"The Jedi turned against me! Don't you turn against me!" Oh, really?

In AOTC when Obi-Wan feels that Anakin wasn't ready for the assignment to protect Senator Amidala, Yoda expresses the Jedi Council's decision and Mace Windu talks about Anakin's exceptional skills. Yes, for one so young, Anakin did have exceptional skills that he was so confident in that he actually believed that he could revil Master Yoda as a swordsman. He also tells Padme that he was in fact ahead of Obi-Wan. After Dooku humbled him on Geonosis, Anakin becomes a hero in the Clone Wars. He becomes General Skywalker and fights the Separatists with cunning in defense of the Republic.


Now fast forward to ROTS. Anakin defeats the great legendary swordsman Count Dooku in lightsaber combat. He saves Obi-Wan Kenobi's life for the 100th time. After he rescues the Chancellor singlehandedly without Obi-Wan's help, they get the Chancellor safely back to Coruscant and Obi-Wan gives a report on what transpired during his and Anakin's mission to rescue the Chancellor and afterwards.

Everything becomes complicated once the Council asks Anakin to spy on the Chancellor and Anakin becomes very upset with not only his assignment to spy on the Chancellor, but they deny him the rank of Master especially after his great defeat of Dooku. Shortly after, the Chancellor starts whispering into Anakin's ear, always building Anakin up while speaking lowly of the Jedi and the Jedi Council, sort of like a slinking devil. Anakin buys in and he even tells the Jedi Council that Palpatine requested that he lead the campaign against General Grevious. You can see the slight irritation on Mace Windu's face when he tells Anakin that the Council has a mind of it's own, and they will decide that Master Kenobi will be the one who engages Grevious, not Anakin. Without realizing it, Anakin made himself appear UnJedi like, if that's such a word.

It's apparent that Anakin's problem was always he thought he was just as good or better than the other Jedi, even as a padawan learner and even whines to Palpatine that he feels he's being excluded from the Jedi Council. What did he expect? This to me questions his maturity because he has up to that point been training for 12 years and he knew what it took to be a Jedi. Anakin, in the days of his youth, thinks being a talented swordsman and having a certain degree of strength in the Force is what makes him a great Jedi. Wrong! Anakin was always after glory. Remember what he said to Padme:I'm becoming more powerful than any Jedi has ever dreamed of...


That speaks volumes not only on what he was really about all along, but at maybe how arrogant he would have become if he had been blessed with his fullest potential if not for his dismemberment on Mustafar.

Anakin really wasn't a bad guy, but he had a big head and it contributed to his downfall. So how did the Jedi turned against him?Thoughts?

 

"Turned against him" is what Anakin believes....

Noone really turned against him. They just didn't think he was ready to take great responsibilities and be assigned important missions.

From all the Jedi, I believe that Mace was the one that made Anakin feel bad and uncomfortable....He was very harsh with him, a little more than he should.

They didn't "use" him very well, they didn't give him the space he wanted and at some point deserved...It's like having a rookie Lebron James or Kobe Bryant in your team and telling him that his in not ready for the starting five, while as a substitute he keeps on scoring 20s and 30s....

I believe that it was also Palpatine's praises that made him arrogant and, last but not least, on my view Obi Wan was not ready to have a padawan!

 

"the Jedi turned against me"...in some way it is true.He had done so many great things for them and for the Republic at such young age but the Jedi did nothing but to critise him, telling him that he is too young and too arogant and denying him a seat on the council just because he happened to be good friends with the chancellor who was the only person who encouraged him( for his own reasons obviously).Obi Wan admitted when they were together that he was a very good Jedi and -not very often- praised him. But when it came to the council, i dont remember him telling sth good about Anakin to Yoda and Mace. Mace didnt trust him the moment he told him that Palpatine was Sidious though Anakin was supposed to be the Chosen one, the one who was going to destroy the Sith. Anakin knew about the Prophecy. If i were him, after that moment i would be 100% sure that the Jedi either have sth against me for not allowing me to fulfil the purpose that i was trained to become a jedi or that they have told me lies and that i am not the Chosen one.

"The Jedi turned against me!" After the denial of becoming a master and the words that Palpatine put in Anakin's head, i believe that Anakin's reaction(The Jedi's betrayal) was normal and expected.

I hope you got the message coz i think its a bit complicated..
my language skills are to blaim.

 

You all summed it up pretty well.

