As promised ROTS Time Two observations, Part 2

[dangermousie]

Part 1 is here

I find myself thinking what an unusual topic for a blockbuster ROTS is (and how amazing it is in light of it that it is proving to be a financial juggernaught). You often see movies about heroes triumphing over odds, good triumphing over evil. Often at a great personal cost (see Return of the King), but still winning. But that is the polar opposite of Revenge of the Sith where the main character starts as a good (if flawed) champion and ends up a self-hating husk, and a villain. It is the story of Lucifer's fall (see the lava symbolism) and of good destroyed. I am impressed it worked (I do think it works precisely because we know the outcome. I can't imagine watching this without knowing about Vader. The shock would be horrendous).

In fact, once ROTS starts, there is no good way it could have ended. There would be less bad ways and more bad ways. The way it ended is almost the worst possible outcome, but I really cannot see any happy ending in there, no matter the turn of events.


ROTS seems to indicate that if you are a rebel and are against authority, you are doomed to fall (Anakin's questioning, restlessness and rebel spirit lead to his downfall). But even if you side with authority, you are doomed to fail as well (The authority is Palpatine. The authority are Jedi who screw up so royally and who are rigid and misguided). No way out, indeed.

In fact, the movie takes many action flick cliches and turns them on their head. In some ways this is the anti-Dirty Harry. No, bucking the establishment and disregarding rules and killing bad guys just because they are bad is a horrible idea (see where it landed Anakin). No, the wise old mentor is not infallible. No, going on a quest to avenge/save your lover won't end up well.

Just this once, I'll have to mention the pacing. It starts a bit leisurly but then picks up steam and inevitability.

This time, Mace annoys me even more. He doesn't trust Anakin even when Ani tells him about the Sith. How much proof does he need? And isn't it better to have the Chosen One, the one who brought you the news, there to help? And of course I think there is a parallel between Mace wanting to kill Palpatine at the end of their duel and Anakin wanting to kill Dooku at the end of theirs. Both have been contaminated by blood-lust. If you think about, when Mace enters he intends to arrest Palpatine, and does so all throughout the fight. But after the fight has been hard and after the lightning bolts, Mace decides that no, he must kill Palpy because Palpy controlls the Senate. Why this decision? What has changed between his entering the room and planning an arrest and this moment? He didn't learn anything new after all? No staggering fact has been revealed. But he is angry, his blood is up. Understandably so, but still wrong. Yes, anger really does lead to downfall. But it's not just Anakin's anger that is to blame.

This time I did notice the Padme/Anakin psychic connection. Right before his decision their movements mirror each other and they stare, identically, across miles. She is the one who first breaks the gaze. He turns away only after that. I wonder if there is any symbolism to be had there. This really does lend weight to the idea that part of the reason she died was their link and feeling his immense pain (and of course, the thought that he did all this horrible stuff for her, and she is a political idealist also didn't help).

There is something unsettlingly horrific about his being still loving to her once he turns. Maybe because we prefer the bad guys simple. Someone who has killed children should not cuddle his wife tenderly. He should come home and kick her pregnant belly. But that of course ties in with the Jedi mistake that once someone goes bad, they are irredeemable. Clearly not true. I also found his offering to her the overthrow of Palpatine not the ravings of a megalomaniac, but as a bizarre and twisted present. He can sense her withdrawing from him and he is trying to win her back. It's almost a trade: be with me so I am not alone, and I will give you all this power (similar to his offer to Luke in ESB, I think).

The scene of Anakin grovelling and cringing at Palpatine's feet like a dog is still horrific (so is the earlier parallel when he kneels at his side at the Opera. I want to yell "unclean" and yank him away). We have never seen Anakin grovel, ever and this is watching a person break. When he is begging Palpatine to save Padme, baring his deepest fear: that he cannot live without her, it is so inutterably wrong. And of course I noticed how Palpatine dangles the Padme carrot/stick. Even through the pledge Anakin is shell-shocked. Only when Palpatine promises and threatens that only after cleansing of the Jedi will Anakin be strong enough in the Dark Side to save Padme, you can see his soul seep away and you can almost see him encase himself in ice. And he reminds him about Padme right before sending him to Mustafar. Anakin's anger at the Jedi didn't really work as well as Palpy has hoped (though I am sure it helped) but once he knew the Padme card, Palpatine has latched to it for all it's worth.

