in Asgard

"𝐃𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐈 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐈 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐡 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈’𝐝 𝐟𝐞𝐥𝐭 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐯𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐟𝐚𝐫 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝?” “𝐘𝐞𝐬,” 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐲 𝐞𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐲. “𝐈𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐟 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞.” 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬 𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐝. “𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭. 𝐈𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞.”

Happy birthday @wicked-felina!!

mmmmmmmmmmmm yeah that’s the real trick isn’t it [/Han]

Vader is indeedy a Toxic Father Figure™ in the extreme.  Like, as far as fic goes, frankly @treenahasthaal ‘s material is far more realistic in terms of how Vader would treat his son if he got his gloves on him.  With that said, though, at the end of the day, fic is fic.  We write it to entertain ourselves, and it’s both free to produce and free to consume.  We can fantasize and satisfy ourselves with whatever we don’t see onscreen - if that involves everything from hurt/comfort heavy on the comfort to crack, so be it.  So “good Luke & Vader fic with an OOC Vader” isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just a “YMMV thing.”  Even in a softer or more humorous take, there’s definitely things Vader wouldn’t really do or say or think, and as long as it doesn’t veer way off past that territory it’s still enjoyable.

The other thing with Vader is - he’s a terrible person only insomuch as it serves his agenda, not purely for the sake of masochistic pleasure of pain and suffering like Palpatine loves.  He himself has been subjected to such an incredible amount of body horror, trauma, and dehumanization that he’s just numb to it, and thus doesn’t think much of inflicting it upon others, including his own son, to the extent that it will Get The Job Done.  I personally feel he didn’t give two shits about cutting off Luke’s hand because that’s barely a fraction of what he went through to get to where he is; the ends justify the means, and in that frame of mind limbs are expendable and the resulting pain is NBD.  But he wouldn’t feel like inflicting torment on his son just for shits and giggles, and overall he’d want to protect him in order to keep him alive for his purposes.  Kind of a “nobody gets to hurt my boy but me” mentality.  ;p  He’s not a mustache-twirling villain, if he had one.  Pain forged him into the weapon he became, so pain is necessary for molding Luke into his own image so that they can “rule the galaxy as father and son” in his demented sense of totalitarian order.  Pain is both a great and cruel teacher.

To put it another way and be controversial on main: even if Vader somehow learned Leia was his daughter in ANH, he would have still likely tortured and violated her to some extent, because the Death Star plans took priority at that moment, and at the end of the day Vader was still the Emperor’s servant.  He couldn’t exactly formulate a plan for a coup immediately.

To me, the whole “would he resort to physical violence” (since that was the point of focus/example here) entirely depends on how early in the relationship it is, and how extreme the circumstances are.

He chokes Padmé - in very exceptional circumstances. He cuts off Luke’s hand - in what at the point is rather exceptional circumstances, and while obviously he’s been tossing shit at Luke before that (I’m not counting the “window breaks, Luke gets sucked out” incident as deliberate, since Luke could literally have died and what then?), but none of that is focused, intentional abuse; it’s part of a fight.

There’s plenty of wiggle room for interpretations though. I can buy a Vader who self justifies letting Luke be in pain as making Luke fall to the Dark Side thus be safe. Vader justifies turning Luke as protecting him, and clearly isn’t above torturing Luke’s friends and causing emotional pain towards that end.

However, I can also buy the softer and more dad-interpretations because Vader doesn’t torture Luke or Padme or Obi-Wan. Even if he says he hates Obi-Wan, he just strikes him down. When we see him try to turn Luke in RotJ, it’s all by talking and dueling. Hell, check out @darth–nickels Black Mirror, which doesn’t hold back on how bad of a person Vader is while still showing how much he cares for his son.

As I’ve now had more time to think about it (I had to dash out while finishing my first thought up there), it really does - like Threadsketchier, KittandChips and you (and I) - says, it comes down on interpretation. With how little screen time we have, the fact is that, in the end, with just that little time with Luke, Vader sacrifices himself for his son.

Of course that doesn’t say anything at all about how he’d act if there’d been a chance to a more in-depth and longer relationship, but to automatically deem “softer” takes on Luke&Vader as a priori OOC seem, to me, as little supported by what we have in canon as going “ONLY these softer takes on their relationship are IC” because they aren’t. With what we have, you can absolutely run the gamut and, really, be IC, I think, both because of what little we have and for the quality of what we do have in canon. It just depends on what we want to emphasize and what we like.

And I want to, like, go back to the talk about the violence Vader inflicts, because, why default to “he would totally resort of physical violence”? (I admit, maybe part of my dislike is because I really don’t like it in general, removed from this canon relationship) from what we see, the thing he most readily uses when it comes to Luke, his interrogation with Leia (two counts of canon) and, even, Padmé and Obi-Wan, before it comes to blows/choking, is psychological manipulation (whether he knowingly does so or not).

