PerthshireCottage

Do you think Anakin had Master-padawan moments with Ahsoka where he thinks of "wow, this is kind of easier/not so big of a deal to than what 0bi w@n complained about" and then ponder if he was right with his opinions toward 0bi-w@n, since him and she both had similar personalities?

He makes me think he would but also maybe it might be a stretch, I'm curious bcs of his attitude in Aotc and Rots lol

(let's not think of his characterization in TCW since is ooc)

Oh, sometimes for sure, but IMHO it's also complicated by a few other factors and different contexts:

First of all, war. When you're effectively forced to raise a kid in the middle of a war and make sure she doesn't die on the battlefield, sometimes things just take a backseat to literal survival.

Second of all, Ahsoka actually had a pretty normal past for a Jedi and was recruited in a (relatively) standard way, and already knows how to navigate life as a Core Worlder. Anakin decidedly did NOT have that same experience: that is a rather crucial part of the plot of the PT. On the contrary, I think one of the very few things I actually liked about the Zygerria arc (my otherwise beloathed) in TCW '08 is essentially Anakin teaching Ahsoka to check her internalized biases and privilege: the inverse of what you're saying, and I honestly think it's an important part of Ahsoka's arc for her to grow up to be both a more rounded person and part of Anakin's positive legacy.

Related to the above, I think Anakin is/was placed under an extraordinary amount of pressure, whether by internal or external factors. Ahsoka doesn't have as much pressure on her (at least not "Chosen One"-level), so I don't think he'd necessarily hold her to as high standards, though I think Ahsoka might still hold herself to higher-than-average standards as well because 1) war means people die and 2) she's "the Chosen One"'s padawan. (For the record, I don't actually think Anakin cares about being "the Chosen One", per se, it's just that Obi-Wan might have subconsciously held Anakin to a higher standard because of it on top of his own Core World elitism, and Anakin was already adultified enough to hold himself responsible for everyone else's safety in the TPM novelization and has very high standards for himself even without the "Chosen One" business compounding it, so everything just kind of mixes together.)

Finally, I wholeheartedly believe that Anakin having connections to life outside the Jedi gives him far more insight into what matters and what doesn't in the grand scheme of things: he was raised by a mother who loved him and I think he'd talk to Padmé (or even potentially the rest of the Naberries, if under a professional capacity and only on rare occasions, i.e. at most once or twice) for advice if he needs any. Anakin does suffer from a lack of robust support system and that is a major factor in his downfall, but the fact he was shaped by these life experiences is part of what make him such a great and unique Jedi in the first place.

That said, going back to your ask, I do agree that Anakin and Ahsoka having similar personalities does help them get along well and allows him to understand her perspective and teach better than someone like OWK (who clearly snuffed out a lot of Anakin's spark between TPM and AOTC), but at the same time it could also be an obstacle because they have had different upbringings (in which case Ahsoka might have more in common with OWK, which the PT-canon doesn't present as a good thing and which is why I think Anakin addressing it in TCW '08 to some extent is a good thing) and their similarities could also cause them to clash at times (I recommend Practicum by @asparagus-writes for an example of how that might work in action, ft. generational trauma, thanks for making my cry BTW). One of the things that TCW '08 doesn't really get right is that Anakin isn't quite as rebellious as fanon perceives him to be and he still does try to adhere to the Jedi Code in the PT (sans the anti-attachment part that he recognizes to be unsustainable from personal experience), so that would have also complicated how he might have mentored Ahsoka (for this, I recommend this back-and-forth double agent AU fic by @/fialleril and @/grand-duc; the Disney-era Brotherhood novel has a scene that I enjoy where Anakin is a better mentor when not following a script and follows his heart, but the PT does revolve around how he stops doing that, so yeah).

First, Ahsoka’s coming from a Republic POV, and Anakin’s coming from a more or less Outer Rim POV here. That’s important. Anakin having an Outer Rim POV on some things while deep in the Republic actually matters to a lot more than this but that’s a whole different post.

So. “How can a civilization so advanced still practice slavery?” asks Ahsoka, who grew up very much in Core World culture. There is no malice behind it - in fact, I would argue she is speaking from a place of empathy and compassion - but there are some alarming implications here. Namely, slavery happens when a civilization is primitive. She’s not altogether wrong; if we take real life as an example, slavery happens a lot less in many modern cultures than in many ancient cultures (there’s exceptions, of course, but as a general trend, I think it’s about accurate). However. Some possible implications are that that advanced civilizations would never practice or condone slavery, and its corollary, that civilizations with slavery are more primitive.

Which for a teenager is understandable, but if she’s echoing the wisdom of the Republic, this becomes downright frightening. The Core Worlds are clearly advanced civilizations, so slavery and people being lesser is a thing of the past, and not worthy of serious concern. The reason slavery is rampant on the Outer Rim? It’s because the civilizations are primitive. It’s not that the Outer Rim peoples are the victims here, it’s that the primitive civilizations need to get their act together and stop practicing slavery. All of which denies the Core’s role of abuse and/or neglect which is feeding this problem.

Enter Anakin, who seems to pretty clearly know this game of “primitive peoples of the Rim,” because he basically answers Ahsoka by saying it keeps the wealthy in power - a statement that can very much point to the Core Worlds without actually saying as much, a statement that never identifies who the rich benefactories are, a statement which can draw subtle parallels between Hutts and slavers and the Republic without any listener really realizing what he just said. Frankly, I’m not sure Anakin really realizes what he just said. But he did say it, and that’s important.

Anakin goes on to make it very real for Ahsoka - this isn’t something that happens to abstract, primitive people. This is something that happened to my mother. This (with a bit of extrapolation) is what happened to me.

