#anakin skywalker is a complex character and i will rant about it to anyone who will listen | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

darthkruge · 4 years

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heyy Megan, I'm trying to do a character study on Anakin but im finding very limited information online. what do you think are some of his worst and best traits? his personality, humor and like his values? thank you so much,, hope you have a good day/night

omg hi!! thank you for asking me!!

*cracks knuckles* let’s get into it

anakin skywalker character analysis

best traits:

intelligence, overall skill, curiosity

anakin was building droids from scraps when he was a child. he spoke huttese and basic from a young age, as well. he’s an insane battle strategist, wonderfully skilled in battle/with a lightsaber, and incredible pilot! he can pick up new skills quickly, as well. i’m just gonna link this post by @chokemeanakin bc it just sums it up real nice.. but yes smart boy love him

compassion, capacity for emotions, empathy, understanding

anakin feels things deeply. i’ve talked about this a lot before lol. but yeah he is frequently in conflict over the sheer weight of the emotions he carries. further, as a jedi, this is not something his peers could relate to. but he always tries to be there for his friends and would do anything to ease their pain. and i think that anakin seeks to understand others. he’s spent so much of his life feeling alone and like no one related to him; he wants to know how other people work, feel, and think.

loyalty, friendship, caring

anakin is so fucking loyal to those he loves. and, tying into my previous point, he loves deeply. he cares, he always has. he treats droids as humans and forms attachments, even though they may be forbidden. he held onto that need for love, for connection even after he joined the order. and he would defend those he loves til the very end...

selflessness, protectiveness, bravery

anakin would literally dive headfirst into danger to save someone he loves. he doesn’t care about hurting himself or honestly whatever happens to him, as long as those he cares for are safe.

worst traits:

impulsivity, recklessness

i think we’ve all seen anakin be a bit impulsive at times... sometimes, he just doesn’t think everything through. this is especially clear when someone he loves is in danger. anakin’s lost so many people that when he’s faced with the threat of losing another, his judgment can become clouded.

insecurity, jealousy, fear

anakin is frequently jealous, which stems from his insecurities. he was probably conflicted a lot; brought into the order as a young child and told he was the chosen one. the weight of the galaxy was placed on his shoulders and, yet, he was held back in classes as a padawan, he didn’t make rank (canonically). i think these things are what allowed palpatine to manipulate him; palpatine knew anakin was afraid, insecure, and, yet, arrogant (my next point dw). he tapped into this and because anakin and the council did not have much mutual trust (aside from like obi-wan), it was easier to get to him. especially because palpatine used anakin’s fear of losing padme and his unborn children to do so. fuck palpatine bro-

arrogance

yes, anakin was insecure. yes, he was also arrogant. let me explain myself. he occassionally rushes into things without thinking, thinking he can handle them. i think a lot of this stems from being told he was the chosen one from such a young age. that title combined with his skill?! it makes sense he’d internalize it. i am now going to stop myself before i rant about how the gifted education system is a fuckfest. this is coming from someone who spent years in that program. anyway-

personality/overall rant about his life/motivations:

i think i summed up a lot of his personality within the best and worst traits because i got ahead of myself but im going to say some more!! i think a lot of anakin’s personality is dependent on his deep capacity for emotions. you can see that throughout ROTS, he was conflicted almost all the time. he grew up as a slave and all he wanted was to protect his mother. he built droids to help her and competed in podraces to tryand get them anything that could help.

