I don’t think I ever articulated it better than I did in this conversation with Channel72 (including the next few replies)

It doesn’t excuse any of the bad stuff but I do think people tend to project a lack of agency onto his arc. So many of us have been working backwards from the grandfathered critiques of the prequels’ stupid plot, and not really engaging with where it is at least trying to interplay with the themes of the OT. (I also think this understanding is entirely consistent to The Clone Wars Anakin!)

A lot of this stuff “works” better in conversation with the OT, exactly as movies made decades after. Of course they fail to complete the fabled saga where Star Wars (1977) is a fourth installment, but as idiosyncratic Lucas joints commenting on them, they are fascinating to dissect. Don’t let anyone try to squash that curiosity!