PT Was Shmi's death part of Palpatine's scheme?

Dooku killed his family? When was that?

 

"Dooku: Lost Jedi". His mother died when he was young, he has Ventress kill his sister, he overthrows his brother. Not sure about his father.

 

Edit: Double Post.

 

Well Sidious thinks his plans will work right? So from his perspective, Anakin joining him and the establishment of the Empire are the foreseeable future. If Shmi stays on Tatooine, then that would leave a big open weakness of the mighty Lord Vader. Enemies of the Empire could kidnap her and force Vader to do something. Sidious would not want this to happen right? If he never considered this danger then it's really sloppy planning on his part.

 

I was watching ROTS one day and this dawned on me that Palpatine had something to do with Anakin having nightmares of both his mother and later Padme dying. So technically speaking yes I think he had something to do with it because only Palpatine (and Obi Wan) was aware of Anakin's relationship with his mother. Palpatine was also good at manipulation.

 

The thing is that once a Jedi becomes a Sith, all sense of compassion and familiar connections wind up being severed. Maul being around Savage didn't cause him to turn away, but to strengthen his resolve to the dark side. Dooku wanting his sister to die and allowing it to happened confirmed his own commitment. Anakin winds up choking his own wife, which showed his willingness to be evil. What Palpatine never anticipated was that the good man remained buried underneath Vader. With Luke, Sidious wants him dead not because he could turn Vader back, but because he could be a threat to the two of them. He doesn't see Luke as an emotional weakness. He does question Vader's feelings, but then winds up dismissing them later on.

 

OK, but he still allowed Foster's description of the Tuskens to become canon. So he couldn't have disagreed too much with Foster's version, otherwise he would have changed it. Sure, they are "humanoid", meaning two arms and two legs and a head, but that leaves a lot of space for interpretation. The Kaminoans are humanoid, so is Chewbacca, so is Greedo, so is Jar-Jar etc. That still does not make them human in the actual sense.

 

Lucas's own words come first above the book. Regardless, they're still an intelligent species and thus subject to the same rights as all other intelligent species. What Anakin did was wrong, full stop.

 

"Rights"? Given by what law system? The Hutts? I was not aware there was a legal system on Tatooine that gave all creatures any rights. Slavery was tolerated and you talk about the "rights" of a savage and brutal species that constantly kill and attack innocent farmers? Tatooine is an outer-rim planet ruled by a criminal organization. So who says the Tuskens had any "rights"? Not part of the Republic, as is made clear in TPM, who says what moral standards should apply on Tatooine? Quite obviously, there are none. It's kill or be killed, period. If I were Jabba, I may have had a few Tuskens publicly executed just as a warning
Who cared about Shmi's rights anyway? Anakin dealt out justice in a place where no justice existed.

"Wrong" is a point of view. He got the murderers who tortured his mother to death and hopefully taught the rest of them a lesson. He is the future DARTH VADER, one of the most beloved villains in modern cinema, so what he did was absolutely right, full stop.

 

It was more than just Sidious and Obi Wan who were aware though; the entire Jedi Council in TPM knew that Anakin missed his mother. But yes, I agree that Sidious likely gave Anakin the nightmares of both his mother and Padme dying.

If he didn't care about Padme, he would have ignored her and immediately started attacking Obi Wan just like he did with the Separatists. The choke wasn't because all his connections disappeared, but because he was extremely hurt by what he thought was betrayal. He let go of her even though he could feel that she was still alive, meaning he was willing to forgive her even if he thinks she's trying to kill him. After his surgery, the first thing he asked about was her safety. That was is top concern (more important than testing out the new suit and limbs which he would be stuck with for the rest of his life), despite thinking that she tried to kill him and half succeeded. The dark side doesn't magically make people forget about everyone they previously loved.

 

Universal rights. Rights that go beyond mortal man and woman. Beyond the courts. Rights that are beyond our comprehension. The Force has a good and a bad side to it, and the bad side, the dark side, is fueled by greed, anger, fear, hate and vengeance. What Anakin did was wrong, because he did it for selfish gain. This is why he becomes Darth Vader.

"As evil begins to take over, it pushes the Force out of balance. It's easier to succumb to evil than it is to be a hero and try to work things through on the good side. Evil is inherently more powerful—it doesn't have the burden of worrying about other people. What Luke sees in Darth Vader at the end of ROTJ is something that I thought was worth understanding: the idea that Darth actually was a very good person. Except he's slightly more powerful than other people and when you get into that situation, your ability to do evil is much easier to come by."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"It's about a good boy who was loving and had exceptional powers, but how that eventually corrupted him and how he confused possessive love with compassionate love. That happens in Episode II: Regardless of how his mother died, Jedis are not supposed to take vengeance. And that's why they say he was too old to be a Jedi, because he made his emotional connections. His undoing is that he loveth too much."

