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selenakTravelled from Munich to Dresden today, which means eight hours by train, and still had Star Wars on the brain, so, fanfic. Before I present my own unbeta'd efforts, let me link ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fernwithy's great Obi-Wan Kenobi post- Revenge of the Sith vignette, which you can read here. And in news from a completely different fandom, i.e. Alias, andrastewhite has written the long-rumoured about Jack/Sloane, set in the 70s, just before Jack married "Laura".
Now for the product of my train ride. Set shortly after Return of the Sith, contains some spoilers for the film, but probably nothing beyond what anyone with a vague idea of the SW saga isn't aware of. Guess who's pov.
I. Touch
Now that he has no fingers made of flesh left and what remains of his skin is will never feel anything but the metal of medical droids and they suit they keep him in, he seems to remember every single thing he ever touched. All the repair tools at Watto’s shop. His mother’s face, saying goodbye to her twice, the second time feeling the dried blood, sweat and tears under his fingertips which nourished the murderous fury in his heart. Obi-Wan’s hesitant fingers, cutting his hair after Qui-Gon’s funeral, brushing the bare skin at his neck. Her hands, covering him with a blanket; the stretched skin of her belly, and the movement of the child; her mouth, making sense of his life after all.
He had not touched any of his victims. If you kill with a lightsaber, it cauterizes the wound at once. There is not even blood. If you kill through the Force, no physical weapon is necessary at all. He dimly recalls some of his victims touching him, though. One of the Tusken women, grabbing at his cloak. And Gunray, desperate Gunray, trying to find a way, any way to stop him, clutching one of his wrists. He does not wish to recall these touches, but the body is stubborn. It provides physical memory even beyond physical existance. He does not have human legs any more, but he still can feel one of the younglings, trying to catch his ankle to stop him from moving on.
The last touch he remembers, though, the last contact with living flesh, did not come from a victim, or from a friend. He has no words any more for what the Emperor is to him. In fact, when he noticed Palpatine bending over him, he had assumed that the man would complete what Obi-Wan had not finished. Not out of mercy, of course, and not for punishment, but simply because a dying cripple was of no more use, and in all his incarnations – Chancellor, Sith Lord, and Emperor – Palpatine had above all been pragmatic. There was no practical reason to touch the burned skin of his head, and yet that was what Palpatine had done.
His mind, busy rearranging and fixing things in the way his fingers used to do with every malfunctioning instrument in the universe, tries to change this particular memory. He first wants her to have been the last person, embracing him when she left her ship, but rejects the pretty and prettifying lie. What he did to her does not allow for such a rearrangement. Then he considers Obi-Wan, and rejects the idea even more firmly. So it is fitting, after all; he had watched Palpatine’s flesh burn away and reform at the moment when his old self broke apart, and there was a justness in Palpatine presiding over the physical demise of what used to be Anakin Skywalker as well.
II. Sound
Hearing everything through sensors now, including the voice which is not his own but the product of a modulator, he occasionally wonders whether these versions of sound are more or less accurate than what he recalls. He had never thought the sounds of machines to be inferior. Working with them from his childhood onwards, he could discern individual R-units from each other, could diagnose what was wrong with an engine by just listening. Sometimes, he had wondered what human voices truly sounded like for droids whose receptors were far more sensitive than the organic ear. Well, now he knows.
Because all voices, all noises and even the stillness reach him filtered through data these days, he knows quite well when he is hallucinating or falling into memory again. It is useful, being able to differentiate. He does not sleep anymore, after all. The suit which regulates his body can not risk that. Why, his unconscious mind might use the Force to damage it beyond repair before anyone could interfere. And machines do not need to sleep; given the percentage of his body that is machine now, the conclusion is obvious.
The psyche needs periods of relaxation, though; that was why he meditates. During meditation, strange things can happen. One could, for example, imagine one heard the voice of a long-dead man, unfiltered, sounding exactly as it had done when there were ears to hear it. Calling a name which is as dead as the speaker.
