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Thinking a lot about how by the time TCW comes about Anakin has already committed a grievous sin, already committed a massacre, already chosen his side in some ways. The man Ahsoka knows, the only version of him she ever gets to know, is built on an assumption of purity he has already lost.
He has already begun to fall, and this slip contributes in so many ways to his inability to pull himself back. Because the only person other than Padmé he tells his crime to is Palpatine, because he's the only person who won't judge him (and that in and of itself is a measure of his immaturity–– because he deserved to be judged).
And this contributes so much to Palpatine's control because he has this piece of the puzzle, this ability to go "Oh, but what about this?" any time Anakin tries to pull back from Palpatine's confidence. Because they both know if he ever admitted it to the Order he'd forever lose their approval, and that's what matters most. So Palpatine has this advantage, because he knows more about Anakin than anyone else and Anakin doesn't feel he can confide in anyone else.
But the thing is: for so long, Anakin wants to be better, wants to amend himself for this sin and more than once wants to confess to Obi-Wan, but every single time Palpatine is able to go "Oh but he thinks he's so much better than you, he would never understand you, he would judge you and tell the Order and they'd cast you out" but... Obi-Wan would have forgiven him anything.
I think a lot about Obi-Wan being such a Perfect Jedi (in the eyes of everyone else if nothing else) and how much that hurts Anakin. Because every time he tries to pull himself back from the ledge this epitome of what it means to be a Jedi is just there in his face reminding him of his own failure
Look I really like Anakin, but I also don't think that Palpatine had to work too hard to get him to fall.
Palpatine magnified Anakin's frustration with/distrust in the Jedi, but that's just it. He only worked with what was already there.
Anakin was just like that™. He wasn't an inherently *evil* person, and I think he is very good at heart, but he had massively obvious egotistical and selfish tendencies.
Anakin's whole thing was that he wanted to have his cake and eat it too.
He was understandably traumatised by his life as a slave, but he also kind of just refused to try and accept or understand the Jedi's teachings on attachment and emotional regulation. And accepted what Palpatine said because it suited him more.
The Council were 100% right to tell Qui-Gon that this kid was both too old and that his emotions were all over the place (and more than expected for even a kid like him. I absolutely think Anakin would have slaughtered the Tusken Raiders without any kind of external dark side influence in his life).
He didn't have to stay and be a Jedi once he fell in love with Padmé. Obi-Wan would still have been his friend/brother figure. And Anakin wouldn't have fallen into poverty, he could have easily found work and been just as technically powerful and famous, if not more.
But he thought/knew he was special, so didn't think it should matter that he broke the rules. He wanted the prestige of being a Jedi master and wanted to be with Padmé, so that's what he did.
He wasn't a perfect cinnamon roll that Palpatine managed to sink his claws into. He already fundamentally disagreed with the Jedi, but was too self-absorbed to just leave.
"the jedi don't have therapists-"
jedi philosophy, and in particular the practices and teachings that jedi were expected to implement in their everyday lives, was therapy. dialectical behavior therapy (dbt), to be exact. anyone who's familiar with dbt knows where i'm already going with this, but like genuinely look up the basic tenets of dbt and it's identical with what the jedi were doing.
dbt, to put it simply, is a specific therapy technique that was designed for ptsd and past trauma. it's pretty different from traditional talk therapy. it combines a few different environments (individual, group, etc.), recognizing that no single format of treatment can stand alone.
the key focuses of dbt include:
emotional regulation- understanding, being more aware of, and having more control over your emotions
mindfulness- regulating attention and avoiding anxious fixation on the past or future
interpersonal effectiveness- navigating interpersonal situations
distress tolerance- tolerating distress and crises without spiraling and catastrophizing
i'm sure it's already clear from that list alone how much the jedi teachings correspond with the goals of dbt. the jedi value, teach, and practice the following:
identifying and understanding emotions
mindfulness and living in the present
compassion, diplomacy, and conflict resolution (on interpersonal scales, not just planetary or galactic)
accepting and tolerating certain levels of distress or discomfort (particularly mental, such as discomfort at the thought of losing a loved one to death)
idk man seems almost as if jedi mental health practices and dbt are two sides of a completely identical coin. (fun fact: both star wars and dbt are products of the 70s.)
and guess what? dbt was specifically designed as a treatment for borderline personality disorder. remember that one? or, if you don't, maybe you remember a specific character, the one who was literally used as an example by my professor in my undergrad psych class when she was teaching us about bpd?
tldr: simply existing within the jedi community, practicing jedi teachings, surrounded by a support network of other jedi of all life stages, was the therapy for anakin. even when viewed through a modern lens. it was even, more specifically, the precise type of therapy that has developed in modern times to treat the exact types of mental issues he was struggling with.
