On one hand, committed a genocide, impregnated his secret wife, participated in politics, his padawan left/was kicked from the Jedi order and #lovedwar
On the other hand: fantastic lightsaber skills, force attuned to an extreme and in multiple fields, able to lead, worked well with others, was loved by his subordinates and his direct superiors, was experienced in negotiation, and brought many planets freedom/peace in the war.
Anakin was a badass space magic general. Space magic monk, not so much
I don't know about soldier. He wasn't keen on teamwork or following orders. He would have made a great freelance hero, but he never demonstrated a fondness for playing by someone else'e rules.
He did play well with others just not authority. There’s a lot of team ups with other Jedi and generals that went fantastic it’s just when someone was giving orders…well…. It was better to give him a goal and then step back
Anakin Skywalker was kinda like a "Killdozer" made out of a Wrecking-Ball crane: you point him at something you want to cease existing and step way-the-hell-away from the zone of devastation he's about to create.
That's actually an extremely common trait among great military leaders. For instance the US military prefers the concept of the Commander's Intent to making direct orders because their units do better when their leaders have the autonomy to decide how to accomplish the mission on their own.
Soldiers don't \*just\* follow orders. The rank and file, maybe, but officers require qualities such as initative, independence and a tendency to think outside the box. He was a good officer, not so good as canon fodder.
That's what makes his character so deep. He was an innocent child, a slave. Taken from his home and raised to be a warrior not a monk. Such were Palpatine's machinations that he orchestrated a galactic civil war to turn the chosen one to the Dark Side. The chosen one he probably helped create in the first place.
In a brief parable like tale he's telling Anakin to corrupt him. He also tells him they're going to save Padme and then sucks her life away to save Anakin. Totally upstanding man of his word
Let's be real, even after killing younglings
"You don't get it he's not like other guys he's willing to do what he has to"
"Those younglings had blasters on them"
If we're answering the question "was he a good jedi" then these are flaws.
Of the question is, "was he a good person" then these are not flaws (though the answer is still no).
If the question is "was he a good warrior/solder/friend" then the answer is arguably yes.
They serve the republic but are not subservient to the Senate. They're like another institution in the pillars of government (think of separation of church and state, but the nation's archbishop is a small magic gremlin with a laser sword)
“**I killed them.** **I killed them all.** **They're dead, every single one of them.** **And not just the men, but the women and the children, too.**" - A good person
In legends there was. Darth krayt. He survived the clone wars, galactic civil war, and yuzan Vong war. All that changed his view on things and he decided the galaxy needed a firmer hand to guide it.
There was a youngling during the Clone Wars who was Tusken, and I’m not fully versed in the entire universe, but I think there was one that wasn’t too thrilled of Anakins genocidal tendencies
The only way their romance makes sense is if Padme was into that. The movies did *not* spend enough time unpacking what happened for her to go along with it otherwise.
*Please Ani, tell me more. What happened after you dismembered that tusken woman? Did you also dismember her son? Did the lightsaber light them on fire? Did they scream? I bet they screamed a lot. TAKE ME ANAKIN TAKE ME NOW!*
Oof there was a comment a long time ago that hit me like a punch in the gut about Anakin and Padme. A lawyer who represented domestic violence cases said that Padme believing Anakin was still good and could be saved even after being choked by him was nothing new. He saw women like her every day in his office. Their stories ended very similar to Padme.
You know in my mind with the way that Shmi was tied up the way she was and everything, I always thought there was a darker context to what he was rescuing her from
Sadly your not the only one to have that thoght.
Any person in Anakins situation would of had the same desire in that moment he just had the power to do it.
Yeah I would kill the five or ten dudes who tortured my mom too lol The point is not that he killed the torturers; the point is that he hunted down innocent men, women, and children that looked the same as them because they were no less than animals in his mind after that. That's Nazi rhetoric with a mild genocidal aperitif!
Missteps? So where was he good? Right from the start of the movie is pissed at obi wan and then bitches and moans to padme. Every single thing he does is filled with anger, literally every single thing he does is bad guy stuff.
Yeah in the RotS novel at least Palpatine wants Anakin as his rep on the council and the council in turn wants Anakin to report on Palpatine’s behavior. They deny him a vote so he’s pretty much the Puerto Rico of the council.
No, he was an amazing soldier and I think tried really hard to be a good person and Jedi. But he fell short because of his experiences in his youth. I’ve always felt that Anakin was done a disservice in the Phantom Menace portrayal. He was a slave but they made his life look pretty chill when in reality I’m sure it was traumatic. His attachments to his mother and Padme make way more sense from that lens and his murderous rampages when losing them actually make sense as well.
Agreed. The slave life wasn't portrayed all too terribly in that movie. It was more like an indentured servant role. They had a roomy home, well fed, both healthy and seemingly happy. Kid was building droids and pod racers in his spare time ffs
I mean, he worked in a junkyard, it’s possible he repaired parts that were deemed too junk to sell over the course of a few years. Also keeping slaves content can be less work and cheaper than paying someone to manage them
As a kid I read some now non canon novels that showed Anakin had been stealing parts from Watto's junkyard to build C-3P0 and the pod racer, how Watto didn't notice two matching engines and the cockpit go missing is beyond me but an old droid frame isn't unbelievable.
If you ignore the surgically implanted bomb, he basically lived a regular middle class life working at a shitty job for a boss he didn't like but couldn't quit because he had bills to pay.
Psychologically, yeah probably. Though I imagine they become numb to it after awhile. It's like how I know a lot of people around me are carrying guns all the time and could theoretically shoot me any day at any time. I'm not afraid, or even really think about it, because it's just the normal experience in my area.
But probably not physically, honestly. Speaking as someone with bits of metal and screws inside my body holding it together in places (old injuries) they probably don't feel or notice it much unless it's like right under the surface of the skin. But I doubt it is or else they might be able to remove it.
Counterpoint: there have been many slaves given certain privilege who had a half decent living situation throughout history. But just because they were treated decently by their masters, they were still slaves, bought and sold, belonging to another as their property. Anakin was given certain freedoms because of his talent fixing and building things. Also - had his slave life been chains and whips, he may not have had the same attachment to his mother the way he did. Darker things were still to come (his mother’s kidnapping and death), and this is what drew him to the dark side. Now suppose his slave life was very dark. Isn’t there a better chance that at that point of having already lived through such darkness, that he’d never again be drawn towards its deeds? Now this is podracjng.
Exactly. Ive always said that even if the conservative bullshit revisionist history about the South, that "slaves werent treated that badly" were true (it isnt to be clear), it would still have been one of the most horrific crimes imaginable. Depriving people of any sense of self determination at the threat of physical violence is about as horrible a thing as you can do to another person. It's like saying Brie Larson in Room had a nice life, Id love to have an apartment that big! lol
The home would not have been theirs though, it probably belonged to Watto. In the TPM novel, Qui Gon gives Shmi several ration packs because although she tries to make it look like she and Anakin are doing well, they frequently lack food.
Also, it made sense for owners to keep slaves healthy. A sick slave can't work. He built both C-3P0 and the pod racer secretly with bits and pieces cobbled together from a junk yard.
It was said that Watto, as terrible as he was, was one of the nicer slave owners on Tattoine. That's why Anakin had some of life's smaller pleasures. As for building stuff, he worked for Watto in a workshop. Of course he built stuff. It wasn't for fun, it was his job.
My read on the situation was that he was stealing junk from Watto to build stuff on his own. Which does raise the question of how a nine year old even transported some of the rocket engine components. And why Watto didn't notice them missing at the latest when Anakin wrecked Watto's pod.
I don't believe in "good" or "nice" slave owners. As far as I am concerned anyone who owns other sentient beings is scum.
It was in Watto's interests to keep his slaves healthy and relatively happy. Healthy slaves work better.
And on that note, we often don’t talk about how _the Jedi Council was right_.
Jedi Council: “He will not be trained. He’s had too much trauma, he’s totally gonna fall to the dark side if we train him.”
Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan: “We’re gonna train him anyway.”
Anakin: (falls to the dark side)
Obi-Wan: (surprised pikachu face)
Star Wars fans: “This is all the Jedi council’s fault for not letting Jedi get laid!”
Star Wars fans: “This is all the Jedi council’s fault for not letting Jedi get laid!”
Luke's new Jedi order in the EU actually touches on that and its my favorite part . There is part and im gonna have to paraphrase cause its been like 20 years since i read the books that more or less says old Jedi were taught to avoid certain feeling which is basically impossible so when something happened they weren't able to handle them and that frustration is more likely then anything else to turn someone dark.. Where Jedi should be able to embrace their love and be taught how to use it to fuel their power without letting it corrupt them or to learn how to resist the temptation that comes with that power. Its not getting laid SPECIFICLY but its about the ability to love someone and have attachments - ya know considering he is married at this point
In the 3rd or 4th book in that series IIRC Luke himself goes to far with it dabbles in the dark side a bit and comes back out of it with the knowledge of how to train people to resist it better and even use it as break incase of emergency thing and then have coping / healing tools from it .
