How should of the Tusken Raiders been punished?

The answers given in Wookieepedia and in Tatooine Ghost say that the Tuskens had been coming near the Lars homestead for weeks, in fact, Cliegg and Owen had taken to carrying blasters around the house. I don't know that the Tuskens actively sought out Shmi, but it is highly likely that they were actively seeking a sentient being. Adolescent male Tuskens have a "blood rite" that they must undergo in order to reach manhood, and that "blood rite" involves kidnapping a sentient being and slowly torturing it to death. Most Tuskens using a krayt dragon, but those who can manage to kidnap a human are considered more "manly," particularly if that human resists death, as Shmi did until Anakin arrived.

And yes, I am disgusted with the fact that both the Jedi and the Republic government continued to allow lawlessness to reign on Tatooine.

 

If the "bloodrite" was the impetus for Shmi's capture.... then I have to say that Anakin's-Slaughter fits within the Tusken-society's, clan-based, barbaric structure. After all, didn't they value combat prowess of Darth Krayt's Jedi father? So they had SOME sort of structure, if my memory still serves me correctly. From an uncivilized POV, Anakin dealt with the entire tribe in the same cruel manner that they captured and tortured his mother with.

I am not saying Anakin's actions were morally justified. As a Jedi, they never could be. Even in the largely-amoral GFFA. Personally, if he had whacked the offending-males ONLY, then I would have been completely-OK with that. The Book of Jasher has many similar parallels. I understand vengeance. But killing those who were not apart of the Shmi capture, was purely an act of murder.

But pragmatically speaking; at the end of the day, the Tusken's lived by the Gaderffii and so that tribe DIED by the Gaderffii. Just so happened to be a blue, glowing one.

Law governs the land. And Tatooine had none.
Hard to REALLY analyze, so foreign in relation to everything we know and do.

/end of random Tusken musings

 

I'm not up to date on the governments of Third World countries but I would say that's the best real life comparison: Tatooine to a Third World country run by a dictatorial tribe of gangsters who have seized power by force and held it there using terror tactics. You want to survive in such a place? Please the gangsters or at least stay out of their way.

That's why I agree with you, I think Anakin was justified in killing the Tusken men. The women and children--there is really no defense for that, they were as innocent as his mother was.

Under the Jedi code, was Anakin wrong even to kill the men? Of course. But this is where I agree with Padme--he's a Jedi, but he's also human.

 

I know I'm gonna be slammed aroud for this, but I want to try something I never did before. I'm gonna be Anakin's lawyer and defend his reasoning to go after the entire tribe.

Tuskens believe in a blood rite, etc. The adults teach the kids their ways, the women stand by and probably feed/care for the men and boys. Guilt by association. The women Tuskens clearly didn't mind the fact they were torturing an innocent female human. They would have no doubt encouraged their young to have their bloody way with that woman.

And Tatooine is a lawless planet. To the settlers of Tatooine, Anakin's a big damned hero. One less tribe for them to worry about.

Yes, the Republic and the Jedi would frown at this, but the law doesn't exist in Tatooine. It's every man for himself. A dog eat dog world. Survival of the fittest. The Tuskens got that lesson when faced with a man weilding a lightsaber. The children? These are not the innocent little tykes we would think. They were being taught that torture and murder were a good thing, and no doubt went to beat Shmi themselves.

