George Lucas doesn’t really get credit for not playing the Chosen One trope straight. When he decided to play it, it was literally impossible for him to play it straight because Anakin’s fall was predestined, and yet people roll their eyes and say “cliche” as if there are other stories where the chosen one becomes the villain AND still fulfills the prophecy about him instead of the universe selecting another chosen one.
gffa:
George Lucas really does not get enough credit for everything he did and didn’t do with the Chosen One prophecy, that you’re right that there aren’t a lot of stories where the character is still the Chosen One even after their fall to villainy, that they fulfill their destiny while being a villain, and that being a villain is still bad.
The other thing that George doesn’t get enough credit for is that the Chosen One trope plays a role in Anakin’s story, but it’s not the central driving force of his character arc. It’s important, it informs the bigger structure, but it’s not something that actually impacts his life in the way we might expect.
Hardly anyone ever really even mentions it in the movies or the TV shows themselves, they often express doubt, almost everyone never even says it to Anakin’s face, they speak of it when he’s not around, that this isn’t something that’s woven into their relationships with him, where they pile on all this weight on the character. Legends does try to pile this on, but in George’s work specifically, it’s almost non-existent, you wouldn’t even know that the prophecy was right, given the way the Jedi don’t put that weight on Anakin’s shoulders or talk much about it.
I love that Anakin is the Chosen One, even as Darth Vader, he’s still the Chosen One, but he’s also still free to defy his fate. There is fate, but you choose whether or not to follow it. There is prophecy, but it’s not reliable, it’s unstable ground and trying to treat it like a reliable narrator is a bad idea.
Star Wars is not a refuting of the trope of a Chosen One, it plays it straight in that Anakin very much is that for the story. But neither does it play it straight or say that it must be a heavy weight on the character’s shoulders, that it must have the characters beating the drums of it.
Instead, it’s there, but it’s just one more thing that was part of the kaleidoscope of reasons that Anakin made the choices he made rather than the whole of it. It’s important in the big picture, but not in the every day life of the character. I love that about Star Wars, that prophecy can have meaning, but you can’t live your life by it, because it’s not trustworthy and half of the time you have no fucking clue what it’s trying to say, especially because it’s open to interpretation and vague as all fuck.
I LOVE THAT PROPHECY HAS A PLACE IN STAR WARS BUT THAT IT’S NOT THE HEART OF WHAT THE MOVIES ARE TRYING TO TELL US.
INSTEAD, PROPHECY EXISTS BUT WHAT YOU CHOOSE IS WHAT REALLY MATTERS.