PT Was Life Really THAT Bad For Slave Anakin?

I mean, the kid had it all - a loving mother, a home to call his own, friends, a job - heck, he had his own droid! Was Anakin's life as a slave really that terrible when compared to, say, slaves scattered throughout real-life history?

 

And no certainty any of those things would persist. He could have been sold at any time, or lost to some gambling debt. He wasn't legally a person as a slave. And if anyone had hurt him, it wouldn't be considered a wrong against him but against Watto. His life was measured by its worth in credits. Kill him? Just pay his worth to Watto. Not murder, just damage of someone's property.
And the knowledge that if he ever ran away, he would die.

It doesn't take constant mistreatment to make a slave's life bad; just being one is bad already, and there is always the chance that the mistreatment will come along soon enough.

But hey, what's so bad about not even being considered a person? What's so bad about having no free agency? What's so bad about having your fate permanently in the hands of an owner? Pretty much everything, really.

 

Well not being allowed to leave with a exploding tracker inside your body and being used as a commodity rather than person is pretty bad to me...any form of enslavement is no matter how "benevolent" a slaver may seem; and Watto was only so do to Anakin's various skills.

 

From many sources, I'd say it wasn't. But that's mainly attributed to Watto's lenience towards the Skywalkers. Anakin saw that others had it much worse.

But to drive the point home, Anakin was almost happy to see Watto in Ep. II. I guess he was thankful for all that Watto's done for him, even as a slaveowner.

 

The kid was six and Watto was a broke peddler without a great many ways to control his slaves. He goes too far with Anakin and who's to say Shmi doesn't spike his drinks with motor oil or just flip out and start throttling the twerp? It's in his best interests in general to keep his slaves from getting too angry with him.

Now what happens when Watto catches a lucky break and can afford bodyguards or more sophisticated control devices? Or he sells them to someone nastier? He's not going to have it all for much longer if that happened.

 

Please tell me that there seriously isn't a thread to rationalize how slavery--where someone owns you outright and you have no rights to anything whatsoever--isn't that bad.

 

Perhaps I should add 'for a slave' on to the subject header. I'm not saying his conditions were good -just that they were not a bad situation for being a slave and all

 

Once again, you miss the point. Compared to other slaves, Anakin's situation was not bad at all. I am NOT saying being a slave is a 'not bad' condition.

 

Yeah.."rights" provided by the owner...some slave owners would educate their slaves somewhat to point of making them feel obliged to serve in order to repay such "kindness"...

 

Alright, I'm just gonna yield here before things get worse. This was a dumb topic to make, and I apologize. I hope you see the point I was trying to reflect.

Sorry guys.

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Slavery in Star Wars and slavery in real life is quite a different thing. When you try to mix them, it gets ugly.

Anyways, the guy was just making an observation from what he saw on film. Pretty much all sources say the same thing when it comes to Anakin's enslavement: he had it better than others. Of course, Anakin still looked at the general institution with contempt, but he realized Watto was merely a businessman.

 

If you're seriously going to play a game of relative morals, then let's play. Are you trying to downplay the negative impact Anakin growing up as a slave as compared to other hypothetical slaves as well as the real life slaves as recorded in our history? And you don't see what problem there might be in drawing that parallel? Not only does it seem to imply that you seem to be saying that a sentient being having ABSOLUTE rights to another sentient being is A-OK as long as the slave is treated decently, it also gives the sense that you're downplaying the outright misery slavery has caused in our history and in real life (oh yeah, it's still ongoing by the way except it's taken on different forms such as the flesh trade) because you're trying to compare and equate REAL slaves with a fictional one that's not even located in our galaxy.

But if you seriously want to go down this route, go ahead.

Let's just take apart the life that you state meant Watto provided Anakin with everything he needed. I'm going to quote your original post exactly so you know I'm not putting words in your mouth.

First of all, yes, Anakin does have his mother, a home, friends, his own droid, and a job. But let's address your assumptions about what exactly is best for Anakin. Have you seen TPM? Have you seen what age Anakin is? He looks like he's about 9, doesn't he? So, a good childhood for a 9 year old kid would be allowing him to be an innocent kid, right? The expectation wouldn't be to hold down a dangerous job dealing with machinery and tech that could seriously injure him if he didn't know what he was doing or if there were inadequate safety measures in place to prevent accidents from occurring in order to put food on the table for his mother, now would it? That would surely be akin to what happened to the so-called factory kids in the advent of the Industrial Revolution when we didn't have those child labor laws. Why are you presenting Anakin even having a job as a good thing? He shouldn't even be expected to hold down a job!