Anakin. Anakin, I know you can hear me.
But he can’t. Qui-Gon Jinn is gone, and while a human listener might have let himself persuaded that he hears Qui-Gon’s voice nonetheless, the Emperor’s new creation knows better. After all, he is blessed with receptors which tell him that he does not hear a thing.
III. Smell
Growing up on a desert planet, the first thing he had noticed about Naboo had been the overabundance of smells. Which hadn’t been true for Coruscant; brief and bewildering as his first time there had been, spent mostly in floors and waiting rooms with the Gungan while the adults made up their minds about him, there had only been the sterile, filtered air and the dust of official robes.
Naboo, though. Naboo and the forests. There was an explosion of smells, sweet, spicy, mouldering, blooming, and above all drenched in humidity. It had been intoxicating. Even if she had not called the planet her home, he would have loved it for this revelation alone.
This is all academical now. The last thing he had ever smelled had been his own burning flesh. It should not have been so unfamiliar. After all, it was only a matter of degree. He should have recognised the smell of burning flesh. That is how a light saber cauterizes a wound, after all; through burning it. The Council Chamber had held no other smell when he had left it. After.
And yet. Even the smell of burning flesh held degrees, it appears. Or perhaps genuine fire burns differently. Lying on the black earth of Mufastar, the smell chocked him and forced him to cry out, but the words didn’t pierce it, they just fell back on him. The stench was all that was left.
He still smells it. There is no physical cause; during his periodic examinations, the medical droids told him that the skin that covered his torso and face now had shed all of the old cells. They even showed him, in a mirror. It is stark white, but certainly unburned. They had to replace the droids after that particular examination. Not the mirror; there is no more need for one in any case.
The new droids can not not rid him of the smell, either, and his sensors keep confirming their analysis: there is no stench of burning flesh.
It was all he smells nonetheless.
IV. Taste
During the Clone War, he and Obi-Wan had often be forced to live from field rations for weeks. They were perfectly sufficient in terms of nutrients, but swallowing pills was a poor replacement for a real meal nonetheless, though it was still closer to eating than the injections that kept his organic body functioning these days. They had a game going, Obi-Wan and he, throughout the war; each time one of them saved the other’s life, the rescued one owed a dinner at Dexter’s. When they would return to Coruscant. After the war, when everything was over. It had been hard to keep score of how owed the most dinners, though.
“Doesn’t matter,” Obi-Wan had declared, “we’ll keep him in business for weeks.”
There is no more Dexter on Coruscant. Some survival instinct must have told him to leave when the treachery of the Jedi was revealed. His restaurant isn’t there any more, either. Lord Vader has indulged himself by destroying it singlehandedly, supposedly while looking for clues for the whereabouts of what Jedi were still at large and unaccounted for. If the troops assigned to him found this excentric or surplus to requirements, they did not comment. They are quickly learning it is wiser not to.
No more Dexter or Dexter’s restaurant, then. In a little while, even the name will be forgotten. By everyone except himself, as his mind refuses to wipe out even the most insignificant of data, such as the taste of the meal Dexter had served during the first time Obi-Wan had taken him there. The food at the temple had seemed so bland in comparison, but this had been real, the way things had tasted in Mos Espa. Salty bread, rich meat, and the sweetness of berries.
In a true show of superfluousness, his mouth still produces saliva, and his teeth are still intact. Trying to consume anything other than fluids would kill him, of course. He doubts that anyone will try this particular method of assassination, though. Sometimes he wonders whether he shouldn’t ask the droids to replace throat, mouth and tongue anyway. It isn’t as if he needs them.
Somehow, he never gets around to giving the command. Given that having artificial legs and arms did not remove the memory of touch, either, it probably would not change anything anyway.
