Did Anakin Feel Any Guilt Over the Destruction of Alderaan?

If Vader really thought that, then shouldn't he have Force-choked Tarkin right there and then? Vader serves the Emperor, and it's really not in the Emperor's interest to go around blowing up Core Worlds with reckless abandon. Even evil dictators need the support of a political power base, and that's what the Core Worlds are to the Empire. Blowing up any planet would spark outrage, but your power base is less likely to care if it's some Outer Rim planet than if it's a world as prominent as Alderaan.

 

In ANH, definitely not -- he says "this will be a day long remembered" and mentions the death of Kenobi and how the Rebellion will be destroyed. And considering he helped intimidate Leia while Tarkin threatened her, I'd say he's pretty complicit. Whether he came to regret it in the end, though, is up in the air. He may have thought it necessary in ANH and reconsidered later but there's really no evidence for this.

 

There's actually an interesting passage on this in the ANH novelisation:

That would seem to show that Vader cares very little about Alderaan's destruction. In fact, he seems perturbed by the fact that this act of destruction has not been big enough to have had a measurable impact. Yet the bit where he thinks about the cities and farms and towns and then has to remind himself of the traitors as well perhaps suggests a tiny bit of guilt mixed in there somewhere.

 

I'm sure Vader see's it as an act of war, Alderaan have chosen to resist the Emperor's wishes and have become victim's of their own stupidity. We can presume he turned any guilt he had about Padme onto Obi-Wan and ive no doubt that was much more important to him than a population who tried to end Sith rule.

 

Where is the evidence that the population tried to resist the Empire though? I always very much got the impression that Tarkin destroyed Alderaan on a whim. It shows how cold and cruel and heartless he is.

 

I think you are right about Tarkin's motives, he certainly is a very cold and ruthless individual. Of course there can't be solid evidence about Alderaanian populations desire to be ruled by a just goverment because i was just speculation what might've been Anakin/Vader's thoughts about them be. By the time of ANH the leader of that planet must've been heavily suspected of being a high ranking member of the Rebel Alliance. Vader when questioning Leia doesn't ask her if she's a rebel does he, he tells her she is. My speculation therefore was Anakin/Vader had little doubt that Alderaan was a major part of the Rebellion and counted them as a whole regardless of who wasn't actively participating in resisting.

 

True, but the fact is that it is Tarkin's decision to destroy Alderaan and I think that Vader very much knows that Tarkin would have destroyed Leia's homeworld no matter what planet it was (unless it's Coruscant I guess ) because he wanted to hurt her, and because he sincerely wanted to blow a planet up to make a good demonstration. So Vader knows that even if Alderaan's destruction has a faint moral justification (wiping out some Rebels which threaten galactic security) it could just have easily been another planet where there would be no justification possible.

Now as a Sith Lord, Vader should be indifferent to suffering and unconcerned with morality and his actions in ANH certainly support this. But as he still has a tiny bit of Jedi in him, I don't think it is impossible that he didn't feel a tiny bit of guilt as well, buried deep down.

 

Or this was simply a case of bad writing in the movie.

 

Or a case of good writing.

 

I don't know....I think he might have been indifferent but it was hard to tell....you can't really see his true emotions....he was more machine at that point...his humanity was shieleded

 

That mask sure is pesky JediKnight10008 you can't be sure what he is thinking or feeling since his face is hidden. Even his voice doesn't convey emotions well or exaggerates certain ones so you still can't tell what he thinks. Add to the fact that he is perhaps fifty (at the least) plus percent machine and hasn't had any kind of interaction with anyone or anything beyond work, health/maintenance and training. No one that I know of in Canon ever asked Vader how his trip had been or anything slightly personal but still work related.

And let's face it. If he had regrets over Alderaan's destruction he's not going to voice it in the hearing range of Tarkin or anyone else that could report it to the Emperor

 

Tarkin suggests that Leia needs alternate persuasion, and Vader demands, "What do you mean?" Vader stands silently as Tarkin interrogates Leia and then orders Alderaan's destruction. In the script (http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-A-New-Hope.html), Vader orders "Commence primary ignition," but not in the movie (unless someone took it out). When Leia protests and advances on Tarkin, Vader puts a hand on her shoulder and pulls her back against him (instead of choking her out, throwing her across the bridge, etc.).

I think the evidence suggests that Vader felt extreme reluctance to destroy Alderaan. Not guilt afterwards, but it may have driven him to try to recruit Luke to destroy the Emperor. Vader was using the Dark Side of the Force to what he at that point believed were good ends, but after seeing Alderaan destroyed, he realized that the Emperor was evil and needed to be defeated.

