Here’s a first attempt I made a couple of days ago for brainstorming purposes of what has been developed in the Revisited saga thread.
I’ll quote a post I made after the idea that is tried to be developed currently by Aalenfae (if I don’t get it wrong) as general insight for Anakin’s character
I think Anakin should go down Harvey Dent’s route. However, i’ll make the point after some differences between Star Wars and Rings.
At some point, Anakin’s story is the exact opposite to Frodo’s story. Lucas set up an order where anakin fell because he was too human. GL wanted the jedi order to be morally more than humans, he didn’t want them to commit to anybody, nor to help or show compassion, not even to marry.
While the Jedi keep this rigid behaviour, everything develops just fine and the galaxy is in order. But then comes Anakin, who acts like a normal person, chooses his wife over his duty, and so he falls (and the republic falls) because of their forbidden love<span style=“font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.265625px;”>. Cleary it is wrong for him to be and act just as a common folk would.</span>
Now take LOTR. The ultimate success in Frodo’s mission comes from love under the form of pity, because he spared Gollum’s life, because Faramir let Frodo go when he wasn’t supposed to, etc. In a general way, we are trained (culturally trained) to identify ourselves with characters that show some human scale while heroes are determined, heroes have goals of grandeur and stay on their path. Characters we all emphatise with are the ones that are set in a path that wasn’t theirs, and solve things the best they can (Han solo, anyone?)
I’d make a hero of Anakin if I were to make these movies, because that’s what’s wrong with him. I wouldn’t want anyone to like him but to admire him. Anakin should be incorruptible, the perfect soldier, always proceeding by the book. This blind commitment to civil duty, this inflexibility is what puts him just two steps away from being a monster. He should fall because he denies his human emotions, not because he follows them.
In the end, he falls because the institutions of the republic are rotten. this is the key: The jedi are monsters which is why Luke’s Jedi Order wouldn’t be just a copy of the preceeding one. You can’t prevent humans from being humans, this should be the real tragedy of Anakin Skywalker. He was raised to be something noone can be. And he took it all too seriously.
Again: it’s the Harvey Dent route, from hero to vilain in two minutes, when he realises he’s let so much go and it wasn’t worthy. That’s the first step to messianism.
And at this point I believe it’s the only feasible way to make Anakin’s repentine turn work.
In AOTC he looses his mother because of duty. He gets too late to Tattoine. In ROTS, by setting the scene when he’s alone in the council chamber crying BEFORE he denounces Palpatine to Windu, it will be shown that he is RENOUNCING to Padmé for the sake of the republic, and he cries because it’s his mother chapter all over again (he is clearly proceeding like a monster at that point, no one would give up the love of his live for political stability). So when for some reason he gets to the chancellor’s office and windu is clearly not proceeding by right or law, the messianic I me mine Vader is gets to the surface (the jedi are as corrupt as the Sith, and I’m the only one who can save this Republic)
