otherwise. His emotional state has shifted to despair, thus he is evil, thus he does it.
Very true, his first massacre is in AOTC! Although it's played very differently, mentioned by a distraught Anakin, wrestling with an off-screen action, tied directly to his anger over the death of his mother. We're meant to see it as him failing to live up to his own self-conception, and he immediately seeks forgiveness from Padme.
In Episode III, Anakin kills with clarity of purpose and for a goal: he's been ordered by his new Master to kill all the Jedi in the Temple, do what must be done, "show no mercy," or it will be Civil War without end. He also promises that if Anakin takes this action, he will be "strong enough with the Dark Side" to save Padme.
Luke (and the audience) is asked to forgive him anyway. That's what's so fascinating, I think. How far from the light Anakin's fallen in the story requires an active choice that forgiveness is more valuable than anything Vader could do to make up for what he's done.
I like the more recent explorations into forgiveness in the franchise a lot more. In Bad Batch, Crosshair seems genuinely unaware he even CAN possess empathy for most of the series, even while he clearly does, and the recent introduction of Asaj Ventriss makes the clone team confront an exterior version of their own pasts. Clone Wars viewers know that there was no way Ventriss could conceivably have taken a significantly different path through her very real war crimes, given her childhood and environment, yet she managed to turn away from it, and appears to perform her own version of penitence towards Omega.
Similarly, in Andor, we see Luthen openly embracing the inherent horror of his actions with "I burn my soul for a sunrise I know I'll never see," and then at the end of S1 he forces himself to watch the destruction his actions have caused. In the classic film conceits we're asked to make the choice on "faith" alone, whereas the Disney offshoots explore deeds and reality a lot more, and asks the viewer to consider what, if anything, we might have done differently.
Great write-up here, Matt. The moment Anakin killed younglings, I was speechless. Choking his wife was also another eye-opener. But the whole movie, I was just like, "If only this guy talks to his wife and his close friends about his problems, Vader might never have been." But I guess that makes for a less exciting movie. My main problem with that particular movie though, was how quickly Padme's physical decline was depicted. I get that she would die of a broken heart, maybe after a couple of weeks or months. But for a senator who was kicking butt in the previous movie and seemed to have firm control of nuances of politics in the past--the sudden turn seemed rather rushed. It's not even about girl power because I love a tragic love story as much as another---it's just how quickly she 'lost the will to live.' Seems a bit inconsistent. Oh well. Nothing really to do with the wisdom you had done a good job at outlining in this post. But I guess this is more a thought I've had for a while?
"Still, it can’t be denied that the experience of watching Revenge of the Sith doesn’t feel like Anakin Skywalker isn’t himself. It looks and plays as if Anakin, clouded by his visions, alienated from his friends, desperate for control, has lost himself in a fantasy of power and, in that fantasy, finds fanaticism. It makes the idea that there’s good in him harder to accept. And it separates Episode III from all the other films in the Saga. It’s the only film my friends hesitate to show their children."
This is the stuff I write about. I understand this stuff better than anyone.
You know, right when I start to think that fan fic is about the stupidest way one can waste one's time EVER ... I run across a deeply wise essay like this.
Of course, Star Wars touches the whole planet because George Lucas is George Lucas. Fan fic doesn't touch ANYbody. Well, hardly.
You see, I come at this from the other direction: The one where you understand every, single, little, minutely, tiny, THING. I come at this from a family that did unspeakable things, that I've struggled to understand my entire life. I'm pretty sure my grandfather was incurably mentally ill, and my mother is, too.
There are two brands of forgiveness: The one you write about, where you don't understand a cotton-pickin' THING; and the one where you can easily forgive because you understand everything. I understand why my relatives were the way they were and why they did what they did. It has become easy to forgive. I'm not sticking my hand back in the cage with rabid dogs again, thank you, but there's more than one way to the same destination. But you explain very eloquently here why punishment makes it worse.
Lucas made history applying unconditional forgiveness without understanding to Vader--although, it could be argued that Luke's blind faith is the result of the father hunger of a fatherless boy. Luke NEEDS there to be good in Vader, because he's needed his father his entire life, and if there isn't good in Vader, he won't be able to accept it. The precursor to The Rise of Skywalker, the old Legends comic Dark Empire, plays off this and does it very well.
