Saga Most Relatable Star Wars Character

Whom in the SW universe do you personally relate to most? Whom can you truly sympathize with and think you feel what they do?

For example, I relate quite well to Anakin. He is without a doubt my favourite fictional character, and his similarities to me are quite... unnerving xD

So anyway, which SW character can you relate to the best?

 

Luke Skywalker. I grew up out in the sticks, wanted to fly and have adventure and excitement in my life, experienced spiritual awakening, struggled with darkness, and came out of it a stronger person.

 

I can imagine few moments in fantasy cinema as immediately and profoundly relatable as Luke looking up at the twin suns. For generations of kids growing up in the confines of suburbia, Luke's emotional journey strikes a deep cord with our modern concept of "coming of age". I know personally, once I got out of high school (I stayed in my home town and went to community college) I began having a major belief crisis and a general sense of dissatisfaction with my surroundings. I felt like there had to be something more to the world, and to life, a greater sense of purpose that I wasn't seeing, that there was a "larger world" that I had yet to step into. That's what I think about when I watch Luke in ANH.

Also, Anakin at the beginning of AOTC, only because, if you've ever been the little boy who had a crush on their babysitter, you know the depth of Anakin's pain when Padme tells him "you'll always be that little boy I met on Tatooine". I always feel a slight tinge of secondhand emasculation when I hear that line.

 

Agreed.

 

yeah, Luke. He was your ordinary kid, yearning for more but unsure what "more" was.

 

I'm quite honestly surprised by the number of people saying Luke. Huh

 

Well, those aspects of Anakin I can relate to - are not my best aspects, shall we say. And I can relate to Obi-Wan, perhaps my fav character, in many ways but I'm sure I fall short of many of his most admirable/distinctive qualities.

But Luke - yeah, he's an ordinary person who did an extraordinary deed.

 

If you can relate to Anakin a lot than that says something big about you, and IMO not in a good way. XD

Luke for me.

 

I'd love to think my answer would be somebody like Han or Obi-Wan, but to be honest, it would probably be Jar Jar. He's awkward, obnoxious, clumsy. Means well, but invariably annoys everyone around him. Not capable of the positions of responsibility he's put into.

 

qft

Jar Jar takes the PT to a level of narrative completeness neither the OT nor any other major fantasy creation achieved. He makes me feel like I'm in the same universe, and I'll always be thankful for that.

 

I don't know whether this was a serious statement or half-serious or a joke .... in any case, I disagree with you vehemently.

There are lots of aspects about Anakin's character and life that can be relateable without saying "smomething big" about you and "not in a good way".
It starts with his less-than-ideal childhood, which is a bit reminiscent of of an orphan in a orphanage. It's not the worst childhood possible, but it's also by far not the best. There is no real home, you're not at all "free", there are people that care for you but it's not quite "normal". Why wouldn't people who grew up in an orphanage, for example, not relate to Anakin? Or kids who grow up with a single-parent or who are separated from their biological parents for whatever reason (e.g. parents alcoholism)? Let alone the fact that Anakin later lost his mother as well, which is quite relateable (at least being afraid of it). Have you never thought about losing the ones you love?

Moreover, there is the point that other people put expectations on you, which is something everyone deals with and can be especially common with kids of rich parents who are expected the be equally succesful and go down the same path, with the parents not realizing that their children should live their own life and not the fictional life they imagined for them. Anakin is considered to be the Chose One, who will bring balance, but he never refers to himself like that. The other Jedi expect from him to bring balance and be some kind of "super Jedi", but it's nothing he set out deliberately to do. He doesn't even seem to be very interested in it.
Anakin also comes to an alien place and feels different - Coruscant, the Jedi Order, politics - which is something many people can relate to. Be it in school, a workplace or another situation where people feel they don't quite fit it.

Additionally, there is Anakin's romance with Padmé. Han Burgundy has already mentioned a rather amusing "relatable" moment about that one, but there are much more. There are plenty of people who are faced with some sort of "forbidden love", in a way that parents, family in general or even society as a whole don't "accept" their partner/lover/husband/wife. The loved one can be accused of not practicing the "right" religion or of having the "wrong" skin color / nationality or simply be rejected for sharing the same sex.

To sum it up, there are plenty of possibilities for people to relate to Anakin without making them a "bad" person. One can relate to the situations that Anakin found himself in without having to agree with some of his choices that were very, very bad and that should be obvious. There is actually a great range of situations and scenarios that can make people relate to Anakin, from "underprivileged" orphans to "overprivileged" high society kids and racial or sexual minorities and THAT'S what makes Anakin's character complex and compelling.
In my opinion, at least.

Now, that was quite a bit of text.
To answer the question: I'd say I can relate to Anakin and Luke to a similar extent. To Anakin not in a necessarily "negative" way, but in a way of what can be challenging and what's perhaps not the bright side of life and Luke for just being an overall good person and a general sense of justice. My "ideal" character would probably be Obi-Wan, though. Obi-Wan's not "perfect", but he is rational and good person and he's got an easy-going attitude without getting disrespectful or offensive that's quite admirable and inspiring.

