PT Defending Anakin and the Tusken

A trope that would go against one of the fundamental messages of George's?

I'm not exactly sure it is a trope to mass murder 'pure evil' children either.

 

What fundamental message would that be? The OT is very black & white in its morality. Empire = bad: Rebels = good. It's a very absolutist series overall.

 

I don't think that's the case here and it's largely for the better as it drives forth much of Anakin's character later on.

 

You mean the same series that suggests no one is purely good or evil?

I'm not sure if there is series where the mass murdering of 'evil children' is a trope.

 

Which is what really makes the film and the PT soooooo interesting. It wasn't until the prequels that I feel moral greyness came into play. I love them for adding more dimension to the saga.

The "trope" is factions that exist purely to inflict harm on the protagonists and are by all accounts opaquely evil.

 

Can you give me an example of this 'its okay to mass murder pure evil children's trope?

 

They had them in The Hobbit - Gollum reminisces about killing one on the way to his island, to get his ring in order to ambush Bilbo. And also, on his way back, seeking to kill Bilbo:


Only a few hours ago he had worn it, and caught a small goblin-imp. How it squeaked! He still had a bone or two left to gnaw, but he wanted something softer.
...
"How did we lose it, my precious? Yes, that's it. When we came this way last, when we twisted that nassty young squeaker. That's it. Curse it! It slipped from us, after all these ages and ages!"

 

Imagine you are Luke and AOTC is the cave on Dagobah, how you perceive the events and how you measure your reaction is more about you than it is about the event itself.

Speaking strictly from the perspective of AOTC, GL is absolutely and obviously telling us what Anakin did was wrong. If it wasn’t wrong it wouldn’t exist as a stepping stone to the dark side.

Is it difficult to identify with Anakin’s actions? No. The dark side is easier, more seductive. The harder choice, the way of the light, is to walk away.

 

I agree of course that Anakin was wrong to massacre a tribe of sandpeople, even knowing that they were at least complicit in his mother's death. But I think it is a fair point that in a lot of traditional societies like the sandpeople's, the distinction between "soldier" and "civilian" was a lot blurrier than we are used to thinking about in the modern day. It's not necessarily that we today are simply more evolved or moral than our ancestors in regards to war-crimes or atrocities. It's that we live in a world where those kinds of distinctions can be more easily drawn, where either someone is a soldier OR they are a civilian so we can determine whether violence toward them is acceptable (of course in reality it's not always that clear-cut today, either, especially when it comes to counterinsurgency operations in tribal societies like Afghanistan).

 

It was justified, woman or no. They were guiltily,period. They all got what they deserved. No regretet

 

I suspect this distinction you refer to is more about familiarity with the culture in question. I doubt the Tuskens themselves have a difficult time with this. Though they likely have their own misconceptions about other non-Tuskin settlements.

With regard to Shmi’s abduction, I really do believe they were Sidious’ pawns. Thus, to me, their actions should be viewed through that lens and not as though they were simply going about their everyday business kidnapping innocent women.

 

IMO the youngest Tusken do not qualify as guilty, and got what they didn't deserve.

Whether or not the Tusken women qualify as well (given the patriarchal nature of Tuskens and the fact that, at least according to AOTC novel, the men are normally the only combatants) - we can't know for certain either way.

 

Tusken women and children are delicious if served with a mild nutmeg sauce sprinkled over garlic cloves. Anakin was just doing his civic duty of providing delicious food for his mate and himself.

 

Aggressors who committed multiple genocides while their people are laughing and cheering on the other side isn't a situation that "complex" for us to understand. It is a clear as a day for anyone with common sense who is the real the victim here.

Using them as comparison is cheap and inappropriate and it doesn't even work here.

 

Well, if it's that simple, then I guess Israel should just admit that it's evil and maybe we'll finally have peace in the Middle East. I'm glad we finally came to a resolution to that completely non-ambiguous in any way conflict.

 

I don't think it's absolute in that sense. It's absolute in the sense that it declares definitively that good and evil do exist and there is a difference. And the Empire is definitely an evil institution while the Rebellion is a virtuous one. But there are Imperials with admirable qualities. Captain Needa, for example, shows remarkable character and leadership when he decides to take full responsibility for his crew's failure to capture the Falcon. In deleted scenes from ROTJ, Moff Jerjerrod shows great hesitation and moral anguish when ordered to fire on his own men with the Death Star's superlaser. In an example from the PT, despite being overall a repugnant slavemaster, Watto nevertheless displays some camaraderie with Anakin and is shown to take an almost fatherly pride in Anakin's accomplishments. While perhaps more subtle than in other series, Lucas consciously allows glints of humanity to show even in his villains. Even the rancor was loved by somebody.

 

Right on!

 

The ROTJ novelization has a good take on "Rancor is as much Jabba's victim as anyone else is"

Luke tried to clear his mind. Fear is a great cloud, Ben used to tell him. It makes the cold colder and the dark darker; but let it rise and it will dissolve. So Luke let it rise past the clamor of the beast above him, and examined ways he might turn the sad creature's rantings on itself.
It was not an evil beast, that much was clear. Had it been purely malicious, its wickedness could easily have been turned on itself—for pure evil, Ben had said, was always self-destructive in the end. But this monster wasn't bad—merely dumb and mistreated. Hungry and in pain, it lashed out at whatever came near. For Luke to have looked on that as evil would only have been a projection of Luke's own darker aspects—it would have been false, and it certainly wouldn't have helped him out of this situation.
No, he was going to have to keep his mind clear—that was all—and just outwit the savage brute, to put it out of its misery.
Most preferable would have been to set it loose in Jabba's court, but that seemed unlikely. He considered, next, giving the creature the means to do itself in—to end its own pain. Unfortunately, the creature was far too angered to comprehend the solace of the void. Luke finally began studying the specific contours of the cave, to try to come up with a specific plan.


