#darth jess

[darth-jess]

In my head, Vader relives every single moment he ever had with Padmé over and over again. Partly for comfort, partly because he misses her, but mostly to torture himself.

I wonder, if in all his remembrances, he thinks of how Palpatine admitted he knew of their marriage (Revenge of the Sith novelization by Matthew Stover), and yet he still sent Padmé on a mission to basically seduce Rush Clovis.

And I wonder if it ever crosses Vader's mind that Palpatine did this just to drive a wedge between them. That Palpatine tried to get between him and his wife.

I wonder if he ever thinks about how many times Dooku tried to have Padmé assassinated, but Dooku was just taking orders from Palpatine.

I wonder if he thinks about every risky mission Palpatine sent Padmé on, missions where she got captured or badly hurt.

Vader is not stupid.

You know he thinks about these things.

You know he hates Palpatine for all of this, and so much more.

And yet, Vader stays by Palpatine's side.

Not because he believes Palpatine is his friend. Not even because he believes Palpatine will help him become more powerful, though he definitely tells himself this lie.

Vader stays because Palpatine is the only one who accepts him. If Vader left, where would he go? What purpose would he have? He would have to go live out his life completely alone and isolated, and he would be forced to confront all the grief and the horror he caused.

Nobody loves Vader, nobody ever could.

He hates himself.

Because he was the Chosen One, who couldn't save his mother, who couldn't save Ahsoka, who couldn't save his wife, who couldn't save his unborn child.

And this existence, of being used and made to do all these terrible things, is what he deserves.

[darthjess-writing]

The Mask of Darth Vader

I'm sure other people realize this and have thought of this before, but as I've been writing my Star Wars fanfic I've come to understand something that feels a bit profound. At least to me.

Darth Vader IS the mask.

He is the mask that Anakin Skywalker wears to DEAL WITH WHAT HE'S DONE.

Because the truth is, Anakin Skywalker is not actually capable of committing the absolute horrors attributed to Vader. If you think about it, Anakin CARES and FEELS MORE DEEPLY than anyone. And while his love for Padmé drives him to embrace the Dark Side, he does not do it lightly. He falls to his knees, saying, "What have I done?" after (quite literally) disarming Mace Windu, which very quickly leads to the Jedi Master's death.

He only accepts the Dark Side and becomes Sidious's apprentice because he truly believes this is the only way to save the woman he loves. But what Sidious asks him to do to become powerful enough in the Dark Side is so awful and goes against everything Anakin ever stood for or believed in. So he creates this second persona, VADER, who has the strength to do what Anakin could not.

And I think this is why Vader hates Anakin: because Anakin didn't have it in him to do what needed to be done to save his (their?) wife. Because Anakin honestly doesn't have it in him to do what Sidious asks him to do.

This is why it's so shocking to everyone who ever knew Anakin that he turned to the Dark Side. Because once gain, HE JUST DOESN'T HAVE IT IN HIM. He is too caring, too loving, too empathetic to do the things that Vader does. And I think that NEVER STOPS BEING THE CASE.

Of course, Anakin and Vader are the same person, and deep down Anakin realizes that Vader is not actually real. But the Vader Persona protects him from the pain. Vader allows Anakin his innocence, Vader takes all the blame. Vader doesn't wallow in grief, Vader turns his pain into rage and uses it to protect the Empire.

Vader is the coping strategy Anakin uses to survive what he did. To survive his wife's death. And it's only fitting that once Luke brings Anakin forth once more, Anakin becomes one with the Force. Vader was the only thing keeping him alive.

This is why I love writing about Vader. His cognitive dissonance is horrifying and wonderful.

[darth-jess]

Just thinking about the horribly heartbreaking symbolism of Padmé going to her grave with the Japor snippet laced in her fingers.

The Japor snippet was her reminder of who Anakin always was, of a boy who had nothing and still risked his life to help others, without thought of reward.

– Revenge of the Sith novelization by Matthew Stover

This necklace was a symbol of Anakin. It signified who he was as a person, of his selflessness, of his light, of his love. (See –> "You'll always be that little boy I knew on Tatooine")

And her carrying it to her grave is both a symbol of her unshakable faith in him, and a metaphor: that the last piece of Anakin Skywalker is following his wife to her grave.

That Anakin Skywalker is dead.

Vader is all that's left.

(…at least, for now.)

[darth-jess]

To the Anti-Anakin/Pro-Jedi Crowd

Pt. 2/3 of It's Okay to Love the Jedi and Anakin at the Same Time

(Pt. 1 –> here, an angry ask about this post –> here, Pt. 3 –> here)

I think you often forget how Anakin basically had to make a life altering choice when he was 9 years old. Anakin was incredibly intelligent and mature for his age, but at the end of the day he could not fully grasp the weight of his choice until he was much older.

I think– because The Phantom Menace is rated PG– it's easy to forget how horrible it is to be a slave on Tatooine. By the time Anakin is 9 years old, he has endured countless beatings at the hands of someone who literally owned him.

This is inherently traumatizing.

Leaving his mother is traumatizing.

Becoming a Jedi while his mother has to remain a slave is traumatizing. And this incredibly compassionate kid has to deal with that somehow.

Anakin was exceptional, and yet the Jedi were only really willing to make one exception for Anakin: allowing him to train as a Jedi even though he wasn't raised at the Temple. EVEN THOUGH THEY DECIDED THEY WANTED HIM TO BECOME A JEDI.

The moment the Jedi Council decided that Anakin should be allowed to train as a Jedi, they should have understood that an exceptional case must come with exceptional measures.

