Anakin's Visions: From Palpatine or The Force?

It was in "Labyrinth Of Evil", shortly before the story ends. The ROTS novelization just picked up on it. As to why Anakin would be afraid to lose her, it is a general feeling of one who has too deep an attachment to someone. Anakin loves so much, that he cannot fathom the idea of losing those that he cares for. And when he did, it set off a desire so fierce to keep his loved ones with him, that he would do whatever it takes. Deep in the back of his mind, he is afraid that something will happen and he will never get to be with Padme. She'll be taken from him for good. The thought of losing her is unbearable.

Anakin has had a fear of death ever since he saw a star (sun) die, shortly after entering the Temple and training under Obi-wan. The moment he saw this, deep down his inner self told him that this will happen. To him and those that he cares for. From that point, Anakin realized what the fear was that the Council sensed. Fear of death. Fear of an uncertain future. Fear of loss. He is so attached and so greedy. So unwilling to accept the natural course of life, that he will fight it. Having killed in cold blood, Anakin is afraid to lose Padme. Afraid to lose control of himself. Afraid of what having a family might mean. All connected to change. These things combine together to produce a vision of what will happen if he were to continue on the path he is currently heading down.

 

Your making Anakin sound like a monster. His feelings were normal. Everyone one of us has expierenced those feelings. No one wants to see love one pass on. We do everything in our power to keep them alive.

 

Anakin is a monster, in a sense. He becomes a controlling, dominating, power hungry individual. Who ultimately cares more for power than for others. The thing is that a Jedi cannot be controlled by normal emotions. Fear of loss is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. Anakin, like all Jedi, must exercise caution when it comes to their feelings. The Sith will expolit their emotions. This is what Palpatine. He plays upon Anakin's feelings and Anakin buys into it. He is lead by his emotions and for Jedi, this is especially dangerous.

We as a whole cannot be controlled by our emotions like that. We cannot spend every waking moment fearing for the loss of our loved ones, especially if we know in advance that they can and/or will die. People who face terminal illness will often do everything they can to avoid dwelling on the negative. They and their loved ones will occupy their mind with other things, in order to avoid driving themselves insane. I know. I've been there. I've had a step father who was sick and eventually died of cancer. I saw how he went about his daily routine, admist the treatments and the bad days. He lived life moment to moment, beat to beat and street to street. There are others who are in the same position. So it wasn't just me.

My point is that everyone needs to occupy their thoughts with other things, rather than just sit around and worrying about what could be. Instead of living for the moment. Living in the now. Focusing on the positive, rather than just dwell on the negative. This is why he is told to let go of his fear. This is why he fails. He dwells on his fears and lets it consume him, until he is nearly stark raven mad.

 

For some reason, there are fans who want to believe that Palpatine or the Sith have just about control everything. Maybe they don't want to believe that Anakin, the Jedi Knights, and the Senate were responsible for their own downfalls.

 

Keyword here: becomes. He was not a monster until the Temple raid, when it really did become all about him, not Padme.

LOE may have touched on Anakin's fear of losing Padme, but LOE is not ROTS and what he see in the film is Anakin apparently dreaming up his own worst fears of losing Padme out of nowhere.

 

The fact is that he is afraid to lose her period. He is afraid of death. He is afraid to be alone. He is afraid of change. These things are established in the films as much as the eu. He has done some horrible things and Coruscant is attacked. His fear is palpable.

 

Yes, that much is obvious in the films. But why at that time? He killed Dooku, sure. And he's feeling guilty about that, but I seriously doubt he felt less remorse for the Tuskens because for one, Dooku was a Sith Lord that had caused more then enough turmoil for the Galaxy. Dooku had also been working with Nute Gunray who happened to want to kill Padme. The Tuskens were literally defenceless because they neither anticipated Anakin's attack or had the time to prepare themselves. Dooku lost in a fair fight. Also, Anakin happened to kill an entire village of men, woman and children. Most of them probably had nothing to do with the torturing of Shmi. The clone wars had just started and many Jedi had been killed. It's not like Anakin hasn't felt guilty about something before, or had his wife in ACTUAL danger before either.

