When did Anakin turn to the dark side?

Why? Because they look like you?
Because a human life is more important than an alien life?
The dark side I sense in you...

 

I agree with Arawn on this. Even though she was probably was kidding also, there's truth to this because Humans tend to think a human life is more inportant than say a dolphins life. Both intelligent creatures, just one is of a different species than us, so who cares if the dolphin dies or not. I may have taken this to seriously, and i am off topic.

 

Sandpeople are humanoid in nature, so killing them in cold blood, was still murder.
Just because Anakin called them animals, doesn't mean they WERE animals.

 

The distinction I was trying to make was not that Jedi children were somehow more holy than Tusken children. Your points are valid: Though Anakin, the Lars family and Padme were convinced the Tuskens WERE mindless animals (hence a large part of how/why Padme was able to forgive Anakin, esp. after she saw Shmi's unwrapped body post-mortem), that doesn't mean they were.

The distinction between the Tusken children and the Jedi children was malice and forethought. Anakin was INSANE when he murdered the Tuskens, acting on blind rage and grief. They tortured his mom to death, and enjoyed every bit of it. He had EVERY reason to hate the Tuskens. He didn't have any real reason to hate the Jedi, and he knew it. Every Jedi in the Temple old enough to fight back - hey, resisting arrest and I'm doing as the Chancellor ordered. But these were scared little kids, undeniably sentient, barely even trained, looking up to him for help. He wasn't insane, he wasn't in a blind rage, he wasn't avenging anyone. He could have let them escape, and no one would be the wiser. He could have even turned around, left the room and let the clonetroopers finish them. But no. No, he had to light up his blade and personally carve those screaming kids up like turkeys. He consciously, deliberately became evil at that moment, of his own free will.

To use the movie Seven as an example, it's the difference between blowing out the brains of the guy who murdered your pregnant wife...and BEING the guy who decides to murder someone's pregnant wife.

 

I partly agree with this......however, I don't think saying that Mace was turning to the dark side is at all right. Palpatine had just tried to blast him out the window with lightening. And Mace was a Jedi, a good guy who had been with the council for all three PT films. How can you think that Mace trying to execute Palps wasn't justified? Would you say, then, that Palps was justified in then, after Anakin had chopped Mace's arm off, brutally blasting a screaming, now defenceless Mace out the window with lightening, enjoying every moment of it, and then sighing in pleasure, almost like an orgasm, after Mace was dead?

I don't see how that can possibly be good. Palpatine IS the dark side. He says after killing mace: "Become my apprentice.......Learn to use the Dark Side of the Forrrce!". There is nothing morally ambigious about Palps and Mace. The former is an evil Sith Lord who killed three Jedi, who came to arrest him in the name of democracy after they were informed he was a Sith Lord, and who is clearly evil and of the Dark Side. Mace realised that Palpatine was too dangerous, and he was right. The latter is a Jedi who has been with the council for many years and is on the same side as Yoda and Obi-Wan, two people who are unquestionably good from both trilogies.

And, if he had killed Palpatine, there would be no Order 66, no Anakin becoming Sith Lord Darth Vader, no killing of the Jedi, And no murdering of either children, or strangling a defenceless pregnant woman who was his wife.

 

Whether Mace was really falling or not (and there is grounds to make me wonder) is beside the point. It looked like he was to Anakin, and that was all that mattered. After the lightning bath Palpatine looked like he was finally defeated, too weak to fight on (Anakin didn't know he was playing possum), and it's only then that Mace decides to throw the rulebook out and become judge, jury and executioner. Only then, when Palpatine can't fight back. The act of a cowardly hypocrite, and final damning proof to Anakin that the Jedi really are no better than the Sith. He, like Dooku, like the rest of the galaxy, expected too much of the Jedi.

How could Anakin think that Mace trying to execute Palps wasn't justified? We know the answer to that (Anakin had bought Palpatine's lie "If I die, Padme dies with me" hook, line and sinker) - Mace didn't. So as Mace raised his lightsaber blade, Anakin saw pregnant Padme cringing there on the floor in Palpatine's place - and the rest is infamy.

 

He turned to the darkside when he turned to the darkside.

 

anakin turned to the darkside the moment he's greatest fear had come to past. The death of his mother forced him down the path of the darkside. And the fear of losing his wife sealed his faith. I also feel that his falling in love sealed his faith so if he would have never falling in love he would have never betrayed the jedi, because the jedi code forbid knights to fall in love ,marry or have kids they live the life of monks , but the sith use emotion, and like yoda side in the beganing , anakin was feeled with emotion , mostly fear. so it was destine by the force that anakin would destroy the jedi and the sith, and start the force anew.

