#Where’s Watto?

[moiraiinesedai]

this adorable human being and her grape trick 🥹🤍🍇

[gffa]

When it comes to Jedi discourse I think a lot depends on the amount of sympathy behind a statement there is. For example, "The Jedi have been corrupted by this war." is something Lucas has said, but it's in the context of how they were drawn into a trap, they were forced into roles that they were never meant to be, there's sympathy there for how the only choices here are shitty ones. "Do they compromise their morals (to fight in this war) or does everyone die and it's pointless anyway?" is basically what he said. I agree with that! But I have seen many people say, "The Jedi became corrupted by the war." and they mean it as the Jedi no longer cared about people, only themselves, they were only looking out for themselves, they were making selfish choices. There's no sympathy for the rock-and-a-hard-place situation the Jedi were in, and I disagree with that and I think that's what a lot of people are arguing back against. "They allied themselves with a corrupt government!" is another one--like, yeah, the Republic government wasn't great! But, when I say that the Separatists were worse, it's not because I'm refusing to admit the Republic had any fault, I'm saying it because that's basically the choice laid out in front of them--either you help the Republic or you let the Separatists take over, who were committing war crimes on screen. I do think the Jedi were hamstrung by their connection to the Republic! I just also think the alternative was worse, that the whole structure of Star Wars as a story was designed to hem them into this impossible choice (in as much as Star Wars is about the Jedi, when they're very much not the core of the story), that they couldn't find better options because the story wasn't set up to allow that. Could the Jedi have handled Anakin better? Ehhh, I think that's hard to say because the story itself doesn't present that, so making hard proclamations about what they did/didn't do wrong is reading into something the story didn't address. The story is about Anakin refusing to emotionally accept Jedi teachings--can we read beyond that and say there were ways the Jedi failed him? I think you can and some of them are fair (and some of them aren't), that it's a fun conversation to have, but that it's not what the narrative intention is, if we're talking about actual narrative intention. The narrative intention is that Anakin, though very human in his failings and Lucas clearly has so much affection for his Blorbo, failed to learn what he needed to learn. But there, too, I think a lot depends so much on how much sympathy comes across for the choices being made. I don't think we're meant to see Anakin as someone we can't relate to, Lucas even says that Anakin is a victim in TPM (of the Hutts and Watto, to be clear), I don't think criticism of Anakin can come without that he was trying, that he did genuinely love people. The ending of ROTJ doesn't work without us wanting for Anakin to find the good in himself! That we knew had to be there all along. So much comes down to how much sympathy there is in the criticism, how much sympathy there is for the reasons why any given character chooses the paths they do, and that's where a lot of disconnect comes from. So much Jedi criticism is done in the vein of saying, "They failed." and meaning it as an accusation of how a better choice was super obvious. But if you say, "They failed." in the sense that there was no way out of the trap that they could have possibly forseen, given the circumstances, that they did their best and they shouldn't have to be perfect to be good, then I'm all the way onboard! It's about how much sympathy there is for the context around a given character's choices and what the story allowed for them. I have no issue with saying the Jedi failed in the war, that they became corrupted by it, that their connection to the Republic led to their genocide, because I don't think the Jedi were bad for it, I think they made the best choices they could in the worst situation.

[redeemed-wren]

The Tragedy of Anakin Skywalker is that he was always in a box someone else put him in. Watto said you are a slave. Qui-gon said you are the chosen one. You are a Jedi, you are a general, you are a good person. And when he knew without any doubt that he was no longer what people told him he was, he had to find new boxes. You are a sith. You are a servant. You are mine.

He spent his whole life being defined by people around him. And then along came Luke. And Luke didn't say 'you are a good person, come back to the light where you belong.' Because Anakin by all rights didn't belong in the light. No, Luke said 'you are my father. There's good in you." Luke said 'you have done great evil, but you can still change.' Luke said 'I do not excuse your villainy but I believe you can make your own choices.'

