Are Darth Vader and Anakin really the same person?

Or is Vader just a split personality, created when Anakin joined the Sith? Making his fall something like a demonic possession.

Really wondering, now that the Obi Wan Season finale brought the issue to the foreground again.

 

As much as I liked the "You didn't kill Anakin. I did" moment, it did feel a bit unearned in my opinion.

I never really saw Anakin and Vader as a case of split personality (similar to Smeagol and Gollum, or Jekyll and Hyde). It's clearly Anakin who makes all the wrong choices, and who deludes himself into believing that what he is doing is right. He doesn't develop an alternate personality. I understand that, after his "rebirth", he leaves his older self behind, and "becomes" Vader.
But I never saw Vader as a "new" personality who smiles at the thought of having "killed" (or possessed) Anakin (as he did in the TV series).
That line felt a bit forced in to justify Obi-Wan's future lie to Luke.

 

I agree with Oierem. The line was cool, the scene great. But it just makes it sound like Anakin is possessed and is being controlled by some evil being. Anakin made those choices.

 

It feels consistent to me. The Jekyll/Hyde or Smeagol/Gollum (and, yes, the Anakin/Vader) duality is a comment on human nature: we all have good and evil in us and, when those two sides of us are in conflict, it almost feels like two separate entities fighting with each other. When Anakin turned to the dark side he dug as deeply as he could into the evil inside him so that he could massacre the Jedi and afterwards he tried to bury his good self.

It's also worth pointing out that Vader's line in Obi-Wan Kenobi isn't true. He's lying to himself. It's similar to when he tells Ahsoka that he destroyed Anakin Skywalker. Vader could never fully kill his good side and Luke finally brought it back out. The duality also isn't a new thing or simply a retcon to have Obi-Wan lying to Luke make sense, either. It's there in ESB. Palpatine and Vader talk about Anakin in the third person as if he's a separate entity from Vader.

 

I didn't see the line the way Christopher30 and oierem did at all.


To me it meant he had truly forsaken who he once was.

A kind of Saul into Paul moment. As in it was a conscious choice and he was proud of it.

 

Every Force user, even Yoda has his own dark side and light side. Because light can't exist without dark, as well as dark can't exist without light.



Yoda: ''Part of me, you are not.''
Dark Yoda: ''Part of you, I am. Part of all that lives.''
----
Then he understands that he is wrong:

Yoda: ''Part of me you are, yes. But power over me, you have not. Through patience and training, it is I who control you. control over me you have not. My dark side you are, reject you I do.''

So that answers your question.

 

Palpatine's lightside is nice cups of tea and grandfatherly chats with Anakin about how good of a Jedi he is....

oh wait.

 

I'm of two minds on Palpatine. On one hand I want Palpatine to be pure "unlimited power" evil because that's why I love him as a villain. It's rare to get such a shamelessly evil villain - and to have it played so well. On the other hand... it is inconsistent with the idea that everyone has a light and dark side which Star Wars in general seems to support.

 

I heard that if there was any tiny piece of light side inside of Palpatine, that should be his interest in art.

Also, I think to play ''the good guy'' to some degree, that person at least should've an understanding of empathy and sympathy, at some level. Since he isn't a machine that programmed by a computer, he needs to learn those emotions to play like as if he is a compassionate guy. Which is a clue that Palpatine also has that light side, but he is completely rejecting it with his Sith training, just like Yoda is completely rejecting his dark side with his Jedi training.

 

More like he clarifies what he originally meant. The Jedi of all people spend years training to to not give into the dark side. They know that its part of the Force, which is connected to all living beings. It's not a discovery to any Jedi, least of all to the greatest and eldest of them.

 

Looking back at ROTS, at the scene when Anakin joined the Sith and Sheev dubbed him Darth Vader, it seems as if something more happened than him making up his mind and joining a cult. Especially because of the way Palpatine's voice changed, like never before and after this, and Vaders suddenly change in his view of the world and his willingness to destroy his former friends and comrades.

Maybe Sidious transmitted something to him, that possessed him and controlled his actions.

Another possible hint for this being true, could be his tears on Mustafar.