I write fan fic about the redemption of Palpatine. Yep, I believe that it was possible at one point, and it could have been done more than one way. As far as I know, mine is the second Palpatine redemption fan fic ever written (the first one is by Brendan Wahlberg and is found in the juried archive on TheForce.net.) I've been told about a couple of others, but the only one I've located is unfinished.
Pretty sure mine is the only one that involves a choice on the part of the villain. In the others I know of, someone else acts on him in a way that changes him without his volition. I started to think maybe mine was just a stupid idea, but reading this reminded me why the topics of understanding, faith, redemption, and forgiveness are so important.
"Still, it can’t be denied that the experience of watching Revenge of the Sith doesn’t feel like Anakin Skywalker isn’t himself. It looks and plays as if Anakin, clouded by his visions, alienated from his friends, desperate for control, has lost himself in a fantasy of power and, in that fantasy, finds fanaticism."
Disagree. It looks as if Anakin, desperate to save Padme, must decide whether Palpatine is playing him or not. Desperately hoping Palpatine CAN save Padme, desperately hoping he IS exhausted when he says he is ... even though he really ought to know better ... Anakin makes the wrong decision, helps Palpatine murder Mace Windu, and then is forced to go through with everything Palpatine wants, because if he doesn't, they are exposed as criminals and executed. And that single mistake and the decision to cover it up and keep going, haunts him for the rest of his days.
I could write a whole article to complement yours, but I will try to be brief. The quote you started with is extraordinary, even more so by the fact that it comes from a secular source. This is the Christian ideal of mercy and love, showing that the grace and wisdom of God can work through us all, even if we aren't conscious of it. As a Catholic Christian, I wanted to apologize for how some Christians do not even try to live up to the teachings of Jesus, which is something He warned us about (please read Matthew 25:34-46). I know that I struggle with it too sometimes. You have touched upon the main reason why I believe Return of the Jedi to be the most Christian of the Star Wars movies. This entire article is profound and the best you have written for your Substack.
Setting aside that Anakin's first child massacre came in Attack of the Clones when he butchered a Tusken village, it's a very Protestant conceit that defines damnation and redemption essentially as a state of mind. It's not like Vader does anything in Return of the Jedi to "make up" for the now-billions of dead on his ticket; by the time he offs Palpatine, the second Death Star is already being destroyed by unrelated events from which Luke has removed himself as well. It's a fascinating scene that exists in moral isolation, literally setting aside everything Vader/Anakin has done (and what Luke has walked away from doing) in favor of Luke's emotional state. In the same way, in Revenge of the Sith Anakin kills the Padawan not for any particular reason, pragmatic or otherwise. His emotional state has shifted to despair, thus he is evil, thus he does it.
Thanks for the comment!
Very true, his first massacre is in AOTC! Although it's played very differently, mentioned by a distraught Anakin, wrestling with an off-screen action, tied directly to his anger over the death of his mother. We're meant to see it as him failing to live up to his own self-conception, and he immediately seeks forgiveness from Padme.
In Episode III, Anakin kills with clarity of purpose and for a goal: he's been ordered by his new Master to kill all the Jedi in the Temple, do what must be done, "show no mercy," or it will be Civil War without end. He also promises that if Anakin takes this action, he will be "strong enough with the Dark Side" to save Padme.
Luke (and the audience) is asked to forgive him anyway. That's what's so fascinating, I think. How far from the light Anakin's fallen in the story requires an active choice that forgiveness is more valuable than anything Vader could do to make up for what he's done.
I like the more recent explorations into forgiveness in the franchise a lot more. In Bad Batch, Crosshair seems genuinely unaware he even CAN possess empathy for most of the series, even while he clearly does, and the recent introduction of Asaj Ventriss makes the clone team confront an exterior version of their own pasts. Clone Wars viewers know that there was no way Ventriss could conceivably have taken a significantly different path through her very real war crimes, given her childhood and environment, yet she managed to turn away from it, and appears to perform her own version of penitence towards Omega.
Similarly, in Andor, we see Luthen openly embracing the inherent horror of his actions with "I burn my soul for a sunrise I know I'll never see," and then at the end of S1 he forces himself to watch the destruction his actions have caused. In the classic film conceits we're asked to make the choice on "faith" alone, whereas the Disney offshoots explore deeds and reality a lot more, and asks the viewer to consider what, if anything, we might have done differently.
Fair enough! To each his own!
