Darth Fanboy wrote:I think that is just part of the bigger "Anakin killed by Vader" lie that you have already alluded to.
So do I. That was a joke. That's why I said "Seriously, though" after I said it.
I'll go into in more detail later on, but please understand that becoming a Force Ghost is not something that just happens because one is of the Light Side or because one has lived a life of virtue.
I'd argue that like you mentioned above about Obi-Wan's lies being a product of Lucas changing his mind about how the story worked, the Force Ghost thing changed over time, too. When all we had to judge was the original trilogy, I think Anakin's Force Ghost was pretty clearly intended to show that Anakin was redeemed. Even if I grant you that reappearance as a Force Ghost has nothing to do with one's light side status, and I'm really not sure I do, I think the fact that Anakin's Force Ghost was hanging out with Obi-Wan and Yoda having a big laugh at the Ewok party was definitely intended as a signal to the audience that Luke succeeded in redeeming Vader and bringing him back to the Light Side.
First of all, the redemption of Anakin Skywalker as it happened was supposed to be impossible.
Supposed by whom? By Obi-Wan and Yoda, who we know were willing to lie, by commission and ommission respectively, about Vader's history and identity in order to manipulate Luke Skywalker in to committing patricide. Their telling Luke it was impossible doesn't carry much weight.
Quinlan Vos is part of a greater problem in the EU where redeeming Darksiders takes place too often.
That sounds to me more like a problem of repeating stories, like the "Superweapon of the week" thing in the early E.U. than a problem with redemption itself.
Secondly, as I have already stated, Quinlan never suffered any consequences from his actions.
And as I said, neither did Vader suffer any consequences for falling. He suffered consequences for losing a fight, and consequences for his best friend and mentor leaving him lying next to a lava flow, and consequences for his wife deciding that without her man she had no reason to live.
Thirdly, the redemption came too easily for my tastes.
Well, that's a taste issue, and really isn't up for debate. You like a story or you don't, and that's fine either way.
What lasting effects on Vos did his exposure to the dark side have?
My point wasn't that Vos's exposure to the Dark Side had effects, my point was that Vader's exposure didn't have direct effects. Especially his exposure to the Dark Side the time he slaughtered a village full of Sandpeople. Which, I'll repeat, happened
literally years before he fell.
So you don't notice anything bad happen to Anakin after he helps destroy the Jedi Temple and salughter the Jedi within?
Post hoc ergo propter hoc? Turning to evil wasn't the proximate cause of most of the bad stuff that happened to Anakin after her turned evil.
Anakin's fall happens gradually between AoTC and RoTS.
That's kind of my point. If one can murder a whole village full of non-combatants in a rage and not actually fall to the Dark Side, and suffer no consequences, I don't buy the argument that committing evil acts necessarily carry consequences with them.
I am not going to have this stupid "Padme just gave up and fell over and died while completely healthy" argument again with anyone.
I think it's pretty stupid too, but it's pretty clearly what seems to have happened. The damned medical droid even said as much.
How does that change what happened to him during hte events of RoTS where he was actively pushed to the Dark Side by a Sith Lord? (which is what happened to Vos).
Maybe it means Palpatine was better at actively pushing people to the Dark Side than Dooku, so his attempts "took" while Dooku's faded.
He lost his body in a duel that he started because he fell to the Dark Side and declared Obi Wan and all Jedi his sworn enemies. If he doesn't fall he doesn't pick that fight, that's pretty fucking obvious.
Sure, and if does fall, and does pick that fight, and wins it, he doesn't lose his body. That's pretty fucking obvious too. Losing the fight is why he lost his body, not turning to the Dark Side. Yes, turning to the Dark Side was a necessary precondition to Anakin's having that particular fight, but it wasn't a necessary precondition to his losing it. Even before he fell Anakin was reckless, so while it's fair to say that he wouldn't have been fighting Obi-Wan if he hadn't fallen, I'm not sure it's fair to say that he wouldn't have been making bad tactical choices.
If you consider brutal murder "questionable" then you need to rethink your morals.
If he was committing brutal murder
Wow, so you're one of those idiots? Luke Skywalker destroying a Death Star, a legitimate military target with enemy combatants on board, is not a criminal act.
An idiot that recognizes that the government determines what is and isn't "criminal"? Yeah, I guess I am one of those idiots. I don't know of any government that doesn't consider it a crime for a non-governmental entity to destroy government property. I'll agree that Luke Skywalker's destruction of the Death Star was a morally virtuous act, but it was also criminal. Or are you one of those idiots that believes that the moral standing of an act is determined by that act's legal status?
Unless the crime is preventing the Death Star and its crew from destroying more planets.
No, dude, the crime is, at a minimum, destruction of government property, and probably many, many counts of murder. Without getting into specific legal definitions, in a criminal context "murder" basically means "unlawful killing." Again, I can't imagine that the Empire's laws were written in a way that recognized that a civilian could kill everyone on a government-owned space station by blowing it up without that being unlawful. Morally speaking, I'd say that Luke's killing the crew of the Death Star was justifiable for exactly the reason you mentioned -- to prevent that crew from killing many billions of people. But legally speaking, it was absolutely illegal.
Why does the capability to distinguishing between "immoral" and "criminal" render me an idiot?
YEs, Anakin Skywalker did worse things, how does that negate or lessen what Vos did?
It doesn't. I'm not contrasting them. You are totally missing my point. My point is that
both did bad things, both got redeemed. My next point is that you are okay with the worse guy getting redeemed, but not okay with the bad, but not quite as bad guy getting redeemed.
How does that change that he gave in to the dark side and then partook in teachings from Count Dooku?
It doesn't. All that it does is show that one can do a lot worse than giving in to the Dark Side and "partake in teachings from Count Dooku" and still be redeemed. Once more, I'm not arguing that Vos didn't fall to the Dark Side.
If you limit yourself to the screen time in RoTJ, you're not doing yourself any favors.
Within that half hour he was actively trying to turn Luke to the Dark Side. He announced to Luke that if Luke wouldn't turn, Vader would try to turn Leia. What do you think he was planning to do with Luke if Luke wouldn't turn? Do you think he was planning to just let Luke take off to continue the business of trying to bring down the Empire? Of course not. He was planning to either turn Luke to the Dark Side or to kill him. In the end, he stopped Palpatine from killing Luke, but not half an hour before that he was holding that possibility in reserve.
I won't try to assume exactly what was going through Vader's head, but it is pretty obvious that he didn't want his son to die.
I will agree that he didn't
want Luke to die, but I think that right up until the moment that he took action to stop Palpatine he was willing to let Luke die or even, if necessary, kill him. I don't believe Vader would have been happy to see Luke die, but I think that until he made that very important final decision he would have been willing.
And you're entitled to hold an opinion, which doesn't change the fact that Obi Wan and Yoda had written Anakin Skywalker off completely and that before shitty EU authors we were led to believe that the dark side "will forever dominate your destiny."
Obi-Wan and Anakin, when the subject turned to Vader, were liars. I think it's fair to conclude that their perspective on Anakin Skywalker was clouded at best.
That is what made the redemption so extraordinary in the film, but leave it to the shittier EU writers to take a concept that made the films good and just piss all over it.
Oh, that's not fair to the E.U. writers. Lucas himself took a lot of concepts that made the original films good and pissed all over them, too.