Lit Why did the Tusken Raiders torture Shmi?

I don't think it's such a problem saying that the Tusken culture is horribly sadistic and brutal AND that Anakin was wrong. Yes, the they were wrong to torture Shmi. I don't think anyone disputes that. Likewise, Anakin was wrong to commit a massacre. His mental state was understandable, as in, "I know WHY he did it, but I think it was wrong." Just because you try and figure out a motive or reason for someone doesn't mean you're trying to condone what they did. Hell, you can even sympathize with them, and still say they were wrong.

If you truly believe that, you must have been sleeping during your history classes, dude.

 

It's quite simple. Let them go.

You might say that is unacceptable, but i disagree.

For one thing, Anakin does not know which Tusken men are guilty, or whether all are guilty. So in his quest for punishment, he might kill Tuskens who are innocent, which he did actually did.

Also there is no way to try these tuskens for crimes on Tatootine, they can't go through some justice process like it would be on earth.

Anakin also never showed Justice towards the tuskens either. It is not justice when 1 man plays judge, jury, and executioner, and then kills for revenge reasons, that's not justice, for revenge and justice are not the same.

So even if Anakin found the tuskens that are guilty, but then decided to murder them with hate/revengeful reasons, that's still not true justice.

Therefore because of it being on Tatootine, and Anakin's revenge wanting state of mind, justice can not be given at all to the Tuskens.

Now Anakin can punish the tuskens....but that can lead to innocents dying, for Anakin has no way in telling which Tuskens are the true guilty ones.

Therefore if he wants to find those who are guilty, and punish them (not in a justice sense though) by murdering them, he can....

1. Slaughter all the Tusken Men. However this option can lead to the slaughter of the innocent. We don't know if all the tusken men partook in the torture of Shmi. So though he would punish the guilty, there can also be the possibility of punishing the innocent.

2. Slaughter all the Tuskens, men, women and children (hey maybe some children and women partook in the torture, we don't know that). But this option is even more likely to slaughter the innocent then option 1.

OR....the most shocking of all...

3. Take his mother's body and flee from the camp without punishing any tuskens. To not commit evil. To be the good man. To stay away from the revenge lusting part of his mind, that evil, by delivering himself to goodness.


Option 3 is the best one. Yes the ones who are guilty got away, but you have to look at the bigger picture. Innocent life was saved (unless every single tusken, man, woman, child, were all guilty). I'm trying to say, that if there was a choice, punish the guilty which would lead to innocent life dying, or letting the guilty go, the former is the better choice. Keeping innocents from dying is a far more noble goal, and good one, then wanting to murder guilty doers while letting innocents die. Only an evil man would pick the former option, if someone is willing to murder many innocent, just to kill some guilty people, then he is no better, perhaps even worse, then those he calls guilty.

 

Some might argue that the entire concept, abstract as it generally is, of justice is built on two wrongs making a right. Obviously that depends on multiple variables, not least of which is how you define justice, but it often does boil down to some sort of payment for a crime committed. It's hard to truly ever calculate what a truly "just" punishment is; the Mesopotamia's believed cutting off limbs for thievery was just, and of course mankind has come up with quite a few creative ways of dispensing death in order to serve "justice".

I only bother applying to that because I do believe situations like the one being discussed should always be examined by its own merits; I do not believe there is such thing as absolute morality. All codes of morality crumble when they attempt to be one size fits all.

Anyway. In Anakin's case, I do think the whole point was that his reaction was completely overboard. Perhaps his reaction did help; we know that the Tuskens felt that the attack was something by a vengeful spirit, though who can say whether that encouraged them to stop attacking farmers. Perhaps it did nothing. It would be difficult to come up with an alternative for Anakin's actions other than "leave and don't look back". This is, obviously, the moral high ground, the "Jedi thing" do, but also something a person like Anakin would not be able to do. It's one of his failings. And hey, AOTC would have been an even worse movie had he not done it

Also, something that might be of note to this thread: The Life and Legend of Obi-Wan Kenobi seems to suggest that Qui-Gon later came to accept Anakin's slaughtering of the Tuskens, or at least, defend it somewhat from Obi-Wan. This is... strange, considering Qui-Gon attempted to dissuade him. Thoughts? I myself imagine he was not trying to condone that act, but simply argue that it did not put him on the irrevocable path to becoming Darth Vader.

Hate to open this bottomless can of worms... but who decides what constitutes good and evil? The Jedi? We know they are far from perfect when it comes to judging morality. On Anakin's actions in particular, I can't imagine anyone arguing that it was a saintly move, or even a smart one... on the other, I'm reluctant to call it an "evil" act, in the way that some of Vader's later atrocities are.

 

Absolutely agreed that it was not a proportionate response, even though there was really no option of a proportionate response. Also agreed that treating the concept of justice as a game of "eye for an eye" school of thought is ridiculous. Just felt I needed to respond to that one since I've never been a fan of that bit of conventional wisdom (maybe it's because I heard it so often from elementary teachers? Yes, I was the "bad kid"...)

That said, the Tusken slaughter was one of the very few scenes in AOTC that I found effective (the very, very lame reaction scene notwithstanding). So, while not particularly justifiable when seen from an outsiders point of view, I do find it understandable, for lack of a better word (Of course, fiction gets frustrating very quickly if you expect the characters to always follow accepted morality to a letter ). I also find it hard to believe, as many claim, the one action that set Anakin firmly on the course to become Vader. It foreshadowed it, perhaps, but it was not the point of no return. In fact, I don't think that happened until he struck Mace Windu.

But from the looks of the argument, looks like the scenes effectiveness is far from what's being discussed, so carry on...

