His Fate Will be the Same as Ours - Anakin's Moment of Defiance Against Palpatine
Why it's significant and what it tells us about both of them
There is a great scene in Ep 3 after the battle between Anakin and Dooku, after the latter forced the former to give into his rage, and after Anakin’s moment of self-recrimination. Well there are actually two of them that I wanted to analyse and get into to be quite frank.
The first is when Anakin is troubled by his own act of mercilessness towards Dooku, when he self-recriminates visibly horrified by what he has done, exclaiming that ‘this wasn’t the Jedi way’. Yet Palpatine smoothly papers over it, like any politician, claiming it is natural to want revenge and even referring back to the Sand People massacre.
The fact that Anakin doesn’t immediately agree with him, and continues to look as though he might disagree, so that Palpatine resorts to the Sand People incident is interesting. It shows that the Sand People Massacre is still a sore point for Anakin, and that though he did resort to murder he still required some emotional ‘blackmailing’ to be able to come to accept what he does.
This also shows how there is a power-dynamic between Palpatine and Anakin. It demonstrates a certain lack of trust on the former’s part, towards the latter, in that he feels it necessary to hold the Tuskens’ over Skywalker. Their twisted uncle-nephew or grandfather-grandson bond is a truly twisted one, with this one I think showing a hint of what’s to come in Ep 6.
As the fact that Palpatine resorted to brow-beating his student hints to the fact that there is a need on Palpatine’s part to master his student, and this shows there is an underlying unhappiness on Anakin’s part simmering under the surface.
The next scene which is so interesting is when Palpatine urges Anakin to abandon Obi-Wan, when the latter tells him firmly, ‘His fate will be the same as ours.’
Why is this so interesting? Well, it is because of the fact that the way in which Palpatine urges Anakin to abandon Obi-Wan, demonstrates something intriguing about Palps; he fears Obi-Wan.
It seems that Palpatine does not fear Padme’s influence over Anakin, nor did he fear the other Jedis’ influence over him. Yet it is Obi-Wan’s influence over his student that he dreads and seems to wish to actively diminish. And why should this be? In the view of most fans’ Palpatine had more control and influence over Skywalker, so the question remains; why fear Kenobi’s influence?
My viewpoint is that Palpatine knows that the only person who might resist his influence over Anakin, would be Obi-Wan. It is possible that he knew that there was a part of Anakin that was even more attached to the Jedi Master. Aware that theirs is the bond of a father and a son, a bond that is true and loving, and no less close than that of Shmi and Anakin and thus one that could one day serve to bit him in the rear if he leaves it be.
The level of attachment on Anakin’s part towards his Master, and his determination to save his Master, shows how there is still good in ‘Annie’. He is deep down a good person, and what these two scenes do is show one after the other the ‘Shadow’ of Anakin (i.e. Vader) and then the positive side, that is to say Anakin himself.
This is great story-telling, as it demonstrates visually that there are two sides to Anakin; there is a darkness to him and a light to him. There is a brightness that Qui-Gon Jinn saw in him when he was a boy that remains, even as there is a shadow that has grown in the shadow of that light.
It is a bit of a vivid cinematic manner of showing if crudely put the ‘angel’ side and the ‘devil’ side. And it shows an intriguing idea that maybe Palpatine is not a shadow-archetype to Yoda, but Obi-Wan Kenobi. If he is indeed the shadow of Kenobi, it should mean that Obi is the lighter version of Palpatine, and this means that the two should be seen as flip-sides of the same coin.
What makes this such an interesting hypothesis, is that in the Prequels Palpatine is possibly undefeated as a fighter. It is possible that Mace could have been beaten him (it is possible that without Vader’s interference, Windu might well have slain Palpatine), in turn Obi-Wan Kenobi has only lost one fight in the Prequels; to Dooku.
So if we tally these ‘losses’, both of them lost 1 fight each, yet still triumphed as Obi-Wan and Palpatine both required Anakin to save them against Dooku & Mace in Ep 3, and both of them outside these fights remain largely undefeated. What is more is that they can be seen in many ways as the perfect embodiments of their respective Orders at the time of the movies.
