The redemption of Darth Vader’s lost fatherhood

Darth Vader is one of the most iconic villains, not only in science fiction, but in all movies. One of the most compelling aspects of his character is that he was once a Jedi Knight named Anakin Skywalker, and thus is the father of Luke Skywalker, the protagonist of the original trilogy. This is revealed at the climax of Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. Luke rebuffs Vader’s offer to join him in rebelling against the Emperor with an accusation that Vader killed his father. Vader’s response of “No, I am your father!” remains one of the greatest twists in cinematic history.

Ironically, for a character defined by his fatherhood, Anakin himself had no father. In Episode I: The Phantom Menace, when the Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn asks Anakin’s mother Shmi who the father of her son is, she replies, “There was no father. I carried him, I gave birth, I raised him. I can’t explain what happened.” This meant as an allusion to the virgin birth and to set up Anakin as some kind of Jedi Messiah.

It also, however, means that Anakin has a very strong attachment and emotionally unhealthy attachment to his mother. As slaves, they were all the other had. Master Yoda even comments when Anakin is brought to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant that Anakin misses his mother. This is seen as a reason for him not to be trained. In defiance of the Jedi Council, Qui-Gon states that he will take Anakin as a Padawan to train him to be a Jedi and in effect becomes a surrogate father. This relationship, however, is cut short by Qui-Jon’s death and, although he had just been made a Jedi Knight himself, Qui-Gon’s former Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi takes Anakin as his Padawan.

In the next film, Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Obi-Wan often guides and offers advice to Anakin in a paternal manner and is as frustrated with his teenage Padawan as any father might be with a stubborn and headstrong teenage son. Anakin even tells his Master at one point, “You’re the closest thing I have to a father.” However, this surrogate father-son relationship is marked by conflict. Anakin thinks that Obi-Wan is holding him back. This conflict, and Anakin’s excessive attachment to his mother, have led some analysts to claim Anakin as an example of an Oedipal theme. Oedipus was a figure in Greek mythology who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother.

Indeed, Anakin ends up disobeying his orders to protect Senator Padme Amidala (with whom he is in love) in order to return to his home planet of Tatooine to find his mother after having a dream showing her death. When he arrives, he finds that she has been captured by Tusken Raiders, who have maltreated her to such an extent that she dies in her son’s arms shortly after reuniting with him. Her death causes Anakin to go on a murderous rampage during which he kills “not just the men, but the women and children too.” This is clearly his first step on his path to the Dark Side and it occurs when he is separated from his father figure and thus without his guidance.

In Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Anakin and Obi-Wan have a much more fraternal relationship. When Anakin falls and becomes Darth Vader, Obi-Wan implores Yoda to send him to fight the Emperor, because Anakin is “like a brother” to him and he does not believe he will be able to kill him. At the end of the climatic fight, a grief filled Obi-Wan yells at Vader, “You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!”

This shift leaves a vacuum that is filled by a different father figure: Chancellor Palpatine a.k.a. Darth Sidious. Given their closeness in age, experiences in combat together during the Clone Wars, and the fact that Obi-Wan took Anakin on as his apprentice immediately after becoming a Knight himself, their relationship was always far more fraternal than paternal. Palpatine on the other hand is significantly older than Anakin and more experienced in the ways of the world, which makes him a far more natural father figure, albeit a sinister one. Moreover, if some fan theories are to be believed, Palpatine’s anecdote about Darth Plagueis being able to create life by manipulating the midichlorians with Dark Side was actually implying that Plagueis and perhaps Palpatine himself brought about Anakin’s virginal conception by the Force, which would truly make Palpatine the closest thing that Anakin has to a natural father.

Palpatine seduces Anakin to the Dark Side with all the subtlety of a serpent. Rather than being a good father who corrects and reproves his surrogate son, Palpatine inflates Anakin’s already substantial pride and stokes the fires of his resentment against the Jedi Order. At this point, Anakin already knows that Padme, now his wife, is pregnant so is a father himself, which makes it interesting that Palpatine bestows on him the name of Darth Vader, when he turns to the Dark Side. (Vader is the Dutch word for “father,” similar to the German vater.)

After Vader’s climatic lightsaber duel with Kenobi in which Vader is so catastrophically burnt and maimed that he must don the iconic black life support suit and mask, Vader is led to believe by Palpatine that Padme died when Vader Force-choked her earlier. Thus, Vader believes that, in a tragic twist, his efforts to save the mother of his child from dying in childbirth led to the death of both his wife and unborn child. Padme has in fact died but not before giving birth to twins: Luke and Leia. Obi-Wan takes Luke to Tatooine to be raised by his uncle Owen Lars

The original trilogy then picks up here, eighteen years later. Luke, like his father, is coming into conflict with his father-figure, in this case his uncle Owen. Ironically, this is because, like his Aunt Beru says, “He has too much of his father in him.” All Luke knows is that his father was a pilot during the Clone Wars and Luke wants to be one too, instead of a moisture farmer.

As it turns out, Obi-Wan, whom Luke knows as a hermit named Old Ben, has spent the last eighteen years living on Tatooine, watching over Luke from afar. Obi-Wan reveals to Luke that his father was not only a pilot during the Clone Wars but also a Jedi Knight and, more importantly, his friend. He tells Luke that Anakin was betrayed and killed by a former pupil of his named Darth Vader.

Especially after Uncle Owen is killed, Obi-Wan begins to take on the same role with Luke that he had with Luke’s father. Thus, aboard the Death Star, Luke witnesses the man he believes to have killed his father seemingly kill his surrogate father. However, when Luke himself confronts Vader face to face at Cloud City, Luke refuses Vader’s offer to turn to the Dark Side and join him in ruling the galaxy, not because Vader killed Ben but because he killed his father. The climactic twist that Vader is in fact Luke’s father and he and Anakin are the same person, then turns the saga into a story about the relationship between a father and his son.

In Episode V: Return of the Jedi, the spirit of Obi-Wan and Luke’s Master Yoda both tell Luke that in order to complete his training, Luke must confront and defeat Vader. Luke insists that he cannot kill his own father. Nevertheless, he surrenders to the imperial forces and allows himself to be taken by Vader to the Emperor aboard the second Death Star.

As Palpatine attempts to seduce the son to the Dark Side as he seduced the father, Luke resists both his efforts and those of Vader himself to turn to the Dark Side by giving into his feelings of anger and fighting Vader. Though he does eventually start to fight when Vader threatens to turn Leia (whom Luke has learned is his twin sister) to the Dark Side, Luke realizes what is happening and throws down his lightsaber, announcing “I am a Jedi, like my father before me.”

Palpatine then attacks Luke with a barrage of Force Lightning. As he writhes in pain from the attack, Luke calls out, “Father, help me” to Vader. After a moment of hesitation, a seriously wounded Vader uses the last of his strength to pick up the Emperor and throw him down the Death Star’s reactor shaft. Vader is redeemed by saving the life of his son by sacrificing his own and dies, not as Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith, but as Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight and father of Luke and Leia. His last words to Luke are “Tell your sister, you were right.” Thus, Anakin fulfills the prophecy and defeats the evil of the Sith by doing what every father (and really every man) is called to do: laying down his life for his children.