Secondly, he has his mother whose purpose as a slave seems to be less defined. Sure, Anakin is lucky to have his mother since they very well could have been separated at any time but Watto was likely prevented from doing so because if he sells off Shmi then who's going to take care of Anakin? The kid's smart but he's likely not smart enough to take care of himself entirely on his own. So, Shmi is there to ensure Watto has a worker ready to do more unpaid labor for him. She effectively acts like an overseer because her very presence assures Watto that Anakin will NOT run away. That sure sounds like a great life, doesn't it? To have your very mother be used as collateral for your good behavior while you get the benefit of a job where you risk your life and limb to work for room and board-- all concerns any 9 year old should have.

Thirdly, if you're trying to make the comparison to historical slavery, we all know the worst extremes but there were also relatively benign slave owners similar to Watto. Just because they treated their slaves well, doesn't mean that they still did not do wrong. There were slaves that chose to accept their lot in life under the worst of masters while there were slaves that chose to risk it all and run away to the abolitionists in the North even though compared to other slaves, they "had it made," especially if they were favored enough by their masters to be taught to read and write to be able to perform specialized tasks and functions that only those that were trusted could do. The slave owners who didn't outright abuse their slaves still felt it within their rights to take other little liberties that they felt within their rights to take simply because they viewed other human beings as below them. So, just like with Watto, no matter what nice window dressing you apply, it still doesn't change that fundamental fact: a slave owner is takes away the rights of slave-- they are master of what that slave eats, drinks, breathes, etc. EVERYTHING is upon their sufferance.

Fourthly, the friends that you say is something Anakin having should be credited to Watto. No. Anakin having friends is a credit to Anakin, not Watto. Just because Anakin has friends, it doesn't automatically say Watto's a good person for allowing him to have them. I don't even want to elaborate how problematic this example you bring up of how Anakin doesn't have it that bad is.

Finally, the droid-- and if you want to be more inclusive of Anakin's "possessions," the pod racer. I seriously doubt that Watto, given how slimy he seemed to be in his mercantile dealings, would've been very pleased with Anakin for taking parts from Watto's shop to build a droid and a pod racer. Which also explains why Anakin only shows the droid and podracer to his trusted friends and to strangers that he knows are sympathetic to his plight as a slave. Also, he's a little kid and if he weren't a slave, don't you expect that Shmi would've gotten him some toys and droids if they had been able to live a normal life? Take Luke, he lived on Tatooine with his uncle, a moisture farmer, which seems like a really hard way to make a living but they still had multiple droids and a ton of other stuff that they were able to afford. From what is seen in Anakin's house, I would say Watto gave the bare minimum for what passes as a standard of living in the Star Wars galaxy.

In conclusion, I seriously hope you've realized just why this question is so problematic. I'm pretty sure a lot of people share the same qualms about why you would even make this comparison.

 

I 100% agree with you. Slavery is by no means a good thing, and this was a stupid topic to create.

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"That bad" is a relative term.

I can see what you're saying, Joe Antonetti. It could have been worse, he could have been on fire the whole time, or beaten every day, or rented out sexually, etc. It wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that good, either. Regardless of actual treatment, the life of a slave is a degrading, dehumanizing, depressing, hopeless experience.

 

Thank You. You verbalize what I was trying to say in this topic. While this was a bad idea to create it in the first place, that's what I was trying to say when I created this topic

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I think one of the issues that arises in terms of Anakin's slavery is that (it seems to me) Lucas based his conception of slavery on ancient Rome's rather than the pre-Civil War American south (which is what most Americans are familiar with). In that sense, there are going to be some oddities because Rome had a rather more complicated system of slavery than America did in regards to the fact that slaves were not simply unskilled labor; and brutal treatment, while by no means absent in Rome, was not as ubiquitous as it was in the United States' history of slavery.

For my part, I believe that a Roman form of slavery was adopted by Lucas for two overarching reasons:

1. TPM is a child-friendly movie and so instances of extreme child abuse were not going to fly. Lucas had to be more subtle.

