PT Anakin should not have killed the younglings

Ah, I see. So without that scene the whole thing would've seemed 'watered down'. I getcha

 

No, Vader would have seemed watered-down if he was made into a milquetoast darksider. He didn't seem too bothered by all the children that died on Alderaan.

 

I don't think it was bad writing, I think it is more of time constraint and keeping the pace flowing. Lucas is very concerned about keeping the pace moving in his films and not letting the movie bog down. As neat as it would be to learn more about the Tuskens, it would be a sidetrack that would slow the movie's progress. As violent as the male Tusken are shown, it is very likely that the females and children are at least somewhat violent. The Jedi are peacekeepers who try to avoid violence. Everything else is very well said!

 

Of course he shouldn't have, just like no one else should do anything evil. But unfortunately there are bad people, and Anakin had become one at that point, if you missed it.

 

Seeker Of The Whills & Arawn_Fenn I dont think thats the issue. The issue is that if GL was trying include an element of tragedy in the turning of Anakin to the darkside. The killing of the younglings, in my opinion, eliminates any sense of empathy for Anakin's struggle. And as I've mentioned earlier that the slaughtering of the younglings is then further minimised by the fact that Aanakin is fully redeemed by killing Palpatine. I dont see how that balances the scales.

 

Redemption isn't about balancing scales but wiping the record of wrong out.

 

But seeing as Vader has no "ransomer" to clean his slate, he needs an equivalent action to to redeem him. Killing Palpatine and this stopping the cycle imo doesn't make up for what he as Vader has done.

 

Lucas said in "The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith", that Vader cannot be redeemed for his crimes. He cannot make up for his sins because he dies. But he is redeemed in that he becomes the good man that Luke believed him to be, which was the good man that Obi-wan and Padme had once believed him to be. That even Anakin himself knew he was. Lucas also spoke of this in a different interview.

"You learn that Darth Vader isn’t this monster. He’s a pathetic individual who made a pact with the Devil and lost. And he’s trapped. He’s a sad, pathetic character, not a big evil monster. I mean, he’s a monster in that he’s turned to the dark side and he’s serving a bad master and he’s into power and he’s lost a lot of his humanity. In that way, he’s a monster, but beneath that, as Luke says in Return of the Jedi, early on, “I know there’s still good in you, I can sense it.” Only through the love of his children and the compassion of his children, who believe in him, even though he’s a monster, does he redeem himself."

--George Lucas, quoted in J. Windolf, “Star Wars: The Last Battle,” Vanity Fair, 2005

Redeem has more than one meaning.

 

I think it's just Anakin.

Not really out of character, seeing how he treats Padme as an object to be possessed.

 

Anakin killed the Tusken women because they went along with it, may have participated in it and bred children who would carry on their father's actions. That's why you can watch the Tusken Slaughter and then it frames Luke's situation in a whole new light in ANH.



Since Luke is still alive, it is unclear if they were going to leave him or take him. Knowing what happened to Shmi, the possibility seems likely.

 

Or, because he wanted "satisfaction" for his loss - and killing armed Tusken males simply wasn't cathartic enough.

 

The arc of the tragedy is that he goes from being harmless to killing children. It stands to reason that it would be no more tragic if this arc was lessened in scope.

I don't think that follows.

Arguably that effect should have already happened in the OT, then. Anakin stood by pretty much emotionlessly as every man, woman, and child on Alderaan was slaughtered. And of course he killed adults and blithely ordered the deaths of others. Why is the killing of children assumed to be such a fundamentally vast sea change? Is this some variant of slasher-movie morality?

Balancing the scales is an obsession for bean-counters. Anakin merely returns to the light side.

 

darth-sinister:

Wow. So *maybe* the women and kids participated, *maybe* the kids would grow up to do "evil things" - so it's *definitely* ok to pre-emptively kill them without knowing of their "guilt."

On that basis, for society's protection I submit we should consider killing the kids of child-abusers/murderers because they *might* grow up to be child-abusers and murderers. Oh, and kill the wives as well. *Maybe* they cheered their husbands and sons/daughters in their gruesome not-yet-happened evil actions.

 

Strawman argument.

The Tusken clearly have a cycle of violence, they teach their children to be violent. I think Darth-Sinister is right and the Tuskens were probably planning to take Luke back to their camp to be tortured to death.

 

Is anyone arguing that what Anakin did is right?

 

Some folks have in the past; they can speak for themselves, (especially if I misrepresent their views). Of those who find his actions correct, some believe killing the responsible parties is okay - an eye for an eye type of thing. Some others believe preemptive killing of the entire tribe is merely preservation of the Tatooine settlers.

I do think most of us do find it somewhat "understandable" that Anakin started off in a hot rage after finding his mother. Understandable does not translate to acceptable, IMHO, and in the view of many.