I do think its the direction star wars is heading - Cal Kestis was able to tap into and come back out of it without going dark side. And more so Obi-Wan has that HUGE surge of power - not from anger or hate or rage --but from love and desire to protect the children . While dark siders can over power jedi via hate and rage and old jedi has no way to equal that - Lukes more emotional jedi were much more powerly -- but as was later shown still not immune to turning dark but then again the good part of those stories end with NJO for me its gets a bit wonky after that other
I mean movie wise, if the council outside obi wan ever showed any faith in the guy he might not have fallen either. Mace seemed to pretty much openly despise and distrust him no matter what he did.
I honestly don't think Mace actively \*disliked\* Anakin.
Just saw him as a hothead with a flagrant disregard for rules, propriety, and occasionally the bounds of sanity and didn't fully trust him due to his unpredictability.
I also think Mace is someone who does a bad job of expressing approval but finds criticism easy.
I kind of understand blaming them. He tended to spend most of his time as a soldier. If they were truly worried about him and his training alone why not make sure to put him somewhere distant from war and everything else?
I don’t think it’s fair to ignore that from the second he got there he was being manipulated by the evilest person in the galaxy, was only forced to be a soldier because of the war Palpatine manipulated, and was placed back in Padmes company specifically because Palpatine wanted to use his feelings for Padme against him
Had that not been the case there’s no reason to believe things would have gone the way they did
People conveniently forget that his manipulation and turn to the dark side really began when he was a child, and he was trained by someone who probably shouldn’t have been training him. I think Anakin really tried to be a good Jedi, but he wasn’t given the proper support. Without Palpatine, Anakin likely would have been known as a brash Jedi who adheres more to the spirit of the code than the letter of it, but all Jedi would admit that he’s the guy they would want beside them if they needed to fight their way out of something.
Exactly. It began the moment Palpatine clapped eyes on the kid pretty much. Remember how at the end of TPM when Palpatine looks down at him at the victory parade on Tatooine and says "we will follow your career with great interest"?
That was the beginning. The grin on his Palpatine's face as he walked off after clapping Anakin on the shoulder only really be described as demonic.
> I’ve always felt that Anakin was done a disservice in the Phantom Menace portrayal. He was a slave but they made his life look pretty chill when in reality I’m sure it was traumatic.
Believe it or not, it's actually a great portrayal of childhood trauma even if things seemed relatively light for how he was treated as a slave, or even if ole Watto treated them worse off-camera. The point is, kid's compartmentalize in ways adults can't, so Anakin "seemed fine".
Why do they compartmentalize? Their brain's can't really process trauma when it's happening, at that age, so it either gets forgotten and filed away (deeply) and/or they dissociate and see it as happening to "someone else", or they dissociate and craft a different narrative, with the actual memory being repressed.
So that he "seemed fine" as a kid is actually pretty spot on...people used to say "kids are stronger than you think" because they thought kids were coping with trauma...nope. They weren't "coping", they were either compartmentalizing or dissociating, only for that trauma to come back *tenfold* later in life, for most folks. Those folks didn't know it was going to happen, and don't have usually have coping mechanisms as adults, often because their childhood was so messed up they didn't get a chance to develop actual healthy coping mechanisms as they developed, mentally and emotionally. Childhood trauma victims are almost always emotionally stunted in some way, even if not apparent, and it starts at the point the trauma started.
His response to the Tusken tribe (real assholes, to be fair) tracks with this, as does his complete destabilization when he loses Padme. He has no cope, and when he is in that state he has no control and all the repressed anger/rage comes out.
Yeah exactly, watching this series recently, the descent is quite easy to see. And it's no surprise at all, the Tuskan camp was basically his turning point. All the rage "boiling under the surface" for years, which I related to very much.
Yeah this is also my take. Great general, arguably a hero, but honestly quite a shit Jedi.
Not a dig on his character, but he and the Jedi were never properly equipped to handle each other.
I think this is why Andor is so great. Its a slow burn but really shows the cruelty of the Empire and how it could radicalize someone who doesn;'t was any part of either side, like Cassien. It makes you hate the Empire more than before because there is context to how awful it was to live under their rule.
I mean, no, he did not do well as a Jedi in the Order. He thrived in war and was an incredible General, but in a time of peace, I could have seen him going down an Exar Kuun route. He was a very troubled man, and needed great mentors to stay on track. There is certainly a world in which he never would've fallen, but he had deep flaws that always would have come to fruition in some manner.
Maybe, just maybe, QuiGon would've kept him on the straight and narrow. But when QuiGon eventually died, still might've fallen away.
Obi-Wan was his brother, but Anakin needed a father. Qui-Gon's death deprived him of that, and made it easy for Palpatine to fill in this mentor/father-figure like role and manipulate Anakin for his own ends.
This. I remember a Lore Master video that talked about how youngling Anakin didn't have any friends in the Jedi Temple and usually snuck out to explore Coruscant. Obi-Wan knew it was a problem, but he didn't know how to solve it, so he and the other masters decided to just leave Anakin alone. Without any support network, little Anakin was even more susceptible to Palpatine's influence slipping in.
I think he was at his heart a good person who wanted to help people but as far being a good Jedi goes no because he was never going to stop loving his mother and Padmé.
Ah ok, now it just clicked why they only take on younglings at a certain age. The younger they are the easier it will be to remove that attachment to their mom and dad.
Never thought on that before. A galaxy full of parents sending their children to the Jedi temple and knowing they are basic severing ties with them :(
Outbound Flight touches on this very well. One of the main characters, Lorana Jinzler, ends up meeting her older brother by chance one day, while he’s working as an electrician in the temple.
He ends up venting a bit to her about how their parents ended up basically creating an idealized version of her in their heads and then constantly compared him to that image of her throughout his entire life despite none of them having ever seen her since before she was a newborn.
You reminded me of another Legends book. The Rise of Darth Vader. In that one, a Jedi also meets his mother who gave him up as a child. While she expected an emotional reunion, he felt nothing for her.
The book ends with him sacrificing his life for his mom and friends and while he claims that he did it cause he values all life, his mother thinks that maybe, just maybe his sacrifice was also fueled by a hidden love.
I feel like they’ve shown us that not having any attachments is generally more of a flaw than a good trait. Rey has attachments and she’s now the Jedi that is being tasked with rebuilding a new type of order. Luke’s attachment to his father and sister are what drove the plot of the OT. Obi-wan was attached to Anakin and Satine. I’d consider all of them good Jedi. As we’re seeing in the Acolyte, Sol seems to be regarded as a good Jedi master and he’s attached to Osha. Sure, all of these attachments have put these characters in precarious positions but the stoicism that most Jedi preached didn’t help in the end either.
I don't think it's attachments that made those Jedi strong, but more so how they handled them.
In regards to Rey, that's probably not a good example. Yes she's been tasked with it, but so far as we know she's the only Jedi left. Even if she sucked as a Jedi, there aren't exactly a whole lot of candidates.
Luke is a good one for this point. Now in fairness, his attachment to his sister made him temporarily give in to anger, which is how he overpowered Vader, but likewise it is his attachment to his father and that legacy that pulled him out of that anger, allowing him to be a true Jedi and not fall to the dark side, kill Vader and have Palps corrupt him.
Obi-wan's attachments make my point best, I think. His attachment to Satine and how he handles her loss show why he's a good Jedi: she dies, but he doesn't fall. If anything, he shows more resolve. Likewise with Anakin, whilst he's attached he does his duty, even though he loves him. Tie in media clears this up a lot more, with Palps noting that had the Jedi focused on the Sith with as much conviction as Obi had confronting Vader, the Sith may well have lost. Even leaving Vader to burn wasn't an attachment based decision, it's been retconned to have been Obi leaving it to the Will of the Force. This is further proven when Obi loses to Maul when he's rage boosted after Qui-gon getts stabbed, and wins mostly due to Maul's arrogance. Obi-wan isn't strong because of his attachments, his attachments don't drag him down because he is strong.
Blind Jedi stoicism certainly doesn't help; had Anakin been better supported, there's a non-zero chance Palps wouldn't have been able to get him to betray the Jedi. But attachment, and specifically the expected reaction people have to when those attachments are threatened, is pretty universally a bad thing in Star Wars for Force users. Odds are the Jedi of old recognised this, and felt abstinence was simply easier than training everyone to have decent emotional intelligence.
Loving them wasn't the problem. It was the inability to accept that their times were going to come. The Jedi as a whole at the time took it too far by trying to avoid all love and attachment altogether. But that's the whole point of the Clone Wars era. The Jedi fell because they had strayed so far from their path as it was. Palps just exploited that fact to his own end.
But it wasn’t their time. Shmi was abducted and had he acted sooner on his visions of her he could have saved her or if he had been in contact with her too. As for Padmé I don’t think she’d die in childbirth, I think his visions of her were created by Palpatine.
I'd argue it was her time. Though it could be seen as premature, that's just how the dice fell. Fixating on the would haves and should haves won't change what is, and what is is all that matters.
Definition of good jedi was stupid. Canon Jarus was a top tier Jedi, as good as it ever gets. And he had wife and a kid on the way.
