PT Vader's Descension into evil

In the OT, as has been said, the Dark Side was depicted almost like a drug. As though if you slip up and taste it, it's extremely hard to go back. If you compare the attempt to turn Luke vs. the attempt to turn Anakin, Luke's is very, very straight forward and simple.

For Anakin it was more about spending years building a rapport with Anakin, playing off his fears and insecurities, and promising the power to prevent loved ones from dying.

With Luke it's pretty much just tempting him to attack in anger.

There was more logic involved in Anakin's turn, a motive that Palpatine had to give Anakin. While with Luke it's just more like a drug. Palpatine didn't try to give him a motive, he didn't try to be his pal and promise him anything. He just taunted him and goaded him to get angry and feel the power of the Dark Side.

Now I think that's just an inconsistency in story telling, since for all Anakin's killing in anger (Tusken Raiders, Dooku, etc.) he didn't just fall. He ended up making a deal with the devil. He made a bargain to fall. But with Luke there's none of that.

So I think it takes suspension of disbelief to reconcile how it worked out in the PT with the OT. Because otherwise it raises the question as to why Palpatine spent so much time trying to turn Anakin, if all it takes is slinging some taunts and threatening his loved ones. I just try to accept that somewhere along the line Vader fell into that addict mindset and no longer pursued the Dark Side for anyone but himself because he was addicted to the sense of power. I mean we do even get some of this in ROTS. He sets out down the Dark path to save Padme. But he ends up choking Padme and when Obi-Wan confronts him, he's not too worried about Padme but instead goes into a rant about his Empire and how he doesn't fear the Dark Side. I think his mind was pretty much twisted such that he was craving power now for reasons beyond Padme. He wanted to rule.

 

It is a question asked when a person is unsure that the other person has actually seen the movie. I assume you have, but your response made be rethink this because it is in the movie.

 

And your response makes me wonder if you even read the OP's question, but I digress and I choose to move on.

 

And I had already answered the question....

 

Was it really a question of not turning back or of defeating the Emperor? Again, it's not like the Anakin side of him was completely lost that moment when he woke up as Darth Vader in the suit.

 

Not to toot my own horn, but I wrote some stuff on this a few weeks back that you might find interesting.

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/an-analysis-of-anakins-turn.50027331/
If you take the time to read it tell me what you think.

 

I get the OP's question, absolutely. This is one of the major disjoints between the PT and the OT. At the end of ROTS Lucas has delivered up a character who looks like and sounds like the Vader of the OT but...other than that surface expression of similarity, nothing about their characterisations is compatible. What is the motivation for that (PT) Vader to have become the OT Vader? Most of the explanations I have seen appear to come down to little more that variations on the theme 'he couldn't think of anything better to do'.

Surely he has realised at the end of ROTS that he has been tricked by Palpatine? He throttled his own wife who he set out to save....I mean, come on....how much more evidence would he need to understand the path he has taken is entirely oblique to the path he wanted to take? But, by the time of the OT he is determined and active in ensuring the continuation of the Empire...an Empire that his beloved Padmé fought against and warned him about (remember, when he accused her of sounding like a Separatist?). Would that Vader not have worked for twenty years to undermine the guy who trapped him? That Vader (the Vader who asks how Padmé is, who screams "Nooooo" at understanding what he has done) is Anakin stuck in a mechanised suit come iron lung.

As far as I can tell it resolves to this. This Vader is not the Vader you are looking for.

 

It's really not spelled out, but at least part of it is his self-loathing being externalised for me. He hates what he's become (physically and metaphorically) and what he did to lead him there and is basically taking it out on the whole galaxy - ''If I am suffering, everyone will be suffering!" and channels it into an obsession with order and control. Which is not necessarily evil in and of itself, but he takes it to an absolutely evil extreme - the only way there can be order is if everyone is under his/Sidious' absolute control, there'd be none of that 'free will' nonsense if Vader was running things.

 

With a burned up body, missing limbs, and hooked up to a delicate life support system? Not a chance.



This is what happened when he DID try to kill the Emperor.

 

Ever see Robot Chicken's parody of that scene?

 

It is when you're telling people, "Behave or I'll blow your ******* planet up!"

 

I always felt like, the best way to describe it would be like "oh ****." and a shrug of the shoulders. He had no order to go back to, no wife to love him, no children to care for. What was done was done. Plus, he tasted the power that came with the darkside of the force, and if there's one thing the movies, EU and video games like to portray, is that once you touch the darkside, it's very very hard to resist falling full throttle into it.

 

Evil incarnate? I can't see any evil in him

The younglings again - as if he had a choice? It's not like he gleefully maims and tortures them while laughing like a madman. As for helping Order 66 - once again, he had no choice. Killing Mace was something extreme he did in the moment

Anakin had nothing left but Palpatine after ROTS. Other than serving him, his life no longer held any purpose

 

Really..as long as he doesn't cackle then...its not evil to cut down the younglings? And, at the end we have...'oh well, I've got nothing better to do...'