I'm seriously briefing AOTC here.

 

Because he has faced great loss once before. He fears that it will come again. He has done things that haunt him. He is facing change. His wife is pregnant. Everything is going great. That is about the time when something bad happens. He's more or less psyching himself out.

Let's put it this way. In AOTC, he says that he slaughtered them like animals. He hates them all. He doesn't say that he regrets his decision to kill them. He just says that as a Jedi, he knows that he should be above vengence. With Dooku, he hesitates to kill. He didn't with the Tuskens. Right away, he expresses remorse for killing Dooku like that.

That still doesn't justifying killing a man who has been beaten and is at his mercy. Dooku was nuteralized. His hands are gone. He cannot summon the Lightning or fight with his saber. The Jedi Code says that they cannot kill someone who is helpless or pleads for mercy. The Tuskens were hardly defenseless. They had their Gaffi sticks and slugthrowers. He caught the first two off guard. After that, the ones who were armed attacked him. Dooku did lose a fair fight and was beaten. There was no reason to kill him. He would be much more valuable alive then dead. Obi-wan, Yoda, Mace and Qui-gon would not have done it. They would place him under arrest. Mace places Palpatine under arrest twice, second time after disarming Palpatine.

The bottom line is that a Jedi Knight does not kill in cold blood, especially when someone is helpless. They do not kill out of revenge, based on anger and hate. They do kill as a last resort and in defense of others or themselves. They do show mercy when it is required of them.

When Shmi died, he should've just picked up her body and went home. Any Tusken that tried to stop him would have the mind trick used to avoid conflict. When he defeated Dooku, he should've just shut off Dooku's saber, cut it in two and throw it away. Then declare the Dooku was under arrest, free Palpatine and attend to Obi-wan. That is the Jedi way. That is the compassionate way.

 

Why does he *have* to say he regrets killing them? Are his tears not enough?

I'm not trying to justify Anakin's actions. But just as you mentioned there was no need to kill the Tuskens, there was no need to kill Dooku. I know what Anakin should have done. What I'm trying to prove here is that someone would feel more guilt towards killing a tribe full of men, woman and children where the majority was innocent towards the torturing of Shmi then towards a man who is a Sith Lord and who has and would have continued bringing evil to the Galaxy. He was one man. Not a tribe.

I have no idea why you're telling me this. I already know it. The point is you're saying Anakin felt more remorse towards killing Dooku then the Tuskens, which I think is wrong.

 

No, because they are tears of anger and hate. Don't tell me you haeven't got so mad that you didn't cry? Men and women can get that way. Anakin was crying because he was so angry and hateful at what happened. At the unfairness of having been too late to save Shmi. At Obi-wan for holding him back. At himself for not taking his training as seriously as he should've. At himself for leaving his mother behind.

His tears are born of an emotional outburst at what has happened. Not out of guilt. There was no remorse in his voice for killing the men, women and children. He didn't even feel guilt when he came back to Tatooine during the Clone Wars and was lead into fighting A'Shared Hett, who lived with the Tuskens and knew what he did. When the fight ended, Hett told him to speak to the Council and he didn't. Anakin knew that if he did, they'd know that he didn't feel guilt for killing all them.

But there is a difference. Anakin lost his mother. His mother meant the whole world to him. He promised to come back for her, when he was a Jedi Knight. He was afraid for her safety. He failed to save her. So he took out his anger and hate, because he wanted to inflict pain on the Tuskens for the pain they caused him. He didn't want to inflict pain on, once he defeated him. Even though he had anger and hate towards Dooku, he couldn't bring himself to inflict anymore pain than necessary.

The Tuskens were all guilty by association. Future generations of Tuskens would kidnap and torture people. We see that in ANH, they didn't kill Luke and dragged him over to his speeder. Had Obi-wan not come along, odds are they would've taken him back to their camp and tortured him. Eight and a half years later, Kister was captured by the Tuskens and tortured as well. Leia had to free him. That is the way of the Tuskens. Anakin knew about the stories from the various people who lived in Mos Espa and Mos Eisely, who came into Watto's. He heard about how vicious they were. Cliegg called them animals. And how do we know that the women didn't torture Shmi? Women are capable of inflicting pain. Or the children, it'd a rite of passage for them.

