The controversy is going to be that people expect some horrible, horrific thing to happen to [Anakin] that caused him to [become Darth Vader]. It’s much subtler. It’s something that everybody faces–when you’re looking at yourself, you can see your good and your bad, and say, "Is this a selfish choice or is this a compassionate choice? And once I get something, what would I do to keep from losing it? Would I make a pact with the devil to keep it?
Oil painter Steven J. Levin says: “Vader … is the most interesting character to me, the central figure to the story, and a tortured one — the golden boy gone terribly wrong. The setting is Mustafar, the planet where Anakin sealed his own fate — where Vader was born. The thing that intrigued me about the Star Wars saga was the idea of the Jedi as protector knights and conversely of Darth Vader as a kind of dark knight.
“The portrait is of him in that role, as a knight might have been painted, with sword in hand and helmet under his arm, but hopefully capturing some of the conflict in his character. The clouds are dark and foreboding, but the light breaking through above is symbolic of his eventual redemption.”
… Anakin Skywalker would have so, so much explaining to do. :X
“ALL OF THEM, ANAKIN, REALLY??”
“NONE OF THEM, MASTER, I SWEAR!!”
Padmé is just subtly wincing in the background and Palpatine and his thousand-year plan are Doomed because there is literally no way he can make Anakin buy that ALL OF THESE WOMEN are gonna die tragically and unavoidably in childbirth without the power of the Dark Side, THERE’S LIKE FIFTEEN OF THEM FFS, IF NOTHING ELSE STATISTICS ARE GONNA WIN THERE.
Everyone blames Anakin. For once it was actually not his fault, but that doesn’t matter, everyone is CONVINCED it was and everyone blames him. Except the handmaidens, mind, who of course know perfectly well he never touched a single one of them and all just EYE Padmé.
Padmé s w e a t s.
Anakin would be upset about being unfairly blamed for fifteen pregnancies he DEFINITELY had nothing to do with, except this means ALL THE BABIES FOR HIM. >> The risk of being drummed out of the Order is a problem but SIXTEEN BABIES is kind of distracting and look, look, friend: if you think Anakin Skywalker would not be the kind of dad-in-waiting to work overtime to upgrade all the nanny droids and fetch space pickles and space ice cream at three AM given even HALF the chance, then I’m sorry, we CAN’T be friends, we just can’t. The handmaidens literally don’t even have to ask, Anakin is THERE.
Meanwhile Palpatine is like “we are trying to have a war here?” and the Council is like “yes we’re aware but Amidala is apparently having TWINS now so in fact Skywalker might be about to have THIRTY-TWO children, so no, no we’re not, we refuse, war over, we are all taking our clones and going HOME”.
Luke sets a torch to the logs stacked under a funeral pyre where his father’s body lies, again dressed in black mask and helmet. He stands, watching sadly, as the flames leap higher to consume Darth Vader , Anakin Skywalker.
