Vader's choice?

[Darth Macca]

Chancellor Palpatine persuades Anakin to turn to the dark side by telling him stories of great Sith Lords and their power to create life. Because of this, Anakin believes if he can learn the true power of the Sith then he will be able to save Padme. He doesn't really want to turn to the dark side but he feels he has no choice. Before Obi-Wan & Anakin duel on Mustafar Anakin uses the force to lift up Padme and ultimatly kill's off her will to live. After Anakin his burnt by the lava and is transformed to Darth Vader he asks where Padme is. Sidious tells him she died in Anakin's anger. After all of what Palpatine told Anakin and telling him that he can create life is more or less a pawn to bring Anakin over to the dark side. Why, after Anakin is told he killed Padme...why does he stick with Sidious and the dark side after he didn't save Padme? Obviously, Sidious failed in teaching Anakin the ways of creating life. If I were Anakin, I would have slayed the lot of them Sith scum. I just can't see why he chose to stay with the dark side after all of the lies that where told to him by Palpatine. Can somebody help me out? Is it simply the lure of more power?

[Kurgan]

We know that Anakin is power mad, by his statements during his various temper tantrums in AOTC, which may or may not have been influenced by Palpatine's alleged" guidance" behind the scenes (it's mentioned but we never actually see any of this mentoring or what was said or done). When Anakin was a child he had dreams of becoming a Jedi Knight and freeing the slaves of Tatooine (which he never did). Perhaps his dreams deferred, combined with his delusions of grandeur (thinking he was "the chosen one") and desire to have things his way (have a relationship with Padme, despite its being forbidden by his Jedi vows) and to have her live rather than die (though this was all started by his visions of her death, which turned out to be self fulfilling prophecy).

 

I agree, if I were Vader my first thought would have been to kill Sideous for lying to me about these supposed powers. Perhaps the powers were really unbelievable (even before Palpatine revealed he didn't actually know "the secret" and they apparently never found it) and Anakin just deluded himself into following this path as a way to achieve greater power than the other Jedi whom he feels don't trust him or appreciate his talents as they ought to.

 

Anakin may be depressed in that everyone whom he ever cared about or cared about him is now dead or cut off from him forever (Kenobi & Yoda, whom he has to know are alive at least at the end of ROTS) by his own actions or acquiescense. He may feel that since his friends are all dead or alienated, his only friend is now Palpatine. He may fear that Sideous is too powerful, but Anakin's delusions of grandeur I would think would make him go after the Dark Lord. After all, he came up with the idea of overthrowing the Emperor and ruling with Padme at his side in his speech on Mustafar earlier.

 

Perhaps he just thought "well it was MY FAULT" and chose to ignore the fact that Palpatine goaded him into throwing in his lot with the Sith in order to solve his personal problems.

 

Could Anakin have feared reprisal if he'd told Palpatine to shove it? That Palpatine would reveal the fact that he was secretly married and had ambitions beyond his Jedi Knighthood? Maybe there was a fear of blackmail here, but it would have been nice if we'd seen it, to show that Anakin felt trapped. Instead just willfully goes along with the conman and when it's obvious that he's been conned, he just drops it and stays with the conman for the rest of his life supporting him. Oh well.

 

While Anakin is definately an impulsive character in the prequels, perhaps Lucas intended to model him after MacBeth, a lot of talk, little action, and poorly conceived action at best. He never freed the slaves or saved his mother, he never tried to overthrow the Emperor (well until the very end when it wasn't for the reasons he'd originally intended and again seemed an impulsive but for once selfless act).

 

Maybe Vader is suffering from some form of Stockholm syndrome or something. I don't know. Otherwise we're left with some weird Dark Side voodoo that makes it all logically make sense. I think by this point Anakin is a psychopath and its very hard to examine all his actions rationally and come up with something that isn't contradictory (that is not to say that humans can't be contradictory, it's just harder to figure him out as a character, unless Lucas wanted to deliberately make him hard to understand).

 

For plot reasons, Vader had to stay with the Emperor, but beyond that, it's speculation. I wouldn't be surprised if some of this is pursued in the EU literature though, but whether or not those explanations will be satisfying remains to be seen (I only read the ROTS novel once and I've already forgotten a lot of it).

[zalcron]

the Noval 'Dark Lord' covers that when it explaines how Anakin wants more power and his only way to gian it is through Sidous, hence why he sticks with him. Plus being in a mechanical suit he knows he cant take him on or overthrough him and has no over choice but to stick with him.

[TSR]

yeh, but even with his arm cut off he still manages to throw him dow the middle of the death star...?

[rccar328]

Well, being in a robotic suit, he didn't have to worry about pain from his stub, and Palpatine was a bit distracted with frying Luke, and didn't see it coming.

 

Though you'd think that being in a mechanical suit would've been an advantage - super strength, no pain, and he should've been able to move super fast, too.

 

The explanation that he wanted more power sounds pretty plausible - Sidious obviously didn't teach him the lightning trick (or maybe you have to have human hands to pull it off...I'm not a Sith, so I wouldn't know).

[Point Man]

I think Vader stuck with Sidious because he had nowhere else to go. He had just lost everyone he loved, and Sidious was the only person familiar to him. He did not see how Sidious had manipulated him, and after learning he had killed his wife (whether he did or not is open to debate, but he believed he did), he was convinced he was an evil person and this was his destiny. Why does a woman stay with an abusive husband? She's convinced she is an unworthy person and that's what she has to live with. The same thing happened to Vader.

[06protoguy]

Actually, I dont believe he killed Padme. I think Sidious said that to anger him even more. Bring him deeper into the Darkside of the force. its a good argument but thats my opinion of waht happend.

[Prime]

Vader stuck with Palpatine because, in part of craving power, Palpatine is the only one he has left. He is his father figure, and he has already destroyed everything else he loved.

 

Though you'd think that being in a mechanical suit would've been an advantage - super strength, no pain, and he should've been able to move super fast, too.

He was in constant pain. And the suit wasn't an advantage, it was a disadvantage. It was really only designed to keep him alive, not to make him a superman. Part of the reason why Grievous was invented was to show that cybernetics were far from perfect, thus showing that what happened to Vader was not an improvement, and to show that Vader became less than what he originally might have been.

 

Thus Palpatine's desire to replace him with Luke.

[PoiuyWired]

It always make me wonder that the fate/choice that Vader/Anakin have may not be his.

 

Somehow I think he is largely being the pawn of his father.

 

Well technically Anakin is fathered by the force (and no I am not getting into how the force can violate/reap a human female without her consent)

 

So, is it really his decision, or is it the will of the living force?