If Dooku had managed to kill Padme, he wouldn't feel no guilt for killing him.

 

Anakin despised Dooku. When he was "remorseful" after he killed him, it wasn't because of killing Dooku in particular, just that he didn't honor the Code, which he has done before.

 

I belive that Palpatine having been told by Anakin that he had thes preminitions (Anakin told him about teh Tuskins) adn seeing how these dreams could motivate Anakin, planted this dream in his head. It would not make sense if it was teh Force, because had Anakin not had these dreams he would have left teh Order adn he and Padme would have raised their children happily, blamming the dream on the Force would be to assume that the Force wanted the Sith to rule, because by doing so teh Force presented Anakin with only one option: Join the Sith. So it makes much more sense to belive the Palpatine was responsiable. But i guess that the only proof i have for this is that Palpatine is a very good at Psychology, so cupple Psychology with a very powerful Mind Trick, or Force Illusion and you have a specialy designed to drive Anakin to teh Dark Side.
~Azure_Angel

 

Best new thread in ages...

 

I know there's nothing concrete to decide it either way, but it does seem very coincidental that Anakin has these visions right after he comes back from combat and into Palpatine's orbit. Did Palp cause them? Who knows? But it can't be dissmissed out of hand. There's nothing to show the Force caused them either.

 

No. Remember AnaVader's reaction when PalSidious said, "...to save your wife, from certain death."
Anakin: "What did you say?!"

Another key point overlooked in another pre-quel. What did Qui-gon say to young Ani very early on?
"Your focus determines your reality."

Anakin brought much of his own demise upon himself. If Qui-Gon lived, and Kenobi had died at Theed... there would never had been a Darth Vader. Instead, MAul whacked the Old man, Kenobi couldn't get it done as Master and Sidious just slithered in and poured a "honey-potion in his ear."

Before I forget...
Another way of thinking is that Anakin wouldn't have ever felt a need to conceal his thoughts around Palpatine. He was open for subtle manipulation. A Sith specialty...

I like that line of thought, anyone else?

 

Anakin's vision from the force to me is impossible. The force shows what is possible, but if Anakin had not have seen the vision he wouldn't become a sith lord. And the reason Padme dies in child birth is the fact that Anakin is a Sith lord. The logic doesn't add up.

no vision= Anakin Skywalker forever

 

Anakin misinterpreted the vision. It was "meant to" be a warning showing that if Anakin's fear to lose Padme continued, this is what would happen.

 

Yes. That's why Yoda warns Luke of his failure in the tree cave. It just took him a while to get the meaning, once he stood over his father, ready to kill him. Visions serve many purposes, one of which is to warn you of what it is that will happen if you do not alter your course. But Anakin was impatient. He wanted action now. He wanted power that he had not achieved on his own, nor was he ready for it. He took the quick and easy path towards gaining the power that he desired.

 

I can't accept that. The force was warning Anakin that if he continued to fear the lose of Padme, that it would eventaully kill her? Before these visions Anakin didn't have any unusual fear of attachment. He had a life outside the temple that allowed him to develop normal feelings towards other people. In AOTC Anakin's mother dies, and he has visions. So the force was warning Anakin that his mom was going to die because he was to attached to her? come on, he hadn't visited her in 10 years!
But when the visions come around the second time, he is very worried that Padme will die in child birth. Everyone up until this point can identify will Anakin. He's worried about losing the 1 person he loves and that loves him back. It's made clear in the novel that their bond is a million times stronger than his and Obiwan's. Where Anakin went wrong was when he decided that he was going to murder many, many, people to save Padme.
But even that was an easier choice than many assumed. Palpatine offered a chance to save her life, but he didn't present some evil plan to Anakin. All palpatine wanted from Anakin was to help him restore peace and justice and security to the galaxy. Perhaps the Jedi did have it coming to them, and what would have happened if the Jedi successfully took commmand of the republic? Whose to say that they would ever relinquish their power? What if Palpatine was more right than we knew, the Jedi were going to rule the galaxy themselves? The Jedi alienated Anakin at every turn, even Obiwan, honestly I don't blame Anakin for a second. The Jedi didn't do anything to keep Skywalker on there side.