And that--that--is what got through. Not 'here is another box you must fit into' but finally, after his whole life, someone told Anakin 'you decide who you are.' And Anakin decided he was a man who loved his son.

[sunderwight]

Time travel fic where Vader gets the chance to go back in time, any time, and change his history.

So he goes back to when he was still a slave boy living on Tatooine with his mother.

He avoids the Jedi. Qui-Gon doesn't get the money for the parts they need, so the Queen doesn't reach Coruscant in a timely fashion, and the ousting of the Trade Federation is delayed. Which sucks ass for Naboo. But, on the other hand, the confrontation with Maul happens smack dab in the middle of the desert, so Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan actually overpower him together and neither of them dies.

After the Jedi leave, Anakin uses his future knowledge and expertise in cybernetic implants to remove his and his mother's slave chips. A tragic accident befalls Watto, and a fire in the junk shop destroys most of his records, so no one who inherits the remainder has any knowledge of slaves (or anything else) missing from the inventory.

Shmi knows that something has changed. But Ani's always been a miracle, strange and unknowable in many ways, and yet still her son regardless. She goes along with it, even though she's apprehensive about affording water, shelter, and food as they are.

She needn't have worried.

At every turn, Anakin miraculously seems to uncover things they need, or opportunities for them to explore. Shmi finds decent work in various establishments -- cleaning garages and hangers, and cantinas after closing, mostly. There always seems to be someone willing to hire her on for a while, even if they already seem to have staff. Ani works his magic with scrap parts and whatever better pieces they can afford, when they have enough to spare (which is surprisingly often), and sells contraptions to the Jawas, junk dealers, or other interested parties. If he makes and sells some weapons to some enterprising bounty hunters or mercenaries, Shmi doesn't discern it, and Anakin doesn't volunteer the information.

But mostly, he works in prosthetics.

There's a pretty big demand for such in the Outer Rim, especially Tatooine, where the idea of anyone hopping into a Bacta tank is even less realistic than the idea of public swimming pools. People are losing limbs all the time, and good prosthetics are hard to come by.

Anakin makes good prosthetics. Even with limited parts and visible frustration, by the time he's thirteen, most of the planet knows where you go if you need an "extra hand", so to speak.

It's not long before the Hutts take an interest in monopolizing the resource, and seeing what else this talented young mechanic can build. Even if most Hutts rarely need prosthetics themselves, they like to be in charge of a hot commodity, after all. And it's hardly unheard of for them to lose an arm or two either.

Shmi worries. Anakin doesn't. Somehow, all of the local crime lords start to be met with unfortunate accidents. Their relatives and allies investigate, of course, and no one really believes in coincidences in the Outer Rim. But nothing turns up either. Falling cargo, suicides, misfiring weapons, heart attacks, choking on food, slipping and falling into sarlacc pits, it's all stuff that does happen. It just usually doesn't happen so often, to such a specific group of people, within such a short amount of time.

When Anakin is fifteen, Sidious sends people to fetch him. They approach him with sweet offers and seemingly-generous gifts, at first, as if it's not the most suspicious way they could go about it. His mother too, but it's such a stupid effort that Shmi finds them suspect even without prompting, and senses something off about them. Anakin's mother might not be nearly as Force sensitive as he is, but she is, and she doesn't like Palpatine's people even if she doesn't know who they are.

The next ones just try and abduct him. It's at least less insulting in its directness. They find themselves falling afoul of the many dangers of Tatooine instead. Such a risky place, people disappear out here all the time. Mind the womp rats and the krayt dragons.

Finally, Sidious goes himself.

His ship suffers a terrible malfunction upon its descent towards a planetside dock. A true tragedy. The Chancellor will be missed.

History remembers Anakin Skywalker as a footnote in the development of several innovative prosthetic enhancements, and a semi-obscure abolitionist who also advocated for the rights of clones.

