Anakin Skywalker...Whiner Extraordinaire

First of all...

1345 hits to my blog!

WOOT!

And 15 whole followers!

DOUBLE WOOT!

That's 15 more people than I ever thought I would have following my rambling streams of consciousness. Many thanks to all of you awesome people who find my ramblings and musings to be worth having a second look. You're all so many different kinds of awesome, and you each deserve cookies! ;D

And now for the subject of this particular escaped musing...

It's been a long time coming, but here it is at last!

My rant about Anakin Skywalker!

Many of you may have noticed that every so often (whether it be here or on ff.net, or on any of the other forums I happen to be on), I'll interject some form of snide remark regarding Anakin Skywalker (as well as the revamped trilogy, but that's a rant reserved for another post).

Please don't misunderstand me. I LOVE Star Wars (again, NOT  the revamped trilogy (but again, a topic for another post)) I've been a fan since I was a little girl, and had a HUGE fangirl crush on Luke both Skywalker and Han Solo (still do in fact ;3). So please know that this rambling rant is not by any means a bash on Star Wars, but simply a bashing of a single character.

Also please take note that this is not a rant about the Darth Vader in the iconic black armor and cape, but rather his pre-armored counterpart, Anakin Skywalker. Or as I like to call him, Anakin Skywalker...the whiniest bitch in the universe!

Are you kidding me? The Darth Vader that we all know from the original trilogy was a complete and total badass. He might not have been bale to use Force Lightning and his range of movement might have been more limited in a lightsaber fight because of his armor, but he still made you want to pee yourself whenever he came down a hall. Be it his completely black attire, his emotionless voice, the way he strode down a corridor with his black cape flowing behind him, the fact that you couldn't see any part of his face, or a combination of all aspects, Darth Vader was an ever-ominous presence that was capable of delivering death on a whim without so much as batting an eyelash (or rather, whatever eyelashes he had left). For all intents and purposes, he was the Grim Reaper of the Star Wars fandom, and he was rightfully feared as such.

Anakin Skywalker on the other hand, is another story all together...

Anakin obviously had the chops to be a complete and total badass, as depicted when he massacred the settlement of Tuscan Raiders who were holding his mother prisoner, and again when he went on his Palpatine-mandated killing spree (and for the record, I'm not counting the slaughter of the younglings, because that was the equivalent of playing T-Ball (aside from being completely and utterly abhorrent)).  The bottom line is that Anakin had the potential to be another Mace Windu.

WHY then did it seem like he was whining about something every five minutes?!

This epic saga of whining began from the first moment Anakin appeared on screen and didn't even stop when he was put into Vader's armor. You don't believe me? Watch the prequels and find out for yourself. If Anakin wasn't whining about being a slave, he was whining about his mother. If he wasn't whining about his mother, he was whining about Padme. If he wasn't whining about Padme, then he was whining about the Jedi Council. If he wasn't whining about the Jedi Council, then he was whining about his lack of respect. If he wasn't whining about his lack of respect, then he was whining about his bad dreams. If he wasn't whining about his bad dreams, then he was whining about Padme "betraying him" (BEFORE he uses the Force to choke her (and mind you, this is AFTER he went on and on about how he did everything the Emperor told him to do because he loved her and wanted to protect her)). If he wasn't whining about Padme "betraying him", then he was whining about how Obi-Wan "turned Padme against him" and thereby made him use his powers against her. If he wasn't whining (or rather screaming) at Obi-Wan about how much he hated him, then he was whining (and once again screaming) about how Padme had "died" at his hands.

The moment the subject he had been whining about was resolved in some way, he started whining about something else, and every so often, a previous topic of whining would make a comeback tour!

There was simply no winning with him!

It was as though he could not function for even a moment without having something to be angsty and moody about. Don't get me wrong, I like a little angst as much as the next girl (Poe is my favorite author after all), and I'm more than capable of writing it (just ask any readers of my fanfiction), but for the love of Merlin...even I can't keep it up for that long! There has to be some form of break between the angst.

Seriously, forget dubbing him 'Darth Vader'...Palpatine should have dubbed Anakin, 'Darth Emo'.

But all of my ranting aside, the character of Anakin had some serious potential to be so much better than the way he was written as well as portrayed. After all, how many opportunities does one have to see how Darth Vader--an iconic, badass villain--was before he was Darth Vader? As with Joker in The Killing Joke, we were able to see what happened to lead up to Anakin's impending fall from grace. But I felt no sense of dread at what I knew was coming.

I wanted it to happen!

What does that say about a character? How annoying does a character have to be in order for people to want his downfall to occur instead of hoping and praying that he is somehow spared from his fate by some Deus ex Machina occurrence? Would it not have made Anakin's fall to the Dark Side all that much more tragic if he had been more charismatic and likable?

Was I the only one who wanted to applaud in the theater when Obi-Wan pwned Anakin's ass at the end of Revenge of the Sith?

Don't get me wrong...I felt bad when it happened, but all of my pity and heartache was reserved for Obi-Wan. The stark agony that was etched into his face when he was gazing down upon what had formerly been his apprentice, his 'brother', and closest friend was enough to break even the most kevlar-protected of hearts. Being forced to destroy someone that you had taken such great pains and care over the years to nurture, guide and mold into a force of great good because said person had suddenly turned into a force of great evil...that can only be akin to being stabbed repeatedly in the heart and then having salt poured into the gaping wound. You really had to feel for him. Obi-Wan loved Anakin like a brother (he said so himself), but yet he was forced to fight and defeat him in order to preserve the greater good. Yet all the while he was fighting him, Obi-Wan kept trying to talk Anakin down in attempts to bring him back to the Light because he knew that when it came down to it, he would be unable to deliver that final, killing blow. It killed him spiritually to have to not only fight Anakin, but also leave him to what he thought was an inevitable demise--the guilt of which he would carry with him for the remainder of his life.

So...why did I want to applaud so painful a scenario for Anakin?

It's not just because of my general, all-purpose loathing of the character, but also because I knew that it would lead to his becoming the badass, armor-clad Vader that we were all so familiar with before the Prequels were released into the theaters. We would finally be rid of the whiny bitch! Not to mention, anyone who kills younglings and then strangles his pregnant wife nearly to death deserves to fall into a river of bubbling magma after having his legs cut off.

And I'm sorry...but if you're stupid enough to try and take down Obi-Wan Kenobi in the prime of his Jedi career even after he warned you not to try what he knew you were retarded enough to try and do, then allow me to say again...you deserve to fall into a river of bubbling magma after having your legs cut off!