And of course, the problem is Anakin's guilelessness. He is not good as a people person, partially because of his upbringing, and partially because really intelligent and intense children often feel isolated and don't grow out of it. E.g. his wooing of Padme in AOTC. Someone who was good around people and at his ease, whether he was really familiar with women, and whether the girl was a long time crush or not, would have been a lot more smooth.

Of course the Jedi are not much help. In order to get rid of absolutes, they create them. Someone who uses the Dark Side is evil and can never go back is one of them. They won't make Anakin a Master or send him to Utapau not because of any good solid reason against it, but because they guard their prerogatives and because this is not how things are done. It's a good thing the new Jedi of Luke are much more flexible. Though I get the feeling that these PT Jedi used to be too, many hundreds of years ago, but just ossified with time. However, because now old Jedi Masters can interact with the Jedi, maybe this will be prevented in years to come.

As to Palpatine: he truly is cursed. Not only does he destroy the Jedi, he destroys everything, even the Sith in his greed. No wonder he is building a death star. He needs it. He has dismantled the Republic's structure, he has no Jedi army to be his generals, I doubt there is much personal loyalty to or love of him, he's got the clones that are aging (so he is stuck either with aging clones or making inferior clones of clones), and he has an apprentice who is there only because he has nowhere else to turn. Vader has no enthusiasm for the job, unlike Dooku. Palpy has nothing.

Comments

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

Part of Anakin's failing is that yes, he starts out trying to protect Padme as Vader, but he becomes so deluded towards the end that the POWER becomes part of what he wants. Anakin has never been bashful about his self worth (he proudly tells Padme he's a person in PM, he says that maybe he SHOULD be all powerful in AotC during his tempertantrum, for all his passion for the senate he isn't against a dictator). He over reaches after he falls. He's proud. It's the reason he tries to move at the end even after Obi Wan tells him not to. He thinks he IS all powerful by that point. He wants power over death; power over fate. THAT is his failing. That's the crime he commits. He wanted the power of a god and humans can't have that, they can't deal with it. It's the edge of Greek tragedy, like Belleraphone trying to fly to heaven on Pegasus. There was another hero who completely over reached himself in the end.

And in the end Anakin wants to save Palpatine for the wrong reason. His furious and desperate "but I still NEED him" shows his thinking at that moment. He wanted to do the right thing for the wrong reason, just like Mace wanted to do the wrong thing at that moment for the right reason. They were both wrong and they both paid for it. And Mace's pride gets in the way too. Had he treated Anakin like his equal instead of a subordinate, Anakin could have seen first hand just how horrible the Sith were instead of walking in on a grovelling man that Mace is telling him to kill.

We have never seen Anakin grovel, ever and this is watching a person break
I find that moment the most horrific and sad in RotS. Anakin is incredibly proud, even when he was a slave and to watch him give up on himself and everything he stood for makes you want to turn away. Anakin is right in his thought that he should be the master, not the slave. Obi Wan expresses it "you were supposed to bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness". Anakin had so much potential. Obi Wan saw it and loved it in his friend. He starts out a slave and ends a slave. Anakin gets nowhere for all his trying. He lets himself down, he lets Padme down, he lets Obi Wan down and he spits on the memory of his mother by making her sacrifice of giving up her son irrelevant. Of course Anakin isn't thinking about that at that point. He's too terrified and too confused.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I love your icon (what else is new).

I wonder if his growing pridefullness as Vader is to counterbalance his knowldege that he is a slave to Palpatine. He is powerless when it comes to Palpatine, so he takes it out on everything else. The scary thing is that he, who has always questioned, is nothing more than a mere weapon (not even an evil thinker or whatever, but a mere mindless weapon) when he kills the Separatists.

He's too terrified and too confused.

Yes. He has little information and is being bombarded with contradictions. He is someone who is amazing as a fighter, but he is still a very young man and he simply hasn't had enough of a life experience to develop the maturity to deal with the complicated emotional onslaught and political maneuvering.

And of course once he falls, this terrified feeling doesn't stop. He knows he is on a rollercoaster ride to hell but he has no idea how to get off and that drives him deeper and deeper in.

And Mace's pride gets in the way too. Had he treated Anakin like his equal instead of a subordinate, Anakin could have seen first hand just how horrible the Sith were instead of walking in on a grovelling man that Mace is telling him to kill.


Oh yes. And Mace pays heavily for that mistake. I think in some small way, the very fact that he himself killed Dooku in such a manner and he knows he shouldn't plays into Anakin's decision.