Therefore we should not feel pity for the Tusken women and children. They lived by their creed and died by their creed.


~~~~
*prepares self to be flamed*

 

No need for a fire-retardent Jedi robe, you are not alone:

 

Every time I see the thread title, my head formulates the response: "Hard! With lots of leather and whipping. Oooo, punish those naughty little Tusken Raiders!" But maybe that's just me.

 

Nah, Cryo... that POV seems to be the most prevalent in here.

 

John Williams has called the music "endlessly compelling". I think you can say the same for various situations and actions in the films themselves. There are many shades of grey.

 

Great answer. From ours and the Jedi's points of view, what Anakin did was wrong. But ironically, from the Tusken's point of view, it may have actually been understandable and relatable; that is not to say they were OK with it, of course, but it was a reaction they could relate to, because that is how their society worked.

 

Right. If Anakin had decided to leave the Order in that moment and become a Tusken himself... WHO among them could have stopped him? He would have become their Warlord, if only because none could oppose him.

He would have become Darth Hayt, all on his own.

 

All kidding aside, we should do well to contrast these statements, I think, noting how similar they actually are:

CLIEGG LARS: Those Tuskens may walk like men, but they're vicious, mindless monsters.

OBI-WAN KENOBI: He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil.

As presented in the films, the Tuskens are unknowable, remote, but also finite in their numbers, their powers and their mortality. The latter is true of Darth Vader and the former is only untrue because the prequels exist in order for us to get to know the man behind the mask. Y'know, when Cliegg appears on-screen, old, damaged, beleaguered, his youthful optimisms and naivete long spent, a victim of the very people he paints as inhuman, he definitely reminds me of spectral Obi-Wan talking to Luke about Vader on Dagobah in ROTJ. We should be slightly on edge over all this, I think. On the other hand, Anakin is something of a cosmic redeemer, if you will. Consider his final actions in ROTJ. He overthrows a despot (literally) and releases millions of people from the yoke of the Empire. It's a flawed action, perhaps, since it involves murder, but one can dimly see a similar paradigm at work in AOTC. This is a somewhat grim or pithy stance -- looking for a silver lining in a dark cloud, as if that abrogates the darkness -- but I think there's a measure of truth to it.

 

WHere was it ever said or implied that Shmi was tortured? I don't think Tuskans undertake that kind of behaviour.

 

The novelization describes it pretty well. They had broken several of her bones. They had also beaten her face until her eyes swelled nearly shut. It says they used spears, blunt shafts and short whips and beat her every day for weeks.

 

Tatooine was not in the Republic. Just going by the sheer number of worlds alone, you're bound to have lawlessness on some of them.

 

True, but is the novel even necessary for that? Just look at her condition in the movie...

 

Or better yet, how long did she last after getting released from the wooden-torture-rack? Two minutes?

 

Less.

 

I was tryin to be generous.

 

When Anakin comes out of the tent after Shmi joins with the force, the Tuskens attack him first.

So it is totally plausible that a possessive, angry mamma's boy padawan would lose control and in a moment of despair and cancel out a few of the more aggressive members of the tribe. As he did so, more likely came at him. The females and older children would possibly have joined in, and they too surely felt his vengeful wrath. A snowball effect if you will -- on a very hot and sandy camp site. You know what they say about payback!

But, my lame conjecture and the poor excuses of others aside, I loved that scene from the speeder ride to the Tusken camp through his 'revenge.' Now, the wailing and crying in Padme's arms was more than a bit over the top, very untouching and sooo . . . .awkward.

Anakin ultimately received his due punishment. He helped destroy the Republic in order to save his wife, ended up on life-support for 20+ years thinking he killed her and his unborn child on Mustafar, and then watched as his boss offer his newly discovered Jedi son HIS job. Now THAT, my friends, had to hurt!

 

You could say that Anakin Skywalker effectively cut off his own emotional-arms and legs, at the same moment when he cleaved the head off of the first Raider who rushed to meet him. He was there in time and still failed to prevent her death.


Only Darth Vader could have survived those kinds of self- inflicted, and otherwise normally fatal wounds. Failed, short-distance leaps aside, of course.

 

(Note: I don't think ANYONE is saying Anakin's rage is not understandable, nor are any saying it was right.)

But if was excusable, understandable, perhaps necessary - WHY did Anakin feel so bad afterwards?

 

Someone here already mentioned about the Jedi being held to a higher moral standard. Anakin was holding himself to that standard.

I think there has to be a balance between Jedi ideals (many of which are admirable) and human shortcomings that, in the same situation, most any of us would succumb to. And the latter is what I look at when I decide how I will or will not judge Anakin.

 

About the Tuskens, there did not seem to be any legal recourse so a proper punishment could probably not be found

Someone said Anakin did not mention it to anyone but Palpatine, Wrong, he also told Padme who apparently did not think it was a big deal.

For those arguing that the Tuskens deserve it, that they are all evil and mindless monsters and it is a good thing they were all killed.
First what you are arguing for is Genocide, that if every last Tusken was killed then this would be a good thing. This is pretty much what Hitler and the Nazis were working for with the Jews.
