#that’s why Han Solo acted like a domineering jerk with Leia when she kissed Luke and they didn’t get together until he stopped

[gch1995]

Honestly the problem with Anakin is felt guilt over the deaths of the Tuskens. If he had made jokes and burned them alive, the fandom would love him! And argue war crimes don't exist! Why the Jedi Council would even allow his marriage as long as he didn't actual love his wife or kids! *looks at Ki Adi-Mundi*

Yeah, and that is exactly why most prequel haters absolutely love TCW!Anakin Skywalker. He doesn’t act as much like a victim, and he’s not as emotionally expressive, unless it’s more “masculine” emotions like anger or hatred. He’s more comfortable in social situations, he’s more self-confident in his agency, and he’s more comfortable being in charge and being domineering. He’s more toxically masculine, and he doesn’t show nearly as much remorse for his crimes as the PT!movies and Legends! Anakin Skywalker. In other words, he’s exactly the sort of monster that Anakin learns to do a really good job at pretending to feel comfortable being in public over the next 23 years as Darth Vader, particularly after getting burned up, losing Padme, losing Obi-Wan, and getting put in that suit.

Even if it is partially his own fault, it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t have any sort of safe escape opportunities anymore, he keeps getting conditioned to be subservient to corrupt authority, so he has trouble understanding that he has personal agency, and he’s too hopeless and self-loathing to put up a fight anymore. However, the arrogance, anger, stoicism, and “greater good” mentality with which he learns to enable and perpetuate all these horrible crimes is all just a mask he wears in public to more effectively cover up his instability, his anxiety, his insecurities, and his self-loathing. In his private moments, the desire for freedom, love, guilt, sorrow, and self-hatred still bubbles to the surface.

That’s exactly why having Vader/Anakin seek Luke out in Empire Strikes Back is such a significant development that brings humanity to the character, even if he goes about seeking him out very badly. He’s complex and layered. He’s not a monster because he enjoys being one. It’s a self-loathing issue. It’s something he’s doing because he genuinely feels too terrified and uncertain to stand up to those with power of abusive authority over him.

It doesn’t mean that his crimes should be excused or that he’s wholly innocent. He still had to die to pay for his crimes at the end of Return Of the Jedi, so I don’t understand how fans can say that they were romanticized. However, I’m pretty sure George Lucas discarded the whole typical male power fantasy cartoon villain version of Darth Vader after A New Hope, and went the deeply flawed, but deeply sympathetic tragic hero/tragic villain with compromised agency route with the character after that by making him Luke Skywalker’s biological father Anakin Skywalker in Empire Strikes Back.

A number of fans have never been able to get on board with that tragic hero/tragic villain with compromised agency concept for Anakin’s/Vader’s character, even though it is something that goes all the way back to ESB. That’s why Filoni and Disney have been flattening the character’s more tragic and sympathetic conditions, circumstances, and emotionally vulnerable qualities to try to have it both ways. They can’t retcon the fact that he’s Anakin Skywalker, or completely retcon the fact that the Jedi Council and Obi-Wan helped fuck him over as an adult with their mistreatment of him because then he’d have no motivation to go dark at all, but they have made him come across as someone who’s softer traits are downplayed, someone who’s more toxically masculine in his relationship with Padme before going dark, someone who enjoys committing murder more, someone who’s less emotionally vulnerable, and someone who’s more aware they have opportunities to do better under corrupt authority, so they can appeal more to those fans who wanted for Darth Vader to be a cartoon villain all along, too.

And I know that George Lucas was show-runner of TCW (08-2020) up until 2012, and the writing for the characters and stories wasn’t all just Dave Filoni’s doing. However, the characterization changes that are “fixes” of Anakin/Vader, Obi-Wan, and Padme, are almost certainly entirely his creation, not Lucas’s original vision of the characters. After all, he openly admitted to having changed Anakin’s characterization in a commentary/interview on the DVD in TCW because he didn’t like him being “too whiny” in the prequels, so it doesn’t surprise me. He’s one of those prequel haters who didn’t like the fact that Anakin was an emotionally-driven and soft-spoken character with compromised agency.

It’s similar to how some fans in this fandom complained that Han Solo was a cooler character than Luke Skywalker in the OT because he was more compassionate, hopeful, idealistic, emotionally driven, optimistic, and kindhearted. Han was more typically domineering, macho, and self-centered. At least on the surface. However, I’m also pretty sure that the point of having him overcome his relationship issues with Leia and his friendships with Luke, Lando, and Chewie in the OT movies was to show viewers that his seemingly arrogant, aloof, cynical, distant, and pettily jealous traits didn’t stem from him being that way because he enjoyed being an asshole for shits and giggles. It stemmed from Han being afraid of being hurt in relationships. It is similar to Anakin’s arc and characterization in the movies, actually, except far less dark and tragic.