Anakin's worst flaw IMO is that he was arrogant. ("That's no moon. That's Anakin's head.") The Jedi were right to feel he needed to be taken down a few pegs, but they didn't go about it very well. Case in point, the Chancellor appointing Anakin to the Council. The Council decided they wanted to have it both ways: they wanted Anakin on the Council to spy on the Chancellor, but they did not grant him Mastery. The Jedi were so steeped in tradition in every other way, they should have continued here: either appoint him and make him a Master, or do not appoint him at all. Anakin was justified at feeling insulted and used.

When it comes to Mace and Yoda, and to some extent Obi-Wan, I think they just didn't know what to do with Anakin. He was not raised in the Temple and he had been a slave the first 9 years of his life, and had all the baggage that came with it. The Council had never dealt with a Jedi who was not raised in the Temple from infancy, at least as far as I am aware.

The Jedi didn't really turn against Anakin, that was Palpatine driving Anakin insane, but they did not do the greatest job with him either.

 

I do agree that for the treasonous assignment that the Jedi Council was asking of him, granting Anakin the rank of Master was in the very least. Yes, he had proven his worth in the Jedi Order more so than most Masters. As Anakin mentioned, spying on the Palpatine was not only against the Jedi Code, it was against the Republic and it was also personal because Anakin was very close to the Chancellor. Obi-Wan told Anakin that in time the Jedi Counil would make Anakin a Master. But it never happened. But his assumption that the Jedi of turning against him wasn't even 1% accurate.

 

Well,since they were not by his side-coz clearly they dont trusted him and had started regretting their decision to let him train- whose side were they?There are always sides...
And as Vader says..."If you are not with me, then you are my enemy".-"Only a Sith deals in absolutes."

 

Anakin saying the Jedi turned against him is pretty much the same as a 6 year old saying the teacher hates me becuase said 6 year old isn't getting his way.

 

Wars do not make one great!

If the ONLY measure of a Jedi is how many droids he destroyed, then certainly Anakin should be a master & the head of the Council as well. /sarcasm

Anakin did not display the emotional maturity of a master, just the skills.

He was not appointed to the Council either. He was appointed as PALPATINE'S REPRESENTATIVE. He spoke for the Chancellor, not himself. That is movie-canon.

With that said, true, the Jedi could have handled things differently. Would it have changed things - shrugs. Could Anakin have tried to understand and work on the areas the Council thought he was weak in - shrugs.

No one is blameless, of course.

 

This is very true. Anakin expressed being frustrated with the Council and he certainly had a right to be. While he displayed excellent leadership skills during the Clone Wars, he still showed signs of immaturity. He'd do something great like rescue the Chancellor while carrying Kenobi unconscious on his back after defeating Dooku, and then he would throw a tantrum in front of the Jedi Council for being denied the rank of Master that he knows will come to him eventually.

 

Regardless of how prodigious someone's skills in a certain area are, it's highly likely that they'll have weaknesses elsewhere and part of having intrapersonal intelligence is acknowledging this and being able to accept advice in those areas. Anakin seemed to find it very difficult to do this and had this constant belief that if he could just become powerful enough, he could overcome anything. It's a childish egocentrism that ultimately brings about his downfall I believe. Everything is always someone else's fault.

 

Two lines stick out to me the most that Anakin spoke:


I'm becoming more powerful than any Jedi has ever dreamed of...


I will become the most powerful Jedi ever...


It seems that Anakin's problem was he was always obsessed with the notion of power.

And yet another line comes to mind:


My powers have doubled since the last time we met, Count.



It sounds like ego or some kind of foolish pride. Anakin was powerful. But had he given himself more to mature only then would he have been the greatest Jedi ever.

 

Well, part of Ani's problem is that he's nearly crazed by power and paranoia. He now figures he can take over the whole galaxy, and that such a course is right and proper and will make everything fine for everyone. In his eyes, anyone who disagrees is obviously against him and is utterly wrong, and he won't tolerate that. He's not insane (as the novelization seems to say), but he's certainly not thinking clearly.

On the other hand, the Council is ignoring their own Code and Republic law for what Ani believes are political or personal reasons. And they apparently see him as just a tool in their campaign against their duly elected leader. To an extent, that's true. Add to that the idea that, with the exception of Kenobi, the Council seems to barely tolerate Ani's presence and doesn't give him the respect he feels he deserves. It's not an entirely accurate view, but the Council doesn't do a whole lot to disprove it.

In the end, it's just another example of how masterful of con artist Palpatine is. He's managed to get nearly everyone to believe things and take actions that would've otherwise been out of the question, and make them think that it's all perfectly OK. If they'd all just stopped and said, "Wait a minute..." and thought things out, they might've realized what was really going on.

But, they didn't...

