In a recent exchange on Quora the fallen Anakin Skywalker, or rather the newly dubbed Darth Vader was described as "treacherous, murderous and ungrateful".
Of course, there is no doubt about the first two. He did indeed end up turning on Jedi and murdering many people. The part that I questioned however, was the assertion that he was ungrateful.
In answer, I think I asked what the Jedi ever did for him, and the answer was something along the lines of "Why are you even asking that? They gave him a sense of community and purpose..." alongside several other things.
I don't see that. Now don't get me wrong, Anakin had many faults, but in all of my viewings of the prequels (and the Clone Wars series I've recently began watching), I honestly do no believe ingratitude was among them.
Did the Jedi give Anakin a sense of purpose and community that he shunned in his ingratitude? No, I believe they did not do either.
Going back to The Phantom Menace, Anakin, a sweet and friendly child of 9 stated outright that the reason he wanted to be a Jedi was "to help people".
That was his sole ambition. He did not want to be Jedi for selfish reasons, or for his own self-aggrandizement, but because he thought they were great heroes who went around righting wrong and helping others.
This is evidenced in several places throughout the movie, and what is also evident is the desire to help people was not something that the Jedi gave Anakin. Ā
He already strove to help others as much as he could, even before becoming a Jedi. It was a sense of purpose he already had.
Shortly after we first meet him in TPM he helps Jar Jar Binks get away from Sebulba, who was poised to attack the Gungun. Binks was an almost total stranger to Anakin at that point.
He helped him because he new Sebulba to be a bully and a cheat, and that anyone he turned on prbably didn't deserve it.
The next thing we see is him leading a group of strangers around the town, apparently buying them food, and offering to take them into his home when a sandstorm blows up.
One of the clearest statements of Anakin's helpful and self-giving nature, however, is that even after learning that Qui Gon Jinn did not come to Tatooine with the intent of freeing slaves, he still decides to help him anyway.
He says to his mother "Mom, you're always saying theĀ problem in this universe is that nobodyĀ helps each other"
Anakin then proceeds to take part in the pod race, purely with the intent of helping Qui Gon to get the parts he needs to repair his ship.
He did not do it with the intent of gaining his freedom or becoming a Jedi. He didn't even learn that he'd gained his freedom until afterwards, and it was his mother who persuaded Qui Gon to take him off Tatooine, discussing the matter with him when Anakin was not even there.
This makes it clear that, long before arriving on Coruscant or standing before the Jedi Countil, helping other people was very important to Anakin. It was a sense of purpose that he always had, and one which never left him. Throughout the Clone Wars series, and several times in the movies, Anakin goes out of his way to help his friends and colleagues when they are in trouble, even to the point of ignoring the objectives of missions.
He even helps people who are not directly his friends. In an early Episode of The Clone Wars he creatively interprets an order to join the Jedi fleetĀ to go and help Master Plo Koon. He does soĀ because he can see that his Padawan Ahsoka Tano is very upset by the suggestion that they should just abandon her oldest friend.
What about a sense of community? This is where I really disagree. Anakin never fitted into the Jedi, even as a child.Ā
He was always different. He always stood out. He became a Padawan much later than anyone else, he was from the Outer Rim, and he had a lot of emotional baggage.
Furthermore, he only became a Jedi as a result of the dying wish of the maverick Qui Gon Jinn and the defiance of his Padawan Obi Wan Kenobi. (I have often wondered that if a less controversial Jedi than Jinn has discovered Anakin, would the Council have been more accepting of him, but that's another question).
He also stood in the Jedi Academy as a child as a result of his powers and considerable natural talent. This tended to attract the attention of other children: and not in a good way.
Compare this to his childhood before becoming a Jedi. On Tatooine he had friends. He was apparently well-known and well-liked in his local community, with one of his nieghbours calling him by his nickname "Ani". This despite being a slave. It is reasonable I think to say that he had more of a sense of belonging an community on his homeworld than he ever did as a Jedi.
I can't think of any friends he had as close as Kitster in the Jedi Academy. In fact, he doesn't seem to have been close to anyone except his Master who was some 16 years his senior. As a result of this he became isolated and withdrawn.
Since I joined Tumblr, and began reading this blog (and others like it, for example Padawanlost), I've become more convinced of my belief that in his 13 years among the Jedi what Anakin (and others) endured was nothing short of abuse.
Emotional, psychological and spiritual abuse. This may seem a controversial idea, but I would urge those who are unconvinced to read some of the pieces on this blog which go into the specifics. Including "A Nurturing Environment",
This is not to say the Jedi were intentionally abusive, to Anakin or anyone. Abuse does not have to be intentional, it can happen when a group or organization become so set in their ways that practices which are unhealthy or have negative outcomes become the normal, accepted way of doing things.
"We've always done it that way, it works for almost everyone, why should we change?" I believe that is what the response of the Jedi would have been to any such assertion. Again, they really believed they were doing the right thing and had everyone's best interests at heart, but they had also become state in in their hive mentality did not realize that people are different.
I do believe though that the approach and practices of hte Jedi proved immensely damaging to Anakin, as a person with childhood trauma and perhaps severe mental health issues. Even as an adult, he often had to defy or bend the rules to help people, and sometimes even openly go against the Council to do what he felt was right.
Even when this happened, even when he did help others, it was always tinged with guilt. Anakin always believed because he did not fit in there must be something wrong with him. That his motives, opinions or desires were somehow bad.
There's also some evidence to suggest hat with the exceptions of Obi Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka Tano, he never really considered the Jedi to be his family. Apart from these two, is is never really shown to have consistently positive or friendly interactions with other Jedi: and even his relationship with Kenobi is tense at times.
They certainly didn't treat him as such, and he considered leaving for some years. "I know how it feels, to want to walk away from the Jedi" Anakin says in a (resigned?) tone to Ahsoka Tano at the end of Series 5 of the Clone Wars.
These were not the words of a person who was happy in the Jedi. He stayed mostly because he felt he had a duty to the Republic as long as the Clone Wars lasted, and because he felt he could do good.
This situation is summed up in this quite from Dave Filoni:
I think itās an important thing because a lot of people, when they watch the movie, they go, āWell how can he turn his back on these people? Theyāre like a family to him.ā But when you give the greater context of this series, you see, āWell, it might be a family, but the family doesnāt trust him. The family doesnāt believe in him fully. The family often isnāt as much a family as Palpatine is a grandfather.āĀ
I think then, it is safe to assume that Anakin was not ungrateful. He remained loyal to the Jedi for 13 years, even though in some sense the Jedi never really wanted him as a person. They wanted him for what he could do for them, as the Chosen One.
They left his mother in slavery.
They told him he could not rescue her. Or Ahsoka when she too was lost.
They put him in the most dangerous missions during the Clone Wars despite his young age and lower rank.
They asked him to commit treason, all the while denying the rank of Master.
They told him to trust their judgement when Ahsoka was framed, even though this judgement proved to be wrong.
and finally told him to let his wife and unborn child die.
Anakin probably would not have said it, but he really didn't have much to be grateful to the Jedi for. Even for that though, we still see him apologizing to Obi Wan in Revenge of the Sith for not always being appreciative.