then, he was taken to the order. suddenly, all these amazing traits he has make sense!! but then the person who’s supposed to train him (qui-gon) dies after anakin’s only known him for a short period of time. anakin’s attachment issues are abundant (i don’t think i need to explain that one) so of course he grows close to obi-wan! but obi-wan was trying to be strong for anakin. even though obi-wan struggled himself with attachment, he tried to be strong and put up a front as a “good” jedi for anakin to look up to. while this was helpful, anakin probably just felt more conflicted, as no one in his life could relate to the bredth of emotions he felt. this caused him to be more introverted and withdrawn (i talk about that in this post)

then, he loses his mother, she dies in his arms. the only person he’d wanted to protect from a young age, who he left to join the jedi, dies in his arms. he blames himself for this, thinking he should have gotten there faster, should have done something more. he probably also blamed the jedi, to at least some extent. why do these powers matter if they can’t save the people he loves? i believe he acted out of anger, killing the tuskens, because (at least to some degree) of the jedi. instead of teaching him how to express his emotions (pain, fear, loss, grief, etc.), they train him. to some degree, he might think all he’s good for is these skills. so he acts out of anger, slaughtering them.

and then finally he finds someone who loves him in the way he wants to be loved. padme stays by his side, even after he killed the tuskens. she sees the good in him and treats him as a man, not a prophecy. but once again, this motif of fear remains! he has to hide this love, one of the only pure and good things in his life! he has to live in fear every second of every day because, if the council finds out that he found happiness and love, everything is ruined.

but then he starts getting the vision’s that padme will die. and not just padme, now his unborn children could die, too. the one thing he has that is good and purely his could now be ripped away. he knew he was helpless, knew there was nothing he could do to stop it by himself. the council isn’t that helpful, telling him to learn to let it go with the force. while that might help any other jedi, it just pushed anakin away. he would never be able to just surrender and let go to the force, not when the life of his entire family is at risk!

and he finds palpatine, someonoe who has spent years trying to manipulate him. but palpatine is smart, he’s cunning. anakin didn’t know what the real intentions were and, truly, he probably didn’t want to know. he was blinded by his fear and if anything could save padme, he would do it. then the council try to get him to spy on palpatine. again, conflict. anakin’s loyalty is repeatedly questioned and pushed and prodded, he was probably so confused! he didn’t know who to trust. but, when you combine the current situation with his backstory with who he is and what he cares about, it makes sense why it all happened.

this is what i mean when i say conflict. he was pulled in a million directions constantly. and we all know how his story ends and i don’t want to cry so i’m not gonna detail it...

also: i’m not saying any of this excuses all of his choices, but it does explain them.

humor:

lowkey a dork

he is. and i love that about him. you can see this in the way he flirts with padme sometimes... like floating the pear to her and the whole “i don’t like sand” thing. he’s a fucking dork. can’t exactly blame him nor do i hold it against him! he didn’t have many close friends growing up and he was like pining for padme for years so it’s not like he spent that time creating a playbook

he’s also witty!

i think this comes with his intelligence; he’s witty and he’s quick. example: “general grievous, you’re shorter than i expected.” i mean he’s no sass-king obi-wan kenobi but anakin definitely can hold his own in a verbal sparring match!

also i headcanon him as having horrible puns but loving them!

values:

love, friendship, connections

at his core, anakin just wants to find someone who understands him and his emotions. who can relate to him. he wants those connections; in fact, he actively seeks them out. love is a key part of his identity. i talk about this in this post about his love languages so imma just link it there!

success, validation

tying into his determination, anakin wants to do well! he pushes himself and i think he’s a perfectionist, too. you can see this in the way he holds himself as a general; he doesn’t slack off, doesn’t not care. he understands the responsibility he has in that role and he takes it seriously! and just in his overall skill level, even though he was a bit of a child-prodigy, he clearly spent a long time training. he probably also had some imposter syndrome going on and was constantly trying to prove his worth.

----

uhh yeah i think i got everything?? yes?? he’s so complex and i legit love him immensely. doing character analysis for anakin is my favorite thing in the entire universe! if anyone has anything they want to add, please feel free!!

#anakin skywalker #anakin skywalker character analysis #anakin character analysis #this is a rant i apologize #anakin thoughts #character analysis

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yoyo-inspace · 7 years

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Bit of a rant coming up, but I had to get it out of my system.

The thing is, we don’t get to decide how and why a character is relatable, and if that character should be relatable. Sure, we might question someone’s judgement if they literally say “I relate to this character because I too like to murder people”, but that’s as far as it goes.