V. Sight
Once he has constructed a sterile chamber which makes it safe to do so, at least for an hour, he has the helmet removed once a day, if possible. He doesn’t quite know why his eyes have not been blinded or at least damaged by the flames together with the rest of his body, but in fact, he can see quite clearly. In theory, he could demand a new construction that would allow him to use his own eyes permanently, instead of viewing the world through redscreened computer data.
He has not considered this for longer than a few moments. Only a fool would abandon a superior instrument for an inferior one, and he is quite aware that the fact no one could see his eyes contributed to the aura of intimidation and fear around him. Yes, the mask has to be uncompromised by human allowances. His master has been wise to choose it.
It is a sign of his own weakness that the sight of the mask descending on his face still provides him with an echo of what he had felt the first time this had happened. Perhaps this is why he goes through the ritual day by day; because he is sure that sooner or later, it will stop to have any significance at all. He will see nothing but a useful precaution about to engulf him.
There is nothing else his eyes will ever see. The meditation chamber with its safe, flawless walls, and the mask. He can not imagine there is a sight left worth seeing without the mask in any case. He will not have to look at her through it, after all, and if fate ever provides him with Obi-Wan again, if that circle will finally be completed, the memory of staring at him through the flames will be quite sufficient.
Lack of natural sleep means lack of dreams, too, and so he is finally spared of any more glimpses to the future. One might say that he has become blind, fully functioning eyes in an antiseptic environment notwithstanding.
Blindness is a blessing, he decides, staring up once more to the mask descending, and cursing his treacherous instincts for continuing to provide unwanted reactions. Of all the senses, he would be most glad to lose this one.
There is nothing he wishes to see with his own eyes ever again.
fernwithy's great Obi-Wan Kenobi post- Revenge of the Sith vignette, which you can read here. And in news from a completely different fandom, i.e. Alias, andrastewhite has written the long-rumoured about Jack/Sloane, set in the 70s, just before Jack married "Laura". Now for the product of my train ride. Set shortly after Return of the Sith, contains some spoilers for the film, but probably nothing beyond what anyone with a vague idea of the SW saga isn't aware of. Guess who's pov.
I. Touch
Now that he has no fingers made of flesh left and what remains of his skin is will never feel anything but the metal of medical droids and they suit they keep him in, he seems to remember every single thing he ever touched. All the repair tools at Watto’s shop. His mother’s face, saying goodbye to her twice, the second time feeling the dried blood, sweat and tears under his fingertips which nourished the murderous fury in his heart. Obi-Wan’s hesitant fingers, cutting his hair after Qui-Gon’s funeral, brushing the bare skin at his neck. Her hands, covering him with a blanket; the stretched skin of her belly, and the movement of the child; her mouth, making sense of his life after all.
He had not touched any of his victims. If you kill with a lightsaber, it cauterizes the wound at once. There is not even blood. If you kill through the Force, no physical weapon is necessary at all. He dimly recalls some of his victims touching him, though. One of the Tusken women, grabbing at his cloak. And Gunray, desperate Gunray, trying to find a way, any way to stop him, clutching one of his wrists. He does not wish to recall these touches, but the body is stubborn. It provides physical memory even beyond physical existance. He does not have human legs any more, but he still can feel one of the younglings, trying to catch his ankle to stop him from moving on.
The last touch he remembers, though, the last contact with living flesh, did not come from a victim, or from a friend. He has no words any more for what the Emperor is to him. In fact, when he noticed Palpatine bending over him, he had assumed that the man would complete what Obi-Wan had not finished. Not out of mercy, of course, and not for punishment, but simply because a dying cripple was of no more use, and in all his incarnations – Chancellor, Sith Lord, and Emperor – Palpatine had above all been pragmatic. There was no practical reason to touch the burned skin of his head, and yet that was what Palpatine had done.
