#anadin

1953 Anadin Tablets

don’t worry, i barely understand it myself. the explanation below is a ramble. apologies in advance.

at the end of the day, it’s that din and anakin are functional opposites and would be “better” (in universe, not as a main character mind you) if they swapped roles. din is jedi material. he’s principled and compassionate (to an extent), he respects tradition and degrees of order (his own internal order and logic systems, not in the legal sense lol), and he’s a soldier raised from a young age. if he were in anakin’s place — as in he was briefly a mandalorian foundling before being taken in by the jedi at age 9/10 — it’s possible he might push some boundaries because he is morally gray overall (and because like anakin, imo, din would try very hard to save innocent people especially children) but the likelihood of din Falling is much, much lower. he would be a stubborn soldier, far closer to a model padawan for obi-wan than anakin ever was, and he would die protecting the younglings when order 66 comes to pass. (however, if an insidious Sith Lord were to appeal to din’s upbringing with a “oh think of the children you could save if only you had the power” i think there is more margin for him to fail.) din would be a good jedi, and it would be boring as hell to watch.

now look at anakin. if he was a Mandalorian bounty hunter, he would be a different person. his need for toxic attachments and burning desire for love and community would be more sated because he would be able to act on them, and he would be free to act on his impulses in ways he could never while in the jedi order. he could hang on to his mother, he could have his love, and still be a very dangerous man; essentially he would have his cake and eat it too. he would be just another (very good) bounty hunter, and he would eventually get boring to watch.

what makes them both interesting as characters is that they are the wrong guys for their roles. anakin’s fundamental inability to grasp the core tenets of the Order is what makes him the Chosen One, is what makes him the Force incarnate, is what makes him shake up and test and push the boundaries and traditions of a warrior culture far older than he is. what makes din a compelling main character is that he so badly wishes he wasn’t. he is just a guy trying to deliver a package — the worlds most beleaguered fedex driver with a baby and a gun. he is a figure who should be on his own but because his culture values community, he solves most of his problems by working with others.

i’m rambling now but what i’m trying to say is, i find these two interesting as a pairing and as just… A Situation, i guess, because they should have each other’s lives. they are each other’s physical manifestation of “In another universe, I’d be where I needed to be.” and i think that because of that, because they are weirdly role swapped, BECAUSE they both have opposite approaches to attachment (anakin cannot let go of love and needs to possess it; he becomes a thing of teeth and claws desperate to devour vs din being afraid to hold on at all but when he does love, it possesses him, and he acts in love’s best interest even if it will hurt him) that if they met each other they’d probably dislike each other, but only because they’re looking into a bizarre funhouse mirror and they are uncomfortable with what stares back at them. they are the warped inversions of each other, they share strange similarities but are also so radically different, and that friction and discomfort is my favorite place to embody.

also, i like them because i think anakin would straight up be unnerved by din. watching the clone wars recently made me notice anakin Does Not Like Masked People (aside from the clones) and i like to think that’s subconsciously related to his prejudice against the tuskens, which is another warrior tribe culture he has bad history with. at the same time, din might be the only person he could ever confess to about the massacre without an immediate repercussion (a la getting kicked out of the Order) because at the end of the day din doesn’t matter to the Order. he is a thread that can be cut loose at any given moment, and for someone like anakin, who is holding on to so many secret feelings and whose need to voice them to someone other than his wife and his mentor drives him further into palpatine’s control, that could be a potentially game changing interaction. not enough to stop his Fall, but perhaps enough to slow things down.