Was Anakin Destined To Fall And Be Redeemed?.

i was thinking that perhaps the chosen one prophecy was misread. i believe the chosen one was destined to fall and be redeemed. as han once said vader was the olny one who got close to palpatine. you see in order for the chosen one to suceed anakin had to fall to get close to palps then came luke who i believe was a hidden code in the prophecy helped anakin break free catch palpatine off gaurd and kill him.

 

No, he wasn't destined to fall and be redeemed.

Anakin's destiny (what the Force intended to do through him) was to bring balance.

He could have rejected it. He could have fulfilled it, in any number of ways.

Anakin chose his path.

 

Anakin was already pretty close to Palpatine.

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By my view, bringing balance to the Force required not only the destruction of the Sith but also the complete and utter defeat of the dark side itself. The latter, obviously, could only be achieved by someone in the thrall of the dark side, supposedly lost forever.

So, yes, insofar as Anakin was "destined to be" the Chosen One, I would argue he was "destined" to turn as well.

Whether or not he could have chosen to avoid his destiny entirely is another matter.

 

Personally, I don't recall the complete and utter defeat of the dark side.

 

It's that bit where Anakin Skywalker kicks Darth Vader's ass.

 

I don't put much stock in Obi-Wan's point of view.

 

If you're going to turn your nose up at metaphor you might as well never speak again.

 

I think it was Barriss Offee in one of the MedStar books who was thinking about the Sith, realizing that, for balance to be brought to the Force, it may necessitate the fall of the Jedi. She realized that if the Sith were only two, then for true balance to take place, the Jedi may need a similar reduction, to be in proper balance, before The Force would resolve it all.

I think that's how I remember it; it was just one POV, but it's worth noting.

 

Its a common point of view amongst fans, but I think it is off point, since it reduces "balance" to a game of numbers.

Certainly, a case can be made for the need to purge the Jedi, but not on that basis.

 

I think so too. Because when Anakin went to Zenoma Sekot, the pods that made his ship told him he'd go through the firing process. He didn't understand. Of course, he was a child.

 

I'm with this. My personal view is that the best analogy is to compare the dark side to a cancer. Then, balance doesn't mean exactly half the body is infected with cancer; it means cancer has been totally eradicated from the body.

Interesting. I haven't read Rogue Planet, but what is the implication for how the pods know this? After all, if the pods knew the future, then their prediction was correct regardless of whether Anakin had multiple paths towards bringing about balance or not. They simply might have known which path he'd choose.

 

My first post in this thread pertains to a vision of Vader nearly 4,000 years before he existed. Along with Zayne, and Luke, and Cade. It was clearly preordained.

But as for the cancer analogy, that would be flawed because by that logic, the prophecy was never fulfilled.

 

Anakin was a "vergence" in the Force. I take that to mean that he was a place where dark met light. I think he was destined to fall. I also think he was destined to take out the Jedi Order as well. They became too arrogant and sure of themselves to the point where they didn't even see their own end in the prophecy. By DH's Legacy era the Jedi still aren't this monolithic institution that they were in the Old Republic. The Jedi themselves were as much out of balance as the Sith coming to power were.

 

Anakin was never destined to fall like he did, taking the whole of the Jedi Order with it. If Anakin doesn't fall then I can very easily see the Order changing it's ways to a more Luke-like order once it's shown that someone of Anakin's power and prestige can stay with the Jedi even with a great personal attachment. He even prevents the dark age that produces all those darksiders that are popping up later (Lumiya and Krayt).

It's just hard to believe that the force would pull something like that on it's child. It is possible of course, but his only destiny was to defeat the Sith and the darkside.

 

It's a fair point, so allow me to elaborate. I believe the Prophecy of the Chosen One involved the destruction of the Sith and the elimination of them as the unchallenged ruling force in the galaxy. After Palpatine's defeat, never again will the Sith rule unchallenged. And before you point to the Legacy comics, let me point to a remark from Darth Krayt in Legacy #1. Though Krayt has claimed the Imperial throne, he realizes that Roan Fel still lives and announces that enough forces remain loyal to Fel that if he calls upon them, "he could split the Empire." Therefore, Krayt can't be said to rule the galaxy unchallenged. (We'll see in Legacy #50 if this theory holds up or is completely destroyed.)

My biggest problem with theory that Anakin represents the Chosen One because he is the point where the Light and the Dark meet, and/or because he crosses into the dark side and is redeemed, is that Ulic Qel-Droma did the same thing thousands of years earlier. On this front, I have trouble differentiating how Anakin "The Chosen One" Skywalker's journey is different from Ulic Qel-Droma's in such a way that Anakin is the Chosen One.

