SO WHAT THE HELL ISÂ THE MORTIS ARC?
After about the second time I watched this arc, my thoughts ran towards the idea this was Star Wars in a microcosm, the story of Anakin Skywalkerâs fall in miniature form, as so many things in Star Wars basically come down to being about Anakin, whether literally about him or an echo and rhyme of the story that he is the very center of. Which I think still has a good amount of merit to it, but in the rewatching of this arc yet again, thereâs a bigger arc that jumped out at me so much more clearly, now that Iâve spent more time with the structure and lore of Star Wars.
That this arc is entirely a metaphorical extension of Anakinâs internal struggle between the light and the dark.
Itâs a manifestation of the Chosen One struggling to choose between good and evil.
Now, to be clear, the Father and the Son and the Daughter are all real beings that really existed, Dave Filoni has said that pretty clearly on podcast interviews, as well as said more than once that he and Christian Taylor specifically decided not to answer What The Fuck Was That!? about this arc, because they felt it would rob the viewers of speculation about it, as well as the questions that youâre meant to ask after watching it.
There are so many, many moments in this arc that are call-backs to important moments in Anakinâs life, major events and choices he makes along his path in life, as well as commentary from the Father and the Son and the Daughter about who and what they are, what influences them.
In âOverlordsâ, Obi-Wan and Anakin and Ahsoka find themselves stranded on a mysterious planet, immediately approached by the Daughter and asked if he is indeed the Chosen One. All three of the Mortis lords are intensely interested in Anakin, each of them try to protect him, seduce him, or just try to understand if he really is the Chosen One.
While heâs staying in the Fatherâs sanctuary, Anakin has a vision of his mother, which heâs deeply affected by, but realizes itâs not really her. He storms out of the room and goes to confront the Father, thinking that these are Sith Lords. But the Father says, no, weâre not Sith or Jedi, weâre bigger than that, like you are.
His explanation is:  âWe can take many forms. The shapes we embody are merely a reflection of the life force around us.â
In other words, they take the shape that Anakinâs presence imbues them with. Theyâre real on their own, but their forms here are shaped by the Chosen One.
But the Chosen One is a myth, right? Well, the Father would very much like to know. So, the entire rest of the episode is about hurtling the charactersâhurtling Anakin, as the Chosen Oneâtowards a test.
A test that isnât just about âhey, are you the Chosen One or not?â, but almost every single time the Father says what he has to doâface your guilt and know the truth, you have to release the guilt and choose, only you can do this.
Itâs about trying to make Anakin look within himself, look at his guilt and fear and pain, and acknowledge them, face them, and choose whether he will embrace them or let go of them.
Which is E X A C T L Y how the Force works, how the Jedi have always said the Force works. Itâs Luke having to face his fears in the cave on Dagobah, itâs the Jedi younglings having to face their fears on Ilum, itâs Ezra having to face his fears in the Lothal Jedi Temple, itâs Rey having to face her fears in the cave on Ahch-To. [x][x]
FACE YOUR FEARS, YOUR GUILT, YOUR ANGER. FACE YOUR DARK SIDE.
The planet is the Force and thatâs how the Force works.
Anakin uses the Force to make the Daughter and Son let them go, but refuses to stay on Mortis (and, honestly, doesnât really do any self-examination or releasing of his guilt, he hasnât changed internally at all), so they try to leave, but theyâre still trapped there.
Which is where âAltar of Mortisâ picks up.  Because Anakin is still giving shape to the manifestations of the Father, the Daughter, and the Son.
âYouâve chosen the dark side and allowed it to feed your anger and desire for power,â the Father says.
âBy bringing the Chosen One here, youâve shown me my potential,â the Son answers.
And then moments later, he kicks the Father down the stairs (because heâs HOLDING HIM BACK! by not dying fast enough) and screams:
Even aside from time not being linear in Star Wars, weâll see later that this trilogy of episodes is very aware of Revenge of the Sith and other important moments in Anakinâs life. This moment, screaming in rage, âI hate you!â cannot possibly not remind us of Anakin screaming the same thing at Obi-Wan in ROTS.
Which is yet another moment thatâs about Anakin, just as so many other moments are about him, cool little moments of echoes and rhymes, that Star Wars likes to make references and homages to itself, but there are enough of them done with such clear purpose here that I donât think itâs just Rule of Cool, but instead an intentional narrative purpose behind them.
There are more, but those ones are the ones that really jumped out at me, important moments in Anakinâs story, ones that reflect his fall into the darkness. The moment he caught the saber and attacked Dooku as a choice he couldnât take back (and was itself an important moment because it was a mirror to Lukeâs choice to not kill Vader in ROTJ, even after cutting off his arm in a rage, as Anakin did to Dooku as well) and the moment he very much intended to kill Obi-Wan on the Death Star, these are classic moments that evoke our knowledge of Anakinâs path.
And what does all this do?
It further feeds whatâs going on with the Mortis lords.
Everything pretty much goes pear-shaped at this point, Ahsoka dies, the Son accidentally stabs the Daughter instead of the Fatherâ
Which, in and of itself is an interesting parallel to Anakin, his sister the only one he professes to truly love, heâs the one that winds up killing her, despite his intentions, but then we see he also very much loves the Father, he doesnât want him to die, heâs distraught when it happens, even though he was the one who engineered it, just like Anakin being the thing that really breaks Padmeâs heart/causes her death even without his intentions to do so, just like Anakin in âThere is Anotherâ in From a Certain Point of View where his heart explodes with loneliness after Obi-Wan dies, so powerfully that Yoda feels it from literally all the way on the other side of the galaxy.
