doing a real angsty plot in star wars verse with @galaxyfoughtâ where vader gets redeemed a lil early and i just wanna sayâŚâŚone of the biggest reasons that kept anakin on the dark side was because he felt like he had nothing left. if you look at the revenge of the sith novelization there is this beautiful and to me, iconic passage that really says it all (bolded parts mine):
And there is one blazing moment in which you finally understand that there was no dragon. That there was no Vader. That there was only you. Only Anakin Skywalker.
That it was all you. Is you.
Only you.
You did it.
You killed her.
You killed her because, finally, when you could have saved her, when you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself...
It is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Sithâ
Because now your self is all you will ever have.
And you rage and scream and reach through the Force to crush the shadow who has destroyed you, but you are so far less now than what you were, you are more than half machine, you are like a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf, you can remember where the power was but the power you can touch is only a memory, and so with all your world-destroying fury it is only droids around you that implode, and equipment, and the table on which you were strapped shatters, and in the end, you cannot touch the shadow.
In the end, you do not even want to.
In the end, the shadow is all you have left.
Because the shadow understands you, the shadow forgives you, the shadow gathers you unto itself â And within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame.
This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker..
Forever..
i am like, so jealous of this passage. i feel like no matter what i write it will never top this, it will never be as powerful as this. but anyway, at the end of rots he has nothing left except himself. he feels he has nothing left to do in the world except continue to follow the path of pure, unfettered evil. now, we as the audience can see that thatâs not entirely true, that even if his life is completely ruined now he might still have the choice to kill sidious or flee into hiding or do any number of things that do not include being the right hand to an emperor of a genocidal empire. but it wouldnât be how he feels, especially not my anakin who is mentally ill, and god knows that due to my own mental illnesses iâve had those moments where i felt like i had nothing and was doomed even though i still had plenty of options in front of me.Â
but thatâs not the point of this headcanon post. the point isâŚâŚi feel as though if he knew he still had loved ones out there, if he knew his children were alive, he would not have stayed with the dark for as long as he did. at first he joined the dark side to save those he loved, and then i feel like, after he failed to save those he loved, he stayed because there was nothing else he thought that he could do besides follow the sith path and become consumed by his own power. but if he thought that padmĂŠ was dead and then discovered early that she and her children were still alive, that all his nightmares and his turn to the dark side were for nothingâŚâŚwell, letâs just say that when nika and i start writing that thread, youâre gonna see what happens next. :3