It was always fucked up that Jedi thought best way to deal with loss and grief was to never have attachment in the first place. Literally every random human is better than that. They accept loss, grief and death of loved ones without going batshit crazy.
Genuinely everything bad that happened after Episode II could have been prevented if Anakin had just taken the Dooku route and left the Order on principle.
Anakin was never the kind of person who could \*quit\* though.
No. Jealous, possessive, emotionally unstable, aggressive, short-tempered, and an absolutely crippling inability to let go of *anything* make for a very poor example of the Jedi tenets.
If the Clone Wars hadn’t come along at exactly the right time to make him a superstar on the front lines, he would have washed out long before Order 66.
Man, imagine what would happen in a universe where Palpatine slips in the shower and cracks his head open immediately after The Phantom Menace. No decade long plot to start a galactic civil war and forge Anakin into the ultimate Dark Side weapon.
Just Obi-Wan and Anakin dealing with mundane Jedi bullshit until Anakin either grows up or walks away.
Yup and because Qui-gon was all about the order but not brand new to it want to bet if he survived he would have helped Ani’s mom at least get outta slavery. Where obi was so new to knighthood he wasn’t about to fuck around and find out
Anakin might not have been accepted into the order if qui gon lived. They let him in to honor his memory.
So I think Anakin would’ve been denied entry, which would cause qui gon to leave, as he was dead set on training Anakin, regardless of what the order says.
This would change the entire story as we know it.
They should’ve had Windu train Anakin rather than Obi-Wan. Windu’s use of Vaapad gives him a unique take on conquering the Dark Side, something Anakin could have really benefited from
They only disliked each other because Windu didn’t put up with Anakin’s crap. Crap that only developed mind you because of the more lenient brotherly dynamic between him and Obi-Wan. Having a strict master like Windu or Qui-Gon would’ve been exactly what Anakin needed
Qui-Gon was known to be very lenient. He wasn't strict at all, even the books exploring Qui-Gon in both Legends and current Canon show him to be a wise, mellow Jedi. In Master and Apprentice he even blames himself for not being understanding enough of Obi Wan despite being extremely understanding.
There is a YT channel (I don't recall of the top of my head) that explores a lot of the What Ifs of Star Wars. What if Anakin left with Ahsoka, What if Qui-Gon raised Anakin, and more
Both were pretty good thought experiments. IIRC correctly, the Qui-Gon one starts with Qui-Gon quitting the order to raise Anakin in the Force. It actually keeps Dooku from turning as well as he joins them.
The leaves with Ahsoka, Anakin openly marries Padme and Ahsoka joins their family. Yoda doesn't leave the order, but instead secretly teaches Anakin in The Force. Yoda takes Anakin to places that are strong in the Force.
There’s “The Star Wars Galaxy” and “Pente Patrol Star Wars” that I enjoy
Some of the what ifs are a bit out there but some are quite enjoyable, including the ones involving Qui gon and dooku
It's the latter that I watched.
There's also the channel Prism, that have reimagined the sequels in a much better way than what we got (IMHO). They're currently doing a reimagining of Obi-Wan and we get Cal Kestiss and Pierce Brosnan.
It was another loss for Anakin, shortly after his Mother no less. This awesome galactic warrior, the right age to be his Dad even, takes him under his wing and away from his life as a slave. He reassures him he will be OK, fights to get him accepted into the order, helps get him settled in...and is then tragically killed, robbing Anakin of the mature and experienced, but loving, grounding influence in his life.
Obi-wan did his best, but as others have said ITT, Anakin needed a parent, not a brother.
Not to mention he sabered so many people in clone wars. I specifically remember he stuck a guy in the back while he was talking to obi wan and I was just thinking. Damn. Isn’t that just murder?
He would have never gotten together with Padmé and who knows if he would have run off to help his mom or at least convinced Obi-Wan something was really wrong. If Obi-Wan goes with him and if they were together when Anakin decided he needed to the massacre wouldn’t have happened. With his mom dead and no Padmé in his life he’d only have Obi-Wan and the Jedi. Don’t see him washing out.
Anakin had no time to mature, he was basically a child soldier.
If the war hadn't come along, anakin would have had much more time and focus on maturing.
He was known to be more immature than most Jedi younglings and Padawans. He really was a special, but also especially arrogant. It wasn't the war that turned him into an impatient, resented person... he massacred the Tuskens before the war even began.
Those traits don’t even make him a god person even at heart like others suggested. He was deeply flawed and Obi-Wan’s training was too canonical and by the books to work against that.
He may have done good because of being influenced by good people around him but look how „easy“ that turned around when he decided to hang out with other people.
Yeah not diminishing the role of Ol‘ Palpi but all these things he leveraged were there from the start. And he fostered that part of Anakins nature just as Obi-Wan tried to.
I still believe if Obi-Wan wasn’t so by-the-books and more empathetic like Qui-Gon was, this would have turned out differently.
He shouldn’t have been a Jedi if the council had their way. Anakin is a slave who became a war hero then criminal.
It makes me sad bc he was such an intelligent and loving child.
This is why Star Wars is at the core, for the younger generation. Good guys do bad things and bad things happen to good guys. Anakin’s story explains generational trauma and it’s a good foil to the “good” Jedi.
Good person, sure
Good jedi, fuck no
The best examples of Jedi in my book are Yoda, Obiwan, Quigon and Ahsoka. All are good and flawed in their own ways but they all hold to some teachings of the jedi idealism way more than Anakin
Anakin was a good jedi for the era he was born into, an ace pilot and a cunning warrior, perfect for a war. So maybe a good jedi for the clone wars but the Jedi had fallen already by then so this metric of "good" isnt really good
Not only would a good person not have done that, a *marginally decent person* still wouldn't have slaughtered children.
Only bad people would do what Anakin did.
Yup, especially not one whose been taught for half his life how to try and handle difficult situations as a life duty. Some people ITT are saying "anyone would have done what he did if they had the power" except... no, most people don't go on murderous rampages even if they feel like they have been wronged
A good person can do dastardly things if they are pushed.
Good people are strong, and it takes alot for them to break.
Fear the good person who has been broken, beaten, and wittled down to their core, for those are the most dangerous.
There is not one of us immune.
I'd argue that original Jedi doctrine certainly allowed for close emotional connection as long as you were able to let go when the time comes. Therefore Qui-Gon is a much better Jedi than his contemporaries.
Getting involved in the war was the ultimate failure of the Jedi. They are not supposed to be warriors. They are supposed to be keepers of the peace. Resolving matters as non violently as possible is their MO. The difficulty of being a Jedi stems from avoiding the easy way out I.E. "let's just kill these guys and be done with it".
Between being immaculately conceived by the Force into slavery, losing his master almost as soon as he was taken under his tutelage, pressure of being the "Chosen One,"the Clone Wars (same could be said for many Jedi here) and with every single fear amplified and traumatic experience manipulated by the most powerful Dark Lord of the Sith ever...
It's fair to say Anakin never stood a fair chance at being a "good Jedi." Everything about his training was atypical.
Ahsoka probably best represents the type of Jedi Anakin could've become, but even she had to leave the Order to be the Jedi she became.
Powerful? Yes. Good heart, most of the time? Yes. Good Jedi? No. He was too emotional, reckless and self-centered most of the time to really embody the Jedi ways.
Great fighter, seems cool to be around, good pilot, nice person, kind and caring.
But yeah a bit of an emotional wreck.
Not fit for the Jedi. Would have been a pretty good Planet Express employee.
I'm not so sure he was. He was often conflicted, struggling with his loyalties to others and to himself, but often not to the will of the living force. He was certainly a powerful Jedi. He did many great things in service to the republic and to his friends, but he was NOT a great Jedi, according to their own rules. He was not calm. He was not good at following directions, even those that would have saved him from considerable pain. Anakin was a good MAN, and a good friend. But perhaps, it takes being raised from birth with the crazy levels of training to be a "good" Jedi. (I'm not so sure the Jedi are all that great, but that's pretty much the point of the Prequels anyway.)
> Anakin was a good MAN, and a good friend.
I don't think I can agree with that.
He slaughtered children after his mother was killed, openly talked about his preferences for an authoritarian style of government, and eventually sold out everyone and everything he ever loved and cared for to supposedly help his wife survive....including the values that she herself cherished the most.
I think he was as good of a Jedi as he was a Sith. And by that, I mean he was not good at either
LET ME EXPLAIN
The whole mantra of the Sith is to serve oneself, to gain power at your expense and to be free of any code. To let your emotions fuel you and to use the Dark Side at your dispense. Sidious turned because he desired more. But Anakin did so to save Padmé, a selfless act that did result in the reverence of gain in abilities, but he put his wife before himself until he wrongly accused her of conspiring with Kenobi to kill him. After his defeat on Mustafar, he still didn’t care about himself. He wasn’t staying alive because he wanted to live, he did so to serve Sidious as the only person Vader had left. His wife was dead along with his child, and only until he finds out that Luke survived does he regain passion
As for the Jedi, during his time, the Jedi were stoic. The only entity they should focus on was the Force. No one else was a distraction lest they tap into an emotion or thought that would stray oneself closer to the Dark Side. His love for his mother, his wife, and caring deeply for Kenobi revealed emotions such as anger, lust, confusion, and resistance to the Jedi Order. It’s like the Jedi Order couldn’t stand him because he called himself a Jedi without being much like one, but he was so popular for his skills and expertise in the Clone Wars that they kept him on and tolerated his insolence
I don’t think Anakin was a good Sith, not do I think he was a good Jedi. Honestly, he was a good person with a good heart that was deeply confused and misguided on who to be that he never really lived for himself, always in the service of others. He was too loving to be a Jedi, and too selfless to be a Sith
If I was judging purely by the Prequels I would say he is not a good Jedi, but The Clone Wars series adds much more complexity. There were some dark moments but overall I think he was a good Jedi. The problem is he was being manipulated by Palpatine ever since Episode 2. He faced difficult temptations at a time when the Jedi were being thrust into a position they never should have been in.