[galactic-rhea]

No no, like, I fully agree (both with you and with the second post because how silly we sound, what has sw done to us). But on top of that, doesn't make sense bc the whole point of Obi-Wan taking Luke to Tatooine was because Vader never ever set foot in Tatooine again, wasn't it?

star wars is so fuckign stupid. i genuinely disagree with this storytelling choice because i think a key part of vader's character + psychological purgatory is he never gets that closure of going back and enacting harm against his enslavers, the only real retribution he does is killing palpatine. but i can't say "killing watto negatively impacts vaders arc" without sounding insane . can i

[tossawary]

I'm rewatching "The Phantom Menace" for the first time in years and ??? It really seems like Qui-Gon Jinn could have bargained for both Shmi and Anakin's freedom from the beginning of his wager with Watto???

Qui-Gon later DOES try to bargain for BOTH Shmi and Anakin's freedom, by putting "his" pod up in a second, separate wager. (And I do love that they're lying about where the secret pod came from. Anakin built it, so legally, it's probably actually Watto's. Qui-Gon is being a little crafty!) But Watto insists that no pod is worth TWO slaves and rolls a dice to pick which one (which Qui-Gon manipulates with the Force so that he'll get Anakin over Shmi).

But it doesn't explain why Qui-Gon didn't bargain for their freedom with the initial wager! The Skywalkers are providing the secretly built pod to Qui-Gon and it was Anakin's idea for Qui-Gon to approach Watto about borrowing him as a pilot for the Boonta Eve Classic. This is apparently THE big race on Tatooine and the prize money is worth a LOT (unnamed amount). Watto suggests that they split the prize money 50/50, but Qui-Gon immediately forfeits that, promising that Watto can take ALL OF IT in exchange for the ship parts Qui-Gon needs and if Watto will pay the entrance fee up-front, AND Qui-Gon agrees to give up his own ship if Anakin loses.

This seems... unbalanced? It really feels like Qui-Gon could have leveraged that prize money plus his ship for both Shmi and Anakin. Watto is angry after the race because he bet on Sebulba and "lost everything", but what about the prize money that Qui-Gon forfeited almost entirely to Watto??? And then they sell "Qui-Gon"'s pod (a race-winning pod!) for more money! (And Padmé even says after the race, "We owe you everything, Ani.")

And narratively, I'm not sure what would be greatly harmed by Shmi being free? She's free anyway in the next movie, living on the Lars farm, from what I remember, and the story-important pain for Anakin resolves around her violent death more than her now past enslavement. The movie could have slipped in a brief appearance by the moisture farmer who wants to marry Shmi, but can't because she's not free and he can't afford her freedom, so Shmi once freed stays on Tatooine to get happily married. And Anakin would still be (sadly by Shmi) sent off with the Jedi for a better life than poor moisture farmers on an Outer Rim planet run by gangsters can offer!!! You could still make their separation really sad with some good writing!

I wish the movie had either freed Shmi or been more convincing about why she has to stay in slavery. It really does end up making Qui-Gon Jinn look unlikably careless. Which is, you know, a character flaw and character flaws are fine! But he does other careless things in this movie anyway!

And this also ends up making the Jedi Council look like ASSHOLES when they (a strange group of adults) pressure a 9yo about his fear for his mother's safety and Yoda, instead of offering any guidance on dealing with fear productively, essentially says that fear (perfectly reasonable fear over his future and his mother's future!) is a path to the Dark Side in some weird slippery slope proverb. HIS MOTHER HAS BEEN LEFT IN SLAVERY!!! If Shmi had been left to a happy marriage as a free woman, then MAYBE you would be better able to frame Anakin's attachment as more of a problem, but so much about this scene makes the Jedi Council look utterly unreasonable. And again, it's fine if they're flawed! They can be flawed with their other objections!

But just... LITTLE edits here and there would make a lot about this movie stronger or at least less grating.

[terratenshi]

Do you think Anakin does the thing abused kids do where they talk about horrifying elements of their pasts like it's no big deal? Like...

