PT Did the scene of Anakin killing younglings affect your perception of him?

"In order to gain the power you crave, you must actively, consciously choose to embrace evil. Not as a moment of blind madness or anger or panic or jealousy because you can't control yourself, but as a fully aware choice of who you are going to be, forever. It is your only hope. I am your only hope."

"...okay. I'll do it."

Essentially, this was the logical "loophole". He didn't just ~become~ evil as a thing that happened at random, he was making an active choice to embrace darkness with all his heart because he thought it would give him everything he wanted. And by the time he figured out it was a lie and the darkness would give him nothing, there was nothing left to go back to - and, after all, he'd actively chosen to become that monster, hadn't he? He did all of this. He chose it.

Doing evil of your own free will is a lot harder to deal with than something terrible you did because you flew off the handle in the moment and did something stupid without thought or plan. It was a "there's no going back after this" moment. Palpatine knew it. Anakin knew it. It was the entire purpose of it. And, knowing it was evil, he chose to do it anyway. Because he wanted what he wanted, and he was, in the end, the kind of man who found he could pay the price - in other people's pain and lives - and after that he could no longer tell himself that he was anything else.

It's very ugly, but it seems fairly straightforward to me.

 

He is willing to turn Palpatine in because it will keep him alive, so that he can learn more about the dark side. Remember, Dooku is dead. The Nightsisters and Nightbrothers are gone. Ventress is dead. Maul is M.I.A.. Palpatine is his last hope of learning all there is to know about the dark side of the Force. Anakin didn't do it for any other reason than that. And as to the Jedi, he does feel it is right. They will take Palpatine out and effectively, it will kill Padme. The Jedi themselves are shown to be problematic since half of the problems that exist are the Jedi's fault, as much as it is the Sith's. The Jedi had their chance and they blew it. And between Padme and the Jedi, she will win every time.

He's not chipper when he goes to see her. He hasn't had a full moment to digest what he's done. He went from killing the last Jedi in the Temple to kneeling before Palpatine, to telling Padme a point of view lie and then goes off to kill the Separatist Council. It's only when the killing is all over and done with, that he stops to think about it, lets the totality of it all wash over him and that's when he starts crying. It's the same way in AOTC, when he returns to the farm and has the steel gaze look on his face. But when he's in the garage, that's when it starts to overwhelm him about what he had done.

He gets upset at her on Mustafar because she's rejecting him and what he's done. In his mind, he did this for her and now she's being ungrateful. That's his anger starting to shine through. A sign that the dark side is taking him over. Then he starts to rationalize her reaction as Obi-wan twisting her against him, because he is trying to justify her rejection and his growing anger.

Then he's not Darth Vader because he doesn't get his hands dirty. That's the point of this. That's why Palpatine says, "Don't hesitate, show no mercy." You think Dooku or Maul would be so benevolent? The point is to show how far down he will go to get what he wants. Remember, he's willing to kill his own son if he does not join him.

 

But Maul, Dooku and Episode IV and onward Vader had been getting twisted by Palpatine and rationalizing their brutality for years rather than lacking mercy or reasonableness from the beginning of their Dark Side status.

 

Anakin is struggling with what "right" and "wrong" even mean. He's searching for something solid to hang onto. At first that's the Jedi Code, but then Mace Windu, one of its foremost representatives, himself violates that Jedi Code for the sake of what he sees to be the greater good. So at that point Anakin loses faith and allows himself to be swayed by Palpatine, who's been advocating a philosophy that is a mixture of moral relativism and ethical utilitarianism. According to this philosophy, "good" is a point of view. In that context, what is wrong with killing Younglings, if it will prevent a future civil war and thereby reduce the net amount of disorder and suffering in the universe in the long run?

That's actually not such an easy question to answer. You can argue with the premise, but there's nothing inherently unsound about the logic. The only reason you know it's wrong because it's what you feel in your heart. But Anakin decides to ignore what he feels in his heart and instead commit to the seductive logic of evil, because the former won't help him save Padme, but the latter might. It's all part of the theme of Anakin the man becoming Vader the machine.

 

That's because mercy is for the weak and the Sith do not train to be merciful. Palpatine is breaking Anakin of his sense of mercy and the dark side overrides reasonable thinking and encourages emotional content.

 

Yes Sinister, but see, his whole turn was much too fast and a bit silly and over-the-top. And no, GL quotes are silly too. Mustn't use those.

 

That's because mercy is seen to be a limiting emotion. The Sith believe in their own versions of peace and justice, but they believe that such things can only truly come at the hands of a wise, all-powerful leader who knows what is best. Being stronger than everybody else automatically grants you the right to claim the moral high ground. Mercy makes you weak and therefore makes you ineffective at enforcing your will, which to a Sith is the greatest moral failing of all.

The Sith philosophy is deceptive because it claims to be less sterile and more emotionally authentic than Jedi philosophy, but really it ends up turning you into a cold, unfeeling automaton à la Vader. Constant, unrestrained passion actually makes you less capable of feeling authentic human emotions. Vader is just a hateful machine whose sole function is the infliction of indiscriminate suffering on any entity weaker than him, more like a Death Star than a human being.

