What happened to Vader's motivation in ROTJ?

I thought he started acting like that to have his feelings show he accepts his death so Palapatine would be thrown off and even give Luke a sense of empathy to save him.

You think about people who have depression the cry for help is usually them saying things like "No one cares" "It doesn't matter anymore" so similar to Vaders

"It's to late for me"

knowing he said it to the person that is most driven in his world to save him.
 
You think about people who have depression the cry for help is usually them saying things like "No one cares" "It doesn't matter anymore" so similar to Vaders

"It's to late for me"

To be fair, he'd been an active participant in the murder of, lets say, thousands, and complicit in the murder of tens of millions more at that point - I'd say he was correct. Helping to kill a whole planet but drawing the line at murdering your son isn't exactly a redemption arc.
 
To be fair, he'd been an active participant in the murder of, lets say, thousands, and complicit in the murder of tens of millions more at that point - I'd say he was correct. Helping to kill a whole planet but drawing the line at murdering your son isn't exactly a redemption arc.

Have you read the newest Darth Vader comics? He slaughters disabled war veterans missing limbs and unarmed women and children. It's pretty dang metal.
 
unarmed women and children
Women and children, eh?

Rt3AJPE.gif
 
The way Anakin was portrayed in the prequels made his redemption less believable to me. Originally I imagined he used to be a "good guy" but in the prequels he really doesn't have any redeeming qualities. The whole mess the galaxy is in at the beginning of SW (ANH) is pretty much Anakin's fault. So stopping Palpatine 30 years later hardly seems like enough to give him the reward of a 4th quarter light side conversation.
 
The way Anakin was portrayed in the prequels made his redemption less believable to me. Originally I imagined he used to be a "good guy" but in the prequels he really doesn't have any redeeming qualities. The whole mess the galaxy is in at the beginning of SW (ANH) is pretty much Anakin's fault. So stopping Palpatine 30 years later hardly seems like enough to give him the reward of a 4th quarter light side conversation.

This is where the Clone Wars cartoon does a lot of heavy lifting. Anakin in that is both more heroic and more likeable than the Anakin we see in the films. It's a large part of why I say that the Clone Wars "redeemed" ROTS for me. (Most of AOTC and TPM are beyond redeeming for me.)

My preferred vision of Anakin -- one that I think incorporates both the motivations we see in the films and in the Clone Wars cartoon -- is an heroic warrior who was prone to getting very close to his comrades in arms, and who -- unlike the rest of the Jedi -- allowed himself to feel romantic love for Padme. His attachment issues led him to feel deep pain -- pain that he couldn't get past -- at the loss of his comrades' lives. He grew to believe, over time, in a "by any means necessary" kind of philosophy and grew increasingly disenchanted with the corruption and inefficiency he saw in the Republic's bureaucracy and the rigidity he saw in the Jedi and their philosophies as well as their organizational structure. He thought he could do much to reform both, by taking bold, decisive action, but kept finding himself blocked at each turn.

Eventually, he turned to the Dark Side, believing that he could control himself, and that he had no choice if he wanted to both save those he loved and save the Republic from itself. In essence, he gradually grew to believe in a twisted philosophy that posited that peace must be achieved through any means necessary, including repression and terror, which he believed he could apply and control for the greater good. Those who opposed him were threats to the galaxy who must be destroyed to ensure peace.

Even as he adopted this view, he recognized that it required him to do evil. At first, and for many years thereafter, he believed that evil in the service of good was not only permissible but necessary, and that he must take on that burden. But the good part of him, the hero who once was, knew that what he was doing was wrong and that this was mere rationalization. It dogged him constantly, to varying degrees, but no more than when the Death Star was finally constructed and used against Alderaan. Even as Vader, he did not support the actual use of the weapon against an entire population, but rather believed that it would be useful in utterly destroying the Rebellion, and in acting as a deterrence against future rebellion.

With the Death Star's destruction, Vader soon learned of the existence of his son. Knowing that his son must be powerful in the Force (and having felt it within him), Vader began a relentless pursuit of both Luke and the Rebels, in the hopes of both crushing the Rebellion and turning Luke to his side. Vader determined he would, with Luke, be able to both defeat Palpatine and finally rule the galaxy the way he believed it must be ruled: with a strong, central leader who was feared, but the fear of whom would lead to true peace. The people might fear him, maybe even hate him, but war on a galactic scale would finally end and that justified his efforts. Even so, Vader still felt conflict within himself; that shred of Anakin that still remained who knew that all of this was wrong, but who was overwhelmed by self-loathing combined with the belief that such efforts were necessary to ensure peace. It was that part of him that Luke recognized and was able to appeal to, and that part of him that ultimately did what he could to remedy his past evils by ending Palpatine's rule finally, albeit at the cost of his own life.
 
I think backing up the suggestion that Vader has simply given up by the time of the throne room show down is that if he wanted to facilitate Luke's turn to the dark side and rule the galaxy with him, he would have let Luke kill the Emperor, rather than blocking his strike and starting the duel. Vader's conflict is clear from the earlier scene on Endor, and perhaps this is an action meant to help save Luke from becoming like himself.