 

Before these visions Anakin didn't have any unusual fear of attachment.

Anakin never had a fear of attachment. He had a a fear of losing that attachment.

In AOTC Anakin's mother dies, and he has visions. So the force was warning Anakin that his mom was going to die because he was to attached to her? come on, he hadn't visited her in 10 years!

No, that was the present. That was a different sort of vision.

But when the visions come around the second time, he is very worried that Padme will die in child birth. Everyone up until this point can identify will Anakin. He's worried about losing the 1 person he loves and that loves him back.

Exactly, that's why he's afraid of losing her in the first place, just like his mother.

I'm a little iffy about this as well...I really don't know where I stand at the moment.

 

Shmi was based on the moment. His visions began the day she was kidnapped. Everytime he went to sleep, he'd see and sense something was wrong. That it seemed as if she were in pain. But because he is not as strong as he should be, because he slacked off on his training, he could not tell what was wrong. Not until it was too late. Padme is based on what will come to pass, as a result of what he does now. The choices we make today determine the paths we take. Anakin chose to become all powerful, because he felt it was the only way to go. To save the one he loved. Luke chose to abandon that power and accept what he has now. He accepts that he will lose the ones that he loves most, which allows him to become a Jedi.

 

because he slacked off on his training

How do you know he slacked off in his Jedi training?


Also, if you went by the novel another vision Anakin had was one where he kill's Count Dooku. This is another of in the momment visions?

If the force was really trying to warning Anakin about his attachment to Padme, why not just send him a vision of a hooded Palpatine or something? Wouldn't that have done the job better actually? Think about isn't Palpatine the only person in the galaxy that could tempt Anakin to the dark side using Padme? It seems then if Palpatine had died then everything would have been ok.

 

Why do so many SW fans want to assume that Palpatine had control and power over just about everything? He gave Anakin the dreams. Either he or Plageius had created Anakin using the Force. On and on and on.

I do not find it improbable that Anakin's dreams came via the Force. Didn't Qui-Gon once told Anakin how the Force is connected to all living things, etc. Besides, people seem to forget that Anakin's dreams of Padme started after he had learned of her pregnancy. Isn't it possible that his own fears had manifested through these dreams?

As for Palpatine learning about Padme's pregnancy, it has been established in SW canon that her former bodyguard, Panaka, had informed Palpatine. Both men were natives of Naboo - as well as Padme. Padme and Anakin were married by a legitimate priest, which means that there might be a record of their wedding. And according to SW canon, Panaka later became a high-ranking officer in the Imperial Fleet - a Grand Moff.

And to be honest, I doubt very that anyone - Anakin, Palpatine or Yoda - were powerful enough to control the Force, let alone use it to create life.

 

Just wondering, what is this "SW canon"?

 

Well i've always believed that the Force gave him a glimpse of a POSSIBLE future but that doesnt mean that it was going to happen for sure 100%. IMO nothing is set, and Anakin could have changed this outcome with a different course of action... i think that's why Yoda warns him that he has to be careful when sensing the future.

Also, looking "forward" to ESB we see Luke face the same thing with the vision about Han and Leia suffering, and when he asks will they die, Obi Wan replies "not even Yoda can sense that" .. i just dont think everything is 100% set and that there's still free will and choices involved that might change the outcome of certain things.

Now.. could Palpatine have induced or enhanced certain things so that Anakin could sense them? who knows.. i dont really know much about the darkside and it's capabilities, but if the Force can influence the weak minded as Obi says in ANH, it's possible that Palpatine used the possible futures to play on Anakin's vulnerabilities.

I think this is an interesting subject that admits both possibilities (and who knows, maybe even combines both), but it's up to everyone to pick what they consider works best. That's what interesting about certain SW subjects