ruminating on vader further: i think after all these years of Total Cultural Dominance and of course the immense sympathy the prequel trilogy bathes him in, it's easy to overlook how terrified the original trilogy is of vader. he spends very little time as a character and much more as this creeping manifestation of everything our heroes dread. where there's dark, there's vader. where there's violence, there's vader. multiple shots position him against the vastness of space, almost blending into it, just this omnipresent demon. the jedi's plan is to get luke to kill him. that is all. obi-wan and yoda have spent ~2 decades of their lives hoping and praying and aspiring to getting luke to kill him. luke loving vader and bringing him to the light isn’t something they can even entertain, and they think any attempt will only lead to more darkness. it is the ultimate, near-supernatural feat for luke to do so. and even then, vader is in the light for about five minutes and dies in agony. it's why i can't take a lot of posts these days that fret over anakin being possessive or angry or people liking anakin seriously. like first of all, he is the greatest and most famous bottomless pit of misery in american cinema, no amount of anakin blogging will undo that, and he's not real. second of all, star wars works best when it's about this tension between vader as something unspeakable and evil, and vader as a real person that does love and has been loved in return. it's just what's like to have a dad, really,





















