people saying that padme and obi-wan's love for anakin blinded them, and that's why they couldn't suspect that he was definitely going to fall is so absurd
as if anakin's fall wasn't the most unexpected and abrupt thing in the world. as if padme wasn't shocked when it happened and when she saw anakin on mustafar because he was acting so out-of-character. as if obi-wan didn't visit padme precisely because anakin started acting strange and unusual because of the visions and palpatine manipulating him
why is it so hard for people to understand that palpatine wanting anakin to fall was the deciding factor in making it happen? yes, anakin wanted to save padme, and he was desperately trying to find any way to do so with any means he could think of and any means he could find, but if palpatine hadn't existed, or if he hadn't had access to anakin, anakin would never have fallen. because the methods anakin chose to circumvent padme's death were never directly related to the dark side or something bad at all: he talked to padme herself, he asked yoda for advice, he searched the archives for information, and yes, he wanted to save the chancellor from death and have him tried for his crimes, so he could get information palpatine claimed he possessed, but like, without joining the sith or dark side part
in any other circumstances than what we see in the film, anakin would simply never have willingly joined sidious. i think sometimes people forget that right after palpatine killed mace windu, anakin lost his balance out of pure shock and horror, and his desperate 'what have i done?' immediately after that. people forget that anakin sincerely thought that the jedi were planning to seize power in the republic and even start their own purge of senators, which would lead to an even bigger civil war — yes, this is nonsense, and we as viewers understand this, but the fact is that anakin does not: he is sleep deprived and cannot think logically, palpatine is a trusted person for him (thanks to 13 years of grooming) and he saw how mace windu technically confirmed that idea by abandoning the jedi code and refusing to detain and try sidious. people forget how scared and disgusted anakin looked when he fell to his knees, and how dead his 'thank you' was when sidious gave him a sith name, how for anakin it was selling himself into slavery, something that his whole being speaks against. in the movie he apathetically accepts the situation out of desperation, but in the novelization he was horrified and resisted the idea of joining sidious because he didn't want to be evil, palpatine had to pressure him with even more manipulation for it to work — in both cases, anakin wasn't excited about the idea of joining the sith, but hated it and planned to leave/kill sidious after things settled down, as seen in his rambling on mustafar and because his literal gut reaction to learning that palpatine is a sith is to literally kill him, something he restrains himself from because it's 'not the jedi way'
if anakin hadn't been so sure that padme and his child were about to die and the galaxy was about to plunge into chaos because of the jedi's secret plan, and he hadn't been barely able to stand on his feet due to lack of sleep and the onset of psychosis, and if the sith lord who had deceived and groomed him hadn't been standing threateningly in front of him and promising to fix everything in a situation in which anakin, after cutting off mace windu's hand, technically had no allies or escape routes for himself and padme except palpatine, then anakin would never have gone over to the dark side; like, people seriously forget how extreme anakin's situation was in rots, how extreme the situation was for all the characters, how they were all deceived — it's a tragedy. and yes, anakin still had the choice not to join sidious, he could still change his mind at any moment, think about how much sidious' words made sense at all and refuse his order, and his actions during the purge cannot be justified and saving padme at the cost of so many lives was indeed selfish, but this is not something that anyone denies, ever. it's just that anakin's love for padme blinded him, not the other way around. and of course, anakin was also blinded by his trust in palpatine and distrust in the order, to which he was conditioned by you know who
anakin joined sidious not because there was always darkness in him, or because he suddenly forgot all his jedi teachings and somehow thought that the sith and the dark side were actually good. the tragedy of rots is that anakin is a genuinely good person who is capable of both immense good and immense evil, and he decides to resort to the dark side because the situation from his pov is super critical and there is no other way out, even if it is an ultimate lie sold to him by his abuser. and then the dark side corrupts him just like it always does, because by turning to evil even for a good and understandable goal, even if you do it temporarily, you lose yourself and that goal in the process, become desensitized to violence and a worse version of yourself
on mustafar, anakin is high on his metaphysical drugs and clearly delusional/lying to himself, and padme sees this and tells him that he has changed, because he has. and obi-wan sees it too, and this is what convinces him that yoda was right and anakin is gone, because he has changed. this happened not because padme or obi-wan were once blind to anakin's inner evil, but because anakin. has. changed. from good to bad. from hero to villain. it's tragedy, a fall from grace. a negative character arc. you know, literally the whole point of prequels.
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