Youngling 1: [throws a tantrum after getting shocked during lightsaber practice] Anakin: If I did that my master would whip me. Youngling 2: [eyes wide] Master Obi-wan? Anakin: [scoffs] No, Master Watto, he owned me when I was a slave. Youngling 1: [gasps] You were a slave?!! Random Jedi Master: [sighs and comms Obi-wan] Come get your Padawan, he's upsetting the other younglings.

[david-talks-sw]

I am reminded of how many people misremember what happened in that scene where Qui-Gon talks to the Council needing to be trained.

Like, it's an impression that Qui-Gon told the Council to "go fuck yourselves, I do what I want, when I want!"

Whereas what really happens in that scene is this.

Qui-Gon: Train this kid I just found. Council: Nope, he's too old. Qui-Gon: NO?! *puts hands on his hips, outraged*

Qui-Gon: Wha— what do you mean “no”?! He’s the messiah, c’mon, it’s obvious. The messiah: *glares angrily*

Council: Actually, it's not, his future is clouded. Qui-Gon: Okay wise guys, then I'll train him! Council: Uh no? You already have a Padawan. Qui-Gon: Well... I'm still keeping him! Council: Nobody's disputing that. You just can't train him.

And Qui-Gon just goes with it, as indicated by what he tells Anakin in the next scene.

He's on the back foot the whole conversation and eventually relents.

He does so begrudgingly and finds a loophole, but if he was as "fuck the establishment" as fans make him out to be, guess what? He wouldn't be looking for loopholes.

Does he push the envelope? Is he a bit of a maverick? Sure.

But he's not the type to straight-up go "fuck you" to the Council. While he may not always agree with them all the time, when he doesn’t, he still:

Respects their decision and follows it.

Tries to work within the constraints he's been given.

Which is literally what any Jedi does. Doing what they must within the limits of their mandate.

It's for this same reason you don't see Qui-Gon decapitate Watto and take Shmi and Anakin off-planet, or starting a war with the Hutts. That's not his mandate.

Qui-Gon's a standard Jedi who sometimes has ideological disagreements with the Council. That's it.

ADDENDUM:

[stealingpotatoes]

Hi! I love your art so freaking much!!

Potato question: Have you had Irish Nachos?

Star Wars question: Have you ever wondered what would have happened to Anakin if Mandalorians found him before Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan did?

Thanks!!

i haven't, but googling them makes me regret that!!! will have to try someday omg

honestly that would fix him. u KNOW the mandos would've killed watto and saved shmi and anakin would do great in a religion where they're more cool-ish with you being violent-angst georg

[seriousfic]

This is what I mean when I say the Prequel Trilogy had good concepts with piss-poor execution. We find out in AOTC that Shmi was freed anyway, why not simply say that after TPM, Shmi's freedom was paid for by the Jedi and she's been living on Tattooine, apart from Anakin but safe and well-cared-for, until he starts having visions of her death?

Same sequence of events, but the Jedi would avoid looking like monstrous idiots, which wasn't George Lucas's intent.

Yeah, it's all well and good to say Anakin shouldn't have attachments, but the man is ten. It might help out with his emotional development if he knew his mom wasn't in a position where she could be murdered at anytime because she looked at Watto wrong.

[notaplaceofhonour]

not trying to overthink a dumb standup joke but I’m gonna overthink a dumb standup joke

saw a clip of a standup routine by a (Jewish) comic where the joke was basically “if every time we see a nasty goblin in media and assume it’s a caricature of Jews, at what point is it on us?” and the joke really bugged me

not for the reason you’re probably thinking lol. I’m not about to clutch my pearls over a joke by-Jews-for-Jews-about-Jews that I have to assume wasn’t made in earnest (Jews with self-deprecating humor? water is wet!). no, what bugged me is that one of the examples he gave was Count Dracula from Dracula

