The Chosen OneAnakin Skywalker |
| Vital Statistics Birth Name: Anakin Skywalker Known as: Anakin Skywalker Nickname(s): Ani Gender: Male Height: 5'3 (TPM), 6'1 (AOTC/ROTS), appox. 6'7 (as Vader) Occupation: The Chosen One (Slave/Padawan/Jedi Knight/Jedi Council Member/Sith Lord) Born: 41 BBY Died: 4 ABY Species: Human Planet of Origin: Tatooine Parentage: (Mother) Shmi Skywalker (Father)* None/Midi-chlorians Age Lived To: 45 years (22 years**) Spouse: Padme (Naberrie) Amidala Child(ren): Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa |  |
| Biography: Anakin was born through a virgin-birth to Shmi Skywalker. As a very young child he and his mother were moved to Tatooine where they lived as slaves. Anakin is discovered by Qui-Gon Jinn when he is nine and Qui-Gon begins to believe that Anakin is The Chosen One, one spoken of in a prophecy- one who would bring balance back to The Force.  Anakin at age 9 (TPM) |
| He also meets Padme Amidala, who would much later become his wife but for now is the fourteen-year-old elected Queen of Naboo, disguising herself as a handmaiden to her bodyguard who is posing as the Queen. |
| Ten years after beginning his Jedi training under Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin and his Master [Obi-Wan] are assigned to protect Padme- now Senator for the Chommell Sector and thus of Naboo- from an unknown would-be assasin whilst several thousand star systems attempt to break away from the Galactic Republic. When Anakin sees Padme again it becomes immediately obvious that he has been harboring a crush on and an idealization of Padme for the past ten years. At first Padme, knowing better than such nonsense, tries to maintain that Anakin is still the little boy she'd known on Tatooine and rationally determines that their relationship must remain strictly platonic. |
| The first night Anakin and Obi-Wan are on Padme's security detail another attempt is made on Padme's life but Anakin and Obi-Wan stop the attempt from being successful. They find out more information on who the person behind the assasination attempts might be and when they go before the Jedi Council with this information the Council decides that it would be best if Obi-Wan follows whatever clues he can find to try to identify the bounty hunter who was identified as the person behind the assasination attempts. This leaves protecting Padme in Anakin's hands. The two young people are sent back to Padme's home planet of Naboo, disguised as refugees. They visit Padme's family and Anakin learns more about Padme's life and her original drives that got her where she was. Anakin and Padme's father have a conversation out in the yard of Padme's childhood home whilst Padme's older sister and mother tease her about never having brought a boyfriend home before. She vehemently explains that they are just friends and that their relationship is strictly professional but you can see that she is beginning to doubt it herself. Anakin also listens intently as Padme explains her past affiliation in benevolence works whilst he stands with her in her room while she packs some clothes. They then go before the new Queen of Naboo- Jamillia. Jamillia and Padme have a political discussion and it is decided that Anakin and Padme should go hide in the Lake Country since they would be both comfortable and secluded there. Anakin accompanies Padme to a Lake Retreat that Padme used to come to when she was in school. There they have a conversation which leads to them kissing for the first time but Padme almost immediately pulls away. |
| They, aparently having nothing better to do, go out to a beautiful meadow surrounded by rushing waterfalls and there they talk about any past boyfriends Padme may've had and that leads to their first discussing politics. At that point Palpatine's influence on Anakin begins to show through. Anakin's political ideas are heavily influenced by the future Galactic Emperor, partially because (in my opinion) he had trusted Palpatine because he'd seen Padme do so as a younger person. They get into something of an arguement, Padme's rank democratic ideas clashing with Anakin's more dictatorial ones. It seems that Anakin is torn between wanting to agree with Padme and wanting to agree with Palpatine so he manages to use his wit to work his way out of confrontation with her. Anakin's leanings toward a more dictatorial system, I believe, are heavily influenced by his inability to "let go" or "let live"... he wants to control things because he, at least in the beginning, only wants what he sees as best for those he loves. Feeling things as passionately as he does, however, is dangerous for him as a Jedi because it makes him wish to control far more than he should- even life and death. |