His mind, busy rearranging and fixing things in the way his fingers used to do with every malfunctioning instrument in the universe, tries to change this particular memory. He first wants her to have been the last person, embracing him when she left her ship, but rejects the pretty and prettifying lie. What he did to her does not allow for such a rearrangement. Then he considers Obi-Wan, and rejects the idea even more firmly. So it is fitting, after all; he had watched Palpatine’s flesh burn away and reform at the moment when his old self broke apart, and there was a justness in Palpatine presiding over the physical demise of what used to be Anakin Skywalker as well.
II. Sound
Hearing everything through sensors now, including the voice which is not his own but the product of a modulator, he occasionally wonders whether these versions of sound are more or less accurate than what he recalls. He had never thought the sounds of machines to be inferior. Working with them from his childhood onwards, he could discern individual R-units from each other, could diagnose what was wrong with an engine by just listening. Sometimes, he had wondered what human voices truly sounded like for droids whose receptors were far more sensitive than the organic ear. Well, now he knows.
Because all voices, all noises and even the stillness reach him filtered through data these days, he knows quite well when he is hallucinating or falling into memory again. It is useful, being able to differentiate. He does not sleep anymore, after all. The suit which regulates his body can not risk that. Why, his unconscious mind might use the Force to damage it beyond repair before anyone could interfere. And machines do not need to sleep; given the percentage of his body that is machine now, the conclusion is obvious.
The psyche needs periods of relaxation, though; that was why he meditates. During meditation, strange things can happen. One could, for example, imagine one heard the voice of a long-dead man, unfiltered, sounding exactly as it had done when there were ears to hear it. Calling a name which is as dead as the speaker.
Anakin. Anakin, I know you can hear me.
But he can’t. Qui-Gon Jinn is gone, and while a human listener might have let himself persuaded that he hears Qui-Gon’s voice nonetheless, the Emperor’s new creation knows better. After all, he is blessed with receptors which tell him that he does not hear a thing.
III. Smell
Growing up on a desert planet, the first thing he had noticed about Naboo had been the overabundance of smells. Which hadn’t been true for Coruscant; brief and bewildering as his first time there had been, spent mostly in floors and waiting rooms with the Gungan while the adults made up their minds about him, there had only been the sterile, filtered air and the dust of official robes.
Naboo, though. Naboo and the forests. There was an explosion of smells, sweet, spicy, mouldering, blooming, and above all drenched in humidity. It had been intoxicating. Even if she had not called the planet her home, he would have loved it for this revelation alone.
This is all academical now. The last thing he had ever smelled had been his own burning flesh. It should not have been so unfamiliar. After all, it was only a matter of degree. He should have recognised the smell of burning flesh. That is how a light saber cauterizes a wound, after all; through burning it. The Council Chamber had held no other smell when he had left it. After.
And yet. Even the smell of burning flesh held degrees, it appears. Or perhaps genuine fire burns differently. Lying on the black earth of Mufastar, the smell chocked him and forced him to cry out, but the words didn’t pierce it, they just fell back on him. The stench was all that was left.
He still smells it. There is no physical cause; during his periodic examinations, the medical droids told him that the skin that covered his torso and face now had shed all of the old cells. They even showed him, in a mirror. It is stark white, but certainly unburned. They had to replace the droids after that particular examination. Not the mirror; there is no more need for one in any case.
The new droids can not not rid him of the smell, either, and his sensors keep confirming their analysis: there is no stench of burning flesh.
It was all he smells nonetheless.
IV. Taste
During the Clone War, he and Obi-Wan had often be forced to live from field rations for weeks. They were perfectly sufficient in terms of nutrients, but swallowing pills was a poor replacement for a real meal nonetheless, though it was still closer to eating than the injections that kept his organic body functioning these days. They had a game going, Obi-Wan and he, throughout the war; each time one of them saved the other’s life, the rescued one owed a dinner at Dexter’s. When they would return to Coruscant. After the war, when everything was over. It had been hard to keep score of how owed the most dinners, though.
