PT Did Anakin / Vader really care about Jedi or Sith ?

IMO -

Since he was 19 and started having reoccurring dreams about his mothers and Padme's death Anikin very quickly lost interest in the Jedi or the Sith and became solely obsessed with keeping those he loved safe. He really did not care where the knowledge to defeat death came from or particularly care about the rest of ether set of Teachings

Watching the Clone Wars series this mindset appears to continue to the point where he kills Mace and realized he had no other place to turn or than to Palpitine.

After his loss to Obi Wan and being put in his suit he attempted to Force choke Palpitine but stopped himself when he realized that every other person he had an attachment to was gone.

He only truly embraced the Jedi way in the moments before he died and realized the pain he had caused.

 

The better question is did the Jedi or Sith care for Anakin/Vader.

No. No, they did not.

EDIT:

I really like the dynamic that was set up with that. It is from the RoTS novelization, right? Can't recall, but that sounds right. One of the most common questions is why didn't Anakin realize Palpatine lied to him, hence continuing to serve Palps?

There are the thoughts of:
- he just witnessed Palps real power and realized it was now just Palps and himself in the room and he might have actually been afraid of Palps unloading lightning on him.
- he wanted that sweet, sweet anti-aging cream Palps promised him.
- he was biding his time to overthrow Palps (dialogue in the movies)

And all of the above can be legitimate reasons. But I really like the added idea of the response of an abused victim. They hate the abuser, but are also afraid to be without the abuser. They wake up every day promising to leave the abuser and go to sleep promising tomorrow for sure. Maybe next week. They just aren't ready yet. A lack of self-confidence, drilled in for years by the abuser.

 

I do think Obi Wan did love him and that he was cared for as a friend,

But it almost seems as if there was an unspoken perception that as the Chosen One Anakin simply could not fail in his destiny. Despite serious misgivings on the part of Yoda and Mace , Anakin was put in charge of both very touchy and important missions during the Clone War.

 

Anakin was always much more of an undisciplined freelancer than a typical Jedi. Probably had a lot to do with the experiences of his youth and his natural talent. But the whole Padme's death / turning to the dark side thing with him making conscious decisions to destroy the Jedi temple, fighting with OWK, etc., just makes him come across as insane. I thought it was one of the weaker points of the PT.

 

After years of manipulation by both sides I think Anakin was a really confused young adult who did not know who to turn to for help. He was not insane in a traditional sense.

Once he killed Mace he realized that the Jedi would never forgive his actions and had no choice but to learn from the Sith teachings to save Padme. I think this is different than truly having an interest in the Dark Side as a whole.

 

Leading a massacre against all of your friends, comrades, and mentors that you've known for ten years or so amounts to a little bit more than confusion. But then again, we have to remember that these are movie characters, not actual people. Movie characters are often written to do things that normal people wouldn't do for the sake of drama. This is probably one of those instances.

He didn't kill Mace. But I do think the Jedi would have forgiven him for his role in Windu's death if he'd left Palp's office afterwards and come clean about everything.

 

Good point about Anakin not killing Mace but he certainly gave Palp the opening .

Until that point I agree that the Jedi would have forgiven him, but once the events played out and Mace died, Anakin had no choice but to attempt to learn the sith teachings to save Padme.

I wonder if Anakin regretted what he had helped do to Mace when he said "what have I done"? or if he regretted more the lost opportunity to search the restricted Jedi archives for a way to prevent people from dying ?

 

He did. But I don't necessarily blame him for that. Palps, after all, was the Chancellor of the Republic at the time. Defending him for that reason alone was sensible enough right then and there. That was an understandable moment of confusion. But right after that when Palps killed Mace while shouting "Unlimited power!" and then told Anakin to go kill virtually everyone he knows, well, I think that might have been a good time to reconsider things.

Did Anakin make the right call in disarming Windu and saving Palps? Clearly not when you consider everything that happened afterwards. But there was reason for uncertainty in the moment.

If Anakin had bolted following his "What have I done" moment I think the Jedi would have forgiven him for the Windu incident.

I think he realized he was starting to go too far but couldn't help himself. But this isn't like someone on a diet being unable to refrain from eating that good looking cheeseburger. Anakin was willing to kill virtually everyone he knew to "maybe" save Padme.

 

I really think Anakin's allegiance to Palpatine was sort of a hasty decision and just a means to an end. But afterwards, he committed. Maybe because he thought it was too late, it was a sunk cost, especially after Padme passed, I don't know. Anyway, this would explain Anakin's hesitation and equivocation on Endor with Luke: "it's too late for me," "that name no longer has any meaning for me" etc.

 

I think that's it exactly -- he realized he had gone too far, there was no going back after he killed off the Jedi and helped bring down the Republic. Padmé's death -- the very thing he turned to the Dark Side to prevent at all -- was just icing on the cake. He had nothing left.

