Anakin Knows What Hes Doing Is Wrong...

Anakin knows what he’s doing is wrong...

Whenever I read people using the idea that “from Anakin’s point of view the Jedi are evil” as the ultimate proof that he felt bullied by them, I roll my eyes. Anakin is intelligent enough to know when he’s wrong.

He doesn’t really think the Jedi are evil, he’s lying to himself, he bought his own con.

Anakin was a good kid to begin with, and with the Jedi training he became a great man. If you look at things objectively, Anakin is 90% of a great Jedi. He’s seemingly learned all the rules, and is wise enough to teach them to others:

Be it by telling Ahsoka that she needs to follow the rules, she can’t just go around and do whatever she feels like, it’ll lead to trouble…

… by encouraging his Padawan not to be too hard on herself…

… or be it by encouraging rational thought over hotheadedness.

In that last image, Anakin is Anakin telling Ahsoka and Rex to stop letting their emotions do the thinking and act logically. He’s telling them to be prudent.

Hell, he even believes that patience is a virtue.

Anakin is a trained Jedi Knight. He has the theoretical know-how to get out of his problems, in ROTS.

In fact, a lot of people forget this, but Anakin’s first instinct, upon finding out Palpatine is, in fact, Darth Sidious, is this:

The Jedi are Anakin’s family. If Palpatine is asking Anakin to choose between the Chancellor and the Jedi, he’ll choose the Jedi every damn time (which is why Palpatine makes Anakin choose between the Jedi and Padmé, instead).

So where’s the problem?

That last 10% of what makes a great Jedi. Introspection, self-control.

Despite being wise, clever and thinking rationally - Anakin has trouble applying those lessons to himself.

When it comes to his own personal problems, he’s hard on himself, he’s impatient, he breaks the rules and acts out of emotion instead of thinking things through.

As Obi-Wan puts it:

As a result of this flaw, Anakin keeps choosing the wrong path, despite knowing that it’s the wrong path. The Force puts a lot of tests in front of him, and he keeps choosing the easy way out, rather than the more difficult but ultimately satisfying path.

His mother was killed. He can choose to genocide a whole Tusken village, or be the better man and just walk away. He kills the Tuskens.

Dooku is unarmed and helpless. Anakin can either kill him in a rage, out of revenge, or he can capture him, bring him to justice, and potentially discover the identity of the second Sith Lord. He kills Dooku.

Windu is also helpless (his hand was just cut off by Anakin) and Palpatine is killing him. Mace is helpless. Anakin can either choose to save Windu and arrest Palpatine (who just revealed that he wasn’t “too weak” after all), or he can let Windu die. He lets Windu die.

Padmé tells him that this isn’t what she wants. He can actually listen to her wishes. Or he can go on a maniacal rant about having ultimate power, ignoring her own opinions completely. He goes on a rant, drunk with power. Then chokes her.

Obi-Wan tells him to stop, tries to reason with him: Chancellor Palpatine is evil. Anakin knows this. He can stop lying to himself and accept his mistakes, ending the fight. Or he can give Obi-Wan his two-cent rationalization about the Jedi being evil (which he doesn’t even really believe in), and keep trying to kill Obi-Wan. He keeps trying to kill Obi-Wan.

The more the War goes on, the more it gets easy for Anakin to take the easy path, over and over. But he knows it’s the wrong thing to do.

George Lucas said this to Hayden Christensen, behind the scenes of ROTS:

“There’s always this good in you, at this point. The good part is saying, ‘What am I doing?’ And the bad part is saying, ‘I’m doing this for Padme. I’m doing this for us, and it’ll be better for the universe. It’ll be better for everybody.’ But there’s always this little part of you saying, ‘What am I doing?? That’s your rationalization for everything you’ve done.’”

Anakin tells himself that he’s doing this for Padmé, he’s doing this because the Jedi betrayed him, blabla. Truth is? He’s just really really scared.

There’s this incredible moment in Darth Vader: Lord of the Sith #5.

Vader has taken the lightsaber off a Jedi, and now he has to corrupt the saber’s crystal to get his red blade.

The crystal, and by extension, the Force, showed him a vision, a path where he turned to the Light, defeated the Emperor and put an end to his suffering. A path of redemption. This was his reaction:

Vader refuses to take the hard path and chooses the easy path instead, once again. He rejects the Light and hangs on to the pain… because deep down… below the “they betrayed me” bullshit he keeps telling himself… he knows he deserves it, because he did the wrong thing.

Anakin knows he’s wrong and he’s still goes forward with doing the wrong thing, no matter what test the Force keeps throwing his way.

And that’s why his sacrifice in Return of the Jedi is so impactful. He finally does the right thing, he accepts that it’ll be hard, that he’ll die if he saves Luke… he doesn’t care. Luke loves him, like Padmé did. He failed once. He won’t fail again.

I’m gonna conclude this with some words from George Lucas:

“It really has to do with learning. Children teach you compassion. They teach you to love unconditionally. Anakin can’t be redeemed for all the pain and suffering he’s caused. He doesn’t right the wrongs, but he stops the horror. The end of the Saga is simply Anakin saying: ‘I care about this person, regardless of what it means to me. I will throw away everything that I have, everything that I have grown to love - primarily the Emperor - and throw away my life, to save this person. And I’m doing this because he has faith in me, loves me despite all the horrible things I’ve done. I broke his mother’s heart, but he still cares about me, and I can’t let that die’.”