 

I don't think Anakin should have slaughtered the Tuskens in Episode 2, because by that point he was still supposed to be a hero. I mean George says that he doesn't become Darth Vader until late ROTS, but is he not acting like Darth Vader since Episode 2? There needs to be something great about him that was lost, to make his story truly tragic instead of just having the circumstances surrounding him be tragic. Plus it would also allow the audience to almost belief that he could remain a Jedi and thus draw deeper emotions from them (whilst shocking those who started the saga in Episode 1. I think it was just shoddily worked out, but to be fair I am unsure how you could have subtlety foreshadowed his turn and not make it seem uncharacteristic of him(within the span of two movies) . (Maybe start with an adult Anakin?)

 

I doubt that's what was going through his head. More plausible, I think, is that he was so consumed by hatred in that moment, that he wasn't interested in "who's guilty or who's innocent" (or, for that matter, in "protecting the settlers").

 

But you would think that purpose of that is to feel for Anakin, feel the frustration in him and then rejoice when he turns back to the lightside at the end of ROTJ. Knowing thsi about him and the slaughter of the younglings, I just want him to burn.

Tragedy is thinking that Hercules murdered his wife and children only to find out that he was falsely accused. Tragedy dentoes some form of sympathy on the part of the audience for the perpetrator. Anakin's story does not do that.

Its like the tears Anakin cries when slaughtering the younglings. They are supposed to highlight the inner turmoil he is going through and add dramatic effect to that. He's killing kids. Thats not a conflicted person. Thats a perosn feeling sorry for himself, nothing more.

What Vader does in the OT has no bearing on what he does in PT. In PT he is supposed to be the hero who falls, in the OT he is the "son of Satan" until the very end of ROTJ.

Balancing the scales is an obsession for bean-counters. Anakin merely returns to the light side.[/quote] & darth-sinister

The point I'm making about redeeming is that he then becomes a Force Ghost following his return to the lightside alongside Yoda, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan denoting a full redemption.

Slicer87 & darth-sinister re-Tuskens and Luke:

Again we have no proof of what they were going to do with Luke. The fact he is unconscious =/= back to camp for our sadistic pleasure. He could simply be being taken back to camp to be a camp slave. Reprehensible yes, but not necessarily torture.

 

Indeed it does. i think in terms of Anakin's redemption, people think of it in terms of this definition:

compensate for the faults or bad aspects of (something).

when it's really this one:

gain or regain possession of (something) in exchange for payment.

Anakin regains his goodness through self-sacrifice.

That said, I do sometimes wish that a clone trooper had killed the younglings. like maybe anakin sees one of the troopers enter the room with the children. He sees the trooper kill them, and then, perhaps to alleviate his own guilt and cognitive dissonance, kills the trooper. but in the end it's not that big of a deal, since as lucas says anakin can't atone for his actions.

 

Both definitions apply in my opinion.

And as such the question is, was the sacrifice of his life by killing Palpatine of sufficient to regain his goodness and compensate for what came before? I dont think so.

 

i hear you. but i believe he regained his goodness. he cannot and did not compensate for what came before. only one is necessary for redemption to apply, as they are two different kinds of redemption.

 

I thought the point of Anakin killing the younglings was that he shouldn't have done it...

 

I suppose people have their own interpretation of what redemption is. My view is that he may have redeemed himself in the eyes of Luke, he clearly didn't with Leia and the others of the Rebellion. You know the old saying: 'one good deed doesn't revoke a lifetime of wickedness.' As far as Luke would be concerned, Vader is now Anakin and he is a good person. In the eyes of Leia, it would've taken much much more than chucking the Emperor down a shaft for him to be considered 'good'. To use the World War II example again (we just love playing the **** out of that Godwin's Law, don't we? ), Goebbels would have had to do a lot more than just off Hitler to be considered 'a good guy' to the eyes of the world. He would have had to repent his sins and basically help in rebuilding Europe, but even then that may not be enough for some people.

Some actions are just so evil that no amount of good acts can make the perp 'reclaim their goodness' again.

 

He could have been potentially redeemed after the Tusken massacre as it was a lapse into the Dark Side but he was genuinely repentant afterwards. It doesn't excuse what he did but even he knew it was wrong to kill them all. But in the temple, he's fully embraced the Dark Side and made the pragmatic decision to deliberately kill people who he KNOWS are nothing to do with the situation. I could understand him being angry at the Council, especially with Sidious' manipulation, but unlike what the other Tuskens may or may not have done re: his mother's death, the younglings were clearly nothing at all to do with what was happening to him right then.

It's actually a little more subtle than some credit I think; he doesn't go from 'hero' to 'villain' in an eyeblink, he goes from hero (of the republic!) to relatively sympathetic anti-hero (killing captive Dooku, the Tusken massacre) and THEN he goes full on Sith when he decides that Mace dies and Sidious lives. After that, there's no way back, and to be honest only Luke (who is his son, and the only one who know how things actually went down on Death Star II) is ever shown as believing Vader was really fully redeemed any way.