SHOOT DAY 28: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2003 LOCATION: Stage 3 SET: Mustafar landing platform SCENES SHOT: 145pt (Padmé confronts Anakin on Mustafar and Obi-Wan arrives)
At 2:45, they're ready for close-ups of Hayden. Lucas discusses the tone with him. "This is Anakin's greatest moment; he's got all these new powers-everything is fine." "Anakin's just gone and killed his family, more or less, so I've done a deed that I thought would've weighed on me," Christensen would say the following day. "But George sees it as an outburst of almost accidental anger that Anakin then has to suffer the repercussions of for the rest of his life. Anakin thinks he's done the right thing in killing all the Jedi, so George wanted me to come to the scene with enthusiasm. Things are good. I'm the most powerful man in the universe and I'm going to be able to save Padmé."
Honestly I think what makes Hayden's performance as Anakin during the confrontation on Mustafar so compelling is that Hayden's instincts are to feel guilt and horror, from the deep revulsion of the good part of him that still lurks inside ('i just killed my family'), and Lucas's direction is to project confidence and enthusiasm out of self satisfaction ('what i did was definitely absolutely right, good, necessary, important').
As a result Hayden gives Anakin a palpable kind of tension in the eyes. He holds up a unsettling false front of willing self-deception, leaning into insane delusions of grandeur to avoid confronting the traumatic reality of what he did. That tension visibly snaps at the perception of betrayal, lashing out in the surge of accidental anger that would haunt Anakin for the rest of his life.
Hayden's acting in that moment, the huge swing of manic joy to a murderous scowl, really never gets the credit it deserves for actually being pretty subtle. It feels natural and seamless despite the high drama and unsubtle dialogue. I love the build up of that psychological tension as he falls into the dark and its explosive, deadly release, it's really perfect to me.
we talk a lot about the Jedi being the only group of people in the galaxy who consistently see the clones as people. but what if it goes both ways. if clones are little more than droids, then Jedi are the knights out of fairy tales and romance novels. the galaxy's perceptions and preconceptions are much like anakin's in tpm. the jedi are immortable infallible unkillable. they are paragons of virtue and light and intelligence. they are not people so much as concepts. legends. superheroes.
these people are as removed from the Jedi as they are from the clones. maybe even more so. the clones work with the Jedi every day. the clones see them make mistakes. simple human* errors. they see them mourn and rage and laugh. they see them try. so hard. they see them fail. they see them fall.
their Jedi are people. and the clones love them all the more for it.
subhuman clones and superhuman jedi
the whole anakin wanting to be a master thing is even funnier when you consider it from obi-wan's pov, who at age twenty-five - three years older than anakin in rots - was still a padawan. like anakin is over here, 22 years-old, essentially a sleep-deprived college student with bags under his eyes standing in front of his profs saying "how DARE you put me on the university board but not make me a professor, it's unfair!!" meanwhile when obi-wan was 22 he was bugging qui-gon to let him take a 600 level seminar (his trials) but every time he asked qui-gon would hit him with the "you need to complete your pre-reqs first."
Honestly I cannot overstate how much seeing Hayden as TCW Anakin changed EVERYTHING. Matt Lanter's Anakin is a frat dude. He wears a backwards baseball hat and says vaguely offensive things without realizing, while being a fundamentally chill and outgoing guy at heart. Hayden's Anakin is... not that. His voice. His expressions. His physical presence. It's off somehow. It's just left of normal. It's completely unremarkable and yet deeply uncanny for reasons you can't quite describe. TCW Anakin was always a flatter, blander portrayal, but I don't think I realized until now what exactly was missing: the serial killer energy. The inarticulable conviction that SOMETHING unhinged is going on behind those eyes.
