Stop it or you’re going to make me write up a Freudian analysis of the Mustafar battle complete with color analysis and attention to the ejaculating lava burst.
I really think that’s something we’re all better off without.
Anakin cried big ghostly tears when Luke named his newborn son after him. He didn’t deserve it–his legacy was one of pain and betrayal, he would never want that for his kin. Leia did not spare her biological father a thought (although naming her son ‘Ben’ seemed like an equally dubious choice to him) which Anakin understood and did not mind at all. He’d expected the same for Luke.
But Luke–
His stubborn son had looked upon his newborn, eyes determined yet full of love and said proudly, “Anakin. He’ll be Anakin.”
Anakin, the first one, didn’t know what to think. He cried, of course–just the thought that his innocent little grandson would carry his name brought him to his knees. But … why?
Luke peppered kisses all over his baby’s face. Little Anakin squeezed his eyes open, just a little, and Anakin–ghost Anakin, ghost of the past Anakin–held out his hand to shield the babe’s eyes from the stinging sun rays, forgetting that it was useless. “My baby,” muttered Luke. “My Anakin. At last, I-I am content. I belong. I belong with you, my son.”
And it clicked. Little Anakin’s eyes opened fully, and they were big and brown and guileless (just like his wife, like his Padmé), and the ghost of the past remembered that ‘Anakin’ meant ‘home’ in his native tongue, and looking at the scene before him, he finally understood what the saying “home is where the heart is” meant.
Except it’s a completely different situation because Mr. Nancy was talking about anger against injustice, while Anakin’s rage was a result of suppressing his natural emotions of fear and love–at Yoda’s advice.
Something that I really appreciate about The Clone Wars is that they make Anakin a likable, loving, genuinely good person while reaffirming and enhancing his more negative qualities. For example the show makes it clear that Anakin is a good person, but a selfish one.
In the arc where Ahsoka get’s kidnapped and hunted by lizard people we see this very subtle selfish quality of Anakin’s. When Ahsoka comes home from her traumatizing ordeal what is the very first thing that Anakin does? He makes things about himself. He makes things about his failure to protect her, his concern, his worry, his fear for her, his own shortcomings. He is obviously coming from a place of genuine love and concern for Ahsoka, but it’s still about him. There’s nothing evil about that kind of selfishness, seeing a situation from your own point of view doesn’t mean you don’t care, anyone who says that they don’t make things about themselves is almost definitely a liar but you can’t deny it. In that moment Ahsoka had to comfort Anakin. That moment is beautiful and poignant regarding their bond and their friendship, but it’s also very telling if you look at it through a slightly more cynical lens.
It reminds me of in AOTC when Anakin kneeled at his mother’s grave and talked about himself and his feelings of inadequacy rather than his mother herself. Or in ROTS when Anakin was concerned for Padme’s life and committed to saving it in a way he knew that she wouldn’t approve of. When he pledges himself to Palpatine he doesn’t say he wants to save her life because she deserves to love or anything that has to do with her. It’s because he couldn’t live without her, he needs her, he loves her, she can’t leave him because he couldn’t take that. It’s about him.
Anakin’s feelings of selfishness don’t mean that he doesn’t actually love or care about these people, his possessive nature and selfishness actually come from his love for these people. He just can’t separate the way he feels about these people from the individuals themselves. He always makes it about himself and his needs and desires, not theirs. It’s possible that the first person that Anakin really loved in a nonselfish way was Luke by the end of ROTJ.
I don’t know that I’m making sense here but this topic fascinates me.
What an excellent analysis that I 100% agree with. I used to know people who loved Anakin because they believed he was completely selfless, and I… disagreed with that interpretation because it was incomplete. (Also because they had a habit of woobifying Anakin to the point of being an apologist. Like, ugh.) He fell to the Darkside because he was selfless to the point of utter selfishness. Everything was about him, about possessing, about owning, about being responsible for. That was no doubt rooted from his childhood as a slave when his destiny, his very life, didn’t even belong to him, and then again from his upbringing with the Jedi when he was told his life still didn’t belong to him but in service to the Force, the galaxy, and he wasn’t allowed to love or own… basically the dude has never learned how to separate his own intense feelings from others, and it was a toxic combination.
Someone else has made independent, autonomous choices that put them into dangers? Oh no, Anakin failed to protect them! That’s what this is about, not the trauma that they’ve now endured! Visions of Padme dying in childbirth? That’s okay, he’ll fix it by teaming up with a Sith Lord and literally slaughtering innocent children! Padme, why are you crying? I fixed the problem, I have enough power to save you now!
I like analyses like this because it reminds me of why I like Anakin as a character – because he’s selfish, and his downfall is his own, and at the end of the day it’s his own choices, his own decisions, that lead to it. Taking that away from him makes him less of a complex figure, in my opinion.
Imagine child Anakin building C3PO out of scrap cast-off parts Watto doesn’t think are resalable
Imagine Anakin taking a little bit from each scrap part, pulling a robot arm together.
Imagine his joy when a part first starts to work
Imagine his frustration when an arm that’d eventually be C3PO’s stops working and he takes it apart piece by piece to find where it went wrong and he finds sand inside a piece he thought was sealed.
Now imagine the tenth time that happens. The thirtieth. The hundredth.
Or imagine him working on his pod, making it out of cast-off, worn-out parts. Every time it breaks down, his Force sense shows him exactly where the faults are. A turbine’s sucked in some sand and its bearing finally gave out here. An electrical fault here because the insulation wore away in a Tatooine sandstorm.
A solder joint on one of C3PO’s circuit boards breaks because somehow a grain of sand got into the solder while he was forming it.
A piston works for a week, then grinds to a stop. Anakin opens it up to find it full of sand.
It’s then that he breaks down, a sobbing seven-year old child “I hate sand! It gets everywhere!”
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