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marvelstars · 1 year ago

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Code of Honor in Star Wars

Given how much inspiration George Lucas took from the old japanese movies about Samurais and later added some buddhist monks perspective, I like to compare some events in Star Wars with those perspective because while they definitely are different things, it´s interesting to analyze the story from this pov, The collection of ideals that we know as Bushido represents the Samurai code of honor. The tenets of the Bushido code are rectitude, courage, benevolence, respect, honesty, honor, loyalty, wisdom, and care for the elderly while disney has not been as observant of them as lucas was, I still believe they keep part of this, for example, the interaction between Ahsoka and Anakin in the world between worlds is perfectly shaped to be one of the traditional master and apprentice where the master has one more thing left to teach their student and they have to overcome some type of test from their master, those tests sometimes could end with the death of the master so their apprentice could keep their tradition/style and share it with others.

In Anakin´s and Ahsoka case, Anakin was already dead so Ahsoka´s test was to deal with her own regrets, pain, sadness and trauma as well as her masters fate and differentiate it to the one she wanted for herself, the life she wanted to live, Anakin inmediately connected Ahsoka´s defeat to the conflicting feelings she still had for him, Baylan Skoll used them to get her off balance and defeat her so Anakin wanted to correct that by making her confront precisely the source of her pain and regret, the clone wars and Vader.

Now what´s curious to me is that wether Anakin or Vader, they keep a semblanse of this code of honor in the warrior sense for parts of the story, for example when Vader goes to confront Obi-Wan in a New Hope or in the OWK series, he goes to his old master alone, he has at his dispossal every soldier on the Death Star or at the imperial base and yet he decides to confront Obi-Wan on his own, because for Vader this isn´t a matter of war, this is a matter of master and apprentice conflict and treats it that way. It would be dishonorable for him and his master to fight with something other and their traditional lightsabers. Remember Obi-Wan´s oppinion about blasters being "uncivilized"

Now lest remember Samurai were warriors who keep a code of honor who also served their own feudal master or the Emperor himself, their loyalty to them was part of their code, not having a lord to serve made the Samurai "Ronin Samurai" or "Rebel Samurai" those were not well seen because they could use their habilities to those able to pay for them, but Lucas adds a mixture to this perception when it comes to the story of star wars, because from the Lord pov, Vader is only serving his Emperor and the current government of the galaxy, he isn´t a ronin Samurai but Obi-Wan words about Vader being a master of "evil" means he sees Vader as a traitor and a ronnin Samurai not to the current government but to the old one, to the Republic the Jedi Order served even when this republic went agaisnt their order and didn´t oppose their persecution and anhiliation and is lead by the same leader they served for 10 years.

From Vader´s perspective his old master is serving a defeated Order without a lord that didn´t have a reason to exist anymore and the best thing he could have done was to leave and live off his last days somewhere else(You should not have come back) Vader told Obi-Wan in ANH.

Obi-Wan Kenobi series also present us with a very interesting character, Reva, a youngling who suffered Anakin´s assault of the Jedi Temple. She has personal and very fair reasons to want to kill or oppose Vader and most importantly Vader knows this, he knew she faked her death and he knew why she wanted to stay close to him as part of the inquisitors, yet he allowed this, in fact other inquisitors thought she probably enjoyed some kind of favoritism from Vader but that wasn´t it, Vader knew she had a right to confront her and her friends killer and so he made sure she got the means to at least try it, be it with training or letting her survive after she confronted him oppenly in the OWK series and the reason is very simple, Anakin attacked the temple for an executive order of the head of the state but while he was obeying his head of state this doesn´t mean he wasn´t aware he was betraying the Order he belonged to for a period of time, he owns them at least a chance at killing him and so he gives it to them, be it Obi-Wan or Reva.

This brings us to the conflict the characters face in the story, which Lord is worthy of being served? having the handle of the government is enough for a Samurai to give them their loyalty? Do the ends justify the means?

