PT Plot Holes and Inconsistencies in the Prequel Trilogy

I don't want to turn this into a discussion of Hitler, so I am going to make one final post to prove my point, and then you are free to believe as you wish. (I ask the moderators for a little leeway because the discussion is about Palpatine and Anakin and how tyrants honestly and truly believe in the righteousness of their actions, and this is a real life parallel of what we saw in the PT).

The Nazis were absolutely, 100% convinced of the moral righteousness of their actions. They did not believe they were immoral. From their point of view, the French and British (and others) were evil. I provide 3 quotes from 3 prominent Nazis demonstrating thusly, and this shall be the last I speak of this matter. These are not the quotes of people feeling morally conflicted. They fully believed they were on the side of all that was right and just. While I am only providing 3 quotes, rest assured that there are far, far more such quotes out there.

"And so I believe to-day that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord." - Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf

"I can't understand how all this can have happened, it's enough to make one lose one's faith in God!" - Eva Braun (during the last days with Hitler)

"My Party is my church, and I believe I serve the Lord best if I do his will, and liberate my oppressed people from the fetters of slavery. That is my gospel.” - Joseph Goebbels

One of my favorite parts about the PT is seeing how a tyrant comes to power. I thought Palpatine's political rise was very well done. I have seen a lot of criticism from people saying "that would never happen because people would never be that stupid" but, unfortunately, history has proven that those things do happen, and far more often than we would like. Palpatine didn't see himself as evil. Anakin didn't see him as evil. The Senate (with a few exceptions) didn't see him as evil. Padme's quote "So this is how liberty dies: with thunderous applause" is probably the best line of the entire PT.

 

Those quotes don't show much friend, especially not in relation to Hitler knowing what he did was immoral. Who is the "lord"?? What religion condones torture and murder? He knew he was going against the bible and was trying to defend his actions.

Palpatine was an intelligent being. He knew he was evil by the meaning of the word. Anakin knew Palpatine was evil from the moment he saw him kill Mace Windu, to the moment he pledged fealty to him, to the moment Obi-Wan said it aloud.

 

Sorry, Anakin clearly says "From my point of view, the Jedi are evil." While I thought the line was poorly delivered, it clearly shows Anakin's belief that he is good and the Jedi are evil. So please don't claim he knew Palpatine was evil when his own statements prove he didn't. He believed in the righteousness of his cause and was doing what he thought was right. I thought this part of the PT was one of its strengths.

 

A person is only evil in the eyes of those who believe that what that person is doing and stands for is horribly wrong. If you agree with that person, then to you, he/she is good.
There is no definitive right or wrong. The fact that many cultures on our planet have vastly different laws - and that there's a never ending stream of debates regarding what's right and what's not - is proof of that. When Palpatine says that good is a point of view, he is absolutely right.





- Much to learn, you still have.
- You'll find I'm full of surprises!
/LM

 

That's exactly what I'm claiming. Obi-Wan was speaking reason, rather than face it Anakin decided to deny it and pretend what he was doing was justified. Note that he didn't say "No he isn't." He tried to shift the blame to the Jedi. As I said before you can see in his eyes when Obi-Wan says "you were the Chosen One!" He knows what he's done is wrong, that he didn't live up to his destiny.

 

No he wasn't. He was trying to turn Anakin to the dark side by saying that. The Jedi are good and the Sith are evil. No amount of lingual gymnastics can convince me otherwise.

 

You're allowed to have a closed mind and believe that good guys are good and bad guys are bad and the good guys know they're good and the bad guys know they're bad. Let me assure you the real world doesn't work that way. And it really didn't work that way in E3 either.

What part of Anakin saying "from my point of view, the Jedi are evil" do you not understand?

 

General flaws in the PT have been discussed to death, don't you think?

 

Oh I understand it perfectly: Obi-Wan was speaking reason, rather than face it Anakin decided to deny it and pretend what he was doing was justified. Note that he didn't say "No he isn't." He tried to shift the blame to the Jedi. As I said before you can see in his eyes when Obi-Wan says "you were the Chosen One!" He knows what he's done is wrong, that he didn't live up to his destiny.

 

That's very weak reasoning at best. Obi-Wan says "The Chancellor is evil" to which Anakin replies "From my point of view, the Jedi are evil." The "no he isn't" is clearly and obviously implied in his response.