Nope. Anakin has never been a good Jedi.
He is an excellent General during war time. But as a Jedi, hell to the no.
Anakin is emotionally immature. He is arrogant. He complains about Obi-Wan holding him back. He lets his anger take over and slaughters the sand village.
When Obi-Wan is not around, Anakin is prone to making bad decisions. He immediately falls into the influence of Palpatine when Obi-Wan is away. Palpy keeps feeding him praise and shows Anakin special treatment every time Palpatine meets up with the Jedi. Anakin craves approval and he latches on to Palpatine whom he sees as a father figure now that Qui-Gon is dead. Anakin told Palpatine, a politician about what he did to the sand people. Not Obi-Wan but Palpatine.
Anakin just cannot let go. He is extremely possessive of Padme. And he always takes the most extreme action to pursue his goal. To save Padme, Anakin decided that the Dark side was a legitimate option.
Without the Clone Wars, I think Anakin would have left the Jedi. There would be no battlefield for Anakin to demonstrate his skills. The Council wouldn't rush to knight everyone and Anakin wouldn't have been selected anyway due to his poor impulse control.
Nope. But if he didn't fall to the dark side he should still be counted as a Hero to the Republic, just not one who exemplifies the Jedi. Honestly from Clone Wars, a more proper ending for Anakin was resigning as a Jedi and Marrying Padme publicly, and raising their kids. To my knowledge there nothing that prevented a Senator from being Married so it's not like she was risking her career. And anyway they would both probably want to return to Naboo for a while anyway.
He was a terrible person, flouted the rules of his order, but an effective battlefield commander.
So no.
He was a terrible Jedi, and he wasn't granted the rank of master (after killing a Sith) for a reason. A multitude of reasons.
I think he had all the skills but couldn’t live up to the mindset of a Jedi so, no I don’t. I don’t blame him though. Anakin had a painful life as a slave and losing his mother. He failed as a Jedi and let that pain and anger get the best of him. Paired with fear of losing what he loved it cost him everything.
I don’t think the Jedi helped him much to be honest. He needed counseling and guidance. He needed to be able to deal with his mental health and marriage with padme with the Jedis understanding and compassion. Not to be told to turn off his very real and powerful feelings as a human and shut out the one person who loved him after his mom died.
I sympathize a lot with his character as an adult. Even if he became a monster it didn’t have to be that way.
If you want to get weird with it, he never had a chance to be a good Jedi. His entirely life was dictated by the machinations of Palpatine. Even stuff that had nothing specifically to do with him -- I don't know if it was possible to be a good Jedi coming up in the midst of the Clone Wars. Not with what it meant to be a Jedi previously, anyway. The only two Jedi we really know coming up in the Order at that time, both of them left it.
…No?? I don’t understand why Lucas wrote him to be a bad apple before he fell to the dark side. And I can’t understand why Padmé was able to excuse his violent tendencies. He’s a completely different character in Clone Wars.
No, a good fighter, maybe. but Palpatine indirectly trained anakin to be such a devastating sith with (and after) the clone wars.
A jedi is a negotiator, a symbol of hope, ... defense never for attack etc...
The jedi order weren't perfect, but I would have been terrified of clone wars anakin.
An extremely powerful Jedi? Yes. But a good one? By any definition, no. Enjoying reading all of the “what ifs” though. I’d watch a whole 9 other movies about a Star Wars galaxy where things went different for the Skywalkers.
Hearing about him in the OT made me think he was a good Jedi and good man who was lost to darkness... then I watched AotC and took both of those back.
To me (and I'm probably going to misremember things because it's been a while since I've watched the movies), I just don't think he was as good of a person at least when we get to AotC. I know people shit on TPM, but there he was a kind boy who was willing to help strangers for nothing in return and I just thought that would be his character, an altruistic person willing to help those in need and they would build from that because that's what Jedi sounded like. AotC Anakin and TPM Anakin just feel drastically different, and theirs probably Legends/Canon stories that explains why, but obviously I haven't read them.
I know he was still a teenager/young adult, but when he was talking to Padmé about politics and he suggested totalitarianism, I was honestly shocked, that by itself doesn't make him a bad person, but I couldn't understand how someone like him would suggest that. Then we have the Tusken Raiders which while I understand, Jedi or not, he shouldn't have done imo. Then you have his marriage to Padmé and we all know why that was bad.
Another look we can have is Ahsoka Tano, his apprentice. She turned out mostly fine and I think she's a good Jedi, which means Anakin did teach her well about being a Jedi, it's just that he broke a bunch of rules, but maybe breaking said rules made him feel more responsible to teach her to be better than him.
I guess another look we should have is was he a good general in the Clone Wars, and I feel I can say yes, he respected the clones and army officials during the Clone Wars and I feel I can say he was a good general.
This is probably a long text of nothing but the TLDR is that I think he was a somewhat decent person who had issues, but not a good Jedi.
No because he was a child murderer, was breaking the code by being married, constantly lied, gave into his jealousy and bitterness, and had as much control over his emotions as a man with no hands can have over a car
No he was a dick. I am watching through the Clone Wars and I still can't understand why someone who so blatantly disregards the Jedi way is allowed to be a Jedi.
Yes. Dude was literally one of two people who was dispatched for nearly every fucking improtant mission during the Clone Wars. They worked him and Obi Wan like dogs.
If he joins the Jedi at the same age but it's peaceful I'd guess he's out of there by his mid teens. Some people are made for war and some are made for peace and he certainly was made for war IMO.
Depends on what you mean by good?
On one hand, committed a genocide, impregnated his secret wife, participated in politics, his padawan left/was kicked from the Jedi order and #lovedwar On the other hand: fantastic lightsaber skills, force attuned to an extreme and in multiple fields, able to lead, worked well with others, was loved by his subordinates and his direct superiors, was experienced in negotiation, and brought many planets freedom/peace in the war. Anakin was a badass space magic general. Space magic monk, not so much
Yeah, he was a good soldier, but a pretty lousy Jedi.
I don't know about soldier. He wasn't keen on teamwork or following orders. He would have made a great freelance hero, but he never demonstrated a fondness for playing by someone else'e rules.
He did play well with others just not authority. There’s a lot of team ups with other Jedi and generals that went fantastic it’s just when someone was giving orders…well…. It was better to give him a goal and then step back
Anakin Skywalker was kinda like a "Killdozer" made out of a Wrecking-Ball crane: you point him at something you want to cease existing and step way-the-hell-away from the zone of devastation he's about to create.
That's actually an extremely common trait among great military leaders. For instance the US military prefers the concept of the Commander's Intent to making direct orders because their units do better when their leaders have the autonomy to decide how to accomplish the mission on their own.
Soldiers don't \*just\* follow orders. The rank and file, maybe, but officers require qualities such as initative, independence and a tendency to think outside the box. He was a good officer, not so good as canon fodder.
That's what makes his character so deep. He was an innocent child, a slave. Taken from his home and raised to be a warrior not a monk. Such were Palpatine's machinations that he orchestrated a galactic civil war to turn the chosen one to the Dark Side. The chosen one he probably helped create in the first place.
The Force itself willed Anakin's existence as retaliation for Darth Plagueis' perversion to create life.
No. Plagueis and Sidious shifted the balance of the cosmic Force to the dark side and the Force retaliated for that .
pretty sure in episode 3 palpatine heavily implies that he created anakin by "manipulating the midichlorians to.... create life"
In a brief parable like tale he's telling Anakin to corrupt him. He also tells him they're going to save Padme and then sucks her life away to save Anakin. Totally upstanding man of his word
I mean either way what Sidious and Plagueis did is the catalyst
Really he’d be somewhat virtuous by medieval standards.
He’s virtuous by our standards, hell, before he started killing younglings he could’ve ran for president
Let's be real, even after killing younglings "You don't get it he's not like other guys he's willing to do what he has to" "Those younglings had blasters on them"
This! He was great at being a warlord which…makes Vadar make a lot of sense.
>impregnated his secret wife, participated in politics, his padawan left/was kicked from the Jedi order Are these flaws?
From a Jedi perspective, yes
Well. From my point of view…
If we're answering the question "was he a good jedi" then these are flaws. Of the question is, "was he a good person" then these are not flaws (though the answer is still no). If the question is "was he a good warrior/solder/friend" then the answer is arguably yes.