(another thing that bugged me: the picture used to illustrate technically wasn’t even Count Dracula. it was Count Orlok. but tbf Orlok is just Dracula with the serial numbers not even shaved off, just covered in sharpie, so 6.7 of one and half a baker’s dozen of the other i guess)

the problem is the antisemitism of Dracula and the strain of antisemitism present in a lot of vampire lore isn’t exactly armchair speculation from random people in the audience.

scholarship points to the book being based on Trilby, a novel about a Jewish man seducing & murdering European girls. Dracula’s agent Immanuel Hildesheim is explicitly Jewish, with stereotypical features & references to the antisemitic play London Day By Day—and while Dracula himself is not explicitly Jewish, a lot of his features match up to the same stereotypes as Hildesheim.

While, iirc, Nosferatu (which was not merely based on Dracula, but an unauthorized adaptation of it, infamously so: the film was nearly lost because the court ordered all copies be destroyed over its plagiarism) ‘s creator was Jewish and I doubt it was intentional, it did nevertheless incorporate even more elements present in antisemitic stereotypes at the time, like the hunched back.

but again, noticing that similarity isn’t coming from the Jewish audiences. Hitler calls Jews vampires in Mein Kampf. The Eternal Jew used tropes from & makes visual reference to Nosferatu. it isn’t like Watto in The Phantom Menace where George Lucas was trying to stereotype Italians and ended up making a character that reads as stereotyping Jews if you squint a little—the Nazis directly compared Jews to Dracula & Nosferatu and incorporated them into their most infamous pieces of propaganda

that doesn’t make Dracula or Nosferatu literal Nazi propaganda themselves, but neither did the antisemitism present in them come entirely from the Nazi’s readings; they just noticed a thread already present in German and English culture and turned them up to 11

anyways, there had to have been a better example that would’ve made the joke work better. or maybe I just know too much about vampire lore to be the target audience of this particular joke lol

[gffa]

“If you want to pull the thread, then pull it.” The tpm showing tonight and the acolyte trailer release had me thinking about “fate” and “the will of the force”. In Ep I, Qui-Gon talks quite a lot about the will of the force: he talks about how finding Anakin was the will of the force, and later on tells Anakin midichlorians enable a Jedi’s connection with the force and that they “continually speak to you, telling you the will of the force.” These reminders and the new lines about fate and the force from the Acolyte trailer had me thinking of one specific scene in TPM: the scene where Qui-Gon pushes the falling die on his bet with Watto for Anakin’s freedom. Perhaps he was right and finding Anakin was the will of the force, but in the end it was Qui-Gon’s decision to do anything about it. To me, the “will of the force” is the trajectory by which the die falls. No more, no less. The midichlorians told him which way the die would fall and he acts to change it. The “thread to pull” is Qui-Gon deciding to shift the die. Luke, when told two different destinies in the OT & the “will of the force”, chooses neither and creates his own. Perhaps he was right that finding Anakin was the will of the force, or it was right that Luke and Vader’s confrontation was fated by the Force but past that are the choices we make. It’s our decisions that affect the galaxy as a whole

This has been the hill that I've been ready to die on for awhile and that I think it's the Jedi's hill as well! One of my favorite things about Star Wars is that destiny seems to exist, that Anakin is the Chosen One, George Lucas has confirmed that he was, but nothing within the story itself really pushes him into a specific path about it. The Jedi don't even bring it up around him (other than Qui-Gon pushes it during TPM, which is part of his case to adopt Anakin late) or if they do, it's often presented that they doubt it. It's not until Mustafar that Obi-Wan says a single thing on-screen about believing that Anakin is the Chosen One. On Mortis, Anakin himself expresses doubt about being the Chosen One, he was clearly not spoonfed that idea or had it pressed upon him that he had to do Something. Whether the Jedi believed it or not, various ones fell into different categories, they left Anakin to his own choices. Destiny exists, but it's your choice what to do about it. I fully believe that Anakin's destiny was to be in that office with Palpatine and to side with the light, to defeat Palpatine there, that's what being the Chosen One was about. But because he had free will to choose, his fears and anger made him choose a terrible path. I do think the Force has a will, it has a direction it wants to go, like a river running downstream, but that when you wade into it, you're still in control of the choices you want to make. You can walk upstream. You can build a dam. You can stand still. You can even get out of the river. Maybe the Force did draw Qui-Gon to Tatooine that day, maybe it didn't, they'll never really know. Maybe it nudged things so that Qui-Gon was in a position to see that dice roll, but then it was his choice to flip the die over to what was a better outcome. Pulling the thread if you want to pull the thread is what all evidence we have on the Jedi already points to believing in. The Force exists and it does have a pull to it, destiny exists. But it's still up to you the individual to decide whether or not to do it. (But I'm fine with people in-universe who misunderstand the Jedi and what they believe in the Force, because that's been something that has hung over them in every single era of Star Wars ever.)

