This isnât just a speculationâthat much is clear. The writer placed Windu in the same position as Anakin at the beginning of the movie; itâs an intentional comparison. Anakin had the power to decide whether Dooku would live or die, and he made his choice. Windu had Palpatine at "gunpoint", and once again, it was Anakin who had the choice. And the Republic would then have been saved by Palpatineâs death, since he was the only one threatening it.
"The Republic would have collapsed during the Clone Wars without Anakinâs repeated interventions that thwarted the Separatistsâ"âyes, thatâs possible, but it doesnât contradict my point. Anakin was on the Jediâs side, and the Jedi were winning. Anakin sided with Palpatine, and the Jedi lost. It was Anakinâs choices that determined the course of events. And no, Palpatineâs plan isnât that brilliant. His plan required the war to continue; he needed an enemy to fight againstâwar âgives meaningâ to fascist regimes, they need a "common ennemy" to obtain validation from the population. If the war had ended before Palpatine gained full power and launched his plan for the genocide of the Jediâthe so-called new enemies of the Republicâthen his plan would have failed.
Thatâs why Windu wanted to arrest him first, before he gained full power, and thatâs why Obi-Wan was sent to arrest Grievous as quickly as possible to stop the war. So no, if the Jedi and the clones had won the war as quickly as possible and Windu and Anakin had killed himâor at least arrested himâhe would have lost.
Thinking in absolutesâthat is, in black and white terms, as only allies or enemiesâis what Anakin did to innocent people. But that has nothing to do with holding the perpetrator of a crime accountable. Calling a cat a cat isn't wrong.
Luke found the good that still remained in Darth Vader. Yes, that good had been there for 20 yearsâso what? Even the worst dictators in our world are human beings with the capacity for good within them; thatâs proof that they were responsible for their choices. If they had always been destined to become what they became, that would absolve them of responsibility. By saving Luke, Darth Vader proved that he could have done good all along, and that nothing forced him to continue down his dark path. He made a choice and must be held accountable for his choices. And Lukeâs forgiveness in no way implies forgiveness from all the other victims; Luke barely knew Darth Vaderâhe forgave him for what he did to him directly, without knowing what he had done to everyone else.
And speaking of balance in the Star Wars universe: the total amount of harm the Jedi may have unintentionally caused, compared to the harm Palpatine and Vader may have caused, is like comparing the weight of a feather to that of the Titanic. The balance was restored after all the Sith were killed (at least until the new movies came out after Disney decided it wanted to make more money).
Obi-Wan, the traumatized survivor of the genocide that Anakin helped commit, could lie a billion times, and it still wouldnât amount to 1% of all the evil Anakin caused. Flawed characters are one thing; mass murderers are another. An antagonistâs complexity does not negate his objective malevolence or his responsibility for his actions.
âThat's the whole point of the Dark Side being a corrupting influence - nobody's above fear and anger, but you can't be a powerful person and a good person without learning to let go.â It has been proven time and time again that joining the Dark Side is a matter of choice, of free will. Quinland made the choices he made. So did Anakin. Luke, Leia, Obi-Wan, and many others lost far more than Anakin did, and yet they remained true to their principles. And while Anakin ultimately chose to help Lukeâat the risk of repeating myselfâhe could have made that choice before killing quite a few people. That makes him even more guilty.
âWhen you say that the Jedi would have won if Anakin hadnât turned to the dark side, youâre letting your hatred for that character prevent you from seeing the full complexity of the storyââNo, not at all. The first time I watched the prequels, Anakin was my favorite character. And I saw the prequels before Lukeâs story. And despite the fact that Anakin was my favorite character, Iâve always held him responsible for his actions and seen him as the one who betrayed the Jedi, causing them to lose the war. The only thing thatâs changed is that, after seeing people write essays blaming the Jedi and portraying Anakin as a poor, innocent little kitten, Iâm unable to appreciate him in the same way. Anakin is essential to the plot since his actions have a major impact on the story, but that doesnât mean Iâm going to like what he stands for.
And blaming the victims of genocide by saying that they failed to protect themselves is, once again, victim-blaming. The Jedi decided to fight for the Senate, but at the end of the day, the Senate also has a duty toward themâto protect and defend the rights of the innocent under its authority.
And since Star Wars has always been clear about its sources of inspiration (lightsabers donât exist in our world, but mass-murdering empires do), I can use this comparison to explain my problem with your argument: Weâre not going to blame the Germans who ended up in concentration camps for not being able to protect their countryâs democracy. Thatâs ridiculous. Weâre not going to blame them because âthey failed to protect each otherââthatâs ridiculous and horrible. What is a discriminated-against group supposed to do against organized armies? Weâre not going to blame them because âthey let the Nazis take control and kill uncountable numbers of people,â because they were the ones who were killed. The Jedi represent a religious community that was discriminated against and massacred.
âNo matter how good you think they were, if their choices got billions killed then they weren't good enoughââit wasnât the choices of the genocide victims that led to the deaths of billions of people; it was the choices of those who committed these acts. And now Iâve had more than enough of talking to someone who uses this kind of rhetoric, so I wonât continue the conversation after this post. Youâre free to continue your arguments (which, to be honest, seem to me to be discriminatory rhetoric )on your own after this post, but youâll have to figure out a way other than reblogging, because I really donât want to be associated in any way with your opinions (just make your own post; Iâll fully respect your wish to post your own point of view on your own account, and I wonât intervene to bother you as long as you donât show my account or take a screenshot of my post to publicly insult me, as some others have already done on this app).
Now, Iâd like to leave it at that. Goodbye.