I think it’s important to remember that for all he made some really bad choices in ROTS, Anakin seems to have been quietly frustrated with the way the Republic was run and wanted to see change, even while he was determined to be the best Jedi he could be and serve the Republic loyally. And this desire for change isn’t coming from a bad place! It’s coming from a broken place that wants change for the better, and unfortunately Palpatine knows how to twist that perspective just so. His main motivation by the end of ROTS was absolutely Padme, but I think the political side of it, the tiny voice of the Outer Rim child that tried so hard to believe in the Republic and after years of war and corruption said that maybe even a Sith Lord would be better than this, is an important piece to consider, too.

(This is ever so slightly dipping into my personal headcanon that Anakin would have been quite different as a Separatist, and quite possibly better off.)

I like the idea that the person you thought was the villain … is really the victim. And that the story about the villain, trying to regain his humanity becomes really the story of Darth Vader’s redemption.

obi-wan called anakin a pathetic life form and throughout tpm tried to convince qui-gon that taking the boy with them was a mistake, that he would not be accepted into the order because of his age, and therefore qui-gon should just abandon the idea of training him. obi-wan was jealous of anakin, and he found him annoying and burdensome, and was petty enough to rejoice him being rejected

obi-wan spent the entire movie clearly disliking anakin and wishing he wasn't there, even expressing the opinion that anakin was dangerous out loud to qui-gon, while anakin himself walked alongside and listened

in legends, shmi was enslaved when she was a little girl: with her parents she was traveling through space when they were attacked, kidnapped, divided, and sold into slavery by space pirates. this raises a lot of questions about how safe space travel in sw is in general (not from a safe or not safe technology standpoint), including space travel within republic territory, because space is vast, mostly empty, and frankly there's nothing stopping a group of space pirates from setting traps for space ships and kidnapping people, even in wealthy and safe inner rim. yes, it would be technically illegal there, but it's unlikely that in such cases a rescue party would be sent after a missing ship or anything would be done to find and rescue the people who were captured and enslaved. i mean, space IS vast. how do you expect to find these people among a million systems and a billion planets? it would be impossible, sometimes people on our planet can't find a missing person in the territory of one small state, but here there is a huge galaxy

twi'leks are often enslaved in the sw universe, even though their home planet of ryloth is part of the republic; the same can be said about wookiees and kashyyyk — being born in a republic does not exactly protect you from human/alien trafficking, even if it is prohibited on its territory. if we delve into the political part of gffa, we can also recall the clone wars and the separatists; most of the systems wishing to secede were in the outer rim, less often in the mid rim, and they wanted to do so because the senate focused on the rich core worlds, while 'less important' territories did not receive the necessary support from the republic, suffering from pirates, criminal syndicates and a lack of resources. and also, is it true that there is no slavery within the republic? here's a thing: in legends, again, trade federation's droid army herded people into enslavement camps during the naboo blockade, and this happened on republic territory; the trade federation ultimately didn't even have its license revoked, and they have representatives in the senate and enormous power in the galaxy. the galactic senate has refused to aid naboo, and the jedi council chooses to remain in close to the senate, sometimes even subordinate to it, and therefore cannot send enough people and aid to help — is it any helpful to have laws against slavery if those laws are going to be ignored anyway? the lower levels of coruscant are the epicenter of poverty and crime, a true dystopia where people haven't seen the sun for centuries — how unrealistic is it to imagine someone running their own human trafficking business down there? yet this is the capital of the galactic republic

my point is that in the sw universe, ignoring problems outside the republic (like slavery) will not lead to the republic becoming a safer place. it's not 'we sacrifice the minority outside our jurisdiction to preserve the majority because we can't save that minority,' but rather 'we sacrifice the majority so as not to burden the minority' — the problem will bite the republic in the ass sooner or later, and it's a problem that it wasn't dealt with earlier; just like what happened with ignoring the problems of the outer rim systems, which eventually decided to secede and resorted to the help of the sith, starting a civil war. and that's without even raising the issue of how unrealistic the claim is that slavery was actually eradicated in the republic

anakin is a little boy, but in his life he has already faced slavery, abuse of various kinds, violent deaths of other slaves through explosion, severe pod accidents, and so on

If Anakin truly was such a danger as Yoda talked about him in this, then he would have fallen to the darkside after the first time Watto beated him, or made him participate on pod racing where he almost lost his legs the first time or left him and his Mom without food or some slavers kidnapped his friends and killed them for sport.

Anakin here has already many of the qualities the Jedi seek in thier knights, he is compasionate, he is brave, he cares for the less fortunate, he doesn´t have greed, he is deeply hurt by his experiences as a slave but those helped him built himself as a good person with the guide of his mother, his only problem is that he is too powerful and the Council fears in what he could become, they are at the height of their influence and power, a chosen one isn´t neccesary in good times, so what´s Anakin doing here?

He willing to take total strangers in and argue with his slave master outright because his mom is there.

Shmi Skywalker is the most virtuous and moral character to ever grace the Star Wars screen.

She taught her son the problem of the galaxy was people need to help each other. No qualifiers. No questions.

Anakin as a slave child is so confident and in control conpared to as an adult spending a decade as a Jedi.

Why?

He had unconditional love and support from his mom and community back then instead of endless criticism and ever changing standards.

Anakin tells Obi Wan he is like a father to him. Obi Wan turns it to a criticism and takes a bloody shot!

If Anakin heard Ahsoka called him her older brother, there would be tears and hugs.

Anakin never made Ahsoka think she was worthless or his attention or affection were conditional. She left and he asked her to stay, but he acknowledged her choice and left the door open.

Anakin wanted what was best for Ahsoka whatever she decided what that might be.