In Vader´s case he isn´t blind to the evil the Empire does, in fact he is the only one in the death star to put doubt on it´s use and he knows better than most how cruel the Emperor can be (The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am) yet he still gives the Empire his loyalty, why? Lucas give us a clue with Vader´s confrontation with Luke on cloud city when he offers Luke to defeat the Emperor together, stop the conflict between the Empire and the Rebellion and rule as father and Son "Lest stop this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy" Luke ultimately rejects the offer but it tempted him greatly at the time.

The OT doesn´t tells this openly but when you put the PT and OT together, you can realize that Anakin/Vader is still trying to balance the force as the chosen one, he still wants to bring order and peace to the galaxy, mainly because he suffered first hand how it is to be left on their own, alone, it isn´t a coincidence the Empire extended itself even to the outer rim or the fact there is an imperial acadmy on Tatooine where Luke grew up when before only the Hutt Empire had any say on that planet.

So in Vader´s mind the Empire and himself are a neccesary evil that can be perfected or made better in time, he believes he is doing the right thing and whoever opposes him must be destroyed because order and peace in the galaxy is actually better than whatever former government they believe they are fiighting for, he knows first hand that government was quite similar to the Empire and it certainly wasn´t better in his eyes. Anakin´s first interaction with the Republic was when he helped free Naboo as a 9 year old when the Banks and Commerce clans made a legal invasion on Naboo and Padme had to free her Planet with her own means when the Senate ignored her pleas for help, the Republic also ignored or became rich thanks to the slavery in the outer rim and later would accept and use an clone army made by people who got their free will taken from them since birth.

"People expected Episode III, which is where Anakin turns into Darth Vader, to be Episode I. And then they expected Episodes II and III to be Darth Vader going around cutting people's heads off and terrorizing the universe. But how did he get to be Darth Vader? You have to explore him in relationships, and you have to see where he started. He was a sweet kid, helpful, just like most people imagine themselves to be. Most people said, 'This guy must have been a horrible little brat — a demon child.' But the point is, he wasn't born that way — he became that way and thought he was doing the right thing. He eventually realizes he's going down the dark path, but he thinks it's justifiable. The idea is to see how a democracy becomes a dictatorship, and how a good person goes bad — and still, in the end, thinks he's doing the right thing."(GEORGE LUCAS)

So even Vader´s final moments, in ROTJ show this particular pov, Vader told Luke the Emperor was his master now, Vader has been Palpatine apprentice for 20 years, he knew exactly that if he wanted to keep that place he had to kill Luke or be killed and given he didn´t want to kill Luke he decided Luke was going to take his place even it meant his death because he was no longer able to kill the Emperor on his own without Luke´s help.

Luke doesn´t know this, he abandoned his friends and was ready to become a traitor in the rebellions eyes if that was what it took to save his father from the Dark Side and the destruction of the death star, he didn´t know the Emperor put him a trap for the rebellion and unless something changed they all were going to die and he only had two options, to kill his father and join the Empire or die. Luke almost fell to the darkside, he almost kills his father but what stopped him was seeing his own hand in his father hand and relized that him and Vader were not so differnt after all and that just like the good in Vader still existed Luke´s own evil could destroy the good person in him just like it destroyed his father so many years ago. In the end Luke pleas for his father to show his duty to him as his Son, to help him because he is his Son and Vader reacts to this, realizes not matter how much he wanted the Empire to work it will never work, his master won´t change and he has done many wrong things he deeply regrets in the name of supporting the Empire so he decides to kill his lord and die with him, to save his Son and give the next generation a chance at living and do their own thing, just like he wanted Ahsoka to keep the good things he managed to teach her and have her own life free from the shadow of his own fate.

In the old Samura tradition a Samurai who lost his honor or went agaisnt their lord could only get their honor back by losing their own life, I am not sure this was Lucas intention in ROTJ but it´s a nice rhyme to the Samurai inspiration he brought to life with star wars and Anakin story.

#anakin skywalker #darth vader #samurai tradition #luke skywalker #obi-wan kenobi #reva sevander #Samurai tradition/inspiration #star wars #Jedi Order #long post

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