 

Not that it wasn't evil, but I think Seagoat was saying that it wasn't something Anakin took a great pleasure in, and he wasn't completely cold and heartless about it. Imagine Maul being sent into the council room with the younglings, he'd slice and dice without a second thought or shred of remorse. Anakin is openly crying while he does it. He's a man with his back against the wall, he was originally doing this all to save Padme and to try and avoid a broken heart, and in the blink of an eye by killing Mace, he decided what his fate was. By killing Mace, he was throwing himself into destroying the Jedi Order with the promise that it would save Padme. Doesn't mean he's taking pleasure in the horrible acts he is partaking in.

He even cries after slaughtering the Separatists, who he holds a gigantic grudge against. He knows what he is doing is wrong. Evil incarnate, IMO, is knowing what you're doing is wrong and relishing in it. We see DV eventually becoming that in the OT when he enjoys the power he has by being able to commit these terrible acts, but in ROTS, there's still enough Anakin in him to feel the remorse and helplessness of it all.

 

I think a lot of it is hatred, primarily aimed at himself but Vader's problem is the same as Anakin's - the view he has of himself as the one who will bring balance to the force/order to the galaxy/be the Chosen One. He's fixated with the vision of being an all-conquering hero striding majestically forth slaying all evil and to keep from breaking down into total insanity he's got it into his head that whoever he happens to be up against right then IS evil. Jedi? Kill them all, it's their fault! Padme and Obi-Wan were totally conspiring, it's their fault! When he really knows, deep down, it's all his fault. He killed Mace, he killed Dooku, he killed all the younglings and the masters who tried to stop him. But he can't ever bear to face up to that reality.

 

I don't personally care if a guy cutting down 'younglings' is upset about it....he has a choice, he can not do it. He knows it is wrong...how would that make his actions less 'evil'?

But...as you point out...here is Anakin doing all these things, that he knows are wrong...in order to save Padmé. And we hear this same Anakin in the suit - so how does that commute with the Vader we see in the OT? He knows everything he has done is wrong, he knows that everything he did it for he has destroyed...why would he be so hellbent in the OT on upholding the Empire he knows he's been tricked into creating? He can't be so stupid that he doesn't understand how it has played out...so we're left with...he can't think of anything better to do.

 

I might have to watch that full movie again, because I don't remember the part about Anakin even "crying on the inside" over the killings of the younglings. The only person I remember crying was Padme after hearing about what happened.

 

My bad, I remembered him crying during the slaughter, it's been awhile since I've watched ROTS.

 

I don't remember him reacting apathetically. In fact, I seem to remember a certain scene of him reflecting on his actions on Mustafar and displaying clear sorrow and self-loathing

It's possible for good people to do evil things. That simple

 

If they don't realize it's evil. If Anakin, in all his years as a Jedi, doesn't realize that continuing to serve a Sith Lord and cutting down his own comrades down to the last Jedi child is, in fact, evil, then what does that say about him? How would killing the Jedi supposed to help save Padme from dying in childbirth? What, was he afraid they would stab her or something?

I get it's possible for a good person to do evil acts if they thought it was for the greater good, I'm just not seeing it with Anakin.

 

Its easy to be evil and hate everything when you hate yourself. Anakin probably hated himself above everything else.

 

What does Anakin know about Sith Lords though? Loyalty to the State becomes his main rationalization after joining Sidious, and with the Jedi opposing "the State" they effectively become enemies in his mind. The Sith Lord has him out chasing down and killing enemies, but the Jedi also did that to him. You might say it was mostly droids, but Anakin unlike most have compassion for droids. It would be easy for him to equate to the two in order to justify once he wanted/needed to do so.

 

it's a bit disjointed just looking at ROTS and ANH. why tf would Vader be helping Sidious still? that's why in my prequel rewrites it wouldn't be about saving Padme. Vader would turn because of his anger at the Jedi Council in the midst of a really confusing, troubling time (other factors such as anger at the Republic because his mom's death by slavery would play into it too). as it is though, it still mostly makes sense by ESB when he confronts Luke. he makes it clear that he hates the Emperor and seeks to overthrow him. his actions in the OT aren't about serving Palpatine. it's more him plotting his revenge on Palpatine, but he genuinely does believe in the "order and security" stuff as well, hence why he wants to work with Empire's structure, just not with Palpatine. there's two other things at play as well. one, he probably can't change much about his situation without committing suicide (when he finally does, what do you know, he dies) and grows complacent with it for that reason. he's trapped in a suit and it's not like he can just turn on the Empire without being killed, especially by himself (which is why he instead seeks out Luke to overthrow the Emperor instead of meaning to take out the entire Empire). he's not emotionally prepared to die because he still has all these loose ends to tie up. secondly, a lot of it probably is him living out his own internal self-loathing. he knows he's a monster, feels bad about it, but feels that he deserved what happened to him. this is made obvious in ROTJ where instead of denying that he has good in him to Luke, he says that it is just too late for him to use that good.