Star Wars is a classic story about the fall from grace and the road to redemption. Rather, that was what it was designed to be by George Lucas. Now, the story has evolved beyond that to tell all kinds of stories beyond that which the creator of the saga had initially intended. However many changes take place in the way the story is told, or who the story is centered on, the one thing that will never change is that the most important character in Star Wars is Anakin Skywalker. His story IS Star Wars. Everything we see happening in Star Wars either adds to his story or builds up to become his story. The whole galaxy was reshaped because of him. His influence was always meant to happen, whether you watched it in release order or chronological order. Watching it all in release order would have meant you’d be watching the prequels knowing that he would become Darth Vader, and we know everything he does there. Watching it in chronological order, we know that he will do big things because of the chosen one prophecy. This article will explore who was the blame for Anakin’s descent to the dark side.
1. Obi-Wan
Anakin’s relationship with Obi-Wan was very layered. It wasn’t a straightforward antagonistic one, and wasn’t a straightforward friendly one. While Anakin told Padmé that he greatly admired Obi-Wan and commended his wisdom and power, he was still very bitter towards him, given the way he acted around him, especially in the beginning of Attack of the Clones. It was clear that Anakin had some sort of superiority complex, whereas Obi-Wan was more obedient and reserved. Anakin’s eagerness to learn more, and his uncanny ability to pick up on many skills very quickly-and excel at everything, have left him with the feeling that he was being held back because Obi-Wan wanted him to learn things at a pace equal to or slower than his own. It wasn’t out of spite, but out of concern for Anakin’s wellbeing. Anakin never took it as that. In one of his stress-related breaks from reality, he blamed it on Obi-Wan’s jealousy. He also constantly reminded Anakin not to give in to his feelings, sticking to the letter of the law regarding the Jedi Code. Obi-Wan’s lack of understanding of Anakin’s personality, and the nature of his unorthodox recruitment to the Order made their relationship doomed from the start. Obi-Wan was better suited for a traditional Jedi, not an exceptional, ambitious, mentally unstable one like Anakin. He may not have known what was going on (which was a huge mistake on his part), but he had a huge part to play in Anakin’s turn to the dark side. This all came to a head when Anakin finally joined the dark side in the pursuit of…well…you may have guessed it: greater power, which is something he said Obi-Wan held him back from attaining.
2. Padmé
Some might find this entry a bit hard to believe or harsh, due to the way she ended up dying, but she did play a huge part in Anakin’s downfall. She met Anakin when she was serving as the 14-year-old queen of Naboo and he was a 9-year-old slave on Tatooine. He helped her and her people be free from the Trade Federation’s tyranny, and they didn’t speak to each other for 10 years before meeting again when he was assigned to protect her. She had developed feelings for him, just like he had for her, and they decided to get married in secret. Giving in to her feelings wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it was ultimately a bad thing due to the context. He was a Jedi, and was not allowed to get married, because that creates attachments, and attachment is forbidden by Jedi laws. Anakin had very serious attachment issues, and wanted to go as far as controlling life and death to make sure that he would never have to lose the people he cares about ever again, and this became a bigger problem when he foresaw her death while giving birth. That was the main reason he fell to the dark side in Revenge of the Sith. His marriage to Padmé, his love for her, his ambitions to become the best and most powerful Jedi, and his attachment issues, which all centered around Padmé in one way or another, caused him to become Darth Vader and destroy everything he had come to know. Had she not indulged his carnal desires, enabling him to feel entitled to more things that the Jedi were not prepared to accept, he may have developed a better sense of self control or at least learned to deal with loss and rejection better. Seeing as she was the only one who ever accepted him as he was and didn’t ever try to hold him back or stop him, he probably saw her as the only one who really saw him for who he was deep down inside (she actually was, aside from Luke), and that made it hard for him to accept that she was going to die during childbirth.
3. Palpatine
Sheev Palpatine, formerly the senator representing Naboo in the Galactic Senate, and then the Chancellor of the Republic, and finally the Emperor of the first Galactic Empire, was a very conniving man. He carried out a scheme that brought the Jedi Order to near extinction using nothing but his brains and every person available for manipulation that he could find…and there were many. Not only did he manage to manipulate Padmé into inciting a vote of no confidence in Chancellor Valorum, allowing Palpatine to be voted as Chancellor, he managed to trick Count Dooku into joining him to “improve” the state of the galaxy, but he managed to get the Confederacy of Independent Systems and the Republic to go to war against each other, while he was the leader of both factions, assuming different identities. He ran a galactic war on his own and was not discovered! This also hinged on the sudden appearance of the one who was destined to destroy him. Whether he knew about Anakin being the chosen one upon first meeting him or not is as of yet unconfirmed, but what is confirmed is that he had been grooming Anakin ever since he was a child. Palpatine became something of a father figure to Anakin-other than Obi-Wan, and it can be deduced that from feeding Anakin’s ego so much, he caused a lot of the tension between Anakin and Obi-Wan. We see this in Revenge of the Sith when Palpatine feeds Anakin’s ego and gets him to argue with the Jedi Council. Palpatine had been acting as the devil on Anakin’s shoulder for most of his life as a Jedi, and this ultimately led to Anakin’s growing arrogance and instability. It was also going to be revealed that he had arranged for Anakin’s mother to be kidnapped by the sand people to get Anakin to do exactly what he ended up doing to them…but then that idea was scrapped. He was a class act. He was behind almost every major thing that happened in the galaxy, and it all worked in warping Anakin’s mind and converting him to a Sith Lord. It is theorized that he was responsible for Anakin’s very conception, which means that Anakin’s whole life was predetermined by Palpatine. The only moment Anakin did something Palpatine had not planned ahead for was kill him. He has explicitly the biggest impact on Anakin’s journey to the dark side.
4. The Force
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