2. Allusions to the Roman Republic are quite common throughout the PT -- including the rise of an Empire.

But if we look at slavery in ancient Rome (at least according to Wikipedia), it states the following:

"Slavery in ancient Rome played an important role in society and the economy. Besides manual labor, slaves performed many domestic services, and might be employed at highly skilled jobs and professions. Teachers, accountants, and physicians were often slaves. Greek slaves in particular might be highly educated. Unskilled slaves, or those condemned to slavery as punishment, worked on farms, in mines, and at mills. Their living conditions were brutal, and their lives short."

There is a clear delineation between "skilled" and "unskilled" slaves and it has often been historically noted that skilled slaves were treated better than those who were merely exploited for manual labor. I believe Anakin and his mother would have fallen into the former category. As noted in Wikipedia again:

"There are reports of abuse of slaves by Romans, but there is little information to indicate how widespread such harsh treatment was. Cato the Elder was recorded as expelling his old or sick slaves from his house. Seneca held the view that a slave who was treated well would perform a better job than a poorly treated slave."

In all likelihood, I think it's likely that Watto fell in line with Seneca's school of thought in believing that by treating Anakin and Shmi relatively well, they would perform better. I doubt however, that if he became upset with them, he would have any qualms about utilizing physical coercion. More important to the PT, though, were the psychological effects. As is noted:

"According to Marcel Mauss, in Roman times the persona gradually became "synonymous with the true nature of the individual" but "the slave was excluded from it. servus non habet personam ["a slave has no persona"]. He has no personality. He does not own his body; he has no ancestors, no name, no cognomen, no goods of his own."[50]"

This, in particular, I feel is reflective of Anakin's struggle and the psychological scars he endured as a slave. He is dehumanized and wants to feel as though he is a person. His dialogue towards Padmé, where he insists he has a name, is also indicative of this. But, for me, it demonstrates one of Anakin's greater problems -- he has difficulty forming an identity of his own, in which he is comfortable, and I think he often looks to others for reassurance.

One other important factor to consider in regards to Anakin's slavery is that he is a child and doesn't know any better -- being a slave is all he has ever been and thus, he has little reason to show any discontent. But growing up on prosperous Coruscant would, I feel, have embittered him to an extent when he realized how much of life he and his mother had been deprived of and the rights that citizens of the Republic took for granted.

 

Please tell me that there seriously isn't a thread to rationalize how slavery--where someone owns you outright and you have no rights to anything whatsoever--isn't that bad.

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to be fair, I think the original poster wasn't contending slavery was ok, but rather did other slaves have it worse, ie, beaten, starved etc.


Also to the original poster don't feel bad about making this topic, it isn't a dumb topic to make nor was it a mistake, in fact it's refreshing to read something new to be perfectly honest and not rehashing the same old stuff.

if people are sensitive about disscussing this issue, it's not fair to make the orginal poster feel bad about it, it's just better to not post in this thread.

 

I think an important factor the OP missed was that while he did have a mother to care for him, he had to live with the knowledge that she could have been taken away from him at any moment and that there would have been nothing he could do about it. I don't think you can underestimate the psychological trama that would cause someone (especially someone his age) and it would cause him to lose any sense of security in his upbringing which I think is a big factor in the developement of children. I think that is one of the reasons why he places such attachment on his mother and Padme. He doesn't ever want to feel that vulnerable again and can you honestly blame him for that.

I don't think many people have had to grow up under the kind of enviroment that Anakin did and I don't think it should be underestimated by saying, "Well, Watto didn't beat him so his life was alot better than other slaves." Watto held him and his mother in permanent bondage and could have taken either of their lives on a whim if he so chose. The ultimately tragedy of Anakin I think is that he never had a life of his own without the fear that it could be snatched away from him. He fears this so much that he places himself in bondage again to the Emperor but that just causes him to lose everything. It is not until he decides to save his sons life that he is truly free.

 

Let's face it, it *appeared* Anakin had it physically "easy" but pyschologically "difficult." And I suppose for some the psychological is something that doesn't occur to them.

I concur: the OP meant this thread out of curiosity and deserved the thoughtful answers that did appear here (such as the comparison between Roman slaves and American slaves, etc.).