--George Lucas, Rolling Stone Magazine Interview; June 2005.

The idea that wrong is a point of view is, in fact, a corruption of morality that Palpatine tries to paint, in order to convince Anakin that the dark side and the actions that he has taken and will take, are ultimately correct. But those who know the truth, know what is right and what is wrong in the universe. And thus it is not difficult to determine. The morally right thing for Anakin to have done was to leave with Shmi and bury her at the farm. The morally wrong thing to do was extract vengeance on those who had hurt him emotionally.

No, he didn't. The visions were of the future happen because that is the nature of the Force. Anakin sees Shmi because he is seeing her suffering. He sees Padme's death because he is the cause of it. The Force is a living entity and it will show you the past, the present and the future. The Force is warning Anakin of what he will do.

I didn't say that it makes them forget, but what happens is that it changes one's personality. Vader stops caring for people that he loved because he lets his anger control him.

"One of the problems of Sith is that they are always quick to anger. This scene with her it was very important that we set it up to the point where he chokes her as he does with one of the generals in ANH. But at the same time he doesn’t kill her and he just causes her to faint, but you get to see that flash of anger which he now doesn’t have much control over. The whole point in a Jedi is that you can completely control your anger and now he’s at a point where he can't control it at all and it's because of his need for control, for power and he gets very upset when he can't have it. And now he’s assuming that she’s with Obi-Wan, not necessarily in a love relationship or anything, in the basis that they are both on one side of the path and he’s going down the other."

--George Lucas, ROTS DVD Commentary.

"The thing that breaks Padme's heart in the end is the fact that Anakin says to her, 'Come and join me. I have all the power now. I can rule the universe and you can do it with me.' So the idea of saving her life has become a minor issue. And that's when she says, 'Wait a minute. This is not what I want and you're not the guy I fell in love with!'"

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 52.

Anakin cares for Padme, but not like he did before he turned. A Sith Lord cannot love people other than themselves. That's why Dooku let his sister be killed and why Maul didn't stop being evil when Savage was murdered by Palpatine. As to Vader asking about Padme, it is because he wants to keep her in his life, not because he loves her. If he had still loved her, he wouldn't have attacked her and he wouldn't have done what he did. He did what he did because he loved the idea of Padme and not the reality of who she was. Every action from the moment of his first vision of her death was about himself, not about her. When you love someone, truly love them, you do things for them and not yourself.

 

It's easy to feel sorry for a tiger when it's in a zoo. But if you were in the forrest being hunted by a tiger it's a different story all together.

The Tuskens and the farms are on the edge of a complete wilderness.

I'm not sure if Palpatine needed to supply the nightmare. They nightmares could have happened naturally and Palpatine's power being able to see them and knowing exactly how to manipulate them. I'm a big fan of Palpatine only taking direct action when necessary. I like the idea that his greatest power is being able to see the future which gives him insight to know where to apply the smallest amount of pressure to get the maximum results. Part of that is steering events while something else provides the driving force for those changes.

So I'm saying it's plausable Palpatine manipulated Anakin to have those visions. But I like to think Palpatine was aware of the visions and let them happen naturally. Where he steps in is manipulating what Anakin does because of the the visions.

Palpatine is also very good at seeing how someone reacts in a situation and then repeating those events to get his desired reaction. Anakin and visions. The Rebels and Death Stars. Maybe even Luke wanting protect his friends first on the Death Star II and then later with Kylo Ren.

 

There's a difference between a tiger attacking and killing a family member, versus said family going out and killing the entire pack of tigers, including the cubs, because they're upset over the loss of one person.

 

Spoken like someone who never lived in tiger territory.

 

Exactly. In that case it would have nothing to do with revenge but prevention against further attacks.

 

I think that at the very least, he did forsee her death, if not orchestrate it himself. I wouldn't put it past him, obviously, and he certainly had the means to pull it off. If he could play puppet master to an entire government, he'd be able to manipulate a small tribe into attacking their neighbors.

 

He did what he thinks is best for her: keeping her alive. It's not the ideal way of expressing love, which is respecting the wishes of the other person (Padme would choose the greater good of the galaxy over her own survival), but that doesn't mean it's not love.
He wants to keep her in his life because he still loves her. What do you mean by he doesn't love "the reality of who she was?" The reality is that she refused to help Obi Wan kill him, and was still concerned about his safety after the choke. He misunderstood her, but even then he only lost his mind for about a minute. After regaining his rationality, he was willing to forgive the illusion of the Padme-who-tried-to-kill-him.

Anyways, I'm getting off topic here. For the purpose of the discussion regarding Sidious's plans, let's just go by your opinion for now that Anakin after the turn doesn't actually love Padme, but just wants to keep this person whom he doesn't even love in his life for some reason. Regardless of the reason, bottom line is he still wants her in his life right? So if an enemy of the Empire kidnaps her to use her against Vader, it would still have an effect right? Same with Shmi, if Sidious doesn't do anything about her and lets her continue her life on Tatooine, that would be food for trouble.