 

His journey towards the darkside began with the slaying with the tusken raiders. But he actually turned when he killed the first jedi, at the jedi temple. In destroying the jedi, he was destroying the very thing he had believed in, during his young life. The Jedi are considered to be keeper's of the light side as well, pretty much. He still could have changed his mind before the temple. But that's where he finally made his decision.

He swore to protect the jedi, but ended up destroying them. And when he went to mustafar, and wiped out the sepratist leaders, the darkside had pretty much taken over. There was that one scene showing Anakin with the yellow eyes. By that time, there was no going back from the darkside. I'm sure everybody noticed when he was slaying the leaders on mustafar, he was actually crying at times. He knew what he was doing was wrong. But he felt it was the only way to save the woman he loved. But after that entire slaying, he was taken by the darkside. Hence his behavior when he talked with Padme when she arrived. She said she didn't know him anymore. That's because honestly, he was probably 95% Darth Vader, flesh and blood by then. The Anakin Skywalker she knew, was just about non-exisiting. He went 100% when Palpatine told him Padme had died by his own hand.

(sorry for some of the rough spelling)

 

It's hard to say when his journey to the darkside began. I'd alomost say he was ment to fall.

But I think the finall moment, when there was no turning back, was when he says, "I pledge myself to your teachings"

This was when he swears full allegiance over to Palpatine. Before that there was still a choice between the Jedi and the Sith.

 

When we first meet Anakin in TPM he has an air of innocence, and yet he enjoys the life or death game of pod racing. The pod race shows no respect for life. One could argue that the pod race is the first showing of dark side tendencies accepted matter-of-factly by Anakin. He competes despite the competiton likely resulting in the death of one or more of his competitors -- possibly at his own hand.

In front of the council, we can see anger and perhaps even hints of hate in young Anakin's eyes as the council tells him he has much fear within him and that there is tremendous uncertainty surrounding him. Anakin's reaction is normal, for a normal child. But for an old Republic Jedi he shows far too many dark tendecies. A normal non-Jedi likely has equal or varying amounts of light and dark within them, each more-or-less balancing the other through daily life. A Jedi chooses to focus on light side activities, pushing down the dark side.

Yet perhaps in these darkening times the Jedi needed a 'chosen one' more attuned to the ways of the dark side? Sidious pentrated the senate and gained the chancellorship. Dooku had turned to the Sith, and the Jedi were blind to events transpiring around them. Perhaps Anakin was a little to 'dark side' for the old Jedi order. But with the dawn of the Sith 'phantom menace' the Jedi might have been wise to follow the old saying to "fight fire with fire" and use Anakin's unique abilities more often than they did.

 

Anakin is turning gradually and slowly towards the dark side throughout the PT (just after TPM) with some key points that accelerate his descent and ofcourse the breaking point wich is his decision to help Sidious for his own agenda than Mace.

 

Anakin's fall was due to his attachments, to his mother. He made an attachment to Padme before his Jedi training. If only he was taken by the Jedi earlier, he wouldn't have had such personal desires or attchments. The Jedi are selfless and his turn is due to his greed, where he couldn't let go of the things (attachments), or people he feared to lose. I think Anakin turned to the Darkside as soon as he only thought of himself (unlike a Jedi), to save Padme because he couldn't live without her. The Jedi are selfless and the Sith are selfish. When Anakin yelled,"I nead him, No!" and cuts off Mace Windu's hand, is the final turning point! What was best for the Republic went right out of that window, due to Anakin's selfish desire to save his wife, but the result was keeping an evil man in power. Instead he didn't do the right thing, allowing the destruction an evil man, but Anakin was totally brainwashed in believing Palpatines politics and belief systems. Anakin's political beiefs and ego was messed up by Palpatine, and confused who are his friends and who are his foes, those he can trust and those he can't.

There were steps of Anakin giving into the Darkside before that incident above, when he killed the Sand People, giving inot his anger, then him giving into his anger again to defeated Dooku and Palpatine telling him to strike him down, which he did. Then lets not forget the scene in Padme's apartment, where Anakin was feeling lost, he's torn between the light and the dark, confused about right and wrong, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, and Palpatine massaging his ego!

 

Even after he killed Mace Windu, he was still justified as a Jedi. Mace was trying to kill a man that legally needed to stand trial. Anakin was not at fault there. He fell when he almost instantly pledged allegiance to Palpatine. he could have easily killed Mace and taken Palpatine under arrest with justification.

_Max

 

he could have easily killed Mace and taken Palpatine under arrest with justification.


Or he couldve killed Palpatine like he should have considering he does 20 years later. Palps wasnt about to be arrested because Anakin needed the secret to stopping DEATH for Padme

 

When Lucas casted Hayden Christensen to play him.

 

If we're talking real life chronology, it was probably when George Lucas decided that there would be a character in his story that was bad.