Anakin: Pawn or King?

So I had this twisted thought . . . .

Anakin is conceived by the force, making him the force incarnate, born of a virgin. Using Osirus, Apollo and Jesus as virgin birth comparatives, they were all considered the sons of God and thus the equal to God. Using this logic Anakin is the son of the Force and equal to the Force. Anakin is the Force.

What if everything he did, every action he took, every decision he made and every life that he affected was by design, by the direct will of the force, with Anakin the living breathing WOTF incarnate?

Anakin was the creator and the destroyer. He created order, saving Palpatine from Dooku and Grievous. He created a forbidden love and marriage, conveived his twin children. As destroyer, he almost single-handedly decimated the Jedi order and brought ruthless order to the galaxy as Palpatine's powerful henchman. He presented the ultimate test to humanity, and humanity stumbled and faltered to the edge of the abyss.

Luke is different. Despite his father being the Force incarnate, Luke is conceived in the traditional manner -- his father in human form producing traditional biological offspring. Luke is presented with significant moral choices in ANH. He can live a life as a moisture farmer, he can reject Uncle Owen and pursue the life he dreamed of as a pilot for the rebel alliance, or he can listen to Obi-Wan and serve the greater good, becoming a Jedi Knight like his father before him.

As Luke eventually learns a version of events presented as the truth from Obi-Wan and Yoda, both of whom advocate Luke committing patercide, Luke finds himself in the position to destroy his father (as his teachers insisted) and join the evil Emperor to rule the galaxy in his father's place. Oddly Obi-Wan, Yoda and the Emperor are all in agreement -- Luke must kill his father. But Luke has another choice. Luke can refuse to kill his old man and elect instead to die with his dignity and honor. Therein lies the ironic rub.

When Luke decides to sacrifice himself and let the man he views as his evil father live, he transforms and becomes something most noble. Luke becomes what the Jedi order, Obi-Wan and Yoda had seemingly all lost. Luke is exactly what the Jedi should have been all along. Why? Because of the sublime and ?divine? intervention of this man/machine, his fallen father, the instigator, the Force incarnate who led humanity through a series of difficult choices, letting them determine their own destiny. Luke chose, and he chose wisely. He passed the test that so many others had failed.

Is Anakin the pawn or the king? Is he the learner or the teacher? Does the son save the father, or does the father show the son how to save himself (and humanity and the galaxy along with him)? Is Anakin nothing more than the WOTF testing the Jedi, challenging Luke as Satan tempted the patriarchs of the bible?

Just trying to stimulate a little discussion -- flame on!

 

What if everything he did, every action he took, every decision he made and every life that he affected was by design, by the direct will of the force, with Anakin the living breathing WOTF incarnate?



So what youre saying is, the will of the force is screwy ????

 

"Screwy?" Depends upon your point of view -- Told you, I did -- twisted is this idea!

Perhaps with the Jedi moving out of touch with the WOTF, the WOTF simply had to manifest itself to make its point loud and clear, and it did this through Anakin. Oh, Anakin was human in almost every way, born of a flesh and blood mom and all that. He has human frailties and passions, usually painted to the extreme in the PT. But when all is said and done, might he simply know what to do and when to do it just as Apollo did in ancient Greece and Jesus in Israel (both were killed and resurrected to redeem their family of followers, just as Anakin was at the end of ROTJ).

The Jedi lost focus as the Republic was seduced by the Sith -- THEY were seduced by the Sith, unaware that Senator/Chancellor Palpatine was the manipulative Sith Master. The Jedi were clueless until Maul revealed himself to Qui-Gon on Tatooine. As Jedi, they were not afraid of death, knowing that they would join with the force, so if you think about it, Anakin's massacre at the Jedi Temple could be viewed as a massive recall by the living force (I know -- more twisted ideas).

Perhaps the council was reluctant to train Anakin because they caught a glimpse of what he had come to do -- purge them, destroy the Sith and start the Jedi order anew (through his son) as well as the Republic government (through his daughter).

