PT Defending Anakin and the Tusken

If you introduce God or gods into the equitation, then you can pretty much justify anything. It doesn't mean you're sitting on the moral high ground; even believers of moral universalism can engage in, or support, acts which go against their principles and cannot be justified.

Invoking the God card is the ultimate trump card; and it always tends to be used for negative means.

 

I believe it is.

 

Bazinga'd

Your point about morality is not absolute is certainly true.

Anakin's decision making, especially in TCW, is usually the end justifies the means; IMH, Anakin is morally nihilistic and narcissistic majority of the time. He might have struggled emotionally with the slaughter of the Tusken raiders, but he glosses over the younglings when Padme informs him of what Obi-Wan told her.

 

I would suggest Anakin's character is like Übermensch in some aspects.

 

I think Palpatine subscribes to Nietzche's worldview much more than Anakin does. Anakin is just an emotionally friable and immature, rather selfish child. There's no conceptual frame of reference underlying his wrongdoing.

 

While watching the movie the first time, I was so angry at the Tuskens, I was glad he wiped them out. But then he spoke about the women and children - and yeah that was a bit overboard. But it was good to wipe out all the males. The Jedi did that all the time, it was just constructed differently there - but they were murderers and had to be stopped. But he should have spared the women and kids.

You know this was kind of a precursor to him killing the Jedi younglings. The thing is, he killed the later without cruelty - they looked whole and as if they had merely gone to sleep. Lucas didn't have to show that, as he did not show the Tuskens. So it makes you wonder why Anakin did it that way - or if Lucas just wanted to show them and sacrificed cruelty in order to hold on to the movie rating.

 

As the Chosen One, the Force forced him to kill the Younglings.

Darth Anakin: "But killing the Younglings is evil."
The Force: "From my point of view you should shut your mouth and do what I say!"

 

The Sand people have been around for a long time, so you can't argue they some new race of people who haven't "Evolved yet". They are brutal and have a very intolerant and brutal mindset. They want to **** **** up. That is just about it.

To argue "Not all sand people collaborated in this" well they were after all working at that camp and not at all arguing or objecting whether or not they should have kept the woman to be a rape victim (I assume that's why they kept her alive)

Perhaps Sand people only respond to violence, so anakin talked to them in their language. And they clearly understood it.
I also assume that the Tuskens didn't run away, they probably each ran at Anakin until the Warriors/males were all dead. If the Tuskens were "Frightened easily" while a group of them were fighting anakin, sure enough the other males/warriors would be trying to get their women and children to safety. I wouldn't be surprised if they shoved their females and children into the fight to kill anakin.

Owen mentions they are more beast than man. Maybe that is the case. Maybe they like animals run on an instinct of attacking things that aren't them, they may not in fact know about negotiating.. It would be like trying to negotiate your way out of a hungry lion's mouth.
KOTOR Mentions that you could talk to them but... that whole scene was giant stretch.

 

Sand People are aliens - one of the two races that are native to Tatooine (the other is the Jawas). Cliegg might claim they are "mindless animals" - but mindless beings generally wouldn't be expected to wear clothes, and use weapons.

 

I'd argue that the entire moral of Star Wars as a whole is that it's ok to fight for freedom, even commit violent acts against oppressors, but that there are certain things that good guys never do, that are never worth it. Like torture or commit genocide or kill innocents or adolescents. Anakin's emotions and desires were understandable but his actions were disgusting and wrong.

I can never buy into the idea that any alien group in a science fiction story that obviously has culture is less than human, or savages above all. As a native american, i know where that kind of thinking leads. Even if it were the original intent of Lucas that Tuskens were irredeemable, i can't see them that way, especially in a franchise that praises forgiveness (arguably the second big moral of Star Wars).

 

Well animals do in fact use tools. We see apes use sticks as straws to pick up ants from ant holes, or use rocks to smash things (or like an otter) in fact some orangutans will carry large leafs to cover their heads with when it rains. So perhaps the sand person is a more advanced animal.

 

Dmasterman: you are just as guilty as Anakin or Owen of classifying all the Sandpeople as "barbaric them" a/k/a "others" without any evidence other than your assumptions ("Perhaps Sand people only respond to violence, so anakin talked to them in their language. And they clearly understood it.
I also assume that the Tuskens didn't run away...")

