#i know I've said a few things about the tusken massacre and i stand by what i said

[louddetectiveballoon]

There's one thing in Star wars fanfiction that I've seen for the past few years that still seriously throws me off : the characterisation of Anakin Skywalker

Actually I'm pretty sure I have a hard time seeing him in a kinder light because of it. And please hear me out before killing me in the comments.

Why is he written as so gullible and childish so often ?? Give the man some agency over his thoughts and actions, the corny dialogue from the prequels shouldn't mean that everything that about him feels like a preteen ! The Clone Wars showed us he behaves like a young adult (especially in the later seasons) !

He's owed some emotional maturity that actually matches his age, ESPECIALLY with what comes with being a war general and raising a teenager. He's competent and very capable of complex/critical thinking, Vader didn't become an efficient warlord overnight, he was all of those things before albeit much less corrupted by anger and hatred !

I've been thinking about how being a Force empath can big time screw with the way you perceive people and social cues, but as a neurodivergent 20yo who also struggles with this whole socialising thing, I'm still having a hard time seeing him as poor clueless baby uwu.

Emotional balance is hard to achieve for sure, that doesn't mean he's a doll to be filled by other characters' opinions the second he interact with them.

And I'm not saying he should be entirely cast off and left to rot or something ! That man needs so much therapy let's be real, like a proper sit down and talk about being groomed and manipulated, but in an adult way. You wouldn't like being treated like or thought as an angry teen the minute you open your mouth ? Well don't do it to him !

I guess my best point of comparison about that is how Aayla Secura is usually written vs how Anakin is. They're nearly the same age with VERY similar backgrounds and they very likely grew up near eachother with their respective masters being friends and all. And yet Aayla is characterised according to her age, Anakin isn't.

And I'm not discarding the whole "creep Chancellor having access to a literal child alone for years" thing, which is terrible on its own ! I'm mostly saying these two things can cohabit without cancelling eachother out.

The other part of the conversation is how treating him like a child is just an excuse to spread anti Jedi views but that's not something I feel like talking about in this post.

TL;DR : Anakin Skywalker deserves to be treated with the emotional maturity he has in fandom works, he needs more agency over his thoughts and actions like the nuanced human being he is.

Also being pro-Jedi and being pro-Anakin shouldn't be as opposed as it feels in the fandom.