PT Was Anakin Abusive

While that's an interesting theory, I don't think Force Persuasion would work on Padme. She was extremely strong-minded, being the Queen of an entire planet, one of the only Senators who resisted Palpatine, she even refuses to join Dooku on Geonosis. I think if Padme was affected by the mind trick, Anakin would have been able to convince her on Mustafar to join him. But it is an interesting theory.

 

I think we might agree that Anakin is manipulative. What I can't imagine is that he wouldn't use the Force when possible in his manipulative nature. It seems like this would be a natural thing for him, from the time he first didn't resist the temptation to do so. Padme does have a weakness and it is all about him. Though a very strong minded individual and leader she keeps her marriage secret, she takes that step into complicity with Anakin and that further opens her up to him. As to why he couldn't convince her to join him on Mustafar, well it's not like she's a piece of play dough, she has her limits. Like anyone manipulated by a narcissist there are times of clarity, when her own will was stronger than her (manipulated) feelings for him.

 

Then by that definition, everyone is evil. The Alliance is evil for killing Imperials. The Jedi are evil for killing Sith. Luke is evil for killing the Rancor and cutting off the arm of the Wampa that was just hungry. Obi-wan is evil for cutting off Zam's arm, as well as Ponda Baba and Dr. Evanzian's limbs. Han's evil for shooting Greedo and stepping on Jabba's tail. Leia's evil for choking Jabba. After all, they were consciously intending to commit harm and kill.

They wouldn't have succeeded because two blasters against Slave I and a walking weapon wouldn't get them very far except dead.

 

darth-sinister: Well, that conclusion can be drawn, but I don't know a more specific way to put it and I rarely waste a lot of time pondering "just how do I phrase that" on a message board.

Deciding to harm someone to save a lot of others (say, taking down someone gunning down random people) is clearly "intent to do harm" (to the one) but the goal is not destruction per se. Deciding to be that gunman is probably evil (aside from possible serious mental issues.)

But I believe you might well know what I meant, even if I didn't say it in the proper words. And I don't want to get into an "intent" argument about how "evil folk" believe they're doing the right thing, whatever. Quickest I can come up with "reasonable man" intent - would a reasonable person...

Oh, hell. I'll leave it at that; time to go eat dinner.

 

In order to answer the question, or to attempt an answer, it is necessary to define the term "abusive".

It seems to have variable definitions, ranging from unlawful or wrongful treatment of a person or entity like language itself, through to sexual assault, physical aggression, and so on.

In this light, it may be reasonable to ask...

Was Padme not being abusive toward Anakin when she enjoined him to not even give voice to his feelings: "don't say things like that"?

Was Palpatine not being abusive in demanding that Anakin violate his own code of ethics and kill a defenceless man, then guilt-trip Anakin by reminding him of his genocidal act of aggression toward the Tuskens?

Was Obi-Wan not being abusive toward Anakin in reminding him, in AOTC, that he'd made a commitment to the Jedi Order, a commitment, in Obi-Wan's words, "not easily broken"?

Words and gestures big and small place tremendous pressures on a person. A human being is like soft clay -- putty-like in one's uncertainties and infinitely malleable.

The abuses heaped on Anakin were, I think, far and wide, subtle and gross, primitive and sophisticated. It's not really a surprise that this person falls to a dark path -- it is all but inevitable.

I find it interesting that several people threw out the old homily that Chewie choking Lando in anger is a "human" action. First and foremost, it may have escaped the attention of some that Chewbacca is manifestly NOT human, but a Wookiee. Second, even insofar as "human" actions are concerned, in the immortal words of Carl Sagan, there are many different ways of being human. It is a fallacy to assume there is only one "human nature" or that it can't, or shouldn't, be transcended. Human actions and human agency vary. If I saw Carl Sagan choking Lando Calrissian, I'd definitely need a moment. Third, and closely related to the second, it is egregiously divisive to wall off some behaviours as "human", as if the rest are in some sense .... well, less than human; or, perhaps, to use an even more pejorative descriptor, demonic?