| The "picnic scene", as the aforementioned scene is commonly referred to as, may seem pointless at first but when looking at the larger picture of Anakin's relationship with Padme it establishes the fact that their love or even their general liking of one another is centered around both a kind of childish freedom they find around one another that they have no where else and a kind of night/day tension. |
| In the evening of the same day Anakin and Padme eat a meal together, during which Anakin explains to Padme the concept of "aggressive negotiations". When night falls Anakin and Padme are sitting on a couch, aparently having a normal conversation until Anakin decides that he must confess how he feels to Padme. At first she seems taken aback by it, because though surely she must've known by now, she has no idea how to react to it because she knows that it's supposed to be Anakin's responsibility not to fall in love. He suggests to her that they could keep their relationship secret, explaining that the thought of a life without her seemed impossible now.[See Padme's Bio-page for the actual quote.] She refuses for the time being because she said that it would be living a lie... a lie that would be impossible to keep even if they wanted to. |
| That night Anakin's nightmares- nightmares about his mother suffering- become far more vivid than they had been up until that point. He believes that these dreams are visions, rather than just fears and the next morning he reluctantly informs Padme that he feels he must go, even if it would mean disobeying his mandate to protect her. Padme decides that rather than allowing him to disobey his mandate that she will accompany him to Tatooine. |
When they get to Mos Espa Anakin finds his former master, the Toydarian junk-dealer, Watto. Once Watto realizes who Anakin is he informs him that he sold Shmi years ago but, still remembering caring for Ani as a little boy, agrees to go through his records to help find out exactly where Shmi was the last time he had any information on her whereabouts. He also tells Anakin that he'd heard that Shmi's new owner had freed her and married her. The new information sends Anakin and Padme on a trip across Tatooine's desert to another city called Mos Eisley. |
| When they arrive they are greeted by C-3PO, who now posesses a grey covering rather than having all his wires sticking out. Anakin recognises him anyway and once 3PO recognises his "Maker" he seems as pleased as a robot could be. Anakin asks about his mother and 3PO nervously ushers Anakin and Padme inside the "homestead". There Anakin and Padme meet Owen Lars and his girlfriend Beru Whitesun, who would eventually be the ones to raise their son. They also meet Cliegg Lars, Owen's father and Shmi's husband and former master. They learn that Shmi had been kidnapped by a band of Tusken Raiders- sand people- nearly a month previously. Cliegg tries to bring Anakin to peace with the fact that his mother is probably dead but Anakin refuses to accept the near-obvious and decides to go on his own search for his mother. Padme follows him outside but he tells her that it's too dangerous for her to go with him, and that he believes the Lars family to be good people and that she will be safe there. It doesn't seem that she has any protest to this but rather she hugs him tightly before allowing him to go alone. His quest to find his mother takes him across the vast, empty desert of Tatooine until he finds a group of Jawa traders (possibly, though not necessarily, the ones who would, years later, sell C-3PO back to Owen Lars along with R2-D2). They aparently send him in the right direction and he comes upon one of the nomadic encampments of Tusken Raiders scattered all across Tatooine. Aparently his both human and Jedi intuition tell him that he's come upon the right one. He quietly slips past the Tusken Raiders, who are being lazy in the night. He quietly cuts a hole in one of the tents and comes upon Shmi and releases her from the bounds that the Tuskens had entrapped her in. She at this point is nearly delirious from being too hot, wounded, tired and malnurished. She isn't so delirious, however, that she doesn't soon recognise her son- her grown-up and handsome son, as she says. She never manages to actually get all of the words out but she tells him that she loves him and that she is complete- more or less trying to comfort him by saying that she could now die in peace because she recognises the inevitable. Anakin tearfully begs his mother to stay with him but in spite of her fighting to live she dies in his arms. Soon his grief turns into a very bitter and flaming anger. This is the first time in his life that he allows the Dark Side to entirely fuel his actions and he kills the Tuskens. |