Exactly! 

sometimes I wonder where people get this idea that qui-gon and the council actual hated each other just cause they disagreed on stuff

How dare you make me sad like this?!😭😭

some angst oh?

Mace Windu isn't a bad guy

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree I AM FOREVER STUCK BETWEEN DEFENDING MACE WINDU AS ONE OF THE WARMEST, MOST COMPASSIONATE PEOPLE IN STAR WARS BECAUSE I LOVE HIM SO MUCH OH MY GOD VERSUS  “FUCK YOU HE DOESN’T HAVE TO BE A SWEET BABY ANGEL WHO WOULD NEVER HURT A FLY TO BE SOMEONE THOROUGHLY GOOD”

Yes your honor that's them. That's the married couple.

I’ve recently seen some misinterpretations regarding this scene so I wanted to share my thoughts.

The criticism, which I personally find so unfair and wrong considering Levi’s character arc in the final battle mostly revolves around: “Levi didn’t even care about leaving the kids behind to the point he ordered Mikasa, Pieck and Falco to depart without any final/farewell words to Jean, Connie, etc” or “I knew it!!! Levi only cared about killing Zeke post-time skip. It was obvious he’s gonna have NO motivation to fight”

I’m going to explain both claims from my own perspective.

1) About the first one, I think it is important to remember Levi’s rational motivation in such critical moment. So the situation is as the following >>> The alliance figuring out the steam released from the hallucigenia is poisonous just like Zeke’s spinal fluids and as many pointed out the reason there was suspect of them turning into titans came from the fact hallucigenia is the source of the titan power so it only makes sense for Levi to believe the Eldians exposed to the steam would transform immediately after. Did they have time to process the situation? No. Did they even have time to say goodbye? Hell no! It only took Levi, Mikasa, Falco & Pieck a few minutes before their comrades/families were titanized. There was absolutely no time for hesitation and as I’ve seen some people pointed this out Levi was the only one who thought rationally and was able to make such cruel decision in that moment. Was it painful for him? Of course it was! Was it hard for him to leave his comrades behind once again without even being able to say goodbye? SURE IT WAS!

Is this the face of a person who doesn’t care about leaving his family? I’m gonna leave the obvious answer to you guys.

Now let’s get back to even the more logical part. You gotta ask yourself why Levi decided what he did. Had Levi, Mikasa, Falco & Pieck aka the last hopes of humanity’s survival been caught in a horde of titans and eaten then who were going to defeat Eren? Marleyans who didn’t even have enough cannons to face Eren (oh well the cannons had no effect on the founding titan either way) or Armin was supposed to take him down single-handedly? Think about it, who else but all these people together could kill Eren?

It’s also worth mentioning what Levi tells Mikasa right after they had to abandon their comrades and people

“We’re the only ones that can kill Eren”

I think this part’s even more proof of Levi’s rational decision. Do I not love Jean and Connie? Of course I do. I’m not gonna lie, I’m still in denial about what happened to them and I’m hoping there’s a way they’ll revert back to being humans and if they really die I personally will find their deaths meaningless at this point of the story. However, I understand that they had no time for emotional talk. They had to defeat Eren and end this nightmare as soon as possible.

2) Now regarding the second claim, I think there are already many great meta writers who pointed out the obvious but I’m just gonna leave some panels and notes to emphasize how much such criticism about Levi’s not but a misinterpretation.

Let’s get back to chapter 135 where Levi literally told Mikasa he will act as bait in order for them to defeat the titans the founder Ymir sent their way

He knew Zeke’s still alive somewhere from Hanji’s words so if he only cared about killing him why would he try to sacrifice his life for the kids to proceed with their plans before taking down the monke?

Levi risking his life to save Jean’s in the same chapter right after the above panel

“Levi’s all about killing Zeke at this point. He doesn’t care about his kids any longer” is what the criticism says. I don’t think I need to explain this further because the panel is proof enough how much he cares for his kids.

Right after saving Jean Levi’s injuries worsen but he still continues fighting to protect them

The reason for his leg injury is saving Connie

And lastly, about him caring for humanity

“We’re doing both”

Levi’s the first person who actually said they have to kill Eren and save Armin among the corps. If he only cared about killing Zeke why would he suggest they have to consider both options? Why would he repeat himself in the very recent chapter again (about killing Eren) in order to end this nightmare? As I’ve said many times before Levi could’ve killed Zeke and fulfilled his promise a long time ago but he prevented himself from doing so because he assumed keeping Zeke alive was the best option for saving humanity.

Bottom line Levi’s promise to Erwin was never even about mere revenge. The man said it himself, “I will give meaning to your deaths” and he’s only able to do that through saving humanity. I’m not saying he didn’t hate Zeke considering all the suffering Zeke brought to Levi’s comrades. However, it is important to remember Levi was always ready to give up on killing him if his existence benefitted humanity. Killing Zeke wasn’t his sole purpose in life as some like to put it.