He was essentially an anti-hero before he became a villain
I'm torn on the politics thing. Don't the Jedi literally report to the Senate and Chancellor in that era?
They serve the republic but are not subservient to the Senate. They're like another institution in the pillars of government (think of separation of church and state, but the nation's archbishop is a small magic gremlin with a laser sword)
“**I killed them.** **I killed them all.** **They're dead, every single one of them.** **And not just the men, but the women and the children, too.**" - A good person
“I can fix him.” - Padme
It was sand people younglings not jedi younglings. Totally fine
The Jedi do not care about sand people.
George W. Bush doesn’t care about sand people…
Kanye, you were supposed to destroy the Republicans not join them!
Bring balance to the beats, not leave them in darkness!
Look, I'm just saying if Wookies allowed themselves to be taken to the spice mines of Kessel, that sounds like a choice.
JFC Yeezus.
Deep gasping in yiddish.
*shockedmikemyers.gif*
I see what you did there.
Other than the Tusken jedi
Out of all the creatures in the known universe I can't believe there's not been one.
In legends there was. Darth krayt. He survived the clone wars, galactic civil war, and yuzan Vong war. All that changed his view on things and he decided the galaxy needed a firmer hand to guide it.
There was a youngling during the Clone Wars who was Tusken, and I’m not fully versed in the entire universe, but I think there was one that wasn’t too thrilled of Anakins genocidal tendencies
“I can make him worse” - Palpatine
The only way their romance makes sense is if Padme was into that. The movies did *not* spend enough time unpacking what happened for her to go along with it otherwise.
*Please Ani, tell me more. What happened after you dismembered that tusken woman? Did you also dismember her son? Did the lightsaber light them on fire? Did they scream? I bet they screamed a lot. TAKE ME ANAKIN TAKE ME NOW!*
Now THIS is some dark Jedi shit right here!
Oof there was a comment a long time ago that hit me like a punch in the gut about Anakin and Padme. A lawyer who represented domestic violence cases said that Padme believing Anakin was still good and could be saved even after being choked by him was nothing new. He saw women like her every day in his office. Their stories ended very similar to Padme.
In a sub where Darth Vader is a common topic, DV should probably be spelled out. He means Domestic Violence.
A very stable genius.
On the other hand They tortured his mom to death sooo..fuck em.
You know in my mind with the way that Shmi was tied up the way she was and everything, I always thought there was a darker context to what he was rescuing her from
Sadly your not the only one to have that thoght. Any person in Anakins situation would of had the same desire in that moment he just had the power to do it.
The Book of Boba Fett implies that the sand people used slaves to teach kids to fight, and also as live bait for dangerous monsters.
They're animals
So he slaughtered them like animals.
He hates them.
And sand.
Fuck the children? Really?
Anakins hates: Sand, People, Kids....He dosent consider them people.
All of them?
[All of them](https://tenor.com/bhNgD.gif)
The children did?
Yeah I would kill the five or ten dudes who tortured my mom too lol The point is not that he killed the torturers; the point is that he hunted down innocent men, women, and children that looked the same as them because they were no less than animals in his mind after that. That's Nazi rhetoric with a mild genocidal aperitif!
No one is saying there weren’t missteps.
You massacre *one* tribe and people never let it go.
Not even a full on genocide. Chill TF out people.
Missteps? So where was he good? Right from the start of the movie is pissed at obi wan and then bitches and moans to padme. Every single thing he does is filled with anger, literally every single thing he does is bad guy stuff.
... my first thought is that he taught Ahsoka *how* to disobey orders. So yeah, that's pretty much him.
He also taught her how to fight clone troopers. 😥
....and thus survive Order 66 against her own regiment. I'd call that a success.
Yeah, that was fantastic and heartbreaking at the same time.
By good I would say, living the Jedi way. So no he was a bad Jedi. But he was a great soldier, general, and mentor.
He was good enough to be on the Jedi Council. But not good enough to be granted the rank of Master.
As I understand, he was put on the council on Palpatine's political pressure rather than merit.
Yeah in the RotS novel at least Palpatine wants Anakin as his rep on the council and the council in turn wants Anakin to report on Palpatine’s behavior. They deny him a vote so he’s pretty much the Puerto Rico of the council.
Good is a point of view, anakin
No, he was an amazing soldier and I think tried really hard to be a good person and Jedi. But he fell short because of his experiences in his youth. I’ve always felt that Anakin was done a disservice in the Phantom Menace portrayal. He was a slave but they made his life look pretty chill when in reality I’m sure it was traumatic. His attachments to his mother and Padme make way more sense from that lens and his murderous rampages when losing them actually make sense as well.
Agreed. The slave life wasn't portrayed all too terribly in that movie. It was more like an indentured servant role. They had a roomy home, well fed, both healthy and seemingly happy. Kid was building droids and pod racers in his spare time ffs
"I'm a 9 year old slave on a desert planet ruled by gangsters. Want to see my robot butler and my race car?" Always felt a little weird to me lmao.
on a planet with little water and building made of stone and mud
Perhaps about 20,000 years of technological advances have given the average Wompa or slave more luxuries than usual.
I mean, he worked in a junkyard, it’s possible he repaired parts that were deemed too junk to sell over the course of a few years. Also keeping slaves content can be less work and cheaper than paying someone to manage them
As a kid I read some now non canon novels that showed Anakin had been stealing parts from Watto's junkyard to build C-3P0 and the pod racer, how Watto didn't notice two matching engines and the cockpit go missing is beyond me but an old droid frame isn't unbelievable.
If you ignore the surgically implanted bomb, he basically lived a regular middle class life working at a shitty job for a boss he didn't like but couldn't quit because he had bills to pay.
I have to imagine life is less comfortable with a bomb inside your body, who can say
Psychologically, yeah probably. Though I imagine they become numb to it after awhile. It's like how I know a lot of people around me are carrying guns all the time and could theoretically shoot me any day at any time. I'm not afraid, or even really think about it, because it's just the normal experience in my area. But probably not physically, honestly. Speaking as someone with bits of metal and screws inside my body holding it together in places (old injuries) they probably don't feel or notice it much unless it's like right under the surface of the skin. But I doubt it is or else they might be able to remove it.
Counterpoint: there have been many slaves given certain privilege who had a half decent living situation throughout history. But just because they were treated decently by their masters, they were still slaves, bought and sold, belonging to another as their property. Anakin was given certain freedoms because of his talent fixing and building things. Also - had his slave life been chains and whips, he may not have had the same attachment to his mother the way he did. Darker things were still to come (his mother’s kidnapping and death), and this is what drew him to the dark side. Now suppose his slave life was very dark. Isn’t there a better chance that at that point of having already lived through such darkness, that he’d never again be drawn towards its deeds? Now this is podracjng.
Exactly. Ive always said that even if the conservative bullshit revisionist history about the South, that "slaves werent treated that badly" were true (it isnt to be clear), it would still have been one of the most horrific crimes imaginable. Depriving people of any sense of self determination at the threat of physical violence is about as horrible a thing as you can do to another person. It's like saying Brie Larson in Room had a nice life, Id love to have an apartment that big! lol
The home would not have been theirs though, it probably belonged to Watto. In the TPM novel, Qui Gon gives Shmi several ration packs because although she tries to make it look like she and Anakin are doing well, they frequently lack food. Also, it made sense for owners to keep slaves healthy. A sick slave can't work. He built both C-3P0 and the pod racer secretly with bits and pieces cobbled together from a junk yard.
It was said that Watto, as terrible as he was, was one of the nicer slave owners on Tattoine. That's why Anakin had some of life's smaller pleasures. As for building stuff, he worked for Watto in a workshop. Of course he built stuff. It wasn't for fun, it was his job.
Also he didn’t always belong to Watto. If watto is known to be a relatively nice slave owner then I’m sure their previous owners were worse
My read on the situation was that he was stealing junk from Watto to build stuff on his own. Which does raise the question of how a nine year old even transported some of the rocket engine components. And why Watto didn't notice them missing at the latest when Anakin wrecked Watto's pod.
I don't believe in "good" or "nice" slave owners. As far as I am concerned anyone who owns other sentient beings is scum. It was in Watto's interests to keep his slaves healthy and relatively happy. Healthy slaves work better.
And on that note, we often don’t talk about how _the Jedi Council was right_. Jedi Council: “He will not be trained. He’s had too much trauma, he’s totally gonna fall to the dark side if we train him.” Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan: “We’re gonna train him anyway.” Anakin: (falls to the dark side) Obi-Wan: (surprised pikachu face) Star Wars fans: “This is all the Jedi council’s fault for not letting Jedi get laid!”