 

I think the Chosen One was meant to kill Palpatine and the Order of Bane.

Nothing more.

 

Unless of course the Chosen One is cyclical prophecy and Anakin was the latest person that it involved.

 

You could also argue that it wouldn't have mattered if Luke turned or if Vader turned because Wedge and Lando would have blown the crap out of the lot of them anyway. LOL.

 

Hm, I can think of two interpretations.

1) Anakin did grow up on Tatooine as a slave, which led to all of his personality flaws, which in a way made his fall inevitable, but also allowed for his son Luke to eventually restart the Jedi Order with a clean slate. Theoretically a clean slate anyway, before most eras just fell back on the prequel era Jedi Council model. Anakin fell, but he also came back, and really hurt Palpatine in the process (as in killing him, and/or slowing him down for a few years if we're counting Dark Empire). The problem is the idea that the Force sorta guided Anakin along the path that led to Order 66, but oh well, its not that big of a problem.

2) Anakin could've just killed Palpatine right then and there in that office when he was faced with Mace Windu and Palpatine. Or even before that, although by that point Anakin was already very unstable, but my point is that Anakin could've killed Palpaitne before he declared himself Emperor. There would've still been a very corrupt Republic, the Clone Wars (as I think Palpatine told the Seperatists to shut down later on after that scene), and the Jedi may have had to overthrow the Senate, but that probably would've involved several decades of clean-up, but possible. Its just that Anakin was so screwed up that he attacked Mace instead, so he ended up taking several decades longer to fulfill his destiny than most people ever expected.

There were visions of Darth Vader, his burns, etc., and from an outside view it all seems destined, with a whole symmetrical feel to his story, but... given the presence of the Force, not sure how much one can chalk up to free will or not. But that's always been the problem with having a supposedly all-guiding energy field in a story.

 

Here's what I posted at the SWTOR forum concerning this topic, slightly edited:

Based upon the premise that the origin of the dark side is from life, and that naturally the dark side and its opposite ("light side") balance each other out in Force as generated by the sum total of life, the dark side of life began to slowly unbalance the Force, through people like Jabba the Hutt, the corrupt senators in the Galactic Senate, the robber barons running the Trade Federation, Corporate Alliance, and Commerce Guilds, and the Dark Lords of the Sith, whom are cultivating this corruption themselves.

By the time of Episode I, the Jedi themselves were a part of this imbalance, whether it be personally or merely through association; the Republic itself is a metaphor for the Force. The Jedi are intimately and irrevocably tied to it, and it has corrupted to the point of disrepair, and the only way to restore it is to destroy it and start from scratch.

The Chosen One wipes out the Jedi, whom if not personally corrupted by the time of Episode I, became so by the time of Episode III by the Clone Wars ? through the machinations of the Sith, the prime movers of the corruption ? ushered forth his "new Empire," wiping out the corrupt Galactic Republic and the robber barons, the corrupt senate is eventually dissolved in Episode IV, and then finally he eliminates the corrupt Sith and the Galactic Empire, cleaning the slate for the new Jedi Order to be led by his untainted son and the New Republic to be led by his untainted daughter. Balance is restored.

No civilization, no matter how great, is ever going to eliminate the general petty crime, murder, etc., which is the natural state of the dark side to remain in balance. When that corruption pervades the government itself, it is out of balance.

Through the mere act of killing Palpatine, or through Palpatine's death, the Force isn't balanced again. If Anakin chose to kill Palpatine in his office in Episode III, the Republic would still be corrupt, the robber barons would still be rebelling, the Jedi would try to overthrow the Republic themselves, the situation would still be karked up.

Anakin, as Vader, eliminated a majority of the corruption, or aided others in doing so, by focusing it into the Empire, which Palpatine saw fit to design so as to self-destruct upon his death, thus focusing it onto Palpatine. Then he killed Palpatine.

To quote Morpheus, "what happened happened and couldn't have happened any other way."

That's my personal interpretation, so YMMV.

 

Always in motion was the future.

Should the Sith have been destroyed, the Republic would no longer have its corruption at its heart. The galaxy could have been repaired by the Jedi Knights no longer having the Sith secretly making things worse. The Jedi needed to change with the times and certainly Luke's order is healthier but that might have occurred with Anakin proving him to be a Jedi Master who treated the whole attachments thing as nonsense.

But yes, all of the visions leading up to Anakin were probably it being the MOST LIKELY future.

 

how can anakin be the chosen one? i still have a hard time comprehending the prophecy if anakin was created by the sith then he is not the chosen one help me out here.