 

That doesn't really make sense to me. Mace may have broken the Jedi code, although given the Jedi's commitment to destroying (not arresting) the Sith, even that point is contentious. Either way, Palpatine is the guy behind Dooku, behind the war, the guy who decieved everyone, and is responsible for the death of millions, and Anakin knows that. He knows that lies and deciet are the way of the Sith. He's been taught that all his life. So, how does Mace wavering on following the Jedi code (and Mace has a point, Palpatine does control the Senate and the courts) weigh up against galactic Hitler? The idea that "good is a point of view" is somehow a convincing argument to become a child murderer doesn't seem believable to me. The Anakin we witnessed up till a few moments ago was still the conflicted hero. It's just a complete lapse in logic.

 

I suppose it's easy for us because we're all thinking with a clear head; we know exactly what would happen if Anakin follows Palpatine (re: the Original Trilogy.) No one said emotions ran on logic at all times. Even in real life, people, when overwhelmed by despair and desperation, or rage, will start doing wholly illogical things. That's because at the heat of the moment, they don't have time to sit down and think it through.

We have to honestly put ourselves in Anakin's shoes (or boots, I guess?) Try to put our mindset into his. He doesn't have the benefit of crystal-clear visions of exactly what would happen in the future. He doesn't have the time and comfort we do to sit down and logically think things through. Not when Mace is poised to slaughter what Anakin thinks is his only chance to save Padmé from the death he keeps dreaming about. The Jedi already basically said, "Nope, can't help you." He's desperate.

 

Why did Palpatine do all those things you just listed? In order to place himself in control of the Republic and reform it into an Empire in order to create a more orderly and secure society. He did it for the greater good.

Anakin has been taught a lot of things all his life by the Jedi. But the Jedi haven't been very good to him compared to Palpatine. They've berated him, chastised him, held him back, and conspired behind his back. Meanwhile, Palpatine has been a constant voice of affirmation for Anakin, and even when he has lied to Anakin for his own self-preservation he has eventually come clean about it of his own free will, unlike the Jedi. When Mace violates the Jedi Code, he's proving that what Palpatine said is true: The Jedi are willing to do anything, even violate their own sacred Code, in order to preserve their own power.

It doesn't matter if Palpatine "controls" the Senate and the Courts. It is flatly immoral to execute a helpless and defeated adversary, even a vile and evil one. Mace is acting on the basis of Sith logic, the exact same logic which Anakin uses to kill the Younglings: The ends justify the means. We know this is a temporary lapse in moral judgement on Mace's part, brought about by a moment of weakness and desperation much like the one which leads Anakin to commit his evil deeds. But Anakin is no proper state of mind to realize that. He's being influenced by years of baggage relating to his resentment of the Jedi, he's being influenced by his recent and not-at-all unfounded suspicions that the Jedi have been plotting behind his back and keeping things from him, he's being influenced by his manic desire to save the one person he can't live without from a death which could strike at any moment. You're committing the fallacy of assuming everyone must be a completely rational actor at all times.

 

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/heels

 

you mean as Vader or just Anakin. For Vader no. For Anakin yes.

 

I don't think that's even true. What needed to happen was a judicial hearing to determine who among the Tusken adults was responsible, and to what degree, after which point appropriate sentences would be handed out on an individual basis. That wasn't going to happen, for obvious reasons. So Anakin took justice into his own hands. But he shouldn't have done that, because he didn't have the right. It's not his job to be judge, jury, and executioner. As hard as it would be, the only acceptable thing for him to have done was to accept that there would be no justice for the murder of his mother, and to leave it be. Better that justice go unserved than for justice to be miscarried.

 

Is it even possible that the killings of the Tusken women & children or the Younglings could not affect your perception of Anakin?? If so Lucas failed in what he was trying to achieve with those scenes. They're both supposed to be unambiguously evil & major stepping stones in his descent to becoming Vader.

 

One of the first actions Anikan did was kill kids. I mean, that's pretty evil, and it showed how far he fell. Before ROTS, we knew he hunted down the Jedi to kill them, but, not when they were kids. I changed my view of him. I think GL portrayed it well tho. The hint of it, and him just igniting his saber.

 

Lucas wanted us to see the tragedy of a good man who lets his flaws do him in, which included the fact that he would go to great lengths to achieve his goals. What the real question is; did you still see him as the tragic figure or not?

 

That good man died the moment he killed his first Tusken women or child.

 

No not at all. In fact part of me thinks it was a bit cheap. This is Darth Vader, the no 2 of an EVIL empire. Most military leaders have deliberately ordered the death of innocent civilians including children. I can't think of any modern war where the Younglings wouldn't have been killed.

I expect my heroes in fiction to rise above such actions, but my villains doing what real world leaders do, does not shock me in the slightest.

