Anakin's Redemption?

The other important factor against his "redemption" that seems to be overlooked in this thread is the fact that Vader was already MORTALLY WOUNDED when he throws Palpatine down the shaft and kills him. His "good deed" required NO SACRAFICE from himself; he was going to die anyway and could no longer saticefy his own lust for power and immortality. He could have done the same action out of spite and a feeling of betrayal, as Palpatine wanted to replace him with Luke. The only evidence that he has "turned" to the light again comes from his dying words to Luke, at which time he has nothing to lose--he knew he was wrong ever since the Jedi were destroyed and he was willingly the Emperor's arm of terror. I never bought the "redemption" for a minute, and that is when I realized that Lucas is great at stories and visuals, but for all of his talk about mythology and religion, he was in over his head. The Nazi analogy works too well, and I have always thought Return of the Jedi a failure for that reason.

 

MORTALLY WOUNDED?

he seemed fine to me standing there next to the emperor watchin luke get fried. the reason he died is because the force lightning shorted out his breathing appartatus....thing. he saved his son at the cost of his life.

all luke did was cut his hand off.

 

Nobody deserves to be "redeemed." Redemption isn't cancelling out all the bad you've done with good. It's forgiveness. You don't redeem yourself. Someone else has to forgive you.

Despite all the bad Anakin did, the Force forgave him. Why? He sacraficed his own life for the good side. He thought nothing of himself, for the well-being of something outside of himself. The Force thought that was enough, and that's all we need to know.

He COULD have done the EXACT same thing out of revenge, hate, selfishness. But he didn't. How do we know? He's a Force-Ghost. That's what Lucas meant when he said we'd view the scene with Anakin's ghost appearing in a new light. As proof that he really did turn back to the good side, in the end.


For all those saying he went to the dark side for the same reason he left it: wrong.

Anakin wanted to save Padme FOR ANAKIN. For himself.
Anakin wanted to save Luke FOR LUKE. Sacraficed himself.


BIG Difference!

 

I think that ignores the obvious conflict of feelings he had, and his desire to bend over backwards to make sure Luke survived, going all the way back to Empire when it was Vaders idea to turn Luke in the first place rather than kill him.

But as long as we are bringing up parallels, the written but never animated final episode to the Dungeons and Dragons Cartoon, as written by Michael Reeves and posted on his website, has Venger being redeemed not by any choice of his own, but becuase the kids beat him to the punch. Venger tries to stop them every step of the way and gets redeemed, gets all the evil sucked out of him, against his will. Is that good enough to forgive him for holding the whole Realm under his iron fist for a couple thousand years?
Did you concur or disagree with that final sequence of events, the way that redeption played out, and is that why that script was never produced?

 

you people are missing the point.to grab the emperor while he is distarcted is no big deal,give me mechanical limbs and i kill him myself.but anakin did something that until then it was considered impossible:to leave the dark side.as lucas says he doesnt right the wrongs but he stops palpatine's bloody reign.maybe thats why those who forgive him think he deserves forgiveness.

1800 posts !!

 

Anakin chose Luke over Palpatine and he was finally redeemed for choosing Palpatine over Mace 30 years earlier and everything that decision gave birth to. No one ever states that Anakin is forgiven for his past crimes. Big difference indeed.

 

*sigh* Anakin is the Chosen One, he did what he was supposed to do in RotJ, he also saved his son therefore even sacrificed his own life, so yeah I would say he's redeemed.

 

people tend to see it as tit for tat, that he has to make up for his crimes here... i don't think he can and i don't see him as solely responsible for them anyway. in the end everyone paid an extremely high price.

i kind of see that he has to suffer for the collective sins of the jedi council, but that seems a really unpopular view.

 

Before I came onto these boards, I never once thought of it as Vader being forgiven, I just thought of it as an evil villian that became good again, a person who regained his lost humanity. The point is not that he killed the Emperor, the point is that he did it knowing that he would probably die himself in the process. It is certainly not the same as Anakin wanting to keep Padmé around for his own sake. It is his change of heart that is central here, but nobody said anything about him maing up for the wrongs he did. He didn't.

Vader doesn't get a new life full of happiness anyways. He dies after fulfilling his destiny. In the end, Vader is tragic because his life is wasted.

 

or that he didn't get a chance to spend enough time with his children.

 

It's what a person does in the end that counts the most. Yes, he committed severe penalties by betraying the Jedi Order, even killing younglings. But he balanced the Force and killed Palpatine, which was a selfless act.


Anakin is the Chosen One. Anakin becomes Darth Vader. Darth Vader does destroy the Sith and balances the Force because he is redeem through his son. -George Lucas ROTS DVD commentary

 

I think the problem with the OP is that we're confusing two closely related but ultimately different ideas here. Redemption is about restoring worth and honor, leaving a life of sinfulness for virtue. What I think you want is penance, which is the the actual act of self-mortification given to make up for wrongdoing. Vader's actions ultimately have nuances of both, but they are somewhat different concepts.

I think ultimately this is up to the individual as to whether Vader fulfills either of these notions, but I think Lucas is trying to make a point here about the nature of the individual. If within all of us is the capacity to do good or evil, then do not all great and terrible things come as a result of that *individual* ability to make choices? And then, can we not say that one man's rights or wrongs represents the potential of *every* individual to find themselves at the same crossroads? Some heavy stuff, there.