Saga Crimes of Darth vader

Thought we could compile a list of crimes Vader is guilty of.

These are the ones I have so far:

Murder: extrajudicial killings of officers.
Mass murder: the slaughter of tuskin raiders.
2 counts of Genocide: the jedi and being a accessory to Alderaan .
Torture: you have the torture of jedi, torture of Leia and countless other acts.
Domestic abuse: throttling padme.

Those are the ones I have so far.

Seeing as Anakin was a victim himself of grooming from Palpatine, does Vader admmiting he was wrong at the end of Return of the Jedi make up for his actions? Or if he survived would he have had to suffer punishment at the hands of the new republic?

 

Oooh boy, where to even begin? Aside from any sexual violence, there's almost nothing Vader didn't do at some point. In one of the comics he even became a thief (though Aphra did the stealing for him).

No.
Anakin was a full grown man who bloody well knew that what he was doing was wrong.

 

I always wondered what would have happened had Anakin survived RotJ. There's basically no way he's avoiding execution or assassination unless he escapes somewhere.

Even if he did escape, could he possibly live with the guilt?

 

The OT, particularly ROTJ, seems to espouse that Ani can be forgiven on one level, but not necessarily on another one.

Look at it from this perspective: there are three kinds of forgiveness. There's personal forgiveness, Divine (or, in this case, Force) forgiveness, and judicial forgiveness. Let's say X steals my car, then has a religious epiphany that stealing cars is sinful. So, X genuinely repents and asks God for forgiveness, which is granted. That's Divine forgiveness. X returns my car to me, apologizes, and I accept. That's personal forgiveness. X turns himself in and is tried for car theft, pleading guilty. The judge accepts the plea, but takes his later actions into account and lets him off with a warning. That's judicial forgiveness.
These, however, are not a sure thing. X's repentance could be fake, so he won't receive God's forgiveness. I could get my car back, but be ticked at the inconvenience and not accept X's apology. X can plead guilty, but the judge could still give him time in county for car theft.
Now look at ROTJ in this way. Vader truly repented his crimes. Luke, on a personal level, can forgive him for what he did. The Force can accept his repentance, thus he goes to Jedi Heaven and not Sith Hell. But, had he lived, he might still get life on Kessel or a blaster bolt to the head from the GFFA equivalent of the Nuremberg trials. And, since he died, Darth Vader will still be considered one of the worst criminals in galactic history, even if word does get out of Luke's forgiveness and Ani's repentance. If anyone else forgives him, that's entirely up to them and their own consciences.

Well, that's my view on it.

 

I think in general the point is that one should do the right thing regardless of whether you think it will forgive or redeem you. And maybe you’ll never be forgiven or redeemed, but regardless you should still do the right thing. I don’t think Anakin was thinking, “maybe if I save Luke I’ll be redeemed.” He just wanted to save his son. The problem with worrying about forgiveness or redemption is that you come to that moment and say, “well I’ve done so many terrible things already so they’ll never forgive me so I might as well continue being bad.” The choice should be independent of that.

 

If you torture and murder lots and lots and lots of people, then say you're sorry and you know that was a bad thing to do and you went and saved someone's life afterwards, the police are not going to say "oh well then if you're sorry..." and let you off with a warning. You're still going to prison and may or may not be executed later, depending on the laws in the area and other factors.

I will never understand people who think Vader could have gotten, or Kylo Ren will get, a peaceful happy ending where he frolics down the streets of the New Republic, a free man, and everyone's cool with him because "he's sorry guys and he's good now!"

 

Yes, and I think this is exactly what Lucas is trying to say here:

"It really has to do with learning," Lucas says. "Children teach you compassion. They teach you to love unconditionally. Anakin can't be redeemed for all the pain and suffering he's caused. He doesn't right the wrongs, but he stops the horror. The end of the saga is simply Anakin saying, I care about this person, regardless of what it means to me. I will throw away everything that I have, everything that I've grown to love-primarily the Emperor-and throw away my life, to save this person. And I'm doing it because he has faith in me; he loves me despite all the horrible things I've done. I broke his mother's heart, but he still cares about me, and I can't let that die. Anakin is very different in the end. The thing of it is: The prophecy was right. Anakin was the chosen one, and he does bring balance to the Force. He takes the ounce of good still left in him and destroys the Emperor out of compassion for his son."

-- The Making of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

Vader thought he was lost forever because there was no way to take back all the things he'd done and become the sinless man his son believed in. When Luke is forced to confront the most twisted depths of his father's unrepentant depravity (responding to Luke's declarations of faith and love by rejecting him and threatening to despoil his own daughter) but then spares him anyway, showing that he believes in the intrinsic value of Vader's life despite the massive stain of evil upon it, I think that's what really starts to flip the switch in Vader's head and allow him to realize that he doesn't have to take everything back in order to be a good person again. He just has to stop making bad choices and start making good ones again.