Why this sudden need to police which characters are allowed to be relatable or not? Which characters are allowed to be complex (and complex characters are always going to be relatable)?

Who makes the rules on which characters we’re allowed to relate with?

So you’re not allowed to like/relate to Kylo Ren, or write him as a complex character that we can feel empathy for. Okay, let’s use that as a baseline. What does that mean?

Are we allowed to relate to Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker? Because tumblr take way less issue with Vader than with Kylo, even though Vader if we’re going by sheer number has done more terrible things. And if you’re doing the First Order = Modern Day fascism comparision, then the Empire isn’t free of that either. Vader redeems himself, yes, but are we allowed to relate to him then? Or before, when he’s Anakin? Are people not allowed to relate to Rae Sloane, a queer woman who fought her way up from the bottom to carve a place for herself and bring stability so that some people might have what she never had - just because she’s part of the Empire?

Are we allowed to relate to any villain? How about in Harry Potter? Voldemort’s movement can pretty clearly be connected to a whole bunch of modern issues and oppression and -isms. Bellatrix, Narcissa, Tom Riddle, Regulus, Snape, Draco, Pansy - are we allowed to like these characters? Engage with them in a fun, fandom way? Relate to some of them? Or does that mean that we automatically condone their actions?

Magneto is someone who kills many innocent people, and argues for the death of more. But does that mean that people who relate to Magneto and part of his story are doing the same? Are they literally supervillains? Are they arguing for mutant superiority? I mean, yes, Magneto went through the holocaust, and will 100% beat a nazi to a pulp. But he’s also not meant to be the poster boy for moral goodness. That doesn’t mean that people can’t relate to him.

The entire argument starts to fall apart the moment you bring up anti-heroes or anti-villains, or characters that don’t end up in neat little boxes labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Take Black Sails. Am I allowed to relate to James Flint, who burned and destroyed an entire town filled with innocent people? Jack Rackham? Eleanor Guthrie? John Silver? Max? Many of them fighting against an unjust society that has oppressed or hurt them - and yet some of them do terrible things in the process. None of the characters in that show have completely spotless records. We’re allowed to relate to them - because none of them are villains and none of them are heroes. They’re just people.

If you say “You shouldn’t be allowed to write Kylo Ren as relatable or think he’s relatable because that makes you a fascist” then you need to be prepared to apply that argument to everything, and to draw it to its conclusion. You can’t just apply it to one character and then let it be. Because what you say means something outside of that specific character and specific fandom. Because if you say that, you cannot apply it to just one. Apply it then, across the board, or it holds no weight.

Doesn’t mean you can’t hate characters, or never relate to them. But others might.

We must be allowed to write characters, good and bad, that are first and foremost people. Characters you can relate to, in part or as a whole. Characters you can draw something from.

Short tangent. There’s a really long-running Swedish comic series, called Bamse - The Strongest Bear in the World. Except Bamse isn’t just the strongest bear in the world, he’s also the kindest. He might stop the bad guys, and tell them off, but he’ll always try to be kind, first and foremost. Because “Nobody gets better from being beaten". There’s a character in Bamse, called Vargen (”The Wolf”. He’s, surprisingly, a wolf), who for most of the comics early days was just a straight up villain. He was a thief, someone with a “World Record in Evil” and he’d even try to harm or kill Bamse a couple of times. But then one day, Bamse allowed him to join him and his friends. If he promised to be kind, and not do bad things anymore. Turned out that Vargen was very lonely, and he really liked hanging out with Bamse and his friends. Now, Vargen is still struggling, constantly, to not fall back into his bad habits of being bad, and he doesn’t always succeed. But he tries. It also doesn’t mean that he didn’t have to apologize for all the bad stuff he did, or that Bamse and his friends can’t be mad at him when he messes up. The important thing was that even when he messed up, he apologized, and tried to do better.

I always related a little bit with Vargen.