Anakin is incredibly proud, even when he was a slave and to watch him give up on himself and everything he stood for makes you want to turn away

Oh yes. It's not even that he goes evil. it's the desperation and the abnegation of it all.

What a huge waste of all that potential. 20+ wasted years. Horrible.

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

Ironically I think Anakin was a terrible slave. Had he stayed on Tatoonie I think he would have done something rash eventually and either gotten himself killed or killed a lot of people. Anakin was bad at playing second fiddle, and sadly that's what he ends up being his entire life.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think he might have won his freedom eventually, and then who knows.

But yes, he has a rebellious and proud streak a mile wide (I think this is what enabled him to survive as a slave and keep his sense of self), a dislike for authority (once again, because of his childhood), knowledge that he is more talented than most people out there, and very strong passions. Bad combo for a slave, not bad qualities necessarily, but because of Palpatine and the Jedi restrictions, deadly in his particular case.

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

Part of his issue is that he doesn't like change, but he can't stop it. It's an attempt to stop it that finally pushes him over the edge. He just can't roll with the punches very well and that costs him. Obi Wan, on the other hand, is very adaptable. His master basically kicks him to the curb in not so many words for some snotty nosed kid, and Obi Wan actually takes it admirably. Anakin never would have been able to adjust so quickly or well. He just wasn't suited for life as a Jedi. He was more suited to a quiet life somewhere with his wife (ironically I think he would have done well in Organa's place), but he doesn't get that ever.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

True. He is not powerful enough to stop change, but he is powerful enough to cause mischief (if he was a dirt farmer with no powers, he'd just grumple and worry and no one would be the worse for it).

I think he can't take change because he had no control at all over anything when he was young, because he was a slave (and later a Jedi padawan). This leads him to try to control anything he actually can.

And I do agree with you about Organa's life. But he is too powerful to be able to do that (Palpatine leaves Organa alone because he is just one out of many hundreds senators, nothing special). Anakin's powers doom him.

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

The flaw of being TOO good and having TOO much potential. There are plenty of child geniuses that just burn out or implode when they grow up because of the pressure and their inability to be as adaptable as someone who doesn't have the genius and has to go about things in a different way. As Bartok in Anastasia says "this will all end in tears!". Anakin was the complete wrong personality to have power like he did. He was volatile under the best of circumstances and pitting him against what he had to face is just setting him up for failure. He's not a people person, he's fairly shy, he has a nasty temper when provoked, he doesn't think before he acts (ironically Qui Gon used to get all over Obi Wan about that in PM- how very alike Anakin and Obi Wan were), he's extremely proud, can't lie to save his life, has been distrusted most of his life therefore he distrusts, and being shy and loyal makes extremely strong attachments to only a few people (one of whom he loses, one he thinks he's going to lose, one who lies to him and one he thinks is lying to him- interesting parallels those). Anakin just can't handle what he's given and starts lashing out.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

You really have a knack for giving character descriptions!

In fact, the Jedi complete abnegation is a self-defense for them: if you care for no one and nothing except abstract principles, then there is no leverage over you, nothing to distract. But for Anakin it is an impossible ideal. He is a passionate person with few outlets (as you've said it, his shyness and loyalty prevents him from having a wide circle of close friends or loved ones), so each person becomes proportionally more important.

The fact that he can't handle the pressure is understandable (not many people his age who had any feelings could), but coupled with the neglect by the Jedi and his powers, as well as Palps' special attentions it is fatal.

Need to think some more as there is so much to analyze in your post.

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

It's part of Anakin's awkwardness around people that dooms him. Even though he blurts out things when he's aggitated, he's still painfully shy when dealing with people (Hayden actually does a good job of this in AotC, probably because Hayden himself is rather awkward and shy). There's an intensity to his friendships and loyalties that you don't get with people who are social butterflies. He goes at his relationship with Padme with intensity (almost creepy intensity in AotC), his attachment to his mother is unwavering, he's unwilling to think that his friend Palpatine would be a Sith until Palpatine outright tells him (which makes him turning him in to Mace and even bigger deal on Anakin's part because he just doesn't turn on people he cares about), and he flatly tells Palpatine that where ever Obi Wan goes Anakin is going even if it ends up killing Anakin. Had he been a social butterfly (Obi Wan is more that way), his intensity of feeling wouldn't have imploded on him like it did. But he can't help how he is.