The interesting contrast (if you want to bring the prequels in) is that when Palpatine tried to goad Anakin into killing him after revealing he was Sidious, he knew that Anakin wouldn't do it because he needed him. Years later he knew that he could goad Luke but that Vader would stop him, though perhaps for different reasons than he thought.
 
It sounds odd to say this out loud but the reason why I think Vader is so tame in RotJ, especially since he's around the Emperor, is quite simply because, for a lack of a better word, he loves him. He's been the mentor/father figure/friend/tutor/master to him for so long that Vader can't just bring himself to kill him on his own. Take the Prequels into account, Palpatine is the only stable "adult" figure he ever had in his life and has directed and guided him for much of it. And for Vader, he's been the one to have encouraged and supported the full use of his abilities while the Jedi, in Anakin's view, were keeping him from his full potential.

Like all tyrannical powers, the object is not just to maintain complete control, but obtain greater powers to do it. Vader is a part of that imperial state system and wants that intrinsically. He just realizes that he needs to usurp the Emperor to do it, but cant, and needs Luke to essentially do it for him. I think RotJ shows just how much both Vader fears and trusts the Emperor, and at how much to a fault. He is the Emperor's lapdog through and through because of the deep connection he's got with Palpatine. @SethS brings this up in his post when they're on the balcony, when Luke learns of Anakin and talks to him about the man he once was and it shaking Vader a bit; I think that's a moment that struck him personally because of the bond he formed to Palpatine when he was Anakin and, maybe for a moment, he reflects on where it's taken him since. If Luke wasn't going to do as Vader wanted, he was more than willing to sacrifice him to Palpatine because he was that broken of an individual. The final match in the throne room is an exercise for both Luke and Vader.
 
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The way Anakin was portrayed in the prequels made his redemption less believable to me. Originally I imagined he used to be a "good guy" but in the prequels he really doesn't have any redeeming qualities. The whole mess the galaxy is in at the beginning of SW (ANH) is pretty much Anakin's fault. So stopping Palpatine 30 years later hardly seems like enough to give him the reward of a 4th quarter light side conversation.

Maybe this is just me but I think that makes Vader all the more a tragic figure. This guy's a monster, has been forever, and behind all the intimidating bravado is just a small, weaselly little grub of a man. The one good thing he can do is save his son at the cost of his own life, and he can briefly feel good about himself, possibly for the first time in his life, as he looks at his son before he chokes to death.

People complain about Vader's force ghost being switched to Hayden in the SE, but quite honestly, I'm still under the camp that thinks he shouldn't have had one at all. I thought it was a bit of a disservice to the Yoda and Ben, people who spent their lives doing good, being rewarded with immortality but totally sandbagged when Anakin shows up after having done that one small good deed. Let Vader have that moment on the second Death Star and end it for him there.
 
People complain about Vader's force ghost being switched to Hayden in the SE, but quite honestly, I'm still under the camp that thinks he shouldn't have had one at all. I thought it was a bit of a disservice to the Yoda and Ben, people who spent their lives doing good, being rewarded with immortality but totally sandbagged when Anakin shows up after having done that one small good deed. Let Vader have that moment on the second Death Star and end it for him there.
That's actually a pretty good point there, I like it. I guess it depends how you look at it. In my mind Anakin was always "a good friend" and a noble Jedi knight, maybe even a family man who actually got seduced by the dark side as opposed to being a bad apple from the start and tricked into being evil like the prequels show. In the original context I kinda understand why it happened (also at this point it didn't seem totally exclusive to post-Quigon jedi to become force ghosts), but in the context of the prequels yea it's kinda dodgy.
 
- Vader wants Luke to join with him, to rule by his side. Arguably, this is -- even in ESB -- the "good" left in him. He doesn't want to kill his son; he wants to rule alongside him. He has no intention of, say, upgrading to a new apprentice down the road the way Palpatine does. Vader is counting on Luke's connection to him to let him resist Palpatine after he's turned to the Dark Side, and work with Vader instead.

I'm basically in your camp here.

I feel like Vader was playing a long con with his abrupt (from an audience perspective) shift in RotJ. One thing that I always took as a given, even before the prequels essentially confirmed it, was that Vader *hated* being subservient to the Emperor and he resented Palpatine. His plan was always to try to figure out how to defeat him, and he saw Luke as his one best chance.

He plants the seed that Luke could be turned, because he knew just outright killing Luke would ruin any chance at all he has of overthrowing the Emperor. But he has to actually get Luke in front of Palpatine for this to work. In his arrogance, Palpatine was in a full on "what could possibly go wrong?" mindset.

What Vader didn't count on was Luke being so good and so loyal to his friends. After all, he (Vader) gave in to the Dark Side with fairly little struggle because he lusted after power. Why wouldn't Luke follow in a like father like son manner? But then Luke proved he was literally willing to die rather than give in. Vader would need a different plan, because there was no way he was going to tempt Luke with just words.