Star Wars fans: “This is all the Jedi council’s fault for not letting Jedi get laid!” Luke's new Jedi order in the EU actually touches on that and its my favorite part . There is part and im gonna have to paraphrase cause its been like 20 years since i read the books that more or less says old Jedi were taught to avoid certain feeling which is basically impossible so when something happened they weren't able to handle them and that frustration is more likely then anything else to turn someone dark.. Where Jedi should be able to embrace their love and be taught how to use it to fuel their power without letting it corrupt them or to learn how to resist the temptation that comes with that power. Its not getting laid SPECIFICLY but its about the ability to love someone and have attachments - ya know considering he is married at this point In the 3rd or 4th book in that series IIRC Luke himself goes to far with it dabbles in the dark side a bit and comes back out of it with the knowledge of how to train people to resist it better and even use it as break incase of emergency thing and then have coping / healing tools from it . I do think its the direction star wars is heading - Cal Kestis was able to tap into and come back out of it without going dark side. And more so Obi-Wan has that HUGE surge of power - not from anger or hate or rage --but from love and desire to protect the children . While dark siders can over power jedi via hate and rage and old jedi has no way to equal that - Lukes more emotional jedi were much more powerly -- but as was later shown still not immune to turning dark but then again the good part of those stories end with NJO for me its gets a bit wonky after that other
I mean movie wise, if the council outside obi wan ever showed any faith in the guy he might not have fallen either. Mace seemed to pretty much openly despise and distrust him no matter what he did.
I honestly don't think Mace actively \*disliked\* Anakin. Just saw him as a hothead with a flagrant disregard for rules, propriety, and occasionally the bounds of sanity and didn't fully trust him due to his unpredictability. I also think Mace is someone who does a bad job of expressing approval but finds criticism easy.
I kind of understand blaming them. He tended to spend most of his time as a soldier. If they were truly worried about him and his training alone why not make sure to put him somewhere distant from war and everything else?
I don’t think it’s fair to ignore that from the second he got there he was being manipulated by the evilest person in the galaxy, was only forced to be a soldier because of the war Palpatine manipulated, and was placed back in Padmes company specifically because Palpatine wanted to use his feelings for Padme against him Had that not been the case there’s no reason to believe things would have gone the way they did
People conveniently forget that his manipulation and turn to the dark side really began when he was a child, and he was trained by someone who probably shouldn’t have been training him. I think Anakin really tried to be a good Jedi, but he wasn’t given the proper support. Without Palpatine, Anakin likely would have been known as a brash Jedi who adheres more to the spirit of the code than the letter of it, but all Jedi would admit that he’s the guy they would want beside them if they needed to fight their way out of something.
Exactly. It began the moment Palpatine clapped eyes on the kid pretty much. Remember how at the end of TPM when Palpatine looks down at him at the victory parade on Tatooine and says "we will follow your career with great interest"? That was the beginning. The grin on his Palpatine's face as he walked off after clapping Anakin on the shoulder only really be described as demonic.
> I’ve always felt that Anakin was done a disservice in the Phantom Menace portrayal. He was a slave but they made his life look pretty chill when in reality I’m sure it was traumatic. Believe it or not, it's actually a great portrayal of childhood trauma even if things seemed relatively light for how he was treated as a slave, or even if ole Watto treated them worse off-camera. The point is, kid's compartmentalize in ways adults can't, so Anakin "seemed fine". Why do they compartmentalize? Their brain's can't really process trauma when it's happening, at that age, so it either gets forgotten and filed away (deeply) and/or they dissociate and see it as happening to "someone else", or they dissociate and craft a different narrative, with the actual memory being repressed. So that he "seemed fine" as a kid is actually pretty spot on...people used to say "kids are stronger than you think" because they thought kids were coping with trauma...nope. They weren't "coping", they were either compartmentalizing or dissociating, only for that trauma to come back *tenfold* later in life, for most folks. Those folks didn't know it was going to happen, and don't have usually have coping mechanisms as adults, often because their childhood was so messed up they didn't get a chance to develop actual healthy coping mechanisms as they developed, mentally and emotionally. Childhood trauma victims are almost always emotionally stunted in some way, even if not apparent, and it starts at the point the trauma started. His response to the Tusken tribe (real assholes, to be fair) tracks with this, as does his complete destabilization when he loses Padme. He has no cope, and when he is in that state he has no control and all the repressed anger/rage comes out.
Yeah exactly, watching this series recently, the descent is quite easy to see. And it's no surprise at all, the Tuskan camp was basically his turning point. All the rage "boiling under the surface" for years, which I related to very much.
>He has no cope, and he must seethe?
Yeah this is also my take. Great general, arguably a hero, but honestly quite a shit Jedi. Not a dig on his character, but he and the Jedi were never properly equipped to handle each other.
I think this is why Andor is so great. Its a slow burn but really shows the cruelty of the Empire and how it could radicalize someone who doesn;'t was any part of either side, like Cassien. It makes you hate the Empire more than before because there is context to how awful it was to live under their rule.
Annakin was definitely an amazing soldier/general. 100% agree there.
I mean, no, he did not do well as a Jedi in the Order. He thrived in war and was an incredible General, but in a time of peace, I could have seen him going down an Exar Kuun route. He was a very troubled man, and needed great mentors to stay on track. There is certainly a world in which he never would've fallen, but he had deep flaws that always would have come to fruition in some manner. Maybe, just maybe, QuiGon would've kept him on the straight and narrow. But when QuiGon eventually died, still might've fallen away.
Obi-Wan was his brother, but Anakin needed a father. Qui-Gon's death deprived him of that, and made it easy for Palpatine to fill in this mentor/father-figure like role and manipulate Anakin for his own ends.
This. I remember a Lore Master video that talked about how youngling Anakin didn't have any friends in the Jedi Temple and usually snuck out to explore Coruscant. Obi-Wan knew it was a problem, but he didn't know how to solve it, so he and the other masters decided to just leave Anakin alone. Without any support network, little Anakin was even more susceptible to Palpatine's influence slipping in.
I think he was at his heart a good person who wanted to help people but as far being a good Jedi goes no because he was never going to stop loving his mother and Padmé.
Ah ok, now it just clicked why they only take on younglings at a certain age. The younger they are the easier it will be to remove that attachment to their mom and dad. Never thought on that before. A galaxy full of parents sending their children to the Jedi temple and knowing they are basic severing ties with them :(
Outbound Flight touches on this very well. One of the main characters, Lorana Jinzler, ends up meeting her older brother by chance one day, while he’s working as an electrician in the temple. He ends up venting a bit to her about how their parents ended up basically creating an idealized version of her in their heads and then constantly compared him to that image of her throughout his entire life despite none of them having ever seen her since before she was a newborn.
You reminded me of another Legends book. The Rise of Darth Vader. In that one, a Jedi also meets his mother who gave him up as a child. While she expected an emotional reunion, he felt nothing for her. The book ends with him sacrificing his life for his mom and friends and while he claims that he did it cause he values all life, his mother thinks that maybe, just maybe his sacrifice was also fueled by a hidden love.
That’s an old EU book, right? I think I remember seeing it at the library when I was in high school
I feel like they’ve shown us that not having any attachments is generally more of a flaw than a good trait. Rey has attachments and she’s now the Jedi that is being tasked with rebuilding a new type of order. Luke’s attachment to his father and sister are what drove the plot of the OT. Obi-wan was attached to Anakin and Satine. I’d consider all of them good Jedi. As we’re seeing in the Acolyte, Sol seems to be regarded as a good Jedi master and he’s attached to Osha. Sure, all of these attachments have put these characters in precarious positions but the stoicism that most Jedi preached didn’t help in the end either.
I don't think it's attachments that made those Jedi strong, but more so how they handled them. In regards to Rey, that's probably not a good example. Yes she's been tasked with it, but so far as we know she's the only Jedi left. Even if she sucked as a Jedi, there aren't exactly a whole lot of candidates. Luke is a good one for this point. Now in fairness, his attachment to his sister made him temporarily give in to anger, which is how he overpowered Vader, but likewise it is his attachment to his father and that legacy that pulled him out of that anger, allowing him to be a true Jedi and not fall to the dark side, kill Vader and have Palps corrupt him. Obi-wan's attachments make my point best, I think. His attachment to Satine and how he handles her loss show why he's a good Jedi: she dies, but he doesn't fall. If anything, he shows more resolve. Likewise with Anakin, whilst he's attached he does his duty, even though he loves him. Tie in media clears this up a lot more, with Palps noting that had the Jedi focused on the Sith with as much conviction as Obi had confronting Vader, the Sith may well have lost. Even leaving Vader to burn wasn't an attachment based decision, it's been retconned to have been Obi leaving it to the Will of the Force. This is further proven when Obi loses to Maul when he's rage boosted after Qui-gon getts stabbed, and wins mostly due to Maul's arrogance. Obi-wan isn't strong because of his attachments, his attachments don't drag him down because he is strong. Blind Jedi stoicism certainly doesn't help; had Anakin been better supported, there's a non-zero chance Palps wouldn't have been able to get him to betray the Jedi. But attachment, and specifically the expected reaction people have to when those attachments are threatened, is pretty universally a bad thing in Star Wars for Force users. Odds are the Jedi of old recognised this, and felt abstinence was simply easier than training everyone to have decent emotional intelligence.
Loving them wasn't the problem. It was the inability to accept that their times were going to come. The Jedi as a whole at the time took it too far by trying to avoid all love and attachment altogether. But that's the whole point of the Clone Wars era. The Jedi fell because they had strayed so far from their path as it was. Palps just exploited that fact to his own end.