I have actual quotes from the movie to support my point. All you have is something you think he should have said but didn't say, even though his response clearly implies what you think he should have said. Anakin doesn't see himself as evil and he doesn't see the Supreme Chancellor as evil. This was one of the well done parts of the PT.

 

Everything about all 6 of these movies have been discussed to death.

Yet here we are.

 

The ultimate point being pushed through on Mustafar is that Anakin knows what he's doing is wrong, and is trying to justify it. When Padme confronts him about the accusations of him killing younglings..he doesn't answer her, he deflects the issue to Obi-Wan trying to turn her against him. When Obi-Wan explains how he's been manipulated into that which he swore to destroy, he deflects the issue to how the Jedi are liars, and finally when Obi-Wan tells him Palpatine is evil, he avoids the answer and explains how from his POV the Jedi are evil. He is so disgusted and uncomfortable with who he has become, that he can't even talk about what he has done.

Watch the scene where Obi-Wan confronts Padme about his whereabouts and wait until the end when they show Anakin overlooking the lava river. At the very last moment he is shown crying, mourning for who he was and what he has become. If he truly thought he was a righteous saviour of the galaxy do you really think he would stand there crying after executing the Sep leaders and essentially ending the war?

 

Certainly there are flaws, like most other films. But I find SW to be a superb saga and could discuss it to death regardless.

 

Anakin does know that he's become evil, which is why he's crying after killing the Confederacy leadership. As time goes on, he does go into a bit of denial about who and what he has become. That's in part due to the anger and hate that's boiling over. He only acknowledges his actions as being questionable when Luke confronts him on Endor and he says that it is too late for him. And that's because of all the guilt he harbors for choking Padme.

 

He hinted at a desire to overthrow the Emperor in E3, then actually tries to get Luke to help him in E5 do precisely that. But Anakin sees himself as someone who is bringing order to the galaxy as proven in the E5 line where he tells Luke "with our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy." Like all tyrants, he does not see himself as evil.

Like I said before: I have actual dialogue from the movie to prove my point. You have nothing but what-if's, he-shoulda's, and twisted speculation about what you think might have happened maybe kinda if you look at it a certain way.

 

I think both you and The Supreme Chancellor have a point. I think that you're correct in stating that Anakin sees himself as someone who is bringing order to the galaxy. But at the same time, I think that Anakin recognizes that what he has done is evil. He knows he's done wrong -- the tears on Mustafar and his statement about it being too late for him in ROTJ are the biggest indicators -- but I think he sees himself as doing what he had to do and justifying his actions through that frame of mind.

I would say that in regards to Anakin, he sees his final goal and motives -- building an Empire and saving Padmé -- as good, but he views himself (or at least his actions) as evil, having turned his back on the Jedi and slaughtering them. It's a subtle distinction, though. I don't know...that's how I reconcile it any way, and it makes sense to me.

 

What started as a comment about my perceived flaw that Anakin was too new to the whole Sith thing to be making grand generalizations about the morality of the Jedi has turned into a fascinating conversation.

I love this forum!

 

The sith enjoy being villains, and I'm talking about by sith standards of good and evil. They aren't under any delusions that they are nice. They are quick to point out the Jedi's flaws and then hypocritically they are guilty of far worse.

I can name a hundred examples of Swtor where they nitpick the Jedi's logic, but they themselves are far more horrible. (Like when they accuse the republic of spying and breaking the peace treaty, and accuse Revan of trying to commit genocide.) Plagueis complains that the Jedi kidnap children, and that the Republic is consolidating power, despite doing these same things secretly. Sidious accuses the Jedi persecuting Sith Lords and then goes on to enslave many species.

This proves they don't think genocide, etc is good. They know it's evil and do it anyhow because it makes them stronger in the dark side.

 

Okay, so the Jedi trace the Sith Lord to Palpatine's inner circle (this is fleshed out a bit more in the RoTS novelization), but don't know exactly who in the inner circle it might be.

But wait...

We've already established in TPM that the Jedi have a blood test that detects midichlorians, making it, effectively, a blood test that can detect force users. So... why don't the Jedi just round up everyone in the Chancellor's inner circle - him included - and give them all a blood test? You know, like they did to detect shape shifters in Deep Space 9? Palpatine's midichlorian count has to be off the charts - probably somewhere between Yoda's and Anakin's. They'd know in seconds that he was an outrageously powerful force user, and thus their Dark Lord.

So... why didn't anybody think of that?