If we were able to see life and morality more clearly as existing on a spectrum, or within a continuum, then it might change our whole perspective on criminality and justice, ethics and legality, reproach and punishment, and the very definition of what we mean when we invoke trite binaries like "right and wrong". Instead, we endlessly give into shared ignorance and simplistic didacticism, crudely dissecting -- and hence, killing -- that which we claim authority on, pretending we have wisdom and subtlety enough to leap over the chasms of our own ill-comprehension, as we mercilessly cleave "good" from "bad". The vanity and egoism of human kind, at times, is stunning. Would that Chewie, for example, have killed Lando. What would be the judgement then? The only thing that seemed to hold him back was Leia prompting him to let go because she sensed that Lando seemed to be claiming there was still a way to save Han; that Chewie could delay his vengeance; perhaps indefinitely. If only some alternative form of consolation had been open to Anakin when he needed it most.

 

I don't see any manipulation from him at all, at any time.
And it's already clear that mindtricks don't work on Padmé. And why on Earth would he do that? He had tremenduous respect for her and genuinely cared about her, he didn't see her as his "toy" to mold and play with.

And where in the galaxy would you get the idea that he's narcissistic? I've looked up narcissistic personality disorder recently (research for a fictional villain of my own), and that's some truly horrible stuff, Caligula-Joffrey-level. In AotC Anakin is just a little boy in love (with a temper and power that he can't really control), in RotS he starts to get more troubled and stressed out, but he doesn't get "evil" until after he hears about Padmé's death.

 

This article:

http://rebeccasdystopia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/star-wars-psychology-anakin.html

discusses Anakin's narcissistic streak - though it crops up more in novelization of ROTS than the movie.

 

My understanding of a narcissist is that it's someone who pretends he/she is better than everyone else because deep down, on the unconscious level, they truly believe themselves inferior and it's too painful to handle. So they build up this defensive wall of superiority and would hurt anyone who shows or tells them otherwise. So having Padme as his own was a good part of his self-delusion (Padme is with me so I must be great), being denied the title of Master was a narcissistic injury (can't you see how superior I am?), and when Anakin believed that Padme had betrayed him with Obi-Wan in whatever way, he received the biggest narcissistic injury of all and lashed out right at her in the typical way. But, whether Anakin truly had narcissistic personality disorder, I would need to think about that.

 

Cryogenic, by your definition, it wasn't/isn't just "heaping abuse on Anakin" - every individual, everywhere, is getting abused, making him no less and no more "special" in that regard than anyone else.

But your last paragraph re: a continuum is certainly interesting.

 

Even reasonable people will and have done harm.

 

If falling in love and being addicted to the person whom I love, is abusive, then I'm a Darksider as well

Last time I watched the CW-Episode, where Savage Opress finds his brother Maul in that Lotho Minor-cave interrogating the worm/snake Morley, who has done this (the spider-legs?) to his brother and he cried at Morley: "You should have helped him!" At this very moment I realized that it was about Sidious to have helped Anakin with Padme, when she felt that ill and unhappy because of the Darkside-Turning of her love.

I mean, Palpatine always was showing up to be a close friend both to Anakin and Padme. But when Padme really was in need, he wasn't showing up, giving her some consolation or even bring both together. It was him, who teared them apart so much while at the very same time pretending to Anakin that both Sidious and Anakin would rescue Padme together.

In the end he wanted Anakin to deprive of his love because he wanted him to be obedient to himself only, like he did with Maul ordering him executing everyone at Orsis-Academy including Maul's almost girlfriend Kilindi Matako. Because Sidious was not able to feel any passion and love for a women or any person, nobody else in his surrounding was supposed to do.

The Power of Love was the only thing Sidious couldn't master - and that was his doom in the end.

 

Oh dear. This discussion again. No Anakin was not abusive and I can't tell you how much I hate the notion that he was because it really cheapens the whole premise of the prequels. The prequels are the story of how a young man's love, how it develops him as a person and how it eventually helps lead him astray. It is a LOVE story. I dislike the I hate sand scene. Most people dislike the I hate sand scene. But that doesn't mean it is not a love story. Far from it. It just means that it's a rather cringey scene, that's all.

