#i'm so tired of people defending characters who do bad things because uwu my fave can't be problematic

[anakinisvaderisanakin]

Anakin is a victim AND a perpetrator.

So. 

Someone (feel free to reply for hanging you out) told me that saying “Anakin was groomed by Palpatine but is still responsible for his actions” is victim blaming. The point that had Anakin been under 18, he would have been absolved of his crimes was argued. Point taken, but the thing is - Anakin was not. Anakin was, at the time of RotS and Order 66, an adult.

Anakin had at this time served as the general of an army during the war, and he was married to an expecting woman. He was a grown man, indeed with a traumatic past which I absolutely acknowledge shaped him - but he was an adult. Palpatine did not force him to commit genocide, he did not force him to step out and kill everyone in the Jedi temple. Anakin was given the option, and he chose wrong. It can be argued that Anakin didn’t even truly believe that Padmé could be saved, but Palpatine’s proposal was his best bet.

On top of that, it wasn’t exactly Padmé Anakin wanted to save as much as he wanted to shield himself from the grief of loss. He couldn’t bear his mother’s death, and didn’t want to have to deal with the same thing again. Anakin is incapable of letting go. Now, as an adult who is older than Anakin was during RotS (my little brother is the same age as he would have been), I can see that he was very young and most AMAB do not reach full psychological maturity until they pass 25. Anakin may still have had to develop emotionally and mentally, and as such, was still vulnerable.

Anakin had a past as a slave, a victim of bullying, exclusion, and othering. He had no father, clashed with Obi-Wan, had to keep his marriage secret, and was unable to protect Ahsoka from being falsely accused. Anakin had too much responsibility at too young an age, and too much responsibility for a youth with unaddressed trauma. But while the Jedi order did not deal with this trauma adequately, it is not their fault that Anakin decided to murder them. If a 22 year old goes to college and decides to kill every teacher and student associated with the facility because he was bullied and his groomer goaded him into it, he would still have killed those people. He would still be punished.

Another fact to consider is that Anakin didn’t stop here. 

If he had not killed anyone else, if he had relented and accepted his punishment and followed Padmé and Obi-Wan back to Coruscant to a) imprison and/or execute Palpatine, and b) face charges for his crimes, he could have redeemed himself. He didn’t want to own up to it. Padmé offered him the chance to run away, but he denied it. When told Padmé had died, Anakin didn’t break free or reject Palpatine - he willingly joined him and continued his murder spree. He knew Obi-Wan would have forgiven him, yet he didn’t turn away from the Dark Side.

Anakin is, indeed, a tragic case. 

But at the end of the day, despite the grooming from Palpatine, despite his trauma, despite the Dark Side being a thinly veiled allegory for addiction - he made the choice to not even try. If an addict steals heirlooms from their family to buy heroine, it’s sad but still a crime. 

Anakin made the choice to murder small children. Whereas any other person might stop and think “hey, is it really okay for me to kill children on behalf of my father figure so I can save my wife?” he just slaughters them all. That’s where victimhood can no longer be claimed to explain away his agency, that’s where Anakin himself makes the active choice to dismiss what he knows is the right thing and crosses the line. This is where Anakin stops being merely a victim, and becomes the villain.

Obi-Wan made mistakes, the Jedi order made mistakes - but Anakin made this choice. He was a victim and a perpetrator. He became exactly what Palpatine wanted him to be - an accomplice. That’s why he’s such an interesting character, and that’s why denying the fact that Anakin himself went too far is a) misunderstanding his character, and b) a futile attempt at making a problematic fave come off as powerless.

This is where I leave this conversation, you will not convince me otherwise. You cannot proclaim yourself to love Anakin, when you do not accept that he was never a wholly good person to begin with. He was always flawed. You cannot proclaim yourself to love Anakin, if you do not admit that he is a monster in his own right and that part of what made him that way is, ultimately, he himself. If you deny that, you do not love Anakin and you do not understand his character.

Read the truth and weep, “Anakin lover”.