 

Darth Vader is really Jar Jar Binks.

 

"Mesa being yousa daddy, Lukee"

 

Did you watch that? He didn't clarify, because he started to lose to Dark Yoda when he first said that.

Yoda thought he completely get rid of his dark side part, probably because of his arrogance.

Then he only started to win once he admitted that he was wrong, and dark side was still a part of his. He could never get rid of his dark part, only he can reject it.

 

Yes, I did watch it. He didn't admit he was wrong. He couldn't, since he wasn't wrong to begin with.

Again, a Jedi by definition knows that the dark side is part of the Force, thus part of each life form. The Jedi way is all about not giving into the dark side, the implication is pretty clear. Yoda's "fight" with his dark side illustrates just that. One of the very first things he says is "I choose not to give you power.". And it's in the very quote you posted: "Through patience and training, it is I who control you."

 

I agree with how you see it generally. However, I feel that anytime Vader or Obi-Wan refers to Vader "killing" Anakin, they are more or less speaking figuratively. I also don't believe it is two completely different personalities inside Anakin's mind like a Jekyll and Hyde thing. I always figured the whole "Vader killing Anakin" thing was simply one way to express the point in a way that shows what's left of him. IMO Obi-Wan's explanation to Luke in ROTJ shows this.

 

When a child is raised to be a Sith like Maul, their past has no meaning to them. Note it doesn't until he meets Savage years later. But for Dooku and Anakin, their past does matter because they remember it. So when they embrace the dark side, they're trying to destroy their past. Dooku succeeds, but Anakin doesn't. Not entirely.

Vader says that he killed Anakin because when he found out that Padme died because of him, he had essentially killed himself. It's not separate personalities, but separate personas.

 

Palpatine
Likes include art and blowing up planets. Seeks mate with similar interests

 

Yoda knows that but apparently Yoda probably thought he reached a point where he got rid of his dark counter part, he was arrogant. That's not the first time Yoda was being arrogant, after all, Jedi failed in the Clone Wars, one of the reasons was because they were arrogant.




So he was wrong. He learned humility and he learned he could never get rid of his dark side. Otherwise why would Yoda first say ''part of me you are not'', then starts to lose to his dark side, then ''part of me you are yes'', and wins, that's admitting he was wrong, he didn't reach a point where he got rid of his dark side, no one could.

 

SERENITY: "You have conquered your hubris. Now face the temptations you must."

YODA: "Powerful the creature was."

SERENITY: "What you faced was a reflection of your hubris and the shadow of your soul."

YODA: "And yet clear I thought I was."

SERENITY: "The beast is you, and you are the beast. To deny it simply gives it power."

YODA: "Now I see. Simple the answer was."

SERENITY: "Deep in your core, you felt that we had nothing to teach you, but you must trust in our teachings if you are to succeed."

 

Yeah they’re the same. It’s just Anakin (and Palpatine) trying to divorce himself from his past, to stay in the dark side with Palps (the only thing Anakin has left), and later Obiwan does the same as well, in order to move on.

Same thing happens with Ben Solo. He knows he’s still Ben, but it’s easier for him to ‘succeed’ in the path he chose, rather than admit wrongdoing and face the shame of his loved ones.

 

Anakin is the person.
Vader is the persona.

 

Well said.

 

I see it this way: when you embrace the Dark Side, the Dark Side itself becomes like a drug and leads you to do things you never thought you would do. Darth Vader isn't an alternative personality to Anakin, he's simply the result of what happened when the Dark Side blinded Anakin to the point of making him doing things that he normally would never have thought or even wanted to do. A person who use the Dark Side is like a drug addict, who, in order to get a dose of his drug, stops thinking rationally and starts doing things he never thought he would do. The Dark Side makes you feel powerful, it makes you feel strong, and when you use it you always want more, but to keep using it you have to do things you wouldn’t normally do. It’s like, indeed, a drug. At the end of Return of the Jedi, Anakin gets rid of his addiction, and as a result, Vader disappeared. So, Darth Vader isn't an organically alternative personality to Anakin, he's simply Anakin’s lack of personality due to the use of a drug called Dark Side.