[padawanlost]

Anakin's nightmare

“Do you know where [Shmi] is?” “Why, I should expect she’s at Watto’s junkshop. I’m afraid he’s had her doing quite a lot of work there, ever since you ran away.”

Anakin winced. “But I didn’t run away,” he said. “I left. To become a Jedi.”

“Oh, of course you did, sir,” said C-3PO, his voice filled with good cheer. “I never meant to suggest that you abandoned any responsibilities you might have had here, when you were just a child. After all, we’re so very proud of you and your achievements. Not that we actually know about what you’ve accomplished in the past nine years, since we’ve never received any messages from you, but I do get the distinct impression that your mother still cares very much about you. And she does have a vivid imagination, so she very easily assumed that you must be…”

The droid was still talking as Anakin ran out of the hovel and into the broiling radiance of Tatooine’s twin suns. Although it appeared to be afternoon, when the city of Mos Espa should have been teeming with street vendors and pedestrians, there was no sign of life.

Anakin felt a sense of panic. He ran as fast as he could through the empty streets until he arrived outside the tall, bell-shaped structure that was Watto’s junkshop.

Like his own hovel, the junkshop appeared to be exactly as Anakin remembered it. Yet when he ducked through the shop’s entrance portal and entered the cluttered interior, he found that Watto had added something new: In front of a workbench, there was a low cage with thick metal bars.

A filthy figure, clothed in dirty rags, was huddled within the cage.

It was Shmi Skywalker. Anakin’s mother.

She looked up at him with fear in her eyes. “Who are you?” she asked. Her voice sounded old and tired.

“It’s me, Mom,” Anakin said, dropping to his knees before the cage. “Anakin. Annie. I’m grown up now. I’ve come to rescue you.”

“Anakin?” Shmi said in disbelief. She slowly shook her head. “But you can’t be. You can’t be here. You’re gone.”

“I’ll get you out, Mom,” Anakin said as he gripped the bars. He looked around. There was no sign of Watto.

“It is you,” Shmi said. “It really is you.”

Anakin tugged at the bars with all his might, but they would not yield. Then he remembered he was a Jedi. He could do anything!

He reached to his belt, expecting to find his lightsaber, but his fingers slapped against his side. His lightsaber was gone. He tried to recall if he had clipped it to his belt before leaving his hovel, or if he had even brought it with him to Tatooine.

He tried to remember when and where he had seen it last. He felt confused. How had he arrived back on Tatooine? He could not remember.

Desperate, he glanced at Watto’s tool shelf and saw a fusion-cutter and power pry-bar. He grabbed for them, but he could not pick them up. He tried again, tearing at them, but the tools would not budge. It seemed they had been welded to the shelf.

Anakin collapsed beside the cage, his head smacking against the bars. “I swear, I’ll get you out!” he sobbed.

Shmi reached between the bars and pushed her oil-stained fingers through her son’s blond hair. “Oh, Annie,” she said. “Don’t cry. Please, don’t cry. I’m fine. Really, I’m fine.”