Just exploring a different way of rationalizing who Anakin was, how he came to be, what he eventually became and the wrath and havoc that he systematically wrought upon the galaxy.

 

"Screwy?" Depends upon your point of view -- Told you, I did -- twisted is this idea!


But your premise is that the WOTF is as irrational, whiney etc as Anakin is ? I dont like to believe that. How in the world would rational Jedi make sense of that situation ? It would be worse than the Dark Side clouding their vision.

 

Anakin was the Chosen One. He did destroy the Sith and bring balance to the force. It is how he did it that interests me.

He is discovered by a renegade Jedi who follows the currently out of fashion living force. QGJ found Anakin, and QGJ 'made' Anakin a Jedi. Previous threads discussed this, that Anakin was given an ultimatum by QGJ, one that guaranteed the boy would grow into a powerful man with serious issues. Anakin could be freed but his mother could not. He could become a Jedi, but his mother remained marooned on a desert world. How is a human, Chosen One or not, expected to respond to such psychological trauma? But despite the emotional scarring, Anakin had a prophecy to fulfill.

Anakin took care of his issues in a way the Jedi never expected. Skywalker was told he would be a powerful Jedi. Why not, then, seek out ways to maximize one's power?

He was told that he would destroy the Sith. The Jedi, up until the time they found Anakin, did not even suspect that the Sith still existed. To destroy the Sith one had to know of the Sith. The Jedi had little knowledge of the Sith, save for the fact that the Sith relied upon the dark side. What better way to know of the Sith than to join them? What better way to destroy them than from within?

With the visionless Jedi order all but destroyed, Anakin merely has to choose between the parasitic Emperor and his new found son. Hearing the WOTF for the last time, Anakin does that which he came forth to do. He restores balance to the force and he destroys the Sith order, but quite unexpectedly he destroys it from within -- and his mangled physical self along with it.

The force is full of little tricks like that. Anakin just did his WOTF annointed job in a very human (and thus very fallible and vulnerable) way.

 

Luke is king. Balance in the force incarnate. Anakin is the catalyst, the king maker.

 

Luke is king. Balance in the force incarnate. Anakin is the catalyst, the king maker.

What a very Duckie comment -- and nicely said, I might add. And if Anakin were a pawn, he seems a very willing one (at first, at least).

 

And I don't like the idea of the Force being as capricious or cruel as the Greek/Roman gods were depicted as acting towards mortals.



Yep, I dont see the force being like Greek or Roman gods either.

 

I third the motion. My reasoning being that Greek and Roman gods were almost tangible beings. They had personalties, traits, appearances, etc. The Christian god (With the Exception of his son, Jesus Christ) is much more ethereal. No real knowledge of his appearance, No personality (In terms of say - Preferring Classical to rock music), no definite traits, just plain omnipotence. His only preference is generally Good over Evil. The Force seems much more like the Hebrew god...an intangible supreme force. I might even say that the force doesn't prefer good over evil, but prefers life over death. The more living beings, the more physical matter, the more influence the force will have. Evil beings have a tendency to destroy, so the will of the force may work against destructive beings.

I do love the analogy in the RoTS book that Obi-Wan says about understanding the will of the force is akin to understanding why a river flows downward.

Carnage

 

Carnage posted: "Evil beings have a tendency to destroy, so the will of the force may work against destructive beings"

Mostly agreement from me on this point, but the dark side and its destructive power are a natural part of the force as a whole.

The prophecy allegedly stated (or so we heard in the early blogs) that if one destroyed the Sith master, the apprentice would follow. Ironic, isn't it, that Anakin does destroy the Sith by joining it an killing his own master, and himself in the process -- fulfilling the prophecy to the letter. He just didn't do it the way the Jedi order had anticipated.

When Luke is training on Dagobah, he has a vision of his friends suffering. Yoda tells him it is the future he sees. Luke asks Yoda if they will die, and after cogitating on the matter, our little green friend tells Luke: "Hard to see. Always in motion, the future is."