 

I don't think the destruction of Alderaan made Vader want to defeat the Emperor. Remember, this is the same guy that killed a bunch of toddlers because the Emperor told him to do so, and that was when his only motivation for turning was to save his wife.

Vader's motivation for killing the Emperor would be the same motivation the Emperor had for killing his Master (at least until he is made aware of his son's existence). Power. Sith betrayal of Sith.

 

As others said, if he did feel regret, he didn't share it with others because they'd suspect he was turning into a Rebel sympathizer. As for him pulling Leia back, I just assumed he did it because he didn't want her wailing on who was then his superior commander with her fists. No need to choke her or hurl her across the bridge when a simple pulling her back toward him would do.

Alderaan never was Vader's motivation to kill the Emperor; he had wanted to kill the Emperor long before Alderaan went 'ka-boom', he just got going on it once he discovered Luke.

 

There is no Anakin Skywalker in ANH, only Darth Vader, twisted and evil, with no remorse for anyone or anything.

It's interesting to see some different perspectives on this board. In real life, I have never personally encountered a single person, young or old, who preferred the prequels to the original films. But here some of you do seem to congregate, and some exhibit a desire to project prequel Anakin into the role of classic Darth Vader at every turn. That's your prerogative if you choose that path; however, it always strikes me about the same as someone who grew up accustomed to visiting a replica Taj Mahal in their town, then went and visited the real thing, only to wonder why it was strange and not as good as the "real one" back home.

I guess when I saw the OT I always remembered Ben's lines from ANH and wondered what the Clone Wars were like, and what was Luke's father like. I imagined Anakin Skywalker as fatherly aged, 20s or 30s, a powerful grown man, who somehow turned to the dark side of the force. How did that happen? It was all a mystery and that mystery was compelling. But then when the PT came out, the Clone Wars were completely uninteresting, and Anakin Skywalker was a teenage know-nothing brat. The way he was turned to the dark side was not fleshed out very well at all from a story perspective. Just everything was bad, bad, bad. And I always come back to the idea that some stories are better left implied, as a mystery. Some stories grow into legend years and years later, when if you were there at the time, the actual events were rather mundane and ordinary.

Leia, for her part, was a badass in ANH and not one to cry or have any time for sorrows or sympathy. That was part of her characterization and part of what made her a compelling character. Anyone can sit around and cry when their home gets destroyed, but it comes off as one of those badly written Hallmark made for TV movies. Leia wasn't like that. Someone else in the thread said it best. The way she mourned was to pick up a blaster and take out her sadness on the stormtroopers.

 

I find projection interesting as well. Like how taking revenge is any way 'mourning'. Leia wasn't strong in the least in SW and I am GLAD Vader prevented her from being even stupider towards Tarkin. As to did he regret Alderaan at the time he didn't seem to at all he raised no objections whatever.

 

Certainly not physically strong, but you can tell she was fearless, entitled, and used to getting her way. She doesn't seem like the type to sit around and grieve, and even if she did, she wouldn't let anyone see it -- including a viewing audience.

There's only one time in the entire trilogy Leia shows true profound despair, and that's when Han gets frozen in carbonite in The Empire Strikes Back. The scene is emotionally charged in part because of its singularity. If there were other scenes of Leia grieving and crying and reacting to everything going on around her, not only would it be painfully awkward and bad storytelling, but it would seriously alter the impact of that scene and diminish her emotional arc.

 

Did Anakin Feel Any Guilt Over the Destruction of Alderaan?

No, beacuse his name is Darth Vader..

 

I always wondered did Vader experience the same force sensation OWK got when Alderan was destroyed?

As for guilt, i doubt he did at the time. The meditation/medical chamber perhaps allows for contemplation over these events. but if he has convinced himself that it was for the "greater good" - to phrase Hot Fuzz - he won't feel guilt over it.

 

Hm, I disagree with you about that, Cushy. I think Leia is very couragious and strong to keep on fighting after losing so much. There was also basically no right answer she should give. The new battle station needed a field test and Tarkin would find a target, no matter what.

 

Exactly.

Ever since Vader lost everything including Padme and most of his own body, he became completely numb to all forms of pain that he ceases to feel anything.

 

Yes he did. There was a bar that he frequented.



DAMN YOU TARKIN

 

At the time no. After his redemption and death I'm sure there's a whole heap of guilt that followed him about a great number of things.

 

I agree 100% with this and it's the reason I don't dive too deep into connections between trilogies. I think Vader was (as you said) just another villain in ANH. And in ESB and ROTJ, I don't think GL had any ideas about the Chosen One prophecy from the PT and all that jazz. I think any actions or expressions made by OT characters that relate to PT storylines (or ANH to ESB and ROTJ in a lot of ways) are purely coincidental or result from reading too much into it.