| The next day he returns with his mother's body, wrapped in a make-shift burial shroud. All of them are hurt because of her death but Padme seems to pick up on the fact that something is terribly wrong and different with Anakin... She leaves him alone for the time being but later she walks down to the Lars' garage and brings him something to eat. When she asks if he's hungry he ignores the question and begins to explain that he liked fixing things, that he had always been good at fixing things, but that he couldn't fix her [his mother], that he believed that he could have stopped her dying if only he'd been better- been stronger. Padme tries to console him by explaining to him that he can't be all-powerful and that everyone has to die eventually but he expresses his desire to be all-powerful, to be "the strongest Jedi ever", to be able to "stop people from dying." Anakin tells Padme the truth, that after his mother died that he killed all of them [the Tuskens], and not just the Tusken men, but the women and the children, and he expresses something between regret and relishment in their deaths. In the movie (AOTC) this is the "first" time we hear the "Darth Vader" overture mingled in the with music very obviously. Padme- though frightened by this new, different and very dark side of Anakin- still stays and consoles him as he sits down on the floor and finally truly cries for his lost mother. |
The Lars' family, along with Anakin and Padme hold a small and quiet funeral for Shmi in front of the homestead, burying her alongside other fallen members of the Lars' family. Cliegg speaks to his wife's grave, telling her thank you for everything she'd done for him and that he loved her and knew that "wherever she was that it had become a better place". Anakin then speaks to her grave as well, telling her that he wasn't strong enough, that he'd failed her, but that he promised her that he would never fail again- that he missed her, very much. At this point R2-D2 shows up. Padme is the first one to notice the little droid and she asks him a bit incredulously what he's doing there. C-3PO translates for the astro-droid and explains that he says that he is carrying a message from "an Obi-Wan Kenobi" and asks if that name means anything to those standing there. Padme and Anakin retreat to their (or rather Padme's) ship where they listen to the transmission from Obi-Wan. In the message Obi-Wan explains that his long-range transmitter had been damaged and that he needed Anakin to retransmit his message to the Jedi Temple. Doing so, both Anakin and the Jedi Council hear Obi-Wan explain that he has found that the Trade Viceroy is behind the assasination attempts on Senator Amidala and that much more is happening on Geonosis that was once believed. Jedi Master Mace Windu then instructs Anakin to stay where he is and that his foremost priority is to protect the Senator. Padme is dumbfounded when Anakin doesn't seem to want to go to Obi-Wan's aide at all. Anakin fretfully explains to Padme that Obi-Wan is the closest thing he has to a father but that he doesn't see the point in trying to help- he couldn't save his mother so why would he be able to save Obi-Wan? And besides, he had been given "strict orders" to stay there on Tatooine. Padme seems to take on a bit of a wry, almost rebellious countenance and says "No, they gave you strict orders to protect me- and I'm going to help Obi-Wan. If you wish to protect me then you'll just have to come along." Anakin is very pleased by this, his own outside-the-mold personality taking on her colors very quickly. They leave Tatooine and head to Geonosis which is less than a parsec (the Star Wars measure of distance) away. When they arrive on Geonosis Padme tells him that she would like to do the talking, that as a Senator she might be able to find a "diplomatic solution" to the problem. He merely pithily responds that he's given up trying to argue with her. They enter Geonosis' interior through an exhaust pipe that their ship will easily fit into and they enter a droid factory that is manufacturing thousands of battle droids. They soon find themselves trapped in the dangerous, clammering maze of machinery. R2-D2 and C-3PO (who presumably accompanied them since Anakin was his maker and Shmi was gone) follow them into the factory and 3PO's head and body get seperated temporarily, his head getting attached to a battle droid and a battle droid head getting attached to his body. Anakin loses his lightsaber again which leads to his and Padme's capture. They are then sentenced to death when Padme will not agree to join the Seperatist movement on behalf of Naboo and the Chommel sector. She and Anakin are