How many does doesn’t he either praise or taunt or try to direct the conversation with Luke, both in Cloud City and the second DS? And, Leia’s interrogation? In two counts of canon the interrogation consists of a truth/hallucinatory drug that makes the victim extremely suggestible and they think they’re physically experiencing what is being described, plus Vader’s comment to Tarkin that she will not give the information up.

My brain just kept turning over things in terms of the basic “what we do get in canon” for Luke & Vader. Because fact is, with the limited screentime Vader has and the bits of that that is with Luke, most of it is spent fighting.

The first time when neither of them know who the other is, so this is pure-baseline Darth Vader as he’s existed for the last decade+ (or more, but we should give him some in-universe time to actually settle into what he becomes); goal oriented, ruthless, the enemy shall die because That’s What Has To Be Done in the service of the Empire/order/the Emperor. The second time is when Vader knows (and later on during this when Luke also knows), and it’s already been pointed out how you can interpret Vader’s acting during the fight on Cloud City in different ways, but we also have the aftermath of the telepathic conversation through the new force bond. Third, the second Death Star. Again, we can have multiple interpretations, all probably underblown by a certain amount of apathy/Vader having given up on any ambitions he harboured in those three years up to the climax of Cloud City. So we go anywhere from “goading Luke into turning to keep him alive”, kill him because he’s only been a tool (up until Palpatine tries to kill him, as that part is unquestionable) and Vader don’t actually want Luke to replace him at Palpatine’s side, to getting Luke to kill him because, again, that will buy Luke time and might keep him alive.

All of these of course with the additional ways Vader chooses to interact with Luke during the fights - in Cloud City, they are alone, and Vader’s riding high on what he sees as his inevitable victory; you have a blend of praise of Luke’s nascent skills and trying to get him to stand down in among the way he chooses to respond combat-wise. Said praise can be read as both genuine (and still some amount of manipulation!) as well as purely calculated with no actual fatherly emotions behind them, because canon gives us nothing - in isolation, that is!

(Because we have to account for Vader and Palpatine’s earlier discussion about Luke here; there’s no real reason for Vader to argue that Luke is “just a boy” and get official sanction to try to turn him. Palpatine now knows, but what will he know of what Vader might do in the immediate moment he may meet Luke, unless there’s witnesses? How is he to know if Vader immediately kills the boy (which could weigh equally between what a good Sith would do, and what Vader shouldn’t do as “a good Sith” since taking Luke as a secret apprentice for eventually killing Palpatine is all within good order and does not require Palpatine’s knowledge or consent - hell, it SHOULD be a secret, if Vader was a “proper Sith”.) or tries to talk him to his side/whatever you want to argue might be his motivation? Yet Vader chooses to go for “please give me sanction to do this we do not need to kill him he’s JUST A BOY.” Sir please, you are a Sith, perhaps act like it?)

In the DSII fight Vader and Luke aren’t alone, and Vader is doing a lot of taunting to get Luke to genuinely fight him, so you have freedom to go between that this is a play all for Palpatine’s sake, that Vader is genuine and doesn’t care and is doing it to hurt Luke, etc. Many choices, all equally possible.

(Again, you have another conversation between Palpatine and Vader to add as context; “he will be here/he is on the moon, I have felt him.” and “strange that I have not, are your feelings about this clear?” I’m sure you can do several different takes on this conversation as well, but it still stands here as context and adding complexity to anything Vader chooses to do during the fight prior to Palpatine trying to kill Luke. There is a genuine connection between him and Luke, one which clearly worries/displeases Palpatine.)

The only time Vader and Luke are actually talking without fighting prior to the DSII climax is on the bridge in the Imperial base on Endor, and they are alone here. Vader deals with this conversation by half avoiding Luke’s points (delaying addressing the point of bringing Luke to the emperor by focusing on the lightsaber for example) and simply cutting the conversation short when it becomes too uncomfortable (sending Luke off to spend the rest of the night in a cell after Luke goes ~then my father is truly dead), and this conversation, like pointed out earlier, has to be viewed in the light of the fact that Vader is lying - to Luke as much as himself, for he sacrifices himself for Luke and shows Luke is right.

None of this gives any huge pointers to how they could interact in a more prolonged relationship, nothing that is any more or less IC or OOC no matter what your preferred interpretations to Vader and Vader and Luke’s relationship are.

Tom Hiddleston does the flossing and celebrates the end of Betrayal's successful run on Broadway.

Revenge of the Sith | Behind the Scenes | Becoming the Chosen One

The concepts regarding Anakin’s appearance ran the gamut from a harsh Mohawk to a long pirate-like ponytail, before deciding on the final longer-hair version. The Hair Department had made a long haired wig with a ponytail which looked great but it just wasn’t strong enough for Anakin. Having a long ponytail would have been a little bit too swashbuckling. So it gradually got shorter and shorter. The final look just evolved from conversations with George Lucas and from him playing with it, and combing Hayden’s fringe. Plus Hayden Christensen was very definite about how he wanted his hair to sit. According to Nikki Gooley it was the right decision because it made him look strong and it gave him a great jaw.