Redemption, the Force, and Morality [No Ep 7 Spoilers]

Morrus said:

Yeah. They're two different issues.

I said in the other thread that I didn't feel Anakin was redeemed. Throwing an old man down a well doesn't make up for any of the evil stuff he did. There's no action you can take which redeems you after you kill a room full of children. Plus whatever else he did in his 30 years of being Vader. You don't get to say "Sorry! My bad!" and it's all OK.

The force ghost thing, on the other hand, is a secret Qui Gonn learned and taught to Yoda, who taught it to Obi Wan. Nobody taught it to Anakin.

Even assuming he taught it to himself after seeing Obi Wan do it on the Death Star, he should be an old man, not Hayden Christenson. Or Obi Wan should be Ewan McGregor. I guess they get to choose their force ghost appearance, and Obi Wan likes the way he looks old better!

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The idea is that old man Anakin ghost never made sense, really. Anakin died young, and so when he became a ghost, his entire sense of self, and his "true nature" were still that Anakin.

doctorbadwolf said:

The idea is that old man Anakin ghost never made sense, really. Anakin died young, and so when he became a ghost, his entire sense of self, and his "true nature" were still that Anakin.

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Plus, this way we get to enjoy Hayden Christensen's acting one last time. Without a word, using only a direct look at the camera and a smug little smile, he conveys so, so much: "see, there's no part of your childhood that I can't ruin!"

It's genius, really.

delericho said:

Plus, this way we get to enjoy Hayden Christensen's acting one last time. Without a word, using only a direct look at the camera and a smug little smile, he conveys so, so much: "see, there's no part of your childhood that I can't ruin!"

It's genius, really.

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EH. He isn't at all what was bad about the prequels. The biggest failures of the prequels were in writing and editing. Especially editing.
That and a few terrible characters, and killing Maul in the first film.

The Belated Media series on YouTube of "What if Episode I/II/III were good?" is a fantastic discussion of some of this.

One of the primary theses there is that the prequels missed which character to focus on: Ep I-III should have been Obi-Wan's story, where the overaching six-movie arc is Anakin's story. It works, and I think the proposed revisions would make a much improved prequel series.

For me there's a clear difference in my perception of morality and the Force. In episodes IV to VI, the dark side is presented as evil and the other side (I don't remember it ever being referred to as the Light side) as good. On reflection, this may just be a consequence of Luke being good and Vader/Emperor being evil rather than intrinsically something to do with the Force.

In episodes I to III, the Jedi are much more reserved and emotionless - presumably the risk of experiencing emotion being too dangerous as negative emotions lead to the dark side.

So, Luke went beyond what the reserved Jedis were able to deal with and guarded against the negative emotions but allowed himself to experience the positive emotions. This ultimately allowed him to redeem Vader. It's hard to imagine had he been trained as detailed in episodes I to III that he would have beeen able to have done it.

It'll be interesting to see in episode VIII if this is taken forwards ...

Great points!

Imo, the failures of the Jedi in 1-3 are also partly due to their insistence on avoiding attachments and emotions. Luke, and 5+6 Yoda IMO, allows himself to experience emotions, focusing on not letting them rule him, and his attachments are, like you said, what allows him to redeem his father.

Anakins downfall isn't so much that he was attached, but the manipulation of Sidius the lying and secrets, and the resentment, jealousy, etc that builds in him as a result of all that. If he had felt comfortable talking to the other Jedi about his relationship, the advice he was getting from Palps, and his various emotional issues, the Sith would have lost.
I mean he forces himself to hide much of his emotions from the Jedi, because the Jedi would probably treat them like a failure of his training.
"Ah. I see. Had you been brought to us at a younger age, perhaps you would not have such trouble controlling your emotions." -random Jedi, probably
And he misses his mother, but is expected to just...not. So of course he clings to the paternal relationship offered by Palps, and listens to his advice.

I mean, imagine if Yoda and Obi-Wan had been Anakin's closest confidants? Or if he had been allowed to keep in touch with his mother? Or if he could live with Padme, and thus have a closer, open relationship, not to mention that if he had grown up with normal healthy relationships around him, maybe his marriage wouldn't be so uncommunicative, and he might confide in his hella smart wife, maybe?

Seriously, the Jedi screwed up with that whole Zen monks who protect the galaxy thing. There is a reason monks tend to detach themselves from society. The two aren't easily compatible.

doctorbadwolf said:

Anakins downfall isn't so much that he was attached, but the manipulation of Sidius the lying and secrets, and the resentment, jealousy, etc that builds in him as a result of all that. If he had felt comfortable talking to the other Jedi about his relationship, the advice he was getting from Palps, and his various emotional issues, the Sith would have lost.
I mean he forces himself to hide much of his emotions from the Jedi, because the Jedi would probably treat them like a failure of his training.
"Ah. I see. Had you been brought to us at a younger age, perhaps you would not have such trouble controlling your emotions." -random Jedi, probably
And he misses his mother, but is expected to just...not. So of course he clings to the paternal relationship offered by Palps, and listens to his advice.

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I agree that the Jedi rejection of all emotion feels wrong, or at least a step too far, but I think Sidious's ability to cloud the Force goes a long way here. I suspect that much of the problem with Anakin's training was that Sidious was deliberately clouding the Jedis' perception of him specifically, preventing them from picking up on his emotional turmoil even as it grew to consume him. As far as they were concerned, he was successfully suppressing his emotions, so they never realised that he was unable to take their teachings to heart.

That would also explain why his emotional outbursts seem to perpetually take them by surprise. I wonder if Jedi, being so easily able to sense a person's emotional state through the force, tend to miss the simple body-language cues that others normally rely upon.

Yeah, it's almost like they changed Jedi into Vulcans.

Good points. I think its just as likely Anakin shrouded his own emotions, projecting calm while suffering. Either way, if h had felt comfortable talking to his fellow Jedi about his feelings, all of Sid's clouding would have been for not.

Edit: Or for naught. Whatever.��

In a previous thread someone mentioned that the Force was "neutral" and that there was no Lightside but what we call that is just the Force and the Darkside is just a corruption of the Force.

Hmm ... In the prequels Palpatine talks to Anakin about how the Jedi have only a limited understanding of the Force as you need to experience the Darkside for a full understanding.

Now while this was designed to seduce Anakin to the Darkside, what if it was in part true? What if a Jedi who was unafraid of experiencing his emotions but had sufficient discipline not to be ruled by them?

With one exception, we've only ever seen relatively junior Jedi get taken down the Darkside but what if a Jedi Master had gone down that route? Best of both worlds?

The one exception is probably Count Dooku, who until it was obvious he was the cardboard cutout villain of episode 2, I had a lot of sympathy with his position and that of the separatists. From what I remember his conversation with a trapped Obi-Wan was quite reasonable. Of course, it was all probably just to manipulate him, but what if it hadn't been? Could've been really interesting if both sides had seen themselves as right (and from their perspective - good).