“Mom, look at you! Watto left you in a cage!” Anakin said, outraged.

“No, he didn’t, Annie,” Shmi said sadly. “Watto didn’t leave me. You did.”

Suddenly, Shmi, the junkshop, and all of Tatooine were swept away from Anakin’s vision, and he was engulfed in darkness. It wrapped around him like a cold, black shroud that cut him off from the entire galaxy.

Unable to see, his only awareness was of the steady rise and fall of his own breathing.

Something was wrong.

The breathing sounded mechanical and labored, as if it were being done through some kind of respirator. Anakin wondered if the breathing were his own, or if he had been mistaken about the sound’s origin. Perhaps, he thought, I’m not alone in this dark place. He held his breath and listened to the void. The sound of mechanized breathing stopped. And then Anakin felt his throat constricting.

The darkness coiled even tighter around him, working its way through his skin, seizing his lungs and veins and muscles and bones until he knew it was about to consume him.

Then the dream ended as it always did, with Anakin trying to shout but fearing that no one, not even he, would ever hear his cry. And then he awoke. [Ryder Windham. Star Wars Adventures - The Hostage Princess]

[byfulcrums]

Something I love about Star Wars is how Luke didn't fix Anakin, he gave him the courage to save himself.

Anakin Skywalker is both a villain (and an abuser. I mean he tortured his own daughter and cut off his son's hand, come on) and a victim, that much is obvious. He is, most importantly, a slave. There has never been a single moment of his life where he wasn't/hasn't felt like he was a slave to something. Watto, the Republic, Palpatine, maybe even himself — you name it. He has never been free.

When Luke goes to the second Death Star, he is going to his father, to the suffering Palpatine is putting Anakin through (he is the main victim of Sidious's abuse and torture, something many people tend to forget). To the suffering Anakin is making himself go through, because, while it was heavily influenced by Palpatine, Anakin's choice to never leave was his own.

He Fell, and that wasn't his fault, but he chose to stay there. Many people — namely Padmé — gave him second chances. Padmé gave Anakin the chance to leave and stay together, but he didn't take it. He did all of it to save her, and it the end, he ends up believing he was the one who killed her (he 'destroys' his goal, because that's what the Dark Side does. You may begin as a noble person looking to save someone, but the Dark Side isn't good, and you will lose track of yourself along the way.)

And now here he is, inside a prison that is seen as his own suit. A prison he was put in, a prison he chose to stay in. By the time of ROTJ, he truly believes that it's over for him. That nothing can save him. That there's no hope. Anakin, the lifelong slave, is resigned to his fate. “It is too late for me, son,” he tells Luke, who willingly came to him wearing shackles.

And Luke, still believing that there is some humanity in Darth Vader's armor, doesn't deter. He doesn't let his father's words stop him. He shows that he's willing to give himself away, to die, just to save him.

Luke Skywalker, son of Padmé and Anakin and the last Jedi Master left, shows a man turned monster that he loves him unconditionally. He shows him that no, it's not too late for him, not now and not ever. And this — his selflessness, his compassion — is what finally gets through Anakin. Someone loves him, and he loves them back. And he would do anything to keep them alive, including killing his own Master and breaking his chains.

It's Luke's own sacrifice that inspires Anakin to give up his life. It's Luke's undying hope that motivates Anakin to finally break his own chains. It's Luke's trust in him that gives Anakin the courage to save himself, and in that single act, he saves the entire galaxy.

The light comes to him in the form of one Luke Skywalker, extending his hand for the last time — the light comes to him when he takes it.

The Prophecy is fulfilled when Anakin kills Palpatine and leaves the dark. The galaxy is saved when a father dies for his son.

