In terms of execution, no. The character himself? Yes. The overlying intention behind the fall of Anakin was brilliant just very poorly executed.
-You are born and raised in slavery alongside your single mother. Despite your age you are a mechanical engineering and piloting savant. Then are recruited into a cult, believing you are their prophesied savior. Your mother wanting you to have a better life allows you to leave with them. Said cult is influential and powerful, surely they had the foresight to do all they could to help what is the equivalent of the Virgin Mary? Surely?
:nopegif:
- You are then raised in this cult, things like emotion and passion are taught to be detrimental to you, you're drilled with a flawed and hypocritical ideology. But the prodigious talent you possess is there for all to see, the leaders continue to doubt and belittle you but you've made friends with your mentor. This relationship slowly develops into a brotherly love.
- You meet a girl, secretly of course. You fall in love. She's beautiful, intelligent, willful, a youthful senator. She's damn near perfect. Problem is, the cult never taught you how to properly deal with emotions like these, but encouraged you to suppress and rid yourself of them. You want to marry her. You can't. So you do it. Tell no one, lest they tell you to fear the monstrosity known as 'the dark side'.
-Something's wrong, very wrong, you feel it in the force. Mother? You rush back to your home planet, something is very wrong. The sands of the desert planet carry memories both painful and joyous. You look for her, starting with your former slave master, you're delighted to hear she's no longer a slave and that she is happily married. You search for this man, only to discover she was kidnapped months ago by raiders. "No. Not again." You go out in the wilderness and find her, raped and near death. She lives long enough to see her son, to say she loves you and is proud of you, then dies in your arms. The assailants are outside, as soon as you leave the tent all you see is red. You bury and mourn your mother being only one of two people to have ever loved her. That's the first crack. Loss. You promise never to let a loved one die again.
-A series of events occur, the Jedi have declared war, recruited a clone army? Are they not peaceful? That's the second crack. You begin to see the hypocrisy of your cult.
-Years later this war is still going on. You're older, more powerful, perhaps more so than some of the leaders of your cult. You've also built a good rapport with an old man, a wise man. Treats you like family. Encourages you to experience your emotions, your humanity more freely. He was kidnapped and about to be killed by an agent of the dark side. You took care of it. Desperate times, desperate measures. Third crack, temptation.
-The old man, the father/uncle you never had tells you secrets, ones that shatter your foundational worldview to it's core. The Jedi are wrong. He tells you the other cult, the Sith, are misunderstood. They allow you express passion and emotion. To love. They can help you fufill your potential. With the Jedi you've stagnated in your goals, unable to even save your mother. You can become more powerful than you already are. Who doesn't want that want that? Then he says it, "You can cheat death". You look outside and see death and war. But you can save them, everyone. Are you not the chosen one?
Fourth crack, pride and hubris.
-The Jedi, attempted to apprehend the old man, the one who held nothing back from you, he trusted you. Things got out of hand.
-In your extreme paranoia you hurt your wife, you kill children and now your best friend is standing in the way of you and peace. Has he not heard? There is no senate. Palpatine is emperor, and the Jedi oppose the legitimate government.
-You lost the fight but won the war. On the operating table, your friend approaches you, in dark robes an air of malevolence about him. Over time you will slowly begin to realize you had been a puppet from the moment of your birth to your death, manipulated for your power. You desperately ask him about your pregnant wife Padme. It appears you killed her in your anger. You've failed again to protect your loved ones. The final crack, despair, annihilates any semblance of love or hope, you are instead filled with only one feeling. Hate. Of yourself, the situation, Jedi, Sith, etc. Just hate. Hate.
Framed a certain way, the fall of Anakin is beautiful and relatable, almost Shakespearean. A man trying desperately to save his loved ones from death.
Luke brings up his dad and the Emperor mocks him in front of his son.
