CT Darth Vader is good

I'm a big believer of this theory, that Vader was always good. Padme even says before she dies there is still good in him. I just think he was confused and didn't know what he was doing.

 

Darth Vader knew exactly what he was doing. Please don't insult a great villain by painting him a helpless idiot.

I thought that went to far, it was a downright plump way of showing his inner conflicts. But yes, he definitely has a masochistic streak. So does Maul, I think.

I would say he has no emotional character development that we are shown. The opportunities to do so however are plentiful because the man we meet in ANH is extremely different from that we left in ROTS. If they were to make a Vader-centric movie, they could show this emotional development you are referring too.

You think movie Darth Vader is only "a shell"? I can't agree with that, he is anything but to me. But different folks have different perceptions.

There is no hidden Anakin Skywalker persona inside. Anakin and Darth Vader are the same person, no matter if Vader wants to admit it or not. When Vader turns back in ROTJ, he doesn't suddenly become his twenty year old self who killed all the Jedi, he is a reformed Sith.

Luke was the only wise one, the only one who understood that Anakin and Darth Vader were one and the same. Everyone else just didn't want to admit it.

Obi-Wan is a fool. He dehumanized Vader because that made it easier for him than dealing with the truth: That his friend Anakin Skywalker always carried the potential for evil in him and that he went down the deep hole because he wanted. There are no excuses for Anakin's fall. He wanted power and he wanted evil. Everything else, like the lies he tells him about how he wants to save poor Padmé, is just noise.

 

Vader is far from evil. He was just manipulated into ruining his own life at the hands of the true big bad

I'd always wondered myself what would have happened had he survived, but I really do like the exile theories here

 

Dude, he murdered a room full of 6 year olds. He was the definition of evil.

Darth_Pevra I couldn't agree more. I hate the notion many hold that Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker are different people. They are taking Obi-Wan's "point of view speech" way too literally. He was a man that was for the most part a good person, before becoming an extremely evil person, and finally had a change of heart again in his dying moments. Vader may have wanted to see himself as a completely different person, but that was merely to spare himself the painful memories of his former life. We as an audience should know better.

 

He felt he had no choice. He was forced into such a situation
He didn't enjoy it nor was he even at all comfortable with it. He loathed himself for it and felt nothing but genuine sorrow and horror at his own actions

 

He definitely had a choice. He could have trusted int he Force and his Jedi training, or he could continue down a path led by a guy who pretty much told him he was lying ("If we work together I know we can discover the secret") If he felt true sorrow or horror, he would have stopped right there. He had just as much a chance of her dying by being a Sith as he did a Jedi. Oh, and then he choked the same person he was trying to save. He choked a pregnant woman. A small pregnant woman under extreme emotional duress. He was evil.

 

Yes Vader was evil, but there was a sense of good within him. He made all the wrong choices in his life, but did the right thing as his last act when he killed Sidious and then realized he had to die himself in order for him to completely defeat the Sith all together. I guess the after life of the force is a whole lot more forgiving than any other person or entity in the SW universe.

 

Anakin was a good man gone bad - called Darth Vader as such as the birth of the Sith Vader = the death of the Jedi Anakin. Of course he was the same person, and indeed, to put it most simply, Anakin was not extinquished and instead, Sith Vader died and Jedi Anakin was reborn - a bad man gone good again.

But let's not forget the Prophecy. It chose Anakin, not the other way around. So The "will of the Force" has to take some responsibility for that choice. Why choose Anakin, a child that was not raised in the traditional Jedi manner? Why choose someone who has all the attachments and has already learned how "not" to deal with anger, hate, jealousy and pain as a slave child where Hutts, corrupt leaders and Tuskins ruled the day? Doesn't make a lot of sense. And then he comes along late for Jedi training and is trained by a rank novice in an environment of distrust and doubt. Then they had the great idea to allow further tutelage of their potential chosen one by a politician.

Anakin's choices were his own and he has to take responsibility for his fall to the dark side, and especially each of his atrocious acts arising out of greed (before and after the fall), but there were certainly other people and events that helped pave the way, imo. That does not make him good - he wasn't - as Vader he was a despicable being with a blackened soul. But it does help explain the downhill journey.

Then too, young Anakin's good choices were also his own and there were positives that came from his youth with his mum and others he met as well as his time with the Jedi. Those things were fundamental in that spec of light remaining within him throughout his With journey and helps explain his final uphill journey Luke helped him make.

 

A lot of people don't care for a lot of the direct parallels. I love them though. In rots, anakin helped palpatine kill windu in a very similar scene to palpatines torture of luke in rotj. There's no way that exact scene wasn't going through his head. It's brilliant. Also, the dooku/Vader parallel. Pure genius. Btw I'm on my phone and its hilarious how my phone doesn't recognize luke but it recognizes Vader for some reason lol

 

I think he regarded his former life as an embarrassment and misstep.

 

Yes, he was bad. Very bad.

If he would have lived and gone back with Luke, I believe the Alliance would have put him on trial as a war criminal and had him executed. His only chance at living would be to go into exile in some remote part of the Galaxy and think on his horrible actions.

 

He was the epitome of evil.

He gave into his dark side (his mental instability....his passions....his anger....etc). As do the serial killers and other murderers in society.

He murdered a room full of children. He almost kills his pregnant wife. He murders old friends and mentors. He tries to kill his only father figure who is trying to help him. Add onto that all the lives he ruined by his actions or inaction. All of the deaths he personally caused. Taking part in the eradication of an entire planet populated with billions of people. And it goes on and on and on.