 

The Supreme Chancellor and Beezer:
Both of you raise excellent points and I think this is a testament to the masterful work done in the Prequels to explore morality, conscience, psychology, and philosophy. Here's my brief thoughts along with the two of yours in inferring Anakin's self-perception of good and evil :

I think we should begin, in this case, by asking the many questions into Anakin's psyche as a battlefield between polarizing outlooks on his actions. Is he indeed perceiving himself as doing the right thing or does he know that he is part of the 'wrong side'? Or does he even feel that he is doing the right thing by doing the perceived 'wrong things' (perhaps viewing them as necessary evils)? Already, we can see that the dividing line will be blurry and that any finality on the matter is equally inconclusive.

I believe Anakin knows what he has done is wrong but that what he is striving for is right. I believe that his soul was nearly torn against his will when it was only Darth Sidious(the metaphorical Devil), who offered him a way to save his wife. I believe that he never wanted to harm anyone, that he himself always championed righting the wrong, and that he couldn't even accept what he was doing let alone follow through with it. Thus, I believe Anakin, for the sake of his own sanity, had to craft an 'escapism' psychology to alleviate the guilt he felt. I believe this is the what the persona of 'Vader' initially was: a personal outlook that legitimized the things that his conscience would not allow. In order to remind himself that he was a good person with his heart in the right place, he needed to justify his actions, even if it meant rehearsing the same viewpoints of Darth Sidious which he knew were wrong. Anakin's statement to Padme, "I will not betray the Republic," is exactly what Darth Sidious kept trying to frame the Jedi as: traitors to the Republic. I believe Anakin's tears are sincere: the 'Anakin' part of him, which he has had to basically dismantle, is sobbing at the things that he's done. If it were to end at this point, I'm inclined to believe that Anakin still thinks of himself as a good person although knowing the terribleness of what he has done.

But it doesn't end at this point. Because of another trait of the nature of theDark Side; it's seductiveness. It erodes one's conscience so that gradually one's heart moves away from a good place to a darker and harsher place. It deranges a person, feeding a person power, and then making that person drunk on it. It evolves, or perhaps I should say devolves, a person from realizing that their actions are wrong into consolidating their own justifications for their unjustifiable actions. The Anakin, or more accurately, Darth Vader that said to Obi-Wan, "From my point of view, the Jedi are evil", might have actually become deluded enough to believe his own words.

This is an age-old topic and I can see the viewpoints of both "The Supreme Chancellor" and "Beezer." I can see how "The Supreme Chancellor" believes that Anakin does acknowledge that what he is doing is wrong but I can also see how "Beezer" does believe that Anakin is completely firm in his convictions. I would write more but it's late from where I'm writing and only a much longer discussion I think, could do this topic justice.

 

The ultimate point being pushed through on Mustafar is that Anakin knows what he's doing is wrong, and is trying to justify it. When Padme confronts him about the accusations of him killing younglings..he doesn't answer her, he deflects the issue to Obi-Wan trying to turn her against him. When Obi-Wan explains how he's been manipulated into that which he swore to destroy, he deflects the issue to how the Jedi are liars, and finally when Obi-Wan tells him Palpatine is evil, he avoids the answer and explains how from his POV the Jedi are evil. He is so disgusted and uncomfortable with who he has become, that he can't even talk about what he has done.

 

I guarantee you Anakin probably would have went with Padme if Obi-Wan didn't interfere

 

Perhaps they don't have the authority to force the Chancellor and his advisers to submit to a blood test. After all, they probably don't have any hard evidence that one of them is a Sith.

 

They did try that in the EU. Their Jedi agent was killed. By the time of ROTS, the Council opted to go in a different route by having Anakin spy on Palpatine and see how comes and goes and what his reactions are.

No, he wouldn't. Anakin made it clear that he believed that he was in the right and that what they could accomplish was more important than going off with her. That's why Padme says that he had changed, because he was more interested in running the galaxy than in defending it and trying to protect her. The only thing Obi-wan did was cause Anakin to lose his **** when he saw him.

 

Not that I put that much stock in the EU, but even if I did...

That still doesn't make sense. A Jedi agent? How about showing up with 100 Jedi? To paraphrase Richard Nixon, it's not like they didn't have 'em. Authorization? This is catching a Sith Lord in the highest circle of power we're talking about. Just show up and do it, and let the Chancellor bitch about it later on the Senate floor. Is what actually ended up happening any worse than that?