Great write-up here, Matt. The moment Anakin killed younglings, I was speechless. Choking his wife was also another eye-opener. But the whole movie, I was just like, "If only this guy talks to his wife and his close friends about his problems, Vader might never have been." But I guess that makes for a less exciting movie. My main problem with that particular movie though, was how quickly Padme's physical decline was depicted. I get that she would die of a broken heart, maybe after a couple of weeks or months. But for a senator who was kicking butt in the previous movie and seemed to have firm control of nuances of politics in the past--the sudden turn seemed rather rushed. It's not even about girl power because I love a tragic love story as much as another---it's just how quickly she 'lost the will to live.' Seems a bit inconsistent. Oh well. Nothing really to do with the wisdom you had done a good job at outlining in this post. But I guess this is more a thought I've had for a while?
It's not completely without precedent. Look up takotsubo cardiomyopathy.
"Still, it can’t be denied that the experience of watching Revenge of the Sith doesn’t feel like Anakin Skywalker isn’t himself. It looks and plays as if Anakin, clouded by his visions, alienated from his friends, desperate for control, has lost himself in a fantasy of power and, in that fantasy, finds fanaticism. It makes the idea that there’s good in him harder to accept. And it separates Episode III from all the other films in the Saga. It’s the only film my friends hesitate to show their children."
This is the stuff I write about. I understand this stuff better than anyone.
You know, right when I start to think that fan fic is about the stupidest way one can waste one's time EVER ... I run across a deeply wise essay like this.
Of course, Star Wars touches the whole planet because George Lucas is George Lucas. Fan fic doesn't touch ANYbody. Well, hardly.
You see, I come at this from the other direction: The one where you understand every, single, little, minutely, tiny, THING. I come at this from a family that did unspeakable things, that I've struggled to understand my entire life. I'm pretty sure my grandfather was incurably mentally ill, and my mother is, too.
There are two brands of forgiveness: The one you write about, where you don't understand a cotton-pickin' THING; and the one where you can easily forgive because you understand everything. I understand why my relatives were the way they were and why they did what they did. It has become easy to forgive. I'm not sticking my hand back in the cage with rabid dogs again, thank you, but there's more than one way to the same destination. But you explain very eloquently here why punishment makes it worse.
Lucas made history applying unconditional forgiveness without understanding to Vader--although, it could be argued that Luke's blind faith is the result of the father hunger of a fatherless boy. Luke NEEDS there to be good in Vader, because he's needed his father his entire life, and if there isn't good in Vader, he won't be able to accept it. The precursor to The Rise of Skywalker, the old Legends comic Dark Empire, plays off this and does it very well.
I write fan fic about the redemption of Palpatine. Yep, I believe that it was possible at one point, and it could have been done more than one way. As far as I know, mine is the second Palpatine redemption fan fic ever written (the first one is by Brendan Wahlberg and is found in the juried archive on TheForce.net.) I've been told about a couple of others, but the only one I've located is unfinished.
Pretty sure mine is the only one that involves a choice on the part of the villain. In the others I know of, someone else acts on him in a way that changes him without his volition. I started to think maybe mine was just a stupid idea, but reading this reminded me why the topics of understanding, faith, redemption, and forgiveness are so important.
Thank you.
"Still, it can’t be denied that the experience of watching Revenge of the Sith doesn’t feel like Anakin Skywalker isn’t himself. It looks and plays as if Anakin, clouded by his visions, alienated from his friends, desperate for control, has lost himself in a fantasy of power and, in that fantasy, finds fanaticism."
Disagree. It looks as if Anakin, desperate to save Padme, must decide whether Palpatine is playing him or not. Desperately hoping Palpatine CAN save Padme, desperately hoping he IS exhausted when he says he is ... even though he really ought to know better ... Anakin makes the wrong decision, helps Palpatine murder Mace Windu, and then is forced to go through with everything Palpatine wants, because if he doesn't, they are exposed as criminals and executed. And that single mistake and the decision to cover it up and keep going, haunts him for the rest of his days.
I could write a whole article to complement yours, but I will try to be brief. The quote you started with is extraordinary, even more so by the fact that it comes from a secular source. This is the Christian ideal of mercy and love, showing that the grace and wisdom of God can work through us all, even if we aren't conscious of it. As a Catholic Christian, I wanted to apologize for how some Christians do not even try to live up to the teachings of Jesus, which is something He warned us about (please read Matthew 25:34-46). I know that I struggle with it too sometimes. You have touched upon the main reason why I believe Return of the Jedi to be the most Christian of the Star Wars movies. This entire article is profound and the best you have written for your Substack.