And Obi Wan and Anakin's relationship was not the typical Jedi/Master one. They were best friends and brothers before they were master and apprentice. Even Qui Gon and Obi Wan's relationship wasn't like that. Qui Gon was more than willing to replace Obi Wan with Anakin (the shocked expression on Obi Wan's face when that happens still gets me because I think he was very attached to his master). Obi Wan doesn't look at things like even Qui Gon, who was an admitted rebel, did. Obi Wan never would have cut Anakin loose like Qui Gon seemed to do to him. I don't think Qui Gon would have had as much of a problem killing Obi Wan as Obi Wan did killing Anakin had he been in the same position.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think Obi-Wan really did lose his heart so to speak (I mean it in a non-slashy sense). The problem was that because of the Jedi rules (and because of his own rather phlegmatic personality) he didn't express it early enough and thus Anakin never fully got rid of the uncertainty of whether he is loved (until it was too late, on Mustafar, where Obi bares his heart) and that was something Palpatine could exploit.

And yes, if you think about it, Anakin only has a very few people who care about him (or he tinks care about him) at a given time. It's the largest number in ROTS: Palpatine (or so he thinks), Padme and Obi-Wan. That is only three which is a miniscule number compared to most people. Yet Anakin craves love and affection badly, not only in comparison to a model Jedi, but even to an average person (I think because of his early life, where relationships were the only thing he could "own" for himself). No wonder he concentrates so much and is so terrified of loss. He does not make new connections easily, and he has so ew to love him. (One of the biggest tragedies of Vader is that the boy who craved love and affection inspires only terror and because of his suit can never connect with anyone again).

And yes, Palpatine gives enough hints that he is Sith but Anakin just won't hear them because it's unthinkable to him that someone he loves could be bad or betray him (which is why he is lashing at Padme so much). I think in fact, it is his discovery that the person he loved (Palpatine) was bad and lied that leads him down slippery slope re: Jedi and later Padme. If one of them broke his trust, it's easier to believe others could.

[rabidfangurl.livejournal.com]

Only when Palpatine promises and threatens that only after cleansing of the Jedi will Anakin be strong enough in the Dark Side to save Padme, you can see his soul seep away and you can almost see him encase himself in ice.

On my second time around, I got the distinct impression that the destruction of the Temple (especially the killing of the children), is a blood sacrifice for Anakin. You know, like the kind the Aztecs and the *really* ancient Druids performed? The ones that supposedly gave them power via the shedding of innocent blood?

I mean, the way Palpy phrases it, it the only way Anakin could really interpret his order. "Kill them," Palpy says, "and you'll have enough power to save Padme." So Anakin hardens himself and does it, because for every drop of blood on his hands, he gets that much more power to accomplish the thing he wants most in the world.

Of course, Palpy was lying through his rotten teeth, but Anakin didn't know that. He was too wrapped up in his fear and his need to see Palpy was lying. By the time he did, it was too late, and he was trapped by both the Dark and the convinction that he had done too much harm to ever be forgiven.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Oh yes! I never thought about it as a blood sacrifice, but you are right.

It's an initiation rite. Palpatine knows that Anakin is not evil at heart so he has to make him do something that would make it impossible for him to ever turn back, not just in Jedi eyes, but in his own. Once he has him kill children, Anakin is forever his. He cannot turn back because then he would have to confront what he has done, and he would not be able to deal ever. He'll believe he is unforgivable and truly damned (even more so than he did after Mace), thus he will have no other option than Palpatine.


Poor manipulated and lied to Anakin. He really is out of his league: young, desperate and forthright.

[rabidfangurl.livejournal.com]

::is hit upside the head by the insight bat::

Once he has him kill children, Anakin is forever his.

You know what children represent in the SW saga? Compassion. Think about it. Young!Anakin is totally the soul of compassion (helping out strangers for absolutely no reason). Luke (Anakin's *child*) acts to save his father out of compassion. Even Leia has some in her, if you call what makes Han turn from selfish smuggler to loyal lover compassion.

So the slaughter of the children is really the slaughter of Anakin's compassion. His selfless love for others disappears in that moment, and we are left with Vader, who loves selfishly. It's not until ESB, when Vader is so reluctant to kill Luke (the child again), that Anakin's compassion returns.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Oh wow! That is a really neat insight, and not one I had ever thought of. And of course they also represent innocence (Anakin is an innocent until he falls, he really is. Even his anger and worries are that of an innocent. Had he been less so, he wouldn't be manipulated as easily), and purity. He loses it all. And the nightmare of it is he knows he does.