Saga Think about this one: Who is the worse Jedi during their training -- Anakin in ATOC or Luke in TESB?

At first, this may seem open and shut, for Luke's and Anakin's trajectories go in very different directions in the final films in their respective trilogies. However, in the middle films, Luke and Anakin are both arguably pretty pathetic apprentices.

Anakin is petulant, disobedient, arrogant, slightly creepy (which may not be against the Jedi code), he also shows animosity towards sand, lacks restraint, demonstrates anger issues, misrepresents the Jedi philosophy to imply that Padme and he can fall in love and then goes on to fall in love with Padme, additionally he slaughters tusken raiders (who, to be fair, have done something pretty awful to provoke him), rationalizes unethical behavior, lets his anger get the best of him in combat, and levitates a piece of fruit in an attempt to seduce Padme.

Luke, on the other hand, fails virtually every one of Yoda's tests: he thinks becoming a warrior makes one great; he quickly loses his patience and becomes angry about being sent to Dagobah; he presumptuously believes he can tell Yoda he is ready to begin his training; he takes his weapons into the cave after being told they're not needed; his vision in the cave reflects that he is on a dark path; he allows visions of the future to disturb his focus on the present; his lack of true belief prevents him from levitating the X-wing; he rejects Yoda's wonderful "luminous beings are we" speech, then whines and feels sorry for himself; he judges Yoda by his size; and he leaves Dagobah with his training unfinished in hopes of saving his friends even though he is told that Vader has captured them just to lure him into a trap before his skills are complete. (By my count, that's 10 failures on Luke's part in TESB.)

They also both spend a lot of time whining.

So, who wins this one (or loses depending on your point of view)? Who is the worse Jedi in training -- Luke or Anakin? Or are they both equally awful?


(BTW just kidding about Ahsoka being annoying! I know some people think she's great just the way she is.)

 

I suppose Luke was slightly worse, but he was just beginning his training, while Anakin had trained for ten years

Also, you're right on about Ashoka being annoying

 

I don't really know much about Ahsoka (haven't seen much of TCW), but your summary makes Luke and Anakin seem equally poor (in their own ways). Though SuperSpeed makes a good point about the time difference.

 

Luke's flaws were those of a beginner: impatience, impulsiveness, failing to look past the surface, misunderstanding the Jedi way as being about combat skill rather than letting go of his own need for control and trusting in the Force instead. And duh, he is a beginner. But he doesn't demonstrate darkness, in the sense of homicidal rage.

Anakin isn't a beginner, and his flaws run much deeper. His rage is nothing like what Luke ever displays, except very briefly in ANH. Worse, he's immature at a much more fundamental level than mere impulsiveness: He's incapable of taking responsibility for his failings. He tries to justify his murderous genocidal rampage by reference to the Tuskens' behaviour. He blames Obi-Wan for his feelings of powerlessness, when he really should understand, at this point ten years into his Jedi training, that being a Jedi isn't about power, and he needs to let go of his desire for power.

In ESB, Luke seems to misunderstand what it means to be a Jedi, and as a result, he's a pretty poor one. But Anakin is worse, because he comes across as not only a lousy Jedi, but not even sincerely, genuinely wanting to be a good Jedi. He wants to be a Jedi, like Luke, but he also wants power and he wants to cling to his attachments, and on some abstract, intellectual level (demonstrated aboard the refugee ship) he knows this goes against Jedi values. So he simply ignores Jedi values most of the time. Great achievement of cognitive dissonance.

 

Luke's knowledge of the force is far worse than Anakin's, however Anakin's control is far worse than Luke's. It could go either way. The real question is who's better: Luke in ANH or Anakin in TPM? Or comparing ROTJ to ROTS. In ROTS, Anakin had more control, and in ROTJ Luke had more knowledge.

 

This isn't really a fair comparison. In TPM, Anakin had at most a few tips from Qui-Gon, whereas Luke had at least a couple of days to learn from Obi-Wan. They both subconsciously used their Force powers to destroy a space battlestation in the end though, which places them on fairly even ground

Well anyway, the most prominent similarity is that both go off somewhere without their masters' approval to go rescue someone close to them, then find out something depressing about one of their parents before they're ready

However, they differ in prominent moments prior to that and both mostly wise up afterwards

Anakin was arrogant, impulsive, and quite honestly uncultured. Luke was impulsive like his father, but more trigger-happy and adventurous, though he did give up too easily, whereas Anakin would just have gotten angry and done it anyway

It's hard to say. I'm gonna vote that both were equally as bad