But the end game was always the same: Get Luke in front of the Emperor. Force a confrontation. Make Luke angry enough that he let the Dark Side in and it gave him the strength that Luke and Vader can defeat the Emperor. Then, once that door of anger was opened, Vader could exploit it.

But there was a huge problem: Luke's persistence was actually closing Vader's own door of hate. Following the events of Empire and into the events of RotJ, Vader's grip on the Dark Side is slipping, and therefore so too is his strength slipping. By the time he has "captured" Luke and is taking him to the throne room, he realizes that he has gotten exactly what he wants, but his own inner conflict has made it harder than ever for him to resist Palpatine's hold on him. There's no way now he can join Luke in attacking the Emperor. He just has to watch it all play out and hope for the best.

There's almost a sense of resignation as his plan has gone exactly as he had hoped, and yet completely wrong at the same time.

I realize there's a LOT of "reading between the lines" in this, but it's how I've always viewed Vader's dynamic from Empire to RotJ.
 
Solo4114, all that you last said makes me think of the one good Anakin/Padme scene in AOTC -- the meadow on Naboo. Where he's talking about how people need to agree on what needs to be done and then do it, and she points out the difficulty in that due to all the various Republic cultures' conflicting ideologies. He says, well then someone should make them agree. I do love it when Padme says it sounds like he wants a dictatorship and he makes that unguarded "well, if it works..." comment, realizes what he just said, and plays it off as a joke. But we've gotten a glimpse of where his thoughts are going.
 
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That's actually a pretty good point there, I like it. I guess it depends how you look at it. In my mind Anakin was always "a good friend" and a noble Jedi knight, maybe even a family man who actually got seduced by the dark side as opposed to being a bad apple from the start and tricked into being evil like the prequels show. In the original context I kinda understand why it happened (also at this point it didn't seem totally exclusive to post-Quigon jedi to become force ghosts), but in the context of the prequels yea it's kinda dodgy.

I thought it was a bit dodgy then in the OT, though completely with you on understanding why it happens the way it does. Everyone gets a happy ending in a fairy tale.

But in terms of Anakin's character, despite its execution (which is obviously faulty), I'm in the minority that thinks his arc in the Prequels makes sense and something I can kinda sympathize with. Here's someone who was born to a single mother under poor, hopeless, and oppressive conditions, seen as less than an outcast, and rescued, seemingly by fate, to be spirited away to a life of purpose and adventure. Only it turns out to be way different than he had imagined.

Everyone tells him he's special, he's going to be something great one day, grooming him for this "greater purpose." This inflates his ego and builds his hopes up. The years pass and he's just educated and trained like everyone else and, despite doing and meaning well, he begins to grow bitter and resentful. In gardening terms, his teachers see it as pruning a budding plant so it can grow up healthy but Anakin sees it as purposefully limiting his natural growth. He wants to experience the life being a Jedi has afforded him to its fullest but is told to restrict himself. The precious few connections he's made, he's told to abandon them and try not to get too close; something that goes against his very nature as someone who came from literally nothing, and had only the people around him to form some sort of identity. He's a person moved from one scenario where he can remain as nothing, to another that promises him everything, but teaches him to be faceless, nameless, nothing. The one love in his life that he experiences as a man, the one thing that filled the void the death of his mother left, he has to keep in the shadows. It's another thing he can't fully enjoy openly.

The one person that nurtured his ego reveals himself to be a Sith Lord and offers to pass onto him the greater powers he's been looking for. Moreover, it's a chance at breaking free from his stifled life and giving him the reigns to shape his reality as he sees fit.

Of course, not all of these things happen for him, but it's easy to see why Anakin would take that up in a heartbeat.

I like the idea of Anakin not quite being a "bad apple," but certainly one that soured. The dashing, noble, do-gooder would just be boring. I agree with Solo4114's vision of an "ends justify the means" kinda guy that Anakin would/should be, I feel that very same way, but I also feel like it's not enough. Anakin, in my mind, should also be someone that acts out when no one's looking, his repressed emotions bubbling up, and preferring to do things his own way, which often ends up with him being scolded and derided, but any discretion is overlooked by his superiors because he gets results (we are talking about the times of the Clone Wars, at this point).

I don't like the CG Clone Wars for a great number of reasons, but one of the things that bothers me is it's all made from the perspective of people who think Anakin should be the noble, dashing, do-gooder. Anakin, for me, should be that kinda person that always takes another step further past the boundary the Jedi at the time deemed "acceptable," especially in this time of war where he's solidifying his own stark ideas of what is right and wrong. That is the root of where Vader grows from. The second part of the micro-series Clone Wars did this really well, I thought.

If I had the ability, I'd make a Clone Wars that showed just how scary the Clone Wars was; not some light, adventurous romp fighting robots. We are talking about a conflict of attrition here. Unlike the Galactic Civil War, this is about how many planets are going to fall sway to Federation's pull and it's being fought with robots that have two modes, "conquer" and "off," and a group of genetically engineered people bred specifically to die because "civilized" folks don't want to get their hands dirty. We're dealing with very heavy ideas here that haven't been fully explored yet and it's that hellfire that's going to forge the character we know to become Darth Vader.
 
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