Tumblr crosspost (18 May 2020)

[anghraine]

An anon asked:

I'm sorry if this bothers you, but I've seen some of your (brilliant btw) meta, and would love to see you elaborate on Anakin's identity as a Jedi. Plenty of fans think that he would have found fulfillment in leaving the Order and being husband and father, but I've seen some of your thoughts on it being integral to the OT and would love to see more (I agree: we barely see Sith in the OT - until Palps uses the Force, you'd think Vader is his pet Jedi). Thank you and sorry if it's a bother

I replied:

Not a bother at all, and thank you very much about the meta!

I think how you read Anakin’s identity as a Jedi is going to rest on quite a few things, but especially three:

1. How you see Anakin
2. How you see the Jedi
3. How much weight you give the PT vs OT

That is, I’ve mostly seen the idea that Anakin would have been better off leaving the Jedi or wasn’t truly a Jedi at heart from people who are intensely critical of the PT Jedi in particular. This isn’t a denunciation of that POV as such. But in my experience, “Anakin would have been better off leaving the Jedi” does tend to be accompanied by negative views of the Jedi (mostly shaped by the PT) and not just a sense that he’s temperamentally unsuited to it (also mostly shaped by the PT).

And I do think this is driven by the very real flaws of the Jedi Order as an organization—flaws that extend into the OT (whee, patricide!), but are dominated by their dynamics in the PT era.

(Note: I do think some of the condemnations lean uncomfortably to the Western-centric, even considering how #problematic SW itself is.)

OTOH, if your view of Anakin and the Jedi is primarily shaped by the OT, with the PT filling in the blanks, the issue can look very different. Anakin remains deeply dedicated to the Jedi faith despite his rejection and destruction of the Jedi organization. His offer to Luke is to complete his training as a Jedi, not to train him in something else entirely. There’s the culminating moment where Luke declares that he is a Jedi, like Anakin—which can be read as either “I am a Jedi, as Anakin is” or “I am a Jedi in the way that Anakin is.”

For me, that moment in both Luke’s and Anakin’s character arcs is deeply undercut by the idea that Anakin isn’t really aligned with the Jedi, or shouldn’t be. In the OT, his identity as a Jedi constitutes an enormous part of his past, others’ perceptions of him in the present, his perception of himself and his place in the galaxy, his view of Luke, Luke’s view of him, his ultimate conciliation with Luke and with the Force. There’s probably more, honestly. Without that core identity, his characterization and his character arc just look radically different, PT or no PT.

Since there is a PT, my interest is in how the two line up, and it’s not really much of a stretch (though, in all honesty, still driven by my prioritization of the OT). There are two basic ideas in the OT about Anakin’s relationship to the Jedi that have to be balanced out: a) he identifies and is identified as a Jedi and is super offended at disrespect to the faith, and b) he was at the very least a major participant in wrecking the Jedi Order. So what I take away from that is that the issue was, for Anakin, not religious—he has conviction in the faith but not in the organization, and in fact became violently opposed to the organization.

And I think that’s basically what’s in the PT (maybe with some squinting, but it’s there). Like, when he comes out with “the Jedi are evil!” after murdering a bunch of Jedi children, it’s … kind of odd … but, say, his stated views on the Jedi and love genuinely don’t seem to mesh well with the reality of the Jedi Order despite being grounded in Jedi doctrine. It’s easy to imagine that it’s not the only issue where his ideas of What A Jedi Should Be clash with what he is expected to be, as a Jedi (and that would be compounded by the secret marriage etc etc).

And we’re given plenty of reasons for him to be disaffected from the Order! I think he’s had a lot of objections to Jedi practices along the way that were either repressed or silenced, and when he falls to the Dark Side and the brakes go off, it all comes roaring out.

In the wider narrative, the general conclusion I come away with is that … Anakin’s objections to the Order were based on real problems, and his ideals of What A Jedi Should Be were probably pretty solid (if anything, better than most other Jedi’s), and these things are part of the tragedy of his terrible fall. However, they’re also part of his rise, in that Luke is able to reject the dogmatism and militarism of the Order. So there’s that double meaning of “like my father before me,” where Luke fully aligns himself with Anakin even as he rejects violence and submission. He becomes the sort of Jedi that Anakin might have been and at least once aspired to be.

Tl;dr—basically, I think “Anakin rejects a Jedi identity” is contrary to his arc in the OT and therefore sits very uncomfortably with me, whereas “Anakin rejects the organization while retaining his Jedi identity and religious practice” is implied by the OT and his arc in the PT can roughly be seen in that light, and it adds a really satisfying depth to the OT finale with Luke.

Comments

[dragoness_e]

This thesis suggests to me that there is a large difference between "Sith Lord" and "Fallen Jedi", even though at least one round of the historic Sith Empire was founded by Fallen Jedi.

[anghraine]

I don't know much about that tbh—I'm pretty strictly a films fan and the films are vague on the details. But I do think the OT is clear that Vader is a Jedi and that this is integral to his character.

[dragoness_e]

Eh, I probably phrased that confusingly. I do agree with you, and I further think that supports my thesis that there is a subtle (not really large) difference between "Sith" and "Fallen Jedi". i.e., the Fallen Jedi who founded what became the Sith Empire in the SWTOR era were known as "Fallen Jedi", not Sith. Those who came after and blended Jedi techniques with old Sith teachings were known as Sith.

[anghraine]

I'm not into non-film stuff, but it does seem there must be some difference, since Darth Maul doesn't appear to have ever been a Jedi at all, and it doesn't seem there's anything keeping some random Jedi from turning to the Dark Side without being apprenticed to a Sith Lord.