taken to something like a gladiator stadium where they are handcuffed and placed in a carriage that will soon drive them out into the center of an arena where they are supposed to meet their sentenced fates. Padme, looking her own mortality- as well as Anakin's- in the eye decides that, having nothing else to lose, she will confess how she feels to Anakin. She tells him that she loves him and after asking her to say it again, presumably in disbelief (the sort of "now you tell me" vibe) and he immediately accepts and they kiss one another before they are quickly whisked into the stadium full of cheering insect-like Geonosian citizens. There they are both lead to seperate pillars toward the center of the arena where their hands are fastened above their heads. They meet Obi-Wan there and he asks them what they are doing there. Anakin explains that they came there to rescue him to which Obi-Wan simply replies "Good job." Anakin remains fairly calm but has "a bad feeling about this" and Obi-Wan tries to reiterate to Anakin how important concentration is if they were to escape this. Anakin finds this difficult because of being concerned for Padme, who obviously does not have the ability to concentrate her way out of problems in the same way that Jedi can. Padme, however, while Anakin wasn't paying attention, had managed to use her chained for leverage to begin climbing to the top of the pillar. Soon several viscous and blood-thirsty creatures are released into the arena. A large cat-like creature takes interest in Padme and she manages to keep from getting injured with the exception of a very large claw mark on her back, that causes her shirt to rip round the small of her back (which conveniently turns into a midriff, but hey, it's a movie). After that she manages to stay safely on top of the pillar, avoiding further injury until Anakin manages to use the chain that he had been bound to the pillar with as reins to control one of the animals as he rides on its back. He steers the infuriated animal over to the pillar where Padme is sitting and tells her to jump and she does, landing on the back of the creature behind Anakin, leaning up and kissing his cheek. Oni-Wan also then manages to climb upon the creatures back and it would seem that the trio are merely delaying the inevitable until the tides are turned when Mace Windu, the other Jedi, and a newly adopted Clone Army show up. This leads to the first climactic battle of The Clone Wars, fought out first in the arena and then across the desert-like Geonosian landscape. Anakin, Obi-Wan and Padme escape to a gunship where they are safe until Padme loses her balance and falls down into the sand below. Seeing that she isn't terribly injured and knowing rationally that much more is at stake Obi-Wan determines that it would be better to move on but Anakin protests this fiercely, being far more frightened for her that is even rational. Obi-Wan can't seem to get through to his Padawan until he says "what would Padme do..." and Anakin then calms himself enough to rationally agree with Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan and Anakin locate Count Dooku, leader of the Seperatist movement and a fallen Jedi. The pair get into a lightsaber battle with the elderly Count, but Anakin rushes into things far too rashly and in the end gets the lower part of his right arm severed. Obi-Wan and Anakin would have been surely destroyed had not Yoda shown up and for the first time in Star Wars history lived up to his name's meaning "on-screen" - his name, by the way, comes from a Sanskrit word meaning "great warrior". Meanwhile Padme instructs the Clone Troopers that come to her aid to get to the hangar quickly rather than taking her to safety, knowing that Anakin and her friend Obi-Wan are in danger. When they arrive there Padme embraces Anakin in a way that, if looked at in a certain light, may've been something a bit more than platonic but no one seems to notice. Anakin then escorts Padme back to her home planet of Naboo where the two hastily decide to marry in secret. The only witnesses were the holyman who wed them and "their" two droids- C-3PO and R2-D2. It was legal however, because if I recall correctly, I read that in the novelization of Episode III that rather than through some esoteric sensitivity that Palpatine found out about their legal union by somehow finding the legal documentation that had, aparently been well-hidden back on Naboo, although there is some thought that perhaps a few other people knew. |
