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dangermousieGot this from the novelization of SW3 because I really liked this bit. Not the writing maybe (as it is heavily overwrought and overelaborate), but the angsty ideas behind it.
And that is where we leave Anakin at the end of the Trilogy. Ouch. More angst than even I might like. And yet all deserved. Anakin: the ultimate Anti-Frodo
This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker, forever:
The first dawn of light in your universe brings pain.
The light burns you. It will always burn you. Part of you will always lie upon black glass sand beside a lake of fire while flames chew upon your flesh.
You can hear yourself breathing. It comes hard, and harsh, and it scrapes nerves already raw, but you cannot stop it. You can never stop it. You cannot even slow it down.
You don't even have lungs anymore.
Mechanisms hardwired into your chest breathe for you. They will pump oxygen into your bloodstream forever.
Lord Vader? Lord Vader, can you hear me?
And you can't, not in the way you once did. Sensors in the shell that prisons your head trickle meaning directly into your brain.
You open your scorched-pale eyes; optical sensors integrate light and shadow into a hideous simulacrum of the world around you.
Or perhaps the simulacrum is perfect, and it is the world that is hideous.
Padme? Are you here? Are you all right? you try to say, but another voice speaks for you, out from the vocabulator that serves you for burned-away lips and tongue and throat.
"Padme"? Are you here? Are you all right?"
"I'm very sorry, Lord Vader. I'm afraid she died. It seems in your anger, you killed her."
This burns hotter than the lava had.
"No . . . no, it is not possible!"
You loved her. You will always love her. You could never will her death.
Never.
But you remember . . .
You remember all of it.
You remember the dragon that you brought Vader forth from your heart to slay. You remember the cold venom in Vader's blood. You remember the furnace of Vader's fury, and the black hatred of seizing her throat to silence her lying mouth—
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 Sith—
Because now yourself 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—
And within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame.
This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywatker.
Forever. . .
END OF EXERPT
And except for a bunch of montages, that is it.
Talk about a grim ending.
Ouch. Plain ouchy-ouch
And that is where we leave Anakin at the end of the Trilogy. Ouch. More angst than even I might like. And yet all deserved. Anakin: the ultimate Anti-Frodo
This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker, forever:
The first dawn of light in your universe brings pain.
The light burns you. It will always burn you. Part of you will always lie upon black glass sand beside a lake of fire while flames chew upon your flesh.
You can hear yourself breathing. It comes hard, and harsh, and it scrapes nerves already raw, but you cannot stop it. You can never stop it. You cannot even slow it down.
You don't even have lungs anymore.
Mechanisms hardwired into your chest breathe for you. They will pump oxygen into your bloodstream forever.
Lord Vader? Lord Vader, can you hear me?
And you can't, not in the way you once did. Sensors in the shell that prisons your head trickle meaning directly into your brain.
You open your scorched-pale eyes; optical sensors integrate light and shadow into a hideous simulacrum of the world around you.
Or perhaps the simulacrum is perfect, and it is the world that is hideous.
Padme? Are you here? Are you all right? you try to say, but another voice speaks for you, out from the vocabulator that serves you for burned-away lips and tongue and throat.
"Padme"? Are you here? Are you all right?"
"I'm very sorry, Lord Vader. I'm afraid she died. It seems in your anger, you killed her."
This burns hotter than the lava had.
"No . . . no, it is not possible!"
You loved her. You will always love her. You could never will her death.
Never.
But you remember . . .
You remember all of it.
You remember the dragon that you brought Vader forth from your heart to slay. You remember the cold venom in Vader's blood. You remember the furnace of Vader's fury, and the black hatred of seizing her throat to silence her lying mouth—
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 Sith—
Because now yourself 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—
And within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame.
This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywatker.
Forever. . .
END OF EXERPT
And except for a bunch of montages, that is it.
Talk about a grim ending.
Ouch. Plain ouchy-ouch
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 10:12 pm (UTC)And I think that is what makes it good. Here is why, even though I didn't care much for TPM (loved AotC but I know a lot of people didn't), it's good that GL let us have a whole trilogy about him where we could see him not only pre-Vader, but even pre-Dark Anakin. That way one is not only more vested in him as a character, but also sees the progression. And because you know where it all is going to end up, there is all sorts of cool shades of meaning that wouldn't be there otherwise.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 10:20 pm (UTC)AotC was GL's love story I think. This one is his tragedy.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 10:23 pm (UTC)The one foreshadowing that I am thinking about for some reason is the bit in AotC where Anakin uses the Force in a way he is not supposed to by floating Padme's fruit. For some reason it always makes me think of the bit in OT where he force-chokes a flunkie. And now it's making me think of his force-choking her in RotS. It's supposed to be a sweet romantic scene (and it is) but the connection always gives me shivers.
What does it say about me that it seems I prefer a tragedy to a love story?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 11:02 pm (UTC)I wasn't creeped out by it at all. Yeah, he was intense but then he always is, and he is young. I remember my first relationship when I was 17 and it was plenty intense. He never really pushes anything on her. When she tells him to stop the kiss, he does. He looks at her intensely, but he stops even that when she tells him to. And when she tells him "no relationship" he doesn't argue much but agrees. And he doesn't urge her ever after until she brings it up again. Maybe I have low creep-vibes but it didn't bother me at all. In fact, I think if we didn't know he became Vader, few people would even think twice about it, IMO.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-26 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-26 12:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-26 12:43 am (UTC)In RL the intensity would get wearying after a while, but especially at first there is something rather irresistable about being loved so much by someone, especially if you find them physically attractive (and Padme does). It's a rare girl who can resist being the star of someone's firmament, even if the inner voice tells her it's not a good idea.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-26 12:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-26 01:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 10:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 10:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 10:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 10:59 pm (UTC)It is way too funny you found this link and are looking for another since you've never seen a minute of SW in your life. Mwa-hahaaaaaa