Blowing up Alderaan and his role in constructing the Death Star is as bad as it gets. However, I guess it's that old saying "one death is a tragedy a million deaths is a statistic."

 

Kids are just one more evil on top of it all.

 

No. Lucas took Anakin's deeds in the PT far beyond the story of a good person who has flaws. Anakin as depicted from AotC onwards is a bad person with some good traits. Which is the case with almost all bad people. Even Hitler, who was a vegetarian who loved animals. Good people don't ever, no matter what circumstances or provocation murder women & children. It's simply not part of their makeup to do that. The only way to classify someone who commits those deeds as a "good person" is to skew the definition of the term to the point where it's useless & unrecognizable from its accepted intent.

 

I like to look at it more as neutralizing a future threat than he needed to power up to save Padme. Although hardly forgivable, not as far a degree of evil.

The fact that these particular kids were confused and just looking to understand what was happening. That's a step too far.

The lightsaber hum was pretty cool though. It's a movie, so I don't stay up at night or have even shed a single tear for Jedi Younglings I had no connection to. Now if Ep2 had one of those younglings as his Padawan ... now we are getting some high level drama and a feeling of sick to one's stomach.

 

In wars bombs are dropped deliberately to kill civilians all the time. Since you want to bring up WWII. That was a total war where, the aim was to kill as many German citizens as possible to weaken morale and kill contributors to the economy. Study some history. Killing women and children is exactly what goes on in wars. It's only the greatest heroes that rise above it.

Forget Hitler, which is the easy way out. Hitler is an evil monster and it's easy to call him out. What about Churchill and Roosevelt/Truman who ordered tens of thousands of German/Japanese woman/children to be killed. Yet Churchill is one of the greatest Englishmen ever and we owe a lot to him.

Also being a "good person" can repent and change their ways.

 

Well, he didn't order the destruction of Alderaan. He just let it happen. But there were plenty of children who died.

He's a good person with bad traits, which was Lucas's point. His bad traits are his issues with attachment and anger, fueled by a power that controls him, rather than controlling it. That's why on the DVD commentary he says that Anakin cannot control his anger anymore and it controls him. That's why Lucas said this...

"You learn that Darth Vader isn’t this monster. He’s a pathetic individual who made a pact with the Devil and lost. And he’s trapped. He’s a sad, pathetic character, not a big evil monster. I mean, he’s a monster in that he’s turned to the dark side and he’s serving a bad master and he’s into power and he’s lost a lot of his humanity. In that way, he’s a monster, but beneath that, as Luke says in Return of the Jedi, early on, “I know there’s still good in you, I can sense it.” Only through the love of his children and the compassion of his children, who believe in him, even though he’s a monster, does he redeem himself."

--George Lucas, “Star Wars: The Last Battle,” Vanity Fair, 2005.

 

There's no daylight between the two. The Sith don't conceptualize themselves as doing evil for evil's sake. They justify their evil deeds by convincing themselves it's for the greater good. Even Sidious truly thinks he's bringing much needed peace and order to the galaxy. The Clone Wars were a necessary spasm of concentrated violence designed to prevent a much greater amount of death and destruction spread out over a timespan of decades, centuries, and millennia. The deaths of the Younglings serve the same purpose. Anakin's power as a Sith comes from being "strong" enough to commit these evil acts which "must be done".

Of course the Sith are really just completely selfish and obsessed with their own power, but no one sees themselves that way. Sidious is self-aware enough to realize he's selfish and power-hungry, of course, but he thinks of it in a Nietzschean way where his will to power is actually a moral necessity, beyond more "narrow and dogmatic" notions of good and evil. His drive to become more and more powerful and dominate other people is a completely natural thing consistent with the true will of the Force. Others need to be dominated by a superior being in order to live a life of meaning devoid of the chaos and uncertainty which comes from unfettered free will. The universe is set up the way it is for a reason. Sidious is selfish and power hungry for a reason, and it's because the Force wants him to be. The Force itself wants to be dominated.

 

I like what you are saying @The_Phantom_Calamari as I like that in a villain more than the villain going "I'm so evil".

With TLJ I liked when Ben Solo told Rey something like "I am a monster". It didn't come off as bragging. It came off, to me, that he is aware that there's a bit something mentally ill about him. He's probably tried to correct it in the past, but realized it was just fighting who he was. So he had two options. Whine about it or embrace it. So if Rian wanted to throw in one of his poorly timed humor lines it could have been "I am a monster. Sorry not sorry."

I think it would be easier to accept that the Sith just see themselves as the more pragmatic and correct as opposed to evil if they themselves didn't refer to it as the Dark Side. And Snoke (not Sith? but Dark Side) talks about his goal to snuff out hope. That's almost parody evil.

It probably would have helped if the movies did do a bit more on Palpatine's inner thoughts where it was clear he wasn't just using "peace" as a way to deceive Anakin.

It is also odd to me that what did Anakin in is the ability to have empathy for his mother, wife and future children (albeit corrupted empathy) but he couldn't see himself in that little Jedi boy before he coldly cut him down.