PT Defending Anakin and the Tusken

Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel provides a detailed discussion of why certain wild animals were successfully domesticated, and why others weren't.

It's worth keeping in mind the long periods domestication takes, as well - thousands of years of selective breeding.

I don't see "orang hats" as on a par with Tusken wrappings - or ants keeping aphids and caterpillars for food as being on a par with the Tuskens keeping Banthas as riding animals, with appropriate gear - saddles, reins and so forth.

Chimps war among themselves, and have been reported as having occasionally stolen and killed human babies (though I'm not sure how confirmed this report is) - but even if it was proven, I think people would frown on the mother who goes out and exterminates the whole tribe of the chimp that did it.

And Tusken tech is way ahead of chimp tech.

 

Read this and it made me think of a show I watched a few years ago about chimps. They're one of the only other species on this planet that commit murder for no reason. And there has been documented video showing groups of chimps waging war with other groups of chimps. Very violent species actually. Much like us humans.

 

The chimp's close cousin, the bonobo, is much less violent despite being very similar in appearance.

Bottlenose dolphins have gotten a very nasty reputation in recent years though.

It may be that intelligence and "behaviour that people tend to call evil" go hand in hand - the smarter a species is, the more "potential for evil" they have.

 

Calling Tusken Raiders animals is no different than calling Native Americans of the old west animals. They're more primitive than those invading their planet so their ways of war are going to be more brutal. Tatooine is their world and they're being invaded by outsiders. Calling them animals is short sided and small minded. Perhaps the more "civilized" people should've chosen a planet uninhabited to settle instead of one already occupied. Plus Anakin killed Tusken children . Do the Tusken kill children? Or do they take them and raise them as their own as Native Americans did when children were found to be with settlers they killed? Because even the "savages" thought killing children was barbaric. A view Anakin obviously doesn't share, seeing as how he also butchered Jedi younglings. Who's the real animal here? The savage Tusken that lives by a harsher code or the civilized Jedi that threw his code out to commit acts of savagery while condemning those he butchered as savage animals?

 

In the EU at least - this is exactly what they do, at least some of the time - "raise human children as Tuskens".

Not clear just how rare it is though, but there's at least two notable examples, Tahiri and Sharad Hett's wife. Sharad Hett was a Jedi that actually volunteered to join the Tuskens - was put through brutal trials, lived, and became a tribal leader eventually.

His wife was a human who'd been taken by them as a child and "raised Tusken". They had a son (A'sharad Hett) who was brought up Tusken from birth, and joined the Jedi Order when his father was killed by Jabba's forces (there were other Jedi there at the time, who had been searching for Sharad after his disappearance on Tatooine, who took young A'sharad back to Coruscant with them).

 

That's a bit harsh. The Anakin I see in the movie isn't the least bit happy about killing the younglings, but he's too afraid of losing Padmé to not do it. I mean, scared to death. Fear is his greatest enemy, because with him, it's an obsession.
He has a conscience. We know this, thanks to his helpful nature in TPM, his remorse in AOTC and his doubt in ROTS. Not to mention his tears as he contemplates what he's done and what's about to happen.
Anakin forces himself to do things that he finds appaling, things that he views as unforgivable - and he does it out of fear. I think that point is made crystal clear.

What's wrong with being an animal? Humans are an animal species.

 

You can't justify the murder of the innocent with this argument. His tears are worthless. I love my wife and would die for her and kill to defend her life. But I wouldn't butcher children if someone said I can save your wife if you kill all these kids. And my wife wouldn't want me to do it to save her. And lets not forget it's Anakin's actions that bring about her death. Had he listened to Mace and not Palpatine Padme would've lived and Anakin would've never fallen to the dark side. So the only thing harsh here is Anakin's decisions. And what's wrong with being an animal? Nothing biologically. But when we humans fail to use our minds and rise up above our base animal instincts then we commit acts of barbarism. The Tuskens have yet to evolve this far as a society but Anakin supposedly has. So therefore he is closer to being the "animal" he claims the Tuskens to be.

 

I don't think anyone is trying to justify the murder of the innocent. I agree with Lulu_Mars - Anakin knew that what he was doing was wrong, he just chose to do it anyway because of Padme. It's not that he fails to see the killing of children as barbaric, he just sees it as the lesser of two evils (a view I disagree with, obviously).

 

And that makes him worse. He knows what he's doing is wrong. He's going against what he has been taught and what he believes. The Tusken's, however, are acting according to the laws and traditions of their society.

 

Of course that makes his actions - his actions, not him - worse! As skygawker said, I don't justify Anakin's actions. I empathize, but I don't sympathize. There's a big difference.

 

You are your actions. How you react to what life presents you defines you.

 

From a certain point of view, yes. My point is that noone's irredeemable. There's an underlying reason for every action. Hate the crime, not the criminal.

