PT The Chosen Slave

Anakin spent his entire life as a slave, on Tatooine, to the Jedi order (although he broke free, because he wasn't fully indoctrinated, as demonstrated with his relationship with Padme and his disgust at the hypocritical Jedi order) and then to Palpatine. He was freed when his son refused to give in to the unbalanced Jedi who wanted him to kill Vader, and his master Palpatine wanted him to kill Vader, but Luke did what his mother did, he showed love for Vader and Vader broke free from slavery, before dying.
He also lived a life in slavery to his destiny, to what was expected of him, a massive burden as well as a huge ego boost.

 

Anakin wasn't a slave to the Jedi Order. Following rules and a way of life is not slavery. He even recognizes it later on that he was not a slave as a Jedi, but he was as a Sith.

The two Star Wars trilogies share many characters but have different structures. Instead of telling another heroic coming-of-age story, Lucas has crafted the prequels a historical drama, at whose center is Anakin Skywalker. His story is tragic; that of the Republic-turned-Empire, uncomfortably familiar. Anakin begins as a nine-year-old boy who is physically enslaved. He ends the prequel saga a spiritual and mental slave to the Emperor, who is his metaphorical if not biological father....

--The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 221.

But when it comes to his destiny, he was not a slave to it. He did not believe that he was the Chosen One until the very end of his life. He always believed he had a choice until he became evil. Then he felt he had no choice, but not because he was destined to be evil. But because he was afraid of the future.

 

Anakin was not a slave to the Jedi. As an adult he had the choice to stay in the Jedi Order or leave. No one was forcing him to stay. Count Dooku shows us that a Jedi can leave the Order if they so please.

Anakin was not a slave to destiny. He had the free will to choose his path. He had the free will to chose whether to join the Dark Side or not. He had the free will to chose whether or not to save his son. Just as Lucas has said before. Everyone is born with a destiny it is their choice as to whether or not they will fulfill it.

The only thing Anakin Skywalker was a slave to was his own greed and lust for power.

As far as Luke. Luke was the epitome of the old Jedi way. Love thru compassion and not attachment! We see in ROTJ the difference between the two! Luke is not attached to his Father, there is no way he could be. Everything Luke knew about his Father was a lie, Luke never knew his Father in any meaningful way. So it is Luke's compassion for the man that is his father that we see in ROTJ! However, in ROTJ we see what happens when someone that Luke has formed an attachment too is threatened. When Vader threatens Leia, someone Luke has obviously formed and attachment too, we see the dangers of a Jedi acting on emotion based on personal attachments. It is almost enough to send Luke to the Dark Side!

The Emperor realized this and tried to use it against Luke...

"His compassion for you will be his undoing..."

 

Interestingly, I remember making a post (hell, maybe a couple years ago) in which the very sentiment of Anakin being a slave until the very end was shared. But I'm not entirely sure

The Chosen One prophecy does raise the question of fate vs. suggestion leading to fulfillment. And honestly, I can't decide which it IS or which I'd prefer

 

The OP is correct, but perhaps not in the way that is at first being seen here. The slavery aspect of Anakin is indeed extremely important, and it did carry on through the rest of his life. I could write a whole essay about that, and I might. But the slavery bit is imprinted in Anakin's mind -- I know people here are quick to defend the Jedi from any wrongdoing, and in this case the Jedi did treat him much better than a slave, but the emphasis is not on the Jedi. It's on Anakin. I'm sure to Anakin it very much did feel like he was the chosen slave.

 

Anakin wasn't a slave to the Jedi (he certainly should have left after his forbidden marriage). But in his head, he clearly wasn't happy with the Code and too many restrictions placed on him. In other words, he liked the power and authority of the Jedi but disliked the austerity and personal sacrifices it demanded. Qui-Gon did warn him it was going to be hard but as a child he had trouble understanding it. After all, wasn't Qui-Gon a powerful Jedi who travelled to different places, fought the bad guys, brought justice to the oppressed?

The other problem with the Jedi was that their hands were tied by the Republic whose leadership was becoming increasingly corrupt and ineffective. It's one thing to obey the Jedi Council but to be bound by the bureaucrats and seeing how the Jedi seemingly couldn't fix the problems must have been even more aggravating to Anakin who was a man of action, thriving on fixing things.

 

I'm sorry to derail the thread. My apologies but welcome back -NaTaLie- Haven't seen you around in a long time

 

Jedi don't get paid. Sounds like slavery to me!

 

Trying to limit the time spent on fandom or nothing else gets done. It's worse than videogames Besides, it's not like TFA has a lot of mythological, political or even character development that inspires me to have in-depth discussions.

 

Oh yes. Definitely Priorities are definitely important to take care of.
Agree on TFA too.

 

What do you mean, Anakin was not a slave to the Jedi?
The Jedi are the bad guys! Haven't you guys figured that out yet? Mace has a purple lightsaber, for cryin' out loud!