Anakin shows no signs of violence or aggression towards Padme other than that fateful scene on Mustafar where he force chokes her. But the whole point of that scene is to show how far gone Anakin is. It's the tragic irony that in trying to save Padme, out of love, through dark powers, those dark powers completely eat away at whatever love Anakin once held, destroying Anakin as a person. The need to acquire dark powers usurps the goal of saving Padme and becomes the goal itself. It makes him Vader.

Don't get me wrong, choking your wife is a vile, despicable act but to work backwards from that scene on Mustafar and assume that Anakin made every waking moment of Padme's life a living hell up until that point is, in my mind, ludicrous.

 

I think he was abusive. In certain scenes the way he speaks to her, looks at her even at the end before he chokes her, he yells at her.

 

Are there any such scenes that you can refer to BEFORE Anakin joins the Sith?

 

Well, in ROTS when he is about to duel with Obi Wan, he accuses Padme of betrayal before choking her. In the apartment, the expression on his face and tone of his voice when Padme says so etching and he says AND YOUR SOUNDING LIKE A SEPARATIST.

 

Well I'm not accepting that one because that is after Anakin joining the Sith not before. I don't think accusing someone of betrayal normally qualifies as abuse anyway.

To be fair, he is rather tetchy in that scene but again, that hardly qualifies as abuse. Everybody has a bad day at the office sometimes.

 

In the apartment scene, he's upset because Padme is sounding like a Separatist which leaves him feeling incredulous. Anakin also doesn't like the idea of being used by people that he cares for, against other people that he cares for. First he's told to spy on Palpatine and now he's being asked to tell Palpatine to end the war now and not after the Confederacy has been forced to surrender. He's feeling that the principles that he has believed in and fought for, are being trampled on. As Obi-wan said in the novelization, one of Anakin's flaws is that he is loyal to people more than ideals.

 

I agree. For all of his flaws, Anakin never raises his hands to her (exceot for when he was beyond rational at the end of ROTS). He never limits her movement. He never limits her freedom. From what I have seen anyway. There are definitely tense moments in ROTS, but, they are not abusive.

I often think how ironic it is that Anakin's fall to the Dark Side is based on a very normal human trait that most (if not all) of us share. That is the fact that we don't want to see our loved ones die. We want them to stay alive, with us, not to leave us. Can anyone here really tell me that they would celebrate if one of our young children became one with the Force? Or our young husband or wife? I say young because it seems as we get older we do become more accepting of the inevitable with our spouses. However, most of us realize that when death comes, there's usually not much we can do about it. As painful as it is, we are forced to accept it. Where as Anakin was in a position with his powers to believe he wasn't forced to accept death.

I was thinking the same exact thing as I was going through this thread and reading what others deemed abusive behavior. An expression on ones face is abusive? Raising your voice at someone?

 

Mod Edit for Relevance.

 

Not so much "looking at her" if you're referring to any post of mine, but violating her personal space which clearly makes her uncomfortable. But I wouldn't call that "abuse."

 

Padme was not manipulated by Anakin. She made her choice to marry Anakin on her own. She made her choice to keep their marriage a secret, even after Anakin was willing to tell the Jedi Council everything.

Whatever mistakes Padme made, she did it on her own. Why some fans cannot accept this, I do not know. Is this an excuse for them to believe that Padme was "abused" by Anakin? God, they sound like Leia in an EU novel, who thought that she and Luke were the results of rape.

That wasn't Anakin being abusive. That was Anakin being unpleasantly surprised that Padme would harbor sympathy toward the Separatists. BARDAN EDIT: Films not fans.



Why is it so damn important for certain fans to believe that Anakin was constantly abusive to Padme? What? Anakin has to be the model of perfection to be worthy of love? Why do people constantly make the mistake of confusing love with morality? BARDAN EDIT: Films not fans.