Thoughts on Anakin, Shmi and the Tusken Raiders
I guess I’ll start this off by saying that Anakin shouldn’t have murdered the Tusken Raiders. It was a senseless, evil act. I’ll never deny that. But I’m often upset with the hand waving that’s done on the Tusken Raiders behalf. They are painted as these victims without any fault. And that’s garbage.
Let’s start with Shmi. She was taken from her own homestead. As far as we know she had never had an encounter with the Tuskens. She had never harmed any of them. Yet she was ripped away from her home by them. She was with them for at least a month. And during that time she was horribly mistreated.
Let’s be honest here. Let’s not sugar coat what probably happened to Shmi. She was a slave again. She was probably not given enough food or water. She was beaten, more than likely tortured, and possibly raped. That’s what happens to women who are taken without a ransom. That’s what happens to women who have no value to the people who kidnapped them.
And being the cynic that I am I’m not going to put all of the abuse on the men of that tribe. Let’s be real. I’m feel pretty comfortable saying that the women probably didn’t care about Shmi in the least. They probably viewed her in the same light as their men did. And they probably took part in her abuse.
When I was trying to find out how long Shmi was with the Raiders, I stumbled upon several message boards that talked about why she was possibly taken. Several people said that they thought Shmi was taken to be some sort of living sacrifice to the Tuskens Gods that took place at a certain time of year. Why would they fight to keep Shmi when people came to save her? Shmi’s husband was wounded enough that he lost a limb. I think others were outright killed. Why was Shmi so important if they were abusing her so badly? It makes sense that she was going to be killed to in some sort of ritual at a later date. They just needed her alive up to a certain point.
And now Anakin. We know he’s been dreaming about what’s going on with Shmi. In the movies, it’s almost downplayed. But he’s having nightmares about Shmi being in pain every night. Padme even hints that he’s woken her up due to his dreams. That implies that he’s woken her with his screams or cries. I’m betting that these dreams have been going on at least since Shmi was taken. Perhaps even before she was taken. So let’s say he’s been living through visions of all the abuse Shmi’s been enduring for at least a month. He’s not sleeping well. He’s scared for his mother. On some level he knows something’s not right and he doesn’t know what to do. This is eating away at him and there is no way for him to let go of it.
By the time Anakin finds out that what he’s dreaming about isn’t just nightmares, it’s too late. His mother has been taken. His stepfather is seriously injured and everyone there already believes that his mother is dead. He’s got to go and try and save her by himself. Can you imagine the amount of guilt, pain, grief and rage that he’s feeling as he tries desperately to find his mother? He’s running on pure hope and fear at this point. He’s got to find her before it’s too late. She’s just got to be alive. He can’t be too late.
And he finds her. She’s in a hut, tied up like some kind of animal. She’s bruised, beaten, battered and bloody. She’s barely alive, but she manages to tell him how proud she was of him. Her last words are that she loved him. And he’s too late. She dies in his arms minutes after he finds her. He didn’t free her. He didn’t save her. He failed her completely. She died because he was too late.
Do I believe that Anakin was in his right mind when he killed that village? NO. I think he was overwhelmed with grief. He hasn’t seen his mother in 10 years and he has to hold her while she dies in his arms. She dies in pain because she’s been taken and abused for no reason. I think that he truly lost his mind in those moments. He didn’t think. He reacted and did something incredibly evil. I feel like he had a completely metal breakdown in those moments. I think that it could be seen as a case of temporary insanity when you look at the whole picture.
Then he returns to Padme and his stepfamily. He flat out told Padme what he did and she gave him a pass. She accepted it and told him he was only human. Guess what? I’m willing to bet that the Lars had a pretty good idea what had happened to the Tuskens without being told. They knew it was kill or be killed to get Shmi back. I knew that before Anakin even left to find Shmi based on what Lars had said to him. I don’t think most of the people on Tatooine gave what Anakin did a second thought if they did know.
Then we have good, old Palpatine. He’s got his claws in good when it comes to Anakin. Pretty sure that Anakin would have told Palpatine what he had done because The Sith Lord has been manipulating Anakin since he was a child. We all know what he said. Pretty much what Padme said…He was human and they deserved it (well…the sith lord said they deserved it). You have Anakin’s wife and his evil “uncle” saying he should forgive himself and move on. If your wife and the leader of the republic says that what he did wasn’t so bad because it was done under extreme grief, shouldn’t he listen to them?
I feel like Anakin didn’t tell Obi-Wan for several reasons. One was that there had to be some level of resentment towards Obi-Wan. Right or wrong on some level I think Anakin did blame Obi-Wan for what happened to Shmi. Anakin did tell Obi-Wan he was having bad dreams about his mother. He didn’t go into enough detail and let Obi-Wan know how bad they were. So Obi-Wan had no idea that these were actually visions and not just bad dreams. I think that part of Anakin was hurt and angry that Obi said that dreams pass in time and didn’t help him check up on his mother. It’s not logical but people aren’t logical when they are grieving.
Two: we need to remember what happened right afterwards. Anakin loses his arm within a day or two of his mother’s death. I’ve only got the movies to go on so I don’t know how long it took him to recover from that. He has to get used to his new mech arm. He’s got to learn how to do everything that he did with his real arm…eating, bathing, dressing, fighting, etc. He’s plunged right into a war within a matter of months of all this. His mind wasn’t really on what had happened on Tatooine any more. Healing and fighting for his life and the lives of his men were at the top of his list.
I’m not really going to argue with anyone over this post. These are just my thoughts and feeling about what I think happened and why I can forgive Anakin for what he did. No one has to agree with me. Don’t come at me with quotes from books I’ve never read or what George Lucus said. This is just based on the movies and my impressions.