Those in the audience above gasped as one, then were silent. They were all truly stunned at this bizarre turn of events. They all looked to Jabba, who was apoplectic with rage. Never had he felt such fury. Leia tried to hide her delight, but was unable to keep from smiling, and this increased Jabba's anger even further.
Harshly he snapped at his guards: "Get him out of there. Bring me Solo and the Wookiee. They will all suffer for this outrage."
In the pit below, Luke stood calmly as several of Jabba's henchmen ran in, clapped him in bonds, and ushered him out.
The Rancor keeper wept openly and threw himself down on the body of his dead pet. Life would be a lonely proposition for him from that day.

 

I liked the political stuff too. The prequels have a couple of stronger points of interest compared with Originals and they are the political stuff, the world building.

The acting does fail the films at times, and the characters are not as closely knit as the original films. It does not help that they change the actor who plays Anakin between I and II. Probably one of the biggest mistakes was not casting an actor to play Anakin over all three films.[/QUOTE]

 

It's interesting to note that had Anakin not be a Jedi, had lightsaber he would probably have took a deep breath and carried his Mother away without a peep.
But he was powerful and he was a Jedi, he had a lethal weapon, and in that instant he let the dark side control him completely and took advantage of his ok, to the full.
Big question is did Yoda in anyway question Anakin about the incident, seen as he was aware of it!

 

Both are war crimes as Luke is a rebel, a terrorist. He doesn't belong to a recognized military of a planet or government. One is against the poor innocent natives who just want to mane, rape, kill, and rob from whoever they come in contact with, and the other example are [Goat edit: that's a bit too politically inclined irl, let's not go there]

 

You've made many assumptions that you cant confirm, all in the effort to further dehumanise them. You don't know that everyone in the camp tortured or maimed Shimi and you don't know who was forced to and who wasn't. You don't know if their actions were in response to settler actions, in which case they would use the same argument you are.... Everyone is fair game because they are part of the group who wronged us.

No one is saying what the Tusekn Raiders did was anything but wrong and evil. To suggest otherwise is clearly a straw man you've created. Ideally they would be brought before a court. They live in a lawless land so vigilante justice is the only justice available. However the indiscriminate murdering of the entire camp based upon the assumption they all engaged in malice torturing of Shimi because they are part of a certain ethnic group is clearly wrong. Once you asscribe guilt to an ethire ethnic group due to the actions of their leadership or a few individuals you've ventured into predudice. You could justify any number of terrible crimes against that group.

Honestly we shouldn't have to explain you you why the children didn't deserve to die.

Luke's actions are not terrorism or war crimes. You should look up the definition for both.

 

Yeah, I don't think it's accurate to portray Anakin's massacre as a carefully reasoned attempt on his part to break the cycle of violence between the settlers and the sandpeople. He was acting out of vengeance, caught up in blind rage and fury. You could certainly argue that his actions may actually have saved lives over the long run by instilling a fear of the settlers into the remaining tusken raiders, but even if that were true that still wouldn't make what Anakin did less evil. An evil act is an evil act, even if some good things might indirectly come from it. And slaughtering children is never okay, even if you know they will grow up to be your enemies.

 

If we are talking about Tolkien's writing, then orcs having kids is very likely, if not outright stated.
There are one or two references to female orcs.
Plus, orcs were corrupted elves, that had been tortured and twisted by Morgoth, the Dark Lord.
Elves can have children so it is logical that orcs can too.

Further, Tolkien, after the fall of Sauron, does not have Aragorn chase after the orcs and slaughter them.
Those that served Sauron and surrendered, he let live and made treaties with.
And Tolkien made a big point about pity and this;

Tolkien also said that not even Sauron was evil at first.
And Gollum, a wretched creature, twisted by the Ring, without him, the Ring would not have been destroyed. And he was not totally evil.

Not that black and white.
Take Han, at the start he is a grey character, self-serving and interested in money.
He changes yes but still in ESB, he plans to leave the rebels to pay off Jabba.

Yoda and Obi-Wan mislead and kept the truth from Luke and even lied in places about what really happened to his father.

And speaking about Vader, the most evil guy of the first two films is the father of the main hero and he turns good at the end. Making the point that even very evil people are not beyond hope or redemption.

I agree that Anakin's mind was drowning in hate, grief and rage and his goal was vengeance, plain and simple.
If it had any effect, that is more doubtful.
He killed everyone in the camp, no survivors. So how would other Sand People even know what happened or why?
If some people from some other tribe came by a month later, they will find a destroyed camp and all dead but they won't know who did this or why.

And, as I have said, saying that violence will discourage further violence.
I think there are plenty of examples in history where that hasn't worked.
That if one side commits an atrocity then the other side responds in kind.

So it could escalate the conflict rather than making things more calm.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

I wasn’t aware of Orcs being able to have children. Huh, you learn something new every day.

That said, if I were a Tusken from another tribe and found an entire settlement filled with dead Tusken, my first reaction isn’t gonna be, “Holy ****! The humans really mean business! I’m gonna stay away from them!” If anything else, Anakin’s slaughter only made things worse in the long run and not just for him, but for any settler who will eventually suffer the wrath of Tusken warriors.

“Stop people from dying”? Buddy, you basically signed the death certificate of any human settler who is about to be a victim of a Tusken raiding party out for revenge.