It is a fact that the fandom often doesn’t appreciate Obi-Wan and Anakin’s relationship because not many people have read the books (??) If more people read the books, they would understand that Obi-Wan and Anakin represent pure force to each other. Anakin’s heart was occupied by the love of several people, but even after all these years, the only love connected to the Force and pure spiritual intimacy was Obi-Wan’s. It makes perfect sense to me that they would come together after Anakin became one with the Force. Obi-Wan was Anakin’s moral compass and guiding light. He dedicated his entire life to him, protected his children, and felt the pain of his fall to the dark side. He went through what felt like a never-ending period of mourning. Even when Anakin met his son Luke, he saw traces of Obi-Wan in Luke more than in anyone else. Even Padmé was aware of Obi-Wan’s love for Anakin. I think George Lucas aimed to create a tragic heterosexual romance, (That's why "attack of the clones" is a complete disaster in terms of the characters' relationships and at this point, I don’t care about some of the scenes. Anyway.) but the novelizations also canonize the love between Obi-Wan and Anakin. I believe their relationship is as canonical as Anakin and Padmé’s.
natalie portman couldn’t do the “queen padme” voice in real life. they had to digitally lower it. if it was that difficult for a professional actress to change her voice suddenly i have to imagine it was infinitely more difficult for 14yo padme, being put in front of the entire senate for the first time, trying in vain to get people to care that her people were dying, to keep her voice that low, keep it steady and not quiver or stutter..
the thing is ☝️ we are introduced to padme as the ultimate cog in the republic (soon to be imperial) machine . she is 14, queen of a whole planet, and easily manipulated. she is used as a weapon by palpatine blatantly and no one cares. padme has to be stoic, monotone and come up with a winning battle plan at 14 or everyone she knows dies. she does the impossible and it doesn’t even matter because that was what palpatine wanted!!
is it not that classic star wars “poetry” then, for her to die resisting the help of machines, for once allowing herself to fully feel? does it not rock that the first time we hear padme truly scream is on her deathbed, refusing to live in a galaxy so cruel it’s denied her this right?? fuck “died of sadness” jokes. fuck “palpatine sapped her life force” theories . padme could only find catharsis in death & that’s her whole character !!!
padme body horror is supreme bc when you think about it, her very existence requires constant agony. in real life that red invasion gown took several weeks to build. and the costumes were so uncomfortable that kiera knightly, who was sabe for like 2 seconds, cried every night while filming. the main way natalie portman describes her prequels costumes is “painful” . and sure “beautiful” usually follows but dude. imagine being 14 and in constant pain bc your job requires you be pretty as possible while defending your planet from fucking invasion. i can’t imagine how estranged i’d feel from my own body and sense of self in that moment. you can take that (already extreme) rigor over the body to all kinds of violent ends. possession. some sort of creature. self-mutilation. fic writes itself tbh!
I don’t know if it can be properly conveyed how much shit was thrown Hayden’s way when his prequel movies came out. Just a metric fuckton of crap. After AOTC (and only in his very early 20s) he was swiftly made the Star Wars pariah, and ROTS did little to assuage that. A lot of the dissatisfaction with the prequels somehow fell on him, both his turns as Anakin got Razzie “Awards”, his name became synonymous with bad, wooden acting.
Over the years the opinion of his performance shifted to Hayden being an unfortunate victim of George Lucas' writing and directing, saddled with lines no actor could make work. But even that opinion still largely discounted Hayden's acting ability.
For him to come back after 17 years to the role he got so much flack for, have his big scene show not even half of his face (and have that face caked in makeup and prosthetic), have his voice distorted, and still deliver the way he did? Still convey all the rage and evil and arrogance but also pain and sadness within Vader? Show everyone this is why he landed the role two decades ago, because he can be frightening and vulnerable and devastating even with just one eye and the corner of his mouth visible? Show everyone he is Anakin/Vader, and make everyone consider he was good all along? Incredible, amazing, the chosen one indeed. Thanks Deborah Chow and Ewan for making this show, thank you Hayden for coming back.