“Doesn’t matter,” Obi-Wan had declared, “we’ll keep him in business for weeks.”
There is no more Dexter on Coruscant. Some survival instinct must have told him to leave when the treachery of the Jedi was revealed. His restaurant isn’t there any more, either. Lord Vader has indulged himself by destroying it singlehandedly, supposedly while looking for clues for the whereabouts of what Jedi were still at large and unaccounted for. If the troops assigned to him found this excentric or surplus to requirements, they did not comment. They are quickly learning it is wiser not to.
No more Dexter or Dexter’s restaurant, then. In a little while, even the name will be forgotten. By everyone except himself, as his mind refuses to wipe out even the most insignificant of data, such as the taste of the meal Dexter had served during the first time Obi-Wan had taken him there. The food at the temple had seemed so bland in comparison, but this had been real, the way things had tasted in Mos Espa. Salty bread, rich meat, and the sweetness of berries.
In a true show of superfluousness, his mouth still produces saliva, and his teeth are still intact. Trying to consume anything other than fluids would kill him, of course. He doubts that anyone will try this particular method of assassination, though. Sometimes he wonders whether he shouldn’t ask the droids to replace throat, mouth and tongue anyway. It isn’t as if he needs them.
Somehow, he never gets around to giving the command. Given that having artificial legs and arms did not remove the memory of touch, either, it probably would not change anything anyway.
V. Sight
Once he has constructed a sterile chamber which makes it safe to do so, at least for an hour, he has the helmet removed once a day, if possible. He doesn’t quite know why his eyes have not been blinded or at least damaged by the flames together with the rest of his body, but in fact, he can see quite clearly. In theory, he could demand a new construction that would allow him to use his own eyes permanently, instead of viewing the world through redscreened computer data.
He has not considered this for longer than a few moments. Only a fool would abandon a superior instrument for an inferior one, and he is quite aware that the fact no one could see his eyes contributed to the aura of intimidation and fear around him. Yes, the mask has to be uncompromised by human allowances. His master has been wise to choose it.
It is a sign of his own weakness that the sight of the mask descending on his face still provides him with an echo of what he had felt the first time this had happened. Perhaps this is why he goes through the ritual day by day; because he is sure that sooner or later, it will stop to have any significance at all. He will see nothing but a useful precaution about to engulf him.
There is nothing else his eyes will ever see. The meditation chamber with its safe, flawless walls, and the mask. He can not imagine there is a sight left worth seeing without the mask in any case. He will not have to look at her through it, after all, and if fate ever provides him with Obi-Wan again, if that circle will finally be completed, the memory of staring at him through the flames will be quite sufficient.
Lack of natural sleep means lack of dreams, too, and so he is finally spared of any more glimpses to the future. One might say that he has become blind, fully functioning eyes in an antiseptic environment notwithstanding.
Blindness is a blessing, he decides, staring up once more to the mask descending, and cursing his treacherous instincts for continuing to provide unwanted reactions. Of all the senses, he would be most glad to lose this one.
There is nothing he wishes to see with his own eyes ever again.
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Date: 2005-05-21 06:40 pm (UTC)Your posts really make me want to see ROTS, but there hasn't yet been a screening in the original version. :-/
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Date: 2005-05-21 07:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2005-05-21 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-21 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-21 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-21 07:32 pm (UTC)"what if what you do to survive kills the thing you love?"
Date: 2005-05-21 07:13 pm (UTC)I love all the sensory moments, but these 2 sentences just stand out in their detail:
He had never thought the sounds of machines to be inferior. Working with them from his childhood onwards, he could discern individual R-units from each other, could diagnose what was wrong with an engine by just listening.
Now the real question is, would Starbuck call Vader a toaster?
Nothing like train rides for fic-writing; I hope you have a fantastic trip, but am of course pulling for as much Internet time as you can steal.
Re: "what if what you do to survive kills the thing you love?"