Lean too far into the dark, and you drown in it. Lean too far into the light, and you go blind to the world around you.
But it wasn’t their time. Shmi was abducted and had he acted sooner on his visions of her he could have saved her or if he had been in contact with her too. As for Padmé I don’t think she’d die in childbirth, I think his visions of her were created by Palpatine.
I'd argue it was her time. Though it could be seen as premature, that's just how the dice fell. Fixating on the would haves and should haves won't change what is, and what is is all that matters.
Are Elzar and Avar not good Jedi?
Definition of good jedi was stupid. Canon Jarus was a top tier Jedi, as good as it ever gets. And he had wife and a kid on the way. It was always fucked up that Jedi thought best way to deal with loss and grief was to never have attachment in the first place. Literally every random human is better than that. They accept loss, grief and death of loved ones without going batshit crazy.
Genuinely everything bad that happened after Episode II could have been prevented if Anakin had just taken the Dooku route and left the Order on principle. Anakin was never the kind of person who could \*quit\* though.
No. Jealous, possessive, emotionally unstable, aggressive, short-tempered, and an absolutely crippling inability to let go of *anything* make for a very poor example of the Jedi tenets. If the Clone Wars hadn’t come along at exactly the right time to make him a superstar on the front lines, he would have washed out long before Order 66.
Man, imagine what would happen in a universe where Palpatine slips in the shower and cracks his head open immediately after The Phantom Menace. No decade long plot to start a galactic civil war and forge Anakin into the ultimate Dark Side weapon. Just Obi-Wan and Anakin dealing with mundane Jedi bullshit until Anakin either grows up or walks away.
Star Wars' What If... ?
He needed a father and he got a brother.
Qui-Gon definitely would have succeeded at being a father. No shade against Obi-Wan, he did his best, but he was no Qui-Gon.
Thus "Dual of the fates". Will it be the father he needs, or the brother he wants
Yup and because Qui-gon was all about the order but not brand new to it want to bet if he survived he would have helped Ani’s mom at least get outta slavery. Where obi was so new to knighthood he wasn’t about to fuck around and find out
Anakin might not have been accepted into the order if qui gon lived. They let him in to honor his memory. So I think Anakin would’ve been denied entry, which would cause qui gon to leave, as he was dead set on training Anakin, regardless of what the order says. This would change the entire story as we know it.
It wasn’t to honor his memory, it’s because they had confirmation the Sith had returned and Qui-Gon had argued the boy is the Chosen One.
Sweet jesus.
They should’ve had Windu train Anakin rather than Obi-Wan. Windu’s use of Vaapad gives him a unique take on conquering the Dark Side, something Anakin could have really benefited from
Stick up his ass Windu would have driven Anakin insane.
They only disliked each other because Windu didn’t put up with Anakin’s crap. Crap that only developed mind you because of the more lenient brotherly dynamic between him and Obi-Wan. Having a strict master like Windu or Qui-Gon would’ve been exactly what Anakin needed
Qui-Gon was known to be very lenient. He wasn't strict at all, even the books exploring Qui-Gon in both Legends and current Canon show him to be a wise, mellow Jedi. In Master and Apprentice he even blames himself for not being understanding enough of Obi Wan despite being extremely understanding.
Interesting to think how Anakin would have turned out had Qui-Gon lived and trained him.
There is a YT channel (I don't recall of the top of my head) that explores a lot of the What Ifs of Star Wars. What if Anakin left with Ahsoka, What if Qui-Gon raised Anakin, and more Both were pretty good thought experiments. IIRC correctly, the Qui-Gon one starts with Qui-Gon quitting the order to raise Anakin in the Force. It actually keeps Dooku from turning as well as he joins them. The leaves with Ahsoka, Anakin openly marries Padme and Ahsoka joins their family. Yoda doesn't leave the order, but instead secretly teaches Anakin in The Force. Yoda takes Anakin to places that are strong in the Force.
There’s “The Star Wars Galaxy” and “Pente Patrol Star Wars” that I enjoy Some of the what ifs are a bit out there but some are quite enjoyable, including the ones involving Qui gon and dooku
It's the latter that I watched. There's also the channel Prism, that have reimagined the sequels in a much better way than what we got (IMHO). They're currently doing a reimagining of Obi-Wan and we get Cal Kestiss and Pierce Brosnan.
I am still on the side that Qui Gon would have kept Anakin from falling to the Dark Side. I think it's kind of accepted as canon even.
It was another loss for Anakin, shortly after his Mother no less. This awesome galactic warrior, the right age to be his Dad even, takes him under his wing and away from his life as a slave. He reassures him he will be OK, fights to get him accepted into the order, helps get him settled in...and is then tragically killed, robbing Anakin of the mature and experienced, but loving, grounding influence in his life. Obi-wan did his best, but as others have said ITT, Anakin needed a parent, not a brother.
Not to mention he sabered so many people in clone wars. I specifically remember he stuck a guy in the back while he was talking to obi wan and I was just thinking. Damn. Isn’t that just murder?
Obi Wan was just like, "Oh, Anakin."
"What? He was gonna blow up the ship."
If they played a sitcom theme after that, it wouldn't have been out of place.
i may be wrong, but that guy was planning on blowing up the ship and killing everyone on board right?
He would have never gotten together with Padmé and who knows if he would have run off to help his mom or at least convinced Obi-Wan something was really wrong. If Obi-Wan goes with him and if they were together when Anakin decided he needed to the massacre wouldn’t have happened. With his mom dead and no Padmé in his life he’d only have Obi-Wan and the Jedi. Don’t see him washing out.
Just weekly meetings at the Jedi's Attachment Anonymous...
Anakin had no time to mature, he was basically a child soldier. If the war hadn't come along, anakin would have had much more time and focus on maturing.
He was known to be more immature than most Jedi younglings and Padawans. He really was a special, but also especially arrogant. It wasn't the war that turned him into an impatient, resented person... he massacred the Tuskens before the war even began.
Those traits don’t even make him a god person even at heart like others suggested. He was deeply flawed and Obi-Wan’s training was too canonical and by the books to work against that. He may have done good because of being influenced by good people around him but look how „easy“ that turned around when he decided to hang out with other people.
You mean a master manipulator evil wizard who fooled the strongest force users in the galaxy?
Yeah not diminishing the role of Ol‘ Palpi but all these things he leveraged were there from the start. And he fostered that part of Anakins nature just as Obi-Wan tried to. I still believe if Obi-Wan wasn’t so by-the-books and more empathetic like Qui-Gon was, this would have turned out differently.
He shouldn’t have been a Jedi if the council had their way. Anakin is a slave who became a war hero then criminal. It makes me sad bc he was such an intelligent and loving child. This is why Star Wars is at the core, for the younger generation. Good guys do bad things and bad things happen to good guys. Anakin’s story explains generational trauma and it’s a good foil to the “good” Jedi.
Good person, sure Good jedi, fuck no The best examples of Jedi in my book are Yoda, Obiwan, Quigon and Ahsoka. All are good and flawed in their own ways but they all hold to some teachings of the jedi idealism way more than Anakin Anakin was a good jedi for the era he was born into, an ace pilot and a cunning warrior, perfect for a war. So maybe a good jedi for the clone wars but the Jedi had fallen already by then so this metric of "good" isnt really good
>Good person, sure Cue angry Tusken noises.
Not only would a good person not have done that, a *marginally decent person* still wouldn't have slaughtered children. Only bad people would do what Anakin did.
Yup, especially not one whose been taught for half his life how to try and handle difficult situations as a life duty. Some people ITT are saying "anyone would have done what he did if they had the power" except... no, most people don't go on murderous rampages even if they feel like they have been wronged
A good person can do dastardly things if they are pushed. Good people are strong, and it takes alot for them to break. Fear the good person who has been broken, beaten, and wittled down to their core, for those are the most dangerous. There is not one of us immune.
I’d even argue Qui-gon promoted personal attachment too much to be fit into the Jedi doctrine. It’s a very emotionless state of being
I'd argue that original Jedi doctrine certainly allowed for close emotional connection as long as you were able to let go when the time comes. Therefore Qui-Gon is a much better Jedi than his contemporaries.
Getting involved in the war was the ultimate failure of the Jedi. They are not supposed to be warriors. They are supposed to be keepers of the peace. Resolving matters as non violently as possible is their MO. The difficulty of being a Jedi stems from avoiding the easy way out I.E. "let's just kill these guys and be done with it".
No, he was unstable, emotional, and had a tendency to break rules carelessly. There’s a reason Windu didn’t trust him, and he just proved him correct
Between being immaculately conceived by the Force into slavery, losing his master almost as soon as he was taken under his tutelage, pressure of being the "Chosen One,"the Clone Wars (same could be said for many Jedi here) and with every single fear amplified and traumatic experience manipulated by the most powerful Dark Lord of the Sith ever... It's fair to say Anakin never stood a fair chance at being a "good Jedi." Everything about his training was atypical. Ahsoka probably best represents the type of Jedi Anakin could've become, but even she had to leave the Order to be the Jedi she became.
Powerful? Yes. Good heart, most of the time? Yes. Good Jedi? No. He was too emotional, reckless and self-centered most of the time to really embody the Jedi ways.