And that’s not because I’ve ever stolen anything, or tried to kill anyone, or lived in the woods, or been friends with pirates and robbers. It’s because I also mess up, and do bad stuff sometimes. And then it’s good to remember that as long as you do your best not to let it happen again, then maybe you’re not a bad person.

That also doesn’t imply that I or the story group implied that theft or attempted murder was right or okay.

I get that people are upset at the state of the world right now, and there’s some horrible, disgusting shit going on out there. But writing Kylo Ren as a complex, relatable character is not going to make anyone a fascist. Then the issue lies somewhere else. Writing a story in which the people on both sides aren’t good or bad but simply people who do good and bad things is not a bad message to send. And it’s not a message Star Wars hasn’t sent before, Darth Vader being the prime example.

Rian Johnson isn’t telling you that you should relate to a fascist. He’s saying that there are good and bad parts of most characters that someone out there could relate to. And that empathy is one of the things that most writers try to invoke in their audiences - because why else would we stay engaged?

#rian johnson #kylo ren #villains #the last jedi #relatability #star wars #(and yes before anyone says so I know that empathy isn't the only way we can engage with a story #and I know that there are damaging ways that the media of film can be used #that's not what this is about)

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throwingideasatthewall · 3 years

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Clone Wars Episode 21

Liberty on Ryloth

So, second part....

Following On The Tails Of “Inn O Cence, Of Ryloth,” One of the definitely more serious (Stronger) episodes, We move on to what is supposed to be the climax of the arc Featuring What I’m Assuming Is Watton-boar (Spelling uncertain) In the Capital, Who has the rough job of following up on what I consider one of the more chilling villains of the entire series

Not an Easy Task,

Let’s see how they measure up

For starting with the title screen

And the Quote; “Compromise is a virtue to be cultivated, not a weakness to be despised,”

This one I disagree with strongly

There’s no reason (So long as the request is moral, to Compromise

The only thing or person you should be compromising with is the concept of basic human decency

There’s no other reason in a perfectly functional society that provides unconditional societal support

That a person should have to compromise themselves

Even in projects It should be the expression of one’s self, Not the suppression

No one owes anyone anything besides basic human decency

And should make anything out of anything but the pure joy unaltered joy of creating for the sake of creating

Carrying on

“Republic victory is at hand,” Shows ships getting blown up

I think the narrator might have joined the Sep’s

“Command of the Jedi,”

Shows Obi-wan glaring at the camera

Really appro -achable

*Successfully*

Strugg-ling

Like seriously they make Obi-Wan look like such a brute in this which is true, but in the gentile, imperialist way

Close overinvolved combat never really seemed his style

Anakin Skywalker

Wait what?

We’ve barely heard or seen lip from him this entire arc . Unless they are Ret-conning Ahsoka‘s part, which I’m down for..

(Makes more sense for his character...

and.. Obi-Wan‘s involvement]

Obi-won Kenobi...

Except for ret-conning the part how those enablers totally freed them-selves (Jokes, It’s Fine, This is a military Pod- cast- (After all)

Village(s)

It was one Movie, - Don’t start kissing Kenobi’s ass too soon

(Also I like how they got it right as a village this time)

Calling it a city -last

Wattonbore

Oh getting to the big guy now

Mace Windu

Finally getting to see some of him

That’s nice

Like the consist - ency

How they showcase his character in the previous episode a little bit

And now we get to see more of him

that’s nice...

Moving On..

He’s Launching an attack . . .

That’s- less nice-

(But warranted-)

(~ (In the context) - not account -ability.)

Final offensive...

Ooh

Capital (City)

Oh things are heating up

(Las- so(-o) ?

Good for them

Shooting across a canyon

(Also why would you bring the troops all the way out here when they should be pro -tecting your capital (a.k.a. your s- trong hold) and not going to rescue your subordinate (that you know completely and utter ly fucked up) like the last two?

