This is the premiere of a new series (title is a work in progress, but I figured that I’d try to go ad nauseum on pretentious made-up Latin, to counterbalance the totally meaningless subject matter) in which we’ll explore some random fiction (read: probably Star Wars) in too much detail. Today’s subject is everyone’s favorite black-caped enforcer of the Dark Side: Darth Vader.
Darth Vader is one of pop culture’s most iconic villains, but I’ll be honest: as someone whose memory of Star Wars begins post-1999, I always thought Vader played second fiddle to the newer Sith like the face-tatted, be-horned, double-blade-wielding Darth Maul. Maul was just cooler, ’nuff said. Well, my evaluations of Vader have slowly-but-surely shifted in the past year, and not only has he become my favorite Sith, he’s now one of my favorite characters in the entire saga. And lucky you! you get to see why if you keep reading!
The Making of a Sith
Our story begins in Revenge of the Sith, as Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith, is born in the ashes of the Clone Wars — we all knew him as Anakin Skywalker, paragon of the Jedi Order, but the sinister Darth Sidious has enticed Anakin into a Faustian bargain, and the hero we once knew is gone. Anakin, haunted by premonitions of the death of his wife Padme, tortured by the corruption and betrayals of the Jedi Order, has come to realize that the Dark Side of the Force is the best way to restore peace in the galaxy. (It’s not just comic-book-villain posturing — Anakin’s good nature hasn’t really changed since his debut in The Phantom Menace, and he’s still an idealist who desires peace and freedom for all.) Of course, Palpatine/Sidious forces Anakin’s hand, positioning himself as the sole means to save Padme from death. So Anakin’s choice unfolds like destiny — to save his wife, to save the galaxy, he gives himself over to the power of the Dark Side.
The newly christened Darth Vader actually does single-handedly end the Clone Wars, toppling the leadership of Jedi and Separatist alike. When confronted by his wife and mentor, Vader asks Padme and Obi-Wan to join him, overthrow Palpatine, and rule a peaceful galaxy. (And remember, he’s an idealist! He really believes this will work.) Of course, there’s some melodrama and dueling, and things don’t go too well after all:
Darth Sidious, to save Vader’s life, gives him life-saving cybernetic surgery. When Vader awakes, his first question is “Where is Padme? Is she safe? Is she alright?”
Sidious answers, consolingly, “It seems that in your anger, you killed her.”
Driven by Rage
Oh. So, now that the Faustian bargain is truly irreversible, it seems that Sidious has reneged on his side of the deal. Though Sidious insinuated that he had power over death, Anakin’s wife is dead. Now we get into some extra-cinematic sources, the Vader: Lord of the Sith comics written by Charles Soule, because Vader’s response to this betrayal is fascinating.
His first instinct is to lash out — he trashes the room and even Force-chokes his master in a primal surge of sorrow and rage. Sidious then makes it very clear who’s in charge:
Turns out the guy is a pretty abusive master to Vader. He forces him to kill another Jedi with his bare hands, bleed the dead guy’s lightsaber crystal, and other Herculean tasks (which I won’t go over for time’s sake). Suffice it to say Vader realizes that he’s in over his head, just as much a slave as when he worked in Watto’s junk shop — but he’s powerless to do anything about it except rage.
And rage Vader does — he even builds a rage-meditation chamber on the site of his near-death, the lava planet of Mustafar, aided by the ghost of a long-dead Sith architect. Turns out Vader’s choice of locale had some hidden motives: he hopes that, by meditating near the locus of the dark side, he can enter into the afterlife, like Orpheus into Hades, to rescue Padme. Idealist Anakin is at it again.
Unfortunately, we know it can’t be so easy for our tragic hero: Vader goes on a dark-side-fueled vision quest from his Mustafar fortress, but ultimately fails to rescue Padme. She is well and truly dead. Vader is indentured to the Dark Side with nothing to show for it, like Jacob the patriarch who works seven years for the hand of Rachel after being tricked into marrying her sister Leah.