[marvelstars]

Shmi, Anakin and the Sun - Dragon

Often, however, Watto was unkind, understanding that nothing could stop him from doing what he wanted because Shmi had nothing valuable to trade, besides her son whom she would never trade. Thus, Watto took advantage of this frequently , requiring the boy to podrace, much to Shmi's anger. During one race, she watched in horror as Anakin crashed once again, but was surprised when he had not been thrown from his podracer for once. Watto approached her, yet again dismissing her concerns that Anakin could be seriously hurt before flying off. She made her way down to the racing pit where she reunited with Anakin and saw that his legs had become twisted from the crash. While she knew that Watto would pay to ensure his slave's legs recovered, Shmi held onto her son's hand to comfort herself. Before the rustic, yet effective, medical droids made Anakin unconscious to work on his legs, Anakin promised he would always be with her, yet Shmi privately wish he would one day leave her for a better life.

Despite the horrors in which Anakin grew up, Shmi still tried to give him a normal childhood. She taught him how to fix things and fend for himself, since the Republic was never there for her. She taught him that he deserved more than a slave's life. Most of all, she taught him compassion.

On hard nights, Shmi would tell Anakin the Tatooine myth of the sun-dragon. The sun-dragon was a beast who lived inside the core of a star, guarding everything it treasured. It could survive through the hardest circumstances because it had the biggest heart in the galaxy, able to protect anything and everything it loved. Shmi told this story to her son to remind him that he was the sun-dragon. She never wanted Anakin to doubt in himself and the power of his love for others. Anakin recalled this story many times as an adult when he needed to remember what should guide him. It was something he kept close and told very few other people.

Sources:https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Shmi_Skywalker_Lars

[anakinsthot]

For the wip ask game - feral anakin

This has nothing real written for it except some backstory. Here's what I have written right now:

Anakin Skywalker is born into slavery on Tatooine. He is lucky: his mother is a mechanic for Gardulla the Hutt, and because she can continue working she is allowed to keep the pregnancy after it’s discovered. Or perhaps he is unlucky, to be born into slavery. The grandmothers sing of freedom when they are made to perform an abortion, and once Anakin is old enough to understand their words, he wonders.

When he is three years old Gardulla makes a bet with the Toydarian Watto and loses Anakin and Shmi. He starts working in the junk shop with his mother almost immediately. She takes care to give him the safest, simplest, of tasks whenever possible. Still, he learns to be careful around the metal in the scrapyard, when Watto decides that Anakin is big enough to sort the old parts. Shmi teaches him to clean his wounds and to use one of the hardy desert plants to dress them, lest infection set in. For a few years they are as safe and comfortable as they could hope to be as slaves.

Anakin turns six and Watto enters him in his first pod race. He does not finish, but he doesn’t die either. In fact he performs remarkably well for a human pod racer. Watto continues to enter him in races. Anakin is allowed to modify the pod as he wishes, with parts from the scrapyard. As his skill grows, so to does Watto’s gambling habit.

Anakin Skywalker is eight years old when Watto has no more money left to pay his debts. Reluctantly, the Toydarian sells one of his prized slaves to pay the debt to Jabba. Shmi Skywalker is sold to a rich man who needs a new mechanic for his fleet of ships, racers, and speeders. She is sold off world.

Anakin is inconsolable for days. Watto is not completely heartless, and allows him stay in the rooms he shared with his mother, which feel too large now.

It doesn’t take long for Anakin to realize there’s nothing left for him in Tatooine. Watto won’t tell him where his mother was sent to, perhaps doesn’t know himself. At eight years old Anakin sees a life of slavery, alone, stretching before him. He remembers the songs the grandmothers would sing when Gardulla’s pleasure slaves fell pregnant.

There is freedom in death, he thinks. It is the only freedom he can conceive of, now that his mother is gone.

Shortly before Anakin Skywalker turns nine years old he walks into the desert.

Except of course Anakin won't die. The idea came from stories about feral children raised by wolves or in the wild. He ends up being taken in by a krayt dragon, and becoming a little bit dragon himself. Eventually he'll be found by Obi-Wan or another Jedi. I actually was thinking about this a little bit when I came up with Snake Oil but that fic obviously ended up very different!