 

I disagree. Up to that final confrontation I believe he honestly loved her. I don't see how wanting to keep someone alive is in any way selfish. When did Padmé ever say she wanted to die and Anakin tried to keep her alive against her will? You are mixing things up here. Where BEFORE Mustafar is there anything to indicate that Anakin cared only about himself? That scene was the turning point for him, and his giving in to the dark side was triggered by Obi-Wan's appearance. Had Obi-Wan not hidden on that ship (without Padmé's knowledge and consent!!) Anakin would not have choked her. They probably would have kept on discussing, and Padmé just POSSIBLY might have talked Anakin into being more reasonable, at least calmed him down a little. Without the Force choke, she may even have survived childbirth, contrary to Anakin's vision.
How he felt about her in the suit is a matter of speculation. He obviously still cared enough about her to ask Sidious about her as soon as he woke up. Also, I'm not quite sure if it's really impossible for a Sith to love. We don't really know enough to be 100% sure. Sith after all are individuals as well, and they are not all alike.

 

Yeah we don't know enough about the Sith to get a good picture of their ideology. But even IF they're not supposed to love, that doesn't mean that no Sith ever loves. The Jedi code forbids attachment, yet Anakin obviously had attachments while he was a Jedi.

 

I think Anakin's love for Padme was totally twisted by the time she showed up on Mustafar. Eventually Anakin would have killed her. She'd of become a threat to him. Lucky for him and the galaxy he lost her before he was ready to. This help leave some room for redemption later.

I wonder if Palpatine killed Padme. Could he do that through the Force long distance? Then again it's much more poetic that Anakin caused her death and fulfilled the same visions of the future he was trying to escape.

When it means killing all the Jedi, it's pretty selfish. Anakin's cool causing the deaths of hundreds or thousands of other people so he might save Padme.

 

Edit: Double Post.

 

1. Have you?

2. The idea that you have to kill a pack of tigers, for the actions of one, is like Trump saying that he could end the conflict in Afghanistan by killing ten thousand people.

He's not truly in love with her. He's filled with possessive love which is not the same as compassionate love. Possessive love is clinging on to someone because you're afraid to lose them, because you're afraid to deal with change. You're thinking of yourself, not of the other person. Compassionate love is thinking of that person and respecting their wishes.

"The scene in the garage here, we begin to see that what he's really upset about is the fact that he's not powerful enough. That if he had more power, he could've kept his mother. He could've saved her and she could've been in his life. That relationship could've stayed there if he'd have been just powerful enough. He's greedy in that he wants to keep his mother around, he's greedy in that he wants to become more powerful in order to control things in order to keep the things around that he wants. There's a lot of connections here with the beginning of him sliding into the dark side. And it also shows his jealousy and anger at Obi-Wan and blaming everyone else for his inability to be as powerful as he wants to be, which he hears that he will be, so here he sort of lays out his ambition and you'll see later on his ambition and his dialogue here is the same as Dooku's. He says "I will become more powerful than every Jedi." And you'll hear later on Dooku will say "I have become more powerful than any Jedi." So you're going start to see everybody saying the same thing. And Dooku is kind of the fallen Jedi who was converted to the dark side because the other Sith Lord didn't have time to start from scratch, and so we can see that that's where this is going to lead which is that it is possible for a Jedi to be converted. It is possible for a Jedi to want to become more powerful, and control things. Because of that, and because he was unwilling to let go of his mother, because he was so attached to her, he committed this terrible revenge on the Tusken Raiders."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"The key part of this scene ultimately is Anakin saying "I'm not going to let this happen again." We're cementing his determination to become the most powerful Jedi. The only way you can really do that is to go to the dark side because the dark side is more powerful. If you want the ultimate power you really have to go to the stronger side which is the dark side, but ultimately it would be your undoing. But it's that need for power and the need for power in order to satisfy your greed to keep things and to not let go of things and to allow the natural course of life to go on, which is that things come and go, and to be able to accept the changes that happen around you and not want to keep moments forever frozen in time."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"I have what I call two sharp "right turns" in the movie and they are very hard to deal with. For the audience, it's a real jerk, because you're going along and then somebody yanks you in a different direction. Anakin turning to the dark side and killing Mace is a very hard right, because we're dealing with things that aren't so obvious. The audience knows Anakin is going to turn to the dark side, but the things that he's struggling with are so subtle that it may be hard for people to understand why his obsession to hold onto Padme is so strong.