 

But it is an evil act. If someone murders kids, that is evil. Technically killing kids isn't evil. That is the case, say if a man is forced to kill a child soldier that is trying to kill him. But the tusken kids did no wrong toward Anakin, Anakin did not kill them in the name of self-defense....it was murder, with revenge intent.

Sure it was a different variation of evil then what Vader did, but evil nonetheless.

 

All this is plot it the why the Anakin Falls plot in the PT fell flat on it's face for me.

I really don't see how having a psychotic break and killing an entire village of people does not count as turning to the dark side. Especially how darkside turns work in the EU. I don't give a damn how understandable it was or how the Tuskens being "savage" constitutes a mitigating factor "(it don't). If you're a member of a monastic order founded on ideals that involve not murdering dozens of people in killing rages, and you kill dozens of people in a killing rage that's it. You ain't a Jedi no more. You're a psychotic punk at the very best.

When most people in real life go on homicidial rampages, they usually end up shooting themselves or being shot. Bummer there was no one around to do that for Annie.

 

Numbah one. The way I typed that the second part of the sentence directly refers to him being shot and not the suicide. I dunno, that's how I set it up.

Numbah two. If some guy is attacking your village and killing folks, and you have a gun, the sensible thing to do is to shot your gun at the guy, and I'd be cool with that. If you're attacking someone you don't get to cry foul when they fight back. It's just too bad he was a Jedi in full plot armor mode.

How many people actually said that? I didn't see any.

Yes. Kidnapping and torturing a woman is terrible. But so is killing a village full of people. The difference is one of scale. Anakin's one mother was killed, so he killed the many mothers in the village. I don't really care about what he was going through. That ain't right. The Tuskens are all dead anyway so talking about what they did wrong is pretty moot.

And besides, HE'S A DAMN JEDI. Being a Jedi and killing off a village should be two mutually exclusive concepts.

 

1. Killing the specific guys who killed his mother would be revenge. Killing everyone in the village the torturers lived in, including noncombatants, and then shouting at your girlfriend about how much you hate them and how you'll become the most powerful psychic space cop ever would be psychosis.

2. Shooting the guy attacking your village wouldn't be revenge. It would be self defense, a reasonable and expected reaction to someone trying to kill your families and trash your stuff.

3. Even if I am being hypocritical, my supposed hypocrisy isn't the issue here. It's the hundred so sand people in the decade old science fantasy movie that's the issue here.

That's a little strange, because I'm pretty sure that holding yourself to a higher moral standard is half the point of being a Jedi in the first place. The very nature of the force nowadays means that a Jedi has to hold himself to that higher standard or completely lose himself. What's the point of jedi if they're not beholden to the ideals the stupid order was founded on?

Also, I don't speak for everyone, but I'm pretty sure that most people wouldn't kill everyone in a mile radius if we lost a family member, even if that was possible. I think they would have a academic term for that sort of thing if it tended to happen. And even if someone did, I don't care if they were the nicest most sympathetic person on the planet beforehand, I'd still want them in prison for it.

I didn't say that I didn't care about what happened to Shmi period, I said that I didn't care about it as a mitigating circumstance in the specific context of Anakin killing people. I mean, I'm not too sure about the legal specifics about that sort of thing, but speaking for myself, I see as killing an entire village without need or justification (DAMN good justification) as something you just don't do.

Moreover, why are you treating it as an immorality for people to look at a guy killing an entire village and see it as a horrible thing? Not sure if that's the tone of your posts talking, but that's what it comes off as to me.

 

Quick question: we know that Sand People do have some sort of semi-organized culture in the KOTOR era, but we also can infer they go through quite a few changes. How much do we know about Sand People in the period of the films? Through A'sharad Hett, we know they have some sort of nomadic culture... yet nothing from Hett suggests that the tribes he's part of make a habit of taking prisoners and torturing them. And while I vaguely remember an us-against-them mentality from Sharad Hett, I also don't recall him speaking of attacking secluded moisture farms.

How linked are the various Tusken tribes? What do we know about this particular tribe (any information in the novelization?)? How connected are the various tribes? While obviously Tusken tribes being fairly savage when provoked is nothing new in Star Wars history, the more I think about it, the more it seems the incident with Shmi is a fairly isolated incident. Who knows though, perhaps knowing that this was a tribe full of radioactive cannibal Tuskens still wouldn't change anything. Even so, my sympathy does lessen quite a bit if this tribe is one that regularly attacks settlements.

 

Just because the tusken women didn't untie Shmi doesn't mean they deserve to be chopped up into pieces.

And yes it is evil what Anakin did. Just accept that. At that moment, Anakin was doing evil. And yes murdering all those tuskens was evil because he wasn't just killing the guilty, but the innocent as well, and not caring at all. Not only that, but it wasn't in self-defense, nor was it in a war. He did not need to kill any tuskens, not even the men, but he did it out of pure revenge....which means he was doing evil. He was selfish, putting his own lust for revenge above the importance of innocent life

I'm not justifying what the tuskens did to Shmi, the tuskens that participated in torturing her were evil, but Anakin committed evil as well.

Besides he is a fraking Jedi, he should know better, Landostrip does have a point on that. Anakin isn't your average joe/common man. He is a jedi and therefore is supposed to know the difference between good and evil (the jedi are worried about other jedi falling to the darkside, so it would make sense for the topic of good and evil to be discussed)

Though maybe Anakin was to lazy...or maybe even fell asleep during the lectures about morality at the Jedi Temple.

 

So where do you stand on Palpatine's order to wipe out the Jedi, children and all?

 

Those children were terrorists.

 

Sometimes I really wish you weren't serious.