 

Post Mustafar Vader was like Anakin's midlife crisis come early. The honest realization that your upward trajectory now has less room for growth because you know your pure physical prime is behind you. All that you worked for during the prime is gone and you are essentially back to square one knowing the climb back up is going to be harder this time and essentially have to realistically done at twice the pace to make up for that loss. And your motivation (the people you care about) are no longer in your life.

Some people just give in. Well, this is my lot. I might be able to go against the odds and change it for the better with a high probability of failure, or just accept my fate and zombie through this somewhat easier but less rewarding and less chance of total failure path.

Maybe even like a midlife crisis coupled with simultaneously being fired from you career path and going bankrupt all at once. It really isn't much of a stretch that it would turn a previous ambitious person into a bitter and despondent one.

TLDR version: Not that far off from non-fiction human nature.

 

The prequels never gave me the impression that Anakin had any convictions about anything.

Helping people that need it was mentioned in TPM.

In AOTC he seemed to tentatively volunteer some shallow and naive notions about government.

 

Something teenagers / young adults never do
Or as Yoda might say, Even the older, more experienced ones.

 

For a child born into slavery Anakin seemed to be reasonably well adjusted. He had friends , cared about his mother and wanted to help people. Not bad for nine years old and a difficult life. One of the flaws in the Jedi teachings of that era seem to be that they were unable to adapt to an older student who had great potential but who had already formed attachments.

This can be seen in Attack of the Clones where the automatic response of Obi Wan to Anakins dreams was more along the lines of "this is not the Jedi way, move on" as opposed to allowing Anakin to understand that it was normal for his mind to have attachment due to his upbringing. I think if he had been allowed to explore his attachments and put them into the proper context, things would have been much different. Alas, this was not the Jedi way.

Yoda had begun to have this insight but it did not fully come into focus until his battle with Palpitine. The Jedi had spent the last thousand years preparing for the last war while the Sith had moved on and adapted new ways.


This is why the Order lost.

 

The whole point of Palpatine's appeal that the Jedi are mired in dogma is that it held some merit and wasn't just a silly hard sell too outlandish to be taken seriously.

I will never get that a critique of the Jedi Order is somehow a negative critique of the film itself. As far as I'm concerned, we "the audience" were practically being spoon fed this theme. If not and Lucas actually feels the PT Jedi Order was the utopian ideal .. shudder.

 

I think the portrayal of the Order in the prequels was quite good. If you look at any large faith that has lasted for thousands of years there will always be some division. / difference of opinion. To say that the Jedi would not have this happen , to me, makes no sense.

 

So Sunni and Shiite are like Jedi and Sith.
Interesting. Obviously the Shiite are the Sith, unless .....
From my point of view the Sunni are evil. Must kill them because not in lock step ....

 

Disagreement does not always lead to violent division.

I dint think the Jedi were at war with eath other , but did have differing views

 

Anakin only did the Jedi Temple massacre because he knew the Jedi Order wouldn't accept what happened to Mace Windu. Palpatine admitting he couldn't save people from death didn't sit well with Anakin. He fully intended to kill Palpatine once he completed the massacre and rule the galaxy himself.

 

I don't know why Anakin didn't just quit the Jedi Order when he married Padme or (at the very latest) when she told him she was pregnant. I mean, what's so great about the Jedi lifestyle? You risk your life all the time and are discouraged / forbidden from almost all indulgences. I would quit and go live on Naboo with Padme and raise the kids w/o having to hide it all. I would tell OWK and Yoda, "Look, I'm done with the Jedi grind and restrictions. If you guys get in a serious bind and need some help, let me know. But I'm not devoting my entire life to the Jedi anymore."

 

Anakin did believe in serving and protecting the Republic. I think that's why he remained. He wanted to be the most powerful Jedi ever as well. So mix those two ingredients together, and it was a lethal combination.

 

Right. The Jedi weren't being Jedi anyway. They were just playing soldier. Anakin could have said "I'll just be the General from now on and do what I've been doing for the Republic without the heavy guilt trip about having a wife and family."

 

And if he wanted to continue serving the Republic, he could sign up as a member of one of the militias. I'm sure the Republic has its own militia groups from various home worlds (i.e., not just relying on the Jedi and the Clones) and wouldn't mind Anakin tossing in his blaster for the war aid.

Oooor...if he were just sick of the war entirely, become a member of the Naboo security force. He just wanted to protect people, right? There are ways to do that that doesn't involve being a Jedi.

 

What's wrong with wanting to be the most powerful Jedi? Somebody's got to be.

And how does the desire to protect the Republic ( a Jedi's duty, supposedly) make it lethal?

 

Jedi shouldn't crave power. His hunger for that inadvertently led to him becoming a Sith, where emotion and anger is king. I think he even said he wanted to be more than a Jedi in ROTS. Anakin wanted to strongly protect the Republic, and his relationship with Palpatine made him feel important and closer to it. When he's told the Jedi want to take over, he kills the supposed traitors. It was a selfish deed that he justified on a couple of levels. But he ultimately saw himself bringing peace and stability to the galaxy, as he says to Obi- Wan. And he intended to rule it all himself.