I don’t know why so many people in this fandom want for Star Wars to be this commentary on how it is “bad” for men to be emotionally driven, emotionally expressive, empathetic, and kind. I suspect it’s the fanboys. They wanted it to be this toxic male power fantasy that they could project themselves on to. However, in the movies it has always been a commentary on how being completely anti-emotional vulnerability in male characters to be more “manly” by being more arrogant, aggressive, and domineering is consistently a bad thing.

Anakin, Obi-Wan, and the overall old Jedi Order learned to use toxic masculinity as a mask to cover up for their insecurities and fear of the unknown in public, and it led them to their downfall. Anakin couldn’t turn back to the light until he felt confident enough to stop trying so hard to be this apathetic, detached, and intimidating cyborg man for Sidious as his attack dog/murder slave by allowing himself to be empathetic, emotionally vulnerable, and trusting in his love for his son. Han Solo hid behind toxic masculinity to cover up his insecurities over Leia possibly liking Luke more than him, and Leia refused to be with him until he stopped acting like a dick, got over his jealousy of Luke, and respected her own decisions. Luke saved the day by healthily and confidently being emotionally vulnerable.

Most men who act toxically masculine don’t behave like that because they genuinely just enjoy being assholes for its own sake. That is rarely the case in real life. Most of them aren’t like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, who behave in those toxic ways because they genuinely believe they are God’s gift to humanity, and everyone who doesn’t want them is just crazy or jealous. More often than not, they’re like the Beast. They actually hate themselves deeply underneath the mask of toxic masculinity. They become too terrified of bearing their souls to others in relationships, and learn to use toxic masculinity to try to hold onto security and protect their hearts through acting apathetic, arrogant, domineering, entitled, and/or pushing people away as a result because they feel unworthy of love.

It doesn’t mean it should be excused, but toxic masculinity usually is something that is a learned unhealthy coping mechanism that men pick up under negative stereotypical societal expectations in their childhoods to very young adulthood in a series of toxic relationships with problematic male authority figures. These boys get taught they should act more “manly” by behaving in arrogant, domineering, entitled, powerful, and/or stoic ways to avoid being hurt, rejected, or taken advantage of in relationships with other people because . Behaving in gentle, kind, empathetic, emotionally vulnerable, open-hearted, optimistic, hopeful, merciful, patient, and remorseful in relationships throughout their lives probably got them shit on and shut down by problematic male authority figures in their lives for being “too soft,” “too girly,” “too whiny,” “too weak,” and not “manly” enough.

I’m not the biggest fan of Disney Star Wars content because it contradicts and disrespects a lot of previously established canon arcs, characterizations, and development arcs for the Skywalker family in the OT and PT movies, particularly for Luke and Anakin, who are the main characters, but there is one line from Vader (Anakin) in Rebels that I think really sums up just how damaging and desensitizing to horror that whole anti-emotional attachment and anti-emotional vulnerability conditioning that Obi-Wan, the Council, and Sidious put him through really was, and it is “Anakin Skywalker was weak, so I destroyed him.”

In other words, Anakin Skywalker was compassionate, empathetic, loving, protective, desperate for healthy emotional support and validation, desperate for love, and constantly wracked by visible guilt over the crimes he enabled and committed himself and the ones he saw enabled and committed by others without much apparent remorse in his environment.

The thing is that Vader is still Anakin underneath the horrifying mask of anger, apathy, and cruelty he’s learned so well to wear on the high of the corruptive influence of the dark side to avoid facing his intense anxiety, guilt, horror, and self-loathing over what he’s been through, what he’s become, and what he’s done. Everything that made Anakin who he was before going dark as an emotionally driven person is still in there. He just keeps getting told to stop caring and keeps telling himself to stop caring because he’s been conditioned to be a tool or weapon to corrupt authority his whole life and because letting himself acknowledge that he still has feelings of anything other than anger, brutality, impatience, and hatred buried underneath it all brings all the compassion, desperation, neediness, guilt, horror, self-hatred, and shame that so often got him taken advantage of, chastised, hurt, mocked, or shut down throughout his life by abusive, corrupt, and manipulative male authority figures throughout his life because he was “too sensitive,” “too needy,” “too weak,” and he was expected to just “man up.”

So yeah, the OT and PT Star Wars movies are not a romanticization of toxic masculinity. They are a condemnation of it. Yeah, Anakin/Vader, Obi-Wan, the overall PT Jedi Order, and Han Solo are still relatable and tragic characters who you feel a lot of sympathy for because you understand why they felt influenced to embrace those toxically masculine attitudes under toxic male authority and negative societal expectations of men, but they’re not excused for being that way either since they’re not allowed to seek atonement or redemption until they allow themselves to be more traditionally “feminine” by being openly compassionate, empathetic, emotionally vulnerable, respectful, merciful, and selfless.

If you guys want to comment you can!

@tragicfantasy-girl

@mynameisanakin

@ohgodmyeyes

@kaelinaloveslomaris

@allronix