This is a lot more canon than the stuff the anon trolls @lj-writes gets says
He gives great hugs because he wears his father’s armor like a constant embrace. Sometimes, wearing the helmet, Boba thinks he feels Dad’s forehead against his.
Before we begin, I think it’s important to unpack what this comparison really means and who is actually being compared. No one is saying that Padmé, a woman of high ideals and deep convictions, who believes in the power of ideas, words, and compromise and who holds democracy as sacred, is very much like the taciturn, cynical henchwoman to a despot, whose entire life has been shaped by the power she is all too aware does not have. And no one is comparing emotionally tortured, perpetually uncertain Zuko to Padmé either. Nor is anybody comparing carefully controlled and seemingly unemotional Mai to Anakin Skywalker (though I will get back to this one later). No, the two characters actually being compared are Anakin and Zuko. As for why comparing Anakin to Zuko is painfully inaccurate, buckle up folks, I have visual aids.
I don’t see how people can make this comparison, Padmé and Anakin were torn apart by Anakin’s fall to the dark side and Padmé was unable to stop him. This was no fault of her own, though I do side-eye her covering up his mass murder–not because any of Anakin’s actions at any point were her fault but because it was something she herself did wrong.
Mai and Zuko on the other hand were ultimately brought together happily because they both did what was right and had the courage to break free of Ozai’s and Azula’s abuse, where Anakin was lured deeper and deeper into Palpatine’s manipulation and ended up abusing Padmé as well.
So I can see them as mirror images/happier reincarnations, but they’re obviously not straight parallels.
According to reylo logic, Star Wars in the PT has:
Aborted intercourse between Qui-Gon and Maul.
Group sex between Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and Maul
Hate sex between Obi-Wan and Maul after Maul kills Qui-Gon
Group sex between Obi-Wan, Anakin and Dooku. (Anakin is only 19 and Dooku is like 70 so, ew!)
Hot Yoda/Dooku with some seriously rough foreplay
Group sex between Anakin, Obi-Wan and Grievous (damn George is kinky)
Obi-Wan/Grievious hot times
Group sex between several Jedi master, Mace Windu among them, and Sidious (Mace? Really? I thought he was the conservative one)
Hate sex between Obi-Wan and Anakin, now Vader
Yoda/Sidious hot times
And that’s just the PT. I’m not including the OT in this because that’s just downright disturbing and George is even more problematic than I was ever aware.
I must thank Reylos for bringing to light this knowledge that lightsaber duel = intercourse and how kinky (and problematic) Star Wars really is.
Yeah, now that I’ve been able to put the prequels in perspective all these years later – and with the help of a lot of meta, of course – I can agree Hayden did the best he could with equally less-than-stellar direction. :p (George, love ya, but y’ain’t a people person.) There are a lot of thoughtful little details Hayden put into his performance that make sense when you consider how Anakin changed drastically from the assertive, confident, optimistic little kid he was due to his treatment and conditioning by the Jedi order.
Anakin per Lucas’ vision was never meant to be an ultra-badass power fantasy from birth; he was a sensitive, emotionally volatile, awkward dork, and while I’m sure Hayden chafed under the lack of direction (as I think a lot of the prequel actors did) I think he was also the right guy for the role. Except poor dude caught so much flak for it, of course, yikes. :p
Hayden’s nonverbal acting was MUCH MUCH better than George’s clunky lines.
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.
“Even more, I had never meant to love him. One thing I truly knew – knew it in the pit of my stomach, in the center of my bones, knew it from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, knew it deep in my empty chest – was how love gave someone the power to break you”
L.J.'s Obsessions 