 

Anakin was a head case. I don't think that he was crazy, but to me he had it in his mind that he was on a Master's level even when he was a padawan. The Jedi Council ordered him to do one simple thing: Spy on the Chancellor. He should know that his duties as a Jedi defending the Republic come far before his friendship with Palpatine. Also, Obi-Wan warns Anakin about Palpatine. Then he later tells Obi-Wan that he thought that the Jedi were evil. For what? He's the one who told Mace Windu that Palpatine was a Sith. Even when he enters Palpatine's office and he sees Mace Windu with his purple saber ignited, it's as clear as day that Mace wasn't trying to assassinate Palpatine and he clearly was trying to place Palpatine under arrest. But of course Anakin is unstable and doesn't agree with Mace Windu's wishes to kill Sidious although he has control of the Senate and the Courts. Yes, Palpatine was a danger as Mace said, but Anakin being thinking of his attachment to Padme and their unborn son Luke, he cuts Mace's hand off and thus begins the Jedi purge.

If anything, Anakin was an idiot. He turns out to be less mature than he was in AOTC and he's three years older. No, the Jedi didn't turn against Anakin. Anakin turned against the Jedi and he knew it.

 

I don't know what Lucas was going for. Did he want us to feel sympathy for Anakin? Did he want us to blame him entirely for his own downfall based on arrogance over-riding his good sense and perspective?

I think that the way Lucas wrote it, you could come away feeling either sympathy or spite - or even a mixture of both. To hear Lucas speak about it afterward in interviews and narrations and so forth, you are left clueless really because he says one thing then another. So perhaps he wanted it all in there and wanted the whole mix.

I think the bottom line is that we are all left to pick whatever we want. If the saga feels better for you believing Anakin to be a spoiled, arrogant brat and responsible for his slide to darkness, there is support for that - although it makes explaining the scenes more sympathetic to Anakin a bit difficult to explain (i.e., his shows of remorse). If it feels better to think of him as a kid with a great amount of responsibility caught between two harsh worlds (Jedi/Palpatine) that works also - I like that one because it both explains his lashing out and the remorse. It does however take away a lot of the responsibility Anakin would otherwise have for his slide into darkness. I am okay with that. It seems to me that if you put someone through the ringer the way he was, especially based on his slavery background, you can't expect a shining diamond. Other characters, especially in the EU have been portrayed as able to deal with this better and make all the right choices in the end, but I find them less realistic.

So for me, it was right in line with Anakin's character that he would see the Jedi as turning against him - and later see Palpatine as turning against him, and Obi-Wan and Padme, etc. To me, it wasn't a matter of merely disagreeing with him, but leaving him out on a limb when he most needed support. Based on ROTS, he was planning to double cross Palpatine also, so it wasn't like he had found ultimate comfort in that corner either.

 

Can you really blame him, given the serious fail quotient on the part of some so-called Masters?

Anakin, as a mechanistic type, is going by midichlorian count here... that's why he thinks he's ahead. Of course, he's neglecting the aspects of the Force that have to do with serenity, maturity, self-control, etc.

 

Agreed the Jedi never turned against Anakin. It was palpatine in the long Run who did by seducing Anakin to the Darkside hence Lying to him that the Darkside can give you anything you want and to save people from dying.

There is a Darth Plaquis Novel coming out soon maybe the Darkside can Save people and We could all be wrong. Lucas wanted to keep it a mytery at first and Cancelled the novel at first but he gave it green lights meaning go just like he does with all other novels like even post Return of the jedi stuff. I am already getting the Creeps about the novel learning Palpatines Orgins and Plaquis. We don't know anything yet but I do remeber Palpatine talking about his Master to Anakin in theater. That was creepy.

 

Anakin was a fool. He believed Palpatine's lies, denied the Jedi's truths, lost Padme, and became a Sith Lord all for nothing. He deserved what he got in the end. But of course everything could have been avoided had he listened to age old wisdom. Had he tried to let go of Padme, everything would have turned out fine. Luke and Leia would have grown up with both of their parents, and the Jedi Order would have remained intact. Anakin was such a fool.

 

I agree with you 100 percent that Anakin was stupid to believe Palpatine's bull. But as far as the Jedi...I'm reading Clone Wars: Wild Space, and the beginning deals with the aftermath of Geonosis. The Jedi lost something like 200 of their own that day, and the survivors were not supposed to cry about it. Why? That would be a sign of "attachment".

I understood completely the need to put the common good of the galaxy above individual people, but... Give. Me. A. Break. If the Jedi were supposed to be completely emotionless, were not even allowed to mourn over their lost comrades, maybe they shouldn't have bothered training sentient beings, they should have just built droids.