Date: 2005-05-21 07:34 pm (UTC)She probably would.*g*
And I just got around to buying the CD and am really listening to it via discman right now. So apropos...
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Date: 2005-05-21 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-21 07:35 pm (UTC)The bit with Palpatine occured to me when I was watching the film for a second time, which I confess I did yesterday.
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Date: 2005-05-21 07:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-21 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-21 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-21 08:22 pm (UTC)And the last part made me think of the scene in Return of the Jedi where Luke removes Vader's mask.
It was meant to. After seeing that scene near the end of Revenge of the Sith where he gets the mask, the demasking scene in RotJ - with him asking Luke to do so because he wants to see him with his own eyes, just the once, became even more gutwrenching to me, and that's why "Sight" is the last sense in the story.
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Date: 2005-05-21 09:12 pm (UTC)I too went to "Let me look on you with my own eyes." And Luke's very gentle touch taking the mask off.
Every bit of this well done, and heartbreakingly stark.
I know this is going to be the fall. It must be. And I'm sure I'm going to cry. The falling part of a story is always hard for me, no matter how much it needs to be.
Let me guess, you love the autumn where I love the spring?
thank you!
Date: 2005-05-22 03:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-22 12:06 am (UTC)Thanks, and...
Date: 2005-05-22 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-22 01:26 am (UTC)Love the fic: it is elegant and sad. Your Anakin/Vader doesn't sleep any more because of
(Oh, and is there any likelihood at all that you'll be in Paris before the summer and Bayreuth?)
Merci
Date: 2005-05-22 03:34 am (UTC)Sleep: yes, that was because
Paris: no, I don't think so, but Sanary next week for the conference. Via Switzerland first, as I said. How about you and Southern France?
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Date: 2005-05-22 01:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-22 03:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-22 02:54 am (UTC)It was also very moving when Anakin remembers Palpatine touching him when he was so hurt. I do think the evil old Sith Lord actually might have had an instant of compassion.
One very minor biological note, every living being needs to sleep, even reptiles like snakes who can't close their eyes. The same for fish and insects. It has nothing to do with what the body requires and everything to do with what the brain needs for proper rest. There is some sort of rare illness a human being can get that slowly makes it impossible to sleep and after some time the person dies. I could see Anakin requiring less sleep perhaps, but he still needs some sleep.
Thank you so much for the wonderful fan fiction I'm still trying to digest all the things I saw in Return of the Sith. I think I will need to see it several more times before I can start thinking about fan fiction of my own.
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Date: 2005-05-22 05:02 pm (UTC)Palpatine: It might have been his one moment, yes. Can't make up my mind on that one, and I suppose it will keep changing. But in its way, it is a twisted reversion of Anakin holding Shmi when she dies...
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Date: 2005-05-22 05:23 am (UTC)::incoherent wibbling::
That line got me where it hurts. Because it is *Anakin*, who will want to see Luke's face just once, so far in the future. ::hugs her beloved Anakin tight::
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Date: 2005-05-22 05:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-22 11:55 am (UTC)And BTW.: looking at your choice of music: How do you like the new Bruce Springsteen Album?
Frank
Springsteen Album
Date: 2005-05-22 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-22 04:53 pm (UTC)Thank you.
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Date: 2005-05-22 05:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-22 06:12 pm (UTC)I was hoping that you were willing to post this at
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Date: 2005-05-22 06:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2005-05-22 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 01:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-22 08:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 01:41 pm (UTC)Thanks.
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Date: 2005-05-22 09:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 01:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 09:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 01:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 06:25 pm (UTC)He had not touched any of his victims.
How very true. It's lightsabers, it's the Force, it's watching someone else do the actual dirty deed (Alderaan, Han's torture, Mace to an extent) - never flesh. (The closest is him throttling Obi-Wan in the Mustafar duel, but even that is the robotic hand, not the flesh one. When he Force-chokes Padme it is through that same hand.) He has to disconnect himself, dehumanize, from the situation to be capable of doing what he does. It's Yoda's advice to him realized in the worst possible way. But I'd never made the connection between this realization and the fact that he never physically touches his victims.
