CT What was Anakin thinking right before he killed Palpatine?

Like what do you guys think was going through Anakin's mind while Palpatine was shocking Luke with his force lightning?

Did Padme talk to Anakin as a force ghost?
Did he think of Padme?
Did Anakin finally realize Palpatine lied to him?
Did he think of Obi-Wan?

Tell me what you guys all think! Thank you!

 

He finally saw the big lie.
He saw the same scene over again: Palpatine attacking with Force-lightning. A defenseless man about to be killed. And in both cases, Anakin reacted defending the weaker party. Only thing is, he chose wrong the first time.
"Young fool.... only now... at the end... do you understand".

 

"NOT MY SON, YOU BASTARD!"

Points for those who got the reference.

 

From "The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader":

 

"No....... NOOOOO."

In all seriousness and as much as I do like that addition, I also liked the novelization where it describes his thoughts and he's thinking back to the moment with Palpatine and Mace, remembering Qui-Gon and his belief in Anakin's destiny as the Chosen One, and of course Padme. I essentially think all of his major life experiences flashed before him in that moment.

 

I like how his thoughts were articulated in the Scholastic Version:

"And then, in a moment, something changed. Perhaps he remembered something heard in his youth a long time ago: an ancient prophecy of the Chosen One who would bring balance to the Force. Perhaps the vague outlines of someone named SHmi and a Jedi named Qui-Gon struggled to the surface of his consciousness. The most powerful, the most repressed thought of all could have emerged from the darkness: Padme... and her undying love for someone he once knew well. And despite all the terrible, unspeakable things he'd done in his life, he suddenly realized he could not stand by and allow the Emperor to kill their son. And in that moment, he was no longer Darth Vader. He was Anakin Skywalker."

 

"I'm beginning to think this whole Sith thing was a bit of a raw deal."

 

The Ryder Windham one, yes.

I think the newcanon one Beware The Power of the Dark Side also brings up similar thoughts.

 

"I must not allow this to continue."

 

"Did I leave the iron on?"

 

Well, Im pretty sure you have to be a jedi to be a force ghost, so... I might be wrong.
Second, I know this is kind of broad, but maybe he finally turned his hate to Palpatine instead of Obi Wan.

 

This is one of the story points which I think were enhanced by the prequels. When I first saw ROTJ, Darth Vader killing the Emperor in order to save Luke seemed kind of sudden and unlikely. I mean, it made the character a little less of a bad guy, and it’s an interesting plot twist, but it came pretty much out of nowhere. Out of the blue, this villain is watching his boss cook his offspring, and he’s suddenly overwhelmed by previously dormant (or previously nonexistent) paternal feelings (or pity). OK, it’s an interesting dramatic turn for the story, but it felt like a real jump in the character’s development.

After seeing the prequels, though, Vader’s act made more sense. Here’s a man, who since birth has been endowed with these amazing magical powers, and has come to see himself as being capable of doing things that nobody else is able to do. Extraordinary though he is, the people he feels the closest to, the people who he really needs emotionally, wind up being depressingly mortal. It turns out that, for all his abilities, when it comes to losing his loved ones, he’s just as powerless as everybody else.

So, when his real soul mate is gone, he just throws himself into his work and decides to forget about the whole ‘having loved ones’ thing. Then he finds out he’s got a son, and somewhere along the line, gets the idea that it would be nice to have this son around (on the father’s terms, of course; the son’s got to come work for him). When they meet, after demonstrating some tough love by partially dismembering the lad, he makes his pitch. To his surprise, instead of signing on, his son decides that he’d rather take his chances falling down a shaft several thousand stories deep. Nuts. Bring my shuttle.

The father doesn’t give up yet, because he knows the son’s going to come back, sometime. When he does, it seems that the son also wants a relationship, but on the son’s own terms. The father’s not interested in that, but neither is he giving up on his own plan. An afternoon with his boss might bring the boy around.

Things don’t go altogether as planned. After some goading, the lad demonstrates that he’d actually be pretty good at his father’s job, but after some reflection, gives a definitive “No.” The Emperor’s disappointed that he’s not getting a new sidekick, which means putting Plan B into action.

Watching Plan B being unleashed, the father’s evidently dealing with some unanticipated feelings. He hadn’t entirely anticipated his son rejecting his offer. The father probably could’ve lived with that, but now the boy’s being slowly killed. Wait a minute. This was the problem he’d had at the beginning- the people who cared about him just wouldn’t stay alive, and there was nothing he could do about it. Now, after all these years, it turns out that there is somebody who wants to love him, and not only that, it’s a tangible reminder of his long gone soul mate. And now this person’s about to die. This time, though, the scenario is going to be different. This time, he actually can save this person from death.

I couldn’t have put those ideas together without the prequels. For me, having the background means that the end of the story of Darth Vader is a lot more interesting and makes much more sense.

 

He's thinking 'I have to save my son'. Love took over, instead of hate.

 

I like what someone said. There is that paraell to episode III there. He must choose and he can watch someone be killed or kill the person who is doing the killer and he did that in both cases, but this time around it was the right thing to do

 

He was basically thinking that Luke's future was more important than his own.

 

TOASTEROVEN, I disagree that Vader's choice came out of the blue. It was foreshadowed since ESB, when the Falcon escaped and Vader walked off the bridge without choking anyone, that was a moment when most of us thought, "Huh? What's up with him? Why isn't he killing people?" Then in RotJ Luke insisted repeatedly that there was good in Vader and that he could be brought back into the light. And at the end, he was begging his father to help him. It was by no means a foregone conclusion, but it did not come out of nowhere.

 

I'll repeat what I said in a different thread.

The reason he waits so long is because it takes that long for Anakin to finally realize that he's wrong and that he loves his son more than he does himself. He's confused the whole time because he had Dooku in a similar position and yet, he killed him in cold blood because he had grown to hate the man. But when Luke had him in that position, he couldn't bring himself to kill his own father. He could sense the anger and hate, but he also felt the love and compassion coming from him. The longer he stood there, the more it became evident that Luke wouldn't give up on him the way Obi-wan had. Then it started to become clear to him that he had the power to save his loved ones all along, but he had chose not to because he had become obsessed with power and it cost him dearly.

So he had all these things rattling around in his head and he had to make a choice. In his mind's eye, he wasn't just seeing Luke laying there. He was see Padme.





At least that's how I like to think it was in his mind.

 

^ ^ ^ That's really good! Just about brings a tear to my eye.

 

Anakin was just pissed that he never unlocked the Force Lightning perk on his Darkside character..

 

"This deal is getting worse all the time"

 

Speaking of deals...

 

That what he has done is far beyond forgiveness but he is finally free from his personal prison

 

I like that both Obiwan and Anakin sacrificed themselves to help Luke. Of course Obiwan knew he would become a force ghost and Anakin didn't (and I'm SOOO curious how that happened for him, and I like to think Quigon or Obiwan or Yoda helped him and greeted him to the spirit world or whatever), but I think Luke was right, Vader/Anakin was wavering all along ("I feel the conflict within you") and at this moment, his love for his son overcame everything else. Luke changed everything for Anakin, not only because he was his son, but because of who Luke was- a compassionate, kind, strong individual who believed in his father. Truly his salvation.

 

He didn't feel hatred for Palpatine, but rather love for Luke. This is why Palpatine didn't see it coming. The Sith had always betrayed their masters in acts of hatred, so when Palpatine didn't sense any hatred in Vader, he took that to mean he was safe.