Evil? Oh yes. Mentally unstable and easily manipulated in his turn to the dark side? Absolutely. But, it does not take away from the fact that he became evil.

 

I still disagree with you

He did not want to do any of those things. Yes, such actions are clearly evil, but Vader himself is not

 

He was defined by his actions, like the rest of us are. He did evil things, so he was evil. Having lingering good inside does not exempt someone from being evil.

 

On the OP's initial question... interesting, I think the redemption does work a lot better where Vader gives up his own life to reverse what he had done, the ultimate act of letting go he could never bring himself do previously. It's hard to say how it would have played out if he survived.


On the good in Vader... I'm of the opinion that Vader is indeed a seperate person to Anakin. While we don't see his characterisation in the period between ROTS and ANH, IMO the Vader we see at the very end of Ep3, after he learns of Padme's death, is basically the same cold, hard Vader of the start of ANH. This is just my opinion, but for me everything (before Padme's death) onscreen in the PT, plus the period after discovering Luke in the OT, is a less solid mixture of the two personas.

There is almost entirely no evil in Anakin in TPM (yet he holds some of the attributes Palpatine will later exploit such as his competitiveness), and basically entirely no good in Vader in ANH (yet he technically believes he is maintaining order). I do believe he is indeed truely evil by the end of ROTS.
While certain events in the movies are quite fast changes in Anakin's/Vader's character, such as Anakin and Sidious killing Mace, I see a very gradual progression in his slide in the PT, and to a lesser extent a gradual slide with his redemption beginning in ESB and continuing into ROTJ.
The threat of losing his loved ones in AOTC and ROTS is the main trigger for his fall, and this conflict is always there from the start of AOTC (where we hear early on he has been having nightmares about his mother's pain). Similarly, he has learnt of the return of his son offscreen at the start of ESB, of course triggering the opposite conflict, and slide. The middle movies of each trilogy are the starts of the conflict between the two personas; PT - wishing to save loved ones less selfishly, eventually becomes greed to keep them alive longer than their time, OT - Wishing to selfishly use Luke to gain more power eventually becomes more selflessly wanting to keep him alive.
There is then obviously a quick turn from one persona to the other in the third film of each trilogy, the PT climaxing with Vader losing everything and ending up only with power, the OT climaxing with Anakin happy just to have Luke.

This is just how I read it, it is different for everyone.

 

That's a good point Hevy. The fact that Vader died made his act selfless. If he had killed The Emperor and lived, it certainly would not have had the same impact.

 

How else do we define if a person is evil other than their evil actions and thoughts? Deliberate, consistent evil actions for decades. Yes, he was misled. Tricked. Manipulated. Screwed up in the head. Some good left in him for his son perhaps in the end. But, most serial killers also do not kill their families (some do though). But, in the end, evil.

 

To you

 

Some of us make a distinction between actions and motives and the committer. Some of Vader's actions are evil, the man was a victim as was everyone. In threads like this so many dismiss mercy and forgiveness and happily dehumanise the misled. On the other hand some *don't*.

 

Part of the problem from the saga or PT perspective is that, good guy or bad guy, Anakin/Vader is a weak character. Seagoat is basically making the argument that everyone else is smarter than Anakin, it's not his fault he's stupid and easily manipulated. Let's feel sorry for the guy because he lacked the intelligence to not be tricked by someone who wasn't that tricky in the first place.

Whereas in the original films, it was a mystery how Vader was turned from noble Jedi into fallen Jedi. How did it happen? In good storytelling, Anakin would have been portrayed as a strong character, but the cause of his turning would have been even stronger and irresistible. But instead with the newer films he was just portrayed as weak and easily manipulated. That's why most people don't buy into it.

 

That may be how you and others see it, not me.

 

"Also, was Vader really bad?"

Yes. The Darth Vader of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back is one of the most despicable villains in cinema. He embodies a number of mankind's worst qualities.

Sadistic--Opting to torture Leia himself, terrorizing his officers, and taking a hands-on approach to Han's torture. Exposes his son to psychological and physical agonies in order to turn him to the Dark Side.

Hypocritical--Fails repeatedly throughout ANH, yet refuses to hold himself to the brutal standards he sets for his underlings.

Compliant--Chief muscleman to a totalitarian regime, restrains Leia and forces her to watch Alderaan's destruction.

Cowardly--Refuses to dismiss the Stormtroopers encircling Obi-Wan Kenobi, choosing instead to exploit the advantage and strike the old man down.


He's an irredeemable rotter. One of the many reasons I don't watch ROTJ.

 

I never said any of that

 

Seagoat,

I teach Psychology, so I have my own view on evil I suppose. Monsters aren't born that way; they're created over years. A serial killer is abused for years since childhood. Perhaps, added to that, he has an enhanced amygdala which causes him to become overrun with even more fear. He is constantly rejected in life. We feel for him. He feels alone, isolated, angry. He decides to take that anger out on society. Innocent people. He kills them. Tortures them. Etc. Is he not evil? Yes, it is sad how be became that way. But, he still chose to act on his passions instead of getting much needed help.

Once Anakin embraces the Dark Side, he is embracing the dark side of himself. His selfishness. Anger. Fear. Jealousy. Possessiveness. Control. A lack of conscience. A skewed moral compass. He does, through his thoughts and actions, become evil.

Of course, as Obi-Wan says, this is from a certain point of view

My question to you is this. If not defined by actions and thoughts, then how would you judge if someone was evil?

 

The thing is, evil =/= irredeemable. But I have to come down on the side of actions plus intent defining evil. Most legal systems are based on this premise as far as I'm aware.