PT Why did the Jedi Council push Anakin to watch Palpatine?

Sure we're all influenced by the people we're surrounded by, but we still have a free will to form our own opinion. And while Palpatine have taught Anakin about the benefits of a dictatorship the Jedi and Padmé would have offered him a different view on the subject. So he would have been conditioned to see both the positive and negative sides of both a dictatorship and a democracy and he simply chose to give Palpatine’s teachings more weight.

So Haydan Christensen’s comment seems to me like a poor defence of Anakin’s actions: Anakin was not forced to believe a word of what Palpatine said, he chose to believe it because he had come to the conclusion that he would do anything if it meant saving Padmé.

 

Because he was conditioned to believe that was right. Yes, he has the right to choose which makes sense to him. We all do. But often, not always, we make them based on what our parents or mentors teach us.

The con is that the Jedi are traitors which Anakin isn't entirely convinced is right, but the actions the Jedi have taken lead him to think that maybe there is a grain of truth. So he goes along with it because of what Palpatine forced him to believe.

 

Np about the quote.

The TCW stuff is tough for me. I know it's part of the new Canon. However, the problem I have is that we don't know exactly what is Lucas's input and what is the writers input that was allowed to write the episode. From what I understand there were certain things that writer had to put into certain episodes, and there were some episodes that Lucas didn't have any input in (as far as story). So it's very hard to separate the two. Especially when there were so many different writers over the course of the series.

 

And Anakin had at least two influential mentors who would have conditioned him two different lines of thinking: Palpatine who taught him the benefits of a dictatorship and Obi-Wan (and Padmé) who taught him the benefits of a democracy. And considering Anakin would have spent far more time in Obi-Wan’s company it is safe to say that he would have been more heavily conditioned to support a democracy rather than a dictatorship. So again, it all comes down to making a choice – just like the child whose mother is an atheist and the father a catholic is free to make a choice about whether to “follow” his/her mother or father or walk a completely different path.

No, Palpatine didn’t force him to believe anything. Anakin wasn’t deceived into believing that the Jedi were traitors, he made a conscious choice to believe it, because all that mattered was gaining the power to save Padmé. And he used the “if I don’t do this Padmé will die” and “the Jedi want to destroy the Republic” arguments as a shield to protect himself because those arguments justified actions that broke his own moral code.

If Padmé’s life had not been in danger (or possible danger) and Anakin had been in his right mind he (hopefully) would have been able to rationalize that even if Palpatine’s words held a grain of truth, if he compared the actions of Palpatine, the Sith, and the Jedi, then he should have come to the conclusion that even though the Jedi had made choices that were morally ambiguous they were nothing compared to what Palpatine had done to gain power.

So again, it all comes down to choice. Anakin chose to place more weight on Palpatine’s teachings. Anakin chose to believe that only by joining Palpatine and doing whatever he said could he save Padmé.

 

I would agree with you if Anakin and Padmé were having a debate about the pros and cons of a democracy vs. a dictatorship, but they aren’t. Anakin expresses the opinion the system doesn’t work and, when prompted, proceeds to tell how he would prefer things to work – he makes no arguments as to why he thinks the system doesn’t work, he does not argue why a dictatorship would be beneficial and a better alternative then a democracy.

The level Anakin and Padmé’s conversation is on does not require for him to regurgitate any teachings he has picked up, it merely requires for him to state his opinion in the same way he might express the opinion that red wine would be better suited to a specific dish than white.
Anakin’s conversation with Palpatine in the Opera is on an entirely different level.

And also it certainly does matter how much we believe in what we’re being taught as it is the deciding factor as to whether we take does teachings to heart or not.

I never said Anakin didn’t know there was a difference between the Jedi and the Sith, I said he didn’t truly believe in the argument he had just made where the Jedi and the Sith are placed on two opposite ends of a scale. He may say that the Jedi are selfless, but considering he has made no move to defend the Jedi from Palpatine’s accusations, such as the Jedi having no faith in the Senate or democracy, and that he is aware that he harbours his own selfish desires, I say he is not very certain about his own argument that the Jedi can simply be labelled as unselfish and the Sith as selfish.

I disagree with your interpretation of his feelings after the Tusken slaughter. For one I don’t think he felt any remorse for killing the Tuskens who he felt were directly responsible for his mother’s torture, but was upset that he lost control to a degree in which he ended up killing anyone – even those he did not consider to be guilty. I don’t think his remorse stems from his Jedi teachings, but from breaking his own morale code which had been instilled in him predominantly by his mother. That he believed he failed as a Jedi, I think, has more to do with the fact that he lost control of his emotions and that his actions was consequently guided by his anger, hate and rage.