skywalkc

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"Except... Fear lives inside him anyway, chewing away the firewalls around his heart." — Matthew Stover, Revenge of the Sith

happy birthday shale @haydanakin ♡ (insp.)

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the true leader of the sassy man apocalypse

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don’t cry girl…love you girl..

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i think it's kind of insulting to anakin as a character when people pose him as a perpetual victim of everyone around him instead of a very powerful, very intelligent man who was responsible for his own actions.

i've noticed that a lot of diehard "anakin did nothing wrong" people very deliberately try to erase his agency and portray him as much less intelligent and capable than he actually is. the thing is, we know that's not the case! anakin was incredibly intelligent and successful and admired long before he became vader. he had a deep understanding of jedi philosophy, even if he was unwilling to apply it. we know this, not just from his explanations to padme and ahsoka about what jedi do and why, but from how good he is at killing jedi. anakin could hunt them down better than anyone else in the empire because HE USED TO BE ONE and he could predict exactly how they would behave based on their worldview, ethics, way of life, etc. he just didn't want to behave that way himself. he is the most dangerous person in the galaxy not just because he's powerful, but because he's SMART and he knows his enemy. he might have anger issues, but he's also very calculating and a "cunning warrior." the only one who could send him into a blind rage was obi-wan, but he learned from that and shaped his fury into a weapon he could use to devastating effect. vader was able to kill obi-wan because he learned from his mistakes; he was able to manipulate luke into almost falling multiple times. anakin in the OT is a man who has spent two decades honing his craft as a highly successful, extremely powerful sith. he is in control of himself and his actions, and that's why he's such a formidable villain.

so it kind of rubs me the wrong way when people say that he was always a fragile mess that the jedi order fucked up, or that he was palpatine's helpless puppet. i don't think anakin was traumatized by having occasional disagreements with the council. if that were the case, qui-gon and obi-wan would have both fallen long before he did. anakin was a powerful force user who disagreed with the council and vocalized it, not a bullying victim. i don't think obi-wan is responsible for all his choices, because that implies anakin traded being watto's slave in favor of being obi-wan's, when the whole point is that he chose to become a jedi as an assertion of his own freedom and personhood. palpatine might have thought that anakin was his attack dog, but anakin PROVED HIM WRONG and once again destroyed his chains by defying sidious in favor of love and compassion. his story ends with him embracing the jedi way, saving his son, and being reunited with his old teachers in the Force.

anakin chose to die as a jedi, just like he had once chosen to live as a sith. the power to make those choices was always HIS, not the council's or obi-wan's or palpatine's, because his story and the galaxy at large were always shaped, ultimately, by his choices.

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"Not all men—" you’re so right, Anakin Skywalker would never. He’d do so much worse.

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vader

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Euripides, tr. by Anne Carson, Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides

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Do you really want Anakin dead?

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Having a totally normal one

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“Skywalker was a natural. There was a thermonuclear furnace where his heart should be, and it was burning through the firewalls of his Jedi training.” — ROTS novelization

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matthew stover, revenge of the sith

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Twi | ins

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The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.

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thrawn: if anakin skywalker were here—

vader: anakin skywalker is dead.

thrawn: i know, but if he were here—

vader: he’s dead.

thrawn: [sigh] i KNOW, but IF—

vader:

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obi wan changes his first name (but not his last name) and goes to the planet where anakin has living relatives and speaks in his silly little coruscant accent and hasn’t shaved his iconic facial hair and still wears jedi robes and yet everyone in the imperial empire is just like “girl obi wan is straight up missing and it’s impossible to find him”

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it would have been really funny if palpatine enacted order 66 only to be immediately killed by one of his own clone guards who doesn’t really understand the difference between the sith and jedi and just sees palpatine with a lightsaber and goes “oh a jedi!” And point blank shoots him without hesitation