I don't assume they are all guilty. Perhaps they are. Perhaps not. But there's no evidence and even so, there is NO justification for wiping out an entire group for the actions of a few. That's like saying we should condemn the parents of murderers because they "must have been complicit" in the murderer's actions because the parents were responsible for raising and controlling their kids.

And for us as the audience who doesn't know all the evidence to assume Anakin was correct in wiping "the animals out" when Anakin himself seems to refute that by his guilt (as I read it) of killing "even the women and children" - well, I'd hate to have someone with your mindset on a jury.

To clarify, I don't justify or excuse their behavior towards Shmi and I don't excuse Anakin's massacre of the entire tribe either. Understanding is one thing, justifying it is another.

 

And what about the children? You can't possibly argue that they were complicit in their parent's crimes.

But why did Anakin need to "negotiate" or "talk to them in their language"? At that point, he'd gotten what he came for--though admittedly in the worst way possible. Fighting them, and killing them, didn't serve any immediate purpose other than revenge.

I also think the "shoved their females and children into the fight to kill anakin" thing is a bit of a stretch. We know from the EU that they did have female warriors, so I'll ignore that part of it. I assume that when Anakin mentioned the "women and children" he was more specifically referring to the women (or possibly men, it would presumably be difficult to tell) who were clearly not warriors. And they were in the middle of the desert - it's not like they had anywhere to run in order to get the women and children to safety.

 

But we must not forget Anakin's mother. She was innocent and they captured her, tied her up, left her bleeding to death like an animal.

He walked out of the tent in a blind fury and whacked everything in sight. Completely understandable.

However, he should have captured the children and carried them off to be raised by farmers so that they would not grow up to be murderers of more innocent women by act or through omission to act. All of the adults were guilty. Did they deserve to die, eye for an eye style? Well in a civilized society, they should be imprisoned and tried. But the wild west society living in that part of Tatooine, it was every man for himself - old west style.

 

I agree with this

I think Palpatine subscribes to Nietzche's worldview much more than Anakin does. Anakin is just an emotionally friable and immature, rather selfish child. There's no conceptual frame of reference underlying his wrongdoing.

 

Well you know, the Rebels and those who wanted to restore the republic could've just, moved on, live and forget.

 

If they are the animals we deem them to be, they will simply turn out as their parents. It's like hoping if you kill lions, you can raise the cubs to not be natural killers. It just wouldn't work that way. Often times, in needs of regulating nature, i.e. too much of an animal that causes environmental damage, they do take out the animal including it's young.

To be honest, his "aggressive negotiations" probably saved other people's lives. They would kidnap or just downright attack people. Why was Shmi given such horrible treatment by being beaten, tortured and kept alive? My only guess was to be a rape thing for them.

If the Tuskens truly were just a tribal group of people, it's safe to say that while the likely majority bulk of men were fighting him, the Women/children could've gotten away. So how could they have gotten so close to a melee based combatant? Likely attempting to apprehend or fight Anakin. I don't think they would just "Freeze" and stay there to be killed. The tusken raiders know the desert a lot better than we do. They probably know locations of other Tusken tribes, hide outs (such as caves/tunnels, in case of Krayts). I think it's more of a stretch to assume that if they actually did run and get so far, Anakin would have mercilessly chased them till the ends of Tatooine to kill them.

Owen says they are more beast than man. Even in KoToR they only allowed Revan/party to live, and they believed their killings were 100% justified and would continue to do it no matter what.

No justification for the group? Well they had a woman tied up, tortured, raped, and if they were all abiding by this and didn't care, I would say this would in fact make them just as guilty. If a man takes a woman into his house, ties her up for her to suffer and his family all see it, know about it, but don't do anything, you really think that makes them not guilty? In fact, the part where Owen says him and a hunting party went to find her and failed, sort of leads me to believe that she may in fact be bait, to bring people to find her just to kill them.

And again, as I said, how is it that Anakin even got to the Children and Women? He fights with a sword, not a gun. It is very likely that they in fact went after Anakin or were shoved into the fight to kill him. While the majority of the males were going to take on Anakin, why didn't the women and children flee? I don't see any other point than the tusken's arrogantly thinking if they had more numbers, including their women and children to attack him, they could overwhelm him. So is he still guilty? Perhaps in a fit of rage, he should've just disabled all of the children and women's weapons while killing the men? Could he have gotten lost int eh state where he couldn't even tell who was who? It's unlikely that he ran to different parts of the desert to find them and kill them all.