Obi-Wan is the perfect Jedi, and Palpatine the perfect Sith. But the trouble is that both are vying for the soul of Anakin, and in the short term the latter wins out. But this doesn’t mean it was a sure thing, or that he knew he would win the contest without any difficulties.
Anakin’s attachment to Obi-Wan, is one that both Palpatine and Padme had resented in the books and actively worked against, with Obi-Wan in the EU honestly seemingly perplexed and utterly aloof to. What’s kind of funny is that this aloofness and determination to trust Anakin, seems to have only teed them off even more against him.
But the difference between these relationships is that Obi-Wan is a father, and by Ep 3 a pretty easy-going one, who has made peace with his son and is resolved to support him as an adult. In turn, Padme is a wife who is struggling to hold onto her marriage, as the bond is cracking a little at the edges and Palpatine is a manipulative psychopath resolved to turn Anakin into a ‘mini-me’.
Palpatine is the negative impulses, Padme the impulsive passion of youth and Obi-Wan the savant wisdom that comes with age. Anakin chooses the former two, and later in life thanks to his son comes to appreciate the last of the trio more, as he realizes what it is that he threw away.
Anakin in this scene, the one where he rescues Obi-Wan and defies Palpatine, is demonstrating the sort of goodness, wisdom and loyalty Luke later would. It is honestly the scene where the ressemblence between the two is never more uncanny. Ordinarily, Luke comes across as being more like Obi-Wan than Anakin, with Leia taking more after their father than Luke, and yet there is definitely some ‘Anakin’ in Luke so to speak. And this scene is a testament to this fact, as one could well imagine Luke saying something similar to Anakin and refusing to leave Han behind, just as Anakin refused to do for Obi-Wan.
But it also shows the main motivation of Palpatine, as it shows the roots of who and what he is. To refer back to Yoda’s little diatribe to Anakin from Ep 1; ‘fear leads to anger, anger to hate, and hate to suffering,’ we can thus determine that the primary motivation of a great many Sith Lords is fear. And as the most cowardly of all the Sith Lords in the Star Wars Legendarium, this scene shows quite well just how afraid Palpatine is of Obi-Wan, and also that he isn’t the sort of Sith to be motivated by anger like Darth Sion (from Kotor II), or hatred (like with Naga Sadow or Bane from the Tales of the Sith comics (I believe)), or suffering (like Darth Traya or Darth Malak from Kotor II and Kotor I respectively), he (Sidious) is motivated by fear.
Anakin as Darth Vader would initially be motivated by fear also, so that this shows that there is a little Palpatine within Anakin, there is a bond there just as there’s a strong sense of loyalty and love for family and friends that Anakin got from Obi-Wan.
As a Jedi it is this that motivates Anakin and Obi-Wan, in contrast to the likes of say Qui-Gon who is motivated purely by a sense of duty to Yoda and the Republic, Yoda fears the displeasure of the Republic and thirsts after its approval, Mace operates from a position of love for the Jedi and the civilization he belongs to (that of the Republic), Siri was motivated by a sense of morality/justice, Plo Koon fights to defend innocent lives (kind of like Superman), and Luke wishes to enlighten and save every soul and individual that he can and also out of love for those around him.
So this scene shows quite clearly Lucas’s vision for Anakin; a man of polarities. Pulled between the light and the darkness that permeate and torment all men and women. The real moral of the story is; what choice will you make? Will any of us make? Light or Darkness?
You hit on a very important theme, one that I think the series neglected to its detriment, that of father-son relationships. No one in any of the first six movies is raised by a biological father or has any relationship with one. “The father” as a concept, looms as a menacing threat that is only gradually unveiled. The series would have been better served, I think, if in the third trilogy Luke had broken the chain of fatherlessness and married and had children; that could have been the “balancing of the force” that Mace Windu spoke of. But they made him a miserable, childless boomer instead, and made the main character not only a Mary Sue, but also fatherless like Anakin and Luke. Nothing is resolved and they even bring back the same villain. I think the movie is such a touchstone for Gen-X because they’re all basically latchkey kids in space.
Dune, on the other hand, handles the theme of fatherlessness with much more maturity and narrative coherence, with Paul Atreides fathering Leto II, continuing his bloodline and ensuring that someone of his father’s name would serve as his heir. Of the two series, I greatly prefer the latter.