Second, consider what would happen is an alien race came to this planet and observed our behavior. They would see that we kill, torture, maim, rape, exterminate and a number of other less than pleasant things. So they decide that the Human race should be wiped out because some of us had done bad things and we live in a violent culture. Would that be fair?

About the Tuskens, what they did to Shmi, and their blood rites. Very little of that is IN the films, we know that they are violent, we know they can and will attack people.
We know they did kidnap Shmi and she did look quite beat up. But none of this stuff about violent rites or that tuskens are raised to maim and kill and so on.
So based on JUST the films, how do you judge Anakin actions?

Also do you think Anakin would have reacted differently if it had been a bunch of human raiders that had taken Shmi? If she had been taken to another settlement and beaten in the same way and then Anakin found her. Would he have been able to stop himself?
If he had not and had reacted exactly as with the Tuskens, would you view him any differently knowing it was HUMAN children he killed?

Lastly, I got involved in a debate about whether or not Anakin killed all the Tuskens and how he killed them and how much time it took. Someone suggest it only took a minute.

Now using ONLY the films here.
We saw Anakin begin his killings with his lightsaber.
The camp is fairly large, about 20 tents. Given an average of three people per tents then that gives around 60 people in the camp.
Would any of the Tuskens try to run? We know they are easy to scare so it is very unlikely that everyone simply charged Anakin, down to the smallest child.
The use of Force powers? Using Force powers requires a certain amount of control and calm from the user. Given the state Anakin was in, total, out of control rage, calmness was not something he was in possession of.
Later Anakin said ?I killed them ALL? and ?I slaughtered them like animals.? How are animals slaughtered? Most often they are cut up.

Given all this I think it very likely that Anakin killed each and every Tusken with his lightsaber. Since he said he killed them ALL that means he chased after those that tried to run and he also must have searched each tent and killing those he found there.

This would take significantly more than one minute, time enough for Anakin to calm down but either he never did or he did calm down but kept on killing anyway.

Final question, given that Anakin totally lost control of himself and what he did, would such a person be fit to serve in the military or the police? If a member of the military or the police had done what Anakin did and his superiors learned about it, how would they react?

Regards
Nordom

 

Good questions, Nordom. My short answers would be this:

Yes, I would judge Anakin's actions the same way without the Wookieepedia info on bloodrites. The fact that the Tuskens had beaten the crap out of Shmi was pretty obvious anyway. I would also judge him the same if the Tuskens were human. They basically were. I in no way defend Anakin killing the children, human or Tusken.

I know this isn't in the film either, but the novelization says that Anakin dropped a large rock on a tent full of women and children. Still wrong but they weren't all hacked to pieces individually.

As far as whether Anakin was still fit to serve, I think that any hearing on that should take the circumstances into account. Maybe he deserved to be expelled from the Order for it, I don't know, but it's also not as simple as "Anakin committed mass murder on innocents in a blind rage.". The lack of recourse for crime victims on Tatooine should be taken into account.

 

The fact that Padme did not tell anyone does not indicate that she necessarily did not see it as a big deal. You can interpret it that way, but, from my point of view, I can see why Padme would have been willing to keep this a secret for Anakin. She may have even encouraged him to tell an authority figure and Anakin then told Palpatine, who would of course have reassured him that what he did wasn't wrong. In such a scenario, I can comprehend why Padme would decide to let it be.

For one, I don't think anyone ever said the Tuskens, as a race, deserved to be systematically killed. I think those who say the Tuskens deserved to die (not my opinion) would argue that it was only those in the camp that Anakin had the right to kill. Your comparison to Hitler and the Nazis murdering the Jews is poor in that case, because the Jews had done absolutely nothing to the German people to deserve what happened to them. They certainly didn't kidnap German women and beat them to death.

Except what Anakin was reacting to was completely different. He isn't just "observing" the Tuskens. He already knows they are violent -- they shot at his podracer remember? And he didn't feel the need to track them down and kill them because of the behavior he observed. Anakin's response was directly induced by the kidnap, brutalization, and death of his mother. He isn't a spectator in this scenario -- he's been forced to become a full participant.

Anakin did not kill them because he was vaguely disgusted by their violent actions and decided to do something about it. He killed them because they tortured his mother to death. He didn't just run into the camp and start hacking away -- he snuck into it rescue his mother. It's only when she died that he completely lost control and attacked them. Was it right? No. But was it an understandable reaction, given the trauma he'd just been through? Yes.

I think he would have reacted exactly the same. Do Tuskens really look that different from stormtroopers? They're in full-body garb and humanoid, so I doubt that makes a difference. And even if they were human, I would feel the same way about Anakin's actions: they were wrong, but I empathize with his reaction.