Anghraine

Yes, Shmi's facepalming was so perfectly a maternal reaction--- that's her kid, she can grieve or rage over what he's done, but he's still her boy, too. She still loves him, and she can still see the boy he was in him.

Agreed all over the place about the twins and their similarity to Dear Old Dad. (I wonder if it's a midichlorian or at least Force-sensitive thing?)

Oh, yes, I will never not be happy about getting rid of Palpatine's lightsaber. (I can handle Yoda with one; Palps, on the other hand, is just no for me; this is the guy who's scary because he can mess your mind up completely with a few well-chosen words, and if the words don't work, Force lightning.)

Echoing the *sadface* about Anakin-Vader's isolation, and I am also in agreement about his attitude toward fatherhood in the ROTS microarc versus the larger trilogy. (I... there's a part of me that wants Padme to be the one who's ambivalent and it's Anakin's wholehearted squee when she tells him that makes her keep the pregnancy? [Yes, I went there.] And that would fit better with the whole Padme-dies-in-childbirth thing, if she hadn't wanted the kids anyway and had lost her husband and seen the political sphere she loved go haywire.)

Oooh, I'm glad that the furniture explanation works, because I loved that so, so, so much! It's making me grin even now!

Re: Yoda: Yes, just yes. (I also have headcanon about how the interaction of Anakin's own childhood badassery--- see: won podraces and blew up space stations at the age of nine--- and the fact that he probably knew that the baby!Jedi knew how to fight makes his killing of younglings... not excusable, but very different from someone in our world walking into a kindergarten class and opening fire with an Uzi, you know? He was incredibly badass at about their age, and he knows that they've had training. And Lucas did not give us a shot of Anakin standing over cradles; the kids we see him attack were old enough to have been trained. That's... telling, at least to me. I also like to think that Palpatine made a propaganda coup out of sending the infants taken by the Jedi, the ones too young to be trained, back to their families [but he kept the list of names!]. And also that he made much about the horrors of the Jedi training child soldiers, and that maybe that was the first time that Darth Vader really started to understand just why Padme was so upset about him killing younglings that night on Mustafar--- because he was a slave who became a Jedi, the whole idea of children as inherently innocent, helpless and protected is not a part of his worldview.)

Oh, the hex series!!!! I love the fourth one so much in particular, because Empress Amidala with Vader as her badass enforcer/adoring husband is one of my favorite things ever at all. And S&A is IMO what the post-OT EU needed to be. I need to reread Roll the Dice now--- and OMG where is the drabble? Is it somewhere I can see it? *bounces* And the roses!verse is... I don't like doctor!Padme for some reason but I love the Jedi schism! And the wires!verse is just So. Much. Love.

Re: Leia: Oh, dear Force. "Uncle Anakin!" And so much yes to the stinkeye from Bail. (I... do not share the general fandom Bail-love, because he reads to me like the sort of always-a-civilian politician who is all asquee about getting to work with the military in some capacity without really having a clue about how they actually work?)

Re: Obi-wan: Yes, again, so much yes! Obi-wan... I mean, he's a first-time teacher, dealing with a particularly unusual student, I have pity for him! And he probably had no clue how to cope with the whole complex of emotions he'd have had about Anakin. But that doesn't make his fail any less faily! I mean, really, dismembering your former student. And frankly it's almost more disturbing to me that the only time in three movies we see him praising Anakin is after Anakin has basically groveled at him, because I can see the dismemberment in the heat of the moment, but not giving the poor kid some positive feedback? Ow. (Also, I don't know why there are not approximately 8347594857584 fanvids of Obi-wan and Anakin's relationship set to Vertical Horizon's "Back To You" but somehow there aren't.) And, yes, Obi-wan as the central character would have been fascinating!

Re: Jedi as Catholic militant order/clergy: Word to all of this. It's just... such a gloriously twisty parallel, there. And they are totally the clergy.

Re: the Force: I totally like your version! My headcanon... well, I thank you for pushing me to unpack it, because it's less that there aren't to sides to the Force, but that the dichotomy is "passionate attachment/compassionate detachment" and there is a time and a place for both and that Balancing the Force means getting to where Force users are learning to pick? And the sickness in the Force is that people are adhering rigidly to one or the other and rejecting the opposing paradigm. (Thesis-antithesis-synthesis! Whee!) Though it's probably possible to... kind of spin my version to where the dichotomy is Living/Unifying rather than Dark/Light, if you like.

Also, ooooh, shiny! @ your crack theory!