| As of when this essay/article/ramble was written I haven't seen the Clone Wars cartoon series and haven't read any related books so I'm not sure what happened in Anakin's life during this time but I do know that his abilities in the Force increased greatly and that he was finally named a Jedi Knight at some point by the time RotS rolled around. When Anakin is reunited with Padme (after five months, I believe) she tells him that she's pregnant. And though the couple is happy about it their situation is precarious because their child could unravel their clever disguisement of the true nature, both legal and practical, of their relationship. If their relationship was found out Anakin would be expelled from the Jedi Order or worse. Meanwhile a power struggle ensues between Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, whose political powers grow ever-stronger, and the Jedi Council. Palpatine asks Anakin to be his personal representative, eyes and ears on the Jedi Council. Normally the Jedi Council would have been outraged at this suggestion but they have a plan. They grant Anakin a position on the Jedi Council but do not grant him the rank of Master. Though Anakin's ambition had not necessarily been to, at this point, attain the rank of Master this deeply offends him because such an insult is not heard of- being put on the Council and becoming a Master are supposed to be one and the same. To add to the insult the Council then asks Anakin to, for all intents and purposes, spy on the Chancellor for them. This request is sent to Anakin through his friend and mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi. Anakin immediately refuses, at this point his faith in the Council growing ever-dimmer. Anakin does, however, try to stave off the decay of his friendship with Obi-Wan- Anakin Skywalker is not yet gone. Another matter, one more personal, is also troubling Anakin. He begins having dreams that Padme will die in childbirth, dreams that, because of the previous events surrounding his mother's death, he fears to be prophetic. He goes before Yoda for counsel at some point but Yoda, not realizing the exact nature of Anakin's inquiry, answers him saying that he should be happy that his "friend" would become one with the Force. Anakin's relationship with the Chancellor then takes a dark turn. Palpatine ultimately offers Anakin the chance to learn the ways of the Dark Side of the Force- through which, Palpatine claims, one can learn to stop even death. Anakin comes to the realization that Palpatine is the Sith Lord that the Council has been in search of and though he would have at that point liked to have killed Palpatine for his betrayal he turns him in to the Council via Mace Windu instead, realizing that killing him would only compound the dark influences within himself- trying to maintain what he believes to be proper demeanor for a Jedi in spite of Palpatine. He then begins to come to the conclusion that if Palpatine is captured or killed that he will lose all chance to save Padme. |
| He returns to Palpatine's office, deciding that in spite of the fact that Mace Windu had told him to stay behind for his own sake that he must find a way to save Padme. When he arrives there he finds Mace Windu standing over a helpless-looking Palpatine, lightsaber drawn. Anakin tries to stop Mace from killing Palpatine. Anakin insists that Palpatine must stand trial, that killing him without it would be wrong- even if he was a Sith Lord. Mace refuses to spare Palpatine, saying that he was too dangerous to keep alive. Palpatine hits Mace with Force Lightning but Mace blocks it with his lightsaber, effectively baking Palpatine into the shrivelled, barely human-looking old man that he became. Palpatine suddenly "tires" and begins pleading with Anakin to save him. Mace prepares to strike the death-blow but Anakin stops him, severing Mace's saber-hand. Palpatine then hits Mace with the lightning again with renewed vigor, throwing him out the window of the office to his death. Anakin, part of him consumed by the Dark Side and the other remaining part of him realizing that he'd crossed a line that could not be re-crossed submits himself to the Dark Side and is then dubbed Darth Vader. Anakin Skywalker as he was known before was no more. |
 Anakin at age 22 [Note: Approximately three years passed between AOTC and ROTS] |
