PT Anakin should not have killed the younglings

Out of curiosity, how many children do you think were on Alderaan when it was destroyed? My estimate would be in the millions to hundreds of thousands. Vader not having a moral qualm about children dying on a large scale was not something invented by the PT. It was an established trait of his in the OT.

To me, Vader's most morally reprehensible act was standing by while Alderaan was destroyed and plainly being okay with that happening.

It's always strange to me when people are fine with Vader being cool with Tarkin just blowing up Alderaan like it's another day at the Imperial office, but find it unforgivable that Vader slaughtered a room full of children in ROTS.

If he was forgivable after Alderaan, I don't see why he can't be redeemed after killing less children in ROTS.

 

I hated Vader quite a good deal after Alderaan. More than after the Jedi Temple slaughter. I at least get a sense of angst and remorse from Vader after the Temple slaughter, whereas I don't get the feeling that Vader experiences any sense of guilt or grief about Alderaan.

The Temple slaughter is also not Anakin's first time killing younglings in the PT.

He slaughtered Tusken Raider children in AOTC. The Tusken Raider children were innocents just like the Jedi younglings.

So not something new to his character that was created just for ROTS.

It is all just a natural and logical progression of the Anakin/Vader character. The teenager who was driven by anger and revenge to slaughter Tusken Raider children in a few years time becomes a man who kills a room full of Jedi younglings in ROTS, and even more years down the line as a Dark Lord of the Sith, thinks it is cool to watch an entire world with millions or at least hundred of thousands of children get blown up because Leia was suspected of being a rebel.

Anakin/Vader is a character who shows multiple times throughout the OT and the PT that he will kill and otherwise harm children. In the OT, Vader isn't merely okay with the destruction of Alderaan (goodbye, millions of innocent children) but chops off the arm of his own son, and in the PT, Anakin slaughters a innocent Tusken Raider children before he even falls to the Dark Side. Is it any wonder that after he falls to the Dark Side, this same character will slaughter a room full of Jedi children? I would say, no, that is a predictable narrative and character progression. And not long after killing all those Jedi younglings, he chokes his pregnant wife, seriously endangering the life in her womb at the time.

So I do not see how Vader killing a room full of Jedi younglings is something uniquely terrible that ruins his character or makes him irredeemable in a way that standing by while Alderaan is blown up with presumably millions of innocent children on the planet at the time, slaughtering the Tusken Raider children, chopping of his own son's arm, and choking his pregnant wife does not.

 

Vader was fine with the destruction of Alderaan and with committing many other crimes in the OT. So the strange choice should really be in choosing to present Vader as a redeemable character in the OT. ROTJ is the film meant to make the case that Vader is redeemable; ROTS and the PT as a whole are only showing how the villain that is Vader came to be. His backstory as it were.

If one is willing to forgive Vader for Alderaan and other atrocities, there is really no reason not to be willing to forgive him for slaughtering the Jedi younglings and the Tusken Raider children and choking his pregnant wife. Either one is willing to forgive it all or one is not. For those willing to forgive it all, Star Wars can be a powerful and profound story of redemption. For those not willing to forgive it all, probably the story does seem "strange" and "bad" because even when Vader is burning in the lava on Mustafar, it is not really presented as a triumphant moment so much as a tragic one for both Obi-Wan and Anakin. So for those wanting justice or vengeance, Star Wars is probably not the most appealing story. For those more moved by redemption, it can feel very moving and well-told and perhaps even more powerful for the story we get in the PT.

Some will think the PT is strange or bad storytelling, but for others the PT will succeed as presenting a tragic backstory for Anakin Skywalker that adds to the story and meaning they got from the OT.

 

@BlueYogurt There is not one way to write a good villain. There are multiple ways to write a good villain just as there are multiple types of good villains.

I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction. Fantasy and science fiction are my favorite genres. There isn't one type of main villain in fantasy and science fiction. There can be different types especially as fantasy finally pulls away from ideas like the only type of fantasy that can be good or that people are interested in reading are those heavily copied from Lord of the Rings or paying homage to Lord of the Rings.

There is no real reason that a science fiction/fantasy series can't have a psychotic child killer to use your terminology as the main villain. I mean, that is pretty much what Voldemort is throughout the entire Harry Potter series. He is the dude who tried to kill Harry Potter (the protagonist) as a baby, and then makes an almost annual habit of trying to kill Harry again from the time Harry is eleven to the time Harry is seventeen (he only takes a break the year Harry is thirteen--now that's a twisted sort of dedication). For that series, in fact, it is much more effective that Voldemort is a psychotic child killer than that he is not. If the audience didn't believe that Voldemort had it in him to be a psychotic child killer, there would be less of a sense of danger and tension in his almost yearly conflicts with the protagonist because the audience would absolutely know Voldemort wasn't going to kill Harry since Voldemort has some sort of moral qualm or hang-up about killing children. That's just one example from one of the most popular and profitable fantasy franchises in history. A franchise explicitly marketed toward children.

Besides that, I would argue that the main villain of Star Wars as written by George Lucas is Palpatine, not Vader. By the end of the OT, Palpatine is meant to be seen as the ultimate big bad villain rather than Vader. As the manipulator and the tempter. The one who drew Anakin Skywalker to the Dark Side and is seriously tempting Luke to fall in the same way. So if there is an archetypical big bad fantasy villain in Star Wars, it really is meant to be Palpatine, not Vader.

Certainly, in the PT, Anakin is not meant to be the main villain. He is portrayed as the protagonist and tragic hero of the PT (a very different type of hero than the classic hero the OT depicts Luke as being, but a type that is just as valid and can be just as well-written as classic heroes). The choice to make Anakin Skywalker a tragic hero in the PT actually works quite well with the backstory we get of Anakin Skywalker in the OT as this once great Jedi Knight and warrior who was tempted to the Dark Side. So the PT conceptually is meant to expand on that backstory, and tragic hero type story for Anakin fits that envisioned arc like a glove. Most tragic heroes are cast from that same mold of initially noble and good character with a defining flaw that results in their undoing whether it's Macbeth's overleaping ambition or Anakin's inability to accept death. The Anakin Skywalker of the PT, then, isn't meant to be the main villain of the PT. He's meant to be the tragic hero of it, and interestingly, tragic heroes can be psychotic child killers to borrow your terminology again. For example, Macbeth kills Macduff's children and tries to kill his best friend's son Fleance.

The main villain of the PT is Palpatine/Sidious operating through manipulation and from the shadows and as the tempter that brings the tragic hero, Anakin, to the Dark side. Narratively speaking, Anakin Skywalker (even after he turns to the Dark Side) isn't even supposed to be a villain in the PT. He is still the tragic hero.

Not sure what your point is about Halloween costumes. Children don't tend to dress up as Hamlet, Macbeth, or Othello for Halloween either or at least they don't in my neck of the woods. Doesn't mean Shakespeare did a bad job writing those characters. I wouldn't use children's Halloween costumes as a barometer of good or bad character writing myself.

 

Thanks!