“‘nother day, ‘nother dollar”
Vader responds in the manner of many a workaday American laborer — he tunes out the drudgery of his day-to-day life hunting Jedi and quelling dissidents. Occasionally, he breaks the monotony by indulging a death wish, taking on gangs of bounty hunters with his bare hands (see V:LotS, issue 18, for example). He’s simply counting down the days until he is killed in action, and until then, he serves his sadistic master with excellence fueled by hatred.
That’s where Vader finds himself when many viewers first met him, in the opening reel of Star Wars: A New Hope. Vader is a workaday Sith, just boarding his umpteenth enemy vessel, choking the life out of its captain, and relentlessly hunting the stolen Death Star plans with all the efficiency and passion of a bored assembly-line worker. ‘Nother day, ‘nother dollar. The trail left by the rebel thieves leads him to Obi-Wan Kenobi, his former master, and Vader’s so numbed by this point that his sickest burn is “Once I was but the learner. Now I am the master.” He can’t even savor his victory because Obi-Wan straight-up disappears rather than dying like a regular human being. Ah, well, Vader thinks, all in a day’s work. What’s one more Jedi after all the ones I’ve killed?
Imagine Vader’s surprise when those plucky Rebels who stole the Death Star plans show up in X-Wings to tango with the galaxy’s most deadly battle station. Finally, something new under the sun. He immediately boards his personal fighter for some target practice. And then! he gets outflown by a junky YT-3000 freighter and a lone snubfighter with an ace pilot, and finds himself adrift among the wreckage of that same battle station! Who was that guy? He was strong in the Force. I remember what that’s like.
Vader has more immediate problems than the X-Wing pilot who took out the Death Star, though, because he is the highest-ranked survivor of the Death Star, and therefore Sidious’ sole scapegoat for the military debacle. Sidious is so displeased, in fact, that he starts holding auditions for “replacement Sith apprentice” (as depicted in the fantastic Vader series by Kieron Gillen). So Vader has to spend some effort at last, betraying and outperforming those auditionees like the aging prima ballerina who nevertheless still has what it takes. (I bet that was the first simile in all of written history to compare Lord Vader to a leotard-clad dancer.) Vader, of course, prevails, leaving corpses in his wake.
And on the side, behind his master’s back, Vader hires Boba Fett to find the pilot who destroyed the Death Star:
Vader’s world is turned upside down in an instant. All at once, he learns: 1) his son did not die in vitro as he had believed, and 2) his son is so powerful in the Force that he single-handedly destroyed a moon-sized battle station, and, incidentally, 3) Sidious has lied to him from the very beginning of their relationship.
Single-Minded
To me, that explains the marked shift in Vader’s behavior from A New Hope to The Empire Strikes Back. Gone is the workaday Sith waiting to die in action. Empire‘s Vader is the obsessive guy who Force-chokes his own team, drives Super Star Destroyers into asteroid fields, and extorts entire cities, all to contrive a face-to-face meeting with his son.
And what does Vader do, once Luke calms down enough for a calm, rational conversation (read: once Luke has been dismembered and disarmed)? Vader pleads with Luke. “With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy… Luke, you can destroy the Emperor; he has foreseen this! … Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son! Come with me — it is the only way!” It’s the same offer he makes Padme and Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith! Anakin the idealist is still desperately hoping to bring the galaxy peace, even if those instincts have been long suppressed by abuse and drudgery.
Luke rejects him, and elects instead to tumble down Cloud City’s underbelly to an uncertain fate. This leaves Anakin pretty dejected — who wouldn’t feel depressed that their son thinks of them only as an evil monster, even if it’s true? — and this is where we find Vader in Return of the Jedi. Vader is once again resigned to his fate, facing too many failures to contemplate hope. This is what Vader is feeling when he tells Luke on Endor, “It is… too late for me, son.”
I sincerely empathize with Anakin in this moment, the man whose ideals have been reignited by the sight of his son, but who fails to live up to those ideals himself. This evolution from workaday Sith to impassioned (if evil) father is what enables Vader to turn to the light in Return of the Jedi. Because, when Luke chooses to die as a Jedi rather than betray his ideals for the sake of temporary victory, when Sidious is delightedly electrocuting the younger Skywalker just as he abused the elder so many years ago, Vader finally finds the courage to end the evil that was Darth Sidious. Vader’s rage is laid to rest, because Anakin has finally found peace.