| His first task as a newly dubbed Sith Lord is to march on the Jedi Temple and to annihilate all who are inside. He does this without question, the Dark Side driving him into madness. He even kills all of the frightened Younglings when they look to him for help and reassurance. Though this seems utterly despicable I once read something about that even the "good man that was Anakin Skywalker"- even if part of him was still untainted by the Dark Side, was faced with the apparent choice to either kill other children or allow his own child (he didn't know that they were twins) to die which puts it in a slightly different light. He is then sent to the planet Mustafar to kill the Seperatist leaders. He completes the task and after having done so goes out of the building and begins to cry- partially realizing just how warped everything was becoming. Padme then shows up even though Anakin had asked her to wait for him at their home, she then pleads with him to turn away from the darkness and to flee from Palpatine- from public life with her... but he refuses, telling her that they can together overthrow Palpatine and rule the galaxy together. Padme refuses to accept this and Obi-Wan, being concerned for Padme among other things, emerges from her ship where he had stowed away, unbeknownst to even Padme. Anakin is suspiscous of Obi-Wan's presense and, not thinking rationally because of the influence of the Dark Side, begins to believe that Padme has betrayed him and Force-chokes her into unconsciousness (but not death). Anakin and Obi-Wan then begin a terrible and fateful lightsaber duel which leads them into the depths of Mustafar's mining complex where they are surrounded by rivers of molten lava. Obi-Wan gains the upper ground and pleads with Anakin, begging him to surrender but Anakin, being made entirely irrational by the Dark Side, his true self being nearly utterly destroyed and silenced, tries to continue the battle by using the Force to jump a very long distance to try to continue to engage Obi-Wan in the battle. Obi-Wan defensively severs Anakin's lower legs while he's in midair and the maimed man falls down the bank into one of the rivers of lava. He manages to pull himself up out of the lava but in doing so suffers near-fatal burns and severe lung and throat damage. All of these injuries would be what prompted Palpatine to put Anakin into the "Vader-suit" as a kind of permanent life-support system. Meanwhile Obi-Wan delivers Padme to a medical bay where she gives birth to her two healthy babies. Shortly thereafter she dies, in her dying breath still refusing to forsake her love for and faith in Anakin. When Anakin awakes in the Vader-suit part of his former-self is still evident, in spite of surely being in pain he immediately asks where Padme is... Palpatine claims that in his anger that Anakin had killed Padme [which was in fact not true]. Anakin insists that it was impossible- that he'd felt her life still present***- but Palpatine insists. It seems that Anakin Skywalker then forsakes himself, having nothing left to live for, believing his child to be dead also and then he was Darth Vader- a Sith Lord and he learned to ignore his true self- Anakin Skywalker, who was for nearly all intents and purposes no more. |
Anakin-related Links The Wikipedia's Site for Anakin Skywalker I used information on this site to write my above biography, specifically about RotS, however I tried not to plagerize. Anyway, Wikipedia's site contains no conjecture and is done from a non-biased point of view. Notes indicated by asterisks: * Anakin is said to have had no physical father. Though some people might think this was pointless irreverence to real-world religion it must be taken into account that virgin-births appear in many of the world's religions and that George Lucas looked to real-world mythologies from virtually every culture to attempt to create his own mythos. The concept in Star Wars is that Anakin was born to Shmi Skywalker- conceived from the Force through their physical cell-like presense in the midi-chlorians. [Midi-chlorians are based upon real-world cells- particularly Mitochondria] ** Anakin lived to be physically about 45 but Anakin gives himself to the Dark Side for most of the rest of his life once he is informed of Padme's [and he presume's his child's] death when he was 22, so it could be said that "Darth Vader" and "Anakin" are in some sense different entities although in actuality they aren't. Therefore one might say that Anakin died at twenty-two when Padme did. *** Though it is reasonable for Anakin to have felt Padme's presense still there on Mustafar seeing as she was still alive when he left her there is some thought that perhaps he still felt her presense after his life-saving body alterations because some people theorize that Padme died only because Palpatine "stole" what was left of her ability to live from her. The reason for this is that Anakin's injuries were severe and even with the most sophisticated medical technologies they would have been most likely fatal without a bit of dark mojo and also that Padme died simply because she "lost her will to live" and even if this were the case any mother would have fought to live for her children even without the man she loved.
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