I just realised where Kylo got his name from:
Ky = sKYwalker
Lo = soLO
Ren = literally just his birth name with an R
which means that when he was choosing his super scary Dark Lord name, he just mashed up the surnames of the most positive figures in his life. poor sod can’t even evil right
I'm going to be a heretic and say that the Jedi's problem wasn't that they were involved the Senate, it was that they weren't involved enough in the Senate. The Jedi should have moved out to the Unknown Regions if they didn't want to deal with the responsibilities of the Republic. They should have involved in politics by voting for leaders, running for election and utilizing their representation to push for their interests and agenda.
"but they didn't want to be involved-" look here people, you do not choose to get involved in politics. Politics involves everyone; you have a choice to play or not play. There is no option to opt out. By not playing, you forfeit the game to your opponents, and you lose before you begin.
That's how Palpatine wins. He sets the game, and the Jedi forfeit; they were doomed to lose from the start.
There is a popular star wars post circulating that basically says “the jedi are baby stealers” is a stale take that isn’t true, and it sets my teeth on edge every time. It’s international adoption, guys. It’s literally international adoption.
The jedi come to other planets to find kids who are force sensitive so they can take the children away and train them to be jedi. “But the parents willingly give their kids up!” you protest. No offense . . . but who the fuck cares? You know who also willingly give up their children? Parents from other countries to american couples—oftentimes white christan couples. There is in fact a lot of overlap between the way the jedi operate and the way international adoption operates.
The jedi take kids from other cultures with the belief that they’re bringing the kids into a better environment where they’re less likely to fall to the dark side. The jedi don’t allow the kids to retain connections with their families because they believe it would place the kids at a higher risk of falling to the dark side. (I could go on a tangent about how the jedi using the dark side as a catch-all reason for why things are bad is similar to how christians use hell, but that’s another story.) The jedi only take children three and under because . . . because why? Because children over three are harder to indoctrinate? Because children over three are too old to convince them to reject their birth families? Gee! That’s not at all similar to international adoption! (/s) One might even suggest that the jedi are essentially a picture of white saviorism on a galactic scale.
It’s me. I’m saying that.
Look. International adoption involves stripping children—usually children of color—of their heritage, culture, and families. As a person of color who was internationally adopted, i think i’m justified in pointing out the overlap. If you’re a person of color or someone who was internationally adopted, feel free to disagree with me! White jedi stans . . . stay in your lane.
i think most of the desire to see the prequel era content is that, especially in America, we live in the prequel era. Imperialist countries subjugate others, corporations have power within politics and control people's lives, democracy is functioning for the elites only, the government is waging wars in other countries for murky ulterior motives, and the military is focused on 'keeping the peace' at the expense of reform and progress.
the prequels work as catharsis, because we know that it'll end horribly for the characters. this old system is destroyed and after twenty years, the horror that replaces it is destroyed as well, and the universe seems at peace. you recognize the horrible system, and then you anguish as it is replaced by something that is even worse. everything is destroyed, and your comfort comes from that fact that the two children will eventually put it right. there's a kinship with the prequel era world that just isn't there for the post-original trilogy, since so many people recognize it.
sorry for bringing semi-detailed analysis to your joke post, OP. i do agree though, post-ROTJ content is severely lacking and could draw parallels to historical developments.
my toxic star wars fan trait is that i actually do think the time after return of the jedi is an infinitely more interesting point in the timeline than the prequels era
are there any hindu star wars fans out there? i want to write like a serious meta about star wars and hinduism, and i want to consult other people's views and opinions before publishing a piece that might misrepresent our religion and way of life.
this came in response to seeing some blog post on my dash about the jedi and republic. i'm usually cool with the jedi, but this post set me off because of the way it defended the Republic.
i understand being jedi positive and jedi critical. i will side eye you immensely and run screaming if you are empire positive beyond the whole 'cool aesthetic and badass villains' and empire crits should and are the norm. i even get being new republic positive-while they suck, they are way better than the neo-nazis.
what i don't understand is, especially in the context of the prequels, is being republic-positive. like, the republic is not this holy paragon symbiotic relationship with the jedi that flourished harmoniously without the evil Sith. like, it's canon that the republic has been failing and a problem since like, before baby palpatine existed. the jedi behold themselves to the republic out of tradition, not for the republic itself. the republic is george lucas's hamfisted take on fucking american imperialism. are you seriously trying to defend this? you really want to look at me and tell me that everything was fine with Bush Era Politics? really?