 

So, do you think it's all Obi-Wan's fault then? XD

 

I admit without regret that yes, I am similar to him in both positive and negative ways

I may not have a troubled past and childhood like him, but I deal with a lot of the same types of stuff. Some stuff Samnz pointed out, most of what anakinfan pointed out

I detest change. It discomforts me and makes me feel out of place
Yeah, I admit that I have attachment issues that I, unlike he, am trying to work on. I can be clingy, borderline parasitic, but my greatest fear is losing people I love
In fact, I feel that a very similar event happened that happened to him - finding someone whom you've searched for for so long, and then destroying your dream come true in an effort to stop it from ending
I have panic attack triggers, and when I'm triggered, I break down and become angry, I do stupid and irrational things (though not as dark as say, slaughtering dozens of people)
Even the silly things like how I deal with trivial infatuation. The poetry I write is something that would make even the people who hate the AOTC love dialogue consider that to be better than mine

But for all the bads, I can certainly say that I relate to his goods, most definitely, yet I do not model myself after him, I don't try to make myself some kind of real life Anakin Skywalker. It's as simple as the real me being that strikingly similar, and relating so well to him is what makes SW so emotionally powerful to me

 

Which part do you mean specifically?
Was it:

?

 

Mate, there's no need to be so judgmental. Especially when the whole point of the Saga is that Anakin could be any one of us, especially in his weaknesses. For me he's not the most relatable, but I see a lot of my flaws in Anakin too. If one really didn't think he reflects anything about oneself, one would be either an emotionally very mature and spiritually-fulfilled, enlightened being, or somewhat deluded.

 

Luke Skywalker. The everyman character needed for the trilogy. We were all that wide eyed kid at one point (whether it was around that age or younger) looking for something new or adventurous. And it really struck a chord with audiences across the world. The scene of him looking at the two Suns is iconic and set the tone for the saga.

 

Got to be Luke. Luke, especially in ANH, is basically playing the role of the audience.

 

Padme was a wealthy, high-ranking official on one of the most technologically advanced planets in the galaxy. I don't think it was an unreasonable assumption that, whatever the problem was going to be, it wouldn't include inadequate medical care.

For me personally...Luke or Obi-Wan. Anakin is probably my favorite character, but I don't actually really relate to him at all.

 

Exactly. Which is why he should have written it off as a nightmare instead of a vision and not freaked the **** out.

Or, maybe, thought through what the problem might be, and looked for a reasonable solution to it. By reasonable, I mean, "a solution that did not involve murdering innocent people and did not actually end up being a solution."

I understand that it's difficult for an emotional person like Anakin to solve problems rationally but he didn't even try.[/quote]


Oh, don't get me wrong, I agree he should have tried harder to look for a reasonable solution that didn't involve murdering people

But I think after the thing with Shmi, he knew the difference between a nightmare and a vision - and just because "lack of medical care" didn't seem like a likely cause for her death didn't mean there couldn't be some other cause.

And for what it's worth, I took his scene with Yoda as an attempt to look for a more reasonable solution. Obviously that might have worked better if he'd been willing to fess up about the relationship and explain exactly what was going on - he gave a vague explanation of the problem, and got vague advice in return - but he did try. And when he found out Palpatine was the Sith Lord, he didn't jump on board with the plan immediately: he told the Jedi, in what seemed to be the hopes that they'd be able to arrest Palpatine and take him alive so that Anakin could pick his brain for information about Force-healing techniques.

Admittedly, Anakin could have come up with much more rational plans than those two, and the fact that he jumped immediately aboard the "join Palpatine" train once those plans failed shows he definitely wasn't thinking clearly. I'm sure if he'd told Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan could have come up with any number of more reasonable solutions. But I do think he tried.

 

Don't generalize so. I'm perfectly content with the mediocre life I live right now, and have never wished for anything beyond what's already feasible

Oh, don't get me wrong, I agree he should have tried harder to look for a reasonable solution that didn't involve murdering people

But I think after the thing with Shmi, he knew the difference between a nightmare and a vision - and just because "lack of medical care" didn't seem like a likely cause for her death didn't mean there couldn't be some other cause.

And for what it's worth, I took his scene with Yoda as an attempt to look for a more reasonable solution. Obviously that might have worked better if he'd been willing to fess up about the relationship and explain exactly what was going on - he gave a vague explanation of the problem, and got vague advice in return - but he did try. And when he found out Palpatine was the Sith Lord, he didn't jump on board with the plan immediately: he told the Jedi, in what seemed to be the hopes that they'd be able to arrest Palpatine and take him alive so that Anakin could pick his brain for information about Force-healing techniques.

Admittedly, Anakin could have come up with much more rational plans than those two, and the fact that he jumped immediately aboard the "join Palpatine" train once those plans failed shows he definitely wasn't thinking clearly. I'm sure if he'd told Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan could have come up with any number of more reasonable solutions. But I do think he tried.[/quote]


I'd say that that wasn't really trying so much as a restrained attempt at trying. He was clearly too apprehensive to give away too much detail, and so couldn't get the counsel that he really needed. It doesn't help that he felt he had absolutely no choice after joining Palpatine. I think all the stress just made his mind kind of numb at the moment. It's only until right up to his fight with Obi-Wan that his mind sort of collapsed from all the stress, thus explaining why he's suddenly crazy lol

 

I don't know, Maybe Chewie. I'm tall. I can be very loud and boisterous at times. And sometimes I speak so fast and mumble my words that people have a hard time understanding me.

Also, if I were in GFFA I would want to spend all my time with Han, too.