And in a line

On very small unstable cliff edge

(Over what is assumed to be a ravine)

Okay who ends up getting knocked over it (Or which part ends up crumbling)

That’s Some Things

Sand?

Right?

Okay...

How

Whelp

This was a bad strategy

The guys (droid(s) operating the walking tanks should’ve stayed home

Never- Mind?

Are the idiots the Republic or the separatists?

Cause... [Rewind]

When it said Mace Windu;

This is the picture shown

Naturally I thought this was our guys:

[Even more so when this;

[Was what showed at “enemy lines,”]

Until This;

So narrator is asshole;

Sorry; Brief Clip I Pause - Skipped Over;

Narrator’s still an asshole

[No hate to the voice actor;

Just the pict-

[Dude’s clearly a Separtist:]

Also Mace Windu is literally the best boss;

Obi-Wan he recklessly puts peoples lives in danger and doesn’t intervene till it’s cool

With Anakin; Flirt with death?

[We haven’t really seen him command Rex,

Rex now just recently gaining Predominance and Appear -ing More In Epi- So De (S)

Not a lot for stable chara cter iz a tion

Title Epi -sode (Intro] Expl-

Before I go on a rant about Rex’s chara -c-teri -zation

The Point; Dude gives them an order; Physi -cally moves them out of the way; And uses his powers imme -diately-

Clearly demon strating that the Jedi are stacked least toxic to most toxic

Yoda still being an enabler - And overinvolved (Generation) But assumably least involved And least inter -gen er ational tox ...

Anyway That was nice ....

“Stopped the enemy advance]

[See!? Now they’re the enemy!]

“Let me see those,” . . . .

Those

...

Good ...

Yeah that was a bad decision.

Cannon

Spending a lot of time on this . .

it’s still fun ...

Just... suspicious

What Goes wrong? ...

Oh nothing

It’s just a good plan ..

Good trooper ..

Re- source- Ful —

Also- you just ran-

[It was a stressful situation]

Pinned Down

Really

Com-mander

...

Good boss Windu is my favor -ite

Carry his boy

Resp ond -ing immediately

[still an enabler of the terrible war complex.]

But least toxic [Of them All]

So Far...

“Ligh In Ni ng - Squad]

“i’m with lightning up here right now”

Like dude don’t sass - He’s being pretty damn nice - Oh “I want a lightning squad up here, right now...”

Still, if you’re going to assume authority at least try to be a bit polite about it

[Don’t do Assumed Authority]

People are people [And know themselves better than you]

Oh, that’s a neat vehicle design, makes sense for cliffs

And they fast ...

Fast bouncy boys

Good for them

“ Get want the en-gines back,”

Good plan

[Dude’s just asleep?]

“i’m gonna clean the road,”

Good plan

[This is a very smart episode so far]

Aww, He’s Going To Help That Guy]

*If he’s not dead

[Refresh; Windu is multi talented and a good leader and a good tank]

The episode so far is also very smart

[Reverse Order]

[good plans also]

[except for the walking in the line bit]

[also fast-]

“32″

Yesh,

Pretty sure he should have a lower death count then general Kenobi

Like, we saw one guy [Possib Ly]

General Kenobi...

Oh No...

This Thing..

Costly

Oh so that’s not their normal casualties

Good...

good

...

I thought this episode was pretty good

It was relatively smart

And I do really sympathize with the rebel character...

With moans of frustration at the decision to enable A system of assumed authority

And Thought the overall message should’ve been focus more on the consequences of greed on partnership

Though I do greatly admire How they were wove it into the story

Contrasting that of the senate

Against those of the destructive force

(Robot X Watton- Bear)

Showing a very admirable contrast between the consequences of over involved enabling (both positive and negative variance) with the harm affects (possibly over generations considering the rebel character does seem relatively younger) and the values of not compromising your beliefs or the basic concept of human decency

As well as the fact that they re involved

The plot line with Skywalker Quite fluidly

(Even if the Ahsoka and Skywalker lines made me groan) Towards the end...

Overall a solid positive experience

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