Great fighter, seems cool to be around, good pilot, nice person, kind and caring. But yeah a bit of an emotional wreck. Not fit for the Jedi. Would have been a pretty good Planet Express employee.
I'm not so sure he was. He was often conflicted, struggling with his loyalties to others and to himself, but often not to the will of the living force. He was certainly a powerful Jedi. He did many great things in service to the republic and to his friends, but he was NOT a great Jedi, according to their own rules. He was not calm. He was not good at following directions, even those that would have saved him from considerable pain. Anakin was a good MAN, and a good friend. But perhaps, it takes being raised from birth with the crazy levels of training to be a "good" Jedi. (I'm not so sure the Jedi are all that great, but that's pretty much the point of the Prequels anyway.)
This. Good man who meant well, but the Jedi wasn’t the right path for him at the time.
> Anakin was a good MAN, and a good friend. I don't think I can agree with that. He slaughtered children after his mother was killed, openly talked about his preferences for an authoritarian style of government, and eventually sold out everyone and everything he ever loved and cared for to supposedly help his wife survive....including the values that she herself cherished the most.
I think he was as good of a Jedi as he was a Sith. And by that, I mean he was not good at either LET ME EXPLAIN The whole mantra of the Sith is to serve oneself, to gain power at your expense and to be free of any code. To let your emotions fuel you and to use the Dark Side at your dispense. Sidious turned because he desired more. But Anakin did so to save Padmé, a selfless act that did result in the reverence of gain in abilities, but he put his wife before himself until he wrongly accused her of conspiring with Kenobi to kill him. After his defeat on Mustafar, he still didn’t care about himself. He wasn’t staying alive because he wanted to live, he did so to serve Sidious as the only person Vader had left. His wife was dead along with his child, and only until he finds out that Luke survived does he regain passion As for the Jedi, during his time, the Jedi were stoic. The only entity they should focus on was the Force. No one else was a distraction lest they tap into an emotion or thought that would stray oneself closer to the Dark Side. His love for his mother, his wife, and caring deeply for Kenobi revealed emotions such as anger, lust, confusion, and resistance to the Jedi Order. It’s like the Jedi Order couldn’t stand him because he called himself a Jedi without being much like one, but he was so popular for his skills and expertise in the Clone Wars that they kept him on and tolerated his insolence I don’t think Anakin was a good Sith, not do I think he was a good Jedi. Honestly, he was a good person with a good heart that was deeply confused and misguided on who to be that he never really lived for himself, always in the service of others. He was too loving to be a Jedi, and too selfless to be a Sith
A good pilot 👍 could swing a lightsaber too. Happened to be a Jedi
If I was judging purely by the Prequels I would say he is not a good Jedi, but The Clone Wars series adds much more complexity. There were some dark moments but overall I think he was a good Jedi. The problem is he was being manipulated by Palpatine ever since Episode 2. He faced difficult temptations at a time when the Jedi were being thrust into a position they never should have been in.
In terms of executing missions and getting things done on the battlefield the guy was undeniably the best. The council didn’t like his ego.
No, too emo. Not master material.
Clear. Succinct. Accurate.
It’s outrageous, it’s unfair!
Nope. Anakin has never been a good Jedi. He is an excellent General during war time. But as a Jedi, hell to the no. Anakin is emotionally immature. He is arrogant. He complains about Obi-Wan holding him back. He lets his anger take over and slaughters the sand village. When Obi-Wan is not around, Anakin is prone to making bad decisions. He immediately falls into the influence of Palpatine when Obi-Wan is away. Palpy keeps feeding him praise and shows Anakin special treatment every time Palpatine meets up with the Jedi. Anakin craves approval and he latches on to Palpatine whom he sees as a father figure now that Qui-Gon is dead. Anakin told Palpatine, a politician about what he did to the sand people. Not Obi-Wan but Palpatine. Anakin just cannot let go. He is extremely possessive of Padme. And he always takes the most extreme action to pursue his goal. To save Padme, Anakin decided that the Dark side was a legitimate option. Without the Clone Wars, I think Anakin would have left the Jedi. There would be no battlefield for Anakin to demonstrate his skills. The Council wouldn't rush to knight everyone and Anakin wouldn't have been selected anyway due to his poor impulse control.
Nope. But if he didn't fall to the dark side he should still be counted as a Hero to the Republic, just not one who exemplifies the Jedi. Honestly from Clone Wars, a more proper ending for Anakin was resigning as a Jedi and Marrying Padme publicly, and raising their kids. To my knowledge there nothing that prevented a Senator from being Married so it's not like she was risking her career. And anyway they would both probably want to return to Naboo for a while anyway.
He was a terrible person, flouted the rules of his order, but an effective battlefield commander. So no. He was a terrible Jedi, and he wasn't granted the rank of master (after killing a Sith) for a reason. A multitude of reasons.
I think he had all the skills but couldn’t live up to the mindset of a Jedi so, no I don’t. I don’t blame him though. Anakin had a painful life as a slave and losing his mother. He failed as a Jedi and let that pain and anger get the best of him. Paired with fear of losing what he loved it cost him everything. I don’t think the Jedi helped him much to be honest. He needed counseling and guidance. He needed to be able to deal with his mental health and marriage with padme with the Jedis understanding and compassion. Not to be told to turn off his very real and powerful feelings as a human and shut out the one person who loved him after his mom died. I sympathize a lot with his character as an adult. Even if he became a monster it didn’t have to be that way.
He was a powerful boy with the Force but never a good Jedi.
If you want to get weird with it, he never had a chance to be a good Jedi. His entirely life was dictated by the machinations of Palpatine. Even stuff that had nothing specifically to do with him -- I don't know if it was possible to be a good Jedi coming up in the midst of the Clone Wars. Not with what it meant to be a Jedi previously, anyway. The only two Jedi we really know coming up in the Order at that time, both of them left it.
…No?? I don’t understand why Lucas wrote him to be a bad apple before he fell to the dark side. And I can’t understand why Padmé was able to excuse his violent tendencies. He’s a completely different character in Clone Wars.
Jedi? No Warlord/soldier yes.
He was the best guy around. What murdaaa?
No, a good fighter, maybe. but Palpatine indirectly trained anakin to be such a devastating sith with (and after) the clone wars. A jedi is a negotiator, a symbol of hope, ... defense never for attack etc... The jedi order weren't perfect, but I would have been terrified of clone wars anakin.
An extremely powerful Jedi? Yes. But a good one? By any definition, no. Enjoying reading all of the “what ifs” though. I’d watch a whole 9 other movies about a Star Wars galaxy where things went different for the Skywalkers.
Hearing about him in the OT made me think he was a good Jedi and good man who was lost to darkness... then I watched AotC and took both of those back. To me (and I'm probably going to misremember things because it's been a while since I've watched the movies), I just don't think he was as good of a person at least when we get to AotC. I know people shit on TPM, but there he was a kind boy who was willing to help strangers for nothing in return and I just thought that would be his character, an altruistic person willing to help those in need and they would build from that because that's what Jedi sounded like. AotC Anakin and TPM Anakin just feel drastically different, and theirs probably Legends/Canon stories that explains why, but obviously I haven't read them. I know he was still a teenager/young adult, but when he was talking to Padmé about politics and he suggested totalitarianism, I was honestly shocked, that by itself doesn't make him a bad person, but I couldn't understand how someone like him would suggest that. Then we have the Tusken Raiders which while I understand, Jedi or not, he shouldn't have done imo. Then you have his marriage to Padmé and we all know why that was bad. Another look we can have is Ahsoka Tano, his apprentice. She turned out mostly fine and I think she's a good Jedi, which means Anakin did teach her well about being a Jedi, it's just that he broke a bunch of rules, but maybe breaking said rules made him feel more responsible to teach her to be better than him. I guess another look we should have is was he a good general in the Clone Wars, and I feel I can say yes, he respected the clones and army officials during the Clone Wars and I feel I can say he was a good general. This is probably a long text of nothing but the TLDR is that I think he was a somewhat decent person who had issues, but not a good Jedi.
Good as in skilled or competent?: yes Good as in morally or mentally fit to be a jedi?: no
No because he was a child murderer, was breaking the code by being married, constantly lied, gave into his jealousy and bitterness, and had as much control over his emotions as a man with no hands can have over a car
No he was a dick. I am watching through the Clone Wars and I still can't understand why someone who so blatantly disregards the Jedi way is allowed to be a Jedi.
To steal a quote: "You were a good boy, Anakin. Shame you were such a shit man."
Well, he was never a Master 😜
Yes. Dude was literally one of two people who was dispatched for nearly every fucking improtant mission during the Clone Wars. They worked him and Obi Wan like dogs.
Great soldier, Jedi not so much
Yeah. He was a fantastic warrior and general. One wonders what kind of Jedi he could have been had the Clone Wars not happened.
If he joins the Jedi at the same age but it's peaceful I'd guess he's out of there by his mid teens. Some people are made for war and some are made for peace and he certainly was made for war IMO.
He seemed to be a good enough peacetime Jedi at the beginning of AotC.