âbut Ahsoka is saved through Anakin being the one to channel the last of the Daughterâs energy into Ahsoka, while the Father guides him, the Son fucks off to who knows where, and âWhat the fuck do we do now?â knowing that the Son wants their ship to leave with.
This is where âGhosts of Mortisâ starts up, and the announcement furthers our themes:
âA great weight has been placed on Anakinâs shoulders, for it is now that he must face who he really is.â
Not just that he has a choice to make, about what to do about the Son or Mortis, but that this still has to be about discovering who he himself really is. Because Anakin has never yet really looked inside himself or faced his guilt and pain.
Which is when he runs into Qui-Gonâs ghost, as heâs trying to find the Son, and wham does it deliver on all of this:
Qui-Gonâs words arenât just âbring balance to the Forceâ, but specifically this is indicated to be done through facing his demons will he save the universe.
Anakin, sliding right by that point, asks if he should just kill the Son or just leave? And Qui-Gonâs answer is that Anakinâs not looking at this in the right way, that thereâs another way to deal with this and itâs exactly the one that the Jedi have been teaching for as long as weâve known them, that the Force has constantly been throwing into the paths of the Jedi, because itâs so necessary to becoming a Jedi: Face the dark parts of you and work past them.
This is why Qui-Gonâs words are so importantâitâs not just that this is an echo of Empire Strikes Back where Luke has to face the inner demon of the specter of Darth Vader (it wasnât an external threat in that cave on Dagobah, that was all about âwhat you bring with youâ, as Yoda says, that was all about Lukeâs fears surrounding him), that itâs not just that Qui-Gon says Anakin has to go to a place strong in the dark side but he has to remember his training.
Qui-Gonâs ghost visited Obi-Wan earlier, asking, âHave you trained the boy as I asked?â And now he says, âRemember your training.â because this is what Jedi do, this is what they train themselves for, and why Qui-Gon says it to Anakin here. This is what youâve been taught to doâgo to the dark place and face your demon. Thatâs the Force, thatâs how it works.
And further to that, how the Force works, how Star Wars works, is that itâs about choice in those moments. When youâre at the crossroads, it has to be your own choice. You can ask others for advice and guidance, those things can be incredibly important, but at the end of the day, Star Wars is about âonly Anakin can chooseâ.
So, Anakin does indeed go to face the Son in the place strong in the dark and the Son forces him to look within himself. To know himself.
He sees his future self and actions, heâs so distraught by them, that instead of being able to face them and pass through those fears, heâs consumed by them, he agrees to help the Son, falling to the dark sideâpoison yellow eyes of the fully embraced dark side and allâto try to avoid whatâs coming.
The thing is, Anakin never really confronts his fears, demons, or guilt. Heâs consumed by them instead. It happens because heâs trying to avoid it, but he still falls to the dark side all the same, because he listens to the Son dripping poison in his ear, because he sees an easier way out than the hard work of disciplining himself against the dark side (which George Lucas says is how you resist it, the only way to resist it), because the other way seems too impossible and too scary.
Anakinâs story has always been about how he canât bear to look at himself and his choices and then make the choiceâand stick to that choiceâto do and be better. His story has always been about his fears ran rampant inside him because he didnât want to let go of the feelings that made him âspecialâ, he didnât want to listen to the Jedi when they told him to get a grip, he wanted to listen to Palpatine who told him his feelings should be held onto instead of let go, that they made him special, made him better than those other Jedi, that his hate and rage and fear were justified in being held onto.
And thatâs exactly what the Mortis arc isâa reflection and shape of Anakinâs story, that each of them were about the internal struggle he faced.
That Anakin didnât make these choices in one bad day.
He made this choice over and over again.
When he chose to dig his fingers into his feelings and hold onto them, listening to Palpatineâs poisonous words.
When he chose to do a monstrous thing on Tatooine to the Tuskens and their children, but ignored what that said about him.
When he killed Dooku, unarmed and for the sake of revenge and his rage.
When he chose to maim Mace Windu and lead to his death, choosing Palpatine and the Empire instead of the Jedi and the Republic.
When he chose to attack the Jedi Temple and kill the younglings, leading him to feel unable to ever go back, that his actions had to be justified or else he murdered innocents for nothing.
When he chose to Force choke Padme, which lead to broken heart and her inability to live, after the terrible things heâd done.
When he chose to attack Obi-Wan again and again, despite being warned, leading him to the Darth Vader suit.
When he chose to refuse to accept the vision the Force put in his head in Dark Lord of the Sith, that Obi-Wan still would have forgiven him and helped him, when he rejected that and said, âNo. [The dark side] is all there is.â
When he, again and again, chose to reject acknowledging that all these Jedi took different paths that he himself could have done (Jocasta Nu, Ferren Barr, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Eeth Koth, they were all paths he could have walked instead, even then).
When he chose to kill Obi-Wan, despite that Obi-Wan had stepped back and refused to fight anymore.
Anakin Skywalker desperately wanted to be good, there wouldnât be a struggle or a story there worth telling if he werenât. The ending of Return of the Jedi wouldnât have the power and impact it did, if Anakin hadnât had embers of goodness in him that couldnât be snuffed out, no matter how hard he tried.
But I think Mortis is an arc thatâs about manifesting the internal struggle, that these Force Lords took the shapes they did because they were feeding off him, as the Chosen One, the center of this massive web of destiny. And thatâs why Anakinâs choices on Mortis, his struggles and the warnings he receives, are the same ones that are part of the bigger themes of Star Warsâ Skywalker Saga, and just what the hell was going on.
It was Anakin Skywalkerâs struggle with the dark and the lightâincluding that the dark won, with small pinpricks of hope and light left aliveâliterally made manifest and acted out with these players.
germansingergirl
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