Showing how much Anakin and Padme care for each other is one of my weak points. Expressing that is hard to do. It's really hard in the end to express the idea, I'm so in love with you that I would do anything to save you; I'd give up everything -friends, my whole life- for you, and make that real-make that stick-and say it in two minutes. When I created it I knew I wanted two hard right turns-it's designed to be that way-and I knew I was taking a real chance that it wasn't going to work. But you have to see if you can make it work. If it doesn't work, well then I'm going to get skewered for it. But if I can make it work, it'll be neat. It'll be good."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith.

"When you get down to where we are right now in the story, you basically get somebody who’s going to make a pact with the Devil, and it’s going to be a pact with the Devil that says, 'I want the power to save somebody from death. I want to be able to stop them from going to the river Styx, and I need to go to a god for that, but the gods won’t do it, so I’m going to go down to Hades and get the Dark Lord to allow me to have this power that will allow me to save the very person I want to hang on to.' You know, it’s Faust. So Anakin wants that power, and that is basically a bad thing. If you’re going to sell your soul to save somebody you love, that’s not a good thing. That’s as we say in the film, unnatural. You have to accept that natural course of life. Of all things. Death is obviously the biggest of them all. Not only death for yourself but death for the things you care about."

--George Lucas, “Star Wars: The Last Battle,” Vanity Fair, 2005.

"The Jedi are trained to let go. They're trained from birth," he continues, "They're not supposed to form attachments. They can love people- in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith. But they can't form attachments. So what all these movies are about is: greed. Greed is a source of pain and suffering for everybody. And the ultimate state of greed is the desire to cheat death."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 213.

The fantasy of Padme is that he put his feelings for her, above everyone else. He saw her as someone who he needed in order to live his life. He couldn't accept the harsh reality of life which is that people come and go, and part of that departure is death. The reality is that she would never approve of his actions and he knew that, but he couldn't accept that and that is why he lashes out at him. It's not that he thinks that Padme has betrayed him, by bringing Obi-wan there to kill him. It's that she rejects him after he has become evil. He was deluding himself into thinking that she would accept all of this, but he also knew deep down that she wouldn't.

Palpatine didn't need to worry about that, because once he had turned as he did, he would turn on his loved ones. Dooku had his own sister killed, remember? He would kill his own family as well. That is what Palpatine truly believes. Remember, Palpatine almost gets Luke to kill his own father and Ben did kill his own father in Han Solo.

It was about him.

ANAKIN: "I can't live without her."

ANAKIN: "No, I promise you! I am becoming so powerful with my new knowledge of the Force, I will be able to keep you from dying."

He's not doing this because she wants him to. He's doing this for himself and that is where he is wrong and she couldn't turn him away, because he gets upset at her for revealing that Obi-wan had told her the truth. The more she talked to him, the more he was becoming upset, because this was not going the way he had hoped it would. He wasn't doing it for her, he was doing it for himself.

More Sith were alike than they were different. That's why Palpatine is confident that a Sith Lord would never turn from the dark side for another person. That's why Vader is the only one to do so, because the good was still within him. Vader asking if she was alive wasn't so much for her, as it was for himself. Love is the antithesis of the darkness that exists with the Sith, also known as hate. That is why Palpatine says that compassion is a weakness of the Jedi and that it will be Luke's undoing. He doesn't understand that love is stronger than hate, which is why he doesn't sense Vader's betrayal at the end.

 

Of course, THAT part was certainly wrong, still I wouldn't call it strictly "selfish". At that point he had already sworn to become Sidious' apprentice. So when he killed the Jedi he was practically just following his new master's orders. But that doesn't mean he did not honestly care about Padmé at the same time. Anakin by that time had become very confused and conflicted. But aside from Anakin's actions, wanting to save someone from death AS SUCH is not evil. He followed the wrong person and did wrong things, but at least before he completely turned with probably good intentions.

I get the impression that the Sith are very much about giving in to your passions and emotions. While we mainly see them showing hate and anger, I think it's still possible for a Sith to give in to passion and feelings for another person, although it may not really be "love" in the actual sense. But I would not rule it out completely either. Are they actually taught to hate? Is it part of their code? Or is a wider range of emotions possible for a Sith?

 

If Anakin loved Padme in the right way he'd of never done any of those terrible things because he knows that Padme wouldn't approve. Anakin was doing those things and saving Padme for himself at that point.

Padme would never see killing children as justification for unlocking a magical power to save her life. It's Anakin's love that became confused and conflicted.

Yes, I have lived where wild animals can be a treat to humans. It's no joke. (And don't you live in Australia?? I guess you're in the city.)

Here is your answer again from Sith Lord

 

True. Padmé would never have approved. She said as much on Mustafar. She was pretty upset and shocked, but still had hope that she could change him.
Sure, maybe he loved her the "wrong" way. But who in real life can honestly claim they are completely selfless, and 100% not possessive in a relationship? Humans have flaws and weaknesses. You don't have to be a Sith to be selfish, at least to some degree. It's part of human nature.