PT Did Anakin / Vader really care about Jedi or Sith ?

Anakin didn't even know how democracy worked. Also, in ROTS we do explicitly hear Palpatine say he can save Padme from death, why do you think anything else in their relationship would be shown otherwise? I'm not saying you aren't free to interpret the relationship as you see fit, what I am saying is that we see no reason to believe Anakin's thoughts aren't his own and that he has been brainwashed by Palpatine. If we are to believe that we should just as easily beleive that everything he says is also the brainwashing of Obi-Wan, whom he spends significantly more time with.

If you have the time, read it; I highly doubt you'll be disappointed. The narration and insights into the characters thoughts that simply cannot be put on-screen are priceless.

 

Palpatine's political influence on Anakin is more in the background, but it is there. It was certainly what Lucas was going for. But no one said he'd been brainwashed. That's putting words in people's mouths.

I'll probably get around to it eventually. I have a lot of books on my reading list.

 

I don't know what else to call it, when you imply that one characters dialogue is another character inserting dialogue into their head. So Palpatine somehow convinced Anakin that dictatorship is GREAT, while at the same time keeping him ignorant of how the democratic system HE SWORE TO DEFEND works? This does not make sense.

 

Imagine being raised as a jesuit for ten years and having no clue about how the society you live in works.

 

Regarding Palpatine's influence - best to think of it as a catalyst to Anakin's fall, or even a linchpin, rather than the sole, deciding factor.

As with the corruption of any man, Anakin's is not a simple one - to invoke the notion of simplicity doesn't really work, because someone who falls to the Dark is inherently conflicted, and mired by complex, competing emotions.
Indeed, it is the loss of any such control over the emotions that the Jedi widely preach facilitates one's fall.

Palpatine never brainwashed anyone - I'm not sure why people make the leap from the reasonable "mastermind who influences others" to "Sith who brainwashes and that's why everyone else fails". It is a wildly illogical premise.

 

Are you really unfamiliar with the concept of influence? I really really doubt it. Nice try, though.

 

The Supreme Chancellor - we both seem to like the novelization to ROTS. It can help us again with this matter of Palpatine's influence.

"I am not supposed to be telling you this. Please do not reveal we have had this conversation. To​

anyone, do you understand?"​

Anakin said, "I can keep a secret."​

"All right." Obi-Wan took another deep breath. "Master Windu traced Darth Sidious to Five Hundred​

Republica before Grievous's attack—we think that the Sith Lord is someone within Palpatine's closest​

circle of advisers.That is who we want you to spy on, do you understand?"​

A fiction created by the Jedi Council... an excuse to harass their political enemies...​

"If Palpatine is under the influence of a Sith Lord, he may be in the gravest danger. The only way we can​

help him is to find Sidious, and to stop him. What we are asking of you is not treason, Anakin—it may be​

the only way to save the Republic!"​

If this Darth Sidious of yours were to walk through that door right now...I would ask him to sit down,​

and I would ask him if he has any power he could use to end this war.​

This matches the scene where Obi-Wan gives Anakin his assignment to spy on Palpatine, out of session.
The key is that Anakin's thought process dwells on what Palpatine has spoken, italicized above - he is clearly being influenced by the suggestions and beliefs of the Dark Lord. Not wholly dictated, granted. But influenced, and significantly.

Now, where Anakin goes beyond Palpatine's influence, and corrupts himself because of his own conflict - he begins to twist even Palpatine's own words in his desperation to save Padmé. (The way that Stover takes this implies that Anakin is already on the slippery slope to assuming that the Sith can help him, even before the Opera scene.)

Locked within the furnace of his heart, Anakin whispered an echo—not quite an echo—slightly altered,​

just at the end: I would ask him to sit down, and I would ask him if he has any power he could use—to​

save Padme.​

So it's a dynamic situation consisting of many factors.

 

Great deflection. It just doesn't make sense.

 

It doesn't make sense that a mentor would influence his mentee. This is where your suspension of disbelief fails?

 

It doesn't make sense that a Head of State could influence a young man sworn to defend the democratic Republic, that tyranny is the absolute best system, while simultaneously keeping said young man ignorant of how the system he is sworn to defend works. Yes, this is where my disbelief ends.

What makes much more sense is; young man has skipped/not paid attention during civics class; doesn't know that much or care that much how the system that somehow allows slavery in the galaxy works, because to him it clearly doesn't work. He is so ignorant of the history behind dictatorship that he unknowingly conflates it with democracy. That is much more believable.

Anakin: "Hey Obi-Wan I'll see you later I'm going to my daily mentoring with Palpatine!"
Obi-Wan: "Has he taught you how the Republic works yet?"
Anakin: "No, every time I ask he says don't worry about it. But he keeps telling me how great Zork the Conqueror was!"