The last touch he remembers, though, the last contact with living flesh, did not come from a victim, or from a friend.
I literally got shudders when I read this. The last living thing that touches him until Luke comes along was not someone who loved him, or whom he loved. Certainly not something that would make me long for physical touch again.
he had watched Palpatine’s flesh burn away and reform at the moment when his old self broke apart, and there was a justness in Palpatine presiding over the physical demise of what used to be Anakin Skywalker as well.
Excellent connection of the moments - these movies have so many ends that bookend one another so well, yet somehow I missed this big one.
He does not sleep anymore, after all. The suit which regulates his body can not risk that.
If this doesn't highlight the sense of Vader being a prisoner in his own existence, nothing does.
There are more moments in this that I absolutely adore, but I've already gone on too long. (And also, thanks for permanently scarring me with that mental image of the smell left in the Council chamber once Anakin finishes there. ;) That he can just think about these things so clinically... it's chilling, but still fits wonderfully with the message you're conveying here.)
In the end, Vader wants to be blind of everything, hear nothing, feel nothing - which just makes it even more tragic. It's such a fantastic irony - a character whose dominant trait is that he feels more thoroughly and passionately than perhaps anyone around him, has to completely cut off all semblance of those feelings to be able to tolerate himself.
I'm definitely adding this fic to my memories and reccing it elsewhere. :) Thanks for such an amazing piece - it's rare to see someone do justice to Anakin's character so well.
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Date: 2005-05-23 07:19 pm (UTC)It's Yoda's advice to him realized in the worst possible way.
True, alas.
But I'd never made the connection between this realization and the fact that he never physically touches his victims.
It did strike me on the second viewing of RotS; that was when it clicked as a pattern. The closest he comes is to holding Leia back from Tarkin, and then it's still through the suit, plus the gesture isn't about hurting her (in that moment).
Excellent connection of the moments - these movies have so many ends that bookend one another so well, yet somehow I missed this big one.
I really had assumed Palpatine would just age into the Emperor as we see him in the OT, but letting him get disformed in a duel as well made for an eerie connection.
In the end, Vader wants to be blind of everything, hear nothing, feel nothing - which just makes it even more tragic. It's such a fantastic irony - a character whose dominant trait is that he feels more thoroughly and passionately than perhaps anyone around him, has to completely cut off all semblance of those feelings to be able to tolerate himself.
It's that, or really committing suicide. Which he must have been sorely tempted to do repeatedly during those 20 years. But then Luke comes along, and literary breaks through the shell. There are so many great reverse images now between trilogies - just as Anakin losing a hand in AotC makes for a first physical sign of Vaderization, Luke losing a hand corresponds with the first time his father reaches out to another being again - in a dark, twisted way, but it happens. And Luke saying no to the "rule with me" offer had to bring back an immediate Padme memory, and then we get that first hint in the OT that Vader isn't irredeemable - when he doesn't force choke Piett but just leaves. Later, Vader standing on the bridge with Luke on Endor in RotJ corresponds with Anakin standing on bridge on Mufastar, once the separatists are dead, etc.
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Date: 2005-05-24 03:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-24 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-24 10:16 am (UTC)*off to read Obi-Wan fic*
no subject
Date: 2005-05-24 12:05 pm (UTC)Enjoy the Obi-Wan!
(no subject)
From:Balcony scene with Vader stance
From:Re: Balcony scene with Vader stance
From:no subject
Date: 2005-05-24 11:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-24 12:07 pm (UTC)Palpatine: I have another plot bunny regarding him eyeing me in a distintly political Sithly manner.
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Date: 2005-05-24 08:12 pm (UTC)Beautiful.
Heartrending.
Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-24 08:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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