The Phantom Father

I have a lot of questions around the father-son theme and I thought I should bring it up generally to discuss. Hope it's not too vague ...

Did Anakin truly not have a father? Biologically, I mean. And would Qui-Gon have filled the father role as a Jedi or would Anakin still have the same problems he had with the Jedi Order? Obi-Wan did do a good job with Anakin, would Qui-Gon really do much better? Also, if Qui-Gon had lived would he have faced off against Palpatine?

And Luke had a father of course, but I would probably call him Owen, from the looks of things. I guess you'd have to say that Vader was a bad influence on Luke, weird to say about a successful father who practically ran the Empire.

Seems like to me, the best father-son relationship was with Jango and Boba Fett. Just trying to think of some other characters, Han Solo doesn't seem to be a father, but we like him for it and he changes by the time RotJ rolls around. Overall, there really wasn't much of the father presence in the films and when it was there, it wasn't good thing. Is that good / bad, important / unimportant, interesting / so-so?

Yeah, and I'm throwing this piece of poetry in,
don't let it distract you too much or put you off

All my boyhood, from far vernal
Bourns of being, came to me
Dream-like, plangent, and eternal
Memories of the plunging sea.

 

Ah yes, the intergalactic nature vs. nuture argument. As it stands right now the canon/history has given us no inkling as to whom his father was or if he had one. If you take what Shmi said literally, then no, he had no father. Anakins birth was progenated purely by the will of the force.

Owen lars, though an "uncle" served as Lukes father figure, for better or worse. Could Qui-gon have steered anakin any better or more precisely than Obi wan did? I think so. Qui-gon was much older, seasoned and wise and was already a Jedi Master, where as Obi wan took on anakin just out of his teens himself.

 

In AOTC Anakin says words to the effect that Obi-Wan is like a father to him... the closest thing to that figure he's ever known. Had Qui-Gon been Anakin's master, Qui-Gon would have filled that role -- perhaps in a better, more authoritative manner than Kenobi did.

Lucas has said that in crafting the original film, he conceived of Obi-Wan as Luke's good father (figure) and Vader as his evil father (figure), regardless of the boy's actual biological paternity. Owen was not a father figure at all, as he and Luke were ideologically misaligned... not to mention physically dissimilar!

 

Ah yes! I never thought of that, but you're exactly right. So Luke and Anakin aren't that different ... Luke had Obi-Wan and Vader, both were pretty distant though, Luke hardly knows them ... and Anakin had Qui-Gon and Palpatine (Yoda really should've trained Anakin ) And Owen is more of secondary father who tries to keep Luke on the farm.

I still think that Obi-Wan was as good a friend to Anakin as Qui-Gon would've been ... it did seem that Obi-Wan was constantly discouraging Anakin while Palaptine was encouraging him, maybe Qui-Gon would've been different in that way.

 

I feel that Obi-Wan was a good friend to Anakin. In fact, I would say that he was probably a better friend than mentor.


And Luke had a father of course, but I would probably call him Owen, from the looks of things. I guess you'd have to say that Vader was a bad influence on Luke, weird to say about a successful father who practically ran the Empire.

Ironically, Anakin ended up having a more positive influence on Luke than one could possibly imagine.

 

As far as the fatherless (or virgin) birth - that's a staple of some mythologies. Jesus and Dionysus were both "virgin births", without fathers, and that is somehow relevant to their power, at least from a storytelling point of view. It adds mystery and separates them from the ordinary folk like us. (No offense to those who believe in Jesus or Dionysus...I treat them as myths because Dionysus was a complete fiction, and much of the historic, real-life Jesus has been swallowed up in myth - the reality is so mingled in with the "walked on water, came back to life" fiction that was attributed to him after his death, rather like Robin Hood and King Arthur.)

The other way to look at the concept of fathers is that of a role-model. Anakin can be considered a bad father by being an absentee father, like a man too busy with his career to look over his offspring. A bit unfair, perhaps, as Vader didn't know he had children. But the saga seems to deal with the role of a father as an important one in guiding the child to maturity. It seems less about DNA and relations than about the need for guidance - both male and female roles. Luke seems to have had considerably more guidance than his father, and fewer people telling him he was special (always a problem).