Instead, they expected him to perfectly conform to the Jedi, even when he was not raised as one. They expected him to interpret every lesson and piece of advice the way almost every other Jedi could, seemingly not realizing that-- because of Anakin's childhood-- he was automatically going to see the world a bit differently and interpret things differently. The Jedi pretty much refused to acknowledge his unique (and deeply traumatic past) in the hopes that Anakin would "let it go."

They should have freed his mother. They should have allowed him to see his mother. He was raised by her, it's not like he was going to unlearn attachment– which is partly what they were concerned about, I get it.

However, Anakin was never going to be like every other Jedi. And the Council should have rejoiced in this.

They should have worked harder to understand him, instead of trying to turn him into the perfect Jedi.

Even in the face of all of this, he became one of the greatest Jedi ever known.

Few Jedi were as powerful as Anakin, few Jedi were as wise as Anakin (especially at his age), and few were as truly caring and compassionate.

[darth-jess]

"You'll always be that little boy I knew on Tatooine."

We Anidala-fans talk a lot about how Anakin is one of the only people who sees Padmé for who she really is. However, Padmé also always sees Anakin for who HE truly is.

Palpatine always sees him as a tool.

Obi-wan sees him as the Chosen One, the one Qui-Gon believed in. The rest of the Jedi see him as the Chosen One too.

Ahsoka sees him as her Master.

The galaxy sees him as a war hero.

But at the end of the day, Anakin is still that little boy from Tatooine.

And I think when Padmé says this to him, "You'll always be that little boy I knew on Tatooine" when she sees him again for the first time in ten years, I feel like Anakin takes this a bit as an insult. He feels like she's saying that she will always think of him as a child.

But I'm pretty sure that's not what she meant. Maybe she did mean it that way at a surface level, but for her to use those specific words really speaks to how she sees him for the rest of her life.

Because when she sees him, she doesn't see a Jedi. She doesn't see the Chosen One.

Padmé sees Anakin.

She sees a boy who had never known freedom, a boy who only had his life to offer. And she sees him risk it for the sake of helping complete strangers. And he does this without thought of reward. He does it simply because it's right. Padmé sees a boy with so much love in his heart, so much compassion, even when the world around him is horrible.

And I think, even before Padmé falls in love with him, this is why she always wears the japor snippet necklace that Anakin gives her. She wears it every day for ten years before they are married, and she wears it every day after. To remind her of that boy, who only had his life to give, and he was willing to give it, because it was kind.

THIS is the truth of Anakin Skywalker.

[darth-jess]

“Why would Padmé choose Anakin when Obi-wan was right there” maybe because Anakin is truly the only person who ever understood her as their humanity was taken from both of them at a very young age and they have rolls to fill that very few people can ever understand.

Maybe because Obi-wan is 11 years older than her (he was 25 in TPM and Padmé was 14) and also Obi-wan is so rigid in his worldview whereas Padmé isn’t. She sees light in the dark, and dark in the light, and Obi-wan cannot comprehend this. Anakin embraces both sides of himself.

I also think Padmé choosing Anakin says a lot about Padmé as a person, but I think it also says a lot more about who Anakin was. He’s got cringy ass pickup lines but he is raw, he is passionate, and he does not shy away from what he feels even when it’s possibly wrong. Even when it’s definitely wrong. And Padmé always has to hide what she’s feeling in her line of work, so being with someone like Anakin allows her to embrace the full experience of being alive, the full range of emotion, and she isn’t judged for it by him, because he feels it all too.

They are both extremely passionate people.

Anakin’s love burns brighter than anything in the universe, and while it is his downfall, it is also his saving grace. That light never truly is extinguished within him.

Padmé chose Anakin because they were two halves of a whole. Because there was no choice. They found themselves in each other.

[darth-jess]

Anidala headcanons?

Okay so this headcanon is actually inspired by a scene from Doctor Who but it's heavily Anidala coded, and I have adopted it for Anidala.

Alright.

I imagine Padmé has to overhear a lot of random women (and men) discussing Anakin Skywalker, the Hero With No Fear. I imagine she hears them talk about how sexy he is, how there's no way he follows the Jedi vow of celibacy, how he must have lovers on every world from the Core to the Outer Rim.

I imagine how jealous and upset this makes her– not because she believes it, because she knows he's faithful to her, but because she hates knowing people imagine this. I imagine it makes her want to scream that he's her husband, that he belongs to her and her alone.

And then he gets home, he's treated like a hero, surrounded and swarmed by his fans, the people who idolize him and imagine him in their beds.

But Padmé can't help smiling. Because, as she watches him, she sees the look of disappointment on his face as his eyes scan his worshippers, how quickly his gaze flicks over their faces as he searches. And she sees how that look of disappointment fades and turns into joy the moment his eyes find her, all the way in the back.

And after all the fanfare, when he is finally able to approach her, she tells him, "I'm surprised you could see me, surrounded by all your fans."

And he would take her in his arms and say, "When do I not see you?"

Even though she'd roll her eyes, she'd also blush and grin. And she would say, "Really? One face, in that whole crowd?"

And he would lean down and kiss her, and say, "There was crowd?"

Because all he ever sees is her.

[darth-jess]

Vader hates everyone, and everything.

Because why should anyone get to live and breathe when Padmé didn't? Why should there be families allowed laugh and love, when his own is gone? When his own child died with his wife?

The happiness of others reminds him of what he could have had. Reminds him of what he destroyed.

And if the Chosen One can't have it, nobody else should either.

And this is why he hates everyone.

But no one more than himself.