Should Kylo Ren have picked a better Sith to idolize?
- Thread starter Turd Ferguson
- Start date
Anakin didn't like politics, so he's be a poor choice to operate anything other than a total dictatorship. But as a military commander, he was excellent for gaining victory and for the morale of his troops.
Darth Vader inspires fear and he uses that in the Imperial military. He still seems to be very effective in military goals, though heroes sometimes slip through his fingers...but then the likes of Dooku, Greavious, and Ventress would slip through his fingers during the Clone Wars as well. Vader is not very tolerant of failure after all this time. I think he was spoiled a bit by having competent people around him during the Clone Wars with the clones and Jedi he worked with. The Imperial political promoted commander are about worthless to Darth Vader.
Darth Vader inspires fear and he uses that in the Imperial military. He still seems to be very effective in military goals, though heroes sometimes slip through his fingers...but then the likes of Dooku, Greavious, and Ventress would slip through his fingers during the Clone Wars as well. Vader is not very tolerant of failure after all this time. I think he was spoiled a bit by having competent people around him during the Clone Wars with the clones and Jedi he worked with. The Imperial political promoted commander are about worthless to Darth Vader.
It's "Grievous".
Keep in mind that in this particular galaxy, the general public are not citizens with access to a free press, they're subjects of a totalitarian Empire. The only way they'll know of Vader is through rumour (notoriously unreliable at best) personal experience (difficult to survive in this case) or state approved propaganda. That last one is a maybe, but honestly I rather doubt it. We saw in Rebels that the entire Spectre cell had no idea he even existed until he showed up.
That all may have changed after Yavin when the rebellion moved from insurgency to open civil war, but we've really very little to go on to know one way or the other.
It is possible that Darth Vader was a public figure via propaganda, at least in the early days of the Empire. But that wouldn't paint him as a Sith Lord, but perhaps the Last Loyal Jedi. Within a few years that would also disappear, as less and less hot spots with former Separatist worlds and less Jedi (traitors to the average citizen in the media) exist. Darth Vader would then like of vanish from the pubic eye aside from in old propaganda, or when a Jedi appeared.
Post-Endor, before the Empire's fall is complete, I would imagine they would spin Vader as a hero who died trying to protect the Emperor from the wicked "Jedi Knight" known as Luke Skywalker.
Though that also brings up the final question about how the Empire spun the tale of Anakin Skywalker to the public in the days following the Clone Wars.
Post-Endor, before the Empire's fall is complete, I would imagine they would spin Vader as a hero who died trying to protect the Emperor from the wicked "Jedi Knight" known as Luke Skywalker.
Though that also brings up the final question about how the Empire spun the tale of Anakin Skywalker to the public in the days following the Clone Wars.
I did think it was an odd choice of idol, considering in the end he rejected the dark side and killed the Emperor. Though it seems reasonable that a lot of people probably don't know what he did to redeem himself in his final moments. People in Star Wars movies haven't seen any Star Wars movies, except Rey maybe. The First Order might have their own version of those events as well. But other than that he had a pretty memorable career I'd say. Maybe he was a bit of a Riker, never stepping out of his master's shadow and following orders, but together they sure made a mess of things and kept them that way for a long time. If I were a Sith master who wanted my apprentice to have an idol I'd be happy it was a less ambitious Sith who loyally served for many years instead of killing his master the first chance he got. He did in the end, but I'm guessing Kylo either doesn't know about Vader turning good or he's heard a warped version of the events. It will probably make sense the more we learn, it seems (unless I'm taking what he said to the mask too literally) that he's had some sort of contact with Vader. Maybe some residual dark side presence instead of actually talking to his Force ghost who last we saw probably wasn't going to be preaching any Dark Side propaganda. The more we learn about that and what he actually knows about Vader the more sense it will probably make. And the more sense Kylo will make as a character, that's sort of the key to understanding him as a character but since it's an Abrams movie it has to be a mystery for now of course.
I think the tale Snoke spun was that Darth Vader suffered from his attachments to family and it weakened him to the Light and was seduced by his son, Luke Skywalker, into betraying the Emperor.
Thus Kylo's perceived need to confront his own father. To end the conflict between the Light and the Dark, he hoped in the favor of the Dark. But it might have backfired.
Thus Kylo's perceived need to confront his own father. To end the conflict between the Light and the Dark, he hoped in the favor of the Dark. But it might have backfired.
Since nobody but Luke survived that encounter, I don't see any reason why anyone would feel the need to spin his version of events. There's no evidence that Vader turned on the Emperor, aside from Luke bringing back his suspiciously empty armor.
It's possible Snoke wouldn't even believe Luke's account and just assume he somehow overpowered the pair of them.
If nothing else it would certainly account for why he's so deathly afraid of one broken down old Jedi.
Empty armor?
Snoke would need to spin it for Kylo because Kylo is family to Skywalker and would have grown up hearing about what happened when his parents and uncle were "saving the Galaxy from the Empire". That kind of thing would need a very carefully crafted spin to keep what Uncle Luke and mom and dad have told you since you were a baby as true, but spin what it means to your own point of view.
The First Order must have had their spin on things as well even if it didn't go into details about what happened to Vader. We know both Finn and Rey had heard of Han Solo, though for different reasons. Finn knew him as the famous Rebel General, while Rey knew him as the famous smuggler.
Unless you count the cybernetics, yeah. All the squishy human parts were gone. Not that it'd matter to whoever dug the helmet out of the ashes of the pyre, the end result would be the same.
If the intent was for Anakin to vanish the way Obi-Wan and Yoda did, then a scene showing him vanish sure would have been helpful.
I always interpreted it the way @Disco said.
In fact, when Anakin seemed to die on the Death Star II, he was quite still present in his armor. In contrast, Obi-Wan and Yoda vanished immediately upon their deaths. Anakin's Force ghost appears while Obi-Wan's and Yoda's are both already visible to Luke. Seems to me that the implication is that that is the moment when Anakin ascended, and it would be perfectly reasonable for any physical remains, such as they were by that point, to have vanished then.
Besides, Qui-Gon's body didn't vanish when he died, in fact it stayed around long enough to be cremated. But he still became a Force Ghost.
Boom.
No prob!
Technically he became a disembodied force voice/presence. He specifically says he can't appear to Yoda as his training was incomplete. The inference being that this is why his body didn't vanish when he got all Darth Mauled in the gut and why it took him over a decade to manifest and then, only as a presence.
So far as I'm aware, the official line is still that Anakin vanished right after the camera cuts away from him.
For the record: I agree (and have stated before on this board) that if this was Lucas's intent, then it is odd that he didn't include a shot of Shaw's exposed head disappearing in at least one of the various releases. He certainly wasn't shy about changing damn near everything else and this seems like it would have been a fairly simple shot to construct from existing footage.
Just from a logical standpoint though; I can't see Luke putting that helmet back on Anakin's head to burn him. It seems disrespectful at best and more than a little symbolically confusing. Reassembling the armor to destroy the last physical vestige of the thing that was Darth Vader makes more sense if Anakin's body isn't still in there.