The Jedi Council saw that little Ani could be the Chosen One, but they also saw something else, something that disturbed them. QGJ saw, I believe, saw what the boy IS at that moment, what he REPRESENTED and what he had the potential to BECOME if properly trained. This all came together so fast -- first Ani is discovered, then he is freed, then Maul appears and reveals the 'phantom menace' of the Sith, thought long dead as an order. When QGJ insists on training Ani, he does not foresee his own death, a death that comes before Ani can begin his training.

QGJ, who recognizes Ani as the Chosen One, who should be a Master on the Council, is a rebel in tune with the living force. QGJ would have delivered a far different Jedi to the order than Obi-Wan did. Instead, a boy with talents unseen in the entire history of the Jedi order is left to a Padawan ( a very talented Padawan) who hasn't even passed his formal Jedi trials by the end of TPM.

The dark side and the light side are both natural parts of the force, the yin and the yang of existence. Is is not natural for one born of the force to seek out all that encompasses the force? As the Jedi fail to keep Anakin focused upon the lighter side, they tragically learn why they were disturbed a decade ago when Ani stood before them as a 9 year old.

One final thought -- it is mind-blowing that the very same Jedi that brought forth the evil curse of Darth Vader to the galaxy would be so willingly accepted by Yoda as his teacher and ascended master at the end of ROTS. Both Yoda and Obi-Wan no longer believe that Anakin is the Chosen One. In fact, Yoda and Obi-Wan learn only after ascending to the force that QGJ was right about Anakin after all. But it took Yoda, using the teachings of QGJ, to turn Luke into the catalyst that would drive Anakin to fulfill his destiny.

Without the mentoring of QGJ, Anakin was left to do it his way, seeking both sides of the force and falling into the trap of power resident within the dark side. QGJ trained Luke by proxy through Yoda, and Luke turned his father back to the light. It wasn't pretty, but it all worked out in the end.

 

I have to disagree. Luke wasn't King. Luke was the catalyst. Anakin be he king, or pawn, or perhaps the King Pawn was the Chosen One. Luke was just there to try to bring his father back to the light side of the force. Luke's just an extra bonus I suppose one could say. It's *all* about Anakin. Epsiode 1-6. The entire Saga is about Anakin Skywalker. So in a way, Anakin was both pawn, and King.

 

This is far closer to my view as well. Anakin is the Chosen One and as such is the "King" if any one. He however is also a pawn of Sidious who is the Puppet Master of it all.

 

The chosen one the boy may be, but he's still a child murdering, wife strangling, employee choking S.O.B.! I don't think having him as king sends the right message. Luke is far more wholesome.

 

Agreed. Anakin was the Chosen One. But he also had the ability to choose. The little boy in TPM, what Q-G saw in him, was shaped by his choices in AOTC and ROTS into something very different from what TWOTF may have created him to be.

And also, the idea of the Foce being "ok" with the Chosen One choosing to wait 20-plus years, and billions of deaths, to reach his moment of clarity reduces it, again, to the petty level of callous, capricious Greco-Roman gods. They were created, or imaginged, at least in part as the representation of the natural world around the Greeks & Romans. To explain why the seasons changed, or the sun rose and set each day. IMO, the Force is above that level; it is a much more universal idea, which makes it a much more positive mover than the typical representation of "godhood".

 

See, I'm in the school of thought that while Anakin may have been the "Chosen One", it didn't have to go down the way it did. He didn't HAVE to fall to the darkside and he didn't HAVE to help the fall of the Jedi and the Republic. That happened because he fought the will of the Force and did things for his own selfish reasons.

So... when he could have been a king by defeating Palpatine from the get-go, he ended up a pawn instead. He was really a pawn of Sidious and a pawn of the Force.

 

Anakin was the board itself.

Light and dark fought for him.
Dark thought it had won.
But once Anakin realised that we are at once, both good and evil; that the pair of opposites are just an illusion.
Once he reached enlightenment.
Balance was restored.

Anakin's choices of how he reached his destiny were his own.


-JR