In this same novel Yoda accuses Obi-Wan of having "attachment issues" of his own. I actually think Obi-Wan had the right balance of human compassion (or "attachment") and Jedi duty. Obi-Wan's reaction when he learned of Shmi's death was heartfelt sympathy for Anakin. Yoda's reaction was "mothers die, so what?"

 

I haven't read that novel. Remember after Qui-Gon Jinn dies after their skirmish with Darth Maul, a dying Qui-Gon dies and Obi-Wan cries and holds Qui-gon close to him. Is that attachment? Maybe so, but in the Phantom Menace Novel, Obi-Wan tells Anakin to let Qui-Gon go which indicates that he's let Qui-Gon go too. In ROTS Yoda tells Chewbacca and Tarful goodbye and that he'll miss them, but earlier tells Anakin Skywalker not to mourn those that die or miss them. So, the Jedi have these attachments also.

 

Personally, I think Karen Miller was a little harsh in book 1 with Yoda - he's less "stiff" in 2 and 3. That's because I do agree with you to a certain extent - heck, the way Obi-Wan felt he HAD to put on a stiff upper lip and hide his feelings from Yoda were - unsupported, I guess I'll say - by what we saw in the movies & other sources.

I don't let one book alone dictate how we are SUPPOSED to see things, but rather as that author's take on the GFFA.

Read the 3rd book - now Obi-Wan and Anakin deal with how they feel about things, with Obi-Wan weighing in on the "we can't act on emotion but on doing what's right" vs Anakin's more "we do what we feel is right."
Fine line to walk there.

From the totality of what I've seen and read, I believe the most accurate way to see the Jedi as beings who do feel, but do not let their feelings guide them. They may not always succeed, but that is their goal. To feel and release the need to act on those feelings....so one does not act in the grip of anger, or fear, or grief.

 

Books 2 and 3 are sitting on my shelf waiting for me to finish book 1; I look forward to the different perspective.

 

I agree with this 100%...I could not have said it better!

 

I think Anakin's main folly was that he was always wanting more. In effect when he lost his mother was the first in a long line of breaking points that ended with his indecision about who to save, Palpatine and his wife, or the Jedi.

ROTS should be a case study on the pressures a person can take before they snap. He's fine when he's in his heroic role, because then he can focus on his mission. But as soon as he got on planet, he has to worry about Padme's pregnancy and his dreams about her dying, worry about the war efforts and whether or not he's going to be shipped out again, worry about how the relationship he has with Palpatine is now putting him in conflict with the Jedi Order, how his faith in the Order was damaged because of what they asked him to do and how Palpatine was whispering in his ear exactly what he wanted to hear. He's being pulled in three different directions when he could barely handle one. He chose the one that would give him the most personal satisfaction in the only way he thought possible, by taking Palpatine's offer and having faith in their 13 year friendship that he could pull through for him.

The Jedi turned against me line comes from the fact that they effectively emotionally abandoned him. First when it came to Obi-Wan telling him not to worry about the dreams about his mom, and finally when Yoda tells him to let go of his attachments. A line that he takes to mean literally instead of Yoda's intended message of letting go of his fear of loss. He trusted the Jedi up until they asked him to spy on Palpatine, but the trust wasn't broken until Mace wouldn't listen to him in Palpatine's office.

When he's sitting on Mustafar after killing the Seperatist council he probably comes to the conclusion that he can't trust Palpatine either, only Padme (tell me I'm wrong if I am, need to read the book). He feels all alone, and feels only Padme is worthy of his trust. So when he's spouting off his grand plans to Padme, who feels horrified at the very thought, it's very similar to when he was holding his mother in the Tuskan camp. He sees his future falling away and starts pleading with her to go along with it. He offers her the galaxy (comes back to his folly of wanting more) when all she wanted was him. Then when she tells him that Obi-Wan was right and everything it's the final step, he sees her in the same light as the Jedi, his trust is broken with her because she's siding with the Jedi over his ideas and dreams. Then Obi-Wan had to make everything 100 times worse by revealing himself at that moment. Anakin's trust in Padme had just been broken and then he finds that she's brought someone on her ship to kill him he just snaps, leading to the choking scene.

He had three paths to take (Jedi's, Palpatine's, and his own which couldn't happen after he was burned), the one person who's opinion he valued over anyone else's didn't follow what he wanted, so he was left wallowing in his own anger (at himself and the Jedi), hatred (Jedi), and despair (his love not following him) and left him feeling that if they weren't going to follow him on the path that he'd chosen, then they were going to be his enemy.

 

Three Words in which You are correct but I am saying this about Anakin. Here are the words

"Anakin is Stupid"

Here is Nelsons quote from the Simpsons. "Ha Ha"