Monday Review: Darth Vader
This is a good, solid, dark-ass comic and I love it.
Vader never felt like a subtle character to me, not in the original trilogy anyway. He was the supreme bad guy, redeemed at the end by love for his children. Nothing new, nothing different. Exciting certainly, because of the power, the sense of purpose. That cloak and the swirling of said. Epic.
Hayden Christansen’s portrayal certainly didn’t do the character any favors. There was nothing subtle about that performance. It was straight-up bad and lacking in any nuance whatsoever.
Earlier this year, however, we started watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars with the kids. Anakin Skywalker is, of course, a major player in the show and there is something very different about the way he’s written, the way he’s used. The variation of character that’s shown, the basic goodness of his heart alongside an unspeakable rage at being restrained, constrained is a revelation. The fact that he didn’t simply choose to become evil. He was shaped by the actions of other, by war, by love, by brotherhood, by betrayal. He was young and inexperienced in any sort of normal life and characters we’ve always thought of as pure good use him as a tool, manipulate him, when they should be protecting him or, at the very least, teaching him how to survive the vagaries etc. Who wouldn’t buck against the uncompromising monolith of Jedi restraint? Even Obi-Wan, who is his mentor, who is his best friend, who also has a good heart, who can see the subtlety but can’t quite comprehend it, fails him in a thousand little ways.
The novelization of Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover, which is amazingly well written (thanks to Mike Underwood for the recommendation) – unlike the script of the movie itself — explores all of this further, shows us a young man, so very young, built up to epic status, told over and over again he is the Chosen One, and then treated like an instrument, a weapon to be aimed and fired at the will of others. How could he not be confused? Hurt? Upset? Betrayed? How can he not feel that his dreams of a wife and family, simplicity, peace, are worthless?
How could he not follow a man who tells Anakin it’s not what he can do but rather what he wants that’s important?
The comic picks up after Episode One, after Vader’s failure to prevent the destruction of the first Death Star, the first time he has failed Darth Sidious. The point at which he learns that the pilot who destroyed the battle station is a young man from Tattooine. A young man of a certain age who bears the surname Skywalker.
The point where Vader finds out the Emperor, the man he trusted when he thought he could trust no one else, the man who promised to be his savior, had lied to him. Because, upon Vader’s resurrection by Palpatine’s order after the battle with Obi-Wan on Mustafar, Palpatine told Vader that Vader himself had murdered his pregnant wife (true) and that the children had also perished (not true).
Which makes this comic the beginning of Vadar’s redemption arc. It changes the context of his actions in the original trilogy to a major extent, an extent that makes him a much more subtle character, that helps you understand that everything he is doing is to save his children from Palpatine’s clutches. That he will do anything, kill thousands, even millions, if it means Luke and Leia survive.
Terrifying, no?
Terrifying but also humanizing.
Vader isn’t the cold robot we always thought he was. He is something else, something more.
There is good in him.
Good that leads to cruel acts, terrifying acts, vicious slaughters and massacres. An entire galaxy torn asunder.
Not for revenge, though. No.
For love.
Got the shivers? Wait until you read it.
Well? Go on.
May the Force Be With You.
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