 

Everyone is over-analyzing the Tusken scene in AOTC - I don't see any problem whatsoever with what Anakin did. The Tuskens were P.O.S. scum, pure & simple. Anakin's mother had been tortured for months (even though she didn't do anything wrong) & died in front of him. What he did is completely understandable considering the circumstances.

As I mentioned in one of my last posts, it's also extremely important to remember Anakin's state of mind at the time - he obviously felt extremely guilty for leaving his mother to become a Jedi ten years before; since Jedi aren't allowed to have any contact with family members, he didn't see her at all during that time. So, it's obvious he felt that if he had stayed with her & not left Tattoine, that she may have lived...

 

If you don't think children are capable of brutalizing people, I've got news for you: There are real-world examples of exactly this type of thing happening.

 

There's nothing in the film or books that implies that this happened, but then there also isn't anything that says it didn't happen. I consider the Tuskens to all be a bunch of "animals", as Owen described them. So, I wouldn't put it past them to have the whole camp involved in the torture.

 

I guess you all are ascribing rational thought/intelligence to the Tuskens, and I'm not. I see them all as nothing more than a large pack of rabid, wild dogs/wolves who are going around and attacking innocent people for no reason. There's only one way to respond to animals like this, and that's to put them down...

Comparing what happened with Anakin & the Tuskens in AOTC to 9/11 & WW II is like comparing apples to oranges. Those were things that happened on a global scale, and what happened with Anakin in AOTC was limited to what appeared to be a moderate-sized camp/group of Tuskens; it didn't go beyond that....

Good debate here, though. At this point, however, I don't think I can add anything more to the conversation since I've said my piece. I guess we can agree to disagree on this.....

 

Can you explain why you don't think the Tuskens are intelligent/sentient? Generally speaking, packs of wild dogs don't set up camps, plan attacks on settlements, and use sophisticated tools/weapons.

though sometimes they can be libertarian street artists

 

Exactly. The point isn't the scale, it's the flawed reasoning. Blaming an entire group of people for the actions of a few, especially when that blame leads you to murder them, is never the rational or ethically correct answer.

 

I don't think Tuskens are intelligent as we typically think of intelligence; the wild dog reference was to make an analogy - what I meant was that they're like wild dogs in that they go around attacking innocent people without provocation.

 

Yes, dogs travel in packs. But there's a difference between living in a pack and creating camps with structures to live in, as we see the Tuskens do (albeit temporarily, but there are plenty of examples in the real world of nomadic humans, so I don't think that's relevant). Nor do dogs have language, which is a fairly important indicator of their sentience. If dogs had hands, I highly doubt they would be able to use sophisticated weapons. Even chimps, who both stand upright and have hands (and have higher intelligence than dogs) don't use tools any more advanced than sharpened sticks as spears - they aren't exactly building tents or scavenging metal to make modified rifles.

 

Well to sum up my response to some of the arguments brought forth here.

1) What Anakin did was totally ok because the Tuskens are animals/rabid dogs.
The film does not support this and in fact proves the opposite. The Tuskens are intelligent tool users and can use both fire and fire arms. They wear and make clothes. They domesticate animals and sometimes animals much larger than themselves. Ants don't normally domesticate wasps or worms. And when the Tuskens ride those domesticated animals they use tactics to hide their numbers. They are called Sand People and also the terms "men", women" and "children" are used. Are they savage, brutal, cruel? Yes but humans can be that too.

Consider, which life form on Earth do you think the Tuskens are most similar to?
As I said above, the use of clothes, tools etc makes them resemble humans. They are bipeds and have a language of sorts. Their nature is also not too dissimilar from how some humans have acted. Kidnapping, torture, murder are all things humans are capable of. And even killing for no reason or provocation.

2) All of the Tuskens had a hand in Shmi's death so they are all equally guilty.
First the film does not support this and using the logic "the films doesn't show it but it is possible" is going down a very dangerous path. Guilt by association is not something I am comfortable with. Nor is the idea, "guilty until proven innocent" any more appealing.

3) The Tusken ALL ran and attacked Anakin, down to the smallest child.
Again, the films don't support this and I'd argue that it shows the opposite.
ANH showed that Tusken can be scared and that they will run from danger. They aren't mindless and attack anything they encounter. ANH also had Luke say that attacking a sand crawler was out of character for the Tuskens as he had never heard them hitting anything this big before.
Also, if every last Tusken attacked Anakin, why have him mention that he didn't just kill the men, but the women and children as well? If they behaved exactly like the men, this statement becomes a bit meaningless.

In closing, I think the film and Lucas was very clear here, what Anakin did was very bad and wrong. That it marked him going down a dark path. How far down is debatable. I sincerely doubt that Lucas intended us to cheer for Anakin for killing all the evil Tuskens or view it as no big deal.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor